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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12122 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE BARGE
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+By W. W. Jacobs
+
+
+
+THE MONKEY’S PAW
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of
+Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly.
+Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the
+game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and
+unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired
+old lady knitting placidly by the fire.
+
+“Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake
+after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from
+seeing it.
+
+“I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he
+stretched out his hand. “Check.”
+
+“I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with
+his hand poised over the board.
+
+“Mate,” replied the son.
+
+“That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden
+and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way
+places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a
+torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because
+only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.”
+
+“Never mind, dear,” said his wife, soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win the
+next one.”
+
+Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance
+between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a
+guilty grin in his thin grey beard.
+
+“There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and
+heavy footsteps came toward the door.
+
+The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard
+condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with
+himself, so that Mrs. White said, “Tut, tut!” and coughed gently as her
+husband entered the room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye
+and rubicund of visage.
+
+“Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him.
+
+The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the
+fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whiskey and tumblers
+and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.
+
+At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the
+little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from
+distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke
+of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange
+peoples.
+
+“Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son.
+“When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look
+at him.”
+
+“He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely.
+
+“I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round
+a bit, you know.”
+
+“Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He
+put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.
+
+“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said
+the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about
+a monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”
+
+“Nothing,” said the soldier, hastily. “Leastways nothing worth
+hearing.”
+
+“Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White, curiously.
+
+“Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the
+sergeant-major, offhandedly.
+
+His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly
+put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host
+filled it for him.
+
+“To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, “it’s
+just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”
+
+He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew
+back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.
+
+“And what is there special about it?” inquired Mr. White as he took it
+from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.
+
+“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a
+very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and
+that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a
+spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes
+from it.”
+
+His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their
+light laughter jarred somewhat.
+
+“Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert White, cleverly.
+
+The soldier regarded him in the way that middle age is wont to regard
+presumptuous youth. “I have,” he said, quietly, and his blotchy face
+whitened.
+
+“And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs. White.
+
+“I did,” said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his
+strong teeth.
+
+“And has anybody else wished?” persisted the old lady.
+
+“The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply; “I don’t know
+what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got
+the paw.”
+
+His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.
+
+“If you’ve had your three wishes, it’s no good to you now, then,
+Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?”
+
+The soldier shook his head. “Fancy, I suppose,” he said, slowly. “I did
+have some idea of selling it, but I don’t think I will. It has caused
+enough mischief already. Besides, people won’t buy. They think it’s a
+fairy tale; some of them, and those who do think anything of it want to
+try it first and pay me afterward.”
+
+“If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man, eyeing him
+keenly, “would you have them?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.”
+
+He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb,
+suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down
+and snatched it off.
+
+“Better let it burn,” said the soldier, solemnly.
+
+“If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”
+
+“I won’t,” said his friend, doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If you
+keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again
+like a sensible man.”
+
+The other shook his head and examined his new possession closely. “How
+do you do it?” he inquired.
+
+“Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,” said the
+sergeant-major, “but I warn you of the consequences.”
+
+“Sounds like the _Arabian Nights_,” said Mrs. White, as she rose and
+began to set the supper. “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs
+of hands for me?”
+
+Her husband drew the talisman from pocket, and then all three burst
+into laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his face,
+caught him by the arm.
+
+“If you must wish,” he said, gruffly, “wish for something sensible.”
+
+Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned
+his friend to the table. In the business of supper the talisman was
+partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an
+enthralled fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s adventures
+in India.
+
+“If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those he
+has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed behind their
+guest, just in time for him to catch the last train, “we sha’nt make
+much out of it.”
+
+“Did you give him anything for it, father?” inquired Mrs. White,
+regarding her husband closely.
+
+“A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly. “He didn’t want it, but I made
+him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”
+
+“Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re going to be
+rich, and famous and happy. Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin
+with; then you can’t be henpecked.”
+
+He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs. White armed
+with an antimacassar.
+
+Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. “I don’t
+know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said, slowly. “It seems
+to me I’ve got all I want.”
+
+“If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t you?”
+said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish for two
+hundred pounds, then; that ’ll just do it.”
+
+His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the
+talisman, as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at
+his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
+
+“I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man distinctly.
+
+A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a
+shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.
+
+“It moved,” he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay
+on the floor.
+
+“As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.”
+
+“Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son as he picked it up and
+placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.”
+
+“It must have been your fancy, father,” said his wife, regarding him
+anxiously.
+
+He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm done, but it
+gave me a shock all the same.”
+
+They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes.
+Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started
+nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual
+and depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old
+couple rose to retire for the night.
+
+“I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of
+your bed,” said Herbert, as he bade them good-night, “and something
+horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket
+your ill-gotten gains.”
+
+He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing
+faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed
+at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh,
+he felt on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw
+over it. His hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he
+wiped his hand on his coat and went up to bed.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over
+the breakfast table he laughed at his fears. There was an air of
+prosaic wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the
+previous night, and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the
+sideboard with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its
+virtues.
+
+“I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “The idea
+of our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in these
+days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you,
+father?”
+
+“Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert.
+
+“Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father, “that
+you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”
+
+“Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert as
+he rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean,
+avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.”
+
+His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the
+road; and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the
+expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent her
+from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her from
+referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous
+habits when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill.
+
+“Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he
+comes home,” she said, as they sat at dinner.
+
+“I dare say,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but for
+all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.”
+
+“You thought it did,” said the old lady soothingly.
+
+“I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it; I
+had just—What’s the matter?”
+
+His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a
+man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house,
+appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental
+connection with the two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger
+was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he
+paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood
+with his hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open
+and walked up the path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands
+behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put
+that useful article of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.
+
+She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He
+gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the
+old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s
+coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then
+waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his
+business, but he was at first strangely silent.
+
+“I—was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece
+of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and Meggins.’”
+
+The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked,
+breathlessly. “Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is
+it?”
+
+Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said, hastily. “Sit
+down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m
+sure, sir;” and he eyed the other wistfully.
+
+“I’m sorry—” began the visitor.
+
+“Is he hurt?” demanded the mother, wildly.
+
+The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said, quietly, “but he is
+not in any pain.”
+
+“Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank God for
+that! Thank—”
+
+She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned
+upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s
+averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted
+husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long
+silence.
+
+“He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a low
+voice.
+
+“Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion,
+“yes.”
+
+He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand
+between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old
+courting-days nearly forty years before.
+
+“He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the
+visitor. “It is hard.”
+
+The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The firm
+wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great
+loss,” he said, without looking round. “I beg that you will understand
+I am only their servant and merely obeying orders.”
+
+There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring,
+and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his
+friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.
+
+“I was to say that ‘Maw and Meggins’ disclaim all responsibility,”
+continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in
+consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a
+certain sum as compensation.”
+
+Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a
+look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words, “How
+much?”
+
+“Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.
+
+Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out
+his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the
+floor.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried
+their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It
+was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and
+remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to
+happen —something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for
+old hearts to bear.
+
+But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the
+hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes
+they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about,
+and their days were long to weariness.
+
+It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the
+night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in
+darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He
+raised himself in bed and listened.
+
+“Come back,” he said, tenderly. “You will be cold.”
+
+“It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh.
+
+The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his
+eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden
+wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
+
+“_The paw!_” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”
+
+He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”
+
+She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she said,
+quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”
+
+“It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?”
+
+She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
+
+“I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I
+think of it before? Why didn’t _you_ think of it?”
+
+“Think of what?” he questioned.
+
+“The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”
+
+“Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely.
+
+“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it
+quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
+
+The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs.
+“Good God, you are mad!” he cried, aghast.
+
+“Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish—Oh, my boy, my boy!”
+
+Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,” he
+said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.”
+
+“We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly; “why
+not the second?”
+
+“A coincidence,” stammered the old man.
+
+“Go and get it and wish,” cried his wife, quivering with excitement.
+
+The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has been
+dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could
+only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to
+see then, how now?”
+
+“Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door.
+“Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”
+
+He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then
+to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear
+that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he
+could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as
+he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with
+sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until
+he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his
+hand.
+
+Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was
+white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look
+upon it. He was afraid of her.
+
+“_Wish!_” she cried, in a strong voice.
+
+“It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered.
+
+“_Wish!_” repeated his wife.
+
+He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”
+
+The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he
+sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked
+to the window and raised the blind.
+
+He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the
+figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end,
+which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing
+pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker
+larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable
+sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed,
+and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and
+apathetically beside him.
+
+Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock.
+A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall.
+The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up
+his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went
+downstairs for a candle.
+
+At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike
+another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be
+scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
+
+The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood
+motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he
+turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind
+him. A third knock sounded through the house.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“_What’s that?_” cried the old woman, starting up.
+
+“A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones—“a rat. It passed me on the
+stairs.”
+
+His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the
+house.
+
+“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”
+
+She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her
+by the arm, held her tightly.
+
+“What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.
+
+“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I
+forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I
+must open the door.”
+
+“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling.
+
+“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m
+coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”
+
+There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden
+wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the
+landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He
+heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and
+stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and
+panting.
+
+“The bolt,” she cried, loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”
+
+But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor
+in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside
+got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house,
+and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the
+passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came
+slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and
+frantically breathed his third and last wish.
+
+The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in
+the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold
+wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment
+and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and
+then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a
+quiet and deserted road.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12122 ***