“‘Absolutely,’ she replied. ‘I couldn’t mistake him. There he was—with his hunchback, huge head, cheeks looking whiter than ever—and red hair. How I could see that it was red in the dark I can’t tell you, but all the same I could, and moreover, the colour was very clear and distinct. Well, he stood and looked at me for some seconds beseechingly, and then said something—but so quickly I couldn’t catch what it was. I told him so, and he repeated it, jabber, jabber, jabber. Then I grew angry. “Why have you brought me here?” I shouted. “I wanted to go to the Gyp Mill.” He spoke again in the same incomprehensible way, and holding out his hands as if to implore my forgiveness, suddenly disappeared. Where he went to is a mystery. The rain had now begun to fall in torrents, and to attempt to go on was madness. Consequently, I rapped at the door and asked the woman who opened it if she could put me up for the night. “Yes, miss,” she said. “We have a spare room, if you don’t mind it’s being rather small. The gentleman that has been staying here left this morning. Did anyone recommend you?” “Mr. Dyer brought me here,” I said, “and, I believe, he is somewhere outside.” “Mr. Dyer!” the woman exclaimed, looking at me in the oddest manner. “I don’t know a Mr. Dyer. Who do you mean?” “Why, Davy Dyer,” I replied, “the son of the old woman who lives at the Mill. Davy Dyer, the hunchback.”
“‘Then, to my amazement, the woman caught me by the arm. “Davy Dyer, the hunchback!” she cried. “Why, miss, you must either be dreaming or mad. Davy Dyer drowned himself in the Mill pool two years ago!”’”
CHAPTER VII
THE COOMBE
A CASE OF A WILTSHIRE ELEMENTAL
People are not half particular enough about new houses. So long as the soil is gravel, so long as the rooms are large and airy, the wall-papers artistic, and there’s no basement, the rest does not matter; at least not as a rule. Few think of ghosts or of superphysical influences. And yet the result of such a consideration is what would probably weigh most with me in selecting a newly built house. But then, I have had disagreeable experiences, and others I know have had them too.
Let me quote, for example, what befell my old acquaintance, Fitzsimmons. Robert Fitzsimmons was for years editor of the Daily Gossip, but finally retired from the post owing to ill health. His doctor recommended him some quiet, restful place in the country, so he decided to migrate to Wiltshire. After scouring the county for some time, he alighted on a spot, not very far from Devizes, that attracted him immensely.
It was prettily wooded, at least he called it prettily wooded, within easy walking distance of the village of Arkabye, and about a quarter of a mile from the site of an ancient barrow that had just been removed to make way for several cottages. Fitzsimmons loved beeches, particularly copper beeches, which he noticed flourished here exceedingly, and the thought of living surrounded by these trees gave him infinite satisfaction. He finally bought a small piece of land in the coombe, getting it freehold at a ridiculously low figure, and erected a house on it, which he called “Shane Garth” after a remote ancestor.
The first month seems to have passed quite uneventfully. It was true the children, Bobbie and Jane, said they heard noises, and declared someone always came and tapped against their window after they were in bed; but Fitzsimmons attributed these disturbances to mice and bats with which the coombe was infested. One thing, however, greatly disturbed his wife and himself, and that was the naughtiness of the children. Prior to their coming to the new house they had been as good as gold and had got on extremely well together; but the change of surroundings seemed to have wrought in them a complete change of character.
They were continually getting into mischief of some sort, and hardly a day passed that they did not quarrel and fight, and always in a remarkably vindictive manner. Bobbie would creep up behind Jane, and pull her hair and pinch her, whilst Jane in revenge would break Bobbie’s toys and do something nasty to him while he slept.