I did not go to the heath one night; I lay awake in bed instead, and about the hour I had usually returned I heard steps, long, swinging steps coming down the little side road towards the house. My memory at once went back to that night in Dublin, and I strained my ears to catch the accompanying sound. I had not long to wait—it soon came, the same old familiar click, click, click! In an agony of fear, lest the steps should stop at the house and there should be a repetition of the terrible knocking at the door, I lighted a candle and sat up. Nearer and nearer they came, and then, when I felt certain they would stop, to my infinite relief they went on. On past the house, the echoes ringing out loud and clear in the keen, frosty air, until they reached the Bath Road.
I fully expected some misfortune would happen to me after this occurrence, as the last time I had heard the steps had been at the time of my failure to pass the medical for the R.I.C., and shortly before my disastrous trip to America. Yet nothing of a specially untoward nature happened. Apparently, the steps on this occasion merely heralded another change in my vocation, for I shortly afterwards became imbued with the desire to be an actor, and commenced what was destined to be a lively, though very brief theatrical career, as a pupil in the Henry Neville Studio, Oxford Street.
Before, however, passing on to subsequent events, I must relate one other—the only other—ghostly happening I experienced at Hounslow. In a remote corner of the heath there was one spot that had a peculiar fascination for me, and, whenever I returned from it, I dreamed the same dream—that a beautiful girl in an old-world costume, with fair hair, large, blue eyes and daintily-moulded lips, approached my bed and leaned over me. She had the most appealing expression in her face, and seemed to be anxious to make me her confidant. I was always about to address her, when some extraordinary metamorphosis took place, and I awoke, palpitating with terror.
The dream greatly impressed me, and I tried my best to discover a reason for it. I did eventually, but not until the year I published “Some Haunted Houses of England and Wales,” when I got into correspondence with a very old lady, whom I will call Miss Carmichael. Miss Carmichael lived at Ealing, close to the Parish Church, and wrote to me to the effect that, if I liked to call on her, she could tell me a curious tale about an old house that used to stand on the outskirts of Hounslow Heath. Of course I accepted this invitation.
I found Miss Carmichael, when I called, lying on a sofa, crippled with rheumatism, but otherwise in the full possession of all her senses, and wonderfully vivacious, despite the fact that she was well over ninety.
“The house I want to tell you about,” she said, “was called ‘The Gables.’ It was a large, old-fashioned manor house with very extensive grounds, and at the beginning of the last century it belonged to my aged relative, Miss Denning. She never lived in it herself, but she kept it in excellent repair, and at her death, in or about 1820, her nephew inherited an apparently valuable property. Now, Tom Denning had a great friend, Dick Mayhew, and it was from Dick Mayhew, who was also a great friend of mine, that I heard the most detailed account of the hauntings. I will try and tell you the story just as my friend told it to me.”[3]
“I was sitting in my stuffy office in Jermyn Street one spring morning, when, who should suddenly walk in but Tom Denning, whom I had not seen for some time. ‘Why, Dick,’ he said, ‘how fagged and run down you look. A spell in the country is what you need, it would do you all the good in the world. Supposing you come down to my place at Hounslow, and have a blow on the Heath. I keep a couple of horses, and you can ride all day if you like.’
“What surprises you spring on one,” I ejaculated. “I didn’t know you were living so near London—and at Hounslow, too! Aren’t you afraid of highwaymen. I hear they still visit the place occasionally. How long have you been there?”