"Well, Lord Charles," replied the veteran, "I was not born to be much afeard of goblins or witches.—In my rangings I have more than once come in the way of these wicked spirits; and then I have found that a clean breast and a stout heart, with the help of an Ave Mary and a Paternoster was more than a match for all their howlings. But the fisherman's house—oh, my good Lord Charles," he added with a portentous shrug, "has dwellers in it that it is best not to trouble. When Sergeant Travers and myself were ranging across by St. Jerome's, at that time when Tiquassino's men were thought to be a thieving,—last Hallowmass, if I remember,—we shot a doe towards night, and set down in the woods, waiting to dress our meat for a supper, which kept us late, before we mounted our horses again. But we had some aqua vitæ, and didn't much care for hours. So it was midnight, with no light but the stars to show us our way. It happened that we rode not far from the Wizard's Chapel, which put us to telling stories to each other about Paul Kelpy and the ghosts that people said haunted his house."
"The aqua vitæ made you talkative as well as valiant, Arnold," interrupted the Proprietary.
"I will not say that," replied the ranger; "but something put it into our heads to go down the bank and ride round the chapel. At first all was as quiet as if it had been our church here of St. Mary's—except that our horses snorted and reared with fright at something we could not see. The wind was blowing, and the waves were beating on the shore,—and suddenly we began to grow cold; and then, all at once, there came a rumbling noise inside of the house like the rolling of a hogshead full of pebbles, and afterwards little flashes of light through the windows, and the sergeant said he heard clanking chains and groans:—it isn't worth while to hide it from your lordship, but the sergeant ran away like a coward, and I followed him like another, Lord Charles.—Since that night I have not been near the Black house.—We have an old saying in my country—'een gebrande kat vreest het koude water'—the scalded cat keeps clear of cold water—ha, I mind the proverb."
"It is not long ago," said Dauntrees, "perhaps not above two years,—when, they say, the old sun-dried timber of the building turned suddenly black. It was the work of a single night—your Lordship shall find it so now."
"I can witness the truth of it," said Arnold—"the house was never black until that night, and now it looks as if it was scorched with lightning from roof to ground sill. And yet, lightning could never leave it so black without burning it to the ground."
"There is some trickery in this," said the Proprietary. "It may scarce be accounted for on any pretence of witchcraft, or sorcery, although I know there are malignant influences at work in the province which find motive enough to do all the harm they can. Has Fendall, or any of his confederates had commerce with this house, Captain Dauntrees? Can you suspect such intercourse?"
"Assuredly not, my Lord," replied the Captain, "for Marshall, who is the most insolent of that faction, hath, to my personal knowledge, the greatest dread of the chapel of all other men I have seen. Besides, these terrors have flourished in the winter-night tales of the neighbourhood, ever since the death of Kelpy, and long before the Fendalls grew so pestilent in the province."
"It is the blood of the fisherman, my good Lord, and of his wife and children that stains the floor," said Arnold; "it is that blood which brings the evil spirits together about the old hearth. Twice every day the blood-spots upon the floor freshen and grow strong, as the tide comes to flood;—at the ebb they may be hardly seen."
"You have witnessed this yourself, Arnold?"
"At the ebb, Lord Charles. I did not stay for the change of tide. When I saw the spots it was as much as we could do to make them out.—But at the flood every body says they are plain."