The Old Grey Dog - part 3
It was two days before I was able to return. As soon as I had arrived I took Mr. Marchmoor to one side to tell him of my adventure with the dog and of Lower Place Farm, and my suspicions as to the corporeal nature of the visiting beast. His face was painted with disbelief at my conclusion.
“Did you hear the dogs barking when you were here the first time?” He asked. I replied that I had. “And did you hear them again today, or on your previous visit?” I replied I had not. “There is a reason for such!” He exclaimed, then began to look for something with urgency. Not able to find it, he dashed off without a word. I assumed he would return so held my place. It was at that moment I spotted the dog’s appearance once more at the far end of the corridor in which I was standing. He came towards me several paces then turned to enter Mrs. Marshmoor’s private room, taking but a fraction to turn his head to look right at me before he went out of sight. I took a step forwards but Mr. Marshmoor darted from somewhere behind and blocked my path. In a state of excitement he was fumbling with a news paper, struggling to find a particular piece while discarded pages tumbled to the floor all about him.
He discovered it with a triumphant shout and thrust a page to my face. There in a small inset story was the headline: “Ealing dog breeder fire tragedy”. It told that on the Sunday after my initial visit - not three days previously - that the kennels of Lower Place Farm had inexplicably burned to the ground, taking their entire stock of breeding dogs, and several new litters, with it. The report went on to cite an investigation was in place to resolve the suspicion that a downturn in business had persuaded the farm’s owner, a Jeffrey Thomas, to ‘arrange’ a disaster for the purposes of an insurance claim. But one sentence stuck out above the others as it quoted the words of Mrs. Thomas, from her bed as a result of having been incapacitated in a fall a year previous. She said, “Perhaps the most distressing of all is the loss of my dearest Winston who has dedicated himself to my bedside throughout my illness. Who would have thought such friendship and compassion to be found in an Irish Wolfhound.“
Other accounts of ghostly dogs elsewhere…
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