Dark Encounters: Ghost Stories by William Croft Dickinson

Author:William Croft Dickinson [Dickinson, William Croft]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror
ISBN: 9781553103288
Publisher: Harvill
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Yet my tale has not quite ended.

On my way back, I stopped at Ballachulish for a very late lunch at the inn. As I ate alone in the dining-room, I heard two men talking outside by the open window.

‘That was a mighty queer business last night, though I could get nothing out of the landlord when I tried to pump him this morning.’

‘Yes, but the fellow was obviously drunk. He had to be carried to bed, you know.’

‘I agree, old man. All the same, there was more to it than that. As you know, my room was next to his, and, just before he gave that awful yell which woke up everybody, I’d already been wakened by a strange kind of bumping noise which I couldn’t fathom. I got up and looked out of the window, thinking the noise was probably coming from outside — and it may well have been that coping-stone, which had obviously worked loose, and which the wind may have been lifting slightly before it fell.

‘However, that’s not what I was going to say. As I looked out of the window, there, in the clear light of the early morning, I was astonished to see the local priest standing in the middle of the lawn, with one arm raised above his head, while a dishevelled old woman crouched and cowered before him. The very next second I saw this fellow climb out of his window and drop down. There was a crash as the coping-stone fell. And, with that, he jumped up, gave his appalling yell, and rushed straight into the arms of the priest. Where the old woman had gone to I don’t know. She just seemed to disappear. And what she and the priest were doing . . .’

‘What an extraordinary . . . Did you . . .’

The men had moved away, and their voices were fading. I tiptoed as fast as I could to the window and strained my ears. But I could catch only a few more words.

‘And another queer thing — when I dashed out into the corridor in my bare feet it seemed to be soaking wet all along its length.’

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