The next house barely showed its
old red chimney-tops, above its bowers; the next was empty, with
windows vacantly gazing, its paths peopled with great bearded weeds
that stood mutely watching and guarding the seldom-opened gate. Then
came more lofty grandmotherly elms, a dense hedge of every leaf that
pricks, and then Lawford found himself standing at the small canopied
gate of the queer old wooden house that the stranger of his talk had in
part described. It stood square and high and dark in a small amphitheatre of verdure. Roses here and there sprang from the grass, and a narrow box-edged path
led to a small door in a low green-mantled wing, with its one square
window above the porch. And while, with vacant mind, Lawford stood
waiting, as one stands forebodingly upon the eve of a new experience he
heard as if at a distance the sound of falling water. He still paused
on the country roadside, scrutinising this strange, still, wooden
presence; but at last with an effort he pushed open the gate, followed
the winding path, and pulled the old iron hanging bell. There came
presently a quiet tread, and Herbert himself opened the door which led
into a little square wood-panelled hall, hung with queer old prints and
obscure portraits in dark frames. ‘Ah, yes, come in, Mr Lawford,’ he drawled; ‘I was beginning to be
afraid you were not coming.’

Lawford laid hat and walking-stick on an oak bench, and followed his
churchyard companion up a slightly inclined corridor and a staircase
into a high room, covered far up the yellowish walls with old books on
shelves and in cases, between which hung in little black frames, mezzo
tints, etchings, and antiquated maps. A large table stood a few paces
from the deep alcove of the window, which was surrounded by a low,
faded, green seat, and was screened from the sunshine by wooden
shutters. And here the tranquil surge of falling water shook
incessantly on the air, for the three lower casements stood open to the
fading sunset. On a smaller table were spread cups, old earthenware
dishes of fruit, and a big bowl of damask roses. ‘Please sit down; I shan’t be a moment; I am not sure that my sister is
in; but if so, I will tell her we are ready for tea.’ Left to himself
in this quiet, strange old room, Lawford forgot for a while everything
else, he was for the moment so taken up with his surroundings. What seized on his fancy and strangely affected his mind was this
incessant changing roar of falling water. It must be the Widder, he
said to himself, flowing close to the walls. But not until he had had
the boldness to lean head and shoulders out of the nearest window did
he fully realize how close indeed the Widder was. It came sweeping dark
and deep and begreened and full with the early autumnal rains, actually
against the lower walls of the house itself, and in the middle suddenly
swerved in a black, smooth arch, and tumbled headlong into a great
pool, nodding with tall slender water-weeds, and charged in its bubbled
blackness here and there with the last crimson of the setting sun. To
the left of the house, where the waters floated free again, stood vast,
still trees above the clustering rushes; and in glimpses between their
spreading boughs lay the far-stretching countryside, now dimmed with
the first mists of approaching evening. So absorbed he became as he
stood leaning over the wooden sill above the falling water, that eye
and ear became enslaved by the roar and stillness. And in the faint
atmosphere of age that seemed like a veil to hang about the odd old
house and these prodigious branches, he fell into a kind of waking
dream. When at last he did draw back into the room it was perceptibly darker,
and a thin keen shaft of recollection struck across his mind—the
recollection of what he was, and of how he came to be there, his
reasons for coming and of that dark indefinable presence which like a
raven had begun to build its dwelling in his mind. He sat on, his eyes
restlessly wandering, his face leaning on his hands; and in a while the
door opened and Herbert returned, carrying an old crimson and green
teapot and a dish of hot cakes. ‘They’re all out,’ he said; ‘sister, Sallie, and boy; but these were in
the oven, so we won’t wait. I hope you haven’t been very much bored.’

Lawford dropped his hands from his face and smiled. ‘I have been
looking at the water,’ he said. ‘My sister’s favorite occupation; she sits for hours and hours, with
not even a book for an apology, staring down into the black old roaring
pot. It has a sort of hypnotic effect after a time. And you’d be
surprised how quickly one gets used to the noise. To me it’s even less
distracting than sheer silence. You don’t know, after all, what on
earth sheer silence means—even at Widderstone. But one can just realize
a water-nymph. They chatter; but, thank Heaven, it’s not articulate.’
He handed Lawford a cup with a certain niceness and self-consciousness,
lifting his eyebrows slightly as he turned. Lawford found himself listening out of a peculiar stillness of mind to
the voice of this suave and rather inscrutable acquaintance. ‘The
curious thing is, do you know,’ he began rather nervously, ‘that though
I must have passed your gate at least twice in the last few months, I
have never noticed it before, never even caught the sound of the
water.’

‘No, that’s the best of it; nobody ever does. We are just buried alive. We have lived here for years, and scarcely know a soul—not even our
own, perhaps. Why on earth should one? Acquaintances, after all, are
little else than a bad habit.’

‘But then, what about me?’ said Lawford. ‘But that’s just it,’ said Herbert. ‘I said _acquaintances_; that’s
just exactly what I’m going to prove—what very old friends we are. You’ve no idea! It really is rather queer.’ He took up his cup and
sauntered over to the window. Lawford eyed him vacantly for a moment, and, following rather his own
curious thoughts than seeking any light on this somewhat vague
explanation, again broke the silence. ‘It’s odd, I suppose, but this
house affects me much in the same way as Widderstone does. I’m not
particularly fanciful—at least, I used not to be. But sitting here I
seem, I hope it isn’t a very frantic remark, it seems as though, if
only my ears would let me, I should hear—well, voices. It’s just what
you said about the silence. I suppose it’s the age of the place; it
_is_ very old?’

‘Pretty old, I suppose; it’s worm-eaten and rat-eaten and tindery
enough in all conscience; and the damp doesn’t exactly foster it. It’s
a queer old shanty. There are two or three accounts of it in some old
local stuff I have. And of course there’s a ghost.’

‘A ghost?’ echoed Lawford, looking up. CHAPTER TWELVE


‘What’s in a name?’ laughed Herbert. ‘But it really is a queer show-up
of human oddity. A fellow comes in here, searching; that’s all.’ His
back was turned, as he stood staring absently out, sipping his tea
between his sentences.