Chapter IV: Part 4

Here we all unpack ourselves; and a buxom German landlady, with a kind, motherly face, comes down the steps to greet us. She has received my letter; the beds are all ready for us; the dinner will be on the table in half-an-hour; we are to be pleased to enter, and make ourselves at home. We _are_ very pleased; for we are dreadfully tired (not cold, for the weather is unnaturally mild), and have not had anything substantial to eat all the day. We climb up the steps of the hotel, which looks just like a farmhouse abutting on the main street, and find ourselves in a sanded room, containing a long wooden table, with benches either side of it, and bearing evident reminiscences of smoking and drinking—in fact, ‘not to put too fine a point on it,’ the public tap-room—but where we are met by the landlady’s two eldest daughters, Thérèse and Josephine, who are beaming in their welcome. They usher us into a second room, where the children scream at the sight of a table laid for dinner, and the four corners of which bear bowls of whipped cream and custard, and rosy Ardennes apples, and biscuits just out of the oven. The little people want to begin at once, and cannot be brought to see the necessity of washing their faces and hands first, or waiting till the meat and potatoes shall be placed upon the table. Would Madame like to see the _chambres-à-coucher_ at once? Madame saying yes, Thérèse catches up the youngest child but one, and, preceded by Josephine, we enter first a scullery, next a bricked passage, thence mount a most perilous set of dark narrow stairs, and stumble into a long whitewashed corridor, which terminates in a glass-door opening on to a garden. Here three doors successively thrown open introduce us to our bedrooms; and the trunks having been brought up the breakneck stairs, we take possession at once. The little white-curtained beds are small, but beautifully clean, and each one is surmounted by its eider-down quilt in a coloured cotton case. Two little islands of carpet in a sea of painted boards represent the coverings of the floors; and the washing-stands are only deal-tables, and there are no chests of drawers; but we inhale the fresh, vigorous breeze which is pouring through the windows (open even at that season), and think of fever-infected Brussels, and are content. But though it is all very nice and clean, we cannot possibly wash without water, nor dry our hands without towels.

An imbecile shout from the door for anybody or anything brings a broad-featured, rosy, grinning German girl to our aid, who, when she is asked her name, says it is Katrine, but we can call her by any name we please. The pronunciation of ‘Katrine’ not presenting those difficulties to our foreign tongues which the owner of it seems to anticipate, we prefer to adhere to her baptismal cognomen, instead of naming her afresh, and desire Katrine to bring us some hot water and towels; on which she disappears, still on the broad grin, and returns with a pail of warm water, which she sets down in the middle of the room. We manage well enough with that, however, but are at our wits’ end when, on being asked for more of the same fluid with which to mix the baby’s bottle, she presents it to us in a washing-basin. But as, a few minutes after, I encounter her in the corridor carrying a coffee-pot full to E—’s room, I conclude that in Rochefort it is the fashion to use vessels indiscriminately, and resolve thenceforth to take the goods the gods provide, without questioning.

On descending to the dining-room, we find that the gods have been very munificent in their gifts. After the soup appears roast beef; and as we are very hungry, we cause it to look foolish, and are just congratulating each other on having made an excellent dinner, when in trots Thérèse, pops our dirty knives and forks upon the tablecloth, whips away our plates, with that which contains the remainder of the beef, and puts down a dish of mutton-chops in its stead. We look at one another in despair; we feel it to be perfectly impossible to begin again upon mutton-chops, and I am obliged to hint the same to Thérèse in the most delicate manner in the world. She expostulates; but to no purpose, and leaves the room, mutton-chops in hand. But only to give place to her mother, who enters with a countenance of dismay to inquire what is wrong with the cooking that we cannot eat.

Nothing is wrong; we have eaten remarkably well. It is our capabilities of stowage which are at fault. Will we not have the hare, which is just ready to be served up?

Sorry as we are to do it, we must decline the hare; and as we affirm that we are ready for the pudding, and nothing else, we feel we have sunk in Madame’s estimation.

The pudding, a _compote_ of apples and preserves, with the whipped cream and custard, is delicious; and as soon as we have discussed it, we are very thankful to stretch ourselves under the eider-down quilts, and know the day to be over. We have done work enough that day to entitle us to twelve hours’ repose; yet we are all wide-awake with the first beams of the morning sun.

We dress ourselves with the pleasurable anticipation of seeing new things, however simple, and come downstairs to a breakfast-table, in its way as plentifully spread as the dinner-table of the night before. We have an abundance of milk,—so fresh from the cow that it is covered with froth, and the jug which contains it is quite warm,—eggs, cold meat, home-made bread in huge brown loaves, good butter, and strong clear coffee. In fact, we come to the conclusion that our landlady knows how to live, and we no longer marvel at the rosy cheeks and full forms of Thérèse and Josephine, nor that Madame herself fills out her dresses in such a magnificent manner.

E— has been for a stroll before breakfast, and brings back a report of ruins on the high ground; he has already unpacked his sketch-books and sharpened his pencils. We, not being walking encyclopædias, seize our _Continental Bradshaw_, and find that the ruins are those of a castle in which Lafayette was made prisoner by the Austrians in 1792.

As soon as breakfast is concluded, we rush off to see the ruined castle, which stands on an eminence just above the hotel, and which our landlady (who walks into our sitting-room and takes a chair in the most confiding manner possible whenever she feels so inclined) informs us, although not open to the public, belongs to a lady whose house is built on the same ground, and who will doubtless allow us to look over it. We can see the remains of the castle before we reach them, and decide that it must have been uglier and less interesting when whole than now, having been evidently designed with a view to strength rather than beauty. The little winding acclivitous path which leads to it, bounded by a low wall fringed with ferns and mosses, is perhaps the prettiest part of the whole concern; but just as we have scaled it, and come upon the private dwelling-house, our poetic meditations are interrupted by the onslaught of half-a-dozen dogs (one of which is loose, and makes fierce snaps at our unprotected legs), which rush out of their kennels at chains’ length, and bark so vociferously, that we feel we have no need to make our presence known by knocking at the door. A child appears at it; and we inquire politely if we may see the ruins, at which she shakes her head, and we imagine she doesn’t understand our Parisian French.

But in another moment we are undeceived, for the shrill, vixenish voice of a woman (may dogs dance upon her grave!) exclaims sharply from the open door, ‘_Fermez, fermez; on ne peut pas entrer._’ The child obediently claps it to in our faces, and we retrace our steps, with a conviction that the lady is like her castle—more strong than beautiful. E— is so disgusted that he will not even sketch the ruins from the opposite side of the road, up which another precipitous path leads us to a long walk, which in summer must be a perfect bower, from the interlacing of the branches of the trees with which it is bordered; and from which we have a far better view of the ruins than the utmost politeness of their owner could have afforded us. But no; judgment has gone out against them; we decide they are heavy and unpicturesque, and not worth the trouble; and we walk on in hopes of finding something better: and are rewarded. At the close of the long over-shadowed walk, a quaint little chapel, beside which stands a painted wooden crucifix nearly the size of life, excites our curiosity, and, walking round it, we come upon one of the loveliest scenes, even in the month of February, that Nature ever produced.

A green valley, creeping in sinuous folds between two ranges of high hills; one rocky and coated with heather, the other clothed with wood. Beneath the rocky range there winds a road bordered by trees,—along which we can see the red diligence which brought us from the station taking its jangling way,—and beside it runs a stream, terminating in a cascade and a bridge, and the commencement of the lower part of Rochefort. All the fields are cut upon the sides of hills, and are diversified by clumps of rock covered with ferns, and usually the groundwork of a well, protected by a few rough planks, or the fountain-head of a mountain-stream which trickles down until it joins the river. This is the valley of Jemelle, to see which in the proper season would alone be worth a journey to Rochefort. We look and admire, and lament the impossibility of ever transferring such a scene to canvas as it should be done; and then we turn back whence we came, and find we are standing at the entrance of an artificial cave, situated at the back of the crucifix before alluded to, and which forms perhaps as great a contrast to the natural loveliness we have just looked upon, as could well be. Apparently it is the tomb of some woman, by the framed requests which hang on either side that prayers may be offered for the repose of her soul; but had her friends turned out upon her grave all the maimed and motley rubbish to be found in a nursery playbox of some years’ standing, they could scarcely have decorated it in a less seemly manner. At the end of the cave is a wooden grating, behind which is exhibited one of those tawdry assemblages of horrors which tend more perhaps than all else to bring ridicule on the Roman Catholic religion, so utterly opposed are they to our conceived ideas of what is sacred. Two or three rudely-carved and coarsely-painted, almost grotesque, wooden groups of the dead Christ, the Holy Family, and the Crucifixion, form the groundwork of this exhibition: the interstices being filled up with gold-and-white jars of dirty artificial flowers; framed prints of saints with lace borders, reminding one of the worst description of valentines; and composite figures, supposed to represent the same individuals, and which may have cost fifty centimes apiece. The collection is such as to make the spectator shudder to see holy things so unholily treated; and it is difficult to conceive how, in this century, when art has been carried to such a pitch that even our commonest jugs and basons have assumed forms consistent with it, anyone, even the lowest, can be satisfied with such designs and colouring as these things display.

Returning homeward by the lower part of the town, we pass a _maison religieuse_ dedicated to St Joseph, and in the garden see the good little sisters joining their pupils, to the number of forty or fifty, in a merry game of ‘Here we go round the mulberry-bush,’ and apparently taking as much pleasure in the exercise as the youngest there. The church and churchyard stand at this end of Rochefort. There is nothing in the building to attract one’s notice, except that we agree that it is the ugliest we have ever seen; but we walk round the little churchyard, the paucity of graves in which speaks well for the climate of the place. The crosses and railings, made of the commonest wood and in the most fragile manner, are all rotting as they stand or lie (several having assumed the recumbent position); and we are leaving the spot with the conviction that we have wasted five minutes, when we come against a crucifix fastened by heavy iron clamps against the wall of the church. A common iron cross, rusty and red from damp and age, with a figure nailed on it of the most perfect bronze, old and hard, and dark and bright, and as unchanged by weather and exposure as on the day (perhaps hundreds of years ago) it was first placed there.

Toiling up the street again, and examining the shops as we go, I say that, much as I like Rochefort, I do not advise any one to come here in order to purchase their wedding _trousseau_, or lay in a stock of winter clothing. We look in vain for something to buy in remembrance of the place; but can see nothing out of the way, except it is a yellow teapot, holding at the least four quarts, and with a curled spout to prevent the tea coming out too fast, which must be almost necessary with such a load of liquid. The teapot is delicious, and quite unique; but scarcely worth, we think, the trouble of transportation. We have but just decided this matter to our satisfaction when we come upon a ‘miscellaneous warehouse,’ upon whose front is painted ‘_Cartes pour les grottes de Rochefort_,’ and remember that we must see the famous grotto, and turn in to ask the price of admission. Five francs a-head; children half-price. We think the charge is high; but Monsieur C— (to whom the grotto belongs) takes us into his house and shows us prints of the different views of its interior, which fire our imagination to that degree, that we decide at once to see it the next morning. We look over a book also in which visitors to the grotto have written down their first impressions; and these testimonials excite our curiosity still further. A Persian describes himself as having been suddenly transported into fairyland; and can liken the vast caverns to nothing but the palace of his great master the Sultan, and the various forms assumed by the stalactites to those of lovely houris grouped about him. A French poet, in rapturous verse, compares the grotto to the enchanted halls of the Arabian Nights, and the stalactites to ‘frozen tears.’ Every traveller declares the sight to have been more wonderful and beautiful than anything he has ever seen before, until we become quite sorry to think we must put off seeing it until the morning; and our expectations are heightened by the rapid assurance of Monsieur C— (who always keeps his hands moving, and never stops to consider his commas), that it is ‘_trèsbeautrèsbeautrèsbeau_!’ However, we agree to return the next day at eleven o’clock, when he promises the guides shall be in readiness for us; and we go home to another excellent dinner, the pleasure of which is only marred by the fact that Thérèse _will_ make us use the same knives and forks for every course; and we haven’t the strength of mind to resist.

Yesterday I spoke to madame on the necessity of engaging someone during the mornings to read French and German with the girls, as we shall most likely be here for a month; and it is too long a time for them to be idle. Madame did not think I should find a _demoiselle_ in Rochefort who could instruct them; but there is a _professeur_ here who has passed all his college examinations, and who, if he has the time, will doubtless be very glad of the employment. I asked her to send for the _professeur_ that I might speak to him on the subject; and here, just as we have done dinner, he arrives; for madame throws open the door, and with a certain pride in her voice (pride that Rochefort should possess such an article), announces ‘_Monsieur le Professeur_.’ I glance up, thinking of Charlotte Brontë and her professor, and hoping this one may not prove as dirty and seedy and snuffy, and, to my amazement, see standing on the threshold a lad of about seventeen or eighteen, dressed in green trousers and a blue blouse, and holding his cap in his hand. The two girls immediately choke, and bury their faces in their books, which renders my task of catechising rather a difficult one; and I glance at E— for aid, but his countenance is almost level with the table as he pretends to draw. So I find there is nothing to be done but to beg the _professeur_ to be seated,—a request which he steadily refuses to comply with; and as he stands there, twisting his cap in his hands, he looks so like a butcher-boy, that it is a mercy I do not ask him what meat he has to-day.

But the poor young man is so horribly nervous, as he tells me that, though qualified for a tutor, he has never taught before, that I have not the heart to refuse him on account of his youth; besides, is he not the sole _professeur_ in Rochefort? So I give him leave to come the next morning, and try, at all events, what he can do with the girls; and he looks very happy for the permission. And we see him a minute afterwards, striding proudly down the street, whistling as he goes, and holding his head half an inch higher for having ‘got a situation.’ Of course the children make merry over him for the rest of the evening, and cannot recall the appearance of their _professeur_ without shrieks of laughter; but he comes the next morning, nevertheless, to commence his duties, and proves to be quite as particular as older teachers, and much more competent than some, and takes the youngest girl completely aback by telling her she shall be punished if she is not steady.

At eleven o’clock the next morning we are all ready to view the grottoes, and E— and I, with the two eldest children, start off on our expedition. The way to their entrance lies through Monsieur C—’s park, which in summer must be a very charming resort. He has collected here all the wild animals indigenous to the Ardennes, and shows them to us as we walk to the mouth of the grottoes. Close to his house he has a splendid wolf and three foxes—the golden, silver, and common fox. I should have preferred to keep these interesting specimens a little further off from my own nose; but there is no accounting for tastes. In the aviary he has squirrels, guinea-pigs, doves, pigeons, and the most magnificent pair of horned owls I have ever seen. These birds, which are as fierce as possible, have eyes of jet and amber, as big as half-crowns, and when in their rage they spring at passers-by, they make a noise with their beaks just like castanets.

A little farther up the park we come upon the Ardennes deer, which are thicker built and less graceful than the English fallow-deer, with which they are consorting; and a wild boar, with fierce tusks and a savage grunt, wallowing in a _parterre_ of clay, which, nevertheless, knows his master, and puts his ugly snout out to be scratched between the palisades of his domain. Monsieur C— only conducts us as far as the entrance of the grotto, and there delivers us over to the care of the guides, two in number, who each carry a couple of petroleum lamps, and have ‘Grottes de Rochefort’ written on their hatbands. They ask us if we will have costumes to enter the caves with, and we decline, not knowing the dirt we shall encounter; but we exchange our own hats for little, grey linen ones, trimmed with a cockade and bunch of small red feathers in front, made after the pattern of those adopted by the monkeys on the organs, and in which we appear very comical to each other’s eyes. Everything is ready, and down we go—down the first flight of steps, which is steep but easy, and which, Monsieur C— shouts after us, will be the most difficult descent of all (I wonder if he impresses that fable on all his visitors) until the ivy and fern-covered entrance is passed, and we enter the very mouth of the cave, which is yet light enough to let us see that several such flights have still to be descended. We have hardly reached the middle of the second, and daylight is not yet left behind us, when E— calls out that he cannot breathe, and must go up into the fresh air again. The guides insist that monsieur must be mistaken, and no one is ever taken ill there. I insist, on the other hand, that monsieur’s wishes must be complied with, and we must reaccompany him to the top, which we do. I would rather not go back again then, and make the dark pilgrimage alone with the children, but E— begs we will, and the girls look disappointed; so we retrace our steps, leaving him in the park.

I confess that as I go down the second time I feel a little nervous, and my limbs shake. I don’t like this going down, down, down into the shades of eternal night, with no companions but two little children.

But at last we stand on level ground again. There is no light anywhere except from the guides’ lamps, the foremost one (who is always spokesman) waves his above his head, and introduces _la grande salle_. I look up and around me, but all is black as pitch. I feel that I am standing on broken flints and a great deal of mud; and as the guide’s lamp throws its faint gleam here and there, I see that the cavern we stand in is very vast and damp, and uncommonly like a huge cellar; but I can’t say I see anything more. In another minute the guide has turned, and leads us through a passage cut in the rock. We are not going up or downstairs now, but picking our way over slippery stones and between places sometimes so narrow and sometimes so low, that our shoulders get various bumps and bruises, and the guide’s warning of ‘_Garde tête!_’ sounds continuously. Every now and then we come upon a larger excavation, which is called a _salle_, and given some name consequent on the likeness assumed by the stalactites contained in it. Thus one is called _salle de Brahma_, because it contains a large stalactite, somewhat resembling the idol of that name. Another _salle du sacrifice_, because its principal attraction is a large flat stone at the foot of which is another, shaped sausage-wise, and entitled _tombeau de la victime_. We pace after the guides through these cavernous passages for what appears to me miles, my mind meanwhile being divided between fear that I should leave my boots behind me in the slushy clay, or that either of my children should tumble down or knock her head. Every cavern is like the other, and I look in vain for stalactites which shall remind me of ‘houris grouped about the sultan,’ or ‘frozen tears.’ The guides occasionally produce a fine effect by burning a little red fire, or letting-off a rocket, or climbing singly up the more perilous places, that we may watch the gradual ascent of their flickering lamps, and judge of the height of the larger _salles_. But I suppose the enthusiastic scribblers in the visitors’ book would consider me the possessor of a very darkened intellect if they heard me affirm that I have seen better effects on the stage, and climbed greater heights with much more convenience. Perhaps I have not a sufficiently appreciative soul for grottoes; but the greater part of the grotto of Rochefort comes up exactly to my idea of a mine, and nothing more.

The ‘glittering’ stalactites are nowhere. The cave is lined with stalactites, but (with the exception of a few white ones) they are all of a uniform pale-brown colour, and have no idea of glittering or being prismatic. The greatest wonder of the grotto is its vastness, which may be estimated from the fact that we are two hours going over it, and then have not traversed the whole on account of fresh works being carried on in parts. We penetrate to its very depths to see the river and the waterfall, but the mud is so excessive that we are compelled to stop, and let the guide descend with his lamp and flash it over the water, which is really very pretty, and, strange to relate, contains good trout.

Then we plough our way upwards again; up fungus-covered ladders, and wet, slippery stairs, upon which it is most difficult to keep a footing, until we arrive at decidedly the finest sight there—the _salle du sabbat_. Here the guides send up a spirit-balloon, to show us the height and extent of the vast cavern, and we are rather awe-struck, particularly as, in order that we may see the full effect, the other guide plants us on three chairs and takes away both the lamps, leaving us seated in the darkness, on the edge of a precipice. The blackness is so thick about us that we can almost _feel_ it; and the silence is that of death. My youngest girl slips her little hand in mine, and whispers, ‘Mamma, supposing he weren’t to come back again!’ and I can’t say the prospect pleases. However, the balloon reaches the top of the cavern, and is hauled back again; and the guide _does_ come back; and, whilst he is assisting his fellow to pack it away, I sing a verse of ‘God save the Queen,’ for the children to hear the echo, which is stupendous.

Then we see the prettiest thing, perhaps, we have seen yet. At the top of the _salle du sabbat_ there is a kind of breakage in the side, and a large cluster of stalactites. One guide climbs up to this place and holds his lamp behind the group, whilst the other calls out ‘_la femme qui repose_;’ when lo! before us there appears almost an exact representation of a woman, reclining with crossed legs, and a child on her bosom. It is so good an imitation, that it might be a figure carved in stone and placed there, and I think the sight gave us more pleasure than anything in the grotto. We have come upon several groups of stalactites already, to which the guides have given names, such as _l’ange de la résurrection_, _l’oreille de l’éléphant_, and _le lion Belge_; but though they have, of course, borne some resemblance to the figures mentioned, the likeness is only admitted for want of a better. This likeness, however, is excellent, could hardly be more like; and we are proportionately pleased. With the _salle du sabbat_ and the balloon the exhibition is ended; and we are thankful to emerge into the fresh air again, and to leave slippery staircases and the smell of fungi behind us.

We feel very heated when we stand on the breezy hill again, for the grotto, contrary to our expectation, has proved exceedingly warm, and the exercise has made us feel more so; and daylight looks so strange that we can scarcely persuade ourselves we have not been passing the night down below. We have picked up several little loose bits of stone and stalactite during our progress, and when we reach home, we spread them out before us on the table, and try to remember where they came from. Here is a bit of marble, veined black-and-white; and here is white stone, glistening and silvery. Here is the stalactite, a veritable piece of ‘frozen tears’ and _couchant houris_.

Well, we have been a little disappointed with the grottoes of Rochefort, perhaps; we have not found the crystallisations quite so purple-and-amber as we anticipated, or the foundations quite so clean; but, after all, it is what we must expect in this life. If the grotto is not so brilliant as we expected, it is at least a very wonderful and uncommon sight; and so in this life, if we can but forget the purple-and-gold, we may extract a great deal of amusement from very small things, if we choose to try. With which bit of philosophy I conclude.

A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE;

Or, The Amateur Detective.

I am an author. I am something worse than that—I am a Press writer. I am worse than that still—I am a Press writer with a large wife and a small family. And I am an Amateur Detective! I don’t mean, of course, that I reckon the last item as part of my profession, but my friends always come to me if they are in any difficulty, and set me to do all kinds of queer jobs, from restoring and reconciling a truant husband to his wife, to making the round of the ‘Homes for Lost Dogs’ in order to find Lady Softsawder’s pet poodle. Even Jones couldn’t complete his great work, ‘The Cyclopædia of the Brain,’ without asking my assistance (for a consideration, of course) with his fifth section, ‘The Origin of Dreams.’ Jones is full of fire and imagination, but he does not care for plodding, and he knew me of old for a good steady compiler. I agreed with alacrity. ‘The Origin of Dreams’ would fill those hungry little mouths of mine for three months at the very least. But how to do it whilst they gaped around me!—how to cover the one table in my solitary sitting-room with valuable works of reference at the risk of their being touched by greasy fingers!—how to wade through volume after volume, placing a mental mark there and a material one here, whilst my offspring either surreptitiously removed the one or irretrievably obliterated remembrance of the other, by attracting my attention to the manner in which they attempted to scalp each other’s heads or gouge out each other’s eyes! I tried it for a week in vain.

My Press work I had been accustomed to do at office, but this, which was to be based upon the contents of certain ponderous black-lettered tomes which Jones had been collecting for ages past, must be carried on at home, and the noisy, wearisome day gave me no time for reflection, and left me without energy to labour at night. I was about to resign the task in despair—to tell Jones to give it to some more capable or more fortunate labourer in the wide field of speculation—when Fate came to my rescue in the person of the Hon. Captain Rivers, Lord Seaborne’s son.

‘My dad’s in an awful way about his ward, young Cockleboat,’ he remarked to me, in his friendly manner, ‘and he wants your assistance, Trueman, if you’ll give it him.’

‘Why, what’s the matter, Captain Rivers?’

‘Haven’t you heard? Cockleboat’s made a fool of himself. He fell in love with a nursemaid, or a barmaid, or some such sort of person—he, with his twenty thousand a-year in prospect; and when the governor remonstrated with him—told him ’twas nonsense and couldn’t be, and all that sort of thing, he actually ran away!’

‘Left Lord Seaborne’s house?’

‘Of course, and without a word of explanation. Now, dad doesn’t want to make the affair public, you know, unless it becomes necessary, so he hasn’t said a word to the police; but he wants you to find out where Cockleboat is—you’re so clever at that sort of thing—and just bring him home again.’

‘An easy task, certainly. And you don’t even know which way the lad has gone?’

‘Well, we think we’ve traced him to Norwich, and dad thought if you wouldn’t mind going up there for a bit, and keeping your eyes open; of course we should make it worth your while, you know, you might hear something of the young scamp for us.’

‘What on earth can be his motive for leaving home?’

‘Well, perhaps the lady lives up that way, or Julian may have got it into his head that he’ll work to support her. He is but twenty last birthday, and will not be of age, by his father’s will, for the next five years—very lucky for him, as it’s turned out, that he will not be.’

‘True. I think I remember seeing the lad at Lady Godiva’s last season. Didn’t he act there in some private theatricals or charades?’

‘I believe he did. Now, Trueman, what’s your decision? Will you go to Norwich for us or not?’

‘I will start to-morrow if your father wishes it.’

The offer had come most opportunely; even as Captain Rivers was speaking it had flashed through my mind that here was the very opportunity that I desired to carry out my project of writing the fifth section of Jones’ Cyclopædia;—a remote lodging in one of the back streets of the quiet old city of Norwich, whence I could carry on my inquiries all day, and where I might sit up and write out my notes all night. And Lord Seaborne’s generosity in such cases was too well known to permit of any doubt on the subject whether I should not (by accepting his proposal) be killing two birds with one stone. So I did accept it, with gratitude, and having obtained all the information possible respecting the mysterious disappearance of Master Julian Cockleboat, I packed up the black-lettered tomes, and, embracing my smiling wife and children, who appeared rather pleased than otherwise at the prospect of getting rid of me for a few weeks, started for Norwich.

I have a great respect for old county towns: there is a dignified sobriety and sense of unimpeachable respectability about them that impresses me. I like their old-world institutions and buildings—their butter crosses and market steps; their dingy bye streets with kerbstones for pavements; their portentous churches and beadles; their old-fashioned shops and goods and shopmen. I like the quiet that reigns in their streets, the paucity of gas they light them up with, the strange conveyances their citizens ply for hire—in fact, I like everything with which the world in general finds fault. So it was with a sense of pleasure I found myself wandering about the streets of Norwich, on the look-out for some place in which to lay my head. I had rather have been there than at the seaside, although it was bright July weather, and I knew the waves were frothing and creaming over the golden sands beneath a canopy of cloudless blue sky. I preferred the shaded, cloister-like streets of the county town, with its cool flags under my feet, and its unbroken sense of calm.

I did not turn into the principal thoroughfares, with their gay shops and gayer passengers, but down the less-frequented bye-ways, where children playing in the road stopped open-mouthed to watch me pass, and women’s heads appeared above the window-blinds, as my footfall sounded on the narrow pavement, as though a stranger were something to be stared at. Many windows held the announcement of ‘Rooms to Let,’ but they were too small—too modern, shall I say—too fresh-looking to take my fancy.

I connected space and gloom with solitude and reflection, and felt as if I could not have sat down before a muslin-draped window, filled with scarlet geraniums and yellow canariensis, to ponder upon ‘The Origin of Dreams,’ to save my life. At last I came upon what I wanted. Down a narrow street, into which the sun seemed never to have penetrated, I found some tall, irregular, dingy-looking buildings—most of which appeared to be occupied as insurance, wine, or law offices,—and in the lower window of one there hung a card with the inscription, ‘Apartments for a Single Gentleman.’

It was just the place from which to watch and wait—in which to ponder, and compare, and compose,—and I ascended its broken steps, convinced that the birthplace of ‘The Origin of Dreams’ was found. A middle-aged woman, with an intelligent, pleasing face answered my summons to the door. The weekly rent she asked for the occupation of the vacant apartments sounded to me absurdly low, but perhaps that was due to my experience of the exorbitant demands of London landladies. But when I explained to her the reason for which I desired her rooms, namely, that I might sit up at night and write undisturbed, her countenance visibly fell.

‘I’m afraid they won’t suit you, then, sir.’

‘Why not? Have you any objection to my studying by night?’

‘Oh, no, sir. You could do as you pleased about that!’

‘What then? Will your other lodgers disturb me?’

Her face twitched as she answered, ‘I have no other lodgers, sir.’

‘Do you live in this big house, then, by yourself?’

‘My husband and I have been in charge of it for years, and are permitted to occupy the lower floor in consideration of keeping the upper rooms (which are only used as offices in the day-time) clean and in order. But the clerks are all gone by five o’clock, so they wouldn’t interfere with your night-work.’

‘What will, then?’

‘I’m afraid there are a good many rats about the place, sir. They _will_ breed in these old houses, and keep up a racket at night.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind the rats,’ I answered, cheerfully. ‘I’ll catch as many as I can for you, and frighten away the others. If that is your only objection, the rooms are mine. May I see them?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ she said, as she closed the door behind me and led the way into two lofty and spacious chambers, connected by folding-doors, which had once formed the dining-saloon of a splendid mansion.

‘The owners of the house permit us to occupy this floor and the basement, and as it’s more than we require, we let these rooms to lodgers. They’re not very grandly furnished, sir, but it’s all neat and clean.’

She threw open the shutters of the further apartment as she spoke, and the July sun streamed into the empty room. As its rays fell upon the unmade bed, my eye followed them and caught sight of a deep indentation in the mattress. The landlady saw it also, and looked amazed.

‘Some one has been taking a siesta here without your permission,’ I said, jestingly; but she did not seem to take my remark as a jest.

‘It must be my good man,’ she answered, hurriedly, as she shook the mattress; ‘perhaps he came in here to lie down for a bit. This hot weather makes the best feel weak, sir.’

‘Very true. And now, if you will accept me as a lodger, I will pay you my first week’s rent, and whilst I go back to the railway-station to fetch my valise, you must get me ready a chop or a steak, or anything that is most handy, for my dinner.’

All appeared to be satisfactory. My landlady assented to everything I suggested, and in another hour I was comfortably ensconced under her roof, had eaten my steak, and posted a letter to my wife, and felt very much in charity with all mankind. So I sat at the open window thinking how beautifully still and sweet all my surroundings were, and how much good work I should get through without fear of interruption or distraction. The office clerks had long gone home; the upper rooms were locked for the night; only an occasional patter along the wide uncarpeted staircase reminded me that I was not quite alone. Then I remembered the rats, and ‘The Origin of Dreams;’ and thinking it probable that my honest old couple retired to bed early, rang the bell to tell my landlady to be sure and leave me a good supply of candles.

‘You’re not going to sit up and write to-night, sir, are you?’ she inquired. ‘I am sure your rest would do you more good; you must be real tired.’

‘Not at all, my good Mrs Bizzey’ (Did I say her name was Bizzey?), ‘I am as fresh as a daisy, and could not close my eyes. Besides, as your friends, the rats, seem to make so free in the house, I should burn a light any way to warn them they had better not come too near me.’

‘Oh, I trust nothing will disturb you sir,’ she said, earnestly, as she withdrew to fetch the candles.

I unpacked my book-box and piled the big volumes on a side table. How imposing they looked! But I had no intention of poring over them that night. ‘The Origin of Dreams’ required thought—deep and speculative thought; and how could I be better circumstanced to indulge in it than stationed at that open window, with a pipe in my mouth, looking up at the dark blue sky bespangled with stars, and listening (if I may be allowed to speak so paradoxically) to the silence—for there is a silence that can be heard?

When Mrs Bizzey brought me the candles, she asked me if I required anything else, as she and Mr Bizzey were about to retire to the marital couch, which I afterwards ascertained was erected in the scullery. I answered in the negative, and wished her good-night, hearing her afterwards distinctly close the door at the head of the kitchen stairs and descend step by step to the arms of her lord and master. But Mrs Bizzey’s intrusion had murdered my reverie. I could not take up the chain of thought where she had severed the links. The night air, too, seemed to have grown suddenly damp and chilly, and I pulled down the window sash with a jerk, and taking out my note-book and writing-case drew a chair up to the table and commenced to think, playing idly with my pen the while. Soon the divine afflatus (the symptoms of which every successful writer knows so well) came down upon me. I ceased to think—or rather to be aware that I was thinking. My pen ran over the paper as though some other hand guided it than my own, and I wrote rapidly, filling page after page with a stream of ideas that seemed to pour out of my brain involuntarily. Time is of no account under such circumstances, and I may have been scribbling for one hour or for three, for aught I knew to the contrary, before I was roused to a sense of my position by hearing a footfall sound through the silent, deserted house.

Now, although I have described my condition to be such as to render me impervious to outer impressions, I am certain of one thing—that no noise, however slight, had hitherto broken in upon it. It was the complete absence of sound that had permitted my spirit to have full play irrespective of my body; and directly the silence was outraged, my physical life re-asserted its claims, and my senses became all alive to ascertain the cause of it. In another moment the sound was repeated, and I discovered that it was over my head—not under my feet. It could not, then, proceed from either of the old couple, whom I had heard lock themselves up together down below. Who could it be?

My first idea, emanating from my landlady’s information that the noise might proceed from rats, I had already dismissed with contempt. It was the reverberation of a footstep. There could be no doubt about that; and my next thought naturally flew to burglars, who were making an attempt on the safes in the offices above. What could I do? I was utterly unarmed, and to go in pursuit of midnight robbers in so defenceless a condition would be simply delivering myself into their power. I certainly might have shied a couple of Jones’ black-lettered books at their heads, for they were ponderous enough to knock any man down, but I might not take a steady aim, and it is better not to attempt at all than to attempt and fail.

Meanwhile, the sounds overhead had increased in number and become continuous, as though some one had commenced to walk up and down the room. Surely no midnight thief would dare to create so much disturbance as that! Detection of his crime would be inevitable. Or did he trust to the sound sleep of the porter and his wife in the kitchen below, not knowing that I, existent and wakeful, intervened between himself and them? In another minute I believe that I should have cast all consequences to the winds, and rushed, not _in_, but _up_ to the rescue, forgetting I was a husband and a father, and armed with Jones’ patent self-acting leveller, alone have ascended to the upper story to investigate the cause of the midnight disturbance I heard. Only—_I didn’t!_ For before I had had time to shoulder my weapons and screw my courage up to the sticking-point, another sound reached my ears that made the patent levellers drop on the table again with a thump,—the sound, not of a step, but a groan—a deep, hollow, unmistakable groan, that chilled the marrow in my bones to such a degree that it would have been a disgrace to any cook to send them up to table.

I knew then that I must have been mistaken in my first theory, and that the sounds I overheard, whether they proceeded from mortals or not, had no connection with the nefarious occupation of housebreakers. But they had become a thousand times more interesting, and I listened attentively.

The groan was followed by some muttered words that sounded like a curse, succeeded by louder tones of reproach or anger. Then the footsteps traversed the floor again, and seemed to be chasing someone or something round and round the room. At last I heard another groan, followed by a heavy fall.

I started to my feet. Surely Mr and Mrs Bizzey must have been roused by such an unusual commotion, and would come upstairs to learn the reason! But no!—they did not stir. All was silent as the grave below, and above also. The noises had suddenly ceased. I appeared to be alone in the empty house. It was all so strange that I put my hands up to my head and asked myself if I were properly awake. I was hardly satisfied on this point before the sounds recommenced overhead, and precisely in the same order as before. Again I listened to the pacing feet—the groan—the curse—the chase—the fall! Each phase of the ghostly tragedy—for such I now felt sure it must be—was repeated in rotation, not once, but a couple of dozen or more times; and then at last the disturbance ceased as suddenly and as unexpectedly as it had commenced.

I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock, and already the early birds on the look-out for the worm had begun to herald the dawn with a few faint twitters in the trees in the cloister. I threw off my clothes impatiently, and lying down in my bed, gave myself up, not to sleep, but reflection on what was best to be done. I had not the slightest doubt left as to the cause of the noises I had heard. My landlady might ascribe them to rats, but were she closely questioned she would probably acknowledge the truth—that she knew the sounds to proceed from spirits, popularly called ghosts; which accounted for all her hesitation and change of countenance when speaking to me about the apartments, also for the low price she asked for her rooms, and her evident wish to dissuade me from sitting up at night.

Naturally the poor woman was afraid she should never secure a lodger if the truth were known; but as far as I was concerned, she was altogether mistaken—I was not afraid of her ghosts. On the contrary, as I lay in bed and thought on what had just occurred, I congratulated myself that, by a third strange coincidence, my visit to Norwich promised to turn out all that I could desire.

I must ‘lay’ these ghosts, of course—i.e., if they interfered with my graver work; but to have the opportunity of doing so was the very thing my heart was set upon. Is my reader surprised to hear this? Then I must take him further into my confidence.

When I confessed I was an author, Press writer, amateur detective, and father of six children, I did not add the crowning iniquity, and write myself down a believer in ghosts and spiritualism. Every man acknowledges himself a spirit, and to have been created by the power of a spirit. Most men believe that spirits have the capability of free volition and locomotion, and many that they have exercised these powers by re-appearing to their fellow spirits in the flesh. But to assert publicly that you believe in all this because you have proved it to be the truth, is to throw yourself open to the charge of being a dupe, or a madman, or a liar. Therefore I had preferred until then to keep my faith a secret. My children’s bread depended in a great measure on the reputation I kept up as a man of sense, and I had not dared to risk it by attempting to put my theories into practice. Not that I was entirely ignorant of the rules pertaining to the science of spiritualism. Under cover of the darkness that hides all delinquencies, I had attended several circles gathered for the sole purpose of investigating the mysteries of other worlds; but it had always been accomplished with the utmost secrecy, as my wife was hysterically disposed, and the mere mention of a spirit would have upset the house for days together.

I had never, therefore, had the opportunity of pursuing spiritualism on my own account; and until the day broke I lay awake, congratulating myself on the good luck that had thrown me, cheek by jowl, with a party of ready-made ghosts, whom a very little encouragement would, I trusted, induce to pay me a visit in my own apartments.

All the next day I wandered through the streets of Norwich and in the country surrounding them, speculating—not on the whereabouts of Julian Cockleboat, nor ‘The Origin of Dreams’—but how I should persuade my landlady to help me unravel the mysterious occurrence of the night before. At last I bethought me that ‘honesty is the best policy’ after all, and decided that I would make a clean breast of my suspicions and desires. If Mrs Bizzey were a sensible woman, she would prove only too ready to aid me in ridding her apartments of visitors that must injure their reputation; and, at all events, I could but try her. So I opened the subject on the very first opportunity. The woman was clearing away my tea-things the same evening, when she remarked that I had not eaten well.

‘I am afraid you sit up too much at night, sir, to make a good appetite.’

‘Other people seem to sit up in this house at night as well as myself, Mrs Bizzey,’ I replied, significantly.

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said, colouring.

‘Why, do you mean to say you never hear noises;—that you were not disturbed last night, for instance, by the sound of groans and voices, and of some one falling about in the upper rooms?’

‘Oh, sir, you don’t mean to tell me as you’ve heard them already!’ exclaimed Mrs Bizzey, clasping her hands and letting a teacup fall in her agitation. ‘If you go too, you’ll be the third gentleman that has left within a fortnight on that account; and if a stop ain’t put to it, the house will get such a name that nobody will put a foot inside the door for love or money.’

‘But I don’t mean to go, Mrs Bizzey; on the contrary, I should be very sorry to go; and if you and your husband will consent to help me, I will do my best to stop the noises altogether,’ for the idea of forming a little circle with these worthy people had suddenly flashed into my mind.

‘How can me and my good man help you, sir?’

‘Is Mr Bizzey at home? If so, go downstairs and fetch him up here, and I will explain what I mean to you both at the same time.’

She left the room at once, and in a few minutes returned with a dapper-looking little old fellow, in knee-breeches and a red plush waistcoat, who pulled his forelock to me on entering.

‘This is Mr Bizzey, sir, and I’ve been telling him all you say as we came up the stairs.’

I leant back in my chair, folded my hands, and looked important.