The strange Disappearance of mister Jeremiah Dance by Elliot O'Donnell twenty pounds a year for a twelve roomed house with large front lawn, good stabling and big kitchen.

Gordons.

That sounds all right, I commented, But why so cheap?

Well, the advertiser, mister Baldwin by name, a short, stout gentleman with keen, glittering eyes, replied, well, you see, it's a bit of a distance from the town and er.

Most people prefer being nearer, like neighbors and all that sort of thing.

Like neighbors, I exclaimed, I don't, I've just seen about enough of them.

Drain's all right, Oh yes, perfect water, excellent, everything in good condition, first rate loneliness.

The only thing that people will object to that is so then I'll oblige you to send someone to show me over the house, for I think it is just the sort of place we want, you see, After being bottled up in a theater all the afternoon and evening, one likes to get away somewhere where it is quiet, somewhere where one can lie in bed in the morning, inhaling pure air and undisturbed by street traffic.

I understand, mister Baldwin responded, but er, it is rather late now, wouldn't you prefer to see it over in the morning.

Everything looks at its worst, It's very worst in the twilight.

Oh, I'll make allowances for the dusk.

I said.

You haven't got any ghost stowed away there, have you?

And he went off into a roar of laughter.

Ha ha ha ha.

No, the house is not haunted, mister Baldwin replied, not that it would much matter to you if it were, For I can see you don't believe in spooks.

Believe in spooks, I cried, not much.

I would as soon believe in patent hair restorers.

Let me see it over at once.

Very well, sir, I'll take you there myself, mister Baldwin replied, somewhat reluctantly.

Here, Tim, fetch the keys of the crow's nest and tell Higgins to bring the trap round.

The boy he addressed, flew, and in a few minutes the sound of wheels and the jingling of harness announced the vehicle was at the door.

Ten minutes later, and I and my escort were bowling merrily over the ground in the direction of the crow's nest.

It was early autumn, and the cool evening air, fragrant with the mellowness of the luscious Virginian Pippin, was tinged also with the sadness inseparable from the demise of a long and glorious summer.

Evidences of decay and death were everywhere, in the brown fallen leaves of the oaks and elms, in the bare and denuded ditches.

Here a giant mill wheel, half immersed in a dark still pull stood idle and silent.

There a hovel, but recently inhabited by hop pickers, was now tenantless, its glassless windows boarded over, and a wealth of death and rotting vegetable matter in thick profusion over the tiny path and the single stone doorstep.

Is it always as quiet and deserted as this?

I asked of my companion, who continually cracked his whip as if he liked to hear the reverberations of its echoes, always was the reply, and sometimes more so.

You ain't used to the country, not very.

I want to try it by way of a change.

Are you well versed in the cry of birds?

What was that?

We were fast approaching an exceedingly gloomy bit of the road, where there were plantations on each side, and the trees united their fantastically forked branches overhead.

I thought I had never seen so dismal looking a spot, and a sudden lowering of the temperature made me draw my overcoat tighter round me.

That, oh, a nut bird of some sort, mister Baldwin replied in ugless, And wasn't it beastly things?

I can't imagine why they were created?

Whoa steady there, steady?

The horse reared as he spoke, and, taking a violent plunge forward, set off at a wild gallop a moment later, and I uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

Keeping pace with us, although apparently not moving at more than an ordinary walking pace, was a man of medium height, dressed in a Panama hat and Albert coat.

He had a thin, aquiline nose, a rather pronounced chin, was clean shaven, and had a startlingly white complexion.

By the side of him trotted two poodles, whose close cropped skins showed out with remarkable perspicuity.

Who the deuce is he?

I asked, raising my voice to a shout on account of the loud clatter made by the horses, hoofs and the wheels.

Who what, mister Baldwin shouted in return, Why the man walking along with us?

Man?

I can't see no man, mister Baldwin growled.

I looked at him curiously.

It may, of course have been due to the terrific speed we were going, to the difficulty of holding in the horse.

But his cheeks were ashy, pale, and his teeth chattered.

Do you mean to say, I cried, that you can see no figure walking on my side of the horse and actually keeping pace with it?

Of course I can't, mister Baldwin snapped.

It's an hallucination caused by the moonlight through the branches overhead.

I've experienced it more than once.

Then why don't you have it now?

I queried, Don't ask so many questions, please, mister Baldwin shouted, don't you see?

It is as much as I can do to hold the brute in Heaven preserve us.

We were nearly over that time.

The trap rose high in the air as he spoke, and then dropped with such a jolt that I was nearly thrown off, and only saved myself by the skin of my teeth.

A few yards more, the spinny ceased, and we were away out in the open country, plunging and galloping, as if our very souls depended upon it.

From all sides, queer and fantastic shadows of objects, which certainly had no material counterparts in the moon kissed sward of the rich ripe meadows rose to greet us and filled the lane with their black and white, wavering, ethereal forms.

The evening was one of wonders for which I had no name, wonders associated with an iciness that was far from agreeable.

I was not at all sure which I liked best, the black stiggy in tree lined part of the road we had just left, or the wide ocean of brilliant moonbeams and streaked suggestions.

The figures of the man and the dogs were equally vivid in each, though I could no longer doubt they were nothing mortal.

They were altogether unlike what I had imagined ghosts, Like the generality of people who are psychic and who have never had an experience of the superphysical, my conception of a phantasm was a thing in white that made ridiculous groanings and still more ridiculous clankings of chains.

But here was something different, something that looked, perhaps for the excessive pallor of its cheeks, just like an ordinary man.

I knew it was not a man, partly on account of its extraordinary performance.

No man, even if running at full speed, could keep up with us like that, partly on account of the unusual nature of the atmosphere, which was altogether indefinable it brought with it, And also because of my own sensations, my intense horror, which could not, I felt certain, have been generated by anything physical.

I cogitated all this in my mind as I gazed at the figure, and in order to make sure it was no hallucination, I shut first one eye and then the other, covering them alternately with the palm of my hand.

The figure, however, was still there, still pacing along at our side with the regular swing swing of the born walker.

We kept on in this fashion till we arrived at a rusty iron gate, leading by means of a weed covered path to a low, two story white house.

Here the figures left us, and, as it seemed to me, vanished at the foot of the garden wall.

This is the house, mister Baldwin padded, pulling up with the greatest difficulty, the horse evincing obvious antipathy to the iron gate, and these are the keys.

I'm afraid you must go in alone, as I dare not lead the animal even for a minute.

Oh all right, I said, I don't mind.

Now that the ghost or whatever you like to call it, has gone, I'm myself again.

I jumped down, and, threading my way through the bramble entangled path, reached the front door.

On opening it, I hesitated the big old fashioned hall with the great frowning staircase leading to the gallery overhead.

The many open doors showing nought but bare deserted boards.

Within the grim passages, all moonlit and peopled only with queer flickering shadows, suggested much that was terrifying.

I fancied.

I heard noises, noises like stealthy footsteps moving from room to room and tiptoeing along the passages and down the staircase.

Once my heart almost stopped beating as I saw what at first I took to be a white face peering at me from a far recess, but which I eventually discovered was only a daub of whitewash.

And once again, my hair all but rose on end when one of the doors at which I was looking swung open and something came forth.

Oh the horror of that moment.

As long as I live, I shall never forget it.

The something was a cat, just a rather lean but otherwise material black tom Yet in the state my nerves were then, it created almost as much horror as if it had been a ghost.

Of course, it was the figure of the walking man that was the cause of all this nervousness.

Had it not appeared to me, I should doubtless have entered the house with the utmost sang froid, my mind set on nothing but the condition of the walls, drains, et cetera.

As it was, I held back, and it was only after a severe mental struggle I summoned up the courage to leave the doorway and explore cautiously, very cautiously.

With my heart in my mouth, I moved from room to room, halting every now and then in dreadful suspense, as the wind sowing through across the open land behind the house blew down the chimneys and set the window frames jarring.

At the commencement of one of the passages, I was immeasurably startled to see a dark shape poke forward and then spring hurriedly back, And it was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was.

Moment after moments sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat oozing out all over me, and my eyes fixed in hideous expectation on the blank wall.

What was it?

What was hiding there?

Would it spring out on me?

If I went to sea?

At last, Urged on by a fascination I found impossible to resist, I crept down the passage, my heart throbbing painfully, and my whole being overcome with the most sickly anticipations.

As I drew nearer to the spot, it was as much as I could do to breathe, and my respiration came in quick jerks and gasps.

Six five four two feet and I was at the dreaded angle, another step taken after the most prodigious battle, and nothing sprang out on me.

I was confronted only with a large piece of paper that had come loose from the wall and flapped backwards and forwards each time the breeze from without rustled past it.

The reaction after such an agony of suspense was so great that I leaned against the wall and laughed till I cried a noise from somewhere away in the basement, calling me to myself.

I went downstairs and investigated again.

A shock, this time were sudden, more acute.

Pressed against the window pane of one of the front reception rooms was the face of a man with corpselike cheeks and pale, malevolent eyes.

I was petrified.

Every drop of my blood was congealed, my tongue glued to my mouth, my arms hung helpless.

I stood in the doorway and stared at it.

This went on for what seemed to me an eternity.

Then came a revelation.

The face was not that of a ghost, but of mister Baldwin, who, getting alarmed at my long absence, had come to look for me.

We left the premises together.

All the way back to the town, I thought, should I or should I not take the house?

Seen as I had seen it, it was a ghoulish looking place, as weird as a Paris catacomb.

But then daylight makes all the difference.

Viewed in the sunshine, it would be just like any other house, plain bricks and mortar.

I liked the situation.

It was just far enough away from town to enable me to escape all the smoke and traffic, and near enough to make shopping easy.

The only obstacles were the shadows, the strange, enigmatical shadows I had seen in the hall and passages, and the figure of the walker.

Dare I take a house that knew such visitors?

At first I said no, and then yes.

One thing I could not tell what urged me to say yes.

I felt that a very grave issue was at stake, that of a great wrong, connected in some manner with a mysterious figure awaited writing, and that the hand of fate pointed at me as the one and only person who could do it.

Are you sure of the house isn't haunted?

I demanded, as we slowly rolled away from the iron gate, and I leaned back in my seat to light my pipe.

Haunted, Mister Baldwin scoffed, Why I thought you didn't believe in ghosts?

Laughed at them.

No more, I do believe in them, I retorted.

But I have children, and we know how imaginative children are.

I can't undertake to stop their imaginations.

No, but you can tell me whether any one else has imagined anything there.

Imagination is sometimes very infectious, as far as I know then, no leastways I have not heard tell of it.

Who is the last tenant?

Mister Jeremiah danced?

Why did he leave?

How do I know?

Got tired of being there?

I suppose?

How long was he there?

Nearly three years?

Where is he now?

That's more than I can say.

Why do you wish to know?

Why?

I repeated, because it is more satisfactory to me to hear about the house from some one who has lived in it.

Has he left no address, not that I know of, and it's more than two years since he was here?

What the house has been empty all that time?

Two years is not very long.

Houses, even town houses, are frequently unoccupied for longer than that.

I think you'll like it.

I did not speak again till the drive was over and we drew up outside the landlord's house.

I then said, let me have an agreement.

I've made up my mind to take it three years and the option to stay on that was just like me.

Whatever I did, I did on the spur of the moment, a mode of procedure that often led me into difficulties.

A month later, and my wife children, servants and I were all ensconced in the crow's nest.

That was the beginning of October.

Well, the month passed by, and November was fairly in before anything remarkable happened.

It then came about in this fashion.

Jenny, my eldest child, a self willed and rather bad tempered girl of about twelve, evading the vigilance of her mother, who had forbidden her to go out as she had a call, ran to the gate one evening to see if I was anywhere in sight.

Though barely five o'clock the moon was high in the sky, and the shadows of the big trees had already commenced their gambols along the roadside.

Jenny clambered up the gate as children do, and peering over, suddenly espied what she took to be me, striding towards the house at a swinging pace, and followed by two poodles.

Papa.

She cried, how cute of you, only to think of you bringing home two doggies, Oh Papa, naughty Papa, What will Mum say?

And climbing over into the lane at imminent danger to life and limb, she tore frantically towards the figure to her dismay.

However, it was not me but a stranger with a horribly white face and big, glassy eyes, which he turned down on her and stared.

She was so frightened that she fainted, and some ten minutes later I found her lying out there on the road.

From the description she gave me of the man and dogs, I felt quite certain they were the figures I had seen, though I pretended the man was a tramp and assured her she would never see him again.

A week passed and I was beginning to hope nothing would happen when one of the servants gave notice to leave.

At first, she would not say why she did not like the house, but when pressed made the following statement, it's haunted, missus b.

I can put up with mice and beetles, but not with ghosts.

I've had a queer sensation as if water was following down my spine ever since I've been here, but never saw anything till last night.

I was then in the kitchen getting ready to go to bed.

Jane and Emma had already gone up, and I was preparing to follow them, when all of a sudden I heard footsteps, quick and heavy, crossed the gravel and approached the window.

The boss says, I to myself, maybe he's forgot the key and can't get in at the front door.

Well, I went to the window and was about to throw it open when I got an awful shock.

Pressed against the glass, looking in at me was a face, not the boss's face, not the face of any one living, but a horrid white thing with a drooping mouth and wide open, glassy eyes that had no more expression in them than a pig.

As sure as I'm standing here, missus B, it was the face of a corpse, the face of a man that had died no natural death.

And by its side, standing on their hind legs and staring in at me too, were two dogs, both poodles, also no living things, but dead, horribly dead.

Welly stared at me, all three of them, for perhaps a minute, certainly not less.

And then that's why I'm leaving, missus B.

My heart was never overstrong.

I always suffered with palpitations, and if I saw those heads again, it would kill me.

After this, my wife spoke to me seriously, Jack, She said, are you sure there's nothing in it?

I don't think Mary would leave us without a good cause, and the description of what she saw tallies exactly with a figure that frightened Jenny.

Jenny assures me she never said a word about it to the servants.

They can't both have imagined it.

I did not know what to say.

My conscience pricked me without a doubt.

I ought to have told my wife of my own experience in the lane, and have consulted her before taking the house.

Supposing she or any of the children should die of fright, it would be my fault.

I should never forgive myself.

You've something on your mind.

What is it, my wife demanded.

I hesitated a moment or two, and then told her.

The next quarter of an hour was one I do not care to recollect.

But when it was over and she had had her say, it was decided I should make inquiries and see if there was any possible way of getting rid of the ghosts.

With this end in view, I drove to the town, and, after several fruitless efforts, was at length introduced to a mister Marsden, clerk of one of the banks, who, in reply to my questions, said, well, mister b it's just this way, I do know something only in a small place like this, one has to be so extra careful what one says.

Some years ago, a mister Jeremiah Dance occupied the crow's nest.

He came here apparently a total stranger, and though often in the town, was only seen in the company of one person, his landlord, mister Baldwin, with whom, if local gossip is to be relied on, he appeared to be on terms of the greatest familiarity.

Indeed, they were seldom apart, walked about the lanes arm in arm, visited each other's houses on alternate evenings, called each other Teddy and Leslie.

This state of things continued for nearly three years, and then people suddenly began to comment on the fact that mister Dance had gone, or at least was no longer visible.

And errand boy, returning back to town late one evening, swore to being passed on the way by a trap containing mister Baldwin and mister Dance, who were speaking in very loud voices, just as if they were having a violent altercation.

On reaching that part of the road where the trees are thickest overhead, the lad overtook them.

Mister Baldwin preparing to mount into the trap.

Mister Dance was nowhere to be seen, and from that day to this nothing has ever been heard of him, as none of his friends or relations came forward to raise inquiries, and all his bills were paid, several of them by mister Baldwin.

No one took the matter up.

Mister Baldwin pooh pood the errand Boy's story and declared that on the night in question, he had been alone in an altogether different part of the county and knew nothing whatever of mister Dance's movements.

Further than that he had recently announced his attention of leaving the Crow's Nest before the expiration of the three years lease, he had not the remotest idea where he was.

He claimed the furniture and payment of the rent due to him.

Did the matter end there?

I asked, in once the word yes, in another no.

Within a few weeks of Dance's disappearance, rumors got afloat that his ghost had been seen on the road just where you may say you saw it.

As a matter of fact, I've seen it myself, and so have crowds of other people.

Has any one ever spoken to it?

Yes?

And it has vanished at once.

I went there one night with the purpose of laying it, but on its appearance suddenly, I confess, I was so startled that I had not only forgot what I rehearsed to say, but ran home without uttering as much as a word.

And what are your deductions of the case?

The same as everyone else's, mister Marsden whispered, Only like everyone else, I dare not say.

Had mister Dance any dogs?

Yes, two poodles, of which, much to mister Baldwin's annoyance, everyone noticed this.

He used to make the most ridiculous fuss humph.

I observed that settles it.

Ghosts, and to think I never believed in them before.

Well, I am going to try try what mister Marsden said, a note of alarm in his voice, try laying it.

I have an idea I may succeed.

I wish you look.

Then, May I come with you?

Thanks?

No, I rejoined, I would rather go there alone.

I said this in a well lighted room, with the hum of a crowded thoroughfare in my ears.

Twenty minutes later, when I had left all that behind and was fast approaching the darkest part of an exceptionally dark road.

I wished I had not at the very spot where I had previously seen the figures.

I saw them now.

They suddenly appeared by my side, and though I was going at a great rate, for the horse took fright, they kept easy pace with me.

Twice I essayed to speak to them, but could not ejaculate a syllable through sheer horror.

And it was only by nerving myself to the utmost and forcing my eyes away from them, that I was able to stick to my seat and hold on to the reins.

On and on we dashed, until trees, road, sky, universe were obliterated in one blinding whirlwind that got up my nostrils, choked my ears, and deadened me to everything save the all terrorizing instinctive knowledge that the figures by my side were still there, stalking along as quietly and leisurely as if the horse had been going at a snail's pace.

At last, to my intense relief, for never had the ride seemed longer, I reached the crow's nest, and as as I hurriedly dismounted from the trap, the figure shot past me and vanished.

Once inside the house and in the bosom of my family, where all was light and laughter.

Courage returned, and I upbraided myself bitterly for this cowardice.

I confessed to my wife, and she insisted on accompanying me the following afternoon at twilight to the spot where the ghost appeared to originate.

To our intense dismay, we had not been there more than three or four minutes before Dora, our youngest girl, a pretty sweet tempered child of eight, came running up to us with a telegram which one of the servants had asked her to give us.

My wife, snatching it from her and reading it, was about to scold her severely when she suddenly paused, and, clutching hold of the child with one hand, pointed hysterically at something on one side of her with the other.

I looked, and Dora looked, and we both saw, standing erect and staring at us, the spare figure of a man with a ghastly white face and dull, lifeless eyes, clad and a panama hat, Albert coat and small patent leather boots beside him were too glossy abnormally glossy poodles.

I tried to speak, but as before, was too frightened.

To articulate a sound, and my wife was in the same plight with Dora.

However, it was otherwise, and she electrified us by going up to the figure and exclaiming, who are you?

You must be very ill to look so white.

Tell me your name.

The figure made no reply, but, gliding slowly forward, moved up to a large, isolated oak, and pointing with the index finger of its left hand at the trunk of the tree, seemingly sank into the earth and vanished from view.

For some seconds, everyone was silent, and then my wife exclaimed, Jack, I shouldn't wonder if Dora hasn't been the means of solving the mystery.

Examined the tree closely.

I did so.

The tree was hollow, and inside it were three skeletons, and of the strange disappearance of mister Jeremiah Dance.