“THE HAUNTED HOUSE”
“Well, you jus’ tell me,” demanded William, “you jus’ give me one
reason why we shun’t dig for gold.”
“’Cause we shan’t find any,” said Douglas simply.
“How d’you know?” said William the ever-hopeful, “how d’you know we
shan’t? You ever tried? You ever dug for gold? D’you know anyone what’s
ever dug for gold? Well, then,” triumphantly, “how d’you _know_ we
shan’t find any?”
“_That’s_ ’cause why,” said Douglas with equal triumph, “’cause no
one’s ever _done_ it ... ’cause they’d of done it if there’d been any
chance....”
“They didn’t think of it,” said William impatiently. “They sim’ly
didn’t think of it. In the fields an’ woods f’rinstance--no one can
ever of dug there an’ f’all you know it’s _full_ of gold an’ jewels an’
things. How can anyone _tell_ till they’ve tried diggin’. People in
England sim’ly didn’t _think_ of it--that’s all.”
“All right,” said Douglas, tiring of the argument. “I don’t mind
diggin’ a bit an’ tryin’.”
“You can’t tell it at once--gold,” said William importantly. “You’ve
gotter wash it in water an’ then it shows up sud’nly. So we’d better
start diggin’ by some water.”
They began operations the next morning by the pond, and had dug
patiently for two hours before they were chased furiously from the
spot by Farmer Jenks and a dog and a shower of sticks and stones. The
washing of the soil had been the only part of the proceeding they had
really enjoyed and a good deal of the resultant mud still adhered to
their persons. They wandered down the road.
“Well, we’ve not found much gold yet, have we?” said Douglas
sarcastically.
“D’you think the gold diggers in--in----” William’s geography was
rather weak, so he hastily slurred over the precise locality--“anyway,
d’you think the gold diggers found it in one morning? I bet it takes
weeks an’ weeks.”
“Well, ’f you think I’m goin’ to go on diggin’ for weeks an’ weeks, I’m
not!” said Douglas firmly.
“Well, where can we find some more water to dig by, anyway?” said
Ginger the practical.
“It’s a silly idea diggin’ by water. I bet _I’d_ see gold in the earth
if there was any without washin’ it,” said Henry.
“An’ I bet you wun’t,” said William indignantly, “I’ve been readin’
tales about it, an’ that’s what it says. D’you think you’re cleverer
than all the gold diggers in--in--in those places?”
“Yes, I do, ’f they can’t see gold without washin’ it,” said Henry.
“Where’s some more water, anyway?” said Ginger again plaintively.
They were passing an old house in a large garden. The house had
been empty for more than a year because the last owner had died in
mysterious circumstances, but that fact did not affect the Outlaws
in any way. A stream flowed through the overgrown, neglected garden.
William peered through the hedge.
“Water!” he called excitedly. “Come on, an’ dig for gold here.”
Led by William they scrambled through the hedge and trampled gleefully
over the grass of the lawn that grew almost as high as their waists.
“Jus’ like a jungle!” shouted William. “Now we _can_ imagine we’re
in--in--in real gold diggin’ parts.”
They dug industriously for half an hour. William had a spade,
“borrowed” from the gardener. (The gardener was at that minute hunting
for it through toolhouse and greenhouse and garden. His thoughts were
already turning William-wards in impotent fury). Ginger had a coal
shovel with a hole in it rescued from the dust-bin. Henry had a small
wooden spade abstracted from his little sister when her attention was
engaged elsewhere, and Douglas had a piece of wood. They threw every
spadeful of earth into the stream and churned it about with their
spades.
“Seems a silly idea to _me!_” objected Henry again. “Jus’ makin’ _mud_
of it! Seems to me you’re more likely to _lose_ the gold, chuckin’ it
into the water every time. I shun’t wonder ’f we’ve lost lots already,
sinkin’ down to the bottom among the pebbles. We’ve not found much,
anyway.”
“Well, I tell you it’s the right _way_,” said William impatiently.
“It’s the way they _do_. I’ve _read_ it. If it wasn’t the right way
they wun’t do it, would they? D’you think the gold diggers out in--out
in those places would _do_ it if it wasn’t _right?_”
“Well, I’m gettin’ a bit tired of it anyway,” said Henry.
He voiced the general opinion. Even William’s enthusiasm was waning. It
seemed a very hot and muddy way of getting gold ... and it didn’t even
seem to get any.
Douglas had already laid aside his sodden stick and wandered up to the
house. He was pressing his nose against a dirty, cracked window pane.
Suddenly he shouted excitedly.
“I say ... a _rat_ ... there’s a _rat_ in this room!”
The Outlaws gladly threw away their spades and rushed to the window.
There was certainly a rat. He sat up upon his hind legs and trimmed his
whiskers, staring at them impudently. All thought of gold left the
gold diggers.
“Open the window!”
“_Catch_ him!”
“Gettim! Crumbs! Gettim!”
The window actually did open. With a yell of joy William raised it and
half-rolled, half-climbed over the sill into the room, followed by the
Outlaws, uttering wild war whoops. After one stricken glance at them
the rat disappeared down his hole....
But the Outlaws were thrilled by the house. They tramped about the
wooden floors in the empty re-echoing rooms--they slid down the dirty
balusters--they found a hole in a floor and delightedly tore up all the
rotten boards around it--they explored the bedrooms and the cistern
loft and the filthy, airless cellars--they met four rats and chased
them with deafening shouts.
They were drunk with delight. Their hands and faces were covered with
dust and their hair full of cobwebs. Then William and Ginger claimed
the upstairs as their castle and Henry and Douglas charged from below
and they all rolled downstairs in a mass of arms and legs and cobwebs.
Finally they formed a procession and marched from room to room,
stamping with all their might on the wooden floors and singing lustily
in their strong and inharmonious voices. They had entirely forgotten
their former avocation of gold digging.
“I say,” said William at last, hot and dirty and breathless and happy,
“it’d be jus’ the place for a meeting place, wun’t it? Better than the
ole barn.”
“Yes, but we’d have to be quieter,” said Ginger, “or else people’ll be
hearin’ us an’ makin’ a fuss like what they always do.”
“All right!” said William sternly, “you’ve been makin’ more noise than
anyone.”
“An’ let’s keep at the back,” said Henry, “or ole Miss Hatherly’ll be
seein’ us out of her window an’ comin’ in interferin’.”
William knew Miss Hatherly, whose house overlooked the front of the
empty house. He had good cause to know her. Robert was deeply enamoured
of Marion, Miss Hatherly’s niece, and Miss Hatherly disapproved of
Robert because he had no money and was still at college and rode a very
noisy motor cycle and dropped cigarette ash on her carpets and never
wiped his boots and frightened her canary. She disapproved of William
still more and for reasons too numerous to state.
* * * * *
The empty house became the regular meeting place of the Outlaws, and
the old barn was deserted. They always entered cautiously by a hole
in the garden hedge, first looking up and down the road to be sure
that no one saw them. The house served many purposes besides that of
meeting place. It was a smugglers’ den, a castle, a desert island, a
battlefield, and an Indian Camp.
It was William, of course, who suggested the midnight feast and the
idea was received with eager joy by the others. The next night they all
got up and dressed when the rest of their households were in bed.
William climbed down the pear tree which grew right up to his bedroom
window, Ginger got out of the bathroom window and crawled along the
garden wall to the gate, Douglas and Henry got out of the downstairs
windows. All were athrill with the spirit of adventure. They would
not have been surprised to meet a Red Indian in full war paint, or a
smuggler with eye patch and daggers, or a herd of lions and tigers--or
even--despite their scorn of fairy tales--a witch with a cat and
broomstick walking along the moonlit road. William had brought his
pistol and a good supply of caps in case they met any robbers.
“I know it wun’t _kill_ ’em,” he admitted, “but the bang’d make ’em
think it was a real one and scare ’em off. It makes a fine bang. Not
that I’m _frightened_ of ’em,” he added hastily.
Ginger had brought a stick which he thought would be useful for killing
snakes. He had a vague idea that all roads were infested by deadly
snakes at night. They entered the house, disturbing several rats who
fled at their approach.
They sat around a stubby candle-end thoughtfully provided by Henry.
They ate sardines and buns and cheese and jam and cakes and dessicated
cocoanut on the dusty floor in the empty room whose paper hung in
cobwebby strands from the wall, while rats squeaked indignantly behind
the wainscoting, and the moon, pale with surprise, peeped in at the
dirty uncurtained window. They munched in happy silence and drank
lemonade and liquorice water provided by William.
“Let’s do it to-morrow, too,” said Henry as they rose to depart, and
the proposal was eagerly agreed to.
* * * * *
Miss Hatherly was a member of the Society for the Encouragement of
Higher Thought. The Society for the Encouragement of Higher Thought had
exhausted nearly every branch of Higher Thought and had almost been
driven to begin again at Sublimity or Relativity. (They didn’t want to
because in spite of a meeting about each they were all still doubtful
as to what they meant.)
But last week someone had suggested Psychical Revelation, and they had
had quite a lively meeting. Miss Sluker had a cousin whose wife thought
she had heard a ghost. Miss Sluker, who was conscientious, added that
the cousin’s wife had never been quite sure and had admitted that it
might have been a mouse. Mrs. Moote had an aunt who had dreamed of her
sister and the next day her sister had found a pair of spectacles which
she had lost for weeks. But no one else had any psychic experience to
record.
“We must have another meeting and all collect data,” said the President
brightly.
“What’s ‘data’?” said little Miss Simky to her neighbour in a mystified
whisper.
“It’s the French for ghost story,” said the neighbour.
“Oh!” said little Miss Simky, satisfied.
The next meeting was at Miss Hatherly’s house.
The “data” were not very extensive. Miss Euphemia Barney had discovered
that her uncle had died on the same day of the month on which he had
been born, but after much discussion it was decided that this, though
interesting, was not a psychic experience. Miss Whatte spoke next. She
said that her uncle’s photograph had fallen from its hook exactly five
weeks to the day after his death. They were moving the furniture, she
added, and someone had just dropped the piano, but still ... it was
certainly data.
“I’m afraid I’ve no personal experience to record,” said little Miss
Simky, “but I’ve read some very exciting datas in magazines and such
like, but I’m afraid they won’t count.”
Then Miss Hatherly, trembling with eagerness, spoke.
“I have a very important revelation to make,” she said. “I have
discovered that Colonel Henks’ old house is haunted.”
There was a breathless silence. The eyes of the members of the Society
for the Encouragement of Higher Thought almost fell through their
horn-rimmed spectacles on to the floor.
“_Haunted!_” they screamed in chorus, and little Miss Simky clung to
her neighbour in terror.
“Listen!” said Miss Hatherly. “The house is empty, yet I have heard
voices and footsteps--the footsteps resembling Colonel Henks’. Last
night,”--the round-eyed, round-mouthed circle drew nearer--“last night
I heard them most distinctly at midnight, and I firmly believe that
Colonel Henks’ spirit is trying to attract my attention. I believe that
he has a message for me.”
Little Miss Simky gave a shrill scream and was carried to the
dining-room to have hysterics in comfort among the wool mats and
antimacassars.
“To-night I shall go there,” said Miss Hatherly, and the seekers after
Higher Thought screamed again.
“_Don’t_, dear,” said Miss Euphemia Barney. “Oh--it sounds
so--_unsafe_--and do you think it’s _quite_ proper?”
“Proper?” said Miss Hatherly indignantly. “Surely there can be no
impropriety in a spirit?”
“Er--no, dear--of course, you’re right,” murmured Miss Euphemia Barney,
flinching under Miss Hatherly’s eye.
“I shall go to-night,” said Miss Hatherly again with one more scathing
glance at Miss Euphemia Barney, “and I shall receive the message. I
want you all to meet me here this time to-morrow and I will report my
experience.”
The Society for the Encouragement of Higher Thought expostulated, but
finally acquiesced.
“What a _heroine!_ How _brave!_ How _psychic!_” they murmured as they
went homewards.
“What a thrilling data it will make,” said little Miss Simky, who had
now recovered from her hysterics and was feeling quite cheerful.
* * * * *
William was creeping downstairs. It was too windy for him to use
his pear tree and he was going out by way of the dining-room window.
He was dressed in an overcoat over his pyjamas and he held in his
arms ten small apples which were his contribution to the feast and
which he had secretly abstracted from the loft during the day.
Bang!--rattle--rattle--rattle!---- Three of them escaped his encircling
arms and dropped noisily from stair to stair.
[Illustration: THE OUTLAWS STARED AT EACH OTHER, AND THEIR HAIR STOOD
ON END. “A GHOST!” WHISPERED HENRY WITH CHATTERING TEETH.]
“Crumbs!” muttered William aghast.
No one, however, appeared to have heard. The house was still silent and
sleeping. William gathered up his three apples and dropped two more in
the process--fortunately upon the mat. He looked round anxiously. His
arms seemed inadequate for ten apples, but he had promised ten apples
for the feast and he must provide them. His pockets were already full
of biscuits.
He looked round the moonlit hall. Ah, Robert’s “overflow bag!” It was
on one of the chairs. Robert had been staying with a friend and had
returned late that night. He had taken his suit case upstairs and flung
the small and shabby bag that he called his “overflow bag” down on a
chair. It was still there.
Good! It would do to hold the apples. William opened it. There were a
few things inside, but William couldn’t stay to take them out. There
was plenty of room for the apples anyway. He shoved them in, took up
his bag, and made his way to the dining-room window.
[Illustration: “SPEAK!” A LOUD AND VIBRANT VOICE CALLED SUDDENLY.
“SPEAK! GIVE ME YOUR MESSAGE!”]
* * * * *
The midnight feast was in full swing. Henry had forgotten to bring the
candles, Douglas was half asleep, Ginger was racked by gnawing internal
pains as the result of the feast of the night before, and William was
distrait, but otherwise all was well.
Someone had (rather misguidedly) given William a camera the day before
and his thoughts were full of it. He had taken six snapshots and was
going to develop them to-morrow. He had sold his bow and arrows to a
class-mate to buy the necessary chemicals. As he munched the apples
and cheesecakes and chocolate cream and pickled onions and currants
provided for the feast he was in imagination developing and fixing
his snapshots. He’d never done it before. He thought he’d enjoy it.
It would be so jolly and messy--watery stuff to slosh about in little
basins and that kind of thing.
Suddenly, as they munched and lazily discussed the rival merits of
catapults and bows and arrows (Ginger had just swopped his bow and
arrows for a catapult), there came through the silent empty house the
sound of the opening of the front door. The Outlaws stared at each
other with crumby mouths wide open--steps were now ascending the front
stairs.
“Speak!” called suddenly a loud and vibrant voice from the middle of
the stairs, which made the Outlaws start almost out of their skins.
“Speak! Give me your message.”
The hair of the Outlaws stood on end.
“A ghost!” whispered Henry with chattering teeth.
“Criky!” said William, “let’s get out.”
They crept silently out of the further door, down the back stairs, out
of the window, and fled with all their might down the road.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Miss Hatherly first walked majestically into the
closed door and then fell over Robert’s “overflow bag,” which the
Outlaws had forgotten in their panic.
* * * * *
Robert went to see his beloved the next day and to reassure her of
his undying affection. She yawned several times in the course of
his speech. She was beginning to find Robert’s devotion somewhat
monotonous. She was not of a constant nature. Neither was Robert.
“I say,” she said interrupting him as he was telling her for the tenth
time that he had thought of her every minute of the day, and dreamed of
her every minute of the night, and that he’d made up a lot more poetry
about her but had forgotten to bring it, “do come indoors. They’re
having some sort of stunt in the drawing-room--Aunt and the High
Thinkers, you know. I’m not quite sure what it is--something psychic,
she said, but anyway it ought to be amusing.”
Rather reluctantly Robert followed her into the drawing-room where the
Higher Thinkers were assembled. The Higher Thinkers looked coldly at
Robert. He wasn’t much thought of in high-thinking circles.
There was an air of intense excitement in the room as Miss Hatherly
rose to speak.
“I entered the haunted house,” she began in a low, quivering voice,
“and at once I heard--VOICES!” Miss Simky clung in panic to Miss
Sluker. “I proceeded up the stairs and I heard--FOOTSTEPS!” Miss
Euphemia Barney gave a little scream. “I went on undaunted.” The Higher
Thinkers gave a thrilled murmur of admiration. “And suddenly all was
silent, but I felt a--PRESENCE! It led me--led me along a passage--I
FELT it! It led me to a room----” Miss Simky screamed again. “And in
the room I found THIS!”
With a dramatic gesture she brought out Robert’s “overflow bag.”
“I have not yet investigated it. I wished to do so first in your
presence.” (“How _Noble!_” murmured Mrs. Moote.) “I feel sure that this
is what Colonel Henks has been trying to show me. I am convinced that
this will throw light upon the mystery of his death--I am now going to
open it.”
“If it’s human remains,” quavered Miss Simky, “I shall _faint_.”
With a determined look, Miss Hatherly opened the bag. From it she
brought out first a pair of faded and very much darned blue socks,
next a shirt with a large hole in it, next a bathing suit, and lastly a
pair of very grimy white flannel trousers.
The Higher Thinkers looked bewildered. But Miss Hatherly was not
daunted.
“They’re clues!” she said, “clues--if only we can piece them together
properly; they must have some meaning. Ah, here’s a note-book--this
will explain everything.”
She opened the note-book and began to read:
“Oh, Marion, my lady fair,
Has eyes of blue and golden hair.
Her heart of gold is kind and true,
She is the sweetest girl you ever knew.
But oh, a dragon guards this jewel
A hideous dragon, foul and cruel,
The ugliest old thing you ever did see,
Is Marion’s aunt Miss Hatherly.”
“These socks are both marked ‘Robert Brown’,” suddenly squealed Miss
Sluker, who had been examining the “clues.”
Miss Hatherly gave a scream of rage and turned to the corner where
Robert had been.
But Robert had vanished.
When Robert saw his “overflow bag” he had turned red.
When he saw his socks he had turned purple.
When he saw his shirt he had turned green.
When he saw his trousers he had turned white.
When he saw his note-book he had turned yellow.
When Miss Hatherly began to read he muttered something about feeling
faint and crept unostentatiously out of the window. Marion followed him.
“Well,” she said sternly, “you’ve made a nice mess of everything,
haven’t you? What on earth have you been doing?”
“I can’t think what you thought of those socks,” said Robert hoarsely,
“all darned in different coloured wool--I never wear them. I don’t know
why they were in the bag.”
“I didn’t think anything at all about them,” she snapped.
They were walking down the road towards Robert’s house.
“And the shirt,” he went on in a hollow voice, “with that big hole in
it. I don’t know what you’ll think of my things. I just happened to
have torn the shirt. I really never wear things like that.”
“Oh, do shut _up_ about your things. I don’t care what you wear. But
I’m _sick_ with you for writing soppy poetry about me for those asses
to read,” she said fiercely. “And why did you give her your bag, you
loony?”
“I didn’t, Marion,” said Robert miserably. “Honestly I didn’t. It’s a
_mystery_ to me how she got it. I’ve been hunting for it high and low
all to-day. It’s simply a _mystery!_”
“Oh, do stop saying that. What are you going to do about it? That’s the
point.”
“I’m going to commit suicide,” said Robert gloomily. “I feel there’s
nothing left to live for now you’re turning against me.”
“I don’t believe you _could_,” said Marion aggressively. “How are you
going to do it?”
“I shall drink poison.”
“What poison? I don’t believe you know what _are_ poisons. _What_
poison?”
“Er--prussic acid,” said Robert.
“You couldn’t get it. They wouldn’t sell it to you.”
“People _do_ get poisons,” Robert said indignantly. “I’m always reading
of people taking poisons.”
“Well, they’ve got to have more sense than you,” said Marion
crushingly. “They’re not the sort of people that leave their bags and
soppy poems all over the place for other people to find.”
They had reached Robert’s house and were standing just beneath
William’s window.
“I know heaps of poisons,” said Robert with dignity. “I’m not going to
tell you what I’m going to take. I’m going to----”
At that moment William, who had been (not very successfully) fixing his
snapshots and was beginning to “clear up,” threw the contents of his
fixing bath out of the window with a careless flourish. They fell upon
Robert and Marion. For a minute they were both speechless with surprise
and solution of sodium hyposulphate. Then Marion said furiously:
“You _brute!_ I hate you!”
“Oh, I _say_,” gasped Robert. “It’s not my fault, Marion. I don’t know
what it is. Honestly _I_ didn’t do it----”
Some of the solution had found its way into Robert’s mouth and he was
trying to eject it as politely as possible.
“It came from your beastly house,” said Marion angrily. “And it’s
_ruined_ my hat and I _hate_ you and I’ll never speak to you again.”
She turned on her heel and walked off, mopping the back of her neck
with a handkerchief as she went.
Robert stared at her unrelenting back till she was out of sight, then
went indoors. Ruined her hat indeed? What was a hat, anyway? It had
ruined his _suit_--simply _ruined_ it. And how had the old cat got his
bag he’d like to know. He wouldn’t mind betting a quid that that little
wretch William had had something to do with it. He always had.
He decided not to commit suicide after all. He decided to live for
years and years and years to make the little wretch’s life a misery to
him--if he could!