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diff --git a/old/3ghst10.txt b/old/3ghst10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3caaf4e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3ghst10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2544 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens +#33, #34, and #35 in our series of stories by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Below there!" + +When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the +door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short +pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, +that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but +instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep +cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked +down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of +doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know +it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his +figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and +mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, +that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all. + +"Halloa! Below!" + +From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, +raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him. + +"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?" + +He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him +without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. +Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly +changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused +me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such +vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and +was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw +him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by. + +I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to +regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag +towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards +distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that +point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough +zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed. + +The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was +made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went +down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me +time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which +he had pointed out the path. + +When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him +again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by +which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were +waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and +that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. +His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I +stopped a moment, wondering at it. + +I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the +railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow +man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in +as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a +dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of +sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this +great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction +terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a +black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, +depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its +way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much +cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had +left the natural world. + +Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. +Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, +and lifted his hand. + +This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my +attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a +rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, +he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all +his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened +interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but +I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not +happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man +that daunted me. + +He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the +tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were +missing from it, and then looked it me. + +That light was part of his charge? Was it not? + +He answered in a low voice,--"Don't you know it is?" + +The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes +and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have +speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind. + +In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in +his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to +flight. + +"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread of +me." + +"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before." + +"Where?" + +He pointed to the red light he had looked at. + +"There?" I said. + +Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes." + +"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it +may, I never was there, you may swear." + +"I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes; I am sure I may." + +His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with +readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; +that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness +and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work-- +manual labour--he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim +those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he +had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely +hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the +routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had +grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here,--if +only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of +its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked +at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, +and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for +him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and +could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone +walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some +conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and +the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In +bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above +these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by +his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled +anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose. + +He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an +official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic +instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of +which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark +that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without +offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that +instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found +wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in +workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate +resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any +great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe +it, sitting in that hut,--he scarcely could), a student of natural +philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused +his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no +complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon +it. It was far too late to make another. + +All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his +grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the +word, "Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred to +his youth,--as though to request me to understand that he claimed to +be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted +by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. +Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train +passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In the +discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and +vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining +silent until what he had to do was done. + +In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of +men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that +while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, +turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened +the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy +damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the +tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with +the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being +able to define, when we were so far asunder. + +Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I +have met with a contented man." + +(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.) + +"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which +he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled." + +He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, +however, and I took them up quickly. + +"With what? What is your trouble?" + +"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to +speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell +you." + +"But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall +it be?" + +"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to- +morrow night, sir." + +"I will come at eleven." + +He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. "I'll show my +white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you +have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out! And +when you are at the top, don't call out!" + +His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said +no more than, "Very well." + +"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! Let me ask +you a parting question. What made you cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' +to-night?" + +"Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect--" + +"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them +well." + +"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I +saw you below." + +"For no other reason?" + +"What other reason could I possibly have?" + +"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any +supernatural way?" + +"No." + +He wished me good-night, and held up his light. I walked by the +side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation +of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier +to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any +adventure. + +Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of +the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. +He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I +have not called out," I said, when we came close together; "may I +speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Good-night, then, and here's my +hand." "Good-night, sir, and here's mine." With that we walked +side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down +by the fire. + +"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as +we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, +"that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took +you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me." + +"That mistake?" + +"No. That some one else." + +"Who is it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Like me?" + +"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the +face, and the right arm is waved,--violently waved. This way." + +I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm +gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, "For God's +sake, clear the way!" + +"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I +heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked +from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light +near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed +hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And then +attain, 'Halloa! Below there! Look out!' I caught up my lamp, +turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, 'What's +wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the +blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I +wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up +at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when +it was gone." + +"Into the tunnel?" said I. + +"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and +held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured +distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and +trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run +in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I +looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up +the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, +and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been +given. Is anything wrong?' The answer came back, both ways, 'All +well.'" + +Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I +showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of +sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate +nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have +often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the +nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments +upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen +for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so +low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires." + +That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for +a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,-- +he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. +But he would beg to remark that he had not finished. + +I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my +arm, - + +"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on +this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were +brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had +stood." + +A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. +It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable +coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was +unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, +and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. +Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he +was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common +sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary +calculations of life. + +He again begged to remark that he had not finished. + +I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions. + +"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing +over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. Six or +seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and +shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the +door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again." He +stopped, with a fixed look at me. + +"Did it cry out?" + +"No. It was silent." + +"Did it wave its arm?" + +"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands +before the face. Like this." + +Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of +mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs. + +"Did you go up to it?" + +"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly +because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, +daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone." + +"But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?" + +He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving +a ghastly nod each time:- + +"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a +carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands +and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the +driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train +drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after +it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A +beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the +compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor +between us." + +Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at +which he pointed to himself. + +"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you." + +I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was +very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long +lamenting wail. + +He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is +troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has +been there, now and again, by fits and starts." + +"At the light?" + +"At the Danger-light." + +"What does it seem to do?" + +He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that +former gesticulation of, "For God's sake, clear the way!" + +Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, +for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below there! +Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little +bell--" + +I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I +was here, and you went to the door?" + +"Twice." + +"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes +were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a +living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other +time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical +things by the station communicating with you." + +He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. +I have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's. The +ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from +nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the +eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it." + +"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?" + +"It WAS there."' + +"Both times?" + +He repeated firmly: "Both times." + +"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?" + +He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but +arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in +the doorway. There was the Danger-light. There was the dismal +mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls of the +cutting. There were the stars above them. + +"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face. +His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, +perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly +towards the same spot. + +"No," he answered. "It is not there." + +"Agreed," said I. + +We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was +thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called +one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course +way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact +between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions. + +"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what +troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre +mean?" + +I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. + +"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on +the fire, and only by times turning them on me. "What is the +danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere +on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be +doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely +this is a cruel haunting of me. What can I do?" + +He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated +forehead. + +"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give +no reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. "I +should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was +mad. This is the way it would work,--Message: 'Danger! Take +care!' Answer: 'What Danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know. +But, for God's sake, take care!' They would displace me. What else +could they do?" + +His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental +torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an +unintelligible responsibility involving life. + +"When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on, putting +his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward +across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, +"why not tell me where that accident was to happen,--if it must +happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted,--if it could have +been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not +tell me, instead, 'She is going to die. Let them keep her at home'? +If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its +warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn +me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signal-man on +this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be +believed, and power to act?" + +When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as +well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to +compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality +or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever +thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it +was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not +understand these confounding Appearances. In this effort I +succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his +conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post +as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention: +and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through +the night, but he would not hear of it. + +That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the +pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have +slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to +conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the +dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either. + +But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I +to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had +proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; +but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a +subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and +would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of +his continuing to execute it with precision? + +Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something +treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors +in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing +a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany +him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest +medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take +his opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next +night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after +sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I had appointed to return +accordingly. + +Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy +it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path +near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an +hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and +it would then be time to go to my signal-man's box. + +Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically +looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. I +cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the +mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left +sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. + +The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a +moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and +that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short +distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. +The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little +low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports +and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed. + +With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,--with a +flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my +leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or +correct what he did,--I descended the notched path with all the +speed I could make. + +"What is the matter?" I asked the men. + +"Signal-man killed this morning, sir." + +"Not the man belonging to that box?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Not the man I know?" + +"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who +spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising +an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed." + +"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning from +one to another as the hut closed in again. + +"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work +better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was +just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his +hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards +her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how +it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom." + +The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former +place at the mouth of the tunnel. + +"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him at +the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There was +no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he +didn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were +running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call." + +"What did you say?" + +"I said, 'Below there! Look out! Look out! For God's sake, clear +the way!'" + +I started. + +"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. +I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to +the last; but it was no use." + + +Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious +circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point +out the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included, +not only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to +me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself--not he--had +attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had +imitated. + + + + +THE HAUNTED HOUSE + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE + + + +Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by +none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make +acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas +piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was +no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted +circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: +I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more +than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood +outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see +the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. +I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I +doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people- +-and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say +that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn +morning. + +The manner of my lighting on it was this. + +I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop +by the way, to look at the house. My health required a temporary +residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and +who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to +suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight, +and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of +window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen +asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the +usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep at +all;--upon which question, in the first imbecility of that +condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by +battle with the man who sat opposite me. That opposite man had had, +through the night--as that opposite man always has--several legs too +many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable +conduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil +and a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking +notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related +to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned +myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was +in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring +straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed +gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became +unbearable. + +It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I +had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country, +and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the +stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller +and said: + +"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in +me"? For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my +travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty. + +The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if +the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a +lofty look of compassion for my insignificance: + +"In you, sir?--B." + +"B, sir?" said I, growing warm. + +"I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman; "pray +let me listen--O." + +He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down. + +At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication +with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my +relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a +Rapper: one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest +respect, but whom I don't believe in. I was going to ask him the +question, when he took the bread out of my mouth. + +"You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I am +too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all +about it. I have passed the night--as indeed I pass the whole of my +time now--in spiritual intercourse." + +"O!" said I, somewhat snappishly. + +"The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman, +turning several leaves of his note-book, "with this message: 'Evil +communications corrupt good manners.'" + +"Sound," said I; "but, absolutely new?" + +"New from spirits," returned the gentleman. + +I could only repeat my rather snappish "O!" and ask if I might be +favoured with the last communication. + +"'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry +with great solemnity, "'is worth two in the Bosh.'" + +"Truly I am of the same opinion," said I; "but shouldn't it be +Bush?" + +"It came to me, Bosh," returned the gentleman. + +The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had +delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. "My +friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway +carriage. How do you do? There are seventeen thousand four hundred +and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. Pythagoras +is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like +travelling." Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific +intelligence. "I am glad to see you, AMICO. COME STA? Water will +freeze when it is cold enough. ADDIO!" In the course of the night, +also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop Butler had +insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which offence against +orthography and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper. +John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the +authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of +that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and +Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, +had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh +circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the +direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots. + +If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with +these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the +sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent +Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I +was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the +next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free +air of Heaven. + +By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among +such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet +trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and +thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they +are sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse seemed to me as +poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw. In which +heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped +to examine it attentively. + +It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a +pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about the +time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as +bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of +the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, within a +year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say +cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was +already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours +were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall, +announcing that it was "to let on very reasonable terms, well +furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, +and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front +windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which +had been extremely ill chosen. + +It was easy to see that it was an avoided house--a house that was +shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire +some half a mile off--a house that nobody would take. And the +natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted +house. + +No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so +solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer-time, I often +rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before +breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by +the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is +something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep--in +the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are +dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state, +anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all +tending--the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the +deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned +occupation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour +is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the +same association. Even a certain air that familiar household +objects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of +the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be +long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of +maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover, I +once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive +and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the +daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood +beside my bed. His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was +slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him +there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched +him. As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he did +not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, +as I thought--and there was no such thing. + +For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly +statable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time. Any +house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning; +and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage +than then. + +I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon +my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his +door-step. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the +house. + +"Is it haunted?" I asked. + +The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, "I say +nothing." + +"Then it IS haunted?" + +"Well!" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the +appearance of desperation--"I wouldn't sleep in it." + +"Why not?" + +"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to +ring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang +'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why, +then," said the landlord, "I'd sleep in that house." + +"Is anything seen there?" + +The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former +appearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for "Ikey!" + +The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red +face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a +turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with +mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to +be in a fair way--if it were not pruned--of covering his head and +overunning his boots. + +"This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if anything's +seen at the Poplars." + +"'Ooded woman with a howl," said Ikey, in a state of great +freshness. + +"Do you mean a cry?" + +"I mean a bird, sir." + +"A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me! Did you ever see her?" + +"I seen the howl." + +"Never the woman?" + +"Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together." + +"Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?" + +"Lord bless you, sir! Lots." + +"Who?" + +"Lord bless you, sir! Lots." + +"The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his +shop?" + +"Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place. No!" +observed the young man, with considerable feeling; "he an't +overwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as THAT." + +(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's knowing +better.) + +"Who is--or who was--the hooded woman with the owl? Do you know?" + +"Well!" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he +scratched his head with the other, "they say, in general, that she +was murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while." + +This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except +that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see, +had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the +hooded woman. Also, that a personage, dimly described as "a hold +chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby, +unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, 'Why not? +and even if so, mind your own business,'" had encountered the hooded +woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially +assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in +California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by +the landlord), Anywheres. + +Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, +between which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier +of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; +and although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything +of them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing +of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with +the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules +that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little +while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow- +traveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, I had lived +in two haunted houses--both abroad. In one of these, an old Italian +palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted +indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account, +I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly: +notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms, +which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I +sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which I +slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted +these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular +house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things +had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, +and did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper +in the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the +neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time +to be suspected of that commercial venture! All this wise talk was +perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and +was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life. + +To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted +house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after +breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and +harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to +a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel +persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and +by Ikey. + +Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The +slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were +doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, +ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry +rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim +of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's +hands whenever it's not turned to man's account. The kitchens and +offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above +stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches +of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well +with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the +bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of +these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, +MASTER B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most. + +"Who was Master B.?" I asked. "Is it known what he did while the +owl hooted?" + +"Rang the bell," said Ikey. + +I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young +man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a +loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The +other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to +which their wires were conducted: as "Picture Room," "Double Room," +"Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell to its +source I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent +third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft, +with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly +small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney- +piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The +papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with +fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. +It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made +a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey +could suggest why he made such a fool of himself. + +Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I +made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, but +sparely. Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the +house; the rest was of various periods within the last half-century. +I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county +town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six +months. + +It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden +sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very +handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stable- +man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person +called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attendant last +enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female +Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement. + +The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw +cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was +most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of +intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested +that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2 +Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of +anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, +feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who +had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made +arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery +window, and rearing an oak. + +We went, before dark, through all the natural--as opposed to +supernatural--miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports +ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and +descended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there was +no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know what it +is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the +last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the +landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful +and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a +supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen "Eyes," and was in +hysterics. + +My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to +ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left +Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or +any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd +Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from +her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar +applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon. + +I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under +these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master +B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled +until the house resounded with his lamentations! + +I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the +mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory +of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, +or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one +cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't know; +but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until +I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in other +words, breaking his bell short off--and silencing that young +gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever. + +But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers +of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very +inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed +with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address +the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had +painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s +bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that +that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no +better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and +the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in +the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a +mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible +means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied +spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?--I say I would become +emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an +address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd +Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among +us like a parochial petrifaction. + +Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most +discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an +usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, +but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of +the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with. Combined +with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those +specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face and +nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her +head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable +Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of +money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a +garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the +Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes +regarding her silver watch. + +As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was +among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded +woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of +hooded women. Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I myself +have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so +many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood +if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try this +in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own comfortable +fire-side, in the life of the night. You can fill any house with +noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your +nervous system. + +I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and +there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their noses in +a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always +primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair- +triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions +that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established +the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If +Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should +presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so +constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go +about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is +called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with. + +It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for +the moment in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to show the +owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord +on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and +combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells, +and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down +inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let +torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and +recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new set +ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our +comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, +that I one night dejectedly said to my sister: "Patty, I begin to +despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we +must give this up." + +My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, John, +don't give it up. Don't be beaten, John. There is another way." + +"And what is that?" said I. + +"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of this +house, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or +me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into +our own hands." + +"But, the servants," said I. + +"Have no servants," said my sister, boldly. + +Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the +possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The +notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful. +"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and +we know they are frightened and do infect one another," said my +sister. + +"With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative tone. + +(The deaf stable-man. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, +as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.) + +"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. And what +does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody +unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever +given, or taken! None." + +This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, +every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no +other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail +of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I +had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after that +minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. +Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many +uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his +supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, +and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the +general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie. + +"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles. And considering, +John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be +kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast +about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most +reliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait +upon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--and +see what happens." + +I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, +and went into her plan with the greatest ardour. + +We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our +measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in +whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month +unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and +mustered in the haunted house. + +I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while +my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not +improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he +wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but +unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came +in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own +throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun? On +his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her," I begged +the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine. + +"SHE'S a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a double- +barrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. "No +mistake about HER, sir." + +"Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something in this +house." + +"No, sir?" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. "'Ooded lady, +sir?" + +"Don't be frightened," said I. "It was a figure rather like you." + +"Lord, sir?" + +"Ikey!" said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say +affectionately; "if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the +greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I +promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I +see it again!" + +The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little +precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my +secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his +cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed +something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one +night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that +we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to +comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid +of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would +play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. +The Odd Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the house +in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, +and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the +sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is +not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state +of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known +to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other +watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a +state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that +it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be +suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any +question of this kind. + +To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all +assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and every +bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined +by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if +we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting +party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the floating rumours +concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.: with others, +still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, +relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went +up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an +impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of +these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to +one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words. +We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not +there to be deceived, or to deceive--which we considered pretty much +the same thing--and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we +would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out +the truth. The understanding was established, that any one who +heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, +should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last +night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that +then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, +should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would +hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable +provocation to break silence. + +We were, in number and in character, as follows: + +First--to get my sister and myself out of the way--there were we +two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I +drew Master B.'s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, +so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a better +man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a +charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous +spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to +bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may +do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and +I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left her +endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred +Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty +for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine, +usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room +within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I +was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind +or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be "fast" +(another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much +too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have +distinguished himself before now, if his father had not +unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, +on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to +spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or +that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per +cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his +fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a +most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture +Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business +earnestness, and "goes in"--to use an expression of Alfred's--for +Woman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that +is woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and +ought not to be. "Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper +you!" I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of +her at the Picture-Room door, "but don't overdo it. And in respect +of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments +being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet +assigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men +who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural +oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes +spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, +aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf and +Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress. + +Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but +three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the +Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his hammock," as +he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as +the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is gray now, but as +handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--nay, handsomer. A +portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a +frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I +remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for +their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake +flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the +Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed +and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried, +"You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!" That he +is! And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet +him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be +vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform. + +Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it +fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, +where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought +down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, +he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, +is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a +piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him +one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. +Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently +as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a +world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. +At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the +lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many +minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. +Undery, my friend and solicitor: who came down, in an amateur +capacity, "to go through with it," as he said, and who plays whist +better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning +to the red cover at the end. + +I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal +feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful +resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever +ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pastrycook and +confectioner. Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn about, +and on special occasions the chief cook "pressed" Mr. Beaver. We +had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was +neglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding +among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least +one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed. + +We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I +was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in his +hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me +that he "was going aloft to the main truck," to have the weathercock +down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my +attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said +somebody would be "hailing a ghost" presently, if it wasn't done. +So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the +wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern +and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a +cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon +nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they +both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I +thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out +again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a +sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out +something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest +manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom +windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul" +something mysterious in the garden. + +The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed +anything. All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no one +looked the worse for it. + + + +CHAPTER II--THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'S ROOM + + + +When I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained +so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to +Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold. +Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having +been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. Whether the initial +letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black, +Brown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a foundling, +and had been baptized B. Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B. +was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have +been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own +childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch? + +With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also +carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of +the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he +couldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good +at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant Boyhood +Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth, +Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball? + +So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B. + +It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a +dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the +instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my +thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial +letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet. + +For six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.'s room, when I +began to perceive that things were going wrong. + +The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning +when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing shaving +at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and +amazement, that I was shaving--not myself--I am fifty--but a boy. +Apparently Master B.! + +I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I looked +again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression +of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get +one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room, +and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and +complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening my +eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in +the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four +or five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes, +and made a strong effort to recover myself. Opening them again, I +saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been +dead. Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in +my life. + +Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I +determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the +present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious +thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter +some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my preparation +needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o'clock in +the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed +with the skeleton of Master B.! + +I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a +plaintive voice saying, "Where am I? What is become of me?" and, +looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B. + +The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion: or rather, +was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and- +salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed +that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the +young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill +round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be +inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some +feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I +concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually +taken a great deal too much medicine. + +"Where am I?" said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. "And +why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that +Calomel given me?" + +I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't +tell him. + +"Where is my little sister," said the ghost, "and where my angelic +little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?" + +I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to +take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with. I +represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human +experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that I myself +had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school +with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble +belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was a +mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the +last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall +of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible +subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I +related how, on the strength of our having been together at "Old +Doylance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social +offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of +belief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved +to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam +with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a +proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being +abolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many +thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes. + +The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. "Barber!" it +apostrophised me when I had finished. + +"Barber?" I repeated--for I am not of that profession. + +"Condemned," said the ghost, "to shave a constant change of +customers--now, me--now, a young man--now, thyself as thou art--now, +thy father--now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a +skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning--" + +(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.) + +"Barber! Pursue me!" + +I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a +spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in +Master B.'s room no longer. + +Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been +forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told +the exact truth--particularly as they were always assisted with +leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate +that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by the +ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any +of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a +goat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman), +holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and +less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to +have more meaning. + +Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare +without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance +on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very smell +of the animal's paint--especially when I brought it out, by making +him warm--I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost, afterwards, +in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which, +the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again +ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and +very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to +confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey: +at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his +stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on +ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings, +from fairs; in the first cab--another forgotten institution where +the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver. + +Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in +pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more +wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to +one experience from which you may judge of many. + +I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was +conscious of something within me, which has been the same all +through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its +phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who +had gone to bed in Master B.'s room. I had the smoothest of faces +and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like +myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, +behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most +astounding nature. + +This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio. + +The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of +respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it +was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the +corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet +memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of +imitation. "O, yes! Let us," said the other creature with a jump, +"have a Seraglio." + +It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the +meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to +import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss +Griffin. It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human +sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great +Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let +us entrust it to Miss Bule. + +We were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead Ponds; +eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I judge to have +attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I +opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed +that she should become the Favourite. + +Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and +charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the +idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss +Pipson? Miss Bule--who was understood to have vowed towards that +young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on +the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and +lock--Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson, +disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common. + +Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea +of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly +replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair +Circassian. + +"And what then?" Miss Bule pensively asked. + +I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me +veiled, and purchased as a slave. + +[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in +the State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier. He afterwards +resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he +yielded.] + +"Shall I not be jealous?" Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes. + +"Zobeide, no," I replied; "you will ever be the favourite Sultana; +the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours." + +Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to +her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course +of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good- +natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, +and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face +there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule's +hand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the +black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of +Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of +the Blacks of the Hareem. + +There were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution, +as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed himself +of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, +pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself +before the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful; +spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere "chap;" said +he, the other creature, "wouldn't play"--Play!--and was otherwise +coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however, +put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I +became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the +daughters of men. + +The smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking +another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a +legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little +round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her +shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all +together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem +competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun +reposing from the cares of State--which were generally, as in most +affairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the +Faithful being a fearful boggler at a sum. + +On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the +Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for +that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never +acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. +In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the +Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger +(Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment, +was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second +place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of "Lork you +pretties!" was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third place, +when specially instructed to say "Bismillah!" he always said +"Hallelujah!" This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured +altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation +to an incongruous extent, and even once--it was on the occasion of +the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses +of gold, and cheap, too--embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the +Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, +and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, +softening many a hard day since!) + +Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine +what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had +known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that +she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and +Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with +which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, +inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a +dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all +things that could be learnt out of book) didn't know, were the main- +spring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully kept, +but was once upon the verge of self-betrayal. The danger and escape +occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous +part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head--as we +were every Sunday--advertising the establishment in an unsecular +sort of way--when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory +happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, +conscience whispered me, "Thou, too, Haroun!" The officiating +minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving +him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, +attended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand +Vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened +as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At +this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed +the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and State +had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and +that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the +centre aisle. But, so Westerly--if I may be allowed the expression +as opposite to Eastern associations--was Miss Griffin's sense of +rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved. + +I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, +whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of +kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates +divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to +scratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a +green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, +a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of +Camden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the half- +yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the +holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting +the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier- +-who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the +difficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful +slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon +her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other +Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies +of the Hareem. + +And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I +became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, and what +she would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most +beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought of +the number of beds we made up at our house, of my father's income, +and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio and +malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord's unhappiness, +did their utmost to augment it. They professed unbounded fidelity, +and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to the +utmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay +awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In my +despair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling +on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon, +and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my +country, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before +me. + +One day, we were out walking, two and two--on which occasion the +Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the +turn-pike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the +beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the +night--and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. An +unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the +State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that the +previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent +in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had +secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring +princes and princesses to a ball and supper: with a special +stipulation that they were "not to be fetched till twelve." This +wandering of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival at +Miss Griffin's door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, +of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step +in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. At +the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these ceremonies, +the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and +at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more +distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front. +Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed +by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to +all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used +expressions: Firstly, "I believe you all of you knew of it;" +Secondly, "Every one of you is as wicked as another;" Thirdly, "A +pack of little wretches." + +Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I +especially, with my. Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was +in a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss +Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and +talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of the +law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the +general purpose of making for Egypt. + +The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as +my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning +on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest +way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless +Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a +corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I was +taken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning +gentleness, This was very curious! Why had I run away when the +gentleman looked at me? + +If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have +made no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none. Miss +Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back +to the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn't help +feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state. + +When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss +Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky +guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed +tears. "Bless you, my precious!" said that officer, turning to me; +"your Pa's took bitter bad!" + +I asked, with a fluttered heart, "Is he very ill?" + +"Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!" said the good Mesrour, +kneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head +to rest on, "your Pa's dead!" + +Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished; +from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest +of the daughters of men. + +I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and +we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously looked +upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called "The Trade," that a +brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to +be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song. So +I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a +dismal song it must have been to sing! + +Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where +everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being +enough; where everybody, largo and small, was cruel; where the boys +knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had +fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, "Going, going, +gone!" I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been +Haroun, or had had a Seraglio: for, I knew that if I mentioned my +reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself +in the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer. + +Ah me, ah me! No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my +friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own +childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy +belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom: never with this +man's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's +hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to +hold it in its purity. And here you see me working out, as +cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass +a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with +the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion. + + + + +THE TRIAL FOR MURDER. + + + + +I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among +persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their +own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange +sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such +wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal +life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, +who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of +a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same +traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of +thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental +impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. +To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such +subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our +experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of +objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of +experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in +respect of being miserably imperfect. + +In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, +opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history of +the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a +late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have +followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of +Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It +may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a +lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken +assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my +own case,--but only a part,--which would be wholly without +foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any +developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar +experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. + +It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder +was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We hear +more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their +atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular +brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I +purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's +individuality. + +When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell--or I ought +rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was +nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell--on the man who was +afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made +to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any +description of him can at that time have been given in the +newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. + +Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of +that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I +read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. +The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the +paper, I was aware of a flash--rush--flow--I do not know what to +call it,--no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,--in +which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a +picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost +instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that +I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of +the dead body from the bed. + +It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but +in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James's +Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the +moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver +which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted +that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows +(there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to +refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was +a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. +The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a +quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a +spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw +two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. +They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back +over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of +some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, +the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so +public a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the more +remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded +their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly +consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no +single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or +looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared +up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I +could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed +anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who +went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face +of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax. + +I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole +establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I +wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they +are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, +when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. +My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my +feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous +life, and being "slightly dyspeptic." I am assured by my renowned +doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no +stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to +my request for it. + +As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took +stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them +away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in +the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of +Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected murderer, and +that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that +his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central +Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time +for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I +believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his +trial stood postponed would come on. + +My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor. +With the last there is no communication but through the bedroom. +True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase; +but a part of the fitting of my bath has been--and had then been for +some years--fixed across it. At the same period, and as a part of +the same arrangement,--the door had been nailed up and canvased +over. + +I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions +to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only +available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was +closed. My servant's back was towards that door. While I was +speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very +earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who +had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of +the colour of impure wax. + +The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door. With +no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened +the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle +already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the +figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there. + +Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and +said: "Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied +I saw a--" As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden +start he trembled violently, and said, "O Lord, yes, sir! A dead +man beckoning!" + +Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached +servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of +having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him +was so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he +derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that +instant. + +I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and +was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night's +phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was +absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on +the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when +beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at +me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the +first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and +that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately +remembered. + +I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, +difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight +I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John +Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand. + +This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at +the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me +to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central +Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned +on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed--I am not +certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise--that that +class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification +than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The +man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said +that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him; there the +summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at +his. + +For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or +take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest +mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of +that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make +here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, +that I would go. + +The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. +There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively +black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I found +the passages and staircases of the Court-House flaringly lighted +with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I THINK that, +until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its +crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that +day. I THINK that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with +considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts +sitting my summons would take me. But this must not be received as +a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind +on either point. + +I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I +looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog +and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging +like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the +stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the +street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill +whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally +pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and +took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The +direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared +there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of +the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. + +If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to +it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, +and I was by that time able to say, "Here!" Now, observe. As I +stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on +attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, +and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me +was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the +attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, +and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that +the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, "AT ALL HAZARDS, +CHALLENGE THAT MAN!" But that, as he would give no reason for it, +and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it +called and I appeared, it was not done. + +Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving +the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed +account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my +narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the +ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together, +as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in +that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. +It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg +attention. + +I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the +trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the +church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother +jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I +counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In +short, I made them one too many. + +I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I +whispered to him, "Oblige me by counting us." He looked surprised +by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," says he, +suddenly, "we are Thirt-; but no, it's not possible. No. We are +twelve." + +According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, +but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no +appearance--no figure--to account for it; but I had now an inward +foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. + +The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one +large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge +and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping. +I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He +was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to +hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable presence, +good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His +name was Mr. Harker. + +When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was +drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being +disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I +went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. +Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar +shiver crossed him, and he said, "Who is this?" + +Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again +the figure I expected,--the second of the two men who had gone down +Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and +looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and +said in a pleasant way, "I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth +juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight." + +Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk +with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It +stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother +jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side +of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. +It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down +pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of +my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's. It seemed to go out +where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial +flight of stairs. + +Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had +dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr. +Harker. + +I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down +Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been +borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even +this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all +prepared. + +On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was +drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from +his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in +a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in +evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, +it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be +inspected by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his +way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone +down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the +miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at +the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,--before I saw the +miniature, which was in a locket,--"I WAS YOUNGER THEN, AND MY FACE +WAS NOT THEN DRAINED OF BLOOD." It also came between me and the +brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and +between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, +and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into +my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this. + +At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. +Harker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the +day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the +prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in +a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and +serious. Among our number was a vestryman,--the densest idiot I +have ever seen at large,--who met the plainest evidence with the +most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby +parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so +delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own +trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous blockheads +were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us +were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He +stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards +them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. +This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined +to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my +brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the +murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was +going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. + +It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the +miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the +Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we entered on +the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, +first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there +addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at +the time. For instance: the throat of the murdered man had been +cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, it was +suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that +very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition +referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's +elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right +hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker +himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted +by either hand. For another instance: a witness to character, a +woman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind. +The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking +her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil +countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. + +The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most +marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it; I accurately +state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not +itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to +such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or +disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, +by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to +others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly +overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence +suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the +learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, +it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a +few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the +witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most +certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest +in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two +additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the +trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the +afternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back into +Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return +of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I +thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes +to the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very +decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed +their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, +fainted, and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and +patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and +he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, +entering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and +looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he +was turning. A change came over his Lordship's face; his hand +stopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him; +he faltered, "Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am +somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;" and did not recover until +he had drunk a glass of water. + +Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,--the +same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock, +the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer +rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge's +pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at +the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same +foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same +rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of +turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same +keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors,--through all the +wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of +the Jury for a vast cried of time, and Piccadilly had flourished +coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his +distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than +anybody else. I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never +once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man +look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, "Why does he +not?" But he never did. + +Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until +the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to +consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic +vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble +that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts +from the Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest +doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in the +Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but +obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we +prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes +past twelve. + +The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box, +on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested +on me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a +great gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, +over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, "Guilty," +the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. + +The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether +he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed +upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the +leading newspapers of the following day as "a few rambling, +incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to +complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of +the Jury was prepossessed against him." The remarkable declaration +that he really made was this: "MY LORD, I KNEW I WAS A DOOMED MAN, +WHEN THE FOREMAN OF MY JURY CAME INTO THE BOX. MY LORD, I KNEW HE +WOULD NEVER LET ME OFF, BECAUSE, BEFORE I WAS TAKEN, HE SOMEHOW GOT +TO MY BEDSIDE IN THE NIGHT, WOKE ME, AND PUT A ROPE ROUND MY NECK." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens + diff --git a/old/3ghst10.zip b/old/3ghst10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c23272 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3ghst10.zip diff --git a/old/3ghst10h.htm b/old/3ghst10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..daf270c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3ghst10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2637 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML><HEAD> +<TITLE>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens</TITLE> +<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +<!-- +DIV.book { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; } +TABLE.bold { font-weight: bold; } +P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; } +P.pg { text-indent: 0em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; } +--> +</STYLE> +</HEAD> +<BODY> +<center><h1>The Project Gutenberg EBook of<br><a href="#title"><i>Three Ghost Stories</i></a><br>by Charles Dickens</h1> +<h3>(#33, #34, and #35 in our series of stories by Charles Dickens)</h3></center> +<DIV align="justify"> +<p class="pg"><br> +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. +<p class="pg"> +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** +<p class="pg"> +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** +<p class="pg"> +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** +<p class="pg"> +Title: Three Ghost Stories +<p class="pg"> +Author: Charles Dickens +<p class="pg"> +Release Date: April, 1998 [Etext #1289] +<br>[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +<br>[This HTML edition was first posted on March 31, 2003] +<p class="pg"> +Edition: 10 +<p class="pg"> +Language: English +<p class="pg"> +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 +<p class="pg"> +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THREE GHOST STORIES *** +<p class="pg"><br><br> +This eBook was converted to HTML, with additional editing, by Jose Menendez +from the Etext prepared by David Price from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition +of <i>Christmas Stories</i>. +<br><br><br></DIV> +<DIV class="book"> +<a name="title"></a><hr size="3" noshade> +<center> +<h1>THREE GHOST STORIES</h1><h3>BY</h3><br><h2>CHARLES DICKENS</h2> +<hr size="3" noshade><br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<br> +<table class="bold" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="contents"> +<col align="left"><col align="right"> +<tr><td><a href="#1">The Signal-Man</a></td><td> #33</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#2">The Haunted House</a></td><td> #34</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#3">The Trial For Murder</a></td><td> #35</td></tr></table> +<br><hr><br> +<h2><a name="1">THE SIGNAL-MAN</a></h2></center> +<p><br> +<big><big>“H</big></big>ALLOA! Below there!” +<p> +When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the +door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short +pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, +that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but +instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep +cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked +down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of +doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know +it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his +figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and +mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, +that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all. +<p> +“Halloa! Below!” +<p> +From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, +raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him. +<p> +“Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?” +<p> +He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him +without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. +Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly +changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused +me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such +vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and +was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw +him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by. +<p> +I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to +regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag +towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards +distant. I called down to him, “All right!” and made for that +point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough +zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed. +<p> +The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was +made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went +down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me +time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which +he had pointed out the path. +<p> +When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him +again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by +which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were +waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and +that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. +His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I +stopped a moment, wondering at it. +<p> +I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the +railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow +man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in +as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a +dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of +sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this +great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction +terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a +black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, +depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its +way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much +cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had +left the natural world. +<p> +Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. +Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, +and lifted his hand. +<p> +This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my +attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a +rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, +he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all +his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened +interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but +I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not +happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man +that daunted me. +<p> +He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the +tunnel’s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were +missing from it, and then looked at me. +<p> +That light was part of his charge? Was it not? +<p> +He answered in a low voice,—“Don’t you know it is?” +<p> +The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes +and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have +speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind. +<p> +In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in +his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to +flight. +<p> +“You look at me,” I said, forcing a smile, “as if you had a dread of +me.” +<p> +“I was doubtful,” he returned, “whether I had seen you before.” +<p> +“Where?” +<p> +He pointed to the red light he had looked at. +<p> +“There?” I said. +<p> +Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), “Yes.” +<p> +“My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it +may, I never was there, you may swear.” +<p> +“I think I may,” he rejoined. “Yes; I am sure I may.” +<p> +His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with +readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; +that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness +and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual +work—manual labour—he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim +those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he +had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely +hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the +routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had +grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here,—if +only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of +its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked +at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, +and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for +him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and +could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone +walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some +conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and +the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In +bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above +these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by +his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled +anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose. +<p> +He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an +official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic +instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of +which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark +that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without +offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that +instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found +wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in +workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate +resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any +great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe +it, sitting in that hut,—he scarcely could), a student of natural +philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused +his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no +complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon +it. It was far too late to make another. +<p> +All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his +grave, dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the +word, “Sir,” from time to time, and especially when he referred to +his youth,—as though to request me to understand that he claimed to +be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted +by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. +Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train +passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In the +discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and +vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining +silent until what he had to do was done. +<p> +In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of +men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that +while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, +turned his face towards the little bell when it did <small>NOT</small> ring, opened +the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy +damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the +tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with +the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being +able to define, when we were so far asunder. +<p> +Said I, when I rose to leave him, “You almost make me think that I +have met with a contented man.” +<p> +(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.) +<p> +“I believe I used to be so,” he rejoined, in the low voice in which +he had first spoken; “but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled.” +<p> +He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, +however, and I took them up quickly. +<p> +“With what? What is your trouble?” +<p> +“It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to +speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell +you.” +<p> +“But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall +it be?” +<p> +“I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten +to-morrow night, sir.” +<p> +“I will come at eleven.” +<p> +He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. “I’ll show my +white light, sir,” he said, in his peculiar low voice, “till you +have found the way up. When you have found it, don’t call out! And +when you are at the top, don’t call out!” +<p> +His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said +no more than, “Very well.” +<p> +“And when you come down to-morrow night, don’t call out! Let me ask +you a parting question. What made you cry, ‘Halloa! Below there!’ +to-night?” +<p> +“Heaven knows,” said I. “I cried something to that effect—” +<p> +“Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them +well.” +<p> +“Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I +saw you below.” +<p> +“For no other reason?” +<p> +“What other reason could I possibly have?” +<p> +“You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any +supernatural way?” +<p> +“No.” +<p> +He wished me good-night, and held up his light. I walked by the +side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation +of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier +to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any +adventure. +<p> +Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of +the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. +He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. “I +have not called out,” I said, when we came close together; “may I +speak now?” “By all means, sir.” “Good-night, then, and here’s my +hand.” “Good-night, sir, and here’s mine.” With that we walked +side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down +by the fire. +<p> +“I have made up my mind, sir,” he began, bending forward as soon as +we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, +“that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took +you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me.” +<p> +“That mistake?” +<p> +“No. That some one else.” +<p> +“Who is it?” +<p> +“I don’t know.” +<p> +“Like me?” +<p> +“I don’t know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the +face, and the right arm is waved,—violently waved. This way.” +<p> +I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm +gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, “For God’s +sake, clear the way!” +<p> +“One moonlight night,” said the man, “I was sitting here, when I +heard a voice cry, ‘Halloa! Below there!’ I started up, looked +from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light +near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed +hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ‘Look out! Look out!’ And then +again, ‘Halloa! Below there! Look out!’ I caught up my lamp, +turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, ‘What’s +wrong? What has happened? Where?’ It stood just outside the +blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I +wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up +at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when +it was gone.” +<p> +“Into the tunnel?” said I. +<p> +“No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and +held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured +distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and +trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run +in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I +looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up +the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, +and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, ‘An alarm has been +given. Is anything wrong?’ The answer came back, both ways, ‘All +well.’ ” +<p> +Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I +showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of +sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate +nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have +often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the +nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments +upon themselves. “As to an imaginary cry,” said I, “do but listen +for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so +low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires.” +<p> +That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for +a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,—he +who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. +But he would beg to remark that he had not finished. +<p> +I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my +arm,— +<p> +“Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on +this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were +brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had +stood.” +<p> +A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. +It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable +coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was +unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, +and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. +Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he +was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common +sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary +calculations of life. +<p> +He again begged to remark that he had not finished. +<p> +I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions. +<p> +“This,” he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing +over his shoulder with hollow eyes, “was just a year ago. Six or +seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and +shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the +door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again.” He +stopped, with a fixed look at me. +<p> +“Did it cry out?” +<p> +“No. It was silent.” +<p> +“Did it wave its arm?” +<p> +“No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands +before the face. Like this.” +<p> +Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of +mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs. +<p> +“Did you go up to it?” +<p> +“I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly +because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, +daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone.” +<p> +“But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?” +<p> +He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving +a ghastly nod each time:— +<p> +“That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a +carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands +and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the +driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train +drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after +it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A +beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the +compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor +between us.” +<p> +Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at +which he pointed to himself. +<p> +“True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.” +<p> +I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was +very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long +lamenting wail. +<p> +He resumed. “Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is +troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has +been there, now and again, by fits and starts.” +<p> +“At the light?” +<p> +“At the Danger-light.” +<p> +“What does it seem to do?” +<p> +He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that +former gesticulation of, “For God’s sake, clear the way!” +<p> +Then he went on. “I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, +for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, ‘Below there! +Look out! Look out!’ It stands waving to me. It rings my little +bell—” +<p> +I caught at that. “Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I +was here, and you went to the door?” +<p> +“Twice.” +<p> +“Why, see,” said I, “how your imagination misleads you. My eyes +were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a +living man, it did <small>NOT</small> ring at those times. No, nor at any other +time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical +things by the station communicating with you.” +<p> +He shook his head. “I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. +I have never confused the spectre’s ring with the man’s. The +ghost’s ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from +nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the +eye. I don’t wonder that you failed to hear it. But <i>I</i> heard it.” +<p> +“And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?” +<p> +“It <small>WAS</small> there.” +<p> +“Both times?” +<p> +He repeated firmly: “Both times.” +<p> +“Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?” +<p> +He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but +arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in +the doorway. There was the Danger-light. There was the dismal +mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls of the +cutting. There were the stars above them. +<p> +“Do you see it?” I asked him, taking particular note of his face. +His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, +perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly +towards the same spot. +<p> +“No,” he answered. “It is not there.” +<p> +“Agreed,” said I. +<p> +We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was +thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called +one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course +way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact +between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions. +<p> +“By this time you will fully understand, sir,” he said, “that what +troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre +mean?” +<p> +I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. +<p> +“What is its warning against?” he said, ruminating, with his eyes on +the fire, and only by times turning them on me. “What is the +danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere +on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be +doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely +this is a cruel haunting of <i>me</i>. What can <i>I</i> do?” +<p> +He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated +forehead. +<p> +“If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give +no reason for it,” he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. “I +should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was +mad. This is the way it would work,—Message: ‘Danger! Take +care!’ Answer: ‘What Danger? Where?’ Message: ‘Don’t know. +But, for God’s sake, take care!’ They would displace me. What else +could they do?” +<p> +His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental +torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an +unintelligible responsibility involving life. +<p> +“When it first stood under the Danger-light,” he went on, putting +his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward +across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, +“why not tell me where that accident was to happen,—if it must +happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted,—if it could have +been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not +tell me, instead, ‘She is going to die. Let them keep her at home’? +If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its +warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn +me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signal-man on +this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be +believed, and power to act?” +<p> +When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man’s sake, as +well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to +compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality +or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever +thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it +was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not +understand these confounding Appearances. In this effort I +succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his +conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post +as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention: +and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through +the night, but he would not hear of it. +<p> +That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the +pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have +slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to +conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the +dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either. +<p> +But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I +to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had +proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; +but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a +subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and +would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of +his continuing to execute it with precision? +<p> +Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something +treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors +in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing +a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany +him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest +medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take +his opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next +night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after +sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I had appointed to return +accordingly. +<p> +Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy +it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path +near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an +hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and +it would then be time to go to my signal-man’s box. +<p> +Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically +looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. I +cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the +mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left +sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. +<p> +The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a +moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and +that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short +distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. +The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little +low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports +and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed. +<p> +With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,—with a +flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my +leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or +correct what he did,—I descended the notched path with all the +speed I could make. +<p> +“What is the matter?” I asked the men. +<p> +“Signal-man killed this morning, sir.” +<p> +“Not the man belonging to that box?” +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +<p> +“Not the man I know?” +<p> +“You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him,” said the man who +spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising +an end of the tarpaulin, “for his face is quite composed.” +<p> +“O, how did this happen, how did this happen?” I asked, turning from +one to another as the hut closed in again. +<p> +“He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work +better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was +just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his +hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards +her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how +it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom.” +<p> +The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former +place at the mouth of the tunnel. +<p> +“Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir,” he said, “I saw him at +the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There was +no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he +didn’t seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were +running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call.” +<p> +“What did you say?” +<p> +“I said, ‘Below there! Look out! Look out! For God’s sake, clear +the way!’ ” +<p> +I started. +<p> +“Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. +I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to +the last; but it was no use.” +<br><br><p> + +Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious +circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point +out the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included, +not only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to +me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself—not he—had +attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had +imitated. +<br><br><hr><br> +<center><h2><a name="2">THE HAUNTED HOUSE</a></h2></center> +<p align="center"><br> +<b>CHAPTER I—THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE</b> + +<p><br> +<big><big>U</big></big>NDER none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by +none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make +acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas +piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was +no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted +circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: +I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more +than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood +outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see +the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. +I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I +doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people—and +there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say +that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn +morning. +<p> +The manner of my lighting on it was this. +<p> +I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop +by the way, to look at the house. My health required a temporary +residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and +who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to +suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight, +and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of +window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen +asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the +usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn’t been to sleep at +all;—upon which question, in the first imbecility of that +condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by +battle with the man who sat opposite me. That opposite man had had, +through the night—as that opposite man always has—several legs too +many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable +conduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil +and a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking +notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related +to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned +myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was +in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring +straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed +gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became +unbearable. +<p> +It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I +had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country, +and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the +stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller +and said: +<p> +“I <i>beg</i> your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in +me?” For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my +travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty. +<p> +The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if +the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a +lofty look of compassion for my insignificance: +<p> +“In you, sir?—B.” +<p> +“B, sir?” said I, growing warm. +<p> +“I have nothing to do with you, sir,” returned the gentleman; “pray +let me listen—O.” +<p> +He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down. +<p> +At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication +with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my +relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a +Rapper: one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest +respect, but whom I don’t believe in. I was going to ask him the +question, when he took the bread out of my mouth. +<p> +“You will excuse me,” said the gentleman contemptuously, “if I am +too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all +about it. I have passed the night—as indeed I pass the whole of my +time now—in spiritual intercourse.” +<p> +“O!” said I, somewhat snappishly. +<p> +“The conferences of the night began,” continued the gentleman, +turning several leaves of his note-book, “with this message: ‘Evil +communications corrupt good manners.’ ” +<p> +“Sound,” said I; “but, absolutely new?” +<p> +“New from spirits,” returned the gentleman. +<p> +I could only repeat my rather snappish “O!” and ask if I might be +favoured with the last communication. +<p> +“ ‘A bird in the hand,’ ” said the gentleman, reading his last entry +with great solemnity, “ ‘is worth two in the Bosh.’ ” +<p> +“Truly I am of the same opinion,” said I; “but shouldn’t it be +Bush?” +<p> +“It came to me, Bosh,” returned the gentleman. +<p> +The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had +delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. “My +friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway +carriage. How do you do? There are seventeen thousand four hundred +and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. Pythagoras +is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like +travelling.” Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific +intelligence. “I am glad to see you, <i>amico. Come sta?</i> Water will +freeze when it is cold enough. <i>Addio!</i>” In the course of the night, +also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop Butler had +insisted on spelling his name, “Bubler,” for which offence against +orthography and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper. +John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the +authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of +that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and +Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, +had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh +circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the +direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots. +<p> +If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with +these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the +sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent +Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I +was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the +next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free +air of Heaven. +<p> +By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among +such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet +trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and +thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they +are sustained; the gentleman’s spiritual intercourse seemed to me as +poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw. In which +heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped +to examine it attentively. +<p> +It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a +pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about the +time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as +bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of +the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, within a +year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say +cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was +already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours +were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall, +announcing that it was “to let on very reasonable terms, well +furnished.” It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, +and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front +windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which +had been extremely ill chosen. +<p> +It was easy to see that it was an avoided house—a house that was +shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire +some half a mile off—a house that nobody would take. And the +natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted +house. +<p> +No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so +solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer time, I often +rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day’s work before +breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by +the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is +something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep—in +the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are +dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state, +anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all +tending—the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the +deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned +occupation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour +is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the +same association. Even a certain air that familiar household +objects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of +the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be +long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of +maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover, I +once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive +and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the +daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood +beside my bed. His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was +slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him +there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched +him. As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he did +not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, +as I thought—and there was no such thing. +<p> +For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly +statable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time. Any +house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning; +and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage +than then. +<p> +I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon +my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his +door-step. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the +house. +<p> +“Is it haunted?” I asked. +<p> +The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, “I say +nothing.” +<p> +“Then it <i>is</i> haunted?” +<p> +“Well!” cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the +appearance of desperation—“I wouldn’t sleep in it.” +<p> +“Why not?” +<p> +“If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to +ring ’em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang +’em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why, +then,” said the landlord, “I’d sleep in that house.” +<p> +“Is anything seen there?” +<p> +The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former +appearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for “Ikey!” +<p> +The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red +face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a +turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with +mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to +be in a fair way—if it were not pruned—of covering his head and +overunning his boots. +<p> +“This gentleman wants to know,” said the landlord, “if anything’s +seen at the Poplars.” +<p> +“ ’Ooded woman with a howl,” said Ikey, in a state of great +freshness. +<p> +“Do you mean a cry?” +<p> +“I mean a bird, sir.” +<p> +“A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me! Did you ever see her?” +<p> +“I seen the howl.” +<p> +“Never the woman?” +<p> +“Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together.” +<p> +“Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?” +<p> +“Lord bless you, sir! Lots.” +<p> +“Who?” +<p> +“Lord bless you, sir! Lots.” +<p> +“The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his +shop?” +<p> +“Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn’t go a-nigh the place. No!” +observed the young man, with considerable feeling; “he an’t +overwise, an’t Perkins, but he an’t such a fool as <i>that</i>.” +<p> +(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins’s knowing +better.) +<p> +“Who is—or who was—the hooded woman with the owl? Do you know?” +<p> +“Well!” said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he +scratched his head with the other, “they say, in general, that she +was murdered, and the howl he ’ooted the while.” +<p> +This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except +that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see, +had been took with fits and held down in ’em, after seeing the +hooded woman. Also, that a personage, dimly described as “a hold +chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby, +unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, ‘Why not? +and even if so, mind your own business,’ ” had encountered the hooded +woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially +assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in +California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by +the landlord), Anywheres. +<p> +Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, +between which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier +of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; +and although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything +of them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing +of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with +the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules +that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little +while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-traveller +to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, I had lived +in two haunted houses—both abroad. In one of these, an old Italian +palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted +indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account, +I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly: +notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms, +which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I +sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which I +slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted +these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular +house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things +had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, +and did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper +in the village that any weird-looking, old drunken tinker of the +neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time +to be suspected of that commercial venture! All this wise talk was +perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and +was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life. +<p> +To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted +house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after +breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins’s brother-in-law (a whip and +harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to +a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel +persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and +by Ikey. +<p> +Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The +slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were +doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, +ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry +rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim +of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man’s +hands whenever it’s not turned to man’s account. The kitchens and +offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above +stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches +of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well +with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the +bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of +these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, +M<small>ASTER</small> B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most. +<p> +“Who was Master B.?” I asked. “Is it known what he did while the +owl hooted?” +<p> +“Rang the bell,” said Ikey. +<p> +I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young +man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a +loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The +other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to +which their wires were conducted: as “Picture Room,” “Double Room,” +“Clock Room,” and the like. Following Master B.’s bell to its +source I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent +third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft, +with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly +small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-piece +like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The +papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with +fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. +It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made +a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey +could suggest why he made such a fool of himself. +<p> +Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I +made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, but +sparely. Some of the furniture—say, a third—was as old as the +house; the rest was of various periods within the last half century. +I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county +town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six +months. +<p> +It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden +sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very +handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stable-man, +my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person +called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attendant last +enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence’s Union Female +Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement. +<p> +The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw +cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was +most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of +intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested +that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2 +Tuppintock’s Gardens, Liggs’s Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of +anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, +feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who +had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made +arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery +window, and rearing an oak. +<p> +We went, before dark, through all the natural—as opposed to +supernatural—miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports +ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and +descended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there was +no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don’t know what it +is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the +last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the +landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful +and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a +supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen “Eyes,” and was in +hysterics. +<p> +My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to +ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left +Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or +any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd +Girl had “seen Eyes” (no other explanation could ever be drawn from +her), before nine, and by ten o’clock had had as much vinegar +applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon. +<p> +I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under +these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o’clock Master +B.’s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled +until the house resounded with his lamentations! +<p> +I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the +mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory +of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, +or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one +cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don’t know; +but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until +I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.’s neck—in other +words, breaking his bell short off—and silencing that young +gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever. +<p> +But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers +of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very +inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed +with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address +the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had +painted Master B.’s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.’s +bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that +that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no +better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and +the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in +the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a +mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible +means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied +spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?—I say I would become +emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an +address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd +Girl’s suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among +us like a parochial petrifaction. +<p> +Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most +discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an +unusually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, +but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of +the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with. Combined +with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those +specimens, so that they didn’t fall, but hung upon her face and +nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her +head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable +Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of +money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a +garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the +Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes +regarding her silver watch. +<p> +As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was +among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded +woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of +hooded women. Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I myself +have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so +many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood +if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try this +in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own comfortable +fire-side, in the life of the night. You can fill any house with +noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your +nervous system. +<p> +I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and +there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their noses in +a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always +primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with +hair-triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions +that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established +the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If +Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should +presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so +constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go +about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is +called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with. +<p> +It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for +the moment in one’s own person, by a real owl, and then to show the +owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord +on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and +combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells, +and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down +inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let +torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and +recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new set +ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our +comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, +that I one night dejectedly said to my sister: “Patty, I begin to +despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we +must give this up.” +<p> +My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, “No, John, +don’t give it up. Don’t be beaten, John. There is another way.” +<p> +“And what is that?” said I. +<p> +“John,” returned my sister, “if we are not to be driven out of this +house, and that for no reason whatever that is apparent to you or +me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into +our own hands.” +<p> +“But, the servants,” said I. +<p> +“Have no servants,” said my sister, boldly. +<p> +Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the +possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The +notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful. +<p> +“We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and +we know they are frightened and do infect one another,” said my +sister. +<p> +“With the exception of Bottles,” I observed, in a meditative tone. +<p> +(The deaf stable-man. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, +as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.) +<p> +“To be sure, John,” assented my sister; “except Bottles. And what +does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody +unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever +given, or taken! None.” +<p> +This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, +every night at ten o’clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no +other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail +of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I +had put myself without announcement in Bottles’s way after that +minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. +Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many +uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his +supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, +and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the +general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie. +<p> +“And so,” continued my sister, “I exempt Bottles. And considering, +John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be +kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast +about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most +reliable and willing—form a Society here for three months—wait +upon ourselves and one another—live cheerfully and socially—and +see what happens.” +<p> +I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, +and went into her plan with the greatest ardour. +<p> +We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our +measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in +whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month +unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and +mustered in the haunted house. +<p> +I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while +my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not +improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he +wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but +unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came +in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own +throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun? On +his saying, “Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her,” I begged +the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine. +<p> +“<i>She’s</i> a true one, sir,” said Ikey, after inspecting a +double-barrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. “No +mistake about <i>her</i>, sir.” +<p> +“Ikey,” said I, “don’t mention it; I have seen something in this +house.” +<p> +“No, sir?” he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. “ ’Ooded lady, +sir?” +<p> +“Don’t be frightened,” said I. “It was a figure rather like you.” +<p> +“Lord, sir?” +<p> +“Ikey!” said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say +affectionately; “if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the +greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I +promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I +see it again!” +<p> +The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little +precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my +secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his +cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed +something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one +night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that +we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to +comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid +of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would +play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. +The Odd Girl’s case was exactly similar. She went about the house +in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, +and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the +sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is +not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state +of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known +to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other +watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a +state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that +it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be +suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any +question of this kind. +<p> +To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all +assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and every +bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined +by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if +we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting +party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the floating rumours +concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.: with others, +still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, +relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went +up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an +impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of +these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to +one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words. +We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not +there to be deceived, or to deceive—which we considered pretty much +the same thing—and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we +would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out +the truth. The understanding was established, that any one who +heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, +should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last +night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that +then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, +should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would +hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable +provocation to break silence. +<p> +We were, in number and in character, as follows: +<p> +First—to get my sister and myself out of the way—there were we +two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I +drew Master B.’s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, +so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a better +man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a +charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous +spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to +bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may +do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and +I must say that if she had been <i>my</i> wife, I never could have left her +endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred +Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty +for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine, +usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room +within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges <i>I</i> +was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind +or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be “fast” +(another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much +too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have +distinguished himself before now, if his father had not +unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, +on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to +spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or +that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per +cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his +fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a +most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture +Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business +earnestness, and “goes in”—to use an expression of Alfred’s—for +Woman’s mission, Woman’s rights, Woman’s wrongs, and everything that +is woman’s with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and +ought not to be. “Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper +you!” I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of +her at the Picture-Room door, “but don’t overdo it. And in respect +of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments +being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet +assigned to her, don’t fly at the unfortunate men, even those men +who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural +oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes +spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, +aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not <i>all</i> Wolf and +Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it.” However, I digress. +<p> +Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but +three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the +Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, “slung his hammock,” as +he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as +the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is gray now, but as +handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago—nay, handsomer. A +portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a +frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I +remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for +their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake +flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the +Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed +and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried, +“You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!” That he +is! And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet +him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal’s skin, you would be +vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform. +<p> +Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it +fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, +where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought +down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, +he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, +is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a +piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him +one “Nat Beaver,” an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. +Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently +as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a +world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. +At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the +lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many +minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. +Undery, my friend and solicitor: who came down, in an amateur +capacity, “to go through with it,” as he said, and who plays whist +better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning +to the red cover at the end. +<p> +I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal +feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful +resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever +ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pastrycook and +confectioner. Starling and I were Cook’s Mate, turn and turn about, +and on special occasions the chief cook “pressed” Mr. Beaver. We +had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was +neglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding +among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least +one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed. +<p> +We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I +was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship’s lantern in his +hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me +that he “was going aloft to the main truck,” to have the weathercock +down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my +attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said +somebody would be “hailing a ghost” presently, if it wasn’t done. +So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the +wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern +and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a +cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon +nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they +both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I +thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out +again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a +sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out +something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest +manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom +windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to “overhaul” +something mysterious in the garden. +<p> +The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed +anything. All we knew was, if any one’s room were haunted, no one +looked the worse for it. +<center><br><hr width="150"><br> +<b>CHAPTER II—THE GHOST IN MASTER B.’S ROOM</b></center> + +<p><br> +<big><big>W</big></big>HEN I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained +so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to +Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold. +Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having +been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. Whether the initial +letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black, +Brown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a foundling, +and had been baptized B. Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B. +was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have +been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own +childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch? +<p> +With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also +carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of +the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he +couldn’t have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good +at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant Boyhood +Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth, +Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball? +<p> +So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B. +<p> +It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a +dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the +instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my +thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial +letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet. +<p> +For six nights, I had been worried thus in Master B.’s room, when I +began to perceive that things were going wrong. +<p> +The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning +when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing shaving +at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and +amazement, that I was shaving—not myself—I am fifty—but a boy. +Apparently Master B.! +<p> +I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I looked +again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression +of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get +one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room, +and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and +complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening my +eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in +the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four +or five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes, +and made a strong effort to recover myself. Opening them again, I +saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been +dead. Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in +my life. +<p> +Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I +determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the +present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious +thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter +some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my preparation +needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o’clock in +the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed +with the skeleton of Master B.! +<p> +I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a +plaintive voice saying, “Where am I? What is become of me?” and, +looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B. +<p> +The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion: or rather, +was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and-salt +cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed +that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the +young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill +round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be +inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some +feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I +concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually +taken a great deal too much medicine. +<p> +“Where am I?” said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. “And +why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that +Calomel given me?” +<p> +I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn’t +tell him. +<p> +“Where is my little sister,” said the ghost, “and where my angelic +little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?” +<p> +I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to +take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with. I +represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human +experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that I myself +had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school +with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble +belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was a +mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the +last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall +of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible +subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I +related how, on the strength of our having been together at “Old +Doylance’s,” he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social +offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of +belief in Doylance’s boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved +to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam +with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a +proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being +abolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many +thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes. +<p> +The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. “Barber!” it +apostrophised me when I had finished. +<p> +“Barber?” I repeated—for I am not of that profession. +<p> +“Condemned,” said the ghost, “to shave a constant change of +customers—now, me—now, a young man—now, thyself as thou art—now, +thy father—now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a +skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning—” +<p> +(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.) +<p> +“Barber! Pursue me!” +<p> +I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a +spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in +Master B.’s room no longer. +<p> +Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been +forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told +the exact truth—particularly as they were always assisted with +leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate +that, during my occupation of Master B.’s room, I was taken by the +ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any +of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a +goat’s horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman), +holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and +less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to +have more meaning. +<p> +Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare +without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance +on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very smell +of the animal’s paint—especially when I brought it out, by making +him warm—I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost, afterwards, +in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which, +the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again +ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and +very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to +confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey: +at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his +stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on +ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings, +from fairs; in the first cab—another forgotten institution where +the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver. +<p> +Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in +pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more +wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to +one experience from which you may judge of many. +<p> +I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was +conscious of something within me, which has been the same all +through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its +phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who +had gone to bed in Master B.’s room. I had the smoothest of faces +and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like +myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, +behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most +astounding nature. +<p> +This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio. +<p> +The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of +respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it +was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the +corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet +memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of +imitation. “O, yes! Let us,” said the other creature with a jump, +“have a Seraglio.” +<p> +It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the +meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to +import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss +Griffin. It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human +sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great +Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let +us entrust it to Miss Bule. +<p> +We were ten in Miss Griffin’s establishment by Hampstead Ponds; +eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I judge to have +attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I +opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed +that she should become the Favourite. +<p> +Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and +charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the +idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss +Pipson? Miss Bule—who was understood to have vowed towards that +young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on +the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and +lock—Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson, +disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common. +<p> +Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea +of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly +replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair +Circassian. +<p> +“And what then?” Miss Bule pensively asked. +<p> +I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me +veiled, and purchased as a slave. +<p> +[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in +the State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier. He afterwards +resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he +yielded.] +<p> +“Shall I not be jealous?” Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes. +<p> +“Zobeide, no,” I replied; “you will ever be the favourite Sultana; +the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours.” +<p> +Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to +her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course +of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and +good-natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, +and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face +there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule’s +hand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the +black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of +Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of +the Blacks of the Hareem. +<p> +There were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution, +as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed himself +of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, +pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself +before the Caliph; wouldn’t call him Commander of the Faithful; +spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere “chap;” said +he, the other creature, “wouldn’t play”—Play!—and was otherwise +coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however, +put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I +became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the +daughters of men. +<p> +The smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking +another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a +legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little +round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her +shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all +together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem +competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun +reposing from the cares of State—which were generally, as in most +affairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the +Faithful being a fearful boggler at a sum. +<p> +On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the +Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for +that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never +acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. +In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the +Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger +(Miss Pipson’s pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment, +was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second +place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of “Lork you +pretties!” was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third place, +when specially instructed to say “Bismillah!” he always said +“Hallelujah!” This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured +altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation +to an incongruous extent, and even once—it was on the occasion of +the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses +of gold, and cheap, too—embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the +Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, +and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, +softening many a hard day since!) +<p> +Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine +what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had +known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that +she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and +Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with +which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, +inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a +dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all +things that could be learnt out of book) didn’t know, were the +main-spring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully kept, +but was once upon the verge of self-betrayal. The danger and escape +occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous +part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head—as we +were every Sunday—advertising the establishment in an unsecular +sort of way—when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory +happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, +conscience whispered me, “Thou, too, Haroun!” The officiating +minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving +him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, +attended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand +Vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened +as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At +this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed +the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and State +had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and +that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the +centre aisle. But, so Westerly—if I may be allowed the expression +as opposite to Eastern associations—was Miss Griffin’s sense of +rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved. +<p> +I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, +whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of +kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates +divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to +scratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a +green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, +a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of +Camden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the +half-yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the +holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting +the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier—who +had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the +difficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful +slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon +her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other +Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies +of the Hareem. +<p> +And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I +became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, and what +she would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most +beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought of +the number of beds we made up at our house, of my father’s income, +and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio and +malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord’s unhappiness, +did their utmost to augment it. They professed unbounded fidelity, +and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to the +utmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay +awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In my +despair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling +on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon, +and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my +country, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before +me. +<p> +One day, we were out walking, two and two—on which occasion the +Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the +turnpike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the +beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the +night—and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. An +unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the +State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that the +previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent +in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had +secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring +princes and princesses to a ball and supper: with a special +stipulation that they were “not to be fetched till twelve.” This +wandering of the antelope’s fancy, led to the surprising arrival at +Miss Griffin’s door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, +of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step +in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. At +the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these ceremonies, +the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and +at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more +distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front. +Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed +by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to +all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used +expressions: Firstly, “I believe you all of you knew of it;” +Secondly, “Every one of you is as wicked as another;” Thirdly, “A +pack of little wretches.” +<p> +Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I +especially, with my Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was +in a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss +Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and +talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of the +law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the +general purpose of making for Egypt. +<p> +The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as +my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning +on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest +way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless +Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a +corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I was +taken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning +gentleness, This was very curious! Why had I run away when the +gentleman looked at me? +<p> +If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have +made no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none. Miss +Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back +to the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn’t help +feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state. +<p> +When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss +Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky +guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed +tears. “Bless you, my precious!” said that officer, turning to me; +“your Pa’s took bitter bad!” +<p> +I asked, with a fluttered heart, “Is he very ill?” +<p> +“Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!” said the good Mesrour, +kneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head +to rest on, “your Pa’s dead!” +<p> +Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished; +from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest +of the daughters of men. +<p> +I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and +we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously looked +upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called “The Trade,” that a +brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to +be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song. So +I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a +dismal song it must have been to sing! +<p> +Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where +everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being +enough; where everybody, large and small, was cruel; where the boys +knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had +fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, “Going, going, +gone!” I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been +Haroun, or had had a Seraglio: for, I knew that if I mentioned my +reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself +in the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer. +<p> +Ah me, ah me! No other ghost has haunted the boy’s room, my +friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own +childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy +belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom: never with this +man’s stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man’s +hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man’s heart of mine to +hold it in its purity. And here you see me working out, as +cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass +a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with +the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion. +<br><br><hr><br> +<center><h2><a name="3">THE TRIAL FOR MURDER</a></h2></center> + +<p><br> +<big><big>I</big></big> HAVE always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among +persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their +own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange +sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such +wise would find no parallel or response in a listener’s internal +life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, +who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of +a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same +traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of +thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental +impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. +To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such +subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our +experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of +objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of +experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in +respect of being miserably imperfect. +<p> +In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, +opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history of +the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a +late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have +followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of +Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It +may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a +lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken +assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my +own case,—but only a part,—which would be wholly without +foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any +developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar +experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. +<p> +It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder +was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We hear +more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their +atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular +brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I +purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal’s +individuality. +<p> +When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell—or I ought +rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was +nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell—on the man who was +afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made +to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any +description of him can at that time have been given in the +newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. +<p> +Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of +that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I +read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. +The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the +paper, I was aware of a flash—rush—flow—I do not know what to +call it,—no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,—in +which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a +picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost +instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that +I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of +the dead body from the bed. +<p> +It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but +in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James’s +Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the +moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver +which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted +that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows +(there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to +refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was +a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. +The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a +quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a +spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw +two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. +They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back +over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of +some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, +the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so +public a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the more +remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded +their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly +consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no +single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or +looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared +up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I +could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed +anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who +went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face +of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax. +<p> +I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole +establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I +wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they +are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, +when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. +My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my +feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous +life, and being “slightly dyspeptic.” I am assured by my renowned +doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no +stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to +my request for it. +<p> +As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took +stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them +away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in +the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of +Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected murderer, and +that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that +his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central +Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time +for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I +believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his +trial stood postponed would come on. +<p> +My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor. +With the last there is no communication but through the bedroom. +True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase; +but a part of the fitting of my bath has been—and had then been for +some years—fixed across it. At the same period, and as a part of +the same arrangement,—the door had been nailed up and canvased +over. +<p> +I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions +to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only +available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was +closed. My servant’s back was towards that door. While I was +speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very +earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who +had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of +the colour of impure wax. +<p> +The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door. With +no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened +the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle +already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the +figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there. +<p> +Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and +said: “Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied +I saw a—” As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden +start he trembled violently, and said, “O Lord, yes, sir! A dead +man beckoning!” +<p> +Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached +servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of +having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him +was so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he +derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that +instant. +<p> +I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and +was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night’s +phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was +absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on +the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when +beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at +me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the +first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and +that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately +remembered. +<p> +I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, +difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight +I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John +Derrick’s coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand. +<p> +This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at +the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me +to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central +Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned +on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed—I am not +certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise—that that +class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification +than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The +man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said +that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him; there the +summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at +his. +<p> +For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or +take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest +mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of +that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make +here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, +that I would go. +<p> +The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. +There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively +black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I found +the passages and staircases of the Court-House flaringly lighted +with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I <i>think</i> that, +until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its +crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that +day. I <i>think</i> that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with +considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts +sitting my summons would take me. But this must not be received as +a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind +on either point. +<p> +I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I +looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog +and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging +like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the +stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the +street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill +whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally +pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and +took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The +direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared +there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of +the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. +<p> +If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to +it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, +and I was by that time able to say, “Here!” Now, observe. As I +stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on +attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, +and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner’s wish to challenge me +was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the +attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, +and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that +the prisoner’s first affrighted words to him were, “<i>At all hazards, +challenge that man!</i>” But that, as he would give no reason for it, +and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it +called and I appeared, it was not done. +<p> +Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving +the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed +account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my +narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the +ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together, +as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in +that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. +It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg +attention. +<p> +I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the +trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the +church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother +jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I +counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In +short, I made them one too many. +<p> +I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I +whispered to him, “Oblige me by counting us.” He looked surprised +by the request, but turned his head and counted. “Why,” says he, +suddenly, “we are Thirt—; but no, it’s not possible. No. We are +twelve.” +<p> +According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, +but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no +appearance—no figure—to account for it; but I had now an inward +foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. +<p> +The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one +large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge +and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping. +I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He +was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to +hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable presence, +good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His +name was Mr. Harker. +<p> +When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker’s bed was +drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being +disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I +went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. +Harker’s hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar +shiver crossed him, and he said, “Who is this?” +<p> +Following Mr. Harker’s eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again +the figure I expected,—the second of the two men who had gone down +Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and +looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and +said in a pleasant way, “I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth +juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight.” +<p> +Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk +with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It +stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother +jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side +of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. +It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down +pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of +my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker’s. It seemed to go out +where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial +flight of stairs. +<p> +Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had +dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr. +Harker. +<p> +I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down +Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been +borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even +this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all +prepared. +<p> +On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was +drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from +his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in +a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in +evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, +it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be +inspected by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his +way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone +down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the +miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at +the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,—before I saw the +miniature, which was in a locket,—“<i>I was younger then, and my face +was not then drained of blood</i>.” It also came between me and the +brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and +between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, +and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into +my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this. +<p> +At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. +Harker’s custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the +day’s proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the +prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in +a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and +serious. Among our number was a vestryman,—the densest idiot I +have ever seen at large,—who met the plainest evidence with the +most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby +parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so +delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own +trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous blockheads +were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us +were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He +stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards +them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. +This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined +to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my +brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the +murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was +going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. +<p> +It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the +miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the +Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we entered on +the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, +first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there +addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at +the time. For instance: the throat of the murdered man had been +cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, it was +suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that +very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition +referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker’s +elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right +hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker +himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted +by either hand. For another instance: a witness to character, a +woman, deposed to the prisoner’s being the most amiable of mankind. +The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking +her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner’s evil +countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. +<p> +The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most +marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it; I accurately +state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not +itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to +such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or +disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, +by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to +others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly +overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence +suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the +learned gentleman’s elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, +it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a +few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the +witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most +certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest +in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner’s face. Two +additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the +trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the +afternoon for a few minutes’ rest and refreshment, I came back into +Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return +of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I +thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes +to the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very +decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed +their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, +fainted, and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and +patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and +he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, +entering by the Judges’ door, advanced to his Lordship’s desk, and +looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he +was turning. A change came over his Lordship’s face; his hand +stopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him; +he faltered, “Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am +somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;” and did not recover until +he had drunk a glass of water. +<p> +Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,—the +same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock, +the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer +rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge’s +pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at +the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same +foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same +rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of +turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same +keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors,—through all the +wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of +the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished +coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his +distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than +anybody else. I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never +once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man +look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, “Why does he +not?” But he never did. +<p> +Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until +the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to +consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic +vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble +that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts +from the Judge’s notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest +doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in the +Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but +obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we +prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes +past twelve. +<p> +The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box, +on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested +on me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a +great gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, +over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, “Guilty,” +the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. +<p> +The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether +he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed +upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the +leading newspapers of the following day as “a few rambling, +incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to +complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of +the Jury was prepossessed against him.” The remarkable declaration +that he really made was this: “<i>My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man, +when the Foreman of my Jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he +would never let me off, because, before I was taken, he somehow got +to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck</i>.” +<br><br><hr size="3" noshade></DIV> +<br><DIV align="justify"> +<a name="footer">*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THREE GHOST STORIES ***</a> +<p class="pg"> +This file should be named 3ghst10h.htm or 3ghst10h.zip<br> +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 3ghst11h.htm<br> +VERSIONS based on separate sources get a new LETTER, 3ghst10a.htm +<p class="pg"> +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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