In the winter of 1917 I was engaged in war work which took me out at night. Like every other coast town Torquay was plunged at sunset into deepest darkness, save when the moon defied the authorities. The road leading from the nearest tramcar to our house was not lit at all, and one had to stumble along as best one could, even electric torches being forbidden.
I was returning home one very dark, still night about a quarter past ten, and being very tired I was walking very slowly. Owing to the inky darkness I thought it best to walk in the middle of the road, in order to avoid the inequalities in the footpath at each garden entrance to the villas. At that hour there was no traffic, and not a soul about.
Suddenly my steps were arrested by a loud knocking on a window-pane, and I collected my thoughts and tried to take my bearings. The sound came from the left, where two or three villas stand close to the road. All I could distinguish was a denser blot of black against the dense surroundings, but by making certain calculations I recognized that I stood outside "Castel a Mare." The knocking on the pane lasted only a moment or two, and was insistent and peremptory. I jumped to the instant conclusion that some one was having "a lark" inside, and was trying to "get a rise" out of me. I was too tired to be bothered, and moved on again with a strong inclination towards my own warm bed, when the knocking rang out more peremptory than ever. It seemed to say "Stop! don't go on. I have something to say to you." Involuntarily I stood still again, and wished that some human being would pass along the road. I really would not have cared who it was, policeman, soldier, maidservant. I would have laid hold of them and said, "Do you hear that knocking? It comes from the haunted house."
Alas! no one did come. The night lay like an inky pall all about me, silent as the grave, save for that commanding order to stop which was rapped upon a window-pane whenever I attempted to move on.
Though the being who thus sought to detain me could not possibly distinguish who I was, or whether my gender was male or female, he could certainly hear my footsteps as I walked, and the cool inconsequence of his behavior began to nettle me. I was about to move resolutely on when I heard something else. This time something really thrilling!
Peal after peal of light laughter, accompanied by flying feet. But such laughter! Thin, high treble laughter, right away up and out of the scale, and apparently proceeding from many persons. Such flying feet! racing, pattering, rushing feet, light as those of the trained athlete. I stood enthralled with wonder, for in the pitch-black darkness of that house surely no human feet could avoid disaster. They were rushing up and down that steep, bare wooden staircase that I knew so well, and the laughter and the swift-winged feet sounded now from the ground floor, then could be clearly traced ascending, till they reached the third and last floor. Tearing along the empty corridors, they began the breakneck descent again to the bottom, a pell-mell, wild rush of demented demons chasing each other. That is what it sounded like.
I must have stood there for quite ten minutes, longing intensely for some one to share in my experiences, but Torquay had gone to bed, and I felt it was time for me to do likewise.
What could I make of the affair? Nothing! Rats? Rats don't laugh. Human beings having a rag and trying to scare the neighborhood? No human being could have run up and down that staircase in such profound darkness. It would have been a case of crawling up with a firm hand on the banister rail.
I gave up trying to think and turned resolutely away. As I did so the knocking began again upon the window-pane.
"Do stop; oh! don't go away. Stop! stop!" it seemed to call after me insistently as I quickened my footsteps and gradually outdistanced the imperious demand.