The Haunted Colset.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1525, 14 November 1873, Page 13

The Haunted Colset.

(Ladies' Treasury of Literature.)

(Concluded.)

The office and gallery were now carefully shunned by us all, with the exception of Mr Walton, who haunted it with a persistency doubtless equal to that of the ghost itself. He was determined, he said, to learn all that could be learned of this mystery, and, if possible, to thoroughly unravel it. One evening, after a rain, a heavy sea-fog set in upon the coast, and the atmosphere became all at once so damp and chilly as to render a fire indispensable to comfort. As I have said, the rooms were all large and airy, and were, moreover, carpetless and sparingly furnished. This was pleasant enough in warm weather, but inexpressibly dreary on this chill and damp day. The two most comfortable apartments of the house for cool weather were undoubtedly the nursery and the office-room, which were situated at opposite extremities of the long building. So, leaving the former to the nurses and children, Mr Walton proposed that he and Emma and I should make ourselves comfortable for the evening in the haunted room, as he now called it, maugre* the ghosts; and, as an inducement, promised us a hot oyster supper. The oysters were to be had fresh out of the water almost at our very door, just for the trouble of picking them up. Certainly the room, as Emma and I rather hessitatingly entered it, looked pleasant and cheerful enough, with its blazing wood fire and the tea-kettle steaming on the hearth. No one made any allusion to the ghost; Mr Walton, indeed, seemed to have forgotten the subject in the interest of the supper, though I, and I fancied also Emma, felt a little nervous as we occasionally glanced furtively around the room. Once or twice, also, I caught myself instinctively looking over my shoulder towards the corner cupboard behind me.

Supper over, Mr Walton, who was a fine reader, entertained us with some chapters from Dickens' latest work, and wc were soon so much interested as to forget everything else. In the very midst of this, however, I was startled

by feeling a faint breath of cold air upon my neck, and at the same instant saw my sister's eyes lifted with a frightened glance towards the corner closet behind me. I instinctive started up and crossed over to the opposite side of the fireplace. " What is it, Louisa ?" said Emma, nervously; "I saw the door of the closet open."

Mr Walton closed his book and sat looking attentively at the cupboard. And it was whilst we were all thus perfectly silent and motionless that a sound broke the stillness—at first what seemed the jingling of phials and rattling of chains, and then the faint, uncertain sound of muffled voices which I had heard more than once before, all coming unmistakeably from the little triangular closet in the corner.

"0, Richard, do you hear ?" gasped Emma, seizing fast hold of her husband's arm. For myself I came very near screaming outright. " Hush—be quiet!" said Mr Walton. And taking the lamp, he advanced to the cupboard, threw wide open the door, and surveyed it minutely. It was simply a closet built of deal boards against the naked whitewashed walls of the room. Three rickety shelves, unoccupied, and much stained with ink and other liquids, were all it contained. Between the lower and middle shelves was a strip of wood nailed against the wall, as if to cover a place where, as we could see, the plaster had fallen away ; and beneath this strip could be discerned part of what seemed to be a rat-hole. Besides these not a thing was visible in the closet.

And yet, as I live, while we three stood there, gazing into the empty closet, from its recesses came a hollow laugh, and a low, childish yoice said, '* Three—all dead—poisoned I" ~ \

Emma sank down, half swooning Even Mr Walton's face as I fancied became a shade pale; and then we heard the voice again : " Bury them—grave under the willow." I looked again at my brother-in-law, and saw his lips compress and a kind of desperation appear in his face. He advanced close to the closet, put his head almost within, and shouted loudly and distinctly, " Who are you ? Who is it that speaks ?" In answer came a shriek, loud and appalling, ringing in our very ears. Then the same breath of cold air swept past, followed by the violent shutting of a door and grating of a key in a lock. We looked at each other aghast, but before we had time to utter a word we were again startled by a different sound—that of children's cries, and footsteps hurrying along the gallery to the room in which wc were. The next moment the door burst open, and in rushed the nurse, bearing baby in her arms, and followed by the nursemaid dragging the three elder children after her, all the latter pale and terrified, ' and Freddy in particular shrieking shrilly. "What is the matter? What has .happened ? " screamed Emma, forgetting her own recent terror in alarm for her children. "0, master! 0, ma'am! there is a ghost in the nursery. We all heard it—master Fred and I. We heard some one say, ' Who are you ? Who is it speaking ?'"

Mr Walton turned round and once more looked into the closet. Then taking the tongs from the hearth he inserted them behind the bit of board which I have mentionfld as nailed to the wall, and wrenched it away, exposing as he did so a small aperture surrounded by a metallic ring. " I have discovered the mystery at last," he said, turning to us with a smile. "It is no ghost, but simply a speaking-tube. Stay here, and when you hear the spirits place your mouth to the tube and answer them." He left the room, and in a few minutes we again heard the mysterious sepulchral voice in the closet, only much more distinct now since the board had been removed—" How are you all ?" I summoned courage to answer,

" Much better." And then there came a low laugh, ghostly enough certainly to have caused our blood to curdle had we not been aware of the identity of the apparent ghost. And so it was all explained, and the mystery of the haunted closet cleared up. There was, as Mr Walton had said, a speaking tube communicating between the office room and the distant nursery, placed there, doubtless, by the eccentric naturalist, Dr Mather, for his own convenience; and he, on leaving the house, had simply carelessly boarded over the mouths of the tube, not dreaming of, or indifferent to, the consequences of this negligence. Probably it had been these very mysterious sounds which had driven away the last occupants of the house; and certain it is that but for the fortunate discovery of their source, we ourselves might have been won over to the ranks of spiritualists and ghost believers. Such results have ere now been produced by slighter causes than these. The explanation of the various sounds

heard by us in the office-room is very simple. The corresponding mouth of the tube was in a closet in the nursery precisely similar to that in the office. In this closet were stored the various cups, bottles, and so forth used in the nursery, and to secure these from the children the closet was generally kept locked. It was the opening and shutting of this closet door, with the grating of the key in the rusty lock, that had so often alarmed me; and when it was open, and a search going among its contents for some special article, the noises thus made and the words spoken in the closet could be heard more or less distinctly in the office. Also, when the closet door was suddenly shut to, it would produce a current of air through the tube sufficient to slightly open the loosely-hung door of the office cupboard. Master Freddy's idea of setting a mouse-trap in the closet, baited with poisoned food, had added much to the effect of the mystery; and it was little Mary's voice which had pleaded so pathetically for the three victims of her brother's experiment, imploring that they might be buried under the willow tree.

Mr Walton used to say that it was almost a pity that the secret of the tube should have been discovered, and thereby so capital a ghost-story spoiled.