Year: 1859

lodging was perfect. That I was sure it would
be because Trottle is the best judge of COM
fort I know. The empty house was an eye
sore; and that l was sure it would be, too, for
the same reason. However, setting the one
thing against the other, the good against the
bad, the lodging very soon got the victory over
the House. My lawyer, Mr.. Squares, of Crown
Office Row, Temple, drew up an agreement,
which his young man jabbered over so dread
fully when he read it to me that didn't under
stand one word of it except my own name, and
hardly that, and signed it, and the other
party signed it, and in three weeks time 1
moved my old bones,' bag and baggage, up to
London.


For the first month or so, 1 arranged to leave
Trottle at the Wells. I made this arrange
ment, not only because there was good deal
to take care of in the way of my school chill
dren and pensioners, and also of new stove
in the hall to air the house in my absence,
which appeared to me calculated to blow up
and burst; but, likewise because [ suspect
| Trottle (though the steadiest of men, and a
widower between sixty and seventy,) to be
what call rather Philanderer. l mean, that
| when any friend comes down to see me, and
| brings maid, Trottle is always remarkably
ready to show that maid the Wells of an even
| ing; and that have more than once noticed
the shadow of his outside the room door,
nearly opposite my chair encireling that maid S
i
| Therefore, I thought it just as we'll, before
any London Philandering took place, that /
should have a little time to look round me- and
/ to see what girls were in and about the pfaee-
| So, nobody stayed with me in my new lodging
at first, after Trottle had established me there
safe and sound, but Peggy Flobbins, my maid; /;
| most affectonate and attached woman, who
never was an object of Philandering since /
! have known her, and is not likely to begin to
become after nine ne-and-twenty years next
| March.


It was the fifth of November when I first
| breakfasted in my new rooms. - The Guys were
going about in the brown fog, like magnifed
| monsters of insects in table-beer, and there was
| a Guy resting on the doorsteps of the House
to Let. I put on my glasses, partly to see how
the boys were pleased with what [ sent them
cut by Peggy, and partly to make sure that she
didn't approach too near the ridiculous object
which, of course, was full of sky-rockets, and
might 60 off into bangs at any moment In
J this way it Happened that the first time 1 ever
looked at the House to Let, after I became its
opposite neighbor, had my glasses on. And
this might not have happened once in fifty
times, for my sight is uncommonly good for
my time of life; and wear glasses as little as
l can, for fear of ,sPoling it.


| I knew already that it was a ten-roomed
house, very dirty, and much diapidated; that
the area-rails were rusty and pealing away, and
that two or three of them were wanting, or
| ali.wanting; that there we're broken panes Of
| glass in the windows, and blotches of mud on
other panes, which the boys had thrown at
them; that there was quite collection of
stones in the area, also proceeding from those
Young Mischiefs; that there were games chalk
ed on tie pavement before the House, and
lkenesses of ghosts chalked on the strcetdoor
that the windows we've all darkened by rotting
old blinds, or shutters, or both; that the bills
''To Let" had curled up, if the damp air of
the place had given them cramps; or had
dropped down into corners, as if they were no
more. / had seen all this on my first visit,
and had remarked to Trottle, that the lower
part of the black board about terms split
away; that the rest had become illegible, and
that the very stone of the door-steps was bro
ken across. Notwithstanding, / sat at my
breakfast table on that Please to Remember the
fifth of November morning, staring at the
House through my glasses, as if I had never
looked at it before.


AL at ence-in the frst.foor window on my
right-down in a low corner, at hole in a
| blind or a shutter-I found that was looking
at a secret Eye. The reflection of my fire may
have touched it and made it shine; but sar
it shine and vanish.


The eve might have seen me, or it might
not have seen me, sitting there in the glow OF
my fre-you can take which probability you
prefer, without ofence-but something struck
through my frame, as if the sparkle of this
eve had been electric, and had flashed straight
at me- 1t had such an effect upon me, that l
could notreInain by myself, and 1 rang for
Flobbns, and invented some little jobs for her,
t0~keep her in the room. After my breakfast
was cleared away, l sat in the same place, with
my glasses on, moving my head, now so, and
so, trying whether, with the shining of my fire
| and the flaws in the window glass, / could re-
- l. IL
| that was like the sparkle of an eye; but no,
could make nothing like it. I could make rip
Piles and crooked lines in the front of the
House to Let, and could even twist one win
dow up and loop it into another; but l could
make no eye, anything like an eye So, l
convinced myself that really had seen an eye.
Well, to be sure 1 could not get rid of the
impression of this eye, and it troubled me and
troubled me- until it was almost torment. l
Germ my head much about the opposite house (;
but, after this eye, my head was full of the
House; and I thought of little else than the
House, and / watched the house, and talked
about the house, and I dreamed of the house.
In all this / fully believe now, there was a
good Providence. But you will judge for
yourself about that, by and by.


My landlord was butler, who had married
cook. and set up housekeeping. They had
not kept House longer than couple of years
and they knew no more about the House to
Let than did. Neither could find out any
thing concerning it among the trades-people or
otherwise; further than what Tottle had told
me at first. 1t had been empty some said six
years, some said eight, some said ten. 1t new
er did let, they all agreed, and it never would
| let. --
| I soon felt convinced that 1 should work
myself into one of my states about the house /;
and I soon did. lived for WI o e month in
furry, that was always getting worse. Tow
er's prescriptions, which 1 had brought to Lon
don with me, were of no more use than moth
ing In the cold winter sunlight, in the thick
winter fog, in the black winter rain, in the
white winter snow, the Houae equally on
my mind. / have heard, as everybody else
has, of spirit haunting a house but have
! had my own personal experience of q houses