In the nighttime between Saturday and Sunday—we are exact in the matter of the date, and we believe it to be correct—three boys climbed up the hill at Pleinmont. The boys returned to the village: they came from the seashore. They were what are called, in the corrupt French of that part, déniquoiseaux, or birds’-nesters. Wherever there are cliffs and cleft-rocks overhanging the sea, the young birds’-nesters abound. The reader will remember that Gilliatt interfered in this matter for the sake of the birds as well as for the sake of the children.
The déniquoiseaux are a sort of sea-urchins, and are not a very timid species.
The night was very dark. Dense masses of cloud obscured the zenith. had sounded in the steeple of Torteval which is round and pointed like a magician’s hat.
Why did the boys return so late? Nothing more simple. They had been searching for seagulls’ nests in the Tas de Pois d’Aval. The season having been very mild, the pairing of the birds had begun very early. The children watching the fluttering of the male and female about their nests, and excited by the pursuit, had forgotten the time. The waters had crept up around them; they had no time to regain the little bay in which they had moored their boat, and they were compelled to wait upon one of the peaks of the Tas de Pois for the ebb of the tide. Hence their late return. Mothers wait on such occasions in feverish anxiety for the return of their children, and when they find them safe, give vent to their joy in the shape of anger, and relieve their tears by dealing them a sound drubbing. The boys accordingly hastened their steps, but in fear and trembling. Their haste was of that sort which is glad of an excuse for stopping, and which is not inconsistent with a reluctance to reach their destination; for they had before them the prospect of warm embraces, to be followed with an inevitable thrashing.
One only of the boys had nothing of this to fear. He was an orphan: a French boy, without father or mother, and perfectly content just then with his motherless condition; for nobody taking any interest in him, his back was safe from the dreaded blows. The two others were natives of Guernsey, and belonged to the parish of Torteval.
Having climbed the grassy hill, the three birds’-nesters reached the tableland on which was situate the haunted house.
They began by being in fear, which is the proper frame of mind of every passerby; and particularly of every child at that hour and in that place.
They had a strong desire to take to their heels as fast as possible, and a strong desire, also, to stay and look.
They did stop.
They looked towards the solitary building.
It was all dark and terrible.
It stood in the midst of the solitary plain—an obscure block, a hideous but symmetrical excrescence; a high square mass with right-angled corners, like an immense altar in the darkness.
The first thought of the boys was to run: the second was to draw nearer. They had never seen this house before. There is such a thing as a desire to be frightened arising from curiosity. They had a little French boy with them, which emboldened them to approach.
It is well known that the French have no fear.
Besides, it is reassuring to have company in danger; to be frightened in the company of two others is encouraging.
And then they were a sort of hunters accustomed to peril. They were children; they were used to search, to rummage, to spy out hidden things. They were in the habit of peeping into holes; why not into this hole? Hunting is exciting. Looking into birds’ nests perhaps gives an itch for looking a little into a nest of ghosts. A rummage in the dark regions. Why not?
From prey to prey, says the proverb, we come to the devil. After the birds, the demons. The boys were on the way to learn the secret of those terrors of which their parents had told them. To be on the track of hobgoblin tales—nothing could be more attractive. To have long stories to tell like the good housewives. The notion was tempting.
All this mixture of ideas, in their state of half-confusion, half-instinct, in the minds of the Guernsey birds’-nesters, finally screwed their courage to the point. They approached the house.
The little fellow who served them as a sort of moral support in the adventure was certainly worthy of their confidence. He was a bold boy—an apprentice to a ship-caulker; one of those children who have already become men. He slept on a little straw in a shed in the ship-caulker’s yard, getting his own living, having red hair, and a loud voice; climbing easily up walls and trees, not encumbered with prejudices in the matter of property in the apples within his reach; a lad who had worked in the repairing dock for vessels of war—a child of chance, a happy orphan, born in France, no one knew exactly where; ready to give a centime to a beggar; a mischievous fellow, but a good one at heart; one who had talked to Parisians. At this time he was earning a shilling a day by caulking the fishermen’s boats under repair at the Pêqueries. When he felt inclined he gave himself a holiday, and went birds’-nesting. Such was the little French boy.
The solitude of the place impressed them with a strange feeling of dread. They felt the threatening aspect of the silent house. It was wild and savage. The naked and deserted plateau terminated in a precipice at a short distance from its steep incline. The sea below
