When Mrs Bizzey brought me the candles, she asked me if I required anything else, as she and Mr Bizzey were about to retire to the marital couch, which I afterwards ascertained was erected in the scullery. I answered in the negative, and wished her good-night, hearing her afterwards distinctly close the door at the head of the kitchen stairs and descend step by step to the arms of her lord and master. But Mrs Bizzey’s intrusion had murdered my reverie. I could not take up the chain of thought where she had severed the links. The night air, too, seemed to have grown suddenly damp and chilly, and I pulled down the window sash with a jerk, and taking out my note-book and writing-case drew a chair up to the table and commenced to think, playing idly with my pen the while. Soon the divine afflatus (the symptoms of which every successful writer knows so well) came down upon me. I ceased to think—or rather to be aware that I was thinking. My pen ran over the paper as though some other hand guided it than my own, and I wrote rapidly, filling page after page with a stream of ideas that seemed to pour out of my brain involuntarily. Time is of no account under such circumstances, and I may have been scribbling for one hour or for three, for aught I knew to the contrary, before I was roused to a sense of my position by hearing a footfall sound through the silent, deserted house.
Now, although I have described my condition to be such as to render me impervious to outer impressions, I am certain of one thing—that no noise, however slight, had hitherto broken in upon it. It was the complete absence of sound that had permitted my spirit to have full play irrespective of my body; and directly the silence was outraged, my physical life re-asserted its claims, and my senses became all alive to ascertain the cause of it. In another moment the sound was repeated, and I discovered that it was over my head—not under my feet. It could not, then, proceed from either of the old couple, whom I had heard lock themselves up together down below. Who could it be?
My first idea, emanating from my landlady’s information that the noise might proceed from rats, I had already dismissed with contempt. It was the reverberation of a footstep. There could be no doubt about that; and my next thought naturally flew to burglars, who were making an attempt on the safes in the offices above. What could I do? I was utterly unarmed, and to go in pursuit of midnight robbers in so defenceless a condition would be simply delivering myself into their power. I certainly might have shied a couple of Jones’ black-lettered books at their heads, for they were ponderous enough to knock any man down, but I might not take a steady aim, and it is better not to attempt at all than to attempt and fail.
Meanwhile, the sounds overhead had increased in number and become continuous, as though some one had commenced to walk up and down the room. Surely no midnight thief would dare to create so much disturbance as that! Detection of his crime would be inevitable. Or did he trust to the sound sleep of the porter and his wife in the kitchen below, not knowing that I, existent and wakeful, intervened between himself and them? In another minute I believe that I should have cast all consequences to the winds, and rushed, not in, but up to the rescue, forgetting I was a husband and a father, and armed with Jones’ patent self-acting leveller, alone have ascended to the upper story to investigate the cause of the midnight disturbance I heard. Only—I didn’t! For before I had had time to shoulder my weapons and screw my courage up to the sticking-point, another sound reached my ears that made the patent levellers drop on the table again with a thump,—the sound, not of a step, but a groan—a deep, hollow, unmistakable groan, that chilled the marrow in my bones to such a degree that it would have been a disgrace to any cook to send them up to table.
I knew then that I must have been mistaken in my first theory, and that the sounds I overheard, whether they proceeded from mortals or not, had no connection with the nefarious occupation of housebreakers. But they had become a thousand times more interesting, and I listened attentively.
The groan was followed by some muttered words that sounded like a curse, succeeded by louder tones of reproach or anger. Then the footsteps traversed the floor again, and seemed to be chasing someone or something round and round the room. At last I heard another groan, followed by a heavy fall.
I started to my feet. Surely Mr and Mrs Bizzey must have been roused by such an unusual commotion, and would come upstairs to learn the reason! But no!—they did not stir. All was silent as the grave below, and above also. The noises had suddenly ceased. I appeared to be alone in the empty house. It was all so strange that I put my hands up to my head and asked myself if I were properly awake. I was hardly satisfied on this point before the sounds recommenced overhead, and precisely in the same order as before. Again I listened to the pacing feet—the groan—the curse—the chase—the fall! Each phase of the ghostly tragedy—for such I now felt sure it must be—was repeated in rotation, not once, but a couple of dozen or more times; and then at last the disturbance ceased as suddenly and as unexpectedly as it had commenced.
I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock, and already the early birds on the look-out for the worm had begun to herald the dawn with a few faint twitters in the trees in the cloister. I threw off my clothes impatiently, and lying down in my bed, gave myself up, not to sleep, but reflection on what was best to be done. I had not the slightest doubt left as to the cause of the noises I had heard. My landlady might ascribe them to rats, but were she closely questioned she would probably acknowledge the truth—that she knew the sounds to proceed from spirits, popularly called ghosts; which accounted for all her hesitation and change of countenance when speaking to me about the apartments, also for the low price she asked for her rooms, and her evident wish to dissuade me from sitting up at night.
Naturally the poor woman was afraid she should never secure a lodger if the truth were known; but as far as I was concerned, she was altogether mistaken—I was not afraid of her ghosts. On the contrary, as I lay in bed and thought on what had just occurred, I congratulated myself that, by a third strange coincidence, my visit to Norwich promised to turn out all that I could desire.