The men, I could see, eyed me anxiously when I thus appeared at such an hour among them, and followed me with their eyes to Jarvis's house, where he lived alone with liis old wife, their children being all married and out in the world. Mrs. Jarvis met me with anxious questions. How was the poor young gentleman ? but the others knew, I could see by their faces, that not even this was the foremost thing in my mind.

"Noises ?—ou ay, there'll be noises—the wind in the trees, and the water soughing down the glen. As for tramps. Cornel, no, there's little o' that kind o' cattle about here ; and Merran at the gate's a careful body." Jarvis moved about with some embarrassment from one leg to another as he spoke. He kept in the shade, and did not look at me

THE OPEN DOOR 89

more than he could help. Evidently his mind was perturbed, and he had reasons for keeping his own counsel. His wife sat by, giving him a quick look now and then, but saying nothing. The kitchen was very snug and warm and bright —as different as could be from the chill and mystery of the night outside.

"I think you are trifling with me, Jarvis," I said.

"Triflin', Cornel ? no me. What would I trifle for ? If the deevil himself was in the auld hoose, I have no interest in't one way or another "

"Sandy, hold your peace !" cried his wife, imperatively.

"And what am I to hold my peace for, wi' the Cornel standing there asking a' thae questions ? I'm saying, if the deevil himsel "

"And I'm telling ye hold your peace !" cried the woman, in great excitement. "Dark November weather and lang nichts, and us that ken a' we ken. How daur ye name—a name that shouldna be spoken ?" She threw down her stocking and got up, also in great agitation. "I tell't ye you never could keep it. It's no a thing that will hide; and the haill toun kens as weel as you or me. Tell the Cornel straight out —or see, I'll do it. I dinna hold wi' your secrets : and a secret that the haill toun kens !" She snapped her fingers with an air of large disdain. As for Jarvis, ruddy and big as he was, he shrank to nothing before this decided woman. He repeated to her two or three times her own adjuration, "Hold your peace !" then, suddenly changing his tone, cried out, "Tell him then, confound ye ! I'll wash my hands o't. If a' the ghosts in Scotland were in the auld hoose, is that ony concern o' mine ?"

After this I elicited without much difficulty the whole story. In the opinion of the Jarvises, and of everybody about, the certainty that the place was haunted was beyond all doubt. As Sandy and his wife warmed to the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything, it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and not without poetry and pathos. How long it was since the voice had been heard first, nobody could tell with certainty. Jarvis's opinion was that his father, who had been coachman at Brentwood before him, had never heard anything about it, and that the whole thing had arisen within the last ten years, since the complete dismantling of the old

90 MARGARET OLIPHANT

house : which was a wonderfully modem date for a tale so well authenticated. According to these witnesses, and to several whom I questioned afterwards, and who were all in perfect agreement, it was only in the months of November and December that "the visitation" occurred. During these months, the darkest of the year, scarcely a night passed without the recurrence of these inexplicable cries. Nothing, it was said, had ever been seen—at least nothing that could be identified. Some people, bolder or more imaginative than the others, had seen the darkness moving, Mrs. Jarvis said, with unconscious poetry. It began when night fell and continued, at intervals, till day broke.