I was just going to ask you if you would enter my service, as you are used to the property.”
“Your service—in what capacity?”
“That to be decided on. Of course I shall want a man to look after things generally, but I can talk to you again about that if you should think any arrangement possible between you and me.”
Neilson was silent for a little as he steadily scanned the speaker’s countenance and then he spoke in a strangely suspicious tone—
“Have I ever seen you before?”
“No; it is impossible. I have but now arrived from a far land in which most of my life was spent, and I am at least sure that I have never looked in your face until to-day. Why do you ask?”
“Because I seem to ken your features, and there’s a something in your eyes that reminds me o’—I kenna what.”
He passed his hand over his face as he spoke, and then, as if on a sudden thought, he offered to go with us to the Moat.
“I might be able to give ye some useful information, as I ken the place so long, and if ye like I’ll go with you to see it.”
Cyrus willingly agreeing to this, we rode on our way to the old place, Neilson taking a short cut through the bush that would lead him there in time to open the gate for us.
“You know that man, Mr. Cyrus!” I observed to that gentleman as we left.
“I assure you I have never seen his face before,” he said, with an approach to a smile, as his eyes met mine. “I have heard of him though, and some day I may be able to tell you how and when.”
“Ay, and what,” I returned, “for there is something not over good to know.”
“You guess that?” he asked, quietly, and then no more was said until we neared the rusty iron gate that was just creakingly opening to the hand of Neilson, who awaited our entrance.
We rode in, and I noticed that my companion’s eyes were never removed from the building from the moment it came within view at a bend of the gloomy avenue, grass-grown and shadowed by great tangled branches of the old trees that grew beside it. The tower I have previously alluded to stood nearest the river, and a stout stone wing of one story joined it to landward, as it were. The dark stone of the building, on which summers and winters of years had traced many stains and discolourations, with its boarded-up windows and weed-grown threshold, formed as gloomy a picture as any man need to avoid, and I could scarcely wonder at Neilson’s disinclination to live in the weird-looking house.
“If ye will open the door,” Neilson said, as we dismounted, “I will get some tool at the back, and ding aft some o’ these boards frae the windows; it winna be hard to do for they’re rotten.”
And so in a quarter of an hour many scattered boards were lying on the grass, and once more light and air penetrated to the interior of the decayed mansion.
I was surprised to find that the house was, after a way, furnished, but on every article of old-fashioned use and garniture the dust of time and decay lay thickly. There was a large dining-room to the south, and several smaller apartments, as well as sitting-rooms, in the principal part of the house; but it was to the tower that the attention of Cyrus was most closely directed.
This tower was two stories higher than the other portion of the dwelling, and its whole contents above the roof of the wing consisted of two rooms, one on each story. The upper or top room was arranged as a bedroom, and from its windows a wide and not unpleasant view of river and hill and forest was commanded, whilst the apartment under it was fitted up as a study, in which cobwebs wreathed the books on the shelves, and the dust lay thickly on the writing-table and large couch that stood in one corner of the room. On this couch I noticed Cyrus turn his eyes strangely ere he turned to Neilson, who stood at the door, and spoke—
“It was in this room that the last owner of this house died,” he said, and Neilson’s face was expressive of more than just astonishment as he heard the observation.
“How do ye know that?”
“The agent told me.”
“Ay, it was in this room and on that very couch that he died.”
“You were here at the time?”
“Ay, I was here at the time.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked myself.
“Nearly five years.”
“And his brother—Mr. George Malbraith—where did he die?” the strange gentleman asked.
“The brother? Why, he dinna die at all that I ken. Mr. George, the late master’s elder brother just walked out one day and never was seen or heard o’ after. Mr. Matthew inherited the property under will from Mr. George.”
“He may not be dead at all then,” I said, “and if he should turn up your purchase would be valueless.”
“Oh, he’s dead, sure enough; he’ll never come back again to trouble the living or the dead,” and as he spoke the man drew back and looked behind him, as if he heard something on the stairway, while Cyrus regarded every look and movement of the gloomy caretaker with the deepest interest.
“Neilson,” he said suddenly, “surely you need not be afraid of ghosts in the daylight? Couldn’t you and I come to terms about work here in the daytime, and you might go home to sleep? You will lose something by this place being sold, and it might not be inconvenient to you to earn something in another way.”
“It’s not the money,” the man replied, with a quick look out to the stairway again. “Mr. Malbraith put my name down in his will, and I’ve enough to live on, but I have a hankering after the auld place, so I’ve no objection to give ye a helping hand till ye get a better on the terms ye propose.”
“All right then. Go to work and make up good fires in every part of the house, and open every window and every door. I shall go back and bring up my trap, and sleep here this very night.”
“Here? Not in this room?”
“Yes, in this very room. I have a fancy for it.”
“I warn ye again doing it. I warn ye not to live in this room.”
“Why?”
“Why? Listen even now! I can hear the feet o’ dead men and the cauld air wafting roun’ their white faces! But ye must hear and see for yourself ere ye’ll believe, but dinna ask me to come up here by day or by night,” and with white cheeks and trembling limbs the speaker hurried downstairs, and out into the air, where we could see him from the window, with his hat raised and his mouth agape, as of a man suffering from a deadly oppression.
“The man is crazy!” I said, with disgust, as we followed him downstairs.
“No, I think he is sincerely afraid.”
“Of ghosts? Faugh!”
We were riding back toward the police station as I emitted these sneering words, and Cyrus turned on me such a queer look that I met it with one of wonder.
