Page:St Andrews Ghost Stories (1921).djvu/89

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A Very Peculiar House.
81

thing about what she tells you, mind you send it to me, to the Whittington Company, —— Theatre, Birmingham." "Of course I will," I said, "and I will put you in it." "Now come along upstairs and I will introduce you to her," she said. She tapped at a door and then opened it, and ushered me into the presence of the Sister. "Look here, Sister," said Patricia, "I have brought the ghost man from St Andrews to see you. Here he is." "Very good of you," said the Sister as she shook hands with me warmly. "You know," she said, "I have read all your ghost tales." She then told Patricia to run downstairs and send the servant up with tea. Then we seated ourselves down to tea and muffins, and the old lady related her story. She said:—"I wanted very much to tell you of a little experience I had some months ago. I was asked to come up for a short time to look after an invalid lady who lived at St Andrews. Well, I arrived safely there, and went from the station to the house in a 'bus. It was an old house, and when I entered I felt a queer sort of creepy sensation come over me such as I had never experienced before. I was ushered into the presence of my host and hostess and the invalid lady. He was a splendid example of an old British soldier, and his wife was a pretty, fragile-looking old piece of china. The invalid lady I found only suffered from nerves, and very little wonder, I thought, in such a peculiar house. I had always a fancy that some other human being resided in the house; but if so, it only remained a feeling. The name of the cook was Timbletoss, the butler was Corncockle, and oddly enough they both came from Cambridge." "What curious names there are here," I said to the Sister; "when I first went to Cambridge I thought the names over the shops must be some gigantic joke—a man once suggested to me that someone must have been specially engaged to come to Cambridge and invent those wonderful names." "Well," continued the Sister, "it really was a most extraordinary house. I had never seen anything out of the common before, and I have never seen anything like that house since. The servants told me most remarkable tales—how the bed-clothes were twitched off the bed in the night by unseen hands, and how the tables and chairs rattled about over the floor, and