Spotted Hemlock

The Calladale grounds, even apart from the acreage devoted to crops, pasture, hen-houses and piggeries, were extensive, forming, as they had done before the college took them over, the park and gardens of a very large mansion. There was no moon, and Miss Good, walking between tall rhododendrons on the half-mile trek to bed and board, began to realise that there was a vast difference between being driven in a smart, new Morris up to the students’ entrance and being compelled to walk the distance between the college gates and the hostel in eerie autumn darkness. She was not a nervous or a fanciful girl. Moreover, she had been born and brought up in a country vicarage and was accustomed to the absence of lights in country places. Nevertheless, she realised that she would not be sorry to leave the rhododendron walk behind her and emerge on to the neat gravel drive which ran between the open lawns that fronted the hostel. She tried not to remember that the college was said to be haunted.

Just as she was within sight of her goal, however, her blood froze and her ears pounded. She found herself sick with fright. Blocking the exit to the rhododendron walk was a dim figure tall enough to blot out the stars. It glimmered faintly white against the dark bushes. She stopped dead, gulping with terror. Then, with a sob, she turned in her tracks and tore for the gate. She did not look round until she was out in the road. Gasping and winded, she flung herself down in a ditch and lay there, shivering and terrified.

‘Don’t let it come! Don’t let it come!’ she thought wildly. But come it did, and by the light of the single lamp which illumined the entrance to the college grounds she saw that it was a horseman all in white, a shapeless, apparently headless, figure riding a big-boned grey. The horse was going at a walking pace, but when it was out on the road it began to trot.

The girl in the ditch got up and tore along the rhododendron avenue to the hostel. This time no sinister, ghostly horseman barred the way. Neither was the front door barred, but an apologetic maidservant informed her that the head of the hostel wished to speak to her in the morning.

In her study-bedroom a reproachful friend awaited her.

‘You are a fool! Why on earth didn’t you get back to time? Considine is rabid. You’ve probably ditched all our late passes until half-term.’

‘I’ve got an answer for her, but, of course, she won’t believe it.’

‘She might. She isn’t bad. Did you run out of juice on the way home? If so, I wouldn’t hand her that one. She won’t believe that, even if it’s true.’

‘She won’t be asked to believe it. I suppose you haven’t got an aspirin or something. I’ve had the most awful shock.’

‘Not…? I shouldn’t have thought…’

‘Of course not! He’s a lamb. No. The fact is—I think I’ve seen the college ghost.’

‘How many drinks did you have?’

‘No, really, I’m not joking. Get off my bed. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. Oh, dear! I wish, just for once, we had dormitories instead of these little rooms. I’m scared to death. I know I shan’t sleep.’

She did sleep, however, youth and a certain amount of that which biteth like an adder assisting—indeed, insisting upon—kind nature’s sweet restorer. She awoke to a thin, late October sunshine and the consciousness that she was called upon to report to Miss Considine. In the clear light of day the ghost-story would sound palpably absurd. Better to make the lost engagement ring the excuse for overstaying her late leave, Miss Good decided. She advanced this plea. Miss Considine, a weather-beaten lady of fifty who taught the science and practice of vegetable gardening, looked concerned.

‘That very expensive ring?’ she asked. ‘Have you got it back?’

‘Well, no.’

‘You’ve lost it entirely?’

‘I—I hope not.’

‘Look here, Miss Good, come clean. What was your reason for overstaying your pass?’

Miss Good looked unhappy.

‘It was really about the ring,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘My—my fiance went back for it. We’d got nearly back to college when I remembered I’d left it at the place where we had dinner. He brought me back to the gates and, honestly, Miss Considine, I’d have had heaps of time to get in before lock-up if I—if I—this is going to sound silly…’

‘If you mean that you saw someone on horseback in the college grounds, it may interest you to know that he trampled down my brussels sprouts. So—now?’

‘Yes, I did see someone on a horse. It was at the end of the rhododendron avenue. I ran back to the gate and hid in the ditch, and that’s what made me late.’

‘Hid in the ditch? Why on earth didn’t you challenge him? It must be one of the people who broke down the fences and let out the pigs. We might have found a scapegoat and got hold of the names of the others.’

‘But, Miss Considine, he was perfectly enormous and all in white and he didn’t have a head! It was awful!’

‘You little goose!’

‘No, really! I—I thought it was a ghost!’

‘Now, really, Miss Good! What did you have to drink last night, you foolish child? Sit down, and tell me all about it. I can’t go to Miss McKay with a tale like that!’

‘But it’s true! Really, really it is. I could have made you any sort of excuse, but this is the truth. I was petrified! I didn’t think what I was doing! I just ran for my life and hid in the ditch until it went!’

‘How do you know that it went?’

‘It came out of the college gate. It passed quite close.’