Ghost Stories of an Antiquary | Page 8

I don't know why. I
wonder, by the way, whether that isn't the very post itself.... Well, yes,
it might be: there are marks and scratches on it--but one can't be sure.
Anyhow, it was just like that post you have there. My father got to
know that both of us had had a fright in the arbour, and he went down
there himself one evening after dinner, and the arbour was pulled down
at very short notice. I recollect hearing my father talking about it to an
old man who used to do odd jobs in the place, and the old man saying,
"Don't you fear for that, sir: he's fast enough in there without no one
don't take and let him out." But when I asked who it was, I could get no

satisfactory answer. Possibly my father or mother might have told me
more about it when I grew up, but, as you know, they both died when
we were still quite children. I must say it has always seemed very odd
to me, and I've often asked the older people in the village whether they
knew of anything strange: but either they knew nothing or they
wouldn't tell me. Dear, dear, how I have been boring you with my
childish remembrances! but indeed that arbour did absorb our thoughts
quite remarkably for a time. You can fancy, can't you, the kind of
stories that we made up for ourselves. Well, dear Mrs Anstruther, I
must be leaving you now. We shall meet in town this winter, I hope,
shan't we?' etc., etc.
The seats and the post were cleared away and uprooted respectively by
that evening. Late summer weather is proverbially treacherous, and
during dinner-time Mrs Collins sent up to ask for a little brandy,
because her husband had took a nasty chill and she was afraid he would
not be able to do much next day.
Mrs Anstruther's morning reflections were not wholly placid. She was
sure some roughs had got into the plantation during the night. 'And
another thing, George: the moment that Collins is about again, you
must tell him to do something about the owls. I never heard anything
like them, and I'm positive one came and perched somewhere just
outside our window. If it had come in I should have been out of my
wits: it must have been a very large bird, from its voice. Didn't you hear
it? No, of course not, you were sound asleep as usual. Still, I must say,
George, you don't look as if your night had done you much good.'
'My dear, I feel as if another of the same would turn me silly. You have
no idea of the dreams I had. I couldn't speak of them when I woke up,
and if this room wasn't so bright and sunny I shouldn't care to think of
them even now.'
'Well, really, George, that isn't very common with you, I must say. You
must have--no, you only had what I had yesterday--unless you had tea
at that wretched club house: did you?'
'No, no; nothing but a cup of tea and some bread and butter. I should

really like to know how I came to put my dream together--as I suppose
one does put one's dreams together from a lot of little things one has
been seeing or reading. Look here, Mary, it was like this--if I shan' t be
boring you--'
'I wish to hear what it was, George. I will tell you when I have had
enough.'
'All right. I must tell you that it wasn't like other nightmares in one way,
because I didn't really see anyone who spoke to me or touched me, and
yet I was most fearfully impressed with the reality of it all. First I was
sitting, no, moving about, in an old-fashioned sort of panelled room. I
remember there was a fireplace and a lot of burnt papers in it, and I was
in a great state of anxiety about something. There was someone else--a
servant, I suppose, because I remember saying to him, "Horses, as
quick as you can," and then waiting a bit: and next I heard several
people coming upstairs and a noise like spurs on a boarded floor, and
then the door opened and whatever it was that I was expecting
happened.'
'Yes, but what was that?'
'You see, I couldn't tell: it was the sort of shock that upsets you in a
dream. You either wake up or else everything goes black. That was
what happened to me. Then I was in a big dark-walled room, panelled,
I think, like the other, and a number of people, and I was evidently--'
'Standing your trial, I suppose, George.'
'Goodness! yes, Mary, I was; but