They went carefully through each room. There was nothing unusual in any of them; old boxes, pieces of broken furniture, rusty bits of iron strewed the place. One thing took Blanche's fancy. It was in a tiny room opening out of one of the large ones, and was so big that it almost filled it. It was an immense chest, studded with nails, and ornamented with handsome brass hasps.
"It's like the chest in the 'Mistletoe Bough,'" cried Blanche. "Do let's try to open it."
But try as they would, they could make no impression upon it. It was locked, and to break it open would require greater strength than theirs.
"I do wish we could get it open," said Blanche, when at last they gave up trying. "Do you think Peter could do it?"
"He doesn't much like coming here," was the reply. "He always says the old walls might fall in at any time; but since you told me about the lights being seen, I've been thinking that perhaps he has heard about them too, and that's why he won't come here if he can help it. But we can ask him. What is the 'Mistletoe Bough'? Is it a story about a chest?"
"Haven't you heard it?" asked Blanche, surprised. "I believe I can repeat it to you. Let's sit on the old box and pretend it is the one."
They scrambled up on to the chest, regardless of dust and cobwebs, and Blanche began,--
"'The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,'"--
Marjory sat entranced, listening to the story of Lord Lovel and his bride, and the fateful game of hide-and-seek, which ended in the lovely lady being shut into the old oak chest, which none of the distracted seekers thought of opening, and which did not disclose its grim secret until many years afterwards, when at last it was opened.
"How _dreadful_!" exclaimed Marjory. "Fancy being shut up in a box like this! I wonder if this one has a spring lock. I wish we knew what is inside it."
They made up their minds to ask Dr. Hunter about it, and went on with their investigation of the rooms, until both felt that they knew every door and passage in the place.
Blanche was of the opinion that it would be of no use going to look for the ghost until after midnight. The time passed very slowly after they went to bed. They talked in whispers, Blanche telling all the ghost stories she had ever heard, which came chiefly from servants and from her young cousins in London.