'Oh, no!' he answered; 'but even before the coachman arrived, I hadthis telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are,' and he took fromhis pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:
_Bistritz_.
Be careful of my guest--his safety is most precious to me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune.--_Dracula_.
As I held the telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around me;and, if the attentive maitre d'hotel had not caught me, I think Ishould have fallen. There was something so strange in all this,something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me asense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces--the merevague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyse me. I was certainlyunder some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country hadcome, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of thedanger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.
The Judge's House
When the time for his examination drew near Malcolm Malcolmson made uphis mind to go somewhere to read by himself. He feared the attractionsof the seaside, and also he feared completely rural isolation, for ofold he knew it charms, and so he determined to find some unpretentiouslittle town where there would be nothing to distract him. He refrainedfrom asking suggestions from any of his friends, for he argued thateach would recommend some place of which he had knowledge, and wherehe had already acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished to avoid friends hehad no wish to encumber himself with the attention of friends'friends, and so he determined to look out for a place for himself. Hepacked a portmanteau with some clothes and all the books he required,and then took ticket for the first name on the local time-table whichhe did not know.
When at the end of three hours' journey he alighted at Benchurch, hefelt satisfied that he had so far obliterated his tracks as to be sureof having a peaceful opportunity of pursuing his studies. He wentstraight to the one inn which the sleepy little place contained, andput up for the night. Benchurch was a market town, and once in threeweeks was crowded to excess, but for the remainder of the twenty-onedays it was as attractive as a desert. Malcolmson looked around theday after his arrival to try to find quarters more isolated than evenso quiet an inn as 'The Good Traveller' afforded. There was only oneplace which took his fancy, and it certainly satisfied his wildestideas regarding quiet; in fact, quiet was not the proper word to applyto it--desolation was the only term conveying any suitable idea of itsisolation. It was an old rambling, heavy-built house of the Jacobeanstyle, with heavy gables and windows, unusually small, and set higherthan was customary in such houses, and was surrounded with a highbrick wall massively built. Indeed, on examination, it looked morelike a fortified house than an ordinary dwelling. But all these thingspleased Malcolmson. 'Here,' he thought, 'is the very spot I have beenlooking for, and if I can get opportunity of using it I shall behappy.' His joy was increased when he realised beyond doubt that itwas not at present inhabited.
From the post-office he got the name of the agent, who was rarelysurprised at the application to rent a part of the old house. Mr.Carnford, the local lawyer and agent, was a genial old gentleman, andfrankly confessed his delight at anyone being willing to live in thehouse.
'To tell you the truth,' said he, 'I should be only too happy, onbehalf of the owners, to let anyone have the house rent free for aterm of years if only to accustom the people here to see it inhabited.It has been so long empty that some kind of absurd prejudice has grownup about it, and this can be best put down by its occupation--ifonly,' he added with a sly glance at Malcolmson, 'by a scholar likeyourself, who wants its quiet for a time.'
Malcolmson thought it needless to ask the agent about the 'absurdprejudice'; he knew he would get more information, if he shouldrequire it, on that subject from other quarters. He paid his threemonths' rent, got a receipt, and the name of an old woman who wouldprobably undertake to 'do' for him, and came away with the keys in hispocket. He then went to the landlady of the inn, who was a cheerfuland most kindly person, and asked her advice as to such stores andprovisions as he would be likely to require. She threw up her hands inamazement when he told her where he was going to settle himself.
'Not in the Judge's House!' she said, and grew pale as she spoke. Heexplained the locality of the house, saying that he did not know itsname. When he had finished she answered:
'Aye, sure enough--sure enough the very place! It is the Judge's Housesure enough.' He asked her to tell him about the place, why so called,and what there was against it. She told him that it was so calledlocally because it had been many years before--how long she could notsay, as she was herself from another part of the country, but shethought it must have been a hundred years or more--the abode of ajudge who was held in great terror on account of his harsh sentencesand his hostility to prisoners at Assizes. As to what there wasagainst the house itself she could not tell. She had often asked, butno one could inform her; but there was a general feeling that therewas _something_, and for her own part she would not take all the moneyin Drinkwater's Bank and stay in the house an hour by herself. Thenshe apologised to Malcolmson for her disturbing talk.
'It is too bad of me, sir, and you--and a young gentlemen, too--if youwill pardon me saying it, going to live there all alone. If you weremy boy--and you'll excuse me for saying it--you wouldn't sleep there anight, not if I had to go there myself and pull the big alarm bellthat's on the roof!' The good creature was so manifestly in earnest,and was so kindly in her intentions, that Malcolmson, although amused,was touched. He told her kindly how much he appreciated her interestin him, and added:
'But, my dear Mrs. Witham, indeed you need not be concerned about me!A man who is reading for the Mathematical Tripos has too much to thinkof to be disturbed by any of these mysterious "somethings", and hiswork is of too exact and prosaic a kind to allow of his having anycorner in his mind for mysteries of any kind. Harmonical Progression,Permutations and Combinations, and Elliptic Functions have sufficientmysteries for me!' Mrs. Witham kindly undertook to see after hiscommissions, and he went himself to look for the old woman who hadbeen recommended to him. When he returned to the Judge's House withher, after an interval of a couple of hours, he found Mrs. Withamherself waiting with several men and boys carrying parcels, and anupholsterer's man with a bed in a car, for she said, though tables andchairs might be all very well, a bed that hadn't been aired for mayhapfifty years was not proper for young bones to lie on. She wasevidently curious to see the inside of the house; and thoughmanifestly so afraid of the 'somethings' that at the slightest soundshe clutched on to Malcolmson, whom she never left for a moment, wentover the whole place.
After his examination of the house, Malcolmson decided to take up hisabode in the great dining-room, which was big enough to serve for allhis requirements; and Mrs. Witham, with the aid of the charwoman,Mrs. Dempster, proceeded to arrange matters. When the hampers werebrought in and unpacked, Malcolmson saw that with much kindforethought she had sent from her own kitchen sufficient provisions tolast for a few days. Before going she expressed all sorts of kindwishes; and at the door turned and said:
'And perhaps, sir, as the room is big and draughty it might be well tohave one of those big screens put round your bed at night--though,truth to tell, I would die myself if I were to be so shut in with allkinds of--of "things", that put their heads round the sides, or overthe top, and look on me!' The image which she had called up was toomuch for her nerves, and she fled incontinently.
Mrs. Dempster sniffed in a superior manner as the landladydisappeared, and remarked that for her own part she wasn't afraid ofall the bogies in the kingdom.
'I'll tell you what it is, sir,' she said; 'bogies is all kinds andsorts of things--except bogies! Rats and mice, and beetles; and creakydoors, and loose slates, and broken panes, and stiff drawer handles,that stay out when you pull them and then fall down in the middle ofthe night. Look at the wainscot of the room! It is old--hundreds ofyears old! Do you think there's no rats and beetles there! And do youimagine, sir, that you won't see none of them? Rats is bogies, I tellyou, and bogies is rats; and don't you get to think anything else!'
'Mrs. Dempster,' said Malcolmson gravely, making her a polite bow,'you know more than a Senior Wrangler! And let me say, that, as a markof esteem for your indubitable soundness of head and heart, I shall,when I go, give you possession of this house, and let you stay here byyourself for the last two months of my tenancy, for four weeks willserve my purpose.'
'Thank you kindly, sir!' she answered, 'but I couldn't sleep awayfrom home a night. I am in Greenhow's Charity, and if I slept a nightaway from my rooms I should lose all I have got to live on. The rulesis very strict; and there's too many watching for a vacancy for me torun any risks in the matter. Only for that, sir, I'd gladly come hereand attend on you altogether during your stay.'
'My good woman,' said Malcolmson hastily, 'I have come here on purposeto o
btain solitude; and believe me that I am grateful to the lateGreenhow for having so organised his admirable charity--whatever itis--that I am perforce denied the opportunity of suffering from such aform of temptation! Saint Anthony himself could not be more rigid onthe point!'
The old woman laughed harshly. 'Ah, you young gentlemen,' she said,'you don't fear for naught; and belike you'll get all the solitude youwant here.' She set to work with her cleaning; and by nightfall, whenMalcolmson returned from his walk--he always had one of his books tostudy as he walked--he found the room swept and tidied, a fire burningin the old hearth, the lamp lit, and the table spread for supper withMrs. Witham's excellent fare. 'This is comfort, indeed,' he said, ashe rubbed his hands.
When he had finished his supper, and lifted the tray to the other endof the great oak dining-table, he got out his books again, put freshwood on the fire, trimmed his lamp, and set himself down to a spell ofreal hard work. He went on without pause till about eleven o'clock,when he knocked off for a bit to fix his fire and lamp, and to makehimself a cup of tea. He had always been a tea-drinker, and during hiscollege life had sat late at work and had taken tea late. The restwas a great luxury to him, and he enjoyed it with a sense ofdelicious, voluptuous ease. The renewed fire leaped and sparkled, andthrew quaint shadows through the great old room; and as he sipped hishot tea he revelled in the sense of isolation from his kind. Then itwas that he began to notice for the first time what a noise the ratswere making.
'Surely,' he thought, 'they cannot have been at it all the time I wasreading. Had they been, I must have noticed it!' Presently, when thenoise increased, he satisfied himself that it was really new. It wasevident that at first the rats had been frightened at the presence ofa stranger, and the light of fire and lamp; but that as the time wenton they had grown bolder and were now disporting themselves as wastheir wont.
How busy they were! and hark to the strange noises! Up and down behindthe old wainscot, over the ceiling and under the floor they raced, andgnawed, and scratched! Malcolmson smiled to himself as he recalled tomind the saying of Mrs. Dempster, 'Bogies is rats, and rats isbogies!' The tea began to have its effect of intellectual and nervousstimulus, he saw with joy another long spell of work to be done beforethe night was past, and in the sense of security which it gave him, heallowed himself the luxury of a good look round the room. He took hislamp in one hand, and went all around, wondering that so quaint andbeautiful an old house had been so long neglected. The carving of theoak on the panels of the wainscot was fine, and on and round the doorsand windows it was beautiful and of rare merit. There were some oldpictures on the walls, but they were coated so thick with dust anddirt that he could not distinguish any detail of them, though he heldhis lamp as high as he could over his head. Here and there as he wentround he saw some crack or hole blocked for a moment by the face of arat with its bright eyes glittering in the light, but in an instant itwas gone, and a squeak and a scamper followed. The thing that moststruck him, however, was the rope of the great alarm bell on the roof,which hung down in a corner of the room on the right-hand side of thefireplace. He pulled up close to the hearth a great high-backed carvedoak chair, and sat down to his last cup of tea. When this was done hemade up the fire, and went back to his work, sitting at the corner ofthe table, having the fire to his left. For a little while the ratsdisturbed him somewhat with their perpetual scampering, but he gotaccustomed to the noise as one does to the ticking of a clock or tothe roar of moving water; and he became so immersed in his work thateverything in the world, except the problem which he was trying tosolve, passed away from him.
He suddenly looked up, his problem was still unsolved, and there wasin the air that sense of the hour before the dawn, which is so dreadto doubtful life. The noise of the rats had ceased. Indeed it seemedto him that it must have ceased but lately and that it was the suddencessation which had disturbed him. The fire had fallen low, but stillit threw out a deep red glow. As he looked he started in spite of his_sang froid_.
There on the great high-backed carved oak chair by the right side ofthe fireplace sat an enormous rat, steadily glaring at him withbaleful eyes. He made a motion to it as though to hunt it away, but itdid not stir. Then he made the motion of throwing something. Still itdid not stir, but showed its great white teeth angrily, and its crueleyes shone in the lamplight with an added vindictiveness.
Malcolmson felt amazed, and seizing the poker from the hearth ran atit to kill it. Before, however, he could strike it, the rat, with asqueak that sounded like the concentration of hate, jumped upon thefloor, and, running up the rope of the alarm bell, disappeared in thedarkness beyond the range of the green-shaded lamp. Instantly, strangeto say, the noisy scampering of the rats in the wainscot began again.
By this time Malcolmson's mind was quite off the problem; and as ashrill cock-crow outside told him of the approach of morning, he wentto bed and to sleep.