When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred
in the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman’s Bay,
one of the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of
Sydney. In those days the houses were few and far apart, and our own
dwelling was surrounded on all sides by the usual monotonous-hued
Australian forest of iron barks and spotted gums, traversed here and
there by tracks seldom used, as the house was far back from the main
road, leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle Harbour. The
building itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard,
on to which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell over
the door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door
bell, which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the “pull”
being one of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from
the outer wall plate, where it connected with the wire.
One cold and windy evening about eight o’clock, my mother, my sisters,
and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my
brothers from Sydney—they attended school there, and rowed or sailed
the six miles to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk.
On this particular evening, however, they were late, on account of the
wind blowing rather freshly from the north-east; but presently we heard
the front-door bell ring gently.
“Here they are at last,” said my mother; “but how silly of them to go
to the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!”
Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage, and
opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room
smiling—“Masther Edward is afther playin’ wan av his thricks, ma’am——”
she began, when the bell again rang—this time vigorously. My eldest
sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient
exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said
sharply as she pulled it inwards—
“Come in at once, you stupid things!” There was no answer, and she
stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big
bell in the hall rang!
She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell
gave a curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so
gently.
“Don’t take any notice of them,” said my mother, “they will soon get
tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their supper.”
Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each
other and smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten
gentle strokes in quick succession.
“Let us catch them,” said my mother, rising, and holding her finger up
to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we
following on tiptoe.
Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just
as the bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible!
My mother—one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now
became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to
the darkness—
“Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly
well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and
are pulling it. If you don’t desist you shall have no supper.”
No answer—except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted
tinkle.
“Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia,” said our now thoroughly
exasperated parent, “and we shall see what these foolish boys have done
to the bell-wire.”
Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to
examine the bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and
as she descended, the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke!
We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five
minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way,
by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty, wet
with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected
voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they
deserved none.
“Why, mum, what’s the matter?” said Ted; “what _have_ we been doing
now, or what have we not done, that we don’t deserve any supper, after
pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black
north-easter?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you
to play such silly tricks upon us.”
Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. “Silly tricks, mother! What
silly tricks?” (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell
again rang.)
My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew
nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of
her anger.
“Let us go and see if we can find out,” said Ted. “You two boys, and
you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we’ll start
out together—two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some
one must be up to a trick!”
Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working
bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Ted angrily.
“Shure, an’ there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould
convict days,” she whimpered. “The polace sargint’s wife at Sint
Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down
beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin’ their
supper, an’ there’s people near about now that saw all the blood and——”
“Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!” shouted Ted, as my eldest sister
began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to
mother’s skirts.
Ted’s angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment,
and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the
bell gave out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in
a colossal heap on the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I
assure my readers that I am not exaggerating matters in the slightest.)
My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood
of us out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it.
_She_ knew the proper treatment for hysterics.
“Let her stay there, boys,” she said quietly, “she will hurt the
furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and
your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go
into the kitchen.”
We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest
brother and myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show
some courage by Ted’s awful threats of what he would do to us if we
“funked,” told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and
meet him at the hall door, he going round from the right.
With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the
circuit, sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking
at anything as we hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet
Ted as quickly as possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the
verandah, and in front of the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted
appeared.
“Well, did you see anything?” he asked, as he walked up the steps,
lantern in hand.
“Nothing,” we answered, edging up towards the door.
Ted looked at us contemptuously. “You miserable little curs! What are
you so frightened of? You’re no better than a pack of women and kids.
It’s the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it’s not the wind, it
is something else which I don’t know anything about; but I want my
supper. Pull the bell, one of you.”
Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the
handle of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug.
“It’s stuck, Ted. It won’t pull down,” we said.
“Granny!” said the big brother, “you’re too funky to give it a proper
pull,” and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant handle and gave a
sharp pull. There was no answering sound.
“It certainly is stuck,” admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to get
a look upwards, then he gave a yell.
“Oh! look there!”
We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet
snake, which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top of
the wall plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at all
alarmed at our presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and
squirming with much apparent cheerfulness.
Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a
clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few
rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then
the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the
tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty from the wire, and threw it down
upon the verandah.
It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the
disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by
dragging its body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When
Ted killed it the poor harmless creature had almost accomplished its
object.