M. R. James.............................................................................................................................................1

Canon Alberic's Scrapbook...................................................................................................................1

Lost Hearts ...............................................................................................................................................8

The Mezzotint........................................................................................................................................13

The Ashtree ..........................................................................................................................................20

Number 13.............................................................................................................................................28

Count Magnus ........................................................................................................................................37

'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' .......................................................................................44

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas.............................................................................................................55

Casting the Runes..................................................................................................................................65

St Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and

still nearer to BagnèresdeLuchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral

which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this

oldworld place I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He

was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand's Church, and had left two

friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him

on the following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy them, and all three could then pursue their

journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to

himself to fill a notebook and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing

every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this

design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or

sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat

brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an

unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old

man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other churchguardians in France, but in a

curious furtive, or rather hunted and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind

him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he

were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew

whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or

as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea;

but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.

However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in his notebook and too busy with

his camera to give more than an occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found

him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous

stalls. Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man

from his déjeuner, that he was regarded as likely to make away with St Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the

'Won't you go home?' he said at last; 'I'm quite well able to finish my notes alone; you can lock me in if you

like. I shall want at least two hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?'

'Good Heavens!' said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable

terror, 'such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two

hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at all cold, with many thanks to

'Very well, my little man,' quoth Dennistoun to himself: 'you have been warned, and you must take the

Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the choirscreen of Bishop

John de Mauléon, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasurechamber, had been well

and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round

as if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his

'Once,' Dennistoun said to me, 1 could have sworn I heard a thin metallic voice laughing high up in the tower.

I darted an inquiring glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. "It is he that is it is no one; the door

Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining a large dark picture that hangs

behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of St Bertrand. The composition of the picture is

Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat strangulare. [How St Bertrand delivered

Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but he was

confounded to see the old man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in agony, his

hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks. Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed

nothing, but the question would not away from him, 'Why should a daub of this kind affect anyone so

strongly?' He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to the reason of the strange look that had been

puzzling him all the day: the man must be a monomaniac; but what was his monomania?

It was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church began to fill with shadows, while the

curious noises the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all day seemed,

no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing, to become more

The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when

camera and notebook were finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Dennistoun to the

western door of the church, under the tower. It was time to ring the Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope,

and the great bell Bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up among the pines and

down to the valleys, loud with mountainstreams, calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and

repeat the salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With that a profound quiet

seemed to fall for the first time that day upon the little town, and Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the

church. On the doorstep they fell into conversation. 'Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old

'No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter, but it is now such a small place '

Here came a strange pause of irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on: 'But if

monsieur is amateur des vieux livres, I have at home something that might interest him. It is not a hundred

At once all Dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts in untrodden corners of France

flashed up, to die down again the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin's printing, about

1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would not have been ransacked long ago by

collectors? However, it would be foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he refused. So

they set off. On the way the curious irresolution and sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to

Dennistoun, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be

made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and

to drag in, in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the next morning.

To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that

'That is well,' he said quite brightly 'that is very well. Monsieur will travel in company with his friends;

they will be always near him. It is a good thing to travel thus in company sometimes.'

The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with it a relapse into gloom for the poor

They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its neighbours, stonebuilt, with a shield

carved over the door, the shield of Alberic de Mauléon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of

Bishop John de Mauléon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680 to 1701. The upper windows

of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of

'Not at all lots of time nothing to do till tomorrow. Let us see what it is you have got.'

The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far younger than the sacristan's, but bearing

something of the same distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of fear for personal

safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter;

and, but for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She brightened up

considerably seeing her father accompanied by an ablebodied stranger. A few remarks passed between

father and daughter, of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan, 'He was laughing in

But in another minute they were in the sittingroom of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor,

full of moving shadows cast by a woodfire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character of an

oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was

painted of the natural colours, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity, and

when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with

growing excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book, wrapped in a white cloth, on

which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed,

Dennistoun began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume. 'Too large for a missal,' he thought,

'and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may be something good, after all.' The next moment the book

was open, and Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good. Before him lay a large

folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth century, with the arms of Canon Alberic de Mauléon stamped in

gold on the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book, and on almost every

one of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly

dreamed of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis, illustrated with pictures,

which could not be later than a d 700. Further on was a complete set of pictures from a Psalter, of English

execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could produce; and, perhaps best of all, there

were twenty leaves of uncial writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at once,

must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. Could it possibly be a fragment of the copy of

Papias 'On the Words of Our Lord', which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at

Nîmes?(1) In any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to Cambridge with him, even if he had

to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at St Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at

the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for sale. The sacristan was pale, and his lips

'If monsieur will turn on to the end,' he said. So monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a

leaf; and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much more recent date than anything he

had yet seen, which puzzled him considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the unprincipled

Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter library of St Bertrand to form this priceless

scrapbook. On the first of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly recognizable by a

person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and cloisters of St Bertrand's. There were curious signs

looking like planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words, in the corners; and in the northwest angle of the

cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus:

Responsa 12mi Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est: Inveniamne? Responsum est: Invenies. Fiamne dives? Fies. Vivamne

invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in lecto meo? Ita. [Answers of the 12th of December, 1694. It was asked: Shall I find it?

Answer: Thou shalt. Shall I become rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed? Thou

'A good specimen of the treasurehunter's record quite reminds one of Mr MinorCanon Quatremain in Old St Paul's,' was

What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he could have conceived any drawing or

picture capable of impressing him. And, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a

photograph of it (which I possess) which fully bears out that statement. The picture in question was a sepia

drawing at the end of the seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a Biblical scene; for

the architecture (the picture represented an interior) and the figures had that semiclassical flavour about

them which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate to illustrations of the Bible. On the right

was a King on his throne, the throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, lions on either side

evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched sceptre, in attitude of command; his face

expressed horror and disgust, yet there was in it also the mark of imperious will and confident power. The left

half of the picture was the strangest, however. The interest plainly centred there. On the pavement before the

throne were grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be described in a moment. A

fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his neck distorted, and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four

surrounding guards were looking at the King. In their faces the sentiment of horror was intensified; they

seemed, in fact, only restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. All this terror was plainly

excited by the being that crouched in their midst. I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression

which this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it. I recollect once showing the photograph of the drawing

to a lecturer on morphology a person of, I was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of

mind. He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told me afterwards that for many

nights he had not dared to put out his light before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the figure I can

at least indicate. At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this

covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands

were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes,

touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the throned King with a

look of beastlike hate. Imagine one of the awful birdcatching spiders of South America translated into

human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of

the terror inspired by this appalling effigy. One remark is universally made by those to whom I have shown

As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided, Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The

sacristan's hands were pressed upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was telling her

There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination that he had noticed before, and then came

This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is sometimes stirred, and Dennistoun's conscience was

'My good man!' he said again and again, 'your book is worth far more than two hundred and fifty francs, I

But the answer did not vary: 'I will take two hundred and fifty francs, not more.'

There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of

wine drunk over the transaction, and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he

ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose

'I shall have the honour of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?' said the sacristan.

'Oh no, thanks! it isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly, and there is a moon.'

'Then, monsieur will summon me if if he finds occasion; he will keep the middle of the road, the sides are

'Certainly, certainly,' said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine his prize by himself; and he stepped out

Here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a little business on her own account;

perhaps, like Gehazi, to 'take somewhat' from the foreigner whom her father had spared.

'A silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be good enough to accept it?'

Well, really, Dennistoun hadn't much use for these things. What did mademoiselle want for it?

The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine, so that Dennistoun was reduced

to profuse thanks, and submitted to have the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered

the father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As he set off with his book they

stood at the door looking after him, and they were still looking when he waved them a last good night from

Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with his acquisition. The landlady had

manifested a particular interest in him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and bought

an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the said

sacristan in the passage outside the salle à manger, some words to the effect that 'Pierre and Bertrand would

All this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him nervous reaction, perhaps, after

the delight of his discovery. Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone behind him,

and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the

balance as against the obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he was alone in his

bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic's treasures, in which every moment revealed something more

'Bless Canon Alberic!' said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of talking to himself. 'I wonder where he

is now? Dear me! I wish that landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one feel as if

there was someone dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did you say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder

what that crucifix is that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose. Yes, probably. It

is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's neck just too heavy. Most likely her father had been

He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his attention was caught by an object lying on the

red cloth just by his left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain with their own

'A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A large spider? I trust to goodness not

In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of

appalling strength; coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of

He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at his heart. The shape, whose left hand

rested on the table, was rising to a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his scalp.

There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was

thin what can I call it? shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there was no nose; the

eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to

destroy life which shone there, were the most horrifying features in the whole vision. There was intelligence

The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest physical fear and the most profound

mental loathing. What did he do? What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said, but

he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement

towards him on the part of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous pain.

Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little servingmen, who rushed in, saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust

aside by something that passed out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him

that night, and his two friends were at St Bertrand by nine o'clock next morning. He himself, though still

shaken and nervous, was almost himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not

Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretence, and had listened with the deepest

'It is he it is he! I have seen him myself,' was his only comment; and to all questionings but one reply was

vouchsafed: 'Deux fois je l'ai vu; mille fois je l'ai senti.' He would tell them nothing of the provenance of the

book, nor any details of his experiences. 'I shall soon sleep, and my rest will be sweet. Why should you

We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauléon suffered. At the back of that fateful drawing

were some lines of writing which may be supposed to throw light on the situation:

I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun's view of the events I have narrated. He quoted to me

once a text from Ecclesiasticus: 'Some spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on

sore strokes.' On another occasion he said: 'Isaiah was a very sensible man; doesn't he say something about

night monsters living in the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present.'

Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with it. We had been, last year, to

Comminges, to see Canon Alberic's tomb. It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large

wig and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw Dennistoun talking for some time with

the Vicar of St Bertrand's, and as we drove away he said to me: 'I hope it isn't wrong: you know I am a

Presbyterian but I I believe there will be "saying of Mass and singing of dirges" for Alberic de Mauléon's

rest.' Then he added, with a touch of the Northern British in his tone, 'I had no notion they came so dear.'

The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was photographed and then burnt by

Dennistoun on the day when he left Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.

1. We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy

2. He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St Papoul. She never understood the

3. i.e. The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by Alberic de Mauléon. Versicle. O Lord,

Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy. I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12,

1694: soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet. Dec.

The 'Gallia Christiana' gives the date of the Canon's death as December 31, 1701, 'in bed, of a sudden

seizure'. Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.

It was, as far as I can ascertain, in September of the year 1811 that a postchaise drew up before the door of

Aswarby Hall, in the heart of Lincolnshire. The little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise, and who

jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the keenest curiosity during the short interval

that elapsed between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door. He saw a tall, square, redbrick

house, built in the reign of Anne; a stonepillared porch had been added in the purer classical style of 1790;

the windows of the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white woodwork. A

pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the front. There were wings to right and left, connected by

curious glazed galleries, supported by colonnades, with the central block. These wings plainly contained the

stables and offices of the house. Each was surmounted by an ornamental cupola with a gilded vane.

An evening light shone on the building, making the windowpanes glow like so many fires. Away from the

Hall in front stretched a flat park studded with oaks and fringed with firs, which stood out against the sky.

The clock in the churchtower, buried in trees on the edge of the park, only its golden weathercock catching

the light, was striking six, and the sound came gently beating down the wind. It was altogether a pleasant

impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an evening in early autumn, that was

conveyed to the mind of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting for the door to open to him.

The postchaise had brought him from Warwickshire, where, some six months before, he had been left an

orphan. Now, owing to the generous offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come to live at Aswarby.

The offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked upon him as a somewhat

austere recluse, into whose steadygoing household the advent of a small boy would import a new and, it

seemed, incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr Abney's pursuits or temper. The

Professor of Greek at Cambridge had been heard to say that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the

later pagans than did the owner of Aswarby. Certainly his library contained all the then available books

bearing on the Mysteries, the Orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and the NeoPlatonists. In the

marblepaved hall stood a fine group of Mithras slaying a bull, which had been imported from the Levant at

great expense by the owner. He had contributed a description of it to the Gentleman's Magazine, and he had

written a remarkable series of articles in the Critical Museum on the superstitions of the Romans of the

Lower Empire. He was looked upon, in fine, as a man wrapped up in his books, and it was a matter of great

surprise among his neighbours that he should even have heard of his orphan cousin, Stephen Elliott, much

Whatever may have been expected by his neighbours, it is certain that Mr Abney the tall, the thin, the

austere seemed inclined to give his young cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front door was

'How are you, my boy? how are you? How old are you?' said he 'that is, you are not too much tired, I

It seemed a little odd that he should have asked the question twice in the first two minutes of their

'And when is your birthday, my dear boy? Eleventh of September, eh? That's well that's very well. Nearly a

year hence, isn't it? I like ha, ha! I like to get these things down in my book. Sure it's twelve? Certain?'

'Well, well! Take him to Mrs Bunch's room, Parkes, and let him have his tea supper whatever it is.'

'Yes, sir,' answered the staid Mr Parkes; and conducted Stephen to the lower regions.

Mrs Bunch was the most comfortable and human person whom Stephen had as yet met in Aswarby. She

made him completely at home; they were great friends in a quarter of an hour: and great friends they

remained. Mrs Bunch had been born in the neighbourhood some fiftyfive years before the date of Stephen's

arrival, and her residence at the Hall was of twenty years' standing. Consequently, if anyone knew the ins and

outs of the house and the district, Mrs Bunch knew them; and she was by no means disinclined to

Certainly there were plenty of things about the Hall and the Hall gardens which Stephen, who was of an

adventurous and inquiring turn, was anxious to have explained to him. 'Who built the temple at the end of the

laurel walk? Who was the old man whose picture hung on the staircase, sitting at a table, with a skull under

his hand?' These and many similar points were cleared up by the resources of Mrs Bunch's powerful intellect.

There were others, however, of which the explanations furnished were less satisfactory.

One November evening Stephen was sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room reflecting on his

'Is Mr Abney a good man, and will he go to heaven?' he suddenly asked, with the peculiar confidence which

children possess in the ability of their elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is believed to be

'Good? bless the child!' said Mrs Bunch. 'Master's as kind a soul as ever I see! Didn't I never tell you of the

little boy as he took in out of the street, as you may say, this seven years back? and the little girl, two years

'Well,' said Mrs Bunch, 'the little girl I don't seem to recollect so much about. I know master brought her back

with him from his walk one day, and give orders to Mrs Ellis, as was housekeeper then, as she should be took

every care with. And the pore child hadn't no one belonging to her she telled me so her own self and here

she lived with us a matter of three weeks it might be; and then, whether she were somethink of a gipsy in her

blood or what not, but one morning she out of her bed afore any of us had opened a eye, and neither track nor

yet trace of her have I set eyes on since. Master was wonderful put about, and had all the ponds dragged; but

it's my belief she was had away by them gipsies, for there was singing round the house for as much as an

hour the night she went, and Parkes, he declare as he heard them acalling in the woods all that afternoon.

Dear, dear! a hodd child she was, so silent in her ways and all, but I was wonderful taken up with her, so

'Ah, that pore boy!' sighed Mrs Bunch. 'He were a foreigner Jevanny he called hisself and he come

atweaking his 'urdygurdy round and about the drive one winter day, and master 'ad him in that minute, and

ast all about where he came from, and how old he was, and how he made his way, and where was his

relatives, and all as kind as heart could wish. But it went the same way with him. They're a hunruly lot, them

foreign nations, I do suppose, and he was off one fine morning just the same as the girl. Why he went and

what he done was our question for as much as a year after; for he never took his 'urdygurdy, and there it lays

The remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous crossexamination of Mrs Bunch and in

That night he had a curious dream. At the end of the passage at the top of the house, in which his bedroom

was situated, there was an old disused bathroom. It was kept locked, but the upper half of the door was

glazed, and, since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had long been gone, you could look in and see

the leadlined bath affixed to the wall on the right hand, with its head towards the window.

On the night of which I am speaking, Stephen Elliott found himself, as he thought, looking through the

glazed door. The moon was shining through the window, and he was gazing at a figure which lay in the bath.

His description of what he saw reminds me of what I once beheld myself in the famous vaults of St Michan's

Church in Dublin, which possess the horrid property of preserving corpses from decay for centuries. A figure

inexpressibly thin and pathetic, of a dusty leaden colour, enveloped in a shroudlike garment, the thin lips

crooked into a faint and dreadful smile, the hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart.

As he looked upon it, a distant, almost inaudible moan seemed to issue from its lips, and the arms began to

stir. The terror of the sight forced Stephen backwards, and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed standing

on the cold boarded floor of the passage in the full light of the moon. With a courage which I do not think can

be common among boys of his age, he went to the door of the bathroom to ascertain if the figure of his dream

Mrs Bunch was much impressed next morning by his story, and went so far as to replace the muslin curtain

over the glazed door of the bathroom. Mr Abney, moreover, to whom he confided his experiences at

breakfast, was greatly interested, and made notes of the matter in what he called 'his book'.

The spring equinox was approaching, as Mr Abney frequently reminded his cousin, adding that this had been

always considered by the ancients to be a critical time for the young: that Stephen would do well to take care

of himself, and to shut his bedroom window at night; and that Censorinus had some valuable remarks on the

subject. Two incidents that occurred about this time made an impression upon Stephen's mind.

The first was after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night that he had passed though he could not recall

'Gracious me, Master Stephen!' she broke forth rather irritably, 'how do you manage to tear your nightdress

all to flinders this way? Look here, sir, what trouble you do give to poor servants that have to darn and mend

There was indeed a most destructive and apparently wanton series of slits or scorings in the garment, which

would undoubtedly require a skilful needle to make good. They were confined to the left side of the chest

long, parallel slits, about six inches in length, some of them not quite piercing the texture of the linen.

Stephen could only express his entire ignorance of their origin: he was sure they were not there the night

'But,' he said, 'Mrs Bunch, they are just the same as the scratches on the outside of my bedroom door; and I'm

Mrs Bunch gazed at him openmouthed, then snatched up a candle, departed hastily from the room, and was

'Well,' she said, 'Master Stephen, it's a funny thing to me how them marks and scratches can 'a' come there

too high up for any cat or dog to 'ave made 'em, much less a rat: for all the world like a Chinaman's

fingernails, as my uncle in the teatrade used to tell us of when we was girls together. I wouldn't say nothing

to master, not if I was you, Master Stephen, my dear; and just turn the key of the door when you go to your

'Ah, that's a good child: always say your prayers, and then no one can't hurt you.'

Herewith Mrs Bunch addressed herself to mending the injured nightgown, with intervals of meditation, until

On the following evening the usual duet of Stephen and Mrs Bunch was augmented by the sudden arrival of

Mr Parkes, the butler, who as a rule kept himself rather to himself in his own pantry. He did not see that

Stephen was there: he was, moreover, flustered, and less slow of speech than was his wont.

'Master may get up his own wine, if he likes, of an evening,' was his first remark. 'Either I do it in the daytime

or not at all, Mrs Bunch. I don't know what it may be: very like it's the rats, or the wind got into the cellars;

'I'm not denying that, Mrs Bunch; and, to be sure, many a time I've heard the tale from the men in the

shipyards about the rat that could speak. I never laid no confidence in that before; but tonight, if I'd demeaned

myself to lay my ear to the door of the further bin, I could pretty much have heard what they was saying.'

'Oh, there, Mr Parkes, I've no patience with your fancies! Rats talking in the winecellar indeed!'

'Well, Mrs Bunch, I've no wish to argue with you: all I say is, if you choose to go to the far bin, and lay your

'What nonsense you do talk, Mr Parkes not fit for children to listen to! Why, you'll be frightening Master

'What! Master Stephen?' said Parkes, awaking to the consciousness of the boy's presence. 'Master Stephen

In fact, Master Stephen knew much too well to suppose that Mr Parkes had in the first instance intended a

joke. He was interested, not altogether pleasantly, in the situation; but all his questions were unsuccessful in

inducing the butler to give any more detailed account of his experiences in the winecellar.

We have now arrived at March 24, 1812. It was a day of curious experiences for Stephen: a windy, noisy day,

which filled the house and the gardens with a restless impression. As Stephen stood by the fence of the

grounds, and looked out into the park, he felt as if an endless procession of unseen people were sweeping past

him on the wind, borne on resistlessly and aimlessly, vainly striving to stop themselves, to catch at something

that might arrest their flight and bring them once again into contact with the living world of which they had

'Stephen, my boy, do you think you could manage to come to me tonight as late as eleven o'clock in my

study? I shall be busy until that time, and I wish to show you something connected with your future life

which it is most important that you should know. You are not to mention this matter to Mrs Bunch nor to

anyone else in the house; and you had better go to your room at the usual time.'

Here was a new excitement added to life: Stephen eagerly grasped at the opportunity of sitting up till eleven

o'clock. He looked in at the library door on his way upstairs that evening, and saw a brazier, which he had

often noticed in the corner of the room, moved out before the fire; an old silvergilt cup stood on the table,

filled with red wine, and some written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr Abney was sprinkling some incense on

the brazier from a round silver box as Stephen passed, but did not seem to notice his step.

The wind had fallen, and there was a still night and a full moon. At about ten o'clock Stephen was standing at

the open window of his bedroom, looking out over the country. Still as the night was, the mysterious

population of the distant moonlit woods was not yet lulled to rest. From time to time strange cries as of lost

and despairing wanderers sounded from across the mere. They might be the notes of owls or waterbirds, yet

they did not quite resemble either sound. Were not they coming nearer? Now they sounded from the nearer

side of the water, and in a few moments they seemed to be floating about among the shrubberies. Then they

ceased; but just as Stephen was thinking of shutting the window and resuming his reading of Robinson

Crusoe, he caught sight of two figures standing on the gravelled terrace that ran along the garden side of the

Hall the figures of a boy and girl, as it seemed; they stood side by side, looking up at the windows.

Something in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream of the figure in the bath. The boy inspired

Whilst the girl stood still, half smiling, with her hands clasped over her heart, the boy, a thin shape, with

black hair and ragged clothing, raised his arms in the air with an appearance of menace and of unappeasable

hunger and longing. The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were

fearfully long and that the light shone through them. As he stood with his arms thus raised, he disclosed a

terrifying spectacle. On the left side of his chest there opened a black and gaping rent; and there fell upon

Stephen's brain, rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of those hungry and desolate cries that he had

heard resounding over the woods of Aswarby all that evening. In another moment this dreadful pair had

Inexpressibly frightened as he was, he determined to take his candle and go down to Mr Abney's study, for

the hour appointed for their meeting was near at hand. The study or library opened out of the front hall on one

side, and Stephen, urged on by his terrors, did not take long in getting there. To effect an entrance was not so

easy. The door was not locked, he felt sure, for the key was on the outside of it as usual. His repeated knocks

produced no answer. Mr Abney was engaged: he was speaking. What! why did he try to cry out? and why

was the cry choked in his throat? Had he, too, seen the mysterious children? But now everything was quiet,

On the table in Mr Abney's study certain papers were found which explained the situation to Stephen Elliott

when he was of an age to understand them. The most important sentences were as follows:

'It was a belief very strongly and generally held by the ancients of whose wisdom in these matters I have

had such experience as induces me to place confidence in their assertions that by enacting certain

processes, which to us moderns have something of a barbaric complexion, a very remarkable enlightenment

of the spiritual faculties in man may be attained: that, for example, by absorbing the personalities of a certain

number of his fellowcreatures, an individual may gain a complete ascendancy over those orders of spiritual

'It is recorded of Simon Magus that he was able to fly in the air, to become invisible, or to assume any form

he pleased, by the agency of the soul of a boy whom, to use the libellous phrase employed by the author of

the Clementine Recognitions, he had "murdered". I find it set down, moreover, with considerable detail in the

writings of Hermes Trismegistus, that similar happy results may be produced by the absorption of the hearts

of not less than three human beings below the age of twentyone years. To the testing of the truth of this

receipt I have devoted the greater part of the last twenty years, selecting as the corpora vilia of my experiment

such persons as could conveniently be removed without occasioning a sensible gap in society. The first step I

effected by the removal of one Phoebe Stanley, a girl of gipsy extraction, on March 24, 1792. The second, by

the removal of a wandering Italian lad, named Giovanni Paoli, on the night of March 23, 1805. The final

"victim" to employ a word repugnant in the highest degree to my feelings must be my cousin, Stephen

'The best means of effecting the required absorption is to remove the heart from the living subject, to reduce

it to ashes, and to mingle them with about a pint of some red wine, preferably port. The remains of the first

two subjects, at least, it will be well to conceal: a disused bathroom or winecellar will be found convenient

for such a purpose. Some annoyance may be experienced from the psychic portion of the subjects, which

popular language dignifies with the name of ghosts. But the man of philosophic temperament to whom

alone the experiment is appropriate will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble efforts of these

beings to wreak their vengeance on him. I contemplate with the liveliest satisfaction the enlarged and

emancipated existence which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me; not only placing me beyond

the reach of human justice (socalled), but eliminating to a great extent the prospect of death itself.'

Mr Abney was found in his chair, his head thrown back, his face stamped with an expression of rage, fright,

and mortal pain. In his left side was a terrible lacerated wound, exposing the heart. There was no blood on his

hands, and a long knife that lay on the table was perfectly clean. A savage wildcat might have inflicted the

injuries. The window of the study was open, and it was the opinion of the coroner that Mr Abney had met his

death by the agency of some wild creature. But Stephen Elliott's study of the papers I have quoted led him to

Some time ago I believe I had the pleasure of telling you the story of an adventure which happened to a friend

of mine by the name of Dennistoun, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at Cambridge.

He did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to England; but they could not fail to become

known to a good many of his friends, and among others to the gentleman who at that time presided over an

art museum at another University. It was to be expected that the story should make a considerable impression

on the mind of a man whose vocation lay in lines similar to Dennistoun's, and that he should be eager to catch

at any explanation of the matter which tended to make it seem improbable that he should ever be called upon

to deal with so agitating an emergency. It was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to reflect that he was not

expected to acquire ancient MSS for his institution; that was the business of the Shelburnian Library. The

authorities of that might, if they pleased, ransack obscure corners of the Continent for such matters. He was

glad to be obliged at the moment to confine his attention to enlarging the already unsurpassed collection of

English topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum. Yet, as it turned out, even a

department so homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners, and to one of these Mr Williams was

Those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of topographical pictures are aware

that there is one London dealer whose aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr J. W. Britnell publishes at

short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and constantly changing stock of engravings, plans, and

old sketches of mansions, churches, and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues were, of course, the

ABC of his subject to Mr Williams: but as his museum already contained an enormous accumulation of

topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to Mr Britnell to

fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to supply him with rarities.

Now, in February of last year there appeared upon Mr Williams's desk at the museum a catalogue from Mr

Britnell's emporium, and accompanying it was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This

To turn to No. 978 in the accompanying catalogue was with Mr Williams (as he observed to himself) the

'978. Unknown. Interesting mezzotint: View of a manorhouse, early part of the century, 15 by 10 inches;

It was not specially exciting, and the price seemed high. However, as Mr Britnell, who knew his business and

his customer, seemed to set store by it, Mr Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on

approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which appeared in the same catalogue. And so he

passed without much excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day.

A parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and that of Mr Britnell proved, as I believe

the right phrase goes, no exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoon post of

Saturday, after Mr Williams had left his work, and it was accordingly brought round to his rooms in college

by the attendant, in order that he might not have to wait over Sunday before looking through it and returning

such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. And here he found it when he came in to tea, with a friend.

The only item with which I am concerned was the rather large, blackframed mezzotint of which I have

already quoted the short description given in Mr Britnell's catalogue. Some more details of it will have to be

given, though I cannot hope to put before you the look of the picture as clearly as it is present to my own eye.

Very nearly the exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in the passages of

undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent

mezzotint is, perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. It presented a fullface view of a not very large

manorhouse of the last century, with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about

them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. On either side were trees,

and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. The legend 'A. W. F. sculpsit' was engraved on the narrow

margin; and there was no further inscription. The whole thing gave the impression that it was the work of an

amateur. What in the world Mr Britnell could mean by affixing the price of £2 2s. to such an object was more

than Mr Williams could imagine. He turned it over with a good deal of contempt; upon the back was a paper

label, the lefthand half of which had been torn off. All that remained were the ends of two lines of writing:

It would, perhaps, be just worth while to identify the place represented, which he could easily do with the

help of a gazetteer, and then he would send it back to Mr Britnell, with some remarks reflecting upon the

He lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied the friend with whom he had been

playing golf (for I believe the authorities of the University I write of indulge in that pursuit by way of

relaxation); and tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for

themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any nongolfing persons.

The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been better, and that in certain emergencies

neither player had experienced that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. It was now

that the friend let us call him Professor Binks took up the framed engraving, and said:

'Just what I am going to try to find out,' said Williams, going to the shelf for a gazetteer. 'Look at the back.

Somethingley Hall, either in Sussex or Essex. Half the name's gone, you see. You don't happen to know it, I

'It's from that man Britnell, I suppose, isn't it?' said Binks. 'Is it for the museum?'

'Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,' said Williams; 'but for some unearthly reason he

wants two guineas for it. I can't conceive why. It's a wretched engraving, and there aren't even any figures to

'It's not worth two guineas, I should think,' said Binks; 'but I don't think it's so badly done. The moonlight

seems rather good to me; and I should have thought there were figures, or at least a figure, just on the edge in

'Let's look,' said Williams. 'Well, it's true the light is rather cleverly given. Where's your figure? Oh yes! Just

And indeed there was hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge of the engraving the head of a

man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house.

'Still,' he said, 'though it's a cleverer thing than I thought, I can't spend two guineas of museum money on a

Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up to Hall time Williams was engaged in

a vain attempt to identify the subject of his picture. 'If the vowel before the ng had only been left, it would

have been easy enough,' he thought; 'but as it is, the name may be anything from Guestingley to Langley, and

there are many more names ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no index of terminations.'

Hall in Mr Williams's college was at seven. It need not be dwelt upon; the less so as he met there colleagues

who had been playing golf during the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely

I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called commonroom after dinner. Later in the

evening some few retired to Williams's rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco

smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up the mezzotint from the table without looking at

it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the other

The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of some interest:

'It's really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a feeling of the romantic period. The light is

admirably managed, it seems to me, and the figure, though it's rather too grotesque, is somehow very

'Yes, isn't it?' said Williams, who was just then busy giving whiskyandsoda to others of the company, and

It was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on the move. After they went Williams

was obliged to write a letter or two and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past midnight, he

was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face

upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the

lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now that if he

had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen, he was able to

put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was indubitable rankly impossible, no

doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure

where no figure had been at five o'clock that afternoon. It was crawling on allfours towards the house, and it

I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this kind. I can only tell you what Mr

Williams did. He took the picture by one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms

which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to

bed; but first he wrote out and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had

Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the behaviour of the picture did not depend

upon his own unsupported testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had seen

something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been tempted to think that something gravely

wrong was happening either to his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two matters

awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture very carefully, and call in a witness for the

purpose, and he must make a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented. He would

therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over

Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.30. His host was not quite dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this

late hour. During breakfast nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a picture on

which he wished for Nisbet's opinion. But those who are familiar with University life can picture for

themselves the wide and delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows of

Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning breakfast. Hardly a topic was left

unchallenged, from golf to lawntennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught; for his

interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer

The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. With very

considerable almost tremulous excitement, he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture

'Now,' he said, 'Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. Describe it, if you don't

'Well,' said Nisbet, 'I have here a view of a countryhouse English, I presume by moonlight.'

'Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.'

'All right. Go on. I'll swear,' added Williams in an aside, 'there was no moon when I saw it first.'

'Well, there's not much more to be said,' Nisbet continued. 'The house has one two three rows of

windows, five in each row, except at the bottom, where there's a porch instead of the middle one, and '

'Is it really? My goodness! he must have got in,' said Williams, with great excitement; and he hurried to the

back of the sofa on which Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for

It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window. Williams, after a moment of

speechless surprise, went to the writingtable and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two papers to

Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one it was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard

and then to read the other which was Williams's statement written the night before.

'Exactly,' said Williams. 'Well, one thing I must do or three things, now I think of it. I must find out from

Garwood' this was his last night's visitor 'what he saw, and then I must get the thing photographed before

'I can do the photographing myself,' said Nisbet, 'and I will. But, you know, it looks very much as if we were

assisting at the working out of a tragedy somewhere. The question is, Has it happened already, or is it going

to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,' he said, looking at the picture again, 'I expect you're

right: he has got in. And if I don't mistake there'll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs.'

'I'll tell you what,' said Williams: 'I'll take the picture across to old Green' (this was the senior Fellow of the

College, who had been Bursar for many years). 'It's quite likely he'll know it. We have property in Essex and

'Quite likely he will,' said Nisbet; 'but just let me take my photograph first. But look here, I rather think Green

isn't up today. He wasn't in Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going down for the Sunday.'

'That's true, too,' said Williams; 'I know he's gone to Brighton. Well, if you'll photograph it now, I'll go across

to Garwood and get his statement, and you keep an eye on it while I'm gone. I'm beginning to think two

In a short time he had returned, and brought Mr Garwood with him. Garwood's statement was to the effect

that the figure, when he had seen it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across the lawn.

He remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but could not have been sure it was a cross. A

document to this effect was then drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the picture.

'Now what do you mean to do?' he said. 'Are you going to sit and watch it all day?'

'Well, no, I think not,' said Williams. 'I rather imagine we're meant to see the whole thing. You see, between

the time I saw it last night and this morning there was time for lots of things to happen, but the creature only

got into the house. It could easily have got through its business in the time and gone to its own place again;

but the fact of the window being open, I think, must mean that it's in there now. So I feel quite easy about

leaving it. And, besides, I have a kind of idea that it wouldn't change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might

go out for a walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets dark. I shall leave it out on the table

The three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if they spent the afternoon together they

would be less likely to talk about the business to other people; for any rumour of such a transaction as was

At or near that hour the three were entering Williams's staircase. They were at first slightly annoyed to see

that the door of his rooms was unsported; but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips came

for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. However, a surprise was awaiting them. The first thing

they saw was the picture leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left, and the next thing

was Williams's skip, seated on a chair opposite, gazing at it with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr

Filcher (the name is not my own invention) was a servant of considerable standing, and set the standard of

etiquette to all his own college and to several neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his

practice than to be found sitting on his master's chair, or appearing to take any particular notice of his master's

furniture or pictures. Indeed, he seemed to feel this himself. He started violently when the three men came

into the room, and got up with a marked effort. Then he said: 'I ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a

'Not at all, Robert,' interposed Mr Williams. 'I was meaning to ask you some time what you thought of that

'Well, sir, of course I don't set up my opinion again yours, but it ain't the pictur I should 'ang where my little

'No, sir. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Door Bible, with pictures not 'alf what that is, and we

'ad to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you'll believe me; and if she was to ketch a sight of

this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore baby, she would be in a taking. You know 'ow it is

with children; 'ow nervish they git with a little thing and all. But what I should say, it don't seem a right pictur

to be laying about, sir, not where anyone that's liable to be startled could come on it. Should you be wanting

With these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his masters, and you may be sure the

gentlemen whom he left lost no time in gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before under

the waning moon and the drifting clouds. The window that had been open was shut, and the figure was once

more on the lawn: but not this time crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping

swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. The moon was behind it, and the black drapery

hung down over its face so that only hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the spectators

profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white domelike forehead and a few straggling hairs.

The head was bent down, and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly seen and

identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not possible to say. The legs of the appearance alone could

From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by turns. But it never changed. They

agreed at last that it would be safe to leave it, and that they would return after Hall and await further

When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the engraving was there, but the figure was

gone, and the house was quiet under the moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening over

gazetteers and guidebooks. Williams was the lucky one at last, and perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he

'16* miles, Anningley. The church has been an interesting building of Norman date, but was extensively

classicized in the last century. It contains the tombs of the family of Francis, whose mansion, Anningley Hall,

a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately beyond the churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family

is now extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year 1802. The father, Mr

Arthur Francis, was locally known as a talented amateur engraver in mezzotint. After his son's disappearance

he lived in complete retirement at the Hall, and was found dead in his studio on the third anniversary of the

disaster, having just completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are of considerable rarity.'

This looked like business, and, indeed, Mr Green on his return at once identified the house as Anningley Hall.

'Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green?' was the question which Williams naturally asked.

' I don't know, I'm sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place when I first knew it, which was before I

came up here, was just this: old Francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and

whenever he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off the estate, and by degrees

he got rid of them all but one. Squires could do a lot of things then that they daren't think of now. Well, this

man that was left was what you find pretty often in that country the last remains of a very old family. I

believe they were Lords of the Manor at one time. I recollect just the same thing in my own parish.'

'Yes, I dare say; it's not a book I could ever read myself. But this fellow could show a row of tombs in the

church there that belonged to his ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but Francis, they said, could

never get at him he always kept just on the right side of the law until one night the keepers found him at it

in a wood right at the end of the estate. I could show you the place now; it marches with some land that used

to belong to an uncle of mine. And you can imagine there was a row; and this man Gawdy (that was the

name, to be sure Gawdy; I thought I should get it Gawdy), he was unlucky enough, poor chap! to shoot a

keeper. Well, that was what Francis wanted, and grand juries you know what they would have been then

and poor Gawdy was strung up in doublequick time; and I've been shown the place he was buried in, on the

north side of the church you know the way in that part of the world: anyone that's been hanged or made

away with themselves, they bury them that side. And the idea was that some friend of Gawdy's not a

relation, because he had none, poor devil! he was the last of his line: kind of spes ultima gentis must have

planned to get hold of Francis's boy and put an end to his line, too. I don't know it's rather an

outoftheway thing for an Essex poacher to think of but, you know, I should say now it looks, more as if

old Gawdy had managed the job himself. Booh! I hate to think of it! Have some whisky, Williams!'

The facts were communicated by Williams to Dennistoun, and by him to a mixed company, of which I was

one, and the Sadducean Professor of Ophiology another. I am sorry to say that the latter, when asked what he

thought of it, only remarked: 'Oh, those Bridgeford people will say anything' a sentiment which met with

I have only to add that the picture is now in the Ashleian Museum; that it has been treated with a view to

discovering whether sympathetic ink has been used in it, but without effect; that Mr Britnell knew nothing of

it save that he was sure it was uncommon; and that, though carefully watched, it has never been known to

Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the smaller countryhouses with which it is studded

the rather dank little buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some eighty to a

hundred acres. For me they have always had a very strong attraction: with the grey paling of split oak, the

noble trees, the meres with their reedbeds, and the line of distant woods. Then, I like the pillared portico

perhaps stuck on to a redbrick Queen Anne house which has been faced with stucco to bring it into line with

the 'Grecian' taste of the end of the eighteenth century; the hall inside, going up to the roof, which hall ought

always to be provided with a gallery and a small organ. I like the library, too, where you may find anything

from a Psalter of the thirteenth century to a Shakespeare quarto. I like the pictures, of course; and perhaps

most of all I like fancying what life in such a house was when it was first built, and in the piping times of

landlords' prosperity, and not least now, when, if money is not so plentiful, taste is more varied and life quite

as interesting. I wish to have one of these houses, and enough money to keep it together and entertain my

But this is a digression. I have to tell you of a curious series of events which happened in such a house as I

have tried to describe. It is Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good deal has been done to the building

since the period of my story, but the essential features I have sketched are still there Italian portico, square

block of white house, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. The one feature that marked

out the house from a score of others is gone. As you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great

old ashtree growing within half a dozen yards of the wall, and almost or quite touching the building with its

branches. I suppose it had stood there ever since Castringham ceased to be a fortified place, and since the

moat was filled in and the Elizabethan dwellinghouse built. At any rate, it had wellnigh attained its full

In that year the district in which the Hall is situated was the scene of a number of witchtrials. It will be long,

I think, before we arrive at a just estimate of the amount of solid reason if there was any which lay at the

root of the universal fear of witches in old times. Whether the persons accused of this offence really did

imagine that they were possessed of unusual powers of any kind; or whether they had the will at least, if not

the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours; or whether all the confessions, of which there are so many,

were extorted by the mere cruelty of the witchfinders these are questions which are not, I fancy, yet

solved. And the present narrative gives me pause. I cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention. The

Castringham contributed a victim to the autodafé. Mrs Mothersole was her name, and she differed from the

ordinary run of village witches only in being rather better off and in a more influential position. Efforts were

made to save her by several reputable farmers of the parish. They did their best to testify to her character, and

But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the then proprietor of Castringham Hall

Sir Matthew Fell. He deposed to having watched her on three different occasions from his window, at the

full of the moon, gathering sprigs 'from the ashtree near my house'. She had climbed into the branches, clad

only in her shift, and was cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did so she seemed

to be talking to herself. On each occasion Sir Matthew had done his best to capture the woman, but she had

always taken alarm at some accidental noise he had made, and all he could see when he got down to the

On the third night he had been at the pains to follow at his best speed, and had gone straight to Mrs

Mothersole's house; but he had had to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then she had come

out very cross, and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed; and he had no good explanation to offer of

Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking and unusual kind from other

parishioners, Mrs Mothersole was found guilty and condemned to die. She was hanged a week after the trial,

Sir Matthew Fell, then DeputySheriff, was present at the execution. It was a damp, drizzly March morning

when the cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other

victims were apathetic or broken down with misery; but Mrs Mothersole was, as in life so in death, of a very

different temper. Her 'poysonous Rage', as a reporter of the time puts it, 'did so work upon the Bystanders

yea, even upon the Hangman that it was constantly affirmed of all that saw her that she presented the living

Aspect of a mad Divell. Yet she offer'd no Resistance to the Officers of the Law; onely she looked upon those

that laid Hands upon her with so direfull and venomous an Aspect that as one of them afterwards assured

However, all that she is reported to have said was the seemingly meaningless words: 'There will be guests at

Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. He had some talk upon the matter with

the Vicar of his parish, with whom he travelled home after the assize business was over. His evidence at the

trial had not been very willingly given; he was not specially infected with the witchfinding mania, but he

declared, then and afterwards, that he could not give any other account of the matter than that he had given,

and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as to what he saw. The whole transaction had been

repugnant to him, for he was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms with those about him; but he saw a

duty to be done in this business, and he had done it. That seems to have been the gist of his sentiments, and

A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full, Vicar and Squire met again in the park, and

walked to the Hall together. Lady Fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was

alone at home; so the Vicar, Mr Crome, was easily persuaded to take a late supper at the Hall.

Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The talk ran chiefly on family and parish matters, and,

as luck would have it, Sir Matthew made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions of his

When Mr Crome thought of starting for home, about halfpast nine o'clock, Sir Matthew and he took a

preliminary turn on the gravelled walk at the back of the house. The only incident that struck Mr Crome was

this: they were in sight of the ashtree which I described as growing near the windows of the building, when

'What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? It is never a squirrel? They will all be in their nests

The Vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing of its colour in the moonlight. The

sharp outline, however, seen for an instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have sworn, he said,

Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision, and the two men parted. They may have met since

Next day Sir Matthew Fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet

at eight. Hereupon the servants went and knocked at his chamber door. I need not prolong the description of

their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the panels. The door was opened at last from the outside,

and they found their master dead and black. So much you have guessed. That there were any marks of

One of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his directions rode on to give notice to the coroner. Mr

Crome himself went as quick as he might to the Hall, and was shown to the room where the dead man lay. He

has left some notes among his papers which show how genuine a respect and sorrow was felt for Sir

Matthew, and there is also this passage, which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon the course

'There was not any the least Trace of an Entrance having been forc'd to the Chamber: but the Casement stood

open, as my poor Friend would always have it in this Season. He had his Evening Drink of small Ale in a

silver vessel of about a pint measure, and tonight had not drunk it out. This Drink was examined by the

Physician from Bury, a Mr Hodgkins, who could not, however, as he afterwards declar'd upon his Oath,

before the Coroner's quest, discover that any matter of a venomous kind was present in it. For, as was natural,

in the great Swelling and Blackness of the Corpse, there was talk made among the Neighbours of Poyson.

The Body was very much Disorder'd as it laid in the Bed, being twisted after so extream a sort as gave too

probable Conjecture that my worthy Friend and Patron had expir'd in great Pain and Agony. And what is as

yet unexplain'd, and to myself the Argument of some Horrid and Artfull Designe in the Perpetrators of this

Barbarous Murther, was this, that the Women which were entrusted with the layingout of the Corpse and

washing it, being both sad Persons and very well Respected in their Mournfull Profession, came to me in a

great Pain and Distress both of Mind and Body, saying, what was indeed confirmed upon the first View, that

they had no sooner touch'd the Breast of the Corpse with their naked Hands than they were sensible of a more

than ordinary violent Smart and Acheing in their Palms, which, with their whole Forearms, in no long time

swell'd so immoderately, the Pain still continuing, that, as afterwards proved, during many weeks they were

forc'd to lay by the exercise of their Calling; and yet no mark seen on the Skin.

'Upon hearing this, I sent for the Physician, who was still in the House, and we made as carefull a Proof as we

were able by the Help of a small Magnifying Lens of Crystal of the condition of the Skinn on this Part of the

Body: but could not detect with the Instrument we had any Matter of Importance beyond a couple of small

Punctures or Pricks, which we then concluded were the Spotts by which the Poyson might be introduced,

remembering that Ring of Pope Borgia, with other known Specimens of the Horrid Art of the Italian

'So much is to be said of the Symptoms seen on the Corpse. As to what I am to add, it is meerly my own

Experiment, and to be left to Posterity to judge whether there be anything of Value therein. There was on the

Table by the Beddside a Bible of the small size, in which my Friend punctuall as in Matters of less

Moment, so in this more weighty one used nightly, and upon his First Rising, to read a sett Portion. And I

taking it up not without a Tear duly paid to him which from the Study of this poorer Adumbration was now

pass'd to the contemplation of its great Originall it came into my Thoughts, as at such moments of

Helplessness we are prone to catch at any the least Glimmer that makes promise of Light, to make trial of that

old and by many accounted Superstitious Practice of drawing the Sortes: of which a Principall Instance, in the

case of his late Sacred Majesty the Blessed Martyr King Charles and my Lord Falkland, was now much

talked of. I must needs admit that by my Trial not much Assistance was afforded me: yet, as the Cause and

Origin of these Dreadful Events may hereafter be search'd out, I set down the Results, in the case it may be

found that they pointed the true Quarter of the Mischief to a quicker Intelligence than my own.

' I made, then, three trials, opening the Book and placing my Finger upon certain Words: which gave in the

first these words, from Luke xiii 7, Cut it down; in the second, Isaiah xiii 20, It shall never be inhabited; and

This is all that need be quoted from Mr Crome's papers. Sir Matthew Fell was duly coffined and laid into the

earth, and his funeral sermon, preached by Mr Crome on the following Sunday, has been printed under the

title of 'The Unsearchable Way; or, England's Danger and the Malicious Dealings of Antichrist', it being the

Vicar's view, as well as that most commonly held in the neighbourhood, that the Squire was the victim of a

His son, Sir Matthew the second, succeeded to the title and estates. And so ends the first act of the

Castringham tragedy. It is to be mentioned, though the fact is not surprising, that the new Baronet did not

occupy the room in which his father had died. Nor, indeed, was it slept in by anyone but an occasional visitor

during the whole of his occupation. He died in 1735, and I do not find that anything particular marked his

reign, save a curiously constant mortality among his cattle and livestock in general, which showed a tendency

Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account in a letter to the Gentleman's Magazine

of 1772, which draws the facts from the Baronet's own papers. He put an end to it at last by a very simple

expedient, that of shutting up all his beasts in sheds at night, and keeping no sheep in his park. For he had

noticed that nothing was ever attacked that spent the night indoors. After that the disorder confined itself to

wild birds, and beasts of chase. But as we have no good account of the symptoms, and as allnight watching

was quite unproductive of any clue, I do not dwell on what the Suffolk farmers called the 'Castringham

The second Sir Matthew died in 1735, as I said, and was duly succeeded by his son, Sir Richard. It was in his

time that the great family pew was built out on the north side of the parish church. So large were the Squire's

ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the building had to be disturbed to satisfy his

requirements. Among them was that of Mrs Mothersole, the position of which was accurately known, thanks

A certain amount of interest was excited in the village when it was known that the famous witch, who was

still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed. And the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very

strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever

inside it of body, bones, or dust. Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no such

things were dreamt of as resurrectionmen, and it is difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a

The incident revived for a time all the stories of witchtrials and of the exploits of the witches, dormant for

forty years, and Sir Richard's orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be rather

Sir Richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain. Before his time the Hall had been a fine block of the

mellowest red brick; but Sir Richard had travelled in Italy and become infected with the Italian taste, and,

having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave an Italian palace where he had found an

English house. So stucco and ashlar masked the brick; some indifferent Roman marbles were planted about in

the entrancehall and gardens; a reproduction of the Sibyl's temple at Tivoli was erected on the opposite bank

of the mere; and Castringham took on an entirely new, and, I must say, a less engaging, aspect. But it was

much admired, and served as a model to a good many of the neighbouring gentry in after years.

One morning (it was in 1754) Sir Richard woke after a night of discomfort. It had been windy, and his

chimney had smoked persistently, and yet it was so cold that he must keep up a fire. Also something had so

rattled about the window that no man could get a moment's peace. Further, there was the prospect of several

guests of position arriving in the course of the day, who would expect sport of some kind, and the inroads of

the distemper (which continued among his game) had been lately so serious that he was afraid for his

reputation as a gamepreserver. But what really touched him most nearly was the other matter of his

That was the chief subject of his meditations at breakfast, and after it he began a systematic examination of

the rooms to see which would suit his notions best. It was long before he found one. This had a window with

an eastern aspect and that with a northern; this door the servants would be always passing, and he did not like

the bedstead in that. No, he must have a room with a western lookout, so that the sun could not wake him

early, and it must be out of the way of the business of the house. The housekeeper was at the end of her

'Well, Sir Richard,' she said, 'you know that there is but one room like that in the house.'

'Which may that be?' said Sir Richard. 'And that is Sir Matthew's the West Chamber.'

'Well, put me in there, for there I'll lie tonight,' said her master. 'Which way is it? Here, to be sure'; and he

'Oh, Sir Richard, but no one has slept there these forty years. The air has hardly been changed since Sir

So it was opened, and, indeed, the smell was very close and earthy. Sir Richard crossed to the window, and,

impatiently, as was his wont, threw the shutters back, and flung open the casement. For this end of the house

was one which the alterations had barely touched, grown up as it was with the great ashtree, and being

'Air it, Mrs Chiddock, all today, and move my bedfurniture in in the afternoon. Put the Bishop of Kilmore in

'Pray, Sir Richard,' said a new voice, breaking in on this speech, 'might I have the favour of a moment's

'I must ask your indulgence for this intrusion, Sir Richard. You will, perhaps, hardly remember me. My name

is William Crome, and my grandfather was Vicar here in your grandfather's time.'

'Well, sir,' said Sir Richard, 'the name of Crome is always a passport to Castringham. I am glad to renew a

friendship of two generations' standing. In what can I serve you? for your hour of calling and, if I do not

'That is no more than the truth, sir. I am riding from Norwich to Bury St Edmunds with what haste I can

make, and I have called in on my way to leave with you some papers which we have but just come upon in

looking over what my grandfather left at his death. It is thought you may find some matters of family interest

'You are mighty obliging, Mr Crome, and, if you will be so good as to follow me to the parlour, and drink a

glass of wine, we will take a first look at these same papers together. And you, Mrs Chiddock, as I said, be

about airing this chamber . . . Yes, it is here my grandfather died . . . Yes, the tree, perhaps, does make the

place a little dampish . . . No; I do not wish to listen to any more. Make no difficulties, I beg. You have your

They went to the study. The packet which young Mr Crome had brought he was then just become a Fellow

of Clare Hall in Cambridge, I may say, and subsequently brought out a respectable edition of Polyaenus

contained among other things the notes which the old Vicar had made upon the occasion of Sir Matthew

Fell's death. And for the first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatical Sortes Biblicae which you

'Well,' he said, 'my grandfather's Bible gave one prudent piece of advice Cut it down. If that stands for the

ashtree, he may rest assured I shall not neglect it. Such a nest of catarrhs and agues was never seen.'

The parlour contained the family books, which, pending the arrival of a collection which Sir Richard had

made in Italy, and the building of a proper room to receive them, were not many in number.

Crossing the room, he took out a dumpy Bible, which, sure enough, bore on the flyleaf the inscription: 'To

'It would be no bad plan to test him again, Mr Crome. I will wager we get a couple of names in the

Chronicles. H'm! what have we here? "Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be." Well, well!

Your grandfather would have made a fine omen of that, hey? No more prophets for me! They are all in a tale.

And now, Mr Crome, I am infinitely obliged to you for your packet. You will, I fear, be impatient to get on.

So with offers of hospitality, which were genuinely meant (for Sir Richard thought well of the young man's

In the afternoon came the guests the Bishop of Kilmore, Lady Mary Hervey, Sir William Kentfield, etc.

Next morning Sir Richard is disinclined to take his gun with the rest. He talks with the Bishop of Kilmore.

This prelate, unlike a good many of the Irish Bishops of his day, had visited his see, and, indeed, resided there

for some considerable time. This morning, as the two were walking along the terrace and talking over the

alterations and improvements in the house, the Bishop said, pointing to the window of the West Room:

'Well, our Irish peasantry will always have it that it brings the worst of luck to sleep near an ashtree, and

you have a fine growth of ash not two yards from your chamber window. Perhaps,' the Bishop went on, with

a smile, 'it has given you a touch of its quality already, for you do not seem, if I may say it, so much the

'That, or something else, it is true, cost me my sleep from twelve to four, my lord. But the tree is to come

'I applaud your determination. It can hardly be wholesome to have the air you breathe strained, as it were,

'Your lordship is right there, I think. But I had not my window open last night. It was rather the noise that

'I think that can hardly be. Sir Richard. Here you see it from this point. None of these nearest branches even

can touch your casement unless there were a gale, and there was none of that last night. They miss the panes

'No, sir, true. What, then, will it be, I wonder, that scratched and rustled so ay, and covered the dust on my

At last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy. That was the Bishop's idea, and Sir

So the day passed quietly, and night came, and the party dispersed to their rooms, and wished Sir Richard a

And now we are in his bedroom, with the light out and the Squire in bed. The room is over the kitchen, and

There is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange movement there; it seems as if Sir Richard

were moving his head rapidly to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. And now you would guess, so

deceptive is the halfdarkness, that he had several heads, round and brownish, which move back and forward,

even as low as his chest. It is a horrible illusion. Is it nothing more? There! something drops off the bed with

a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of the window in a flash; another four and after that there is quiet

As with Sir Matthew, so with Sir Richard dead and black in his bed! A pale and silent party of guests and

servants gathered under the window when the news was known. Italian poisoners, Popish emissaries, infected

air all these and more guesses were hazarded, and the Bishop of Kilmore looked at the tree, in the fork of

whose lower boughs a white tomcat was crouching, looking down the hollow which years had gnawed in

Suddenly it got up and craned over the hole. Then a bit of the edge on which it stood gave way, and it went

It is known to most of us that a cat can cry; but few of us have heard, I hope, such a yell as came out of the

trunk of the great ash. Two or three screams there were the witnesses are not sure which and then a slight

and muffled noise of some commotion or struggling was all that came. But Lady Mary Hervey fainted

outright, and the housekeeper stopped her ears and fled till she fell on the terrace,

The Bishop of Kilmore and Sir William Kentfield stayed. Yet even they were daunted, though it was only at

'There is something more than we know of in that tree, my lord. I am for an instant search.'

And this was agreed upon. A ladder was brought, and one of the gardeners went up, and, looking down the

hollow, could detect nothing but a few dim indications of something moving. They got a lantern, and let it

'We must get at the bottom of this. My life upon it, my lord, but the secret of these terrible deaths is there.'

Up went the gardener again with the lantern, and let it down the hole cautiously. They saw the yellow light

upon his face as he bent over, and saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing before he cried

out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder where, happily, he was caught by two of the men

He was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be got from him.

By then they had something else to look at. The lantern must have broken at the bottom, and the light in it

caught upon dry leaves and rubbish that lay there, for in a few minutes a dense smoke began to come up, and

The bystanders made a ring at some yards' distance, and Sir William and the Bishop sent men to get what

weapons and tools they could; for, clearly, whatever might be using the tree as its lair would be forced out by

So it was. First, at the fork, they saw a round body covered with fire the size of a man's head appear very

suddenly, then seem to collapse and fall back. This, five or six times; then a similar ball leapt into the air and

fell on the grass, where after a moment it lay still. The Bishop went as near as he dared to it, and saw what

but the remains of an enormous spider, veinous and seared! And, as the fire burned lower down, more terrible

bodies like this began to break out from the trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with greyish hair.

All that day the ash burned, and until it fell to pieces the men stood about it, and from time to time killed the

brutes as they darted out. At last there was a long interval when none appeared, and they cautiously closed in

'They found,' says the Bishop of Kilmore, 'below it a rounded hollow place in the earth, wherein were two or

three bodies of these creatures that had plainly been smothered by the smoke; and, what is to me more

curious, at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy or skeleton of a human being,

with the skin dried upon the bones, having some remains of black hair, which was pronounced by those that

examined it to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for a period of fifty years.'

Among the towns of Jutland, Viborg justly holds a high place. It is the seat of a bishopric; it has a handsome

but almost entirely new cathedral, a charming garden, a lake of great beauty, and many storks. Near it is

Hald, accounted one of the prettiest things in Denmark; and hard by is Finderup, where Marsk Stig murdered

King Erik Glipping on St Cecilia's Day, in the year 1286. Fiftysix blows of squareheaded iron maces were

traced on Erik's skull when his tomb was opened in the seventeenth century. But I am not writing a

There are good hotels in Viborg Preisler's and the Phoenix are all that can be desired. But my cousin, whose

experiences I have to tell you now, went to the Golden Lion the first time that he visited Viborg. He has not

been there since, and the following pages will perhaps explain the reason of his abstention.

The Golden Lion is one of the very few houses in the town that were not destroyed in the great fire of 1726,

which practically demolished the cathedral, the Sognekirke, the Raadhuus, and so much else that was old and

interesting. It is a great redbrick house that is, the front is of brick, with corbie steps on the gables and a

text over the door; but the courtyard into which the omnibus drives is of black and white 'cagework' in wood

The sun was declining in the heavens when my cousin walked up to the door, and the light smote full upon

the imposing façade of the house. He was delighted with the oldfashioned aspect of the place, and promised

himself a thoroughly satisfactory and amusing stay in an inn so typical of old Jutland.

It was not business in the ordinary sense of the word that had brought Mr Anderson to Viborg. He was

engaged upon some researches into the Church history of Denmark, and it had come to his knowledge that in

the Rigsarkiv of Viborg there were papers, saved from the fire, relating to the last days of Roman Catholicism

in the country. He proposed, therefore, to spend a considerable time perhaps as much as a fortnight or three

weeks in examining and copying these, and he hoped that the Golden Lion would be able to give him a

room of sufficient size to serve alike as a bedroom and a study. His wishes were explained to the landlord,

and, after a certain amount of thought, the latter suggested that perhaps it might be the best way for the

gentleman to look at one or two of the larger rooms and pick one for himself. It seemed a good idea.

The top floor was soon rejected as entailing too much getting upstairs after the day's work; the second floor

contained no room of exactly the dimensions required; but on the first floor there was a choice of two or three

The landlord was strongly in favour of Number 17, but Mr Anderson pointed out that its windows

commanded only the blank wall of the next house, and that it would be very dark in the afternoon. Either

Number 12 or Number 14 would be better, for both of them looked on the street, and the bright evening light

and the pretty view would more than compensate him for the additional amount of noise.

Eventually Number 12 was selected. Like its neighbours, it had three windows, all on one side of the room; it

was fairly high and unusually long. There was, of course, no fireplace, but the stove was handsome and rather

old a castiron erection, on the side of which was a representation of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and the

inscription, '1 Bog Mose, Cap. 22', above. Nothing else in the room was remarkable; the only interesting

Suppertime was approaching, but when Anderson, refreshed by the ordinary ablutions, descended the

staircase, there were still a few minutes before the bell rang. He devoted them to examining the list of his

fellowlodgers. As is usual in Denmark, their names were displayed on a large blackboard, divided into

columns and lines, the numbers of the rooms being painted in at the beginning of each line. The list was not

exciting. There was an advocate, or Sagförer, a German, and some bagmen from Copenhagen. The one and

only point which suggested any food for thought was the absence of any Number 13 from the tale of the

rooms, and even this was a thing which Anderson had already noticed half a dozen times in his experience of

Danish hotels. He could not help wondering whether the objection to that particular number, common as it is,

was so widespread and so strong as to make it difficult to let a room so ticketed, and he resolved to ask the

landlord if he and his colleagues in the profession had actually met with many clients who refused to be

He had nothing to tell me (I am giving the story as I heard it from him) about what passed at supper, and the

evening, which was spent in unpacking and arranging his clothes, books, and papers, was not more eventful.

Towards eleven o'clock he resolved to go to bed, but with him, as with a good many other people nowadays,

an almost necessary preliminary to bed, if he meant to sleep, was the reading of a few pages of print, and he

now remembered that the particular book which he had been reading in the train, and which alone would

satisfy him at that present moment, was in the pocket of his greatcoat, then hanging on a peg outside the

To run down and secure it was the work of a moment, and, as the passages were by no means dark, it was not

difficult for him to find his way back to his own door. So, at least, he thought; but when he arrived there, and

turned the handle, the door entirely refused to open, and he caught the sound of a hasty movement towards it

from within. He had tried the wrong door, of course. Was his own room to the right or to the left? He glanced

at the number: it was 13. His room would be on the left; and so it was. And not before he had been in bed for

some minutes, had read his wonted three or four pages of his book, blown out his light, and turned over to go

to sleep, did it occur to him that, whereas on the blackboard of the hotel there had been no Number 13, there

was undoubtedly a room numbered 13 in the hotel. He felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own.

Perhaps he might have done the landlord a little service by occupying it, and given him the chance of saying

that a wellborn English gentleman had lived in it for three weeks and liked it very much. But probably it

was used as a servant's room or something of the kind. After all, it was most likely not so large or good a

room as his own. And he looked drowsily about the room, which was fairly perceptible in the halflight from

the streetlamp. It was a curious effect, he thought. Rooms usually look larger in a dim light than a full one,

but this seemed to have contracted in length and grown proportionately higher. Well, well! sleep was more

On the day after his arrival Anderson attacked the Rigsarkiv of Viborg. He was, as one might expect in

Denmark, kindly received, and access to all that he wished to see was made as easy for him as possible. The

documents laid before him were far more numerous and interesting than he had at all anticipated. Besides

official papers, there was a large bundle of correspondence relating to Bishop Jörgen Friis, the last Roman

Catholic who held the see, and in these there cropped up many amusing and what are called 'intimate' details

of private life and individual character. There was much talk of a house owned by the Bishop, but not

inhabited by him, in the town. Its tenant was apparently somewhat of a scandal and a stumblingblock to the

reforming party. He was a disgrace, they wrote, to the city; he practised secret and wicked arts, and had sold

his soul to the enemy. It was of a piece with the gross corruption and superstition of the Babylonish Church

that such a viper and bloodsucking Troldmand should be patronized and harboured by the Bishop. The

Bishop met these reproaches boldly; he protested his own abhorrence of all such things as secret arts, and

required his antagonists to bring the matter before the proper court of course, the spiritual court and sift it

to the bottom. No one could be more ready and willing than himself to condemn Mag. Nicolas Francken if

the evidence showed him to have been guilty of any of the crimes informally alleged against him.

Anderson had not time to do more than glance at the next letter of the Protestant leader, Rasmus Nielsen,

before the record office was closed for the day, but he gathered its general tenor, which was to the effect that

Christian men were now no longer bound by the decisions of Bishops of Rome, and that the Bishop's Court

was not, and could not be, a fit or competent tribunal to judge so grave and weighty a cause.

On leaving the office, Mr Anderson was accompanied by the old gentleman who presided over it, and, as they

walked, the conversation very naturally turned to the papers of which I have just been speaking.

Herr Scavenius, the Archivist of Viborg, though very well informed as to the general run of the documents

under his charge, was not a specialist in those of the Reformation period. He was much interested in what

Anderson had to tell him about them. He looked forward with great pleasure, he said, to seeing the

publication in which Mr Anderson spoke of embodying their contents. 'This house of the Bishop Friis,' he

added, 'it is a great puzzle to me where it can have stood. I have studied carefully the topography of old

Viborg, but it is most unlucky of the old terrier of the Bishop's property which was made in 1560, and of

which we have the greater part in the Arkiv, just the piece which had the list of the town property is missing.

After taking some exercise I forget exactly how or where Anderson went back to the Golden Lion, his

supper, his game of patience, and his bed. On the way to his room it occurred to him that he had forgotten to

talk to the landlord about the omission of Number 13 from the hotel, and also that he might as well make sure

The decision was not difficult to arrive at. There was the door with its number as plain as could be, and work

of some kind was evidently going on inside it, for as he neared the door he could hear footsteps and voices, or

a voice, within. During the few seconds in which he halted to make sure of the number, the footsteps ceased,

seemingly very near the door, and he was a little startled at hearing a quick hissing breathing as of a person in

strong excitement. He went on to his own room, and again he was surprised to find how much smaller it

seemed now than it had when he selected it. It was a slight disappointment, but only slight. If he found it

really not large enough, he could very easily shift to another. In the meantime he wanted something as far

as I remember it was a pockethandkerchief out of his portmanteau, which had been placed by the porter

on a very inadequate trestle or stool against the wall at the farthest end of the room from his bed. Here was a

very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been moved by officious servants; doubtless

the contents had been put in the wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of a

theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but some piece of stupidity had certainly

been performed (which is not so uncommon), and the stuepige must be severely spoken to. Whatever it was

that he wanted, it was not so necessary to his comfort that he could not wait till the morning for it, and he

therefore settled not to ring the bell and disturb the servants. He went to the window the righthand

window it was and looked out on the quiet street. There was a tall building opposite, with large spaces of

The light was behind him, and he could see his own shadow clearly cast on the wall opposite. Also the

shadow of the bearded man in Number 11 on the left, who passed to and fro in shirtsleeves once or twice, and

was seen first brushing his hair, and later on in a nightgown. Also the shadow of the occupant of Number 13

on the right. This might be more interesting. Number 13 was, like himself, leaning on his elbows on the

windowsill looking out into the street. He seemed to be a tall thin man or was it by any chance a woman?

at least, it was someone who covered his or her head with some kind of drapery before going to bed, and,

he thought, must be possessed of a red lampshade and the lamp must be flickering very much. There was

a distinct playing up and down of a dull red light on the opposite wall. He craned out a little to see if he could

make any more of the figure, but beyond a fold of some light, perhaps white, material on the windowsill he

Now came a distant step in the street, and its approach seemed to recall Number 13 to a sense of his exposed

position, for very swiftly and suddenly he swept aside from the window, and his red light went out.

Anderson, who had been smoking a cigarette, laid the end of it on the windowsill and went to bed.

Next morning he was woke by the stuepige with hot water, etc. He roused himself, and after thinking out the

As is not uncommon, the maid laughed, and went away without making any distinct answer.

Anderson, rather irritated, sat up in bed, intending to call her back, but he remained sitting up, staring straight

in front of him. There was his portmanteau on its trestle, exactly where he had seen the porter put it when he

first arrived. This was a rude shock for a man who prided himself on his accuracy of observation. How it

could possibly have escaped him the night before he did not pretend to understand; at any rate, there it was

The daylight showed more than the portmanteau; it let the true proportions of the room with its three

windows appear, and satisfied its tenant that his choice after all had not been a bad one. When he was almost

dressed he walked to the middle one of the three windows to look out at the weather. Another shock awaited

him. Strangely unobservant he must have been last night. He could have sworn ten times over that he had

been smoking at the righthand window the last thing before he went to bed, and here was his cigaretteend

He started to go down to breakfast. Rather late, but Number 13 was later: here were his boots still outside his

door a gentleman's boots. So then Number 13 was a man, not a woman. Just then he caught sight of the

number on the door. It was 14. He thought he must have passed Number 13 without noticing it. Three stupid

mistakes in twelve hours were too much for a methodical, accurateminded man, so he turned back to make

sure. The next number to 14 was number 12, his own room. There was no Number 13 at all.

After some minutes devoted to a careful consideration of everything he had had to eat and drink during the

last twentyfour hours, Anderson decided to give the question up. If his sight or his brain were giving way he

would have plenty of opportunities for ascertaining that fact; if not, then he was evidently being treated to a

very interesting experience. In either case the development of events would certainly be worth watching.

During the day he continued his examination of the episcopal correspondence which I have already

summarized. To his disappointment, it was incomplete. Only one other letter could be found which referred

to the affair of Mag. Nicolas Francken. It was from the Bishop Jörgen Friis to Rasmus Nielsen. He said:

'Although we are not in the least degree inclined to assent to your judgement concerning our court, and shall

be prepared if need be to withstand you to the uttermost in that behalf, yet forasmuch as our trusty and

wellbeloved Mag. Nicolas Francken, against whom you have dared to allege certain false and malicious

charges, hath been suddenly removed from among us, it is apparent that the question for this time falls. But

forasmuch as you further allege that the Apostle and Evangelist St John in his heavenly Apocalypse describes

the Holy Roman Church under the guise and symbol of the Scarlet Woman, be it known to you,' etc.

Search as he might, Anderson could find no sequel to this letter nor any clue to the cause or manner of the

'removal' of the casus belli. He could only suppose that Francken had died suddenly; and as there were only

two days between the date of Nielsen's last letter when Francken was evidently still in being and that of

In the afternoon he paid a short visit to Hald, and took his tea at Baekkelund; nor could he notice, though he

was in a somewhat nervous frame of mind, that there was any indication of such a failure of eye or brain as

'What,' he asked him, after some indifferent conversation, 'is the reason why in most of the hotels one visits in

this country the number thirteen is left out of the list of rooms? I see you have none here.'

'To think that you should have noticed a thing like that! I've thought about it once or twice myself, to tell the

truth. An educated man, I've said, has no business with these superstitious notions. I was brought up myself

here in the High School of Viborg, and our old master was always a man to set his face against anything of

that kind. He's been dead now this many years a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands as

'Then you don't think there is any particular objection to having a Number 13?' said Anderson.

'Ah! to be sure. Well, you understand, I was brought up to the business by my poor old father. He kept an

hotel in Aarhuus first, and then, when we were born, he moved to Viborg here, which was his native place,

and had the Phoenix here until he died. That was in 1876. Then I started business in Silkeborg, and only the

Then followed more details as to the state of the house and business when first taken over.

'No, no. I was going to tell you about that. You see, in a place like this, the commercial class the travellers

are what we have to provide for in general. And put them in Number 13? Why, they'd as soon sleep in the

street, or sooner. As far as I'm concerned myself, it wouldn't make a penny difference to me what the number

of my room was, and so I've often said to them; but they stick to it that it brings them bad luck. Quantities of

stories they have among them of men that have slept in a Number 13 and never been the same again, or lost

their best customers, or one thing and another,' said the landlord, after searching for a more graphic phrase.

'Then, what do you use your Number 13 for?' said Anderson, conscious as he said the words of a curious

'My Number 13? Why, don't I tell you that there isn't such a thing in the house? I thought you might have

'Well, yes; only I happened to think that is, I fancied last night that I had seen a door numbered thirteen in

that passage; and, really, I am almost certain I must have been right, for I saw it the night before as well.'

Of course, Herr Kristensen laughed this notion to scorn, as Anderson had expected, and emphasized with

much iteration the fact that no Number 13 existed or had existed before him in that hotel.

Anderson was in some ways relieved by his certainty but still puzzled, and he began to think that the best way

to make sure whether he had indeed been subject to an illusion or not was to invite the landlord to his room to

smoke a cigar later on in the evening. Some photographs of English towns which he had with him formed a

Herr Kristensen was flattered by the invitation, and most willingly accepted it. At about ten o'clock he was to

make his appearance, but before that Anderson had some letters to write, and retired for the purpose of

writing them. He almost blushed to himself at confessing it, but he could not deny that it was the fact that he

was becoming quite nervous about the question of the existence of Number 13; so much so that he

approached his room by way of Number 11, in order that he might not be obliged to pass the door, or the

place where the door ought to be. He looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered it, but

there was nothing, beyond that indefinable air of being smaller than usual, to warrant any misgivings. There

was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau tonight. He had himself emptied it of its

contents and lodged it under his bed. With a certain effort he dismissed the thought of Number 13 from his

His neighbours were quiet enough. Occasionally a door opened in the passage and a pair of boots was thrown

out, or a bagman walked past humming to himself, and outside, from time to time a cart thundered over the

Anderson finished his letters, ordered in whisky and soda, and then went to the window and studied the dead

As far as he could remember, Number 14 had been occupied by the lawyer, a staid man, who said little at

meals, being generally engaged in studying a small bundle of papers beside his plate. Apparently, however,

he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when alone. Why else should he be dancing? The

shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. Again and again his thin form crossed the window,

his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the

floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements. Sagförer Herr Anders Jensen, dancing at ten

o'clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style; and

Anderson's thoughts, like those of Emily in the Mysteries of Udolpho, began to 'arrange themselves in the

Had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable that quite a long poem might have

been laid before the reader. To judge from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, Herr

Kristensen was struck, as Anderson had been, by something unusual in its aspect. But he made no remark.

Anderson's photographs interested him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses.

Nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted into the desired channel of Number 13,

had not the lawyer at this moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no doubt in

anyone's mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving mad. It was a high, thin voice that they heard,

and it seemed dry, as if from long disuse. Of words or tune there was no question. It went sailing up to a

surprising height, and was carried down with a despairing moan as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or

an organ whose wind fails suddenly. It was a really horrible sound, and Anderson felt that if he had been

'I don't understand it,' he said at last, wiping his forehead. 'It is dreadful. I have heard it once before, but I

'He must be; and what a sad thing! Such a good customer, too, and so successful in his business, by what I

Just then came an impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered, without waiting to be asked. It was

'I beg pardon, sir,' he said, 'but I should be much obliged if you would kindly desist '

Here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before him was responsible for the disturbance;

'But what in the name of Heaven does it mean?' broke out the lawyer. 'Where is it? Who is it? Am I going out

'Surely, Herr Jensen, it comes from your room next door? Isn't there a cat or something stuck in the chimney?'

This was the best that occurred to Anderson to say, and he realized its futility as he spoke; but anything was

better than to stand and listen to that horrible voice, and look at the broad, white face of the landlord, all

'Impossible,' said the lawyer, 'impossible. There is no chimney. I came here because I was convinced the

Suddenly the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and the singer was heard seemingly to

laugh to himself in a crooning manner. The three men actually shivered at the sound. Then there was a

'Come,' said the lawyer, 'what have you to say, Herr Kristensen? What does this mean?'

'Good Heaven!' said Kristensen. 'How should I tell! I know no more than you, gentlemen. I pray I may never

'So do I,' said Herr Jensen, and he added something under his breath. Anderson thought it sounded like the

last words of the Psalter, 'omnis spiritus laudet Dominum', but he could not be sure.

'But we must do something,' said Anderson 'the three of us. Shall we go and investigate in the next room?'

'But that is Herr Jensen's room,' wailed the landlord. 'It is no use; he has come from there himself.'

'I am not so sure,' said Jensen. 'I think this gentleman is right: we must go and see.'

The only weapons of defence that could be mustered on the spot were a stick and umbrella. The expedition

went out into the passage, not without quakings. There was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone from

under the next door. Anderson and Jensen approached it. The latter turned the handle, and gave a sudden

'Herr Kristensen,' said Jensen, 'will you go and fetch the strongest servant you have in the place? We must see

The landlord nodded, and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of action. Jensen and Anderson

'My room has three windows in the daytirne,' said Anderson, with difficulty suppressing a nervous laugh.

'By George, so has mine!' said the lawyer, turning and looking at Anderson. His back was now to the door. In

that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged,

yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long grey hair upon it. Anderson was just in

time to pull Jensen out of its reach with a cry of disgust and fright, when the door shut again, and a low laugh

Jensen had seen nothing, but when Anderson hurriedly told him what a risk he had run, he fell into a great

state of agitation, and suggested that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in one or

However, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two ablebodied men arrived on the scene, all

looking rather serious and alarmed. Jensen met them with a torrent of description and explanation, which did

The men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that they were not going to risk their throats

in that devil's den. The landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that if the danger were not

faced his hotel was ruined, and very loth to face it himself. Luckily Anderson hit upon a way of rallying the

'Is this,' he said, 'the Danish courage I have heard so much of? It isn't a German in there, and if it was, we are

The two servants and Jensen were stung into action by this, and made a dash at the door.

'Stop!' said Anderson. 'Don't lose your heads. You stay out here with the light, landlord, and one of you two

The men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar, and dealt a tremendous blow on the

upper panel. The result was not in the least what any of them anticipated. There was no cracking or rending

of wood only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and

began rubbing his elbow. His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment; then Anderson looked at the door

again. It was gone; the plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where

the crowbar had struck it. Number 13 had passed out of existence. For a brief space they stood perfectly still,

gazing at the blank wall. An early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow; and as Anderson glanced in

the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the end of the long passage that the eastern sky was

'Perhaps,' said the landlord, with hesitation, 'you gentlemen would like another room for tonight a

Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt inclined to hunt in couples after their

late experience. It was found convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he

wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle. They noticed that both Number

Next morning the same party reassembled in Number 12. The landlord was naturally anxious to avoid

engaging outside help, and yet it was imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should be

cleared up. Accordingly the two servants had been induced to take upon them the function of carpenters. The

furniture was cleared away, and, at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks, that portion of the

You will naturally suppose that a skeleton say that of Mag. Nicolas Francken was discovered. That was

not so. What they did find lying between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box. In

it was a neatlyfolded vellum document, with about twenty lines of writing. Both Anderson and Jensen (who

proved to be something of a palaeographer) were much excited by this discovery, which promised to afford

I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by

Hans Sebald Beham, representing a number of sages seated round a table. This detail may enable

connoisseurs to identify the book. I cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not at this moment within reach;

but the flyleaves of it are covered with writing, and, during the ten years in which I have owned the volume,

I have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be read, much less in what language it

is. Not dissimilar was the position of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted examination to which they

After two days' contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that

Anderson ventured upon no surmises, and was very willing to surrender the box and the parchment to the

I had the whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood near Upsala, after a visit to the library

there, where we or, rather, I had laughed over the contract by which Daniel Salthenius (in later life

Professor of Hebrew at Konigsberg) sold himself to Satan. Anderson was not really amused.

'Young idiot!' he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he committed that

And when I suggested the usual considerations he only grunted. That same afternoon he told me what you

have read; but he refused to draw any inferences from it, and to assent to any that I drew for him.

By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point

which the reader will learn from these pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a

They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common

product of the forties and fifties. Horace Marryat's Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the Danish Isles is a

fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These books usually treated of some unfamiliar district on the

Continent. They were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation,

and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any wellregulated guidebook, and they

dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers and garrulous peasants. In

Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the

character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve,

The writer was a Mr Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend entirely on the evidence his

writings afford, and from these I deduce that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means,

and very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in England, but was a denizen of hotels

and boardinghouses. It is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which

never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a

great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his that

It is further apparent that Mr Wraxall had published a book, and that it treated of a holiday he had once taken

in Brittany. More than this I cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical works has

convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or under a pseudonym.

As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. He must have been an intelligent and

cultivated man. It seems that he was near being a Fellow of his college at OxfordBrasenose, as I judge

from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of overinquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in

a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end.

On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book. Scandinavia, a region not widely

known to Englishmen forty years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. He must have lighted on some

old books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book

descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish

families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in Sweden, and set out

Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need

only mention that some savant resident there put him on the track of an important collection of family papers

belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manorhouse in Vestergothland, and obtained for him permission

The manorhouse, or herrgård, in question is to be called Råbäck (pronounced something like Roebeck),

though that is not its name. It is one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture of it in

Dahlenberg's Suecia antiqua et moderna, engraved in 1694, shows it very much as the tourist may see it

today. It was built soon after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very much like an English house of that period

in respect of materialredbrick with stone facingsand style. The man who built it was a scion of the

great house of De la Gardie, and his descendants possess it still. De la Gardie is the name by which I will

They received Mr Wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed him to stay in the house as long as

his researches lasted. But, preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in Swedish,

he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the

summer months. This arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manorhouse of

something under a mile. The house itself stood in a park, and was protectedwe should say grown upwith

large old timber. Near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood fringing one of the

small lakes with which the whole country is pitted. Then came the wall of the demesne, and you climbed a

steep knolla knob of rock lightly covered with soiland on the top of this stood the church, fenced in with

tall dark trees. It was a curious building to English eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews

and galleries. In the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted, and with silver pipes. The

ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a seventeenthcentury artist with a strange and hideous 'Last

Judgement', full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and brown and smiling demons.

Handsome brass coronae hung from the roof; the pulpit was like a doll'shouse, covered with little painted

wooden cherubs and saints; a stand with three hourglasses was hinged to the preacher's desk. Such sights as

these may be seen in many a church in Sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition to the

original building. At the eastern end of the north aisle the builder of the manorhouse had erected a

mausoleum for himself and his family. It was a largish eightsided building, lighted by a series of oval

windows, and it had a domed roof, topped by a kind of pumpkinshaped object rising into a spire, a form in

which Swedish architects greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally, and was painted black, while

the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access

Past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than three or four minutes bring you to the inn

On the first day of his stay at Råbäck Mr Wraxall found the church door open, and made those notes of the

interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by

looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a

wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation.

The papers he had come to examine at the manorhouse proved to be of just the kind he wanted for his book.

There were family correspondence, journals, and accountbooks of the ear]iest owners of the estate, very

carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque detail. The first De la Gardie appeared in

them as a strong and capable man. Shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period of

distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked several chateaux and done some damage. The

owner of Råbäck took a leading part in suppressing the trouble, and there was reference to executions of

The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the house, and Mr Wraxall studied it with no

little interest after his day's work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed

him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost

On this day Mr Wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back in the late but still bright evening.

'I must remember,' he writes, 'to ask the sexton if he can let me into the mausoleum at the church. He

evidently has access to it himself, for I saw him tonight standing on the steps, and, as I thought, locking or

I find that early on the following day Mr Wraxall had some conversation with his landlord. His setting it

down at such length as he does surprised me at first; but I soon realized that the papers I was reading were, at

least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of

those quasijournalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of conversational

His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count Magnus de la Gardie lingered on in the

scenes of that gentleman's activity, and whether the popular estimate of hirn were favourable or not. He found

that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his tenants came late to their work on the days which they

owed to him as Lord of the Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the

manorhouse yard. One or two cases there were of men who had occupied lands which encroached on the

lord's domain, and whose houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family

inside. But what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind mostfor he returned to the subject more than

oncewas that the Count had been on the Black Pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back

You will naturally inquire, as Mr Wraxall did, what the Black Pilgrimage may have been. But your curiosity

on the point must remain unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was evidently unwilling

to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the point, and, being called out for a moment, trotted off with

obvious alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes after wards to say that he was called away

So Mr Wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day's work at the manorhouse. The papers on which he was just

then engaged soon put his thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself with glancing over the

correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm and her married cousin Ulrica Leonora at Råbäck in

the years 170510. The letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that

period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of them in the publications of the

In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in which they were kept to their places

on the shelf, he proceeded, very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order to

determine which of them had best be his principal subject of investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon

was occupied mostly by a collection of accountbooks in the writing of the first Count Magnus. But one

among them was not an accountbook, but a book of alchemical and other tracts in another sixteenthcentury

hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr Wraxall spends much space which he might

have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises: The book of the Phoenix, book

of the Thirty Words, book of the Toad, book of Miriam, Turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he

announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the

middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself headed 'Liber nigrae peregrinationis'. It is true

that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had that morning

been referring to a belief at least as old as the time of Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the

'If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his

enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the prince. . .' Here

there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly done, so that Mr Wraxall felt pretty sure that he was

right in reading it as aëris ('of the air'). But there was no more of the text copied, only a line in Latin: 'Quaere

reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora' (See the rest of this matter among the more private things).

It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the tastes and beliefs of the Count; but to Mr

Wraxall, separated from him by nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his general

forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only made him a more picturesque figure; and

when, after a rather prolonged contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr Wraxall set out on his homeward

way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had no eyes for his surroundings, no perception

of the evening scents of the woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he pulled up

short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his

'Like many solitary men,' he writes, 'I have a habit of talking to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek

and Latin particles, I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was

neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped

some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough.'

That same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr Wraxall say that he wished to see the clerk or

deacon (as he would be called in Sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn parlour. A

visit to the De la Gardie tombhouse was soon arranged for the next day, and a little general conversation

Mr Wraxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to teach candidates for Confirmation,

The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had once been denounced.

'So I expect,' replied the deacon. 'I have heard some of our old priests say that Antichrist is to be born there;

'Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten,' said the deacon; and soon after that he said good night.

The landlord was now alone, and at Mr Wraxall's mercy; and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him.

'Herr Nielsen,' he said, 'I have found out something about the Black Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me

Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the landlord was an exception. I am not sure;

but Mr Wraxall notes that the landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said anything at

all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal of effort he spoke:

'Mr Wraxall, I can tell you this one little tale, and no morenot any more. You must not ask anything when I

have done. In my grandfather's timethat is, ninetytwo years agothere were two men who said: "The

Count is dead; we do not care for him. We will go tonight and have a free hunt in his wood"the long wood

on the hill that you have seen behind Råbäck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said: "No, do not go;

we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not be walking. They should be resting, not

walking." These men laughed. There were no forestmen to keep the wood, because no one wished to hunt

there. The family were not here at the house. These men could do what they wished.

'Very well, they go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting here in this room. It was the summer,

and a light night. With the window open, he could see out to the wood, and hear.

'So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. At first they hear nothing at all; then they

hear someoneyou know how far away it isthey hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of

his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of each other, and they sat so for

threequarters of an hour. Then they hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him

laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and, indeed, they have all of them said that it

'Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest. They said to him:

'"Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men, Anders Bjornsen and Hans

'You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went to the woodmy grandfather never

forgot this. He said they were all like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white fear.

'"I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I cannot forget that, I shall not be able to

'So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing

with his back against a tree, and all the time he was pushing with his handspushing something away from

him which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and took him to the house at

Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but he went on pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was

there; but he was dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was once a beautiful man, but now

his face was not there, because the flesh of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My

grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which they brought, and they put a cloth over

his head, and the priest walked before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could.

So, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and

the others looked back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of Anders Bjornsen were

looking up, because there was nothing to close over them. And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest

laid the cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that place.'

The next day Mr Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon after his breakfast, and took him to the

church and mausoleum. He noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it

occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him

to pay a second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be more of interest among them

than could be digested at first. The building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments,

mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were dignified if luxuriant, and the

epitaphs and heraldry were copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three copper

sarcophagi, covered with finelyengraved ornament. Two of them had, as is commonly the case in Denmark

and Sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid. The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared, had, instead of

that, a fulllength effigy engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar ornament

representing various scenes. One was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled towns, and troops

of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third, among trees, was a man running at full speed, with

flying hair and outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form; it would be hard to say whether the

artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it was

intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the drawing was

done, Mr Wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea. The figure was unduly short, and was for the most part

muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which projected from that

shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. Mr Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devilfish, and

continues: 'On seeing this, I said to myself, "This, then, which is evidently an allegorical representation of

some kinda fiend pursuing a hunted soulmay be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his

mysterious companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will be a demon blowing his

horn."' But, as it turned out, there was no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a

hillock, who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest which the engraver had tried to

Mr Wraxall noted the finelyworked and massive steel padlocksthree in numberwhich secured the

sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the

deacon longer or to waste his own workingtime, he made his way onward to the manorhouse.

'It is curious,' he notes, 'how on retracing a familiar path one's thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion

of surrounding objects. Tonight, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was going (I had

planned a private visit to the tombhouse to copy the epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to

consciousness, and found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I believe, singing or

chanting some such words as, "Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?" and then

something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this

He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he

'I must have been wrong,' he writes, 'in saying that one of the padlocks of my Count's sarcophagus was

unfastened; I see tonight that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the windowledge,

after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring

lock, I cannot guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken

the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear,

The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr Wraxall's stay at Råbäck. He received letters connected

with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the papers

was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, to make his farewells, put some

These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. The hospitable

family insisted on his staying to dine with themthey dined at threeand it was verging on halfpast six

before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to

saturate himself, now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he

reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of

woods near and distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought

struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The

church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It was not long

before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. 'You may have

been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus,' he was saying, 'but for all that I should like to see you, or,

'Just at that instant,' he says, 'I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on

the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus.

I stooped to pick it up, andHeaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truthbefore I had raised

myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have

behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building

in less time than I can writealmost as quickly as I could have saidthe words; and what frightens me yet

more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not

twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I

only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or

Poor Mr Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached

England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One

of several small notebooks that have come to me with his papers gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of,

his experiences. Much of his journey was made by canalboat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to

25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black cloak, brown hat.

This entry is lined out, and a note added: 'Perhaps identical with No. 13. Have not yet seen his face.' On

The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twentyeight people appear in the enumeration, one

being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and the other a 'short figure in dark cloak and hood'.

On the other hand, it is always noted that only twentysix passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the

On reaching England, it appears that Mr Wraxall landed at Harwich, and that he resolved at once to put

himself out of the reach of some person or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently

come to regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicleit was a closed flynot trusting the railway,

and drove across country to the village of Belchamp St Paul. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlight August

night when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of the window at the fields and

thicketsthere was little else to be seenracing past him. Suddenly he came to a crossroad. At the corner

two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood.

He had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse shied

violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr Wraxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. He

Arrived at Belchamp St Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next

twentyfour hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They

are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. He is

expecting a visit from his pursuershow or when he knows notand his constant cry is 'What has he done?'

and 'Is there no hope?' Doctors, he knows, would call him mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is

People still remembered last year at Belchamp St Paul how a strange gentleman came one evening in August

years back; and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that

viewed the body fainted, seven of 'em did, and none of 'em wouldn't speak to what they see, and the verdict

was visitation of God; and how the people as kep' the 'ouse moved out that same week, and went away from

that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown,

on the mystery. It so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had

stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of

which I have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best

'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full term is over, Professor,' said a person not in the

story to the Professor of Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in the

The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech. 'Yes,' he said; 'my friends have been making me take

up golf this term, and I mean to go to the East Coast in point of fact to Burnstow (I dare say you know it)

'Oh, Parkins,' said his neighbour on the other side, 'if you are going to Burnstow, I wish you would look at the

site of the Templars' preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in the

It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this, but, since he merely appears in

'Certainly,' said Parkins, the Professor: 'if you will describe to me whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to

give you an idea of the lie of the land when I get back; or I could write to you about it, if you would tell me

'Don't trouble to do that, thanks. It's only that I'm thinking of taking my family in that direction in the Long,

and it occurred to me that, as very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I might

The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory could be described as useful. His

'The site I doubt if there is anything showing above ground must be down quite close to the beach now.

The sea has encroached tremendously, as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map,

that it must be about threequarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at the north end of the town. Where are you

'Well, at the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact,' said Parkins; 'I have engaged a room there. I couldn't get in

anywhere else; most of the lodginghouses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they tell me that the

only room of any size I can have is really a doublebedded one, and that they haven't a corner in which to

store the other bed, and so on. But I must have a fairly large room, for I am taking some books down, and

mean to do a bit of work; and though I don't quite fancy having an empty bed not to speak of two in what

I may call for the time being my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it for the short time I shall be there.'

'Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it. Parkins?' said a bluff person opposite. 'Look here,

'By all means, Rogers; there's nothing I should like better. But I'm afraid you would find it rather dull; you

don't play golf, do you?' 'No, thank Heaven!' said rude Mr Rogers. 'Well, you see, when I'm not writing I

shall most likely be out on the links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you. I'm afraid.'

'Oh, I don't know! There's certain to be somebody I know in the place; but, of course, if you don't want me,

speak the word. Parkins; I shan't be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.'

Parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is to be feared that Mr Rogers sometimes

practised upon his knowledge of these characteristics. In Parkins's breast there was a conflict now raging,

which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. That interval being over, he said:

'Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether the room I speak of would really be

large enough to accommodate us both comfortably; and also whether (mind, I shouldn't have said this if you

hadn't pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of a hindrance to my work.' Rogers

'Well done. Parkins!' he said. 'It's all right. I promise not to interrupt your work; don't you disturb yourself

about that. No, I won't come if you don't want me; but I thought I should do so nicely to keep the ghosts off.'

Here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his next neighbour. Parkins might also have been seen to

become pink. 'I beg pardon. Parkins,' Rogers continued; 'I oughtn't to have said that. I forgot you didn't like

'Well,' Parkins said, 'as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own that I do not like careless talk about what

you call ghosts. A man in my position,' he went on, raising his voice a little, 'cannot, I find, be too careful

about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects. As you know, Rogers, or as you ought to

' I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is

equivalent to a renunciation of all that I hold most sacred. But I'm afraid I have not succeeded in securing

'Your undivided attention, was what Dr Blimber actually said,'(1) Rogers interrupted, with every appearance

of an earnest desire for accuracy. 'But I beg your pardon. Parkins; I'm stopping you.'

'No, not at all,' said Parkins. 'I don't remember Blimber; perhaps he was before my time. But I needn't go on.

'Yes, yes,' said Rogers, rather hastily 'just so. We'll go into it fully at Burnstow, or somewhere.'

In repeating the above dialogue I have tried to give the impression which it made on me, that Parkins was

something of an old woman rather henlike, perhaps, in his little ways; totally destitute, alas! of the sense

of humour, but at the same time dauntless and sincere in his convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest

respect. Whether or not the reader has gathered so much, that was the character which Parkins had.

On the following day Parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting away from his college, and in arriving

at Burnstow. He was made welcome at the Globe Inn, was safely installed in the large doublebedded room

of which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest to arrange his materials for work in applepie

order upon a commodious table which occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides

by windows looking out seaward; that is to say, the central window looked straight out to sea, and those on

the left and right commanded prospects along the shore to the north and south respectively. On the south you

saw the village of Burnstow. On the north no houses were to be seen, but only the beach and the low cliff

backing it. Immediately in front was a strip not considerable of rough grass, dotted with old anchors,

capstans, and so forth; then a broad path; then the beach. Whatever may have been the original distance

between the Globe Inn and the sea, not more than sixty yards now separated them.

The rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one, and included few elements that call for a

special description. The most conspicuous figure was, perhaps, that of an ancien militaire, secretary of a

London club, and possessed of a voice of incredible strength, and of views of a pronouncedly Protestant type.

These were apt to find utterance after his attendance upon the ministrations of the Vicar, an estimable man

with inclinations towards a picturesque ritual, which he gallantly kept down as far as he could out of

Professor Parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was pluck, spent the greater part of the day

following his arrival at Burnstow in what he had called improving his game, in company with this Colonel

Wilson: and during the afternoon whether the process of improvement were to blame or not, I am not sure

the Colonel's demeanour assumed a colouring so lurid that even Parkins jibbed at the thought of walking

home with him from the links. He determined, after a short and furtive look at that bristling moustache and

those incarnadined features, that it would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what they

could with the Colonel before the dinnerhour should render a meeting inevitable.

'I might walk home tonight along the beach,' he reflected 'yes, and take a look there will be light enough

for that at the ruins of which Disney was talking. I don't exactly know where they are, by the way; but I

expect I can hardly help stumbling on them.' This he accomplished, I may say, in the most literal sense, for in

picking his way from the links to the shingle beach his foot caught, partly in a gorseroot and partly in a

biggish stone, and over he went. When he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a patch

of somewhat broken ground covered with small depressions and mounds. These latter, when he came to

examine them, proved to be simply masses of flints embedded in mortar and grown over with turf. He must,

he quite rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had promised to look at. It seemed not unlikely

to reward the spade of the explorer; enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth to throw a

good deal of light on the general plan. He remembered vaguely that the Templars, to whom this site had

belonged, were in the habit of building round churches, and he thought a particular series of the humps or

mounds near him did appear to be arranged in something of a circular form. Few people can resist the

temptation to try a little amateur research in a department quite outside their own, if only for the satisfaction

of showing how successful they would have been had they only taken it up seriously. Our Professor,

however, if he felt something of this mean desire, was also truly anxious to oblige Mr Disney. So he paced

with care the circular area he had noticed, and wrote down its rough dimensions in his pocketbook. Then he

proceeded to examine an oblong eminence which lay east of the centre of the circle, and seemed to his

thinking likely to be the base of a platform or altar. At one end of it, the northern, a patch of the turf was gone

removed by some boy or other creature ferae naturae. It might, he thought, be as well to probe the soil here

for evidences of masonry, and he took out his knife and began scraping away the earth. And now followed

another little discovery: a portion of soil fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted

one match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but the wind was too strong for them

all. By tapping and scratching the sides with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an

artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and bottom, if not actually plastered, were

smooth and regular. Of course it was empty. No! As he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink, and

when he introduced his hand it met with a cylindrical object lying on the floor of the hole. Naturally enough,

he picked it up, and when he brought it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it, too, was of man's

making a metal tube about four inches long, and evidently of some considerable age.

By the time Parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this odd receptacle, it was too late and too

dark for him to think of undertaking any further search. What he had done had proved so unexpectedly

interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more of the daylight on the morrow to archaeology. The

object which he now had safe in his pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least, he felt sure.

Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before starting homeward. A faint yellow light

in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving towards the clubhouse were still visible, the

squat martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the pale ribbon of sands intersected at intervals by black

wooden groynes, the dim and murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when

he set out for the Globe. He quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon which,

but for the groynes which had to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. One last

look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the ruined Templars' church, showed him a

prospect of company on his walk, in the shape of a rather indistinct personage, who seemed to be making

great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress. I mean that there was an appearance of

running about his movements, but that the distance between him and Parkins did not seem materially to

lessen. So, at least, Parkins thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not know him, and that it would

be absurd to wait until he came up. For all that, company, he began to think, would really be very welcome

on that lonely shore, if only you could choose your companion. In his unenlightened days he had read of

meetings in such places which even now would hardly bear thinking of. He went on thinking of them,

however, until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches most people's fancy at some time of

their childhood. 'Now I saw in my dream that Christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul

fiend coming over the field to meet him.' 'What should I do now,' he thought, 'if I looked back and caught

sight of a black figure sharply defined against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings? I wonder

whether I should stand or run for it. Luckily, the gentleman behind is not of that kind, and he seems to be

about as far off now as when I saw him first. Well, at this rate he won't get his dinner as soon as I shall; and,

Parkins had, in fact, very little time for dressing. When he met the Colonel at dinner. Peace or as much of

her as that gentleman could manage reigned once more in the military bosom; nor was she put to flight in

the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for Parkins was a more than respectable player. When, therefore, he

retired towards twelve o'clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a satisfactory way, and that, even

for so long as a fortnight or three weeks, life at the Globe would be supportable under similar conditions

As he went along the passages he met the boots of the Globe, who stopped and said: 'Beg your pardon, sir,

but as I was abrushing your coat just now there was somethink fell out of the pocket. I put it on your chest

of drawers, sir, in your room, sir a piece of a pipe or somethink of that, sir. Thank you, sir. You'll find it on

The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that afternoon. It was with some considerable

curiosity that he turned it over by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw, and was shaped very

much after the manner of the modern dogwhistle; in fact it was yes, certainly it was actually no more

nor less than a whistle. He put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, cakedup sand or earth, which

would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a knife. Tidy as ever in his habits. Parkins cleared out

the earth on to a piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out. The night was clear and

bright, as he saw when he had opened the casement, and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a

belated wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn. Then he shut the window, a little surprised at the

late hours people kept at Burnstow, and took his whistle to the light again. Why, surely there were marks on

it, and not merely marks, but letters! A very little rubbing rendered the deeplycut inscription quite legible,

but the Professor had to confess, after some earnest thought, that the meaning of it was as obscure to him as

the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. There were legends both on the front and on the back of the whistle.

'I ought to be able to make it out,' he thought; 'but I suppose I am a little rusty in my Latin. When I come to

think of it, I don't believe I even know the word for a whistle. The long one does seem simple enough. It

ought to mean, "Who is this who is coming?" Well, the best way to find out is evidently to whistle for him.'

He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the note he had elicited. It had a quality

of infinite distance in it, and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles round. It was a

sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He

saw quite clearly for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind blowing and in the

midst a lonely figure how employed, he could not tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the

picture been broken by the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that it made him

look up, just in time to see the white glint of a seabird's wing somewhere outside the dark panes.

The sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help trying it once more, this time more

boldly. The note was little, if at all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion no picture

followed, as he had half hoped it might. 'But what is this? Goodness! what force the wind can get up in a few

minutes! What a tremendous gust! There! I knew that windowfastening was no use! Ah! I thought so both

The first thing was to get the window shut. While you might count twenty Parkins was struggling with the

small casement, and felt almost as if he were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the pressure. It

slackened all at once, and the window banged to and latched itself. Now to relight the candles and see what

damage, if any, had been done. No, nothing seemed amiss; no glass even was broken in the casement. But the

noise had evidently roused at least one member of the household: the Colonel was to be heard slumping in his

Quickly as it had risen, the wind did not fall at once. On it went, moaning and rushing past the house, at times

rising to a cry so desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have made fanciful people feel quite

uncomfortable; even the unimaginative, he thought after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it.

Whether it was the wind, or the excitement of golf, or of the researches in the preceptory that kept Parkins

awake, he was not sure. Awake he remained, in any case, long enough to fancy (as I am afraid I often do

myself under such conditions) that he was the victim of all manner of fatal disorders: he would lie counting

the beats of his heart, convinced that it was going to stop work every moment, and would entertain grave

suspicions of his lungs, brain, liver, etc. suspicions which he was sure would be dispelled by the return of

daylight, but which until then refused to be put aside. He found a little vicarious comfort in the idea that

someone else was in the same boat. A near neighbour (in the darkness it was not easy to tell his direction)

The next stage was that Parkins shut his eyes and determined to give sleep every chance. Here again

overexcitement asserted itself in another form that of making pictures. Experto crede, pictures do come to

the closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to his taste that he must open his eyes and

Parkins's experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. He found that the picture which presented

itself to him was continuous. When he opened his eyes, of course, it went; but when he shut them once more

it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither quicker nor slower than before. What he saw was

this: A long stretch of shore shingle edged by sand, and intersected at short intervals with black groynes

running down to the water a scene, in fact, so like that of his afternoon's walk that, in the absence of any

landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. The light was obscure, conveying an impression of

gathering storm, late winter evening, and slight cold rain. On this bleak stage at first no actor was visible.

Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a moment more, and it was a man running, jumping,

clambering over the groynes, and every few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came the more

obvious it was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly frightened, though his face was not to be

distinguished. He was, moreover, almost at the end of his strength. On he came; each successive obstacle

seemed to cause him more difficulty than the last. 'Will he get over this next one?' thought Parkins; 'it seems a

little higher than the others.' Yes; halfclimbing, half throwing himself, he did get over, and fell all in a heap

on the other side (the side nearest to the spectator). There, as if really unable to get up again, he remained

So far no cause whatever for the fear of the runner had been shown; but now there began to be seen, far up

the shore, a little flicker of something lightcoloured moving to and fro with great swiftness and irregularity.

Rapidly growing larger, it, too, declared itself as a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, illdefined. There was

something about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close quarters. It would stop, raise

arms, bow itself toward the sand, then run stooping across the beach to the wateredge and back again; and

then, rising upright, once more continue its course forward at a speed that was startling and terrifying. The

moment came when the pursuer was hovering about from left to right only a few yards beyond the groyne

where the runner lay in hiding. After two or three ineffectual castings hither and thither it came to a stop,

stood upright, with arms raised high, and then darted straight forward towards the groyne.

It was at this point that Parkins always failed in his resolution to keep his eyes shut. With many misgivings as

to incipient failure of eyesight, overworked brain, excessive smoking, and so on, he finally resigned himself

to light his candle, get out a book, and pass the night waking, rather than be tormented by this persistent

panorama, which he saw clearly enough could only be a morbid reflection of his walk and his thoughts on

The scraping of match on box and the glare of light must have startled some creatures of the night rats or

what not which he heard scurry across the floor from the side of his bed with much rustling. Dear, dear! the

match is out! Fool that it is! But the second one burnt better, and a candle and book were duly procured, over

which Parkins pored till sleep of a wholesome kind came upon him, and that in no long space. For about the

first time in his orderly and prudent life he forgot to blow out the candle, and when he was called next

morning at eight there was still a flicker in the socket and a sad mess of guttered grease on the top of the little

After breakfast he was in his room, putting the finishing touches to his golfing costume fortune had again

'Oh, if you please,' she said, 'would you like any extra blankets on your bed, sir?'

'Ah! thank you,' said Parkins. 'Yes, I think I should like one. It seems likely to turn rather colder.'

'Which bed should I put it on, sir?' she asked. 'What? Why, that one the one I slept in last night,' he said,

'Oh yes! I beg your pardon, sir, but you seemed to have tried both of 'em; leastways, we had to make 'em both

'Really? How very absurd!' said Parkins. 'I certainly never touched the other, except to lay some things on it.

'Oh, yes, sir!' said the maid. 'Why, all the things was crumpled and throwed about all ways, if you'll excuse

'Dear me,' said Parkins. 'Well, I may have disordered it more than I thought when I unpacked my things. I'm

very sorry to have given you the extra trouble. I'm sure. I expect a friend of mine soon, by the way a

gentleman from Cambridge to come and occupy it for a night or two. That will be all right, I suppose, won't

'Oh yes, to be sure, sir. Thank you, sir. It's no trouble. I'm sure,' said the maid, and departed to giggle with her

I am glad to be able to report that he succeeded so far in this enterprise that the Colonel, who had been rather

repining at the prospect of a second day's play in his company, became quite chatty as the morning advanced;

and his voice boomed out over the flats, as certain also of our own minor poets have said, 'like some great

'Extraordinary wind, that, we had last night,' he said. 'In my old home we should have said someone had been

'Should you, indeed!' said Parkins, 'Is there a superstition of that kind still current in your part of the country?'

'I don't know about superstition,' said the Colonel. 'They believe in it all over Denmark and Norway, as well

as on the Yorkshire coast; and my experience is, mind you, that there's generally something at the bottom of

what these countryfolk hold to, and have held to for generations. But it's your drive' (or whatever it might

have been: the golfing reader will have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals).

'Apropos of what you were saying just now. Colonel, I think I ought to tell you that my own views on such

subjects are very strong. I am, in fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the "supernatural".'

'What!' said the Colonel, 'do you mean to tell me you don't believe in secondsight, or ghosts, or anything of

'Well,' said the Colonel, 'but it appears to me at that rate, sir, that you must be little better than a Sadducee.'

Parkins was on the point of answering that, in his opinion, the Sadducees were the most sensible persons he

had ever read of in the Old Testament; but, feeling some doubt as to whether much mention of them was to

'Perhaps I am,' he said; 'but Here, give me my cleek, boy! Excuse me one moment. Colonel.' A short

interval. 'Now, as to whistling for the wind, let me give you my theory about it. The laws which govern winds

are really not at all perfectly known to fisherfolk and such, of course, not known at all. A man or woman

of eccentric habits, perhaps, or a stranger, is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour, and is heard

whistling. Soon afterwards a violent wind rises; a man who could read the sky perfectly or who possessed a

barometer could have foretold that it would. The simple people of a fishingvillage have no barometers, and

only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. What more natural than that the eccentric personage I

postulated should be regarded as having raised the wind, or that he or she should clutch eagerly at the

reputation of being able to do so? Now, take last night's wind: as it happens, I myself was whistling. I blew a

whistle twice, and the wind seemed to come absolutely in answer to my call. If anyone had seen me '

The audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and Parkins had, I fear, fallen somewhat into the

'Whistling, were you?' he said. 'And what sort of whistle did you use? Play this stroke first.' Interval.

'About that whistle you were asking. Colonel. It's rather a curious one. I have it in my No; I see I've left in it

And then Parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle, upon hearing which the Colonel

grunted, and opined that, in Parkins's place, he should himself be careful about using a thing that had

belonged to a set of Papists, of whom, speaking generally, it might be affirmed that you never knew what

they might not have been up to. From this topic he diverged to the enormities of the Vicar, who had given

notice on the previous Sunday that Friday would be the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, and that there would

be service at eleven o'clock in the church. This and other similar proceedings constituted in the Colonel's

view a strong presumption that the Vicar was a concealed Papist, if not a Jesuit; and Parkins, who could not

very readily follow the Colonel in this region, did not disagree with him. In fact, they got on so well together

in the morning that there was no talk on either side of their separating after lunch.

Both continued to play well during the afternoon, or, at least, well enough to make them forget everything

else until the light began to fail them. Not until then did Parkins remember that he had meant to do some

more investigating at the preceptory; but it was of no great importance, he reflected. One day was as good as

As they turned the corner of the house, the Colonel was almost knocked down by a boy who rushed into him

at the very top of his speed, and then, instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting. The

first words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and objurgation, but he very quickly discerned that

the boy was almost speechless with fright. Inquiries were useless at first. When the boy got his breath he

began to howl, and still clung to the Colonel's legs. He was at last detached, but continued to howl.

'What in the world is the matter with you? What have you been up to? What have you seen?' said the two

'Ow, I seen it wive at me out of the winder,' wailed the boy, 'and I don't like it.'

'What window?' said the irritated Colonel. 'Come, pull yourself together, my boy.' 'The front winder it was, at

the 'otel,' said the boy. At this point Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the Colonel refused;

he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had

had, and if it turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer for it in some way. And by a

series of questions he made out this story. The boy had been playing about on the grass in front of the Globe

with some others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he was just going, when he happened to look up

at the front winder and see it awiving at him. It seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white as far as he

knew couldn't see its face; but it wived at him, and it warn't a right thing not to say not a right person.

Was there a light in the room? No, he didn't think to look if there was a light. Which was the window? Was it

the top one or the second one? The seckind one it was the big winder what got two little uns at the sides.

'Very well, my boy,' said the Colonel, after a few more questions. 'You run away home now. I expect it was

some person trying to give you a start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a stone well,

no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter, or to Mr Simpson, the landlord, and yes and say

The boy's face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood of Mr Simpson's lending a favourable

ear to his complaint, but the Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on:

'And here's a sixpence no, I see it's a shilling and you be off home, and don't think any more about it.'

The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins went round to the front of the Globe

and reconnoitred. There was only one window answering to the description they had been hearing.

'Well, that's curious,' said Parkins; 'it's evidently my window the lad was talking about. Will you come up for

a moment. Colonel Wilson? We ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my room.'

They were soon in the passage, and Parkins made as if to open the door. Then he stopped and felt in his

'This is more serious than I thought,' was his next remark. 'I remember now that before I started this morning

I locked the door. It is locked now, and, what is more, here is the key.' And he held it up. 'Now,' he went on,

'if the servants are in the habit of going into one's room during the day when one is away, I can only say that

well, that I don't approve of it at all.' Conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied himself in opening

the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting candles. 'No,' he said, 'nothing seems disturbed.' 'Except

your bed,' put in the Colonel. 'Excuse me, that isn't my bed,' said Parkins. 'I don't use that one. But it does

It certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a most tortuous confusion. Parkins

pondered. 'That must be it,' he said at last: 'I disordered the clothes last night in unpacking, and they haven't

made it since. Perhaps they came in to make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they

'Well, ring and ask,' said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as practical.

The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she had made the bed in the morning when

the gentleman was in the room, and hadn't been there since. No, she hadn't no other key. Mr Simpson he kep'

This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been taken, and Parkins remembered the

disposition of the small objects on tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had been

played with them. Mr and Mrs Simpson furthermore agreed that neither of them had given the duplicate key

of the room to any person whatever during the day. Nor could Parkins, fairminded man as he was, detect

anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that indicated guilt. He was much more inclined to

The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout the evening. When he bade good night

to Parkins, he murmured in a gruff undertone: 'You know where I am if you want me during the night.' 'Why,

yes, thank you. Colonel Wilson, I think I do; but there isn't much prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. By

the way,' he added, 'did I show you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.'

'Can you make anything of the inscription?' asked Parkins, as he took it back. 'No, not in this light. What do

'Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it to some of the archaeologists there, and see what

they think of it; and very likely, if they consider it worth having, I may present it to one of the museums.'

''M!' said the Colonel. 'Well, you may be right. All I know is that, if it were mine, I should chuck it straight

into the sea. It's no use talking. I'm well aware, but I expect that with you it's a case of live and learn. I hope

He turned away, leaving Parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the stair, and soon each was in his own

By some unfortunate accident, there were neither blinds nor curtains to the windows of the Professor's room.

The previous night he had thought little of this, but tonight there seemed every prospect of a bright moon

rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later on. When he noticed this he was a good deal

annoyed, but, with an ingenuity which I can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the help of a

railwayrug, some safetypins, and a stick and umbrella, a screen which, if it only held together, would

completely keep the moonlight off his bed. And shortly afterwards he was comfortably in that bed. When he

had read a somewhat solid work long enough to produce a decided wish for sleep, he cast a drowsy glance

He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter shook him up in a most unwelcome

manner. In a moment he realized what had happened: his carefullyconstructed screen had given way, and a

very bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was highly annoying. Could he possibly get up

For some minutes he lay and pondered over the possibilities; then he turned over sharply, and with all his

eyes open lay breathlessly listening. There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the

opposite side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there must be rats or something playing

about in it. It was quiet now. No! the commotion began again. There was a rustling and shaking: surely more

I can figure to myself something of the Professor's bewilderment and horror, for I have in a dream thirty years

back seen the same thing happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was to him to

see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty bed. He was out of his own bed in one

bound, and made a dash towards the window, where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he had

propped his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he could have done, because the personage in

the empty bed, with a sudden smooth motion, slipped from the bed and took up a position, with outspread

arms, between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins watched it in a horrid perplexity. Somehow, the

idea of getting past it and escaping through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have borne he

didn't know why to touch it; and as for its touching him, he would sooner dash himself through the window

than have that happen. It stood for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what its face

was like. Now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all at once the spectator realized, with some horror

and some relief, that it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a groping and

random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and

darted towards it, and bent over and felt the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder as he had never in

his life thought it possible. In a very few moments it seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then,

moving forward into the area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time what manner of

Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once describe something of it in my hearing,

and I gathered that what he chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face of crumbled

linen. What expression he read upon it he could not or would not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to

But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable quickness it moved into the middle of the

room, and, as it groped and waved, one corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not

though he knew how perilous a sound was he could not keep back a cry of disgust, and this gave the

searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him upon the instant, and the next moment he was halfway through

the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and the linen face was thrust

close into his own. At this, almost the last possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed: the

Colonel burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at the window. When he reached

the figures only one was left. Parkins sank forward into the room in a faint, and before him on the floor lay a

Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone else out of the room and in

getting Parkins back to his bed; and himself, wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed for the rest of the

night. Early on the next day Rogers arrived, more welcome than he would have been a day before, and the

three of them held a very long consultation in the Professor's room. At the end of it the Colonel left the hotel

door carrying a small object between his finger and thumb, which he cast as far into the sea as a very brawny

arm could send it. Later on the smoke of a burning ascended from the back premises of the Globe.

Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at the hotel I must confess I do not

recollect. The Professor was somehow cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of the

There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if the Colonel had not intervened

when he did. He would either have fallen out of the window or else lost his wits. But it is not so evident what

more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done than frighten. There seemed to be

absolutely nothing material about it save the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel, who

remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of opinion that if Parkins had closed with it it

could really have done very little, and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole thing, he said,

There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the Professor's views on certain points are less

clear cut than they used to be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a surplice hanging on a

door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more

'Verum usque in praesentem diem multa garriunt inter se Canonici de abscondito quodam istius Abbatis

Thomae thesauro, quem saepe, quanquam adhuc incassum, quaesiverunt Steinfeldenses. Ipsum enim

Thomam adhuc florida in aetate existentem ingentem auri massam circa monasterium defodisse perhibent; de

quo multoties interrogatus ubi esset, cum risu respondere solitus erat: "Job, Johannes, et Zacharias vel vobis

vel posteris indicabunt"; idemque aliquando adiicere se inventuris minime invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis

opera, hoc memoria praecipue dignum iudico quod fenestram magnam in orientali parte alae australis in

ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro depictis impleverit: id quod et ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem posita

demonstrant. Domum quoque Abbatialem fere totam restauravit: puteo in atrio ipsius effosso et lapidibus

marmoreis pulchre caelatis exornato. Decessit autem, morte aliquantulum subitanea perculsus, aetatis suae

'I suppose I shall have to translate this,' said the antiquary to himself, as he finished copying the above lines

from that rather rare and exceedingly diffuse book, the Sertum Steinfeldense Norbertinum.(1) 'Well, it may as

well be done first as last,' and accordingly the following rendering was very quickly produced:

'Up to the present day there is much gossip among the Canons about a certain hidden treasure of this Abbot

Thomas, for which those of Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story is that

Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery.

He was often asked where it was, and always answered, with a laugh: "Job, John, and Zechariah will tell

either you or your successors." He sometimes added that he should feel no grudge against those who might

find it. Among other works carried out by this Abbot I may specially mention his filling the great window at

the east end of the south aisle of the church with figures admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and arms in

the window attest. He also restored almost the whole of the Abbot's lodging, and dug a well in the court of it,

which he adorned with beautiful carvings in marble. He died rather suddenly in the seventysecond year of

The object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of tracing the whereabouts of the

painted windows of the Abbey Church of Steinfeld. Shortly after the Revolution, a very large quantity of

painted glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of Germany and Belgium to this country, and may now

be seen adorning various of our parish churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. Steinfeld Abbey was among

the most considerable of these involuntary contributors to our artistic possessions (I am quoting the

somewhat ponderous preamble of the book which the antiquary wrote), and the greater part of the glass from

that institution can be identified without much difficulty by the help, either of the numerous inscriptions in

which the place is mentioned, or of the subjects of the windows, in which several welldefined cycles or

The passage with which I began my story had set the antiquary on the track of another identification. In a

private chapelno matter wherehe had seen three large figures, each occupying a whole light in a

window, and evidently the work of one artist. Their style made it plain that the artist had been a German of

the sixteenth century; but hitherto the more exact localizing of them had been a puzzle. They

representedwill you be surprised to hear it?Job Patriarcha, Johannes Evangelista, Zacharias Propheta,

and each of them held a book or scroll, inscribed with a sentence from his writings. These, as a matter of

course, the antiquary had noted, and had been struck by the curious way in which they differed from any text

of the Vulgate that he had been able to examine. Thus the scroll in Job's hand was inscribed: 'Auro est locus

in quo absconditur' (for 'conflatur');(2) on the book of John was: 'Habent in vestimentis suis scripturam quam

nemo novit'(3) (for 'in vestimento scriptum', the following words being taken from another verse); and

Zacharias had: 'Super lapidem unum septem oculi sunt'(4) (which alone of the three presents an unaltered

A sad perplexity it had been to our investigator to think why these three personages should have been placed

together in one window. There was no bond of connection between them, either historic, symbolic, or

doctrinal, and he could only suppose that they must have formed part of a very large series of Prophets and

Apostles, which might have filled, say, all the clerestory windows of some capacious church. But the passage

from the 'Sertum' had altered the situation by showing that the names of the actual personages represented in

the glass now in Lord D's chapel had been constantly on the lips of Abbot Thomas von Eschenhausen of

Steinfeld, and that this Abbot had put up a painted window, probably about the year 1520, in the south aisle

of his abbey church. It was no very wild conjecture that the three figures might have formed part of Abbot

Thomas's offering; it was one which, moreover, could probably be confirmed or set aside by another careful

examination of the glass. And, as Mr Somerton was a man of leisure, he set out on pilgrimage to the private

chapel with very little delay. His conjecture was confirmed to the full. Not only did the style and technique of

the glass suit perfectly with the date and place required, but in another window of the chapel he found some

glass, known to have been bought along with the figures, which contained the arms of Abbot Thomas von

At intervals during his researches Mr Somerton had been haunted by the recollection of the gossip about the

hidden treasure, and, as he thought the matter over, it became more and more obvious to him that if the Abbot

meant anything by the enigmatical answer which he gave to his questioners, he must have meant that the

secret was to be found somewhere in the window he had placed in the abbey church. It was undeniable,

furthermore, that the first of the curiouslyselected texts on the scrolls in the window might be taken to have

Every feature, therefore, or mark which could possibly assist in elucidating the riddle which, he felt sure, the

Abbot had set to posterity he noted with scrupulous care, and, returning to his Berkshire manorhouse,

consumed many a pint of the midnight oil over his tracings and sketches. After two or three weeks, a day

came when Mr Somerton announced to his man that he must pack his own and his master's things for a short

Mr Gregory, the Rector of Parsbury, had strolled out before breakfast, it being a fine autumn morning, as far

as the gate of his carriagedrive, with intent to meet the postman and sniff the cool air. Nor was he

disappointed of either purpose. Before he had had time to answer more than ten or eleven of the

miscellaneous questions propounded to him in the lightness of their hearts by his young offspring, who had

accompanied him, the postman was seen approaching; and among the morning's budget was one letter

bearing a foreign postmark and stamp (which became at once the objects of an eager competition among the

youthful Gregorys), and was addressed in an uneducated, but plainly an English hand.

When the Rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realized that it came from the confidential valet of

Has I am in a great anxeity about Master I write at is Wish to Beg you Sir if you could be so good as Step

over. Master Has add a Nastey Shock and keeps His Bedd. I never Have known Him like this but No wonder

and Nothing will serve but you Sir. Master says would I mintion the Short Way Here is Drive to Cobblince

and take a Trap. Hopeing I Have maid all Plain, but am much Confused in Myself what with Anxiatey and

Weakfulness at Night. If I might be so Bold Sir it will be a Pleasure to see a Honnest Brish Face among all

The reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise, confusion, and hurry of preparation into

which the receipt of such a letter would be likely to plunge a quiet Berkshire parsonage in the year of grace

1859. It is enough for me to say that a train to town was caught in the course of the day, and that Mr Gregory

was able to secure a cabin in the Antwerp boat and a place in the Coblentz train. Nor was it difficult to

I labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story in that I have never visited Steinfeld myself, and

that neither of the principal actors in the episode (from whom I derive my information) was able to give me

anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance. I gather that it is a small place, with a large

church despoiled of its ancient fittings; a number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of the seventeenth

century, surround this church; for the abbey, in common with most of those on the Continent, was rebuilt in a

luxurious fashion by its inhabitants at that period. It has not seemed to me worth while to lavish money on a

visit to the place, for though it is probably far more attractive than either Mr Somerton or Mr Gregory thought

it, there is evidently little, if anything, of firstrate interest to be seenexcept, perhaps, one thing, which I

The inn where the English gentleman and his servant were lodged is, or was, the only 'possible' one in the

village. Mr Gregory was taken to it at once by his driver, and found Mr Brown waiting at the door. Mr

Brown, a model when in his Berkshire home of the impassive whiskered race who are known as confidential

valets, was now egregiously out of his element, in a light tweed suit, anxious, almost irritable, and plainly

anything but master of the situation. His relief at the sight of the 'honest British face' of his Rector was

'Well, I ham pleased, I'm sure, sir, to see you. And so I'm sure, sir, will master.'

'I think he's better, sir, thank you; but he's had a dreadful time of it. I 'ope he's gettin' some sleep now, but'

'What has been the matterI couldn't make out from your letter? Was it an accident of any kind?'

'Well, sir, I 'ardly know whether I'd better speak about it. Master was very partickler he should be the one to

tell you. But there's no bones brokethat's one thing I'm sure we ought to be thankful'

They were by this time outside Mr Somerton's bedroom door, and speaking in low tones. Mr Gregory, who

happened to be in front, was feeling for the handle, and chanced to run his fingers over the panels. Before

'Yes, sirme, sir, and Mr Gregory,' Brown hastened to answer, and there was an audible groan of relief in

They entered the room, which was darkened against the afternoon sun, and Mr Gregory saw, with a shock of

pity, how drawn, how damp with drops of fear, was the usually calm face of his friend, who, sitting up in the

'Better for seeing you, my dear Gregory,' was the reply to the Rector's first question, and it was palpably true.

After five minutes of conversation Mr Somerton was more his own man, Brown afterwards reported, than he

had been for days. He was able to eat a more than respectable dinner, and talked confidently of being fit to

'But there's one thing,' he said, with a return of agitation which Mr Gregory did not like to see, 'which I must

beg you to do for me, my dear Gregory. Don't,' he went on, laying his hand on Gregory's to forestall any

interruption'don't ask me what it is, or why I want it done. I'm not up to explaining it yet; it would throw

me backundo all the good you have done me by coming. The only word I will say about it is that you run

no risk whatever by doing it, and that Brown can and will show you tomorrow what it is. It's merely to put

'Well, Somerton,' said Mr Gregory, as he crossed the room to the door, 'I won't ask for any explanations till

you see fit to give them. And if this bit of business is as easy as you represent it to be, I will very gladly

'Ah, I was sure you would, my dear Gregory; I was certain I could rely on you. I shall owe you more thanks

'Not at all. Dear me, no. Brown, the first thing tomorrow morning(you don't mind early hours, I know,

Gregory) you must take the Rector tothere, you know' (a nod from Brown, who looked grave and anxious),

'and he and you will put that back. You needn't be in the least alarmed; it's perfectly safe in the daytime. You

know what I mean. It lies on the step, you know, wherewhere we put it.' (Brown swallowed dryly once or

twice, and, failing to speak, bowed.) 'Andyes, that's all. Only this one other word, my dear Gregory. If you

can manage to keep from questioning Brown about this matter, I shall be still more bound to you. Tomorrow

evening, at latest, if all goes well, I shall be able, I believe, to tell you the whole story from start to finish.

And now I'll wish you good night. Brown will be with mehe sleeps hereand if I were you, I should lock

my door. Yes, be particular to do that. Theythey like it, the people here, and it's better. Good night, good

They parted upon this, and if Mr Gregory woke once or twice in the small hours and fancied he heard a

fumbling about the lower part of his locked door, it was, perhaps, no more than what a quiet man, suddenly

plunged into a strange bed and the heart of a mystery, might reasonably expect. Certainly he thought, to the

end of his days, that he had heard such a sound twice or three times between midnight and dawn.

He was up with the sun, and out in company with Brown soon after. Perplexing as was the service he had

been asked to perform for Mr Somerton, it was not a difficult or an alarming one, and within half an hour

Later in the morning Mr Somerton, now almost himself again, was able to make a start from Steinfeld; and

that same evening, whether at Coblentz or at some intermediate stage on the journey I am not certain, he

settled down to the promised explanation. Brown was present, but how much of the matter was ever really

made plain to his comprehension he would never say, and I am unable to conjecture.

'You know roughly, both of you, that this expedition of mine was undertaken with the object of tracing

something in connection with some old painted glass in Lord D's private chapel. Well, the startingpoint

of the whole matter lies in this passage from an old printed book, to which I will ask your attention.'

And at this point Mr Somerton went carefully over some ground with which we are already familiar.

'On my second visit to the chapel,' he went on, 'my purpose was to take every note I could of figures,

lettering, diamondscratchings on the glass, and even apparently accidental markings. The first point which I

tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. I could not doubt that the first of these, that of Job"There is a

place for the gold where it is hidden"with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure; so I applied

myself with some confidence to the next, that of St John"They have on their vestures a writing which no

man knoweth." The natural question will have occurred to you: Was there an inscription on the robes of the

figures? I could see none; each of the three had a broad black border to his mantle, which made a conspicuous

and rather ugly feature in the window. I was nonplussed, I will own, and but for a curious bit of luck I think I

should have left the search where the Canons of Steinfeld had left it before me. But it so happened that there

was a good deal of dust on the surface of the glass, and Lord D, happening to come in, noticed my

blackened hands, and kindly insisted on sending for a Turk'shead broom to clean down the window. There

must, I suppose, have been a rough piece in the broom; anyhow, as it passed over the border of one of the

mantles, I noticed that it left a long scratch, and that some yellow stain instantly showed up. I asked the man

to stop his work for a moment, and ran up the ladder to examine the place. The yellow stain was there, sure

enough, and what had come away was a thick black pigment, which had evidently been laid on with the brush

after the glass had been burnt, and could therefore be easily scraped off without doing any harm. I scraped,

accordingly, and you will hardly believeno, I do you an injustice; you will have guessed alreadythat I

found under this black pigment two or three clearlyformed capital letters in yellow stain on a clear ground.

'I told Lord D that I had detected an inscription which I thought might be very interesting, and begged to

be allowed to uncover the whole of it. He made no difficulty about it whatever, told me to do exactly as I

pleased, and then, having an engagement, was obligedrather to my relief, I must sayto leave me. I set to

work at once, and found the task a fairly easy one. The pigment, disintegrated, of course, by time, came off

almost at a touch, and I don't think that it took me a couple of hours, all told, to clean the whole of the black

borders in all three lights. Each of the figures had, as the inscription said, "a writing on their vestures which

'This discovery, of course, made it absolutely certain to my mind that I was on the right track. And, now,

what was the inscription? While I was cleaning the glass I almost took pains not to read the lettering, saving

up the treat until I had got the whole thing clear. And when that was done, my dear Gregory, I assure you I

could almost have cried from sheer disappointment. What I read was only the most hopeless jumble of letters

'Blank as I felt and must have looked for the first few minutes, my disappointment didn't last long. I realized

almost at once that I was dealing with a cipher or cryptogram; and I reflected that it was likely to be of a

pretty simple kind, considering its early date. So I copied the letters with the most anxious care. Another little

point, I may tell you, turned up in the process which confirmed my belief in the cipher. After copying the

letters on Job's robe I counted them, to make sure that I had them right. There were thirtyeight; and, just as I

finished going through them, my eye fell on a scratching made with a sharp point on the edge of the border. It

was simply the number xxxviii in Roman numerals. To cut the matter short, there was a similar note, as I may

call it, in each of the other lights; and that made it plain to me that the glasspainter had had very strict orders

'Well, after that discovery you may imagine how minutely I went over the whole surface of the glass in

search of further light. Of course, I did not neglect the inscription on the scroll of Zechariah"Upon one

stone are seven eyes", but I very quickly concluded that this must refer to some mark on a stone which could

only be found in situ, where the treasure was concealed. To be short, I made all possible notes and sketches

and tracings, and then came back to Parsbury to work out the cipher at leisure. Oh, the agonies I went

through! I thought myself very clever at first, for I made sure that the key would be found in some of the old

books on secret writing. The Steganographia of Joachim Trithemius, who was an earlier contemporary of

Abbot Thomas, seemed particularly promising; so I got that, and Selenius's Cryptographia and Bacon's De

Augmentis Scientiarum, and some more. But I could hit upon nothing. Then I tried the principle of the "most

frequent letter", taking first Latin and then German as a basis. That didn't help, either; whether it ought to

have done so, I am not clear. And then I came back to the window itself, and read over my notes, hoping

almost against hope that the Abbot might himself have somewhat supplied the key I wanted. I could make

nothing out of the colour or pattern of the robes. There were no landscape backgrounds with subsidiary

objects; there was nothing in the canopies. The only resource possible seemed to be in the attitudes of the

figures. "Job," I read: "scroll in left hand, forefinger of right hand extended upwards. John: holds inscribed

book in left hand; with right hand blesses, with two fingers. Zechariah: scroll in left hand; right hand

extended upwards, as Job, but with three fingers pointing up." In other words, I reflected, Job has one finger

extended, John has two, Zechariah has three. May not there be a numeral key concealed in that? My dear

Gregory,' said Mr Somerton, laying his hand on his friend's knee, 'that was the key. I didn't get it to fit at first,

but after two or three trials I saw what was meant. After the first letter of the inscription you skip one letter,

after the next you skip two, and after that skip three. Now look at the result I got. I've underlined the letters

'Do you see it? "Decem millia auri reposita sunt in puteo in at..." (Ten thousand [pieces] of gold are laid up in

a well in...), followed by an incomplete word beginning at. So far so good. I tried the same plan with the

remaining letters; but it wouldn't work, and I fancied that perhaps the placing of dots after the three last letters

might indicate some difference of procedure. Then I thought to myself, "Wasn't there some allusion to a well

in the account of Abbot Thomas in that book the Sertum?" Yes, there was: he built a puteus in atrio (a well in

the court). There, of course, was my word atrio. The next step was to copy out the remaining letters of the

inscription, omitting those I had already used. That gave what you will see on this slip:

'Now, I knew what the first three letters I wanted were namely, rioto complete the word atrio; and, as you

will see, these are all to be found in the first five letters. I was a little confused at first by the occurrence of

two i's, but very soon I saw that every alternate letter must be taken in the remainder of the inscription. You

can work it out for yourself; the result, continuing where the first "round" left off, is this:

'rio domus abbatialis de Steinfeld a me, Thoma, qui posui custodem super ea. Gare à qui la touche.

'Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of the Abbot's house of Steinfeld by me,

'The last words, I ought to say, are a device which Abbot Thomas had adopted. I found it with his arms in

another piece of glass at Lord D's, and he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn't quite fit in

'Well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear Gregory, in my place? Could he have

helped setting off, as I did, to Steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountainhead? I don't believe

he could. Anyhow, I couldn't, and, as I needn't tell you, I found myself at Steinfeld as soon as the resources of

civilization could put me there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. I must tell you that I was not

altogether free from forebodingson one hand of disappointment, on the other of danger. There was always

the possibility that Abbot Thomas's well might have been wholly obliterated, or else that someone, ignorant

of cryptograms, and guided only by luck, might have stumbled on the treasure before me. And then'there

was a very perceptible shaking of the voice here'I was not entirely easy, I need not mind confessing, as to

the meaning of the words about the guardian of the treasure. But, if you don't mind, I'll say no more about

'At the first possible opportunity Brown and I began exploring the place. I had naturally represented myself as

being interested in the remains of the abbey, and we could not avoid paying a visit to the church, impatient as

I was to be elsewhere. Still, it did interest me to see the windows where the glass had been, and especially

that at the east end of the south aisle. In the tracery lights of that I was startled to see some fragments and

coatsofarms remainingAbbot Thomas's shield was there, and a small figure with a scroll inscribed

"Oculos habent, et non videbunt" (They have eyes, and shall not see), which, I take it, was a hit of the Abbot

'But, of course, the principal object was to find the Abbot's house. There is no prescribed place for this, so far

as I know, in the plan of a monastery; you can't predict of it, as you can of the chapterhouse, that it will be

on the eastern side of the cloister, or, as of the dormitory, that it will communicate with a transept of the

church. I felt that if I asked many questions I might awaken lingering memories of the treasure, and I thought

it best to try first to discover it for myself. It was not a very long or difficult search. That threesided court

southeast of the church, with deserted piles of building round it, and grassgrown pavement, which you saw

this morning, was the place. And glad enough I was to see that it was put to no use, and was neither very far

from our inn nor overlooked by any inhabited building; there were only orchards and paddocks on the slopes

east of the church. I can tell you that fine stone glowed wonderfully in the rather watery yellow sunset that we

'Next, what about the well? There was not much doubt about that, as you can testify. It is really a very

remarkable thing. That curb is, I think, of Italian marble, and the carving I thought must be Italian also. There

were reliefs, you will perhaps remember, of Eliezer and Rebekah, and of Jacob opening the well for Rachel,

and similar subjects; but, by way of disarming suspicion, I suppose, the Abbot had carefully abstained from

'I examined the whole structure with the keenest interest, of coursea square wellhead with an opening in

one side; an arch over it, with a wheel for the rope to pass over, evidently in very good condition still, for it

had been used within sixty years, or perhaps even later, though not quite recently. Then there was the

question of depth and access to the interior. I suppose the depth was about sixty to seventy feet; and as to the

other point, it really seemed as if the Abbot had wished to lead searchers up to the very door of his

treasurehouse, for, as you tested for yourself, there were big blocks of stone bonded into the masonry, and

'It seemed almost too good to be true. I wondered if there was a trapif the stones were so contrived as to tip

over when a weight was placed on them; but I tried a good many with my own weight and with my stick, and

all seemed, and actually were, perfectly firm. Of course, I resolved that Brown and I would make an

'I was well prepared. Knowing the sort of place I should have to explore, I had brought a sufficiency of good

rope and bands of webbing to surround my body, and crossbars to hold to, as well as lanterns and candles and

crowbars, all of which would go into a single carpetbag and excite no suspicion. I satisfied myself that my

rope would be long enough, and that the wheel for the bucket was in good working order, and then we went

'I had a little cautious conversation with the landlord, and made out that he would not be overmuch surprised

if I went out for a stroll with my man about nine o'clock, to make (Heaven forgive me!) a sketch of the abbey

by moonlight. I asked no questions about the well, and am not likely to do so now. I fancy I know as much

about it as anyone in Steinfeld: at least'with a strong shudder'I don't want to know any more.

'Now we come to the crisis, and, though I hate to think of it, I feel sure, Gregory, that it will be better for me

in all ways to recall it just as it happened. We started, Brown and I, at about nine with our bag, and attracted

no attention; for we managed to slip out at the hinder end of the innyard into an alley which brought us quite

to the edge of the village. In five minutes we were at the well, and for some little time we sat on the edge of

the wellhead to make sure that no one was stirring or spying on us. All we heard was some horses cropping

grass out of sight farther down the eastern slope. We were perfectly unobserved, and had plenty of light from

the gorgeous full moon to allow us to get the rope properly fitted over the wheel. Then I secured the band

round my body beneath the arms. We attached the end of the rope very securely to a ring in the stonework.

Brown took the lighted lantern and followed me; I had a crowbar. And so we began to descend cautiously,

feeling every step before we set foot on it, and scanning the walls in search of any marked stone.

'Half aloud I counted the steps as we went down, and we got as far as the thirtyeighth before I noted

anything at all irregular in the surface of the masonry. Even here there was no mark, and I began to feel very

blank, and to wonder if the Abbot's cryptogram could possibly be an elaborate hoax. At the fortyninth step

the staircase ceased. It was with a very sinking heart that I began retracing my steps, and when I was back on

the thirtyeighthBrown, with the lantern, being a step or two above meI scrutinized the little bit of

irregularity in the stonework with all my might; but there was no vestige of a mark.

'Then it struck me that the texture of the surface looked just a little smoother than the rest, or, at least, in some

way different. It might possibly be cement and not stone. I gave it a good blow with my iron bar. There was a

decidedly hollow sound, though that might be the result of our being in a well. But there was more. A great

flake of cement dropped on to my feet, and I saw marks on the stone underneath. I had tracked the Abbot

down, my dear Gregory; even now I think of it with a certain pride. It took but a very few more taps to clear

the whole of the cement away, and I saw a slab of stone about two feet square, upon which was engraven a

cross. Disappointment again, but only for a moment. It was you, Brown, who reassured me by a casual

'I snatched the lantern out of your hand, and saw with inexpressible pleasure that the cross was composed of

seven eyes, four in a vertical line, three horizontal. The last of the scrolls in the window was explained in the

way I had anticipated. Here was my "stone with the seven eyes". So far the Abbot's data had been exact, and,

as I thought of this, the anxiety about the "guardian" returned upon me with increased force. Still, I wasn't

'Without giving myself time to think, I knocked away the cement all round the marked stone, and then gave it

a prise on the right side with my crowbar. It moved at once, and I saw that it was but a thin light slab, such as

I could easily lift out myself, and that it stopped the entrance to a cavity. I did lift it out unbroken, and set it

on the step, for it might be very important to us to be able to replace it. Then I waited for several minutes on

the step just above. I don't know why, but I think to see if any dreadful thing would rush out. Nothing

happened. Next I lit a candle, and very cautiously I placed it inside the cavity, with some idea of seeing

whether there were foul air, and of getting a glimpse of what was inside. There was some foulness of air

which nearly extinguished the flame, but in no long time it burned quite steadily. The hole went some little

way back, and also on the right and left of the entrance, and I could see some rounded lightcoloured objects

within which might be bags. There was no use in waiting. I faced the cavity, and looked in. There was

nothing immediately in the front of the hole. I put my arm in and felt to the right, very gingerly...

'Well, I felt to the right, and my fingers touched something curved, that feltyesmore or less like leather;

dampish it was, and evidently part of a heavy, full thing. There was nothing, I must say, to alarm one. I grew

bolder, and putting both hands in as well as I could, I pulled it to me, and it came. It was heavy, but moved

more easily than I expected. As I pulled it towards the entrance, my left elbow knocked over and

extinguished the candle. I got the thing fairly in front of the mouth and began drawing it out. Just then Brown

gave a sharp ejaculation and ran quickly up the steps with the lantern. He will tell you why in a moment.

Startled as I was, I looked round after him, and saw him stand for a minute at the top and then walk away a

few yards. Then I heard him call softly, "All right, sir," and went on pulling out the great bag, in complete

darkness. It hung for an instant on the edge of the hole, then slipped forward on to my chest, and put its arms

'My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror

and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now the

bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face

pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of severalI don't know how manylegs or arms

or tentacles or something clinging to my body. I screamed out, Brown says, like a beast, and fell away

backward from the step on which I stood, and the creature slipped downwards, I suppose, on to that same

step. Providentially the band round me held firm. Brown did not lose his head, and was strong enough to pull

me up to the top and get me over the edge quite promptly. How he managed it exactly I don't know, and I

think he would find it hard to tell you. I believe he contrived to hide our implements in the deserted building

near by, and with very great difficulty he got me back to the inn. I was in no state to make explanations, and

Brown knows no German; but next morning I told the people some tale of having had a bad fall in the abbey

ruins, which, I suppose, they believed. And now, before I go further, I should just like you to hear what

Brown's experiences during those few minutes were. Tell the Rector, Brown, what you told me.'

'Well, sir,' said Brown, speaking low and nervously, 'it was just this way. Master was busy down in front of

the 'ole, and I was 'olding the lantern and looking on, when I 'eard somethink drop in the water from the top,

as I thought. So I looked up, and I see someone's 'ead lookin' over at us. I s'pose I must ha' said somethink,

and I 'eld the light up and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a bad un, sir, if ever

I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much fell in, and larfin, as I thought. And I got up the steps as

quick pretty nigh as I'm tellin' you, and when I was out on the ground there warn't a sign of any person. There

'adn't been the time for anyone to get away, let alone a hold chap, and I made sure he warn't crouching down

by the well, nor nothink. Next thing I hear master cry out somethink 'orrible, and hall I see was him hanging

out by the rope, and, as master says, 'owever I got him up I couldn't tell you.'

'You hear that, Gregory?' said Mr Somerton. 'Now, does any explanation of that incident strike you?'

'The whole thing is so ghastly and abnormal that I must own it puts me quite off my balance; but the thought

did occur to me that possibly thewell, the person who set the trap might have come to see the success of

'Just so, Gregory, just so. I can think of nothing else solikely, I should say, if such a word had a place

anywhere in my story. I think it must have been the Abbot... Well, I haven't much more to tell you. I spent a

miserable night, Brown sitting up with me. Next day I was no better; unable to get up; no doctor to be had;

and, if one had been available, I doubt if he could have done much for me. I made Brown write off to you,

and spent a second terrible night. And, Gregory, of this I am sure, and I think it affected me more than the

first shock, for it lasted longer: there was someone or something on the watch outside my door the whole

night. I almost fancy there were two. It wasn't only the faint noises I heard from time to time all through the

dark hours, but there was the smellthe hideous smell of mould. Every rag I had had on me on that first

evening I had stripped off and made Brown take it away. I believe he stuffed the things into the stove in his

room; and yet the smell was there, as intense as it had been in the well; and, what is more, it came from

outside the door. But with the first glimmer of dawn it faded out, and the sounds ceased, too; and that

convinced me that the thing or things were creatures of darkness, and could not stand the daylight; and so I

was sure that if anyone could put back the stone, it or they would be powerless until someone else took it

away again. I had to wait until you came to get that done. Of course, I couldn't send Brown to do it by

'Well, there is my story; and if you don't believe it, I can't help it. But I think you do.'

'Indeed,' said Mr Gregory, 'I can find no alternative. I must believe it! I saw the well and the stone myself,

and had a glimpse, I thought, of the bags or something else in the hole. And, to be plain with you, Somerton, I

'I dare say it was, Gregory; but, thank goodness, that is over. Have you, by the way, anything to tell about

'Very little,' was the answer. 'Brown and I managed easily enough to get the slab into its place, and he fixed it

very firmly with the irons and wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the surface with

mud so that it looks just like the rest of the wall. One thing I did notice in the carving on the wellhead,

which I think must have escaped you. It was a horrid, grotesque shape perhaps more like a toad than anything

else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two words, "Depositum custodi".'(5)

1. An account of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Steinfeld, in the Eiffel, with lives of the Abbots, published

at Cologne in 1712 by Christian Albert Erhard, a resident in the district. The epithet Norbertinum is due to

Dear Sir, I am requested by the Council of the ___ Association to return to you the draft of a paper on The

Truth of Alchemy, which you have been good enough to offer to read at our forthcoming meeting, and to

inform you that the Council do not see their way to including it in the programme.

Dear Sir, I am sorry to say that my engagements do not permit of my affording you an interview on the

subject of your proposed paper. Nor do our laws allow of your discussing the matter with a Committee of our

Council, as you suggest. Please allow me to assure you that the fullest consideration was given to the draft

which you submitted, and that it was not declined without having been referred to the judgement of a most

competent authority. No personal question (it can hardly be necessary for me to add) can have had the

The Secretary of the ___ Association begs respectfully to inform Mr Karswell that it is impossible for him to

communicate the name of any person or persons to whom the draft of Mr Karswell's paper may have been

submitted; and further desires to intimate that he cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this

'And who is Mr Karswell?' inquired the Secretary's wife. She had called at his office, and (perhaps

unwarrantably) had picked up the last of these three letters, which the typist had just brought in.

'Why, my dear, just at present Mr Karswell is a very angry man. But I don't know much about him otherwise,

except that he is a person of wealth, his address is Lufford Abbey, Warwickshire, and he's an alchemist,

apparently, and wants to tell us all about it; and that's about allexcept that I don't want to meet him for the

'The usual thing, my dear, the usual thing: he sent in a draft of a paper he wanted to read at the next meeting,

and we referred it to Edward Dunningalmost the only man in England who knows about these thingsand

he said it was perfectly hopeless, so we declined it. So Karswell has been pelting me with letters ever since.

The last thing he wanted was the name of the man we referred his nonsense to; you saw my answer to that.

'I should think not, indeed. Did I ever do such a thing? I do hope, though, he won't get to know that it was

'Poor Mr Dunning? I don't know why you call him that; he's a very happy man, is Dunning. Lots of hobbies

'I only meant I should be sorry for him if this man got hold of his name, and came and bothered him.'

The Secretary and his wife were lunching out, and the friends to whose house they were bound were

Warwickshire people. So Mrs Secretary had already settled it in her own mind that she would question them

judiciously about Mr Karswell. But she was saved the trouble of leading up to the subject, for the hostess said

to the host, before many minutes had passed, 'I saw the Abbot of Lufford this morning.' The host whistled.

'Did you? What in the world brings him up to town?' 'Goodness knows; he was coming out of the British

Museum gate as I drove past.' It was not unnatural that Mrs Secretary should inquire whether this was a real

Abbot who was being spoken of. 'Oh no, my dear: only a neighbour of ours in the country who bought

Lufford Abbey a few years ago. His real name is Karswell.' 'Is he a friend of yours?' asked Mr Secretary, with

a private wink to his wife. The question let loose a torrent of declamation. There was really nothing to be said

for Mr Karswell. Nobody knew what he did with himself: his servants were a horrible set of people; he had

invented a new religion for himself, and practised no one could tell what appalling rites; he was very easily

offended, and never forgave anybody: he had a dreadful face (so the lady insisted, her husband somewhat

demurring); he never did a kind action, and whatever influence he did exert was mischievous. 'Do the poor

man justice, dear,' the husband interrupted. 'You forgot the treat he gave the school children.' 'Forget it,

indeed! But I'm glad you mentioned it, because it gives an idea of the man. Now, Florence, listen to this. The

first winter he was at Lufford this delightful neighbour of ours wrote to the clergyman of his parish (he's not

ours, but we know him very well) and offered to show the school children some magiclantern slides. He

said he had some new kinds, which he thought would interest them. Well, the clergyman was rather surprised,

because Mr Karswell had shown himself inclined to be unpleasant to the childrencomplaining of their

trespassing, or something of the sort; but of course he accepted, and the evening was fixed, and our friend

went himself to see that everything went right. He said he never had been so thankful for anything as that his

own children were all prevented from being there: they were at a children's party at our house, as a matter of

fact. Because this Mr Karswell had evidently set out with the intention of frightening these poor village

children out of their wits, and I do believe, if he had been allowed to go on, he would actually have done so.

He began with some comparatively mild things. Red Riding Hood was one, and even then, Mr Farrer said,

the wolf was so dreadful that several of the smaller children had to be taken out: and he said Mr Karswell

began the story by producing a noise like a wolf howling in the distance, which was the most gruesome thing

he had ever heard. All the slides he showed, Mr Farrer said, were most clever; they were absolutely realistic,

and where he had got them or how he worked them he could not imagine. Well, the show went on, and the

stories kept on becoming a little more terrifying each time, and the children were mesmerized into complete

silence. At last he produced a series which represented a little boy passing through his own parkLufford, I

meanin the evening. Every child in the room could recognize the place from the pictures. And this poor

boy was followed, and at last pursued and overtaken, and either torn in pieces or somehow made away with,

by a horrible hopping creature in white, which you saw first dodging about among the trees, and gradually it

appeared more and more plainly. Mr Farrer said it gave him one of the worst nightmares he ever

remembered, and what it must have meant to the children doesn't bear thinking of. Of course this was too

much, and he spoke very sharply indeed to Mr Karswell, and said it couldn't go on. All he said was: 'Oh, you

think it's time to bring our little show to an end and send them home to their beds? Very well!' And then, if

you please, he switched on another slide, which showed a great mass of snakes, centipedes, and disgusting

creatures with wings, and somehow or other made it seem as if they were climbing out of the picture and

getting in amongst the audience; and this was accompanied by a sort of dry rustling noise which sent the

children nearly mad, and of course they stampeded. A good many of them were rather hurt in getting out of

the room, and I don't suppose one of them closed an eye that night. There was the most dreadful trouble in the

village afterwards. Of course the mothers threw a good part of the blame on poor Mr Farrer, and, if they

could have got past the gates, I believe the fathers would have broken every window in the Abbey. Well,

now, that's Mr Karswell: that's the Abbot of Lufford, my dear, and you can imagine how we covet his

'Yes, I think he has all the possibilities of a distinguished criminal, has Karswell,' said the host. 'I should be

'Is he the man, or am I mixing him up with someone else?' asked the Secretary (who for some minutes had

been wearing the frown of the man who is trying to recollect something). 'Is he the man who brought out a

'Certainly I do; and what's equally to the point, I knew the author of the most incisive of the lot. So did you:

'Oh, very well indeed, though I don't think I saw or heard anything of him between the time I went down and

'Why, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck. But the puzzle was, what could have

induced him to get up there. It was a mysterious business, I must say. Here was this mannot an athletic

fellow, was he? and with no eccentric twist about him that was ever noticedwalking home along a country

road late in the eveningno tramps aboutwell known and liked in the placeand he suddenly begins to

run like mad, loses his hat and stick, and finally shins up a treequite a difficult treegrowing in the

hedgerow: a dead branch gives way, and he comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there he's found

next morning with the most dreadful face of fear on him that could be imagined. It was pretty evident, of

course, that he had been chased by something, and people talked of savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of

menageries; but there was nothing to be made of that. That was in '89, and I believe his brother Henry (whom

I remember as well at Cambridge, but you probably don't) has been trying to get on the track of an

explanation ever since. He, of course, insists there was malice in it, but I don't know. It's difficult to see how

After a time the talk reverted to the History of Witchcraft. 'Did you ever look into it?' asked the host.

'Oh, in point of style and form, quite hopeless. It deserved all the pulverizing it got. But, besides that, it was

an evil book. The man believed every word of what he was saying, and I'm very much mistaken if he hadn't

'Well, I only remember Harrington's review of it, and I must say if I'd been the author it would have quenched

'It hasn't had that effect in the present case. But come, it's halfpast three; I must be off.'

On the way home the Secretary's wife said, 'I do hope that horrible man won't find out that Mr Dunning had

anything to do with the rejection of his paper.' 'I don't think there's much chance of that,' said the Secretary.

'Dunning won't mention it himself, for these matters are confidential, and none of us will for the same reason.

Karswell won't know his name, for Dunning hasn't published anything on the same subject yet. The only

danger is that Karswell might find out, if he was to ask the British Museum people who was in the habit of

consulting alchemical manuscripts: I can't very well tell them not to mention Dunning, can I? It would set

This much is in the way of prologue. On an evening rather later in the same week, Mr Edward Dunning was

returning from the British Museum, where he had been engaged in research, to the comfortable house in a

suburb where he lived alone, tended by two excellent women who had been long with him. There is nothing

to be added by way of description of him to what we have heard already. Let us follow him as he takes his

A train took him to within a mile or two of his house, and an electric tram a stage farther. The line ended at a

point some three hundred yards from his front door. He had had enough of reading when he got into the car,

and indeed the light was not such as to allow him to do more than study the advertisements on the panes of

glass that faced him as he sat. As was not unnatural, the advertisements in this particular line of cars were

objects of his frequent contemplation, and, with the possible exception of the brilliant and convincing

dialogue between Mr Lamplough and an eminent KC on the subject of Pyretic Saline, none of them afforded

much scope to his imagination. I am wrong: there was one at the corner of the car farthest from him which

did not seem familiar. It was in blue letters on a yellow ground, and all that he could read of it was a

nameJohn Harringtonand something like a date. It could be of no interest to him to know more; but for

all that, as the car emptied, he was just curious enough to move along the seat until he could read it well. He

felt to a slight extent repaid for his trouble; the advertisement was not of the usual type. It ran thus: 'In

memory of John Harrington, FSA, of The Laurels, Ashbrooke. Died Sept. 18th, 1889. Three months were

The car stopped. Mr Dunning, still contemplating the blue letters on the yellow ground, had to be stimulated

to rise by a word from the conductor. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'I was looking at that advertisement; it's a

very odd one, isn't it?' The conductor read it slowly. 'Well, my word,' he said, 'I never see that one before.

Well, that is a cure, ain't it? Someone bin up to their jokes 'ere, I should think.' He got out a duster and

applied it, not without saliva, to the pane and then to the outside. 'No,' he said, returning, 'that ain't no

transfer; seems to me as if it was reg'lar in the glass, what I mean in the substance, as you may say. Don't you

think so, sir?' Mr Dunning examined it and rubbed it with his glove, and agreed. 'Who looks after these

advertisements, and gives leave for them to be put up? I wish you would inquire. I will just take a note of the

words.' At this moment there came a call from the driver: 'Look alive, George, time's up.' 'All right, all right;

there's somethink else what's up at this end. You come and look at this 'ere glass.' 'What's gorn with the

glass?' said the driver, approaching. 'Well, and oo's 'Arrington? What's it all about?' 'I was just asking who

was responsible for putting the advertisements up in your cars, and saying it would be as well to make some

inquiry about this one.' 'Well, sir, that's all done at the Company's orfice, that work is: it's our Mr Timms, I

believe, looks into that. When we put up tonight I'll leave word, and per'aps I'll be able to tell you tomorrer if

This was all that passed that evening. Mr Dunning did just go to the trouble of looking up Ashbrooke, and

Next day he went to town again. The car (it was the same car) was too full in the morning to allow of his

getting a word with the conductor: he could only be sure that the curious advertisement had been made away

with. The close of the day brought a further element of mystery into the transaction. He had missed the tram,

or else preferred walking home, but at a rather late hour, while he was at work in his study, one of the maids

came to say that two men from the tramways was very anxious to speak to him. This was a reminder of the

advertisement, which he had, he says, nearly forgotten. He had the men inthey were the conductor and

driver of the carand when the matter of refreshment had been attended to, asked what Mr Timms had had

to say about the advertisement. 'Well, sir, that's what we took the liberty to step round about,' said the

conductor. 'Mr Timms 'e give William 'ere the rough side of his tongue about that: 'cordin' to 'im there warn't

no advertisement of that description sent in, nor ordered, nor paid for, nor put up, nor nothink, let alone not

bein' there, and we was playing the fool takin' up his time. "Well," I says, "if that's the case, all I ask of you,

Mr Timms," I says, "is to take and look at it for yourself," I says. "Of course if it ain't there," I says, "you may

take and call me what you like." "Right," he says, "I will": and we went straight off. Now, I leave it to you,

sir, if that ad., as we term 'em, with 'Arrington on it warn't as plain as ever you see anythinkblue letters on

yeller glass, and as I says at the time, and you borne me out, reg'lar in the glass, because, if you remember,

you recollect of me swabbing it with my duster.' 'To be sure I do, quite clearlywell?' 'You may say well, I

don't think. Mr Timms he gets in that car with a lightno, he telled William to 'old the light outside. "Now,"

he says, "where's your precious ad. what we've 'eard so much about?' "'Ere it is," I says, "Mr Timms," and I

'Broke! not it. There warn't, if you'll believe me, no more trace of them lettersblue letters they wason

that piece o' glass, thanwell, it's no good me talkin'. I never see such a thing. I leave it to William here

'Why 'e did what I give 'im leave tocalled us pretty much anythink he liked, and I don't know as I blame

him so much neither. But what we thought, William and me did, was as we seen you take down a bit of a note

'I certainly did that, and I have it now. Did you wish me to speak to Mr Timms myself, and show it to him?

'There, didn't I say as much?' said William. 'Deal with a gent if you can get on the track of one, that's my

word. Now perhaps, George, you'll allow as I ain't took you very far wrong tonight.'

'Very well, William, very well; no need for you to go on as if you'd 'ad to frog'smarch me 'ere. I come quiet,

didn't I! All the same for that, we 'adn't ought to take up your time this way, sir; but if it so 'appened you

could find time to step round to the Company's orfice in the morning and tell Mr Timms what you seen for

yourself, we should lay under a very 'igh obligation to you for the trouble. You see it ain't bein' calledwell,

one thing and another, as we mind, but if they got it into their 'ead at the orfice as we seen things as warn't

there, why, one thing leads to another, and where we should be a twelvemunce 'encewell, you can

Amid further elucidations of the proposition, George, conducted by William, left the room.

The incredulity of Mr Timms (who had a nodding acquaintance with Mr Dunning) was greatly modified on

the following day by what the latter could tell and show him; and any bad mark that might have been attached

to the names of William and George was not suffered to remain on the Company's books; but explanation

Mr Dunning's interest in the matter was kept alive by an incident of the following afternoon. He was walking

from his club to the train, and he noticed some way ahead a man with a handful of leaflets such as are

distributed to passersby by agents of enterprising firms. This agent had not chosen a very crowded street for

his operations: in fact, Mr Dunning did not see him get rid of a single leaflet before he himself reached the

spot. One was thrust into his hand as he passed: the hand that gave it touched his, and he experienced a sort of

little shock as it did so. It seemed unnaturally rough and hot. He looked in passing at the giver, but the

impression he got was so unclear that, however much he tried to reckon it up subsequently, nothing would

come. He was walking quickly, and as he went on glanced at the paper. It was a blue one. The name of

Harrington in large capitals caught his eye. He stopped, startled, and felt for his glasses. The next instant the

leaflet was twitched out of his hand by a man who hurried past, and was irrecoverably gone. He ran back a

It was in a somewhat pensive frame of mind that Mr Dunning passed on the following day into the Select

Manuscript Room of the British Museum, and filled up tickets for Harley 3586, and some other volumes.

After a few minutes they were brought to him, and he was settling the one he wanted first upon the desk,

when he thought he heard his own name whispered behind him. He turned round hastily, and in doing so,

brushed his little portfolio of loose papers on to the floor. He saw no one he recognized except one of the

staff in charge of the room, who nodded to him, and he proceeded to pick up his papers. He thought he had

them all, and was turning to begin work, when a stout gentleman at the table behind him, who was just rising

to leave, and had collected his own belongings, touched him on the shoulder, saying, 'May I give you this? I

think it should be yours,' and handed him a missing quire. 'It is mine, thank you,' said Mr Dunning. In another

moment the man had left the room. Upon finishing his work for the afternoon, Mr Dunning had some

conversation with the assistant in charge, and took occasion to ask who the stout gentleman was. 'Oh, he's a

man named Karswell,' said the assistant; 'he was asking me a week ago who were the great authorities on

alchemy, and of course I told him you were the only one in the country. I'll see if I can't catch him: he'd like

'For heaven's sake don't dream of it!' said Mr Dunning, 'I'm particularly anxious to avoid him.'

'Oh! very well,' said the assistant, 'he doesn't come here often: I dare say you won't meet him.'

More than once on the way home that day Mr Dunning confessed to himself that he did not look forward with

his usual cheerfulness to a solitary evening. It seemed to him that something illdefined and impalpable had

stepped in between him and his fellowmenhad taken him in charge, as it were. He wanted to sit close up

to his neighbours in the train and in the tram, but as luck would have it both train and car were markedly

empty. The conductor George was thoughtful, and appeared to be absorbed in calculations as to the number

of passengers. On arriving at his house he found Dr Watson, his medical man, on his doorstep. 'I've had to

upset your household arrangements, I'm sorry to say, Dunning. Both your servants hors de combat. In fact,

'It's something like ptomaine poisoning, I should think: you've not suffered yourself, I can see, or you

'Well, they tell me they bought some shellfish from a hawker at their dinnertime. It's odd. I've made

inquiries, but I can't find that any hawker has been to other houses in the street. I couldn't send word to you;

they won't be back for a bit yet. You come and dine with me tonight, anyhow, and we can make arrangements

The solitary evening was thus obviated; at the expense of some distress and inconvenience, it is true. Mr

Dunning spent the time pleasantly enough with the doctor (a rather recent settler), and returned to his lonely

home at about 11.30. The night he passed is not one on which he looks back with any satisfaction. He was in

bed and the light was out. He was wondering if the charwoman would come early enough to get him hot

water next morning, when he heard the unmistakable sound of his study door opening. No step followed it on

the passage floor, but the sound must mean mischief, for he knew that he had shut the door that evening after

putting his papers away in his desk. It was rather shame than courage that induced him to slip out into the

passage and lean over the banister in his nightgown, listening. No light was visible; no further sound came:

only a gust of warm, or even hot air played for an instant round his shins. He went back and decided to lock

himself into his room. There was more unpleasantness, however. Either an economical suburban company

had decided that their light would not be required in the small hours, and had stopped working, or else

something was wrong with the meter; the effect was in any case that the electric light was off. The obvious

course was to find a match, and also to consult his watch: he might as well know how many hours of

discomfort awaited him. So he put his hand into the wellknown nook under the pillow: only, it did not get so

far. What he touched was, according to his account, a mouth, with teeth, and with hair about it, and, he

declares, not the mouth of a human being. I do not think it is any use to guess what he said or did; but he was

in a spare room with the door locked and his ear to it before he was clearly conscious again. And there he

spent the rest of a most miserable night, looking every moment for some fumbling at the door: but nothing

The venturing back to his own room in the morning was attended with many listenings and quiverings. The

door stood open, fortunately, and the blinds were up (the servants had been out of the house before the hour

of drawing them down); there was, to be short, no trace of an inhabitant. The watch, too, was in its usual

place; nothing was disturbed, only the wardrobe door had swung open, in accordance with its confirmed

habit. A ring at the back door now announced the charwoman, who had been ordered the night before, and

nerved Mr Dunning, after letting her in, to continue his search in other parts of the house. It was equally

The day thus begun went on dismally enough. He dared not go to the Museum: in spite of what the assistant

had said, Karswell might turn up there, and Dunning felt he could not cope with a probably hostile stranger.

His own house was odious; he hated sponging on the doctor. He spent some little time in a call at the Nursing

Home, where he was slightly cheered by a good report of his housekeeper and maid. Towards lunchtime he

betook himself to his club, again experiencing a gleam of satisfaction at seeing the Secretary of the

Association. At luncheon Dunning told his friend the more material of his woes, but could not bring himself

to speak to those that weighed most heavily on his spirits. 'My poor dear man,' said the Secretary, 'what an

upset! Look here: we're alone at home, absolutely. You must put up with us. Yes! no excuse: send your things

in this afternoon.' Dunning was unable to stand out: he was, in truth, becoming acutely anxious, as the hours

went on, as to what that night might have waiting for him. He was almost happy as he hurried home to pack

His friends, when they had time to take stock of him, were rather shocked at his lorn appearance, and did

their best to keep him up to the mark. Not altogether without success: but, when the two men were smoking

alone later, Dunning became dull again. Suddenly he said, 'Gayton, I believe that alchemist man knows it was

I who got his paper rejected.' Gayton whistled. 'What makes you think that?' he said. Dunning told of his

conversation with the Museum assistant, and Gayton could only agree that the guess seemed likely to be

correct. 'Not that I care much,' Dunning went on, 'only it might be a nuisance if we were to meet. He's a

badtempered party, I imagine.' Conversation dropped again; Gayton became more and more strongly

impressed with the desolateness that came over Dunning's face and bearing, and finallythough with a

considerable efforthe asked him pointblank whether something serious was not bothering him. Dunning

gave an exclamation of relief. 'I was perishing to get it off my mind,' he said. 'Do you know anything about a

man named John Harrington?' Gayton was thoroughly startled, and at the moment could only ask why. Then

the complete story of Dunning's experiences came outwhat had happened in the tramcar, in his own house,

and in the street, the troubling of spirit that had crept over him, and still held him; and he ended with the

question he had begun with. Gayton was at a loss how to answer him. To tell the story of Harrington's end

would perhaps be right; only, Dunning was in a nervous state, the story was a grim one, and he could not help

asking himself whether there were not a connecting link between these two cases, in the person of Karswell.

It was a difficult concession for a scientific man, but it could be eased by the phrase 'hypnotic suggestion'. In

the end he decided that his answer tonight should be guarded; he would talk the situation over with his wife.

So he said that he had known Harrington at Cambridge, and believed he had died suddenly in 1889, adding a

few details about the man and his published work. He did talk over the matter with Mrs Gayton, and, as he

had anticipated, she leapt at once to the conclusion which had been hovering before him. It was she who

reminded him of the surviving brother, Henry Harrington, and she also who suggested that he might be got

hold of by means of their hosts of the day before. 'He might be a hopeless crank,' objected Gayton. 'That

could be ascertained from the Bennetts, who knew him,' Mrs Gayton retorted; and she undertook to see the

It is not necessary to tell in further detail the steps by which Henry Harrington and Dunning were brought

The next scene that does require to be narrated is a conversation that took place between the two. Dunning

had told Harrington of the strange ways in which the dead man's name had been brought before him, and had

said something, besides, of his own subsequent experiences. Then he had asked if Harrington was disposed,

in return, to recall any of the circumstances connected with his brother's death. Harrington's surprise at what

'John,' he said, 'was in a very odd state, undeniably, from time to time, during some weeks before, though not

immediately before, the catastrophe. There were several things; the principal notion he had was that he

thought he was being followed. No doubt he was an impressionable man, but he never had had such fancies

as this before. I cannot get it out of my mind that there was illwill at work, and what you tell me about

yourself reminds me very much of my brother. Can you think of any possible connecting link?'

'There is just one that has been taking shape vaguely in my mind. I've been told that your brother reviewed a

book very severely not long before he died, and just lately I have happened to cross the path of the man who

Henry Harrington leant back. 'That is final to my mind. Now I must explain further. From something he said,

I feel sure that my brother John was beginning to believevery much against his willthat Karswell was at

the bottom of his trouble. I want to tell you what seems to me to have a bearing on the situation. My brother

was a great musician, and used to run up to concerts in town. He came back, three months before he died,

from one of these, and gave me his programme to look atan analytical programme: he always kept them. "I

nearly missed this one," he said. "I suppose I must have dropped it: anyhow, I was looking for it under my

seat and in my pockets and so on, and my neighbour offered me his: said 'might he give it me, he had no

further use for it', and he went away just afterwards. I don't know who he wasa stout, cleanshaven man. I

should have been sorry to miss it; of course I could have bought another, but this cost me nothing." At

another time he told me that he had been very uncomfortable both on the way to his hotel and during the

night. I piece things together now in thinking it over. Then, not very long after, he was going over these

programmes, putting them in order to have them bound up, and in this particular one (which by the way I had

hardly glanced at), he found quite near the beginning a strip of paper with some very odd writing on it in red

and blackmost carefully doneit looked to me more like Runic letters than anything else. "Why," he said,

"this must belong to my fat neighbour. It looks as if it might be worth returning to him; it may be a copy of

something; evidently someone has taken trouble over it. How can I find his address?" We talked it over for a

little and agreed that it wasn't worth advertising about, and that my brother had better look out for the man at

the next concert, to which he was going very soon. The paper was lying on the book and we were both by the

fire; it was a cold, windy summer evening. I suppose the door blew open, though I didn't notice it: at any rate

a gusta warm gust it wascame quite suddenly between us, took the paper and blew it straight into the

fire: it was light, thin paper, and flared and went up the chimney in a single ash. "Well," I said, "you can't

give it back now." He said nothing for a minute: then rather crossly, "No, I can't; but why you should keep on

saying so I don't know." I remarked that I didn't say it more than once. "Not more than four times, you mean,"

was all he said. I remember all that very clearly, without any good reason; and now to come to the point. I

don't know if you looked at that book of Karswell's which my unfortunate brother reviewed. It's not likely

that you should: but I did, both before his death and after it. The first time we made game of it together. It

was written in no style at allsplit infinitives, and every sort of thing that makes an Oxford gorge rise. Then

there was nothing that the man didn't swallow: mixing up classical myths, and stories out of the Golden

Legend with reports of savage customs of todayall very proper, no doubt, if you know how to use them,

but he didn't: he seemed to put the Golden Legend and the Golden Bough exactly on a par, and to believe

both: a pitiable exhibition, in short. Well, after the misfortune, I looked over the book again. It was no better

than before, but the impression which it left this time on my mind was different. I suspectedas I told

youthat Karswell had borne illwill to my brother, even that he was in some way responsible for what had

happened; and now his book seemed to me to be a very sinister performance indeed. One chapter in particular

struck me, in which he spoke of "casting the Runes" on people, either for the purpose of gaining their

affection or of getting them out of the wayperhaps more especially the latter: he spoke of all this in a way

that really seemed to me to imply actual knowledge. I've got no time to go into details, but the upshot is that I

am pretty sure from information received that the civil man at the concert was Karswell: I suspectI more

than suspectthat the paper was of importance: and I do believe that if my brother had been able to give it

back, he might have been alive now. Therefore, it occurs to me to ask you whether you have anything to put

By way of answer, Dunning had the episode in the Manuscript Room at the British Museum to relate. 'Then

he did actually hand you some papers; have you examined them? No? because we must, if you'll allow it,

They went to the still empty houseempty, for the two servants were not yet able to return to work.

Dunning's portfolio of papers was gathering dust on the writingtable. In it were the quires of smallsized

scribbling paper which he used for his transcripts: and from one of these, as he took it up, there slipped and

fluttered out into the room with uncanny quickness, a strip of thin light paper. The window was open, but

Harrington slammed it to, just in time to intercept the paper, which he caught. 'I thought so,' he said; 'it might

be the identical thing that was given to my brother. You'll have to look out, Dunning; this may mean

A long consultation took place. The paper was narrowly examined. As Harrington had said, the characters on

it were more like Runes than anything else, but not decipherable by either man, and both hesitated to copy

them, for fear, as they confessed, of perpetuating whatever evil purpose they might conceal. So it has

remained impossible (if I may anticipate a little) to ascertain what was conveyed in this curious message or

commission. Both Dunning and Harrington are firmly convinced that it had the effect of bringing its

possessors into very undesirable company. That it must be returned to the source whence it came they were

agreed, and further, that the only safe and certain way was that of personal service; and here contrivance

would be necessary, for Dunning was known by sight to Karswell. He must, for one thing, alter his

appearance by shaving his beard. But then might not the blow fall first? Harrington thought they could time

it. He knew the date of the concert at which the 'black spot' had been put on his brother: it was June 18th. The

death had followed on Sept. 18th. Dunning reminded him that three months had been mentioned on the

inscription on the carwindow. 'Perhaps,' he added, with a cheerless laugh, 'mine may be a bill at three

months too. I believe I can fix it by my diary. Yes, April 23rd was the day at the Museum; that brings us to

July 23rd. Now, you know, it becomes extremely important to me to know anything you will tell me about

the progress of your brother's trouble, if it is possible for you to speak of it.' 'Of course. Well, the sense of

being watched whenever he was alone was the most distressing thing to him. After a time I took to sleeping

in his room, and he was the better for that: still, he talked a great deal in his sleep. What about? Is it wise to

dwell on that, at least before things are straightened out? I think not, but I can tell you this: two things came

for him by post during those weeks, both with a London postmark, and addressed in a commercial hand. One

was a woodcut of Bewick's, roughly torn out of the page: one which shows a moonlit road and a man walking

along it, followed by an awful demon creature. Under it were written the lines out of the "Ancient Mariner"

The other was a calendar, such as tradesmen often send. My brother paid no attention to this, but I looked at it

after his death, and found that everything after Sept. 18 had been torn out. You may be surprised at his having

gone out alone the evening he was killed, but the fact is that during the last ten days or so of his life he had

The end of the consultation was this. Harrington, who knew a neighbour of Karswell's, thought he saw a way

of keeping a watch on his movements. It would be Dunning's part to be in readiness to try to cross Karswell's

They parted. The next weeks were no doubt a severe strain upon Dunning's nerves: the intangible barrier

which had seemed to rise about him on the day when he received the paper, gradually developed into a

brooding blackness that cut him off from the means of escape to which one might have thought he might

resort. No one was at hand who was likely to suggest them to him, and he seemed robbed of all initiative. He

waited with inexpressible anxiety as May, June, and early July passed on, for a mandate from Harrington. But

At last, in less than a week before the date he had come to look upon as the end of his earthly activities, came

a telegram: 'Leaves Victoria by boat train Thursday night. Do not miss. I come to you tonight. Harrington.'

He arrived accordingly, and they concocted plans. The train left Victoria at nine and its last stop before Dover

was Croydon West. Harrington would mark down Karswell at Victoria, and look out for Dunning at Croydon,

calling to him if need were by a name agreed upon. Dunning, disguised as far as might be, was to have no

label or initials on any hand luggage, and must at all costs have the paper with him.

Dunning's suspense as he waited on the Croydon platform I need not attempt to describe. His sense of danger

during the last days had only been sharpened by the fact that the cloud about him had perceptibly been

lighter; but relief was an ominous symptom, and, if Karswell eluded him now, hope was gone: and there were

so many chances of that. The rumour of the journey might be itself a device. The twenty minutes in which he

paced the platform and persecuted every porter with inquiries as to the boat train were as bitter as any he had

spent. Still, the train came, and Harrington was at the window. It was important, of course, that there should

be no recognition: so Dunning got in at the farther end of the corridor carriage, and only gradually made his

way to the compartment where Harrington and Karswell were. He was pleased, on the whole, to see that the

Karswell was on the alert, but gave no sign of recognition. Dunning took the seat not immediately facing

him, and attempted, vainly at first, then with increasing command of his faculties, to reckon the possibilities

of making the desired transfer. Opposite to Karswell, and next to Dunning, was a heap of Karswell's coats on

the seat. It would be of no use to slip the paper into thesehe would not be safe, or would not feel so, unless

in some way it could be proffered by him and accepted by the other. There was a handbag, open, and with

papers in it. Could he manage to conceal this (so that perhaps Karswell might leave the carriage without it),

and then find and give it to him? This was the plan that suggested itself. If he could only have counselled

with Harrington! but that could not be. The minutes went on. More than once Karswell rose and went out into

the corridor. The second time Dunning was on the point of attempting to make the bag fall off the seat, but he

caught Harrington's eye, and read in it a warning. Karswell, from the corridor, was watching: probably to see

if the two men recognized each other. He returned, but was evidently restless: and, when he rose the third

time, hope dawned, for something did slip off his seat and fall with hardly a sound to the floor. Karswell went

out once more, and passed out of range of the corridor window. Dunning picked up what had fallen, and saw

that the key was in his hands in the form of one of Cook's ticketcases, with tickets in it. These cases have a

pocket in the cover, and within very few seconds the paper of which we have heard was in the pocket of this

one. To make the operation more secure, Harrington stood in the doorway of the compartment and fiddled

with the blind. It was done, and done at the right time, for the train was now slowing down towards Dover.

In a moment more Karswell reentered the compartment. As he did so, Dunning, managing, he knew not

how, to suppress the tremble in his voice, handed him the ticketcase, saying, 'May I give you this, sir? I

believe it is yours.' After a brief glance at the ticket inside, Karswell uttered the hopedfor response, 'Yes, it

Even in the few moments that remainedmoments of tense anxiety, for they knew not to what a premature

finding of the paper might leadboth men noticed that the carriage seemed to darken about them and to

grow warmer; that Karswell was fidgety and oppressed; that he drew the heap of loose coats near to him and

cast it back as if it repelled him; and that he then sat upright and glanced anxiously at both. They, with

sickening anxiety, busied themselves in collecting their belongings; but they both thought that Karswell was

on the point of speaking when the train stopped at Dover Town. It was natural that in the short space between

At the pier they got out, but so empty was the train that they were forced to linger on the platform until

Karswell should have passed ahead of them with his porter on the way to the boat, and only then was it safe

for them to exchange a pressure of the hand and a word of concentrated congratulation. The effect upon

Dunning was to make him almost faint. Harrington made him lean up against the wall, while he himself went

forward a few yards within sight of the gangway to the boat, at which Karswell had now arrived. The man at

the head of it examined his ticket, and, laden with coats, he passed down into the boat. Suddenly the official

called after him, 'You, sir, beg pardon, did the other gentleman show his ticket?' 'What the devil do you mean

by the other gentleman?' Karswell's snarling voice called back from the deck. The man bent over and looked

at him. 'The devil? Well, I don't know, I'm sure,' Harrington heard him say to himself, and then aloud, 'My

mistake, sir; must have been your rugs! ask your pardon.' And then, to a subordinate near him, ''Ad he got a

dog with him, or what? Funny thing: I could 'a' swore 'e wasn't alone. Well, whatever it was, they'll 'ave to

see to it aboard. She's off now. Another week and we shall be gettin' the 'oliday customers.' In five minutes

more there was nothing but the lessening lights of the boat, the long line of the Dover lamps, the night breeze,

Long and long the two sat in their room at the 'Lord Warden'. In spite of the removal of their greatest anxiety,

they were oppressed with a doubt, not of the lightest. Had they been justified in sending a man to his death, as

they believed they had? Ought they not to warn him, at least? 'No,' said Harrington; 'if he is the murderer I

think him, we have done no more than is just. Still, if you think it betterbut how and where can you warn

him?' 'He was booked to Abbéville only,' said Dunning. 'I saw that. If I wired to the hotels there in Joanne's

Guide, "Examine your ticketcase, Dunning," I should feel happier. This is the 21st: he will have a day. But I

am afraid he has gone into the dark.' So telegrams were left at the hotel office.

It is not clear whether these reached their destination, or whether, if they did, they were understood. All that

is known is that, on the afternoon of the 23rd, an English traveller, examining the front of St Wulfram's

Church at Abbéville, then under extensive repair, was struck on the head and instantly killed by a stone

falling from the scaffold erected round the northwestern tower, there being, as was clearly proved, no

workman on the scaffold at that moment: and the traveller's papers identified him as Mr Karswell.

Only one detail shall be added. At Karswell's sale a set of Bewick, sold with all faults, was acquired by

Harrington. The page with the woodcut of the traveller and the demon was, as he had expected, mutilated.

Also, after a judicious interval, Harrington repeated to Dunning something of what he bad heard his brother