It did seem hard that I dared not tell the truth. Had the entity been in the flesh how easy it would have been. Who has not, at some time or another in her life, found herself unwittingly to be an unwelcome guest, and made to feel "if you don't go away at once you will regret it"? Sometimes one comes across persons who for some private reason dread being overlooked, or who love their hermitage so dearly that they refuse to be amiable, to even the most swiftly passing guest. Old people are often like that, every one knows, or has known, of such people in the flesh. Yet how few believe that such unpleasant traits persist just as strongly after so-called death, as before. What should suddenly change a man's whole disposition the moment he "shuffles off this mortal coil"?
I felt I was now in the presence of one who dreaded being overlooked, and who sought to get rid of me by every device in his power.
Whilst thinking thus my mind was irrevocably made up for me.
My attention was suddenly drawn towards a soft stealthy noise. Padded footsteps. Something had come near, and was creeping warily round in front of me. I felt the eyes upon me. I was being regarded more closely. What was about to follow?
I leapt to my feet, and raising my arm made the sign of the Cross. "I bid you begone, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
There was a moment's pause of utter silence. The atmosphere struck suddenly chill as ice. A curious sensation of emptiness crept over the room. I was alone, but for how long would I remain alone?
I hurried downstairs and tried to play my part, and during the course of the evening I told my falsehoods as naturally as I could. At half-past ten I drove off to St. Andrews with a light heart, and an utter indifference to the consequences.
I believe that my falsehoods did not, however, "go down," for I never was asked again to that house.
Perhaps it was as well, for I certainly never would have set foot in it again, and I had sacrificed the truth quite sufficiently upon this one occasion.
I had no difficulty in finding out what sort of reputation the castle bore. Every one agreed that it was haunted. I asked one elderly woman who had lived all her life in St. Andrews, and who knew the whole country intimately, what she thought of S. Castle.