The big,
old-fashioned hall, with the great, frowning staircase leading to the
gallery overhead, the many open doors showing nought but bare, deserted
boards within, the grim passages, all moonlit and peopled only with
queer flickering shadows, suggested much that was terrifying. I fancied
I heard noises, noises like stealthy footsteps moving from room to
room, and tiptoeing along the passages and down the staircase. Once my
heart almost stopped beating as I saw what, at first, I took to be a
white face peering at me from a far recess, but which I eventually
discovered was only a daub of whitewash; and, once again, my hair all
but rose on end, when one of the doors at which I was looking swung open
and something came forth. Oh, the horror of that moment, as long as I
live I shall never forget it. The something was a cat, just a rather
lean but otherwise material, black Tom; yet, in the state my nerves were
then, it created almost as much horror as if it had been a ghost. Of
course, it was the figure of the walking man that was the cause of all
this nervousness; had it not appeared to me I should doubtless have
entered the house with the utmost sang-froid, my mind set on nothing but
the condition of the walls, drains, etc. As it was, I held back, and it
was only after a severe mental struggle I summoned up the courage to
leave the doorway and explore. Cautiously, very cautiously, with my
heart in my mouth, I moved from room to room, halting every now and then
in dreadful suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land
behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames
jarring. At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably
startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly
back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was. Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat
oozing out all over me, and my eyes fixed in hideous expectation on the
blank wall. What was it? What was hiding there? Would it spring out on
me if I went to see? At last, urged on by a fascination I found
impossible to resist, I crept down the passage, my heart throbbing
painfully and my whole being overcome with the most sickly
anticipations. As I drew nearer to the spot, it was as much as I could
do to breathe, and my respiration came in quick jerks and gasps. Six,
five, four, two feet and I was at the dreaded angle. Another step--taken
after the most prodigious battle--and--NOTHING sprang out on me. I was
confronted only with a large piece of paper that had come loose from the
wall, and flapped backwards and forwards each time the breeze from
without rustled past it. The reaction after such an agony of suspense
was so great, that I leaned against the wall, and laughed till I cried. A noise, from somewhere away in the basement, calling me to myself, I
went downstairs and investigated. Again a shock--this time more sudden,
more acute. Pressed against the window-pane of one of the front
reception-rooms was the face of a man--with corpse-like cheeks and pale,
malevolent eyes. I was petrified--every drop of my blood was congealed. My tongue glued to my mouth, my arms hung helpless. I stood in the
doorway and stared at it. This went on for what seemed to me an
eternity. Then came a revelation. The face was not that of a ghost but
of Mr. Baldwin, who, getting alarmed at my long absence, had come to
look for me. We left the premises together. All the way back to the town I
thought--should I, or should I not, take the house? Seen as I had seen
it, it was a ghoulish-looking place--as weird as a Paris catacomb--but
then daylight makes all the difference. Viewed in the sunshine, it would
be just like any other house--plain bricks and mortar. I liked the
situation; it was just far enough away from a town to enable me to
escape all the smoke and traffic, and near enough to make shopping easy. The only obstacles were the shadows--the strange, enigmatical shadows I
had seen in the hall and passages, and the figure of the walker. Dare I
take a house that knew such visitors? At first I said no, and then yes. Something, I could not tell what, urged me to say yes. I felt that a
very grave issue was at stake--that a great wrong connected in some
manner with the mysterious figure awaited righting, and that the hand
of Fate pointed at me as the one and only person who could do it. "Are you sure the house isn't haunted?" I demanded, as we slowly rolled
away from the iron gate, and I leaned back in my seat to light my pipe. "Haunted!" Mr. Baldwin scoffed, "why, I thought you didn't believe in
ghosts--laughed at them." "No more I do believe in them," I retorted, "but I have children, and we
know how imaginative children are." "I can't undertake to stop their imaginations." "No, but you can tell me whether anyone else has imagined anything
there. Imagination is sometimes very infectious." "As far as I know, then, no; leastways, I have not heard tell of it." "Who was the last tenant?" "Mr. Jeremiah Dance." "Why did he leave?" "How do I know? Got tired of being there, I suppose." "How long was he there?" "Nearly three years." "Where is he now?" "That's more than I can say. Why do you wish to know?" "Why!" I repeated. "Because it is more satisfactory to me to hear about
the house from someone who has lived in it. Has he left no address?" "Not that I know of, and it's more than two years since he was here." "What! The house has been empty all that time?" "Two years is not very long. Houses--even town houses--are frequently
unoccupied for longer than that. I think you'll like it." I did not speak again till the drive was over, and we drew up outside
the landlord's house. I then said, "Let me have an agreement. I've made
up my mind to take it. Three years and the option to stay on." That was just like me. Whatever I did, I did on the spur of the moment,
a mode of procedure that often led me into difficulties. A month later and my wife, children, servants, and I were all ensconced
in the Crow's Nest. That was in the beginning of October. Well, the month passed by, and
November was fairly in before anything remarkable happened. It then came
about in this fashion. Jennie, my eldest child, a self-willed and rather bad-tempered girl of
about twelve, evading the vigilance of her mother, who had forbidden her
to go out as she had a cold, ran to the gate one evening to see if I was
anywhere in sight. Though barely five o'clock, the moon was high in the
sky, and the shadows of the big trees had already commenced their
gambols along the roadside. Jennie clambered up the gate as children do, and peering over, suddenly
espied what she took to be me, striding towards the house, at a swinging
pace, and followed by two poodles. "Poppa," she cried, "how cute of you! Only to think of you bringing home
two doggies! Oh, Poppa, naughty Poppa, what will mum say?"