I had this wing of the building quite to myself, and passing through into what may have been a library, I saw at the farther end a low, arched door in the wall. It was open, and a dim light showed beyond. I approached it, passed down six stone steps and found myself in a small room, evidently of much earlier date than the rest of the house.
It had an elaborately carved chimney piece reaching to the ceiling, and the panelling was covered with extraordinary designs. One small window lighted the room. Before the window, his back towards me, stood a cowled monk!
At my gasp of mingled fear and surprise, he turned a red, bearded face to me. To my great amazement, I saw that the mysterious intruder was smoking a well-coloured briar!
"Did I frighten you?" he inquired, with a strong Irish brogue. "I'm sorry! But it's years since I saw over Devrers, and so I ventured to trespass. I'm Father Bernard from the monastery yonder. Are you Mr Ryland?"
I gasped again, but with relief. Father Bernard, broad-shouldered and substantial, puffing away at his briar, was no phantom after all, but a very genial mortal.
"No," I replied. "He will be down later. I am known as Cumberly."
He shook my hand very heartily; he seemed on the point of speaking again, yet hesitated.
"What a grand old place it is," I continued. "This room surely, is older than the rest?"
"It is part of the older mansion," he replied, "Devereaux Hall. Devrers is a corruption."
"Devereaux Hall," I said. "Did it belong to that family?"
Father Bernard nodded.
"Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, owned it. There's his crest over the door. He never lived here himself, but if you can make out medieval Latin, this inscription here will tell you who did."
He watched me curiously while I struggled with the crabbed characters.
"Here by grace of his noble patron, Robert Devereaux, my lord of Essex," I read, "laboured Maccabees Nosta of Padua, a pupil of Michel de Notredame, seeking the light."
"Nosta was a Jewish astrologer and magician," explained the monk, "and according to his own account, as you see, a pupil of the notorious Michel de Notredame, or Nostradamus. He lived here under the patronage of the Earl until 1601, when Essex was executed. Legend says that he was not the pupil of Nostradamus, but his master the devil, and that he brought about the fall of his patron. What became of Nosta of Padua nobody knows."
He paused, watching me with something furtive in his blue eyes.
"I'm a regular guidebook, you're thinking?" he went on. "Well, so I am. We have it all in the old records at the monas tery. A Spanish family acquired the place after the death of Robert Devereaux — the Mi" uels. they called themselves. They were shunned by the whole country, and it's recorded that they held Black Masses and Devil's Sabbaths here in this very room!"
"Good heavens!" I cried, "the house has an unpleasant history!"
"The last of them was burned for witchcraft in the marketplace at Ashby, as late as 1640!"
I suppose I looked as uncomfortable as I felt, glancing apprehensively about the gloomv apartment.
"When Devereaux or Devrers Hall was pulled down and rebuilt, this part was spared for some mysterious reason. But let me tell you that from 1640 till 1863 — when a Mr Nicholson leased it — nobody has been able to live herel"
"What do you mean? Ghosts?"
"No, fires!"
"Fires!"
"That same! If you'll examine the rooms closely, you'll find that some of them have been rebuilt and some partially rebuilt, at dates long after Vanhruih's day. It's where the fires have been! Seven poor souls have bumed to death in Devrers since the Miguels' time, but the fires never spread beyond the rooms they broke out in!"
"Father Bernard," I said, "tell me no more at present! This is horrible! Some of the best friends I have are coming to spend Christmas here!"
"I'd have warned Mr Ryland if he'd given me time," continued the monk. "But it's likelv he'd have 'aughed at me for my pains! All you can do now, Mr Cumberly, is to say nothing about it until after Christmas. Then induce him to leave. I'm not a narrow-minded man, and I'm not a superstitious one, I think, but if facts are facts, Devrers Hall is possessed!"
The party that came together that Christmas at Devrers Hall was quite the most ideal that one could have wished for or imagined. There was no smart set boredom, for Earl's friends were not smart set bores. Old and young there were, and children too. What Christmas gathering is complete without children? Mr Ryland, Sr, and Mrs Ryland were over from New York, and the hard-headed man of affairs proved the most charming old gentleman one could have desired at a Christmas party. A Harvard friend of Earl's, the Rev. Lister Hanson, Mrs Han-son. Earl's sister, and two young Hansons were there. They, with Mrs Van Eyck, a pretty woman of thirty whose husband was never seen in her company, completed the American contingent.
But Earl had no lack of English friends, and these, to the round number of twenty, assisted at the Christmas house-warming.
On the evening of the twenty-third of December, as I entered the old banqueting hall bright with a thousand candles, the warm light from the flaming logs danced upon the oak leaves, emblems of hospitality which ornamented the frieze. Searching out strange heraldic devices upon the time-blackened panelling, I stood in the open door in real admiration.
A huge Christmas tree occupied one comer by the musicians' gallery, and around this a group of youngsters had congregated, looking up in keen anticipation at the novel gifts which swung from the frosted branches. Mr Ryland, Sr, his wife and another grey-haired lady, with Father Bernard from the monastery, sat upon the black oak settles by the fire; they were an oddly assorted, but merry group. In short, the interior of the old hall made up a picture that would have delighted the soul of Charles Dickens.
"It's just perfect. Earl!" came Hanson's voice.
I turned, and saw that he and Earl Ryland stood at my elbow.
"It will be, when Mona comes!" was the reply.
"What has delayed Miss Verek?" I asked. Earl's fiancee, Mona Verek, and her mother were to have joined us that afternoon.
"I can't quite make out from her wire," he answered quietly, a puzzled frown ruffling his forehead. "But she will be here by tomorrow, Christmas Eve."
Hanson clapped him on the back and smiled. "Bear up, Earl," he said. "Hello! here comes Father Bernard, and he's been yarning again. Just look how your governor is laughing."
Earl turned, as with a bold gait the priest came towards them, his face radiating with smiles, his eyes alight with amusement. It was certainly a hilarious group the monk had left behind him. As he joined us, he linked his arm in that of the American clergyman and drew him aside for a private chat, I thought what a broad-minded company we were. When the two, in intimate conversation, walked off together, they formed one of the most pleasant pictures imaginable. The true spirit of Christmas reigned.
I passed to an oak settee where Justin Grinley, his wife and small daughter were pulling crackers with Mrs Hanson, just as young Lawrence Bowman appeared from a side door.
"Have you seen Mrs Van Eyck?" he inquired quickly.
No one had seen her for some time, and young Bowman hurried off upon his quest.
Grinley raised quizzical eyebrows, but said nothing. In point of fact. Bowman's attentions to the lady had already excited some comment; but Mrs. Van Eyck was an old friend of the Rylands, and we relied upon her discretion to find a nice girl among the company — there were many — to take the romantic youth off her hands.