Ghost Stories of an Antiquary | Page 9

did you dream that too? How very
odd!'
'No, no; I didn't get enough sleep for that. Go on, George, and I will tell
you afterwards.'
'Yes; well, I was being tried, for my life, I've no doubt, from the state I
was in. I had no one speaking for me, and somewhere there was a most
fearful fellow--on the bench I should have said, only that he seemed to

be pitching into me most unfairly, and twisting everything I said, and
asking most abominable questions.'
'What about?'
'Why, dates when I was at particular places, and letters I was supposed
to have written, and why I had destroyed some papers; and I recollect
his laughing at answers I made in a way that quite daunted me. It
doesn't sound much, but I can tell you, Mary, it was really appalling at
the time. I am quite certain there was such a man once, and a most
horrible villain he must have been. The things he said--'
'Thank you, I have no wish to hear them. I can go to the links any day
myself. How did it end?'
'Oh, against me; he saw to that. I do wish, Mary, I could give you a
notion of the strain that came after that, and seemed to me to last for
days: waiting and waiting, and sometimes writing things I knew to be
enormously important to me, and waiting for answers and none coming,
and after that I came out--'
'Ah!'
'What makes you say that? Do you know what sort of thing I saw?'
'Was it a dark cold day, and snow in the streets, and a fire burning
somewhere near you?'
'By George, it was! You have had the same nightmare! Really not?
Well, it is the oddest thing! Yes; I've no doubt it was an execution for
high treason. I know I was laid on straw and jolted along most
wretchedly, and then had to go up some steps, and someone was
holding my arm, and I remember seeing a bit of a ladder and hearing a
sound of a lot of people. I really don't think I could bear now to go into
a crowd of people and hear the noise they make talking. However,
mercifully, I didn't get to the real business. The dream passed off with a
sort of thunder inside my head. But, Mary--'

'I know what you are going to ask. I suppose this is an instance of a
kind of thought-reading. Miss Wilkins called yesterday and told me of
a dream her brother had as a child when they lived here, and something
did no doubt make me think of that when I was awake last night
listening to those horrible owls and those men talking and laughing in
the shrubbery (by the way, I wish you would see if they have done any
damage, and speak to the police about it); and so, I suppose, from my
brain it must have got into yours while you were asleep. Curious, no
doubt, and I am sorry it gave you such a bad night. You had better be as
much in the fresh air as you can to-day.'
'Oh, it's all right now; but I think I will go over to the Lodge and see if I
can get a game with any of them. And you?'
'I have enough to do for this morning; and this afternoon, if I am not
interrupted, there is my drawing.'
'To be sure--I want to see that finished very much.'
No damage was discoverable in the shrubbery. Mr Anstruther surveyed
with faint interest the site of the rose garden, where the uprooted post
still lay, and the hole it had occupied remained unfilled. Collins, upon
inquiry made, proved to be better, but quite unable to come to his work.
He expressed, by the mouth of his wife, a hope that he hadn't done
nothing wrong clearing away them things. Mrs Collins added that there
was a lot of talking people in Westfield, and the hold ones was the
worst: seemed to think everything of them having been in the parish
longer than what other people had. But as to what they said no more
could then be ascertained than that it had quite upset Collins, and was a
lot of nonsense.
* * * * *
Recruited by lunch and a brief period of slumber, Mrs Anstruther
settled herself comfortably upon her sketching chair in the path leading
through the shrubbery to the side-gate of the churchyard. Trees and
buildings were among her favourite subjects, and here she had good
studies of both. She worked hard, and the drawing was becoming a

really pleasant thing to look upon by the time that the wooded hills to
the west had