Moore worked without stopping until about eleven o'clock. Then he put some more wood on the
fire. He also made a pot of tea. He was enjoying himself very much. The fire was burning brightly. The
firelight danced on the old oak walls and threw strange shadows around the room. His tea tasted
excellent, and there was nobody to disturb him. Then for the first time he noticed how much noise the
rats were making.
`Were they making all this noise while I was studying?' he thought. `No, I don't think they were.
Perhaps they were afraid of me at first. Now they have become braver, and they are running about as
usual.'
How busy they were! And what a lot of noise they made! Up and down they rushed, behind the old
oak walls, over the ceiling and under the floor. Moore remembered Mrs Dempster's words: `You'll see
plenty of rats, but you won't see any ghosts.' `Well,' he said with a smile, `she was right about the rats,
anyway!'
Ghost Stories
3 8
He picked up the lamp and looked around the room. `How strange,' he said to himself. `Why
doesn't anybody want to live in this beautiful old house?' The oak walls were very beautiful. There were
some old pictures on the walls, but they were covered with dust and dirt and he could not see them
clearly. Here and there he saw small holes in the walls. From time to time the curious face of a rat stared
at him. Then with a scratch and a squeak, it was gone.
The thing that interested him most, however, was the rope of the great alarm bell on the roof. The
rope hung down in a corner of the room on the right−hand side of the fireplace. He found a huge,
high−backed oak chair and pulled it up beside the fire. There he sat and drank his last cup of tea. Then
he put more wood on the fire and sat down at the table again with his books. For a time the rats
disturbed him with their scratching and squeaking. But he got used to the noise, and soon he forgot
everything except his work.
Suddenly he looked up. Something had disturbed him, but he did not know what it was. He sat up
and listened. The room was silent. That was it! The noise of the rats had stopped. `That's what disturbed
me!' said Moore with a smile. He looked around the room − and saw an enormous rat. It was sitting on
the great high−backed chair by the fire, and it was staring at him with hate in its small red eyes. Moore
picked up a book and pretended to throw it. But the rat did not move. It showed its great white teeth
angrily, and its cruel eyes shone mercilessly in the lamplight.
`Why, you −' cried Moore. He picked up the poker from the fireplace and jumped up. Before he
could hit the rat, however, it jumped to the floor with a squeak. It ran up the rope of the alarm bell and
disappeared in the darkness. Strangely, the squeaks and scratches of the rats in the walls began again.
By this time Moore no longer felt like working. Outside the house the birds were singing: soon it
would be morning. He climbed into bed and immediately fell asleep.