In extending this invitation, she wrote: "I do not know, dear Agnes, how much or how little you may feel disposed to credit these modern, so-called spiritual manifestations, these 'rappings,' 'table-tippings,' etc., but I know your strong penchant for the supernatural and your inveterate habit of ghost-hunting, and I do assure you, if it will be any inducement for you to come to us, that our home contains as inexplicable a mystery as ever frightened human habitants away, and doomed a dwelling-place to desolation and decay, and this haunting presence infests a house in a neighborhood, as yet innocent of spirit-rappings, table-tippings, and 'sich like diviltries,' as it is of railroads, steamboats and telegraph wires. But I shall say no more of this mystery until I see you 'face to face' except this, that even my unbelieving pa talks of selling the place unless the nuisance is explained and removed."
I think that it was the existence of this darkly intimated spectre that fascinated me to the point of accepting Mathilde's invitation. Ghost-hunting was my one weakness—perhaps I should say monomania. I secretly hoped that there might be a haunted chamber in the old house and that they might put me to sleep in it; furthermore, that I might be favored with an interview with the ghost. I resolved to go. No persuasion had power to withhold me, no obstacle to prevent me. My only brother was expected home to spend Christmas, but I could not wait for him. I would, on the contrary, ask Mr. Legare to invite him to follow me. The weather was very severe, the snow covered the ground to the depth of two feet on a level, and what it might be among the ravines of the mountains I was going to cross, I feared to conjecture; nevertheless, to go I was determined.
It was a three days' and three nights' stage ride from Winchester, where I lived with my guardian, to Wolfbrake, the home of the Legares. Accordingly, in order to reach my journey's end on Christmas Eve, I set out from home on the twentieth of December, and after three days and nights of the roughest traveling, up hill and down, through the darkest forests, along the banks of the most frightful precipices, across the rudest and most primitive bridges thrown over the most awful chasms, through mountain streams so deep and rapid that in fording them it was often hard to tell whether we rode or rowed, finally, on the evening of the twenty-fourth, I reached Frost Height, where the mules from Wolfbrake, under the charge of Uncle Judah, already awaited me.
Although it was getting dusky, and the road down the snow-covered mountain path to Wolfbrake was not of the safest description, even by daylight, and might be considered dangerous by a starless night, yet Uncle Judah, with the hard-headedness of a favored old family servant, insisted that I should set forth immediately, as "Marse and mis' would be 'spectin'" me to supper.
So, mounting my mule, and preceded by the old servant upon his jack, I descended into the outer darkness of the downward mountain path.
In a little while it was quite dark, and I could neither see Judah on his jack before me, nor even the narrow path under my feet. At every step I seemed to be plunging down into some dark abysm of shadows below shadows. I could not guide my course, but trusted to the habits and sure-footedness of the mountain mule that carried me. A glimmering light, shining up from the deepest depths of the darkness below, indicated the position of Wolfbrake Lodge. There was always a strange, mystic interest felt in approaching a place like that, for the first time, amid the shadows of night. The undefined, shapeless mass of buildings, the unseen boundaries, the unknown circumstances that awaits us, all like some strange mystery, pique curiosity. And to these general subjects of interest was added the particular one of the haunting presence of which Mathilde had darkly written. I was yielding imagination up to the fascination of these dreamy speculations, when my mule, having reached the bottom, or else an obstacle of some sort—I could not in the deep darkness decide which—stopped short. And immediately I heard a sweet, familiar voice say:
"Is that you, Uncle Judah? Did Agnes come?"
"Yes, honey," replied the old man; and:
"I am here! where are you, dear Mathilde?" exclaimed I, in the same instant.
"I am in the carryall! Uncle Judah, help your Miss Agnes off, and bring her in here with me."