The Best Ghost Stories
The Best Ghost Stories
The Best Ghost Stories
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc.
What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story?
Is it of the same nature as the fascination which we feel for the mystery of the
detective story?
Of the latter fascination, the late Paul Armstrong used to say that it was
because we are all as full of crime as Sing Sing—only we don't dare.
Thus, may I ask, are we not fascinated by the ghost story because, no matter
what may be the scientific or skeptical bent of our minds, in our inmost souls,
secretly perhaps, we are as full of superstition as an obeah man—only we don't
let it loose?
Who shall say that he is able to fling off lightly the inheritance of countless
ages of superstition? Is there not a streak of superstition in us all? We laugh at
the voodoo worshiper—then create our own hoodooes, our pet obsessions.
It has been said that man is incurably religious, that if all religions were
blotted out, man would create a new religion.
Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories of the
ages were blotted out, man would invent new ones.
For, do we not all stand in awe of that which we cannot explain, of that
which, if it be not in our own experience, is certainly recorded in the experience
of others, of that of which we know and can know nothing?
Skeptical though one may be of the occult, he must needs be interested in
things that others believe to be objective—that certainly are subjectively very
real to them.
The ghost story is not born of science, nor even of super-science, whatever
that may be. It is not of science at all. It is of another sphere, despite all that the
psychic researchers have tried to demonstrate.
There are in life two sorts of people who, for want of a better classification, I
may call the psychic and the non-psychic. If I ask the psychic to close his eyes
and I say to him, "Horse," he immediately visualizes a horse. The other, non-
psychic, does not. I rather incline to believe that it is the former class who see
ghosts, or rather some of them. The latter do not—though they share interest in
them.
The artists are of the visualizing class and, in our more modern times, it is the
psychic who think in motion pictures, or at least in a succession of still pictures.
However we explain the ghostly and supernatural, whether we give it
objective or merely subjective reality, neither explanation prevents the non-
psychic from being intensely interested in the visions of the psychic.
Thus I am convinced that if we were all quite honest with ourselves, whether
we believe in or do not believe in ghosts, at least we are all deeply interested in
them. There is in this interest something that makes all the world akin.
Who does not feel a suppressed start at the creaking of furniture in the dark of
night? Who has not felt a shiver of goose flesh, controlled only by an effort of
will? Who, in the dark, has not had the feeling of some thing behind him—and,
in spite of his conscious reasoning, turned to look?
If there be any who has not, it may be that to him ghost stories have no
fascination. Let him at least, however, be honest.
To every human being mystery appeals, be it that of the crime cases on which
a large part of yellow journalism is founded, or be it in the cases of Dupin, of Le
Coq, of Sherlock Holmes, of Arsene Lupin, of Craig Kennedy, or a host of
others of our fiction mystery characters. The appeal is in the mystery.
The detective's case is solved at the end, however. But even at the end of a
ghost story, the underlying mystery remains. In the ghost story, we have the very
quintessence of mystery.
Authors, publishers, editors, dramatists, writers of motion pictures tell us that
never before has there been such an intense and wide interest in mystery stories
as there is to-day. That in itself explains the interest in the super-mystery story of
the ghost and ghostly doings.
Another element of mystery lies in such stories. Deeper and further back, is
the supreme mystery of life—after death—what?
"Impossible," scorns the non-psychic as he listens to some ghost story.
To which, doggedly replies the mind of the opposite type, "Not so. I believe
because it is impossible."
The uncanny, the unhealthy—as in the master of such writing, Poe—
fascinates. Whether we will or no, the imp of the perverse lures us on.
That is why we read with enthralled interest these excursions into the eerie
unknown, perhaps reading on till the mystic hour of midnight increases the
creepy pleasure.
One might write a volume of analysis and appreciation of this aptly balanced
anthology of ghost stories assembled here after years of reading and study by
Mr. J.L. French.
Foremost among the impressions that a casual reader will derive is the
interesting fact, just as in detective mystery stories, so in ghost stories, styles
change. Each age, each period has the ghost story peculiar to itself. To-day, there
is a new style of ghost story gradually evolving.
Once stories were of fairies, fays, trolls, the "little people," of poltergiest and
loup garou. Through various ages we have progressed to the ghost story of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until to-day, in the twentieth, we are seeing a
modern style, which the new science is modifying materially.
High among the stories in this volume, one must recognize the masterful art
of Algernon Blackwood's "The Woman's Ghost Story."
"I was interested in psychic things," says the woman as she starts to tell her
story simply, with a sweep toward the climax that has the ring of the truth of
fiction. Here perhaps we have the modern style of ghost story at its best.
Times change as well as styles. "The Man Who Went Too Far" is of intense
interest as an attempt to bring into our own times an interpretation of the
symbolism underlying Greek mythology, applied to England of some years ago.
To see Pan meant death. Hence in this story there is a philosophy of Pan-
theism—no "me," no "you," no "it." It is a mystical story, with a storm scene in
which is painted a picture that reminds one strongly of "The Fall of the House of
Ushur,"—with the frankly added words, "On him were marks of hoofs of a
monstrous goat that had leaped on him,"—uncompromising mysticism.
Happy is the Kipling selection, "The Phantom 'Rickshaw," if only for that
obiter dictum of ghost-presence as Kipling explains about the rift in the brain:
"—and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death!"
Then there are the racial styles in ghost stories. The volume takes us from the
"Banshees and Other Death Warnings" of Ireland to a strange example of Jewish
mysticism in "The Silent Woman." Mr. French has been very wide in his choice,
giving us these as well as many examples from the literature of England and
France. Finally, he has compiled from the newspapers, as typically American,
many ghost stories of New York and other parts of the country.
Strange that one should find humor in a subject so weird. Yet we find it. Take,
for instance, De Foe's old narrative, "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal." It is a hoax,
nothing more. Of our own times is Ellis Parker Butler's "Dey Ain't No Ghosts,"
showing an example of the modern Negro's racial heritage.
In our literature and on the stage, the very idea of a Darky and a graveyard is
mirth-provoking. Mr. Butler extracts some pithy philosophy from his Darky boy:
"I ain't skeered ob ghosts whut am, c'ase dey ain't no ghosts, but I jes' feel kinder
oneasy 'bout de ghosts whut ain't!"
Humor is succeeded by pathos. In "The Interval" we find a sympathetic twist
to the ghost story—an actual desire to meet the dead.
It is not, however, to be compared for interest to the story of sheer terror, as in
Bulwer-Lytton's "The Haunted and the Haunters," with the flight of the servant
in terror, the cowering of the dog against the wall, the death of the dog, its neck
actually broken by the terror, and all that go to make an experience in a haunted
house what it should be.
Thus, at last, we come to two of the stories that attempt to give a scientific
explanation, another phase of the modern style of ghost story.
One of these, perhaps hardly modern as far as mere years are concerned, is
this same story of Bulwer, "The Haunted and the Haunters." Besides being a
rattling good old-fashioned tale of horror, it attempts a new-fashioned scientific
explanation. It is enough to read and re-read it.
It is, however, the lamented Ambrose Bierce who has gone furthest in the
science and the philosophy of the matter, and in a very short story, too,
splendidly titled "The Damned Thing."
"Incredible!" exclaims the coroner at the inquest.
"That is nothing to you, sir," replies the newspaper man who
relates the experience, and in these words expresses the true feeling
about ghostly fiction, "that is nothing to you, if I also swear that it is
true!"
But furthest of all in his scientific explanation—not scientifically explaining
away, but in explaining the way—goes Bierce as he outlines a theory. From the
diary of the murdered man he picks out the following which we may treasure as
a gem:
"I am not mad. There are colors that we cannot see. And—God
help me!—the Damned Thing is of such a color!"
This fascination of the ghost story—have I made it clear?
As I write, nearing midnight, the bookcase behind me cracks. I start and turn.
Nothing. There is a creak of a board in the hallway.
I know it is the cool night wind—the uneven contraction of materials
expanded in the heat of the day.
Yet—do I go into the darkness outside otherwise than alert?
It is this evolution of our sense of ghost terror—ages of it—that fascinates us.
Can we, with a few generations of modernism behind us, throw it off with all
our science? And, if we did, should we not then succeed only in abolishing the
old-fashioned ghost story and creating a new, scientific ghost story?
Scientific? Yes. But more,—something that has existed since the beginnings
of intelligence in the human race.
Perhaps, you critic, you say that the true ghost story originated in the age of
shadowy candle light and pine knot with their grotesqueries on the walls and in
the unpenetrated darkness, that the electric bulb and the radiator have dispelled
that very thing on which, for ages, the ghost story has been built.
What? No ghost stories? Would you take away our supernatural fiction by
your paltry scientific explanation?
Still will we gather about the story teller—then lie awake o' nights, seeing
mocking figures, arms akimbo, defying all your science to crush the ghost story.
BEST GHOST STORIES
THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL
BY DANIEL DE FOE
THE PREFACE
This relation is matter of fact, and attended with such circumstances, as may
induce any reasonable man to believe it. It was sent by a gentleman, a justice of
peace, at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very intelligent person, to his friend in
London, as it is here worded; which discourse is attested by a very sober and
understanding gentlewoman, a kinswoman of the said gentleman's, who lives in
Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs.
Bargrave lives; who believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as
not to be put upon by any fallacy; and who positively assured him that the whole
matter, as it is related and laid down, is really true; and what she herself had in
the same words, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she
knows, had no reason to invent and publish such a story, or any design to forge
and tell a lie, being a woman of much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a
course, as it were, of piety. The use which we ought to make of it, is to consider,
that there is a life to come after this, and a just God, who will retribute to every
one according to the deeds done in the body; and therefore to reflect upon our
past course of life we have led in the world; that our time is short and uncertain;
and that if we would escape the punishment of the ungodly, and receive the
reward of the righteous, which is the laying hold of eternal life, we ought, for the
time to come, to return to God by a speedy repentance, ceasing to do evil, and
learning to do well: to seek after God early, if happily He may be found of us,
and lead such lives for the future, as may be well pleasing in His sight.
TO THE READER
The origin of the foregoing curious story seems to have been as follows:—
An adventurous bookseller had ventured to print a considerable edition of a
work by the Reverend Charles Drelincourt, minister of the Calvinist church in
Paris, and translated by M. D'Assigny, under the title of "The Christian's Defense
against the Fear of Death, with several directions how to prepare ourselves to die
well." But however certain the prospect of death, it is not so agreeable
(unfortunately) as to invite the eager contemplation of the public; and
Drelincourt's book, being neglected, lay a dead stock on the hands of the
publisher. In this emergency, he applied to De Foe to assist him (by dint of such
means as were then, as well as now, pretty well understood in the literary world)
in rescuing the unfortunate book from the literary death to which general neglect
seemed about to consign it.
De Foe's genius and audacity devised a plan which, for assurance and
ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the Critic: for who but himself
would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to bear witness in
favor of a halting body of divinity? There is a matter-of-fact, business-like style
in the whole account of the transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-
possession. The narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a Justice of Peace at
Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the discourse is
attested by a very sober gentlewoman, who lives in Canterbury, within a few
doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave lives." The Justice believes his
kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy—
and the kinswoman positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is
related and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as may
be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent
or publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of so
much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety."
Skepticism itself could not resist this triple court of evidence so artfully
combined, the Justice attesting for the discerning spirit of the sober and
understanding gentlewoman his kinswoman, and his kinswoman becoming bail
for the veracity of Mrs. Bargrave. And here, gentle reader, admire the simplicity
of those days. Had Mrs. Veal's visit to her friend happened in our time, the
conductors of the daily press would have given the word, and seven gentlemen
unto the said press belonging, would, with an obedient start, have made off for
Kingston, for Canterbury, for Dover,—for Kamchatka if necessary,—to pose the
Justice, cross-examine Mrs. Bargrave, confront the sober and understanding
kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up from her grave, rather than not get to the
bottom of the story. But in our time we doubt and scrutinize; our ancestors
wondered and believed.
Before the story is commenced, the understanding gentlewoman (not the
Justice of Peace), who is the reporter, takes some pains to repel the objections
made against the story by some of the friends of Mrs. Veal's brother, who
consider the marvel as an aspersion on their family, and do what they can to
laugh it out of countenance. Indeed, it is allowed, with admirable impartiality,
that Mr. Veal is too much of a gentleman to suppose Mrs. Bargrave invented the
story—scandal itself could scarce have supposed that—although one notorious
liar, who is chastised towards the conclusion of the story, ventures to throw out
such an insinuation. No reasonable or respectable person, however, could be
found to countenance the suspicion, and Mr. Veal himself opined that Mrs.
Bargrave had been driven crazy by a cruel husband, and dreamed the whole
story of the apparition. Now all this is sufficiently artful. To have vouched the
fact as universally known, and believed by every one, nem. con., would not have
been half so satisfactory to a skeptic as to allow fairly that the narrative had been
impugned, and hint at the character of one of those skeptics, and the motives of
another, as sufficient to account for their want of belief. Now to the fact itself.
Mrs. Bargrave and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, and had protested
their attachment should last as long as they lived; but when Mrs. Veal's brother
obtained an office in the customs at Dover, some cessation of their intimacy
ensued, "though without any positive quarrel." Mrs. Bargrave had removed to
Canterbury, and was residing in a house of her own, when she was suddenly
interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Veal, as she was sitting in deep contemplation of
certain distresses of her own. The visitor was in a riding-habit, and announced
herself as prepared for a distant journey (which seems to intimate that spirits
have a considerable distance to go before they arrive at their appointed station,
and that the females at least put on a habit for the occasion). The spirit, for such
was the seeming Mrs. Veal, continued to waive the ceremony of salutation, both
in going and coming, which will remind the reader of a ghostly lover's reply to
his mistress in the fine old Scottish ballad:—
They then began to talk in the homely style of middle-aged ladies, and Mrs.
Veal proses concerning the conversations they had formerly held, and the books
they had read together. Her very recent experience probably led Mrs. Veal to talk
of death, and the books written on the subject, and she pronounced ex cathedrá,
as a dead person was best entitled to do, that "Drelincourt's book on Death was
the best book on the subject ever written." She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, two
Dutch books which had been translated, and several others; but Drelincourt, she
said, had the clearest notions of death and the future state of any who had
handled that subject. She then asked for the work [we marvel the edition and
impress had not been mentioned] and lectured on it with great eloquence and
affection. Dr. Kenrick's Ascetick was also mentioned with approbation by this
critical specter [the Doctor's work was no doubt a tenant of the shelf in some
favorite publisher's shop]; and Mr. Norris's Poem on Friendship, a work, which I
doubt, though honored with a ghost's approbation, we may now seek for as
vainly as Correlli tormented his memory to recover the sonata which the devil
played to him in a dream. Presently after, from former habits we may suppose,
the guest desires a cup of tea; but, bethinking herself of her new character,
escapes from her own proposal by recollecting that Mr. Bargrave was in the
habit of breaking his wife's china. It would have been indeed strangely out of
character if the spirit had lunched, or breakfasted upon tea and toast. Such a
consummation would have sounded as ridiculous as if the statue of the
commander in Don Juan had not only accepted of the invitation of the libertine
to supper, but had also committed a beefsteak to his flinty jaws and stomach of
adamant. A little more conversation ensued of a less serious nature, and tending
to show that even the passage from life to death leaves the female anxiety about
person and dress somewhat alive. The ghost asked Mrs. Bargrave whether she
did not think her very much altered, and Mrs. Bargrave of course complimented
her on her good looks. Mrs. Bargrave also admired the gown which Mrs. Veal
wore, and as a mark of her perfectly restored confidence, the spirit led her into
the important secret, that it was a scoured silk, and lately made up. She informed
her also of another secret, namely, that one Mr. Breton had allowed her ten
pounds a year; and, lastly, she requested that Mrs. Bargrave would write to her
brother, and tell him how to distribute her mourning rings, and mentioned there
was a purse of gold in her cabinet. She expressed some wish to see Mrs.
Bargrave's daughter; but when that good lady went to the next door to seek her,
she found on her return the guest leaving the house. She had got without the
door, in the street, in the face of the beast market, on a Saturday, which is market
day, and stood ready to part. She said she must be going, as she had to call upon
her cousin Watson (this appears to be a gratis dictum on the part of the ghost)
and, maintaining the character of mortality to the last, she quietly turned the
corner, and walked out of sight.
Then came the news of Mrs. Veal's having died the day before at noon. Says
Mrs. Bargrave, "I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours." And
in comes Captain Watson, and says Mrs. Veal was certainly dead. And then
come all the pieces of evidence, and especially the striped silk gown. Then Mrs.
Watson cried out, "You have seen her indeed, for none knew but Mrs. Veal and I
that that gown was scoured"; and she cried that the gown was described exactly,
for, said she, "I helped her to make it up." And next we have the silly attempts
made to discredit the history. Even Mr. Veal, her brother, was obliged to allow
that the gold was found, but with a difference, and pretended it was not found in
a cabinet, but elsewhere; and, in short, we have all the gossip of says I, and
thinks I, and says she, and thinks she, which disputed matters usually excite in a
country town.
When we have thus turned the tale, the seam without, it may be thought too
ridiculous to have attracted notice. But whoever will read it as told by De Foe
himself, will agree that, could the thing have happened in reality, so it would
have been told. The sobering the whole supernatural visit into the language of
the middle or low life, gives it an air of probability even in its absurdity. The
ghost of an exciseman's housekeeper, and a seamstress, were not to converse like
Brutus with his Evil Genius. And the circumstances of scoured silks, broken tea-
china, and such like, while they are the natural topics of such persons'
conversation, would, one might have thought, be the last which an inventor
would have introduced into a pretended narrative betwixt the dead and living. In
short, the whole is so distinctly circumstantial, that, were it not for the
impossibility, or extreme improbability at least, of such an occurrence, the
evidence could not but support the story.
The effect was most wonderful. Drelincourt upon Death, attested by one who
could speak from experience, took an unequaled run. The copies had hung on the
bookseller's hands as heavy as a pile of lead bullets. They now traversed the
town in every direction, like the same balls discharged from a field-piece. In
short, the object of Mrs. Veal's apparition was perfectly attained.—[See The
Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., vol. iv. p. 305, ed. 1827.]
CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK
BY MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES
I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun's view of the events I
have narrated. He quoted to me once a test from Ecclesiasticus: "Some spirits
there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on sore strokes." On
another occasion he said: "Isaiah was a very sensible man; doesn't he say
something about night monsters living in the ruins of Babylon? These things are
rather beyond us at present."
Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with it. We
had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic's tomb. It is a great
marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large wig and soutane, and an
elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw Dennistoun talking for some time
with the Vicar of St. Bertrand's, and as we drove away he said to me: "I hope it
isn't wrong: you know I am a Presbyterian—but I—I believe there will be
'saying of Mass and singing of dirges' for Alberic de Mauléon's rest." Then he
added, with a touch of the Northern British in his tone, "I had no notion they
came so dear."
BY EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The uproarious merriment of a wedding-feast burst forth into the night from a
brilliantly lighted house in the "gasse" (narrow street). It was one of those nights
touched with the warmth of spring, but dark and full of soft mist. Most fitting it
was for a celebration of the union of two yearning hearts to share the same lot, a
lot that may possibly dawn in sunny brightness, but also become clouded and
sullen—for a long, long time! But how merry and joyous they were over there,
those people of the happy olden times! They, like us, had their troubles and
trials, and when misfortune visited them it came not to them with soft cushions
and tender pressures of the hand. Rough and hard, with clinched fist, it laid hold
upon them. But when they gave vent to their happy feelings and sought to enjoy
themselves, they were like swimmers in cooling waters. They struck out into the
stream with freshness and courage, suffered themselves to be borne along by the
current whithersoever it took its course. This was the cause of such a jubilee,
such a thoughtlessly noisy outburst of all kinds of soul-possessing gayety from
this house of nuptials.
"And if I had known," the bride's father, the rich Ruben Klattaner, had just
said, "that it would take the last gulden in my pocket, then out it would have
come."
In fact, it did appear as if the last groschen had really taken flight, and was
fluttering about in the form of platters heaped up with geese and pastry-tarts.
Since two o'clock—that is, since the marriage ceremony had been performed out
in the open street—until nearly midnight, the wedding-feast had been
progressing, and even yet the sarvers, or waiters, were hurrying from room to
room. It was as if a twofold blessing had descended upon all this abundance of
food and drink, for, in the first place, they did not seem to diminish; secondly,
they ever found a new place for disposal. To be sure, this appetite was sharpened
by the presence of a little dwarf-like, unimportant-looking man. He was
esteemed, however, none the less highly by every one. They had specially
written to engage the celebrated "Leb Narr," of Prague. And when was ever a
mood so out of sorts, a heart so imbittered as not to thaw out and laugh if Leb
Narr played one of his pranks. Ah, thou art now dead, good fool! Thy lips, once
always ready with a witty reply, are closed. Thy mouth, then never still, now
speaks no more! But when the hearty peals of laughter once rang forth at thy
command, intercessors, as it were, in thy behalf before the very throne of God,
thou hadst nothing to fear. And the joy of that "other" world was thine, that joy
that has ever belonged to the most pious of country rabbis!
In the mean time the young people had assembled in one of the rooms to
dance. It was strange how the sound of violins and trumpets accorded with the
drolleries of the wit from Prague. In one part the outbursts of merriment were so
boisterous that the very candles on the little table seemed to flicker with terror;
in another an ordinary conversation was in progress, which now and then only
ran over into a loud tittering, when some old lady slipped into the circle and tried
her skill at a redowa, then altogether unknown to the young people. In the very
midst of the tangle of dancers was to be seen the bride in a heavy silk wedding-
gown. The point of her golden hood hung far down over her face. She danced
continuously. She danced with every one that asked her. Had one, however,
observed the actions of the young woman, they would certainly have seemed to
him hurried, agitated, almost wild. She looked no one in the eye, not even her
own bridegroom. He stood for the most part in the door-way, and evidently took
more pleasure in the witticisms of the fool than in the dance or the lady dancers.
But who ever thought for a moment why the young woman's hand burned, why
her breath was so hot when one came near to her lips? Who should have noticed
so strange a thing? A low whispering already passed through the company, a
stealthy smile stole across many a lip. A bevy of ladies was seen to enter the
room suddenly. The music dashed off into one of its loudest pieces, and, as if by
enchantment, the newly made bride disappeared behind the ladies. The
bridegroom, with his stupid, smiling mien, was still left standing on the
threshold. But it was not long before he too vanished. One could hardly say how
it happened. But people understand such skillful movements by experience, and
will continue to understand them as long as there are brides and grooms in the
world.
This disappearance of the chief personages, little as it seemed to be noticed,
gave, however, the signal for general leave-taking. The dancing became drowsy;
it stopped all at once, as if by appointment. That noisy confusion now began
which always attends so merry a wedding-party. Half-drunken voices could be
heard still intermingled with a last, hearty laugh over a joke of the fool from
Prague echoing across the table. Here and there some one, not quite sure of his
balance, was fumbling for the arm of his chair or the edge of the table. This
resulted in his overturning a dish that had been forgotten, or in spilling a beer-
glass. While this, in turn, set up a new hubbub, some one else, in his eagerness to
betake himself from the scene, fell flat into the very débris. But all this tumult
was really hushed the moment they all pressed to the door, for at that very instant
shrieks, cries of pain, were heard issuing from the entrance below. In an instant
the entire outpouring crowd with all possible force pushed back into the room,
but it was a long time before the stream was pressed back again. Meanwhile,
painful cries were again heard from below, so painful, indeed, that they restored
even the most drunken to a state of consciousness.
"By the living God!" they cried to each other, "what is the matter down there?
Is the house on fire?"
"She is gone! she is gone!" shrieked a woman's voice from the entry below.
"Who? who?" groaned the wedding-guests, seized, as it were, with an icy
horror.
"Gone! gone!" cried the woman from the entry, and hurrying up the stairs
came Selde Klattaner, the mother of the bride, pale as death, her eyes dilated
with most awful fright, convulsively grasping a candle in her hand. "For God's
sake, what has happened?" was heard on every side of her.
The sight of so many people about her, and the confusion of voices, seemed
to release the poor woman from a kind of stupor. She glanced shyly about her
then, as if overcome with a sense of shame stronger than her terror, andsaid, in a
suppressed tone:
"Nothing, nothing, good people. In God's name, I ask, what was there to
happen?"
Dissimulation, however, was too evident to suffice to deceive them.
"Why, then, did you shriek so, Selde," called out one of the guests to her, "if
nothing happened?"
"Yes, she has gone," Selde now moaned in heart-rending tones, "and she has
certainly done herself some harm!"
The cause of this strange scene was now first discovered. The bride has
disappeared from the wedding-feast. Soon after that she had vanished in such a
mysterious way, the bridegroom went below to the dimly-lighted room to find
her, but in vain. At first thought this seemed to him to be a sort of bashful jest;
but not finding her here, a mysterious foreboding seized him. He called to the
mother of the bride:
"Woe to me! This woman has gone!"
Presently this party, that had so admirably controlled itself, was again thrown
into commotion. "There was nothing to do," was said on all sides, "but to
ransack every nook and corner. Remarkable instances of such disappearances of
brides had been known. Evil spirits were wont to lurk about such nights and to
inflict mankind with all sorts of sorceries." Strange as this explanation may
seem, there were many who believed it at this very moment, and, most of all,
Selde Klattaner herself. But it was only for a moment, for she at once exclaimed:
"No, no, my good people, she is gone; I know she is gone!"
Now for the first time many of them, especially the mothers, felt particularly
uneasy, and anxiously called their daughters to them. Only a few showed
courage, and urged that they must search and search, even if they had to turn
aside the river Iser a hundred times. They urgently pressed on, called for torches
and lanterns, and started forth. The cowardly ran after them up and down the
stairs. Before any one perceived it the room was entirely forsaken.
Ruben Klattaner stood in the hall entry below, and let the people hurry past
him without exchanging a word with any. Bitter disappointment and fear had
almost crazed him. One of the last to stay in the room above with Selde was,
strange to say, Leb Narr, of Prague. After all had departed, he approached the
miserable mother, and, in a tone least becoming his general manner, inquired:
"Tell me, now, Mrs. Selde, did she not wish to have 'him'?"
"Whom? whom?" cried Selde, with renewed alarm, when she found herself
alone with the fool.
"I mean," said Leb, in a most sympathetic manner, approaching still nearer to
Selde, "that maybe you had to make your daughter marry him."
"Make? And have we, then, made her?" moaned Selde, staring at the fool
with a look of uncertainty.
"Then nobody needs to search for her," replied the fool, with a sympathetic
laugh, at the same time retreating. "It's better to leave her where she is."
Without saying thanks or good-night, he was gone.
Meanwhile the cause of all this disturbance had arrived at the end of her
flight.
Close by the synagogue was situated the house of the rabbi. It was built in an
angle of a very narrow street, set in a framework of tall shade-trees. Even by
daylight it was dismal enough. At night it was almost impossible for a timid
person to approach it, for people declared that the low supplications of the dead
could be heard in the dingy house of God when at night they took the rolls of the
law from the ark to summon their members by name.
Through this retired street passed, or rather ran, at this hour a shy form.
Arriving at the dwelling of the rabbi, she glanced backward to see whether any
one was following her. But all was silent and gloomy enough about her. A pale
light issued from one of the windows of the synagogue; it came from the "eternal
lamp" hanging in front of the ark of the covenant. But at this moment it seemed
to her as if a supernatural eye was gazing upon her. Thoroughly affrighted, she
seized the little iron knocker of the door and struck it gently. But the throb of her
beating heart was even louder, more violent, than this blow. After a pause,
footsteps were heard passing slowly along the hallway.
The rabbi had not occupied this lonely house a long time. His predecessor,
almost a centenarian in years, had been laid to rest a few months before. The
new rabbi had been called, from a distant part of the country. He was unmarried,
and in the prime of life. No one had known him before his coming. But his
personal nobility and the profundity of his scholarship made up for his
deficiency in years. An aged mother had accompanied him from their distant
home, and she took the place of wife and child.
"Who is there?" asked the rabbi, who had been busy at his desk even at this
late hour and thus had not missed hearing the knocker.
"It is I," the figure without responded, almost inaudibly.
"Speak louder, if you wish me to hear you," replied the rabbi.
"It is I, Ruben Klattaner's daughter," she repeated.
The name seemed to sound strange to the rabbi. He as yet knew too few of his
congregation to understand that this very day he performed the marriage
ceremony of the person who had just repeated her name. Therefore he called out,
after a moment's pause, "What do you wish so late at night?"
"Open the door, rabbi," she answered, pleadingly, "or I shall die at once!"
The bolt was pushed back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past the
rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand was not sufficient to
allow him to descry it. Before he had time to address her, she had vanished past
him and had disappeared through the open door into the room. Shaking his head,
the rabbi again bolted the door.
On reëntering the room he saw a woman's form sitting in the chair which he
usually occupied. She had her back turned to him. Her head was bent low over
her breast. Her golden wedding-hood, with its shading lace, was pulled down
over her forehead. Courageous and pious as the rabbi was, he could not rid
himself of a feeling of terror.
"Who are you?" he demanded, in a loud tone, as if its sound alone would
banish the presence of this being that seemed to him at this moment to be the
production of all the enchantments of evil spirits.
She raised herself, and cried in a voice that seemed to come from the agony
of a human being:
"Do you not know me—me, whom you married a few hours since under the
chuppe (marriage-canopy) to a husband?"
On hearing this familiar voice the rabbi stood speechless. He gazed at the
young woman. Now, indeed, he must regard her as one bereft of reason, rather
than as a specter.
"Well, if you are she," he stammered out, after a pause, for it was with
difficulty that he found words to answer, "why are you here and not in the place
where you belong?"
"I know no other place to which I belong more than here where I now am!"
she answered, severely.
These words puzzled the rabbi still more. Is it really an insane woman before
him? He must have thought so, for he now addressed her in a gentle tone of
voice, as we do those suffering from this kind of sickness, in order not to excite
her, and said:
"The place where you belong, my daughter, is in the house of your parents,
and, since you have to-day been made a wife, your place is in your husband's
house."
The young woman muttered something which failed to reach the rabbi's ear.
Yet he only continued to think that he saw before him some poor unfortunate
whose mind was deranged. After a pause, he added, in a still gentler tone: "What
is your name, then, my child?"
"God, god," she moaned, in the greatest anguish, "he does not even yet know
my name!"
"How should I know you," he continued, apologetically, "for I am a stranger
in this place?"
This tender remark seemed to have produced the desired effect upon her
excited mind.
"My name is Veile," she said, quietly, after a pause.
The rabbi quickly perceived that he had adopted the right tone towards his
mysterious guest.
"Veile," he said, approaching nearer her, "what do you wish of me?"
"Rabbi, I have a great sin resting heavily upon my heart," she replied
despondently. "I do not know what to do."
"What can you have done," inquired the rabbi, with a tender look, "that
cannot be discussed at any other time than just now? Will you let me advise you,
Veile?"
"No, no," she cried again, violently, "I will not be advised. I see, I know what
oppresses me. Yes, I can grasp it by the hand, it lies so near before me. Is that
what you call to be advised?"
"Very well," returned the rabbi, seeing that this was the very way to get the
young woman to talk—"very well, I say, you are not imagining anything. I
believe that you have greatly sinned. Have you come here then to confess this
sin? Do your parents or your husband know anything about it?"
"Who is my husband?" she interrupted him, impetuously.
Thoughts welled up in the rabbi's heart like a tumultuous sea in which
opposing conjectures cross and recross each other's course. Should he speak with
her as with an ordinary sinner?
"Were you, perhaps, forced to be married?" he inquired, as quietly as
possible, after a pause.
A suppressed sob, a strong inward struggle, manifesting itself in the whole
trembling body, was the only answer to this question.
"Tell me, my child," said the rabbi, encouragingly.
In such tones as the rabbi had never before heard, so strange, so surpassing
any human sounds, the young woman began:
"Yes, rabbi, I will speak, even though I know that I shall never go from this
place alive, which would be the very best thing for me! No, rabbi, I was not
forced to be married. My parents have never once said to me 'you must,' but my
own will, my own desire, rather, has always been supreme. My husband is the
son of a rich man in the community. To enter his family was to be made the first
lady in the gasse, to sit buried in gold and silver. And that very thing, nothing
else, was what infatuated me with him. It was for that that I forced myself, my
heart and will, to be married to him, hard as it was for me. But in my innermost
heart I detested him. The more he loved me, the more I hated him. But the gold
and silver had an influence over me. More and more they cried to me, 'You will
be the first lady in the gasse!'"
"Continue," said the rabbi, when she ceased, almost exhausted by these
words.
"What more shall I tell you, rabbi?" she began again. "I was never a liar,
when a child, or older, and yet during my whole engagement it has seemed to me
as if a big, gigantic lie had followed me step by step. I have seen it on every side
of me. But to-day, when I stood under the chuppe, rabbi, and he took the ring
from his finger and put it on mine, and when I had to dance at my own wedding
with him, whom I now recognized, now for the first time, as the lie, and—when
they led me away——"
This sincere confession escaping from the lips of the young woman, she
sobbed aloud and bowed her head still deeper over her breast. The rabbi gazed
upon her in silence. No insane woman ever spoke like that! Only a soul
conscious of its own sin, but captivated by a mysterious power, could suffer like
this!
It was not sympathy which he felt with her; it was much more a living over
the sufferings of the woman. In spite of the confused story, it was all clear to the
rabbi. The cause of the flight from the father's house at this hour also required no
explanation. "I know what you mean," he longed to say, but he could only find
words to say: "Speak further, Veile!"
The young woman turned towards him. He had not yet seen her face. The
golden hood with the shading lace hung deeply over it.
"Have I not told you everything?" she said, with a flush of scorn.
"Everything?" repeated the rabbi, inquiringly. He only said this, moreover,
through embarrassment.
"Do you tell me now," she cried, at once passionately and mildly, "what am I
to do?"
"Veile!" exclaimed the rabbi, entertaining now, for the first time, a feeling of
repugnance for this confidential interview.
"Tell me now!" she pleaded; and before the rabbi could prevent it the young
woman threw herself down at his feet and clasped his knees in her arms. This
hasty act had loosened the golden wedding-hood from her head, and thus
exposed her face to view, a face of remarkable beauty.
So overcome was the young rabbi by the sight of it that he had to shade his
eyes with his hands, as if before a sudden flash of lightning.
"Tell me now, what shall I do?" she cried again. "Do you think that I have
come from my parents' home merely to return again without help? You alone in
the world must tell me. Look at me! I have kept all my hair just as God gave it
me. It has never been touched by the shears. Should I, then, do anything to
please my husband? I am no wife. I will not be a wife! Tell me, tell me, what am
I to do?"
"Arise, arise," bade the rabbi; but his voice quivered, sounded almost painful.
"Tell me first," she gasped; "I will not rise till then!"
"How can I tell you?" he moaned, almost inaudibly.
"Naphtali!" shrieked the kneeling woman.
But the rabbi staggered backward. The room seemed ablaze before him, like a
bright fire. A sharp cry rang from his breast, as if one suffering from some
painful wound had been seized by a rough hand. In his hurried attempt to free
himself from the embrace of the young woman, who still clung to his knees, it
chanced that her head struck heavily against the floor.
"Naphtali!" she cried once again.
"Silence, silence," groaned the rabbi, pressing both hands against his head.
And still again she called out this name, but not with that agonizing cry. It
sounded rather like a commingling of exultation and lamentation.
And again he demanded, "Silence! silence!" but this time so imperiously, so
forcibly, that the young woman lay on the floor as if conjured, not daring to utter
a single word.
The rabbi paced almost wildly up and down the room. There must have been
a hard, terrible struggle in his breast. It seemed to the one lying on the floor that
she heard him sigh from the depths of his soul. Then his pacing became calmer;
but it did not last long. The fierce conflict again assailed him. His step grew
hurried; it echoed loudly through the awful stillness of the room. Suddenly he
neared the young woman, who seemed to lie there scarcely breathing. He
stopped in front of her. Had any one seen the face of the rabbi at this moment the
expression on it would have filled him with terror. There was a marvelous
tranquillity overlying it, the tranquillity of a struggle for life or death.
"Listen to me now, Veile," he began, slowly. "I will talk with you."
"I listen, rabbi," she whispered.
"But do you hear me well?"
"Only speak," she returned.
"But will you do what I advise you? Will you not oppose it? For I am going
to say something that will terrify you."
"I will do anything that you say. Only tell me," she moaned.
"Will you swear?"
"I will," she groaned.
"No, do not swear yet, until you have heard me," he cried. "I will not force
you."
This time came no answer.
"Hear me, then, daughter of Ruben Klattaner," he began, after a pause. "You
have a twofold sin upon your soul, and each is so great, so criminal, that it can
only be forgiven by severe punishment. First you permitted yourself to be
infatuated by the gold and silver, and then you forced your heart to lie. With the
lie you sought to deceive the man, even though he had intrusted you with his all
when he made you his wife. A lie is truly a great sin! Streams of water cannot
drown them. They make men false and hateful to themselves. The worst that has
been committed in the world was led in by a lie. That is the one sin."
"I know, I know," sobbed the young woman.
"Now hear me further," began the rabbi again, with a wavering voice, after a
short pause. "You have committed a still greater sin than the first. You have not
only deceived your husband, but you have also destroyed the happiness of
another person. You could have spoken, and you did not. For life you have
robbed him of his happiness, his light, his joy, but you did not speak. What can
he now do, when he knows what has been lost to him?"
"Naphtali!" cried the young woman.
"Silence! silence! do not let that name pass your lips again," he demanded,
violently. "The more you repeat it the greater becomes your sin. Why did you not
speak when you could have spoken? God can never easily forgive you that. To
be silent, to keep secret in one's breast what would have made another man
happier than the mightiest monarch! Thereby you have made him more than
unhappy. He will nevermore have the desire to be happy. Veile, God in heaven
cannot forgive you for that."
"Silence! silence!" groaned the wretched woman.
"No, Veile," he continued, with a stronger voice, "let me talk now. You are
certainly willing to hear me speak? Listen to me. You must do severe penance
for this sin, the twofold sin which rests upon your head. God is long-suffering
and merciful. He will perhaps look down upon your misery, and will blot out
your guilt from the great book of transgressions. But you must become penitent.
Hear, now, what it shall be."
The rabbi paused. He was on the point of saying the severest thing that had
ever passed his lips.
"You were silent, Veile," then he cried, "when you should have spoken. Be
silent now forever to all men and to yourself. From the moment you leave this
house, until I grant it, you must be dumb; you dare not let a loud word pass from
your mouth. Will you undergo this penance?"
"I will do all you say," moaned the young woman.
"Will you have strength to do it?" he asked, gently.
"I shall be as silent as death," she replied.
"And one thing more I have to say to you," he continued. "You are the wife of
your husband. Return home and be a Jewish wife."
"I understand you," she sobbed in reply.
"Go to your home now, and bring peace to your parents and husband. The
time will come when you may speak, when your sin will be forgiven you. Till
then bear what has been laid upon you."
"May I say one thing more?" she cried, lifting up her head.
"Speak," he said.
"Naphtali!"
The rabbi covered his eyes with one hand, with the other motioned her to be
silent. But she grasped his hand, drew it to her lips. Hot tears fell upon it.
"Go now," he sobbed, completely broken down.
She let go the hand. The rabbi had seized the candle, but she had already
passed him, and glided through the dark hall. The door was left open. The rabbi
locked it again.
Veile returned to her home, as she had escaped, unnoticed. The narrow street
was deserted, as desolate as death. The searchers were to be found everywhere
except there where they ought first to have sought for the missing one. Her
mother, Selde, still sat on the same chair on which she had sunk down an hour
ago. The fright had left her like one paralyzed, and she was unable to rise. What
a wonderful contrast this wedding-room, with the mother sitting alone in it,
presented to the hilarity reigning here shortly before! On Veile's entrance her
mother did not cry out. She had no strength to do so. She merely said: "So you
have come at last, my daughter?" as if Veile had only returned from a walk
somewhat too long. But the young woman did not answer to this and similar
questions. Finally she signified by gesticulations that she could not speak. Fright
seized the wretched mother a second time, and the entire house was filled with
her lamentations.
Ruben Klattaner and Veile's husband having now returned from their fruitless
search, were horrified on perceiving the change which Veile had undergone.
Being men, they did not weep. With staring eyes they gazed upon the silent
young woman, and beheld in her an apparition which had been dealt with by
God's visitation in a mysterious manner.
From this hour began the terrible penance of the young woman.
The impression which Veile's woeful condition made upon the people of the
gasse was wonderful. Those who had danced with her that evening on the
wedding now first recalled her excited state. Her wild actions were now first
remembered by many. It must have been an "evil eye," they concluded—a
jealous, evil eye, to which her beauty was hateful. This alone could have
possessed her with a demon of unrest. She was driven by this evil power into the
dark night, a sport of these malicious potencies which pursue men step by step,
especially on such occasions. The living God alone knows what she must have
seen that night. Nothing good, else one would not become dumb. Old legends
and tales were revived, each more horrible than the other. Hundreds of instances
were given to prove that this was nothing new in the gasse. Despite this
explanation, it is remarkable that the people did not believe that the young
woman was dumb. The most thought that her power of speech had been
paralyzed by some awful fright, but that with time it would be restored. Under
this supposition they called her "Veile the Silent."
There is a kind of human eloquence more telling, more forcible than the
loudest words, than the choicest diction—the silence of woman! Ofttimes they
cannot endure the slightest vexation, but some great, heart-breaking sorrow,
some pain from constant renunciation, self-sacrifice, they suffer with sealed lips
—as if, in very truth, they were bound with bars of iron.
It would be difficult to fully describe that long "silent" life of the young
woman. It is almost impossible to cite more than one incident. Veile
accompanied her husband to his home, that house resplendent with that gold and
silver which had infatuated her. She was, to be sure, the "first" woman in the
gasse; she had everything in abundance. Indeed, the world supposed that she had
but little cause for complaint. "Must one have everything?" was sometimes
queried in the gasse. "One has one thing; another, another." And, according to all
appearances, the people were right. Veile continued to be the beautiful, blooming
woman. Her penance of silence did not deprive her of a single charm. She was
so very happy, indeed, that she did not seem to feel even the pain of her
punishment. Veile could laugh and rejoice, but never did she forget to be silent.
The seemingly happy days, however, were only qualified to bring about the
proper time of trials and temptations. The beginning was easy enough for her,
the middle and end were times of real pain. The first years of their wedded life
were childless. "It is well," the people in the gasse said, "that she has no
children, and God has rightly ordained it to be so. A mother who cannot talk to
her child, that would be something awful!" Unexpectedly to all, she rejoiced one
day in the birth of a daughter. And when that affectionate young creature, her
own offspring, was laid upon her breast, and the first sounds were uttered by its
lips—that nameless, eloquent utterance of an infant—she forgot herself not; she
was silent!
She was silent also when from day to day that child blossomed before her
eyes into fuller beauty. Nor had she any words for it when, in effusions of
tenderness, it stretched forth its tiny arms, when in burning fever it sought for the
mother's hand. For days—yes, weeks—together she watched at its bedside.
Sleep never visited her eyes. But she ever remembered her penance.
Years fled by. In her arms she carried another child. It was a boy. The father's
joy was great. The child inherited its mother's beauty. Like its sister, it grew in
health and strength. The noblest, richest mother, they said, might be proud of
such children! And Veile was proud, no doubt, but this never passed her lips. She
remained silent about things which mothers in their joy often cannot find words
enough to express. And although her face many times lighted up with beaming
smiles, yet she never renounced the habitual silence imposed upon her.
The idea that the slightest dereliction of her penance would be accompanied
with a curse upon her children may have impressed itself upon her mind.
Mothers will understand better than other persons what this mother suffered
from her penalty of silence.
Thus a part of those years sped away which we are wont to call the best. She
still flourished in her wonderful beauty. Her maiden daughter was beside her,
like the bud beside the full-blown rose. Suitors were already present from far and
near, who passed in review before the beautiful girl. The most of them were
excellent young men, and any mother might have been proud in having her own
daughter sought by such. Even then Veile did not undo her penance. Those busy
times of intercourse which keep mothers engaged in presenting the superiorities
of their daughters in the best light were not allowed her. The choice of one of the
most favored suitors was made. Never before did any couple in the gasse equal
this in beauty and grace. A few weeks before the appointed time for the wedding
a malignant disease stole on, spreading sorrow and anxiety over the greater part
of the land. Young girls were principally its victims. It seemed to pass scornfully
over the aged and infirm. Veile's daughter was also laid hold upon by it. Before
three days had passed there was a corpse in the house—the bride!
Even then Veile did not forget her penance. When they bore away the corpse
to the "good place," she did utter a cry of anguish which long after echoed in the
ears of the people; she did wring her hands in despair, but no one heard a word
of complaint. Her lips seemed dumb forever. It was then, when she was seated
on the low stool in the seven days of mourning, that the rabbi came to her, to
bring to her the usual consolation for the dead. But he did not speak with her. He
addressed words only to her husband. She herself dared not look up. Only when
he turned to go did she lift her eyes. They, in turn, met the eyes of the rabbi, but
he departed without a farewell.
After her daughter's death Veile was completely broken down. Even that
which at her time of life is still called beauty had faded away within a few days.
Her cheeks had become hollow, her hair gray. Visitors wondered how she could
endure such a shock, how body and spirit could hold together. They did not
know that that silence was an iron fetter firmly imprisoning the slumbering
spirits. She had a son, moreover, to whom, as to something last and dearest, her
whole being still clung.
The boy was thirteen years old. His learning in the Holy Scriptures was
already celebrated for miles around. He was the pupil of the rabbi, who had
treated him with a love and tenderness becoming his own father. He said that he
was a remarkable child, endowed with rare talents. The boy was to be sent to
Hungary, to one of the most celebrated teachers of the times, in order to lay the
foundation for his sacred studies under this instructor's guidance and wisdom.
Years might perhaps pass before she would see him again. But Veile let her boy
go from her embrace. She did not say a blessing over him when he went; only
her lips twitched with the pain of silence.
Long years expired before the boy returned from the strange land, a full-
grown, noble youth. When Veile had her son with her again a smile played about
her mouth, and for a moment it seemed as if her former beauty had enjoyed a
second spring. The extraordinary ability of her son already made him famous.
Wheresoever he went people were delighted with his beauty, and admired the
modesty of his manner, despite such great scholarship.
The next Sabbath the young disciple of the Talmud, scarcely twenty years of
age, was to demonstrate the first marks of this great learning.
The people crowded shoulder to shoulder in this great synagogue. Curious
glances were cast through the lattice-work of the women's gallery above upon
the dense throng. Veile occupied one of the foremost seats. She could see
everything that took place below. Her face was extremely pale. All eyes were
turned towards her—the mother, who was permitted to see such a day for her
son! But Veile did not appear to notice what was happening before her. A
weariness, such as she had never felt before, even in her greatest suffering, crept
over her limbs. It was as if she must sleep during her son's address. He had
hardly mounted the stairs before the ark of the laws—hardly uttered his first
words—when a remarkable change crossed her face. Her cheeks burned. She
arose. All her vital energy seemed aroused. Her son meanwhile was speaking
down below. She could not have told what he was saying. She did not hear him
—she only heard the murmur of approbation, sometimes low, sometimes loud,
which came to her ears from the quarters of the men. The people were
astonished at the noble bearing of the speaker, his melodious speech, and his
powerful energy. When he stopped at certain times to rest it seemed as if one
were in a wood swept by a storm. She could now and then hear a few voices
declaring that such a one had never before been listened to. The women at her
side wept; she alone could not. A choking pain pressed from her breast to her
lips. Forces were astir in her heart which struggled for expression. The whole
synagogue echoed with buzzing voices, but to her it seemed as if she must speak
louder than these. At the very moment her son had ended she cried out
unconsciously, violently throwing herself against the lattice-work:
"God! living God! shall I not now speak?" A dead silence followed this
outcry. Nearly all had recognized this voice as that of the "silent woman." A
miracle had taken place!
"Speak! speak!" resounded the answer of the rabbi from the men's seats
below. "You may now speak!"
But no reply came. Veile had fallen back into her seat, pressing both hands
against her breast. When the women sitting beside her looked at her they were
terrified to find that the "silent woman" had fainted. She was dead! The
unsealing of her lips was her last moment.
Long years afterwards the rabbi died. On his death-bed he told those standing
about him this wonderful penance of Veile.
Every girl in the gasse knew the story of the "silent woman."
BANSHEES[E]
Of all Irish ghosts, fairies, or bogles, the Banshee (sometimes called locally
the "Bohee—ntha" or "Bankee —ntha") is the best known to the general public:
indeed, cross-Channel visitors would class her with pigs, potatoes, and other
fauna and flora of Ireland, and would expect her to make manifest her presence
to them as being one of the sights of the country. She is a spirit with a lengthy
pedigree—how lengthy no man can say, as its roots go back into the dim,
mysterious past. The most famous Banshee of ancient times was that attached to
the kingly house of O'Brien, Aibhill, who haunted the rock of Craglea above
Killaloe, near the old palace of Kincora. In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of
Clontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never come
away alive, for the previous night Aibhill had appeared to him to tell him of his
impending fate. The Banshee's method of foretelling death in olden times
differed from that adopted by her at the present day: now she wails and wrings
her hands, as a general rule, but in the old Irish tales she is to be found washing
human heads and limbs, or blood-stained clothes, till the water is all dyed with
human blood—this would take place before a battle. So it would seem that in the
course of centuries her attributes and characteristics have changed somewhat.
Very different descriptions are given of her personal appearance. Sometimes
she is young and beautiful, sometimes old and of a fearsome appearance. One
writer describes her as "a tall, thin woman with uncovered head, and long hair
that floated round her shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a
loose white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily around her, uttering piercing cries."
Another person, a coachman, saw her one evening sitting on a stile in the yard;
she seemed to be a very small woman, with blue eyes, long light hair, and
wearing a red cloak. Other descriptions will be found in this chapter. By the way,
it does not seem to be true that the Banshee exclusively follows families of Irish
descent, for the last incident had reference to the death of a member of a Co.
Galway family English by name and origin.
One of the oldest and best-known Banshee stories is that related in the
Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw.[F] In 1642 her husband, Sir Richard, and she chanced
to visit a friend, the head of an Irish sept, who resided in his ancient baronial
castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight she was awakened by a ghastly and
supernatural scream, and looking out of bed, beheld in the moonlight a female
face and part of the form hovering at the window. The distance from the ground,
as well as the circumstance of the moat, excluded the possibility that what she
beheld was of this world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome
woman, but pale, and the hair, which was reddish, was loose and disheveled. The
dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately,
was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some
time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first excited
Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated
to her host what she had witnessed, and found him prepared not only to credit,
but to account for the superstition. "A near relation of my family," said he;
"expired last night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the
event from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which
was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family or castle, the
female specter whom you have seen is always visible. She is believed to be the
spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself
by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonor done to his family,
he caused to be drowned in the moat." In strictness this woman could hardly be
termed a Banshee. The motive for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the
Scotch "Drummer of Cortachy," where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the
family out of revenge, and appears before a death.
Mr. T.J. Westropp, M.A., has furnished the following story: "My maternal
grandmother heard the following tradition from her mother, one of the Miss
Ross-Lewins, who witnessed the occurrence. Their father, Mr. Harrison Ross-
Lewin, was away in Dublin on law business, and in his absence the young
people went off to spend the evening with a friend who lived some miles away.
The night was fine and lightsome as they were returning, save at one point where
the road ran between trees or high hedges not far to the west of the old church of
Kilchrist. The latter, like many similar ruins, was a simple oblong building, with
long side-walls and high gables, and at that time it and its graveyard were
unenclosed, and lay in the open fields. As the party passed down the long dark
lane they suddenly heard in the distance loud keening and clapping of hands, as
the country-people were accustomed to do when lamenting the dead. The Ross-
Lewins hurried on, and came in sight of the church, on the side wall of which a
little gray-haired old woman, clad in a dark cloak, was running to and fro,
chanting and wailing, and throwing up her arms. The girls were very frightened,
but the young men ran forward and surrounded the ruin, and two of them went
into the church, the apparition vanishing from the wall as they did so. They
searched every nook, and found no one, nor did any one pass out. All were now
well scared, and got home as fast as possible. On reaching their home their
mother opened the door, and at once told them that she was in terror about their
father, for, as she sat looking out the window in the moonlight, a huge raven with
fiery eyes lit on the sill, and tapped three times on the glass. They told her their
story, which only added to their anxiety, and as they stood talking, taps came to
the nearest window, and they saw the bird again. A few days later news reached
them that Mr. Ross-Lewin had died suddenly in Dublin. This occurred about
1776."
Mr. Westropp also writes that the sister of a former Roman Catholic Bishop
told his sisters that when she was a little girl she went out one evening with some
other children for a walk. Going down the road, they passed the gate of the
principal demesne near the town. There was a rock, or large stone, beside the
road, on which they saw something. Going nearer, they perceived it to be a little
dark, old woman, who began crying and clapping her hands. Some of them
attempted to speak to her, but got frightened, and all finally ran home as quickly
as they could. Next day the news came that the gentleman near whose gate the
Banshee had cried, was dead, and it was found on inquiry that he had died at the
very hour at which the children had seen the specter.
A lady who is a relation of one of the compilers, and a member of a Co. Cork
family of English descent, sends the two following experiences of a Banshee in
her family. "My mother, when a young girl, was standing looking out of the
window in their house at Blackrock, near Cork. She suddenly saw a white figure
standing on a bridge which was easily visible from the house. The figure waved
her arms towards the house, and my mother heard the bitter wailing of the
Banshee. It lasted some seconds, and then the figure disappeared. Next morning
my grandfather was walking as usual into the city of Cork. He accidentally fell,
hit his head against the curbstone, and never recovered consciousness.
"In March, 1900, my mother was very ill, and one evening the nurse and I
were with her arranging her bed. We suddenly heard the most extraordinary
wailing, which seemed to come in waves round and under her bed. We naturally
looked everywhere to try and find the cause, but in vain. The nurse and I looked
at one another, but made no remark, as my mother did not seem to hear it. My
sister was downstairs sitting with my father. She heard it, and thought some
terrible thing had happened to her little boy, who was in bed upstairs. She rushed
up, and found him sleeping quietly. My father did not hear it. In the house next
door they heard it, and ran downstairs, thinking something had happened to the
servant; but the latter at once said to them, 'Did you hear the Banshee? Mrs. P
—— must be dying.'"
A few years ago (i.e. before 1894) a curious incident occurred in a public
school in connection with the belief in the Banshee. One of the boys, happening
to become ill, was at once placed in a room by himself, where he used to sit all
day. On one occasion, as he was being visited by the doctor, he suddenly started
up from his seat, and affirmed that he heard somebody crying. The doctor, of
course, who could hear or see nothing, came to the conclusion that the illness
had slightly affected his brain. However, the boy, who appeared quite sensible,
still persisted that he heard some one crying, and furthermore said, "It is the
Banshee, as I have heard it before." The following morning the head-master
received a telegram saying that the boy's brother had been accidentally shot
dead.[G]
That the Banshee is not confined within the geographical limits of Ireland,
but that she can follow the fortunes of a family abroad, and there foretell their
death, is clearly shown by the following story. A party of visitors were gathered
together on the deck of a private yacht on one of the Italian lakes, and during a
lull in the conversation one of them, a Colonel, said to the owner, "Count, who's
that queer-looking woman you have on board?" The Count replied that there was
nobody except the ladies present, and the stewardess, but the speaker protested
that he was correct, and suddenly, with a scream of horror, he placed his hands
before his eyes, and exclaimed, "Oh, my God, what a face!" For some time he
was overcome with terror, and at length reluctantly looked up, and cried:
"Thank Heavens, it's gone!"
"What was it?" asked the Count.
"Nothing human," replied the Colonel—"nothing belonging to this world. It
was a woman of no earthly type, with a queer-shaped, gleaming face, a mass of
red hair, and eyes that would have been beautiful but for their expression, which
was hellish. She had on a green hood, after the fashion of an Irish peasant."
An American lady present suggested that the description tallied with that of
the Banshee, upon which the Count said:
"I am an O'Neill—at least I am descended from one. My family name is, as
you know, Neilsini, which, little more than a century ago, was O'Neill. My great-
grandfather served in the Irish Brigade, and on its dissolution at the time of the
French Revolution had the good fortune to escape the general massacre of
officers, and in company with an O'Brien and a Maguire fled across the frontier
and settled in Italy. On his death his son, who had been born in Italy, and was far
more Italian than Irish, changed his name to Neilsini, by which name the family
has been known ever since. But for all that we are Irish."
"The Banshee was yours, then!" ejaculated the Colonel. "What exactly does it
mean?"
"It means," the Count replied solemnly, "the death of some one very nearly
associated with me. Pray Heaven it is not my wife or daughter."
On that score, however, his anxiety was speedily removed, for within two
hours he was seized with a violent attack of angina pectoris, and died before
morning.[H]
Mr. Elliott O'Donnell, to whose article on "Banshees" we are indebted for the
above, adds: "The Banshee never manifests itself to the person whose death it is
prognosticating. Other people may see or hear it, but the fated one never, so that
when every one present is aware of it but one, the fate of that one may be
regarded as pretty well certain."
THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR
BY E.F. BENSON
The little village of St. Faith's nestles in a hollow of wooded hill up on the
north bank of the river Fawn in the county of Hampshire, huddling close round
its gray Norman church as if for spiritual protection against the fays and fairies,
the trolls and "little people," who might be supposed still to linger in the vast
empty spaces of the New Forest, and to come after dusk and do their doubtful
businesses. Once outside the hamlet you may walk in any direction (so long as
you avoid the high road which leads to Brockenhurst) for the length of a summer
afternoon without seeing sign of human habitation, or possibly even catching
sight of another human being. Shaggy wild ponies may stop their feeding for a
moment as you pass, the white scuts of rabbits will vanish into their burrows, a
brown viper perhaps will glide from your path into a clump of heather, and
unseen birds will chuckle in the bushes, but it may easily happen that for a long
day you will see nothing human. But you will not feel in the least lonely; in
summer, at any rate, the sunlight will be gay with butterflies, and the air thick
with all those woodland sounds which like instruments in an orchestra combine
to play the great symphony of the yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the
birches, and sigh among the firs; bees are busy with their redolent labor among
the heather, a myriad birds chirp in the green temples of the forest trees, and the
voice of the river prattling over stony places, bubbling into pools, chuckling and
gulping round corners, gives you the sense that many presences and companions
are near at hand.
Yet, oddly enough, though one would have thought that these benign and
cheerful influences of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were very
healthful comrades for a man, in so far as nature can really influence this
wonderful human genus which has in these centuries learned to defy her most
violent storms in its well-established houses, to bridle her torrents and make
them light its streets, to tunnel her mountains and plow her seas, the inhabitants
of St. Faith's will not willingly venture into the forest after dark. For in spite of
the silence and loneliness of the hooded night it seems that a man is not sure in
what company he may suddenly find himself, and though it is difficult to get
from these villagers any very clear story of occult appearances, the feeling is
widespread. One story indeed I have heard with some definiteness, the tale of a
monstrous goat that has been seen to skip with hellish glee about the woods and
shady places, and this perhaps is connected with the story which I have here
attempted to piece together. It too is well-known to them; for all remember the
young artist who died here not long ago, a young man, or so he struck the
beholder, of great personal beauty, with something about him that made men's
faces to smile and brighten when they looked on him. His ghost they will tell
you "walks" constantly by the stream and through the woods which he loved so,
and in especial it haunts a certain house, the last of the village, where he lived,
and its garden in which he was done to death. For my part I am inclined to think
that the terror of the Forest dates chiefly from that day. So, such as the story is, I
have set it forth in connected form. It is based partly on the accounts of the
villagers, but mainly on that of Darcy, a friend of mine and a friend of the man
with whom these events were chiefly concerned.
The day had been one of untarnished midsummer splendor, and as the sun
drew near to its setting, the glory of the evening grew every moment more
crystalline, more miraculous. Westward from St. Faith's the beechwood which
stretched for some miles toward the heathery upland beyond already cast its veil
of clear shadow over the red roofs of the village, but the spire of the gray church,
over-topping all, still pointed a flaming orange finger into the sky. The river
Fawn, which runs below, lay in sheets of sky-reflected blue, and wound its
dreamy devious course round the edge of this wood, where a rough two-planked
bridge crossed from the bottom of the garden of the last house in the village, and
communicated by means of a little wicker gate with the wood itself. Then once
out of the shadow of the wood the stream lay in flaming pools of the molten
crimson of the sunset, and lost itself in the haze of woodland distances.
This house at the end of the village stood outside the shadow, and the lawn
which sloped down to the river was still flecked with sunlight. Garden-beds of
dazzling color lined its gravel walks, and down the middle of it ran a brick
pergola, half-hidden in clusters of rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis.
At the bottom end of it, between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock
containing a shirt-sleeved figure.
The house itself lay somewhat remote from the rest of the village, and a
footpath leading across two fields, now tall and fragrant with hay, was its only
communication with the high road. It was low-built, only two stories in height,
and like the garden, its walls were a mass of flowering roses. A narrow stone
terrace ran along the garden front, over which was stretched an awning, and on
the terrace a young silent-footed man-servant was busied with the laying of the
table for dinner. He was neat-handed and quick with his job, and having finished
it he went back into the house, and reappeared again with a large rough bath-
towel on his arm. With this he went to the hammock in the pergola.
"Nearly eight, sir," he said.
"Has Mr. Darcy come yet?" asked a voice from the hammock.
"No, sir."
"If I'm not back when he comes, tell him that I'm just having a bathe before
dinner."
The servant went back to the house, and after a moment or two Frank Halton
struggled to a sitting posture, and slipped out on to the grass. He was of medium
height and rather slender in build, but the supple ease and grace of his
movements gave the impression of great physical strength: even his descent
from the hammock was not an awkward performance. His face and hands were
of very dark complexion, either from constant exposure to wind and sun, or, as
his black hair and dark eyes tended to show, from some strain of southern blood.
His head was small, his face of an exquisite beauty of modeling, while the
smoothness of its contour would have led you to believe that he was a beardless
lad still in his teens. But something, some look which living and experience
alone can give, seemed to contradict that, and finding yourself completely
puzzled as to his age, you would next moment probably cease to think about
that, and only look at this glorious specimen of young manhood with wondering
satisfaction.
He was dressed as became the season and the heat, and wore only a shirt open
at the neck, and a pair of flannel trousers. His head, covered very thickly with a
somewhat rebellious crop of short curly hair, was bare as he strolled across the
lawn to the bathing-place that lay below. Then for a moment there was silence,
then the sound of splashed and divided waters, and presently after, a great shout
of ecstatic joy, as he swam up-stream with the foamed water standing in a frill
round his neck. Then after some five minutes of limb-stretching struggle with
the flood, he turned over on his back, and with arms thrown wide, floated down-
stream, ripple-cradled and inert. His eyes were shut, and between half-parted lips
he talked gently to himself.
"I am one with it," he said to himself, "the river and I, I and the river. The
coolness and splash of it is I, and the water-herbs that wave in it are I also. And
my strength and my limbs are not mine but the river's. It is all one, all one, dear
Fawn."
For the next day or two Darcy plied his friend with many questions,
objections and criticisms on the theory of life and gradually got out of him a
coherent and complete account of his experience. In brief then, Frank believed
that "by lying naked," as he put it, to the force which controls the passage of the
stars, the breaking of a wave, the budding of a tree, the love of a youth and
maiden, he had succeeded in a way hitherto undreamed of in possessing himself
of the essential principle of life. Day by day, so he thought, he was getting nearer
to, and in closer union with the great power itself which caused all life to be, the
spirit of nature, of force, or the spirit of God. For himself, he confessed to what
others would call paganism; it was sufficient for him that there existed a
principle of life. He did not worship it, he did not pray to it, he did not praise it.
Some of it existed in all human beings, just as it existed in trees and animals; to
realize and make living to himself the fact that it was all one, was his sole aim
and object.
Here perhaps Darcy would put in a word of warning. "Take care," he said.
"To see Pan meant death, did it not?"
Frank's eyebrows would rise at this.
"What does that matter?" he said. "True, the Greeks were always right, and
they said so, but there is another possibility. For the nearer I get to it, the more
living, the more vital and young I become."
"What then do you expect the final revelation will do for you?"
"I have told you," said he. "It will make me immortal."
But it was not so much from speech and argument that Darcy grew to grasp
his friend's conception, as from the ordinary conduct of his life. They were
passing, for instance, one morning down the village street, when an old woman,
very bent and decrepit, but with an extraordinary cheerfulness of face, hobbled
out from her cottage. Frank instantly stopped when he saw her.
"You old darling! How goes it all?" he said.
But she did not answer, her dim old eyes were riveted on his face; she seemed
to drink in like a thirsty creature the beautiful radiance which shone there.
Suddenly she put her two withered old hands on his shoulders.
"You're just the sunshine itself," she said, and he kissed her and passed on.
But scarcely a hundred yards further a strange contradiction of such
tenderness occurred. A child running along the path towards them fell on its
face, and set up a dismal cry of fright and pain. A look of horror came into
Frank's eyes, and, putting his fingers in his ears, he fled at full speed down the
street, and did not pause till he was out of hearing. Darcy, having ascertained that
the child was not really hurt, followed him in bewilderment.
"Are you without pity then?" he asked.
Frank shook his head impatiently.
"Can't you see?" he asked. "Can't you understand that that sort of thing, pain,
anger, anything unlovely throws me back, retards the coming of the great hour!
Perhaps when it comes I shall be able to piece that side of life on to the other, on
to the true religion of joy. At present I can't."
"But the old woman. Was she not ugly?"
Frank's radiance gradually returned.
"Ah, no. She was like me. She longed for joy, and knew it when she saw it,
the old darling."
Another question suggested itself.
"Then what about Christianity?" asked Darcy.
"I can't accept it. I can't believe in any creed of which the central doctrine is
that God who is Joy should have had to suffer. Perhaps it was so; in some
inscrutable way I believe it may have been so, but I don't understand how it was
possible. So I leave it alone; my affair is joy."
They had come to the weir above the village, and the thunder of riotous cool
water was heavy in the air. Trees dipped into the translucent stream with slender
trailing branches, and the meadow where they stood was starred with
midsummer blossomings. Larks shot up caroling into the crystal dome of blue,
and a thousand voices of June sang round them. Frank, bare-headed as was his
wont, with his coat slung over his arm and his shirt sleeves rolled up above the
elbow, stood there like some beautiful wild animal with eyes half-shut and
mouth half-open, drinking in the scented warmth of the air. Then suddenly he
flung himself face downwards on the grass at the edge of the stream, burying his
face in the daisies and cowslips, and lay stretched there in wide-armed ecstasy,
with his long fingers pressing and stroking the dewy herbs of the field. Never
before had Darcy seen him thus fully possessed by his idea; his caressing
fingers, his half-buried face pressed close to the grass, even the clothed lines of
his figure were instinct with a vitality that somehow was different from that of
other men. And some faint glow from it reached Darcy, some thrill, some
vibration from that charged recumbent body passed to him, and for a moment he
understood as he had not understood before, despite his persistent questions and
the candid answers they received, how real, and how realized by Frank, his idea
was.
Then suddenly the muscles in Frank's neck became stiff and alert, and he
half-raised his head, whispering, "The Pan-pipes, the Pan-pipes. Close, oh, so
close."
Very slowly, as if a sudden movement might interrupt the melody, he raised
himself and leaned on the elbow of his bent arm. His eyes opened wider, the
lower lids drooped as if he focused his eyes on something very far away, and the
smile on his face broadened and quivered like sunlight on still water, till the
exultance of its happiness was scarcely human. So he remained motionless and
rapt for some minutes, then the look of listening died from his face, and he
bowed his head satisfied.
"Ah, that was good," he said. "How is it possible you did not hear? Oh, you
poor fellow! Did you really hear nothing?"
A week of this outdoor and stimulating life did wonders in restoring to Darcy
the vigor and health which his weeks of fever had filched from him, and as his
normal activity and higher pressure of vitality returned, he seemed to himself to
fall even more under the spell which the miracle of Frank's youth cast over him.
Twenty times a day he found himself saying to himself suddenly at the end of
some ten minutes' silent resistance to the absurdity of Frank's idea: "But it isn't
possible; it can't be possible," and from the fact of his having to assure himself
so frequently of this, he knew that he was struggling and arguing with a
conclusion which already had taken root in his mind. For in any case a visible
living miracle confronted him, since it was equally impossible that this youth,
this boy, trembling on the verge of manhood, was thirty-five. Yet such was the
fact.
July was ushered in by a couple of days of blustering and fretful rain, and
Darcy, unwilling to risk a chill, kept to the house. But to Frank this weeping
change of weather seemed to have no bearing on the behavior of man, and he
spent his days exactly as he did under the suns of June, lying in his hammock,
stretched on the dripping grass, or making huge rambling excursions into the
forest, the birds hopping from tree to tree after him, to return in the evening,
drenched and soaked, but with the same unquenchable flame of joy burning
within him.
"Catch cold?" he would ask, "I've forgotten how to do it, I think. I suppose it
makes one's body more sensible always to sleep out-of-doors. People who live
indoors always remind me of something peeled and skinless."
"Do you mean to say you slept out-of-doors last night in that deluge?" asked
Darcy. "And where, may I ask?"
Frank thought a moment.
"I slept in the hammock till nearly dawn," he said. "For I remember the light
blinked in the east when I awoke. Then I went—where did I go?—oh, yes, to the
meadow where the Pan-pipes sounded so close a week ago. You were with me,
do you remember? But I always have a rug if it is wet."
And he went whistling upstairs.
Somehow that little touch, his obvious effort to recall where he had slept,
brought strangely home to Darcy the wonderful romance of which he was the
still half-incredulous beholder. Sleep till close on dawn in a hammock, then the
tramp—or probably scamper—underneath the windy and weeping heavens to
the remote and lonely meadow by the weir! The picture of other such nights rose
before him; Frank sleeping perhaps by the bathing-place under the filtered
twilight of the stars, or the white blaze of moon-shine, a stir and awakening at
some dead hour, perhaps a space of silent wide-eyed thought, and then a
wandering through the hushed woods to some other dormitory, alone with his
happiness, alone with the joy and the life that suffused and enveloped him,
without other thought or desire or aim except the hourly and never-ceasing
communion with the joy of nature.
They were in the middle of dinner that night, talking on indifferent subjects,
when Darcy suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence.
"I've got it," he said. "At last I've got it."
"Congratulate you," said Frank. "But what?"
"The radical unsoundness of your idea. It is this: All nature from highest to
lowest is full, crammed full of suffering; every living organism in nature preys
on another, yet in your aim to get close to, to be one with nature, you leave
suffering altogether out; you run away from it, you refuse to recognize it. And
you are waiting, you say, for the final revelation."
Frank's brow clouded slightly.
"Well?" he asked, rather wearily.
"Cannot you guess then when the final revelation will be? In joy you are
supreme, I grant you that; I did not know a man could be so master of it. You
have learned perhaps practically all that nature can teach. And if, as you think,
the final revelation is coming to you, it will be the revelation of horror, suffering,
death, pain in all its hideous forms. Suffering does exist: you hate it and fear it."
Frank held up his hand.
"Stop; let me think," he said.
There was silence for a long minute.
"That never struck me," he said at length. "It is possible that what you suggest
is true. Does the sight of Pan mean that, do you think? Is it that nature, take it
altogether, suffers horribly, suffers to a hideous inconceivable extent? Shall I be
shown all the suffering?"
He got up and came round to where Darcy sat.
"If it is so, so be it," he said. "Because, my dear fellow, I am near, so
splendidly near to the final revelation. To-day the pipes have sounded almost
without pause. I have even heard the rustle in the bushes, I believe, of Pan's
coming. I have seen, yes, I saw to-day, the bushes pushed aside as if by a hand,
and piece of a face, not human, peered through. But I was not frightened, at least
I did not run away this time."
He took a turn up to the window and back again.
"Yes, there is suffering all through," he said, "and I have left it all out of my
search. Perhaps, as you say, the revelation will be that. And in that case, it will
be good-bye. I have gone on one line. I shall have gone too far along one road,
without having explored the other. But I can't go back now. I wouldn't if I could;
not a step would I retrace! In any case, whatever the revelation is, it will be God.
I'm sure of that."
The rainy weather soon passed, and with the return of the sun Darcy again
joined Frank in long rambling days. It grew extraordinarily hotter, and with the
fresh bursting of life, after the rain, Frank's vitality seemed to blaze higher and
higher. Then, as is the habit of the English weather, one evening clouds began to
bank themselves up in the west, the sun went down in a glare of coppery
thunder-rack, and the whole earth broiling under an unspeakable oppression and
sultriness paused and panted for the storm. After sunset the remote fires of
lightning began to wink and flicker on the horizon, but when bed-time came the
storm seemed to have moved no nearer, though a very low unceasing noise of
thunder was audible. Weary and oppressed by the stress of the day, Darcy fell at
once into a heavy uncomforting sleep.
He woke suddenly into full consciousness, with the din of some appalling
explosion of thunder in his ears, and sat up in bed with racing heart. Then for a
moment, as he recovered himself from the panic-land which lies between
sleeping and waking, there was silence, except for the steady hissing of rain on
the shrubs outside his window. But suddenly that silence was shattered and
shredded into fragments by a scream from somewhere close at hand outside in
the black garden, a scream of supreme and despairing terror. Again, and once
again it shrilled up, and then a babble of awful words was interjected. A
quivering sobbing voice that he knew, said:
"My God, oh, my God; oh, Christ!"
And then followed a little mocking, bleating laugh. Then was silence again;
only the rain hissed on the shrubs.
All this was but the affair of a moment, and without pause either to put on
clothes or light a candle, Darcy was already fumbling at his door-handle. Even as
he opened it he met a terror-stricken face outside, that of the man-servant who
carried a light.
"Did you hear?" he asked.
The man's face was bleached to a dull shining whiteness.
"Yes, sir," he said. "It was the master's voice."
Together they hurried down the stairs, and through the dining-room where an
orderly table for breakfast had already been laid, and out on to the terrace. The
rain for the moment had been utterly stayed, as if the tap of the heavens had been
turned off, and under the lowering black sky, not quite dark, since the moon rode
somewhere serene behind the conglomerated thunder-clouds, Darcy stumbled
into the garden, followed by the servant with the candle. The monstrous leaping
shadow of himself was cast before him on the lawn; lost and wandering odors of
rose and lily and damp earth were thick about him, but more pungent was some
sharp and acrid smell that suddenly reminded him of a certain châlet in which he
had once taken refuge in the Alps. In the blackness of the hazy light from the
sky, and the vague tossing of the candle behind him, he saw that the hammock in
which Frank so often lay was tenanted. A gleam of white shirt was there, as if a
man sitting up in it, but across that there was an obscure dark shadow, and as he
approached the acrid odor grew more intense.
He was now only some few yards away, when suddenly the black shadow
seemed to jump into the air, then came down with tappings of hard hoofs on the
brick path that ran down the pergola, and with frolicsome skippings galloped off
into the bushes. When that was gone Darcy could see quite clearly that a shirted
figure sat up in the hammock. For one moment, from sheer terror of the unseen,
he hung on his step, and the servant joining him they walked together to the
hammock.
It was Frank. He was in shirt and trousers only, and he sat up with braced
arms. For one half-second he stared at them, his face a mask of horrible
contorted terror. His upper lip was drawn back so that the gums of the teeth
appeared, and his eyes were focused not on the two who approached him but on
something quite close to him; his nostrils were widely expanded, as if he panted
for breath, and terror incarnate and repulsion and deathly anguish ruled dreadful
lines on his smooth cheeks and forehead. Then even as they looked the body
sank backwards, and the ropes of the hammock wheezed and strained.
Darcy lifted him out and carried him indoors. Once he thought there was a
faint convulsive stir of the limbs that lay with so dead a weight in his arms, but
when they got inside, there was no trace of life. But the look of supreme terror
and agony of fear had gone from his face, a boy tired with play but still smiling
in his sleep was the burden he laid on the floor. His eyes had closed, and the
beautiful mouth lay in smiling curves, even as when a few mornings ago, in the
meadow by the weir, it had quivered to the music of the unheard melody of Pan's
pipes. Then they looked further.
Frank had come back from his bath before dinner that night in his usual
costume of shirt and trousers only. He had not dressed, and during dinner, so
Darcy remembered, he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to above the elbow.
Later, as they sat and talked after dinner on the close sultriness of the evening, he
had unbuttoned the front of his shirt to let what little breath of wind there was
play on his skin. The sleeves were rolled up now, the front of the shirt was
unbuttoned, and on his arms and on the brown skin of his chest were strange
discolorations which grew momently more clear and defined, till they saw that
the marks were pointed prints, as if caused by the hoofs of some monstrous goat
that had leaped and stamped upon him.
THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY[I]
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
"Yes," she said, from her seat in the dark corner, "I'll tell you an experience if
you care to listen. And, what's more, I'll tell it briefly, without trimmings—I
mean without unessentials. That's a thing story-tellers never do, you know," she
laughed. "They drag in all the unessentials and leave their listeners to
disentangle; but I'll give you just the essentials, and you can make of it what you
please. But on one condition: that at the end you ask no questions, because I
can't explain it and have no wish to."
We agreed. We were all serious. After listening to a dozen prolix stories from
people who merely wished to "talk" but had nothing to tell, we wanted
"essentials."
"In those days," she began, feeling from the quality of our silence that we
were with her, "in those days I was interested in psychic things, and had
arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in the middle of London. It was a
cheap and dingy lodging-house in a mean street, unfurnished. I had already made
a preliminary examination in daylight that afternoon, and the keys from the
caretaker, who lived next door, were in my pocket. The story was a good one—
satisfied me, at any rate, that it was worth investigating; and I won't weary you
with details as to the woman's murder and all the tiresome elaboration as to why
the place was alive. Enough that it was.
"I was a good deal bored, therefore, to see a man, whom I took to be the
talkative old caretaker, waiting for me on the steps when I went in at 11 P.M., for
I had sufficiently explained that I wished to be there alone for the night.
"'I wished to show you the room,' he mumbled, and of course I couldn't
exactly refuse, having tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and table.
"'Come in, then, and let's be quick,' I said.
"We went in, he shuffling after me through the unlighted hall up to the first
floor where the murder had taken place, and I prepared myself to hear his
inevitable account before turning him out with the half-crown his persistence
had earned. After lighting the gas I sat down in the arm-chair he had provided—
a faded, brown plush arm-chair—and turned for the first time to face him and get
through with the performance as quickly as possible. And it was in that instant I
got my first shock. The man was not the caretaker. It was not the old fool, Carey,
I had interviewed earlier in the day and made my plans with. My heart gave a
horrid jump.
"'Now who are you, pray?' I said. 'You're not Carey, the man I arranged with
this afternoon. Who are you?'
"I felt uncomfortable, as you may imagine. I was a 'psychical researcher,' and
a young woman of new tendencies, and proud of my liberty, but I did not care to
find myself in an empty house with a stranger. Something of my confidence left
me. Confidence with women, you know, is all humbug after a certain point. Or
perhaps you don't know, for most of you are men. But anyhow my pluck ebbed
in a quick rush, and I felt afraid.
"'Who are you?' I repeated quickly and nervously. The fellow was well
dressed, youngish and good-looking, but with a face of great sadness. I myself
was barely thirty. I am giving you essentials, or I would not mention it. Out of
quite ordinary things comes this story. I think that's why it has value.
"'No,' he said; 'I'm the man who was frightened to death.'
"His voice and his words ran through me like a knife, and I felt ready to drop.
In my pocket was the book I had bought to make notes in. I felt the pencil
sticking in the socket. I felt, too, the extra warm things I had put on to sit up in,
as no bed or sofa was available—a hundred things dashed through my mind,
foolishly and without sequence or meaning, as the way is when one is really
frightened. Unessentials leaped up and puzzled me, and I thought of what the
papers might say if it came out, and what my 'smart' brother-in-law would think,
and whether it would be told that I had cigarettes in my pocket, and was a free-
thinker.
"'The man who was frightened to death!' I repeated aghast.
"'That's me,' he said stupidly.
"I stared at him just as you would have done—any one of you men now
listening to me—and felt my life ebbing and flowing like a sort of hot fluid. You
needn't laugh! That's how I felt. Small things, you know, touch the mind with
great earnestness when terror is there—real terror. But I might have been at a
middle-class tea-party, for all the ideas I had: they were so ordinary!
"'But I thought you were the caretaker I tipped this afternoon to let me sleep
here!' I gasped. 'Did—did Carey send you to meet me?'
"'No,' he replied in a voice that touched my boots somehow. 'I am the man
who was frightened to death. And what is more, I am frightened now!'
"'So am I!' I managed to utter, speaking instinctively. 'I'm simply terrified.'
"'Yes,' he replied in that same odd voice that seemed to sound within me. 'But
you are still in the flesh, and I—am not!'
"I felt the need for vigorous self-assertion. I stood up in that empty,
unfurnished room, digging the nails into my palms and clenching my teeth. I was
determined to assert my individuality and my courage as a new woman and a
free soul.
"'You mean to say you are not in the flesh!' I gasped. 'What in the world are
you talking about?'
"The silence of the night swallowed up my voice. For the first time I realized
that darkness was over the city; that dust lay upon the stairs; that the floor above
was untenanted and the floor below empty. I was alone in an unoccupied and
haunted house, unprotected, and a woman. I chilled. I heard the wind round the
house, and knew the stars were hidden. My thoughts rushed to policemen and
omnibuses, and everything that was useful and comforting. I suddenly realized
what a fool I was to come to such a house alone. I was icily afraid. I thought the
end of my life had come. I was an utter fool to go in for psychical research when
I had not the necessary nerve.
"'Good God!' I gasped. 'If you're not Carey, the man I arranged with, who are
you?'
"I was really stiff with terror. The man moved slowly towards me across the
empty room. I held out my arm to stop him, getting up out of my chair at the
same moment, and he came to halt just opposite to me, a smile on his worn, sad
face.
"'I told you who I am,' he repeated quietly with a sigh, looking at me with the
saddest eyes I have ever seen, 'and I am frightened still.'
"By this time I was convinced that I was entertaining either a rogue or a
madman, and I cursed my stupidity in bringing the man in without having seen
his face. My mind was quickly made up, and I knew what to do. Ghosts and
psychic phenomena flew to the winds. If I angered the creature my life might
pay the price. I must humor him till I got to the door, and then race for the street.
I stood bolt upright and faced him. We were about of a height, and I was a
strong, athletic woman who played hockey in winter and climbed Alps in
summer. My hand itched for a stick, but I had none.
"'Now, of course, I remember,' I said with a sort of stiff smile that was very
hard to force. 'Now I remember your case and the wonderful way you behaved. .
. .'
"The man stared at me stupidly, turning his head to watch me as I backed
more and more quickly to the door. But when his face broke into a smile I could
control myself no longer. I reached the door in a run, and shot out on to the
landing. Like a fool, I turned the wrong way, and stumbled over the stairs
leading to the next story. But it was too late to change. The man was after me, I
was sure, though no sound of footsteps came; and I dashed up the next flight,
tearing my skirt and banging my ribs in the darkness, and rushed headlong into
the first room I came to. Luckily the door stood ajar, and, still more fortunate,
there was a key in the lock. In a second I had slammed the door, flung my whole
weight against it, and turned the key.
"I was safe, but my heart was beating like a drum. A second later it seemed to
stop altogether, for I saw that there was some one else in the room besides
myself. A man's figure stood between me and the windows, where the street
lamps gave just enough light to outline his shape against the glass. I'm a plucky
woman, you know, for even then I didn't give up hope, but I may tell you that I
have never felt so vilely frightened in all my born days. I had locked myself in
with him!
"The man leaned against the window, watching me where I lay in a collapsed
heap upon the floor. So there were two men in the house with me, I reflected.
Perhaps other rooms were occupied too! What could it all mean? But, as I stared
something changed in the room, or in me—hard to say which—and I realized my
mistake, so that my fear, which had so far been physical, at once altered its
character and became psychical. I became afraid in my soul instead of in my
heart, and I knew immediately who this man was.
"'How in the world did you get up here?' I stammered to him across the empty
room, amazement momentarily stemming my fear.
"'Now, let me tell you,' he began, in that odd faraway voice of his that went
down my spine like a knife. 'I'm in different space, for one thing, and you'd find
me in any room you went into; for according to your way of measuring, I'm all
over the house. Space is a bodily condition, but I am out of the body, and am not
affected by space. It's my condition that keeps me here. I want something to
change my condition for me, for then I could get away. What I want is sympathy.
Or, really, more than sympathy; I want affection—I want love!'
"While he was speaking I gathered myself slowly upon my feet. I wanted to
scream and cry and laugh all at once, but I only succeeded in sighing, for my
emotion was exhausted and a numbness was coming over me. I felt for the
matches in my pocket and made a movement towards the gas jet.
"'I should be much happier if you didn't light the gas,' he said at once, 'for the
vibrations of your light hurt me a good deal. You need not be afraid that I shall
injure you. I can't touch your body to begin with, for there's a great gulf fixed,
you know; and really this half-light suits me best. Now, let me continue what I
was trying to say before. You know, so many people have come to this house to
see me, and most of them have seen me, and one and all have been terrified. If
only, oh, if only some one would be not terrified, but kind and loving to me!
Then, you see, I might be able to change my condition and get away.'
"His voice was so sad that I felt tears start somewhere at the back of my eyes;
but fear kept all else in check, and I stood shaking and cold as I listened to him.
"'Who are you then? Of course Carey didn't send you, I know now,' I
managed to utter. My thoughts scattered dreadfully and I could think of nothing
to say. I was afraid of a stroke.
"'I know nothing about Carey, or who he is,' continued the man quietly, 'and
the name my body had I have forgotten, thank God; but I am the man who was
frightened to death in this house ten years ago, and I have been frightened ever
since, and am frightened still; for the succession of cruel and curious people who
come to this house to see the ghost, and thus keep alive its atmosphere of terror,
only helps to render my condition worse. If only some one would be kind to me
—laugh, speak gently and rationally with me, cry if they like, pity, comfort,
soothe me—anything but come here in curiosity and tremble as you are now
doing in that corner. Now, madam, won't you take pity on me?' His voice rose to
a dreadful cry. 'Won't you step out into the middle of the room and try to love me
a little?'
"A horrible laughter came gurgling up in my throat as I heard him, but the
sense of pity was stronger than the laughter, and I found myself actually leaving
the support of the wall and approaching the center of the floor.
"'By God!' he cried, at once straightening up against the window, 'you have
done a kind act. That's the first attempt at sympathy that has been shown me
since I died, and I feel better already. In life, you know, I was a misanthrope.
Everything went wrong with me, and I came to hate my fellow men so much that
I couldn't bear to see them even. Of course, like begets like, and this hate was
returned. Finally I suffered from horrible delusions, and my room became
haunted with demons that laughed and grimaced, and one night I ran into a
whole cluster of them near the bed—and the fright stopped my heart and killed
me. It's hate and remorse, as much as terror, that clogs me so thickly and keeps
me here. If only some one could feel pity, and sympathy, and perhaps a little love
for me, I could get away and be happy. When you came this afternoon to see
over the house I watched you, and a little hope came to me for the first time. I
saw you had courage, originality, resource—love. If only I could touch your
heart, without frightening you, I knew I could perhaps tap that love you have
stored up in your being there, and thus borrow the wings for my escape!'
"Now I must confess my heart began to ache a little, as fear left me and the
man's words sank their sad meaning into me. Still, the whole affair was so
incredible, and so touched with unholy quality, and the story of a woman's
murder I had come to investigate had so obviously nothing to do with this thing,
that I felt myself in a kind of wild dream that seemed likely to stop at any
moment and leave me somewhere in bed after a nightmare.
"Moreover, his words possessed me to such an extent that I found it
impossible to reflect upon anything else at all, or to consider adequately any
ways or means of action or escape.
"I moved a little nearer to him in the gloom, horribly frightened, of course,
but with the beginnings of a strange determination in my heart.
"'You women,' he continued, his voice plainly thrilling at my approach, 'you
wonderful women, to whom life often brings no opportunity of spending your
great love, oh, if you only could know how many of us simply yearn for it! It
would save our souls, if but you knew. Few might find the chance that you now
have, but if you only spent your love freely, without definite object, just letting it
flow openly for all who need, you would reach hundreds and thousands of souls
like me, and release us! Oh, madam, I ask you again to feel with me, to be kind
and gentle—and if you can to love me a little!'
"My heart did leap within me and this time the tears did come, for I could not
restrain them. I laughed too, for the way he called me 'madam' sounded so odd,
here in this empty room at midnight in a London street, but my laughter stopped
dead and merged in a flood of weeping when I saw how my change of feeling
affected him. He had left his place by the window and was kneeling on the floor
at my feet, his hands stretched out towards me, and the first signs of a kind of
glory about his head.
"'Put your arms round me and kiss me, for the love of God!' he cried. 'Kiss
me, oh, kiss me, and I shall be freed! You have done so much already—now do
this!'
"I stuck there, hesitating, shaking, my determination on the verge of action,
yet not quite able to compass it. But the terror had almost gone.
"'Forget that I'm a man and you're a woman,' he continued in the most
beseeching voice I ever heard. 'Forget that I'm a ghost, and come out boldly and
press me to you with a great kiss, and let your love flow into me. Forget yourself
just for one minute and do a brave thing! Oh, love me, love me, LOVE ME! and I
shall be free!'
"The words, or the deep force they somehow released in the center of my
being, stirred me profoundly, and an emotion infinitely greater than fear surged
up over me and carried me with it across the edge of action. Without hesitation I
took two steps forward towards him where he knelt, and held out my arms. Pity
and love were in my heart at that moment, genuine pity, I swear, and genuine
love. I forgot myself and my little tremblings in a great desire to help another
soul.
"'I love you! poor, aching, unhappy thing! I love you,' I cried through hot
tears; 'and I am not the least bit afraid in the world.'
"The man uttered a curious sound, like laughter, yet not laughter, and turned
his face up to me. The light from the street below fell on it, but there was another
light, too, shining all round it that seemed to come from the eyes and skin. He
rose to his feet and met me, and in that second I folded him to my breast and
kissed him full on the lips again and again."
All our pipes had gone out, and not even a skirt rustled in that dark studio as
the story-teller paused a moment to steady her voice, and put a hand softly up to
her eyes before going on again.
"Now, what can I say, and how can I describe to you, all you skeptical men
sitting there with pipes in your mouths, the amazing sensation I experienced of
holding an intangible, impalpable thing so closely to my heart that it touched my
body with equal pressure all the way down, and then melted away somewhere
into my very being? For it was like seizing a rush of cool wind and feeling a
touch of burning fire the moment it had struck its swift blow and passed on. A
series of shocks ran all over and all through me; a momentary ecstasy of flaming
sweetness and wonder thrilled down into me; my heart gave another great leap—
and then I was alone.
"The room was empty. I turned on the gas and struck a match to prove it. All
fear had left me, and something was singing round me in the air and in my heart
like the joy of a spring morning in youth. Not all the devils or shadows or
hauntings in the world could then have caused me a single tremor.
"I unlocked the door and went all over the dark house, even into kitchen and
cellar and up among the ghostly attics. But the house was empty. Something had
left it. I lingered a short hour, analyzing, thinking, wondering—you can guess
what and how, perhaps, but I won't detail, for I promised only essentials,
remember—and then went out to sleep the remainder of the night in my own
flat, locking the door behind me upon a house no longer haunted.
"But my uncle, Sir Henry, the owner of the house, required an account of my
adventure, and of course I was in duty bound to give him some kind of a true
story. Before I could begin, however, he held up his hand to stop me.
"'First,' he said, 'I wish to tell you a little deception I ventured to practice on
you. So many people have been to that house and seen the ghost that I came to
think the story acted on their imaginations, and I wished to make a better test. So
I invented for their benefit another story, with the idea that if you did see
anything I could be sure it was not due merely to an excited imagination.'
"'Then what you told me about a woman having been murdered, and all that,
was not the true story of the haunting?'
"'It was not. The true story is that a cousin of mine went mad in that house,
and killed himself in a fit of morbid terror following upon years of miserable
hypochondriasis. It is his figure that investigators see.'
"'That explains, then,' I gasped——
"'Explains what?'
"I thought of that poor struggling soul, longing all these years for escape, and
determined to keep my story for the present to myself.
"'Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost of the murdered woman,' I
concluded.
"'Precisely,' said Sir Henry, 'and why, if you had seen anything, it would have
had value, inasmuch as it could not have been caused by the imagination
working upon a story you already knew.'"
THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
One of the few advantages that India has over England is a certain great
Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted
with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or
twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the
non-official castes. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end
of twenty he knows, or knows something about, almost every Englishman in the
Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills.
Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my
memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but, none the less, to-day if you belong
to the Inner Circle and are neither a bear nor a black sheep all houses are open to
you and our small world is very kind and helpful.
Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon, some fifteen years ago.
He meant to stay two nights only, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever,
and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's work,
and nearly died in Polder's bed-room. Polder behaves as though he had been
placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Ricketts a
box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who do not take
the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are an incompetent ass,
and the women who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife's
amusements, will work themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or
into serious trouble.
Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on
his private account—an arrangement of loose-boxes for Incurables, his friends
called it—but it was really a sort of fitting-up shed for craft that had been
damaged by stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry, and since the
tale of bricks is a fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to
work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as
mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.
Heatherlegh is the nicest doctor that ever was, and his invariable prescription
to all his patients is "lie low, go slow, and keep cool." He says that more men are
killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies. He maintains that
overwork slew Pansay who died under his hands about three years ago. He has,
of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there
was a crack in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and
pressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle," says Heatherlegh, "after the
stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behaved like a
blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that the work of the
Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and
making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss
Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish
chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed itself. Overwork started his
illness, kept it alight, and killed him, poor devil. Write him off to the System—
one man to do the work of two-and-a-half men."
I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when
Heatherlegh was called out to visit patients and I happened to be within claim.
The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even voice the
procession of men, women, children, and devils that was always passing at the
bottom of his bed. He had a sick man's command of language. When he
recovered I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to
end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have
learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a
door. And this also is Literature.
He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder
Magazine style he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterwards he was
reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help
an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he preferred to die;
vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. I secured his manuscript before he
died, and this is his version of the affair, dated 1885:—
My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not improbable that
I shall get both ere long—rest that neither the red-coated orderly nor the mid-day
gun can break, and change of air far beyond that which any homeward-bound
steamer can give me. In the meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in
flat defiance of my doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You
shall learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too, judge
for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth was ever so
tormented as I.
Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are
drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, demands at
least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly disbelieve. Two
months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the man who had dared tell
me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man in India. To-day, from
Peshawar to the sea, there is no one more wretched. My doctor and I are the only
two who know this. His explanation is that my brain, digestion and eyesight are
all slightly affected; giving rise to my frequent and persistent "delusions."
Delusions, indeed! I call him a fool; but he attends me still with the same
unwearied smile, the same bland professional manner, the same neatly-trimmed
red whiskers, till I begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered
invalid. But you shall judge for yourselves.
Three years ago it was my fortune—my great misfortune—to sail from
Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes Keith-
Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in the least
concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content with the
knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and
unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the
admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of this sort there is
always one who gives and another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-
omened attachment, I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more
dominant, and—if I may use the expression—a purer sentiment than mine.
Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterwards it was bitterly
plain to both of us.
Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective ways, to
meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave and her love
took us both to Simla. There we spent the season together; and there my fire of
straw burnt itself out to a pitiful end with the closing year. I attempt no excuse. I
make no apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much for my sake, and was
prepared to give up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learnt that I was
sick of her presence, tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice.
Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of
them; seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves by
active and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the
hundredth. On her neither my openly-expressed aversion, nor the cutting
brutalities with which I garnished our interviews had the least effect.
"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo-cry, "I'm sure it's all a mistake—a
hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day. Please forgive me,
Jack, dear."
I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity into
passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate—the same instinct, I suppose,
which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider he has but half killed. And
with this hate in my bosom the season of 1882 came to an end.
Next year we met again at Simla—she with her monotonous face and timid
attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every fiber of my frame.
Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and on each occasion her
words were identically the same. Still the unreasoning wail that it was all a
"mistake"; and still the hope of eventually "making friends." I might have seen,
had I cared to look, that that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more
wan and thin month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that such
conduct would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for, childish,
unwomanly. I maintain that she was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in
the black, fever-stricken night watches, I have begun to think that I might have
been a little kinder to her. But that really is a "delusion." I could not have
continued pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It would have been
unfair to us both.
Last year we met again—on the same terms as before. The same weary
appeals, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make her see
how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming the old
relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart—that is to say, she found it
difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing interests to attend to.
When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems a
confused nightmare wherein light and shade were fantastically intermingled—
my courtship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes, doubts and fears; our long
rides together; my trembling avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again
a vision of a white face flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white
liveries I once watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved
hand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome
monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering, honestly, heartily loved her,
and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were
engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie" jhampanies at the back of
Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs.
Wessington everything. She knew it already.
"So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear." Then, without a moment's pause: "I'm
sure it's all a mistake—a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day,
Jack, as we ever were."
My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman
before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't mean to
make you angry; but it's true, it's true!"
And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to
finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that I had
been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she had turned her
'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me.
The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory. The rain-
swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden, dingy pines, the
muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed a gloomy background
against which the black and white liveries of the jhampanies, the yellow-paneled
'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington's down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She
was holding her handkerchief in her left hand and was leaning back exhausted
against the 'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie
Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call of "Jack!"
This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I
came across Kitty on horseback; and, in the delight of a long ride with her,
forgot all about the interview.
A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of her
existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy. Before
three months were over I had forgotten all about her, except that at times the
discovery of some of her old letters reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone
relationship. By January I had disinterred what was left of our correspondence
from among my scattered belongings and had burnt it. At the beginning of April
of this year, 1885, I was at Simla—semi-deserted Simla—once more, and was
deep in lover's talks and walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be
married at the end of June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I
did, I am not saying too much when I pronounce myself to have been, at the
time, the happiest man in India.
Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight. Then,
aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals circumstanced as we
were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement-ring was the outward and visible
sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and that she must forthwith come to
Hamilton's to be measured for one. Up to that moment, I give you my word, we
had completely forgotten so trivial a matter. To Hamilton's we accordingly went
on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that—whatever my doctor may say to the
contrary—I was then in perfect health, enjoying a well-balanced mind and an
absolutely tranquil spirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there,
regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty's finger for the ring in the
presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two diamonds.
We then rode out down the slope that leads to the Combermere Bridge and
Peliti's shop.
While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and
Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side—while all Simla, that is to say as
much of it as had then come from the Plains, was grouped round the Reading-
room and Peliti's veranda—I was aware that some one, apparently at a vast
distance, was calling me by my Christian name. It struck me that I had heard the
voice before, but when and where I could not at once determine. In the short
space it took to cover the road between the path from Hamilton's shop and the
first plank of the Combermere Bridge I had thought over half-a-dozen people
who might have committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it
must have been some singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my
eye was arrested by the sight of four jhampanies in black and white livery,
pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew
back to the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation and
disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without her
black and white servitors re-appearing to spoil the day's happiness? Whoever
employed them now I thought I would call upon, and ask as a personal favor to
change her jhampanies' livery. I would hire the men myself, and, if necessary,
buy their coats from off their backs. It is impossible to say here what a flood of
undesirable memories their presence evoked.
"Kitty," I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's jhampanies turned up
again! I wonder who has them now?"
Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always been
interested in the sickly woman.
"What? Where?" she asked. "I can't see them anywhere."
Even as she spoke, her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself
directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to utter a word of
warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed through men and
carriage as if they had been thin air.
"What's the matter?" cried Kitty; "what made you call out so foolishly, Jack?
If I am engaged I don't want all creation to know about it. There was lots of
space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you think I can't ride—There!"
Whereupon willful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a hand-
gallop in the direction of the Band-stand; fully expecting, as she herself
afterwards told me, that I should follow her. What was the matter? Nothing,
indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla was haunted with devils. I
reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. The 'rickshaw had turned too, and
now stood immediately facing me, near the left railing of the Combermere
Bridge.
"Jack! Jack, darling." (There was no mistake about the words this time: they
rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) "It's some hideous
mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, Jack, and let's be friends again."
The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and daily pray for
the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief in hand, and
golden head bowed on her breast.
How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my
groom taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. I tumbled off my
horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There
two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing the gossip
of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then than the
consolations of religion could have been. I plunged into the midst of the
conversation at once; chatted, laughed and jested with a face (when I caught a
glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four
men noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of over
many pegs, charitably endeavored to draw me apart from the rest of the
loungers. But I refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind—as a
child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark. I must
have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me,
when I heard Kitty's dear voice outside inquiring for me. In another minute she
had entered the shop, prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in
my duties. Something in my face stopped her.
"Why, Jack," she cried, "what have you been doing? What has happened? Are
you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had been a little too
much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a cloudy April afternoon, and the
sun had been hidden all day. I saw my mistake as soon as the words were out of
my mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty, in a
regal rage, out of doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some
excuse (I have forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered
away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.
In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter. Here was I,
Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the year of grace
1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror from my sweetheart's
side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead and buried eight months
ago. These were facts that I could not blink. Nothing was further from my
thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's
shop. Nothing was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite
Peliti's. It was broad daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look
you, in defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's
ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.
Kitty's Arab had gone through the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope that some
woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and the coolies
with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round this treadmill of
thought; and again and again gave up baffled and in despair. The voice was as
inexplicable as the apparition. I had originally some wild notion of confiding it
all to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the
ghostly occupant of the 'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the presence of the
'rickshaw is in itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One
may see ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages.
The whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man!"
Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my
strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very wroth, and
a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency born of night-long
pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked with a sudden palpitation of
the heart—the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution had its
effect; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie
dividing us.
Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still
unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion,
suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road—anything rather
than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt, so I yielded from fear of
provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out together towards Chota
Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom,
cantered from a mile or so below the Convent to the stretch of level road by the
Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat
quicker and quicker as we neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full
of Mrs. Wessington all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore
witness to our old-time walks and talks. The boulders were full of it; the pines
sang it aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over
the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud.
As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies' Mile, the
Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight—only the four black
and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and the golden head of the
woman within—all apparently just as I had left them eight months and one
fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that Kitty must see what I saw—we were
so marvelously sympathetic in all things. Her next words undeceived me—"Not
a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings!"
Her wiry little Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in
this order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty yards
of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The 'rickshaw was
directly in the middle of the road: and once more the Arab passed through it, my
horse following. "Jack, Jack, dear! Please forgive me," rang with a wail in my
ears, and, after an interval: "It's all a mistake, a hideous mistake!"
I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at the
Reservoir works the black and white liveries were still waiting—patiently
waiting—under the gray hillside, and the wind brought me a mocking echo of
the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me a good deal on my silence
throughout the remainder of the ride. I had been talking up till then wildly and at
random. To save my life I could not speak afterwards naturally, and from
Sanjowlie to the Church wisely held my tongue.
I was to dine with the Mannerings that night and had barely time to canter
home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men talking together
in the dusk—"It's a curious thing," said one, "how completely all trace of it
disappeared. You know my wife was insanely fond of the woman (never could
see anything in her myself) and wanted me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and
coolies if they were to be got for love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it,
but I've got to do what the Memsahib tells me. Would you believe that the man
she hired it from tells me that all four of the men, they were brothers, died of
cholera, on the way to Hardwár, poor devils; and the 'rickshaw has been broken
up by the man himself. Told me he never used a dead Memsahib's 'rickshaw.
Spoilt his luck. Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington
spoiling any one's luck except her own!" I laughed aloud at this point; and my
laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of 'rickshaws after all,
and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington
give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?
And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal thing blocking
my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast and by short-cuts unknown to
ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked my laughter
suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain extent I must have
been, for I recollect that I reined in my horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and
politely wished Mrs. Wessington "good evening." Her answer was one I knew
only too well. I listened to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but
should be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil
stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim
recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to the thing
in front of me.
"Mad as a hatter, poor devil—or drunk. Max, try and get him to come home."
Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard me
speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They were very
kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered that I was
extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away to my hotel,
there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes late. I pleaded the
darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like
tardiness; and sat down.
The conversation had already become general; and, under cover of it, I was
addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware that at the
further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was describing with much
broidery his encounter with a mad unknown that evening. A few sentences
convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half an hour ago. In the
middle of the story he looked round for applause, as professional story-tellers do,
caught my eye, and straightway collapsed. There was a moment's awkward
silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered something to the effect that he had
"forgotten the rest"; thereby sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which
he had built up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart
and—went on with my fish.
In the fullness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine regret I
tore myself away from Kitty—as certain as I was of my own existence that It
would be waiting for me outside the door. The red-whiskered man, who had
been introduced to me as Dr. Heatherlegh of Simla, volunteered to bear me
company as far as our roads lay together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.
My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in what
seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-
whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he had been
thinking over it all dinner time.
"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the
Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me
before I was aware.
"That!" said I, pointing to It.
"That may be either D.T. or eyes for aught I know. Now you don't liquor. I
saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D.T. There's nothing whatever where you're
pointing, though you're sweating and trembling with fright like a scared pony.
Therefore, I conclude that it's eyes. And I ought to understand all about them.
Come along home with me. I'm on the Blessington lower road."
To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept about
twenty yards ahead—and this, too, whether we walked, trotted, or cantered. In
the course of that long night ride I had told my companion almost as much as I
have told you here.
"Well, you've spoilt one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to," said he,
"but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through. Now come home
and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you, young man, let this be a lesson
to you to steer clear of women and indigestible food till the day of your death."
The 'rickshaw kept steadily in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed to
derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.
"Eyes, Pansay—all eyes, brain and stomach; and the greatest of these three is
stomach. You've too much conceited brain, too little stomach, and thoroughly
unhealthy eyes. Get your stomach straight and the rest follows. And all that's
French for a liver pill. I'll take sole medical charge of you from this hour; for
you're too interesting a phenomenon to be passed over."
By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road and
the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, overhanging shale cliff.
Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh rapped out an oath.
"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside for the sake
of a stomach-cum-brain-cum-eye illusion. . . . Lord ha' mercy! What's that?"
There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a
crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliffside—pines,
undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up.
The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the
gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two
horses stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling
earth and stone had subsided, my companion muttered: "Man, if we'd gone
forward we should have been ten feet deep in our graves by now! 'There are
more things in heaven and earth' . . . Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want
a drink badly."
We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr.
Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.
His attempts towards my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a
week I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I bless the
good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's best and kindest
doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. Day by day, too, I
became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion"
theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a
slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and
that I should be recovered before she had time to regret my absence.
Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver-pills,
cold-water baths and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at early dawn—for, as
he sagely observed: "A man with a sprained ankle doesn't walk a dozen miles a
day, and your young woman might be wondering if she saw you."
At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse and strict
injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed me as brusquely
as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting benediction: "Man, I certify to
your mental cure, and that's as much as to say I've cured most of your bodily
ailments. Now, get your traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make
love to Miss Kitty."
I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me short:
"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved like a
blackguard all through. But, all the same you're a phenomenon, and as queer a
phenomenon as you are a blackguard. Now, go out and see if you can find the
eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for each time you see
it."
Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with Kitty—drunk
with the intoxication of present happiness and the foreknowledge that I should
never more be troubled with It's hideous presence. Strong in the sense of my
new-found security, I proposed a ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round
Jakko.
Never have I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal spirits as
I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was delighted at the change in
my appearance, and complimented me on it in her delightfully frank and
outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings' house together, laughing and talking,
and cantered along the Chota Simla road as of old.
I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my assurance
doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow to my impatient
mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. "Why, Jack!" she cried at last,
"you are behaving like a child! What are you doing?"
We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making
my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of my
riding-whip.
"Doing," I answered, "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing
nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I.
'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth,
Joying to feel yourself alive;
Lord over nature, Lord of the visible Earth,
Lord of the senses five.'"
My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner
above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to Sanjowlie. In
the center of the level road stood the black and white liveries, the yellow-paneled
'rickshaw and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and,
I believe, must have said something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying
face downward on the road, with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.
"Has it gone, child?" I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.
"Has what gone? Jack dear: what does it all mean? There must be a mistake
somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake." Her last words brought me to my feet—
mad—raving for the time being.
"Yes, there is a mistake somewhere." I repeated, "a hideous mistake. Come
and look at It!"
I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the road up to
where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to it; to tell It that we
were betrothed! that neither Death nor Hell could break the tie between us; and
Kitty only knows how much more to the same effect. Now and again I appealed
passionately to the Terror in the 'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to
release me from a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have
told Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen intently
with white face and blazing eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's quite enough. Bring my horse."
The grooms, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the
recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of the bridle
entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the cut of her riding-
whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two of farewell that even
now I cannot write down. So I judged, and judged rightly, that Kitty knew all;
and I staggered back to the side of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding,
and the blow of the riding-whip had raised a livid blue weal on it. I had no self-
respect. Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a
distance, cantered up.
"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's signature to
my order of dismissal and . . . I'll thank you for that lakh as soon as convenient."
Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laugh.
"I'll stake my professional reputation"—he began. "Don't be a fool," I
whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and you'd better take me home."
As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was
passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a cloud and
fall in upon me.
Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I was
lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh was watching
me intently from behind the papers on his writing table. His first words were not
very encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much moved by them.
"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good deal,
you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and a cheerful sort of a
note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the liberty of reading and burning.
The old gentleman's not pleased with you."
"And Kitty?" I asked dully.
"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token
you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just before I
met you. Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as you did to
Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot-
headed little virago, your mash. Will have it too that you were suffering from
D.T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. Says she'll die before she ever
speaks to you again."
I groaned and turned over on the other side.
"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken
off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken through
D.T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better exchange unless you'd
prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows
about that scene on the Ladies' Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think
over it."
During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the lowest
circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. And at the
same time I myself was watching myself faltering through the dark labyrinths of
doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might
have wondered, which dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard
myself answering in a voice that I hardly recognized:
"They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give 'em fits,
Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer."
Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven I) that
tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past month.
"But I am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla,
and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there
are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did her any harm. It might
just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd never have come back on purpose
to kill her. Why can't I be left alone—left alone and happy?"
It was high noon when I first awoke: and the sun was low in the sky before I
slept—slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too worn to feel further
pain.
Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning that
he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to his
(Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had traveled through
the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all sides much pitied.
"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded pleasantly, "though
the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill. Never mind;
we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon."
I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already, old
man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further."
In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the
burden that had been laid upon me.
With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion
against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no better than I
whose punishments had at least been reserved for another world and I felt that it
was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone should have been singled out for so
hideous a fate. This mood would in time give place to another where it seemed
that the 'rickshaw and I were the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty
was a ghost; that Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I
knew were all ghosts and the great, gray hills themselves but vain shadows
devised to torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backwards and forwards for
seven weary days, my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the bed-
room looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and was as other
men once more. Curiously enough, my face showed no signs of the struggle I
had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as expressionless and commonplace as
ever. I had expected some permanent alteration—visible evidence of the disease
that was eating me away. I found nothing.
On the 15th of May I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the
morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I found
that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in clumsy
fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized that for the
rest of my natural life I should be among, but not of, my fellows; and I envied
very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on the Mall below. I lunched at the
Club, and at four o'clock wandered aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope
of meeting Kitty. Close to the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me;
and I heard Mrs. Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this
ever since I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom
'rickshaw and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to
the bazaar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign
she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay me the
compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had served for an
excuse.
So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept round
Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines dripped like
roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of fine, driving rain. Two or
three times I found myself saying to myself almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on
leave at Simla—at Simla! Everyday, ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that—I
mustn't forget that." Then I would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard
at the Club; the prices of So-and-So's horses—anything, in fact, that related to
the work-a-day Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the
multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was not taking
leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have prevented my
hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.
Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level road.
Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left alone with Mrs.
Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your hood and tell me what it all
means?" The hood dropped noiselessly and I was face to face with my dead and
buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had last seen her alive:
carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand; and the same card-case in
her left. (A woman eight months dead with a card-case!) I had to pin myself
down to the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of
the road to assure myself that that at least was real.
"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means." Mrs.
Wessington leant forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used to know
so well, and spoke.
If my story had not already so madly overleaped the bounds of all human
belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one—no, not even Kitty,
for whom it is written as some sort of justification of my conduct—will believe
me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I walked with her from the
Sanjowlie road to the turning below the Commander-in-Chief's house as I might
walk by the side of any living woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The
second and most tormenting of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold
upon me, and like the prince in Tennyson's poem, "I seemed to move amid a
world of ghosts." There had been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief's,
and we two joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it
seemed that they were the shadows—impalpable fantastic shadows—that
divided for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said during
the course of that weird interview I cannot—indeed, I dare not—tell.
Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I had
been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera." It was a ghastly and yet in
some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be possible, I
wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the woman I had killed by
my own neglect and cruelty?
I met Kitty on the homeward road—a shadow among shadows.
If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their order, my
story would never come to an end; and your patience would be exhausted.
Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly 'rickshaw and I
used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went, there the four black
and white liveries followed me and bore me company to and from my hotel. At
the theater I found them amid the crowd of yelling jhampanies; outside the club
veranda, after a long evening of whist; at the birthday ball, waiting patiently for
my reappearance; and in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no
shadow, the 'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood
and iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning
some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have walked
down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the unspeakable
amazement of the passers-by.
Before I had been out and about a week I learnt that the "fit" theory had been
discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my mode of life. I
called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion for the society of my
kind which I had never felt before; I hungered to be among the realities of life;
and at the same time I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long
from my ghostly companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my
varying moods from the 15th of May up to to-day.
The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind fear, a dim
sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave Simla; and I knew that my
stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover, that it was my destiny to die slowly
and a little every day. My only anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as
might be. Alternately I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous
flirtations with my successor—to speak more accurately, my successors—with
amused interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I
wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven to
let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods
lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the seen and the unseen should
mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave.
The good ship sped on her way across the calm Atlantic. It was an outward
passage, according to the little charts which the company had charily distributed,
but most of the passengers were homeward bound, after a summer of rest and
recreation, and they were counting the days before they might hope to see Fire
Island Light. On the lee side of the boat, comfortably sheltered from the wind,
and just by the door of the captain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat
a little group of returning Americans. The Duchess (she was down on the
purser's list as Mrs. Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess
of Washington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough to
vote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of two sisters she
was still the baby of the family)—the Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaer were
discussing the pleasant English voice and the not unpleasant English accent of a
manly young lordling who was going to America for sport. Uncle Larry and
Dear Jones were enticing each other into a bet on the ship's run of the morrow.
"I'll give you two to one she don't make 420," said Dear Jones.
"I'll take it," answered Uncle Larry. "We made 427 the fifth day last year." It
was Uncle Larry's seventeenth visit to Europe, and this was therefore his thirty-
fourth voyage.
"And when did you get in?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I don't care a bit
about the run, so long as we get in soon."
"We crossed the bar Sunday night, just seven days after we left Queenstown,
and we dropped anchor off Quarantine at three o'clock on Monday morning."
"I hope we shan't do that this time. I can't seem to sleep any when the boat
stops."
"I can; but I didn't," continued Uncle Larry; "because my state-room was the
most for'ard in the boat, and the donkey-engine that let down the anchor was
right over my head."
"So you got up and saw the sunrise over the bay," said Dear Jones, "with the
electric lights of the city twinkling in the distance, and the first faint flush of the
dawn in the east just over Fort Lafayette, and the rosy tinge which spread softly
upward, and——"
"Did you both come back together?" asked the Duchess.
"Because he has crossed thirty-four times you must not suppose that he has a
monopoly in sunrises," retorted Dear Jones. "No, this was my own sunrise; and a
mighty pretty one it was, too."
"I'm not matching sunrises with you," remarked Uncle Larry, calmly; "but I'm
willing to back a merry jest called forth by my sunrise against any two merry
jests called forth by yours."
"I confess reluctantly that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones
was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on the spur of the
moment.
"That's where my sunrise has the call," said Uncle Larry, complacently.
"What was the merry jest?" was Baby Van Rensselaer's inquiry, the natural
result of a feminine curiosity thus artistically excited.
"Well, here it is. I was standing aft, near a patriotic American and a
wandering Irishman, and the patriotic American rashly declared that you couldn't
see a sunrise like that anywhere in Europe, and this gave the Irishman his
chance, and he said, 'Sure ye don't have 'em here till we're through with 'em over
there.'"
"It is true," said Dear Jones, thoughtfully, "that they do have some things over
there better than we do; for instance, umbrellas."
"And gowns," added the Duchess.
"And antiquities,"—this was Uncle Larry's contribution.
"And we do have some things so much better in America!" protested Baby
Van Rensselaer, as yet uncorrupted by any worship of the effete monarchies of
despotic Europe. "We make lots of things a great deal nicer than you can get
them in Europe—especially ice-cream."
"And pretty girls," added Dear Jones; but he did not look at her.
"And spooks," remarked Uncle Larry casually.
"Spooks?" queried the Duchess.
"Spooks. I maintain the word. Ghosts, if you like that better, or specters. We
turn out the best quality of spook——"
"You forget the lovely ghost stories about the Rhine, and the Black Forest,"
interrupted Miss Van Rensselaer, with feminine inconsistency.
"I remember the Rhine and the Black Forest and all the other haunts of elves
and fairies and hobgoblins; but for good honest spooks there is no place like
home. And what differentiates our spook—Spiritus Americanus—from the
ordinary ghost of literature is that it responds to the American sense of humor.
Take Irving's stories for example. The Headless Horseman, that's a comic ghost
story. And Rip Van Winkle—consider what humor, and what good-humor, there
is in the telling of his meeting with the goblin crew of Hendrik Hudson's men! A
still better example of this American way of dealing with legend and mystery is
the marvelous tale of the rival ghosts."
"The rival ghosts?" queried the Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaer together.
"Who were they?"
"Didn't I ever tell you about them?" answered Uncle Larry, a gleam of
approaching joy flashing from his eye.
"Since he is bound to tell us sooner or later, we'd better be resigned and hear
it now," said Dear Jones.
"If you are not more eager, I won't tell it at all."
"Oh, do, Uncle Larry; you know I just dote on ghost stories," pleaded Baby
Van Rensselaer.
"Once upon a time," began Uncle Larry—"in fact, a very few years ago—
there lived in the thriving town of New York a young American called Duncan—
Eliphalet Duncan. Like his name, he was half Yankee and half Scotch, and
naturally he was a lawyer, and had come to New York to make his way. His
father was a Scotchman, who had come over and settled in Boston, and married
a Salem girl. When Eliphalet Duncan was about twenty he lost both of his
parents. His father left him with enough money to give him a start, and a strong
feeling of pride in his Scotch birth; you see there was a title in the family in
Scotland, and although Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger son,
yet he always remembered, and always bade his only son to remember, that his
ancestry was noble. His mother left him her full share of Yankee grit, and a little
house in Salem which has belonged to her family for more than two hundred
years. She was a Hitchcock, and the Hitchcocks had been settled in Salem since
the year 1. It was a great-great-grandfather of Mr. Eliphalet Hitchcock who was
foremost in the time of the Salem witchcraft craze. And this little old house
which she left to my friend Eliphalet Duncan was haunted.
"By the ghost of one of the witches, of course," interrupted Dear Jones.
"Now how could it be the ghost of a witch, since the witches were all burned
at the stake? You never heard of anybody who was burned having a ghost, did
you?"
"That's an argument in favor of cremation, at any rate," replied Jones, evading
the direct question.
"It is, if you don't like ghosts; I do," said Baby Van Rensselaer.
"And so do I," added Uncle Larry. "I love a ghost as dearly as an Englishman
loves a lord."
"Go on with your story," said the Duchess, majestically overruling all
extraneous discussion.
"This little old house at Salem was haunted," resumed Uncle Larry. "And by a
very distinguished ghost—or at least by a ghost with very remarkable attributes."
"What was he like?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a premonitory shiver
of anticipatory delight.
"It had a lot of peculiarities. In the first place, it never appeared to the master
of the house. Mostly it confined its visitations to unwelcome guests. In the
course of the last hundred years it had frightened away four successive mothers-
in-law, while never intruding on the head of the household."
"I guess that ghost had been one of the boys when he was alive and in the
flesh." This was Dear Jones's contribution to the telling of the tale.
"In the second place," continued Uncle Larry, "it never frightened anybody
the first time it appeared. Only on the second visit were the ghost-seers scared;
but then they were scared enough for twice, and they rarely mustered up courage
enough to risk a third interview. One of the most curious characteristics of this
well-meaning spook was that it had no face—or at least that nobody ever saw its
face."
"Perhaps he kept his countenance veiled?" queried the Duchess, who was
beginning to remember that she never did like ghost stories.
"That was what I was never able to find out. I have asked several people who
saw the ghost, and none of them could tell me anything about its face, and yet
while in its presence they never noticed its features, and never remarked on their
absence or concealment. It was only afterward when they tried to recall calmly
all the circumstances of meeting with the mysterious stranger, that they became
aware that they had not seen its face. And they could not say whether the
features were covered, or whether they were wanting, or what the trouble was.
They knew only that the face was never seen. And no matter how often they
might see it, they never fathomed this mystery. To this day nobody knows
whether the ghost which used to haunt the little old house in Salem had a face, or
what manner of face it had."
"How awfully weird!" said Baby Van Rensselaer. "And why did the ghost go
away?"
"I haven't said it went away," answered Uncle Larry, with much dignity.
"But you said it used to haunt the little old house at Salem, so I supposed it
had moved. Didn't it?"
"You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet Duncan used to spend most of his
summer vacations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered him at all, for he was
the master of the house—much to his disgust, too, because he wanted to see for
himself the mysterious tenant at will of his property. But he never saw it, never.
He arranged with friends to call him whenever it might appear, and he slept in
the next room with the door open; and yet when their frightened cries waked him
the ghost was gone, and his only reward was to hear reproachful sighs as soon as
he went back to bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not fair of Eliphalet to
seek an introduction which was plainly unwelcome."
Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by getting up and tucking a heavy rug
snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the sky was now overcast and
gray, and the air was damp and penetrating.
"One fine spring morning," pursued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet Duncan received
great news. I told you that there was a title in the family in Scotland, and that
Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger son. Well, it happened that
all Eliphalet's father's brothers and uncles had died off without male issue except
the eldest son of the eldest, and he, of course, bore the title, and was Baron
Duncan of Duncan. Now the great news that Eliphalet Duncan received in New
York one fine spring morning was that Baron Duncan and his only son had been
yachting in the Hebrides, and they had been caught in a black squall, and they
were both dead. So my friend Eliphalet Duncan inherited the title and the
estates."
"How romantic!" said the Duchess. "So he was a baron!"
"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he was a baron if he chose. But he didn't
choose."
"More fool he," said Dear Jones sententiously.
"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "I'm not so sure of that. You see, Eliphalet
Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyes to the main
chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck until he could find out
whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the Scotch title. He soon
discovered that they were not, and that the late Lord Duncan, having married
money, kept up such state as he could out of the revenues of the dowry of Lady
Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decided that he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in
New York, living comfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland,
living scantily on his title."
"But he kept his title?" asked the Duchess.
"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he kept it quiet. I knew it, and a friend or two
more. But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put Baron Duncan of Duncan,
Attorney and Counselor at Law, on his shingle."
"What has all this got to do with your ghost?" asked Dear Jones pertinently.
"Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal with another ghost. Eliphalet was
very learned in spirit lore—perhaps because he owned the haunted house at
Salem, perhaps because he was a Scotchman by descent. At all events, he had
made a special study of the wraiths and white ladies and banshees and bogies of
all kinds whose sayings and doings and warnings are recorded in the annals of
the Scottish nobility. In fact, he was acquainted with the habits of every
reputable spook in the Scotch peerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan
ghost attached to the person of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of
Duncan."
"So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also a
haunted man in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem ghost,
although it had one peculiarity in common with its trans-Atlantic fellow-spook.
It never appeared to the holder of the title, just as the other never was visible to
the owner of the house. In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all. It was a
guardian angel only. Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on Baron
Duncan of Duncan, and to warn him of impending evil. The traditions of the
house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt a premonition of
ill fortune. Some of them had yielded and withdrawn from the venture they had
undertaken, and it had failed dismally. Some had been obstinate, and had
hardened their hearts, and had gone on reckless of defeat and to death. In no case
had a Lord Duncan been exposed to peril without fair warning."
"Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off the
Hebrides?" asked Dear Jones.
"Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There is extant
now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes before he and his
son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he has had to struggle with an almost
overmastering desire to give up the trip. Had he obeyed the friendly warning of
the family ghost, the latter would have been spared a journey across the
Atlantic."
"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron died?"
asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.
"How did he come over," queried Dear Jones—"in the steerage, or as a cabin
passenger?"
"I don't know," answered Uncle Larry calmly, "and Eliphalet, he didn't know.
For as he was in no danger, and stood in no need of warning, he couldn't tell
whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was on the watch for it all
the time. But he never got any proof of its presence until he went down to the
little old house of Salem, just before the Fourth of July. He took a friend down
with him—a young fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort
Sumter was fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little
unpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten years of
fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn't likely to be much frightened by
a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on the porch all the evening
smoking and talking over points in military law. A little after twelve o'clock, just
as they began to think it was about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly
noise in the house. It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could
put a name to. It was an undeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of
sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at Cold
Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet knew it was the
ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died away, it was followed by
another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its intensity. Something in this cry
seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he felt sure that it proceeded from the family
ghost, the warning wraith of the Duncans."
"Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?"
inquired the Duchess anxiously.
"Both of them were there," answered Uncle Larry. "You see, one of them
belonged to the house, and had to be there all the time, and the other was
attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow him there; wherever
he was there was the ghost also. But Eliphalet, he had scarcely time to think this
out when he heard both sounds again, not one after another, but both together,
and something told him—some sort of an instinct he had—that those two ghosts
didn't agree, didn't get on together, didn't exactly hit it off; in fact, that they were
quarreling."
"Quarreling ghosts! Well, I never!" was Baby Van Rensselaer's remark.
"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity," said Dear Jones.
And the Duchess added, "It would certainly be setting a better example."
"You know," resumed Uncle Larry, "that two waves of light or of sound may
interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these rival spooks.
They interfered, but they did not produce silence or darkness. On the contrary, as
soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series
of spiritualistic manifestations, a regular dark séance. A tambourine was played
upon, a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room."
"Where did they get the banjo?" asked Dear Jones skeptically.
"I don't know. Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine. You
don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical instruments large
enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on the chance of a pair of ghosts
coming to give him a surprise party, do you? Every spook has its own instrument
of torture. Angels play on harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and
tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all the
modern improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own
musical weapons. At all events, they had them there in the little old house at
Salem the night Eliphalet and his friend came down. And they played on them,
and they rang the bell, and they rapped here, there, and everywhere. And they
kept it up all night."
"All night?" asked the awe-stricken Duchess.
"All night long," said Uncle Larry solemnly; "and the next night, too.
Eliphalet did not get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On the second night
the house ghost was seen by the officer; on the third night it showed itself again;
and the next morning the officer packed his grip-sack and took the first train to
Boston. He was a New Yorker, but he said he'd sooner go to Boston than see that
ghost again. Eliphalet, he wasn't scared at all, partly because he never saw either
the domiciliary or the titular spook, and partly because he felt himself on
friendly terms with the spirit world, and didn't scare easily. But after losing three
nights' sleep and the society of his friend, he began to be a little impatient, and to
think that the thing had gone far enough. You see, while in a way he was fond of
ghosts, yet he liked them best one at a time. Two ghosts were one too many. He
wasn't bent on making a collection of spooks. He and one ghost were company,
but he and two ghosts were a crowd."
"What did he do?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Well, he couldn't do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would get
tired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spook to sleep in
the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they wouldn't let him sleep
nights. They kept on wrangling and quarreling incessantly; they manifested and
they dark-séanced as regularly as the old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they
rapped and they rang bells and they banged the tambourine and they threw the
flaming banjo about the house, and worse than all, they swore."
"I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language," said the Duchess.
"How did he know they were swearing? Could he hear them?" asked Dear
Jones.
"That was just it," responded Uncle Larry; "he could not hear them—at least
not distinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and stifled rumblings. But the
impression produced on him was that they were swearing. If they had only
sworn right out, he would not have minded it so much, because he would have
known the worst. But the feeling that the air was full of suppressed profanity
was very wearing and after standing it for a week, he gave up in disgust and
went to the White Mountains."
"Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose," interjected Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Not at all," explained Uncle Larry. "They could not quarrel unless he was
present. You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him, and the
domiciliary ghost could not leave the house. When he went away he took the
family ghost with him, leaving the house ghost behind. Now spooks can't quarrel
when they are a hundred miles apart any more than men can."
"And what happened afterward?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty
impatience.
"A most marvelous thing happened. Eliphalet Duncan went to the White
Mountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of Mount
Washington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and this
classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a remarkably pretty
girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first sight, and by the time he got to the
top of Mount Washington he was so deep in love that he began to consider his
own unworthiness, and to wonder whether she might ever be induced to care for
him a little—ever so little."
"I don't think that is so marvelous a thing," said Dear Jones glancing at Baby
Van Rensselaer.
"Who was she?" asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia.
"She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter of old
Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley and Sutton."
"A very respectable family," assented the Duchess.
"I hope she wasn't a daughter of that loud and vulgar old Mrs. Sutton whom I
met at Saratoga, one summer, four or five years ago?" said Dear Jones.
"Probably she was."
"She was a horrid old woman. The boys used to call her Mother Gorgon."
"The pretty Kitty Sutton with whom Eliphalet Duncan had fallen in love was
the daughter of Mother Gorgon. But he never saw the mother, who was in
'Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fe, or somewhere out West, and he saw a great
deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains. She was traveling
with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyed from hotel to hotel, Duncan
went with them, and filled out the quartette. Before the end of the summer he
began to think about proposing. Of course he had lots of chances, going on
excursions as they were every day. He made up his mind to seize the first
opportunity, and that very evening he took her out for a moonlight row on Lake
Winnipiseogee. As he handed her into the boat he resolved to do it, and he had a
glimmer of a suspicion that she knew he was going to do it, too."
"Girls," said Dear Jones, "never go out in a rowboat at night with a young
man unless you mean to accept him."
"Sometimes it's best to refuse him, and get it over once for all," said Baby
Van Rensselaer.
"As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shake it off, but
in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness of impending evil. Before he
had taken ten strokes—and he was a swift oarsman—he was aware of a
mysterious presence between him and Miss Sutton."
"Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning him off the match?" interrupted
Dear Jones.
"That's just what it was," said Uncle Larry. "And he yielded to it, and kept his
peace, and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with his proposal unspoken."
"More fool he," said Dear Jones. "It will take more than one ghost to keep me
from proposing when my mind is made up." And he looked at Baby Van
Rensselaer.
"The next morning," continued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet overslept himself, and
when he went down to a late breakfast he found that the Suttons had gone to
New York by the morning train. He wanted to follow them at once, and again he
felt the mysterious presence overpowering his will. He struggled two days, and
at last he roused himself to do what he wanted in spite of the spook. When he
arrived in New York it was late in the evening. He dressed himself hastily and
went to the hotel where the Suttons put up, in the hope of seeing at least her
brother. The guardian angel fought every inch of the walk with him, until he
began to wonder whether, if Miss Sutton were to take him, the spook would
forbid the banns. At the hotel he saw no one that night, and he went home
determined to call as early as he could the next afternoon, and make an end of it.
When he left his office about two o'clock the next day to learn his fate, he had
not walked five blocks before he discovered that the wraith of the Duncans had
withdrawn his opposition to the suit. There was no feeling of impending evil, no
resistance, no struggle, no consciousness of an opposing presence. Eliphalet was
greatly encouraged. He walked briskly to the hotel; he found Miss Sutton alone.
He asked her the question, and got his answer."
"She accepted him, of course," said Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Of course," said Uncle Larry. "And while they were in the first flush of joy,
swapping confidences and confessions, her brother came into the parlor with an
expression of pain on his face and a telegram in his hand. The former was caused
by the latter, which was from 'Frisco, and which announced the sudden death of
Mrs. Sutton, their mother."
"And that was why the ghost no longer opposed the match?" questioned Dear
Jones.
"Exactly. You see, the family ghost knew that Mother Gorgon was an awful
obstacle to Duncan's happiness, so it warned him. But the moment the obstacle
was removed, it gave its consent at once."
The fog was lowering its thick damp curtain, and it was beginning to be
difficult to see from one end of the boat to the other. Dear Jones tightened the
rug which enwrapped Baby Van Rensselaer, and then withdrew again into his
own substantial coverings.
Uncle Larry paused in his story long enough to light another of the tiny cigars
he always smoked.
"I infer that Lord Duncan"—the Duchess was scrupulous in the bestowal of
titles—"saw no more of the ghosts after he was married."
"He never saw them at all, at any time, either before or since. But they came
very near breaking off the match, and thus breaking two young hearts."
"You don't mean to say that they knew any just cause or impediment why
they should not forever after hold their peace?" asked Dear Jones.
"How could a ghost, or even two ghosts, keep a girl from marrying the man
she loved?" This was Baby Van Rensselaer's question.
"It seems curious, doesn't it?" and Uncle Larry tried to warm himself by two
or three sharp pulls at his fiery little cigar. "And the circumstances are quite as
curious as the fact itself. You see, Miss Sutton wouldn't be married for a year
after her mother's death, so she and Duncan had lots of time to tell each other all
they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to
school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about
the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her the
little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the
wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she
didn't want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house
at Salem to spend her honeymoon in peace and quiet, with nothing to do and
nobody to bother them. Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion. It suited him
down to the ground. All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knocked
him all of a heap. He had told her about the Duncan Banshee, and the idea of
having an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her husband tickled her
immensely. But he had never said anything about the ghost which haunted the
little old house at Salem. He knew she would be frightened out of her wits if the
house ghost revealed itself to her, and he saw at once that it would be impossible
to go to Salem on their wedding trip. So he told her all about it, and how
whenever he went to Salem the two ghosts interfered, and gave dark séances and
manifested and materialized and made the place absolutely impossible. Kitty, she
listened in silence, and Eliphalet, he thought she had changed her mind. But she
hadn't done anything of the kind."
"Just like a man—to think she was going to," remarked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would not marry
a man who was afraid of them."
"Just like a girl—to be so inconsistent," remarked Dear Jones.
Uncle Larry's tiny cigar had long been extinct. He lighted a new one, and
continued: "Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her mind was made up. She
was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little old house at Salem, and she
was equally determined not to go there as long as there were any ghosts there.
Until he could assure her that the spectral tenants had received notice to quit, and
that there was no danger of manifestations and materializing, she refused to be
married at all. She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by two
wrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had made ready
the house for her."
"She was an unreasonable young woman," said the Duchess.
"Well, that's what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her. And he
believed he could talk her out of her determination. But he couldn't. She was set.
And when a girl is set, there's nothing to do but yield to the inevitable. And that's
just what Eliphalet did. He saw he would either have to give her up or to get the
ghosts out; and as he loved her and did not care for the ghosts, he resolved to
tackle the ghosts. He had clear grit, Eliphalet had—he was half Scotch and half
Yankee, and neither breed turns tail in a hurry. So he made his plans and he went
down to Salem. As he said good-by to Kitty he had an impression that she was
sorry she had made him go, but she kept up bravely, and put a bold face on it,
and saw him off, and went home and cried for an hour, and was perfectly
miserable until he came back the next day."
"Did he succeed in driving the ghosts away?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer,
with great interest.
"That's just what I'm coming to," said Uncle Larry, pausing at the critical
moment, in the manner of the trained story teller. "You see, Eliphalet had got a
rather tough job, and he would gladly have had an extension of time on the
contract, but he had to choose between the girl and the ghosts, and he wanted the
girl. He tried to invent or remember some short and easy way with ghosts, but he
couldn't. He wished that somebody had invented a specific for spooks—
something that would make the ghosts come out of the house and die in the yard.
He wondered if he could not tempt the ghosts to run in debt, so that he might get
the sheriff to help him. He wondered also whether the ghosts could not be
overcome with strong drink—a dissipated spook, a spook with delirium tremens,
might be committed to the inebriate asylum. But none of these things seemed
feasible."
"What did he do?" interrupted Dear Jones. "The learned counsel will please
speak to the point."
"You will regret this unseemly haste," said Uncle Larry, gravely, "when you
know what really happened."
"What was it, Uncle Larry?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I'm all
impatience."
And Uncle Larry proceeded:
"Eliphalet went down to the little old house at Salem, and as soon as the clock
struck twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as before. Raps here, there, and
everywhere, ringing bells, banging tambourines, strumming banjos sailing about
the room, and all the other manifestations and materializations followed one
another just as they had the summer before. The only difference Eliphalet could
detect was a stronger flavor in the spectral profanity; and this, of course, was
only a vague impression, for he did not actually hear a single word. He waited
awhile in patience, listening and watching. Of course he never saw either of the
ghosts, because neither of them could appear to him. At last he got his dander
up, and he thought it was about time to interfere, so he rapped on the table, and
asked for silence. As soon as he felt that the spooks were listening to him he
explained the situation to them. He told them he was in love, and that he could
not marry unless they vacated the house. He appealed to them as old friends, and
he laid claim to their gratitude. The titular ghost had been sheltered by the
Duncan family for hundreds of years, and the domiciliary ghost had had free
lodging in the little old house at Salem for nearly two centuries. He implored
them to settle their differences, and to get him out of his difficulty at once. He
suggested they'd better fight it out then and there, and see who was master. He
had brought down with him all needful weapons. And he pulled out his valise,
and spread on the table a pair of navy revolvers, a pair of shot-guns, a pair of
dueling swords, and a couple of bowie-knives. He offered to serve as second for
both parties, and to give the word when to begin. He also took out of his valise a
pack of cards and a bottle of poison, telling them that if they wished to avoid
carnage they might cut the cards to see which one should take the poison. Then
he waited anxiously for their reply. For a little space there was silence. Then he
became conscious of a tremulous shivering in one corner of the room, and he
remembered that he had heard from that direction what sounded like a frightened
sigh when he made the first suggestion of the duel. Something told him that this
was the domiciliary ghost, and that it was badly scared. Then he was impressed
by a certain movement in the opposite corner of the room, as though the titular
ghost were drawing himself up with offended dignity. Eliphalet couldn't exactly
see these things, because he never saw the ghosts, but he felt them. After a
silence of nearly a minute a voice came from the corner where the family ghost
stood—a voice strong and full, but trembling slightly with suppressed passion.
And this voice told Eliphalet it was plain enough that he had not long been the
head of the Duncans, and that he had never properly considered the
characteristics of his race if now he supposed that one of his blood could draw
his sword against a woman. Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the
Duncan ghost should raise his hand against a woman and all he wanted was that
the Duncan ghost should fight the other ghost. And then the voice told Eliphalet
that the other ghost was a woman."
"What?" said Dear Jones, sitting up suddenly. "You don't mean to tell me that
the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"
"Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used," said Uncle Larry; "but
he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalled the traditions
about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what the titular ghost said was the
fact. He had never thought of the sex of a spook, but there was no doubt
whatever that the house ghost was a woman. No sooner was this firmly fixed in
Eliphalet's mind than he saw his way out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be
married!—for then there would be no more interference, no more quarreling, no
more manifestations and materializations, no more dark séances, with their raps
and bells and tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts would not hear of it.
The voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraith had never thought of
matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, and pleaded and persuaded and
coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages of matrimony. He had to confess, of course,
that he did not know how to get a clergyman to marry them; but the voice from
the corner gravely told him that there need be no difficulty in regard to that, as
there was no lack of spiritual chaplains. Then, for the first time, the house ghost
spoke, in a low, clear, gentle voice, and with a quaint, old-fashioned New
England accent, which contrasted sharply with the broad Scotch speech of the
family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan seemed to have forgotten that she
was married. But this did not upset Eliphalet at all; he remembered the whole
case clearly, and he told her she was not a married ghost, but a widow, since her
husband had been hung for murdering her. Then the Duncan ghost drew
attention to the great disparity of their ages, saying that he was nearly four
hundred and fifty years old, while she was barely two hundred. But Eliphalet had
not talked to juries for nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxed those ghosts into
matrimony. Afterward he came to the conclusion that they were willing to be
coaxed, but at the time he thought he had pretty hard work to convince them of
the advantages of the plan."
"Did he succeed?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a young lady's interest in
matrimony.
"He did," said Uncle Larry. "He talked the wraith of the Duncans and the
specter of the little old house at Salem into a matrimonial engagement. And from
the time they were engaged he had no more trouble with them. They were rival
ghosts no longer. They were married by their spiritual chaplain the very same
day that Eliphalet Duncan met Kitty Sutton in front of the railing of Grace
Church. The ghostly bride and bridegroom went away at once on their bridal
tour, and Lord and Lady Duncan went down to the little old house at Salem to
pass their honeymoon."
Uncle Larry stopped. His tiny cigar was out again. The tale of the rival ghosts
was told. A solemn silence fell on the little party on the deck of the ocean
steamer, broken harshly by the hoarse roar of the fog-horn.
THE DAMNED THING
BY AMBROSE BIERCE
III
IV
She seemed to remember that downstairs in the dark shop the dealer with the
waxen face detained her to show some old silver and jewelry and such like. But
she did not come to herself, she had no precise recollection of anything, till she
found herself entering a church near Portland Place. It was an unlikely act in her
normal moments. Why did she go in there? She acted like one walking in her
sleep.
The church was old and dim, with high black pews. There was nobody there.
Mrs. Wilton sat down in one of the pews and bent forward with her face in her
hands.
After a few minutes she saw that a soldier had come in noiselessly and placed
himself about half-a-dozen rows ahead of her. He never turned round; but
presently she was struck by something familiar in the figure. First she thought
vaguely that the soldier looked like her Hugh. Then, when he put up his hand,
she saw who it was.
She hurried out of the pew and ran towards him. "Oh, Hugh, Hugh, have you
come back?"
He looked round with a smile. He had not been killed. It was all a mistake.
He was going to speak. . . .
Footsteps sounded hollow in the empty church. She turned and glanced down
the dim aisle.
It was an old sexton or verger who approached. "I thought I heard you call,"
he said.
"I was speaking to my husband." But Hugh was nowhere to be seen.
"He was here a moment ago." She looked about in anguish. "He must have
gone to the door."
"There's nobody here," said the old man gently. "Only you and me. Ladies are
often taken funny since the war. There was one in here yesterday afternoon said
she was married in this church and her husband had promised to meet her here.
Perhaps you were married here?"
"No," said Mrs. Wilton, desolately. "I was married in India."
It might have been two or three days after that, when she went into a small
Italian restaurant in the Bayswater district. She often went out for her meals
now: she had developed an exhausting cough, and she found that it somehow
became less troublesome when she was in a public place looking at strange
faces. In her flat there were all the things that Hugh had used; the trunks and
bags still had his name on them with the labels of places where they had been
together. They were like stabs. In the restaurant, people came and went, many
soldiers too among them, just glancing at her in her corner.
This day, as it chanced, she was rather late and there was nobody there. She
was very tired. She nibbled at the food they brought her. She could almost have
cried from tiredness and loneliness and the ache in her heart.
Then suddenly he was before her, sitting there opposite at the table. It was as
it was in the days of their engagement, when they used sometimes to lunch at
restaurants. He was not in uniform. He smiled at her and urged her to eat, just as
he used in those days. . . .
I met her that afternoon as she was crossing Kensington Gardens, and she
told me about it.
"I have been with Hugh." She seemed most happy.
"Did he say anything?"
"N-no. Yes. I think he did, but I could not quite hear. My head was so very
tired. The next time——"
I did not see her for some time after that. She found, I think, that by going to
places where she had once seen him—the old church, the little restaurant—she
was more certain to see him again. She never saw him at home. But in the street
or the park he would often walk along beside her. Once he saved her from being
run over. She said she actually felt his hand grabbing her arm, suddenly, when
the car was nearly upon her.
She had given me the address of the clairvoyant; and it is through that strange
woman that I know—or seem to know—what followed.
Mrs. Wilton was not exactly ill last winter, not so ill, at least, as to keep to her
bedroom. But she was very thin, and her great handsome eyes always seemed to
be staring at some point beyond, searching. There was a look in them that
seamen's eyes sometimes have when they are drawing on a coast of which they
are not very certain. She lived almost in solitude: she hardly ever saw anybody
except when they sought her out. To those who were anxious about her she
laughed and said she was very well.
One sunny morning she was lying awake, waiting for the maid to bring her
tea. The shy London sunlight peeped through the blinds. The room had a fresh
and happy look.
When she heard the door open she thought that the maid had come in. Then
she saw that Hugh was standing at the foot of the bed. He was in uniform this
time, and looked as he had looked the day he went away.
"Oh, Hugh, speak to me! Will you not say just one word?"
He smiled and threw back his head, just as he used to in the old days at her
mother's house when he wanted to call her out of the room without attracting the
attention of the others. He moved towards the door, still signing to her to follow
him. He picked up her slippers on his way and held them out to her as if he
wanted her to put them on. She slipped out of bed hastily. . . .
It is strange that when they came to look through her things after her death
the slippers could never be found.
"DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS"[K]
BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER
Once 'pon a time dey was a li'l' black boy whut he name was Mose. An' whin
he come erlong to be 'bout knee-high to a mewel, he 'gin to git powerful 'fraid ob
ghosts, 'ca'se dat am sure a mighty ghostly location whut he lib' in, 'ca'se dey's a
grabeyard in de hollow, an' a buryin'-ground on de hill, an' a cemuntary in
betwixt an' between, an' dey ain't nuffin' but trees nowhar excipt in de clearin' by
de shanty an' down de hollow whar de pumpkin-patch am.
An' whin de night come' erlong, dey ain't no sounds at all whut kin be heard
in dat locality but de rain-doves, whut mourn out, "Oo-oo-o-o-o!" jes dat
trembulous an' scary, an' de owls, whut mourn out, "Whut-whoo-o-o-o!" more
trembulous an' scary dan dat, an' de wind, whut mourn out, "You-you-o-o-o!"
mos' scandalous' trembulous an' scary ob all. Dat a powerful onpleasant locality
for a li'l' black boy whut he name was Mose.
'Ca'se dat li'l' black boy he so specially black he can't be seen in de dark at all
'cept by de whites ob he eyes. So whin he go' outen de house at night, he ain't
dast shut he eyes, 'ca'se den ain't nobody can see him in de least. He jest as
invidsible as nuffin'. An' who know' but whut a great, big ghost bump right into
him 'ca'se it can't see him? An' dat shore w'u'd scare dat li'l' black boy powerful'
bad, 'ca'se yever'body knows whut a cold, damp pussonality a ghost is.
So whin dat li'l' black Mose go' outen de shanty at night, he keep' he eyes
wide open, you may be shore. By day he eyes 'bout de size ob butter-pats, an'
come sundown he eyes 'bout de size ob saucers; but whin he go' outen de shanty
at night, he eyes am de size ob de white chiny plate whut set on de mantel; an' it
powerful' hard to keep eyes whut am de size ob dat from a-winkin' an' a-blinkin'.
So whin Hallowe'en come erlong, dat lil' black Mose he jes mek' up he mind
he ain't gwine outen he shack at all. He cogitate' he gwine stay right snug in de
shack wid he pa an' he ma, 'ca'se de rain-doves tek notice dat de ghosts are
philanderin' roun' de country, 'ca'se dey mourn out, "Oo-oo-o-o-o!" an' de owls
dey mourn out, "Whut-whoo-o-o-o!" and de wind mourn out, "You-you-o-o-o!"
De eyes ob dat li'l' black Mose dey as big as de white chiny plate whut set on de
mantel by side de clock, an' de sun jes a-settin'.
So dat all right. Li'l' black Mose he scrooge' back in de corner by de fireplace,
an' he 'low' he gwine stay dere till he gwine to bed. But byme-by Sally Ann,
whut live' up de road, draps in, an' Mistah Sally Ann, whut is her husban', he
draps in, an' Zack Badget an' de school-teacher whut board' at Unc' Silas Diggs's
house drap in, an' a powerful lot ob folks drap in. An' li'l' black Mose he seen dat
gwine be one s'prise-party, an' he right down cheerful 'bout dat.
So all dem folks shake dere hands an' 'low "Howdy," an' some ob dem say:
"Why, dere 's li'l Mose! Howdy, li'l' Mose?" An' he so please' he jes grin' an'
grin', 'ca'se he aint reckon whut gwine happen. So byme-by Sally Ann, whut live
up de road, she say', "Ain't no sort o' Hallowe'en lest we got a jack-o'-lantern."
An' de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she 'low',
"Hallowe'en jes no Hallowe'en at all 'thout we got a jack-o'-lantern." An' li'l'
black Mose he stop' a-grinnin', an' he scrooge' so far back in de corner he 'mos'
scrooge frough de wall. But dat ain't no use, 'ca'se he ma say', "Mose, go on
down to de pumpkin-patch an' fotch a pumpkin."
"I ain't want to go," say' li'l' black Mose.
"Go on erlong wid yo'," say' he ma, right commandin'.
"I ain't want to go," say' Mose ag'in.
"Why ain't yo' want to go?" he ma ask'.
"'Case I 's afraid ob de ghosts," say' li'l' black Mose, an' dat de particular truth
an' no mistake.
"Dey ain't no ghosts," say' de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's
house, right peart.
"'Co'se dey ain't no ghosts," say' Zack Badget, whut dat 'fear'd ob ghosts he
ain't dar' come to li'l' black Mose's house ef de school-teacher ain't ercompany
him.
"Go 'long wid your ghosts!" say' li'l' black Mose's ma.
"What' yo' pick up dat nomsense?" say' he pa. "Dey ain't no ghosts."
An' dat whut all dat s'prise-party 'low: dey ain't no ghosts. An' dey 'low dey
mus' hab a jack-o'-lantern or de fun all sp'iled. So dat li'l' black boy whut he
name is Mose he done got to fotch a pumpkin from de pumpkin-patch down de
hollow. So he step' outen de shanty an' he stan' on de door-step twell he get' he
eyes pried open as big as de bottom ob he ma's wash-tub, mostly, an' he say',
"Dey ain't no ghosts." An' he put' one foot on de ground, an' dat was de fust step.
An' de rain-dove say', "Oo-oo-o-o-o!"
An' li'l' black Mose he tuck anudder step.
An' de owl mourn' out, "Whut-whoo-o-o-o!"
An' li'l' black Mose he tuck anudder step.
An' de wind sob' out, "You-you-o-o-o!"
An' li'l' black Mose he tuck one look ober he shoulder, an' he shut he eyes so
tight dey hurt round de aidges, an' he pick' up he foots an' run. Yas, sah, he run'
right peart fast. An' he say': "Dey ain't no ghosts. Dey ain't no ghosts." An' he
run' erlong de paff whut lead' by de buryin'-ground on de hill, 'ca'se dey ain't no
fince eround dat buryin'-ground at all.
No fince; jes de big trees whut de owls an' de rain-doves sot in an' mourn an'
sob, an' whut de wind sigh an' cry frough. An' byme-by somefin' jes brush' li'l'
Mose on de arm, which mek' him run jes a bit more faster. An' byme-by somefin'
jes brush' li'l' Mose on de cheek, which mek' him run erbout as fast as he can.
An' byme-by somefin' grab' li'l' Mose by de aidge of he coat, an' he fight' an'
struggle' an' cry' out: "Dey ain't no ghosts. Dey ain't no ghosts." An' dat ain't
nuffin' but de wild brier whut grab' him, an' dat ain't nuffin' but de leaf ob a tree
whut brush' he cheek, an' dat ain't nuffin' but de branch ob a hazel-bush whut
brush he arm. But he downright scared jes de same, an' he ain't lose no time,
'ca'se de wind an' de owls an' de rain-doves dey signerfy whut ain't no good. So
he scoot' past dat buryin'-ground whut on de hill, an' dat cemuntary whut betwixt
an' between, an' dat grabeyard in de hollow, twell he come' to de pumpkin-patch,
an' he rotch' down an' tek' erhold ob de bestest pumpkin whut in de patch. An' he
right smart scared. He jes de mostest scared li'l' black boy whut yever was. He
ain't gwine open he eyes fo' nuffin', 'ca'se de wind go, "You-you-o-o-o!" an' de
owls go, "Whut-whoo-o-o-o!" an' de rain-doves go, "Oo-oo-o-o-o!"
He jes speculate', "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish' he hair don't stand on ind
dat way. An' he jes cogitate', "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish' he goose-pimples
don't rise up dat way. An' he jes 'low', "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish' he
backbone ain't all trembulous wid chills dat way. So he rotch' down, an' he rotch'
down, twell he git' a good hold on dat pricklesome stem of dat bestest pumpkin
whut in de patch, an' he jes yank' dat stem wid all he might.
"Let loosen my head!" say' a big voice all on a suddent.
Dat li'l' black boy whut he name is Mose he jump' 'most outen he skin. He
open' he eyes, an' he 'gin' to shake like de aspen-tree, 'ca'se whut dat a-standin'
right dar behint him but a 'mendjous big ghost! Yas, sah, dat de bigges', whites'
ghost whut yever was. An' it ain't got no head. Ain't got no head at all! Li'l' black
Mose he jes drap' on he knees an' he beg' an' pray':
"Oh, 'scuse me! 'Scuse me, Mistah Ghost!" he beg'. "Ah ain't mean no harm
at all."
"Whut for you try to take my head?" ask' de ghost in dat fearsome voice whut
like de damp wind outen de cellar.
"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me!" beg' li'l' Mose. "Ah ain't know dat was yo' head, an' I
ain't know you was dar at all. 'Scuse me!"
"Ah 'scuse you ef you do me dis favor," say' de ghost. "Ah got somefin'
powerful important to say unto you, an' Ah can't say hit 'ca'se Ah ain't got no
head; an' whin Ah ain't got no head, Ah ain't got no mouf, an' whin Ah ain't got
no mouf, Ah can't talk at all."
An' dat right logical fo' shore. Can't nobody talk whin he ain't got no mouf,
an' can't nobody have no mouf whin he ain't got no head, an' whin li'l' black
Mose he look', he see' dat ghost ain't got no head at all. Nary head.
So de ghost say':
"Ah come on down yere fo' to git a pumpkin fo' a head, an' Ah pick' dat ixact
pumpkin whut yo' gwine tek, an' Ah don't like dat one bit. No, sah. Ah feel like
Ah pick yo' up an' carry yo' away, an' nobody see you no more for yever. But Ah
got somefin' powerful important to say unto yo', an' if yo' pick up dat pumpkin
an' sot in on de place whar my head ought to be, Ah let you off dis time, 'ca'se
Ah ain't been able to talk fo' so long Ah right hongry to say somefin'."
So li'l' black Mose he heft up dat pumpkin, an' de ghost he bend' down, an' li'l'
black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An' right off dat pumpkin
head 'gin' to wink an' blink like a jack-o'-lantern, an' right off dat pumpkin head
'gin' to glimmer an' glow frough de mouf like a jack-o'-lantern, an' right off dat
ghost start' to speak. Yas, sah, dass so.
"Whut yo' want to say unto me?" inquire' li'l' black Mose.
"Ah want to tell yo'," say' de ghost, "dat yo' ain't need yever be skeered of
ghosts, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
An' whin he say dat, de ghost jes vanish' away like de smoke in July. He ain't
even linger round dat locality like de smoke in Yoctober. He jes dissipate' outen
de air, an' he gone intirely.
So li'l' Mose he grab' up de nex' bestest pumpkin an' he scoot'. An' whin he
come' to be grabeyard in de hollow, he goin' erlong same as yever, on'y faster,
whin he reckon' he 'll pick up a club in case he gwine have trouble. An' he rotch'
down an' rotch' down an' tek' hold of a likely appearin' hunk o' wood whut right
dar. An' whin he grab' dat hunk of wood——
"Let loosen my leg!" say' a big voice all on a suddent.
Dat li'l' black boy 'most jump' outen he skin, 'ca'se right dar in de paff is six
'mendjus big ghostes, an' de bigges' ain't got but one leg. So li'l' black Mose jes
natchully handed dat hunk of wood to dat bigges' ghost, an' he say':
"'Scuse me, Mistah Ghost; Ah ain't know dis your leg."
An' whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an' confabulate? Yas, sah, dass
so. An' whin dey do so, one say':
"'Pears like dis a mighty likely li'l' black boy. Whut we gwine do fo' to reward
him fo' politeness?"
An' anudder say':
"Tell him whut de truth is 'bout ghostes."
So de bigges' ghost he say':
"Ah gwine tell yo' somefin' important whut yever'body don't know: Dey ain't
no ghosts."
An' whin he say' dat, de ghostes jes natchully vanish away, an' li'l' black Mose
he proceed' up de paff. He so scared he hair jes yank' at de roots, an' whin de
wind go', "Oo-oo-o-o-o!" an' de owl go', "Whut-whoo-o-o-o!" an' de rain-doves
go, "You-you-o-o-o!" he jes tremble' an' shake'. An' byme-by he come' to de
cemuntary whut betwixt an' between, an' he shore is mighty skeered, 'ca'se dey is
a whole comp'ny of ghostes lined up along de road, an' he 'low' he ain't gwine
spind no more time palaverin' wid ghostes. So he step' often de road fo' to go
round erbout, an' he step' on a pine-stump whut lay right dar.
"Git offen my chest!" say' a big voice all on a suddent, 'ca'se dat stump am
been selected by de captain ob de ghostes for to be he chest, 'ca'se he ain't got no
chest betwixt he shoulders an' he legs. An' li'l' black Mose he hop' offen dat
stump right peart. Yes, sah; right peart.
"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me!" dat li'l' black Mose beg' an' plead, an' de ghostes ain't
know whuther to eat him all up or not, 'ca'se he step' on de boss ghostes's chest
dat a-way. But byme-by they 'low they let him go 'ca'se dat was an accident, an'
de captain ghost he say', "Mose, you Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, 'ca'se
you ain't nuffin' but a misabul li'l' tremblin' nigger; but Ah want you should
remimimber one thing mos' particular'."
"Ya-yas, sah," say' dat li'l' black boy; "Ah'll remimber. Whut is dat Ah got to
remimber?"
De captain ghost he swell' up, an' he swell' up, twell he as big as a house, an'
he say' in a voice whut shake' de ground:
"Dey ain't no ghosts."
So li'l' black Mose he bound to remimber dat, an' he rise' up an' mek' a bow,
an' he proceed' toward home right libely. He do, indeed.
An' he gwine along jes as fast as he kin' whin he come' to de aidge ob de
buryin'-ground whut on de hill, an' right dar he bound to stop, 'ca'se de kentry
round about am so populate' he ain't able to go frough. Yas, sah, seem' like all de
ghostes in de world habin' a conferince right dar. Seem' like all de ghosteses
whut yever was am havin' a convintion on dat spot. An' dat li'l' black Mose so
skeered he jes fall' down on a' old log whut dar an' screech' an' moan'. An' all on
a suddent de log up and spoke to li'l' Mose:
"Get offen me! Get offen me!" yell' dat log.
So li'l' black Mose he git' offen dat log, an' no mistake.
An' soon as he git' offen de log, de log uprise, an' li'l' black Mose he see' dat
dat log am de king ob all de ghostes. An' whin de king uprise, all de
congregation crowd round li'l' black Mose, an' dey am about leben millium an' a
few lift over. Yes, sah; dat de reg'lar annyul Hallowe'en convintion whut li'l'
black Mose interrup'. Right dar am all de sperits in de world, an' all de ha'nts in
de world, an' all de hobgoblins in de world, an' all de ghouls in de world, an' all
de spicters in de world, an' all de ghostes in de world. An' whin dey see li'l' black
Mose, dey all gnash dey teef an' grin' 'ca'se it gettin' erlong toward dey-all's
lunch-time. So de king, whut he name old Skull-an'-Bones, he step' on top ob li'l'
Mose's head, an' he say':
"Gin'l'min, de convintion will come to order. De sicretary please note who is
prisint. De firs' business whut come' before de convintion am: whut we gwine do
to a li'l' black boy whut stip' on de king an' maul' all ober de king an' treat' de
king dat disrespictful'."
An' li'l' black Mose jes moan' an' sob':
"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me, Mistah King! Ah ain't mean no harm at all."
But nobody ain't pay no attintion to him at all, 'ca'se yevery one lookin' at a
monstrous big ha'nt whut name Bloody Bones, whut rose up an' spoke.
"Your Honor, Mistah King, an' gin'l'min an' ladies," he say', "dis am a right
bad case ob lazy majesty, 'ca'se de king been step on. Whin yivery li'l' black boy
whut choose' gwine wander round at night an' stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain't
no time for to palaver, it ain't no time for to prevaricate, it ain't no time for to
cogitate, it ain't no time do nuffin' but tell de truth, an' de whole truth, an' nuffin'
but de truth."
An' all dem ghostes sicond de motion, an' dey confabulate out loud erbout
dat, an' de noise soun' like de rain-doves goin', "Oo-oo-o-o-o!" an' de owls goin',
"Whut-whoo-o-o-o!" an' de wind goin', "You-you-o-o-o!" So dat risolution am
passed unanermous, an' no mistake.
So de king ob de ghostes, whut name old Skull-an'-Bones, he place' he hand
on de head ob li'l' black Mose, an' he hand feel like a wet rag, an' he say':
"Dey ain't no ghosts."
An' one ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l' black Mose turn' white.
An' de monstrous big ha'nt whut he name Bloody Bones he lay he hand on de
head ob li'l' black Mose, an' he hand feel like a toadstool in de cool ob de day, an'
he say':
"Dey ain't no ghosts."
An' anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l' black Mose turn' white.
An' a heejus sperit whut he name Moldy Pa'm place' he hand on de head ob
li'l' black Mose, an' he hand feel like de yunner side ob a lizard, an' he say':
"Dey ain't no ghosts."
An' anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l' black Mose turn' white as
snow.
An' a perticklar bend-up hobgoblin he put' he hand on de head ob li'l' black
Mose, an' he mek' dat same remark, an' dat whole convintion ob ghostes an'
spicters an' ha'nts an' yiver-thing, which am more 'n a millium, pass by so quick
dey-all's hands feel lak de wind whut blow outen de cellar whin de day am hot,
an' dey-all say, "Dey ain't no ghosts." Yas, sah, dey-all say dem wo'ds so fas' it
souun' like de wind whin it moan frough de turkentine-trees whut behind de
cider-priss. An' yivery hair whut on li'l' black Mose's head turn' white. Dat whut
happen' whin a li'l' black boy gwine meet a ghost convintion dat-away. Dat's so
he ain' gwine forgit to remimber dey ain't no ghostes. 'Ca'se ef a li'l' black boy
gwine imaginate dey is ghostes, he gwine be skeered in de dark. An' dat a foolish
thing for to imaginate.
So prisintly all de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler whin de
wind blow' on it, an' li'l' black Mose he ain' see no ca'se for to remain in dat
locality no longer. He rotch' down, an' he raise' up de pumpkin, an' he
perambulate' right quick to he ma's shack, an' he lift' up de latch, an' he open' de
do', an' he yenter' in. An' he say':
"Yere's de pumpkin."
An' he ma an' he pa, an' Sally Ann, whut live up de road, an' Mistah Sally
Ann, whut her husban', an' Zack Badget, an' de school-teacher whut board at
Unc'-Silas Diggs's house, an' all de powerful lot of folks whut come to de doin's,
dey all scrooged back in de cornder ob de shack, 'ca'se Zack Badget he been
done tell a ghost-tale, an' de rain-doves gwine, "Oo-oo-o-o-o!" an' de owls am
gwine, "Whut-whoo-o-o-o!" and de wind it gwine, "You-you-o-o-o!" an' yiver-
body powerful skeered. 'Ca'se li'l' black Mose he come' a-fumblin' an' a-rattlin' at
de do' jes whin dat ghost-tale mos' skeery, an' yiver'body gwine imaginate dat he
a ghost a-fumblin' an' a-rattlin' at de do'. Yas, sah. So li'l' black Mose he turn' he
white head, an' he look' roun' an' peer' roun', an' he say':
"Whut you all skeered fo'?"
'Ca'se ef anybody skeered, he want' to be skeered, too. Dat 's natural. But de
school-teacher, whut live at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she say':
"Fo' de lan's sake, we fought you was a ghost!"
So li'l' black Mose he sort ob sniff an' he sort ob sneer, an' he 'low':
"Huh! dey ain't no ghosts."
Den he ma she powerful took back dat li'l' black Mose he gwine be so
uppetish an' contrydict folks whut know 'rifmeticks an' algebricks an' gin'ral
countin' widout fingers, like de school-teacher whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's
house knows, an' she say':
"Huh! whut you know 'bout ghosts, anner ways?"
An' li'l' black Mose he jes kinder stan' on one foot, an' he jes kinder suck' he
thumb, an' he jes kinder 'low':
"I don' know nuffin' erbout ghosts, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
So he pa gwine whop him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin
yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas
Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's head am plumb white,
an' she tek' note li'l' black Mose's face am de color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch'
one arm round dat li'l' black boy, an' she jes snuggle' him up, an' she say':
"Honey lamb, don't you be skeered; ain' nobody gwine hurt you. How you
know dey ain't no ghosts?"
An' li'l' black Mose he kinder lean' up 'g'inst de school-teacher whut board at
Unc' Silas Diggs's house, an' he 'low':
"'Ca'se—'ca'se—'ca'se I met de cap'n ghost, an' I met de gin'ral ghost, an' I
met de king ghost, an' I met all de ghostes whut yiver was in de whole worl', an'
yivery ghost say' de same thing: 'Dey ain't no ghosts.' An' if de cap'n ghost an' de
gin'ral ghost an' de king ghost an' all de ghostes in de whole worl' don' know ef
dar am ghostes, who does?"
"Das right; das right, honey lamb," say' de school-teacher. And she say': "I
been s'picious dey ain' no ghostes dis long whiles, an' now I know. Ef all de
ghostes say dey ain' no ghosts, dey ain' no ghosts."
So yiver'body 'low' dat so 'cep' Zack Badget, whut been tellin' de ghost-tale,
an' he ain' gwine say "Yis" an' he ain' gwine say "No," 'ca'se he right sweet on de
school-teacher; but he know right well he done seen plinty ghostes in he day. So
he boun' to be sure fust. So he say' to li'l' black Mose:
"'Tain' likely you met up wid a monstrous big ha'nt whut live' down de lane
whut he name Bloody Bones?"
"Yas," say' li'l' black Mose, "I done met up wid him."
"An' did old Bloody Bones done tol' you dey ain' no ghosts?" say Zack
Badget.
"Yas," say' li'l' black Mose, "he done tell me perzackly dat."
"Well, if he tol' you dey ain't no ghosts," say' Zack Badget, "I got to 'low dey
ain't no ghosts, 'ca'se he ain' gwine tell no lie erbout it. I know dat Bloody Bones
ghost sence I was a piccaninny, an' I done met up wif him a powerful lot o'
times, an' he ain' gwine tell no lie erbout it. Ef dat perticklar ghost say' dey ain't
no ghosts, dey ain't no ghosts."
So yiver-body say':
"Das right; dey ain't no ghosts."
An' dat mek' li'l' black Mose feel mighty good, 'ca'se he ain' lak ghostes. He
reckon' he gwine be a heap mo' comfortable in he mind sence he know' dey ain'
no ghosts, an' he reckon' he ain' gwine be skeered of nuffin' never no more. He
ain' gwine min' de dark, an' he ain' gwine min' de rain-doves whut go', "Oo-oo-o-
o-o!" an' he ain' gwine min' de owls whut go', "Who-whoo-o-o-o!" an' he ain'
gwine min' de wind whut go', "You-you-o-o-o!" nor nuffin', nohow. He gwine be
brave as a lion, sence he know' fo' sure dey ain' no ghosts. So prisintly he ma
say':
"Well, time fo' a li'l' black boy whut he name is Mose to be gwine up de
ladder to de loft to bed."
An' li'l' black Mose he 'low' he gwine wait a bit. He 'low' he gwine jes wait a
li'l' bit. How 'low' he gwine be no trouble at all ef he jes been let wait twell he
ma she gwine up de ladder to de loft to bed, too. So he ma she say':
"Git erlong wid yo'! Whut yo' skeered ob whin dey ain't no ghosts?"
An' li'l' black Mose he scrooge', and he twist', an' he pucker' up he mouf, an'
he rub' he eyes, an' prisintly he say' right low:
"I ain' skeered ob ghosts whut am, 'ca'se dey ain' no ghosts."
"Den whut am yo' skeered ob?" ask he ma.
"Nuffin'," say' de li'l' black boy whut he name is Mose; "but I jes feel kinder
oneasy 'bout de ghosts whut ain't."
Jes lak white folks! Jes lak white folks!
SOME REAL AMERICAN GHOSTS
THE GIANT GHOST
At all events he is uncertain lest such may be the case. And, of course, the
duties of the watchman oblige him, when so assigned, to patrol the basement of
the building, where all sorts of hobgoblins lie in wait.
One of the Capitol policemen was almost frightened out of his wits one night
when a pair of flaming eyes looked out at him from the vaults under the chamber
of the House of Representatives where the wood is stored for the fires. It was
subsequently ascertained that the eyes in question were those of a fox, which,
being chevied through the town, had sought refuge in the cellar of the edifice
occupied by the national Legislature. The animal was killed for the reason which
obliges a white man to slay any innocent beast that comes under his power.
But, speaking of the steps which follow a person at night across the floor of
Statuary Hall, a bold watchman attempted not long ago to investigate them on
scientific principles. He suspected a trick, and so bought a pair of rubber shoes,
with the aid of which he proceeded to examine into the question. In the stillness
of the night he made a business of patrolling that portion of the principal
Government edifice, and, sure enough, the footsteps followed along behind him.
He cornered them; it was surely some trickster! There was no possibility for the
joker to get away. But, a moment later, the steps were heard in another part of
the hall; they had evaded him successfully. Similar experiments were tried on
other nights, but they all ended in the same way.
Four years ago there died in Washington an old gentleman who had been
employed for thirty-five years in the Library of Congress. The quarters of that
great book collection, while housed in the Capitol, were distressingly restricted,
and much of the cataloguing was done by the veteran mentioned in a sort of
vault in the sub-cellar. This vault was crammed with musty tomes from floor to
ceiling, and practically no air was admitted. It was a wonder that he lived so
long, but, when he came to die, he did it rather suddenly. Anyhow, he became
paralyzed and unable to speak, though up to the time of his actual demise he was
able to indicate his wants by gestures. Among other things, he showed plainly by
signs that he wished to be conveyed to the old library.
This wish of his was not obeyed, for reasons which seemed sufficient to his
family, and, finally, he relinquished it by giving up the ghost. It was afterward
learned that he had hidden, almost undoubtedly, $6000 worth of registered
United States bonds among the books in his sub-cellar den—presumably,
concealed between the leaves of some of the moth-eaten volumes of which he
was the appointed guardian. Certainly, there could be no better or less-suspected
hiding-place, but this was just where the trouble came in for the heirs, in whose
interest the books were vainly searched and shaken, when the transfer of the
library from the old to its new quarters was accomplished. The heirs cannot
secure a renewal of the bonds by the Government without furnishing proof of the
loss of the originals, which is lacking, and, meanwhile, it is said that the ghost of
the old gentleman haunts the vault in the sub-basement which he used to inhabit,
looking vainly for the missing securities.
The old gentleman referred to had some curious traits, though he was by no
means a miser—such as the keeping of every burnt match that he came across.
He would put them away in the drawer of his private desk, together with expired
street-car transfers—the latter done up in neat bundles, with India-rubber bands.
Quite an intimate friend he had, named Twine, who lost his grip on the perch,
so to speak, about six years back. Mr. Twine dwelt during the working hours of
the day in a sort of cage of iron, like that of Dreyfus, in the basement of the
Capitol. As a matter of fact, Dreyfus does not occupy a cage at all; the notion
that he does so arises from a misunderstanding of the French word "case," which
signifies a hut.
However, Twine's cage was a real one of iron wire, and inside of it he made a
business of stamping the books of the library with a mixture made of alcohol and
lampblack. If the observation of casual employees about the Capitol is to be
trusted, Mr. Twine's ghost is still engaged at intervals in the business of stamping
books at the old stand, though his industry must be very unprofitable since the
Government's literary collection has been moved out of the Capitol.
Ghosts are supposed to appertain most appropriately to the lower regions,
inasmuch as the ancients who described them first consigned the blessed as well
as the damned to a nether world. Consequently, it is not surprising to find that
phantoms of the Capitol are mostly relegated to the basement.
Exceptions are made in the case of Vice-President Wilson, who, as will be
remembered, died in his room at the Senate end of the building, and also with
respect to John Quincy Adams, whose nocturnal perambulations are so annoying
to the watchmen. Mr. Wilson is only an occasional visitor on the premises, it is
understood, finding his way thither, probably, when nothing else of importance is
"up," so to speak, in the spiritual realm which now claims him for its own. It is
related that on one occasion he nearly frightened to death a watchman who was
guarding the coffin of a Tennessee Senator who was lying in state in the Senate
Chamber. The startle was doubtless uncontemplated, inasmuch as the Senator
was too well bred a man to take anybody unpleasantly by surprise.
There was a watchman, employed quite a while ago as a member of the
Capitol police, who was discharged finally for drunkenness. No faith, therefore,
is to be placed in his sworn statement, which was actually made, to the effect
that on a certain occasion he passed through the old Hall of Representatives—
now Statuary Hall—and saw in session the Congress of 1848, with John Quincy
Adams and many other men whose names have long ago passed into history. It
was, if the word of the witness is to be believed, a phantom legislative crew,
resembling in kind if not in character the goblins which Rip Van Winkle
encountered on his trip to the summits of the storied Catskills.
But—to come down to things that are well authenticated and sure,
comparatively speaking—the basement of the Capitol, as has been said, is the
part of the building chiefly haunted. Beneath the hall of the House of
Representatives strolls by night a melancholy specter, with erect figure, a great
mustache, and his hands clasped behind him. Who he is nobody has ever
surmised; he might be, judging from his aspect, a foreigner in the diplomatic
service, but that is merely guess. Watchmen at night have approached him in the
belief that he was an intruder, but he has faded from sight instantly, like a picture
on a magic-lantern slide.
At precisely 12.30 of the clock every night, so it is said, the door of the room
occupied by the Committee on Military and Militia of the Senate opens silently,
and there steps forth the figure of General Logan, recognizable by his long black
hair, military carriage, and the hat he was accustomed to wear in life.
Logan was the chairman of this committee, and, if report be credited, he is
still supervising its duties.
A GENUINE GHOST
Dr. Funk was especially anxious to have an opportunity to see and talk with
Mr. Beecher, in the hope that light would be thrown on the mystery which
surrounds a previous manifestation. Through the spirit of one "Jack" Rakestraw,
who says he used to lead the choir in one of Mr. Beecher's churches, but frankly
admits that he cannot remember exactly where the church was located—even
spirits have a way of forgetting things, spiritualists declare—Dr. Funk was
informed that Mr. Beecher was troubled because the publisher had failed to
return a coin, known as the "widow's mite," which he had borrowed some years
ago, from the late Professor Charles E. West, a well known numismatist, to make
a cut to illustrate a dictionary. Dr. Funk supposed the coin had been returned a
long time ago, but upon looking the matter up found it in a drawer of a safe,
among some old papers, exactly as Mr. Rakestraw maintained.
When Mr. Beecher appeared to him in person, so far as he could determine,
Dr. Funk asked him several direct questions, to which the replies, he admits,
were somewhat sublime. Although Dr. Funk has found the long-lost coin—
which, by the way, is said to be worth $2,500—he is not certain to whom it
should be returned, now that Professor West is dead and his collection of coins
sold. Should the "widow's mite" go to Professor West's heirs or to the purchaser
of the collection? is a question which has as yet remained unanswered.
"That is a matter I am leaving to be determined by the Society for Psychical
Research and Mrs. Piper, who ought to be able to learn from the spirit world
what disposition Professor West wishes to have made of the coin," said Dr. Funk.
It is at any rate a matter that does not appear to concern the spirit of Mr. Beecher.
"When what seemed to be Mr. Beecher's embodied spirit appeared to me," Dr.
Funk said, "I asked that very question. He smiled and replied that it was not a
matter that concerned him especially, and that the whole thing was in the nature
of a test, to prove to me that there actually are spirits, and that it is possible to
have communication with them when all the conditions are favorable. He
remarked that he was glad the old coin had been found, but seemed to consider
the disposition of it a matter of minor importance. He told me he was glad I was
taking interest in the subject, as he believed it would result in good for the world,
and then, excusing himself on the ground that he had an engagement which it
was necessary for him to keep, the apparition disappeared."
Dr. Funk borrowed the coin from Professor West's collection, as a lighter
colored one he already had was of doubtful authenticity. Both coins were sent to
the government expert in Philadelphia and the lighter one was declared to be the
genuine one. By the spirits it is now declared, however, that a mistake was made
and that the darker one belonging to Professor West has the greater value.
"I found both the light and the dark one in the drawer," said Dr. Funk, "and
remembered distinctly that it was the darker of the two which I had borrowed
from Professor West. I went to the next séance, and when Rakestraw's spirit
arrived I asked him to find out which one was to be returned. After a brief
interval his voice came to me.
"'Return the dark one, of course,' he said. 'That is the genuine coin and is the
one you borrowed from Dr. Beecher's friend.'
"While I do not wish to be classed as a believer in Spiritualism, I certainly am
open to conviction after what has come under my personal observation," Dr.
Funk concluded. "I am confident that no fraud was practiced on me at the séance
at which I was told about the old coin. The medium is an elderly woman living
in Brooklyn, who never appears in public, and the only persons present were
members of her family and known to me. But none of them knew any more
about the coin being in my safe than I did."
MARYLAND GHOSTS
The matter, however, was soon forgotten in other conversation, and they had
traveled perhaps a mile, when suddenly, the same horse and carriage passed
them as before. Nothing was discernible of the driver except his feet, the
carriage curtains hiding his body. There was no cross road by which a vehicle in
front could possibly have got behind without making a circuit of many miles and
consuming several hours. Yet there was not the shadow of a doubt as to the
identity of the vehicle, and the two gentlemen gazed at each other in blank
amazement, and with a certain defined sense of awe which precluded any
discussion of the matter, particularly as the horse was to all appearances the
well-known white habitually driven by the deceased Judge. A half mile brought
them in sight of Judge S.'s gate, when for the third time the ghostly team dashed
by in the same dreadful mysterious silence. This time it turned in full view into
the gate. Without a word of comment the doctor quickened his horse's speed, and
reached the gate only a few yards behind the silent driver. Both gentlemen
peered eagerly up the long, open lane leading to the house; but neither carriage
nor wheel-track was visible, though it was still clear daylight, and there was no
outlet from the lane, nor could any vehicle in the time occupied accomplish half
the distance. The peculiar features of this strange incident are that it was equally
and simultaneously evident to two witnesses, both entirely unprepared for any
such manifestation, and differing widely in temperament, habits of life, mental
capacity and educational attainments, and by mere accident making this journey
together, and that to this day both of them—witnesses, be it noted, of
unimpeachable credibility—attest it, and fully corroborate each other, but
without being able to suggest the slightest explanation.
Peg Alley's Point is a long and narrow strip of wooded land, situated between
the main stream of Miles river and one of the navigable creeks which flow into
it. This little peninsula is about two miles long, from fifty to three hundred yards
in width and is bounded by deep water and is overgrown with pine and thick
underbrush. There is extant a tradition to the effect that many years ago a party
of Baltimore oystermen encamped on the point, among whom was a man named
Alley, who had abandoned his wife. The deserted woman followed up her
husband, and found him at the camp. After some conversation had passed
between them, the man induced her, upon some unknown pretext, to accompany
him into a thicket. The poor wife never came out alive. Her husband cruelly
murdered her with a club. The point of land has ever since been known by Peg
Alley's name, and her perturbed spirit has been supposed to haunt the scene of
her untimely taking off. About twelve years ago a gang of rail-splitters were at
work on the point, and one day the foreman flatly refused to go back, declaring
that queer things happened down there, and that he had seen a ghost. Mr.
Kennedy, his employer, laughed at him and dismissed the matter from his mind.
Some time after this Mr. Kennedy had occasion to ride through the woods to
look after some sheep, there being but one road and the water on either side. As
he approached the point his horse started violently and refused to go on,
regardless of whip or spur. Glancing about for the cause of this unnatural fright,
he saw a woman rise up from a log, a few yards in advance, and stand by the
roadside, looking at him. She was very poorly clad in a faded calico dress, and
wore a limp sun-bonnet, from beneath which her thin, jet-black hair straggled
down on her shoulders; her face was thin and sallow and her eyes black and
piercing. Knowing that she had no business there, and occupied in controlling
his horse, he called to her somewhat angrily to get out of the way, as his animal
was afraid of her. Slowly she turned and walked into the thicket, uttering not a
syllable and looking reproachfully at him as she went. With much difficulty he
forced his horse to the spot, hoping to find out who the strange intruder might
be, but the most careful search failed to reveal the trace of any one, although
there was no place of concealment and no possible way of escape, for which,
indeed, there was not sufficient time.
The old family seat of the T.'s, one of the most prominent names in the
community, is not far from the scenes of the above-mentioned adventure. In all
this region of lovely situations and charming water views, its site is one of the
most beautiful. The brick mansion, with all the strangely mixed comforts and
discomforts of ancient architecture, rears its roof up from an elevated lawn,
while the silvery thread of a land-locked stream winds nearly around the whole.
Over the further bank dance the sparkling waters of a broad estuary, flashing in
the glance of the sunshine or tossing its white-capped billows in angry mimicry
of the sea. The gleam of white sails is never lacking to add variety and
picturesqueness to the scene. In the dead, hushed calm of a summer evening,
when the lifted oar rests on the gunwale, unwilling to disturb with its dip the
glassy surface, one has a strange, dreamy sense of being suspended in space, the
sky, in all its changing beauties, being accurately reflected in illimitable depth by
the still water, until the charm is broken by the splash and ripple of a school of
nomadic alewives or the gliding, sinuous fin of a piratical shark. In this lovely
home it was wont for the family to assemble on the occasion of certain domestic
celebrations, and it was at one of these that the following incident occurred: All
were present except one member, who was detained by sickness at her residence,
fifteen miles away. It was in early afternoon that one of the ladies standing at an
open window, suddenly exclaimed: "Why, there's Aunt Milly crossing the flower
garden!" The party approached the window, and beheld, in great surprise, the
lady, in her ordinary costume, slowly strolling among the flowers. She paused
and looked earnestly at the group, her features plainly visible; then turned and
disappeared amidst the shrubbery. No trace of her presence being discoverable, it
was natural that a gloom fell upon the company. A few hours later a messenger
arrived with the intelligence of her death. The time of her apparition and the time
of her death coincided.
GHOSTS IN CONNECTICUT
FOOTNOTES:
[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that
work, if not of that actual copy of it.
[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St. Papoul. She
never understood the circumstances of her father's "obsession."
[C] I.e., The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by Alberic de
Mauléon. Versicle. O Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm. Whoso dwelleth (xci.).
Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy. I saw it first on
the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and
suffered, and have more to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701. The "Gallia Christiana" gives the
date of the Canon's death as December 31, 1701, "in bed, of a sudden seizure." Details
of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
[D] Copyright, 1890, by Harper Bros.
[E] From "True Irish Ghost Stories."
[F] Scott's Lady of the Lake, notes to Canto III (edition of 1811).
[G] A.G. Bradley, Notes on some Irish Superstitions, p. 9.
[H] Occult Review for September, 1913.
[I] Taken by permission from "The Listener and Other Stories,"—E.P. Dutton &
Co.
[J] Copyright, 1917, by The Boston Transcript Co. Copyright, 1918, by Vincent
O'Sullivan.
[K] Copyright, 1913, by The Century Company.
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