"
Within a fortnight it was decided in solemn conclave that master did;
and further, that the place was not what it had been; and moreover, that
in the future it was likely to be still less like what it had been.
There is a wonderful instinct in the lower classes, which enables them
to comprehend, without actual knowledge, when misfortune is coming upon
a house: and in this instance that instinct was not at fault.
Long before Mr. Craven had satisfied himself that his client's estate
was a very poor one, the River Hall servants, one after another, had
given notice to leave--indeed, to speak more accurately, they did not
give notice, for they left; and before they left they took care to
baptize the house with such an exceedingly bad name, that neither for
love nor money could Miss Blake get a fresh "help" to stay in it for
more than twenty-four hours.
First one housemaid was taken with "the shivers"; then the cook had "the
trembles"; then the coachman was prepared to take his solemn affidavit,
that, one night long after everyone in the house to his knowledge was in
bed, he "see from his room above the stables, a light a-shining on the
Thames, and the figures of one or more a passing and a repassing across
the blind." More than this, a new page-boy declared that, on a certain
evening, before he had been told there was anything strange about the
house, he heard the door of the passage leading from the library into
the side-road slam violently, and looking to see who had gone out by
that unused entrance, failed to perceive sign of man, woman, or child,
by the bright moonlight.
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