The Siege of the Seven Suitors

by Meredith Nicholson

"We're all fond of 'er, sir, though she's a bit troubled hin the 'ead, if I may make so bold. She says a good ghost is a hasset."

I did not at once catch 'asset' with an aspirate, but when he repeated it, I laughed in spite of myself.

"You 'd better go to bed, James. And don't encourage talk among the other servants about this ghost. I know something about the building of houses, and I 'll give these walls a good looking over. Good-night."

It was apparent that my interview had not cheered him greatly. He turned at the door, to ask if I would put out the lights, and fear was so clearly written upon his big red face that I dismissed him sharply.

I made myself comfortable for an hour, smoking a cigar over an article on English politics, and while I read, a big log placidly burned itself to ashes. I found the switch and snapped out the library lights. When I had gained the second floor I turned off the lights in the hall below, and as I looked down the well to make sure I had turned the right key, the third floor lights suddenly died and I was left in darkness. This was the least bit disconcerting. I was quite sure that the upper lights had remained burning brightly after the darkening of the lower hall, so that it was hardly possible that the one switch had cut off both lights.

Standing by the rail that guarded the well, I peered upward, thinking that some one above me was manipulating another switch; but the silence was as complete as the blackness. I was about to turn from the rail to the wall to find the switch, but at this moment, as my face was still lifted in the intentness with which I was listening, something brushed my cheek,—something soft of touch and swift of movement. As I gripped the rail I felt this touch once, twice, thrice. Then my hand sought the wall madly, and with so bad an aim that it was quite a minute before I found the switch-plate and snapped all the keys. The stair, and the halls above and below me sprang into being again, and I stood blinking stupidly upward.

Though I was in a modern house thoroughly lighted by electricity, I cannot deny that this incident, following so quickly upon the butler's story, occasioned a moment's acute horripilation, accompanied by an uncomfortable tremor of the legs. As already hinted, I lay no claim to great valor. As for ghosts, I am half persuaded of their existence, and after witnessing a presentation of Hamlet, always feel that Shakespeare is as safe a guide in such matters as the destructive scientific critics.

There were various plausible explanations of the failure of the lights. Some switch that I did not know of, perhaps in the third-floor hall, might have been turned; or the power house in the village might have been shifting dynamos. Either solution of the riddle was credible. But the ghostly touch on my face could not be accounted for so readily. Leaving the lights on, I continued to the third floor, and examined the switch, and sought in other ways to explain these phenomena. My composure returned more slowly than I care to confess, and I think it was probably in my mind that the ghost of King George's dead soldier might be lying in wait for me; but I saw and heard nothing. The doors of the unused chambers on the third floor were closed, and I did not feel justified in trying them. The servants were housed on this floor, at the rear of the house, and a door that cut off their quarters proved on examination to be tightly locked.

The fourth floor was only a half-story, used for storage purposes. The roof was gained, I recalled, by an iron ladder and a hatchway in a trunk-room. I ran down to my room and found a candle, to be armed against any further fickleness of the lights, and set out for the fourth floor. I had changed my coat, and with a couple of candles and a box of matches started for the roof. My courage had risen now, and I was ready for any further adventure that the night might hold for me. Miss Hollister and Cecilia were both in their rooms, presumably asleep; the servants doubtless had their doors barred against ghostly visitors, and the house was mine to explore as I pleased.

I think I was humming slightly as I mounted the stair, which, in keeping with the general luxuriousness that characterized the furnishing of the house, was thickly carpeted even to the fourth floor. I was slipping my hand along the rail, and mounting, I dare say, a little jauntily as I screwed my courage to an unfamiliar notch, when suddenly, midway of the first half, and just before I reached the turn where the stair broke, the lights failed again, with startling abruptness. This was carrying the joke pretty far, and instantly I clapped my hand to my pocket for the box of safety-matches, dug it out, and then in my haste dropped the lid essential to ignition, and stooped to find it.