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The pair re-entered their room and took hurried counsel together. They had distinctly seen the Captain turn the knob and pass into his bed-room, followed by the semblance of Nero. As they well knew, the door of that room was locked, and the key was at that moment in the pocket of Mrs. Summers’ dress. In sheer desperation they resolved at all hazards to unlock the door and enter the room. Mrs. Summers produced the key and handed it to her husband. She carried the candle and accompanied him to the stair-head. He turned the lock and pushed the door wide open before him, and both advanced into the room. It was empty, and the window was found firmly fastened on the inside, as it had been left weeks before.

They returned to their own bedroom, and agreed that any further stay in such a house of horrors was not to be thought of. Hastily arraying themselves in such clothing as came readily to hand, they passed down the stair-way, unbolted the front door, blew out the light, and made their way into the open air. Then they relocked the door from outside and left the place. Their intended destination was the house of Mrs. Summers’ sister, but they determined to go round by Mr. Washburn’s and tell him their story, as they knew he kept late hours and would most likely not have gone to bed.

Mr. Washburn, stolid man of law though he was, could not listen to such a narrative without perceptable signs of astonishment. After thinking over the matter a few moments, he requested his visitors to pass the night under his roof, and to keep their own counsel for the present about their strange experiences. As he well knew, if the singular story got wind there would be no possibility of finding another tenant for the vacant house. The young couple acceded to the first request, and promised compliance with the second. They were then shown to a spare room, and the marvels of that strange night were at an end.

Next morning at an early hour the lawyer and the ex-serving man proceeded to the Duchess street house. Everything was as it had been left the night before, and no clue could be found to the mysterious circumstances so solemnly attested to by Jim Summers and his spouse. The perfect sincerity of the couple could not be doubted, but Mr. Washburn was on the whole disposed to believe that they had in some way been imposed upon by designing persons who wished to frighten them off the premises, or that their imaginations had played them a scurvy trick. With a renewed caution as to silence he dismissed them, and they thenceforth took up their abode in the house of Mrs. Summers’ sister on Palace street.

Mr. and Mrs. Summers kept their mouths as close as, under the circumstances, could reasonably have been expected of them. But it was necessary to account in some way for their sudden desertion of the Duchess street house, and Mrs. Summers’ sister was of an inquisitive disposition. By degrees she succeeded in getting at most of the facts, but to do her justice she did not proclaim them from the housetops, and for some time the secret was pretty well kept. The story would probably not have become generally known at all, but for a succession of circumstances which took place when the haunted house had been vacant about two months.

An American immigrant named Horsfall arrived at York with a view of settling there and opening out a general store. He was a man of family and of course required a house to live in. It so happened that the store rented to him on King street had no house attached to it, and it was therefore necessary for him to look out for a suitable place elsewhere. Hearing that a house on Duchess street was to let, he called and went over the premises with Mr. Washburn, who naturally kept silent as to the supernatural appearances which had driven the Summerses from the door in the middle of the night. The inspection proved satisfactory, and Mr. Horsfall took the place for a year. His household consisted of his wife, two grown-up daughters, a son in his fifteenth year, and a black female servant. They came up from Utica in advance of Mr. Horsfall’s expectations, and before the house was ready for them, but matters were pushed forward with all possible speed, and on the evening of the second day after their arrival they took possession of the place. The furniture was thrown in higgledy-piggledy, and all attempts to put things to rights were postponed until the next day. The family walked over after tea from the inn at which they had been staying, resolving to rough it for a single night in their new home in preference to passing another night amid countless swarms of “the pestilence that walketh in darkness.” Two beds were hastily made up on the floor of the drawing-room, one for the occupation of Mr. and Mrs. Horsfall, and the other for the two young women. A third bed was hastily extemporized on the floor of the dining-room for the occupation of Master George Washington, and Dinah found repose on a lounge in the adjacent kitchen. The entire household went to bed sometime between ten and eleven o’clock, all pretty well tired, and prepared for a comfortable night’s rest. They had been in bed somewhat more than an hour when the whole family was aroused by the barking of a dog in the lower hall. This was, not unnaturally, regarded as strange, inasmuch as all the doors and windows had been carefully fastened by Mr. Horsfall before retiring, and there had certainly been no dog in the house then. The head of the family lost no time in lighting a candle and opening the door into the hall. At the same moment young G. W. opened the door on the opposite side. Yes, there, sure enough, was a large, black Newfoundland dog, seemingly very much at home, as though he belonged to the place. As the youth advanced towards him he retreated to the stairway, up which he passed at a great padding pace. How on earth had he gained an entrance? Well, at all events he must be got rid of; but he looked as if he would be an awkward customer to tackle at close quarters and Mr. Horsfall deemed it prudent to put on a part of his clothing before making any attempt to expel him. While he was dressing, the tread of the animal on the floor of the upper hall could be distinctly heard, and ever and anon he emitted a sort of low, barking sound, which was ominous of a disposition to resent any interference with him. By this time all the members of the household were astir and clustering about the lower hall. Mr. Horsfall, with a lighted candle in one hand and a stout cudgel in the other, passed up the stairs and looked along the passage. Why, what on earth had become of the dog! It was nowhere to be seen! Where could it have hidden itself? It was certainly too large an animal to have taken refuge in a rat-hole. Had it entered one of the rooms? Impossible, for they were all closed, though not locked. Mr. H. himself having unlocked them in the course of the afternoon, when some furniture had been taken into them. He, however, looked into each room in succession, only to find “darkness there and nothing more.” Then he concluded that the brute must have gone down stairs while he had been putting on his clothes in the room below. No, that could not be, for George Washington had never left the foot of the stairway from the moment the dog first passed up. Had it jumped through one of the windows? No, they were all fast and intact. Had it gone up the chimney of the front room? No; apart from the absurdity of the idea, the hole was not large enough to admit of a dog one-fifth its size. In vain the house was searched through and through. Not a sign of the huge disturber of the domestic peace was to be seen anywhere.