' In our morning senses our impressions were
much more vague than at midnight, and we betrayed some confusion;
but Griff and I had a strong instinct of sheltering Clarence, and we
stoutly declared the noises to be beyond the capacities of wind,
rats, or cats; that the light was visible and inexplicable; and that
though we had seen nothing else, we could not doubt that Clarence
did.
'Thought he did,' corrected my father.
'Without discussing the word,' said Griff, 'I mean that the effect
on his senses was the same as the actual sight. You could not look
at him without being certain.'
'Exactly so,' returned my mother. 'I wish Dr. Fellowes were near.'
Indeed nothing saved Clarence from being consigned to medical
treatment but the distance from Bath or Bristol, and the
contradictory advice that had been received from our county
neighbours as to our family doctor. However, she formed her theory
that his nervous imaginings--whether involuntary or acted, she hoped
the former, and wished she could be sure--had infected us; and, as
she was really uneasy about him, she would not let him sleep in the
mullion room, but having nowhere else to bestow him, she turned out
the man-servant and put him into the little room beyond mine, and
she also forbade any mention of the subject to him that day.
This was a sore prohibition to Emily, who had been discussing it
with the other ladies, and was in a mingled state of elation at the
romance, and terror at the supernatural, which found vent in excited
giggle, and moved Griff to cram her with raw-head and bloody-bone
horrors, conventional enough to be suspicious, and send her to me
tearfully to entreat to know the truth.
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