initial commit of ebook 17893HEADmain

1 files changed, 8931 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/17893-8.txt b/17893-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a91d953
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17893-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8931 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Best Ghost Stories, by Various
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Best Ghost Stories
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2006  [eBook #17893]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST GHOST STORIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Emmy, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Two words in this text contain macrons over double ee. These
+   are denoted in the text with [=ee].
+
+   Superscripted text is denoted by the use of the following
+   markings: 12^{mi} where "mi" is superscripted.
+
+   A Transcriber's note at the end of the text lists the changes
+   made in transcription.
+
+
+
+
+The Modern Library of the World's Best Books
+
+THE BEST GHOST STORIES
+
+Introduction by Arthur B. Reeve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Modern Library
+Publishers New York
+Copyright, 1919, by
+Boni & Liveright, Inc.
+Manufactured in the United States of America by H. Wolff
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                                       PAGE
+
+INTRODUCTION--"THE FASCINATION OF THE GHOST STORY"  _Arthur B. Reeve_   vii
+
+THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL                           _Daniel De Foe_     3
+
+CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK                     _Montague Rhodes James_   18
+
+THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS                    _Edward Bulwer-Lytton_   31
+
+THE SILENT WOMAN                                     _Leopold Kompert_   60
+
+BANSHEES                                                                 79
+
+THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR                                 _E.F. Benson_   85
+
+THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY                            _Algernon Blackwood_ 108
+
+THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW                                  _Rudyard Kipling_ 118
+
+THE RIVAL GHOSTS                                     _Brander Matthews_ 141
+
+THE DAMNED THING                                       _Ambrose Bierce_ 160
+
+THE INTERVAL                                       _Vincent O'Sullivan_ 170
+
+DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS                               _Ellis Parker Butler_ 177
+
+SOME REAL AMERICAN GHOSTS                                               188
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+THE FASCINATION OF THE GHOST STORY
+
+ARTHUR B. REEVE
+
+
+What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story?
+
+Is it of the same nature as the fascination which we feel for the
+mystery of the detective story?
+
+Of the latter fascination, the late Paul Armstrong used to say that it
+was because we are all as full of crime as Sing Sing--only we don't
+dare.
+
+Thus, may I ask, are we not fascinated by the ghost story because, no
+matter what may be the scientific or skeptical bent of our minds, in our
+inmost souls, secretly perhaps, we are as full of superstition as an
+obeah man--only we don't let it loose?
+
+Who shall say that he is able to fling off lightly the inheritance of
+countless ages of superstition? Is there not a streak of superstition in
+us all? We laugh at the voodoo worshiper--then create our own hoodooes,
+our pet obsessions.
+
+It has been said that man is incurably religious, that if all religions
+were blotted out, man would create a new religion.
+
+Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories
+of the ages were blotted out, man would invent new ones.
+
+For, do we not all stand in awe of that which we cannot explain, of that
+which, if it be not in our own experience, is certainly recorded in the
+experience of others, of that of which we know and can know nothing?
+
+Skeptical though one may be of the occult, he must needs be interested
+in things that others believe to be objective--that certainly are
+subjectively very real to them.
+
+The ghost story is not born of science, nor even of super-science,
+whatever that may be. It is not of science at all. It is of another
+sphere, despite all that the psychic researchers have tried to
+demonstrate.
+
+There are in life two sorts of people who, for want of a better
+classification, I may call the psychic and the non-psychic. If I ask the
+psychic to close his eyes and I say to him, "Horse," he immediately
+visualizes a horse. The other, non-psychic, does not. I rather incline
+to believe that it is the former class who see ghosts, or rather some of
+them. The latter do not--though they share interest in them.
+
+The artists are of the visualizing class and, in our more modern times,
+it is the psychic who think in motion pictures, or at least in a
+succession of still pictures.
+
+However we explain the ghostly and supernatural, whether we give it
+objective or merely subjective reality, neither explanation prevents the
+non-psychic from being intensely interested in the visions of the
+psychic.
+
+Thus I am convinced that if we were all quite honest with ourselves,
+whether we believe in or do not believe in ghosts, at least we are all
+deeply interested in them. There is in this interest something that
+makes all the world akin.
+
+Who does not feel a suppressed start at the creaking of furniture in the
+dark of night? Who has not felt a shiver of goose flesh, controlled only
+by an effort of will? Who, in the dark, has not had the feeling of some
+_thing_ behind him--and, in spite of his conscious reasoning, turned to
+look?
+
+If there be any who has not, it may be that to him ghost stories have no
+fascination. Let him at least, however, be honest.
+
+To every human being mystery appeals, be it that of the crime cases on
+which a large part of yellow journalism is founded, or be it in the
+cases of Dupin, of Le Coq, of Sherlock Holmes, of Arsene Lupin, of Craig
+Kennedy, or a host of others of our fiction mystery characters. The
+appeal is in the mystery.
+
+The detective's case is solved at the end, however. But even at the end
+of a ghost story, the underlying mystery remains. In the ghost story, we
+have the very quintessence of mystery.
+
+Authors, publishers, editors, dramatists, writers of motion pictures
+tell us that never before has there been such an intense and wide
+interest in mystery stories as there is to-day. That in itself explains
+the interest in the super-mystery story of the ghost and ghostly doings.
+
+Another element of mystery lies in such stories. Deeper and further
+back, is the supreme mystery of life--after death--what?
+
+"Impossible," scorns the non-psychic as he listens to some ghost story.
+
+To which, doggedly replies the mind of the opposite type, "Not so.
+I believe _because_ it is impossible."
+
+The uncanny, the unhealthy--as in the master of such writing,
+Poe--fascinates. Whether we will or no, the imp of the perverse lures us
+on.
+
+That is why we read with enthralled interest these excursions into the
+eerie unknown, perhaps reading on till the mystic hour of midnight
+increases the creepy pleasure.
+
+One might write a volume of analysis and appreciation of this aptly
+balanced anthology of ghost stories assembled here after years of
+reading and study by Mr. J.L. French.
+
+Foremost among the impressions that a casual reader will derive is the
+interesting fact, just as in detective mystery stories, so in ghost
+stories, styles change. Each age, each period has the ghost story
+peculiar to itself. To-day, there is a new style of ghost story
+gradually evolving.
+
+Once stories were of fairies, fays, trolls, the "little people," of
+poltergiest and loup garou. Through various ages we have progressed to
+the ghost story of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until to-day,
+in the twentieth, we are seeing a modern style, which the new science is
+modifying materially.
+
+High among the stories in this volume, one must recognize the masterful
+art of Algernon Blackwood's "The Woman's Ghost Story."
+
+"I was interested in psychic things," says the woman as she starts to
+tell her story simply, with a sweep toward the climax that has the ring
+of the truth of fiction. Here perhaps we have the modern style of ghost
+story at its best.
+
+Times change as well as styles. "The Man Who Went Too Far" is of intense
+interest as an attempt to bring into our own times an interpretation of
+the symbolism underlying Greek mythology, applied to England of some
+years ago.
+
+To see Pan meant death. Hence in this story there is a philosophy of
+Pan-theism--no "me," no "you," no "it." It is a mystical story, with a
+storm scene in which is painted a picture that reminds one strongly of
+"The Fall of the House of Ushur,"--with the frankly added words, "On him
+were marks of hoofs of a monstrous goat that had leaped on
+him,"--uncompromising mysticism.
+
+Happy is the Kipling selection, "The Phantom 'Rickshaw," if only for
+that obiter dictum of ghost-presence as Kipling explains about the rift
+in the brain: "--and a little bit of the Dark World came through and
+pressed him to death!"
+
+Then there are the racial styles in ghost stories. The volume takes us
+from the "Banshees and Other Death Warnings" of Ireland to a strange
+example of Jewish mysticism in "The Silent Woman." Mr. French has been
+very wide in his choice, giving us these as well as many examples from
+the literature of England and France. Finally, he has compiled from the
+newspapers, as typically American, many ghost stories of New York and
+other parts of the country.
+
+Strange that one should find humor in a subject so weird. Yet we find
+it. Take, for instance, De Foe's old narrative, "The Apparition of Mrs.
+Veal." It is a hoax, nothing more. Of our own times is Ellis Parker
+Butler's "Dey Ain't No Ghosts," showing an example of the modern Negro's
+racial heritage.
+
+In our literature and on the stage, the very idea of a Darky and a
+graveyard is mirth-provoking. Mr. Butler extracts some pithy philosophy
+from his Darky boy: "I ain't skeered ob ghosts whut am, c'ase dey ain't
+no ghosts, but I jes' feel kinder oneasy 'bout de ghosts whut ain't!"
+
+Humor is succeeded by pathos. In "The Interval" we find a sympathetic
+twist to the ghost story--an actual desire to meet the dead.
+
+It is not, however, to be compared for interest to the story of sheer
+terror, as in Bulwer-Lytton's "The Haunted and the Haunters," with the
+flight of the servant in terror, the cowering of the dog against the
+wall, the death of the dog, its neck actually broken by the terror, and
+all that go to make an experience in a haunted house what it should be.
+
+Thus, at last, we come to two of the stories that attempt to give a
+scientific explanation, another phase of the modern style of ghost
+story.
+
+One of these, perhaps hardly modern as far as mere years are concerned,
+is this same story of Bulwer, "The Haunted and the Haunters." Besides
+being a rattling good old-fashioned tale of horror, it attempts a
+new-fashioned scientific explanation. It is enough to read and re-read
+it.
+
+It is, however, the lamented Ambrose Bierce who has gone furthest in the
+science and the philosophy of the matter, and in a very short story,
+too, splendidly titled "The Damned Thing."
+
+          "Incredible!" exclaims the coroner at the inquest.
+
+          "That is nothing to you, sir," replies the
+          newspaper man who relates the experience, and in
+          these words expresses the true feeling about
+          ghostly fiction, "that is nothing to you, if I
+          also swear that it is true!"
+
+But furthest of all in his scientific explanation--not scientifically
+explaining away, but in explaining the way--goes Bierce as he outlines a
+theory. From the diary of the murdered man he picks out the following
+which we may treasure as a gem:
+
+          "I am not mad. There are colors that we cannot
+          see. And--God help me!--the Damned Thing is of
+          such a color!"
+
+This fascination of the ghost story--have I made it clear?
+
+As I write, nearing midnight, the bookcase behind me cracks. I start and
+turn. Nothing. There is a creak of a board in the hallway.
+
+I know it is the cool night wind--the uneven contraction of materials
+expanded in the heat of the day.
+
+Yet--do I go into the darkness outside otherwise than alert?
+
+It is this evolution of our sense of ghost terror--ages of it--that
+fascinates us.
+
+Can we, with a few generations of modernism behind us, throw it off with
+all our science? And, if we did, should we not then succeed only in
+abolishing the old-fashioned ghost story and creating a new, scientific
+ghost story?
+
+Scientific? Yes. But more,--something that has existed since the
+beginnings of intelligence in the human race.
+
+Perhaps, you critic, you say that the true ghost story originated in the
+age of shadowy candle light and pine knot with their grotesqueries on
+the walls and in the unpenetrated darkness, that the electric bulb and
+the radiator have dispelled that very thing on which, for ages, the
+ghost story has been built.
+
+What? No ghost stories? Would you take away our supernatural fiction by
+your paltry scientific explanation?
+
+Still will we gather about the story teller--then lie awake o' nights,
+seeing mocking figures, arms akimbo, defying all your science to crush
+the ghost story.
+
+
+
+
+BEST GHOST STORIES
+
+
+
+
+THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL
+
+BY DANIEL DE FOE
+
+
+THE PREFACE
+
+This relation is matter of fact, and attended with such circumstances,
+as may induce any reasonable man to believe it. It was sent by a
+gentleman, a justice of peace, at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very
+intelligent person, to his friend in London, as it is here worded; which
+discourse is attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman, a
+kinswoman of the said gentleman's, who lives in Canterbury, within a few
+doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs. Bargrave lives; who
+believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put
+upon by any fallacy; and who positively assured him that the whole
+matter, as it is related and laid down, is really true; and what she
+herself had in the same words, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's
+own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent and publish such a
+story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of much
+honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety.
+The use which we ought to make of it, is to consider, that there is a
+life to come after this, and a just God, who will retribute to every one
+according to the deeds done in the body; and therefore to reflect upon
+our past course of life we have led in the world; that our time is short
+and uncertain; and that if we would escape the punishment of the
+ungodly, and receive the reward of the righteous, which is the laying
+hold of eternal life, we ought, for the time to come, to return to God
+by a speedy repentance, ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well: to
+seek after God early, if happily He may be found of us, and lead such
+lives for the future, as may be well pleasing in His sight.
+
+
+A RELATION OF THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL
+
+This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good
+authority, that my reading and conversation has not given me anything
+like it: it is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer.
+Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death;
+she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation, for
+these last fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can
+confirm the good character she had from her youth, to the time of my
+acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some
+people, that are friends to the brother of this Mrs. Veal, who appeared;
+who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and
+endeavor what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave's reputation, and to laugh
+the story out of countenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and the
+cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill-usage of
+a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection in
+her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring
+expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity; which
+I have been witness to, and several other persons of undoubted
+reputation.
+
+Now you must know, Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty
+years of age, and for some years last past had been troubled with fits;
+which were perceived coming on her, by her going off from her discourse
+very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only
+brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and
+her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he
+can to null or quash the story. Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with
+Mrs. Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal's circumstances were then
+mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that
+they were exposed to hardships; and Mrs. Bargrave, in those days, had as
+unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing, whilst
+Mrs. Veal wanted for both; insomuch that she would often say, Mrs.
+Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the
+world, and no circumstances of life shall ever dissolve my friendship.
+They would often condole each other's adverse fortunes, and read
+together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two
+Christian friends, they comforted each other under their sorrow.
+
+Some time after, Mr. Veal's friends got him a place in the custom-house
+at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. Veal, by little and little, to fall off
+from her intimacy with Mrs. Bargrave, though there was never any such
+thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last
+Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half; though above a
+twelvemonth of the time Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and
+this last half year has been in Canterbury about two months of the time,
+dwelling in a house of her own.
+
+In this house, on the 8th of September, 1705, she was sitting alone in
+the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and arguing herself
+into a due resignation to providence, though her condition seemed hard.
+And, said she, I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not but I
+shall be still; and am well satisfied that my afflictions shall end when
+it is most fit for me: and then took up her sewing-work, which she had
+no sooner done, but she hears a knocking at the door. She went to see
+who was there, and this proved to be Mrs. Veal, her old friend, who was
+in a riding-habit. At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at
+noon.
+
+Madam, says Mrs. Bargrave, I am surprised to see you, you have been so
+long a stranger; but told her, she was glad to see her, and offered to
+salute her; which Mrs. Veal complied with, till their lips almost
+touched; and then Mrs. Veal drew her hand across her own eyes, and said,
+I am not very well; and so waived it. She told Mrs. Bargrave, she was
+going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first. But, says Mrs.
+Bargrave, how came you to take a journey alone? I am amazed at it,
+because I know you have a fond brother. Oh! says Mrs. Veal, I gave my
+brother the slip, and came away because I had so great a desire to see
+you before I took my journey. So Mrs. Bargrave went in with her, into
+another room within the first, and Mrs. Veal sat her down in an
+elbow-chair, in which Mrs. Bargrave was sitting when she heard Mrs. Veal
+knock. Then says Mrs. Veal, My dear friend, I am come to renew our old
+friendship again, and beg your pardon for my breach of it; and if you
+can forgive me, you are the best of women. O, says Mrs. Bargrave, do not
+mention such a thing; I have not had an uneasy thought about it; I can
+easily forgive it. What did you think of me? said Mrs. Veal. Says Mrs.
+Bargrave, I thought you were like the rest of the world, and that
+prosperity had made you forget yourself and me. Then Mrs. Veal reminded
+Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did her in former days,
+and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of
+their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort, in particular,
+they received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, which was the best, she
+said, on that subject ever written. She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, the
+two Dutch books which were translated, written upon death, and several
+others. But Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death,
+and of the future state, of any who had handled that subject. Then she
+asked Mrs. Bargrave, whether she had Drelincourt. She said, Yes. Says
+Mrs. Veal, Fetch it. And so Mrs. Bargrave goes up stairs and brings it
+down. Says Mrs. Veal, Dear Mrs. Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were
+as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about
+us for our guard. The notions we have of heaven now, are nothing like
+what it is, as Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your
+afflictions, and believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to
+you; and that your afflictions are marks of God's favor; and when they
+have done the business they are sent for, they shall be removed from
+you. And believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to you, one
+minute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your
+sufferings. For, I can never believe (and claps her hand upon her knee
+with great earnestness, which indeed ran through most of her discourse),
+that ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted
+state; but be assured, that your afflictions shall leave you, or you
+them, in a short time. She spake in that pathetical and heavenly
+manner, that Mrs. Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply
+affected with it.
+
+Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Dr. Kenrick's Ascetick, at the end of which he
+gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern
+she recommended to our imitation, and said, their conversation was not
+like this of our age: For now, says she, there is nothing but frothy,
+vain discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to
+edification, and to build one another up in faith; so that they were not
+as we are, nor are we as they were: but, says she, we ought to do as
+they did. There was an hearty friendship among them; but where is it now
+to be found? Says Mrs. Bargrave, It is hard indeed to find a true friend
+in these days. Says Mrs. Veal, Mr. Norris has a fine copy of verses,
+called Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. Have you
+seen the book? says Mrs. Veal. No, says Mrs. Bargrave, but I have the
+verses of my own writing out. Have you? says Mrs. Veal, then fetch them.
+Which she did from above stairs, and offered them to Mrs. Veal to read,
+who refused, and waived the thing, saying, holding down her head would
+make it ache; and then desired Mrs. Bargrave to read them to her, which
+she did. As they were admiring friendship, Mrs. Veal said, Dear Mrs.
+Bargrave, I shall love you for ever. In these verses there is twice used
+the word Elysian. Ah! says Mrs. Veal, these poets have such names for
+heaven. She would often draw her hands across her own eyes, and say,
+Mrs. Bargrave, do not you think I am mightily impaired by my fits? No,
+says Mrs. Bargrave, I think you look as well as ever I knew you. After
+all this discourse, which the apparition put in much finer words than
+Mrs. Bargrave said she could pretend to, and as much more than she can
+remember, (for it cannot be thought, that an hour and three quarters'
+conversation could all be retained, though the main of it she thinks she
+does,) she said to Mrs. Bargrave, she would have her write a letter to
+her brother, and tell him, she would have him give rings to such and
+such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she
+would have two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson.
+
+Talking at this rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a fit was coming upon
+her, and so placed herself in a chair just before her knees, to keep her
+from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it: for the
+elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side.
+And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown-sleeve
+several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her, it was a scowered
+silk, and newly made up. But for all this, Mrs. Veal persisted in her
+request, and told Mrs. Bargrave, she must not deny her: and she would
+have her tell her brother all their conversation, when she had
+opportunity. Dear Mrs. Veal, says Mrs. Bargrave, this seems so
+impertinent, that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a
+mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman? Why,
+says Mrs. Bargrave, it is much better, methinks, to do it yourself. No,
+says Mrs. Veal, though it seems impertinent to you now, you will see
+more reason for it hereafter. Mrs. Bargrave then, to satisfy her
+importunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink; but Mrs. Veal said, Let
+it alone now, but do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do it:
+which was one of the last things she enjoined her at parting; and so she
+promised her.
+
+Then Mrs. Veal asked for Mrs. Bargrave's daughter; she said, she was not
+at home: But if you have a mind to see her, says Mrs. Bargrave, I'll
+send for her. Do, says Mrs. Veal. On which she left her, and went to a
+neighbor's to seek for her; and by the time Mrs. Bargrave was returning,
+Mrs. Veal was got without the door in the street, in the face of the
+beast-market, on a Saturday, which is market-day, and stood ready to
+part, as soon as Mrs. Bargrave came to her. She asked her, why she was
+in such haste. She said she must be going, though perhaps she might not
+go her journey till Monday; and told Mrs. Bargrave, she hoped she should
+see her again at her cousin Watson's, before she went whither she was
+going. Then she said, she would take her leave of her, and walked from
+Mrs. Bargrave in her view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her,
+which was three quarters after one in the afternoon.
+
+Mrs. Veal died the 7th of September, at twelve o'clock at noon of her
+fits, and had not above four hours' senses before her death, in which
+time she received the sacrament. The next day after Mrs. Veal's
+appearing, being Sunday, Mrs. Bargrave was mightily indisposed with a
+cold, and a sore throat, that she could not go out that day; but on
+Monday morning she sent a person to Captain Watson's, to know if Mrs.
+Veal was there. They wondered at Mrs. Bargrave's inquiry; and sent her
+word, that she was not there, nor was expected. At this answer Mrs.
+Bargrave told the maid she had certainly mistook the name, or made some
+blunder. And though she was ill, she put on her hood, and went herself
+to Captain Watson's though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs.
+Veal was there or not. They said, they wondered at her asking, for that
+she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have
+been there. Says Mrs. Bargrave, I am sure she was with me on Saturday
+almost two hours. They said, it was impossible; for they must have seen
+her if she had. In comes Captain Watson, while they were in dispute, and
+said, that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, and her escutcheons were
+making. This strangely surprised Mrs. Bargrave, when she sent to the
+person immediately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then she
+related the whole story to Captain Watson's family, and what gown she
+had on, and how striped; and that Mrs. Veal told her, it was scowered.
+Then Mrs. Watson cried out, You have seen her indeed, for none knew, but
+Mrs. Veal and myself, that the gown was scowered. And Mrs. Watson owned,
+that she described the gown exactly: For, said she, I helped her to make
+it up. This Mrs. Watson blazed all about the town, and avouched the
+demonstration of the truth of Mrs. Bargrave's seeing Mrs. Veal's
+apparition. And Captain Watson carried two gentlemen immediately to Mrs.
+Bargrave's house, to hear the relation of her own mouth. And when it
+spread so fast, that gentlemen and persons of quality, the judicious and
+skeptical part of the world, flocked in upon her, it at last became such
+a task, that she was forced to go out of the way. For they were, in
+general, extremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly saw
+that Mrs. Bargrave was no hypochondraic; for she always appears with
+such a cheerful air, and pleasing mien, that she has gained the favor
+and esteem of all the gentry; and it is thought a great favor, if they
+can but get the relation from her own mouth. I should have told you
+before, that Mrs. Veal told Mrs. Bargrave, that her sister and
+brother-in-law were just come down from London to see her. Says Mrs.
+Bargrave, How came you to order matters so strangely? It could not be
+helped, says Mrs. Veal. And her brother and sister did come to see her,
+and entered the town of Dover just as Mrs. Veal was expiring. Mrs.
+Bargrave, asked her, whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs. Veal,
+I do not care if I do; but I'll warrant you, this mad fellow (meaning
+Mrs. Bargrave's husband) has broke all your trinkets. But, says Mrs.
+Bargrave, I'll get something to drink in for all that; but Mrs. Veal
+waived it, and said, It is no matter, let it alone; and so it passed.
+
+All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was some hours, she
+recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. And one material thing more she
+told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Breton allowed Mrs. Veal ten pounds a
+year; which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave, till Mrs. Veal
+told it her.
+
+Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story; which puzzles those who doubt
+of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the
+neighbor's yard, adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house, heard her talking
+to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave
+went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs.
+Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had with an old
+friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since
+this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed, that
+notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone
+upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered
+her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore can have no
+interest in telling the story.
+
+But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said, he would
+see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has been
+at Captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never went
+near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a liar,
+and that she knew of Mr. Breton's ten pounds a year. But the person who
+pretends to say so, has the reputation of a notorious liar, among
+persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now Mr. Veal is more of a
+gentleman than to say she lies; but says, a bad husband has crazed her.
+But she needs only present herself, and it will effectually confute that
+pretense. Mr. Veal says, he asked his sister on her death-bed, whether
+she had a mind to dispose of anything? And she said, No. Now, the things
+which Mrs. Veal's apparition would have disposed of, were so trifling,
+and nothing of justice aimed at in their disposal, that the design of it
+appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs. Bargrave so to
+demonstrate the truth of her appearance, as to satisfy the world of the
+reality thereof, as to what she had seen and heard; and to secure her
+reputation among the reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And
+then again, Mr. Veal owns, that there was a purse of gold; but it was
+not found in her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for
+that Mrs. Watson owned, that Mrs. Veal was so very careful of the key of
+the cabinet, that she would trust nobody with it. And if so, no doubt
+she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs. Veal's often drawing
+her hand over her eyes, and asking Mrs. Bargrave whether her fits had
+not impaired her, looks to me as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs.
+Bargrave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange that she
+should put her upon writing to her brother to dispose of rings and gold,
+which looked so much like a dying person's request; and it took
+accordingly with Mrs. Bargrave, as the effects of her fits coming upon
+her; and was one of the many instances of her wonderful love to her, and
+care of her, that she should not be affrighted; which indeed appears in
+her whole management, particularly in her coming to her in the day-time,
+waiving the salutation, and when she was alone; and then the manner of
+her parting, to prevent a second attempt to salute her.
+
+Now, why Mr. Veal should think this relation a reflection, as it is
+plain he does, by his endeavoring to stifle it, I cannot imagine;
+because the generality believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse
+was so heavenly. Her two great errands were to comfort Mrs. Bargrave in
+her affliction, and to ask her forgiveness for the breach of friendship,
+and with a pious discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to
+suppose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from
+Friday noon till Saturday noon, supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's
+death the very first moment, without jumbling circumstances, and without
+any interest too; she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked too,
+than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs.
+Bargrave several times, if she was sure she felt the gown? She answered
+modestly, If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it. I asked her,
+if she heard a sound when she clapped her hand upon her knee? She said,
+she did not remember she did; but said she appeared to be as much a
+substance as I did, who talked with her. And I may, said she, be as soon
+persuaded, that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I did not
+really see her: for I was under no manner of fear, and received her as a
+friend, and parted with her as such. I would not, says she, give one
+farthing to make any one believe it: I have no interest in it; nothing
+but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know; and
+had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made
+public. But now, she says, she will make her own private use of it, and
+keep herself out of the way as much as she can; and so she has done
+since. She says, She had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to
+hear the relation; and that she had told it to a room full of people at
+a time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs.
+Bargrave's own mouth.
+
+This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied, as I
+am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter
+of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain
+or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me. Mrs. Bargrave's authority
+and sincerity alone, would have been undoubted in any other case.
+
+
+TO THE READER
+
+The origin of the foregoing curious story seems to have been as
+follows:--
+
+An adventurous bookseller had ventured to print a considerable edition
+of a work by the Reverend Charles Drelincourt, minister of the Calvinist
+church in Paris, and translated by M. D'Assigny, under the title of "The
+Christian's Defense against the Fear of Death, with several directions
+how to prepare ourselves to die well." But however certain the prospect
+of death, it is not so agreeable (unfortunately) as to invite the eager
+contemplation of the public; and Drelincourt's book, being neglected,
+lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency, he
+applied to De Foe to assist him (by dint of such means as were then, as
+well as now, pretty well understood in the literary world) in rescuing
+the unfortunate book from the literary death to which general neglect
+seemed about to consign it.
+
+De Foe's genius and audacity devised a plan which, for assurance and
+ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the _Critic_: for who
+but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to
+bear witness in favor of a halting body of divinity? There is a
+matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the
+transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The
+narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a _Justice of Peace_ at
+Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the
+discourse is attested by a very sober gentlewoman, who lives in
+Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave
+lives." The Justice believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a
+spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy--and the kinswoman
+positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is related
+and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as
+may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to
+invent or publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie,
+being a woman of so much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a
+course, as it were, of piety." Skepticism itself could not resist this
+triple court of evidence so artfully combined, the Justice attesting
+for the discerning spirit of the sober and understanding gentlewoman his
+kinswoman, and his kinswoman becoming bail for the veracity of Mrs.
+Bargrave. And here, gentle reader, admire the simplicity of those days.
+Had Mrs. Veal's visit to her friend happened in our time, the conductors
+of the daily press would have given the word, and seven gentlemen unto
+the said press belonging, would, with an obedient start, have made off
+for Kingston, for Canterbury, for Dover,--for Kamchatka if
+necessary,--to pose the Justice, cross-examine Mrs. Bargrave, confront
+the sober and understanding kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up from her
+grave, rather than not get to the bottom of the story. But in our time
+we doubt and scrutinize; our ancestors wondered and believed.
+
+Before the story is commenced, the understanding gentlewoman (not the
+Justice of Peace), who is the reporter, takes some pains to repel the
+objections made against the story by some of the friends of Mrs. Veal's
+brother, who consider the marvel as an aspersion on their family, and do
+what they can to laugh it out of countenance. Indeed, it is allowed,
+with admirable impartiality, that Mr. Veal is too much of a gentleman to
+suppose Mrs. Bargrave invented the story--scandal itself could scarce
+have supposed that--although one notorious liar, who is chastised
+towards the conclusion of the story, ventures to throw out such an
+insinuation. No reasonable or respectable person, however, could be
+found to countenance the suspicion, and Mr. Veal himself opined that
+Mrs. Bargrave had been driven crazy by a cruel husband, and dreamed the
+whole story of the apparition. Now all this is sufficiently artful. To
+have vouched the fact as universally known, and believed by every one,
+_nem. con._, would not have been half so satisfactory to a skeptic as to
+allow fairly that the narrative had been impugned, and hint at the
+character of one of those skeptics, and the motives of another, as
+sufficient to account for their want of belief. Now to the fact itself.
+
+Mrs. Bargrave and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, and had protested
+their attachment should last as long as they lived; but when Mrs. Veal's
+brother obtained an office in the customs at Dover, some cessation of
+their intimacy ensued, "though without any positive quarrel." Mrs.
+Bargrave had removed to Canterbury, and was residing in a house of her
+own, when she was suddenly interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Veal, as she
+was sitting in deep contemplation of certain distresses of her own. The
+visitor was in a riding-habit, and announced herself as prepared for a
+distant journey (which seems to intimate that spirits have a
+considerable distance to go before they arrive at their appointed
+station, and that the females at least put on a _habit_ for the
+occasion). The spirit, for such was the seeming Mrs. Veal, continued to
+waive the ceremony of salutation, both in going and coming, which will
+remind the reader of a ghostly lover's reply to his mistress in the fine
+old Scottish ballad:--
+
+          Why should I come within thy bower?
+            I am no earthly man;
+          And should I kiss thy rosy lips,
+            Thy days would not be lang.
+
+They then began to talk in the homely style of middle-aged ladies, and
+Mrs. Veal proses concerning the conversations they had formerly held,
+and the books they had read together. Her very recent experience
+probably led Mrs. Veal to talk of death, and the books written on the
+subject, and she pronounced _ex cathedrį_, as a dead person was best
+entitled to do, that "Drelincourt's book on Death was the best book on
+the subject ever written." She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, two Dutch
+books which had been translated, and several others; but Drelincourt,
+she said, had the clearest notions of death and the future state of any
+who had handled that subject. She then asked for the work [we marvel the
+edition and impress had not been mentioned] and lectured on it with
+great eloquence and affection. Dr. Kenrick's _Ascetick_ was also
+mentioned with approbation by this critical specter [the Doctor's work
+was no doubt a tenant of the shelf in some favorite publisher's shop];
+and Mr. Norris's _Poem on Friendship_, a work, which I doubt, though
+honored with a ghost's approbation, we may now seek for as vainly as
+Correlli tormented his memory to recover the sonata which the devil
+played to him in a dream. Presently after, from former habits we may
+suppose, the guest desires a cup of tea; but, bethinking herself of her
+new character, escapes from her own proposal by recollecting that Mr.
+Bargrave was in the habit of breaking his wife's china. It would have
+been indeed strangely out of character if the spirit had lunched, or
+breakfasted upon tea and toast. Such a consummation would have sounded
+as ridiculous as if the statue of the commander in _Don Juan_ had not
+only accepted of the invitation of the libertine to supper, but had also
+committed a beefsteak to his flinty jaws and stomach of adamant. A
+little more conversation ensued of a less serious nature, and tending to
+show that even the passage from life to death leaves the female anxiety
+about person and dress somewhat alive. The ghost asked Mrs. Bargrave
+whether she did not think her very much altered, and Mrs. Bargrave of
+course complimented her on her good looks. Mrs. Bargrave also admired
+the gown which Mrs. Veal wore, and as a mark of her perfectly restored
+confidence, the spirit led her into the important secret, that it was a
+_scoured silk_, and lately made up. She informed her also of another
+secret, namely, that one Mr. Breton had allowed her ten pounds a year;
+and, lastly, she requested that Mrs. Bargrave would write to her
+brother, and tell him how to distribute her mourning rings, and
+mentioned there was a purse of gold in her cabinet. She expressed some
+wish to see Mrs. Bargrave's daughter; but when that good lady went to
+the next door to seek her, she found on her return the guest leaving the
+house. She had got without the door, in the street, in the face of the
+beast market, on a Saturday, which is market day, and stood ready to
+part. She said she must be going, as she had to call upon her cousin
+Watson (this appears to be a _gratis dictum_ on the part of the ghost)
+and, maintaining the character of mortality to the last, she quietly
+turned the corner, and walked out of sight.
+
+Then came the news of Mrs. Veal's having died the day before at noon.
+Says Mrs. Bargrave, "I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two
+hours." And in comes Captain Watson, and says Mrs. Veal was certainly
+dead. And then come all the pieces of evidence, and especially the
+striped silk gown. Then Mrs. Watson cried out, "You have seen her
+indeed, for none knew but Mrs. Veal and I that that gown was scoured";
+and she cried that the gown was described exactly, for, said she, "I
+helped her to make it up." And next we have the silly attempts made to
+discredit the history. Even Mr. Veal, her brother, was obliged to allow
+that the gold was found, but with a difference, and pretended it was not
+found in a cabinet, but elsewhere; and, in short, we have all the gossip
+of _says I_, and _thinks I_, and _says she_, and _thinks she_, which
+disputed matters usually excite in a country town.
+
+When we have thus turned the tale, the seam without, it may be thought
+too ridiculous to have attracted notice. But whoever will read it as
+told by De Foe himself, will agree that, could the thing have happened
+in reality, so it would have been told. The sobering the whole
+supernatural visit into the language of the middle or low life, gives it
+an air of probability even in its absurdity. The ghost of an exciseman's
+housekeeper, and a seamstress, were not to converse like Brutus with his
+Evil Genius. And the circumstances of scoured silks, broken tea-china,
+and such like, while they are the natural topics of such persons'
+conversation, would, one might have thought, be the last which an
+inventor would have introduced into a pretended narrative betwixt the
+dead and living. In short, the whole is so distinctly circumstantial,
+that, were it not for the impossibility, or extreme improbability at
+least, of such an occurrence, the evidence could not but support the
+story.
+
+The effect was most wonderful. _Drelincourt upon Death_, attested by one
+who could speak from experience, took an unequaled run. The copies had
+hung on the bookseller's hands as heavy as a pile of lead bullets. They
+now traversed the town in every direction, like the same balls
+discharged from a field-piece. In short, the object of Mrs. Veal's
+apparition was perfectly attained.--[See The Miscellaneous Prose Works
+of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., vol. iv. p. 305, ed. 1827.]
+
+
+
+
+CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK
+
+BY MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES
+
+
+St. Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the
+Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to
+Bagnčres-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution,
+and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In
+the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place--I can
+hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand
+inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from
+Toulouse to see St. Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who
+were less keen archęologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse,
+under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the
+church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then pursue their
+journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on
+the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to
+use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and
+photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the
+little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design
+satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church
+for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation,
+inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat
+brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came,
+the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It
+was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man
+that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other
+church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted
+and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind
+him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a
+continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to
+find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew
+whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one
+oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband.
+The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea;
+but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable
+persecutor even than a termagant wife.
+
+However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep
+in his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an
+occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he
+found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the
+wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became
+rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the
+old man from his _déjeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make away
+with St. Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile
+that hangs over the font, began to torment him.
+
+"Won't you go home?" he said at last; "I'm quite well able to finish my
+notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two
+hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw
+into a state of unaccountable terror, "such a thing cannot be thought of
+for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours,
+three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at
+all cold, with many thanks to monsieur."
+
+"Very well, my little man," quoth Dennistoun to himself: "you have been
+warned, and you must take the consequences."
+
+Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous
+dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauléon, the
+remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber,
+had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at
+Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had
+been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a
+large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were
+sometimes.
+
+"Once," Dennistoun said to me, "I could have sworn I heard a thin
+metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring
+glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. 'It is he--that is--it
+is no one; the door is locked,' was all he said, and we looked at each
+other for a full minute."
+
+Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining
+a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series
+illustrating the miracles of St. Bertrand. The composition of the
+picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below,
+which runs thus:
+
+          "Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem
+          diabolus diu volebat strangulare." (How St.
+          Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long
+          sought to strangle.)
+
+Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular
+remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old
+man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in
+agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks.
+Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question
+would not away from him, "Why should a daub of this kind affect any one
+so strongly?" He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to
+the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day:
+the man must be monomaniac; but what was his monomania?
+
+It was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church
+began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises--the muffled
+footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all
+day--seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently
+quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.
+
+The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and
+impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and note-book were
+finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Dennistoun to
+the western door of the church, under the tower. It was time to ring the
+Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell
+Bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up
+among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams,
+calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the
+salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With
+that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon
+the little town, and Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the
+church.
+
+On the doorstep they fell into conversation.
+
+"Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the
+sacristy."
+
+"Undoubtedly. I was going to ask you if there were a library in the
+town."
+
+"No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter,
+but it is now such a small place----" Here came a strange pause of
+irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on:
+"But if monsieur is _amateur des vieux livres_, I have at home something
+that might interest him. It is not a hundred yards."
+
+At once all Dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless
+manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down again
+the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin's printing,
+about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would
+not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? However, it would be
+foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he
+refused. So they set off. On the way the curious irresolution and sudden
+determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he wondered
+in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be
+made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore,
+to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy
+fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the
+next morning. To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the
+sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him.
+
+"That is well," he said quite brightly--"that is very well. Monsieur
+will travel in company with his friends; they will be always near him.
+It is a good thing to travel thus in company--sometimes."
+
+The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with
+it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.
+
+They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its
+neighbors, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield
+of Alberic de Mauléon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of
+Bishop John de Mauléon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680
+to 1701. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole
+place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying age.
+
+Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?"
+
+"Not at all--lots of time--nothing to do till to-morrow. Let us see what
+it is you have got."
+
+The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far
+younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same
+distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of
+fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another.
+Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but
+for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She
+brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an
+able-bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and daughter,
+of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan, "He
+was laughing in the church," words which were answered only by a look of
+terror from the girl.
+
+But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a
+small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a
+wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character
+of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached
+almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural
+colors, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and
+solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the
+sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing
+excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book wrapped
+in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red
+thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed, Dennistoun began to
+be interested by the size and shape of the volume. "Too large for a
+missal," he thought, "and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may
+be something good, after all." The next moment the book was open, and
+Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good.
+Before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth
+century, with the arms of Canon Alberic de Mauléon stamped in gold on
+the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in
+the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an
+illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed
+of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis,
+illustrated with pictures, which could not be later than 700 A.D.
+Further on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter, of English
+execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could
+produce; and, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial
+writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at
+once, must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. Could
+it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papias "On the Words of Our
+Lord," which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at
+Nīmes?[A] In any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to
+Cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from
+the bank and stay at St. Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at
+the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for
+sale. The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working.
+
+"If monsieur will turn on to the end," he said.
+
+So monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf;
+and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much
+more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him
+considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the
+unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter
+library of St. Bertrand to form this priceless scrapbook. On the first
+of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly
+recognizable by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and
+cloisters of St. Bertrand's. There were curious signs looking like
+planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the
+northwest angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below
+the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus:
+
+          "Responsa 12^{mi} Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est:
+          Inveniamne? Responsum est: Invenies. Fiamne dives?
+          Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in lecto
+          meo? Ita." (Answers of the 12th of December, 1694.
+          It was asked: Shall I find it? Answer: Thou shalt.
+          Shall I become rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an
+          object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed?
+          Thou wilt.)
+
+"A good specimen of the treasure-hunter's record--quite reminds one of
+Mr. Minor-Canon Quatremain in 'Old St. Paul's,'" was Dennistoun's
+comment, and he turned the leaf.
+
+What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he
+could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him.
+And, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a
+photograph of it (which I possess) which fully bears out that statement.
+The picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the
+seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a
+Biblical scene; for the architecture (the picture represented an
+interior) and the figures had that semi-classical flavor about them
+which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate to
+illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a king on his throne, the
+throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either
+side--evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched
+scepter, in attitude of command; his face expressed horror and disgust,
+yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident
+power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however. The
+interest plainly centered there. On the pavement before the throne were
+grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be
+described in a moment. A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his
+neck distorted, and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four
+surrounding guards were looking at the King. In their faces the
+sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in fact, only
+restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. All this
+terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst.
+I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this
+figure makes upon any one who looks at it. I recollect once showing the
+photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology--a person of, I
+was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. He
+absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told
+me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light
+before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the figure I can at
+least indicate. At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black
+hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful
+thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like
+wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with
+long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a
+burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the
+throned king with a look of beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful
+bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and
+endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some
+faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. One
+remark is universally made by those to whom I have shown the picture:
+"It was drawn from the life."
+
+As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided,
+Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed
+upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was
+telling her beads feverishly.
+
+At last the question was asked, "Is this book for sale?"
+
+There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination, that he
+had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer, "If monsieur
+pleases."
+
+"How much do you ask for it?"
+
+"I will take two hundred and fifty francs."
+
+This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is sometimes
+stirred, and Dennistoun's conscience was tenderer than a collector's.
+
+"My good man!" he said again and again, "your book is worth far more
+than two hundred and fifty francs, I assure you--far more."
+
+But the answer did not vary: "I will take two hundred and fifty francs,
+not more."
+
+There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was
+paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction,
+and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he
+ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed
+or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose to go.
+
+"I shall have the honor of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?" said the
+sacristan.
+
+"Oh no, thanks! it isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly, and
+there is a moon."
+
+The offer was pressed three or four times, and refused as often.
+
+"Then, monsieur will summon me if--if he finds occasion; he will keep
+the middle of the road, the sides are so rough."
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine
+his prize by himself; and he stepped out into the passage with his book
+under his arm.
+
+Here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a
+little business on her own account; perhaps, like Gehazi, to "take
+somewhat" from the foreigner whom her father had spared.
+
+"A silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be
+good enough to accept it?"
+
+Well, really, Dennistoun hadn't much use for these things. What did
+mademoiselle want for it?
+
+"Nothing--nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it."
+
+The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine,
+so that Dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have
+the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the
+father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As
+he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and
+they were still looking when he waved them a last good-night from the
+steps of the Chapeau Rouge.
+
+Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with
+his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in
+him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and
+bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a
+hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage
+outside the _salle ą manger_; some words to the effect that "Pierre and
+Bertrand would be sleeping in the house" had closed the conversation.
+
+At this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over
+him--nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery.
+Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was some one
+behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the
+wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the
+obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he
+was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic's treasures, in
+which every moment revealed something more charming.
+
+"Bless Canon Alberic!" said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of
+talking to himself. "I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that
+landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one
+feel as if there was some one dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did
+you say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is
+that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose.
+Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's
+neck--just too heavy. Most likely her father had been wearing it for
+years. I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away."
+
+He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his
+attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his
+left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his
+brain with their own incalculable quickness.
+
+"A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A
+large spider? I trust to goodness not--no. Good God! a hand like the
+hand in that picture!"
+
+In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin,
+covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse
+black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from
+the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, gray,
+horny and wrinkled.
+
+He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at
+his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to
+a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his
+scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair
+covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin--what can I call
+it?--shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there
+was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils
+showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy
+life which shone there, were the most horrifying feature in the whole
+vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them--intelligence beyond
+that of a beast, below that of a man.
+
+The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest
+physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do?
+What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said,
+but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver
+crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of
+the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous
+pain.
+
+Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,
+saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed
+out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him
+that night, and his two friends were at St. Bertrand by nine o'clock
+next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost
+himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not
+until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.
+
+Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretense, and
+had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the
+landlady. He showed no surprise.
+
+"It is he--it is he! I have seen him myself," was his only comment; and
+to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: "Deux fois je l'ai vu;
+mille fois je l'ai senti." He would tell them nothing of the provenance
+of the book, nor any details of his experiences. "I shall soon sleep,
+and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?" he said.[B]
+
+We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauléon suffered. At the
+back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may be
+supposed to throw light on the situation:
+
+            "Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.
+                  Albericus de Mauleone delineavit.
+               V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.
+    Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo.
+          Primum uidi nocte 12^{mi} Dec. 1694: uidebo mox ultimum.
+      Peccaui et passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. Dec. 29, 1701."[C]
+
+I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun's view of the events
+I have narrated. He quoted to me once a test from Ecclesiasticus: "Some
+spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay
+on sore strokes." On another occasion he said: "Isaiah was a very
+sensible man; doesn't he say something about night monsters living in
+the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present."
+
+Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with
+it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic's tomb.
+It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large wig
+and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw
+Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St. Bertrand's, and
+as we drove away he said to me: "I hope it isn't wrong: you know I am a
+Presbyterian--but I--I believe there will be 'saying of Mass and singing
+of dirges' for Alberic de Mauléon's rest." Then he added, with a touch
+of the Northern British in his tone, "I had no notion they came so
+dear."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was
+photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left
+Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of
+that work, if not of that actual copy of it.
+
+[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St.
+Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's
+"obsession."
+
+[C] _I.e._, The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by
+Alberic de Mauléon. _Versicle._ O Lord, make haste to help me. _Psalm._
+Whoso dwelleth (xci.).
+
+Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy.
+I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for
+the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.
+Dec. 29, 1701.
+
+The "Gallia Christiana" gives the date of the Canon's death as December
+31, 1701, "in bed, of a sudden seizure." Details of this kind are not
+common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
+
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS
+
+OR,
+
+THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN
+
+BY EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
+
+
+A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me
+one day, as if between jest and earnest,--"Fancy! since we last met, I
+have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."
+
+"Really haunted?--and by what? ghosts?"
+
+"Well, I can't answer that question: all I know is this--six weeks ago
+my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet
+street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments
+Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the house--liked the
+rooms--engaged them by the week--and left them the third day. No power
+on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don't
+wonder at it."
+
+"What did you see?"
+
+"Excuse me--I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious
+dreamer--nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my
+affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of
+your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or
+heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our
+own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us
+away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever
+we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither
+saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all was, that for
+once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be--and
+allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth
+in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman
+who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did
+not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly,
+'I know why: you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever
+stayed a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have
+been very kind to you.'
+
+"'They--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.
+
+"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them;
+I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
+servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
+care--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them,
+and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness,
+that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
+further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off
+so cheaply."
+
+"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to
+sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you
+left so ignominiously."
+
+My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight
+towards the house thus indicated.
+
+It is situated on the North side of Oxford Street (in a dull but
+respectable thoroughfare). I found the house shut up--no bill at the
+window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy,
+collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me, "Do you
+want any one at that house, sir?"
+
+"Yes, I heard it was to be let."
+
+"Let!--why, the woman who kept it is dead--has been dead these three
+weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J---- offered
+ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, £1 a week just to
+open and shut the windows, and she would not."
+
+"Would not!--and why?"
+
+"The house is haunted: and the old woman who kept it was found dead in
+her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her."
+
+"Pooh!--you speak of Mr. J----. Is he the owner of the house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"In G---- Street, No. --."
+
+"What is he?--in any business?"
+
+"No, sir--nothing particular; a single gentleman."
+
+I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and
+proceeded to Mr. J----, in G---- Street, which was close by the street
+that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J---- at
+home--an elderly man, with intelligent countenance and prepossessing
+manners.
+
+I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house
+was considered to be haunted--that I had a strong desire to examine a
+house with so equivocal a reputation--that I should be greatly obliged
+if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing
+to pay for that privilege whatever he might be inclined to ask. "Sir,"
+said Mr. J----, with great courtesy, "the house is at your service, for
+as short or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the
+question--the obligation will be on my side should you be able to
+discover the cause of the strange phenomena which at present deprive it
+of all value. I cannot let it, for I cannot even get a servant to keep
+it in order or answer the door. Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may
+use that expression, not only by night, but by day; though at night the
+disturbances are of a more unpleasant and sometimes of a more alarming
+character. The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a
+pauper whom I took out of a workhouse, for in her childhood she had been
+known to some of my family, and had once been in such good circumstances
+that she had rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior
+education and strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce
+to remain in the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and
+the coroner's inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighborhood,
+I have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house,
+much more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent-free for a year
+to any one who would pay its rates and taxes."
+
+"How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?"
+
+"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The old woman
+I spoke of said it was haunted when she rented it between thirty and
+forty years ago. The fact is, that my life has been spent in the East
+Indies, and in the civil service of the Company. I returned to England
+last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle, among whose
+possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up and
+uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, that no one would inhabit
+it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spent some money in
+repairing it--added to its old-fashioned furniture a few modern
+articles--advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He was a
+colonel retired on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and a
+daughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the next
+day; and, although each of them declared that he had seen something
+different from that which had scared the others, a something still was
+equally terrible to all. I really could not in conscience sue, nor even
+blame, the colonel for breach of agreement. Then I put in the old woman
+I have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in apartments.
+I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days. I do not tell
+you their stories--to no two lodgers have there been exactly the same
+phenomena repeated. It is better that you should judge for yourself,
+than enter the house with an imagination influenced by previous
+narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear something or other, and
+take whatever precautions you yourself please."
+
+"Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in that house?"
+
+"Yes. I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in
+that house. My curiosity is not satisfied but it is quenched. I have no
+desire to renew the experiment. You cannot complain, you see, sir, that
+I am not sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly
+eager and your nerves unusually strong, I honestly add, that I advise
+you not to pass a night in that house."
+
+"My interest _is_ exceedingly keen," said I, "and though only a coward
+will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my
+nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the
+right to rely on them--even in a haunted house."
+
+Mr. J---- said very little more; he took the keys of the house out of
+his bureau, gave them to me--and, thanking him cordially for his
+frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off my prize.
+
+Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned my
+confidential servant--a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and
+as free from superstitious prejudices as any one I could think of.
+
+"F----," said I, "you remember in Germany how disappointed we were at
+not finding a ghost in that old castle, which was said to be haunted by
+a headless apparition? Well, I have heard of a house in London which,
+I have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep there
+to-night. From what I hear, there is no doubt that something will allow
+itself to be seen or to be heard--something, perhaps, excessively
+horrible. Do you think if I take you with me, I may rely on your
+presence of mind, whatever may happen?"
+
+"Oh, sir! pray trust me," answered F----, grinning with delight.
+
+"Very well; then here are the keys of the house--this is the address. Go
+now--select for me any bedroom you please; and since the house has not
+been inhabited for weeks, make up a good fire--air the bed well--see, of
+course, that there are candles as well as fuel. Take with you my
+revolver and my dagger--so much for my weapons--arm yourself equally
+well; and if we are not a match for a dozen ghosts, we shall be but a
+sorry couple of Englishmen."
+
+I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I had
+not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I had
+plighted my honor. I dined alone, and very late, and while dining, read,
+as is my habit. I selected one of the volumes of Macaulay's Essays.
+I thought to myself that I would take the book with me; there was so
+much of the healthfulness in the style, and practical life in the
+subjects, that it would serve as an antidote against the influence of
+superstitious fancy.
+
+Accordingly, about half-past nine, I put the book into my pocket, and
+strolled leisurely towards the haunted house. I took with me a favorite
+dog--an exceedingly sharp, bold and vigilant bull-terrier--a dog fond of
+prowling about strange ghostly corners and passages at night in search
+of rats--a dog of dogs for a ghost.
+
+It was a summer night, but chilly, the sky somewhat gloomy and overcast.
+Still there was a moon--faint and sickly, but still a moon--and if the
+clouds permitted, after midnight it would be brighter.
+
+I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened with a cheerful
+smile.
+
+"All right, sir, and very comfortable."
+
+"Oh!" said I, rather disappointed; "have you not seen nor heard anything
+remarkable?"
+
+"Well, sir, I must own I have heard something queer."
+
+"What?--what?"
+
+"The sound of feet pattering behind me; and once or twice small noises
+like whispers close at my ear--nothing more."
+
+"You are not at all frightened?"
+
+"I! not a bit of it, sir," and the man's bold look reassured me on one
+point--viz., that happen what might, he would not desert me.
+
+We were in the hall, the street-door closed, and my attention was now
+drawn to my dog. He had at first run in eagerly enough, but had sneaked
+back to the door, and was scratching and whining to get out. After
+patting him on the head, and encouraging him gently, the dog seemed to
+reconcile himself to the situation, and followed me and F---- through
+the house, but keeping close at my heels instead of hurrying
+inquisitively in advance, which was his usual and normal habit in all
+strange places. We first visited the subterranean apartments, the
+kitchen and other offices, and especially the cellars, in which last
+there were two or three bottles of wine still left in a bin, covered
+with cobwebs, and evidently, by their appearance, undisturbed for many
+years. It was clear that the ghosts were not wine-bibbers. For the rest
+we discovered nothing of interest. There was a gloomy little backyard
+with very high walls. The stones of this yard were very damp; and what
+with the damp, and what with the dust and smoke-grime on the pavement,
+our feet left a slight impression where we passed.
+
+And now appeared the first strange phenomenon witnessed by myself in
+this strange abode. I saw, just before me, the print of a foot suddenly
+form itself, as it were. I stopped, caught hold of my servant, and
+pointed to it. In advance of that footprint as suddenly dropped another.
+We both saw it. I advanced quickly to the place; the footprint kept
+advancing before me, a small footprint--the foot of a child; the
+impression was too faint thoroughly to distinguish the shape, but it
+seemed to us both that it was the print of a naked foot. This phenomenon
+ceased when we arrived at the opposite wall, nor did it repeat itself on
+returning. We remounted the stairs, and entered the rooms on the ground
+floor, a dining-parlor, a small back parlor, and a still smaller third
+room that had been probably appropriated to a footman--all still as
+death. We then visited the drawing-rooms, which seemed fresh and new. In
+the front room I seated myself in an armchair. F---- placed on the table
+the candlestick with which he had lighted us. I told him to shut the
+door. As he turned to do so, a chair opposite to me moved from the wall
+quickly and noiselessly, and dropped itself about a yard from my own
+chair, immediately fronting it.
+
+"Why, this is better than the turning tables," said I, with a
+half-laugh; and as I laughed, my dog put back his head and howled.
+
+F----, coming back, had not observed the movement of the chair. He
+employed himself now in stilling the dog. I continued to gaze on the
+chair, and fancied I saw on it a pale blue misty outline of a human
+figure, but an outline so indistinct that I could only distrust my own
+vision. The dog now was quiet.
+
+"Put back that chair opposite me," said I to F----; "put it back to the
+wall."
+
+F---- obeyed. "Was that you, sir?" said he, turning abruptly.
+
+"I!--what?"
+
+"Why, something struck me. I felt it sharply on the shoulder--just
+here."
+
+"No," said I. "But we have jugglers present, and though we may not
+discover their tricks, we shall catch _them_ before they frighten _us_."
+
+We did not stay long in the drawing-rooms--in fact, they felt so damp
+and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire upstairs. We locked the
+doors of the drawing-rooms--a precaution which, I should observe, we had
+taken with all the rooms we had searched below. The bedroom my servant
+had selected for me was the best on the floor--a large one, with two
+windows fronting the street. The four-posted bed, which took up no
+inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burnt clear and
+bright; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window,
+communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself.
+This last was a small room with a sofa-bed, and had no communication
+with the landing-place--no other door but that which conducted to the
+bedroom I was to occupy. On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard,
+without locks, flush with the wall and covered with the same dull-brown
+paper. We examined these cupboards--only hooks to suspend female
+dresses--nothing else; we sounded the walls--evidently solid--the outer
+walls of the building. Having finished the survey of these apartments,
+warmed myself a few moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still
+accompanied by F----, went forth to complete my reconnoiter. In the
+landing-place there was another door; it was closed firmly. "Sir," said
+my servant, in surprise, "I unlocked this door with all the others when
+I first came; it cannot have got locked from the inside, for----"
+
+Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us then
+was touching, opened quietly of itself. We looked at each other a single
+instant. The same thought seized both--some human agency might be
+detected here. I rushed in first, my servant followed. A small blank
+dreary room without furniture--few empty boxes and hampers in a
+corner--a small window--the shutters closed--not even a fireplace--no
+other door than that by which we had entered--no carpet on the floor,
+and the floor seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and
+there, as was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living
+being, and no visible place in which a living being could have hidden.
+As we stood gazing round, the door by which we had entered closed as
+quietly as it had before opened: we were imprisoned.
+
+For the first time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my
+servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break the
+trumpery door with a kick of my foot."
+
+"Try first if it will open to your hand," said I, shaking off the vague
+apprehension that had seized me, "while I unclose the shutters and see
+what is without."
+
+I unbarred the shutters--the window looked on the little back yard I
+have before described; there was no ledge without--nothing to break the
+sheer descent of the wall. No man getting out of that window would have
+found any footing till he had fallen on the stones below.
+
+F----, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned
+round to me and asked my permission to use force. And I should here
+state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any
+superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gayety amidst
+circumstances so extraordinary, compelled my admiration, and made me
+congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to
+the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But
+though he was a remarkably strong man, his force was as idle as his
+milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick.
+Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself,
+equally in vain. As I ceased from the effort, again that creep of horror
+came over me; but this time it was more cold and stubborn. I felt as if
+some strange and ghastly exhalation were rising up from the chinks of
+that rugged floor, and filling the atmosphere with a venomous influence
+hostile to human life. The door now very slowly and quietly opened as
+of its own accord. We precipitated ourselves into the landing-place. We
+both saw a large pale light--as large as the human figure but shapeless
+and unsubstantial--move before us, and ascend the stairs that led from
+the landing into the attics. I followed the light, and my servant
+followed me. It entered, to the right of the landing, a small garret, of
+which the door stood open. I entered in the same instant. The light then
+collapsed into a small globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid; rested
+a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished.
+
+We approached the bed and examined it--a half-tester, such as is
+commonly found in attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood
+near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still
+left in a rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust;
+probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last died in that
+house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient
+curiosity to open the drawers: there were a few odds and ends of female
+dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow.
+I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing
+else in the room worth noticing--nor did the light reappear; but we
+distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the
+floor--just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four),
+the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen--nothing but the
+footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand: just as I was descending
+the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint soft effort
+made to draw the letters from my clasp. I only held them the more
+tightly, and the effort ceased.
+
+We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked
+that my dog had not followed us when we had left it. He was thrusting
+himself close to the fire, and trembling. I was impatient to examine the
+letters; and while I read them, my servant opened a little box in which
+he had deposited the weapons I had ordered him to bring; took them out,
+placed them on a table close at my bed-head, and then occupied himself
+in soothing the dog, who, however, seemed to heed him very little.
+
+The letters were short--they were dated; the dates exactly thirty-five
+years ago. They were evidently from a lover to his mistress, or a
+husband to some young wife. Not only the terms of expression, but a
+distinct reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer to have been
+a seafarer. The spelling and handwriting were those of a man imperfectly
+educated, but still the language itself was forcible. In the expressions
+of endearment there was a kind of rough wild love; but here and there
+were dark and unintelligible hints at some secret not of love--some
+secret that seemed of crime. "We ought to love each other," was one of
+the sentences I remember, "for how every one else would execrate us if
+all was known." Again: "Don't let any one be in the same room with you
+at night--you talk in your sleep." And again: "What's done can't be
+undone; and I tell you there's nothing against us unless the dead could
+come to life." Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a
+female's), "They do!" At the end of the letter latest in date the same
+female hand had written these words: "Lost at sea the 4th of June, the
+same day as ----."
+
+I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.
+
+Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might
+unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to
+cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth.
+I roused myself--laid the letters on the table--stirred up the fire,
+which was still bright and cheering--and opened my volume of Macaulay.
+I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven. I then threw myself
+dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own
+room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave open the door between
+the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my
+bed-head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my
+Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearthrug,
+seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an
+exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I fancied
+the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have
+got open; but no--it was closed. I then turned my glance to my left, and
+saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind. At the same
+moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table--softly,
+softly--no visible hand--it was gone. I sprang up, seizing the revolver
+with the one hand, the dagger with other: I was not willing that my
+weapons should share the fate of the watch. Thus armed, I looked round
+the floor--no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were
+now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out, "Is that you, sir?"
+
+"No; be on your guard."
+
+The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving
+quickly backwards and forwards. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look
+so strange that he concentered all my attention on himself. Slowly he
+rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the
+same wild stare. I had no time, however, to examine the dog. Presently
+my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human
+face, it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the
+street, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying
+in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, "Run--run! it
+is after me!" He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and
+rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him
+to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging
+to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I
+stood, the street-door open--heard it again clap to. I was left alone in
+the haunted house.
+
+It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to
+follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a
+flight. I re-entered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded
+cautiously into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify
+my servant's terror. I again carefully examined the walls, to see if
+there were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one--not even a
+seam in the dull-brown paper with which the room was hung. How, then,
+had the THING, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained
+ingress except through my own chamber?
+
+I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the
+interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared. I now
+perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was
+pressing himself close against it, as if literally striving to force his
+way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute was
+evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver
+dropping from its jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I had
+touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at the
+Zoological Gardens a rabbit fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a
+corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited.
+Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his
+bite might be as venomous in that state as in the madness of
+hydrophobia, I left him alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the
+fire, seated myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.
+
+Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather
+a coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I may be
+pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical remarks.
+
+As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely
+proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that lead to it, so I
+should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all
+experiments that appertain to the Marvelous. I had witnessed many very
+extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the world--phenomena that
+would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed to
+supernatural agencies. Now, my theory is that the Supernatural is the
+Impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a something in
+the laws of nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore,
+if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right to say, "So, then, the
+supernatural is possible," but rather, "So, then, the apparition of a
+ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of
+nature--_i.e._, not supernatural."
+
+Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders
+which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material
+living agency is always required. On the continent you will find still
+magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for the moment
+that they assert truly, still the living material form of the magician
+is present; and he is the material agency by which, from some
+constitutional peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are represented
+to your natural senses.
+
+Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit Manifestation in
+America--musical or other sounds--writings on paper, produced by no
+discernible hand--articles of furniture moved without apparent human
+agency--or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies seem
+to belong--still there must be found the MEDIUM or living being, with
+constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these signs. In fine,
+in all such marvels, supposing even that there is no imposture, there
+must be a human being like ourselves by whom, or through whom, the
+effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the now
+familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the
+person operated on is affected through a material living agent. Nor,
+supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or
+passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less
+occasioned by a material fluid--call it Electric, call it Odic, call it
+what you will--which has the power of traversing space and passing
+obstacles, that the material effect is communicated from one to the
+other. Hence all that I had hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness,
+in this strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some agency
+or medium as mortal as myself: and this idea necessarily prevented the
+awe with which those who regard as supernatural, things that are not
+within the ordinary operations of nature, might have been impressed by
+the adventures of that memorable night.
+
+As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would be
+presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted by
+constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive
+so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather
+philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in
+as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist
+could be in awaiting the effect of some rare, though perhaps perilous,
+chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from
+fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and
+I therefore riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the
+page of my Macaulay.
+
+I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the
+light--the page was over-shadowed: I looked up, and I saw what I shall
+find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.
+
+It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined
+outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more
+resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else. As
+it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around
+it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching the
+ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg
+before me could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an
+iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not
+the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought--but this I
+cannot say with precision--that I distinguished two eyes looking down on
+me from the height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them
+clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-blue
+light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height on which
+I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.
+
+I strove to speak--my voice utterly failed me; I could only think
+to myself, "is this fear? it is _not_ fear!" I strove to rise--in
+vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my
+impression was that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed to any
+volition;--that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force beyond
+man's, which one may feel _physically_ in a storm at sea, in a
+conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather,
+perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt _morally_. Opposed to my will
+was another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and
+shark are superior in material force to the force of man.
+
+And now, as this impression grew on me--now came, at last,
+horror--horror to a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained
+pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said, "This is horror, but
+it is not fear; unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects this
+thing, it is an illusion--I do not fear." With a violent effort I
+succeeded at last in stretching out my hand towards the weapon on the
+table: as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock,
+and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the
+light began slowly to wane from the candles, they were not, as it were,
+extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn: it was
+the same with the fire--the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few
+minutes the room was in utter darkness.
+
+The dread that came over me, to be thus in the dark with that dark
+Thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a reaction of nerve.
+In fact, terror had reached that climax, that either my senses must have
+deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell. I did burst through
+it. I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I
+broke forth with words like these--"I do not fear, my soul does not
+fear"; and at the same time I found the strength to rise. Still in that
+profound gloom I rushed to one of the windows--tore aside the
+curtain--flung open the shutters; my first thought was--LIGHT.--And when
+I saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost
+compensated for the previous terror. There was the moon, there was also
+the light from the gas-lamps in the deserted slumberous street. I turned
+to look back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely
+and partially--but still there was light. The dark Thing, whatever it
+might be, was gone--except that I could yet see a dim shadow, which
+seemed the shadow of that shade, against the opposite wall.
+
+My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was
+without cloth or cover--an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand,
+visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh
+and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person--lean, wrinkled,
+small, too--a woman's hand. That hand very softly closed on the two
+letters that lay on the table: hand and letters both vanished.
+
+There then came the same three loud measured knocks I heard at the
+bed-head before this extraordinary drama had commenced.
+
+As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly;
+and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks or globules
+like bubbles of light, many-colored--green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up
+and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny Will-o'-the-Wisps the
+sparks moved, slow or swift, each at his own caprice. A chair (as in the
+drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent
+agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly as forth
+from the chair, there grew a shape--a woman's shape. It was distinct as
+a shape of life--ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of
+youth, with a strange mournful beauty: the throat and shoulders were
+bare, the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began
+sleeking its long yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes
+were not turned towards me, but to the door; it seemed listening,
+watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew
+darker; and again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the
+summit of the shadow--eyes fixed upon that shape.
+
+As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another
+shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly--a man's shape--a young man's.
+It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of such
+dress (for both the male shape and the female, though defined, were
+evidently unsubstantial, impalpable--simulacra--phantasms); and there
+was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast
+between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that
+old-fashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the
+corpse-like aspect and ghost-like stillness of the flitting wearer. Just
+as the male shape approached the female, the dark shadow started from
+the wall, all three for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale
+light returned, the two phantoms were as in the grasp of the shadow that
+towered between them; and there was a blood-stain on the breast of the
+female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood
+seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness
+of the intermediate Shadow swallowed them up--they were gone. And again
+the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker
+and thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.
+
+The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the
+aperture there came the form of an aged woman. In her hand she held
+letters,--the very letters over which I had seen _the_ Hand close; and
+behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and
+then she opened the letters and seemed to read; and over her shoulder I
+saw a livid face, the face as of a man long drowned--bloated, bleached,
+seaweed tangled in its dripping hair; and at her feet lay a form as of a
+corpse, and beside the corpse there cowered a child, a miserable squalid
+child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as I looked
+in the old woman's face, the wrinkles and lines vanished and it became a
+face of youth--hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the Shadow darted
+forth, and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the
+last.
+
+Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently
+fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow--malignant, serpent eyes.
+And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disorder,
+irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from
+these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things
+burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvę so bloodless and so
+hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader
+of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes
+in a drop of water--things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each
+other, devouring each other--forms like nought ever beheld by the naked
+eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were
+without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came
+round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my
+head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary
+command against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but
+not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of
+cold soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I
+gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my
+faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned
+my sight from the Shadow--above all, from those strange serpent
+eyes--eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in
+nought else round me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of
+intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.
+
+The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of
+some near conflagration. The larvę grew lurid as things that live in
+fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured
+knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the
+dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness
+all returned.
+
+As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly as it had been
+withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again
+into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly,
+healthfully into sight.
+
+The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the
+servant's room still locked. In the corner of the wall into which he had
+so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him--no
+movement; I approached--the animal was dead; his eyes protruded; his
+tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him
+in my arms; I brought him to the fire, I felt acute grief for the loss
+of my poor favorite--acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his death;
+I imagined he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on finding
+that his neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark?--must
+it not have been by a hand human as mine?--must there not have been
+a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it.
+I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader
+may draw his own inference.
+
+Another surprising circumstance--my watch was restored to the table from
+which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the
+very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the
+watchmaker, has it ever gone since--that is, it will go in a strange
+erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop--it is
+worthless.
+
+Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long
+to wait before the dawn broke. Nor till it was broad daylight did I quit
+the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room in
+which my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a
+strong impression--for which I could not account--that from that room
+had originated the mechanism of the phenomena--if I may use the
+term--which had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it
+now in the clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window I
+still felt, as I stood on its floor, the creep of the horror which I had
+first there experienced the night before, and which had been so
+aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber. I could not, indeed,
+bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the
+stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the
+street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my
+own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there. But he had not
+presented himself; nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I
+received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this effect:--
+
+          "HONORED SIR,--I humbly entreat your pardon,
+          though I can scarcely hope that you will think I
+          deserve it, unless--which Heaven forbid--you saw
+          what I did. I feel that it will be years before
+          I can recover myself: and as to being fit for
+          service, it is out of the question. I am therefore
+          going to my brother-in-law at Melbourne. The ship
+          sails to-morrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set
+          me up. I do nothing now but start and tremble, and
+          fancy IT is behind me. I humbly beg you, honored
+          sir, to order my clothes, and whatever wages are
+          due to me, to be sent to my mother's, at
+          Walworth.--John knows her address."
+
+The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and
+explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer's
+charge.
+
+This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to
+Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the
+events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture;
+rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most
+probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory
+remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away
+in a hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog's body. In
+this task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall
+me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard
+the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J.'s.
+He was at home. I returned him the keys, told him that my curiosity was
+sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly what had passed,
+when he stopped me, and said, though with much politeness, that he had
+no longer any interest in a mystery which none had ever solved.
+
+I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well
+as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared, and I then
+inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died
+in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which
+could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave
+rise. Mr. J---- seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments,
+answered, "I am but little acquainted with the woman's earlier history,
+except, as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But
+you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make
+inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we could admit
+the popular superstition that a person who had been either the
+perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a
+restless spirit, the scene in which those crimes had been committed, I
+should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds
+before the old woman died--you smile--what would you say?"
+
+"I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of
+these mysteries, we should find a living human agency."
+
+"What! you believe it is all an imposture? for what object?"
+
+"Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were
+to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in
+that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not
+pretend to when awake--tell you what money you had in your pocket--nay,
+describe your very thoughts--it is not necessarily an imposture, any
+more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to
+myself, under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a
+human being who had acquired power over me by previous _rapport_."
+
+"But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you
+suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects: move
+chairs--open and shut doors?"
+
+"Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects--we never having
+been _en rapport_ with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly
+called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to
+mesmerism, and superior to it--the power that in the old days was called
+Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter I
+do not say; but if so, it would not be against nature--it would be only
+a rare power in nature which might be given to constitutions with
+certain peculiarities, and cultivated by practice to an extraordinary
+degree. That such a power might extend over the dead--that is, over
+certain thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain--and
+compel, not that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which
+is far beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most
+earth-stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses--is a very
+ancient though obsolete theory, upon which I will hazard no opinion. But
+I do not conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustrate
+what I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not
+difficult, and which the author of the _Curiosities of Literature_ cites
+as credible:--A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements
+of that flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither;
+you can never discover nor recollect them. But you can, by chemistry,
+out of the burnt dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower,
+just as it seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. The
+soul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower.
+Still you may make a spectrum of it.
+
+"And this phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to be
+the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it
+is but eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the best attested stories
+of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the absence of
+what we hold to be soul; that is, of superior emancipated intelligence.
+These apparitions come for little or no object--they seldom speak when
+they do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above those of an
+ordinary person on earth. American spirit-seers have published volumes
+of communications in prose and verse, which they assert to be given in
+the names of the most illustrious dead--Shakespeare, Bacon--heaven knows
+whom. Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of
+higher order than would be communications from living persons of fair
+talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon,
+Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is more
+noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth
+before. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to
+be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it
+is incumbent on philosophy to deny, viz., nothing supernatural. They are
+but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the
+means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables
+walk of their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle,
+or bodyless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of
+Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood--still am I
+persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as if by electric wires,
+to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there
+is a natural chemistry, and these constitutions may produce chemic
+wonders--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may
+produce electric wonders.
+
+"But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this--they are alike
+objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand
+results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not
+cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man,
+human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously
+to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two
+persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the
+same thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the
+same dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be
+arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a
+supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for
+some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my
+persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that
+that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what
+does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed
+thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put
+into action and invested with a semi-substance. That this brain is of
+immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is
+malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have
+killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to
+kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog--had my
+intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my
+will."
+
+"It killed your dog! that is fearful! indeed it is strange that no
+animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and
+mice are never found in it."
+
+"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their
+existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a
+resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?"
+
+"Yes, though imperfectly--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word),
+however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and
+hob-goblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house
+the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?"
+
+"I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal
+feelings that the small unfurnished room at right angles to the door of
+the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting-point or receptacle for
+the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have
+the walls opened, the floor removed--nay, the whole room pulled down.
+I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the
+small back-yard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the
+building."
+
+"And you think, if I did that----"
+
+"You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I
+am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to
+direct the operations."
+
+"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest, allow me to write
+to you."
+
+About ten days afterwards I received a letter from Mr. J----, telling me
+that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found
+the two letters I had described replaced in the drawer from which I had
+taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he
+had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly
+conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago
+(a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the
+wish of her relations, an American of very suspicious character, in
+fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was
+the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the
+capacity of nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a
+widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about six
+years old. A month after the marriage, the body of this brother was
+found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of
+violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to
+warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of "found drowned."
+
+The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased
+brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his only
+child--and in the event of the child's death, the sister inherited. The
+child died about six months afterwards--it was supposed to have been
+neglected and ill-treated. The neighbors deposed to have heard it shriek
+at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was
+emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with
+livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to
+escape--crept out into the back-yard--tried to scale the wall--fallen
+back exhausted, and been found at morning on the stones in a dying
+state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of
+murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by
+alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was
+declared to be half-witted. Be that is it may, at the orphan's death the
+aunt inherited her brother's fortune. Before the first wedded year was
+out the American quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He
+obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years
+afterwards. The widow was left in affluence; but reverses of various
+kinds had befallen her; a bank broke--an investment failed--she went
+into a small business and became insolvent--then she entered into
+service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all
+work--never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her
+character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and
+peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so
+she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J---- had taken her,
+to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as
+mistress in the first year of her wedded life.
+
+Mr. J---- added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room
+which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread
+while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen
+anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors
+removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and
+would commence any day I would name.
+
+The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house--he went
+into the blind dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors.
+Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trap-door, quite
+large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and
+rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the
+existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been
+a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many
+years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained
+some mouldering furniture--three chairs, an oak settle, a table--all of
+the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers
+against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned
+articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a
+hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank--costly steel buckles and
+buttons, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court
+sword--in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which
+was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few
+silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of
+entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a
+kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much
+trouble to get picked.
+
+In this safe were three shelves, and two small drawers. Ranged on the
+shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped.
+They contained colorless volatile essences, of the nature of which I
+shall only say that they were not poisons--phosphor and ammonia entered
+into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a
+small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock-crystal, and
+another of amber--also a loadstone of great power.
+
+In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
+retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the
+length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
+man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
+or forty-eight.
+
+It was a remarkable face--a most impressive face. If you could fancy
+some mighty serpent transformed into a man, preserving in the human
+lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that
+countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of
+frontal--the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the
+deadly jaw--the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the
+emerald--and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the
+consciousness of an immense power.
+
+Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it,
+and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a
+ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765.
+Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being
+pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Withinside the lid
+were engraved, "Marianna to thee--be faithful in life and in death
+to----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not
+unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as
+the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in
+London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a
+double murder within his own house--that of his mistress and his rival.
+I said nothing of this to Mr. J----, to whom reluctantly I resigned the
+miniature.
+
+We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron
+safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not
+locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the clinks the
+edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth we found a very
+singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small thin book, or
+rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal: this saucer was filled
+with a clear liquid--on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a
+needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a
+compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by
+astrologers to denote the planets.
+
+A peculiar, but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer,
+which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel.
+Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material effect on the
+nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room--a
+creeping tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of
+the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I
+did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding
+swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that
+I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilt--the saucer was
+broken--the compass rolled to the end of the room--and at that instant
+the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.
+
+The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which
+we had descended from the trap-door; but seeing that nothing more
+happened, they were easily induced to return.
+
+Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather,
+with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on
+that sheet were inscribed within a double pentacle, words in old monkish
+Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: "On all that it can
+reach within these walls--sentient or inanimate, living or dead--as
+moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and restless
+be the dwellers therein."
+
+We found no more. Mr. J---- burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed
+to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room
+with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house
+himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not
+be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his
+tenant has made no complaints.
+
+
+
+
+THE SILENT WOMAN[D]
+
+BY LEOPOLD KOMPERT
+
+
+The uproarious merriment of a wedding-feast burst forth into the night
+from a brilliantly lighted house in the "gasse" (narrow street). It was
+one of those nights touched with the warmth of spring, but dark and full
+of soft mist. Most fitting it was for a celebration of the union of two
+yearning hearts to share the same lot, a lot that may possibly dawn in
+sunny brightness, but also become clouded and sullen--for a long, long
+time! But how merry and joyous they were over there, those people of the
+happy olden times! They, like us, had their troubles and trials, and
+when misfortune visited them it came not to them with soft cushions and
+tender pressures of the hand. Rough and hard, with clinched fist, it
+laid hold upon them. But when they gave vent to their happy feelings and
+sought to enjoy themselves, they were like swimmers in cooling waters.
+They struck out into the stream with freshness and courage, suffered
+themselves to be borne along by the current whithersoever it took its
+course. This was the cause of such a jubilee, such a thoughtlessly noisy
+outburst of all kinds of soul-possessing gayety from this house of
+nuptials.
+
+"And if I had known," the bride's father, the rich Ruben Klattaner, had
+just said, "that it would take the last gulden in my pocket, then out it
+would have come."
+
+In fact, it did appear as if the last groschen had really taken flight,
+and was fluttering about in the form of platters heaped up with geese
+and pastry-tarts. Since two o'clock--that is, since the marriage
+ceremony had been performed out in the open street--until nearly
+midnight, the wedding-feast had been progressing, and even yet the
+_sarvers_, or waiters, were hurrying from room to room. It was as if a
+twofold blessing had descended upon all this abundance of food and
+drink, for, in the first place, they did not seem to diminish; secondly,
+they ever found a new place for disposal. To be sure, this appetite was
+sharpened by the presence of a little dwarf-like, unimportant-looking
+man. He was esteemed, however, none the less highly by every one. They
+had specially written to engage the celebrated "Leb Narr," of Prague.
+And when was ever a mood so out of sorts, a heart so imbittered as not
+to thaw out and laugh if Leb Narr played one of his pranks. Ah, thou art
+now dead, good fool! Thy lips, once always ready with a witty reply, are
+closed. Thy mouth, then never still, now speaks no more! But when the
+hearty peals of laughter once rang forth at thy command, intercessors,
+as it were, in thy behalf before the very throne of God, thou hadst
+nothing to fear. And the joy of that "other" world was thine, that joy
+that has ever belonged to the most pious of country rabbis!
+
+In the mean time the young people had assembled in one of the rooms to
+dance. It was strange how the sound of violins and trumpets accorded
+with the drolleries of the wit from Prague. In one part the outbursts of
+merriment were so boisterous that the very candles on the little table
+seemed to flicker with terror; in another an ordinary conversation was
+in progress, which now and then only ran over into a loud tittering,
+when some old lady slipped into the circle and tried her skill at a
+redowa, then altogether unknown to the young people. In the very midst
+of the tangle of dancers was to be seen the bride in a heavy silk
+wedding-gown. The point of her golden hood hung far down over her face.
+She danced continuously. She danced with every one that asked her. Had
+one, however, observed the actions of the young woman, they would
+certainly have seemed to him hurried, agitated, almost wild. She looked
+no one in the eye, not even her own bridegroom. He stood for the most
+part in the door-way, and evidently took more pleasure in the witticisms
+of the fool than in the dance or the lady dancers. But who ever thought
+for a moment why the young woman's hand burned, why her breath was so
+hot when one came near to her lips? Who should have noticed so strange
+a thing? A low whispering already passed through the company, a stealthy
+smile stole across many a lip. A bevy of ladies was seen to enter the
+room suddenly. The music dashed off into one of its loudest pieces, and,
+as if by enchantment, the newly made bride disappeared behind the
+ladies. The bridegroom, with his stupid, smiling mien, was still left
+standing on the threshold. But it was not long before he too vanished.
+One could hardly say how it happened. But people understand such
+skillful movements by experience, and will continue to understand them
+as long as there are brides and grooms in the world.
+
+This disappearance of the chief personages, little as it seemed to be
+noticed, gave, however, the signal for general leave-taking. The dancing
+became drowsy; it stopped all at once, as if by appointment. That noisy
+confusion now began which always attends so merry a wedding-party.
+Half-drunken voices could be heard still intermingled with a last,
+hearty laugh over a joke of the fool from Prague echoing across the
+table. Here and there some one, not quite sure of his balance, was
+fumbling for the arm of his chair or the edge of the table. This
+resulted in his overturning a dish that had been forgotten, or in
+spilling a beer-glass. While this, in turn, set up a new hubbub, some
+one else, in his eagerness to betake himself from the scene, fell flat
+into the very débris. But all this tumult was really hushed the moment
+they all pressed to the door, for at that very instant shrieks, cries of
+pain, were heard issuing from the entrance below. In an instant the
+entire outpouring crowd with all possible force pushed back into the
+room, but it was a long time before the stream was pressed back again.
+Meanwhile, painful cries were again heard from below, so painful,
+indeed, that they restored even the most drunken to a state of
+consciousness.
+
+"By the living God!" they cried to each other, "what is the matter down
+there? Is the house on fire?"
+
+"She is gone! she is gone!" shrieked a woman's voice from the entry
+below.
+
+"Who? who?" groaned the wedding-guests, seized, as it were, with an icy
+horror.
+
+"Gone! gone!" cried the woman from the entry, and hurrying up the stairs
+came Selde Klattaner, the mother of the bride, pale as death, her eyes
+dilated with most awful fright, convulsively grasping a candle in her
+hand. "For God's sake, what has happened?" was heard on every side of
+her.
+
+The sight of so many people about her, and the confusion of voices,
+seemed to release the poor woman from a kind of stupor. She glanced
+shyly about her then, as if overcome with a sense of shame stronger than
+her terror, and said, in a suppressed tone:
+
+"Nothing, nothing, good people. In God's name, I ask, what was there to
+happen?"
+
+Dissimulation, however, was too evident to suffice to deceive them.
+
+"Why, then, did you shriek so, Selde," called out one of the guests to
+her, "if nothing happened?"
+
+"Yes, she has gone," Selde now moaned in heart-rending tones, "and she
+has certainly done herself some harm!"
+
+The cause of this strange scene was now first discovered. The bride has
+disappeared from the wedding-feast. Soon after that she had vanished in
+such a mysterious way, the bridegroom went below to the dimly-lighted
+room to find her, but in vain. At first thought this seemed to him to be
+a sort of bashful jest; but not finding her here, a mysterious
+foreboding seized him. He called to the mother of the bride:
+
+"Woe to me! This woman has gone!"
+
+Presently this party, that had so admirably controlled itself, was again
+thrown into commotion. "There was nothing to do," was said on all sides,
+"but to ransack every nook and corner. Remarkable instances of such
+disappearances of brides had been known. Evil spirits were wont to lurk
+about such nights and to inflict mankind with all sorts of sorceries."
+Strange as this explanation may seem, there were many who believed it at
+this very moment, and, most of all, Selde Klattaner herself. But it was
+only for a moment, for she at once exclaimed:
+
+"No, no, my good people, she is gone; I know she is gone!"
+
+Now for the first time many of them, especially the mothers, felt
+particularly uneasy, and anxiously called their daughters to them. Only
+a few showed courage, and urged that they must search and search, even
+if they had to turn aside the river Iser a hundred times. They urgently
+pressed on, called for torches and lanterns, and started forth. The
+cowardly ran after them up and down the stairs. Before any one perceived
+it the room was entirely forsaken.
+
+Ruben Klattaner stood in the hall entry below, and let the people hurry
+past him without exchanging a word with any. Bitter disappointment and
+fear had almost crazed him. One of the last to stay in the room above
+with Selde was, strange to say, Leb Narr, of Prague. After all had
+departed, he approached the miserable mother, and, in a tone least
+becoming his general manner, inquired:
+
+"Tell me, now, Mrs. Selde, did she not wish to have 'him'?"
+
+"Whom? whom?" cried Selde, with renewed alarm, when she found herself
+alone with the fool.
+
+"I mean," said Leb, in a most sympathetic manner, approaching still
+nearer to Selde, "that maybe you had to make your daughter marry him."
+
+"Make? And have we, then, made her?" moaned Selde, staring at the fool
+with a look of uncertainty.
+
+"Then nobody needs to search for her," replied the fool, with a
+sympathetic laugh, at the same time retreating. "It's better to leave
+her where she is."
+
+Without saying thanks or good-night, he was gone.
+
+Meanwhile the cause of all this disturbance had arrived at the end of
+her flight.
+
+Close by the synagogue was situated the house of the rabbi. It was built
+in an angle of a very narrow street, set in a framework of tall
+shade-trees. Even by daylight it was dismal enough. At night it was
+almost impossible for a timid person to approach it, for people declared
+that the low supplications of the dead could be heard in the dingy house
+of God when at night they took the rolls of the law from the ark to
+summon their members by name.
+
+Through this retired street passed, or rather ran, at this hour a shy
+form. Arriving at the dwelling of the rabbi, she glanced backward to see
+whether any one was following her. But all was silent and gloomy enough
+about her. A pale light issued from one of the windows of the synagogue;
+it came from the "eternal lamp" hanging in front of the ark of the
+covenant. But at this moment it seemed to her as if a supernatural eye
+was gazing upon her. Thoroughly affrighted, she seized the little iron
+knocker of the door and struck it gently. But the throb of her beating
+heart was even louder, more violent, than this blow. After a pause,
+footsteps were heard passing slowly along the hallway.
+
+The rabbi had not occupied this lonely house a long time. His
+predecessor, almost a centenarian in years, had been laid to rest a few
+months before. The new rabbi had been called, from a distant part of the
+country. He was unmarried, and in the prime of life. No one had known
+him before his coming. But his personal nobility and the profundity of
+his scholarship made up for his deficiency in years. An aged mother had
+accompanied him from their distant home, and she took the place of wife
+and child.
+
+"Who is there?" asked the rabbi, who had been busy at his desk even at
+this late hour and thus had not missed hearing the knocker.
+
+"It is I," the figure without responded, almost inaudibly.
+
+"Speak louder, if you wish me to hear you," replied the rabbi.
+
+"It is I, Ruben Klattaner's daughter," she repeated.
+
+The name seemed to sound strange to the rabbi. He as yet knew too few of
+his congregation to understand that this very day he performed the
+marriage ceremony of the person who had just repeated her name.
+Therefore he called out, after a moment's pause, "What do you wish so
+late at night?"
+
+"Open the door, rabbi," she answered, pleadingly, "or I shall die at
+once!"
+
+The bolt was pushed back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past the
+rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand was not
+sufficient to allow him to descry it. Before he had time to address her,
+she had vanished past him and had disappeared through the open door
+into the room. Shaking his head, the rabbi again bolted the door.
+
+On reėntering the room he saw a woman's form sitting in the chair which
+he usually occupied. She had her back turned to him. Her head was bent
+low over her breast. Her golden wedding-hood, with its shading lace, was
+pulled down over her forehead. Courageous and pious as the rabbi was, he
+could not rid himself of a feeling of terror.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded, in a loud tone, as if its sound alone would
+banish the presence of this being that seemed to him at this moment to
+be the production of all the enchantments of evil spirits.
+
+She raised herself, and cried in a voice that seemed to come from the
+agony of a human being:
+
+"Do you not know me--me, whom you married a few hours since under the
+_chuppe_ (marriage-canopy) to a husband?"
+
+On hearing this familiar voice the rabbi stood speechless. He gazed at
+the young woman. Now, indeed, he must regard her as one bereft of
+reason, rather than as a specter.
+
+"Well, if you are she," he stammered out, after a pause, for it was with
+difficulty that he found words to answer, "why are you here and not in
+the place where you belong?"
+
+"I know no other place to which I belong more than here where I now am!"
+she answered, severely.
+
+These words puzzled the rabbi still more. Is it really an insane woman
+before him? He must have thought so, for he now addressed her in a
+gentle tone of voice, as we do those suffering from this kind of
+sickness, in order not to excite her, and said:
+
+"The place where you belong, my daughter, is in the house of your
+parents, and, since you have to-day been made a wife, your place is in
+your husband's house."
+
+The young woman muttered something which failed to reach the rabbi's
+ear. Yet he only continued to think that he saw before him some poor
+unfortunate whose mind was deranged. After a pause, he added, in a still
+gentler tone: "What is your name, then, my child?"
+
+"God, god," she moaned, in the greatest anguish, "he does not even yet
+know my name!"
+
+"How should I know you," he continued, apologetically, "for I am a
+stranger in this place?"
+
+This tender remark seemed to have produced the desired effect upon her
+excited mind.
+
+"My name is Veile," she said, quietly, after a pause.
+
+The rabbi quickly perceived that he had adopted the right tone towards
+his mysterious guest.
+
+"Veile," he said, approaching nearer her, "what do you wish of me?"
+
+"Rabbi, I have a great sin resting heavily upon my heart," she replied
+despondently. "I do not know what to do."
+
+"What can you have done," inquired the rabbi, with a tender look, "that
+cannot be discussed at any other time than just now? Will you let me
+advise you, Veile?"
+
+"No, no," she cried again, violently, "I will not be advised. I see, I
+know what oppresses me. Yes, I can grasp it by the hand, it lies so near
+before me. Is that what you call to be advised?"
+
+"Very well," returned the rabbi, seeing that this was the very way to
+get the young woman to talk--"very well, I say, you are not imagining
+anything. I believe that you have greatly sinned. Have you come here
+then to confess this sin? Do your parents or your husband know anything
+about it?"
+
+"Who is my husband?" she interrupted him, impetuously.
+
+Thoughts welled up in the rabbi's heart like a tumultuous sea in which
+opposing conjectures cross and recross each other's course. Should he
+speak with her as with an ordinary sinner?
+
+"Were you, perhaps, forced to be married?" he inquired, as quietly as
+possible, after a pause.
+
+A suppressed sob, a strong inward struggle, manifesting itself in the
+whole trembling body, was the only answer to this question.
+
+"Tell me, my child," said the rabbi, encouragingly.
+
+In such tones as the rabbi had never before heard, so strange, so
+surpassing any human sounds, the young woman began:
+
+"Yes, rabbi, I will speak, even though I know that I shall never go from
+this place alive, which would be the very best thing for me! No, rabbi,
+I was not forced to be married. My parents have never once said to me
+'you must,' but my own will, my own desire, rather, has always been
+supreme. My husband is the son of a rich man in the community. To enter
+his family was to be made the first lady in the _gasse_, to sit buried
+in gold and silver. And that very thing, nothing else, was what
+infatuated me with him. It was for that that I forced myself, my heart
+and will, to be married to him, hard as it was for me. But in my
+innermost heart I detested him. The more he loved me, the more I hated
+him. But the gold and silver had an influence over me. More and more
+they cried to me, 'You will be the first lady in the _gasse_!'"
+
+"Continue," said the rabbi, when she ceased, almost exhausted by these
+words.
+
+"What more shall I tell you, rabbi?" she began again. "I was never a
+liar, when a child, or older, and yet during my whole engagement it has
+seemed to me as if a big, gigantic lie had followed me step by step.
+I have seen it on every side of me. But to-day, when I stood under the
+_chuppe_, rabbi, and he took the ring from his finger and put it on
+mine, and when I had to dance at my own wedding with him, whom I now
+recognized, now for the first time, as the lie, and--when they led me
+away----"
+
+This sincere confession escaping from the lips of the young woman, she
+sobbed aloud and bowed her head still deeper over her breast. The rabbi
+gazed upon her in silence. No insane woman ever spoke like that! Only a
+soul conscious of its own sin, but captivated by a mysterious power,
+could suffer like this!
+
+It was not sympathy which he felt with her; it was much more a living
+over the sufferings of the woman. In spite of the confused story, it was
+all clear to the rabbi. The cause of the flight from the father's house
+at this hour also required no explanation. "I know what you mean," he
+longed to say, but he could only find words to say: "Speak further,
+Veile!"
+
+The young woman turned towards him. He had not yet seen her face. The
+golden hood with the shading lace hung deeply over it.
+
+"Have I not told you everything?" she said, with a flush of scorn.
+
+"Everything?" repeated the rabbi, inquiringly. He only said this,
+moreover, through embarrassment.
+
+"Do you tell me now," she cried, at once passionately and mildly, "what
+am I to do?"
+
+"Veile!" exclaimed the rabbi, entertaining now, for the first time, a
+feeling of repugnance for this confidential interview.
+
+"Tell me now!" she pleaded; and before the rabbi could prevent it the
+young woman threw herself down at his feet and clasped his knees in her
+arms. This hasty act had loosened the golden wedding-hood from her head,
+and thus exposed her face to view, a face of remarkable beauty.
+
+So overcome was the young rabbi by the sight of it that he had to shade
+his eyes with his hands, as if before a sudden flash of lightning.
+
+"Tell me now, what shall I do?" she cried again. "Do you think that I
+have come from my parents' home merely to return again without help? You
+alone in the world must tell me. Look at me! I have kept all my hair
+just as God gave it me. It has never been touched by the shears. Should
+I, then, do anything to please my husband? I am no wife. I will not be a
+wife! Tell me, tell me, what am I to do?"
+
+"Arise, arise," bade the rabbi; but his voice quivered, sounded almost
+painful.
+
+"Tell me first," she gasped; "I will not rise till then!"
+
+"How can I tell you?" he moaned, almost inaudibly.
+
+"Naphtali!" shrieked the kneeling woman.
+
+But the rabbi staggered backward. The room seemed ablaze before him,
+like a bright fire. A sharp cry rang from his breast, as if one
+suffering from some painful wound had been seized by a rough hand. In
+his hurried attempt to free himself from the embrace of the young
+woman, who still clung to his knees, it chanced that her head struck
+heavily against the floor.
+
+"Naphtali!" she cried once again.
+
+"Silence, silence," groaned the rabbi, pressing both hands against his
+head.
+
+And still again she called out this name, but not with that agonizing
+cry. It sounded rather like a commingling of exultation and lamentation.
+
+And again he demanded, "Silence! silence!" but this time so imperiously,
+so forcibly, that the young woman lay on the floor as if conjured, not
+daring to utter a single word.
+
+The rabbi paced almost wildly up and down the room. There must have been
+a hard, terrible struggle in his breast. It seemed to the one lying on
+the floor that she heard him sigh from the depths of his soul. Then his
+pacing became calmer; but it did not last long. The fierce conflict
+again assailed him. His step grew hurried; it echoed loudly through the
+awful stillness of the room. Suddenly he neared the young woman, who
+seemed to lie there scarcely breathing. He stopped in front of her. Had
+any one seen the face of the rabbi at this moment the expression on it
+would have filled him with terror. There was a marvelous tranquillity
+overlying it, the tranquillity of a struggle for life or death.
+
+"Listen to me now, Veile," he began, slowly. "I will talk with you."
+
+"I listen, rabbi," she whispered.
+
+"But do you hear me well?"
+
+"Only speak," she returned.
+
+"But will you do what I advise you? Will you not oppose it? For I am
+going to say something that will terrify you."
+
+"I will do anything that you say. Only tell me," she moaned.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+"I will," she groaned.
+
+"No, do not swear yet, until you have heard me," he cried. "I will not
+force you."
+
+This time came no answer.
+
+"Hear me, then, daughter of Ruben Klattaner," he began, after a pause.
+"You have a twofold sin upon your soul, and each is so great, so
+criminal, that it can only be forgiven by severe punishment. First you
+permitted yourself to be infatuated by the gold and silver, and then you
+forced your heart to lie. With the lie you sought to deceive the man,
+even though he had intrusted you with his all when he made you his wife.
+A lie is truly a great sin! Streams of water cannot drown them. They
+make men false and hateful to themselves. The worst that has been
+committed in the world was led in by a lie. That is the one sin."
+
+"I know, I know," sobbed the young woman.
+
+"Now hear me further," began the rabbi again, with a wavering voice,
+after a short pause. "You have committed a still greater sin than the
+first. You have not only deceived your husband, but you have also
+destroyed the happiness of another person. You could have spoken, and
+you did not. For life you have robbed him of his happiness, his light,
+his joy, but you did not speak. What can he now do, when he knows what
+has been lost to him?"
+
+"Naphtali!" cried the young woman.
+
+"Silence! silence! do not let that name pass your lips again," he
+demanded, violently. "The more you repeat it the greater becomes your
+sin. Why did you not speak when you could have spoken? God can never
+easily forgive you that. To be silent, to keep secret in one's breast
+what would have made another man happier than the mightiest monarch!
+Thereby you have made him more than unhappy. He will nevermore have the
+desire to be happy. Veile, God in heaven cannot forgive you for that."
+
+"Silence! silence!" groaned the wretched woman.
+
+"No, Veile," he continued, with a stronger voice, "let me talk now. You
+are certainly willing to hear me speak? Listen to me. You must do severe
+penance for this sin, the twofold sin which rests upon your head. God is
+long-suffering and merciful. He will perhaps look down upon your misery,
+and will blot out your guilt from the great book of transgressions. But
+you must become penitent. Hear, now, what it shall be."
+
+The rabbi paused. He was on the point of saying the severest thing that
+had ever passed his lips.
+
+"You were silent, Veile," then he cried, "when you should have spoken.
+Be silent now forever to all men and to yourself. From the moment you
+leave this house, until I grant it, you must be dumb; you dare not let a
+loud word pass from your mouth. Will you undergo this penance?"
+
+"I will do all you say," moaned the young woman.
+
+"Will you have strength to do it?" he asked, gently.
+
+"I shall be as silent as death," she replied.
+
+"And one thing more I have to say to you," he continued. "You are the
+wife of your husband. Return home and be a Jewish wife."
+
+"I understand you," she sobbed in reply.
+
+"Go to your home now, and bring peace to your parents and husband. The
+time will come when you may speak, when your sin will be forgiven you.
+Till then bear what has been laid upon you."
+
+"May I say one thing more?" she cried, lifting up her head.
+
+"Speak," he said.
+
+"Naphtali!"
+
+The rabbi covered his eyes with one hand, with the other motioned her to
+be silent. But she grasped his hand, drew it to her lips. Hot tears fell
+upon it.
+
+"Go now," he sobbed, completely broken down.
+
+She let go the hand. The rabbi had seized the candle, but she had
+already passed him, and glided through the dark hall. The door was left
+open. The rabbi locked it again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Veile returned to her home, as she had escaped, unnoticed. The narrow
+street was deserted, as desolate as death. The searchers were to be
+found everywhere except there where they ought first to have sought for
+the missing one. Her mother, Selde, still sat on the same chair on which
+she had sunk down an hour ago. The fright had left her like one
+paralyzed, and she was unable to rise. What a wonderful contrast this
+wedding-room, with the mother sitting alone in it, presented to the
+hilarity reigning here shortly before! On Veile's entrance her mother
+did not cry out. She had no strength to do so. She merely said: "So you
+have come at last, my daughter?" as if Veile had only returned from a
+walk somewhat too long. But the young woman did not answer to this and
+similar questions. Finally she signified by gesticulations that she
+could not speak. Fright seized the wretched mother a second time, and
+the entire house was filled with her lamentations.
+
+Ruben Klattaner and Veile's husband having now returned from their
+fruitless search, were horrified on perceiving the change which Veile
+had undergone. Being men, they did not weep. With staring eyes they
+gazed upon the silent young woman, and beheld in her an apparition which
+had been dealt with by God's visitation in a mysterious manner.
+
+From this hour began the terrible penance of the young woman.
+
+The impression which Veile's woeful condition made upon the people of
+the _gasse_ was wonderful. Those who had danced with her that evening on
+the wedding now first recalled her excited state. Her wild actions were
+now first remembered by many. It must have been an "evil eye," they
+concluded--a jealous, evil eye, to which her beauty was hateful. This
+alone could have possessed her with a demon of unrest. She was driven by
+this evil power into the dark night, a sport of these malicious
+potencies which pursue men step by step, especially on such occasions.
+The living God alone knows what she must have seen that night. Nothing
+good, else one would not become dumb. Old legends and tales were
+revived, each more horrible than the other. Hundreds of instances were
+given to prove that this was nothing new in the _gasse_. Despite this
+explanation, it is remarkable that the people did not believe that the
+young woman was dumb. The most thought that her power of speech had been
+paralyzed by some awful fright, but that with time it would be restored.
+Under this supposition they called her "Veile the Silent."
+
+There is a kind of human eloquence more telling, more forcible than the
+loudest words, than the choicest diction--the silence of woman!
+Ofttimes they cannot endure the slightest vexation, but some great,
+heart-breaking sorrow, some pain from constant renunciation,
+self-sacrifice, they suffer with sealed lips--as if, in very truth, they
+were bound with bars of iron.
+
+It would be difficult to fully describe that long "silent" life of the
+young woman. It is almost impossible to cite more than one incident.
+Veile accompanied her husband to his home, that house resplendent with
+that gold and silver which had infatuated her. She was, to be sure, the
+"first" woman in the _gasse_; she had everything in abundance. Indeed,
+the world supposed that she had but little cause for complaint. "Must
+one have everything?" was sometimes queried in the _gasse_. "One has one
+thing; another, another." And, according to all appearances, the people
+were right. Veile continued to be the beautiful, blooming woman. Her
+penance of silence did not deprive her of a single charm. She was so
+very happy, indeed, that she did not seem to feel even the pain of her
+punishment. Veile could laugh and rejoice, but never did she forget to
+be silent. The seemingly happy days, however, were only qualified to
+bring about the proper time of trials and temptations. The beginning was
+easy enough for her, the middle and end were times of real pain. The
+first years of their wedded life were childless. "It is well," the
+people in the _gasse_ said, "that she has no children, and God has
+rightly ordained it to be so. A mother who cannot talk to her child,
+that would be something awful!" Unexpectedly to all, she rejoiced one
+day in the birth of a daughter. And when that affectionate young
+creature, her own offspring, was laid upon her breast, and the first
+sounds were uttered by its lips--that nameless, eloquent utterance of an
+infant--she forgot herself not; she was silent!
+
+She was silent also when from day to day that child blossomed before her
+eyes into fuller beauty. Nor had she any words for it when, in effusions
+of tenderness, it stretched forth its tiny arms, when in burning fever
+it sought for the mother's hand. For days--yes, weeks--together she
+watched at its bedside. Sleep never visited her eyes. But she ever
+remembered her penance.
+
+Years fled by. In her arms she carried another child. It was a boy. The
+father's joy was great. The child inherited its mother's beauty. Like
+its sister, it grew in health and strength. The noblest, richest mother,
+they said, might be proud of such children! And Veile was proud, no
+doubt, but this never passed her lips. She remained silent about things
+which mothers in their joy often cannot find words enough to express.
+And although her face many times lighted up with beaming smiles, yet she
+never renounced the habitual silence imposed upon her.
+
+The idea that the slightest dereliction of her penance would be
+accompanied with a curse upon her children may have impressed itself
+upon her mind. Mothers will understand better than other persons what
+this mother suffered from her penalty of silence.
+
+Thus a part of those years sped away which we are wont to call the best.
+She still flourished in her wonderful beauty. Her maiden daughter was
+beside her, like the bud beside the full-blown rose. Suitors were
+already present from far and near, who passed in review before the
+beautiful girl. The most of them were excellent young men, and any
+mother might have been proud in having her own daughter sought by such.
+Even then Veile did not undo her penance. Those busy times of
+intercourse which keep mothers engaged in presenting the superiorities
+of their daughters in the best light were not allowed her. The choice of
+one of the most favored suitors was made. Never before did any couple in
+the _gasse_ equal this in beauty and grace. A few weeks before the
+appointed time for the wedding a malignant disease stole on, spreading
+sorrow and anxiety over the greater part of the land. Young girls were
+principally its victims. It seemed to pass scornfully over the aged and
+infirm. Veile's daughter was also laid hold upon by it. Before three
+days had passed there was a corpse in the house--the bride!
+
+Even then Veile did not forget her penance. When they bore away the
+corpse to the "good place," she did utter a cry of anguish which long
+after echoed in the ears of the people; she did wring her hands in
+despair, but no one heard a word of complaint. Her lips seemed dumb
+forever. It was then, when she was seated on the low stool in the seven
+days of mourning, that the rabbi came to her, to bring to her the usual
+consolation for the dead. But he did not speak with her. He addressed
+words only to her husband. She herself dared not look up. Only when he
+turned to go did she lift her eyes. They, in turn, met the eyes of the
+rabbi, but he departed without a farewell.
+
+After her daughter's death Veile was completely broken down. Even that
+which at her time of life is still called beauty had faded away within a
+few days. Her cheeks had become hollow, her hair gray. Visitors wondered
+how she could endure such a shock, how body and spirit could hold
+together. They did not know that that silence was an iron fetter firmly
+imprisoning the slumbering spirits. She had a son, moreover, to whom, as
+to something last and dearest, her whole being still clung.
+
+The boy was thirteen years old. His learning in the Holy Scriptures was
+already celebrated for miles around. He was the pupil of the rabbi, who
+had treated him with a love and tenderness becoming his own father. He
+said that he was a remarkable child, endowed with rare talents. The boy
+was to be sent to Hungary, to one of the most celebrated teachers of the
+times, in order to lay the foundation for his sacred studies under this
+instructor's guidance and wisdom. Years might perhaps pass before she
+would see him again. But Veile let her boy go from her embrace. She did
+not say a blessing over him when he went; only her lips twitched with
+the pain of silence.
+
+Long years expired before the boy returned from the strange land, a
+full-grown, noble youth. When Veile had her son with her again a smile
+played about her mouth, and for a moment it seemed as if her former
+beauty had enjoyed a second spring. The extraordinary ability of her son
+already made him famous. Wheresoever he went people were delighted with
+his beauty, and admired the modesty of his manner, despite such great
+scholarship.
+
+The next Sabbath the young disciple of the Talmud, scarcely twenty years
+of age, was to demonstrate the first marks of this great learning.
+
+The people crowded shoulder to shoulder in this great synagogue. Curious
+glances were cast through the lattice-work of the women's gallery above
+upon the dense throng. Veile occupied one of the foremost seats. She
+could see everything that took place below. Her face was extremely pale.
+All eyes were turned towards her--the mother, who was permitted to see
+such a day for her son! But Veile did not appear to notice what was
+happening before her. A weariness, such as she had never felt before,
+even in her greatest suffering, crept over her limbs. It was as if she
+must sleep during her son's address. He had hardly mounted the stairs
+before the ark of the laws--hardly uttered his first words--when a
+remarkable change crossed her face. Her cheeks burned. She arose. All
+her vital energy seemed aroused. Her son meanwhile was speaking down
+below. She could not have told what he was saying. She did not hear
+him--she only heard the murmur of approbation, sometimes low, sometimes
+loud, which came to her ears from the quarters of the men. The people
+were astonished at the noble bearing of the speaker, his melodious
+speech, and his powerful energy. When he stopped at certain times to
+rest it seemed as if one were in a wood swept by a storm. She could now
+and then hear a few voices declaring that such a one had never before
+been listened to. The women at her side wept; she alone could not. A
+choking pain pressed from her breast to her lips. Forces were astir in
+her heart which struggled for expression. The whole synagogue echoed
+with buzzing voices, but to her it seemed as if she must speak louder
+than these. At the very moment her son had ended she cried out
+unconsciously, violently throwing herself against the lattice-work:
+
+"God! living God! shall I not now speak?" A dead silence followed this
+outcry. Nearly all had recognized this voice as that of the "silent
+woman." A miracle had taken place!
+
+"Speak! speak!" resounded the answer of the rabbi from the men's seats
+below. "You may now speak!"
+
+But no reply came. Veile had fallen back into her seat, pressing both
+hands against her breast. When the women sitting beside her looked at
+her they were terrified to find that the "silent woman" had fainted.
+She was dead! The unsealing of her lips was her last moment.
+
+Long years afterwards the rabbi died. On his death-bed he told those
+standing about him this wonderful penance of Veile.
+
+Every girl in the _gasse_ knew the story of the "silent woman."
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[D] Copyright, 1890, by Harper Bros.
+
+
+
+
+BANSHEES[E]
+
+Of all Irish ghosts, fairies, or bogles, the Banshee (sometimes called
+locally the "Boh[=ee]ntha" or "Bank[=ee]ntha") is the best known to the
+general public: indeed, cross-Channel visitors would class her with
+pigs, potatoes, and other fauna and flora of Ireland, and would expect
+her to make manifest her presence to them as being one of the sights of
+the country. She is a spirit with a lengthy pedigree--how lengthy no man
+can say, as its roots go back into the dim, mysterious past. The most
+famous Banshee of ancient times was that attached to the kingly house of
+O'Brien, Aibhill, who haunted the rock of Craglea above Killaloe, near
+the old palace of Kincora. In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of
+Clontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never
+come away alive, for the previous night Aibhill had appeared to him to
+tell him of his impending fate. The Banshee's method of foretelling
+death in olden times differed from that adopted by her at the present
+day: now she wails and wrings her hands, as a general rule, but in the
+old Irish tales she is to be found washing human heads and limbs, or
+blood-stained clothes, till the water is all dyed with human blood--this
+would take place before a battle. So it would seem that in the course of
+centuries her attributes and characteristics have changed somewhat.
+
+Very different descriptions are given of her personal appearance.
+Sometimes she is young and beautiful, sometimes old and of a fearsome
+appearance. One writer describes her as "a tall, thin woman with
+uncovered head, and long hair that floated round her shoulders, attired
+in something which seemed either a loose white cloak, or a sheet thrown
+hastily around her, uttering piercing cries." Another person, a
+coachman, saw her one evening sitting on a stile in the yard; she seemed
+to be a very small woman, with blue eyes, long light hair, and wearing
+a red cloak. Other descriptions will be found in this chapter. By the
+way, it does not seem to be true that the Banshee exclusively follows
+families of Irish descent, for the last incident had reference to the
+death of a member of a Co. Galway family English by name and origin.
+
+One of the oldest and best-known Banshee stories is that related in the
+_Memoirs_ of Lady Fanshaw.[F] In 1642 her husband, Sir Richard, and she
+chanced to visit a friend, the head of an Irish sept, who resided in his
+ancient baronial castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight she was
+awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and looking out of bed,
+beheld in the moonlight a female face and part of the form hovering at
+the window. The distance from the ground, as well as the circumstance of
+the moat, excluded the possibility that what she beheld was of this
+world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale,
+and the hair, which was reddish, was loose and disheveled. The dress,
+which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately,
+was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit
+itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that
+which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with
+infinite terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed,
+and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for the
+superstition. "A near relation of my family," said he; "expired last
+night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the event
+from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which
+was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family or
+castle, the female specter whom you have seen is always visible. She is
+believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my
+ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate
+the dishonor done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat."
+In strictness this woman could hardly be termed a Banshee. The motive
+for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch "Drummer of
+Cortachy," where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the family out of
+revenge, and appears before a death.
+
+Mr. T.J. Westropp, M.A., has furnished the following story: "My maternal
+grandmother heard the following tradition from her mother, one of the
+Miss Ross-Lewins, who witnessed the occurrence. Their father, Mr.
+Harrison Ross-Lewin, was away in Dublin on law business, and in his
+absence the young people went off to spend the evening with a friend who
+lived some miles away. The night was fine and lightsome as they were
+returning, save at one point where the road ran between trees or high
+hedges not far to the west of the old church of Kilchrist. The latter,
+like many similar ruins, was a simple oblong building, with long
+side-walls and high gables, and at that time it and its graveyard were
+unenclosed, and lay in the open fields. As the party passed down the
+long dark lane they suddenly heard in the distance loud keening and
+clapping of hands, as the country-people were accustomed to do when
+lamenting the dead. The Ross-Lewins hurried on, and came in sight of the
+church, on the side wall of which a little gray-haired old woman, clad
+in a dark cloak, was running to and fro, chanting and wailing, and
+throwing up her arms. The girls were very frightened, but the young men
+ran forward and surrounded the ruin, and two of them went into the
+church, the apparition vanishing from the wall as they did so. They
+searched every nook, and found no one, nor did any one pass out. All
+were now well scared, and got home as fast as possible. On reaching
+their home their mother opened the door, and at once told them that she
+was in terror about their father, for, as she sat looking out the window
+in the moonlight, a huge raven with fiery eyes lit on the sill, and
+tapped three times on the glass. They told her their story, which only
+added to their anxiety, and as they stood talking, taps came to the
+nearest window, and they saw the bird again. A few days later news
+reached them that Mr. Ross-Lewin had died suddenly in Dublin. This
+occurred about 1776."
+
+Mr. Westropp also writes that the sister of a former Roman Catholic
+Bishop told his sisters that when she was a little girl she went out
+one evening with some other children for a walk. Going down the road,
+they passed the gate of the principal demesne near the town. There was a
+rock, or large stone, beside the road, on which they saw something.
+Going nearer, they perceived it to be a little dark, old woman, who
+began crying and clapping her hands. Some of them attempted to speak to
+her, but got frightened, and all finally ran home as quickly as they
+could. Next day the news came that the gentleman near whose gate the
+Banshee had cried, was dead, and it was found on inquiry that he had
+died at the very hour at which the children had seen the specter.
+
+A lady who is a relation of one of the compilers, and a member of a Co.
+Cork family of English descent, sends the two following experiences of a
+Banshee in her family. "My mother, when a young girl, was standing
+looking out of the window in their house at Blackrock, near Cork. She
+suddenly saw a white figure standing on a bridge which was easily
+visible from the house. The figure waved her arms towards the house, and
+my mother heard the bitter wailing of the Banshee. It lasted some
+seconds, and then the figure disappeared. Next morning my grandfather
+was walking as usual into the city of Cork. He accidentally fell, hit
+his head against the curbstone, and never recovered consciousness.
+
+"In March, 1900, my mother was very ill, and one evening the nurse and I
+were with her arranging her bed. We suddenly heard the most extraordinary
+wailing, which seemed to come in waves round and under her bed. We
+naturally looked everywhere to try and find the cause, but in vain. The
+nurse and I looked at one another, but made no remark, as my mother did
+not seem to hear it. My sister was downstairs sitting with my father.
+She heard it, and thought some terrible thing had happened to her little
+boy, who was in bed upstairs. She rushed up, and found him sleeping
+quietly. My father did not hear it. In the house next door they heard
+it, and ran downstairs, thinking something had happened to the servant;
+but the latter at once said to them, 'Did you hear the Banshee? Mrs.
+P---- must be dying.'"
+
+A few years ago (_i.e._ before 1894) a curious incident occurred in a
+public school in connection with the belief in the Banshee. One of the
+boys, happening to become ill, was at once placed in a room by himself,
+where he used to sit all day. On one occasion, as he was being visited
+by the doctor, he suddenly started up from his seat, and affirmed that
+he heard somebody crying. The doctor, of course, who could hear or see
+nothing, came to the conclusion that the illness had slightly affected
+his brain. However, the boy, who appeared quite sensible, still
+persisted that he heard some one crying, and furthermore said, "It is
+the Banshee, as I have heard it before." The following morning the
+head-master received a telegram saying that the boy's brother had been
+accidentally shot dead.[G]
+
+That the Banshee is not confined within the geographical limits of
+Ireland, but that she can follow the fortunes of a family abroad, and
+there foretell their death, is clearly shown by the following story. A
+party of visitors were gathered together on the deck of a private yacht
+on one of the Italian lakes, and during a lull in the conversation one
+of them, a Colonel, said to the owner, "Count, who's that queer-looking
+woman you have on board?" The Count replied that there was nobody except
+the ladies present, and the stewardess, but the speaker protested that
+he was correct, and suddenly, with a scream of horror, he placed his
+hands before his eyes, and exclaimed, "Oh, my God, what a face!" For
+some time he was overcome with terror, and at length reluctantly looked
+up, and cried:
+
+"Thank Heavens, it's gone!"
+
+"What was it?" asked the Count.
+
+"Nothing human," replied the Colonel--"nothing belonging to this world.
+It was a woman of no earthly type, with a queer-shaped, gleaming face, a
+mass of red hair, and eyes that would have been beautiful but for their
+expression, which was hellish. She had on a green hood, after the
+fashion of an Irish peasant."
+
+An American lady present suggested that the description tallied with
+that of the Banshee, upon which the Count said:
+
+"I am an O'Neill--at least I am descended from one. My family name is,
+as you know, Neilsini, which, little more than a century ago, was
+O'Neill. My great-grandfather served in the Irish Brigade, and on its
+dissolution at the time of the French Revolution had the good fortune to
+escape the general massacre of officers, and in company with an O'Brien
+and a Maguire fled across the frontier and settled in Italy. On his
+death his son, who had been born in Italy, and was far more Italian than
+Irish, changed his name to Neilsini, by which name the family has been
+known ever since. But for all that we are Irish."
+
+"The Banshee was yours, then!" ejaculated the Colonel. "What exactly
+does it mean?"
+
+"It means," the Count replied solemnly, "the death of some one very
+nearly associated with me. Pray Heaven it is not my wife or daughter."
+
+On that score, however, his anxiety was speedily removed, for within two
+hours he was seized with a violent attack of angina pectoris, and died
+before morning.[H]
+
+Mr. Elliott O'Donnell, to whose article on "Banshees" we are indebted
+for the above, adds: "The Banshee never manifests itself to the person
+whose death it is prognosticating. Other people may see or hear it, but
+the fated one never, so that when every one present is aware of it but
+one, the fate of that one may be regarded as pretty well certain."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[E] From "True Irish Ghost Stories."
+
+[F] Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, notes to Canto III (edition of 1811).
+
+[G] A.G. Bradley, _Notes on some Irish Superstitions_, p. 9.
+
+[H] _Occult Review_ for September, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR
+
+BY E.F. BENSON
+
+
+The little village of St. Faith's nestles in a hollow of wooded hill up
+on the north bank of the river Fawn in the county of Hampshire, huddling
+close round its gray Norman church as if for spiritual protection
+against the fays and fairies, the trolls and "little people," who might
+be supposed still to linger in the vast empty spaces of the New Forest,
+and to come after dusk and do their doubtful businesses. Once outside
+the hamlet you may walk in any direction (so long as you avoid the high
+road which leads to Brockenhurst) for the length of a summer afternoon
+without seeing sign of human habitation, or possibly even catching sight
+of another human being. Shaggy wild ponies may stop their feeding for a
+moment as you pass, the white scuts of rabbits will vanish into their
+burrows, a brown viper perhaps will glide from your path into a clump of
+heather, and unseen birds will chuckle in the bushes, but it may easily
+happen that for a long day you will see nothing human. But you will not
+feel in the least lonely; in summer, at any rate, the sunlight will be
+gay with butterflies, and the air thick with all those woodland sounds
+which like instruments in an orchestra combine to play the great
+symphony of the yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the birches,
+and sigh among the firs; bees are busy with their redolent labor among
+the heather, a myriad birds chirp in the green temples of the forest
+trees, and the voice of the river prattling over stony places, bubbling
+into pools, chuckling and gulping round corners, gives you the sense
+that many presences and companions are near at hand.
+
+Yet, oddly enough, though one would have thought that these benign and
+cheerful influences of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were
+very healthful comrades for a man, in so far as nature can really
+influence this wonderful human genus which has in these centuries
+learned to defy her most violent storms in its well-established houses,
+to bridle her torrents and make them light its streets, to tunnel her
+mountains and plow her seas, the inhabitants of St. Faith's will not
+willingly venture into the forest after dark. For in spite of the
+silence and loneliness of the hooded night it seems that a man is not
+sure in what company he may suddenly find himself, and though it is
+difficult to get from these villagers any very clear story of occult
+appearances, the feeling is widespread. One story indeed I have heard
+with some definiteness, the tale of a monstrous goat that has been seen
+to skip with hellish glee about the woods and shady places, and this
+perhaps is connected with the story which I have here attempted to piece
+together. It too is well-known to them; for all remember the young
+artist who died here not long ago, a young man, or so he struck the
+beholder, of great personal beauty, with something about him that made
+men's faces to smile and brighten when they looked on him. His ghost
+they will tell you "walks" constantly by the stream and through the
+woods which he loved so, and in especial it haunts a certain house, the
+last of the village, where he lived, and its garden in which he was done
+to death. For my part I am inclined to think that the terror of the
+Forest dates chiefly from that day. So, such as the story is, I have set
+it forth in connected form. It is based partly on the accounts of the
+villagers, but mainly on that of Darcy, a friend of mine and a friend of
+the man with whom these events were chiefly concerned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day had been one of untarnished midsummer splendor, and as the sun
+drew near to its setting, the glory of the evening grew every moment
+more crystalline, more miraculous. Westward from St. Faith's the
+beechwood which stretched for some miles toward the heathery upland
+beyond already cast its veil of clear shadow over the red roofs of the
+village, but the spire of the gray church, over-topping all, still
+pointed a flaming orange finger into the sky. The river Fawn, which runs
+below, lay in sheets of sky-reflected blue, and wound its dreamy devious
+course round the edge of this wood, where a rough two-planked bridge
+crossed from the bottom of the garden of the last house in the village,
+and communicated by means of a little wicker gate with the wood itself.
+Then once out of the shadow of the wood the stream lay in flaming pools
+of the molten crimson of the sunset, and lost itself in the haze of
+woodland distances.
+
+This house at the end of the village stood outside the shadow, and the
+lawn which sloped down to the river was still flecked with sunlight.
+Garden-beds of dazzling color lined its gravel walks, and down the
+middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of
+rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it,
+between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock containing a
+shirt-sleeved figure.
+
+The house itself lay somewhat remote from the rest of the village, and a
+footpath leading across two fields, now tall and fragrant with hay, was
+its only communication with the high road. It was low-built, only two
+stories in height, and like the garden, its walls were a mass of
+flowering roses. A narrow stone terrace ran along the garden front, over
+which was stretched an awning, and on the terrace a young silent-footed
+man-servant was busied with the laying of the table for dinner. He was
+neat-handed and quick with his job, and having finished it he went back
+into the house, and reappeared again with a large rough bath-towel on
+his arm. With this he went to the hammock in the pergola.
+
+"Nearly eight, sir," he said.
+
+"Has Mr. Darcy come yet?" asked a voice from the hammock.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"If I'm not back when he comes, tell him that I'm just having a bathe
+before dinner."
+
+The servant went back to the house, and after a moment or two Frank
+Halton struggled to a sitting posture, and slipped out on to the grass.
+He was of medium height and rather slender in build, but the supple ease
+and grace of his movements gave the impression of great physical
+strength: even his descent from the hammock was not an awkward
+performance. His face and hands were of very dark complexion, either
+from constant exposure to wind and sun, or, as his black hair and dark
+eyes tended to show, from some strain of southern blood. His head was
+small, his face of an exquisite beauty of modeling, while the smoothness
+of its contour would have led you to believe that he was a beardless lad
+still in his teens. But something, some look which living and experience
+alone can give, seemed to contradict that, and finding yourself
+completely puzzled as to his age, you would next moment probably cease
+to think about that, and only look at this glorious specimen of young
+manhood with wondering satisfaction.
+
+He was dressed as became the season and the heat, and wore only a shirt
+open at the neck, and a pair of flannel trousers. His head, covered very
+thickly with a somewhat rebellious crop of short curly hair, was bare as
+he strolled across the lawn to the bathing-place that lay below. Then
+for a moment there was silence, then the sound of splashed and divided
+waters, and presently after, a great shout of ecstatic joy, as he swam
+up-stream with the foamed water standing in a frill round his neck. Then
+after some five minutes of limb-stretching struggle with the flood, he
+turned over on his back, and with arms thrown wide, floated down-stream,
+ripple-cradled and inert. His eyes were shut, and between half-parted
+lips he talked gently to himself.
+
+"I am one with it," he said to himself, "the river and I, I and the
+river. The coolness and splash of it is I, and the water-herbs that wave
+in it are I also. And my strength and my limbs are not mine but the
+river's. It is all one, all one, dear Fawn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A quarter of an hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn,
+dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp short
+curls again. There he paused a moment, looking back at the stream with
+the smile with which men look on the face of a friend, then turned
+towards the house. Simultaneously his servant came to the door leading
+on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared to be some half-way
+through the fourth decade of his years. Frank and he saw each other
+across the bushes and garden-beds, and each quickening his step, they
+met suddenly face to face round an angle of the garden walk, in the
+fragrance of syringa.
+
+"My dear Darcy," cried Frank, "I am charmed to see you."
+
+But the other stared at him in amazement.
+
+"Frank!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, that is my name," he said laughing, "what is the matter?"
+
+Darcy took his hand.
+
+"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "You are a boy again."
+
+"Ah, I have a lot to tell you," said Frank. "Lots that you will hardly
+believe, but I shall convince you----"
+
+He broke off suddenly, and held up his hand.
+
+"Hush, there is my nightingale," he said.
+
+The smile of recognition and welcome with which he had greeted his
+friend faded from his face, and a look of rapt wonder took its place, as
+of a lover listening to the voice of his beloved. His mouth parted
+slightly, showing the white line of teeth, and his eyes looked out and
+out till they seemed to Darcy to be focused on things beyond the vision
+of man. Then something perhaps startled the bird, for the song ceased.
+
+"Yes, lots to tell you," he said. "Really I am delighted to see you. But
+you look rather white and pulled down; no wonder after that fever. And
+there is to be no nonsense about this visit. It is June now, you stop
+here till you are fit to begin work again. Two months at least."
+
+"Ah, I can't trespass quite to that extent."
+
+Frank took his arm and walked him down the grass.
+
+"Trespass? Who talks of trespass? I shall tell you quite openly when I
+am tired of you, but you know when we had the studio together, we used
+not to bore each other. However, it is ill talking of going away on the
+moment of your arrival. Just a stroll to the river, and then it will be
+dinner-time."
+
+Darcy took out his cigarette case, and offered it to the other.
+
+Frank laughed.
+
+"No, not for me. Dear me, I suppose I used to smoke once. How very odd!"
+
+"Given it up?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose I must have. Anyhow I don't do it now. I would
+as soon think of eating meat."
+
+"Another victim on the smoking altar of vegetarianism?"
+
+"Victim?" asked Frank. "Do I strike you as such?"
+
+He paused on the margin of the stream and whistled softly. Next moment a
+moor-hen made its splashing flight across the river, and ran up the
+bank. Frank took it very gently in his hands and stroked its head, as
+the creature lay against his shirt.
+
+"And is the house among the reeds still secure?" he half-crooned to it.
+"And is the missus quite well, and are the neighbors flourishing? There,
+dear, home with you," and he flung it into the air.
+
+"That bird's very tame," said Darcy, slightly bewildered.
+
+"It is rather," said Frank, following its flight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During dinner Frank chiefly occupied himself in bringing himself
+up-to-date in the movements and achievements of this old friend whom he
+had not seen for six years. Those six years, it now appeared, had been
+full of incident and success for Darcy; he had made a name for himself
+as a portrait painter which bade fair to outlast the vogue of a couple
+of seasons, and his leisure time had been brief. Then some four months
+previously he had been through a severe attack of typhoid, the result of
+which as concerns this story was that he had come down to this
+sequestered place to recruit.
+
+"Yes, you've got on," said Frank at the end. "I always knew you would.
+A.R.A. with more in prospect. Money? You roll in it, I suppose, and, O
+Darcy, how much happiness have you had all these years? That is the only
+imperishable possession. And how much have you learned? Oh, I don't mean
+in Art. Even I could have done well in that."
+
+Darcy laughed.
+
+"Done well? My dear fellow, all I have learned in these six years you
+knew, so to speak, in your cradle. Your old pictures fetch huge prices.
+Do you never paint now?"
+
+Frank shook his head.
+
+"No, I'm too busy," he said.
+
+"Doing what? Please tell me. That is what every one is for ever asking
+me."
+
+"Doing? I suppose you would say I do nothing."
+
+Darcy glanced up at the brilliant young face opposite him.
+
+"It seems to suit you, that way of being busy," he said. "Now, it's your
+turn. Do you read? Do you study? I remember you saying that it would do
+us all--all us artists, I mean--a great deal of good if we would study
+any one human face carefully for a year, without recording a line. Have
+you been doing that?"
+
+Frank shook his head again.
+
+"I mean exactly what I say," he said, "I have been _doing_ nothing. And
+I have never been so occupied. Look at me; have I not done something to
+myself to begin with?"
+
+"You are two years younger than I," said Darcy, "at least you used to
+be. You therefore are thirty-five. But had I never seen you before I
+should say you were just twenty. But was it worth while to spend six
+years of greatly-occupied life in order to look twenty? Seems rather
+like a woman of fashion."
+
+Frank laughed boisterously.
+
+"First time I've ever been compared to that particular bird of prey," he
+said. "No, that has not been my occupation--in fact I am only very
+rarely conscious that one effect of my occupation has been that. Of
+course, it must have been if one comes to think of it. It is not very
+important. Quite true my body has become young. But that is very little;
+I have become young."
+
+Darcy pushed back his chair and sat sideways to the table looking at the
+other.
+
+"Has that been your occupation then?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, that anyhow is one aspect of it. Think what youth means! It is the
+capacity for growth, mind, body, spirit, all grow, all get stronger, all
+have a fuller, firmer life every day. That is something, considering
+that every day that passes after the ordinary man reaches the
+full-blown flower of his strength, weakens his hold on life. A man
+reaches his prime, and remains, we say, in his prime, for ten years, or
+perhaps twenty. But after his primest prime is reached, he slowly,
+insensibly weakens. These are the signs of age in you, in your body, in
+your art probably, in your mind. You are less electric than you were.
+But I, when I reach my prime--I am nearing it--ah, you shall see."
+
+The stars had begun to appear in the blue velvet of the sky, and to the
+east the horizon seen above the black silhouette of the village was
+growing dove-colored with the approach of moon-rise. White moths hovered
+dimly over the garden-beds, and the footsteps of night tip-toed through
+the bushes. Suddenly Frank rose.
+
+"Ah, it is the supreme moment," he said softly. "Now more than at any
+other time the current of life, the eternal imperishable current runs so
+close to me that I am almost enveloped in it. Be silent a minute."
+
+He advanced to the edge of the terrace and looked out standing stretched
+with arms outspread. Darcy heard him draw a long breath into his lungs,
+and after many seconds expel it again. Six or eight times he did this,
+then turned back into the lamplight.
+
+"It will sound to you quite mad, I expect," he said, "but if you want to
+hear the soberest truth I have ever spoken and shall ever speak, I will
+tell you about myself. But come into the garden if it is not too damp
+for you. I have never told any one yet, but I shall like to tell you. It
+is long, in fact, since I have even tried to classify what I have
+learned."
+
+They wandered into the fragrant dimness of the pergola, and sat down.
+Then Frank began:
+
+"Years ago, do you remember," he said, "we used often to talk about the
+decay of joy in the world. Many impulses, we settled, had contributed to
+this decay, some of which were good in themselves, others that were
+quite completely bad. Among the good things, I put what we may call
+certain Christian virtues, renunciation, resignation, sympathy with
+suffering, and the desire to relieve sufferers. But out of those things
+spring very bad ones, useless renunciations, asceticism for its own
+sake, mortification of the flesh with nothing to follow, no
+corresponding gain that is, and that awful and terrible disease which
+devastated England some centuries ago, and from which by heredity of
+spirit we suffer now, Puritanism. That was a dreadful plague, the brutes
+held and taught that joy and laughter and merriment were evil: it was a
+doctrine the most profane and wicked. Why, what is the commonest crime
+one sees? A sullen face. That is the truth of the matter.
+
+"Now all my life I have believed that we are intended to be happy, that
+joy is of all gifts the most divine. And when I left London, abandoned
+my career, such as it was, I did so because I intended to devote my life
+to the cultivation of joy, and, by continuous and unsparing effort, to
+be happy. Among people, and in constant intercourse with others, I did
+not find it possible; there were too many distractions in towns and
+work-rooms, and also too much suffering. So I took one step backwards or
+forwards, as you may choose to put it, and went straight to Nature, to
+trees, birds, animals, to all those things which quite clearly pursue
+one aim only, which blindly follow the great native instinct to be
+happy without any care at all for morality, or human law or divine law.
+I wanted, you understand, to get all joy first-hand and unadulterated,
+and I think it scarcely exists among men; it is obsolete."
+
+Darcy turned in his chair.
+
+"Ah, but what makes birds and animals happy?" he asked. "Food, food and
+mating."
+
+Frank laughed gently in the stillness.
+
+"Do not think I became a sensualist," he said. "I did not make that
+mistake. For the sensualist carries his miseries pick-a-back, and round
+his feet is wound the shroud that shall soon enwrap him. I may be mad,
+it is true, but I am not so stupid anyhow as to have tried that. No,
+what is it that makes puppies play with their own tails, that sends cats
+on their prowling ecstatic errands at night?".
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"So I went to Nature," he said. "I sat down here in this New Forest,
+sat down fair and square, and looked. That was my first difficulty, to
+sit here quiet without being bored, to wait without being impatient, to
+be receptive and very alert, though for a long time nothing particular
+happened. The change in fact was slow in those early stages."
+
+"Nothing happened?" asked Darcy rather impatiently, with the sturdy
+revolt against any new idea which to the English mind is synonymous with
+nonsense. "Why, what in the world _should_ happen?"
+
+Now Frank as he had known him was the most generous but most
+quick-tempered of mortal men; in other words his anger would flare to a
+prodigious beacon, under almost no provocation, only to be quenched
+again under a gust of no less impulsive kindliness. Thus the moment
+Darcy had spoken, an apology for his hasty question was half-way up his
+tongue. But there was no need for it to have traveled even so far, for
+Frank laughed again with kindly, genuine mirth.
+
+"Oh, how I should have resented that a few years ago," he said. "Thank
+goodness that resentment is one of the things I have got rid of.
+I certainly wish that you should believe my story--in fact, you are
+going to--but that you at this moment should imply that you do not,
+does not concern me."
+
+"Ah, your solitary sojournings have made you inhuman," said Darcy, still
+very English.
+
+"No, human," said Frank. "Rather more human, at least rather less of an
+ape."
+
+"Well, that was my first quest," he continued, after a moment, "the
+deliberate and unswerving pursuit of joy, and my method, the eager
+contemplation of Nature. As far as motive went, I daresay it was purely
+selfish, but as far as effect goes, it seems to me about the best thing
+one can do for one's fellow-creatures, for happiness is more infectious
+than small-pox. So, as I said, I sat down and waited; I looked at happy
+things, zealously avoided the sight of anything unhappy, and by degrees
+a little trickle of the happiness of this blissful world began to filter
+into me. The trickle grew more abundant, and now, my dear fellow, if I
+could for a moment divert from me into you one half of the torrent of
+joy that pours through me day and night, you would throw the world, art,
+everything aside, and just live, exist. When a man's body dies, it
+passes into trees and flowers. Well, that is what I have been trying to
+do with my soul before death."
+
+The servant had brought into the pergola a table with syphons and
+spirits, and had set a lamp upon it. As Frank spoke he leaned forward
+towards the other, and Darcy for all his matter-of-fact commonsense
+could have sworn that his companion's face shone, was luminous in
+itself. His dark brown eyes glowed from within, the unconscious smile of
+a child irradiated and transformed his face. Darcy felt suddenly
+excited, exhilarated.
+
+"Go on," he said. "Go on. I can feel you are somehow telling me sober
+truth. I daresay you are mad; but I don't see that matters."
+
+Frank laughed again.
+
+"Mad?" he said. "Yes, certainly, if you wish. But I prefer to call it
+sane. However, nothing matters less than what anybody chooses to call
+things. God never labels his gifts; He just puts them into our hands;
+just as he put animals in the garden of Eden, for Adam to name if he
+felt disposed."
+
+"So by the continual observance and study of things that were happy,"
+continued he, "I got happiness, I got joy. But seeking it, as I did,
+from Nature, I got much more which I did not seek, but stumbled upon
+originally by accident. It is difficult to explain, but I will try.
+
+"About three years ago I was sitting one morning in a place I will show
+you to-morrow. It is down by the river brink, very green, dappled with
+shade and sun, and the river passes there through some little clumps of
+reeds. Well, as I sat there, doing nothing, but just looking and
+listening, I heard the sound quite distinctly of some flute-like
+instrument playing a strange unending melody. I thought at first it was
+some musical yokel on the highway and did not pay much attention. But
+before long the strangeness and indescribable beauty of the tune struck
+me. It never repeated itself, but it never came to an end, phrase after
+phrase ran its sweet course, it worked gradually and inevitably up to a
+climax, and having attained it, it went on; another climax was reached
+and another and another. Then with a sudden gasp of wonder I localized
+where it came from. It came from the reeds and from the sky and from the
+trees. It was everywhere, it was the sound of life. It was, my dear
+Darcy, as the Greeks would have said, it was Pan playing on his pipes,
+the voice of Nature. It was the life-melody, the world-melody."
+
+Darcy was far too interested to interrupt, though there was a question
+he would have liked to ask, and Frank went on:
+
+"Well, for the moment I was terrified, terrified with the impotent
+horror of nightmare, and I stopped my ears and just ran from the place
+and got back to the house panting, trembling, literally in a panic.
+Unknowingly, for at that time I only pursued joy, I had begun, since I
+drew my joy from Nature, to get in touch with Nature. Nature, force,
+God, call it what you will, had drawn across my face a little gossamer
+web of essential life. I saw that when I emerged from my terror, and I
+went very humbly back to where I had heard the Pan-pipes. But it was
+nearly six months before I heard them again."
+
+"Why was that?" asked Darcy.
+
+"Surely because I had revolted, rebelled, and worst of all been
+frightened. For I believe that just as there is nothing in the world
+which so injures one's body as fear, so there is nothing that so much
+shuts up the soul. I was afraid, you see, of the one thing in the world
+which has real existence. No wonder its manifestation was withdrawn."
+
+"And after six months?"
+
+"After six months one blessed morning I heard the piping again. I wasn't
+afraid that time. And since then it has grown louder, it has become more
+constant. I now hear it often, and I can put myself into such an
+attitude towards Nature that the pipes will almost certainly sound. And
+never yet have they played the same tune, it is always something new,
+something fuller, richer, more complete than before."
+
+"What do you mean by 'such an attitude towards Nature'?" asked Darcy.
+
+"I can't explain that; but by translating it into a bodily attitude it
+is this."
+
+Frank sat up for a moment quite straight in his chair, then slowly sunk
+back with arms outspread and head drooped.
+
+"That," he said, "an effortless attitude, but open, resting, receptive.
+It is just that which you must do with your soul."
+
+Then he sat up again.
+
+"One word more," he said, "and I will bore you no further. Nor unless
+you ask me questions shall I talk about it again. You will find me, in
+fact, quite sane in my mode of life. Birds and beasts you will see
+behaving somewhat intimately to me, like that moor-hen, but that is all.
+I will walk with you, ride with you, play golf with you, and talk with
+you on any subject you like. But I wanted you on the threshold to know
+what has happened to me. And one thing more will happen."
+
+He paused again, and a slight look of fear crossed his eyes.
+
+"There will be a final revelation," he said, "a complete and blinding
+stroke which will throw open to me, once and for all, the full
+knowledge, the full realization and comprehension that I am one, just as
+you are, with life. In reality there is no 'me,' no 'you,' no 'it.'
+Everything is part of the one and only thing which is life. I know that
+that is so, but the realization of it is not yet mine. But it will be,
+and on that day, so I take it, I shall see Pan. It may mean death, the
+death of my body, that is, but I don't care. It may mean immortal,
+eternal life lived here and now and for ever. Then having gained that,
+ah, my dear Darcy, I shall preach such a gospel of joy, showing myself
+as the living proof of the truth, that Puritanism, the dismal religion
+of sour faces, shall vanish like a breath of smoke, and be dispersed and
+disappear in the sunlit air. But first the full knowledge must be mine."
+
+Darcy watched his face narrowly.
+
+"You are afraid of that moment," he said.
+
+Frank smiled at him.
+
+"Quite true; you are quick to have seen that. But when it comes I hope I
+shall not be afraid."
+
+For some little time there was silence; then Darcy rose.
+
+"You have bewitched me, you extraordinary boy," he said. "You have been
+telling me a fairy-story, and I find myself saying, 'Promise me it is
+true.'"
+
+"I promise you that," said the other.
+
+"And I know I shan't sleep," added Darcy.
+
+Frank looked at him with a sort of mild wonder as if he scarcely
+understood.
+
+"Well, what does that matter?" he said.
+
+"I assure you it does. I am wretched unless I sleep."
+
+"Of course I can make you sleep if I want," said Frank in a rather bored
+voice.
+
+"Well, do."
+
+"Very good: go to bed. I'll come upstairs in ten minutes."
+
+Frank busied himself for a little after the other had gone, moving the
+table back under the awning of the veranda and quenching the lamp. Then
+he went with his quick silent tread upstairs and into Darcy's room. The
+latter was already in bed, but very wide-eyed and wakeful, and Frank
+with an amused smile of indulgence, as for a fretful child, sat down on
+the edge of the bed.
+
+"Look at me," he said, and Darcy looked.
+
+"The birds are sleeping in the brake," said Frank softly, "and the winds
+are asleep. The sea sleeps, and the tides are but the heaving of its
+breast. The stars swing slow, rocked in the great cradle of the Heavens,
+and----"
+
+He stopped suddenly, gently blew out Darcy's candle, and left him
+sleeping.
+
+Morning brought to Darcy a flood of hard commonsense, as clear and crisp
+as the sunshine that filled his room. Slowly as he woke he gathered
+together the broken threads of the memories of the evening which had
+ended, so he told himself, in a trick of common hypnotism. That
+accounted for it all; the whole strange talk he had had was under a
+spell of suggestion from the extraordinary vivid boy who had once been a
+man; all his own excitement, his acceptance of the incredible had been
+merely the effect of a stronger, more potent will imposed on his own.
+How strong that will was, he guessed from his own instantaneous
+obedience to Frank's suggestion of sleep. And armed with impenetrable
+commonsense he came down to breakfast. Frank had already begun, and was
+consuming a large plateful of porridge and milk with the most prosaic
+and healthy appetite.
+
+"Slept well?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, of course. Where did you learn hypnotism?"
+
+"By the side of the river."
+
+"You talked an amazing quantity of nonsense last night," remarked Darcy,
+in a voice prickly with reason.
+
+"Rather. I felt quite giddy. Look, I remembered to order a dreadful
+daily paper for you. You can read about money markets or politics or
+cricket matches."
+
+Darcy looked at him closely. In the morning light Frank looked even
+fresher, younger, more vital than he had done the night before, and the
+sight of him somehow dinted Darcy's armor of commonsense.
+
+"You are the most extraordinary fellow I ever saw," he said. "I want to
+ask you some more questions."
+
+"Ask away," said Frank.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the next day or two Darcy plied his friend with many questions,
+objections and criticisms on the theory of life and gradually got out of
+him a coherent and complete account of his experience. In brief then,
+Frank believed that "by lying naked," as he put it, to the force which
+controls the passage of the stars, the breaking of a wave, the budding
+of a tree, the love of a youth and maiden, he had succeeded in a way
+hitherto undreamed of in possessing himself of the essential principle
+of life. Day by day, so he thought, he was getting nearer to, and in
+closer union with the great power itself which caused all life to be,
+the spirit of nature, of force, or the spirit of God. For himself, he
+confessed to what others would call paganism; it was sufficient for him
+that there existed a principle of life. He did not worship it, he did
+not pray to it, he did not praise it. Some of it existed in all human
+beings, just as it existed in trees and animals; to realize and make
+living to himself the fact that it was all one, was his sole aim and
+object.
+
+Here perhaps Darcy would put in a word of warning. "Take care," he said.
+"To see Pan meant death, did it not?"
+
+Frank's eyebrows would rise at this.
+
+"What does that matter?" he said. "True, the Greeks were always right,
+and they said so, but there is another possibility. For the nearer I get
+to it, the more living, the more vital and young I become."
+
+"What then do you expect the final revelation will do for you?"
+
+"I have told you," said he. "It will make me immortal."
+
+But it was not so much from speech and argument that Darcy grew to grasp
+his friend's conception, as from the ordinary conduct of his life. They
+were passing, for instance, one morning down the village street, when an
+old woman, very bent and decrepit, but with an extraordinary
+cheerfulness of face, hobbled out from her cottage. Frank instantly
+stopped when he saw her.
+
+"You old darling! How goes it all?" he said.
+
+But she did not answer, her dim old eyes were riveted on his face; she
+seemed to drink in like a thirsty creature the beautiful radiance which
+shone there. Suddenly she put her two withered old hands on his
+shoulders.
+
+"You're just the sunshine itself," she said, and he kissed her and
+passed on.
+
+But scarcely a hundred yards further a strange contradiction of such
+tenderness occurred. A child running along the path towards them fell on
+its face, and set up a dismal cry of fright and pain. A look of horror
+came into Frank's eyes, and, putting his fingers in his ears, he fled at
+full speed down the street, and did not pause till he was out of
+hearing. Darcy, having ascertained that the child was not really hurt,
+followed him in bewilderment.
+
+"Are you without pity then?" he asked.
+
+Frank shook his head impatiently.
+
+"Can't you see?" he asked. "Can't you understand that that sort of
+thing, pain, anger, anything unlovely throws me back, retards the
+coming of the great hour! Perhaps when it comes I shall be able to piece
+that side of life on to the other, on to the true religion of joy. At
+present I can't."
+
+"But the old woman. Was she not ugly?"
+
+Frank's radiance gradually returned.
+
+"Ah, no. She was like me. She longed for joy, and knew it when she saw
+it, the old darling."
+
+Another question suggested itself.
+
+"Then what about Christianity?" asked Darcy.
+
+"I can't accept it. I can't believe in any creed of which the central
+doctrine is that God who is Joy should have had to suffer. Perhaps it
+was so; in some inscrutable way I believe it may have been so, but I
+don't understand how it was possible. So I leave it alone; my affair is
+joy."
+
+They had come to the weir above the village, and the thunder of riotous
+cool water was heavy in the air. Trees dipped into the translucent
+stream with slender trailing branches, and the meadow where they stood
+was starred with midsummer blossomings. Larks shot up caroling into the
+crystal dome of blue, and a thousand voices of June sang round them.
+Frank, bare-headed as was his wont, with his coat slung over his arm and
+his shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbow, stood there like some
+beautiful wild animal with eyes half-shut and mouth half-open, drinking
+in the scented warmth of the air. Then suddenly he flung himself face
+downwards on the grass at the edge of the stream, burying his face in
+the daisies and cowslips, and lay stretched there in wide-armed ecstasy,
+with his long fingers pressing and stroking the dewy herbs of the field.
+Never before had Darcy seen him thus fully possessed by his idea; his
+caressing fingers, his half-buried face pressed close to the grass, even
+the clothed lines of his figure were instinct with a vitality that
+somehow was different from that of other men. And some faint glow from
+it reached Darcy, some thrill, some vibration from that charged
+recumbent body passed to him, and for a moment he understood as he had
+not understood before, despite his persistent questions and the candid
+answers they received, how real, and how realized by Frank, his idea
+was.
+
+Then suddenly the muscles in Frank's neck became stiff and alert, and
+he half-raised his head, whispering, "The Pan-pipes, the Pan-pipes.
+Close, oh, so close."
+
+Very slowly, as if a sudden movement might interrupt the melody, he
+raised himself and leaned on the elbow of his bent arm. His eyes opened
+wider, the lower lids drooped as if he focused his eyes on something
+very far away, and the smile on his face broadened and quivered like
+sunlight on still water, till the exultance of its happiness was
+scarcely human. So he remained motionless and rapt for some minutes,
+then the look of listening died from his face, and he bowed his head
+satisfied.
+
+"Ah, that was good," he said. "How is it possible you did not hear? Oh,
+you poor fellow! Did you really hear nothing?"
+
+A week of this outdoor and stimulating life did wonders in restoring to
+Darcy the vigor and health which his weeks of fever had filched from
+him, and as his normal activity and higher pressure of vitality
+returned, he seemed to himself to fall even more under the spell which
+the miracle of Frank's youth cast over him. Twenty times a day he found
+himself saying to himself suddenly at the end of some ten minutes'
+silent resistance to the absurdity of Frank's idea: "But it isn't
+possible; it can't be possible," and from the fact of his having to
+assure himself so frequently of this, he knew that he was struggling and
+arguing with a conclusion which already had taken root in his mind. For
+in any case a visible living miracle confronted him, since it was
+equally impossible that this youth, this boy, trembling on the verge of
+manhood, was thirty-five. Yet such was the fact.
+
+July was ushered in by a couple of days of blustering and fretful rain,
+and Darcy, unwilling to risk a chill, kept to the house. But to Frank
+this weeping change of weather seemed to have no bearing on the behavior
+of man, and he spent his days exactly as he did under the suns of June,
+lying in his hammock, stretched on the dripping grass, or making huge
+rambling excursions into the forest, the birds hopping from tree to tree
+after him, to return in the evening, drenched and soaked, but with the
+same unquenchable flame of joy burning within him.
+
+"Catch cold?" he would ask, "I've forgotten how to do it, I think.
+I suppose it makes one's body more sensible always to sleep out-of-doors.
+People who live indoors always remind me of something peeled and
+skinless."
+
+"Do you mean to say you slept out-of-doors last night in that deluge?"
+asked Darcy. "And where, may I ask?"
+
+Frank thought a moment.
+
+"I slept in the hammock till nearly dawn," he said. "For I remember the
+light blinked in the east when I awoke. Then I went--where did I go?--oh,
+yes, to the meadow where the Pan-pipes sounded so close a week ago. You
+were with me, do you remember? But I always have a rug if it is wet."
+
+And he went whistling upstairs.
+
+Somehow that little touch, his obvious effort to recall where he had
+slept, brought strangely home to Darcy the wonderful romance of which he
+was the still half-incredulous beholder. Sleep till close on dawn in a
+hammock, then the tramp--or probably scamper--underneath the windy and
+weeping heavens to the remote and lonely meadow by the weir! The picture
+of other such nights rose before him; Frank sleeping perhaps by the
+bathing-place under the filtered twilight of the stars, or the white
+blaze of moon-shine, a stir and awakening at some dead hour, perhaps a
+space of silent wide-eyed thought, and then a wandering through the
+hushed woods to some other dormitory, alone with his happiness, alone
+with the joy and the life that suffused and enveloped him, without other
+thought or desire or aim except the hourly and never-ceasing communion
+with the joy of nature.
+
+They were in the middle of dinner that night, talking on indifferent
+subjects, when Darcy suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence.
+
+"I've got it," he said. "At last I've got it."
+
+"Congratulate you," said Frank. "But what?"
+
+"The radical unsoundness of your idea. It is this: All nature from
+highest to lowest is full, crammed full of suffering; every living
+organism in nature preys on another, yet in your aim to get close to, to
+be one with nature, you leave suffering altogether out; you run away
+from it, you refuse to recognize it. And you are waiting, you say, for
+the final revelation."
+
+Frank's brow clouded slightly.
+
+"Well?" he asked, rather wearily.
+
+"Cannot you guess then when the final revelation will be? In joy you are
+supreme, I grant you that; I did not know a man could be so master of
+it. You have learned perhaps practically all that nature can teach. And
+if, as you think, the final revelation is coming to you, it will be the
+revelation of horror, suffering, death, pain in all its hideous forms.
+Suffering does exist: you hate it and fear it."
+
+Frank held up his hand.
+
+"Stop; let me think," he said.
+
+There was silence for a long minute.
+
+"That never struck me," he said at length. "It is possible that what you
+suggest is true. Does the sight of Pan mean that, do you think? Is it
+that nature, take it altogether, suffers horribly, suffers to a hideous
+inconceivable extent? Shall I be shown all the suffering?"
+
+He got up and came round to where Darcy sat.
+
+"If it is so, so be it," he said. "Because, my dear fellow, I am near,
+so splendidly near to the final revelation. To-day the pipes have
+sounded almost without pause. I have even heard the rustle in the
+bushes, I believe, of Pan's coming. I have seen, yes, I saw to-day, the
+bushes pushed aside as if by a hand, and piece of a face, not human,
+peered through. But I was not frightened, at least I did not run away
+this time."
+
+He took a turn up to the window and back again.
+
+"Yes, there is suffering all through," he said, "and I have left it all
+out of my search. Perhaps, as you say, the revelation will be that. And
+in that case, it will be good-bye. I have gone on one line. I shall have
+gone too far along one road, without having explored the other. But I
+can't go back now. I wouldn't if I could; not a step would I retrace! In
+any case, whatever the revelation is, it will be God. I'm sure of that."
+
+The rainy weather soon passed, and with the return of the sun Darcy
+again joined Frank in long rambling days. It grew extraordinarily
+hotter, and with the fresh bursting of life, after the rain, Frank's
+vitality seemed to blaze higher and higher. Then, as is the habit of the
+English weather, one evening clouds began to bank themselves up in the
+west, the sun went down in a glare of coppery thunder-rack, and the
+whole earth broiling under an unspeakable oppression and sultriness
+paused and panted for the storm. After sunset the remote fires of
+lightning began to wink and flicker on the horizon, but when bed-time
+came the storm seemed to have moved no nearer, though a very low
+unceasing noise of thunder was audible. Weary and oppressed by the
+stress of the day, Darcy fell at once into a heavy uncomforting sleep.
+
+He woke suddenly into full consciousness, with the din of some appalling
+explosion of thunder in his ears, and sat up in bed with racing heart.
+Then for a moment, as he recovered himself from the panic-land which
+lies between sleeping and waking, there was silence, except for the
+steady hissing of rain on the shrubs outside his window. But suddenly
+that silence was shattered and shredded into fragments by a scream from
+somewhere close at hand outside in the black garden, a scream of supreme
+and despairing terror. Again, and once again it shrilled up, and then a
+babble of awful words was interjected. A quivering sobbing voice that he
+knew, said:
+
+"My God, oh, my God; oh, Christ!"
+
+And then followed a little mocking, bleating laugh. Then was silence
+again; only the rain hissed on the shrubs.
+
+All this was but the affair of a moment, and without pause either to put
+on clothes or light a candle, Darcy was already fumbling at his
+door-handle. Even as he opened it he met a terror-stricken face outside,
+that of the man-servant who carried a light.
+
+"Did you hear?" he asked.
+
+The man's face was bleached to a dull shining whiteness.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said. "It was the master's voice."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Together they hurried down the stairs, and through the dining-room where
+an orderly table for breakfast had already been laid, and out on to the
+terrace. The rain for the moment had been utterly stayed, as if the tap
+of the heavens had been turned off, and under the lowering black sky,
+not quite dark, since the moon rode somewhere serene behind the
+conglomerated thunder-clouds, Darcy stumbled into the garden, followed
+by the servant with the candle. The monstrous leaping shadow of himself
+was cast before him on the lawn; lost and wandering odors of rose and
+lily and damp earth were thick about him, but more pungent was some
+sharp and acrid smell that suddenly reminded him of a certain chālet in
+which he had once taken refuge in the Alps. In the blackness of the hazy
+light from the sky, and the vague tossing of the candle behind him, he
+saw that the hammock in which Frank so often lay was tenanted. A gleam
+of white shirt was there, as if a man sitting up in it, but across that
+there was an obscure dark shadow, and as he approached the acrid odor
+grew more intense.
+
+He was now only some few yards away, when suddenly the black shadow
+seemed to jump into the air, then came down with tappings of hard hoofs
+on the brick path that ran down the pergola, and with frolicsome
+skippings galloped off into the bushes. When that was gone Darcy could
+see quite clearly that a shirted figure sat up in the hammock. For one
+moment, from sheer terror of the unseen, he hung on his step, and the
+servant joining him they walked together to the hammock.
+
+It was Frank. He was in shirt and trousers only, and he sat up with
+braced arms. For one half-second he stared at them, his face a mask of
+horrible contorted terror. His upper lip was drawn back so that the gums
+of the teeth appeared, and his eyes were focused not on the two who
+approached him but on something quite close to him; his nostrils were
+widely expanded, as if he panted for breath, and terror incarnate and
+repulsion and deathly anguish ruled dreadful lines on his smooth cheeks
+and forehead. Then even as they looked the body sank backwards, and the
+ropes of the hammock wheezed and strained.
+
+Darcy lifted him out and carried him indoors. Once he thought there was
+a faint convulsive stir of the limbs that lay with so dead a weight in
+his arms, but when they got inside, there was no trace of life. But the
+look of supreme terror and agony of fear had gone from his face, a boy
+tired with play but still smiling in his sleep was the burden he laid on
+the floor. His eyes had closed, and the beautiful mouth lay in smiling
+curves, even as when a few mornings ago, in the meadow by the weir, it
+had quivered to the music of the unheard melody of Pan's pipes. Then
+they looked further.
+
+Frank had come back from his bath before dinner that night in his usual
+costume of shirt and trousers only. He had not dressed, and during
+dinner, so Darcy remembered, he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt
+to above the elbow. Later, as they sat and talked after dinner on the
+close sultriness of the evening, he had unbuttoned the front of his
+shirt to let what little breath of wind there was play on his skin. The
+sleeves were rolled up now, the front of the shirt was unbuttoned, and
+on his arms and on the brown skin of his chest were strange
+discolorations which grew momently more clear and defined, till they saw
+that the marks were pointed prints, as if caused by the hoofs of some
+monstrous goat that had leaped and stamped upon him.
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY[I]
+
+BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
+
+"Yes," she said, from her seat in the dark corner, "I'll tell you an
+experience if you care to listen. And, what's more, I'll tell it
+briefly, without trimmings--I mean without unessentials. That's a thing
+story-tellers never do, you know," she laughed. "They drag in all the
+unessentials and leave their listeners to disentangle; but I'll give you
+just the essentials, and you can make of it what you please. But on one
+condition: that at the end you ask no questions, because I can't explain
+it and have no wish to."
+
+We agreed. We were all serious. After listening to a dozen prolix
+stories from people who merely wished to "talk" but had nothing to tell,
+we wanted "essentials."
+
+"In those days," she began, feeling from the quality of our silence that
+we were with her, "in those days I was interested in psychic things, and
+had arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in the middle of London.
+It was a cheap and dingy lodging-house in a mean street, unfurnished.
+I had already made a preliminary examination in daylight that afternoon,
+and the keys from the caretaker, who lived next door, were in my pocket.
+The story was a good one--satisfied me, at any rate, that it was worth
+investigating; and I won't weary you with details as to the woman's
+murder and all the tiresome elaboration as to _why_ the place was
+_alive_. Enough that it was.
+
+"I was a good deal bored, therefore, to see a man, whom I took to be the
+talkative old caretaker, waiting for me on the steps when I went in at
+11 P.M., for I had sufficiently explained that I wished to be there
+alone for the night.
+
+"'I wished to show you _the_ room,' he mumbled, and of course I couldn't
+exactly refuse, having tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and
+table.
+
+"'Come in, then, and let's be quick,' I said.
+
+"We went in, he shuffling after me through the unlighted hall up to the
+first floor where the murder had taken place, and I prepared myself to
+hear his inevitable account before turning him out with the half-crown
+his persistence had earned. After lighting the gas I sat down in the
+arm-chair he had provided--a faded, brown plush arm-chair--and turned
+for the first time to face him and get through with the performance as
+quickly as possible. And it was in that instant I got my first shock.
+The man was _not_ the caretaker. It was not the old fool, Carey, I had
+interviewed earlier in the day and made my plans with. My heart gave a
+horrid jump.
+
+"'Now who are _you_, pray?' I said. 'You're not Carey, the man I
+arranged with this afternoon. Who are you?'
+
+"I felt uncomfortable, as you may imagine. I was a 'psychical
+researcher,' and a young woman of new tendencies, and proud of my
+liberty, but I did not care to find myself in an empty house with a
+stranger. Something of my confidence left me. Confidence with women, you
+know, is all humbug after a certain point. Or perhaps you don't know,
+for most of you are men. But anyhow my pluck ebbed in a quick rush, and
+I felt afraid.
+
+"'Who are you?' I repeated quickly and nervously. The fellow was well
+dressed, youngish and good-looking, but with a face of great sadness.
+I myself was barely thirty. I am giving you essentials, or I would not
+mention it. Out of quite ordinary things comes this story. I think
+that's why it has value.
+
+"'No,' he said; 'I'm the man who was frightened to death.'
+
+"His voice and his words ran through me like a knife, and I felt ready
+to drop. In my pocket was the book I had bought to make notes in. I felt
+the pencil sticking in the socket. I felt, too, the extra warm things
+I had put on to sit up in, as no bed or sofa was available--a hundred
+things dashed through my mind, foolishly and without sequence or
+meaning, as the way is when one is really frightened. Unessentials
+leaped up and puzzled me, and I thought of what the papers might say if
+it came out, and what my 'smart' brother-in-law would think, and whether
+it would be told that I had cigarettes in my pocket, and was a
+free-thinker.
+
+"'The man who was frightened to death!' I repeated aghast.
+
+"'That's me,' he said stupidly.
+
+"I stared at him just as you would have done--any one of you men now
+listening to me--and felt my life ebbing and flowing like a sort of hot
+fluid. You needn't laugh! That's how I felt. Small things, you know,
+touch the mind with great earnestness when terror is there--_real
+terror_. But I might have been at a middle-class tea-party, for all the
+ideas I had: they were so ordinary!
+
+"'But I thought you were the caretaker I tipped this afternoon to let me
+sleep here!' I gasped. 'Did--did Carey send you to meet me?'
+
+"'No,' he replied in a voice that touched my boots somehow. 'I am the
+man who was frightened to death. And what is more, I am frightened
+_now_!'
+
+"'So am I!' I managed to utter, speaking instinctively. 'I'm simply
+terrified.'
+
+"'Yes,' he replied in that same odd voice that seemed to sound within
+me. 'But you are still in the flesh, and I--_am not_!'
+
+"I felt the need for vigorous self-assertion. I stood up in that empty,
+unfurnished room, digging the nails into my palms and clenching my
+teeth. I was determined to assert my individuality and my courage as a
+new woman and a free soul.
+
+"'You mean to say you are not in the flesh!' I gasped. 'What in the
+world are you talking about?'
+
+"The silence of the night swallowed up my voice. For the first time I
+realized that darkness was over the city; that dust lay upon the stairs;
+that the floor above was untenanted and the floor below empty. I was
+alone in an unoccupied and haunted house, unprotected, and a woman.
+I chilled. I heard the wind round the house, and knew the stars were
+hidden. My thoughts rushed to policemen and omnibuses, and everything
+that was useful and comforting. I suddenly realized what a fool I was to
+come to such a house alone. I was icily afraid. I thought the end of my
+life had come. I was an utter fool to go in for psychical research when
+I had not the necessary nerve.
+
+"'Good God!' I gasped. 'If you're not Carey, the man I arranged with,
+who are you?'
+
+"I was really stiff with terror. The man moved slowly towards me across
+the empty room. I held out my arm to stop him, getting up out of my
+chair at the same moment, and he came to halt just opposite to me, a
+smile on his worn, sad face.
+
+"'I told you who I am,' he repeated quietly with a sigh, looking at me
+with the saddest eyes I have ever seen, 'and I am frightened _still_.'
+
+"By this time I was convinced that I was entertaining either a rogue or
+a madman, and I cursed my stupidity in bringing the man in without
+having seen his face. My mind was quickly made up, and I knew what to
+do. Ghosts and psychic phenomena flew to the winds. If I angered the
+creature my life might pay the price. I must humor him till I got to the
+door, and then race for the street. I stood bolt upright and faced him.
+We were about of a height, and I was a strong, athletic woman who played
+hockey in winter and climbed Alps in summer. My hand itched for a stick,
+but I had none.
+
+"'Now, of course, I remember,' I said with a sort of stiff smile that
+was very hard to force. 'Now I remember your case and the wonderful way
+you behaved . . . .'
+
+"The man stared at me stupidly, turning his head to watch me as I backed
+more and more quickly to the door. But when his face broke into a smile
+I could control myself no longer. I reached the door in a run, and shot
+out on to the landing. Like a fool, I turned the wrong way, and stumbled
+over the stairs leading to the next story. But it was too late to
+change. The man was after me, I was sure, though no sound of footsteps
+came; and I dashed up the next flight, tearing my skirt and banging my
+ribs in the darkness, and rushed headlong into the first room I came
+to. Luckily the door stood ajar, and, still more fortunate, there was a
+key in the lock. In a second I had slammed the door, flung my whole
+weight against it, and turned the key.
+
+"I was safe, but my heart was beating like a drum. A second later it
+seemed to stop altogether, for I saw that there was some one else in the
+room besides myself. A man's figure stood between me and the windows,
+where the street lamps gave just enough light to outline his shape
+against the glass. I'm a plucky woman, you know, for even then I didn't
+give up hope, but I may tell you that I have never felt so vilely
+frightened in all my born days. I had locked myself in with him!
+
+"The man leaned against the window, watching me where I lay in a
+collapsed heap upon the floor. So there were two men in the house with
+me, I reflected. Perhaps other rooms were occupied too! What could it
+all mean? But, as I stared something changed in the room, or in me--hard
+to say which--and I realized my mistake, so that my fear, which had so
+far been physical, at once altered its character and became _psychical_.
+I became afraid in my soul instead of in my heart, and I knew
+immediately who this man was.
+
+"'How in the world did you get up here?' I stammered to him across the
+empty room, amazement momentarily stemming my fear.
+
+"'Now, let me tell you,' he began, in that odd faraway voice of his that
+went down my spine like a knife. 'I'm in different space, for one thing,
+and you'd find me in any room you went into; for according to your way
+of measuring, I'm _all over the house_. Space is a bodily condition, but
+I am out of the body, and am not affected by space. It's my condition
+that keeps me here. I want something to change my condition for me, for
+then I could get away. What I want is sympathy. Or, really, more than
+sympathy; I want affection--I want _love_!'
+
+"While he was speaking I gathered myself slowly upon my feet. I wanted
+to scream and cry and laugh all at once, but I only succeeded in
+sighing, for my emotion was exhausted and a numbness was coming over me.
+I felt for the matches in my pocket and made a movement towards the gas
+jet.
+
+"'I should be much happier if you didn't light the gas,' he said at
+once, 'for the vibrations of your light hurt me a good deal. You need
+not be afraid that I shall injure you. I can't touch your body to begin
+with, for there's a great gulf fixed, you know; and really this
+half-light suits me best. Now, let me continue what I was trying to say
+before. You know, so many people have come to this house to see me, and
+most of them have seen me, and one and all have been terrified. If only,
+oh, if only some one would be _not_ terrified, but kind and loving to
+me! Then, you see, I might be able to change my condition and get away.'
+
+"His voice was so sad that I felt tears start somewhere at the back of
+my eyes; but fear kept all else in check, and I stood shaking and cold
+as I listened to him.
+
+"'Who are you then? Of course Carey didn't send you, I know now,' I
+managed to utter. My thoughts scattered dreadfully and I could think of
+nothing to say. I was afraid of a stroke.
+
+"'I know nothing about Carey, or who he is,' continued the man quietly,
+'and the name my body had I have forgotten, thank God; but I am the man
+who was frightened to death in this house ten years ago, and I have been
+frightened ever since, and am frightened still; for the succession of
+cruel and curious people who come to this house to see the ghost, and
+thus keep alive its atmosphere of terror, only helps to render my
+condition worse. If only some one would be kind to me--_laugh_, speak
+gently and rationally with me, cry if they like, pity, comfort, soothe
+me--anything but come here in curiosity and tremble as you are now doing
+in that corner. Now, madam, won't you take pity on me?' His voice rose
+to a dreadful cry. 'Won't you step out into the middle of the room and
+try to love me a little?'
+
+"A horrible laughter came gurgling up in my throat as I heard him, but
+the sense of pity was stronger than the laughter, and I found myself
+actually leaving the support of the wall and approaching the center of
+the floor.
+
+"'By God!' he cried, at once straightening up against the window, 'you
+have done a kind act. That's the first attempt at sympathy that has
+been shown me since I died, and I feel better already. In life, you
+know, I was a misanthrope. Everything went wrong with me, and I came to
+hate my fellow men so much that I couldn't bear to see them even. Of
+course, like begets like, and this hate was returned. Finally I suffered
+from horrible delusions, and my room became haunted with demons that
+laughed and grimaced, and one night I ran into a whole cluster of them
+near the bed--and the fright stopped my heart and killed me. It's hate
+and remorse, as much as terror, that clogs me so thickly and keeps me
+here. If only some one could feel pity, and sympathy, and perhaps a
+little love for me, I could get away and be happy. When you came this
+afternoon to see over the house I watched you, and a little hope came to
+me for the first time. I saw you had courage, originality,
+resource--_love_. If only I could touch your heart, without frightening
+you, I knew I could perhaps tap that love you have stored up in your
+being there, and thus borrow the wings for my escape!'
+
+"Now I must confess my heart began to ache a little, as fear left me and
+the man's words sank their sad meaning into me. Still, the whole affair
+was so incredible, and so touched with unholy quality, and the story of
+a woman's murder I had come to investigate had so obviously nothing to
+do with this thing, that I felt myself in a kind of wild dream that
+seemed likely to stop at any moment and leave me somewhere in bed after
+a nightmare.
+
+"Moreover, his words possessed me to such an extent that I found it
+impossible to reflect upon anything else at all, or to consider
+adequately any ways or means of action or escape.
+
+"I moved a little nearer to him in the gloom, horribly frightened, of
+course, but with the beginnings of a strange determination in my heart.
+
+"'You women,' he continued, his voice plainly thrilling at my approach,
+'you wonderful women, to whom life often brings no opportunity of
+spending your great love, oh, if you only could know how many of _us_
+simply yearn for it! It would save our souls, if but you knew. Few might
+find the chance that you now have, but if you only spent your love
+freely, without definite object, just letting it flow openly for all who
+need, you would reach hundreds and thousands of souls like me, and
+_release us_! Oh, madam, I ask you again to feel with me, to be kind and
+gentle--and if you can to love me a little!'
+
+"My heart did leap within me and this time the tears did come, for I
+could not restrain them. I laughed too, for the way he called me 'madam'
+sounded so odd, here in this empty room at midnight in a London street,
+but my laughter stopped dead and merged in a flood of weeping when I saw
+how my change of feeling affected him. He had left his place by the
+window and was kneeling on the floor at my feet, his hands stretched out
+towards me, and the first signs of a kind of glory about his head.
+
+"'Put your arms round me and kiss me, for the love of God!' he cried.
+'Kiss me, oh, kiss me, and I shall be freed! You have done so much
+already--now do this!'
+
+"I stuck there, hesitating, shaking, my determination on the verge of
+action, yet not quite able to compass it. But the terror had almost
+gone.
+
+"'Forget that I'm a man and you're a woman,' he continued in the most
+beseeching voice I ever heard. 'Forget that I'm a ghost, and come out
+boldly and press me to you with a great kiss, and let your love flow
+into me. Forget yourself just for one minute and do a brave thing! Oh,
+love me, _love me_, LOVE ME! and I shall be free!'
+
+"The words, or the deep force they somehow released in the center of my
+being, stirred me profoundly, and an emotion infinitely greater than
+fear surged up over me and carried me with it across the edge of action.
+Without hesitation I took two steps forward towards him where he knelt,
+and held out my arms. Pity and love were in my heart at that moment,
+genuine pity, I swear, and genuine love. I forgot myself and my little
+tremblings in a great desire to help another soul.
+
+"'I love you! poor, aching, unhappy thing! I love you,' I cried through
+hot tears; 'and I am not the least bit afraid in the world.'
+
+"The man uttered a curious sound, like laughter, yet not laughter, and
+turned his face up to me. The light from the street below fell on it,
+but there was another light, too, shining all round it that seemed to
+come from the eyes and skin. He rose to his feet and met me, and in that
+second I folded him to my breast and kissed him full on the lips again
+and again."
+
+All our pipes had gone out, and not even a skirt rustled in that dark
+studio as the story-teller paused a moment to steady her voice, and put
+a hand softly up to her eyes before going on again.
+
+"Now, what can I say, and how can I describe to you, all you skeptical
+men sitting there with pipes in your mouths, the amazing sensation I
+experienced of holding an intangible, impalpable thing so closely to my
+heart that it touched my body with equal pressure all the way down, and
+then melted away somewhere into my very being? For it was like seizing a
+rush of cool wind and feeling a touch of burning fire the moment it had
+struck its swift blow and passed on. A series of shocks ran all over and
+all through me; a momentary ecstasy of flaming sweetness and wonder
+thrilled down into me; my heart gave another great leap--and then I was
+alone.
+
+"The room was empty. I turned on the gas and struck a match to prove it.
+All fear had left me, and something was singing round me in the air and
+in my heart like the joy of a spring morning in youth. Not all the
+devils or shadows or hauntings in the world could then have caused me a
+single tremor.
+
+"I unlocked the door and went all over the dark house, even into kitchen
+and cellar and up among the ghostly attics. But the house was empty.
+Something had left it. I lingered a short hour, analyzing, thinking,
+wondering--you can guess what and how, perhaps, but I won't detail, for
+I promised only essentials, remember--and then went out to sleep the
+remainder of the night in my own flat, locking the door behind me upon a
+house no longer haunted.
+
+"But my uncle, Sir Henry, the owner of the house, required an account of
+my adventure, and of course I was in duty bound to give him some kind of
+a true story. Before I could begin, however, he held up his hand to stop
+me.
+
+"'First,' he said, 'I wish to tell you a little deception I ventured to
+practice on you. So many people have been to that house and seen the
+ghost that I came to think the story acted on their imaginations, and
+I wished to make a better test. So I invented for their benefit another
+story, with the idea that if you did see anything I could be sure it was
+not due merely to an excited imagination.'
+
+"'Then what you told me about a woman having been murdered, and all
+that, was not the true story of the haunting?'
+
+"'It was not. The true story is that a cousin of mine went mad in that
+house, and killed himself in a fit of morbid terror following upon years
+of miserable hypochondriasis. It is his figure that investigators see.'
+
+"'That explains, then,' I gasped----
+
+"'Explains what?'
+
+"I thought of that poor struggling soul, longing all these years for
+escape, and determined to keep my story for the present to myself.
+
+"'Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost of the murdered woman,'
+I concluded.
+
+"'Precisely,' said Sir Henry, 'and why, if you had seen anything, it
+would have had value, inasmuch as it could not have been caused by the
+imagination working upon a story you already knew.'"
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[I] Taken by permission from "The Listener and Other Stories,"--E.P.
+Dutton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW
+
+BY RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+          "May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
+           Nor Powers of Darkness me molest."
+                        --_Evening Hymn._
+
+
+One of the few advantages that India has over England is a certain great
+Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly
+acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all
+the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen
+hundred other people of the non-official castes. In ten years his
+knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows
+something about, almost every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel
+anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills.
+
+Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my
+memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but, none the less, to-day if you
+belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a bear nor a black sheep all
+houses are open to you and our small world is very kind and helpful.
+
+Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon, some fifteen years
+ago. He meant to stay two nights only, but was knocked down by rheumatic
+fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped
+Polder's work, and nearly died in Polder's bed-room. Polder behaves as
+though he had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and
+yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the
+same everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you
+their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken
+your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work
+themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serious
+trouble.
+
+Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a
+hospital on his private account--an arrangement of loose-boxes for
+Incurables, his friends called it--but it was really a sort of
+fitting-up shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather.
+The weather in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is a
+fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work
+overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as
+mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.
+
+Heatherlegh is the nicest doctor that ever was, and his invariable
+prescription to all his patients is "lie low, go slow, and keep cool."
+He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this
+world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay who died under
+his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak
+authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack in
+Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and
+pressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle," says Heatherlegh,
+"after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have
+behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that
+the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he
+took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He
+certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the
+engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about
+ghosts developed itself. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight,
+and killed him, poor devil. Write him off to the System--one man to do
+the work of two-and-a-half men."
+
+I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when
+Heatherlegh was called out to visit patients and I happened to be within
+claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even
+voice the procession of men, women, children, and devils that was always
+passing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick man's command of
+language. When he recovered I suggested that he should write out the
+whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to
+ease his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are
+never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is
+Literature.
+
+He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder
+Magazine style he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterwards he was
+reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently
+needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he
+preferred to die; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. I secured
+his manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the affair,
+dated 1885:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not
+improbable that I shall get both ere long--rest that neither the
+red-coated orderly nor the mid-day gun can break, and change of air far
+beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the
+meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of my
+doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shall
+learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too,
+judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth
+was ever so tormented as I.
+
+Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are
+drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, demands
+at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly
+disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the man
+who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man in
+India. To-day, from Peshawar to the sea, there is no one more wretched.
+My doctor and I are the only two who know this. His explanation is that
+my brain, digestion and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving rise
+to my frequent and persistent "delusions." Delusions, indeed! I call him
+a fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the same
+bland professional manner, the same neatly-trimmed red whiskers, till I
+begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you
+shall judge for yourselves.
+
+Three years ago it was my fortune--my great misfortune--to sail from
+Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes
+Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in
+the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content
+with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were
+desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows
+that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. In
+matters of this sort there is always one who gives and another who
+accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was
+conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and--if
+I may use the expression--a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she
+recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterwards it was bitterly
+plain to both of us.
+
+Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective
+ways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave
+and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season together;
+and there my fire of straw burnt itself out to a pitiful end with the
+closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessington
+had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my
+own lips, in August, 1882, she learnt that I was sick of her presence,
+tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine
+women out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of them;
+seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves by
+active and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the
+hundredth. On her neither my openly-expressed aversion, nor the cutting
+brutalities with which I garnished our interviews had the least effect.
+
+"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo-cry, "I'm sure it's all a
+mistake--a hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day.
+_Please_ forgive me, Jack, dear."
+
+I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity
+into passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate--the same
+instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider
+he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the season of
+1882 came to an end.
+
+Next year we met again at Simla--she with her monotonous face and timid
+attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every fiber of
+my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and on each
+occasion her words were identically the same. Still the unreasoning wail
+that it was all a "mistake"; and still the hope of eventually "making
+friends." I might have seen, had I cared to look, that that hope only
+was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You
+will agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any
+one to despair. It was uncalled for, childish, unwomanly. I maintain
+that she was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the black,
+fever-stricken night watches, I have begun to think that I might have
+been a little kinder to her. But that really _is_ a "delusion." I could
+not have continued pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It
+would have been unfair to us both.
+
+Last year we met again--on the same terms as before. The same weary
+appeals, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make
+her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming the
+old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart--that is to say,
+she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing
+interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room,
+the season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade
+were fantastically intermingled--my courtship of little Kitty Mannering;
+my hopes, doubts and fears; our long rides together; my trembling avowal
+of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white face
+flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once
+watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand;
+and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome monotony
+of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering, honestly, heartily loved her,
+and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I
+were engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie" _jhampanies_ at
+the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped
+to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it already.
+
+"So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear." Then, without a moment's pause:
+"I'm sure it's all a mistake--a hideous mistake. We shall be as good
+friends some day, Jack, as we ever were."
+
+My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman
+before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't
+mean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!"
+
+And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to
+finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that
+I had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she
+had turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me.
+
+The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory. The
+rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden,
+dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed a
+gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of the
+_jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington's
+down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She was holding her
+handkerchief in her left hand and was leaning back exhausted against the
+'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie
+Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call of
+"Jack!" This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify it.
+Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on horseback; and, in the delight
+of a long ride with her, forgot all about the interview.
+
+A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of her
+existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy.
+Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her, except that
+at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded me
+unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I had disinterred
+what was left of our correspondence from among my scattered belongings
+and had burnt it. At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I was at
+Simla--semi-deserted Simla--once more, and was deep in lover's talks and
+walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be married at the end of
+June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I did, I am
+not saying too much when I pronounce myself to have been, at the time,
+the happiest man in India.
+
+Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight.
+Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals
+circumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement-ring
+was the outward and visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and
+that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured for one. Up to
+that moment, I give you my word, we had completely forgotten so trivial
+a matter. To Hamilton's we accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885.
+Remember that--whatever my doctor may say to the contrary--I was then in
+perfect health, enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolutely tranquil
+spirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there,
+regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty's finger for the
+ring in the presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire
+with two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope that leads to the
+Combermere Bridge and Peliti's shop.
+
+While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and
+Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side--while all Simla, that is
+to say as much of it as had then come from the Plains, was grouped round
+the Reading-room and Peliti's veranda--I was aware that some one,
+apparently at a vast distance, was calling me by my Christian name. It
+struck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I could
+not at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the road
+between the path from Hamilton's shop and the first plank of the
+Combermere Bridge I had thought over half-a-dozen people who might have
+committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have
+been some singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my eye
+was arrested by the sight of four _jhampanies_ in black and white
+livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my
+mind flew back to the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense
+of irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and
+done with, without her black and white servitors re-appearing to spoil
+the day's happiness? Whoever employed them now I thought I would call
+upon, and ask as a personal favor to change her _jhampanies'_ livery.
+I would hire the men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off
+their backs. It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable
+memories their presence evoked.
+
+"Kitty," I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's _jhampanies_ turned
+up again! I wonder who has them now?"
+
+Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always
+been interested in the sickly woman.
+
+"What? Where?" she asked. "I can't see them anywhere."
+
+Even as she spoke, her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself
+directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to
+utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider
+passed _through_ men and carriage as if they had been thin air.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried Kitty; "what made you call out so foolishly,
+Jack? If I _am_ engaged I don't want all creation to know about it.
+There was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you
+think I can't ride--There!"
+
+Whereupon willful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a
+hand-gallop in the direction of the Band-stand; fully expecting, as she
+herself afterwards told me, that I should follow her. What was the
+matter? Nothing, indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla
+was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round.
+The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near
+the left railing of the Combermere Bridge.
+
+"Jack! Jack, darling." (There was no mistake about the words this time:
+they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) "It's
+some hideous mistake, I'm sure. _Please_ forgive me, Jack, and let's be
+friends again."
+
+The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and daily pray
+for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief
+in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.
+
+How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my
+groom taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. I tumbled
+off my horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of
+cherry-brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the
+coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were
+more comforting to me just then than the consolations of religion could
+have been. I plunged into the midst of the conversation at once;
+chatted, laughed and jested with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it
+in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men
+noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of
+over many pegs, charitably endeavored to draw me apart from the rest of
+the loungers. But I refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my
+kind--as a child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a
+fright in the dark. I must have talked for about ten minutes or so,
+though it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's dear voice
+outside inquiring for me. In another minute she had entered the shop,
+prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties.
+Something in my face stopped her.
+
+"Why, Jack," she cried, "what _have_ you been doing? What _has_
+happened? Are you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the
+sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of
+a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my
+mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover
+it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty, in a regal rage, out of
+doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have
+forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to
+my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.
+
+In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter. Here
+was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the year
+of grace 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror from
+my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead and
+buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink.
+Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington
+when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterly
+commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broad
+daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, in
+defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's
+ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.
+
+Kitty's Arab had gone _through_ the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope
+that some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage
+and the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went
+round this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and
+in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had
+originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her
+to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the
+'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the presence of the 'rickshaw is in
+itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see
+ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The
+whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man!"
+
+Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook
+my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very
+wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency
+born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked
+with a sudden palpitation of the heart--the result of indigestion. This
+eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out
+that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us.
+
+Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still
+unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion,
+suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road--anything
+rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt, so I
+yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out
+together towards Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and,
+according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent to
+the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched
+horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we
+neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington
+all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our
+old-time walks and talks. The boulders were full of it; the pines sang
+it aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen
+over the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity
+aloud.
+
+As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies'
+Mile, the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight--only
+the four black and white _jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled carriage, and
+the golden head of the woman within--all apparently just as I had left
+them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that
+Kitty must see what I saw--we were so marvelously sympathetic in all
+things. Her next words undeceived me--"Not a soul in sight! Come along,
+Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings!" Her wiry little
+Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this
+order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty
+yards of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The
+'rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road: and once more the Arab
+passed through it, my horse following. "Jack, Jack, dear! _Please_
+forgive me," rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval: "It's
+all a mistake, a hideous mistake!"
+
+I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at the
+Reservoir works the black and white liveries were still
+waiting--patiently waiting--under the gray hillside, and the wind
+brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered
+me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had
+been talking up till then wildly and at random. To save my life I could
+not speak afterwards naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wisely
+held my tongue.
+
+I was to dine with the Mannerings that night and had barely time to
+canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men
+talking together in the dusk--"It's a curious thing," said one, "how
+completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely
+fond of the woman (never could see anything in her myself) and wanted
+me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for
+love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it, but I've got to do what
+the _Memsahib_ tells me. Would you believe that the man she hired it
+from tells me that all four of the men, they were brothers, died of
+cholera, on the way to Hardwįr, poor devils; and the 'rickshaw has been
+broken up by the man himself. Told me he never used a dead _Memsahib's_
+'rickshaw. Spoilt his luck. Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little
+Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one's luck except her own!" I laughed aloud
+at this point; and my laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there
+_were_ ghosts of 'rickshaws after all, and ghostly employments in the
+other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their
+hours? Where did they go?
+
+And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal thing
+blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast and by short-cuts
+unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked
+my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain
+extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my horse at
+the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington "good
+evening." Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened to the
+end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should be delighted
+if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil stronger than I
+must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim recollection of
+talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to the thing in
+front of me.
+
+"Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to come
+home."
+
+Surely _that_ was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard
+me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They
+were very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered
+that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away
+to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes
+late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by
+Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down.
+
+The conversation had already become general; and, under cover of it, I
+was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware
+that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was
+describing with much broidery his encounter with a mad unknown that
+evening. A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident
+of half an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for
+applause, as professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and
+straightway collapsed. There was a moment's awkward silence, and the
+red-whiskered man muttered something to the effect that he had
+"forgotten the rest"; thereby sacrificing a reputation as a good
+story-teller which he had built up for six seasons past. I blessed him
+from the bottom of my heart and--went on with my fish.
+
+In the fullness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine
+regret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of my own
+existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The
+red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Dr. Heatherlegh of
+Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay together.
+I accepted his offer with gratitude.
+
+My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and,
+in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp.
+The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed
+he had been thinking over it all dinner time.
+
+"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on
+the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer
+from me before I was aware.
+
+"That!" said I, pointing to It.
+
+"_That_ may be either _D.T._ or eyes for aught I know. Now you don't
+liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be _D.T._ There's nothing
+whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling
+with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it's eyes.
+And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I'm
+on the Blessington lower road."
+
+To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept about
+twenty yards ahead--and this, too, whether we walked, trotted, or
+cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion
+almost as much as I have told you here.
+
+"Well, you've spoilt one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to,"
+said he, "but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through.
+Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you, young
+man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and
+indigestible food till the day of your death."
+
+The 'rickshaw kept steadily in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed
+to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.
+
+"Eyes, Pansay--all eyes, brain and stomach; and the greatest of these
+three is stomach. You've too much conceited brain, too little stomach,
+and thoroughly unhealthy eyes. Get your stomach straight and the rest
+follows. And all that's French for a liver pill. I'll take sole medical
+charge of you from this hour; for you're too interesting a phenomenon to
+be passed over."
+
+By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road
+and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, overhanging
+shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh
+rapped out an oath.
+
+"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside for
+the sake of a stomach-_cum_-brain-_cum_-eye illusion . . . . Lord ha'
+mercy! What's that?"
+
+There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of
+us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the
+cliffside--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road below,
+completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a
+moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their
+fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and
+sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had
+subsided, my companion muttered: "Man, if we'd gone forward we should
+have been ten feet deep in our graves by now! 'There are more things in
+heaven and earth' . . . Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a drink
+badly."
+
+We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr.
+Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.
+
+His attempts towards my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a
+week I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did
+I bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's
+best and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more
+equable. Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in
+with Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating eyes, brain,
+and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused
+by a fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I
+should be recovered before she had time to regret my absence.
+
+Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of
+liver-pills, cold-water baths and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or
+at early dawn--for, as he sagely observed: "A man with a sprained ankle
+doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be
+wondering if she saw you."
+
+At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse and
+strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed
+me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting
+benediction: "Man, I certify to your mental cure, and that's as much as
+to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your traps out
+of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss Kitty."
+
+I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me
+short:
+
+"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved
+like a blackguard all through. But, all the same you're a phenomenon,
+and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. Now, go out and see
+if you can find the eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you
+a lakh for each time you see it."
+
+Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with
+Kitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the
+foreknowledge that I should never more be troubled with It's hideous
+presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a
+ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.
+
+Never have I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
+spirits as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was
+delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in
+her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings'
+house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla
+road as of old.
+
+I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my
+assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too
+slow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness.
+"Why, Jack!" she cried at last, "you are behaving like a child! What are
+you doing?"
+
+We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making
+my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop
+of my riding-whip.
+
+"Doing," I answered, "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing
+nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I.
+
+          'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth,
+             Joying to feel yourself alive;
+           Lord over nature, Lord of the visible Earth,
+             Lord of the senses five.'"
+
+My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner
+above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to
+Sanjowlie. In the center of the level road stood the black and white
+liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Keith-Wessington.
+I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe, must have said
+something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on
+the road, with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.
+
+"Has it gone, child?" I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.
+
+"Has what gone? Jack dear: what does it all mean? There must be a
+mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake." Her last words brought me
+to my feet--mad--raving for the time being.
+
+"Yes, there _is_ a mistake somewhere." I repeated, "a hideous mistake.
+Come and look at It!"
+
+I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the
+road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to
+it; to tell It that we were betrothed! that neither Death nor Hell could
+break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the same
+effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the
+'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from a
+torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told
+Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen
+intently with white face and blazing eyes.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's _quite_ enough. Bring my
+horse."
+
+The grooms, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the
+recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of
+the bridle entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the
+cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or
+two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and
+judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side of
+the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the
+riding-whip had raised a livid blue weal on it. I had no self-respect.
+Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a
+distance, cantered up.
+
+"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's
+signature to my order of dismissal and . . . I'll thank you for that
+lakh as soon as convenient."
+
+Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laugh.
+
+"I'll stake my professional reputation"--he began. "Don't be a fool,"
+I whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and you'd better take me
+home."
+
+As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was
+passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a
+cloud and fall in upon me.
+
+Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that
+I was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh
+was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing table.
+His first words were not very encouraging; but I was too far spent to
+be much moved by them.
+
+"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good
+deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and a
+cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the
+liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with
+you."
+
+"And Kitty?" I asked dully.
+
+"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token
+you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just
+before I met you. Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as
+you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for
+his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. Will have it too
+that you were suffering from _D.T._ when that row on the Jakko road
+turned up. Says she'll die before she ever speaks to you again."
+
+I groaned and turned over on the other side.
+
+"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken
+off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken
+through _D.T._ or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better
+exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll
+tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies'
+Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it."
+
+During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the
+lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on
+earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering
+through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair.
+I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which
+dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering
+in a voice that I hardly recognized:
+
+"They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give 'em
+fits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer."
+
+Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven
+I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past
+month.
+
+"But I am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in
+Simla, and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to
+pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did
+her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd
+never have come back on purpose to kill _her_. Why can't I be left
+alone--left alone and happy?"
+
+It was high noon when I first awoke: and the sun was low in the sky
+before I slept--slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too
+worn to feel further pain.
+
+Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning
+that he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to
+his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had
+traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all
+sides much pitied.
+
+"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded pleasantly,
+"though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill.
+Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon."
+
+I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already,
+old man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further."
+
+In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the
+burden that had been laid upon me.
+
+With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion
+against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no
+better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another
+world and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone
+should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in
+time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were
+the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that
+Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all
+ghosts and the great, gray hills themselves but vain shadows devised to
+torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backwards and forwards for seven
+weary days, my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the
+bed-room looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and
+was as other men once more. Curiously enough, my face showed no signs
+of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as
+expressionless and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent
+alteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away.
+I found nothing.
+
+On the 15th of May I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the
+morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There
+I found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in
+clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized
+that for the rest of my natural life I should be among, but not of, my
+fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on the
+Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered
+aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to the
+Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs.
+Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since
+I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw
+and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to
+the bazaar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any
+sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay
+me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had
+served for an excuse.
+
+So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept
+round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines
+dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of
+fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself
+almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla--_at Simla!_ Everyday,
+ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that--I mustn't forget that." Then I
+would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club; the
+prices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related to the
+work-a-day Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the
+multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was
+not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have
+prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.
+
+Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level
+road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left
+alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your
+hood and tell me what it all means?" The hood dropped noiselessly and
+I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing
+the dress in which I had last seen her alive: carried the same tiny
+handkerchief in her right hand; and the same card-case in her left. (A
+woman eight months dead with a card-case!) I had to pin myself down to
+the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of
+the road to assure myself that that at least was real.
+
+"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means." Mrs.
+Wessington leant forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used
+to know so well, and spoke.
+
+If my story had not already so madly overleaped the bounds of all human
+belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, not
+even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of my
+conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I
+walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the
+Commander-in-Chief's house as I might walk by the side of any living
+woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting
+of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the
+prince in Tennyson's poem, "I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts."
+There had been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief's, and we two
+joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed
+that _they_ were the shadows--impalpable fantastic shadows--that divided
+for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said during the
+course of that weird interview I cannot--indeed, I dare not--tell.
+Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I
+had been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera." It was a ghastly and
+yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be
+possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the
+woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?
+
+I met Kitty on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows.
+
+If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their
+order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would be
+exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly
+'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went,
+there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company
+to and from my hotel. At the theater I found them amid the crowd of
+yelling _jhampanies_; outside the club veranda, after a long evening of
+whist; at the birthday ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and
+in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the
+'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and
+iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning
+some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have
+walked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the
+unspeakable amazement of the passers-by.
+
+Before I had been out and about a week I learnt that the "fit" theory
+had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my
+mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a
+passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I
+hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I felt
+vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly
+companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods
+from the 15th of May up to to-day.
+
+The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind
+fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave
+Simla; and I knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover,
+that it was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only
+anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately
+I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations
+with my successor--to speak more accurately, my successors--with amused
+interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day
+I wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored
+Heaven to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all
+these varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the
+seen and the unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound
+one poor soul to its grave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_August 27th._--Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on
+me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application
+for sick-leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A
+request that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of
+five ghosts and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England! Heatherlegh's
+proposition moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that
+I should await the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is
+not far off. Believe me that I dread its advent more than any word can
+say; and I torture myself nightly with a thousand speculations as to
+the manner of my death.
+
+Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentlemen should die;
+or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to
+take its place for ever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm?
+Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall
+I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity?
+Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of time? As
+the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living
+flesh feels towards escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and
+more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with
+scarcely one half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more
+awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable
+terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion," for I know you
+will never believe what I have written here. Yet as surely as ever a man
+was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man.
+
+In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by
+man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is
+even now upon me.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIVAL GHOSTS
+
+BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
+
+
+The good ship sped on her way across the calm Atlantic. It was an
+outward passage, according to the little charts which the company had
+charily distributed, but most of the passengers were homeward bound,
+after a summer of rest and recreation, and they were counting the days
+before they might hope to see Fire Island Light. On the lee side of the
+boat, comfortably sheltered from the wind, and just by the door of the
+captain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat a little group of
+returning Americans. The Duchess (she was down on the purser's list as
+Mrs. Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess of
+Washington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough to
+vote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of two
+sisters she was still the baby of the family)--the Duchess and Baby Van
+Rensselaer were discussing the pleasant English voice and the not
+unpleasant English accent of a manly young lordling who was going to
+America for sport. Uncle Larry and Dear Jones were enticing each other
+into a bet on the ship's run of the morrow.
+
+"I'll give you two to one she don't make 420," said Dear Jones.
+
+"I'll take it," answered Uncle Larry. "We made 427 the fifth day last
+year." It was Uncle Larry's seventeenth visit to Europe, and this was
+therefore his thirty-fourth voyage.
+
+"And when did you get in?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I don't care a
+bit about the run, so long as we get in soon."
+
+"We crossed the bar Sunday night, just seven days after we left
+Queenstown, and we dropped anchor off Quarantine at three o'clock on
+Monday morning."
+
+"I hope we shan't do that this time. I can't seem to sleep any when the
+boat stops."
+
+"I can; but I didn't," continued Uncle Larry; "because my state-room was
+the most for'ard in the boat, and the donkey-engine that let down the
+anchor was right over my head."
+
+"So you got up and saw the sunrise over the bay," said Dear Jones, "with
+the electric lights of the city twinkling in the distance, and the first
+faint flush of the dawn in the east just over Fort Lafayette, and the
+rosy tinge which spread softly upward, and----"
+
+"Did you both come back together?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"Because he has crossed thirty-four times you must not suppose that he
+has a monopoly in sunrises," retorted Dear Jones. "No, this was my own
+sunrise; and a mighty pretty one it was, too."
+
+"I'm not matching sunrises with you," remarked Uncle Larry, calmly; "but
+I'm willing to back a merry jest called forth by my sunrise against any
+two merry jests called forth by yours."
+
+"I confess reluctantly that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all."
+Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on
+the spur of the moment.
+
+"That's where my sunrise has the call," said Uncle Larry, complacently.
+
+"What was the merry jest?" was Baby Van Rensselaer's inquiry, the
+natural result of a feminine curiosity thus artistically excited.
+
+"Well, here it is. I was standing aft, near a patriotic American and a
+wandering Irishman, and the patriotic American rashly declared that you
+couldn't see a sunrise like that anywhere in Europe, and this gave the
+Irishman his chance, and he said, 'Sure ye don't have 'em here till
+we're through with 'em over there.'"
+
+"It is true," said Dear Jones, thoughtfully, "that they do have some
+things over there better than we do; for instance, umbrellas."
+
+"And gowns," added the Duchess.
+
+"And antiquities,"--this was Uncle Larry's contribution.
+
+"And we do have some things so much better in America!" protested Baby
+Van Rensselaer, as yet uncorrupted by any worship of the effete
+monarchies of despotic Europe. "We make lots of things a great deal
+nicer than you can get them in Europe--especially ice-cream."
+
+"And pretty girls," added Dear Jones; but he did not look at her.
+
+"And spooks," remarked Uncle Larry casually.
+
+"Spooks?" queried the Duchess.
+
+"Spooks. I maintain the word. Ghosts, if you like that better, or
+specters. We turn out the best quality of spook----"
+
+"You forget the lovely ghost stories about the Rhine, and the Black
+Forest," interrupted Miss Van Rensselaer, with feminine inconsistency.
+
+"I remember the Rhine and the Black Forest and all the other haunts of
+elves and fairies and hobgoblins; but for good honest spooks there is no
+place like home. And what differentiates our spook--_Spiritus
+Americanus_--from the ordinary ghost of literature is that it responds
+to the American sense of humor. Take Irving's stories for example. _The
+Headless Horseman_, that's a comic ghost story. And Rip Van
+Winkle--consider what humor, and what good-humor, there is in the
+telling of his meeting with the goblin crew of Hendrik Hudson's men! A
+still better example of this American way of dealing with legend and
+mystery is the marvelous tale of the rival ghosts."
+
+"The rival ghosts?" queried the Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaer
+together. "Who were they?"
+
+"Didn't I ever tell you about them?" answered Uncle Larry, a gleam of
+approaching joy flashing from his eye.
+
+"Since he is bound to tell us sooner or later, we'd better be resigned
+and hear it now," said Dear Jones.
+
+"If you are not more eager, I won't tell it at all."
+
+"Oh, do, Uncle Larry; you know I just dote on ghost stories," pleaded
+Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"Once upon a time," began Uncle Larry--"in fact, a very few years
+ago--there lived in the thriving town of New York a young American
+called Duncan--Eliphalet Duncan. Like his name, he was half Yankee and
+half Scotch, and naturally he was a lawyer, and had come to New York to
+make his way. His father was a Scotchman, who had come over and settled
+in Boston, and married a Salem girl. When Eliphalet Duncan was about
+twenty he lost both of his parents. His father left him with enough
+money to give him a start, and a strong feeling of pride in his Scotch
+birth; you see there was a title in the family in Scotland, and although
+Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger son, yet he always
+remembered, and always bade his only son to remember, that his ancestry
+was noble. His mother left him her full share of Yankee grit, and a
+little house in Salem which has belonged to her family for more than two
+hundred years. She was a Hitchcock, and the Hitchcocks had been settled
+in Salem since the year 1. It was a great-great-grandfather of Mr.
+Eliphalet Hitchcock who was foremost in the time of the Salem witchcraft
+craze. And this little old house which she left to my friend Eliphalet
+Duncan was haunted.
+
+"By the ghost of one of the witches, of course," interrupted Dear Jones.
+
+"Now how could it be the ghost of a witch, since the witches were all
+burned at the stake? You never heard of anybody who was burned having a
+ghost, did you?"
+
+"That's an argument in favor of cremation, at any rate," replied Jones,
+evading the direct question.
+
+"It is, if you don't like ghosts; I do," said Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"And so do I," added Uncle Larry. "I love a ghost as dearly as an
+Englishman loves a lord."
+
+"Go on with your story," said the Duchess, majestically overruling all
+extraneous discussion.
+
+"This little old house at Salem was haunted," resumed Uncle Larry. "And
+by a very distinguished ghost--or at least by a ghost with very
+remarkable attributes."
+
+"What was he like?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a premonitory shiver
+of anticipatory delight.
+
+"It had a lot of peculiarities. In the first place, it never appeared to
+the master of the house. Mostly it confined its visitations to unwelcome
+guests. In the course of the last hundred years it had frightened away
+four successive mothers-in-law, while never intruding on the head of the
+household."
+
+"I guess that ghost had been one of the boys when he was alive and in
+the flesh." This was Dear Jones's contribution to the telling of the
+tale.
+
+"In the second place," continued Uncle Larry, "it never frightened
+anybody the first time it appeared. Only on the second visit were the
+ghost-seers scared; but then they were scared enough for twice, and they
+rarely mustered up courage enough to risk a third interview. One of the
+most curious characteristics of this well-meaning spook was that it had
+no face--or at least that nobody ever saw its face."
+
+"Perhaps he kept his countenance veiled?" queried the Duchess, who was
+beginning to remember that she never did like ghost stories.
+
+"That was what I was never able to find out. I have asked several people
+who saw the ghost, and none of them could tell me anything about its
+face, and yet while in its presence they never noticed its features, and
+never remarked on their absence or concealment. It was only afterward
+when they tried to recall calmly all the circumstances of meeting with
+the mysterious stranger, that they became aware that they had not seen
+its face. And they could not say whether the features were covered, or
+whether they were wanting, or what the trouble was. They knew only that
+the face was never seen. And no matter how often they might see it, they
+never fathomed this mystery. To this day nobody knows whether the ghost
+which used to haunt the little old house in Salem had a face, or what
+manner of face it had."
+
+"How awfully weird!" said Baby Van Rensselaer. "And why did the ghost go
+away?"
+
+"I haven't said it went away," answered Uncle Larry, with much dignity.
+
+"But you said it _used_ to haunt the little old house at Salem, so I
+supposed it had moved. Didn't it?"
+
+"You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet Duncan used to spend most of
+his summer vacations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered him at all,
+for he was the master of the house--much to his disgust, too, because
+he wanted to see for himself the mysterious tenant at will of his
+property. But he never saw it, never. He arranged with friends to call
+him whenever it might appear, and he slept in the next room with the
+door open; and yet when their frightened cries waked him the ghost was
+gone, and his only reward was to hear reproachful sighs as soon as he
+went back to bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not fair of
+Eliphalet to seek an introduction which was plainly unwelcome."
+
+Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by getting up and tucking a
+heavy rug snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the sky was now
+overcast and gray, and the air was damp and penetrating.
+
+"One fine spring morning," pursued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet Duncan
+received great news. I told you that there was a title in the family in
+Scotland, and that Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger
+son. Well, it happened that all Eliphalet's father's brothers and uncles
+had died off without male issue except the eldest son of the eldest, and
+he, of course, bore the title, and was Baron Duncan of Duncan. Now the
+great news that Eliphalet Duncan received in New York one fine spring
+morning was that Baron Duncan and his only son had been yachting in the
+Hebrides, and they had been caught in a black squall, and they were both
+dead. So my friend Eliphalet Duncan inherited the title and the
+estates."
+
+"How romantic!" said the Duchess. "So he was a baron!"
+
+"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he was a baron if he chose. But he didn't
+choose."
+
+"More fool he," said Dear Jones sententiously.
+
+"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "I'm not so sure of that. You see,
+Eliphalet Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyes to
+the main chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck until he
+could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the
+Scotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the late
+Lord Duncan, having married money, kept up such state as he could out of
+the revenues of the dowry of Lady Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decided
+that he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in New York, living
+comfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland, living
+scantily on his title."
+
+"But he kept his title?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he kept it quiet. I knew it, and a friend
+or two more. But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put Baron Duncan of
+Duncan, Attorney and Counselor at Law, on his shingle."
+
+"What has all this got to do with your ghost?" asked Dear Jones
+pertinently.
+
+"Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal with another ghost. Eliphalet
+was very learned in spirit lore--perhaps because he owned the haunted
+house at Salem, perhaps because he was a Scotchman by descent. At all
+events, he had made a special study of the wraiths and white ladies and
+banshees and bogies of all kinds whose sayings and doings and warnings
+are recorded in the annals of the Scottish nobility. In fact, he was
+acquainted with the habits of every reputable spook in the Scotch
+peerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan ghost attached to the
+person of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of Duncan."
+
+"So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also a
+haunted man in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem ghost,
+although it had one peculiarity in common with its trans-Atlantic
+fellow-spook. It never appeared to the holder of the title, just as the
+other never was visible to the owner of the house. In fact, the Duncan
+ghost was never seen at all. It was a guardian angel only. Its sole duty
+was to be in personal attendance on Baron Duncan of Duncan, and to warn
+him of impending evil. The traditions of the house told that the Barons
+of Duncan had again and again felt a premonition of ill fortune. Some of
+them had yielded and withdrawn from the venture they had undertaken, and
+it had failed dismally. Some had been obstinate, and had hardened their
+hearts, and had gone on reckless of defeat and to death. In no case had
+a Lord Duncan been exposed to peril without fair warning."
+
+"Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off the
+Hebrides?" asked Dear Jones.
+
+"Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There is
+extant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes
+before he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he has
+had to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up the trip.
+Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, the latter would
+have been spared a journey across the Atlantic."
+
+"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron
+died?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.
+
+"How did he come over," queried Dear Jones--"in the steerage, or as a
+cabin passenger?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Uncle Larry calmly, "and Eliphalet, he didn't
+know. For as he was in no danger, and stood in no need of warning, he
+couldn't tell whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was on
+the watch for it all the time. But he never got any proof of its
+presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, just
+before the Fourth of July. He took a friend down with him--a young
+fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was
+fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little
+unpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten
+years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn't likely to be
+much frightened by a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on
+the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military
+law. A little after twelve o'clock, just as they began to think it was
+about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house.
+It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a
+name to. It was an undeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of
+sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at
+Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet
+knew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died
+away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its
+intensity. Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he
+felt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraith
+of the Duncans."
+
+"Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?"
+inquired the Duchess anxiously.
+
+"Both of them were there," answered Uncle Larry. "You see, one of them
+belonged to the house, and had to be there all the time, and the other
+was attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow him there;
+wherever he was there was the ghost also. But Eliphalet, he had scarcely
+time to think this out when he heard both sounds again, not one after
+another, but both together, and something told him--some sort of an
+instinct he had--that those two ghosts didn't agree, didn't get on
+together, didn't exactly hit it off; in fact, that they were
+quarreling."
+
+"Quarreling ghosts! Well, I never!" was Baby Van Rensselaer's remark.
+
+"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity," said Dear
+Jones.
+
+And the Duchess added, "It would certainly be setting a better example."
+
+"You know," resumed Uncle Larry, "that two waves of light or of sound
+may interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these
+rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or
+darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went
+into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic
+manifestations, a regular dark séance. A tambourine was played upon, a
+bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room."
+
+"Where did they get the banjo?" asked Dear Jones skeptically.
+
+"I don't know. Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine.
+You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical
+instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on
+the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do
+you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on
+harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines.
+These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all the modern
+improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own
+musical weapons. At all events, they had them there in the little old
+house at Salem the night Eliphalet and his friend came down. And they
+played on them, and they rang the bell, and they rapped here, there, and
+everywhere. And they kept it up all night."
+
+"All night?" asked the awe-stricken Duchess.
+
+"All night long," said Uncle Larry solemnly; "and the next night, too.
+Eliphalet did not get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On the
+second night the house ghost was seen by the officer; on the third night
+it showed itself again; and the next morning the officer packed his
+grip-sack and took the first train to Boston. He was a New Yorker, but
+he said he'd sooner go to Boston than see that ghost again. Eliphalet,
+he wasn't scared at all, partly because he never saw either the
+domiciliary or the titular spook, and partly because he felt himself on
+friendly terms with the spirit world, and didn't scare easily. But after
+losing three nights' sleep and the society of his friend, he began to be
+a little impatient, and to think that the thing had gone far enough. You
+see, while in a way he was fond of ghosts, yet he liked them best one at
+a time. Two ghosts were one too many. He wasn't bent on making a
+collection of spooks. He and one ghost were company, but he and two
+ghosts were a crowd."
+
+"What did he do?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"Well, he couldn't do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would get
+tired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spook
+to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they
+wouldn't let him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling and quarreling
+incessantly; they manifested and they dark-séanced as regularly as the
+old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bells
+and they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo about
+the house, and worse than all, they swore."
+
+"I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language," said the
+Duchess.
+
+"How did he know they were swearing? Could he hear them?" asked Dear
+Jones.
+
+"That was just it," responded Uncle Larry; "he could not hear them--at
+least not distinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and stifled
+rumblings. But the impression produced on him was that they were
+swearing. If they had only sworn right out, he would not have minded it
+so much, because he would have known the worst. But the feeling that the
+air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing and after standing
+it for a week, he gave up in disgust and went to the White Mountains."
+
+"Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose," interjected Baby Van
+Rensselaer.
+
+"Not at all," explained Uncle Larry. "They could not quarrel unless he
+was present. You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him,
+and the domiciliary ghost could not leave the house. When he went away
+he took the family ghost with him, leaving the house ghost behind. Now
+spooks can't quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more than
+men can."
+
+"And what happened afterward?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty
+impatience.
+
+"A most marvelous thing happened. Eliphalet Duncan went to the White
+Mountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of Mount
+Washington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and this
+classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a
+remarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first sight,
+and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was so deep in
+love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and to wonder
+whether she might ever be induced to care for him a little--ever so
+little."
+
+"I don't think that is so marvelous a thing," said Dear Jones glancing
+at Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"Who was she?" asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia.
+
+"She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter of
+old Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley and Sutton."
+
+"A very respectable family," assented the Duchess.
+
+"I hope she wasn't a daughter of that loud and vulgar old Mrs. Sutton
+whom I met at Saratoga, one summer, four or five years ago?" said Dear
+Jones.
+
+"Probably she was."
+
+"She was a horrid old woman. The boys used to call her Mother Gorgon."
+
+"The pretty Kitty Sutton with whom Eliphalet Duncan had fallen in love
+was the daughter of Mother Gorgon. But he never saw the mother, who was
+in 'Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fe, or somewhere out West, and he
+saw a great deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains. She
+was traveling with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyed from
+hotel to hotel, Duncan went with them, and filled out the quartette.
+Before the end of the summer he began to think about proposing. Of
+course he had lots of chances, going on excursions as they were every
+day. He made up his mind to seize the first opportunity, and that very
+evening he took her out for a moonlight row on Lake Winnipiseogee. As he
+handed her into the boat he resolved to do it, and he had a glimmer of a
+suspicion that she knew he was going to do it, too."
+
+"Girls," said Dear Jones, "never go out in a rowboat at night with a
+young man unless you mean to accept him."
+
+"Sometimes it's best to refuse him, and get it over once for all," said
+Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shake it
+off, but in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness of impending
+evil. Before he had taken ten strokes--and he was a swift oarsman--he
+was aware of a mysterious presence between him and Miss Sutton."
+
+"Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning him off the match?" interrupted
+Dear Jones.
+
+"That's just what it was," said Uncle Larry. "And he yielded to it, and
+kept his peace, and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with his
+proposal unspoken."
+
+"More fool he," said Dear Jones. "It will take more than one ghost to
+keep me from proposing when my mind is made up." And he looked at Baby
+Van Rensselaer.
+
+"The next morning," continued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet overslept
+himself, and when he went down to a late breakfast he found that the
+Suttons had gone to New York by the morning train. He wanted to follow
+them at once, and again he felt the mysterious presence overpowering his
+will. He struggled two days, and at last he roused himself to do what he
+wanted in spite of the spook. When he arrived in New York it was late in
+the evening. He dressed himself hastily and went to the hotel where the
+Suttons put up, in the hope of seeing at least her brother. The guardian
+angel fought every inch of the walk with him, until he began to wonder
+whether, if Miss Sutton were to take him, the spook would forbid the
+banns. At the hotel he saw no one that night, and he went home
+determined to call as early as he could the next afternoon, and make an
+end of it. When he left his office about two o'clock the next day to
+learn his fate, he had not walked five blocks before he discovered that
+the wraith of the Duncans had withdrawn his opposition to the suit.
+There was no feeling of impending evil, no resistance, no struggle, no
+consciousness of an opposing presence. Eliphalet was greatly encouraged.
+He walked briskly to the hotel; he found Miss Sutton alone. He asked her
+the question, and got his answer."
+
+"She accepted him, of course," said Baby Van Rensselaer.
+
+"Of course," said Uncle Larry. "And while they were in the first flush
+of joy, swapping confidences and confessions, her brother came into the
+parlor with an expression of pain on his face and a telegram in his
+hand. The former was caused by the latter, which was from 'Frisco, and
+which announced the sudden death of Mrs. Sutton, their mother."
+
+"And that was why the ghost no longer opposed the match?" questioned
+Dear Jones.
+
+"Exactly. You see, the family ghost knew that Mother Gorgon was an awful
+obstacle to Duncan's happiness, so it warned him. But the moment the
+obstacle was removed, it gave its consent at once."
+
+The fog was lowering its thick damp curtain, and it was beginning to be
+difficult to see from one end of the boat to the other. Dear Jones
+tightened the rug which enwrapped Baby Van Rensselaer, and then withdrew
+again into his own substantial coverings.
+
+Uncle Larry paused in his story long enough to light another of the tiny
+cigars he always smoked.
+
+"I infer that Lord Duncan"--the Duchess was scrupulous in the bestowal
+of titles--"saw no more of the ghosts after he was married."
+
+"He never saw them at all, at any time, either before or since. But they
+came very near breaking off the match, and thus breaking two young
+hearts."
+
+"You don't mean to say that they knew any just cause or impediment why
+they should not forever after hold their peace?" asked Dear Jones.
+
+"How could a ghost, or even two ghosts, keep a girl from marrying the
+man she loved?" This was Baby Van Rensselaer's question.
+
+"It seems curious, doesn't it?" and Uncle Larry tried to warm himself by
+two or three sharp pulls at his fiery little cigar. "And the
+circumstances are quite as curious as the fact itself. You see, Miss
+Sutton wouldn't be married for a year after her mother's death, so she
+and Duncan had lots of time to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet,
+he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and
+Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about the
+title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her
+the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the
+summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September,
+she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted
+to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend her honeymoon in
+peace and quiet, with nothing to do and nobody to bother them. Well,
+Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion. It suited him down to the ground.
+All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knocked him all of a
+heap. He had told her about the Duncan Banshee, and the idea of having
+an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her husband tickled her
+immensely. But he had never said anything about the ghost which haunted
+the little old house at Salem. He knew she would be frightened out of
+her wits if the house ghost revealed itself to her, and he saw at once
+that it would be impossible to go to Salem on their wedding trip. So he
+told her all about it, and how whenever he went to Salem the two ghosts
+interfered, and gave dark séances and manifested and materialized and
+made the place absolutely impossible. Kitty, she listened in silence,
+and Eliphalet, he thought she had changed her mind. But she hadn't done
+anything of the kind."
+
+"Just like a man--to think she was going to," remarked Baby Van
+Rensselaer.
+
+"She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would not
+marry a man who was afraid of them."
+
+"Just like a girl--to be so inconsistent," remarked Dear Jones.
+
+Uncle Larry's tiny cigar had long been extinct. He lighted a new one,
+and continued: "Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her mind was
+made up. She was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little old
+house at Salem, and she was equally determined not to go there as long
+as there were any ghosts there. Until he could assure her that the
+spectral tenants had received notice to quit, and that there was no
+danger of manifestations and materializing, she refused to be married at
+all. She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by two
+wrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had made
+ready the house for her."
+
+"She was an unreasonable young woman," said the Duchess.
+
+"Well, that's what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her.
+And he believed he could talk her out of her determination. But he
+couldn't. She was set. And when a girl is set, there's nothing to do but
+yield to the inevitable. And that's just what Eliphalet did. He saw he
+would either have to give her up or to get the ghosts out; and as he
+loved her and did not care for the ghosts, he resolved to tackle the
+ghosts. He had clear grit, Eliphalet had--he was half Scotch and half
+Yankee, and neither breed turns tail in a hurry. So he made his plans
+and he went down to Salem. As he said good-by to Kitty he had an
+impression that she was sorry she had made him go, but she kept up
+bravely, and put a bold face on it, and saw him off, and went home and
+cried for an hour, and was perfectly miserable until he came back the
+next day."
+
+"Did he succeed in driving the ghosts away?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer,
+with great interest.
+
+"That's just what I'm coming to," said Uncle Larry, pausing at the
+critical moment, in the manner of the trained story teller. "You see,
+Eliphalet had got a rather tough job, and he would gladly have had an
+extension of time on the contract, but he had to choose between the girl
+and the ghosts, and he wanted the girl. He tried to invent or remember
+some short and easy way with ghosts, but he couldn't. He wished that
+somebody had invented a specific for spooks--something that would make
+the ghosts come out of the house and die in the yard. He wondered if he
+could not tempt the ghosts to run in debt, so that he might get the
+sheriff to help him. He wondered also whether the ghosts could not be
+overcome with strong drink--a dissipated spook, a spook with delirium
+tremens, might be committed to the inebriate asylum. But none of these
+things seemed feasible."
+
+"What did he do?" interrupted Dear Jones. "The learned counsel will
+please speak to the point."
+
+"You will regret this unseemly haste," said Uncle Larry, gravely, "when
+you know what really happened."
+
+"What was it, Uncle Larry?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I'm all
+impatience."
+
+And Uncle Larry proceeded:
+
+"Eliphalet went down to the little old house at Salem, and as soon as
+the clock struck twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as before. Raps
+here, there, and everywhere, ringing bells, banging tambourines,
+strumming banjos sailing about the room, and all the other
+manifestations and materializations followed one another just as they
+had the summer before. The only difference Eliphalet could detect was a
+stronger flavor in the spectral profanity; and this, of course, was only
+a vague impression, for he did not actually hear a single word. He
+waited awhile in patience, listening and watching. Of course he never
+saw either of the ghosts, because neither of them could appear to him.
+At last he got his dander up, and he thought it was about time to
+interfere, so he rapped on the table, and asked for silence. As soon as
+he felt that the spooks were listening to him he explained the situation
+to them. He told them he was in love, and that he could not marry unless
+they vacated the house. He appealed to them as old friends, and he laid
+claim to their gratitude. The titular ghost had been sheltered by the
+Duncan family for hundreds of years, and the domiciliary ghost had had
+free lodging in the little old house at Salem for nearly two centuries.
+He implored them to settle their differences, and to get him out of his
+difficulty at once. He suggested they'd better fight it out then and
+there, and see who was master. He had brought down with him all needful
+weapons. And he pulled out his valise, and spread on the table a pair of
+navy revolvers, a pair of shot-guns, a pair of dueling swords, and a
+couple of bowie-knives. He offered to serve as second for both parties,
+and to give the word when to begin. He also took out of his valise a
+pack of cards and a bottle of poison, telling them that if they wished
+to avoid carnage they might cut the cards to see which one should take
+the poison. Then he waited anxiously for their reply. For a little space
+there was silence. Then he became conscious of a tremulous shivering in
+one corner of the room, and he remembered that he had heard from that
+direction what sounded like a frightened sigh when he made the first
+suggestion of the duel. Something told him that this was the domiciliary
+ghost, and that it was badly scared. Then he was impressed by a certain
+movement in the opposite corner of the room, as though the titular ghost
+were drawing himself up with offended dignity. Eliphalet couldn't
+exactly see these things, because he never saw the ghosts, but he felt
+them. After a silence of nearly a minute a voice came from the corner
+where the family ghost stood--a voice strong and full, but trembling
+slightly with suppressed passion. And this voice told Eliphalet it was
+plain enough that he had not long been the head of the Duncans, and that
+he had never properly considered the characteristics of his race if now
+he supposed that one of his blood could draw his sword against a woman.
+Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the Duncan ghost should raise
+his hand against a woman and all he wanted was that the Duncan ghost
+should fight the other ghost. And then the voice told Eliphalet that the
+other ghost was a woman."
+
+"What?" said Dear Jones, sitting up suddenly. "You don't mean to tell me
+that the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"
+
+"Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used," said Uncle Larry;
+"but he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalled the
+traditions about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what the
+titular ghost said was the fact. He had never thought of the sex of a
+spook, but there was no doubt whatever that the house ghost was a woman.
+No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet's mind than he saw his way
+out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be married!--for then there would
+be no more interference, no more quarreling, no more manifestations and
+materializations, no more dark séances, with their raps and bells and
+tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts would not hear of it. The
+voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraith had never thought of
+matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, and pleaded and persuaded and
+coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages of matrimony. He had to confess, of
+course, that he did not know how to get a clergyman to marry them; but
+the voice from the corner gravely told him that there need be no
+difficulty in regard to that, as there was no lack of spiritual
+chaplains. Then, for the first time, the house ghost spoke, in a low,
+clear, gentle voice, and with a quaint, old-fashioned New England
+accent, which contrasted sharply with the broad Scotch speech of the
+family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan seemed to have forgotten
+that she was married. But this did not upset Eliphalet at all; he
+remembered the whole case clearly, and he told her she was not a married
+ghost, but a widow, since her husband had been hung for murdering her.
+Then the Duncan ghost drew attention to the great disparity of their
+ages, saying that he was nearly four hundred and fifty years old, while
+she was barely two hundred. But Eliphalet had not talked to juries for
+nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxed those ghosts into matrimony.
+Afterward he came to the conclusion that they were willing to be coaxed,
+but at the time he thought he had pretty hard work to convince them of
+the advantages of the plan."
+
+"Did he succeed?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a young lady's
+interest in matrimony.
+
+"He did," said Uncle Larry. "He talked the wraith of the Duncans and the
+specter of the little old house at Salem into a matrimonial engagement.
+And from the time they were engaged he had no more trouble with them.
+They were rival ghosts no longer. They were married by their spiritual
+chaplain the very same day that Eliphalet Duncan met Kitty Sutton in
+front of the railing of Grace Church. The ghostly bride and bridegroom
+went away at once on their bridal tour, and Lord and Lady Duncan went
+down to the little old house at Salem to pass their honeymoon."
+
+Uncle Larry stopped. His tiny cigar was out again. The tale of the rival
+ghosts was told. A solemn silence fell on the little party on the deck
+of the ocean steamer, broken harshly by the hoarse roar of the
+fog-horn.
+
+
+
+
+THE DAMNED THING
+
+BY AMBROSE BIERCE
+
+
+I
+
+ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS EAT WHAT IS ON THE TABLE
+
+By the light of a tallow candle which had been placed on one end of a
+rough table a man was reading something written in a book. It was an old
+account book, greatly worn; and the writing was not, apparently, very
+legible, for the man sometimes held the page close to the flame of the
+candle to get a stronger light on it. The shadow of the book would then
+throw into obscurity a half of the room, darkening a number of faces and
+figures; for besides the reader, eight other men were present. Seven of
+them sat against the rough log walls, silent, motionless, and the room
+being small, not very far from the table. By extending an arm any one of
+them could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table, face
+upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides. He was dead.
+
+The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke; all
+seemed to be waiting for something to occur; the dead man only was
+without expectation. From the blank darkness outside came in, through
+the aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of
+night in the wilderness--the long nameless note of a distant coyote; the
+stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of
+night birds, so different from those of the birds of day; the drone of
+great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds
+that seem always to have been but half heard when they have suddenly
+ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all this was
+noted in that company; its members were not overmuch addicted to idle
+interest in matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in
+every line of their rugged faces--obvious even in the dim light of the
+single candle. They were evidently men of the vicinity--farmers and
+woodsmen.
+
+The person reading was a trifle different; one would have said of him
+that he was of the world, worldly, albeit there was that in his attire
+which attested a certain fellowship with the organisms of his
+environment. His coat would hardly have passed muster in San Francisco;
+his foot-gear was not of urban origin, and the hat that lay by him on
+the floor (he was the only one uncovered) was such that if one had
+considered it as an article of mere personal adornment he would have
+missed its meaning. In countenance the man was rather prepossessing,
+with just a hint of sternness; though that he may have assumed or
+cultivated, as appropriate to one in authority. For he was a coroner. It
+was by virtue of his office that he had possession of the book in which
+he was reading; it had been found among the dead man's effects--in his
+cabin, where the inquest was now taking place.
+
+When the coroner had finished reading he put the book into his breast
+pocket. At that moment the door was pushed open and a young man entered.
+He, clearly, was not of mountain birth and breeding: he was clad as
+those who dwell in cities. His clothing was dusty, however, as from
+travel. He had, in fact, been riding hard to attend the inquest.
+
+The coroner nodded; no one else greeted him.
+
+"We have waited for you," said the coroner. "It is necessary to have
+done with this business to-night."
+
+The young man smiled. "I am sorry to have kept you," he said. "I went
+away, not to evade your summons, but to post to my newspaper an account
+of what I suppose I am called back to relate."
+
+The coroner smiled.
+
+"The account that you posted to your newspaper," he said, "differs,
+probably, from that which you will give here under oath."
+
+"That," replied the other, rather hotly and with a visible flush, "is as
+you please. I used manifold paper and have a copy of what I sent. It
+was not written as news, for it is incredible, but as fiction. It may go
+as a part of my testimony under oath."
+
+"But you say it is incredible."
+
+"That is nothing to you, sir, if I also swear that it is true."
+
+The coroner was silent for a time, his eyes upon the floor. The men
+about the sides of the cabin talked in whispers, but seldom withdrew
+their gaze from the face of the corpse. Presently the coroner lifted his
+eyes and said: "We will resume the inquest."
+
+The men removed their hats. The witness was sworn.
+
+"What is your name?" the coroner asked.
+
+"William Harker."
+
+"Age?"
+
+"Twenty-seven."
+
+"You knew the deceased, Hugh Morgan?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You were with him when he died?"
+
+"Near him."
+
+"How did that happen--your presence, I mean?"
+
+"I was visiting him at this place to shoot and fish. A part of my
+purpose, however, was to study him and his odd, solitary way of life. He
+seemed a good model for a character in fiction. I sometimes write
+stories."
+
+"I sometimes read them."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Stories in general--not yours."
+
+Some of the jurors laughed. Against a somber background humor shows high
+lights. Soldiers in the intervals of battle laugh easily, and a jest in
+the death chamber conquers by surprise.
+
+"Relate the circumstances of this man's death," said the coroner. "You
+may use any notes or memoranda that you please."
+
+The witness understood. Pulling a manuscript from his breast pocket he
+held it near the candle and turning the leaves until he found the
+passage that he wanted began to read.
+
+
+II
+
+WHAT MAY HAPPEN IN A FIELD OF WILD OATS
+
+". . . The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We were looking
+for quail, each with a shotgun, but we had only one dog. Morgan said
+that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and
+we crossed it by a trail through the _chaparral_. On the other side was
+comparatively level ground, thickly covered with wild oats. As we
+emerged from the _chaparral_ Morgan was but a few yards in advance.
+Suddenly we heard, at a little distance to our right and partly in
+front, a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we
+could see were violently agitated.
+
+"'We've started a deer,' I said. 'I wish we had brought a rifle.'
+
+"Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the agitated
+_chaparral_, said nothing, but had cocked both barrels of his gun and
+was holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited,
+which surprised me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness,
+even in moments of sudden and imminent peril.
+
+"'O, come,' I said. 'You are not going to fill up a deer with
+quail-shot, are you?'
+
+"Still he did not reply; but catching a sight of his face as he turned
+it slightly toward me I was struck by the intensity of his look. Then I
+understood that we had serious business in hand and my first conjecture
+was that we had 'jumped' a grizzly. I advanced to Morgan's side, cocking
+my piece as I moved.
+
+"The bushes were now quiet and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as
+attentive to the place as before.
+
+"'What is it? What the devil is it?' I asked.
+
+"'That Damned Thing!' he replied, without turning his head. His voice
+was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly.
+
+"I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the
+place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can
+hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which
+not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not
+rise; and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us.
+
+"Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this
+unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any
+sense of fear. I remember--and tell it here because, singularly enough,
+I recollected it then--that once in looking carelessly out of an open
+window I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a
+group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size
+as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and
+detail seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of
+the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We
+so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any
+seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning
+of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the
+herbage and the slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbances
+were distinctly disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened,
+and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his
+gun to his shoulder and fire both barrels at the agitated grain! Before
+the smoke of the discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage cry--a
+scream like that of a wild animal--and flinging his gun upon the ground
+Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant I
+was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in
+the smoke--some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown against me with
+great force.
+
+"Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to
+have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in
+mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage
+sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I
+struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat;
+and may Heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a
+distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee,
+his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in
+disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side,
+backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the
+hand--at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times,
+as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a
+part of his body; it was as if he had been partly blotted out--I cannot
+otherwise express it--then a shifting of his position would bring it all
+into view again.
+
+"All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time
+Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by
+superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always
+distinctly. During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard,
+as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I
+had never heard from the throat of man or brute!
+
+"For a moment only I stood irresolute, then throwing down my gun I ran
+forward to my friend's assistance. I had a vague belief that he was
+suffering from a fit, or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach
+his side he was down and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but with a
+feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired I now
+saw again the mysterious movement of the wild oats, prolonging itself
+from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a
+wood. It was only when it had reached the wood that I was able to
+withdraw my eyes and look at my companion. He was dead."
+
+
+III
+
+A MAN THOUGH NAKED MAY BE IN RAGS
+
+The coroner rose from his seat and stood beside the dead man. Lifting an
+edge of the sheet he pulled it away, exposing the entire body,
+altogether naked and showing in the candle-light a claylike yellow. It
+had, however, broad maculations of bluish black, obviously caused by
+extravasated blood from contusions. The chest and sides looked as if
+they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful lacerations;
+the skin was torn in strips and shreds.
+
+The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid a silk
+handkerchief which had been passed under the chin and knotted on the top
+of the head. When the handkerchief was drawn away it exposed what had
+been the throat. Some of the jurors who had risen to get a better view
+repented their curiosity and turned away their faces. Witness Harker
+went to the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint and sick.
+Dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man's neck the coroner stepped
+to an angle of the room and from a pile of clothing produced one garment
+after another, each of which he held up a moment for inspection. All
+were torn, and stiff with blood. The jurors did not make a closer
+inspection. They seemed rather uninterested. They had, in truth, seen
+all this before; the only thing that was new to them being Harker's
+testimony.
+
+"Gentlemen," the coroner said, "we have no more evidence, I think. Your
+duty has been already explained to you; if there is nothing you wish to
+ask you may go outside and consider your verdict."
+
+The foreman rose--a tall, bearded man of sixty, coarsely clad.
+
+"I should like to ask one question, Mr. Coroner," he said. "What asylum
+did this yer last witness escape from?"
+
+"Mr. Harker," said the coroner, gravely and tranquilly, "from what
+asylum did you last escape?"
+
+Harker flushed crimson again, but said nothing, and the seven jurors
+rose and solemnly filed out of the cabin.
+
+"If you have done insulting me, sir," said Harker, as soon as he and the
+officer were left alone with the dead man, "I suppose I am at liberty to
+go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the door latch.
+The habit of his profession was strong in him--stronger than his sense
+of personal dignity. He turned about and said:
+
+"The book that you have there--I recognize it as Morgan's diary. You
+seemed greatly interested in it; you read in it while I was testifying.
+May I see it? The public would like----"
+
+"The book will cut no figure in this matter," replied the official,
+slipping it into his coat pocket; "all the entries in it were made
+before the writer's death."
+
+As Harker passed out of the house the jury reėntered and stood about the
+table, on which the now covered corpse showed under the sheet with sharp
+definition. The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced from
+his breast pocket a pencil and scrap of paper and wrote rather
+laboriously the following verdict, which with various degrees of effort
+all signed:
+
+"We, the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands
+of a mountain lion, but some of us thinks, all the same, they had fits."
+
+
+IV
+
+AN EXPLANATION FROM THE TOMB
+
+In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries
+having, possibly, a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest upon
+his body the book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought
+it not worth while to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the
+entries mentioned cannot be ascertained; the upper part of the leaf is
+torn away; the part of the entry remaining follows:
+
+". . . would run in a half-circle, keeping his head turned always toward
+the center, and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last
+he ran away into the brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first
+that he had gone mad, but on returning to the house found no other
+alteration in his manner than what was obviously due to fear of
+punishment.
+
+"Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impress some cerebral center with
+images of the thing that emitted them? . . .
+
+"Sept. 2.--Looking at the stars last night as they rose above the crest
+of the ridge east of the house, I observed them successively
+disappear--from left to right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and
+only a few at the same time, but along the entire length of the ridge
+all that were within a degree or two of the crest were blotted out. It
+was as if something had passed along between me and them; but I could
+not see it, and the stars were not thick enough to define its outline.
+Ugh! I don't like this." . . .
+
+Several weeks' entries are missing, three leaves being torn from the
+book.
+
+"Sept. 27.--It has been about here again--I find evidences of its
+presence every day. I watched again all last night in the same cover,
+gun in hand, double-charged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh
+footprints were there, as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not
+sleep--indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible, insupportable! If
+these amazing experiences are real I shall go mad; if they are fanciful
+I am mad already.
+
+"Oct. 3.--I shall not go--it shall not drive me away. No, this is _my_
+house, _my_ land. God hates a coward. . . .
+
+"Oct. 5.--I can stand it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few
+weeks with me--he has a level head. I can judge from his manner if he
+thinks me mad.
+
+"Oct. 7.--I have the solution of the mystery; it came to me last
+night--suddenly, as by revelation. How simple--how terribly simple!
+
+"There are sounds that we cannot hear. At either end of the scale are
+notes that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear.
+They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds
+occupying an entire tree-top--the tops of several trees--and all in full
+song. Suddenly--in a moment--at absolutely the same instant--all spring
+into the air and fly away. How? They could not all see one
+another--whole tree-tops intervened. At no point could a leader have
+been visible to all. There must have been a signal of warning or
+command, high and shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have
+observed, too, the same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among
+not only blackbirds, but other birds--quail, for example, widely
+separated by bushes--even on opposite sides of a hill.
+
+"It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on
+the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth
+between, will sometimes dive at the same instant--all gone out of sight
+in a moment. The signal has been sounded--too grave for the ear of the
+sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck--who nevertheless
+feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred
+by the bass of the organ.
+
+"As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the
+chemist can detect the presence of what are known as 'actinic' rays.
+They represent colors--integral colors in the composition of
+light--which we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect
+instrument; its range is but a few octaves of the real 'chromatic
+scale.' I am not mad; there are colors that we cannot see.
+
+"And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a color!"
+
+
+
+
+THE INTERVAL[J]
+
+BY VINCENT O'SULLIVAN
+
+From _The Boston Evening Transcript_
+
+
+Mrs. Wilton passed through a little alley leading from one of the gates
+which are around Regent's Park, and came out on the wide and quiet
+street. She walked along slowly, peering anxiously from side to side so
+as not to overlook the number. She pulled her furs closer round her;
+after her years in India this London damp seemed very harsh. Still, it
+was not a fog to-day. A dense haze, gray and tinged ruddy, lay between
+the houses, sometimes blowing with a little wet kiss against the face.
+Mrs. Wilton's hair and eyelashes and her furs were powdered with tiny
+drops. But there was nothing in the weather to blur the sight; she could
+see the faces of people some distance off and read the signs on the
+shops.
+
+Before the door of a dealer in antiques and second-hand furniture she
+paused and looked through the shabby uncleaned window at an unassorted
+heap of things, many of them of great value. She read the Polish name
+fastened on the pane in white letters.
+
+"Yes; this is the place."
+
+She opened the door, which met her entrance with an ill-tempered jangle.
+From somewhere in the black depths of the shop the dealer came forward.
+He had a clammy white face, with a sparse black beard, and wore a skull
+cap and spectacles. Mrs. Wilton spoke to him in a low voice.
+
+A look of complicity, of cunning, perhaps of irony, passed through the
+dealer's cynical and sad eyes. But he bowed gravely and respectfully.
+
+"Yes, she is here, madam. Whether she will see you or not I do not know.
+She is not always well; she has her moods. And then, we have to be so
+careful. The police--Not that they would touch a lady like you. But the
+poor alien has not much chance these days."
+
+Mrs. Wilton followed him to the back of the shop, where there was a
+winding staircase. She knocked over a few things in her passage and
+stooped to pick them up, but the dealer kept muttering, "It does not
+matter--surely it does not matter." He lit a candle.
+
+"You must go up these stairs. They are very dark; be careful. When you
+come to a door, open it and go straight in."
+
+He stood at the foot of the stairs holding the light high above his head
+and she ascended.
+
+The room was not very large, and it seemed very ordinary. There were
+some flimsy, uncomfortable chairs in gilt and red. Two large palms were
+in corners. Under a glass cover on the table was a view of Rome. The
+room had not a business-like look, thought Mrs. Wilton; there was no
+suggestion of the office or waiting-room where people came and went all
+day; yet you would not say that it was a private room which was lived
+in. There were no books or papers about; every chair was in the place it
+had been placed when the room was last swept; there was no fire and it
+was very cold.
+
+To the right of the window was a door covered with a plush curtain. Mrs.
+Wilton sat down near the table and watched this door. She thought it
+must be through it that the soothsayer would come forth. She laid her
+hands listlessly one on top of the other on the table. This must be the
+tenth seer she had consulted since Hugh had been killed. She thought
+them over. No, this must be the eleventh. She had forgotten that
+frightening man in Paris who said he had been a priest. Yet of them all
+it was only he who had told her anything definite. But even he could do
+no more than tell the past. He told of her marriage; he even had the
+duration of it right--twenty-one months. He told too of their time in
+India--at least, he knew that her husband had been a soldier, and said
+he had been on service in the "colonies." On the whole, though, he had
+been as unsatisfactory as the others. None of them had given her the
+consolation she sought. She did not want to be told of the past. If Hugh
+was gone forever, then with him had gone all her love of living, her
+courage, all her better self. She wanted to be lifted out of the
+despair, the dazed aimless drifting from day to day, longing at night
+for the morning, and in the morning for the fall of night, which had
+been her life since his death. If somebody could assure her that it was
+not all over, that he was somewhere, not too far away, unchanged from
+what he had been here, with his crisp hair and rather slow smile and
+lean brown face, that he saw her sometimes, that he had not forgotten
+her. . . .
+
+"Oh, Hugh, darling!"
+
+When she looked up again the woman was sitting there before her. Mrs.
+Wilton had not heard her come in. With her experience, wide enough now,
+of seers and fortune-tellers of all kinds, she saw at once that this
+woman was different from the others. She was used to the quick
+appraising look, the attempts, sometimes clumsy, but often cleverly
+disguised, to collect some fragments of information whereupon to erect a
+plausible vision. But this woman looked as if she took it out of
+herself.
+
+Not that her appearance suggested intercourse with the spiritual world
+more than the others had done; it suggested that, in fact, considerably
+less. Some of the others were frail, yearning, evaporated creatures, and
+the ex-priest in Paris had something terrible and condemned in his look.
+He might well sup with the devil, that man, and probably did in some way
+or other.
+
+But this was a little fat, weary-faced woman about fifty, who only did
+not look like a cook because she looked more like a sempstress. Her
+black dress was all covered with white threads. Mrs. Wilton looked at
+her with some embarrassment. It seemed more reasonable to be asking a
+woman like this about altering a gown than about intercourse with the
+dead. That seemed even absurd in such a very commonplace presence. The
+woman seemed timid and oppressed: she breathed heavily and kept rubbing
+her dingy hands, which looked moist, one over the other; she was always
+wetting her lips, and coughed with a little dry cough. But in her these
+signs of nervous exhaustion suggested overwork in a close atmosphere,
+bending too close over the sewing-machine. Her uninteresting hair, like
+a rat's pelt, was eked out with a false addition of another color. Some
+threads had got into her hair too.
+
+Her harried, uneasy look caused Mrs. Wilton to ask compassionately: "Are
+you much worried by the police?"
+
+"Oh, the police! Why don't they leave us alone? You never know who comes
+to see you. Why don't they leave me alone? I'm a good woman. I only
+think. What I do is no harm to any one." . . .
+
+She continued in an uneven querulous voice, always rubbing her hands
+together nervously. She seemed to the visitor to be talking at random,
+just gabbling, like children do sometimes before they fall asleep.
+
+"I wanted to explain----" hesitated Mrs. Wilton.
+
+But the woman, with her head pressed close against the back of the
+chair, was staring beyond her at the wall. Her face had lost whatever
+little expression it had; it was blank and stupid. When she spoke it was
+very slowly and her voice was guttural.
+
+"Can't you see him? It seems strange to me that you can't see him. He is
+so near you. He is passing his arm round your shoulders."
+
+This was a frequent gesture of Hugh's. And indeed at that moment she
+felt that somebody was very near her, bending over her. She was
+enveloped in tenderness. Only a very thin veil, she felt, prevented her
+from seeing. But the woman saw. She was describing Hugh minutely, even
+the little things like the burn on his right hand.
+
+"Is he happy? Oh, ask him does he love me?"
+
+The result was so far beyond anything she had hoped for that she was
+stunned. She could only stammer the first thing that came into her head.
+"Does he love me?"
+
+"He loves you. He won't answer, but he loves you. He wants me to make
+you see him; he is disappointed, I think, because I can't. But I can't
+unless you do it yourself."
+
+After a while she said:
+
+"I think you will see him again. You think of nothing else. He is very
+close to us now."
+
+Then she collapsed, and fell into a heavy sleep and lay there
+motionless, hardly breathing. Mrs. Wilton put some notes on the table
+and stole out on tip-toe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She seemed to remember that downstairs in the dark shop the dealer with
+the waxen face detained her to show some old silver and jewelry and such
+like. But she did not come to herself, she had no precise recollection
+of anything, till she found herself entering a church near Portland
+Place. It was an unlikely act in her normal moments. Why did she go in
+there? She acted like one walking in her sleep.
+
+The church was old and dim, with high black pews. There was nobody
+there. Mrs. Wilton sat down in one of the pews and bent forward with her
+face in her hands.
+
+After a few minutes she saw that a soldier had come in noiselessly and
+placed himself about half-a-dozen rows ahead of her. He never turned
+round; but presently she was struck by something familiar in the figure.
+First she thought vaguely that the soldier looked like her Hugh. Then,
+when he put up his hand, she saw who it was.
+
+She hurried out of the pew and ran towards him. "Oh, Hugh, Hugh, have
+you come back?"
+
+He looked round with a smile. He had not been killed. It was all a
+mistake. He was going to speak. . . .
+
+Footsteps sounded hollow in the empty church. She turned and glanced
+down the dim aisle.
+
+It was an old sexton or verger who approached. "I thought I heard you
+call," he said.
+
+"I was speaking to my husband." But Hugh was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"He was here a moment ago." She looked about in anguish. "He must have
+gone to the door."
+
+"There's nobody here," said the old man gently. "Only you and me. Ladies
+are often taken funny since the war. There was one in here yesterday
+afternoon said she was married in this church and her husband had
+promised to meet her here. Perhaps you were married here?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Wilton, desolately. "I was married in India."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It might have been two or three days after that, when she went into a
+small Italian restaurant in the Bayswater district. She often went out
+for her meals now: she had developed an exhausting cough, and she found
+that it somehow became less troublesome when she was in a public place
+looking at strange faces. In her flat there were all the things that
+Hugh had used; the trunks and bags still had his name on them with the
+labels of places where they had been together. They were like stabs. In
+the restaurant, people came and went, many soldiers too among them, just
+glancing at her in her corner.
+
+This day, as it chanced, she was rather late and there was nobody there.
+She was very tired. She nibbled at the food they brought her. She could
+almost have cried from tiredness and loneliness and the ache in her
+heart.
+
+Then suddenly he was before her, sitting there opposite at the table. It
+was as it was in the days of their engagement, when they used sometimes
+to lunch at restaurants. He was not in uniform. He smiled at her and
+urged her to eat, just as he used in those days. . . .
+
+I met her that afternoon as she was crossing Kensington Gardens, and she
+told me about it.
+
+"I have been with Hugh." She seemed most happy.
+
+"Did he say anything?"
+
+"N-no. Yes. I think he did, but I could not quite hear. My head was so
+very tired. The next time----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I did not see her for some time after that. She found, I think, that by
+going to places where she had once seen him--the old church, the little
+restaurant--she was more certain to see him again. She never saw him at
+home. But in the street or the park he would often walk along beside
+her. Once he saved her from being run over. She said she actually felt
+his hand grabbing her arm, suddenly, when the car was nearly upon her.
+
+She had given me the address of the clairvoyant; and it is through that
+strange woman that I know--or seem to know--what followed.
+
+Mrs. Wilton was not exactly ill last winter, not so ill, at least, as to
+keep to her bedroom. But she was very thin, and her great handsome eyes
+always seemed to be staring at some point beyond, searching. There was a
+look in them that seamen's eyes sometimes have when they are drawing on
+a coast of which they are not very certain. She lived almost in
+solitude: she hardly ever saw anybody except when they sought her out.
+To those who were anxious about her she laughed and said she was very
+well.
+
+One sunny morning she was lying awake, waiting for the maid to bring her
+tea. The shy London sunlight peeped through the blinds. The room had a
+fresh and happy look.
+
+When she heard the door open she thought that the maid had come in. Then
+she saw that Hugh was standing at the foot of the bed. He was in uniform
+this time, and looked as he had looked the day he went away.
+
+"Oh, Hugh, speak to me! Will you not say just one word?"
+
+He smiled and threw back his head, just as he used to in the old days at
+her mother's house when he wanted to call her out of the room without
+attracting the attention of the others. He moved towards the door, still
+signing to her to follow him. He picked up her slippers on his way and
+held them out to her as if he wanted her to put them on. She slipped out
+of bed hastily. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is strange that when they came to look through her things after her
+death the slippers could never be found.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[J] Copyright, 1917, by The Boston Transcript Co. Copyright, 1918, by
+Vincent O'Sullivan.
+
+
+
+
+"DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS"[K]
+
+BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER
+
+
+Once 'pon a time dey was a li'l' black boy whut he name was Mose. An'
+whin he come erlong to be 'bout knee-high to a mewel, he 'gin to git
+powerful 'fraid ob ghosts, 'ca'se dat am sure a mighty ghostly location
+whut he lib' in, 'ca'se dey's a grabeyard in de hollow, an' a
+buryin'-ground on de hill, an' a cemuntary in betwixt an' between, an'
+dey ain't nuffin' but trees nowhar excipt in de clearin' by de shanty
+an' down de hollow whar de pumpkin-patch am.
+
+An' whin de night come' erlong, dey ain't no sounds _at_ all whut kin be
+heard in dat locality but de rain-doves, whut mourn out,
+"Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" jes dat trembulous _an'_ scary, an' de owls, whut mourn
+out, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" more trembulous an' scary dan dat, an' de
+wind, whut mourn out, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" mos' scandalous' trembulous an'
+scary ob all. Dat a powerful onpleasant locality for a li'l' black boy
+whut he name was Mose.
+
+'Ca'se dat li'l' black boy he so specially black he can't be seen in de
+dark _at_ all 'cept by de whites ob he eyes. So whin he go' outen de
+house _at_ night, he ain't dast shut he eyes, 'ca'se den ain't nobody
+can see him in de least. He jest as invidsible as nuffin'. An' who know'
+but whut a great, big ghost bump right into him 'ca'se it can't see him?
+An' dat shore w'u'd scare dat li'l' black boy powerful' bad, 'ca'se
+yever'body knows whut a cold, damp pussonality a ghost is.
+
+So whin dat li'l' black Mose go' outen de shanty at night, he keep' he
+eyes wide open, you may be shore. By day he eyes 'bout de size ob
+butter-pats, an' come sundown he eyes 'bout de size ob saucers; but whin
+he go' outen de shanty at night, he eyes am de size ob de white chiny
+plate whut set on de mantel; an' it powerful' hard to keep eyes whut am
+de size ob dat from a-winkin' an' a-blinkin'.
+
+So whin Hallowe'en come erlong, dat lil' black Mose he jes mek' up he
+mind he ain't gwine outen he shack _at_ all. He cogitate' he gwine stay
+right snug in de shack wid he pa an' he ma, 'ca'se de rain-doves tek
+notice dat de ghosts are philanderin' roun' de country, 'ca'se dey mourn
+out, "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' de owls dey mourn out, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!"
+and de wind mourn out, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" De eyes ob dat li'l' black
+Mose dey as big as de white chiny plate whut set on de mantel by side de
+clock, an' de sun jes a-settin'.
+
+So dat all right. Li'l' black Mose he scrooge' back in de corner by de
+fireplace, an' he 'low' he gwine stay dere till he gwine _to_ bed. But
+byme-by Sally Ann, whut live' up de road, draps in, an' Mistah Sally
+Ann, whut is her husban', he draps in, an' Zack Badget an' de
+school-teacher whut board' at Unc' Silas Diggs's house drap in, an' a
+powerful lot ob folks drap in. An' li'l' black Mose he seen dat gwine be
+one s'prise-party, an' he right down cheerful 'bout dat.
+
+So all dem folks shake dere hands an' 'low "Howdy," an' some ob dem say:
+"Why, dere 's li'l Mose! Howdy, li'l' Mose?" An' he so please' he jes
+grin' an' grin', 'ca'se he aint reckon whut gwine happen. So byme-by
+Sally Ann, whut live up de road, she say', "Ain't no sort o' Hallowe'en
+lest we got a jack-o'-lantern." An' de school-teacher, whut board at
+Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she 'low', "Hallowe'en jes no Hallowe'en _at_
+all 'thout we got a jack-o'-lantern." An' li'l' black Mose he stop'
+a-grinnin', an' he scrooge' so far back in de corner he 'mos' scrooge
+frough de wall. But dat ain't no use, 'ca'se he ma say', "Mose, go on
+down to de pumpkin-patch an' fotch a pumpkin."
+
+"I ain't want to go," say' li'l' black Mose.
+
+"Go on erlong wid yo'," say' he ma, right commandin'.
+
+"I ain't want to go," say' Mose ag'in.
+
+"Why ain't yo' want to go?" he ma ask'.
+
+"'Case I 's afraid ob de ghosts," say' li'l' black Mose, an' dat de
+particular truth an' no mistake.
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts," say' de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas
+Diggs's house, right peart.
+
+"'Co'se dey ain't no ghosts," say' Zack Badget, whut dat 'fear'd ob
+ghosts he ain't dar' come to li'l' black Mose's house ef de
+school-teacher ain't ercompany him.
+
+"Go 'long wid your ghosts!" say' li'l' black Mose's ma.
+
+"What' yo' pick up dat nomsense?" say' he pa. "Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' dat whut all dat s'prise-party 'low: dey ain't no ghosts. An' dey
+'low dey mus' hab a jack-o'-lantern or de fun all sp'iled. So dat li'l'
+black boy whut he name is Mose he done got to fotch a pumpkin from de
+pumpkin-patch down de hollow. So he step' outen de shanty an' he stan'
+on de door-step twell he get' he eyes pried open as big as de bottom ob
+he ma's wash-tub, mostly, an' he say', "Dey ain't no ghosts." An' he
+put' one foot on de ground, an' dat was de fust step.
+
+An' de rain-dove say', "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!"
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he tuck anudder step.
+
+An' de owl mourn' out, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!"
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he tuck anudder step.
+
+An' de wind sob' out, "You-_you_-o-o-o!"
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he tuck one look ober he shoulder, an' he shut he
+eyes so tight dey hurt round de aidges, an' he pick' up he foots an'
+run. Yas, sah, he run' right peart fast. An' he say': "Dey ain't no
+ghosts. Dey ain't no ghosts." An' he run' erlong de paff whut lead' by
+de buryin'-ground on de hill, 'ca'se dey ain't no fince eround dat
+buryin'-ground _at_ all.
+
+No fince; jes de big trees whut de owls an' de rain-doves sot in an'
+mourn an' sob, an' whut de wind sigh an' cry frough. An' byme-by
+somefin' jes _brush'_ li'l' Mose on de arm, which mek' him run jes a bit
+more faster. An' byme-by somefin' jes _brush'_ li'l' Mose on de cheek,
+which mek' him run erbout as fast as he can. An' byme-by somefin'
+_grab'_ li'l' Mose by de aidge of he coat, an' he fight' an' struggle'
+an' cry' out: "Dey ain't no ghosts. Dey ain't no ghosts." An' dat ain't
+nuffin' but de wild brier whut grab' him, an' dat ain't nuffin' but de
+leaf ob a tree whut brush' he cheek, an' dat ain't nuffin' but de branch
+ob a hazel-bush whut brush he arm. But he downright scared jes de same,
+an' he ain't lose no time, 'ca'se de wind an' de owls an' de rain-doves
+dey signerfy whut ain't no good. So he scoot' past dat buryin'-ground
+whut on de hill, an' dat cemuntary whut betwixt an' between, an' dat
+grabeyard in de hollow, twell he come' to de pumpkin-patch, an' he
+rotch' down an' tek' erhold ob de bestest pumpkin whut in de patch. An'
+he right smart scared. He jes de mostest scared li'l' black boy whut
+yever was. He ain't gwine open he eyes fo' nuffin', 'ca'se de wind go,
+"You-_you_-o-o-o!" an' de owls go, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" an' de
+rain-doves go, "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!"
+
+He jes speculate', "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish' he hair don't stand
+on ind dat way. An' he jes cogitate', "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish'
+he goose-pimples don't rise up dat way. An' he jes 'low', "Dey ain't no
+ghosts," an' wish' he backbone ain't all trembulous wid chills dat way.
+So he rotch' down, an' he rotch' down, twell he git' a good hold on dat
+pricklesome stem of dat bestest pumpkin whut in de patch, an' he jes
+yank' dat stem wid all he might.
+
+"_Let loosen my head!_" say' a big voice all on a suddent.
+
+Dat li'l' black boy whut he name is Mose he jump' 'most outen he skin.
+He open' he eyes, an' he 'gin' to shake like de aspen-tree, 'ca'se whut
+dat a-standin' right dar behint him but a 'mendjous big ghost! Yas, sah,
+dat de bigges', whites' ghost whut yever was. An' it ain't got no head.
+Ain't got no head _at_ all! Li'l' black Mose he jes drap' on he knees
+an' he beg' an' pray':
+
+"Oh, 'scuse me! 'Scuse me, Mistah Ghost!" he beg'. "Ah ain't mean no
+harm _at_ all."
+
+"Whut for you try to take my head?" ask' de ghost in dat fearsome voice
+whut like de damp wind outen de cellar.
+
+"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me!" beg' li'l' Mose. "Ah ain't know dat was yo'
+head, an' I ain't know you was dar _at_ all. 'Scuse me!"
+
+"Ah 'scuse you ef you do me dis favor," say' de ghost. "Ah got somefin'
+powerful _im_portant to say unto you, an' Ah can't say hit 'ca'se Ah
+ain't got no head; an' whin Ah ain't got no head, Ah ain't got no mouf,
+an' whin Ah ain't got no mouf, Ah can't talk _at_ all."
+
+An' dat right logical fo' shore. Can't nobody talk whin he ain't got no
+mouf, an' can't nobody have no mouf whin he ain't got no head, an' whin
+li'l' black Mose he look', he see' dat ghost ain't got no head _at_ all.
+Nary head.
+
+So de ghost say':
+
+"Ah come on down yere fo' to git a pumpkin fo' a head, an' Ah pick' dat
+_ix_act pumpkin whut yo' gwine tek, an' Ah don't like dat one bit. No,
+sah. Ah feel like Ah pick yo' up an' carry yo' away, an' nobody see you
+no more for yever. But Ah got somefin' powerful _im_portant to say unto
+yo', an' if yo' pick up dat pumpkin an' sot in on de place whar my head
+ought to be, Ah let you off dis time, 'ca'se Ah ain't been able to talk
+fo' so long Ah right hongry to say somefin'."
+
+So li'l' black Mose he heft up dat pumpkin, an' de ghost he bend' down,
+an' li'l' black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An' right
+off dat pumpkin head 'gin' to wink an' blink like a jack-o'-lantern, an'
+right off dat pumpkin head 'gin' to glimmer an' glow frough de mouf like
+a jack-o'-lantern, an' right off dat ghost start' to speak. Yas, sah,
+dass so.
+
+"Whut yo' want to say unto me?" _in_quire' li'l' black Mose.
+
+"Ah want to tell yo'," say' de ghost, "dat yo' ain't need yever be
+skeered of ghosts, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' whin he say dat, de ghost jes vanish' away like de smoke in July. He
+ain't even linger round dat locality like de smoke in Yoctober. He jes
+dissipate' outen de air, an' he gone _in_tirely.
+
+So li'l' Mose he grab' up de nex' bestest pumpkin an' he scoot'. An'
+whin he come' to be grabeyard in de hollow, he goin' erlong same as
+yever, on'y faster, whin he reckon' he 'll pick up a club _in_ case he
+gwine have trouble. An' he rotch' down an' rotch' down an' tek' hold of
+a likely appearin' hunk o' wood whut right dar. An' whin he grab' dat
+hunk of wood----
+
+"_Let loosen my leg!_" say' a big voice all on a suddent.
+
+Dat li'l' black boy 'most jump' outen he skin, 'ca'se right dar in de
+paff is six 'mendjus big ghostes, an' de bigges' ain't got but one leg.
+So li'l' black Mose jes natchully handed dat hunk of wood to dat
+bigges' ghost, an' he say':
+
+"'Scuse me, Mistah Ghost; Ah ain't know dis your leg."
+
+An' whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an' confabulate? Yas, sah,
+dass so. An' whin dey do so, one say':
+
+"'Pears like dis a mighty likely li'l' black boy. Whut we gwine do fo'
+to _re_ward him fo' politeness?"
+
+An' anudder say':
+
+"Tell him whut de truth is 'bout ghostes."
+
+So de bigges' ghost he say':
+
+"Ah gwine tell yo' somefin' _im_portant whut yever'body don't know: Dey
+_ain't_ no ghosts."
+
+An' whin he say' dat, de ghostes jes natchully vanish away, an' li'l'
+black Mose he proceed' up de paff. He so scared he hair jes yank' at de
+roots, an' whin de wind go', "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' de owl go',
+"Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" an' de rain-doves go, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" he jes
+tremble' an' shake'. An' byme-by he come' to de cemuntary whut betwixt
+an' between, an' he shore is mighty skeered, 'ca'se dey is a whole
+comp'ny of ghostes lined up along de road, an' he 'low' he ain't gwine
+spind no more time palaverin' wid ghostes. So he step' often de road fo'
+to go round erbout, an' he step' on a pine-stump whut lay right dar.
+
+"_Git offen my chest!_" say' a big voice all on a suddent, 'ca'se dat
+stump am been selected by de captain ob de ghostes for to be he chest,
+'ca'se he ain't got no chest betwixt he shoulders an' he legs. An' li'l'
+black Mose he hop' offen dat stump right peart. Yes, _sah_; right peart.
+
+"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me!" dat li'l' black Mose beg' an' plead, an' de
+ghostes ain't know whuther to eat him all up or not, 'ca'se he step' on
+de boss ghostes's chest dat a-way. But byme-by they 'low they let him go
+'ca'se dat was an accident, an' de captain ghost he say', "Mose, you
+Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, 'ca'se you ain't nuffin' but a
+misabul li'l' tremblin' nigger; but Ah want you should _re_mimimber one
+thing mos' particular'."
+
+"Ya-yas, sah," say' dat li'l' black boy; "Ah'll remimber. Whut is dat Ah
+got to remimber?"
+
+De captain ghost he swell' up, an' he swell' up, twell he as big as a
+house, an' he say' in a voice whut shake' de ground:
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+So li'l' black Mose he bound to remimber dat, an' he rise' up an' mek' a
+bow, an' he proceed' toward home right libely. He do, indeed.
+
+An' he gwine along jes as fast as he kin' whin he come' to de aidge ob
+de buryin'-ground whut on de hill, an' right dar he bound to stop,
+'ca'se de kentry round about am so populate' he ain't able to go frough.
+Yas, sah, seem' like all de ghostes in de world habin' a conferince
+right dar. Seem' like all de ghosteses whut yever was am havin' a
+convintion on dat spot. An' dat li'l' black Mose so skeered he jes fall'
+down on a' old log whut dar an' screech' an' moan'. An' all on a suddent
+de log up and spoke to li'l' Mose:
+
+"_Get offen me! Get offen me!_" yell' dat log.
+
+So li'l' black Mose he git' offen dat log, an' no mistake.
+
+An' soon as he git' offen de log, de log uprise, an' li'l' black Mose he
+see' dat dat log am de king ob all de ghostes. An' whin de king uprise,
+all de congregation crowd round li'l' black Mose, an' dey am about leben
+millium an' a few lift over. Yes, sah; dat de reg'lar annyul Hallowe'en
+convintion whut li'l' black Mose interrup'. Right dar am all de sperits
+in de world, an' all de ha'nts in de world, an' all de hobgoblins in de
+world, an' all de ghouls in de world, an' all de spicters in de world,
+an' all de ghostes in de world. An' whin dey see li'l' black Mose, dey
+all gnash dey teef an' grin' 'ca'se it gettin' erlong toward dey-all's
+lunch-time. So de king, whut he name old Skull-an'-Bones, he step' on
+top ob li'l' Mose's head, an' he say':
+
+"Gin'l'min, de convintion will come to order. De sicretary please note
+who is prisint. De firs' business whut come' before de convintion am:
+whut we gwine do to a li'l' black boy whut stip' on de king an' maul'
+all ober de king an' treat' de king dat disrespictful'."
+
+An' li'l' black Mose jes moan' an' sob':
+
+"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me, Mistah King! Ah ain't mean no harm _at_ all."
+
+But nobody ain't pay no _at_tintion to him _at_ all, 'ca'se yevery one
+lookin' at a monstrous big ha'nt whut name Bloody Bones, whut rose up
+an' spoke.
+
+"Your Honor, Mistah King, an' gin'l'min _an'_ ladies," he say', "dis am
+a right bad case ob _lazy majesty_, 'ca'se de king been step on. Whin
+yivery li'l' black boy whut choose' gwine wander round _at_ night an'
+stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain't no time for to palaver, it ain't no
+time for to prevaricate, it ain't no time for to cogitate, it ain't no
+time do nuffin' but tell de truth, an' de whole truth, an' nuffin' but
+de truth."
+
+An' all dem ghostes sicond de motion, an' dey confabulate out loud
+erbout dat, an' de noise soun' like de rain-doves goin',
+"Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' de owls goin', "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" an' de wind
+goin', "You-_you_-o-o-o!" So dat risolution am passed unanermous, an' no
+mistake.
+
+So de king ob de ghostes, whut name old Skull-an'-Bones, he place' he
+hand on de head ob li'l' black Mose, an' he hand feel like a wet rag,
+an' he say':
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' one ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l' black Mose turn' white.
+
+An' de monstrous big ha'nt whut he name Bloody Bones he lay he hand on
+de head ob li'l' black Mose, an' he hand feel like a toadstool in de
+cool ob de day, an' he say':
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l' black Mose turn' white.
+
+An' a heejus sperit whut he name Moldy Pa'm place' he hand on de head ob
+li'l' black Mose, an' he hand feel like de yunner side ob a lizard, an'
+he say':
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l' black Mose turn' white
+_as_ snow.
+
+An' a perticklar bend-up hobgoblin he put' he hand on de head ob li'l'
+black Mose, an' he mek' dat same _re_mark, an' dat whole convintion ob
+ghostes an' spicters an' ha'nts an' yiver-thing, which am more 'n a
+millium, pass by so quick dey-all's hands feel lak de wind whut blow
+outen de cellar whin de day am hot, an' dey-all say, "Dey ain't no
+ghosts." Yas, sah, dey-all say dem wo'ds so fas' it souun' like de wind
+whin it moan frough de turkentine-trees whut behind de cider-priss. An'
+yivery hair whut on li'l' black Mose's head turn' white. Dat whut
+happen' whin a li'l' black boy gwine meet a ghost convintion dat-away.
+Dat's so he ain' gwine forgit to remimber dey ain't no ghostes. 'Ca'se
+ef a li'l' black boy gwine imaginate dey _is_ ghostes, he gwine be
+skeered in de dark. An' dat a foolish thing for to imaginate.
+
+So prisintly all de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler
+whin de wind blow' on it, an' li'l' black Mose he ain' see no ca'se for
+to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch' down, an' he raise' up de
+pumpkin, an' he perambulate' right quick to he ma's shack, an' he lift'
+up de latch, an' he open' de do', an' he yenter' in. An' he say':
+
+"Yere's de pumpkin."
+
+An' he ma an' he pa, an' Sally Ann, whut live up de road, an' Mistah
+Sally Ann, whut her husban', an' Zack Badget, an' de school-teacher whut
+board at Unc'-Silas Diggs's house, an' all de powerful lot of folks whut
+come to de doin's, dey all scrooged back in de cornder ob de shack,
+'ca'se Zack Badget he been done tell a ghost-tale, an' de rain-doves
+gwine, "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' de owls am gwine, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" and
+de wind it gwine, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" an' yiver-body powerful skeered.
+'Ca'se li'l' black Mose he come' a-fumblin' an' a-rattlin' at de do' jes
+whin dat ghost-tale mos' skeery, an' yiver'body gwine imaginate dat he a
+ghost a-fumblin' an' a-rattlin' at de do'. Yas, sah. So li'l' black Mose
+he turn' he white head, an' he look' roun' an' peer' roun', an' he say':
+
+"Whut you all skeered fo'?"
+
+'Ca'se ef anybody skeered, he want' to be skeered, too. Dat 's natural.
+But de school-teacher, whut live at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she say':
+
+"Fo' de lan's sake, we fought you was a ghost!"
+
+So li'l' black Mose he sort ob sniff an' he sort ob sneer, an' he 'low':
+
+"Huh! dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+Den he ma she powerful took back dat li'l' black Mose he gwine be so
+uppetish an' contrydict folks whut know 'rifmeticks an' algebricks an'
+gin'ral countin' widout fingers, like de school-teacher whut board at
+Unc' Silas Diggs's house knows, an' she say':
+
+"Huh! whut you know 'bout ghosts, anner ways?"
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he jes kinder stan' on one foot, an' he jes kinder
+suck' he thumb, an' he jes kinder 'low':
+
+"I don' know nuffin' erbout ghosts, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+So he pa gwine whop him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin
+yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at
+Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's
+head am plumb white, an' she tek' note li'l' black Mose's face am de
+color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch' one arm round dat li'l' black boy,
+an' she jes snuggle' him up, an' she say':
+
+"Honey lamb, don't you be skeered; ain' nobody gwine hurt you. How you
+know dey ain't no ghosts?"
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he kinder lean' up 'g'inst de school-teacher whut
+board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, an' he 'low':
+
+"'Ca'se--'ca'se--'ca'se I met de cap'n ghost, an' I met de gin'ral
+ghost, an' I met de king ghost, an' I met all de ghostes whut yiver was
+in de whole worl', an' yivery ghost say' de same thing: 'Dey ain't no
+ghosts.' An' if de cap'n ghost an' de gin'ral ghost an' de king ghost
+an' all de ghostes in de whole worl' don' know ef dar am ghostes, who
+does?"
+
+"Das right; das right, honey lamb," say' de school-teacher. And she
+say': "I been s'picious dey ain' no ghostes dis long whiles, an' now I
+know. Ef all de ghostes say dey ain' no ghosts, dey _ain'_ no ghosts."
+
+So yiver'body 'low' dat so 'cep' Zack Badget, whut been tellin' de
+ghost-tale, an' he ain' gwine say "Yis" an' he ain' gwine say "No,"
+'ca'se he right sweet on de school-teacher; but he know right well he
+done seen plinty ghostes in he day. So he boun' to be sure fust. So he
+say' to li'l' black Mose:
+
+"'Tain' likely you met up wid a monstrous big ha'nt whut live' down de
+lane whut he name Bloody Bones?"
+
+"Yas," say' li'l' black Mose, "I done met up wid him."
+
+"An' did old Bloody Bones done tol' you dey ain' no ghosts?" say Zack
+Badget.
+
+"Yas," say' li'l' black Mose, "he done tell me perzackly dat."
+
+"Well, if _he_ tol' you dey ain't no ghosts," say' Zack Badget, "I got
+to 'low dey ain't no ghosts, 'ca'se he ain' gwine tell no lie erbout it.
+I know dat Bloody Bones ghost sence I was a piccaninny, an' I done met
+up wif him a powerful lot o' times, an' he ain' gwine tell no lie erbout
+it. Ef dat perticklar ghost say' dey ain't no ghosts, dey _ain't_ no
+ghosts."
+
+So yiver-body say':
+
+"Das right; dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' dat mek' li'l' black Mose feel mighty good, 'ca'se he ain' lak
+ghostes. He reckon' he gwine be a heap mo' comfortable in he mind sence
+he know' dey ain' no ghosts, an' he reckon' he ain' gwine be skeered of
+nuffin' never no more. He ain' gwine min' de dark, an' he ain' gwine
+min' de rain-doves whut go', "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' he ain' gwine min' de
+owls whut go', "Who-_whoo_-o-o-o!" an' he ain' gwine min' de wind whut
+go', "You-_you_-o-o-o!" nor nuffin', nohow. He gwine be brave as a lion,
+sence he know' fo' sure dey ain' no ghosts. So prisintly he ma say':
+
+"Well, time fo' a li'l' black boy whut he name is Mose to be gwine up de
+ladder to de loft to bed."
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he 'low' he gwine wait a bit. He 'low' he gwine jes
+wait a li'l' bit. How 'low' he gwine be no trouble _at_ all ef he jes
+been let wait twell he ma she gwine up de ladder to de loft to bed, too.
+So he ma she say':
+
+"Git erlong wid yo'! Whut yo' skeered ob whin dey ain't no ghosts?"
+
+An' li'l' black Mose he scrooge', and he twist', an' he pucker' up he
+mouf, an' he rub' he eyes, an' prisintly he say' right low:
+
+"I ain' skeered ob ghosts whut am, 'ca'se dey ain' no ghosts."
+
+"Den whut _am_ yo' skeered ob?" ask he ma.
+
+"Nuffin'," say' de li'l' black boy whut he name is Mose; "but I jes feel
+kinder oneasy 'bout de ghosts whut ain't."
+
+Jes lak white folks! Jes lak white folks!
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[K] Copyright, 1913, by The Century Company.
+
+
+
+
+SOME REAL AMERICAN GHOSTS
+
+THE GIANT GHOST
+
+(Philadelphia _Press_, Sept. 13, 1896)
+
+
+A case in point is the Benton, Indiana, ghost, which is attracting much
+attention. It has been seen and investigated by many people with
+reputations for intelligence and good sense, but so far no explanation
+of the strange appearance has been found.
+
+A farmer named John W. French and his wife were the first to see this
+apparition. They live in the country near Benton, and were driving home
+one night from a neighbor's. The road passed an old church, moss-covered
+and surrounded by a graveyard, overgrown with shrubbery and filled with
+the bones of hundreds who once tilled the soil in the locality. Ten
+years ago an aged man who lived alone not far from the old church and
+visited the graveyard almost daily to pray over the resting place of
+some relative was foully murdered for the store of gold he was supposed
+to have hidden about his hermit abode. The robbers and murderers escaped
+justice, and the luckless graybeard was buried in the graveyard where he
+spent so much time. Just as French and his wife drew within sight of the
+white headstones in the churchyard the horses reared back on their
+haunches and snorted in terror. French was alarmed, and suspecting
+highwaymen had been scented by the horses, he reached for a shotgun
+which lay in the bottom of the wagon for just such an emergency. But
+before his hand touched it he was startled by a scream from his wife.
+Clutching his arm she pointed straight ahead and gasped: "Look, John,
+look!"
+
+Far down the road, just beside the glimmering monuments of the old
+graveyard, he saw an apparition. It was that of a man with a long white
+beard sweeping over his breast. The figure appeared to be eight feet in
+height and in one hand it carried a club, such as the brains of the old
+man had been beaten out with ten years before. Slowly raising one arm
+the ghost with a majestic sweep beckoned French to come ahead. He was
+too startled to do anything except try to restrain the prancing horses,
+which were straining at the harness in attempts to break away and run. A
+cold sweat started out all over the body of the farmer as he realized
+that he was at last looking at a ghost, and then the sound of his wife's
+voice came to him begging him to return the way they had come and escape
+the doom which seemed impending. French was still too much scared and
+excited to control the horses, and as he gazed steadfastly at the
+fearful white object in the road it slowly began to move toward the
+wagon. The club was now raised to its shoulder, as a soldier carries a
+rifle, and it seemed to move forward without touching the ground, like a
+winged thing.
+
+Then the farmer recovered his faculties and, whirling his team around,
+he lashed the horses into a run and began the trip to the house of the
+friend he had just left. When they arrived there both the man and his
+wife were almost fainting from fright.
+
+The next man to see the ghost was Milton Moon. He had the reputation for
+being not only a man of intelligence but one without fear. His
+experience was much the same as that of the Frenches and it brought
+about several investigations by parties of citizens. In each case they
+saw and were convinced of the actual presence of the ghost without being
+able to discover any satisfactory explanation.
+
+
+SOME FAMOUS GHOSTS OF THE NATIONAL CAPITOL
+
+(Philadelphia _Press_, Oct. 2, 1898)
+
+The Capitol at Washington is probably the most thoroughly haunted
+building in the world.
+
+Not less than fifteen well-authenticated ghosts infest it, and some of
+them are of a more than ordinarily alarming character.
+
+What particularly inspires this last remark is the fact that the Demon
+Cat is said to have made its appearance again, after many years of
+absence. This is a truly horrific apparition, and no viewless specter
+such as the invisible grimalkin that even now trips people up on the
+stairs of the old mansion which President Madison and his wife, Dolly,
+occupied, at the corner of Eighteenth Street and New York Avenue, after
+the White House was burned by the British. That, indeed, is altogether
+another story; but the feline spook of the Capitol possesses attributes
+much more remarkable, inasmuch as it has the appearance of an ordinary
+pussy when first seen, and presently swells up to the size of an
+elephant before the eyes of the terrified observer.
+
+The Demon Cat, in whose regard testimony of the utmost seeming
+authenticity was put on record thirty-five years ago, has been missing
+since 1862. One of the watchmen on duty in the building shot at it then,
+and it disappeared. Since then, until now, nothing more has been heard
+of it, though one or two of the older policemen of the Capitol force
+still speak of the spectral animal in awed whispers.
+
+Their work, when performed in the night, requires more than ordinary
+nerve, inasmuch as the interior of the great structure is literally
+alive with echoes and other suggestions of the supernatural. In the
+daytime, when the place is full of people and the noises of busy life,
+the professional guides make a point of showing persons how a whisper
+uttered when standing on a certain marble block is distinctly audible at
+another point quite a distance away, though unheard in the space
+between.
+
+A good many phenomena of this kind are observable in various parts of
+the Capitol, and the extent to which they become augmented in
+strangeness during the silence of the night may well be conceived. The
+silence of any ordinary house is oppressive sometimes to the least
+superstitious individual. There are unaccountable noises, and a weird
+and eerie sort of feeling comes over him, distracting him perhaps from
+the perusal of his book. He finds himself indulging in a vague sense of
+alarm, though he cannot imagine any cause for it.
+
+Such suggestions of the supernatural are magnified a thousand fold in
+the Capitol, when the watchman pursues his lonely beat through the great
+corridors whose immense spaces impress him with a sense of solitariness,
+while the shadows thrown by his lantern gather into strange and menacing
+forms.
+
+One of the most curious and alarming of the audible phenomena observable
+in the Capitol, so all the watchmen say, is a ghostly footstep that
+seems to follow anybody who crosses Statuary Hall at night. It was in
+this hall, then the chamber of the House of Representatives, that John
+Quincy Adams died--at a spot indicated now by a brass tablet set in a
+stone slab, where stood his desk. Whether or not it is his ghost that
+pursues is a question open to dispute, though it is to be hoped that the
+venerable ex-President rests more quietly in his grave. At all events,
+the performance is unpleasant, and even gruesome for him who walks
+across that historic floor, while the white marble statues of dead
+statesmen placed around the walls seem to point at him with outstretched
+arms derisively. Like the man in Coleridge's famous lines he
+
+          "--walks in fear and dread,
+           Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread."
+
+At all events he is uncertain lest such may be the case. And, of course,
+the duties of the watchman oblige him, when so assigned, to patrol the
+basement of the building, where all sorts of hobgoblins lie in wait.
+
+One of the Capitol policemen was almost frightened out of his wits one
+night when a pair of flaming eyes looked out at him from the vaults
+under the chamber of the House of Representatives where the wood is
+stored for the fires. It was subsequently ascertained that the eyes in
+question were those of a fox, which, being chevied through the town, had
+sought refuge in the cellar of the edifice occupied by the national
+Legislature. The animal was killed for the reason which obliges a white
+man to slay any innocent beast that comes under his power.
+
+But, speaking of the steps which follow a person at night across the
+floor of Statuary Hall, a bold watchman attempted not long ago to
+investigate them on scientific principles. He suspected a trick, and so
+bought a pair of rubber shoes, with the aid of which he proceeded to
+examine into the question. In the stillness of the night he made a
+business of patrolling that portion of the principal Government edifice,
+and, sure enough, the footsteps followed along behind him. He cornered
+them; it was surely some trickster! There was no possibility for the
+joker to get away. But, a moment later, the steps were heard in another
+part of the hall; they had evaded him successfully. Similar experiments
+were tried on other nights, but they all ended in the same way.
+
+Four years ago there died in Washington an old gentleman who had been
+employed for thirty-five years in the Library of Congress. The quarters
+of that great book collection, while housed in the Capitol, were
+distressingly restricted, and much of the cataloguing was done by the
+veteran mentioned in a sort of vault in the sub-cellar. This vault was
+crammed with musty tomes from floor to ceiling, and practically no air
+was admitted. It was a wonder that he lived so long, but, when he came
+to die, he did it rather suddenly. Anyhow, he became paralyzed and
+unable to speak, though up to the time of his actual demise he was able
+to indicate his wants by gestures. Among other things, he showed plainly
+by signs that he wished to be conveyed to the old library.
+
+This wish of his was not obeyed, for reasons which seemed sufficient to
+his family, and, finally, he relinquished it by giving up the ghost. It
+was afterward learned that he had hidden, almost undoubtedly, $6000
+worth of registered United States bonds among the books in his
+sub-cellar den--presumably, concealed between the leaves of some of the
+moth-eaten volumes of which he was the appointed guardian. Certainly,
+there could be no better or less-suspected hiding-place, but this was
+just where the trouble came in for the heirs, in whose interest the
+books were vainly searched and shaken, when the transfer of the library
+from the old to its new quarters was accomplished. The heirs cannot
+secure a renewal of the bonds by the Government without furnishing proof
+of the loss of the originals, which is lacking, and, meanwhile, it is
+said that the ghost of the old gentleman haunts the vault in the
+sub-basement which he used to inhabit, looking vainly for the missing
+securities.
+
+The old gentleman referred to had some curious traits, though he was by
+no means a miser--such as the keeping of every burnt match that he came
+across. He would put them away in the drawer of his private desk,
+together with expired street-car transfers--the latter done up in neat
+bundles, with India-rubber bands.
+
+Quite an intimate friend he had, named Twine, who lost his grip on the
+perch, so to speak, about six years back. Mr. Twine dwelt during the
+working hours of the day in a sort of cage of iron, like that of
+Dreyfus, in the basement of the Capitol. As a matter of fact, Dreyfus
+does not occupy a cage at all; the notion that he does so arises from a
+misunderstanding of the French word "case," which signifies a hut.
+
+However, Twine's cage was a real one of iron wire, and inside of it he
+made a business of stamping the books of the library with a mixture made
+of alcohol and lampblack. If the observation of casual employees about
+the Capitol is to be trusted, Mr. Twine's ghost is still engaged at
+intervals in the business of stamping books at the old stand, though his
+industry must be very unprofitable since the Government's literary
+collection has been moved out of the Capitol.
+
+Ghosts are supposed to appertain most appropriately to the lower
+regions, inasmuch as the ancients who described them first consigned
+the blessed as well as the damned to a nether world. Consequently, it is
+not surprising to find that phantoms of the Capitol are mostly relegated
+to the basement.
+
+Exceptions are made in the case of Vice-President Wilson, who, as will
+be remembered, died in his room at the Senate end of the building, and
+also with respect to John Quincy Adams, whose nocturnal perambulations
+are so annoying to the watchmen. Mr. Wilson is only an occasional
+visitor on the premises, it is understood, finding his way thither,
+probably, when nothing else of importance is "up," so to speak, in the
+spiritual realm which now claims him for its own. It is related that on
+one occasion he nearly frightened to death a watchman who was guarding
+the coffin of a Tennessee Senator who was lying in state in the Senate
+Chamber. The startle was doubtless uncontemplated, inasmuch as the
+Senator was too well bred a man to take anybody unpleasantly by
+surprise.
+
+There was a watchman, employed quite a while ago as a member of the
+Capitol police, who was discharged finally for drunkenness. No faith,
+therefore, is to be placed in his sworn statement, which was actually
+made, to the effect that on a certain occasion he passed through the old
+Hall of Representatives--now Statuary Hall--and saw in session the
+Congress of 1848, with John Quincy Adams and many other men whose names
+have long ago passed into history. It was, if the word of the witness is
+to be believed, a phantom legislative crew, resembling in kind if not in
+character the goblins which Rip Van Winkle encountered on his trip to
+the summits of the storied Catskills.
+
+But--to come down to things that are well authenticated and sure,
+comparatively speaking--the basement of the Capitol, as has been said,
+is the part of the building chiefly haunted. Beneath the hall of the
+House of Representatives strolls by night a melancholy specter, with
+erect figure, a great mustache, and his hands clasped behind him. Who he
+is nobody has ever surmised; he might be, judging from his aspect, a
+foreigner in the diplomatic service, but that is merely guess. Watchmen
+at night have approached him in the belief that he was an intruder, but
+he has faded from sight instantly, like a picture on a magic-lantern
+slide.
+
+At precisely 12.30 of the clock every night, so it is said, the door of
+the room occupied by the Committee on Military and Militia of the Senate
+opens silently, and there steps forth the figure of General Logan,
+recognizable by his long black hair, military carriage, and the hat he
+was accustomed to wear in life.
+
+Logan was the chairman of this committee, and, if report be credited, he
+is still supervising its duties.
+
+
+A GENUINE GHOST
+
+(Philadelphia _Press_, March 25, 1884)
+
+DAYTON, O., March 25.--A thousand people surround the grave yard in
+Miamisburg, a town near here, every night to witness the antics of what
+appears to be a genuine ghost. There is no doubt about the existence of
+the apparition, as Mayor Marshall, the revenue collector and hundreds of
+prominent citizens all testify to having seen it. Last night several
+hundred people, armed with clubs and guns, assaulted the specter, which
+appeared to be a woman in white. Clubs, bullets and shot tore the air in
+which the mystic figure floated without disconcerting it in the least. A
+portion of the town turned out en masse to-day and began exhuming all
+the bodies in the cemetery.
+
+The remains of the Buss family, composed of three people, have already
+been exhumed. The town is visited daily by hundreds of strangers and
+none are disappointed, as the apparition is always on duty promptly at 9
+o'clock. The strange figure was at once recognized by the inhabitants of
+the town as a young lady supposed to have been murdered several years
+ago. Her attitude while drifting among the graves is one of deep
+thought, with the head inclined forward and hands clasped behind.
+
+
+THE BAGGAGEMAN'S GHOST
+
+"The corpses of the passengers killed in the disaster up at Spuyten
+Duyvil was fetched down here and laid out in[1] The room was darkened
+and I could just make out the out that storage room," said a Grand
+Central depot baggageman. "That's what give it the name of morgue. Some
+of the boys got scared of going in after that, 'specially in the dark;
+and a lot of stories was started about spooks. We had a helper (a
+drunken chap that didn't know whether he saw a thing or dreamed it), and
+he swore to the toughest of the yarns. He says he went in to get a
+trunk. It was a whopper, and he braced himself for a big strain; but,
+when he gripped it, it come up just as if there wasn't nothing in it
+more'n air or gas. That unexpected kind of a lift is like kicking at
+nothing--it's hurtful, don't you know?"
+
+"I should think so."
+
+"Well, Joe felt as light-headed as the trunk, he says, but he brought it
+out. When he was putting it down he was stunned to see a ghost sitting
+straddle of it."
+
+"What did the ghost look like?"
+
+"Joe was so scared that he can't tell, except that it had grave-clothes
+on. And it went out of sight as soon as he got out into the
+daylight--floated off, and at the same instant the trunk became as heavy
+as such a trunk generally is. Some of us believe Joe's story, and some
+don't, and he's one of them that does. He throwed up his job rather than
+go into the morgue again."
+
+
+DRUMMERS SEE A SPECTER
+
+(St Louis _Globe-Democrat_, Oct. 6, 1887)
+
+[The last man in the world to be accused of a belief in the supernatural
+would be your go-ahead, hard-headed American "drummer" or traveling-man.
+Yet here is a plain tale of how not one but two of the western
+fraternity saw a genuine ghost in broad daylight a few years ago.--ED.]
+
+JACKSON, MO., October 6. At a place on the Turnpike road, between Cape
+Girardeau and Jackson, is what is familiarly known as Spooks' Hollow.
+The place is situated fours miles from the Cape and is awfully dismal
+looking where the road curves gracefully around a high bluff.
+
+Two drummers, representing a single leading wholesale house of St.
+Louis, were recently making the drive from Jackson to the Cape, when
+their attention was suddenly attracted at the Spooks' Hollow by a white
+and airy object which arose in its peculiar form so as to be plainly
+visible and then maneuvered in every imaginable manner, finally taking a
+zigzag wayward journey through the low dismal-looking surroundings,
+disappearing suddenly into the mysterious region from whence it came.
+
+More than one incident of dreadful experience has been related of this
+gloomy abode, and the place is looked upon by the midnight tourist and
+the lonesome citizen on his nocturnal travels as an unpleasant spot,
+isolated from the beautiful country which surrounds it.
+
+
+DR. FUNK SEES THE SPIRIT OF BEECHER
+
+(New York _Herald_, April 4, 1903)
+
+While he will not admit that he is a believer in spiritualism, the Rev.
+Dr. Isaac Funk, head of the publishing house of Funk & Wagnalls, is so
+impressed with manifestations he has received from the spirit of Henry
+Ward Beecher that he has laid the entire matter before the Boston
+Society for Psychical Research, and is anxiously awaiting a solution or
+explanation of what appears to him, after twenty-five years' study of
+the subject, the most remarkable test of the merit of the claims of
+spiritualists that has ever come within his observation.
+
+Although he has resorted to every means within his power to discover any
+fraud that may have been practiced upon him, he has been unable to
+explain away not only messages to him from the great minister, but the
+actual appearance to him of Mr. Beecher in the flesh.
+
+Dr. Funk and Mr. Beecher were intimate friends, and it would be
+difficult to practice deception as to Mr. Beecher's appearance. When the
+apparition appeared to Dr. Funk at a séance a short time ago Dr. Funk
+was less than three feet distant from it, and had plenty of opportunity
+to detect a fraud if it was being perpetrated, he believes.
+
+"Every feature stood out distinctly," Dr. Funk said yesterday, in
+describing his experience, "even to the hair and eyes, the color of the
+skin and the expression of the mouth.[1] lines of the body, but it was
+still light enough to make the face plainly visible. I had a short
+conversation with the embodied spirit, and then it appeared to sink to
+the floor and fade away."
+
+
+MYSTERY OF THE COINS
+
+Dr. Funk was especially anxious to have an opportunity to see and talk
+with Mr. Beecher, in the hope that light would be thrown on the mystery
+which surrounds a previous manifestation. Through the spirit of one
+"Jack" Rakestraw, who says he used to lead the choir in one of Mr.
+Beecher's churches, but frankly admits that he cannot remember exactly
+where the church was located--even spirits have a way of forgetting
+things, spiritualists declare--Dr. Funk was informed that Mr. Beecher
+was troubled because the publisher had failed to return a coin, known as
+the "widow's mite," which he had borrowed some years ago, from the late
+Professor Charles E. West, a well known numismatist, to make a cut to
+illustrate a dictionary. Dr. Funk supposed the coin had been returned a
+long time ago, but upon looking the matter up found it in a drawer of a
+safe, among some old papers, exactly as Mr. Rakestraw maintained.
+
+When Mr. Beecher appeared to him in person, so far as he could
+determine, Dr. Funk asked him several direct questions, to which the
+replies, he admits, were somewhat sublime. Although Dr. Funk has found
+the long-lost coin--which, by the way, is said to be worth $2,500--he is
+not certain to whom it should be returned, now that Professor West is
+dead and his collection of coins sold. Should the "widow's mite" go to
+Professor West's heirs or to the purchaser of the collection? is a
+question which has as yet remained unanswered.
+
+"That is a matter I am leaving to be determined by the Society for
+Psychical Research and Mrs. Piper, who ought to be able to learn from
+the spirit world what disposition Professor West wishes to have made of
+the coin," said Dr. Funk. It is at any rate a matter that does not
+appear to concern the spirit of Mr. Beecher.
+
+
+MR. BEECHER APPEASED
+
+"When what seemed to be Mr. Beecher's embodied spirit appeared to me,"
+Dr. Funk said, "I asked that very question. He smiled and replied that
+it was not a matter that concerned him especially, and that the whole
+thing was in the nature of a test, to prove to me that there actually
+are spirits, and that it is possible to have communication with them
+when all the conditions are favorable. He remarked that he was glad the
+old coin had been found, but seemed to consider the disposition of it a
+matter of minor importance. He told me he was glad I was taking interest
+in the subject, as he believed it would result in good for the world,
+and then, excusing himself on the ground that he had an engagement which
+it was necessary for him to keep, the apparition disappeared."
+
+Dr. Funk borrowed the coin from Professor West's collection, as a
+lighter colored one he already had was of doubtful authenticity. Both
+coins were sent to the government expert in Philadelphia and the lighter
+one was declared to be the genuine one. By the spirits it is now
+declared, however, that a mistake was made and that the darker one
+belonging to Professor West has the greater value.
+
+"I found both the light and the dark one in the drawer," said Dr. Funk,
+"and remembered distinctly that it was the darker of the two which I had
+borrowed from Professor West. I went to the next séance, and when
+Rakestraw's spirit arrived I asked him to find out which one was to be
+returned. After a brief interval his voice came to me.
+
+"'Return the dark one, of course,' he said. 'That is the genuine coin
+and is the one you borrowed from Dr. Beecher's friend.'
+
+"While I do not wish to be classed as a believer in Spiritualism, I
+certainly am open to conviction after what has come under my personal
+observation," Dr. Funk concluded. "I am confident that no fraud was
+practiced on me at the séance at which I was told about the old coin.
+The medium is an elderly woman living in Brooklyn, who never appears in
+public, and the only persons present were members of her family and
+known to me. But none of them knew any more about the coin being in my
+safe than I did."
+
+
+MARYLAND GHOSTS
+
+(_Baltimore American_, May, 1886)
+
+For forty years the Rev. Dr. B. has been the rector of a prominent
+parish on the Eastern Shore. He had, when the scenes recorded below
+happened twenty-two years ago, a mission charge sixteen miles distant
+from the town in which he resided, and he was therefore constantly
+traveling between these two places. About six miles distant was the
+country residence of Judge S., a well-known and venerable parishioner of
+the worthy doctor. The sod had been turned above this gentleman's grave
+only about six weeks, when Dr. B. chanced to be returning from his
+mission charge in company with a friend. It was broad daylight, just
+about sunset, and not far from Judge S.'s gate, when a carriage, drawn
+by a white horse, passed them rapidly from behind and was soon out of
+sight.
+
+"That fellow must be in a hurry to reach C.," remarked the doctor.
+
+"Did you notice anything peculiar about that vehicle?" inquired his
+companion.
+
+"Only that it moves very quietly. I heard no sound as it went by."
+
+"Nor did I," said his friend. "Neither rattling of wheels nor noise of
+hoofs. It is certainly strange."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The matter, however, was soon forgotten in other conversation, and they
+had traveled perhaps a mile, when suddenly, the same horse and carriage
+passed them as before. Nothing was discernible of the driver except his
+feet, the carriage curtains hiding his body. There was no cross road by
+which a vehicle in front could possibly have got behind without making a
+circuit of many miles and consuming several hours. Yet there was not the
+shadow of a doubt as to the identity of the vehicle, and the two
+gentlemen gazed at each other in blank amazement, and with a certain
+defined sense of awe which precluded any discussion of the matter,
+particularly as the horse was to all appearances the well-known white
+habitually driven by the deceased Judge. A half mile brought them in
+sight of Judge S.'s gate, when for the third time the ghostly team
+dashed by in the same dreadful mysterious silence. This time it turned
+in full view into the gate. Without a word of comment the doctor
+quickened his horse's speed, and reached the gate only a few yards
+behind the silent driver. Both gentlemen peered eagerly up the long,
+open lane leading to the house; but neither carriage nor wheel-track was
+visible, though it was still clear daylight, and there was no outlet
+from the lane, nor could any vehicle in the time occupied accomplish
+half the distance. The peculiar features of this strange incident are
+that it was equally and simultaneously evident to two witnesses, both
+entirely unprepared for any such manifestation, and differing widely in
+temperament, habits of life, mental capacity and educational
+attainments, and by mere accident making this journey together, and that
+to this day both of them--witnesses, be it noted, of unimpeachable
+credibility--attest it, and fully corroborate each other, but without
+being able to suggest the slightest explanation.
+
+
+THE GHOST OF PEG ALLEY'S POINT
+
+Peg Alley's Point is a long and narrow strip of wooded land, situated
+between the main stream of Miles river and one of the navigable creeks
+which flow into it. This little peninsula is about two miles long, from
+fifty to three hundred yards in width and is bounded by deep water and
+is overgrown with pine and thick underbrush. There is extant a tradition
+to the effect that many years ago a party of Baltimore oystermen
+encamped on the point, among whom was a man named Alley, who had
+abandoned his wife. The deserted woman followed up her husband, and
+found him at the camp. After some conversation had passed between them,
+the man induced her, upon some unknown pretext, to accompany him into a
+thicket. The poor wife never came out alive. Her husband cruelly
+murdered her with a club. The point of land has ever since been known by
+Peg Alley's name, and her perturbed spirit has been supposed to haunt
+the scene of her untimely taking off. About twelve years ago a gang of
+rail-splitters were at work on the point, and one day the foreman flatly
+refused to go back, declaring that queer things happened down there, and
+that he had seen a ghost. Mr. Kennedy, his employer, laughed at him and
+dismissed the matter from his mind. Some time after this Mr. Kennedy had
+occasion to ride through the woods to look after some sheep, there being
+but one road and the water on either side. As he approached the point
+his horse started violently and refused to go on, regardless of whip or
+spur. Glancing about for the cause of this unnatural fright, he saw a
+woman rise up from a log, a few yards in advance, and stand by the
+roadside, looking at him. She was very poorly clad in a faded calico
+dress, and wore a limp sun-bonnet, from beneath which her thin,
+jet-black hair straggled down on her shoulders; her face was thin and
+sallow and her eyes black and piercing. Knowing that she had no business
+there, and occupied in controlling his horse, he called to her somewhat
+angrily to get out of the way, as his animal was afraid of her. Slowly
+she turned and walked into the thicket, uttering not a syllable and
+looking reproachfully at him as she went. With much difficulty he forced
+his horse to the spot, hoping to find out who the strange intruder might
+be, but the most careful search failed to reveal the trace of any one,
+although there was no place of concealment and no possible way of
+escape, for which, indeed, there was not sufficient time.
+
+
+AN APPARITION AND DEATH
+
+The old family seat of the T.'s, one of the most prominent names in the
+community, is not far from the scenes of the above-mentioned adventure.
+In all this region of lovely situations and charming water views, its
+site is one of the most beautiful. The brick mansion, with all the
+strangely mixed comforts and discomforts of ancient architecture, rears
+its roof up from an elevated lawn, while the silvery thread of a
+land-locked stream winds nearly around the whole. Over the further bank
+dance the sparkling waters of a broad estuary, flashing in the glance of
+the sunshine or tossing its white-capped billows in angry mimicry of the
+sea. The gleam of white sails is never lacking to add variety and
+picturesqueness to the scene. In the dead, hushed calm of a summer
+evening, when the lifted oar rests on the gunwale, unwilling to disturb
+with its dip the glassy surface, one has a strange, dreamy sense of
+being suspended in space, the sky, in all its changing beauties, being
+accurately reflected in illimitable depth by the still water, until the
+charm is broken by the splash and ripple of a school of nomadic alewives
+or the gliding, sinuous fin of a piratical shark. In this lovely home it
+was wont for the family to assemble on the occasion of certain domestic
+celebrations, and it was at one of these that the following incident
+occurred: All were present except one member, who was detained by
+sickness at her residence, fifteen miles away. It was in early afternoon
+that one of the ladies standing at an open window, suddenly exclaimed:
+"Why, there's Aunt Milly crossing the flower garden!" The party
+approached the window, and beheld, in great surprise, the lady, in her
+ordinary costume, slowly strolling among the flowers. She paused and
+looked earnestly at the group, her features plainly visible; then turned
+and disappeared amidst the shrubbery. No trace of her presence being
+discoverable, it was natural that a gloom fell upon the company. A few
+hours later a messenger arrived with the intelligence of her death. The
+time of her apparition and the time of her death coincided.
+
+
+AN IDIOT GHOST WITH BRASS BUTTONS
+
+(Philadelphia _Press_, June 16, 1889)
+
+In a pretty but old-fashioned house in Stuyvesant square--ghosts like
+squares, I think--is another ghost. This house stood empty for several
+years, and about six years ago a gentleman, his wife and little daughter
+moved in there, and while fitting up allowed the child to play about
+the empty attic, which had apparently been arranged for a children's
+playroom long ago. There was a fireplace and a large fireboard in front
+of it.
+
+When the house was about finished down stairs the mother began to pay
+more attention to the little girl and tried to keep her down there with
+her, but the child always stole away and went back up stairs again and
+again, until finally the mother asked why she liked to go up there so
+much. She replied that she liked to play with the funny little boy.
+Investigation showed that it was utterly impossible for any person, man
+or child, to get in that place or be concealed there, but the little
+girl insisted and told her parents that he "went in there," pointing to
+the fireboard.
+
+The parents were seriously concerned, believing that their daughter was
+telling them an untruth, and threatened to punish her for it, but she
+insisted so strongly that she saw and played with a "funny little boy,
+with lots of brass buttons on his jacket," that they finally gave up
+threatening and resolved to investigate.
+
+The father, who is an old sea captain, found out that this house had
+been occupied by an Englishman named Cowdery who had had three
+children--two boys and a girl. One of the boys was an idiot. This idiot
+was supposed to have fallen into the East River, as his cap was found
+there, and he had always shown a liking for the river when his nurse
+took him out. Soon after this Mr. Cowdery moved West.
+
+This was enough for my friend's friend, who had the fireboard taken
+down, and short work in the wall by the side of the chimney brought the
+body of the unfortunate idiot boy. The back of his skull was crushed in.
+He still had the dark blue jacket on, with four rows of buttons on the
+front. The poor little bones were buried and the affair kept quiet, but
+the captain left the house.
+
+
+A MODEL GHOST STORY
+
+(Boston _Courier_, Aug. 10)
+
+A very singular story which forms one of the sensational social topics
+of the day is the best authenticated of the many stories of the
+supernatural that have been lately told. Only a short time ago a young
+and well-known artist, Mr. A., was invited to pay a visit to his
+distinguished friend, Mr. Izzard. The house was filled with guests, but
+a large and handsome room was placed at his disposal, apparently one of
+the best in the house. For three days he had a delightful visit;
+delightful in all particulars save one, he had each night a horrible
+dream. He dreamed he was--or was really--suddenly awakened by some
+person entering his room, and in looking around saw the room brilliantly
+lighted, while at the window stood a lady elegantly attired, in the act
+of throwing something out. This accomplished, she turned her face toward
+the only spectator showing a countenance so distorted by evil passions
+that he was thrilled with horror. Soon the light and the figure with the
+dreadful face disappeared, leaving the artist suffering from a frightful
+nightmare. On returning to his city home he was so haunted by the
+fearful countenance which had for three consecutive nights troubled him,
+that he made a sketch of it, and so real that the evil expression seemed
+to horrify every one who saw it. Not a great while after, the artist
+went to make an evening visit on Mr. Izzard; that gentleman invited him
+to his picture gallery, as he wished to show him some remarkable, old
+family portraits. What was Mr. A.'s surprise to recognize among them, in
+the likeness of a stately, well-dressed lady, the one who had so
+troubled his slumbers on his previous visit, lacking, however, the
+revolting, wicked expression. Soon as he saw it he involuntarily
+exclaimed, "Why, I have seen that lady!" "Indeed!" said Mr. I., smiling,
+"that is hardly possible, as she died more than a hundred years ago. She
+was the second wife of my great-grandfather, and reflected anything but
+credit on the family. She was strongly suspected of having murdered her
+husband's son by a former marriage, in order to make her own child heir
+to the property. The unfortunate boy broke his neck in a fall from a
+window, and there was every reason to believe that he was precipitated
+from the window by his stepmother." The artist then told his host the
+circumstances of his thrice-repeated experience, or dream, and sent for
+his sketch, which, so far as the features were concerned, was identical
+with the portrait in Mr. Izzard's gallery. The sketch has since been
+photographed, but from its hideous expression is not very pleasant to
+look upon.
+
+
+A GHOST THAT WILL NOT DOWN
+
+(Cincinnati _Enquirer_, Sept. 30, 1884)
+
+GRANTSVILLE, W. VA., September 30.--The ghost of Betts' farm will not
+lay. Something over a year ago the _Enquirer_ contained an account or an
+occult influence or manifestation at the farm house of Mr. Collins
+Betts, about three miles below this town, in which story were delineated
+a number of weird, strange instances of ghostly manifestations, all of
+which were verified by the testimony of honest, brave and reliable
+citizens, the names of many of whom were mentioned. That story went the
+rounds of newspapers all over the country and resulted in the proprietor
+of the place receiving hundreds of letters from all over the country.
+
+Since then the old house has been torn down, the family of Mr. Betts
+rebuilding a home place on a different portion of the farm. This act, it
+was believed, would lay or forever quiet the ramblings and queer doings
+of the inexplicable mystery. But such has not been the case. Since the
+building has been razed the mysterious manifestation has made itself
+visible at places sometimes quite a distance from the scene of its
+former domicile.
+
+At a distance of several hundred yards from the old Betts place a
+neighboring farmer had erected a house in which he intended to reside,
+and in fact did reside a short time, but the "Cale Betts ghost," as the
+manifestation is commonly called for a distance of many miles, was no
+respecter of persons and oblivious of distance, and it so annoyed and
+frightened the farmer and his family at untoward times that he has
+removed his house to the opposite end of the farm, leaving his garden,
+orchard and all the improvements usually made about a farm-house to take
+care of themselves.
+
+This in itself was considered strange enough, but the ghostly visitant
+did not stop there. The high road, running some distance away, has been
+the theater of almost numberless scenes of frights and frightful
+appearances. Among those who have lately seen the ghost is a young man
+named Vandevener, whose father had once been frightened nearly to death,
+as related in a former letter. Young Vandevener had frequently made
+sport of the old man's fright, but he does so no more--in fact, the
+young man is willing to make affidavit that the old man's story was
+mildly drawn.
+
+The young man was driving along quietly one night about half a mile from
+the Betts place, when he saw a strange being, which, in the pale light
+of the moon, he took to be a man walking at the head of his horses. A
+few minutes later the man, or whatever it was, glided, without making a
+particle of noise, around the horses' heads and got into the wagon and
+took a seat by his side.
+
+Young Vandevener says it rode along with him several hundred yards, and
+spoke to him. It first told him not to be afraid, as it did not intend
+to injure him in the least. What it said he will not tell, except that
+it admonished him not to say anything about it until a certain time.
+After it had spoken to him Vandevener says it got up and glided off into
+the woods and disappeared. He says the shape was that of a headless man,
+and that while it was with him he felt a cold chill run over him,
+although it was a warm evening, and this chilly feeling did not leave
+him until the disappearance of the shape.
+
+Since then Vandevener can not be induced to go over the ground after
+night. He still persists in the same story, and as he is a truthful
+young fellow, the people who know him are satisfied that he really saw
+what he claims to have seen.
+
+Only one day last week another young man, Henry Stephens I believe, on
+his way past the same place, saw a peculiar shape rise out of the brush
+by the side of the road and glide along by the side of the wagon.
+Stephens got out of his wagon and gathered together a handful of rocks,
+which he threw at the object. Some of the stones appeared to go through
+it, but did not seem to affect it in the least. It still continued to
+float along at a short distance away until Stephens became frightened
+and whipped up his horses until they flew at a two-minute gait down the
+road, the object following at some distance until quite away from the
+scene of its first appearance, when it disappeared like a cloud of
+vapor. There are dozens of authentic stories of the ghostly
+peculiarities of the Betts ghost which are new and peculiar.
+
+It appears, since the destruction of the Betts homestead, to have taken
+up its quarters near the highway, and here it appears to people who have
+generally scoffed and laughed at the former stories. That it is
+bullet-proof does not need testimony, located, as it is, in a section of
+country which has for years been noted for its fearless men--such as the
+Duskys, Downs and others of national fame as sharp-shooters, scouts,
+etc., during the late war. None of these men have succeeded in "laying"
+or putting a quietus to it. There is a story that a couple of men had
+been murdered or disappeared in this vicinity, and that the ghost is the
+uneasy spirit of one of these men, but there is no real evidence that
+anybody was ever killed there.
+
+There is no doubt that Calhoun County has a mystery which neither time,
+bullets, courage nor philosophy can either drive away or explain. It has
+come to stay. If you meet a Calhouner just mention it, and he will tell
+you that the "Betts ghost" is a county possession which it will gladly
+dispose of at any price.
+
+
+TOM CYPHER'S PHANTOM ENGINE
+
+(Seattle _Press-Times_, Jan. 10, 1892)
+
+Locomotive engineers are as a class said to be superstitious, but J.M.
+Pinckney, an engineer known to almost every Brotherhood man, is an
+exception to the rule. He has never been able to believe the different
+stories told of apparitions suddenly appearing on the track, but he had
+an experience last Sunday night on the Northern Pacific east-bound
+overland that made his hair stand on end.
+
+By the courtesy of the engineer, also a Brotherhood man, Mr. Pinckney
+was riding on the engine. They were recounting experiences, and the
+fireman, who was a green hand, was getting very nervous as he listened
+to the tales of wrecks and disasters, the horrors of which were
+graphically described by the veteran engineers.
+
+The night was clear and the rays from the headlight flashed along the
+track, and, although they were interested in spinning yarns, a sharp
+lookout was kept, for they were rapidly nearing Eagle gorge, in the
+Cascades, the scene of so many disasters and the place which is said to
+be the most dangerous on the 2,500 miles of road. The engineer was
+relating a story and was just coming to the climax when he suddenly
+grasped the throttle, and in a moment had "thrown her over," that is,
+reversed the engine. The air brakes were applied and the train brought
+to a standstill within a few feet of the place where Engineer Cypher met
+his death two years ago. By this time the passengers had become curious
+as to what was the matter, and all sorts of questions were asked the
+trainmen. The engineer made an excuse that some of the machinery was
+loose, and in a few moments the train was speeding on to her
+destination.
+
+"What made you stop back there?" asked Pinckney. "I heard your excuse,
+but I have run too long on the road not to know that your excuse is not
+the truth."
+
+His question was answered by the engineer pointing ahead and saying
+excitedly:
+
+"There! Look there! Don't you see it?"
+
+"Looking out of the cab window," said Mr. Pinckney, "I saw about 300
+yards ahead of us the headlight of a locomotive."
+
+"Stop the train, man," I cried, reaching for the lever.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing. It's what I saw back at the gorge. It's Tom Cypher's
+engine, No. 33. There's no danger of a collision. The man who is
+running that ahead of us can run it faster backward than I can this one
+forward. Have I seen it before? Yes, twenty times. Every engineer on the
+road knows that engine, and he's always watching for it when he gets to
+the gorge."
+
+"The engine ahead of us was running silently, but smoke was puffing from
+the stack and the headlight threw out rays of red, green, and white
+light. It kept a short distance ahead of us for several miles, and then
+for a moment we saw a figure on the pilot. Then the engine rounded a
+curve and we did not see it again. We ran by a little station, and at
+the next, when the operator warned us to keep well back from a wild
+engine that was ahead, the engineer said nothing. He was not afraid of a
+collision. Just to satisfy my own mind on the matter I sent a telegram
+to the engine wiper at Sprague, asking him if No. 33 was in. I received
+a reply stating that No. 33 had just come in, and that her coal was
+exhausted and boxes burned out. I suppose you'll be inclined to laugh at
+the story, but just ask any of the boys, although many of them won't
+talk about it. I would not myself if I were running on the road. It's
+unlucky to do so."
+
+With this comment upon the tale Mr. Pinckney boarded a passing caboose
+and was soon on his way to Tacoma. It is believed by Northern Pacific
+engineers that Thomas Cypher's spirit still hovers near Eagle gorge.
+
+
+GHOSTS IN CONNECTICUT
+
+(N.Y. _Sun_, Sept. 1, 1885)
+
+"There is as much superstition in New-England to-day as there was in
+those old times when they slashed Quakers and built bonfires for
+witches." It was a New York man who gave expression to this rather
+startling statement. He has been summering in Connecticut, and he avers
+that his talk about native superstition is founded on close observation.
+Perhaps it is; anyhow he regaled the _Times's_ correspondent with some
+entertaining incidents which he claims establish the truth of his
+somewhat astonishing theories.
+
+Old Stratford, the whitewashed town between this place and Bridgeport,
+made famous by mysterious "rappings" many years ago, and more recently
+celebrated as the scene of poor Rose Clark Ambler's strange murder, is
+much concerned over a house which the almost universal verdict
+pronounces "haunted." The family of Elihu Osborn lives in this house,
+and ghosts have been clambering through it lately in a wonderfully
+promiscuous fashion. Two or three families were compelled to vacate the
+premises before the Osborns, proud and skeptical, took possession of
+them. Now the Osborns are hunting for a new home. Children of the family
+have been awakened at midnight by visitors which persisted in shaking
+them out of bed; Mrs. Osborn has been confronted with ghostly
+spectacles, and through the halls and vacant rooms strange footsteps are
+frequently heard when all the family are trying to sleep; sounds loud
+enough to arouse every member of the household. Then the manifestations
+sometimes change to moanings and groanings sufficiently vehement and
+pitiful to distract all who hear them. Once upon a time, perhaps a dozen
+years ago, Jonathan Riggs lived in this house, and as the local gossips
+assert, Riggs caused the death of his wife by his brutal conduct and
+then swallowed poison to end his own life. The anniversary of the
+murderous month in the Riggs family has arrived and the manifestations
+are so frequent and so lively that "the like has never been seen
+before," as is affirmed by a veteran Stratford citizen. There is no
+shadow of doubt in Stratford that the spirits of the Riggses are spryly
+cavorting around their former abode.
+
+Over at the Thimble Islands, off Stony Creek, is an acre or two of soil
+piled high on a lot of rocks. The natives call it Frisbie Island. Not
+more than a hundred yards off shore it contains a big bleak looking
+house which was built about twenty years ago to serve as a Summer hotel
+when Connecticut capitalists were deep in schemes to tempt New Yorkers
+to this part of the Sound shore to spend their Summers. New Yorkers
+declined to be tempted, and the old house is rapidly approaching decay.
+It has recently assumed a peculiar interest for the residents of Stony
+Creek. Midnight lights have suddenly appeared in all its windows at
+frequent intervals, fitfully flashing up and down like the blaze in the
+Long Island lighthouses. Ghosts! This is the universal verdict. Nobody
+disputes it. Once or twice a hardy crew of local sailors have
+volunteered to go out and investigate the mystery, but when the time for
+the test has arrived, there somehow have always been reasons for
+postponing the excursion. Cynical people profess to believe that
+practical jokers are at the root of the manifestations, but such a
+profane view is not widely entertained among the good people who have
+their homes at Stony Creek.
+
+Over near Middletown is a farmer named Edgar G. Stokes, a gentleman who
+is said to have graduated with honor in a New England college more than
+a quarter of a century ago. He enjoys, perhaps, the most notable bit of
+superstition to be found anywhere in this country, in or out of
+Connecticut. He owns the farm on which he lives, and it is valuable; not
+quite so valuable though as it once was, for Mr. Stokes's eccentric
+disposition has somewhat changed the usual tactics that farmers pursue
+when they own fertile acres. The average man clears his soil of stones;
+Mr. Stokes has been piling rocks all over his land. Little by little the
+weakness--or philosophy--has grown upon him; and not only from every
+part of Middlesex County, but from every part of this State he has been
+accumulating wagonloads of pebbles and rocks. He seeks for no peculiar
+stone either in shape, color, or quality. If they are stones that is
+sufficient. And his theory is that stones have souls--souls, too, that
+are not so sordid and earthly as the souls that animate humanity. They
+are souls purified and exalted. In the rocks are the spirits of the
+greatest men who have lived in past ages, developed by some divinity
+until they have become worthy of their new abode. Napoleon Bonaparte's
+soul inhabits a stone, so does Hannibal's, so does Cęsar's, but poor
+plebeian John Smith and William Jenkins, they never attained such
+immortality.
+
+Farmer Stokes has dumped his rocks with more or less reverence all along
+his fields, and this by one name and that by another he knows and hails
+them all. A choice galaxy of the distinguished lights of the old days
+are in his possession, and just between the burly bits of granite at
+the very threshold of his home is a smooth-faced crystal from the Rocky
+Mountains. This stone has no soul yet. The rough, jagged rock on its
+left is George Washington. The granite spar on the right is glorified
+with the spirit of good Queen Bess. The smooth-faced crystal one of
+these days is to know the bliss of swallowing up the spirit of good
+Farmer Edgar Garton Stokes. It was not until recently that mystified
+neighbors obtained the secret of the vast accumulation of rough stones
+on the Stokes farm. Mr. Stokes has a family. They all seem to be
+intelligent, practical business people. There may be a will contested in
+Middletown one of these days.
+
+
+THE SPOOK OF DIAMOND ISLAND
+
+(St. Louis _Globe-Democrat_, Sept. 18, 1888)
+
+HARDEN, Ill., Sept. 18.--For some time past rumors have been circulated
+in Hardin to the effect that Diamond Island, in the river about two
+miles from this place, was the home of a ghost. The stories concerning
+the movements of the alleged spook were, of course, not given any
+credence at first, but later, when several reputable citizens of Hardin
+announced that they had positively seen an uncanny looking object moving
+about on the island at night, the rumors were more seriously considered.
+Now, after investigation, the mysterious something is no longer
+considered a myth.
+
+Along toward midnight a peculiar light is seen at the foot of the
+island. It has the appearance of a huge ball of fire, and is about the
+size and shape of an ordinary barrel.
+
+A few nights ago a party of young men from this place determined to
+visit the island and fathom the mystery if possible. Equipped with
+revolvers, knives, shotguns, and clubs, the party secured a boat and
+were soon cutting through the water at a good speed for a point on the
+island near where the specter usually made its appearance. Arriving at
+the landing place, the skiff was hauled up on the shore and the young
+men took up a position in a clump of trees close at hand to watch and
+wait.
+
+Suddenly the whole point of the island was illumined as a bright red
+object rose apparently from the water and glided up into the air.
+Ascending probably to a height of forty yards, the watchers saw the
+lurid ball fade away. The investigating party had seen all they wanted.
+They made a mad rush for the boat, but, just as they reached the place
+where it had been left, they were horrified to see the little craft
+moving out on the water from the island. At first its only occupant
+seemed to be the red ball of fire, but the next moment the watchers saw
+the crimson object gradually take the form of a man, and they saw him,
+too, dip the oars at regular intervals and pull a long, steady stroke.
+The man's features were fully concealed by a wide-rimmed slouch hat,
+which was drawn over his face. A peculiar light illumined the boat and
+the waters around it, making the craft and its mysterious occupant
+perfectly discernible to the party on the shore, who stood paralyzed
+with fear, unable to speak or move, their eyes riveted by some
+mysterious influence they could not resist on the spectral object before
+them.
+
+The boat was now about in midstream, and suddenly the group of watchers
+saw the skiff's occupant change again into the crimson ball. Then it
+slowly began to move upward, and when it was about parallel with the
+tops of the trees on the island it disappeared. Next instant the
+watchers looking across the river saw nothing but the flickering lights
+in Hardin.
+
+The cries of the crowd on the island awakened a sleeping fisherman on
+the opposite side of the river, and he kindly pulled across and rescued
+the ghost-seeking youths. The fiery spook, it is said, still makes its
+nightly trips to Diamond Island, but no more investigating parties have
+ventured across to solve the mystery.
+
+It is said that some years ago a foul murder was committed on this
+island, and by the superstitious the crimson object is believed to be
+the restless spirit of the slain man.
+
+
+THE GHOST'S FULL HOUSE
+
+(N.Y. _Sun_, April 10, 1891)
+
+The Bleecker street ghost drew as large a "house" last night as Barnum's
+Circus or any of the theaters. There was a bigger crowd about
+"Cohnfeld's Folly" than there was three weeks ago when the flames gutted
+the buildings from Mercer to Greene streets and did damage away up in
+the millions. The wraith was not due till midnight, but the street was
+packed with watchers as early as 9 o'clock. The crowd was so dense that
+pedestrians with difficulty forced their way through it and twice a
+squad of blue-coats descended on the mob and routed it. Five minutes
+after the police had retired the street was as impassable as before.
+
+In the midst of the ruins of the big fire a single wall towers away
+above the surrounding brick partitions. It looks feeble and almost
+tottering and the shop-keepers in the vicinity say that when there is a
+high wind it sways to and fro and threatens to come down in a heap.
+After dark the outlines of the summit of this wall are very indistinct.
+The detail of the wreck could not be made out even in last night's
+bright starlight. There is a sheet of tin, however, on the top of the
+wall, which was probably a cornice before the fire. Only one side of it
+is attached to the brickwork, and when there is any wind it trembles in
+the breeze and rattles with an uncertain sound. It may have been that
+the sheen of the tin in the starlight or a windy night first suggested
+the idea of a ghost to some weird imagination.
+
+There is an old Frenchman living in the vicinity, however, who avers
+that three nights ago he saw with his own eyes a lady in white standing
+out against the darkened sky on the very summit of the tottering wall.
+Her long, flowing robes fluttered in the breeze, and even while he
+watched there came a low, wailing sound, and the wraith dissolved into
+air. He kept his eye fixed on the spot for a full minute, but the vision
+did not reappear, and as he turned to walk away he thought he heard
+groaning as of a lost spirit. The sound, he says, made his blood run
+cold and kept him shivering the whole night through.
+
+The alleged appearance of the ghost has set the whole neighborhood a
+talking, and some of the "old residenters" have recalled a murder which
+took place in the vicinity many years ago, when A.T. Stewart lived there
+and the street was one of the fashionable places of residence of the
+town. There was a wealthy old gentleman of foreign birth who lived in
+the street and was quite a recluse. He would pass the time of day with
+his neighbors when he met them in the street, but he was never known to
+enter into conversation with any one. The blinds were always drawn in
+his front windows, and at night there was not a ray of light to be seen
+about the house. His only servants were a couple somewhat advanced in
+years, who were as foreign and uncommunicative as himself. The master of
+the house would be away for months at a time and the neighbors had all
+sorts of theories as to his disappearances. Some thought he was engaged
+in unlawful business, others suggested that his absence might be
+attributed to the supernatural, but those who were less flighty
+concluded that he simply went off on periodical visits to his native
+land.
+
+On his return from one of these visits, however, the old gentleman
+brought with him a beautiful young girl. She was little more than a
+child in appearance, and had the soft eyes, olive complexion and lithe,
+graceful figure of a Spaniard. She was never seen alive after she passed
+the shadow of the old man's doorway. A few weeks later the old gentleman
+disappeared as mysteriously as if he had been snatched up into the
+clouds. The old couple who kept his home walked away one day and never
+returned. There was an investigation, and in a hole dug in the cellar
+was found the body of the beautiful young girl. There were no marks on
+her body, and it was supposed she had been smothered. The exact date of
+this tragedy is not fixed. Inspector Byrnes says that if it ever
+occurred it was before his time.
+
+The ghost, if ghost there is, is undoubtedly the spirit of this
+unfortunate and nameless young woman. A _World_ reporter watched the
+Bleecker street ruins with the crowd last night and was there at the
+midnight hour, but never a sign of a ghost did he see. There were those
+in the crowd, nevertheless, who thought or pretended to think that they
+did. Once there was a rattling sound in the ruins, which caused a
+commotion among the lookers-on, but it was only because a small boy had
+shied a brick at the old wall. The living spirits boomed the liquor
+business in the saloons of the vicinity. A skull and cross-bones over
+one of these bars was surmounted with the somewhat appropriate legend
+freshly painted:
+
+"In the midst of life we are in debt."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] Transcriber's Note: The original is missing text following this
+mark. Both it and a reprint of the same were searched and were printed
+in this way.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+   Obvious printing punctuation errors were repaired.
+
+   On pages 50-51, the top paragraph had a printing problem in the
+   page gutter. From the letters that were left, the following changes
+   were made in the text. (Changes noted by **)
+
+   Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed,
+   had I long to wait before the dawn broke. Nor till it**
+   was broad daylight did I quit the haunted house. Before
+   I did so, I revisited the little blind room in which my servant
+   and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a**
+   strong impression--for which I could not account--that
+
+   On page 51:
+
+   nothing in refutation of that conjecture; rather, I suggest
+   it as one that would seem to many persons the most
+   probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief
+   in** my own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the
+   evening to the house, to bring away in a hack cab the things
+   I** had left there, with my poor dog's body. In this task I
+   was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall
+   me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs,
+   I** heard the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house,
+   I went to Mr. J.'s. He was at home. I returned him the
+   keys, told him that my curiosity was sufficiently gratified,
+   and was about to relate quickly what had passed,
+   when he stopped me, and said, though with much politeness,
+   that he had no longer any interest in a mystery which
+   none had ever solved.
+
+   I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I
+   had** read, as well as of the extraordinary manner in which
+   they** had disappeared, and I then inquired if he thought
+   they** had been addressed to the woman who had died in the
+
+   Page 62, "weding-party" changed to "wedding-party": (so merry a
+   wedding-party)
+
+   Page 63: "sad" changed to "said" (and said, in a suppressed tone)
+
+   Page 72: "hed" changed to "had" (had ever passed his lip.)
+
+   Page 73: "woful" changed to "woeful" (woeful condition)
+
+   Page 102: "frace" change to "face" (from his face)
+
+   Page 147: "be" changed to "he" (But he kept his title?)
+
+   Page 172: "breathd" changed to "breathed" (she breathed heavily)
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST GHOST STORIES***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 17893-8.txt or 17893-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/8/9/17893
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+