We had with us a young footman called Carroll, the son of an Irish tenant; devoted to his masters, under whom he had been brought up. He was a fine young fellow, bold as a lion, and ready to face flesh and blood in any shape; but a very craven as regarded spirits, fairies, and supernatural beings, in whom he believed implicitly. One night, after seeing the invalid settled to rest and committed to the care of the appointed watcher, I came down to the drawing-room to write letters. It was an immense saloon, with—doubling and prolonging its dimensions—wide folding-doors of looking-glass at the end. I had been writing for some time; far, indeed, into the ‘small-hours.’ The fire was nearly out; and the candles, which at their best had only served to make darkness visible in that great place, had burnt low. The room was getting chilly, dark shadows gathering in the corners. Who has not known the creepy, shivering feeling that will come over us at such times, when in the dead silence of the sleeping house we alone are wakeful? The furniture around begins to crack; the falling of a cinder with a clink upon the hearth makes us start. And if at such a time the door should slowly and solemnly open wide, as doors sometimes will, ‘spontaneous,’ we look up with quickening pulse, half expecting to see some ghastly spectral shape glide in, admitted by invisible hands. Should sickness be in the house, and the angel of death—who knows?—be brooding with dark wing over our dwelling, the nerves, strained by anxiety, are more than usually susceptible of impressions. I was gathering my papers together and preparing to steal up-stairs past the sick-room, glad to escape from the pervading chilliness and gloom, when the door opened. Not, this time, of itself; for there—the picture of abject terror—stood Carroll the footman. He was as pale as ashes, shaking all over; his hair dishevelled, and clothes apparently thrown on in haste. To my alarmed exclamation, ‘What is the matter?’ he was unable, for a minute, to make any reply, so violently his lips were trembling, parched with fear. At last I made out, among half-articulate sounds, the words ‘Ghost, groans.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘what nonsense! You have been having a bad dream. You ought to know better, you who’——
My homily was cut short by a groan so fearful, so unlike anything I had ever heard or imagined, that I was dumb with horror.
‘Ah-h-h!—there it is again!’ whispered Carroll, dropping on his knees and crossing himself; while vehemently thumping his breast, he, as a good Catholic, began to mumble with white lips the prayers for the dead. Up the stairs through the open door the sounds had come; and after a few minutes, they were repeated, this time more faintly than before.
‘Let us go down and try to find out what it is,’ I said at last. And in spite of poor Carroll’s misery and entreaties, making a strong effort, I took the lamp from his trembling hands and began to descend the wide staircase. Nothing was stirring. In the great dining-room, where I went in, while the unhappy footman kept safely at the door, casting frightened glances at the portraits on the walls, all was as usual. As we went lower down, the groans grew louder and more appalling. Hoarse, unnatural, long-drawn—such as could not be imagined to proceed from human throat, they seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth, and to be re-echoed by the walls of the great dark lofty kitchens. Beyond these kitchens were long stone passages, leading to cellars and pantries and servants’ halls, all unused and shut up since the mansion’s palmy days; and into these we penetrated, led by the fearful sounds.
All here was dust and desolation. The smell of age and mould was everywhere; the air was chill; and the rusty hinges of the doors shrieked as they were pushed open, scaring away the spiders, whose webs hung in festoons across the passages, and brushed against our faces as we went along. Doubtless, for years no foot had invaded this dank and dreary region, given over to mildew and decay; or disturbed the rats, which ran scampering off at our approach. The groans seemed very near us now, and came more frequently. It was terrible, in that gruesome place, to hearken to the unearthly sounds. I could hear my agonised companion calling upon every saint in the calendar to take pity upon the soul in pain. At length there came a groan more fearful than any that had been before. It rooted us to the spot. And then was utter silence!
After a long breathless pause, broken only by the gasps of poor Carroll in his paroxysm of fear, we turned, and retraced our steps towards the kitchens. The groans had ceased altogether.
‘It is over now, whatever it was,’ I said. ‘All is quiet; you had better go to bed.’
He staggered off to his room; while, chilled to the marrow, I crept up-stairs, not a little shaken, I must confess, by the night’s doings.
Next day was bright and fine. My bedroom looked to the street; and soon after rising, I threw open the window, to admit the fresh morning air. There was a little stir outside. The porte cochère gates were wide open, and a large cart was drawn up before them. Men with ropes in their hands were bustling about, talking and gesticulating; passers-by stopped to look; and boys were peering down the archway at something going on within. Soon the object of their curiosity was brought to light. A dead horse was dragged up the passage, and after much tugging and pulling, was hauled up on the cart and driven away.