LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 554, 28 March 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

CHANTRY MANOR HOUSE. A Ghost Story. BY MRS HARTLEY, AUTHOR OF 1 HILDA AND I,’ ETC. ( Concluded .) As I expected, after a burst of hysterical weeping, Trevor was only too anxious to tell her story, and I will repeat it in her own words. 4 1 was coming along that there passage’ (0, the hatred of if expressed in those two words !), 4 thinking no more of ghosts than nothink, when, just as I come close to tne door, a gust of wind, which couldn’t come from nowhere —though there isn’t a widow anywhere near the place—blew my candle right out, and at at the very minute something seemed to catch hold of my gown and pull me right back off the steps again ; and when I broke away from it, I heard a sort of sigh close behind me—’twas more of a gasp, as if some one was suffocating. I was that frightened I don’t know however I opened the door; and stop in this house I won’t, for no money.’ Poor Trevor! she little knew to what extent I could sympathise with her. For my wife’s sake I did my best to laugh her out of her fears, to treat the whole thing as a mere practical joke, played upon her by me of the servants, who had doubtless followed her down the passage, chosen the right moment to extinguish the light, and pulled her gown. Very reprehensible, but very funny. Trevor refused to see the 4 fun’ of it, or to allow herself to be comforted. She stood firm in her resolve to leave the house, and not to leave my wife’s bedroom; nothing should induce her, she declared, to go along the coi ridor till daylight. However, in time we pacified her, and she permitted me to pilot her in safety to her own apartment; and the next day the story was circulated throughout the house, with embellishments and variations. 4 Providences’ (or what we are pleased to call such) happen occasionally in all households, and at this critical juncture I received a letter from an old Indian chum, begging that I would look out at once for a country place for him, ‘as like’—from the description I had given of mine — 4 to Chantry as possible.’ 4 He shall have Chantry itself,’ I exclaimed, in a sudden glow of friendship and self-sacrifice, 4 and for less than I pay for it, if he will only take it off my hands.’ I will do myself the justice to say that, in making the offer, I frankly told him my real reason for wishing to leave; but, as I expected, he boldly declared himself willing to run all risks, saying he was not afraid of ‘uncanny’ sights or sounds alarming his household as they had done mine. The bargain was struck, my friend and myself mutually pleased ; and the very day three months from that on which we drove up to take possession, we went away, fairly driven off by the ‘ghosts.’ I may mention, in conclusion, that, in less than a twelvemonth, my locum tenens found that the damp atmosphere of Chantry Manor-house did not suit his family, and migrated as rapidly as he could find shelter for them elsewhere.

Poor old place ! even as I write this story it is still vacant. The uninhabited rooms damp, gloomy, silent. The walls a little more crumbly, the ivy more luxuriant, the gardens more and more neglected, the fallen trees encrusted with a thicker covering of moss and lichen, the water more stagnant. The weeds have sprung up so thickly upon the drive leading to the house as to mi file the sound of carriages, phantom or otherwise ; and the fatal corridor has been locked up bodily, bedrooms and all, leaving the wandering spirit of the murdering cavalier in undisturbed possession thereof.