"What's good enough for you is good enough for me. I'm not afraid of a
hundred ghosts."
And indeed I should have felt easier in the company of a hundred than of
one.
We halted a moment at my mother's grave as we went by.
"She lived up at the house once," said Tim.
"I know," said I.
"Come on," said Tim; "it's getting very dark."
So we went on; and on the way I tried to recall what I knew of the story
of Kilgorman, as I had heard it from my mother and the country folk.
Twelve years ago Terence Gorman, brother of his honour, lived there and
owned all the lough-side from Dunaff to Dunree, and many a mile of
mountain inland. He was not a rich man, but tried, so folk said, to
deal fairly with his tenants. But as a magistrate he was very stern to
all ill-doers, no matter who they were; and since many of his own
tenants aided and abetted the smuggling and whisky-making on the coast,
Terence Gorman had plenty of enemies close to his own door. His
household, at the time I speak of, consisted only of his young wife and
her newly-born babe, and of my father and mother, who served in the
house, one as boatman and gamekeeper and the other as lady's-maid. My
mother had come over with the young bride from England, and had married
my father within a month or two of her coming. And, as it happened,
just when my lady gave birth to her infant, and was most in need of her
countrywoman's help, my mother presented my father with twins, and lay
sadly in need of help herself; so that Biddy McQuilkin, who was fetched
from Kerry Keel to wait on both, had a busy time of it.
What happened on the fatal night that left Kilgorman desolate no one was
able rightly to tell; for, except Biddy and Maurice Gorman, who chanced
that night to have come over to see his brother, the sole occupants of
the house had been Mrs Gorman and her child and my mother and her two
infants.
Terence Gorman at nightfall had taken the gig, with my father, to drive
to Carndonagh, where next day he was to inquire into some poaching
affray. That was at seven o'clock. About midnight my father, half
crazy with fright, brought the gig back, and in it the dead body of his
master. They had reached the gap in Ballinthere Hill, he said, going by
the lower road, when a shot was suddenly fired from the roadside,
grazing my father's arm and lodging in the neck of Mr Gorman. It was
so suddenly done, and the horse bolted so wildly forward at the report,
that before my father could even look round the assassin had vanished.
Mr Gorman was already dead. My father did what he could to stanch the
wound, but without avail; and, in a daze, he turned the horse's head and
drove back as fast as he could to Kilgorman. My lady, whose bedroom was
over the hall-door, was the first to hear the sound of the wheels, and
she seemed to have guessed at a flash of the mind what had happened.
Weak as she was, she succeeded in dragging herself from the bed and
looking out of the window; and the first sight that met her eyes, by the
gleam of the lanterns, was the lifeless body of her husband being lifted
from the gig.
The shock was too much for her. She was found soon after in a dead
swoon on the floor, and before morning her spirit had joined that of her
husband. And not only hers--the little hope of the house shared the
fate of her parents. And when the day of burial came, Terence Gorman
and his wife and daughter were all laid in one grave.
My mother, to whom the shock of the news had been more gently broken,
and whose husband had at least escaped with his life, recovered; and
with her twin boys, Tim and me, was able in due time to remove to the
cabin on Fanad across the lough which Maurice Gorman (who by this sad
tragedy had unexpectedly become the heir to his brother's estate) gave
him for a home.
That was all I knew, except this: ever since that night Kilgorman House
had remained empty, and people said that its only tenant was the
wandering spirit of the distracted mother crying in the night for her
husband and baby.
These sombre recollections were an ill preparation for our nocturnal
visit to the haunted house. As the rusty avenue-gate swung back with a
hoarse creak I was less inclined than ever for the adventure.
But Tim was not to be hindered, and paced sturdily down the long avenue,
summoning me to keep close and hold my tongue, for fear any one might be
within earshot.
Kilgorman was a big, irregular mansion of several stories, with some
pretensions to architecture, and space enough within its rambling walls
to quarter a ship's company. In front a field of long, rank grass
stretched up to the very doorway, having long since overgrown the old
carriage-drive. In the rear was a swampy bog, out of which the house
seemed to rise like a castle out of a moat. On either side gaunt trees
crowded, overhanging the chimneys with their creaking boughs. There was
no sound but the drip of the water from the roof, and the sobbing of the
breeze among the trees, and now and again the hoot of an owl across the
swamp which set me shivering.
Tim boldly marched up to the front door and tried it. It was fast and
padlocked. The windows on the ground-floor were closely shuttered and
equally secure.
We groped our way round to the rear, keeping close to the wall to avoid
the water. But here, too, all was fast; nor was there a sign of any one
having been near the place for years. My hopes began to rise as Tim's
fell.
"Why not come by daylight?" said I.
"Why not get in, now we are here?" said Tim--"unless you're afraid."
"Who's afraid?" said I, shaking the window-frame till it rattled again.
"Come to the yard," said Tim. "There'll be a ladder there, I warrant."
So we felt our way back to the side on which abutted the stable-yard,
and there, sure enough, lay a crazy ladder against the wall. It took
our united strength to lift it. To my horror, Tim suggested putting it
to the window that overlooked the hall-door--that fatal window from
which the poor lady had taken her last look in life.
I would fain have moved it elsewhere, but he was obstinate. The top of
the porch was flat, and we could stand there better than anywhere else.
So--Tim first, I next--we clambered cautiously up, and stepped on to the
ledge. The window was fast like the rest, but it was not shuttered, and
Tim boldly attacked the pane nearest to the catch with his elbow. What
a hideous noise it made as it shivered inwards and fell with a smash on
the floor!
"Mind now," said Tim, as he slipped in his hand and pushed back the
catch. "Lift away."
It was a hard job to lift it, for the wood had warped and grown stiff in
its grooves. But presently it started, and gave us room to squeeze
through into the room.
Even Tim was a little overawed when he found himself standing there in
the room, scarcely changed, except for the mildew and cobwebs, from what
it had been twelve years ago.
"Whisht!" said he in a whisper. "I wish we had a light."
But light there was none, and the fitful gleams of the wandering moon
served only to make the darkness darker.
Once, as it floated clear for an instant, I caught sight of the bed, and
a chair, and some withered flowers on the floor, left there, no doubt,
since the day of the funeral.
Next moment all was dark again.
Tim had used the gleam to find the door, and I heard him call me.
"Come away. Keep your hand on the wall and feel with your feet for the
stairs. It's down below the arms will be."
I am sure, had he looked, he would have been able to see the whiteness
of my face through the darkness; but he was better employed.
"Here it is," he said. "Now keep your hand on the rail and go gently
down."
"How'll we find our way back to the ladder?" said I.
"We've to get our guns first," said he, shortly.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we seemed to be in a passage
or hall that went right and left.
In the plight in which we were it mattered little which turn we took, so
Tim turned to the right, feeling along by the wall, with me close at his
heels. Cautiously as we trod, our footsteps seemed to echo along the
corridor, till often enough, with my heart in my mouth, I stopped short,
certain I heard some one following. Tim too, I thought, was beginning
to repent of his venture, and once more said, "We need a light badly."
Just then the moon peeped in for a moment through a loophole in one of
the shutters, and showed us a bracket on the wall opposite on which
stood a candle, and beside it, to our joy, a tinder-box.
"These have not stood here twelve years," said Tim, as he lifted them
from their place. "This is a new candle."
And I remembered then the moving lights I had seen not a week ago.
The dim light of the candle gave us some little comfort. But for safety
we kept it closely shaded, lest we should betray ourselves. At the end
of the passage a door stood partly open, and beyond we found ourselves
in a large kitchen paved with flagstones, and crowded round the walls
and down the middle of the floor with muskets, piled in military fashion
in threes and sixes.
Tim's soul swelled within him at the sight; but I confess I was more
concerned at the gloomy aspect of the great chamber, and the general
sense of horror that seemed to hang over the whole place.
"Begorrah, it was worth coming for!" said Tim, as he crouched down
examining the lock of one specially bright weapon.
Suddenly he started to his feet and extinguished the candle. "Whisht!"
he exclaimed, "there's a step."
We stood like statues, not even daring to breathe. There, sure enough,
not on the walk without, but down at the end of the corridor we had just
traversed, was a footstep. Tim drew me down to a corner near the
hearth, where, hidden behind a stack of arms, we could remain partly
hid. The step approached, but whoever came was walking, as we had done,
in the dark. To my thinking it was a light step, and one familiar with
the path it trod. For a moment it ceased, and I guessed it was at the
bracket from which we had taken the candle. Tim's hand closed on my arm
as the sound began again; and presently we heard, for we could not see,
the door move back.
I never wish again for a moment like that. If I could have shouted I
would have done so. All we could do was to crouch, rooted to the spot,
and wait with throbbing hearts for what was to happen. As the footsteps
halted a moment at the open door my quick ears seemed to detect the
rustle of a dress, and next moment what sounded like a sob, or it might
have been only a moan of the wind outside, broke the silence.
Then the steps advanced direct for us. Even the moon had deserted us,
and by no straining of our eyes could we detect who the stranger was,
even when she (for by the rustling sound we were positive it was a
woman) reached the hearth and stood motionless within a foot of us.
Reach out we could not; stir we durst not; all we could do was to wait
and listen.
It is strange what, when all other senses fail, the ear will do for one.
I at least could tell that this strange intruder was a woman, and that
the dress she wore was of silk. Further, I could tell that when she
reached the hearth she knelt before the empty fireplace, not for warmth,
but as if seeking something. I could hear what seemed a faint
irresolute tapping with the knuckles; then just as, once more, the wind
fell into a moan without, there came a sudden and fearful noise, which
roused us out of our stupor and filled the place with our shrieks.
For a moment we could not say what had happened. Then I understood
that, in the tension of looking for the ghost I could not see, my foot
had stretched against the butt of one of the guns and upset a stack of
some six of them on to the stone floor, thereby putting an end to all
things, the ghost included; for when we recovered from this last fright,
and Tim in desperation struck a light, the place was as silent and empty
as it was when we entered it.
If it was all an illusion, it was a strange one--strange indeed for a
single witness to hear, stranger still for two. Yet illusion it must
have been, begotten of my terrors, and the creak of the stairs, and the
sighing of the wind, or the excursions of a vagabond rat. I do not
pretend to explain it. Nor, for months after, could I be persuaded that
the visitor was aught other than the poor distracted lady of Kilgorman.
And it was months after that before I could get out of my mind that she
had stood beside us and sought for something in the hearth.
As for us that night, I can promise you we were not many minutes longer
in Kilgorman when the spell was once broken. Even Tim forgot the guns.
With all the speed we could we ran to the stairs and so to my lady's
chamber, against which stood the friendly ladder, down which we slid,
and not waiting even to restore it to its place, sped like hunted hares
down the avenue and along the steep path, till we came to the harbour in
the creek where lay our boat.
Nor was it till we were safely afloat, with sail hoisted and our bows
pointing to Fanad, that we drew breath, and dared look back in the dim
dawn at the grim walls and chimneys of Kilgorman as they loomed out upon
us from among the trees and rocks.