I was hoisted up, candle in hand, between the two, and had nearly reached the stairs when there came up on the garden side a sound as of tipsy revellers in the garden. ‘The scoundrels! how can they have got in?’ cried Griff, looking towards the window; but all the windows on that side had peculiarly heavy shutters and bars, with only a tiny heart-shaped aperture very high up, so they somewhat hurried their steps downstairs, intending to rush out on the intruders from the back door. But suddenly, in the middle of the staircase, we heard a terrible heartrending woman’s shriek, making us all start and have a general fall. My brothers managed to seat me safely on a step without much damage to themselves, but the candle fell and was extinguished, and we made too heavy a weight to fall without real noise enough to bring the household together before we could pick ourselves up in the dark.
We heard doors opening and hurried calls, and something about pistols, impelling Griff to call out, ‘It’s nothing, papa; but there are some drunken rascals in the garden.’
A light had come by this time, and we were detected. There was a general sally upon the enemy in the garden before any one thought of me, except a ‘You here!’ when they nearly fell over me. And there I was left sitting on the stair, helpless without my crutches, till in a few minutes all returned declaring there was nothing—no signs of anything; and then as Clarence ran up to me with my crutches my father demanded the meaning of my being there at that time of night.
‘Well, sir,’ said Griff, ‘it is only that we have been sitting up to investigate the ghost.’
‘Ghost! Arrant stuff and nonsense! What induced you to be dragging Edward about in this dangerous way?’
‘I wished it,’ said I.
‘You are all mad together, I think. I won’t have the house disturbed for this ridiculous folly. I shall look into it to-morrow!’
CHAPTER XV.
RATIONAL THEORIES.
‘These are the reasons, they are natural.’
Julius Cæsar.
If anything could have made our adventure more unpleasant to Mr. and Mrs. Winslow, it would have been the presence of guests. However, inquiry was suppressed at breakfast, in deference to the signs my mother made to enjoin silence before the children, all unaware that Emily was nearly frantic with suppressed curiosity, and Martyn knew more about the popular version of the legend than any of us.