It was a wild wet night in March. Dominic Le Mierre had just
finished supper, and he sat by the fire in the kitchen of
Orvilliere; he was in a particularly good mood, owing to the
excellence of the tobacco he was smoking. As he puffed at his second
pipe he congratulated himself on his long acquaintance with
Frenchmen, who had no scruples in giving him whole packages of this
excellent tobacco; and no conditions attached except the fun of
helping to hide it in the caves below the Haunted House, till it
could be conveyed to Brittany!
Then he laughed aloud at the idea of the countryside about this very
Haunted House. He had added two or three ghost tales to those
current; and, though he believed firmly in every weird story of the
two parishes, he had not felt a single scruple in inventing others
to terrify people from the spot. His love of lawlessness and danger
was infinitely stronger than his inherited faith in the
supernatural. The Haunted House brought to his mind the festival of
_Les Brandons_, when the dreaded place had lost its horror for the
time being, owing to the safety that is supposed to lie in numbers.
He chuckled as he remembered what a fool he had made of Ellenor.
Bah! Once and for all he had done with her! Who cared to look at her
now, fright that she was! And how dared that pious idiot of a
fisherman throw him down before all the company! Ah! he would soon
teach him better manners! he would thrash him well next time they
met!
So he plotted and thought and smoked, and the night wind howled and
the rain beat against the windows. All at once, he got up, and from
the rack fastened across the beamed ceiling he took an old black
book, his friend and evil counsellor, the _Grand-Mele_ which had
been in his family for generations. It was a book of magic,
containing spells to be used on every conceivable occasion, and
Dominic Le Mierre was past-master in the black art. Turning over the
pages with knitted brows, he searched for a spell to be used against
Perrin Corbet. At last he found it.
"Ah, it is quite easy to draw blood, and it need be but a drop!" he
muttered, "scratch his hand with my knife and it is done! Then, he
will walk in his sleep to the Haunted House. There I will meet him!
Ah, Perrin Corbet, it will be your turn to be down on the ground! I
will see him to-morrow, and the spell will work for the night.
_Bon_, nothing could be better!"
He took up his pipe again and smoked in full contentment. A sudden
stillness had fallen over the wild night. It seemed to Dominic that
he could hear the moan of the sea. He listened. His blood crept at
the weird stillness.
Hark! Hush! What was that?
The wild sad cry of a sea-gull. Nearer and nearer it came, and
Dominic's eyes were fixed in horror upon the uncurtained window.
The sea-gull came at last quite close, with wilder, sadder cries. It
flapped its wings and circled round and round the casement. Dominic
was cold and stiff with terror. He knew who the sea-gull was, but
what did it mean? Some dreadful thing was drawing near Orvilliere.
"Blaisette!" he cried, "I know you well enough! Why do you come
here?"
Wilder, more despairing grew the cries. Closer and closer the bird
drew to the panes, striking them with a twang like the sound of wild
music.
With a curse the master roused himself from the freezing spell. He
took his loaded gun from its place over the chimney piece. He fired.
One of the panes of glass was broken. Outside, on the cobbled yard,
the gull lay dead, its glazed eyes fixed on the house.
With a laugh of triumph, Dominic re-lighted his pipe and sat down
again by the fire. He had just settled once more to the reading of
_Grand-Mele_ when a very tempest of wind and hail shook the house,
and in the midst of it, a low, sharp knock fell on the house door.
This time, the master was not under a spell. He recognized the
knock. In an instant he was in the entrance hall and had flung open
the door. A rough, unkempt fisherman stood on the threshold.
"You must come at once, Monsieur," he cried, "there's been great
luck! A lot of brandy has been brought, unexpected. It's to the cave
below the Haunted House. We could have got it up the cliffs alone.
But we all agreed that you must have your share in the fun."
"Quick! where did the stuff come from?"
"From France, from les Messieurs ----."
"_Bon!_ Will you wait for me?"
"No, my horse is here--tied to the gate. He's impatient, him! I'll
be off to tell the rest you're coming."
"I'll ride too," and Dominic slammed the door, and hurried to the
back of the house where his horses were stabled for the night. He
chose out a fleet white one that was used to wild rushes through the
dark. Before he mounted, he fastened a pistol to the saddle; but he
laughed as he did this, it was such a useless precaution. Never once
yet had the excisemen appeared within miles of the Haunted House.
With a dark lantern swinging from the saddle bow, he rode out of the
farmyard and cantered up the hill. Then, urging the white mare to
her swiftest pace, he flew through steep lanes, past Torteval
Church, and along the high road to Pleinmont.
The rain poured in torrents. The wind roared and howled. Several
times the mare paused, trembling. But Dominic lashed her on, and in
pain and terror she tore across the moorland, striking fire from the
stones as she flew. He reined her in at last and fastened her to a
hook in the side wall of the Haunted House. He laughed as he thought
what a help she would be in keeping all comers away, for she seemed
to shed a white dim light from her drenched skin, and her loud
breathing might easily be taken for groans.
He scrambled down the face of the cliff. Fortunately, the wind blew
in from the sea, and in safety he reached a large cave, brilliant
with the light of many torches. His boon companions, the roughest
gangs of the two parishes, greeted him with shouts and jests, and an
hour of drinking and feasting followed. Then, with no little
difficulty, kegs of brandy were hauled up the cliffs and deposited
in the Haunted House. With wonderful skill, the men worked almost
all the while in the dark, only using lanterns when it was
absolutely necessary. At last, all the kegs were stowed away. The
men scattered to fetch their horses from various sheds belonging to
friendly people, and the master of Orvilliere was left alone.
He looked carefully round at the precious kegs stowed half way up
the walls. Ah--what was that! One of the barrels leaked! Brandy,
velvety fragrant brandy was oozing out on the earthen floor! He
knelt down and caught a few drops in his hand. It was superfine, the
best stuff he had ever tasted. Greedily he drank again and again
from his hand. But that process was too slow. Catching up a hatchet,
he enlarged the leak, and throwing himself flat on the ground, he
lapped the golden spirit that filled him with ecstasy. At last, he
had had enough. He fumbled at the leak, making futile efforts to
stop it. But he was too drunk to know what he was about. He had just
sense enough to darken his lantern, to reel out of the Haunted House
and fling himself on the drenched grass beside his shivering mare.
Presently his debauch turned into a heavy sleep, and the hours
passed. Suddenly he woke and sat up. He heard, quite distinctly, the
sharp click of a horse's hoof. It had rung through his drunken sleep
like a knell. He had dreamt he heard again the passing bell that had
tolled for Blaisette.
All at once the click passed into a smothered sound of pounding and
slushing. The horse had left the high road and must be on the
moorland!
Sobered, Le Mierre leapt to his feet, unloosened the mare and jumped
on her back. He turned her inland and urged her forward. But,
trembling in every limb, the mare refused to move. Nearer and nearer
came the pounding of the horse. It stopped. A lantern flashed out.
Le Mierre saw the figure of a well known exciseman riding a powerful
black horse. A voice cried above the howling of the wind.
"Give yourself up, and all will be well! I've looked for you far and
wide. At last I find you. Come, Le Mierre, don't be a fool about
this. It will only be a fine, and perhaps not even that, if you give
up the other chaps."
But the master of Orvilliere was not to be reasoned with. He was in
a towering rage. He wrenched the pistol from the saddle. He fired it
at the exciseman. It missed him. But he, too, lost his temper. In an
instant he was beside Le Mierre and had dragged the pistol away and
flung it against the house. Dominic, beside himself and unnerved
with the night's carouse, grappled with the exciseman and tried to
throttle him.
A terrible struggle. A wild pounding of hoofs. Cries and oaths. The
fall of the lantern. Gusts of rain, and wind that shrieked as if an
agony of warning. Then, the mare broke away at last, in a frenzy of
terror, and made straight for the edge of the cliffs behind the
Haunted House.
Not one word came from Dominic Le Mierre as the mare stumbled, fell,
and, with a horrible, almost human cry, rolled over and over down
the precipitous height.
The exciseman dismounted, groped for the lantern, lit it, and fought
his way half down the cliff, at the risk of his life, as the wind
had changed and was blowing out to sea. But there was not a sign of
the mare and her rider.
At the earliest streak of dawn, the two parishes were roused, and
long and careful search went on for days. But it was all in vain.
Somewhere, in the deep seas, perhaps, the body of the master was at
rest, but, after "life's fitful fever," did he, indeed "sleep well?"
Orvilliere Farm was shut up. The finding of the dead gull, with a
red wound in its white breast, proved conclusively that foul play
and magic had been at work on the night of the storm. The servant
and the housekeeper had been all the evening at a wedding feast, and
when they returned at five o'clock next morning they found excited
groups of people all about the farm, and they heard the story of the
death of Dominic Le Mierre.
No one would dream of living henceforth at Orvilliere. It was
haunted. People who were compelled to pass through the valley at
nightfall, saw flickering lights moving from window to window of the
farm, and heard the sudden firing of a gun, and the plaintive cry of
a wounded bird.
The wind sighed about the lonely spot. The moan of the sea
penetrated to the solitary farm. But no human creature wept for the
departed soul of the master of Orvilliere. All shuddered at his end.
Two prayed, in defiance of their scruples, for his wicked, wild
soul. And these were only an old woman and her fisherman son.