“Oh,” he said, “I read it in the Evening Standard, and that is a most respectable paper. It has been in several evenings.”
“Oh,” said Graves, “has it? It’s very good of the editor to let us know. I hope we shall go up steady and not knock against each other. It will be very awkward if some of us turn over and go up head downwards.”
I frowned at Graves, as it seemed to me wrong to jest about such matters; but I knew where Mr. Gwillam had seen it. It was an advertisement which some madman had put in for years, having nothing better to do with his money. But I thought it very queer that anybody in their senses could believe such mischievous nonsense.
After that I began to notice one or two queer things that Mr. Gwillam said, and I made up my mind that he must have what Harry calls “a tile loose;” but how loose it was I didn’t know till he did something which made quite a sensation in the village. One night in our smoke-room he happened to mention that, coming out of his gate, he had come upon one of his maid-servants talking to a queer-looking old woman, and when he described the woman everybody said, “Why, that is old Dame Trueman, the witch!”
He looked very horrified, and said, “Do you mean to say that a witch is allowed to live in the place?”
That turned the conversation on to the subject, and everybody began to tell stories about Dame Trueman; of course, making them out as awful as possible to astonish the old gentleman.
He didn’t say much that night; but the next evening when he came he didn’t look very well, and he said that he had been awake all night thinking about the witch.
He smoked his pipe and had his glass of grog; but he went away early. After he was gone I said it was a pity for them to have told him such a lot of stuff about old Dame Trueman—he was just the man to take it all for gospel.
The next evening he didn’t come as usual, and I was afraid he was ill, and our doctor happening to look in, I asked him if he had heard if Mr. Gwillam was ill.
“Yes,” he said, “he is a bit poorly; but it’s nothing. The old boy hasn’t been able to sleep the last night or two, and it has upset his nerves. He’s got some absurd idea into his head that he is under a spell. He can’t be quite right in his head.”