That was just like me. Whatever I did, I did on the spur of the moment, a mode of procedure that often led me into difficulties.
A month later and my wife, children, servants, and I were all ensconced in the Crow's Nest.
That was in the beginning of October. Well, the month passed by, and November was fairly in before anything remarkable happened. It then came about in this fashion.
Jennie, my eldest child, a self-willed and rather bad-tempered girl of about twelve, evading the vigilance of her mother, who had forbidden her to go out as she had a cold, ran to the gate one evening to see if I was anywhere in sight. Though barely five o'clock, the moon was high in the sky, and the shadows of the big trees had already commenced their gambols along the roadside.
Jennie clambered up the gate as children do, and peering over, suddenly espied what she took to be me, striding towards the house, at a swinging pace, and followed by two poodles.
"Poppa," she cried, "how cute of you! Only to think of you bringing home two doggies! Oh, Poppa, naughty Poppa, what will mum say?" and climbing over into the lane at imminent danger to life and limb, she tore frantically towards the figure. To her dismay, however, it was not me, but a stranger with a horribly white face and big glassy eyes which he turned down at her and stared. She was so frightened that she fainted, and some ten minutes later I found her lying out there on the road. From the description she gave me of the man and dogs, I felt quite certain they were the figures I had seen; though I pretended the man was a tramp, and assured her she would never see him again. A week passed, and I was beginning to hope nothing would happen, when one of the servants gave notice to leave.
At first she would not say why she did not like the house, but when pressed made the following statement:—
"It's haunted, Mrs. B——. I can put up with mice and beetles, but not with ghosts. I've had a queer sensation, as if water was falling down my spine, ever since I've been here, but never saw anything till last night. I was then in the kitchen getting ready to go to bed. Jane and Emma had already gone up, and I was preparing to follow them, when, all of a sudden, I heard footsteps, quick and heavy, cross the gravel and approach the window.
"'The boss,' says I to myself; 'maybe he's forgot the key and can't get in at the front door.'
"Well, I went to the window and was about to throw it open, when I got an awful shock. Pressed against the glass, looking in at me, was a face—not the boss's face, not the face of anyone living, but a horrid white thing with a drooping mouth and wide-open, glassy eyes, that had no more expression in them than a pig. As sure as I'm standing here, Mrs. B——, it was the face of a corpse—the face of a man that had died no natural death. And by its side, standing on their hind-legs, and staring in at me too were two dogs, both poodles—also no living things, but dead, horribly dead. Well, they stared at me, all three of them, for perhaps a minute, certainly not less, and then vanished. That's why I'm leaving, Mrs. B——. My heart was never overstrong. I always suffered with palpitations, and if I saw those heads again, it would kill me."