I
forget the details of great-great-grandmamma Bridget, but she certainly
cut the throat of some distant relation before she disembowelled herself
with the axe that had been used at Agincourt. Before that she had led a
very sultry life, crammed with amazing incident. *       *       *       *       *

But there is one ghost at Church-Peveril at which the family never
laugh, in which they feel no friendly and amused interest, and of which
they only speak just as much as is necessary for the safety of their
guests. More properly it should be described as two ghosts, for the
“haunt” in question is that of two very young children, who were twins. These, not without reason, the family take very seriously indeed. The
story of them, as told me by Mrs Peveril, is as follows:

In the year 1602, the same being the last of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a
certain Dick Peveril was greatly in favour at Court. He was brother to
Master Joseph Peveril, then owner of the family house and lands, who two
years previously, at the respectable age of seventy-four, became father
of twin boys, first-born of his progeny. It is known that the royal and
ancient virgin had said to handsome Dick, who was nearly forty years his
brother’s junior, “’Tis pity that you are not master of Church Peveril,”
and these words probably suggested to him a sinister design. Be that as
it may, handsome Dick, who very adequately sustained the family
reputation for wickedness, set off to ride down to Yorkshire, and found
that, very conveniently, his brother Joseph had just been seized with an
apoplexy, which appeared to be the result of a continued spell of hot
weather combined with the necessity of quenching his thirst with an
augmented amount of sack, and had actually died while handsome Dick,
with God knows what thoughts in his mind, was journeying northwards. Thus it came about that he arrived at Church-Peveril just in time for
his brother’s funeral. It was with great propriety that he attended the
obsequies, and returned to spend a sympathetic day or two of mourning
with his widowed sister-in-law, who was but a faint-hearted dame,
little fit to be mated with such hawks as these. On the second night of
his stay, he did that which the Peverils regret to this day. He entered
the room where the twins slept with their nurse, and quietly strangled
the latter as she slept. Then he took the twins and put them into the
fire which warms the long gallery. The weather, which up to the day of
Joseph’s death had been so hot, had changed suddenly to bitter cold, and
the fire was heaped high with burning logs and was exultant with flame. In the core of this conflagration he struck out a cremation-chamber, and
into that he threw the two children, stamping them down with his
riding-boots. They could just walk, but they could not walk out of that
ardent place. It is said that he laughed as he added more logs. Thus he
became master of Church Peveril. The crime was never brought home to him, but he lived no longer than a
year in the enjoyment of his blood-stained inheritance. When he lay
a-dying he made his confession to the priest who attended him, but his
spirit struggled forth from its fleshly coil before Absolution could be
given him. On that very night there began in Church-Peveril the haunting
which to this day is but seldom spoken of by the family, and then only
in low tones and with serious mien. For, only an hour or two after
handsome Dick’s death, one of the servants passing the door of the long
gallery heard from within peals of the loud laughter so jovial and yet
so sinister, which he had thought would never be heard in the house
again. In a moment of that cold courage, which is so nearly akin to
mortal terror, he opened the door and entered, expecting to see he knew
not what manifestation of him who lay dead in the room below. Instead he
saw two little white-robed figures toddling towards him hand in hand
across the moon-lit floor. The watchers in the room below ran upstairs startled by the crash of his
fallen body, and found him lying in the grip of some dread convulsion. Just before morning he regained consciousness and told his tale. Then
pointing with trembling and ash-grey finger towards the door, he
screamed aloud, and so fell back dead. *       *       *       *       *

During the next fifty years this strange and terrible legend of the
twin-babies became fixed and consolidated. Their appearance, luckily for
those who inhabit the house, was exceedingly rare, and during these
years they seem to have been seen four or five times only. On each
occasion they appeared at night, between sunset and sunrise, always in
the same long gallery, and always as two toddling children scarcely able
to walk. And on each occasion the luckless individual who saw them died
either speedily or terribly, or with both speed and terror, after the
accursed vision had appeared to him. Sometimes he might live for a few
months: he was lucky if he died, as did the servant who first saw them,
in a few hours. Vastly more awful was the fate of a certain Mrs Canning,
who had the ill-luck to see them in the middle of the next century, or
to be quite accurate, in the year 1760. By this time the hours and the
place of their appearance were well-known, and, as up till a year ago,
visitors were warned not to go between sunset and sunrise into the long
gallery. But Mrs Canning, a brilliantly clever and beautiful woman, admirer also
and friend of the notorious sceptic M. Voltaire, wilfully went and sat
night after night, in spite of all protestations, in the haunted place. For four evenings she saw nothing, but on the fifth she had her will,
for the door in the middle of the gallery opened, and there came
toddling towards her the ill-omened innocent little pair. It seemed that
even then she was not frightened, but she thought good, poor wretch, to
mock at them, telling them it was time for them to get back into the
fire. They gave no word in answer, but turned away from her crying and
sobbing. Immediately after they disappeared from her vision and she
rustled downstairs to where the family and guests in the house were
waiting for her, with the triumphant announcement that she had seen them
both, and must needs write to M. Voltaire, saying that she had spoken to
spirits made manifest. It would make him laugh. But when some months
later the whole news reached him he did not laugh at all. Mrs Canning was one of the great beauties of her day, and in the year
1760 she was at the height and zenith of her blossoming. The chief
beauty, if it is possible to single out one point where all was so
exquisite, lay in the dazzling colour and incomparable brilliance of her
complexion. She was now just thirty years of age, but, in spite of the
excesses of her life, retained the snow and roses of girlhood, and she
courted the bright light of day which other women shunned, for it but
showed to greater advantage the splendour of her skin.