"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
into words:--

"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
looking at me. Then:--'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
expectancy. "'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
been walking about in your sleep.' "'The smell,' she said. "'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.' "I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
I was more nervous than I would admit. "Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
of my mother's room, from the back garden, or--for that matter--from the
little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden. "And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep. "I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
really were. "In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
into it; but very human. "And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room. "Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
getting hold of me; and all the _apparently_ reasonable explanations
seemed futile. "The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
inside of us, we did not believe this. "Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
get to sleep. "In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
heard:--bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
that is the impression the sounds gave to me. "I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
shut off from me. "'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
one. 'Who's there?' "Then I heard my mother saying:--

"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?' "She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs. "I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
will understand. "By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house. However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
taint of that disgusting odor. "Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train. "Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
peculiar. The landlord's idea--as he told me frankly--was to free the
house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
and then to sell it for the best price he could get. "However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
so he gave me to understand.