“‘Now you mention it,’ I said, ‘I confess I have.’
“‘And, what is more,’ he continued, ‘I was sitting here two nights ago half asleep, and—it seems ridiculous, I know, but it’s a fact—I suddenly saw a horrible face glaring at me from between those curtains behind you. It was gone in a moment, but I saw it as plainly as I see you.’
“I moved my seat uneasily.
“‘Did you look in your bedroom or in the passage?’ I asked.
“‘Yes—at once,’ he replied. ‘There was nothing to be seen; but twice again that night I heard footsteps passing—good God!’
“He started up in his chair, staring straight over my shoulder. I turned quickly and saw the curtains which parted off the bedroom swing together.
“‘What is it?’ I asked, breathlessly.
“‘I saw it again—the same face—between the curtains.’
“I tore the hangings aside, and rushed into the next room. It was empty. The lamp was burning upon a side table, and the door was open, just as George had left it. In the passage outside all was quiet. I came back into the study and found George running his fingers through his hair in perplexity.
“‘There is clearly one person too many in the house,’ I said. ‘I think we ought to draw the place and find out who it is.’
“‘All right,’ said he, picking up the poker from the fireplace; ‘if it’s anything made of flesh and blood this will be useful, and if not—’
“He stopped short, for at that instant the most awful shriek of horror rang through the house—a shriek of wild, uncontrollable terror, such as I had never heard before and I never hope to hear again. One moment we stood staring at each other, dumbfounded. The next George Carson had dashed out of the room and down the corridor to the stairs. I followed close behind him. For we both knew that none but a woman in mortal fear would shriek like that, and that that woman was Miss Stonor.
“Down the stairs we tumbled pell-mell in the darkness. But before I reached the landing below, where Miss Stonor’s room was, I felt, as I had felt the evening before, something brush swiftly past me. As I ran I turned and caught at it in the dark. But my hand gripped only empty air. I was just about to turn back and follow it, when a cry from George arrested me, and, looking down, I saw him standing over the prostrate form of Miss Stonor. The door of her room was open, and by the moonlight which streamed into the room I could see her lying in her white nightdress across the threshold. What followed in the next few minutes I can scarcely recall with accuracy. The whole house was aroused by the poor girl’s awful shriek. She was quite unconscious when we came upon her, but she revived more or less as soon as Mrs. Carson and one of the terrified servants had lifted her into bed again. Nothing intelligible could be gathered from her, however, as to the cause of her fright; she only repeated, hysterically, again and again:
“‘Oh, the face; the face!’
“When I saw I could do her no further good for the present, I took George by the arm and led him out of the room.
“‘Look here, George,’ I said, ‘we must find out the reason of this at once. I am certain I felt something go by me as I came downstairs. Now does that staircase lead anywhere but to our rooms?’
“George considered for a moment.
“‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘there is a door at the end of the passage which leads up into a sort of lumber room.’
“‘Then we’ll explore it,’ I said. ‘For my part I can’t go to sleep until I’ve got to the bottom of this. Get the man to bring a lantern along.’
“The butler looked as though he didn’t half like the enterprise, and, to tell the truth, no more did I. It was the uncanniest job I ever undertook. However, we started, the three of us. First of all we searched the rooms on the floor above, where George and I slept. Everything was just as we had left it. Then I pushed open the door at the end of the corridor. A crazy-looking staircase led up into darkness. We went cautiously up, I first with a candle, then George, and last of all the butler with a lantern. At the top we stepped into a big, rather low room, with beams across the ceiling, and a rough, uneven floor. Our lights threw strange shadows into the corners, and more than once I started at what looked like a crouching human figure. We searched every corner. There was nothing to be seen but a few old boxes, a roll or two of matting, and some broken chairs. But in the far corner George pointed out to me a rickety ladder which ended at a closed trap-door. Just then I distinctly heard the curious, half groaning, half sighing sound which had already puzzled me in the corridor below. We stood still and looked at one another. We all heard the sound.
“‘Whatever it is, it’s up there,’ I said. ‘The question is, who is going up?’
“George put his candle down upon the floor and stepped upon the ladder. It cracked beneath his weight. He stopped.
“‘Come down; it won’t bear you,’ I said. ‘I shall have to go.’
“I don’t know that I was ever in such a queer funk as I was while I slowly mounted that ladder, and pushed open the trap-door. I had formed no clear idea of what I expected to find there. Certainly I was not prepared for what happened. For no sooner was the trap-door fully open than there fell—literally fell—upon me from the darkness above a thing in human shape, which kicked and spat and tore at me as I stood clinging to the ladder. It lasted but a moment or so, but in that moment I lived a lifetime of terror. The ladder swayed and cracked beneath me, and I fell to the floor with the thing gripping my throat like a vise. The next instant George had stunned it with a blow from the poker and dragged it off me. It lay upon its back on the floor—a ragged, hideous, loathsome shape. And the mystery was solved.”
“But you haven’t told us what it really was,” said one of the listeners.
The doctor smiled.
“It was the owner of the house,” he replied. “He had not gone abroad. He had gone to a private lunatic asylum with homicidal mania upon him. About a fortnight before this he had managed to escape; and, having made his way to his former home, had concealed himself, with a cunning often shown by lunatics, in the loft. I suppose he had found enough to eat in his nightly rambles about the house. The only wonder is that he didn’t kill someone before he was caught.”
A CRY ACROSS THE BLACK WATER, by S. R. Crockett
Originally published in The Pall Mall Magazine, May 1894.
It was at the waterfoot of the Ken, and the time of the year was June.
“Boat ahoy!”
The loud, bold cry was carried far through the still morning air. The rain had washed down all that was in the sky during the night, so that the hail echoed through a world blue and empty.
Gregory Jeffray, a noble figure of a youth, stood leaning on his mare’s neck, quieting the nervous tremors of Eulalie, that very dainty lady. His tall, alert figure, tight-reined and manly, was brought out by his riding dress, and his pose against the neck of the beautiful beast, from which a moment before he had swung himself, was that of Hadrian’s young Antinous.
“Boat ahoy!”
Gregory Jeffray, growing a little impatient, made a trumpet of his hands, and sent the powerful voice, with which he meant to thrill the listening senate, sounding athwart the dancing ripples of the loch.
On the farther shore was a flat white ferry-boat, looking, as it lay motionless in the river, like a great white table chained in the water with its legs in the air. The chain along which it moved plunged into the shallows beside him, and he could see it descending till he lost it in the great dusky pool across which the ferry plied. To the north Loch Kenmore ran in glistening levels and island-studded reaches to the base of Cairnsmuir.
“Boat ahoy!”
A figure, like a white mark of exclamation moving over green paper, came out of the little low whitewashed cottage opposite, and stood a moment looking across the ferry, with one hand resting on its side and the other held level with its eyes. Th
en the observer disappeared behind a hedge, to be seen immediately coming down the narrow, deep-rutted lane towards the ferry-boat. As the figure came again in sight of Gregory Jeffray, he had no difficulty in seeing that it was a girl, clad in white, who came sedately towards him.
When she arrived at the white boat which floated so stilly on the morning glitter of the water, just stirred by a breeze from the south, she stepped at once on board. Gregory could see her as she took from the corner of the flat, where it stood erect along with other boating gear, something which looked like a short iron hoe. With this she walked to the end of the boat nearest him. She laid the hoe end of the instrument against a chain that ran breast-high along one side of the boat, and at the end plunged diagonally into the water. His mare lifted her foot impatiently, as though the shoreward end of the chain had brought a thrill across the loch from the ferry boat. Turning her back to him, the girl bent her slim young body in an effort, and, as though by the gentlest magic, the ferry-boat drew nearer to him. It did not seem to move; but gradually the space of blue water between it and the shore on which the whitewashed cottage stood widened. He could hear the gentle clatter of the wavelets against the lip of the landing drop as the boat came nearer. His mare tossed her head and snuffed at this strange thing that came towards them.
Gregory, who loved all women, watched with interest the sway and poise of the girlish figure. He heard the click and rattle of the chain as she deftly disengaged her gripper-iron at the farther end, and, turning, walked the deck’s length towards him.
She seemed but a young thing to move so large a boat. He forgot to be angry at being kept so long waiting, for of all women, he told himself, he most admired tall girls in simple dresses. His interest arose from the fact that he had never seen one manage a ferry-boat before.
As he stood on the shore, and the great flat boat moved towards him, he saw that the end of it nearest him was pulled up a couple of feet clear of the water. Still the boat moved noiselessly forward, till he heard it ground gently as the graceful pilot bore her weight upon the bar to stay its progress. Gregory specially admired the flex of her arms bent outwardly as she did so. Then she went to the end of the boat, and let down the tilted gangway upon the pebbles at his feet.
Gregory Jeffray instinctively took off his hat as he said to this girl, “Good morning! Can I get to the village of Dullarg by this ferry?”
“This is the way to the Dullarg,” said the girl, simply and naturally, leaning as she spoke upon her dripping gripper-iron.
Her eyes took in the goodliness of the youth while his attention was for the moment given to his mare.
“Gently, gently, lass!” he said, patting the mare on the neck as she felt the hollow boards beneath her feet. But she came obediently enough on deck, arching her fore feet high and throwing them out in an uncertain and tentative manner.
Then the girl, with a quiet and matter-of-fact acceptance of her duties, placed her iron once more upon the chain, and bent herself to the task with a well-accustomed effort of her slender body.
The heart of the young man was stirred. Yet he could have seen fifty field-wenches breaking their backs among the harvest sheaves without a pang. This, however, was very different.
“Let me help you,” he said.
“It is better that you stand by your mare,” she said.
Gregory Jeffray looked disappointed.
“Is it not too hard work for you?” he said.
“No,” said the girl. “Ye see, sir, I leeve wi’ my mother’s twa sisters i’ the boat-hoose. They are very kind to me. They brocht me up, that had neither faither nor mither. An’ what’s bringin’ the boat ower a time or twa?”
Her ready and easy movements told the tale for her. She needed no pity, and asked for none, for which Gregory was rather sorry. He liked to pity people, and then to right their grievances, if it were not very difficult. Of what use otherwise was it to be, what he was called in Galloway, the “Boy Fiscal”? Besides, he was taking a morning ride from the Great House of the Barr, and upon his return to breakfast he desired to have a tale to tell that would rivet attention upon himself.
“And do you do nothing all day but only take the boat to and fro across the loch?” he asked.
He saw the way now, he thought, to matter for an interesting episode—the basis of which would be the delight of a beautiful girl in spending her life in carrying desirable young men, riding upon horses, over the shining morning water. They would all look with eyes of wonder upon her; but she, the cold Diana of the loch side, would never look in return at any of them, except perhaps upon Gregory Jeffray. Gregory went about the world finding pictures and making romances for himself. He meant to be a statesman, and, with this purpose in view, it was necessary for him to study the people, and especially, he might have added, the young women of the people. Hitherto he had done this chiefly in his imagination, but here certainly was material to his hand.
“Do you do nothing else?” he repeated, for the girl was uncomplimentarily intent upon her gripper-iron. How deftly she lifted it just at the right moment, when it was in danger of being caught upon the revolving wheel! How exactly she exerted just the right amount of strength to keep the chain running sweetly upon its cogs! How daintily she stepped back, avoiding the dripping of the water from the linked iron which rose from the bed of the loch, passed under her hand and dipped diagonally down again into the deeps! Gregory had never seen anything like it, he told himself.
It was not until he had put his question the third time that the girl answered, “Whiles I tak’ the boat ower to the waterfoot when there’s a cry across the Black Water.”
The young man was mystified.
“A cry across the Black Water! What is that?” he said.
The girl looked at him directly almost for the first time. Was he making fun of her, she thought. His face seemed earnest enough, and handsome. It was not possible, she thought.
“Ye’ll be a stranger in these parts?” she answered interrogatively, because she was a Scottish girl.
Gregory Jeffray was about to declare his names, titles and expectations, but he looked at the girl again, and saw something that withheld him.
“Yes,” he said, “I am staying for a week or two over at Barr.”
The boat grounded on the pebbles, and the girl went to let down the hinged end. It seemed a very brief passage to Gregory Jeffray. He stood still by his mare, as though he had much more to say.
The girl placed her cleek in the corner, and moved to leave the boat. It piqued the young man to find her so unresponsive. “Tell me what you mean by ‘a cry across the Black Water,’” he said.
The girl pointed to the strip of sullen blackness that lay under the willows upon the southern shore.
“That is the Black Water o’ Dee,” she said simply, “and that green point amang the trees is the Rhonefoot. Whiles there’s a cry frae there. Then I gae ower i’ the boat an’ set them across.”
“Not in this boat,” he said, looking at the great upturned table swinging upon its iron chain.
She smiled at his ignorance.
“That is the boat that goes across the Black Water o’ Dee,” she said, pointing to a small boat which lay under the bank on the left.
“And do you never go anywhere else?” he asked, wondering how she came by her beauty and her manners.
“Only to the kirk on the Sabbaths,” she said, “when I can get some one to watch the boat for me.”
“I will watch the boat for you!” he said impulsively.
The girl looked distressed. This great gentleman was making fun of her, assuredly. She did not answer. Would he never go away?
“This is your way,” she said, pointing along the track in front. Indeed, there was only one way, and the information was superfluous.
The end of the white, rose-smothered boathouse was towards them. A tall, bowed woman’s fig
ure passed quickly round the gable.
“Is that your aunt?” he asked.
“That is my Aunt Annie,” said the girl; “my aunt Barbara is confined to her bed.”
“And what is your name, if I may ask?”
The girl glanced at him. He was certainly not making fun of her now.
“My name is Grace Allen,” she said.
They paced together up the path. The bridle rein slipped from his arm, but his hand instinctively caught it, and Eulalie cropped crisply at the grasses on the bank, unregarded of her master.
They did not shake hands when they parted, but their eyes followed each other a long way.
* * * *
“Where is the money?” said Aunt Barbara from her bed as Grace Allen came in at the open door.
“Dear me!” said the girl, frightened: “I have forgotten to ask him for it!”
“Did I ever see sic’ a lassie? Rin after him an get it; haste ye fast.”
But Gregory was far out of reach by the time Grace got to the door. The sound of hoofs came from high up the wooded heights.
* * * *
Gregory Jeffray reached the Barr in time for late breakfast. There was a large company. The men were prowling discontentedly about, looking under covers or cutting slices from dishes on the sideboard; but the ladies were bright, and eagerly welcomed Gregory. He at least did not rise with a sore head and a bad temper every morning. They desired an account of his morning’s ride. On the way home he had changed his mind about telling of his adventure. He said that he had had a pleasant ride. It had been a beautiful morning.
“But have you nothing whatever to tell us?” they asked; for, indeed, they had a right to expect something.
Gregory had nothing. This was not usual, for at other times when he had nothing to tell it did not cost him much to make something up.
The 7th Ghost Story Page 5
