The hostess pondered. It was true she couldn’t explain. She had heard of that apparition before—perhaps had seen it. It was certainly very annoying. She promised her friend to give instant orders for the preparation of another room; and then made a request that the matter should not be mentioned to her daughter—an impressionable, imaginative girl of eighteen.
The maiden lady snorted. It wasn’t likely.
Rosamund, the daughter, had of course known all about it long ago; while, after the fashion of her kind, keeping her counsel demurely before her elders, she had discussed freely the thrilling appanage of her new home with all the companions of her own age who came to stay at the Abbey.
It was she who was destined to lay the ghost. One rainy afternoon later in the same summer, the young members of the house-party found themselves stranded together in the great hall, and Rosamund cheerfully suggested table-turning and spirit-rapping to while away the time till tea. It is a never-failing amusement.
Having produced a satisfactory condition of lurching, and elicited several quite distinct raps from the round mahogany table, she cried out:
Responsive knocks came, loud and marked. A system of communication was promptly established. Two raps for yes, one for no. Then the questioning began.
With much laughter and some agreeable tremors, it was ascertained that the monk-ghost belonged to the community which had dwelt so long at the Abbey; that he was dissatisfied with his present place of burial, which was outside the old monks’ burying-ground, now a part of the actual garden.
It is always safe, as I have said, to question a ghost on this point. Now, however, some difficulty ensued when, through the limited medium, the rapping spirit endeavoured to specify the spot of its present abode, and the field was too wide for exactness—until a young sailor cousin intervened. He had been playing, in mere idleness and utter scepticism, the rather gruesome game. But at this point he roused himself, interested to put the matter to the proof. He fetched pencil and paper, and drew up a scheme of latitude and longitude with reference to the garden walls; and finally determined the position where the discontented ghost announced that his bones were actually reposing.