“I’ll pay a visit to that devil to-morrow,” I added. “I shall not harbour such game in my preserves.”
“Lord’s sake, don’t talk like that, Maister Whinmore!” whispered Thirlston. “We’re just coming to the gaet! May be they may strike Timothy dead!”
“They?—who? Not the ghosts, surely?” I looked through the great gate as we passed, and saw the whole front of the house. “Why, Mr. Thirlston, you said no one lived in the old Hall! Look! There are lights in the windows.”
“Ay! ay! I thought you would see them,” he said, in a terrified whisper, without turning his head.
“Why, look at them yourself,” cried I, pointing to the house.
“God forbid!” he exclaimed; and he gave Timothy a stroke with the whip, that sent him flying past the rest of the garden of the Hall. Our ground rose again, and in a few minutes a good view of the place was obtained. I looked back at it with vivid interest. No lights were to be seen now; no moving thing; the black windows contrasted with the grey walls, and the grey chimneys with the black clouds, as when the place first appeared to me. The moon now rose above a dark hill on our left. Thirlston allowed Timothy to slacken his speed, and, turning round his head, he also looked back at Whinmore Hall.
“We are safe enough now,” he said. “The only dangerous time is betwixt sunset and moonrise, when people are passing close to the accursed ould place.”
About a mile further, the barking of a housedog indicated that we were approaching Mr. Erle’s. The driver stopped at a small wicket-gate leading into a shrubbery, got down, and invited me to do the same. He then fastened Timothy to the gatepost. The garden and the house have nothing to do with my present tale, and are far too dear to me to be flung in as an episodical adornment. They form the scenery of the romantic part of my own life; for Miss Erle became my wife a few years after this first visit to Whinmore. I saw her that evening, and forgot Ralph Thirlston, the old Hall, its ghosts and mysterious lights. However, the next morning I was forced back to this work-a-day world in her father’s study. There I heard Mr. Erle’s account of my property. All the land was farmed by himself, except the few acres round the Hall, which no one would take because it was not worth tillage, and because of the evil name of the house itself.
“I suppose you know why no tenant can be found for the Hall, since Ralph Thirlston drove you over?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “But I could get no rational account from him. What is this nonsense about ghosts and lights? Who lives in the Hall?”
“No one, my good fellow. Why, you would not get the stoutest man in the parish, and that’s Thirlston, to go into the house after sunset, much less live in it.”
“But I have seen lights in some of the windows myself.”
“So have I,” he replied.
“Do you mean to say that no human beings make use of the house, in virtue of the superstition about it? Tricks of this kind are not uncommon.”
“At the risk of seeming foolish in your eyes, I must reply, that I believe no human beings now living have any hand in the operations which go on in Whinmore Hall.” Mr. Erle looked perfectly grave as he said this.
“I saw a man with a sword in his hand start from a part of the fence. I think he frightened our horse.”
“I, too, have seen the figure you speak of. But I do not think it is a living man.”
“What do you suppose it to be?” I asked, in amazement; for Mr. Erle was no ignorant or weak-minded person. He had already impressed me with real respect for his character and intellect.
He smiled at my impetuous tone.
“I live apart from what is called the world,” said he. “Grace and I are not polite enough to think everything which we cannot account for either impossible or ridiculous. Ten years ago, I myself was a new resident in this county, and wishing to improve your property, I determined to occupy the old Hall myself. I had it prepared for my family. No mechanic would work about the place after sunset. However, I brought all my servants from a distance; and took care that they should have no intercourse with any neighbour for the first three days. On the third evening they all came to me and said that they must leave the next morning—all but Grace’s nurse, who had been her mother’s attendant, and was attached to the family. She told me that she did not think it safe for the child to remain another night, and that I must give her permission to take her away.”
“What did you do?” said I.
“I asked for some account of the things that had frightened them. Of course, I heard some wild and exaggerated tales; but the main phenomena related were what I myself had seen and heard, and which I was as fully determined as they were not to see and hear again, or to let my child have a chance of encountering. I told them so, candidly; and at the same time declared that it was my belief God’s Providence or punishment was at work in that old house, as everywhere else in creation, and not the devil’s mischievous hand. Once more I made a rigorous search for secret devices and means for producing the sights and sounds which so many had heard and seen; but without any discovery: and before sunset that afternoon the Hall was cleared of all human occupants. And so it has remained until this day.”
“Will you tell me the things you saw and heard?”
“Nay, you had better see and hear them for yourself. We have plenty of time before sunset. I can show you over the whole house, and if your courage holds good, I will leave you there to pass an hour or so between sunset and moonrise. You can come back here when you like; and if you are in a condition to hear, and care to hear, the story which peoples your old Hall with horrors, I will tell it you.”
