SUPERSTITIONS AND HAUNTINGS 267 



trout would take. Now the drawing-room there 

 had a particularly cranky old door which would not 

 open easily but had to be shoved hard after you 

 turned the handle. We had three dogs with us, 

 and two of them were left to sleep on rugs on the 

 sofa. But by two o'clock they were always out 

 and upstairs. I could never get in or out of that 

 door without a shove or a kick ; we used to shut 

 the door carefully, yet someone let our dogs out. 

 Twice I heard a man's step in the passage and 

 thought someone was moving about, but next 

 morning they all said they had not stirred. Then 

 we went to dine with our landlord, in a most 

 exquisite old house full of treasures, with an old 

 spiral staircase twisting out of the hall. The 

 owners belong to one of the oldest families in 

 Ireland. 



Quite placidly they asked me if we had heard 

 their ghost. Our house was the dower house of 

 the family. 



We were then shown Sir Con's picture, a paint- 

 ing of an extraordinary handsome man with the 

 saddest eyes I have ever seen. He was killed in a 

 duel, and was supposed not to rest. 



That night both my dogs woke up to whine 

 and whimper and someone opened my door and 

 came in. 



What, I shall never be able to say for I told it 

 firmly that I did not mean to look as I was 

 far too frightened and I asked it to go away. 



