The Blackmore Country

by F. J. Snell

Chambercombe is now a retired farmhouse in a beautifully wooded valley, through which saunters the little streamlet which shortly afterwards empties itself into the sea at Hele Strand. The inhabitants still show the Haunted Room to the curious in such matters—a long, low chamber in the roof of the house, from which the flooring has been removed, and which is now used only for the purpose of storing away useless lumber. There are many versions of the legend which belongs to this house; the one which I shall give seems to have the merit of a quaint originality, and is sufficiently mysterious in its unexplained connection with former days.

Many years ago, the burly, ruddy-cheeked, well-to-do yeoman who owned this farm was sitting under the shade of a tree in his garden, enjoying in the cool of the summer’s evening his much-loved pipe of meditation and contentment. After a time he exhausted his usual subjects of reverie, the state of his crops, the rise or fall of wages, the prospects of the next Barnstaple Fair. What should he do? He could not “whistle for want of thought,” because of his pipe—he couldn’t even indulge in the excitement of a matrimonial “difference of opinion,” because his wife was gone into ‘Combe to sell her last batch of chickens. Whatever should he do?

The evening was very still and warm, not even a breath of wind stirring in the copse on the hillside, where the last kiss of the sunset lingered lovingly. He was just dropping off into a doze, and had nodded once or twice with much energy, to the imminent danger of his “yard o’ clay,” when it suddenly occurred to him that he had forgotten to see about some necessary repairs in the roof of his house, and that his spouse had a better memory for such things than himself, and would not fail to remind him of the same on her return.

So he roused himself, and facing his chair in the direction of the house, began to arrange in his mind the when and where of his intended operations. The hole in the roof was over his wife’s store-room, which accounted for her anxiety in the matter, and as he did not expect to be allowed to interfere with that sanctum, he settled that he would get at the roof from the next window, which opened into a passage, and had a low parapet in front of it. Then he rubbed his eyes. Certainly the passage was next to the store-room, and the passage window was the only window with a parapet to it, and therefore the next window to the parapet must be the store-room window, and consequently must have the hole in the roof over it—ably argued and very conclusive. But, to his great perplexity, the fact stared him in the face that the aforesaid hole was over the window which was next but one to the parapet. Then he counted the rooms of the house—“Our Sal’s bedroom—passage—wife’s store-room—own bedroom—one—two—three—four.” Next he counted the windows—“one—two—three—four—five.”

There was one too many. He repeated the process with the same result.

Between the passage and the store-room, which were next to each other, there was decidedly a window—the window too many.

If a window, then a room—unanswerable logic!

Now thoroughly aroused, he dashed his pipe to the ground with a vast exclamation, and rushed into the house at the top of his speed. It was the work of a moment to call together half a dozen able-bodied serving-men, to arm them and himself with divers spades and mattocks, and to scale the creaking stairs which led to the parapet window. There was no trace of a door, nothing but a flat, white-washed wall. He sounded it with a hasty blow, and a dull, hollow sound rang through the house.

“Odswinderakins!” roared the farmer. “Down wi’ un, boys! Virst o’ ye thro’ un shall ha’ Dame’s apern vull of zilver gerts.[23] Gi’ it un, lads!”

Clash went the mattocks into the cob-wall; cling, clang rang the spades on the oak floor. A cloud of dust rolled through the staircase as the farmer’s pick-axe went up to the head in the first breach, and the farmer’s wife rushed up the stairs. Half-choked, and wholly stunned by the din, she could get little information beyond a general statement that the Goodger[24] was in the house, which seemed self-evident. Another five minutes’ work, and the farmer dashed through the gap, which barely admitted his burly person, followed by his wife, whose curiosity mastered her rage and fright.