He feared the attractions
of the seaside, and also he feared completely rural isolation, for of
old he knew it charms, and so he determined to find some unpretentious
little town where there would be nothing to distract him. He refrained
from asking suggestions from any of his friends, for he argued that
each would recommend some place of which he had knowledge, and where he
had already acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished to avoid friends he had
no wish to encumber himself with the attention of friends’ friends, and
so he determined to look out for a place for himself. He packed a
portmanteau with some clothes and all the books he required, and then
took ticket for the first name on the local time-table which he did not
know. When at the end of three hours’ journey he alighted at Benchurch, he
felt satisfied that he had so far obliterated his tracks as to be sure
of having a peaceful opportunity of pursuing his studies. He went
straight to the one inn which the sleepy little place contained, and
put up for the night. Benchurch was a market town, and once in three
weeks was crowded to excess, but for the remainder of the twenty-one
days it was as attractive as a desert. Malcolmson looked around the day
after his arrival to try to find quarters more isolated than even so
quiet an inn as “The Good Traveller” afforded. There was only one place
which took his fancy, and it certainly satisfied his wildest ideas
regarding quiet; in fact, quiet was not the proper word to apply to
it—desolation was the only term conveying any suitable idea of its
isolation. It was an old rambling, heavy-built house of the Jacobean
style, with heavy gables and windows, unusually small, and set higher
than was customary in such houses, and was surrounded with a high brick
wall massively built. Indeed, on examination, it looked more like a
fortified house than an ordinary dwelling. But all these things pleased
Malcolmson. “Here,” he thought, “is the very spot I have been looking
for, and if I can get opportunity of using it I shall be happy.” His
joy was increased when he realised beyond doubt that it was not at
present inhabited. From the post-office he got the name of the agent, who was rarely
surprised at the application to rent a part of the old house. Mr.
Carnford, the local lawyer and agent, was a genial old gentleman, and
frankly confessed his delight at anyone being willing to live in the
house. “To tell you the truth,” said he, “I should be only too happy, on
behalf of the owners, to let anyone have the house rent free for a term
of years if only to accustom the people here to see it inhabited. It
has been so long empty that some kind of absurd prejudice has grown up
about it, and this can be best put down by its occupation—if only,” he
added with a sly glance at Malcolmson, “by a scholar like yourself, who
wants its quiet for a time.”

Malcolmson thought it needless to ask the agent about the “absurd
prejudice”; he knew he would get more information, if he should require
it, on that subject from other quarters. He paid his three months’
rent, got a receipt, and the name of an old woman who would probably
undertake to “do” for him, and came away with the keys in his pocket. He then went to the landlady of the inn, who was a cheerful and most
kindly person, and asked her advice as to such stores and provisions as
he would be likely to require. She threw up her hands in amazement when
he told her where he was going to settle himself. “Not in the Judge’s House!” she said, and grew pale as she spoke. He
explained the locality of the house, saying that he did not know its
name. When he had finished she answered:

“Aye, sure enough—sure enough the very place! It is the Judge’s House
sure enough.” He asked her to tell him about the place, why so called,
and what there was against it. She told him that it was so called
locally because it had been many years before—how long she could not
say, as she was herself from another part of the country, but she
thought it must have been a hundred years or more—the abode of a judge
who was held in great terror on account of his harsh sentences and his
hostility to prisoners at Assizes. As to what there was against the
house itself she could not tell. She had often asked, but no one could
inform her; but there was a general feeling that there was _something_,
and for her own part she would not take all the money in Drinkwater’s
Bank and stay in the house an hour by herself. Then she apologised to
Malcolmson for her disturbing talk. “It is too bad of me, sir, and you—and a young gentlemen, too—if you
will pardon me saying it, going to live there all alone. If you were my
boy—and you’ll excuse me for saying it—you wouldn’t sleep there a
night, not if I had to go there myself and pull the big alarm bell
that’s on the roof!” The good creature was so manifestly in earnest,
and was so kindly in her intentions, that Malcolmson, although amused,
was touched. He told her kindly how much he appreciated her interest in
him, and added:

“But, my dear Mrs. Witham, indeed you need not be concerned about me! A
man who is reading for the Mathematical Tripos has too much to think of
to be disturbed by any of these mysterious ‘somethings’, and his work
is of too exact and prosaic a kind to allow of his having any corner in
his mind for mysteries of any kind. Harmonical Progression,
Permutations and Combinations, and Elliptic Functions have sufficient
mysteries for me!” Mrs. Witham kindly undertook to see after his
commissions, and he went himself to look for the old woman who had been
recommended to him. When he returned to the Judge’s House with her,
after an interval of a couple of hours, he found Mrs. Witham herself
waiting with several men and boys carrying parcels, and an
upholsterer’s man with a bed in a car, for she said, though tables and
chairs might be all very well, a bed that hadn’t been aired for mayhap
fifty years was not proper for young bones to lie on. She was evidently
curious to see the inside of the house; and though manifestly so afraid
of the “somethings” that at the slightest sound she clutched on to
Malcolmson, whom she never left for a moment, went over the whole
place. After his examination of the house, Malcolmson decided to take up his
abode in the great dining-room, which was big enough to serve for all
his requirements; and Mrs. Witham, with the aid of the charwoman, Mrs.
Dempster, proceeded to arrange matters. When the hampers were brought
in and unpacked, Malcolmson saw that with much kind forethought she had
sent from her own kitchen sufficient provisions to last for a few days.