plunges back into the interests with which all his previous life has
been associated, and meets old friends at every step. I had been
circulating among some half-dozen of these and had missed some of my
home letters. It is never safe to miss one's letters. In this transitory
life, as the Prayer-book says, how can one ever be certain what is going
to happen? All was well at home. I knew exactly (I thought) what they
would have to say to me: "The weather has been so fine, that Roland has
not once gone by train, and he enjoys the ride beyond anything." "Dear
papa, be sure that you don't forget anything, but bring us so-and-so,
and so-and-so,"--a list as long as my arm. Dear girls and dearer mother!
I would not for the world have forgotten their commissions, or lost
their little letters!
When I got back to my club, however, three or four letters were lying
for me, upon some of which I noticed the "immediate," "urgent," which
old-fashioned people and anxious people still believe will influence the
post-office and quicken the speed of the mails. I was about to open one
of these, when the club porter brought me two telegrams, one of which,
he said, had arrived the night before. I opened, as was to be expected,
the last first, and this was what I read: "Why don't you come or answer?
For God's sake, come. He is much worse." This was a thunderbolt to fall
upon a man's head who had one only son, and he the light of his eyes!
The other telegram, which I opened with hands trembling so much that I
lost time by my haste, was to much the same purpose: "No better; doctor
afraid of brain-fever. Calls for you day and night. Let nothing detain
you." The first thing I did was to look up the time-tables to see if
there was any way of getting off sooner than by the night-train, though
I knew well enough there was not; and then I read the letters, which
furnished, alas! too clearly, all the details. They told me that the boy
had been pale for some time, with a scared look. His mother had noticed
it before I left home, but would not say anything to alarm me. This look
had increased day by day; and soon it was observed that Roland came home
at a wild gallop through the park, his pony panting and in foam, himself
"as white as a sheet," but with the perspiration streaming from his
forehead. For a long time he had resisted all questioning, but at length
had developed such strange changes of mood, showing a reluctance to go
to school, a desire to be fetched in the carriage at night,--which was a
ridiculous piece of luxury,--an unwillingness to go out into the
grounds, and nervous start at every sound, that his mother had insisted
upon an explanation. When the boy--our boy Roland, who had never known
what fear was--began to talk to her of voices he had heard in the park,
and shadows that had appeared to him among the ruins, my wife promptly
put him to bed and sent for Dr. Simson, which, of course, was the only
thing to do.
I hurried off that evening, as may be supposed, with an anxious heart.
How I got through the hours before the starting of the train, I cannot
tell. We must all be thankful for the quickness of the railway when in
anxiety; but to have thrown myself into a post-chaise as soon as horses
could be put to, would have been a relief. I got to Edinburgh very early
in the blackness of the winter morning, and scarcely dared look the man
in the face, at whom I gasped, "What news?" My wife had sent the
brougham for me, which I concluded, before the man spoke, was a bad
sign. His answer was that stereotyped answer which leaves the
imagination so wildly free,--"Just the same." Just the same! What might
that mean? The horses seemed to me to creep along the long dark country
road. As we dashed through the park, I thought I heard some one moaning
among the trees, and clenched my fist at him (whoever he might be) with
fury. Why had the fool of a woman at the gate allowed any one to come in
to disturb the quiet of the place? If I had not been in such hot haste
to get home, I think I should have stopped the carriage and got out to
see what tramp it was that had made an entrance, and chosen my grounds,
of all places in the world,--when my boy was ill!--to grumble and groan
in. But I had no reason to complain of our slow pace here. The horses
flew like lightning along the intervening path, and drew up at the door
all panting, as if they had run a race. My wife stood waiting to receive
me, with a pale face, and a candle in her hand, which made her look
paler still as the wind blew the flame about. "He is sleeping," she said
in a whisper, as if her voice might wake him. And I replied, when I
could find my voice, also in a whisper, as though the jingling of the
horses' furniture and the sound of their hoofs must not have been more
dangerous. I stood on the steps with her a moment, almost afraid to go
in, now that I was here; and it seemed to me that I saw without
observing, if I may so say, that the horses were unwilling to turn
round, though their stables lay that way, or that the men were
unwilling. These things occurred to me afterwards, though at the moment
I was not capable of anything but to ask questions and to hear of the
condition of the boy.
I looked at him from the door of his room, for we were afraid to go
near, lest we should disturb that blessed sleep. It looked like actual
sleep, not the lethargy into which my wife told me he would sometimes
fall. She told me everything in the next room, which communicated with
his, rising now and then and going to the door of the communication; and
in this there was much that was very startling and confusing to the
mind. It appeared that ever since the winter began--since it was early
dark, and night had fallen before his return from school--he had been
hearing voices among the ruins; at first only a groaning, he said, at
which his pony was as much alarmed as he was, but by degrees a voice.
The tears ran down my wife's cheeks as she described to me how he would
start up in the night and cry out. "Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother,
let me in!" with a pathos which rent her heart. And she sitting there
all the time, only longing to do everything his heart could desire! But
though she would try to soothe him, crying, "You are at home, my
darling. I am here. Don't you know me? Your mother is here!" he would
only stare at her, and after a while spring up again with the same cry.
At other times he would be quite reasonable, she said, asking eagerly
when I was coming, but declaring that he must go with me as soon as I
did so, "to let them in." "The doctor thinks his nervous system must
have received a shock," my wife said. "Oh, Henry, can it be that we
have pushed him on too much with his work--a delicate boy like Roland?
And what is his work in comparison with his health? Even you would think
little of honours or prizes if it hurt the boy's health." Even I!--as if
I were an inhuman father sacrificing my child to my ambition. But I
would not increase her trouble by taking any notice.
There was just daylight enough to see his face when I went to him; and
what a change in a fortnight! He was paler and more worn, I thought,
than even in those dreadful days in the plains before we left India. His
hair seemed to me to have grown long and lank; his eyes were like
blazing lights projecting out of his white face. He got hold of my hand
in a cold and tremulous clutch, and waved to everybody to go away. "Go
away--even mother," he said; "go away." This went to her heart; for she
did not like that even I should have more of the boy's confidence than
herself; but my wife has never been a woman to think of herself, and she
left us alone. "Are they all gone?" he said eagerly. "They would not let
me speak. The doctor treated me as if I were a fool. You know I am not a
fool, papa."
"Yes, yes, my boy, I know. But you are ill, and quiet is so necessary.
You are not only not a fool, Roland, but you are reasonable and
understand. When you are ill you must deny yourself; you must not do
everything that you might do being well."
He waved his thin hand with a sort of indignation. "Then, father, I am
not ill," he cried. "Oh, I thought when you came you would not stop
me,--you would see the sense of it! What do you think is the matter with
me, all of you? Simson is well enough; but he is only a doctor. What do
you think is the matter with me? I am no more ill than you are. A
doctor, of course, he thinks you are ill the moment he looks at
you--that's what he's there for--and claps you into bed."
"Which is the best place for you at present, my dear boy."
"I made up my mind," cried the little fellow, "that I would stand it
till you came home. I said to myself, I won't frighten mother and the
girls. But now, father," he cried, half jumping out of bed, "it's not
illness: it's a secret."
His eyes shone so wildly, his face was so swept with strong feeling,
that my heart sank within me. It could be nothing but fever that did it,
and fever had been so fatal. I got him into my arms to put him back into
bed. "Roland," I said, humouring the poor child, which I knew was the
only way, "if you are going to tell me this secret to do any good, you
know you must be quite quiet, and not excite yourself. If you excite
yourself, I must not let you speak."
"Yes, father," said the boy. He was quiet directly, like a man, as if he
quite understood. When I had laid him back on his pillow, he looked up
at me with that grateful, sweet look with which children, when they are
ill, break one's heart, the water coming into his eyes in his weakness.
"I was sure as soon as you were here you would know what to do," he
said.
"To be sure, my boy. Now keep quiet, and tell it all out like a man." To
think I was telling lies to my own child! for I did it only to humour
him, thinking, poor little fellow, his brain was wrong.
"Yes, father. Father, there is some one in the park,--some one that has
been badly used."
"Hush, my dear; you remember there is to be no excitement. Well, who is
this somebody, and who has been ill-using him? We will soon put a stop
to that."
"Ah," cried Roland, "but it is not so easy as you think. I don't know
who it is. It is just a cry. Oh, if you could hear it! It gets into my
head in my sleep. I heard it as clear--as clear; and they think that I
am dreaming, or raving perhaps," the boy said, with a sort of disdainful
smile.
This look of his perplexed me; it was less like fever than I thought.
"Are you quite sure you have not dreamed it, Roland?" I said.
"Dreamed?--that!" He was springing up again when he suddenly bethought
himself, and lay down flat, with the same sort of smile on his face.
"The pony heard it, too," he said. "She jumped as if she had been shot.
If I had not grasped at the reins--for I was frightened, father----"
"No shame to you, my boy," said I, though I scarcely knew why.
"If I hadn't held to her like a leech, she'd have pitched me over her
head, and never drew breath till we were at the door. Did the pony
dream it?" he said, with a soft disdain, yet indulgence for my
foolishness. Then he added slowly, "It was only a cry the first time,
and all the time before you went away. I wouldn't tell you, for it was
so wretched to be frightened. I thought it might be a hare or a rabbit
snared, and I went in the morning and looked; but there was nothing. It
was after you went I heard it really first; and this is what he says."
He raised himself on his elbow close to me, and looked me in the face:
"Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!" As he said the words a
mist came over his face, the mouth quivered, the soft features all
melted and changed, and when he had ended these pitiful words, dissolved
in a shower of heavy tears.
Was it a hallucination? Was it the fever of the brain? Was it the
disordered fancy caused by great bodily weakness? How could I tell? I
thought it wisest to accept it as if it were all true.
"This is very touching, Roland," I said.
"Oh, if you had just heard it, father! I said to myself, if father heard
it he would do something; but mamma, you know, she's given over to
Simson, and that fellow's a doctor, and never thinks of anything but
clapping you into bed."
"We must not blame Simson for being a doctor, Roland."
"No, no," said my boy, with delightful toleration and indulgence; "oh,
no: that's the good of him; that's what he's for; I know that. But
you--you are different; you are just father; and you'll do
something--directly, papa, directly; this very night."
"Surely," I said. "No doubt it is some little lost child."
He gave me a sudden, swift look, investigating my face as though to see
whether, after all, this was everything my eminence as "father" came
to,--no more than that. Then he got hold of my shoulder, clutching it
with his thin hand: "Look here," he said, with a quiver in his voice:
"suppose it wasn't--living at all!"
"My dear boy, how then could you have heard it?" I said.
He turned away from me with a pettish exclamation,--"As if you didn't
know better than that!"
"Do you want to tell me it is a ghost?" I said.
Roland withdrew his hand; his countenance assumed an aspect of great
dignity and gravity; a slight quiver remained about his lips. "Whatever
it was--you always said we were not to call names. It was something--in
trouble. Oh, father, in terrible trouble!"
"But, my boy," I said (I was at my wits' end), "if it was a child that
was lost, or any poor human creature--but, Roland, what do you want me
to do?"
"I should know if I was you," said the child eagerly. "That is what I
always said to myself,--Father will know. Oh, papa, papa, to have to
face it night after night, in such terrible, terrible trouble, and never
to be able to do it any good! I don't want to cry; it's like a baby, I
know; but what can I do else? Out there all by itself in the ruin, and
nobody to help it! I can't bear it!" cried my generous boy. And in his
weakness he burst out, after many attempts to restrain it, into a great
childish fit of sobbing and tears.
I do not know that I was ever in a greater perplexity in my life; and
afterwards, when I thought of it, there was something comic in it too.
It is bad enough to find your child's mind possessed with the conviction
that he had seen, or heard, a ghost; but that he should require you to
go instantly and help that ghost was the most bewildering experience
that had ever come my way. I did my best to console my boy without
giving any promise of this astonishing kind; but he was too sharp for
me; he would have none of my caresses. With sobs breaking in at
intervals upon his voice, and the rain-drops hanging on his eyelids, he
yet returned to the charge.
"It will be there now!--it will be there all the night! Oh, think,
papa,--think if it was me! I can't rest for thinking of it. Don't!" he
cried, putting away my hand,--"don't! You go and help it, and mother can
take care of me."
"But, Roland, what can I do?"
My boy opened his eyes, which were large with weakness and fever, and
gave me a smile such, I think, as sick children only know the secret of.
"I was sure you would know as soon as you came. I always said, 'Father
will know.' And mother," he cried, with a softening of repose upon his
face, his limbs relaxing, his form sinking with a luxurious ease in his
bed,--"mother can come and take care of me."
I called her, and saw him turn to her with the complete dependence of a
child; and then I went away and left them, as perplexed a man as any in
Scotland. I must say, however, I had this consolation, that my mind was
greatly eased about Roland. He might be under a hallucination; but his
head was clear enough, and I did not think him so ill as everybody else
did. The girls were astonished even at the ease with which I took it.
"How do you think he is?" they said in a breath, coming round me, laying
hold of me. "Not half so ill as I expected," I said; "not very bad at
all." "Oh, papa, you are a darling!" cried Agatha, kissing me, and
crying upon my shoulder; while little Jeanie, who was as pale as Roland,
clasped both her arms round mine, and could not speak at all. I knew
nothing about it, not half so much as Simson; but they believed in me:
they had a feeling that all would go right now. God is very good to you
when your children look to you like that. It makes one humble, not
proud. I was not worthy of it; and then I recollected that I had to act
the part of a father to Roland's ghost,--which made me almost laugh,
though I might just as well have cried. It was the strangest mission
that ever was intrusted to mortal man.
It was then I remembered suddenly the looks of the men when they turned
to take the brougham to the stables in the dark that morning. They had
not liked it, and the horses had not liked it. I remembered that even
in my anxiety about Roland I had heard them tearing along the avenue
back to the stables, and had made a memorandum mentally that I must
speak of it. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to go to
the stables now and make a few inquiries. The coachman was the head of
this little colony, and it was to his house I went to pursue my
investigations. He was a native of the district, and had taken care of
the place in the absence of the family for years; it was impossible but
that he must know everything that was going on, and all the traditions
of the place. The men, I could see, eyed me anxiously when I thus
appeared at such an hour among them, and followed me with their eyes to
Jarvis's house, where he lived alone with his old wife, their children
being all married and out in the world. Mrs. Jarvis met me with anxious
questions. How was the poor young gentleman? But the others knew, I
could see by their faces, that not even this was the foremost thing in
my mind.
After a while I elicited without much difficulty the whole story. In the
opinion of the Jarvises, and of everybody about, the certainty that the
place was haunted was beyond all doubt. As Sandy and his wife warmed to
the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything,
it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and
not without poetry and pathos. How long it was since the voice had been
heard first, nobody could tell with certainty. Jarvis's opinion was that
his father, who had been coachman at Brentwood before him, had never
heard anything about it, and that the whole thing had arisen within the
last ten years, since the complete dismantling of the old house; which
was a wonderfully modern date for a tale so well authenticated.
According to these witnesses, and to several whom I questioned
afterwards, and who were all in perfect agreement, it was only in the
months of November and December that "the visitation" occurred. During
these months, the darkest of the year, scarcely a night passed without
the recurrence of these inexplicable cries. Nothing, it was said, had
ever been seen,--at least, nothing that could be identified. Some
people, bolder or more imaginative than the others, had seen the
darkness moving, Mrs. Jarvis said, with unconscious poetry. It began
when night fell, and continued at intervals till day broke. Very often
it was only an inarticulate cry and moaning, but sometimes the words
which had taken possession of my poor boy's fancy had been distinctly
audible,--"Oh, mother, let me in!" The Jarvises were not aware that
there had ever been any investigation into it. The estate of Brentwood
had lapsed into the hands of a distant branch of the family, who had
lived but little there; and of the many people who had taken it, as I
had done, few had remained through two Decembers. And nobody had taken
the trouble to make a very close examination into the facts. "No, no,"
Jarvis said, shaking his head, "No, no, Cornel. Wha wad set themsels up
for a laughin'-stock to a' the country-side, making a wark about a
ghost? Naebody believes in ghosts. It bid to be the wind in the trees,
the last gentleman said, or some effec' o' the water wrastlin' among the
rocks. He said it was a' quite easy explained; but he gave up the hoose.
And when you cam, Cornel, we were awfu' anxious you should never hear.
What for should I have spoiled the bargain and hairmed the property for
no-thing?"
"Do you call my child's life nothing?" I said in the trouble of the
moment, unable to restrain myself. "And instead of telling this all to
me, you have told it to him,--to a delicate boy, a child unable to sift
evidence or judge for himself, a tender-hearted young creature----"
I was walking about the room with an anger all the hotter that I felt it
to be most likely quite unjust. My heart was full of bitterness against
the stolid retainers of a family who were content to risk other people's
children and comfort rather than let a house lie empty. If I had been
warned I might have taken precautions, or left the place, or sent Roland
away, a hundred things which now I could not do; and here I was with my
boy in a brain-fever, and his life, the most precious life on earth,
hanging in the balance, dependent on whether or not I could get to the
reason of a commonplace ghost-story!
"Cornel," said Jarvis solemnly, "and _she'll_ bear me witness,--the
young gentleman never heard a word from me--no, nor from either groom or
gardner; I'll gie ye my word for that. In the first place, he's no a lad
that invites ye to talk. There are some that are, and that arena. Some
will draw ye on, till ye've tellt them a' the clatter of the toun, and
a' ye ken, and whiles mair. But Maister Roland, his mind's fu' of his
books. He's aye civil and kind, and a fine lad; but no that sort. And ye
see it's for a' our interest, Cornel, that you should stay at Brentwood.
I took it upon me mysel to pass the word,--'No a syllable to Maister
Roland, nor to the young leddies--no a syllable.' The women-servants,
that have little reason to be out at night, ken little or nothing about
it. And some think it grand to have a ghost so long as they're no in the
way of coming across it. If you had been tellt the story to begin with,
maybe ye would have thought so yourself."
This was true enough. I should not have been above the idea of a ghost
myself! Oh, yes, I claim no exemption. The girls would have been
delighted. I could fancy their eagerness, their interest, and
excitement. No; if we had been told, it would have done no good,--we
should have made the bargain all the more eagerly, the fools that we
are.
"Come with me, Jarvis," I said hastily, "and we'll make an attempt at
least to investigate. Say nothing to the men or to anybody. Be ready for
me about ten o'clock."
"Me, Cornel!" Jarvis said, in a faint voice. I had not been looking at
him in my own preoccupation, but when I did so, I found that the
greatest change had come over the fat and ruddy coachman. "Me, Cornel!"
he repeated, wiping the perspiration from his brow. "There's nothin' I
wouldna do to pleasure ye, Cornel, but if ye'll reflect that I am no
used to my feet. With a horse atween my legs, or the reins in my hand,
I'm maybe nae worse than other men; but on fit, Cornel--it's no
the--bogles;--but I've been cavalry, ye see," with a little hoarse
laugh, "a' my life. To face a thing ye dinna understan'--on your feet,
Cornel."
"He believes in it, Cornel, and you dinna believe in it," the woman
said.
"Will you come with me?" I said, turning to her.
She jumped back, upsetting her chair in her bewilderment. "Me!" with a
scream, and then fell into a sort of hysterical laugh. "I wouldna say
but what I would go; but what would the folk say to hear of Cornel
Mortimer with an auld silly woman at his heels?"
The suggestion made me laugh too, though I had little inclination for
it. "I'm sorry you have so little spirit, Jarvis," I said. "I must find
some one else, I suppose."
Jarvis, touched by this, began to remonstrate, but I cut him short. My
butler was a soldier who had been with me in India, and was not supposed
to fear anything,--man or devil,--certainly not the former; and I felt
that I was losing time. The Jarvises were too thankful to get rid of me.
They attended me to the door with the most anxious courtesies. Outside,
the two grooms stood close by, a little confused by my sudden exit. I
don't know if perhaps they had been listening,--at least standing as
near as possible, to catch any scrap of the conversation. I waved my
hand to them as I went past, in answer to their salutations, and it was
very apparent to me that they also were glad to see me go.