The old woman's husband was not a bit frightened of her, so she says.

Perhaps he had come home rather tipsy, and mistook some shadow in the moonlight for a ghost.

My eyes are fast becoming accustomed to this obscurity.

_Happy Thought._--There are no such things as ghosts.

On the whole, I'd rather meet a ghost, than a rat, or a blackbeetle, or a burglar.

The diminishing scale, of what I would rather _not_ meet in a narrow staircase at night, is, the burglar, rat, blackbeetle, ghost.

I hear something moving... below or above...

I look cautiously back round the last corner...

Nothing.

_Happy Thought._--To shout out, "Hi! you fellows!" Shouting would frighten a burglar, or a rat, but would have no effect on a blackbeetle, or a ghost.

No answer. I descend a few more steps. Something seems to be coming down behind me. Almost in my footsteps, and at my pace. Ah! of course, echo.

But why wasn't there an echo when I shouted?... I will go on quicker.

I'm not a bit nervous, only the sooner I'm out of this, the better. At last a door. Thick, solid, iron-barred, and nail-studded door. Where's the handle? None. Yes, an iron k.n.o.b. It won't be turned. It won't be twisted. It's locked; or, if not, fastened somehow. No; a faint light is admitted through the keyhole, and by putting my eye to it, I can see a stone pa.s.sage on the other side. Perhaps the old woman has locked this by accident. And perhaps they are not far off. I shake it. A deep, low savage growl follows this, and I hear within two inches of my toes, a series of jerky and inquisitive sniffs. The sniffs say, as it were, "There's no doubt about it, I know you're there;" the growl adds, "Show yourself, and I pin you."

_Happy Thought._--Go upstairs again and return by the other door.

Hope n.o.body, while I am mounting the steps again, will open the door and let the dog up here for a run, or to "see who it is," in a professional way.

No. Up--up--up. Excelsior. I seem to be climbing double the number of steps, in going up, to what I did in coming down. My eyes too, after the keyhole, have not yet become re-accustomed to the light. I pause. I could almost swear that somebody, two steps lower down behind me, stopped at the same instant.

Is there anyone playing the fool? Is it Milburd? I'll chance it, and ask. I say, "Milburd?" cautiously. No. Not a sound. I own to being a little nervous. Someone--Boodels, I think--once said that fine natures were always nervous.

_Happy Thought._--When nervous, reason with yourself quietly.

I say, to myself, reasoning, this is not _fright_: this is not _cowardice_: it's simply nervousness. You wouldn't (this addressed to myself) be afraid of meeting a ... a ... for instance ... say ... a ghost ... no. Why should you? You've never injured a ghost that you know of, and why should a ghost hurt you? Besides ... nonsense ... there are no ghosts ... and as to burglars ... the house doesn't belong to us yet, and so if I meet one, there'd be no necessity to struggle ... on the contrary, I might be jocosely polite; I might say, "Make yourself at home; you've as much right here as I have." .... But, on second thoughts, no one would, or could, come here to rob this place. It's empty......

Odd. I cannot find the door I came in at. I thought that when I entered by it, I stepped on to a landing, but I suppose that it is only a door in the wall, and opens simply on to a step of the stairs.

Perhaps this is an unfrequented staircase. One might be locked up here, and remain here, for anything that the old woman, or her husband, would know about it.

If one was locked away here, or anywhere, for how long would it remain a secret?

When one has been absent from town for instance, for months, and then returns, n.o.body knows whether you've been in your own room all the time, or in Kamschatka. They say, "Hallo! how d'ye do? How are you? Where have you been this age?" They've never inquired. They've got on very well without you. Important matters, too, which "absolutely demand your presence," as the letter says, which you find on your table six months afterwards, settle themselves without your interference.

The story of the Mistletoe Bough, where a young lady hides herself in an oak chest, and is never heard of for years (in fact never at all until her bones were found with her dress and wreath,) is not so very improbable.

Suppose the old woman forgot this staircase, suppose my party went off thinking that I was playing them some trick; supposing they stick to that belief for four days, what should _I_ do?... I don't know. I could howl, and shout. That's all.

What chance of being discovered have I, except by a tradesman wanting his quarter's account settled very badly and being determined upon hunting me up wherever I was.

A door at last! And light and fresh air through the c.h.i.n.ks. It opens easily, and I am on the leads of the roof.

With a [Ill.u.s.tration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW] of the surrounding country. I breathe freely once more. Now the question is how to get down again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SICH A GITTIN' UP STAIRS Ma.s.sA."]

CHAPTER V.

ON THE ROOF--DOWN AGAIN--FURTHER INSPECTION--VARIETY--ELIZABETHAN-- NORMAN--COLOUR--RAYS--FILTERED--CUI BONO?--SUGGESTION--PLAY IN STORE --THE STABLES--PREVIOUS TENANTS--GOOD INTENTIONS--NAME.

Just as I am asking myself this, I meet Chilvern on the roof. He is examining the chimneys. The others are below choosing their rooms. It appears that no one has been up the narrow staircase except myself. He shows me a different way down.

We take another turn over the house. This time more observantly. Various orders of architecture. Chilvern, as an architect, makes a professional joke. He says, "The best order of architecture is an order to build an unlimited number of houses."

_Happy Thought._--Who was the first scientific builder?

_Answer._--Noah, when he invented arky-tecture. (N.B. This will do for a Sunday conundrum.)

Part of it is very old, (the staircase and tower part where I've been), and wall of the yard at the back, overgrown with ivy, shows the remains of a genuine Norman arch.

Another quarter is decidedly Elizabethan, while a long and well proportioned music room,--of which the walls and ceiling, once evidently covered with paintings, are now dirty, damp, and exhibiting, here and there, patches of colour not yet entirely faded,--is decidedly Italian.

Of this apartment, the crone can tell us nothing. She never recollects it inhabited. We undo the huge shutters for ourselves, and bring down a cloud of dust and cobwebs.

The rays of light, bursting violently, as it were, into the darkness--become--after once pa.s.sing the square panes, or where there are no panes, the framework--suddenly impure, and in need of a patent filter before they are fit for use.

Chilvern admires the proportions, and asks what we'll make, of this room?

A pause.

_Happy Thought._--A Theatre. Nothing more evident; nothing easier.

I notice that both Boodels and Milburd catch at this idea. From which I fancy, knowing from experience Boodels' turn for poetry, that they have got, ready for production, what they will call, "little things of their own that they've just knocked off."

Almost wish I hadn't suggested it. But if they've got something to act, _so have I_. If they do _theirs_, they must let mine be done.

Settled, that it is to be a theatre.

Odd that no one part of the house seems finished. Saxons started it; Normans got tired of it; Tudors touched it up; Annians added to it.

_Happy Thought._--(_Alliterative, on the plan of "A was an Apple pie."_)

Saxons started it: Normans nurtured it: Tudors touched it up: Annians added to it; Georgians joiced it: Victorians vamped it.

"Joice," I explain, is a term derived from building; "to joice, _i. e._ to make joices to the floors." Chilvern says, "Pooh!" To "vamp" is equal, in musical language, to "scamp" or to dodge up. The last owner evidently has done this.

_Happy Thought._--Good name for a Spanish speculative builder--Don Vampa di Scampo. Evidently an architect of _Chateaux d'Espagne_.