Having realised a competence in Australia, and having a hankering after
country life for the remainder of my days in the old home, on my return
to England I went to an agent with the object of renting a house with
shooting attached, over at least three thousand acres, with the option
of a purchase should the place suit me. I was no more intending to buy a
country seat without having tried what it was like, than is a king
disposed to go to war without knowing something of the force that can be
brought against him. I was rather taken with photographs of a manor
called Fernwood, and I was still further engaged when I saw the place
itself on a beautiful October day, when St. Luke's summer was turning
the country into a world of rainbow tints under a warm sun, and a soft
vaporous blue haze tinted all shadows cobalt, and gave to the hills a
stateliness that made them look like mountains. Fernwood was an old
house, built in the shape of the letter H, and therefore, presumably,
dating from the time of the early Tudor monarchs. The porch opened into
the hall which was on the left of the cross-stroke, and the drawing-room
was on the right. There was one inconvenience about the house; it had a
staircase at each extremity of the cross-stroke, and there was no
upstair communication between the two wings of the mansion. But, as a
practical man, I saw how this might be remedied. The front door faced
the south, and the hall was windowless on the north. Nothing easier than
to run a corridor along at the back, giving communication both upstairs
and downstairs, without passing through the hall. The whole thing could
be done for, at the outside, two hundred pounds, and would be no
disfigurement to the place. I agreed to become tenant of Fernwood for a
twelvemonth, in which time I should be able to judge whether the place
would suit me, the neighbours be pleasant, and the climate agree with my
wife. We went down to Fernwood at once, and settled ourselves
comfortably in by the first week in November.
The house was furnished; it was the property of an elderly gentleman, a
bachelor named Framett, who lived in rooms in town, and spent most of
his time at the club. He was supposed to have been jilted by his
intended, after which he eschewed female society, and remained
unmarried.
I called on him before taking up our residence at Fernwood, and found
him a somewhat blasé, languid, cold-blooded creature, not at all proud
of having a noble manor-house that had belonged to his family for four
centuries; very willing to sell it, so as to spite a cousin who
calculated on coming in for the estate, and whom Mr. Framett, with the
malignity that is sometimes found in old people, was particularly
desirous of disappointing.
"The house has been let before, I suppose?" said I.
"Oh, yes," he replied indifferently, "I believe so, several times."
"For long?"
"No--o. I believe, not for long."
"Have the tenants had any particular reasons for not remaining on
there--if I may be so bold as to inquire?"
"All people have reasons to offer, but what they offer you are not
supposed to receive as genuine."
I could get no more from him than this. "I think, sir, if I were you I
would not go down to Fernwood till after November was out."
"But," said I, "I want the shooting."
"Ah, to be sure--the shooting, ah! I should have preferred if you could
have waited till December began."
"That would not suit me," I said, and so the matter ended.
When we were settled in, we occupied the right wing of the house. The
left or west wing was but scantily furnished and looked cheerless, as
though rarely tenanted. We were not a large family, my wife and myself
alone; there was consequently ample accommodation in the east wing for
us. The servants were placed above the kitchen, in a portion of the
house I have not yet described. It was a half-wing, if I may so describe
it, built on the north side parallel with the upper arm of the western
limb of the hall and the [Symbol: H]. This block had a gable to the
north like the wings, and a broad lead valley was between them, that, as
I learned from the agent, had to be attended to after the fall of the
leaf, and in times of snow, to clear it.
Access to this valley could be had from within by means of a little
window in the roof, formed as a dormer. A short ladder allowed anyone to
ascend from the passage to this window and open or shut it. The western
staircase gave access to this passage, from which the servants' rooms in
the new block were reached, as also the untenanted apartments in the old
wing. And as there were no windows in the extremities of this passage
that ran due north and south, it derived all its light from the
aforementioned dormer window.
One night, after we had been in the house about a week, I was sitting up
smoking, with a little whisky-and-water at my elbow, reading a review of
an absurd, ignorantly written book on New South Wales, when I heard a
tap at the door, and the parlourmaid came in, and said in a nervous tone
of voice: "Beg your pardon, sir, but cook nor I, nor none of us dare go
to bed."
"Why not?" I asked, looking up in surprise.
"Please, sir, we dursn't go into the passage to get to our rooms."
"Whatever is the matter with the passage?"
"Oh, nothing, sir, with the passage. Would you mind, sir, just coming to
see? We don't know what to make of it."
I put down my review with a grunt of dissatisfaction, laid my pipe
aside, and followed the maid.
She led me through the hall, and up the staircase at the western
extremity.
On reaching the upper landing I saw all the maids there in a cluster,
and all evidently much scared.
"Whatever is all this nonsense about?" I asked.
"Please, sir, will you look? We can't say."
The parlourmaid pointed to an oblong patch of moonlight on the wall of
the passage. The night was cloudless, and the full moon shone slanting
in through the dormer and painted a brilliant silver strip on the wall
opposite. The window being on the side of the roof to the east, we could
not see that, but did see the light thrown through it against the wall.
This patch of reflected light was about seven feet above the floor.
The window itself was some ten feet up, and the passage was but four
feet wide. I enter into these particulars for reasons that will
presently appear.
The window was divided into three parts by wooden mullions, and was
composed of four panes of glass in each compartment.
Now I could distinctly see the reflection of the moon through the window
with the black bars up and down, and the division of the panes. But I
saw more than that: I saw the shadow of a lean arm with a hand and thin,
lengthy fingers across a portion of the window, apparently groping at
where was the latch by which the casement could be opened.
My impression at the moment was that there was a burglar on the leads
trying to enter the house by means of this dormer.
Without a minute's hesitation I ran into the passage and looked up at
the window, but could see only a portion of it, as in shape it was low,
though broad, and, as already stated, was set at a great height. But at
that moment something fluttered past it, like a rush of flapping
draperies obscuring the light.
I had placed the ladder, which I found hooked up to the wall, in
position, and planted my foot on the lowest rung, when my wife arrived.
She had been alarmed by the housemaid, and now she clung to me, and
protested that I was not to ascend without my pistol.
To satisfy her I got my Colt's revolver that I always kept loaded, and
then, but only hesitatingly, did she allow me to mount. I ascended to
the casement, unhasped it, and looked out. I could see nothing. The
ladder was over-short, and it required an effort to heave oneself from
it through the casement on to the leads. I am stout, and not so nimble
as I was when younger. After one or two efforts, and after presenting
from below an appearance that would have provoked laughter at any other
time, I succeeded in getting through and upon the leads.
I looked up and down the valley--there was absolutely nothing to be seen
except an accumulation of leaves carried there from the trees that were
shedding their foliage.
The situation was vastly puzzling. As far as I could judge there was no
way off the roof, no other window opening into the valley; I did not go
along upon the leads, as it was night, and moonlight is treacherous.
Moreover, I was wholly unacquainted with the arrangement of the roof,
and had no wish to risk a fall.
I descended from the window with my feet groping for the upper rung of
the ladder in a manner even more grotesque than my ascent through the
casement, but neither my wife--usually extremely alive to anything
ridiculous in my appearance--nor the domestics were in a mood to make
merry. I fastened the window after me, and had hardly reached the
bottom of the ladder before again a shadow flickered across the patch of
moonlight.
I was fairly perplexed, and stood musing. Then I recalled that
immediately behind the house the ground rose; that, in fact, the house
lay under a considerable hill. It was just possible by ascending the
slope to reach the level of the gutter and rake the leads from one
extremity to the other with my eye.
I mentioned this to my wife, and at once the whole set of maids trailed
down the stairs after us. They were afraid to remain in the passage, and
they were curious to see if there was really some person on the leads.
We went out at the back of the house, and ascended the bank till we were
on a level with the broad gutter between the gables. I now saw that this
gutter did not run through, but stopped against the hall roof;
consequently, unless there were some opening of which I knew nothing,
the person on the leads could not leave the place, save by the dormer
window, when open, or by swarming down the fall pipe.
It at once occurred to me that if what I had seen were the shadow of a
burglar, he might have mounted by means of the rain-water pipe. But if
so--how had he vanished the moment my head was protruded through the
window? and how was it that I had seen the shadow flicker past the light
immediately after I had descended the ladder? It was conceivable that
the man had concealed himself in the shadow of the hall roof, and had
taken advantage of my withdrawal to run past the window so as to reach
the fall pipe, and let himself down by that.
I could, however, see no one running away, as I must have done, going
outside so soon after his supposed descent.
But the whole affair became more perplexing when, looking towards the
leads, I saw in the moonlight something with fluttering garments running
up and down them.
There could be no mistake--the object was a woman, and her garments were
mere tatters. We could not hear a sound.
I looked round at my wife and the servants,--they saw this weird object
as distinctly as myself. It was more like a gigantic bat than a human
being, and yet, that it was a woman we could not doubt, for the arms
were now and then thrown above the head in wild gesticulation, and at
moments a profile was presented, and then we saw, or thought we saw,
long flapping hair, unbound.
"I must go back to the ladder," said I; "you remain where you are,
watching."
"Oh, Edward! not alone," pleaded my wife.
"My dear, who is to go with me?"
I went. I had left the back door unlocked, and I ascended the staircase
and entered the passage. Again I saw the shadow flicker past the moonlit
patch on the wall opposite the window.