"As well give up the Bible at once, as our belief in
apparitions."--WESLEY.
The house cried out to me for help.
In the after-knowledge I now possess of what was to happen there, that
impression is not more clearly definite than it was at my first sight of
the place. Let me at once set down that this is not the story of a
haunted house. It is, or was, a beleaguered house; strangely besieged as
was Prague in the old legend, when a midnight army of spectres unfurled
pale banners and encamped around the city walls.
Of course, I did not know all this, the day that my real-estate agent
brought his little car to a stop before the dilapidated farm. I believed
the house only appealed to be lived in; for deliverance from the
destroying work of neglect and time. A spring rain was whispering down
from a gray sky, dripping from broken gutters and eaves with a patter
like timid footsteps hurrying by, yet even in the storm the house did
not look dreary.
"There, Mr. Locke, is a bargain," the agent called back to me, where I
sat in my car. "Finest bit in Connecticut for a city man's summer home!
Woodland, farm land, lake and a house that only needs a few repairs to
be up-to-date. Look at that double row of maples, sir. Shade all summer!
Fine old orchard, too; with a trifle of attention."
I nodded, surveying the house with an eagerness of interest that
surprised myself. A box-like, fairly large structure of commonplace New
England ugliness, it coaxed my liking as had no other place I had ever
seen; it wooed me like a determined woman. And as one would long to
clothe beautifully a beloved woman, I looked at the house and foresaw
what an architect could do for it; how creamy stucco; broad white
porches and a gay scarlet roof would transform it.
"Come inside," my agent urged, hope in his voice as he observed my face;
"let me show you the interior. I brought the keys along. Of course, the
rooms may seem a bit musty. No one has lived in it for--some time. It's
the old Michell property; been in the family for a couple of hundred
years. Last Michell is dead, now, and it's being sold for the benefit of
some religious institute the old gentleman left it to. Trifle wet to
walk over the land today! But I've a plan and measurements in my
portfolio."
I said that we would go in. If he had but known the fact, the place was
already sold to me; before I left my car, before I entered the house,
before I had seen the hundred-odd acres that make up the estate.
There was a narrow, flagged path to the veranda, where the planking
moved and creaked under our weight while my companion unlocked the front
door. Rather astonishingly, the air of the long-closed place was neither
musty nor damp, when we stepped in. Instead, there was a faint, resinous
odor, very pleasant and clean; perhaps from the cedar of which the
woodwork largely consisted.
The house was partially furnished. Not, of course, with much that I
would care to retain, but a few good antiques stood out among their
commonplace associates. A large bedroom on the north side, which I
appointed as my own at first sight, held an old rosewood set including a
four-posted, pineapple-carved bed. I threw open the shutters in this
room and looked out.
I received the first jar to my satisfaction. On this side of the place,
the grounds ran down a slight slope for perhaps half a block to the
five-acre hollow of shallow water and lush growth which the agent called
a lake. From it flowed a considerable creek, winding behind the house
and away on its journey to the Sound. For that under-water marsh I felt
a shock of violent dislike.
"You don't care for the lake?" my companion deprecated, at my elbow.
"Fine trout in that stream, though! I'd like you to see it in the
sunshine."
"I should care more for it if it was a lake, not a swamp," I answered.
"Oh, but that is only because the old dam is down," he exclaimed
eagerly. "That lets all the water out, you see. Why, if the dam were put
back, you'd have as pretty a lake for a canoe as there is in the State!
Its natural depth is four or five feet all over, and about eight or ten
where the stream flows through to the dam. Even yet, a few wild duck
stop there spring and fall, and when I was a boy I've seen heron. Put
back the dam, Mr. Locke, and I'll guarantee you'll never say swamp
again!"
"We will try it," I said. "Now let us find a lawyer and see how quickly
I can be put in possession."
We drove back to the little town from which we had that morning started
out, and where my agent lived; my sleek car following his small one with
somewhat the effect of a long-limbed panther striding behind an agitated
mouse.
It appeared that the sale was simply consummated. I do not mean that all
the formalities were completed in a day. But by nightfall I could feel
myself the owner of the place.
Perhaps it was the giddiness of being a land-owner for the first time,
or perhaps it was the abject wretchedness of the only hotel in town that
inspired the whim which seized me during my solitary dinner. I had spent
one night here, and did not welcome the prospect of a second. A return
to New York was not practicable, because I had arranged to meet several
contractors and an architect at the farm, next morning, to discuss the
alterations I wanted made. Why not drive out to my new house this
evening and sleep tonight in the rosewood-furnished bedroom?
The idea gained favor as I contemplated it. I could go over the house
tonight and sketch more clearly what I wanted done, while I would be on
the ground when my men arrived next morning. There was an allure of
camping out about it, too.
In the end I went, of course.
It was dark when I stabled my roadster in the barn that was part of my
new possessions; where the car seemed to glitter disdain of the
hay-littered, ragged shelter. Equipped with a flashlight, suitcase and
bundle, I followed a faint path that wound its way to the house through
wet blackberry vines whose thorns had outlived the winter. My steps
broke the blank silence that brooded over the place. At this season
there was no insect life; nor any other stirring thing within hearing or
sight. But just as I stepped upon the veranda, I heard a vague sound
from the lake that lay a few hundred feet to the north. There was no
wind, yet the water had seemed to move with a sound like the smacking of
soft, glutinous lips. Or as if some soft body drew itself from a bed of
clinging mud. I wondered idly if the tide could run this far back from
Long Island Sound.
The house reiterated the impression of welcoming me. I shut and locked
the old door behind me, and went up to the room I had chosen as my own.
There I unshuttered and opened the windows, lighted one of the candles I
had brought and set it on a little bookcase filled with dingy volumes,
and threw my blankets on the bed. I had moved in!
My pleasant sense of proprietorship continued to grow. Before I thought
of sleep, I had been through the house several times from cellar to
attic and accumulated a list of things to be done. Back in my room, an
hour passed in revising the list, by candle-light.
Near ten o'clock, I rolled myself in a dressing-gown and my blankets,
spread an automobile robe over the four-posted bed, and fell asleep.