, the Barbarian should be
allowed, on the eve and day of Christmas, to stay at Stukeley alone.
"But," added his host, "you'll find it beastly lonely, and although I've
told the housekeeper to look after you--you'd better go over to dine at
Audley Friars, where there's a big party, and they know you, and it will
be a deuced deal more amusing. And--er--I say--you know--you're really
NOT looking out for ghosts, and that sort of thing, are you? You know
you fellows don't believe in them--over there." And the Barbarian,
assuring him that this was a part of his deficient emotions, it was
settled then and there that he should come. And that was why, on the
24th of December, the Barbarian found himself gazing hopefully on the
landscape with his portmanteau at his feet, as he drove up the avenue.

The ravens did NOT croak ominously from the battlements as he entered.
And the housekeeper, although neither "stately" nor "tall," nor full
of reminiscences of "his late lordship, the present Earl's father," was
very sensible and practical. The Barbarian could, of course, have his
choice of rooms--but--she had thought--remembering his tastes the last
time, that the long blue room? Exactly! The long, low-arched room,
with the faded blue tapestry, looking upon the gallery--capital! He
had always liked that room. From purely negative evidence he had every
reason to believe that it was the one formidable-looking room in England
that Queen Elizabeth had not slept in.

When the footman had laid out his clothes, and his step grew fainter
along the passage, until it was suddenly swallowed up with the
closing of a red baize door in the turret staircase, like a trap in an
oubliette, the whole building seemed to sink back into repose. Quiet it
certainly was, but not more so, he remembered, than when the chambers on
either side were filled with guests, and floating voices in the corridor
were lost in those all-absorbing walls. So far, certainly, this was no
new experience. It was past four. He waited for the shadows to gather.
Light thickened beyond his windows; gradually the outflanking wall and
part of a projecting terrace crumbled away in the darkness, as if Night
were slowly reducing the castle. The figures on the tapestry in his room
stood out faintly. The gallery, seen through his open door, barred
with black spaces between the mullioned windows, presently became
obliterated, as if invaded by a dull smoke from without. But nothing
moved, no