Our modest little dwelling is within a stones throw of the Gatehouse; and when, on the return of my wife and myself from two months in Scotland, we found that Mrs. Acres was installed as a neighbour, Madge lost no time in going to call on her. She returned with a series of pleasant impressions. Mrs. Acres, still on the sunny slope that leads up to the tableland of life which begins at forty years, was extremely handsome, cordial, and charming in manner, witty and agreeable, and wonderfully well dressed. Before the conclusion of her call Madge, in country fashion, had begged her to dispose with formalities, and, instead of a frigid return of the call, to dine with us quietly next day. Did she play bridge? That being so, we would just be a party of four; for her brother, Charles Alington, had proposed himself for a visit.  I listened to this with sufficient attention to grasp what Madge was saying, but what I was really thinking about was a chessproblem which I was attempting to solve. But at this point I became acutely aware that her stream of pleasant impressions dried up suddenly, and she became stonily silent. She shut speech off as by the turn of a tap, and glowered at the fire, rubbing the back of one hand with the fingers of another, as is her habit in perplexity. Go on, I said. She got up, suddenly restless. All I have been telling you is literally and soberly true, she said. I thought Mrs. Acres charming and witty and goodlooking and friendly. What more could you ask from a new acquaintance? And then, after I had asked her to dinner, I suddenly found for no earthly reason that I very much disliked her; I couldnt bear her. You said she was wonderfully well dressed, I permitted myself to remark.  If the Queen took the Knight Dont be silly! said Madge. I am wonderfully well dressed too. But behind all her agreeableness and charm and good looks I suddenly felt there was something else which I detested and dreaded. Its no use asking me what it was, because I havent the slightest idea. If I knew what it was, the thing would explain itself. But I felt a horrornothing vivid, nothing close, you understand, but somewhere in the background. Can the mind have a turn, do you think, just as the body can, when for a second or two you suddenly feel giddy? I think it must have been thatoh! Im sure it was that. But Im glad I asked her to dine. I mean to like her. I shant have a turn again, shall I? No, certainly not, I said.  If the Queen refrained from taking the tempting Knight Oh, do stop your silly chessproblem! said Madge. Bite him, Fungus! Fungus, so called because he is the son of Humour and Gustavus Adolphus, rose from his place on the hearthrug, and with a horse laugh nuzzled against my leg, which is his way of biting those he loves. Then the most amiable of bulldogs, who has a passion for the human race, lay down on my foot and sighed heavily. But Madge evidently wanted to talk, and I pushed the chessboard away. Tell me more about the horror, I said. It was just horror, she saida sort of sickness of the soul.  I found my brain puzzling over some vague reminiscence, surely connected with Mrs. Acres, which those words mistily evoked. But next moment that train of thought was cut short, for the old and sinister legend about the Gatehouse came into my mind as accounting for the horror of which Madge spoke. In the days of Elizabethan religious persecutions it had, then newly built, been inhabited by two brothers, of whom the elder, to whom it belonged, had Mass said there every Sunday. Betrayed by the younger, he was arrested and racked to death. Subsequently the younger, in a fit of remorse, hanged himself in the panelled parlour. Certainly there was a story that the house was haunted by his strangled apparition dangling from the beams, and the late tenants of the house (which now had stood vacant for over three years) had quitted it after a months occupation, in consequence, so it was commonly said, of unaccountable and horrible sights. What was more likely, then, than that Madge, who from childhood has been intensely sensitive to occult and psychic phenomena, should have caught, on that strange wireless receiver which is characteristic of sensitives, some whispered message? But you know the story of the house, I said. Isnt it quite possible that something of that may have reached you? Where did you sit, for instance? In the panelled parlour? She brightened at that. Ah, you wise man! she said. I never thought of that. That may account for it all. I hope it does. You shall be left in peace with your chess for being so brilliant. I had occasion half an hour later to go to the postoffice, a hundred yards up the High Street, on the matter of a registered letter which I wanted to despatch that evening. Dusk was gathering, but the red glow of sunset still smouldered in the west, sufficient to enable me to recognise familiar forms and features of passersby. Just as I came opposite the postoffice there approached from the other direction a tall, finely built woman, whom, I felt sure, I had never seen before. Her destination was the same as mine, and I hung on my step a moment to let her pass in first. Simultaneously I felt that I knew, in some vague, faint manner, what Madge had meant when she talked about a sickness of the soul. It was no nearer realisation to me than is the running of a tune in the head to the audible external hearing of it, and I attributed my sudden recognition of her feeling to the fact that in all probability my mind had subconsciously been dwelling on what she had said, and not for a moment did I connect it with any external cause. And then it occurred to me who, possibly, this woman was.  She finished the transaction of her errand a few seconds before me, and when I got out into the street again she was a dozen yards down the pavement, walking in the direction of my house and of the Gatehouse. Opposite my own door I deliberately lingered, and saw her pass down the steps that led from the road to the entrance of the Gatehouse. Even as I turned into my own door the unbidden reminiscence which had eluded me before came out into the open, and I cast my net over it. It was her husband, who, in the inexplicable communication he had left on his dressingroom table, just before he shot himself, had written my soul sickens. It was odd, though scarcely more than that, for Madge to have used those identical words. Charles Alington, my wifes brother, who arrived next afternoon, is quite the happiest man whom I have ever come across. The material world, that perennial spring of thwarted ambition, physical desire, and perpetual disappointment, is practically unknown to him. Envy, malice, and all uncharitableness are equally alien, because he does not want to obtain what anybody else has got, and has no sense of possession, which is queer, since he is enormously rich. He fears nothing, he hopes for nothing, he has no abhorrences or affections, for all physical and nervous functions are in him in the service of an intense inquisitiveness. He never passed a moral judgment in his life, he only wants to explore and to know. Knowledge, in fact, is his entire preoccupation, and since chemists and medical scientists probe and mine in the world of tinctures and microbes far more efficiently than he could do, as he has so little care for anything that can be weighed or propagated, he devotes himself, absorbedly and ecstatically, to that world that lies about the confines of conscious existence. Anything not yet certainly determined appeals to him with the call of a trumpet he ceases to take an interest in a subject as soon as it shows signs of assuming a practical and definite status. He was intensely concerned, for instance, in wireless transmission, until Signor Marconi proved that it came within the scope of practical science, and then Charles abandoned it as dull. I had seen him last two months before, when he was in a great perturbation, since he was speaking at a meeting of AngloIsraelites in the morning, to show that the Scone Stone, which is now in the Coronation Chair at Westminster, was for certain the pillow on which Jacobs head had rested when he saw the vision at Bethel; was addressing the Psychical Research Society in the afternoon on the subject of messages received from the dead through automatic script, and in the evening was, by way of a holiday, only listening to a lecture on reincarnation. None of these things could, as yet, be definitely proved, and that was why he loved them. During the intervals when the occult and the fantastic do not occupy him, he is, in spite of his fifty years and wizened mien, exactly like a schoolboy of eighteen back on his holidays and brimming with superfluous energy. I found Charles already arrived when I got home next afternoon, after a round of golf. He was betwixt and between the serious and the holiday mood, for he had evidently been reading to Madge from a journal concerning reincarnation, and was rather severe to me.  Golf! he said, with insulting scorn. What is there to know about golf? You hit a ball into the air I was a little sore over the events of the afternoon. Thats just what I dont do, I said. I hit it along the ground! Well, it doesnt matter where you hit it, said he. Its all subject to known laws. But the guess, the conjecture theres the thrill and the excitement of life. The charlatan with his new cure for cancer, the automatic writer with his messages from the dead, the reincarnationist with his positive assertions that he was Napoleon or a Christian slavethey are the people who advance knowledge. You have to guess before you know. Even Darwin saw that when he said you could not investigate without a hypothesis! So whats your hypothesis this minute? I asked. Why, that weve all lived before, and that were going to live again here on this same old earth. Any other conception of a future life is impossible. Are all the people who have been born and have died since the world emerged from chaos going to become inhabitants of some future world? What a squash, you know, my dear Madge! Now, I know what youre going to ask me. If weve all lived before, why cant we remember it? But thats so simple! If you remembered being Cleopatra, you would go on behaving like Cleopatra; and what would Tarleton say? Judas Iscariot, too! Fancy knowing you had been Judas Iscariot! You couldnt get over it! you would commit suicide, or cause everybody who was connected with you to commit suicide from their horror of you. Or imagine being a grocers boy who knew he had been Julius Caesar.  Of course, sex doesnt matter souls, as far as I understand, are sexlessjust sparks of life, which are put into physical envelopes, some male, some female. You might have been King David, Madge and poor Tony here one of his wives. That would be wonderfully neat, said I. Charles broke out into a shout of laughter. It would indeed, he said. But I wont talk sense any more to you scoffers. Im absolutely tired out, I will confess, with thinking. I want to have a pretty lady to come to dinner, and talk to her as if she was just herself and I myself, and nobody else. I want to win twoandsixpence at bridge with the expenditure of enormous thought. I want to have a large breakfast tomorrow and read the Times afterwards, and go to Tonys club and talk about crops and golf and Irish affairs and Peace Conferences, and all the things that dont matter one straw! Youre going to begin your programme tonight, dear, said Madge. A very pretty lady is coming to dinner, and were going to play bridge afterwards. Madge and I were ready for Mrs. Acres when she arrived, but Charles was not yet down. Fungus, who has a wild adoration for Charles, quite unaccountable, since Charles has no feelings for dogs, was helping him to dress, and Madge, Mrs. Acres, and I waited for his appearance. It was certainly Mrs. Acres whom I had met last night at the door of the postoffice, but the dim light of sunset had not enabled me to see how wonderfully handsome she was. There was something slightly Jewish about her profile the high forehead, the very fulllipped mouth, the bridged nose, the prominent chin, all suggested rather than exemplified an eastern origin. And when she spoke she had that rich softness of utterance, not quite hoarseness, but not quite of the clearcut distinctness of tone which characterises northern nations. Something southern, something eastern.  I am bound to ask one thing, she said, when, after the usual greetings, we stood round the fireplace, waiting for Charlesbut have you got a dog? Madge moved towards the bell. Yes, but he shant come down if you dislike dogs, she said. Hes wonderfully kind, but I know Ah, its not that, said Mrs. Acres. I adore dogs. But I only wished to spare your dogs feelings. Though I adore them, they hate me, and theyre terribly frightened of me. Theres something anticanine about me. It was too late to say more. Charless steps clattered in the little hall outside, and Fungus was hoarse and amused. Next moment the door opened, and the two came in. Fungus came in first. He lolloped in a festive manner into the middle of the room, sniffed and snored in greeting, and then turned tail. He slipped and skidded on the parquet outside, and we heard him bundling down the kitchen stairs. Rude dog, said Madge. Charles, let me introduce you to Mrs. Acres. My brother, Mrs. Acres Sir Charles Alington. Our little dinnertable of four would not permit of separate conversations, and general topics, springing up like mushrooms, wilted and died at their very inception. What mood possessed the others I did not at that time know, but for myself I was only conscious of some fundamental distaste of the handsome, clever woman who sat on my right, and seemed quite unaffected by the withering atmosphere. She was charming to the eye, she was witty to the ear, she had grace and gracefulness, and all the time she was something terrible. But by degrees, as I found my own distaste increasing, I saw that my brotherinlaws interest was growing correspondingly keen. The pretty lady whose presence at dinner he had desired and obtained was enchaining himnot, so I began to guess, for her charm and her prettiness, but for some purpose of study, and I wondered whether it was her beautiful Jewish profile that was confirming to his mind some AngloIsraelitish theory, whether he saw in her fine brown eyes the glance of the seer and the clairvoyante, or whether he divined in her some reincarnation of one of the famous or the infamous dead. Certainly she had for him some fascination beyond that of the legitimate charm of a very handsome woman; he was studying her with intense curiosity. And you are comfortable in the Gatehouse? he suddenly rapped out at her, as if asking some question of which the answer was crucial. Ah! but so comfortable, she saidsuch a delightful atmosphere. I have never known a house that felt so peaceful and homelike. Or is it merely fanciful to imagine that some houses have a sense of tranquillity about them and others are uneasy and even terrible? Charles stared at her a moment in silence before he recollected his manners. No, there may easily be something in it, I should say, he answered. One can imagine long centuries of tranquillity actually investing a home with some sort of psychical aura perceptible to those who are sensitive. She turned to Madge. And yet I have heard a ridiculous story that the house is supposed to be haunted, she said. If it is, it is surely haunted by delightful, contented spirits. Dinner was over. Madge rose. Come in very soon, Tony, she said to me, and lets get to our bridge. But her eyes said, Dont leave me long alone with her. Charles turned briskly round when the door had shut. An extremely interesting woman, he said. Very handsome, said I. Is she? I didnt notice. Her mind, her spiritthats what intrigued me. What is she? Whats behind? Why did Fungus turn tail like that? Queer, too, about her finding the atmosphere of the Gatehouse so tranquil. The late tenants, I remember, didnt find that soothing touch about it! How do you account for that? I asked. There might be several explanations. You might say that the late tenants were fanciful, imaginative people, and that the present tenant is a sensible, matteroffact woman. Certainly she seemed to be. Or I suggested. He laughed. Well, you might saymind, I dont say sobut you might say that thethe spiritual tenants of the house find Mrs. Acres a congenial companion, and want to retain her. So they keep quiet, and dont upset the cooks nerves! Somehow this answer exasperated and jarred on me. What do you mean? I said. The spiritual tenant of the house, I suppose, is the man who betrayed his brother and hanged himself. Why should he find a charming woman like Mrs. Acres a congenial companion? Charles got up briskly. Usually he is more than ready to discuss such topics, but tonight it seemed that he had no such inclination. Didnt Madge tell us not to be long? he asked. You know how I run on if I once get on that subject, Tony, so dont give me the opportunity. But why did you say that? I persisted. Because I was talking nonsense. You know me well enough to be aware that I am an habitual criminal in that respect. It was indeed strange to find how completely both the first impression that Madge had formed of Mrs. Acres and the feeling that followed so quickly on its heels were endorsed by those who, during the next week or two, did a neighbours duty to the newcomer. All were loud in praise of her charm, her pleasant, kindly wit, her good looks, her beautiful clothes, but even while this Lobgesang was in full chorus it would suddenly die away, and an uneasy silence descended, which somehow was more eloquent than all the appreciative speech. Odd, unaccountable little incidents had occurred, which were whispered from mouth to mouth till they became common property. The same fear that Fungus had shown of her was exhibited by another dog. A parallel case occurred when she returned the call of our parsons wife. Mrs. Dowlett had a cage of canaries in the window of her drawingroom. These birds had manifested symptoms of extreme terror when Mrs. Acres entered the room, beating themselves against the wires of their cage, and uttering the alarmnote.  She inspired some sort of inexplicable fear, over which we, as trained and civilised human beings, had control, so that we behaved ourselves. But animals, without that check, gave way altogether to it, even as Fungus had done. Mrs. Acres entertained; she gave charming little dinnerparties of eight, with a couple of tables at bridge to follow, but over these evenings there hung a blight and a blackness. No doubt the sinister story of the panelled parlour contributed to this. This curious secret dread of her, of which as on that first evening at my house, she appeared to be completely unconscious differed very widely in degree. Most people, like myself, were conscious of it, but only very remotely so, and we found ourselves at the Gatehouse behaving quite as usual, though with this unease in the background. But with a few, and most of all with Madge, it grew into a sort of obsession. She made every effort to combat it; her will was entirely set against it, but her struggle seemed only to establish its power over her. The pathetic and pitiful part was that Mrs. Acres from the first had taken a tremendous liking to her, and used to drop in continually, calling first to Madge at the window, in that pleasant, serene voice of hers, to tell Fungus that the hated one was imminent. Then came a day when Madge and I were bidden to a party at the Gatehouse on Christmas evening. This was to be the last of Mrs. Acress hospitalities for the present, since she was leaving immediately afterwards for a couple of months in Egypt. So, with this remission ahead, Madge almost gleefully accepted the bidding. But when the evening came she was seized with so violent an attack of sickness and shivering that she was utterly unable to fulfil her engagement. Her doctor could find no physical trouble to account for this it seemed that the anticipation of her evening alone caused it, and here was the culmination of her shrinking from our kindly and pleasant neighbour. She could only tell me that her sensations, as she began to dress for the party, were like those of that moment in sleep when somewhere in the drowsy brain nightmare is ripening. Something independent of her will revolted at what lay before her.  Spring had begun to stretch herself in the lap of winter when next the curtain rose on this veiled drama of forces but dimly comprehended and shudderingly conjectured; but then, indeed, nightmare ripened swiftly in broad noon. And this was the way of it. Charles Alington had again come to stay with us five days before Easter, and expressed himself as humorously disappointed to find that the subject of his curiosity was still absent from the Gatehouse. On the Saturday morning before Easter he appeared very late for breakfast, and Madge had already gone her ways. I rang for a fresh teapot, and while this was on its way he took up the Times. I only read the outside page of it, he said. The rest is too full of mere materialistic dullnessespolitics, sports, moneymarket He stopped, and passed the paper over to me. There, where Im pointing, he saidamong the deaths. The first one. What I read was this Acres, Bertha. Died at sea, Thursday night, 30th March, and by her own request buried at sea. (Received by wireless from P.  O. steamer Peshawar.) He held out his hand for the paper again, and turned over the leaves. Lloyds, he said. The Peshawar arrived at Tilbury yesterday afternoon. The burial must have taken place somewhere in the English Channel. On the afternoon of Easter Sunday Madge and I motored out to the golf links three miles away. She proposed to walk along the beach just outside the dunes while I had my round, and return to the clubhouse for tea in two hours time. The day was one of most lucid spring a warm southwest wind bowled white clouds along the sky, and their shadows jovially scudded over the sandhills. We had told her of Mrs. Acress death, and from that moment something dark and vague which had been lying over her mind since the autumn seemed to join this fleet of the shadows of clouds and leave her in sunlight. We parted at the door of the clubhouse, and she set out on her walk. Half an hour later, as my opponent and I were waiting on the fifth tee, where the road crosses the links, for the couple in front of us to move on, a servant from the clubhouse, scudding along the road, caught sight of us, and, jumping from his bicycle, came to where we stood. Youre wanted at the clubhouse, sir, he said to me. Mrs. Carford was walking along the shore, and she found something left by the tide. A body, sir. Twas in a sack, but the sack was torn, and she sawIts upset her very much, sir. We thought it best to come for you. I took the boys bicycle and went back to the clubhouse as fast as I could turn the wheel. I felt sure I knew what Madge had found, and, knowing that, realised the shock.  Five minutes later she was telling me her story in gasps and whispers. The tide was going down, she said, and I walked along the highwater mark.  There were pretty shells; I was picking them up.  And then I saw it in front of mejust shapeless, just a sack  and then, as I came nearer, it took shape; there were knees and elbows. It moved, it rolled over, and where the head was the sack was torn, and I saw her face. Her eyes were open, Tony, and I fled.  All the time I felt it was rolling along after me. Oh, Tony! shes dead, isnt she? She wont come back to the Gatehouse? Do you promise me?  Theres something awful! I wonder if I guess. The sea gives her up. The sea wont suffer her to rest in it.  The news of the finding had already been telephoned to Tarleton, and soon a party of four men with a stretcher arrived. There was no doubt as to the identity of the body, for though it had been in the water for three days no corruption had come to it. The weights with which at burial it had been laden must by some strange chance have been detached from it, and by a chance stranger yet it had drifted to the shore closest to her home. That night it lay in the mortuary, and the inquest was held on it next day, though that was a bankholiday. From there it was taken to the Gatehouse and coffined, and it lay in the panelled parlour for the funeral on the morrow. Madge, after that one hysterical outburst, had completely recovered herself, and on the Monday evening she made a little wreath of the springflowers which the early warmth had called into blossom in the garden, and I went across with it to the Gatehouse. Though the news of Mrs. Acress death and the subsequent finding of the body had been widely advertised, there had been no response from relations or friends, and as I laid the solitary wreath on the coffin a sense of the utter loneliness of what lay within seized and encompassed me. And then a portent, no less, took place before my eyes. Hardly had the freshly gathered flowers been laid on the coffin than they drooped and wilted. The stalks of the daffodils bent, and their bright chalices closed; the odour of the wallflowers died, and they withered as I watched.  What did it mean, that even the petals of spring shrank and were moribund? I told Madge nothing of this; and she, as if through some pang of remorse, was determined to be present next day at the funeral. No arrival of friends or relations had taken place, and from the Gatehouse there came none of the servants. They stood in the porch as the coffin was brought out of the house, and even before it was put into the hearse had gone back again and closed the door. So, at the cemetery on the hill above Tarleton, Madge and her brother and I were the only mourners. The afternoon was densely overcast, though we got no rainfall, and it was with thick clouds above and a seamist drifting between the gravestones that we came, after the service in the cemeterychapel, to the place of interment. And thenI can hardly write of it nowwhen it came for the coffin to be lowered into the grave, it was found that by some faulty measurement it could not descend, for the excavation was not long enough to hold it. Madge was standing close to us, and at this moment I heard her sob. And the kindly earth will not receive her, she whispered. There was awful delay the diggers must be sent for again, and meantime the rain had begun to fall thick and tepid. For some reasonperhaps some outlying feeler of Madges obsession had wound a tentacle round meI felt that I must know that earth had gone to earth, but I could not suffer Madge to wait. So, in this miserable pause, I got Charles to take her home, and then returned. Pick and shovel were busy, and soon the restingplace was ready. The interrupted service continued, the handful of wet earth splashed on the coffinlid, and when all was over I left the cemetery, still feeling, I knew not why, that all was not over. Some restlessness and want of certainty possessed me, and instead of going home I fared forth into the rolling wooded country inland, with the intention of walking off these batlike terrors that flapped around me. The rain had ceased, and a blurred sunlight penetrated the seamist which still blanketed the fields and woods, and for half an hour, moving briskly, I endeavoured to fight down some fantastic conviction that had gripped my mind in its claws. I refused to look straight at that conviction, telling myself how fantastic, how unreasonable it was; but as often as I put out a hand to throttle it there came the echo of Madges words The sea will not suffer her; the kindly earth will not receive her. And if I could shut my eyes to that there came some remembrance of the day she died, and of halfforgotten fragments of Charless superstitious belief in reincarnation. The whole thing, incredible though its component parts were, hung together with a terrible tenacity. Before long the rain began again, and I turned, meaning to go by the mainroad into Tarleton, which passes in a wideflung curve some halfmile outside the cemetery. But as I approached the path through the fields, which, leaving the less direct route, passes close to the cemetery and brings you by a steeper and shorter descent into the town, I felt myself irresistibly impelled to take it. I told myself, of course, that I wished to make my wet walk as short as possible; but at the back of my mind was the halfconscious, but none the less imperative need to know by ocular evidence that the grave by which I had stood that afternoon had been filled in, and that the body of Mrs. Acres now lay tranquil beneath the soil. My path would be even shorter if I passed through the graveyard, and so presently I was fumbling in the gloom for the latch of the gate, and closed it again behind me. Rain was falling now thick and sullenly, and in the bleared twilight I picked my way among the mounds and slipped on the dripping grass, and there in front of me was the newly turned earth. All was finished the gravediggers had done their work and departed, and earth had gone back again into the keeping of the earth. It brought me some great lightening of the spirit to know that, and I was on the point of turning away when a sound of stir from the heaped soil caught my ear, and I saw a little stream of pebbles mixed with clay trickle down the side of the mound above the grave the heavy rain, no doubt, had loosened the earth. And then came another and yet another, and with terror gripping at my heart I perceived that this was no loosening from without, but from within, for to right and left the piled soil was falling away with the press of something from below. Faster and faster it poured off the grave, and ever higher at the head of it rose a mound of earth pushed upwards from beneath. Somewhere out of sight there came the sound as of creaking and breaking wood, and then through that mound of earth there protruded the end of the coffin. The lid was shattered loose pieces of the boards fell off it, and from within the cavity there faced me white features and wide eyes. All this I saw, while sheer terror held me motionless; then, I suppose, came the breakingpoint, and with such panic as surely man never felt before I was stumbling away among the graves and racing towards the kindly human lights of the town below. I went to the parson who had conducted the service that afternoon with my incredible tale, and an hour later he, Charles Alington, and two or three men from the undertakers were on the spot. They found the coffin, completely disinterred, lying on the ground by the grave, which was now threequarters full of the earth which had fallen back into it. After what had happened it was decided to make no further attempt to bury it; and next day the body was cremated. Now, it is open to anyone who may read this tale to reject the incident of this emergence of the coffin altogether, and account for the other strange happenings by the comfortable theory of coincidence. He can certainly satisfy himself that one Bertha Acres did die at sea on this particular Thursday before Easter, and was buried at sea there is nothing extraordinary about that. Nor is it the least impossible that the weights should have slipped from the canvas shroud, and that the body should have been washed ashore on the coast by Tarleton (why not Tarleton, as well as any other little town near the coast?); nor is there anything inherently significant in the fact that the grave, as originally dug, was not of sufficient dimensions to receive the coffin. That all these incidents should have happened to the body of a single individual is odd, but then the nature of coincidence is to be odd.


They form a startling series, but unless coincidences are startling they escape observation altogether. So, if you reject the last incident here recorded, or account for it by some local disturbance, an earthquake, or the breaking of a spring just below the grave, you can comfortably recline on the cushion of coincidence.  For myself, I give no explanation of these events, though my brotherinlaw brought forward one with which he himself is perfectly satisfied. Only the other day he sent me, with considerable jubilation, a copy of some extracts from a medieval treatise on the subject of reincarnation which sufficiently indicates his theory. The original work was in Latin, which, mistrusting my scholarship, he kindly translated for me. I transcribe his quotations exactly as he sent them to me. We have these certain instances of his reincarnation. In one his spirit was incarnated in the body of a man; in the other, in that of a woman, fair of outward aspect, and of a pleasant conversation, but held in dread and in horror by those who came into more than casual intercourse with her.  She, it is said, died on the anniversary of the day on which he hanged himself, after the betrayal, but of this I have no certain information. What is sure is that, when the time came for her burial, the kindly earth would receive her not, but though the grave was dug deep and well it spewed her forth again.  Of the man in whom his cursed spirit was reincarnated it is said that, being on a voyage when he died, he was cast overboard with weights to sink him; but the sea would not suffer him to rest in her bosom, but slipped the weights from him, and cast him forth again on to the coast.  Howbeit, when the full time of his expiation shall have come and his deadly sin forgiven, the corporal body which is the cursed receptacle of his spirit shall at length be purged with fire, and so he shall, in the infinite mercy of the Almighty, have rest, and shall wander no more. The Room in the Tower It is probable that everybody who is at all a constant dreamer has had at least one experience of an event or a sequence of circumstances which have come to his mind in sleep being subsequently realised in the material world. But, in my opinion, so far from this being a strange thing, it would be far odder if this fulfilment did not occasionally happen, since our dreams are, as a rule, concerned with people whom we know and places with which we are familiar, such as might very naturally occur in the awake and daylit world. True, these dreams are often broken into by some absurd and fantastic incident, which puts them out of court in regard to their subsequent fulfilment, but on the mere calculation of chances, it does not appear in the least unlikely that a dream imagined by anyone who dreams constantly should occasionally come true. Not long ago, for instance, I experienced such a fulfilment of a dream which seems to me in no way remarkable and to have no kind of psychical significance. The manner of it was as follows. A certain friend of mine, living abroad, is amiable enough to write to me about once in a fortnight. Thus, when fourteen days or thereabouts have elapsed since I last heard from him, my mind, probably, either consciously or subconsciously, is expectant of a letter from him. One night last week I dreamed that as I was going upstairs to dress for dinner I heard, as I often heard, the sound of the postmans knock on my front door, and diverted my direction downstairs instead. There, among other correspondence, was a letter from him. Thereafter the fantastic entered, for on opening it I found inside the ace of diamonds, and scribbled across it in his wellknown handwriting, I am sending you this for safe custody, as you know it is running an unreasonable risk to keep aces in Italy. The next evening I was just preparing to go upstairs to dress when I heard the postmans knock, and did precisely as I had done in my dream. There, among other letters, was one from my friend. Only it did not contain the ace of diamonds. Had it done so, I should have attached more weight to the matter, which, as it stands, seems to me a perfectly ordinary coincidence. No doubt I consciously or subconsciously expected a letter from him, and this suggested to me my dream. Similarly, the fact that my friend had not written to me for a fortnight suggested to him that he should do so. But occasionally it is not so easy to find such an explanation, and for the following story I can find no explanation at all. It came out of the dark, and into the dark it has gone again. All my life I have been a habitual dreamer the nights are few, that is to say, when I do not find on awaking in the morning that some mental experience has been mine, and sometimes, all night long, apparently, a series of the most dazzling adventures befall me. Almost without exception these adventures are pleasant, though often merely trivial. It is of an exception that I am going to speak. It was when I was about sixteen that a certain dream first came to me, and this is how it befell. It opened with my being set down at the door of a big redbrick house, where, I understood, I was going to stay. The servant who opened the door told me that tea was going on in the garden, and led me through a low darkpanelled hall, with a large open fireplace, on to a cheerful green lawn set round with flower beds. There were grouped about the teatable a small party of people, but they were all strangers to me except one, who was a schoolfellow called Jack Stone, clearly the son of the house, and he introduced me to his mother and father and a couple of sisters. I was, I remember, somewhat astonished to find myself here, for the boy in question was scarcely known to me, and I rather disliked what I knew of him moreover, he had left school nearly a year before. The afternoon was very hot, and an intolerable oppression reigned. On the far side of the lawn ran a redbrick wall, with an iron gate in its centre, outside which stood a walnut tree. We sat in the shadow of the house opposite a row of long windows, inside which I could see a table with cloth laid, glimmering with glass and silver. This garden front of the house was very long, and at one end of it stood a tower of three stories, which looked to me much older than the rest of the building. Before long, Mrs. Stone, who, like the rest of the party, had sat in absolute silence, said to me, Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower. Quite inexplicably my heart sank at her words. I felt as if I had known that I should have the room in the tower, and that it contained something dreadful and significant. Jack instantly got up, and I understood that I had to follow him. In silence we passed through the hall, and mounted a great oak staircase with many corners, and arrived at a small landing with two doors set in it. He pushed one of these open for me to enter, and without coming in himself, closed it behind me. Then I knew that my conjecture had been right there was something awful in the room, and with the terror of nightmare growing swiftly and enveloping me, I awoke in a spasm of terror. Now that dream or variations on it occurred to me intermittently for fifteen years. Most often it came in exactly this form, the arrival, the tea laid out on the lawn, the deadly silence succeeded by that one deadly sentence, the mounting with Jack Stone up to the room in the tower where horror dwelt, and it always came to a close in the nightmare of terror at that which was in the room, though I never saw what it was. At other times I experienced variations on this same theme. Occasionally, for instance, we would be sitting at dinner in the diningroom, into the windows of which I had looked on the first night when the dream of this house visited me, but wherever we were, there was the same silence, the same sense of dreadful oppression and foreboding. And the silence I knew would always be broken by Mrs. Stone saying to me, Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower. Upon which (this was invariable) I had to follow him up the oak staircase with many corners, and enter the place that I dreaded more and more each time that I visited it in sleep. Or, again, I would find myself playing cards still in silence in a drawingroom lit with immense chandeliers, that gave a blinding illumination. What the game was I have no idea; what I remember, with a sense of miserable anticipation, was that soon Mrs. Stone would get up and say to me, Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower. This drawingroom where we played cards was next to the diningroom, and, as I have said, was always brilliantly illuminated, whereas the rest of the house was full of dusk and shadows. And yet, how often, in spite of those bouquets of lights, have I not pored over the cards that were dealed me, scarcely able for some reason to see them. Their designs, too, were strange there were no red suits, but all were black, and among them there were certain cards which were black all over. I hated and dreaded those. As this dream continued to recur, I got to know the greater part of the house. There was a smokingroom beyond the drawingroom, at the end of a passage with a green baize door. It was always very dark there, and as often as I went there I passed somebody whom I could not see in the doorway coming out. Curious developments, too, took place in the characters that peopled the dream as might happen to living persons. Mrs. Stone, for instance, who, when I first saw her, had been black haired, became grey, and instead of rising briskly, as she had done at first when she said, Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower, got up very feebly, as if the strength was leaving her limbs. Jack also grew up, and became a rather illlooking young man, with a brown moustache, while one of the sisters ceased to appear, and I understood she was married. Then it so happened that I was not visited by this dream for six months or more, and I began to hope, in such inexplicable dread did I hold it, that it had passed away for good. But one night after this interval I again found myself being shown out on to the lawn for tea, and Mrs. Stone was not there, while the others were all dressed in black. At once I guessed the reason, and my heart leaped at the thought that perhaps this time I should not have to sleep in the room in the tower, and though we usually all sat in silence, on this occasion the sense of relief made me talk and laugh as I had never yet done. But even then matters were not altogether comfortable, for no one else spoke, but they all looked secretly at each other. And soon the foolish stream of my talk ran dry, and gradually an apprehension worse than anything I had previously known gained on me as the light slowly faded. Suddenly a voice which I knew well broke the stillness, the voice of Mrs. Stone, saying, Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower. It seemed to come from near the gate in the redbrick wall that bounded the lawn, and looking up, I saw that the grass outside was sown thick with gravestones. A curious greyish light shone from them, and I could read the lettering on the grave nearest me, and it was, In evil memory of Julia Stone. And as usual Jack got up, and again I followed him through the hall and up the staircase with many corners. On this occasion it was darker than usual, and when I passed into the room in the tower I could only just see the furniture, the position of which was already familiar to me. Also there was a dreadful odour of decay in the room, and I woke screaming. The dream, with such variations and developments as I have mentioned, went on at intervals for fifteen years. Sometimes I would dream it two or three nights in succession; once, as I have said, there was an intermission of six months, but taking a reasonable average, I should say that I dreamed it quite as often as once in a month. It had, as is plain, something of nightmare about it, since it always ended in the same appalling terror, which so far from getting less, seemed to me to gather fresh fear every time that I experienced it. There was, too, a strange and dreadful consistency about it. The characters in it, as I have mentioned, got regularly older, death and marriage visited this silent family, and I never in the dream, after Mrs. Stone had died, set eyes on her again. But it was always her voice that told me that the room in the tower was prepared for me, and whether we had tea out on the lawn, or the scene was laid in one of the rooms overlooking it, I could always see her gravestone standing just outside the iron gate. It was the same, too, with the married daughter; usually she was not present, but once or twice she returned again, in company with a man, whom I took to be her husband. He, too, like the rest of them, was always silent. But, owing to the constant repetition of the dream, I had ceased to attach, in my waking hours, any significance to it. I never met Jack Stone again during all those years, nor did I ever see a house that resembled this dark house of my dream. And then something happened. I had been in London in this year, up till the end of July, and during the first week in August went down to stay with a friend in a house he had taken for the summer months, in the Ashdown Forest district of Sussex. I left London early, for John Clinton was to meet me at Forest Row Station, and we were going to spend the day golfing, and go to his house in the evening. He had his motor with him, and we set off, about five of the afternoon, after a thoroughly delightful day, for the drive, the distance being some ten miles. As it was still so early we did not have tea at the club house, but waited till we should get home. As we drove, the weather, which up till then had been, though hot, deliciously fresh, seemed to me to alter in quality, and become very stagnant and oppressive, and I felt that indefinable sense of ominous apprehension that I am accustomed to before thunder. John, however, did not share my views, attributing my loss of lightness to the fact that I had lost both my matches. Events proved, however, that I was right, though I do not think that the thunderstorm that broke that night was the sole cause of my depression. Our way lay through deep highbanked lanes, and before we had gone very far I fell asleep, and was only awakened by the stopping of the motor. And with a sudden thrill, partly of fear but chiefly of curiosity, I found myself standing in the doorway of my house of dream. We went, I half wondering whether or not I was dreaming still, through a low oakpanelled hall, and out on to the lawn, where tea was laid in the shadow of the house. It was set in flower beds, a redbrick wall, with a gate in it, bounded one side, and out beyond that was a space of rough grass with a walnut tree. The faade of the house was very long, and at one end stood a threestoried tower, markedly older than the rest. Here for the moment all resemblance to the repeated dream ceased. There was no silent and somehow terrible family, but a large assembly of exceedingly cheerful persons, all of whom were known to me. And in spite of the horror with which the dream itself had always filled me, I felt nothing of it now that the scene of it was thus reproduced before me. But I felt the intensest curiosity as to what was going to happen. Tea pursued its cheerful course, and before long Mrs. Clinton got up. And at that moment I think I knew what she was going to say. She spoke to me, and what she said was Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower. At that, for half a second, the horror of the dream took hold of me again. But it quickly passed, and again I felt nothing more than the most intense curiosity. It was not very long before it was amply satisfied. John turned to me. Right up at the top of the house, he said, but I think youll be comfortable. Were absolutely full up. Would you like to go and see it now? By Jove, I believe that you are right, and that we are going to have a thunderstorm. How dark it has become. I got up and followed him. We passed through the hall, and up the perfectly familiar staircase. Then he opened the door, and I went in. And at that moment sheer unreasoning terror again possessed me. I did not know for certain what I feared I simply feared. Then like a sudden recollection, when one remembers a name which has long escaped the memory, I knew what I feared. I feared Mrs. Stone, whose grave with the sinister inscription, In evil memory, I had so often seen in my dream, just beyond the lawn which lay below my window. And then once more the fear passed so completely that I wondered what there was to fear, and I found myself, sober and quiet and sane, in the room in the tower, the name of which I had so often heard in my dream, and the scene of which was so familiar. I looked round it with a certain sense of proprietorship, and found that nothing had been changed from the dreaming nights in which I knew it so well. Just to the left of the door was the bed, lengthways along the wall, with the head of it in the angle. In a line with it was the fireplace and a small bookcase; opposite the door the outer wall was pierced by two latticepaned windows, between which stood the dressingtable, while ranged along the fourth wall was the washingstand and a big cupboard. My luggage had already been unpacked, for the furniture of dressing and undressing lay orderly on the washstand and toilettable, while my dinner clothes were spread out on the coverlet of the bed. And then, with a sudden start of unexplained dismay, I saw that there were two rather conspicuous objects which I had not seen before in my dreams one a lifesized oilpainting of Mrs. Stone, the other a blackandwhite sketch of Jack Stone, representing him as he had appeared to me only a week before in the last of the series of these repeated dreams, a rather secret and evillooking man of about thirty. His picture hung between the windows, looking straight across the room to the other portrait, which hung at the side of the bed. At that I looked next, and as I looked I felt once more the horror of nightmare seize me. It represented Mrs. Stone as I had seen her last in my dreams old and withered and white haired. But in spite of the evident feebleness of body, a dreadful exuberance and vitality shone through the envelope of flesh, an exuberance wholly malign, a vitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed from the narrow, leering eyes; it laughed in the demonlike mouth. The whole face was instinct with some secret and appalling mirth; the hands, clasped together on the knee, seemed shaking with suppressed and nameless glee. Then I saw also that it was signed in the lefthand bottom corner, and wondering who the artist could be, I looked more closely, and read the inscription, Julia Stone by Julia Stone. There came a tap at the door, and John Clinton entered. Got everything you want? he asked. Rather more than I want, said I, pointing to the picture. He laughed. Hardfeatured old lady, he said. By herself, too, I remember. Anyhow she cant have flattered herself much. But dont you see? said I. Its scarcely a human face at all. Its the face of some witch, of some devil. He looked at it more closely. Yes; it isnt very pleasant, he said. Scarcely a bedside manner, eh? Yes; I can imagine getting the nightmare if I went to sleep with that close by my bed. Ill have it taken down if you like. I really wish you would, I said. He rang the bell, and with the help of a servant we detached the picture and carried it out on to the landing, and put it with its face to the wall. By Jove, the old lady is a weight, said John, mopping his forehead. I wonder if she had something on her mind. The extraordinary weight of the picture had struck me too. I was about to reply, when I caught sight of my own hand. There was blood on it, in considerable quantities, covering the whole palm. Ive cut myself somehow, said I. John gave a little startled exclamation. Why, I have too, he said. Simultaneously the footman took out his handkerchief and wiped his hand with it. I saw that there was blood also on his handkerchief. John and I went back into the tower room and washed the blood off; but neither on his hand nor on mine was there the slightest trace of a scratch or cut. It seemed to me that, having ascertained this, we both, by a sort of tacit consent, did not allude to it again. Something in my case had dimly occurred to me that I did not wish to think about. It was but a conjecture, but I fancied that I knew the same thing had occurred to him. The heat and oppression of the air, for the storm we had expected was still undischarged, increased very much after dinner, and for some time most of the party, among whom were John Clinton and myself, sat outside on the path bounding the lawn, where we had had tea. The night was absolutely dark, and no twinkle of star or moon ray could penetrate the pall of cloud that overset the sky. By degrees our assembly thinned, the women went up to bed, men dispersed to the smoking or billiard room, and by eleven oclock my host and I were the only two left. All the evening I thought that he had something on his mind, and as soon as we were alone he spoke. The man who helped us with the picture had blood on his hand, too, did you notice? he said. I asked him just now if he had cut himself, and he said he supposed he had, but that he could find no mark of it. Now where did that blood come from? By dint of telling myself that I was not going to think about it, I had succeeded in not doing so, and I did not want, especially just at bedtime, to be reminded of it. I dont know, said I, and I dont really care so long as the picture of Mrs. Julia Stone is not by my bed. He got up. But its odd, he said. Ha! Now youll see another odd thing. A dog of his, an Irish terrier by breed, had come out of the house as we talked. The door behind us into the hall was open, and a bright oblong of light shone across the lawn to the iron gate which led on to the rough grass outside, where the walnut tree stood. I saw that the dog had all his hackles up, bristling with rage and fright; his lips were curled back from his teeth, as if he was ready to spring at something, and he was growling to himself. He took not the slightest notice of his master or me, but stiffly and tensely walked across the grass to the iron gate. There he stood for a moment, looking through the bars and still growling. Then of a sudden his courage seemed to desert him he gave one long howl, and scuttled back to the house with a curious crouching sort of movement. He does that halfadozen times a day, said John. He sees something which he both hates and fears. I walked to the gate and looked over it. Something was moving on the grass outside, and soon a sound which I could not instantly identify came to my ears. Then I remembered what it was it was the purring of a cat. I lit a match, and saw the purrer, a big blue Persian, walking round and round in a little circle just outside the gate, stepping high and ecstatically, with tail carried aloft like a banner. Its eyes were bright and shining, and every now and then it put its head down and sniffed at the grass. I laughed. The end of that mystery, I am afraid, I said. Heres a large cat having Walpurgis night all alone. Yes, thats Darius, said John. He spends half the day and all night there. But thats not the end of the dog mystery, for Toby and he are the best of friends, but the beginning of the cat mystery. Whats the cat doing there? And why is Darius pleased, while Toby is terrorstricken? At that moment I remembered the rather horrible detail of my dreams when I saw through the gate, just where the cat was now, the white tombstone with the sinister inscription. But before I could answer the rain began, as suddenly and heavily as if a tap had been turned on, and simultaneously the big cat squeezed through the bars of the gate, and came leaping across the lawn to the house for shelter. Then it sat in the doorway, looking out eagerly into the dark. It spat and struck at John with its paw, as he pushed it in, in order to close the door. Somehow, with the portrait of Julia Stone in the passage outside, the room in the tower had absolutely no alarm for me, and as I went to bed, feeling very sleepy and heavy, I had nothing more than interest for the curious incident about our bleeding hands, and the conduct of the cat and dog. The last thing I looked at before I put out my light was the square empty space by my bed where the portrait had been. Here the paper was of its original full tint of dark red over the rest of the walls it had faded. Then I blew out my candle and instantly fell asleep. My awaking was equally instantaneous, and I sat bolt upright in bed under the impression that some bright light had been flashed in my face, though it was now absolutely pitch dark. I knew exactly where I was, in the room which I had dreaded in dreams, but no horror that I ever felt when asleep approached the fear that now invaded and froze my brain. Immediately after a peal of thunder crackled just above the house, but the probability that it was only a flash of lightning which awoke me gave no reassurance to my galloping heart. Something I knew was in the room with me, and instinctively I put out my right hand, which was nearest the wall, to keep it away. And my hand touched the edge of a pictureframe hanging close to me. I sprang out of bed, upsetting the small table that stood by it, and I heard my watch, candle, and matches clatter on to the floor. But for the moment there was no need of light, for a blinding flash leaped out of the clouds, and showed me that by my bed again hung the picture of Mrs. Stone. And instantly the room went into blackness again. But in that flash I saw another thing also, namely a figure that leaned over the end of my bed, watching me. It was dressed in some closeclinging white garment, spotted and stained with mould, and the face was that of the portrait. Overhead the thunder cracked and roared, and when it ceased and the deathly stillness succeeded, I heard the rustle of movement coming nearer me, and, more horrible yet, perceived an odour of corruption and decay. And then a hand was laid on the side of my neck, and close beside my ear I heard quicktaken, eager breathing. Yet I knew that this thing, though it could be perceived by touch, by smell, by eye and by ear, was still not of this earth, but something that had passed out of the body and had power to make itself manifest. Then a voice, already familiar to me, spoke. I knew you would come to the room in the tower, it said. I have been long waiting for you. At last you have come. Tonight I shall feast; before long we will feast together. And the quick breathing came closer to me; I could feel it on my neck. At that the terror, which I think had paralyzed me for the moment, gave way to the wild instinct of selfpreservation. I hit wildly with both arms, kicking out at the same moment, and heard a little animalsqueal, and something soft dropped with a thud beside me. I took a couple of steps forward, nearly tripping up over whatever it was that lay there, and by the merest goodluck found the handle of the door. In another second I ran out on the landing, and had banged the door behind me. Almost at the same moment I heard a door open somewhere below, and John Clinton, candle in hand, came running upstairs. What is it? he said. I sleep just below you, and heard a noise as ifGood heavens, theres blood on your shoulder. I stood there, so he told me afterwards, swaying from side to side, white as a sheet, with the mark on my shoulder as if a hand covered with blood had been laid there. Its in there, I said, pointing. She, you know. The portrait is in there, too, hanging up on the place we took it from. At that he laughed. My dear fellow, this is mere nightmare, he said. He pushed by me, and opened the door, I standing there simply inert with terror, unable to stop him, unable to move. Phew! What an awful smell, he said. Then there was silence; he had passed out of my sight behind the open door. Next moment he came out again, as white as myself, and instantly shut it. Yes, the portraits there, he said, and on the floor is a thinga thing spotted with earth, like what they bury people in. Come away, quick, come away. How I got downstairs I hardly know. An awful shuddering and nausea of the spirit rather than of the flesh had seized me, and more than once he had to place my feet upon the steps, while every now and then he cast glances of terror and apprehension up the stairs. But in time we came to his dressingroom on the floor below, and there I told him what I have here described. The sequel can be made short; indeed, some of my readers have perhaps already guessed what it was, if they remember that inexplicable affair of the churchyard at West Fawley, some eight years ago, where an attempt was made three times to bury the body of a certain woman who had committed suicide. On each occasion the coffin was found in the course of a few days again protruding from the ground. After the third attempt, in order that the thing should not be talked about, the body was buried elsewhere in unconsecrated ground. Where it was buried was just outside the iron gate of the garden belonging to the house where this woman had lived. She had committed suicide in a room at the top of the tower in that house. Her name was Julia Stone. Subsequently the body was again secretly dug up, and the coffin was found to be full of blood. The Shootings of Achnaleish The diningroom windows, both front and back, the one looking into Oakley Street, the other into a small backyard with three sooty shrubs in it (known as the garden), were all open, so that the table stood in midstream of such air as there was. But in spite of this the heat was stifling, since, for once in a way, July had remembered that it was the duty of good little summers to be hot. Hot in consequence it had been heat reverberated from the housewalls, it rose through the boot from the pavingstones, it poured down from a large superheated sun that walked the sky all day long in a benignant and golden manner. Dinner was over, but the small party of four who had eaten it still lingered. Mabel Armytageit was she who had laid down the duty of good little summersspoke first. Oh, Jim, it sounds too heavenly, she said. It makes me feel cool to think of it. Just fancy, in a fortnights time we shall all four of us be there, in our own shootinglodge Farmhouse, said Jim. Well, I didnt suppose it was Balmoral, with our own coffeecoloured salmon river roaring down to join the waters of our own loch. Jim lit a cigarette. Mabel, you mustnt think of shootinglodges and salmon rivers and lochs, he said. Its a farmhouse, rather a big one, though Im sure we shall find it hard enough to fit in. The salmon river you speak of is a big burn, no more, though it appears that salmon have been caught there. But when I saw it, it would have required as much cleverness on the part of a salmon to fit into it as it will require on our parts to fit into our farmhouse. And the loch is a tarn. Mabel snatched the Guide to Highland Shootings out of my hand with a rudeness that even a sister should not show her elder brother, and pointed a withering finger at her husband.  Achnaleish,  she declaimed,  is situated in one of the grandest and most remote parts of Sutherlandshire. To be let from August 12 till the end of October, the lodge with shooting and fishing belonging. Proprietor supplies two keepers, fishinggillie, boat on loch, and dogs.


Tenant should secure about 500 head of grouse and 500 head of mixed game, including partridge, blackgame, woodcock, snipe, roe deer; also rabbits in very large number, especially by ferreting. Large baskets of brown trout can be taken from the loch, and whenever the water is high seatrout and occasional salmon. Lodge containsI cant go on; its too hot, and you know the rest. Rent only 350! Jim listened patiently. Well? he said. What then? Mabel rose with dignity. It is a shootinglodge with a salmon river and a loch, just as I have said. Come, Madge, lets go out. It is too hot to sit in the house. Youll be calling Buxton the majordomo next, remarked Jim, as his wife passed him. I had picked up the Guide to Highland Shootings again which my sister had so unceremoniously plucked from me, and idly compared the rent and attractions of Achnaleish with other places that were to let. Seems cheap, too, I said. Why, heres another place, just the same sort of size and bag, for which they ask 500; heres another at 550. Jim helped himself to coffee. Yes, it does seem cheap, he said. But, of course, its very remote it took me a good three hours from Lairg, and I dont suppose I was driving very noticeably below the legal limit. But its cheap, as you say. Now, Madge (who is my wife) has her prejudices. One of theman extremely expensive oneis that anything cheap has always some hidden and subtle drawback, which you discover when it is too late. And the drawback to cheap houses is drains or officesthe presence, so to speak, of the former, and the absence of the latter. So I hazarded these. No, the drains are all right, said Jim, because I got the certificate of the inspector, and as for offices, really I think the servants parts are better than ours. Nowhy its so cheap, I cant imagine. Perhaps the bag is overstated, I suggested. Jim again shook his head. No, thats the funny thing about it, he said. The bag, I am sure, is understated. At least, I walked over the moor for a couple of hours, and the whole place is simply crawling with hares. Why, you could shoot five hundred hares alone on it. Hares? I asked. Thats rather queer, so far up, isnt it? Jim laughed. So I thought. And the hares are queer, too; big beasts, very dark in colour. Lets join the others outside. Jove! what a hot night! Even as Mabel had said, that day fortnight found us all four, the four who had stifled and sweltered in Chelsea, flying through the cool and invigorating winds of the north. The road was in admirable condition, and I should not wonder if for the second time Jims big Napier went not noticeably below the legal limit. The servants had gone straight up, starting the same day as we, while we had got out at Perth, motored to Inverness, and were now, on the second day, nearing our goal. Never have I seen so depopulated a road. I do not suppose there was a man to a mile of it. We had left Lairg about five that afternoon, expecting to arrive at Achnaleish by eight, but one disaster after another overtook us. Now it was the engine, and now a tyre that delayed us, till finally we stopped some eight miles short of our destination, to light up, for with evening had come a huge wrack of cloud out of the west, so that we were cheated of the clear postsunset twilight of the north. Then on again, till, with a little dancing of the car over a bridge, Jim said Thats the bridge of our salmon river; so look out for the turning up to the lodge. It is to the right, and only a narrow track. You can send her along, Sefton, he called to the chauffeur; we shant meet a soul. I was sitting in front, finding the speed and the darkness extraordinarily exhilarating. A bright circle of light was cast by our lamps, fading into darkness in front, while at the sides, cut off by the casing of the lamps, the transition into blackness was sharp and sudden. Every now and then, across this circle of illumination some wild thing would pass now a bird, with hurried flutter of wings when it saw the speed of the luminous monster, would just save itself from being knocked over; now a rabbit feeding by the side of the road would dash onto it and then bounce back again; but more frequently it would be a hare that sprang up from its feeding and raced in front of us. They seemed dazed and scared by the light, unable to wheel into the darkness again, until time and again I thought we must run over one, so narrowly, in giving a sort of desperate sideways leap, did it miss our wheels. Then it seemed that one started up almost from under us, and I saw, to my surprise, it was enormous in size, and in colour apparently quite black. For some hundred yards it raced in front of us, fascinated by the bright light pursuing it, then, like the rest, it dashed for the darkness. But it was too late, and with a horrid jolt we ran over it. At once Sefton slowed down and stopped, for Jims rule is to go back always and make sure that any poor runover is dead. So, when we stopped, the chauffeur jumped down and ran back. What was it? Jim asked me, as we waited. A hare. Sefton came running back. Yes, sir, quite dead, he said. I picked it up, sir. What for? Thought you might like to see it, sir. Its the biggest hare I ever see, and its quite black. It was immediately after this that we came to the track up to the house, and in a few minutes we were within doors. There we found that if shootinglodge was a term unsuitable, so also was farmhouse, so roomy, excellently proportioned, and well furnished was our dwelling, while the contentment that beamed from Buxtons face was sufficient testimonial for the offices. In the hall, too, with its big open fireplace, were a couple of big solemn bookcases, full of serious works, such as some educated minister might have left, and, coming down dressed for dinner before the others, I dipped into the shelves. Thensomething must long have been vaguely simmering in my brain, for I pounced on the book as soon as I saw itI came upon Elwess Folklore of the North West Highlands, and looked out Hare in the index. Then I read Nor is it only witches that are believed to have the power of changing themselves into animals.  Men and women on whom no suspicion of the sort lies are thought to be able to do this, and to don the bodies of certain animals, notably hares.  Such, according to local superstition, are easily distinguishable by their size and colour, which approaches jet black. I was up and out early next morning, prey to the vivid desire that attacks many folk in new placesnamely, to look on the fresh country and the new horizonsand, on going out, certainly the surprise was great. For I had imagined an utterly lonely and solitary habitation; instead, scarce half a mile away, down the steep braeside at the top of which stood our commodious farmhouse, ran a typically Scotch village street, the hamlet no doubt of Achnaleish. So steep was this hillside that the village was really remote; if it was half a mile away in crowflying measurement, it must have been a couple of hundred yards below us. But its existence was the odd thing to me there were some four dozen houses, at the least, while we had not seen half that number since leaving Lairg. A mile away, perhaps, lay the shining shield of the western sea; to the other side, away from the village, I had no difficulty in recognising the river and the loch. The house, in fact, was set on a hogs back; from all sides it must needs be climbed to. But, as is the custom of the Scots, no house, however small, should be without its due brightness of flowers, and the walls of this were purple with clematis and orange with tropaeolum. It all looked very placid and serene and homelike. I continued my tour of exploration, and came back rather late for breakfast. A slight check in the days arrangements had occurred, for the head keeper, Maclaren, had not come up, and the second, Sandie Ross, reported that the reason for this had been the sudden death of his mother the evening before. She was not known to be ill, but just as she was going to bed she had thrown up her arms, screamed suddenly as if with fright, and was found to be dead. Sandie, who repeated this news to me after breakfast, was just a slow, polite Scotchman, rather shy, rather awkward. Just as he finishedwe were standing about outside the backdoorthere came up from the stables the smart, very Englishlooking Sefton. In one hand he carried the black hare. He touched his hat to me as he went in. Just to show it to Mr. Armytage, sir, he said. Shes as black as a boot. He turned into the door, but not before Sandie Ross had seen what he carried, and the slow, polite Scotchman was instantly turned into some furtive, frightenedlooking man. And where might it be that you found that, sir? he asked. Now, the blackhare superstition had already begun to intrigue me. Why does that interest you? I asked. The slow Scotch look was resumed with an effort. Itll no interest me, he said. I just asked. There are unco many black hares in Achnaleish. Then his curiosity got the better of him. Shed have been nigh to where the road passes by and on to Achnaleish? he asked. The hare? Yes, we found her on the road there. Sandie turned away. She aye sat there, he said. There were a number of little plantations climbing up the steep hillside from Achnaleish to the moor above, and we had a pleasant slack sort of morning shooting there, walking through and round them with a nondescript tribe of beaters, among whom the serious Buxton figured. We had fair enough sport, but of the hares which Jim had seen in such profusion none that morning came to the gun, till at last, just before lunch, there came out of the apex of one of these plantations, some thirty yards from where Jim was standing, a very large, darkcoloured hare. For one moment I saw him hesitatefor he holds the correct view about long or doubtful shots at haresthen he put up his gun to fire. Sandie, who had walked round outside, after giving the beaters their instructions, was at this moment close to him, and with incredible quickness rushed upon him and with his stick struck up the barrels of the gun before he could fire. Black hare! he cried. Yed shoot a black hare? Theres no shooting of hares at all in Achnaleish, and mark that. Never have I seen so sudden and extraordinary a change in a mans face it was as if he had just prevented some blackguard of the street from murdering his wife. An the sickness about an all, he added indignantly. When the puir folk escape from their peching fevered bodies an hour or two, to the caller muirs. Then he seemed to recover himself. I ask your pardon, sir, he said to Jim. I was upset with ane thing an anither, an the black hare ye found deid last nighteh, Im blatherin again. But theres no a hare shot on Achnaleish, thats sure. Jim was still looking in mere speechless astonishment at Sandie when I came up. And, though shooting is dear to me, so too is folklore. But weve taken the shooting of Achnaleish, Sandie, I said. There was nothing there about not shooting hares. Sandie suddenly boiled up again for a minute. An mebbe there was nothing there about shooting the bairns and the weemen! he cried. I looked round, and saw that by now the beaters had all come through the wood of them Buxton and Jims valet, who was also among them, stood apart all the rest were standing round us two with gleaming eyes and open mouths, hanging on the debate, and forced, so I imagined, from their imperfect knowledge of English to attend closely in order to catch the drift of what went on. Every now and then a murmur of Gaelic passed between them, and this somehow I found peculiarly disconcerting. But what have the hares to do with the children or women of Achnaleish? I asked. There was no reply to this beyond the reiterated sentence Theres na shooting of hares in Achnaleish whatever, and then Sandie turned to Jim. Thats the end of the bit wood, sir, he said. Weve been a roound. Certainly the beat had been very satisfactory. A roe had fallen to Jim (one ought also to have fallen to me, but remained, if not standing, at any rate running away). We had a dozen of blackgame, four pigeons, six brace of grouse (these were, of course, but outliers, as we had not gone on to the moor proper at all), some thirty rabbits, and four couple of woodcock. This, it must be understood, was just from the fringe of plantations about the house, but this was all we meant to do today, making only a morning of it, since our ladies had expressly desired first lessons in the art of angling in the afternoon, so that they too could be busy. Excellently too had Sandie worked the beat, leaving us now, after going, as he said, all round, a couple of hundred yards only from the house, at a few minutes to two. So, after a little private signalling from Jim to me, he spoke to Sandie, dropping the harequestion altogether. Well, the beat has gone excellently, he said, and this afternoon well be fishing. Please settle with the beaters every evening, and tell me what you have paid out. Good morning to you all. We walked back to the house, but the moment we had turned a hum of confabulation began behind us, and, looking back, I saw Sandie and all the beaters in close whispering conclave. Then Jim spoke. More in your line than mine, he said; I prefer shooting a hare to routing out some cockandbull story as to why I shouldnt. What does it all mean? I mentioned what I had found in Elwes last night. Then do they think it was we who killed the old lady on the road, and that I was going to kill somebody else this morning? he asked. How does one know that they wont say that rabbits are their aunts, and woodcock their uncles, and grouse their children? I never heard such rot, and tomorrow well have a hare drive. Blow the grouse! Well settle this harequestion first. Jim by this time was in the frame of mind typical of the English when their rights are threatened. He had the shooting of Achnaleish, on which were hares, sir, hares. And if he chose to shoot hares, neither papal bull nor royal charter could stop him. Then therell be a row, said I, and Jim sniffed scornfully. At lunch Sandies remark about the sickness, which I had forgotten till that moment, was explained. Fancy that horrible influenza getting here, said Madge. Mabel and I went down to the village this morning, and, oh, Ted, you can get all sorts of things, from mackintoshes to peppermints, at the most heavenly shop, and there was a child there looking awfully ill and feverish. So we inquired it was the sicknessthat was all they knew. But, from what the woman said, its clearly influenza. Sudden fever, and all the rest of it. Bad type? I asked. Yes; there have been several deaths already among the old people from pneumonia following it. Now, I hope that as an Englishman I too have a notion of my rights, and attempt anyhow to enforce them, as a general rule, if they are wantonly threatened. But if a mad bull wishes to prevent my going across a certain field, I do not insist on my rights, but go round instead, since I see no reasonable hope of convincing the bull that according to the constitution of my country I may walk in this field unmolested. And that afternoon, as Madge and I drifted about the loch, while I was not employed in disentangling her flies from each other or her hair or my coat, I pondered over our position with regard to the hares and men of Achnaleish, and thought that the question of the bull and the field represented our standpoint pretty accurately. Jim had the shooting of Achnaleish, and that undoubtedly included the right to shoot hares so too he might have the right to walk over a field in which was a mad bull. But it seemed to me not more futile to argue with the bull than to hope to convince these folk of Achnaleish that the hares wereas was assuredly the caseonly hares, and not the embodiments of their friends and relations. For that, beyond all doubt, was their belief, and it would take, not half an hours talk, but perhaps a couple of generations of education to kill that belief, or even to reduce it to the level of a superstition. At present it was no superstitionthe terror and incredulous horror on Sandies face when Jim raised his gun to fire at the hare told me thatit was a belief as sober and commonplace as our own belief that the hares were not incarnations of living folk in Achnaleish. Also, virulent influenza was raging in the place, and Jim proposed to have a haredrive tomorrow! What would happen? That evening Jim raved about it in the smokingroom. But, good gracious, man, what can they do? he cried. Whats the use of an old gaffer from Achnaleish saying Ive shot his granddaughter and, when he is asked to produce the corpse, telling the jury that weve eaten it, but that he has got the skin as evidence? What skin? A hareskin! Oh, folklore is all very well in its way, a nice subject for discussion when topics are scarce, but dont tell me it can enter into practical life. What can they do? They can shoot us, I remarked. The canny, Godfearing Scotchmen shoot us for shooting hares? he asked. Well, its a possibility. However, I dont think youll have much of a haredrive in any case. Why not? Because you wont get a single native beater, and you wont get a keeper to come either. Youll have to go with Buxton and your man. Then Ill discharge Sandie, snapped Jim. That would be a pity he knows his work. Jim got up. Well, his work tomorrow will be to drive hares for you and me, said Jim. Or do you funk? I funk, I replied. The scene next morning was extremely short. Jim and I went out before breakfast, and found Sandie at the back door, silent and respectful. In the yard were a dozen young Highlanders, who had beaten for us the day before. Morning, Sandie, said Jim shortly. Well drive hares today. We ought to get a lot in those narrow gorges up above. Get a dozen beaters more, can you? There will be na haredrive here, said Sandie quietly. I have given you your orders, said Jim. Sandie turned to the group of beaters outside and spoke half a dozen words in Gaelic. Next moment the yard was empty, and they were all running down the hillside towards Achnaleish. One stood on the skyline a moment, waving his arms, making some signal, as I supposed, to the village below. Then Sandie turned again. An whaur are your beaters, sir? he asked. For the moment I was afraid Jim was going to strike him. But he controlled himself. You are discharged, he said. The haredrive, therefore, since there were neither beaters nor keeperMaclaren, the headkeeper, having been given this dayoff to bury his motherwas clearly out of the question, and Jim, still blustering rather, but a good bit taken aback at the sudden disciplined defection of the beaters, was in betting humour that they would all return by tomorrow morning. Meanwhile the post which should have arrived before now had not come, though Mabel from her bedroom window had seen the postcart on its way up the drive a quarter of an hour ago. At that a sudden idea struck me, and I ran to the edge of the hogs back on which the house was set. It was even as I thought the postcart was just striking the highroad below, going away from the house and back to the village, without having left our letters. I went back to the diningroom. Everything apparently was going wrong this morning the bread was stale, the milk was not fresh, and the bell was rung for Buxton. Quite so neither milkman nor baker had called. From the point of view of folklore this was admirable. Theres another cockandbull story called taboo,  I said. It means that nobody will supply you with anything. My dear fellow, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, said Jim, helping himself to marmalade. I laughed. You are irritated, I said, because you are beginning to be afraid that there is something in it. Yes, thats quite true, he said. But who could have supposed there was anything in it? Ah, dash it! there cant be. A hare is a hare. Except when it is your first cousin, said I. Then I shall go out and shoot first cousins by myself, he said. That, I am glad to say, in the light of what followed, we dissuaded him from doing, and instead he went off with Madge down the burn. And I, I may confess, occupied myself the whole morning, ensconced in a thick piece of scrub on the edge of the steep brae above Achnaleish, in watching through a fieldglass what went on there. One could see as from a balloon almost the street with its houses was spread like a map below. First, then, there was a funeralthe funeral, I suppose, of the mother of Maclaren, attended, I should say, by the whole village. But after that there was no dispersal of the folk to their work it was as if it was the Sabbath; they hung about the street talking. Now one group would break up, but it would only go to swell another, and no one went either to his house or to the fields. Then, shortly before lunch, another idea occurred to me, and I ran down the hillside, appearing suddenly in the street, to put it to the test. Sandie was there, but he turned his back square on me, as did everybody else, and as I approached any group talk fell dead. But a certain movement seemed to be going on; where they stood and talked before, they now moved and were silent. Soon I saw what that meant. None would remain in the street with me every man was going to his house. The end house of the street was clearly the heavenly shop we had been told of yesterday. The door was open and a small child was looking round it as I approached, for my plan was to go in, order something, and try to get into conversation. But, while I was still a yard or two off, I saw through the glass of the door a man inside come quickly up and pull the child roughly away, banging the door and locking it. I knocked and rang, but there was no response only from inside came the crying of the child. The street which had been so busy and populous was now completely empty; it might have been the street of some longdeserted place, but that thin smoke curled here and there above the houses. It was as silent, too, as the grave, but, for all that, I knew it was watching. From every house, I felt sure, I was being watched by eyes of mistrust and hate, yet no sign of living being could I see. There was to me something rather eerie about this to know one is watched by invisible eyes is never, I suppose, quite a comfortable sensation; to know that those eyes are all hostile does not increase the sense of security. So I just climbed back up the hillside again, and from my thicket above the brae again I peered down. Once more the street was full. Now, all this made me uneasy the taboo had been started, andsince not a soul had been near us since Sandie gave the word, whatever it was, that morningwas in excellent working order. Then what was the purport of these meetings and colloquies? What else threatened? The afternoon told me. It was about two oclock when these meetings finally broke up, and at once the whole village left the street for the hillsides, much as if they were all returning to work. The only odd thing indeed was that no one remained behind women and children alike went out, all in little parties of two and three. Some of these I watched rather idly, for I had formed the hasty conclusion that they were all going back to their usual employments, and saw that here a woman and girl were cutting dead bracken and heather. That was reasonable enough, and I turned my glass on others. Group after group I examined; all were doing the same thing, cutting fuel  fuel. Then vaguely, with a sense of impossibility, a thought flashed across me; again it flashed, more vividly. This time I left my hidingplace with considerable alacrity and went to find Jim down by the burn. I told him exactly what I had seen and what I believed it meant, and I fancy that his belief in the possibility of folklore entering the domain of practical life was very considerably quickened. In any case, it was not a quarter of an hour afterwards that the chauffeur and I were going, precisely as fast as the Napier was able, along the road to Lairg. We had not told the women what my conjecture was, because we believed that, making the dispositions we were making, there was no cause for alarmsounding. One private signal only existed between Jim within the house that night and me outside. If my conjecture proved to be correct, he was to place a light in the window of my room, which I should see returning after dark from Lairg. My ostensible reason for going was to get some local fishingflies. As we flowedthere is no other word for the movement of these big cars but thatover the road to Lairg, I ran over everything in my mind. I felt no doubt whatever that all the brushwood and kindling I had seen being gathered in was to be piled after nightfall round our walls and set on fire. This certainly would not be done till after dark; indeed, we both felt sure that it would not be done till it was supposed that we were all abed. It remained to see whether the police at Lairg agreed with my conjecture, and it was to ascertain this that I was now flowing there. I told my story to the chief constable as soon as I got there, omitting nothing and, I think, exaggerating nothing. His face got graver and graver as I proceeded. Yes, sir, you did right to come, he said. The folk at Achnaleish are the dourest and the most savage in all Scotland. Youll have to give up this harehunting, though, whatever, he added. He rang up his telephone. Ill get five men, he said, and Ill be with you in ten minutes. Our plan of campaign was simple. We were to leave the car well out of sight of Achnaleish, andsupposing the signal was in my windowsteal up from all sides to command the house from every direction. It would not be difficult to make our way unseen through the plantations that ran up close to the house, and hidden at their margins we could see whether the brushwood and heather was piled up round the lodge. There we should wait to see if anybody attempted to fire it. That somebody, whenever he showed his light, would be instantly covered by a rifle and challenged. It was about ten when we dismounted and stalked our way up to the house. The light burned in my window; all else was quiet. Personally, I was unarmed, and so, when I had planted the men in places of advantageous concealment round the house, my work was over. Then I returned to Sergeant Duncan, the chief constable, at the corner of the hedge by the garden, and waited. How long we waited I do not know, but it seemed as if aeons slipped by over us. Now and then an owl would hoot, now and then a rabbit ran out from cover and nibbled the short sweet grass of the lawn. The night was thickly overcast with clouds, and the house seemed no more than a black blot, with slits of light where windows were lit within. By and by even these slits of illumination were extinguished, and other lights appeared in the top story. After a while they, too, vanished; no sign of life appeared on the quiet house. Then suddenly the end came I heard a foot grate on the gravel; I saw the gleam of a lantern, and heard Duncans voice. Man, he shouted, if you move hand or foot I fire. My riflebead is dead on you. Then I blew the whistle; the others ran up, and in less than a minute it was all over. The man we closed in on was Maclaren. They killed my mither with that hellcarriage, he said, as she juist sat on the road, puir body, who had niver hurt them. And that seemed to him an excellent reason for attempting to burn us all to death. But it took time to get into the house their preparations had been singularly workmanlike, for every window and door on the ground floor was wired up. Now, we had Achnaleish for two months, but we had no wish to be burned or otherwise murdered. What we wanted was not a prosecution of our headkeeper, but peace, the necessaries of life, and beaters. For that we were willing to shoot no hares, and release Maclaren. An hours conclave next morning settled these things; the ensuing two months were most enjoyable, and relations were the friendliest. But if anybody wants to test how far what Jim still calls cockandbull stories can enter into practical life, I should suggest to him to go ashooting hares at Achnaleish. The Terror by Night The transference of emotion is a phenomenon so common, so constantly witnessed, that mankind in general have long ceased to be conscious of its existence, as a thing worth our wonder or consideration, regarding it as being as natural and commonplace as the transference of things that act by the ascertained laws of matter. Nobody, for instance, is surprised, if, when the room is too hot, the opening of a window causes the cold fresh air of outside to be transferred into the room, and in the same way no one is surprised when into the same room, perhaps, which we will imagine as being peopled with dull and gloomy persons, there enters someone of fresh and sunny mind, who instantly brings into the stuffy mental atmosphere a change analogous to that of the opened windows. Exactly how this infection is conveyed we do not know; considering the wireless wonders (that act by material laws) which are already beginning to lose their wonder now that we have our newspaper brought as a matter of course every morning in midAtlantic, it would not perhaps be rash to conjecture that in some subtle and occult way the transference of emotion is in reality material too. Certainly (to take another instance) the sight of definitely material things, like writing on a page, conveys emotion apparently direct to our minds, as when our pleasure or pity is stirred by a book, and it is therefore possible that mind may act on mind by means as material as that. Occasionally, however, we come across phenomena, which, though they may easily be as material as any of these things, are rarer, and therefore more astounding. Some people call them ghosts, some conjuring tricks, and some nonsense. It seems simpler to group them under the head of transferred emotions, and they may appeal to any of the senses. Some ghosts are seen, some heard, some felt, and though I know of no instance of a ghost being tasted, yet it will seem in the following pages that these occult phenomenon may appeal at any rate to the senses that perceive heat, cold, or smell. For, to take the analogy of wireless telegraphy, we are all of us probably receivers to some extent, and catch now and then a message or part of a message that the eternal waves of emotion are ceaselessly shouting aloud to those who have ears to hear, and materializing themselves for those who have eyes to see. Not being, as a rule, perfectly tuned, we grasp but pieces and fragments of such messages, a few coherent words it may be, or a few words which seem to have no sense. The following story, however, to my mind, is interesting, because it shows how different pieces of what no doubt was one message were received and recorded by several different people simultaneously. Ten years have elapsed since the events recorded took place, but they were written down at the time. Jack Lorimer and I were very old friends before he married, and his marriage to a first cousin of mine did not make, as so often happens, a slackening in our intimacy. Within a few months after, it was found out that his wife had consumption, and, without any loss of time, she was sent off to Davos, with her sister to look after her. The disease had evidently been detected at a very early stage, and there was excellent ground for hoping that with proper care and strict regime she would be cured by the lifegiving frosts of that wonderful valley. The two had gone out in the November of which I am speaking, and Jack and I joined them for a month at Christmas, and found that week after week she was steadily and quickly gaining ground.