Free The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley Page A

protection through her from the things that menace the spirit should be safe—at least, that is, if they have faith.
    Any attempt to secure Divine protection which was made halfheartedly would obviously be futile; and I am by no means certain that I could bring myself to pronounce the Creed—or whateverit is that people do when they are confirmed—with genuine belief in what I was saying. One does not have to be educated at Weylands to have honest doubts about some bits of Christian dogma.
    In any case it is a waste of time for me even to think about the matter. If I sent for the local vicar, and asked him to prepare me for confirmation, Helmuth would immediately conclude that my mind had become unhinged; and giving him that impression is the one thing I mean to avoid at all costs.
    I don’t think I have mentioned that Helmuth was the German master at Weylands. He is not, of course, a German himself, but a Czech, and his full name is Doctor Helmuth Lisický.
    That brings us back to Weylands, and I must explain now how it was that Uncle Paul and Julia happened to be in the vicinity on the night that I was scared out of my wits.
    The school is situated in one of the most desolate parts of Cumberland. It is lovely country, but there isn’t an hotel, or even a comfortable inn, within twenty miles; and when the place first started that made it awkward for parents who wanted to come down in term time to see their young.
    In consequence, the school authorities built a sort of bungalow village at the southern end of the park. It consists of about a dozen comfortable cottages, having from four to six rooms apiece, and a Club-house with rooms at the back for visiting chauffeurs and a permanent staff. Parents can write to the bursar and book one of the cottages for a night or two if they wish, and meals are provided for them in the Club-house during their stay.
    Old boys were also accommodated there, as Weylands was very keen about keeping in touch with her ex-scholars, and some of them came down quite frequently. As a matter of fact the ramifications of Weylands resulted in a much closer community than is the case with most schools; perhaps because the new system of education practised there formed almost a cult.
    Pupils were never accepted after the age of ten, in case they had already formed old-fashioned prejudices to a degree that might make them a disruptive influence; and each one had to be personally recommended by parents who had had a child at the school themselves for at least a year. So it was rather like a club; and sometimes parents who knew one another used to arrangeto come down together and share one of the larger bungalows.
    Anyhow, Uncle Paul and Julia had arranged to come down for a couple of nights right at the beginning of the summer term, because I had not seen them for some months owing to their having been abroad; and I knew that they had been allotted one of the smaller bungalows, where they would be alone. Naturally I had been looking forward to seeing them, but they did not expect to arrive until just in time for dinner, so in the normal course of events I should not have done so till the following day.
    Actually it was not until I was just about to go to bed that I suddenly had the bright idea of paying them a surprise visit. It had been raining, but the rain had stopped, and it was a warm night with the moon showing now and then between scudding clouds, so the idea of a walk seemed rather pleasant. Still, the bungalows were right at the far end of the great park, over two miles away from the school, and I didn’t much relish the thought of the long tramp back after midnight, particularly as it might come on to rain again. The solution to that was easy: I could pop a pair of pyjamas and a toothbrush into my attaché-case, and after a lovely long chin-wag with my visitors, spend the rest of the night in the spare room of their bungalow.
    I didn’t hurry myself about setting out, as I thought that after