"I understand," Mr. Baldwin responded, "but--er--it is rather late now;
wouldn't you prefer to see over it in the morning? Everything looks at
its worst--its very worst--in the twilight." "Oh, I'll make allowances for the dusk," I said. "You haven't got any
ghosts stowed away there, have you?" And he went off into a roar of
laughter. "No, the house is not haunted," Mr. Baldwin replied. "Not that it would
much matter to you if it were, for I can see you don't believe in
spooks." "Believe in spooks!" I cried. "Not much. I would as soon believe in
patent hair restorers. Let me see over it at once." "Very well, sir. I'll take you there myself," Mr. Baldwin replied,
somewhat reluctantly. "Here, Tim--fetch the keys of the Crow's Nest and
tell Higgins to bring the trap round." The boy he addressed flew, and in a few minutes the sound of wheels and
the jingling of harness announced the vehicle was at the door. Ten minutes later and I and my escort were bowling merrily over the
ground in the direction of the Crow's Nest. It was early autumn, and the
cool evening air, fragrant with the mellowness of the luscious Virginian
pippin, was tinged also with the sadness inseparable from the demise of
a long and glorious summer. Evidences of decay and death were
everywhere--in the brown fallen leaves of the oaks and elms; in the bare
and denuded ditches. Here a giant mill-wheel, half immersed in a dark,
still pool, stood idle and silent; there a hovel, but recently inhabited
by hop-pickers, was now tenantless, its glassless windows boarded over,
and a wealth of dead and rotting vegetable matter in thick profusion
over the tiny path and the single stone doorstep. "Is it always as quiet and deserted as this?" I asked of my companion,
who continually cracked his whip as if he liked to hear the
reverberations of its echoes. "Always," was the reply, "and sometimes more so. You ain't used to the
country?" "Not very. I want to try it by way of a change. Are you well versed in
the cry of birds? What was that?" We were fast approaching an exceedingly gloomy bit of the road where
there were plantations on each side, and the trees united their
fantastically forked branches overhead. I thought I had never seen so
dismal-looking a spot, and a sudden lowering of the temperature made me
draw my overcoat tighter round me. "That--oh, a night bird of some sort," Mr. Baldwin replied. "An ugly
sound, wasn't it? Beastly things, I can't imagine why they were created. Whoa--steady there, steady." The horse reared as he spoke, and taking a violent plunge forward, set
off at a wild gallop. A moment later, and I uttered an exclamation of
astonishment. Keeping pace with us, although apparently not moving at
more than an ordinary walking pace, was a man of medium height, dressed
in a panama hat and albert coat. He had a thin, aquiline nose, a rather
pronounced chin, was clean-shaven, and had a startlingly white
complexion. By the side of him trotted two poodles, whose close-cropped
skins showed out with remarkable perspicuity. "Who the deuce is he?" I asked, raising my voice to a shout on account
of the loud clatter made by the horse's hoofs and the wheels. "Who? what?" Mr. Baldwin shouted in return. "Why, the man walking along with us!" "Man! I can see no man!" Mr. Baldwin growled. I looked at him curiously. It may, of course, have been due to the
terrific speed we were going, to the difficulty of holding in the horse,
but his cheeks were ashy pale, and his teeth chattered. "Do you mean to say," I cried, "that you can see no figure walking on my
side of the horse and actually keeping pace with it?" "Of course I can't," Mr. Baldwin snapped. "No more can you. It's an
hallucination caused by the moonlight through the branches overhead. I've experienced it more than once." "Then why don't you have it now?" I queried. "Don't ask so many questions, please," Mr. Baldwin shouted. "Don't you
see it is as much as I can do to hold the brute in? Heaven preserve us,
we were nearly over that time." The trap rose high in the air as he spoke, and then dropped with such a
jolt that I was nearly thrown off, and only saved myself by the skin of
my teeth. A few yards more the spinney ceased, and we were away out in
the open country, plunging and galloping as if our very souls depended
on it. From all sides queer and fantastic shadows of objects, which
certainly had no material counterparts in the moon-kissed sward of the
rich, ripe meadows, rose to greet us, and filled the lane with their
black-and-white wavering, ethereal forms. The evening was one of
wonders for which I had no name--wonders associated with an iciness that
was far from agreeable. I was not at all sure which I liked best--the
black, Stygian, tree-lined part of the road we had just left, or the
wide ocean of brilliant moonbeams and streaked suggestions. The figures of the man and the dogs were equally vivid in each. Though I
could no longer doubt they were nothing mortal, they were altogether
unlike what I had imagined ghosts. Like the generality of people who are
psychic and who have never had an experience of the superphysical, my
conception of a phantasm was a "thing" in white that made ridiculous
groanings and still more ridiculous clankings of chains. But here was
something different, something that looked--save, perhaps, for the
excessive pallor of its cheeks--just like an ordinary man. I knew it was
not a man, partly on account of its extraordinary performance--no man,
even if running at full speed, could keep up with us like that; partly
on account of the unusual nature of the atmosphere--which was altogether
indefinable--it brought with it; and also because of my own
sensations--my intense horror which could not, I felt certain, have been
generated by anything physical. I cogitated all this in my mind as I gazed at the figure, and in order
to make sure it was no hallucination, I shut first one eye and then the
other, covering them alternately with the palm of my hand. The figure,
however, was still there, still pacing along at our side with the
regular swing, swing of the born walker. We kept on in this fashion till
we arrived at a rusty iron gate leading, by means of a weed-covered
path, to a low, two-storied white house. Here the figures left us, and
as it seemed to me vanished at the foot of the garden wall. "This is the house," Mr. Baldwin panted, pulling up with the greatest
difficulty, the horse evincing obvious antipathy to the iron gate. "And
these are the keys. I'm afraid you must go in alone, as I dare not leave
the animal even for a minute." "Oh, all right," I said. "I don't mind, now that the ghost, or whatever
you like to call it, has gone; I'm myself again." I jumped down, and threading my way along the bramble-entangled path,
reached the front door. On opening it, I hesitated.