Some Haunted Houses of England & Wales. O'Donnell Elliott

his fist, ‘what! do you mean to tell me you allowed it to come here!’

      “ ‘I couldn’t stop it,’ the vicar said apologetically, stretching forward to help himself to some more brandy. ‘It led me to your summer-house, vanishing through the doorway. Resolved on seeing the last, and hoping thereby to discover some clue to the mystery, I cautiously approached the window, and, peering through the glass, saw the creature walk stealthily across the floor and disappear into a gigantic clock. I verily believe I was as much scared by the sight of that clock as I had been by the appearance of the spectre—they were both satanically awful.’

      “ ‘Is that all?’ my Uncle John inquired.

      “ ‘It is,’ the vicar replied, ‘and is it not enough?’

      “My Uncle John got on his feet.

      “ ‘Before returning a verdict,’ he said, ‘I must see the clock. Let us go to the summer-house at once.’

      “The vicar and I were loud in our protests—‘We were sure my uncle must be tired; better put off the investigation to the morrow.’

      “It was, however, of no avail; there was no gainsaying Uncle John when once he had made up his mind to do anything.

      “We accordingly escorted him without further delay to the garden.

      “The clock was standing quite peacefully where I had had it set.

      “As soon as my uncle saw it he caught hold of my arm. ‘Where on earth did you get it from, Harry?’ he cried, bubbling over with excitement. ‘The last time I saw that clock was in Kleogh Castle, the home of the Blakes. It had been in their possession for centuries, and was made from what is supposed to be the oldest bog-oak in Ireland. Ah! the old lady left it you, did she? and you say she got it from Kelly’s in Grafton Street.

      “ ‘Come! that explains everything. The Blakes—poor beggars—were sold up last year, and Kelly’s, I know, were represented at the sale.

      “ ‘But now comes the extraordinary part of the affair. The grey figure our friend the vicar has just described to us tallies exactly with the phantasm that used to haunt Kleogh, and which the Blakes have always regarded in the light of a family ghost.

      “ ‘Now it would appear that they are entirely wrong—that it is with the clock and not Kleogh this apparition is connected—a fact that is not at all surprising when we come to consider its origin and the vast antiquity of its frame.

      “ ‘But let us examine it more carefully to-morrow.’

      “We did so, and discovered that the frontal pillars on either side of the face of the clock consisted of two highly polished femur-bones which, although blackened through countless ages of immersion in the bog, and abnormally long (as is inevitably the case with Paleolithic man), were very unmistakably human.

      *****

      “I returned the clock anonymously to Kelly’s.”[2]