Part 11

If I moved from the door those eyes might come in; if I remained where I was, what unseen thing might touch me? At last I remembered a bit of candle and matches that were in a certain drawer. Could I find the chest of drawers? At least it was worth trying.

How I got across that room I don’t know, but I did, and I found that bit of candle and matches and lit up, and I gazed all round that room.

I saw my face in the glass—it appalled me, for my eyes were fairly bulging out of my white face.

With the comfort of the lighted candle I got downstairs. The landlady, Mr. P., and my sister all remarked upon my appearance and asked why I had been so long. When I told them they were very excited, and all went with lamps to hunt for the ghost. To them it was a most exciting event; to me it was a nightmare.

Of course, they found nothing.

Some weeks later, when the ghost was forgotten, my sister and I were sitting in a room on the first floor, the door of which opened straight off a tiny landing of the staircase. My sister was playing the piano, and I was sitting by the fire sewing.

Looking towards her, I noticed the door opening ever so slowly and silently until it was wide open—and no one was there. Thinking, sensibly, it must be the draught, I got up to close the door and, there, in the doorway, on a level with my own, were the pair of eyes, luminous.

I stood stock still and said to my sister: “Look at the door!” To do so, she had to look up and over the piano, and by so doing she looked straight at those eyes. She rushed to my side shrieking. Up the stairs pelted Mr. P., with the landlady following, shouting up, “What's the matter?”

He walked right under those eyes, and, brushing back his hair with his hand, he said: “Great Scott! Aren't you cold up here? Did one of you shriek or call out?”

I was standing petrified with fright, with my sister clinging to me.

It was a moment or two before I could tell him, and then he was off in hot chase—he was going to catch the ghost with his gun. He went and fetched a chum, and, together, they made enough noise to frighten an army of ghosts; but they did not catch one.

We all felt a bit eerie, and Mr. P. persuaded his chum to sleep with him a few nights.

It was just as well that he did, for one night, about two a.m., we were all awakened by the most blood-curdling screams it is possible to imagine. My sister and I sat up at once and clung tight to each other. Mr. P. and his chum were soon hammering on our door asking were we all right. The landlady was wandering about her landing in a voluminous dressing gown and night cap, with a candle: a little girl was sobbing in bed, and a boy slept through the lot. The men were determined to put an end to the matter, so down the cellar they went with lamps and pistols, and all over the house, and right up into the unused attic, but nothing could be discovered.

Should any reader want to think of a reasonable clue, I can only tell them that the house was built in such a way that no sun could get into it; it was very old and appeared to have been wedged in to block up a passage way between the backyard of a grocer’s shop and the road. The front and back of the house were built away back from the level of the other houses: the houses on both sides of it seemed to squeeze the very air out of the house—it was a deadly house.

As soon as I walked into the front door I used to shiver and stare straight ahead of me, as if expecting things to happen. Even in the daytime it was always dark as compared to other houses.

A Ghostly Carpenter

ABOUT twenty years ago my brother D went to live in a fairly large house in North London—wife and two little children with him. There was no basement; dining and drawing rooms faced each other from the hall, and, farther along, was a large, square room entirely panelled, with oak ceiling, also, save for one corner not quite finished. Upstairs a back room had evidently been used as a carpenter's workshop; so my brother, a keen carpenter, decided to use it himself, similarly. They were only just settled in when every evening a noise of wood sawing began about seven o’clock—loud and distinct, with every now and then the “whop” as the sawn piece dropped. Many friends and relatives heard it. Then, in the room overhead, began sounds of carpentering; loud noises as if wooden boxes were dropped and pushed along; and, every night, tools, which had been carefully put back in the racks, were found in the morning scattered about the room.

In the oak room a swing was hung from a beam, and my brother had this room as a nursery. In broad daylight, on a summer afternoon, would come the sound of the swing, then a sound as if someone jumped from it, and the swing would go to and fro violently. Many times there have been sounds of someone running quickly downstairs.

A previous owner of the house was an old man who did the oak panelling himself, but died ere it was finished.

My brother and family still occupy the house, and have grown so accustomed to “Bill, the carpenter,” as they call him, that the noises do not trouble them at all. Sometimes these noises stop for a while, and then go on again louder than ever.

There is absolutely no earthly explanation, but I do know it is perfectly true, and many have heard the noises.

Another Reverend’s Story

A REVEREND gentleman tells the following story:—

In an old house in a cathedral town the ghost of a tall, elderly woman dressed in black recently gave much trouble to the inmates. The ladies living in the house saw the apparition constantly, and got quite accustomed to it, but very few servants would stay in the house.

The climax came when the cook was found in a fainting condition and said that the ghost had tried to strangle her, and showed the marks of fingers on her throat.

Something had to be done. A clergyman from the cathedral was called in and exorcised the ghost, whereupon the trouble instantly ceased.

Investigation showed that a woman, answering to the apparition, had committed suicide in the house about fifty years previously. An interesting point is that the ghost was seen in every part of the house except the room in which the tragedy had taken place.

The Girl in White