Part 59 (1/2)

The maids were too frightened to go to bed, and so agreed to sit up in the kitchen for the rest of the night by a good fire, and I gave them a bottle of sherry to mull, and make themselves comfortable upon, and to help them to recover their courage.

Although I went to bed, I could not sleep. I was completely baffled by what I had seen. I could in no way explain what the object was and how it had left the leads.

Next day I sent for the village mason and asked him to set a long ladder against the well-head of the fall pipe, and examine the valley between the gables. At the same time I would mount to the little window and contemplate proceedings through that.

The man had to send for a ladder sufficiently long, and that occupied some time. However, at length he had it planted, and then mounted. When he approached the dormer window--

”Give me a hand,” said I, ”and haul me up; I would like to satisfy myself with my own eyes that there is no other means of getting upon or leaving the leads.”

He took me under both shoulders and heaved me out, and I stood with him in the broad lead gutter.

”There's no other opening whatever,” said he, ”and, Lord love you, sir, I believe that what you saw was no more than this,” and he pointed to a branch of a n.o.ble cedar that grew hard by the west side of the house.

”I warrant, sir,” said he, ”that what you saw was this here bough as has been carried by a storm and thrown here, and the wind last night swept it up and down the leads.”

”But was there any wind?” I asked. ”I do not remember that there was.”

”I can't say,” said he; ”before twelve o'clock I was fast asleep, and it might have blown a gale and I hear nothing of it.”

”I suppose there must have been some wind,” said I, ”and that I was too surprised and the women too frightened to observe it,” I laughed. ”So this marvellous spectral phenomenon receives a very prosaic and natural explanation. Mason, throw down the bough and we will burn it to-night.”

The branch was cast over the edge, and fell at the back of the house. I left the leads, descended, and going out picked up the cedar branch, brought it into the hall, summoned the servants, and said derisively: ”Here is an ill.u.s.tration of the way in which weak-minded women get scared. Now we will burn the burglar or ghost that we saw. It turns out to be nothing but this branch, blown up and down the leads by the wind.”

”But, Edward,” said my wife, ”there was not a breath stirring.”

”There must have been. Only where we were we were sheltered and did not observe it. Aloft, it blew across the roofs, and formed an eddy that caught the broken bough, lifted it, carried it first one way, then spun it round and carried it the reverse way. In fact, the wind between the two roofs a.s.sumed a spiral movement. I hope now you are all satisfied. I am.”

So the bough was burned, and our fears--I mean those of the females--were allayed.

In the evening, after dinner, as I sat with my wife, she said to me: ”Half a bottle would have been enough, Edward. Indeed, I think half a bottle would be too much; you should not give the girls a liking for sherry, it may lead to bad results. If it had been elderberry wine, that would have been different.”

”But there is no elderberry wine in the house,” I objected.

”Well, I hope no harm will come of it, but I greatly mistrust----”

”Please, sir, it is there again.”

The parlourmaid, with a blanched face, was at the door.

”Nonsense,” said I, ”we burnt it.”

”This comes of the sherry,” observed my wife. ”They will be seeing ghosts every night.”

”But, my dear, you saw it as well as myself!”

I rose, my wife followed, and we went to the landing as before, and, sure enough, against the patch of moonlight cast through the window in the roof, was the arm again, and then a flutter of shadows, as if cast by garments.

”It was not the bough,” said my wife. ”If this had been seen immediately after the sherry I should not have been surprised, but--as it is now it is most extraordinary.”