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Title: Twenty-Five Ghost Stories

Editor: W. Bob Holland

Release date: October 31, 2016 [eBook #53419]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY-FIVE
GHOST STORIES ***

Twenty-Five Ghost Stories.

COMPILED AND EDITED

BY

W. BOB HOLLAND.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
—Hamlet.

————————
Copyright, 1904, by
J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company.
————————

New York:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 Rose Street.

CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface 5
The Black Cat 7
The Flayed Hand 28
The Vengeance of a Tree 37
The Parlor-Car Ghost 44
Ghost of Buckstown Inn 51
The Burglar’s Ghost 59
A Phantom Toe 76
Mrs. Davenport’s Ghost 81
The Phantom Woman 90
The Phantom Hag 100
From the Tomb 105
Sandy’s Ghost 114
The Ghosts of Red Creek 123
The Spectre Bride 128
How He Caught the Ghost 134
Grand-Dame’s Ghost Story 144
A Fight with a Ghost 153
Colonel Halifax’s Ghost Story 168
The Ghost of the Count 190
The Old Mansion 202
A Misfit Ghost 210
An Unbidden Guest 215
The Dead Woman’s Photograph 220
The Ghost of a Live Man 228
The Ghost of Washington 236

PREFACE
This collection of ghost stories owes its publication to an interest that I
have long felt in the supernatural and in works of the imagination. As a
child I was deeply concerned in tales of spooks, haunted houses, wraiths
and specters and stories of weird experiences, clanking chains, ghostly
sights and gruesome sounds always held me spellbound and breathless.
Experiences in editorial offices taught me that I was not alone in liking
stories of mystery. The desire to know something of that existence that is
veiled by Death is equally potent in old age and in youth, and men, women
and children like to be thrilled and to have a “creepy” feeling along the
spinal column as the result of reading of a visitor from beyond the grave.
This volume contains the most famous of the weird stories of Edgar
Allan Poe, that master of this form of literature. “The Black Cat” contains
all the needed element of mystery and supernatural, and yet the feline acts
in a natural manner all of the time, and the story is quite possibly true. It is
only in the manner of its telling that the tale becomes one that fittingly finds
its place in this collection.
Guy de Maupassant, the clever Frenchman, is also represented by two
effective bits of work, and other less widely known writers have also
contributed stories that are worth reading, and when once read will be
remembered. There is not a story among the twenty-five that is not worthy
of close reading.
There has recently been a revival in interest in ghost stories. Many of the
high-class magazines have within a few months printed stories with
supernatural incidents, and writers whose names are known to all who read
have turned their attention to this form of literature.
Whether or not the reader believe in ghosts, he cannot fail to be
interested in this little book. Without venturing to express a positive opinion
either way, I will only say with Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
W. Bob Holland.

Twenty-Five Ghost Stories

THE BLACK CAT.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.

For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I
neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a
case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—
and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would
unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world,
plainly, succinctly and without comment a series of mere household events.
In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have
destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me they have
presented little but horror, to many they will seem less terrible than
baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will
reduce my phantasm to the commonplace—some intellect more calm, more
logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive in the
circumstances I detail with awe nothing more than an ordinary succession
of very natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me
the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was
indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most
of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.
This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood I
derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have
cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at
the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus
derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a
brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent
occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not
uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets she
lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had
birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black,
and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my
wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent
allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as
witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point—and I
mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now,
to be remembered.
Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I
alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was
even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the
streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my
general temperament and character—through the instrumentality of the
fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical
alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable,
more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use
intemperate language to my wife. At length I even offered her personal
violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my
disposition. I not only neglected them, but ill-used them. For Pluto,
however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating
him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey or even the
dog, when by accident or through affection they came in my way. But my
disease grew upon me—for what disease is like alcohol! And at length even
Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—
even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill-temper.
One night, returning home much intoxicated from one of my haunts
about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him, when,
in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with
his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no
longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body;
and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of
my frame. I took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped
the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the
socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the fumes
of the night’s debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of

remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a
feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again
plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered.

“One night, returning home much intoxicated.”

The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but
he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual,
but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so
much of my old heart left as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on
the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon
gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable
overthrow, the spirit of perverseness. Of this spirit philosophy takes no
account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives than I am that

perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of
the indivisible primary faculties or sentiments which give direction to the
character of man. Who has not, hundreds of times, found himself
committing a vile or silly action, for no other reason than because he knows
he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best
judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to
be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It
was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to
its own nature—to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only—that urged me to
continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the
unoffending brute. One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its
neck, and hung it to the limb of a tree; hung it with the tears streaming from
my eyes and the bitterest remorse at my heart; hung it because I knew that it
had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no offense; hung it because
I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so
jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it, if such a thing were possible—
even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the most merciful and most
terrible God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused
from sleep by the cry of “fire!” The curtains of my bed were in flames. The
whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a
servant and myself made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction
was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned
myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and
effect between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of
facts, and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day
succeeding the fire I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had
fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick,
which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the
head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the
action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to its having been recently
spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons
seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and
eager attention. The words “strange!” “singular!” and other similar
expressions excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas-
relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression

was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the
animal’s neck.
When I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely regard it as less
—my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to
my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the
house. Upon the alarm of fire this garden had been immediately filled by
the crowd—by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the
tree and thrown through an open window into my chamber. This had
probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of
other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of
the freshly spread plaster, the lime of which with the flames, and the
ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw
it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my
conscience, for the

“Because I knew that it had loved me.”

startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression
upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the
cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half sentiment
that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the
animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually
frequented, for another pet of the same species and of somewhat similar
appearance, with which to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my
attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head
of one of the immense hogsheads of gin, or of rum, which constituted the
chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of
this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the
fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it

and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat—a very large one—fully as
large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect, but only Pluto
had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large,
although indefinite, splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of
the breast.
Upon my touching him he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed
against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was
the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of
the landlord; but this person made no claim to it—knew nothing of it—had
never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and when I prepared to go home the animal
evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so, occasionally
stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it
domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with
my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was
just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but—I know not how or why it
was—its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed me. By
slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the
bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the
remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically
abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it;
but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with unutterable
loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of
a pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on
the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been
deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to
my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that
humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the
source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to
increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be
difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat it would crouch
beneath my chair or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome
caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet, and thus nearly

throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber,
in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it
with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my
former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once—by absolute dread of
the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil—and yet I should be
at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own—yes,
even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to own—that the terror and
horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one of
the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called
my attention more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of
which I have spoken, and which

“The figure of a gigantic cat.”

constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one
I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large,
had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees—degrees nearly
imperceptible, and which for a long time my reason struggled to reject as
fanciful—it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was
now the representation of an object that I shudder to name—and for this,
above all, I loathed and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster
had I dared—it was now I say the image of a hideous, of a ghastly thing—
of the gallows! Oh, mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime—of
agony and of death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere
humanity. And a brute beast, whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed
—a brute beast to work out for me—for me, a man, fashioned in the image
of the High God—so much of insufferable woe. Alas! neither by day nor
night knew I the blessing of rest any more. During the former the creature
left me no moment alone, and in the latter I started hourly from dreams of
unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its
vast weight—an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off—
incumbent eternally upon my heart.
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these the feeble remnants of the
good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates—the
darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper
increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden,
frequent and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly
abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and
the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me upon some household errand into the
cellar of the old building, which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The
cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong,
exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath,
the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the
animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended
as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by
the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from
her grasp, and buried the ax in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot,
without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with
entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could
not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of
being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one
period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments and destroying
them by fire. At another I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the
cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it into the well in the yard—about
packing it in a box, as if merchandise, with the usual arrangements, and so
getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I
considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it
up in the cellar—as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have
walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were
loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough
plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from
hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false
chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest
of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this
point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye
could detect anything suspicious.
And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I
easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against
the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I relaid
the whole structure as it originally stood. Having

“An extraordinary cat.”

procured mortar, sand and hair with every possible precaution, I prepared a
plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very
carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished I felt satisfied
that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of
having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the
minutest care. I looked around triumphantly and said to myself, “Here, at
least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so
much wretchedness, for I had at length firmly resolved to put it to death.
Had I been able to meet with it at the moment there could have been no
doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at
the violence of my previous anger and forebore to present itself in my
present mood. It is impossible to describe or to imagine the deep, the

blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature
occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night—
and thus, for one night at least since its introduction into the house, I
soundly and tranquilly slept—aye, slept, even with the burden of murder
upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not.
Once again I breathed as a free man. The monster, in terror, had fled the
premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme!
The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had
been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been
instituted—but, of course, nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my
future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination a party of the police came very
unexpectedly into the house and proceeded again to make a rigorous
investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my
place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade
me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner
unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the
cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat as calmly as that of one
who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded
my arms upon my bosom and roamed easily to and fro. The police were
thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too
strong to be restrained. I burned to say but one word, by way of triumph,
and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to
have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health and a little more
courtesy. By the by, gentlemen, this—this is a very well constructed house.”
(In the rabid desire to say something easily I scarcely knew what I uttered at
all.) “I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls—are
you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;” and here,
through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I
held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brickwork behind which
stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch Fiend!
No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence than I was
answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and

broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long,
loud and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl!—a
wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen
only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony
and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the
opposite wall. For an instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless,
through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next a dozen stout arms were
toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already getting decayed and
clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its
head, with red, extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous
beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice
had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the
tomb!

THE FLAYED HAND.

BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT.

One evening about eight months ago I met with some college comrades
at the lodgings of our friend Louis R. We drank punch and smoked, talked
of literature and art, and made jokes like any other company of young men.
Suddenly the door flew open, and one who had been my friend since
boyhood burst in like a hurricane.
“Guess where I come from?” he cried.
“I bet on the Mabille,” responded one. “No,” said another, “you are too
gay; you come from borrowing money, from burying a rich uncle, or from
pawning your watch.” “You are getting sober,” cried a third, “and, as you
scented the punch in Louis’ room, you came up here to get drunk again.”
“You are all wrong,” he replied. “I come from P., in Normandy, where I
have spent eight days, and whence I have brought one of my friends, a great
criminal, whom I ask permission to present to you.”
With these words he drew from his pocket a long, black hand, from
which the skin had been stripped. It had been severed at the wrist. Its dry
and shriveled shape, and the narrow, yellowed nails still clinging to the
fingers, made it frightful to look upon. The muscles, which showed that its
first owner had been possessed of great strength, were bound in place by a
strip of parchment-like skin.
“Just fancy,” said my friend, “the other day they sold the effects of an
old sorcerer, recently deceased, well known in all the country. Every
Saturday night he used to go to witch gatherings on a broomstick; he
practised the white magic and the black, gave blue milk to the cows, and
made them wear tails like that of the companion of Saint Anthony. The old
scoundrel always had a deep affection for this hand, which, he said, was
that of a celebrated criminal, executed in 1736 for having thrown his lawful
wife head first into a well—for which I do not blame him—and then
hanging in the belfry the priest who had married him. After this double
exploit he went away, and, during his subsequent career, which was brief

but exciting, he robbed twelve travelers, smoked a score of monks in their
monastery, and made a seraglio of a convent.”
“But what are you going to do with this horror?” we cried.
“Eh! parbleu! I will make it the handle to my door-bell and frighten my
creditors.”
“My friend,” said Henry Smith, a big, phlegmatic Englishman, “I believe
that this hand is only a kind of Indian meat, preserved by a new process; I
advise you to make bouillon of it.”
“Rail not, messieurs,” said, with the utmost sang froid, a medical student
who was three-quarters drunk, “but if you follow my advice, Pierre, you
will give this piece of human debris Christian burial, for fear lest its owner
should come to demand it. Then, too, this hand has acquired some bad
habits, for you know the proverb, ‘Who has killed will kill.’ ”
“And who has drank will drink,” replied the host as he poured out a big
glass of punch for the student, who emptied it at a draught and slid dead
drunk under the table. His sudden dropping out of the company was greeted
with a burst of laughter, and Pierre, raising his glass and saluting the hand,
cried:
“I drink to the next visit of thy master.”
Then the conversation turned upon other subjects, and shortly afterward
each returned to his lodgings.
* * * * *
About two o’clock the next day, as I was passing Pierre’s door, I entered
and found him reading and smoking.
“Well, how goes it?” said I. “Very well,” he responded. “And your
hand?” “My hand? Did you not see it on the bell-pull? I put it there when I
returned home last night. But, apropos of this, what do you think? Some
idiot, doubtless to play a stupid joke on me, came ringing at my door
towards midnight. I demanded who was there, but as no one replied, I went
back to bed again, and to sleep.”
At this moment the door opened and the landlord, a fat and extremely
impertinent person, entered without saluting us.
“Sir,” said he, “I pray you to take away immediately that carrion which
you have hung to your bell-pull. Unless you do this I shall be compelled to
ask you to leave.”

“Sir,” responded Pierre, with much gravity, “you insult a hand which
does not merit it. Know you that it belonged to a man of high breeding?”
The landlord turned on his heel and made his exit, without speaking.
Pierre followed him, detached the hand and affixed it to the bell-cord
hanging in his alcove.
“That is better,” he said. “This hand, like the ‘Brother, all must die,’ of
the Trappists, will give my thoughts a serious turn every night before I
sleep.”
At the end of an hour I left him and returned to my own apartment.
I slept badly the following night, was nervous and agitated, and several
times awoke with a start. Once I imagined, even, that a man had broken into
my room, and I sprang up and searched the closets and under the bed.
Towards six o’clock in the morning I was commencing to doze at last, when
a loud knocking at my door made me jump from my couch. It was my
friend Pierre’s servant, half dressed, pale and trembling.
“Ah, sir!” cried he, sobbing, “my poor master. Someone has murdered
him.”
I dressed myself hastily and ran to Pierre’s lodgings. The house was full
of people disputing together, and everything was in a commotion. Everyone
was talking at the same time, recounting and commenting on the occurrence
in all sorts of ways. With great difficulty I reached the bedroom, made
myself known to those guarding the door and was permitted to enter. Four
agents of police were standing in the middle of the apartment, pencils in
hand, examining every detail, conferring in low voices and writing from
time to time in their note-books. Two doctors were in consultation by the
bed on which lay the unconscious form of Pierre. He was not dead, but his
face was fixed in an expression of the most awful terror. His eyes were open
their widest, and the dilated pupils seemed to regard fixedly, with
unspeakable horror, something unknown and frightful. His hands were
clinched. I raised the quilt, which covered his body from the chin
downward, and saw on his neck, deeply sunk in the flesh, the marks of
fingers. Some drops of blood spotted his shirt. At that moment one thing
struck me. I chanced to notice that the shriveled hand was no longer
attached to the bell-cord. The doctors had doubtless removed it to avoid the
comments of those entering the chamber where the wounded man lay,

because the appearance of this hand was indeed frightful. I did not inquire
what had become of it.
I now clip from a newspaper of the next day the story of the crime with
all the details that the police were able to procure:
“A frightful attempt was made yesterday on the life of young M. Pierre
B., student, who belongs to one of the best families in Normandy. He
returned home about ten o’clock in the evening, and excused his valet,
Bouvin, from further attendance upon him, saying that he felt fatigued and
was going to bed. Towards midnight Bouvin was suddenly awakened by the
furious ringing of his master’s bell. He was afraid, and lighted a lamp and
waited. The bell was silent about a minute, then rang again with such
vehemence that the domestic, mad with fright, flew from his room to
awaken the concierge, who ran to summon the police, and, at the end of
about fifteen minutes, two policemen forced open the door. A horrible sight
met their eyes. The furniture was overturned, giving evidence of a fearful
struggle between the victim and his assailant. In the middle of the room,
upon his back, his body rigid, with livid face and frightfully dilated eyes,
lay, motionless, young Pierre B., bearing upon his neck the deep imprints of
five fingers. Dr. Bourdean was called immediately, and his report says that
the aggressor must have been possessed of prodigious strength and have
had an extraordinarily thin and sinewy hand, because the fingers left in the
flesh of the victim five holes like those from a pistol ball, and had
penetrated until they almost met. There is no clue to the motive of the crime
or to its perpetrator. The police are making a thorough investigation.”
The following appeared in the same newspaper next day:
“M. Pierre B., the victim of the frightful assault of which we published
an account yesterday, has regained consciousness after two hours of the
most assiduous care by Dr. Bourdean. His life is not in danger, but it is
strongly feared that he has lost his reason. No trace has been found of his
assailant.”
My poor friend was indeed insane. For seven months I visited him daily
at the hospital where we had placed him, but he did not recover the light of
reason. In his delirium strange words escaped him, and, like all madmen, he
had one fixed idea: he believed himself continually pursued by a specter.
One day they came for me in haste, saying he was worse, and when I
arrived I found him dying. For two hours he remained very calm, then,

suddenly, rising from his bed in spite of our efforts, he cried, waving his
arms as if a prey to the most awful terror: “Take it away! Take it away! It
strangles me! Help! Help!” Twice he made the circuit of the room, uttering
horrible screams, then fell face downward, dead.
* * * * *
As he was an orphan I was charged to take his body to the little village
of P., in Normandy, where his parents were buried. It was the place from
which he had arrived the evening he found us drinking punch in Louis R.’s
room, when he had presented to us the flayed hand. His body was inclosed
in a leaden coffin, and four days afterwards I walked sadly beside the old
cure, who had given him his first lessons, to the little cemetery where they
dug his grave. It was a beautiful day, and sunshine from a cloudless sky
flooded the earth. Birds sang from the blackberry bushes where many a
time when we were children we had stolen to eat the fruit. Again I saw
Pierre and myself creeping along behind the hedge and slipping through the
gap that we knew so well, down at the end of the little plot where they bury
the poor. Again we would return to the house with cheeks and lips black
with the juice of the berries we had eaten. I looked at the bushes; they were
covered with fruit; mechanically I picked some and bore it to my mouth.
The cure had opened his breviary, and was muttering his prayers in a low
voice. I heard at the end of the walk the spades of the grave-diggers who
were opening the tomb. Suddenly they called out, the cure closed his book,
and we went to see what they wished of us. They had found a coffin; in
digging a stroke of the pickaxe had started the cover, and we perceived
within a skeleton of unusual stature, lying on its back, its hollow eyes
seeming yet to menace and defy us. I was troubled, I know not why, and
almost afraid.
“Hold!” cried one of the men, “look there! One of the rascal’s hands has
been severed at the wrist. Ah, here it is!” and he picked up from beside the
body a huge withered hand, and held it out to us.
“See,” cried the other, laughing, “see how he glares at you, as if he
would spring at your throat to make you give him back his hand.”
“Go,” said the cure, “leave the dead in peace, and close the coffin. We
will make poor Pierre’s grave elsewhere.”
The next day all was finished, and I returned to Paris, after having left
fifty francs with the old cure for masses to be said for the repose of the soul

of him whose sepulchre we had troubled.

THE VENGEANCE OF A TREE.

BY ELEANOR F. LEWIS.

Through the windows of Jim Daly’s saloon, in the little town of C——,
the setting sun streamed in yellow patches, lighting up the glasses scattered
on the tables and the faces of several men who were gathered near the bar.
Farmers mostly they were, with a sprinkling of shopkeepers, while
prominent among them was the village editor, and all were discussing a
startling piece of news that had spread through the town and its
surroundings. The tidings that Walter Stedman, a laborer on Albert Kelsey’s
ranch, had assaulted and murdered his employer’s daughter, had reached
them, and had spread universal horror among the people.
A farmer declared that he had seen the deed committed as he walked
through a neighboring lane, and, having always been noted for his
cowardice, instead of running to the girl’s aid, had hailed a party of miners
who were returning from their mid-day meal through a field near by. When
they reached the spot, however, where Stedman (as they supposed) had
done his black deed, only the girl lay there, in the stillness of death. Her
murderer had taken the opportunity to fly. The party had searched the
woods of the Kelsey estate, and just as they were nearing the house itself
the appearance of Walter Stedman, walking in a strangely unsteady manner
toward it, made them quicken their pace.
He was soon in custody, although he had protested his innocence of the
crime. He said that he had just seen the body himself on his way to the
station, and that when they had found him he was going to the house for
help. But they had laughed at his story and had flung him into the tiny,
stifling calaboose of the town.
What were their proofs? Walter Stedman, a young fellow of about
twenty-six, had come from the city to their quiet town, just when times
were at their hardest, in search of work. The most of the men living in the
town were honest fellows, doing their work faithfully, when they could get
it, and when they had socially asked Stedman to have a drink with them, he
had refused in rather a scornful manner. “That infernal city chap,” he was

called, and their hate and envy increased in strength when Albert Kelsey
had employed him in preference to any of themselves. As time went on, the
story of Stedman’s admiration for Margaret Kelsey had gone afloat, with
the added information that his employer’s daughter had repulsed him,
saying that she would not marry a common laborer. So Stedman, when this
news reached his employer’s ears, was discharged, and this, then, was his
revenge! For them, these proofs were sufficient to pronounce him guilty.
Yet that afternoon, as Stedman, crouched on the floor of the calaboose,
grew hopeless in the knowledge that no one would believe his story, and
that his undeserved punishment would be swift and sure, a tramp, boarding
a freight car several miles from the town, sped away from the spot where
his crime had been committed, and knew that forever its shadow would
follow him.
From the tiny window of his prison Walter Stedman could see the red
glow of the heavens that betokened the setting of the sun. So the red sun of
his life was soon to set, a life that had been innocent of all crime, and that
now was to be ended for a deed that he had never committed. Most
prominent of all the visions that swept through his mind was that of
Margaret Kelsey, lying as he had first found her, fresh from the hands of her
murderer. But there was another of a more tender nature. How long he and
Margaret had tried to keep their secret, until Walter could be promoted to a
higher position, so that he could ask for her hand with no fear of the father’s
antagonism! Then came the remembrance of an afternoon meeting between
the two in the woods of the Kelsey estate—how, just as they were parting,
Walter had heard footsteps near them, and, glancing sharply around, saw an
evil, scowling, murderous face peering through the brush. He had started
toward it, but the owner of the countenance had taken himself hurriedly off.
The gossiping townspeople had misconstrued this romance, and when
Albert Kelsey had heard of this clandestine meeting from the man who was
later on to appear as a leader of the mob, and that he had discharged
Stedman, they had believed that the young man had formally proposed and
had been rejected. But justice had gone wrong, as it had done innumerable
times before, and will again. An innocent man was to be hanged, even
without the comfort of a trial, while the man who was guilty was free to
wander where he would.

That autumn night the darkness came quickly, and only the stars did their
best to light the scene. A body of men, all masked, and having as a leader
one who had ever since Stedman’s arrival in town, cherished a secret hatred
of the young man, dragged Stedman from the calaboose and tramped
through the town, defying all, defying even God himself. Along the
highway, and into Farmer Brown’s “cross cut,” they went, vigilantly
guarding their prisoner, who, with the lanterns lighting up his haggard face,
walked among them with the lagging step of utter hopelessness.
“That’s a good tree,” their leader said, presently, stopping and pointing
out a spreading oak; when the slipknot was adjusted and Stedman had
stepped on the box, he added: “If you’ve got anything to say, you’d better
say it now.”
“I am innocent, I swear before God,” the doomed man answered; “I
never took the life of Margaret Kelsey.”
“Give us your proof,” jeered the leader, and when Stedman kept a
despairing silence, he laughed shortly.
“Ready, men!” he gave the order. The box was kicked aside, and then—
only a writhing body swung to and fro in the gloom.
In front of the men stood their leader, watching the contortions of the
body with silent glee. “I’ll tell you a secret, boys,” he said suddenly. “I was
after that poor murdered girl myself. A d—— little chance I had; but, by
——, he had just as little!”
A pause—then: “He’s shunted this earth. Cut him down, you fellows!”
* * * * *
“It’s no use, son. I’ll give up the blasted thing as a bad job. There’s
something queer about that there tree. Do you see how its branches balance
it? We have cut the trunk nearly in two, but it won’t come down. There’s
plenty of others around; we’ll take one of them. If I’d a long rope with me
I’d get that tree down, and yet the way the thing stands it would be risking a
fellow’s life to climb it. It’s got the devil in it, sure.”
So old Farmer Brown shouldered his axe and made for another tree, his
son following. They had sawed and chopped and chopped and sawed, and
yet the tall white oak, with its branches jutting out almost as regularly as if
done by the work of a machine, stood straight and firm.

Farmer Brown, well known for his weak, cowardly spirit, who in
beholding the murder of Albert Kelsey’s daughter, had in his fright
mistaken the criminal, now in his superstition let the oak stand, because its
well-balanced position saved it from falling, when other trees would have
been down. And so this tree, the same one to which an innocent man had
been hanged, was left—for other work.
It was a bleak, rainy night—such a night as can be found only in central
California. The wind howled like a thousand demons, and lashed the trees
together in wild embraces. Now and then the weird “hoot, hoot!” of an owl
came softly from the distance in the lulls of the storm, while the barking of
coyotes woke the echoes of the hills into sounds like fiendish laughter.
In the wind and rain a man fought his path through the bush and into
Farmer Brown’s “cross cut,” as the shortest way home. Suddenly he
stopped, trembling, as if held by some unseen impulse. Before him rose the
white oak, wavering and swaying in the storm.
“Good God! it’s the tree I swung Stedman from!” he cried, and a strange
fear thrilled him.
His eyes were fixed on it, held by some undefinable fascination. Yes,
there on one of the longest branches a small piece of rope still dangled. And
then, to the murderer’s excited vision, this rope seemed to lengthen, to form
at the end into a slipknot, a knot that encircled a purple neck, while below it
writhed and swayed the body of a man!
“Damn him!” he muttered, starting toward the hanging form, as if about
to help the rope in its work of strangulation; “will he forever follow me?
And yet he deserved it, the black-hearted villain! He took her life——”
He never finished the sentence. The white oak, towering above him in its
strength, seemed to grow like a frenzied, living creature. There was a
sudden splitting sound, then came a crash, and under the fallen tree lay
Stedman’s murderer, crushed and mangled.
From between the broken trunk and the stump that was left, a gray, dim
shape sprang out, and sped past the man’s still form, away into the wild
blackness of the night.

THE PARLOR-CAR GHOST.
All draped with blue denim—the seaside cottage of my friend, Sara
Pyne. She asked me to go there with her when she opened it to have it set in
order for the summer. She confessed that she felt a trifle nervous at the idea
of entering it alone. And I am always ready for an excursion. So much blue
denim rather surprised me, because blue is not complimentary to Sara’s
complexion—she always wears some shade of red, by preference. She
perceived my wonder; she is very near-sighted, and therefore sees
everything by some sort of sixth sense.
“You do not like my portieres and curtains and table-covers,” said she.
“Neither do I. But I did it to accommodate. And now he rests well in his
grave, I hope.”
“Whose grave, for pity’s sake?”
“Mr. J. Billington Price’s.”
“And who is he? He doesn’t sound interesting.”
“Then I will tell you about him,” said Sara, taking a seat directly in front
of one of those curtains. “Last autumn I was leaving this place for New
York, traveling on the fast express train known as the Flying Yankee. Of
course, I thought of the Flying Dutchman and Wagner’s musical setting of
the uncanny legend, and how different things are in these days of steam, etc.
Then I looked out of the window at the landscape, the horizon that seemed
to wheel in a great curve as the train sped on. Every now and then I had an
impression at the ‘tail of the eye’ that a man was sitting in a chair three or
four numbers in front of me on the opposite side of the car. Each time that I
saw this shape I looked at the chair and ascertained that it was unoccupied.
But it was an odd trick of vision. I raised my lorgnette, and the chair
showed emptier than before. There was nobody in it, certainly. But the more
I knew that it was vacant the more plainly I saw the man. Always with the
corner of my eye. It made me nervous. When passengers entered the car I
dreaded lest they might take that seat. What would happen if they should? A
bag was put in the chair—that made me uncomfortable. The bag was
removed at the next station. Then a baby was placed in the seat. It began to
laugh as though someone had gently tickled it. There was something odd

about that chair—thirteen was its number. When I looked away from it the
impression was strong upon me that some person sitting there was watching
me.
“Really, it would not do to humor such fancies. So I touched the electric
button, asked the porter to bring me a table, and taking from my bag a pack
of cards, proceeded to divert myself with a game of patience. I was puzzling
where to put a seven of spades. ‘Where can it go?’ I murmured to myself. A
voice behind me prompted: ‘Play the four of diamonds on the five, and you
can do it.’ I started. The only occupants of the car, besides me, were a bridal
couple, a mother with three little children, and a typical preacher of one of
the straitest sects. Who had spoken? ‘Play up the four, madam,’ repeated
this voice.
“I looked fearfully over my shoulder. At first I saw a bluish cloud, like
cigar smoke, but inodorous. Then the vision cleared, and I saw a young man
whom I knew by a subtle intuition to be the occupant, seen and not seen, of
chair number thirteen. Evidently he was a traveling salesman—and a ghost.
Of course, a drummer’s ghost sounds ridiculous—they’re so extremely
alive! Or else you would expect a dead drummer to be particularly dead and
not ‘walk.’ This was a most commonplace-looking ghost, cordial, pushing,
businesslike. At the same time, his face had an expression of utter despair
and horror which made him still more preposterous. Of course it is not nice
to let a stranger speak to one, even on so impersonal a topic as a four of
diamonds. But a ghost—there can’t be any rule of etiquette about talking
with a ghost! My dear, it was dreadful! That forward creature showed me
how to play all the cards, and then begged me to lay them out again, in
order that he might give me some clever points. I was too much amazed and
disturbed to speak. I could only place the cards at his suggestion. This I did
so as not to appear to be listening to the empty air, and be supposed to be a
crazy woman. Presently the ghost spoke again, and told me his story.
“ ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I have been riding back and forth on this car ever
since February 22, 189—. Seven months and eleven days. All this time I
have not exchanged a word with anyone. For a drummer, that is pretty hard,
you may believe! You know the story of the Flying Dutchman? Well, that is
very nearly my case. A curse is upon me and will not be removed until
some kind soul——. But I’m getting ahead of my text. That day there were
four of us, traveling for different houses. One of the boys was in wool, one

in baking powder, one in boots and shoes, and myself in cotton goods. We
met on the road, took seats together and fell into talking shop.
“ ‘Those fellows told big lies about their sales, Washington’s Birthday
though it was. The baking powder man raised the amount of the bills of
goods which he had sold better than a whole can of his stuff could have
done. I admitted the straight truth, that I had not yet been able to make a
sale. And then I swore—not in a light-minded, chipper style of verbal
trimmings, but a great, round, heaven-defying oath—that I would sell a case
of blue denims on that trip if it took me forever. We became dry with talk,
and when the train stopped at Rivermouth, we went out to have some beer.
It is good there, you know—pardon me, I forgot that I was speaking to a
lady. Well, we had to run to get aboard. I missed my footing, fell under the
wheels, and the next thing that I knew they were holding an inquest over
my remains; while I, disemboweled, was sitting on a corner of the
undertaker’s table, wondering which of the coroner’s jury was likely to
want a case of blue denims.
“ ‘Then I remembered my wicked oath, and understood that I was a soul
doomed to wander until I could succeed in selling that bill of goods. I spoke
once or twice, offering the denims under value, but nobody noticed me.
Verdict: accidental death; negligence of deceased; railroad corporation not
to blame; deceased got out for beer at his own risk. The other drummers
took charge of the remains, and wrote a beautiful letter to my relatives
about my social qualities and my impressive conversation. I wish it had
been less impressive that time! I might have lied about my sales, or I might
have said that I hoped for better luck. But after that oath there was nothing
for it. Back and forth, back and forth, on this road, in chair number thirteen,
to all eternity. Nobody suspects my presence. They sit on my knees—I’m
playing in luck when it is a nice baby as it was this afternoon! They pile
wraps, bags, even railway literature on me. They play cards under my nose
—and what duffers some of them are! You, madam, are the first person who
has perceived me; and therefore I ventured to speak to you, meaning no
offense. I can see that you are sorry for me. Now, if you recall the story of
the Flying Dutchman, he was saved by the charity of a good woman. In
fact, Senta married him. Now I’m not asking anything of that size. I see that
you wear a wedding ring, and no doubt you make some man’s happiness. I
wasn’t a marrying man myself, and, naturally, am not a marrying ghost.
And that has nothing to do with the matter anyway. But if you could—I

don’t suppose you would have any use for them—but if you were disposed
to do a turn of good, solid, Christian charity—I should be everlastingly
grateful, and you may have that case of denims at $72.50. And that quality
is quoted to-day at $80. Does it go, madam?’
“The speech of the poor ghost was not very eloquent, but his eyes had an
intense, eager glare, which was terrible. Something—pity, fear, I do not
know what—compelled me. I decided to do without that white and gold
evening cloak. Instead, I gave $72.50 to the ghost and took from him a
receipt for the sum, signed J. Billington Price. Then he smiled contentedly,
thanked me with emotion, and returned to chair number thirteen. Several
times on the journey, although I did not perceive him again, I felt dazed.
When the train arrived at New York, and I, with the other passengers,
dismounted, it seemed to me that a strong hand passed under my elbow,
steadying me down the steps. As I walked the length of the station my bag
—not heavy at any time—appeared to become weightless. I believe that the
parlor-car ghost walked beside me, carrying the bag, whose handle still
remained in my other hand. Indeed, once or twice I thought I felt the touch
of cold fingers against mine. Since then I have no reason to suppose that the
poor ghost is not at rest. I hope he is.
“But I never expected nor wished for the blue denims. The next day,
however, a dray belonging to a great wholesale house backed up to our door
and delivered a case of denims, with a receipted bill for the same. What was
I to do? I could not go about selling blue denims; I could not give them
away without exciting comment. So I furnished the cottage with them—and
you know the effect on my complexion. Pity me, dear! And credit me,
frivolous woman as I am, with having saved a soul at the expense of my
own vanity. My story is told. What do you think about it?”

GHOST OF BUCKSTOWN INN.

BY ARNOLD M. ANDERSON.

Several travel-worn drummers sat in the lobby exchanging yarns. It was
Rodney Green’s turn, and he looked wise and began his tale.
“I don’t claim, by any means, that the belief in ghosts is a general thing
in Arkansas, but I do say that I had an experience out there a few years ago.
“It was late in the fall, and I happened to be in the village of Buckstown,
which desecrates a very limited portion of the State. The town is about as
small and dirty a place as ever I saw, and the Buckstown Inn is not much
above the general character of the place. The region is inhabited by natives
who still cling to all sorts of foolish superstitions. The inn, in the ante-
bellum days, was kept by one who was said to be the meanest and most
crabbed of mortals. The old demon was as miserly as he was mean, and all
his narrow life he hoarded his filthy lucre with fiendish greed. Report had it
also that he had even murdered his patrons in their beds for their money.
What the facts actually were I don’t know, but even to this day the old inn is
held in suspicion. A lingering effect of former horrors still clouds its
memory.
“The present proprietor, Bunk Watson—his real name is Bunker, I
believe—is an altogether different sort of chap—a Southern type, in fact—
one of those shiftless, heedless, happy-go-lucky mortals who loves strong
whiskey and who chews an enormous quid of black tobacco and smokes a
corncob pipe at the same time.
“When the former keeper ‘shuffled off,’ his property fell to a distant
relative, the present keeper, who, with his family, immediately moved in
from a neighboring hamlet and took possession. It was well known that the
old proprietor had accumulated considerable wealth during his sojourn
among the living, but all efforts to discover any treasure upon the premises
had failed, and now the idea of ever finding it was practically given up. As
far as Bunk was concerned, the matter troubled him little. He had a hard-
working wife who ran things the best she could under the circumstances,
and saw that his meals were forthcoming at their respective intervals. What

more could he wish? Why should he care if there was a treasure buried
upon his place? Indeed, it would have been a sore puzzle for him to know
what to do with a fortune unless perhaps his wife came to his aid.
“Among the stories that hovered in the history of the Buckstown Inn was
one which involved a ghost. In the room where the former keeper had died
peculiar noises were heard at unearthly hours: sighing, moaning, and, in
fact, all the other indications which point to the existence of ghosts, were
said to be present. On account of this the chamber had long since been
abandoned.
“I listened with keen interest to the wonderful tales about the haunted
room, and then suddenly resolved to investigate—to sleep in that chamber
that very night and see for myself all that was to be seen. I told Buck of my
purpose. He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, but instead of warning
me and offering a flood of protests, as I expected, he merely took his pipe
from his mouth, let fly a quart or so of yellowish juice from between a pair
of brown-stained lips, and, opening one corner of his wide mouth, lazily
called out: ‘Jane.’ His wife appeared, and he intimated that I should settle
the matter with the ‘old woman.’ The prospect of a fee persuaded the wife,
and off she went to arrange for my bed in that ill-fated room.
“At nine o’clock that evening I bid the family good-night, took my
candle, ascended the rickety stairs and entered the chamber of horrors. The
atmosphere was heavy and had a peculiar odor that was not at all pleasing.
However, I latched the door and was soon in bed. Having propped myself
up with pillows, I was prepared to await the coming of the ghost.
“Overhead the dusty rafters, which once had experienced the sensation
of being whitewashed, but which were now a dirty, yellowish color, were
hung with a fantastic array of cobwebs. The flickering light of the candle
reflected upon the walls and against the ceiling a pyramid of grotesque
shapes, and with this effect being continually disturbed by the swaying
cobwebs, the whole caused the room to appear rather ghostly after all, and
especially so to an imaginative mind.
“I waited and waited for hours, it seemed, but still no ghost. Perhaps it
was afraid of my candle light, so I blew it out. No sooner had I done this
and settled back in bed again than a white hand appeared through the door,
then a whole figure—at last the ghost had come, a white and sheeted ghost!

“It had come right through the door, although it was locked, and now it
advanced toward the bed. Raising its long, white arm, it pointed a bony
finger at me, and then commanded: ‘Come with me!’ Thereupon it turned to
the door, while instantly I jumped out of bed to follow. Some unseen power
compelled me to obey. The door flew open and the ghost led me down the
stairs, through long halls into the cellar, through mysterious underground
corridors, upstairs again, in and out rooms which I never dreamed were to
be found in that old rambling inn. Finally, through a small door in the rear,
we left the house. I was in my sleeping garments, but no matter, I had to
follow.
“The white form, with a slow and measured tread and as silent as death,
led the way into the orchard. There, under a tree at the farther end, it
pointed to the ground, and in the same ghostly tones before used, said:
“ ‘Here you will find a great treasure buried.’
“The ghost then disappeared, and I saw it no more. I stood dazed and
trembling. Upon recovering my wits I started to dig, but the chill of the
night air and the scantiness of my night robes made such labor
impracticable. So I decided to leave some mark to identify the place and
come around again at daybreak. I reached up and broke off a limb.
Overcome with my night’s exertions I slept the next morning until a loud
rapping on my door and a croaking voice warned me that it was noon.
“I had intended to leave Buckstown Inn that day, but, prompted by
curiosity and anxious to investigate, I unpacked my gripsack for a
comfortable stay.
“You must understand that this was my first experience with a ghost, and
I feared I might never see another.
“At breakfast my landlady waited on me in silence, though once I
detected her eyes following me with a peculiar expression. She wanted to
ask me how I enjoyed the night, but I would not gratify her by volunteering
a word.
“My host was more outspoken.
“ ‘Reckon ye didn’t get much sleep,’ said he, with a queer smile.
“ ‘Did you hear anything?’ I asked.
“ ‘Well, I did—ye-es,’ he said, with a drawl. ‘But ye didn’t disturb me
any. I knew ye’d hev trouble when ye went in thet room ter sleep.’

“That afternoon I slipped out to the tree. But to my amazement I found
that the twig I had broken from the branches was gone. Finally I found
under the lower trunk of an apple tree an open place from which a small
branch had evidently been wrested. But on looking further, I discovered that
every apple tree in the orchard had been similarly disfigured.
“ ‘More mysterious than ever,’ I said; ‘but to-night shall decide.’
“That night I pleaded weariness, which no one seemed inclined to
question, and sought my couch earlier.
“ ‘Goin’ ter try it again?’ asked my host.
“ ‘Yes; and I’ll stay all winter but what I’ll get even with that ghost,’ I
said.
“That night I kept the candle burning until midnight, when I blew it out.
“Instantly the room was flooded with a soft light, and at the foot of the
bed stood my ghost, the identical ghost of last night.
“Again the bony finger beckoned and a sepulchral voice whispered,
‘Follow me!’ I sprang from the bed, but the figure darted ahead of me. It
flew through the doorway and down the stairs, and I after it. At the foot of
the staircase an unseen hand reached forward and caught my foot and I fell
sprawling headlong.
“But in a second I was on my feet and pursuing the ghost. It had gained
on me a few yards, but I was quicker, and just as we reached the outside
door I nearly touched its robes. They sent a chill through my frame, and I
nearly gave up the pursuit.
“As it passed through the doorway it turned and gave me one look, and I
caught the same malignant light in its eyes that I remembered from the
night before.
“In the open orchard I felt sure I could catch it.
“But my ghost had no intention of allowing me any such opportunity. To
my disgust, it darted backward and into the house, slamming the door in my
face.
“In my frenzy of fear and chagrin I threw myself against the oaken door
with such force that its rusty old hinges yielded and I landed in the big front
room of the inn just in time to see the white skirts of the ghost flit up the
stairs.

“Upstairs I flew after it, and into an old chamber. There, huddled in a
corner, I saw it. In the minute’s delay it had secured a lighted candle and, as
I entered, it advanced to daunt me with bony arm upraised to a great height.
“ ‘Caught!’ I cried, throwing my arms around the figure. And I had made
the acquaintance of a real live ghost.
“The white robes fell, and I saw revealed my hostess of Buckstown Inn.
“Next morning, when I threatened to call the police, she confessed to me
that she masqueraded as a ghost to draw visitors to the out-of-the-way old
place, and that she found its tale of being haunted highly profitable to her.”

THE BURGLAR’S GHOST.
I am not an imaginative man, and no one who knows me can say that I
have ever indulged in sentimental ideas upon any subject. I am rather
predisposed, in fact, to look at everything from a purely practical
standpoint, and this quality has been further developed in me by the fact
that for twenty years I have been an active member of the detective police
force at Westford, a large town in one of our most important manufacturing
districts. A policeman, as most people will readily believe, has to deal with
so much practical life that he has small opportunity for developing other
than practical qualities, and he is more apt to believe in tangible things than
in ideas of a somewhat superstitious nature. However, I was once under the
firm conviction that I had been largely helped up the ladder of life by the
ghost of a once well-known burglar. I have told the story to many, and have
heard it commented upon in various fashions. Whether the comments were
satirical or practical, it made no difference to me; I had a firm faith at that
time in the truth of my tale.
Eighteen years ago I was a plain clothes officer at Westford. I was then
twenty-three years of age, and very anxious about two matters. First and
foremost I desired promotion; second, I wished to be married. Of course I
was more eager about the second than the first, because my sweetheart,
Alice Moore, was one of the prettiest and cleverest girls in the town; but I
put promotion first for the simple reason that with me promotion must come
before marriage. Knowing this, I was always on the lookout for a chance of
distinguishing myself, and I paid such attention to my duties that my
superiors began to notice me, and foretold a successful career for me in the
future.
One evening in the last week of September, 1873, I was sitting in my
lodgings wondering what I could do to earn the promotion which I so
earnestly wished for. Things were quiet just then in Westford, and I am
afraid I half wished that something dreadful might occur if I only could
have a share in it. I was pursuing this train of thought when I suddenly
heard a voice say, “Good evening, officer.”
I turned sharply around. It was almost dusk and my lamp was not
lighted. For all that, I could see clearly enough a man who was sitting by a

chest of drawers that stood between the door and the window. His chair
stood between the drawers and the door, and I concluded that he had quietly
entered my room and seated himself before addressing me.
“Good evening!” I replied. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He laughed when I said that—a low, chuckling, rather sly laugh. “No,”
he said, “I dessay not, officer. I’m a very quiet sort of person. You might
say, in fact, noiseless. Just so.”
I looked at him narrowly, feeling considerably surprised and astonished
at his presence. He was a thickly built man, with a square face and heavy
chin. His nose was small, but aggressive; his eyes were little and
overshadowed by heavy eyebrows; I could see them twinkle when he
spoke. As for his dress, it was in keeping with his face.
He wore a rough suit of woolen or frieze; a thick, gayly colored Belcher
neckerchief encircled his bull-like throat, and in his big hands he
continually twirled and twisted a fur cap, made apparently out of the skin of
some favorite dog. As he sat there smiling at me and saying nothing, it
made me feel uncomfortable.
“What do you want with me?” I asked.
“Just a little matter o’ business,” he answered.
“You should have gone to the office,” I said. “We’re not supposed to do
business at home.”
“Right you are, guv’nor,” he replied; “but I wanted to see you. It’s you
that’s got to do my job. If I’d ha’ seen the superintendent he might ha’ put
somebody else on to it. That wouldn’t ha’ suited me. You see, officer,
you’re young, and nat’rally eager-like for promotion. Eh?”
“What is it you want?” I inquired again.
“Ain’t you eager to be promoted?” he reiterated. “Ain’t you now,
officer?”
I saw no reason why I should conceal the fact, even from this strange
visitor. I admitted that I was eager for promotion.
“Ah!” he said, with a satisfied smile; “I’m glad o’ that. It’ll make you all
the keener. Now, officer, you listen to me. I’m a-goin’ to put you on to a
nice little job. Ah! I dessay you’ll be a sergeant before long, you will. You’ll
be complimented and praised for your clever conduck in this ’ere affair.
Mark my words if you ain’t.”

“Out with it,” I said, fancying I saw through the man’s meaning. “You’re
going to split on some of your pals, I suppose, and you’ll want a reward.”
He shook his head. “A reward,” he said, “wouldn’t be no use to me at all
—no, not if it was a thousand pounds. No, it ain’t nothing to do with
reward. But now, officer, did you ever hear of Light Toed Jim?”
Light Toed Jim! I should have been a poor detective if I had not. Why,
the man known under that sobriquet was one of the cleverest burglars and
thieves in England, and had enjoyed such a famous career that his name
was a household word. At that moment there was an additional interest
attached to him. He had been convicted of burglary at the Northminster
assizes in 1871, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. After serving
nearly two years of his time he had escaped from Portland, getting away in
such clever fashion that he had never been heard of since. Where he was no
one could say; but lately there had been a strong suspicion among the police
that Light Toed Jim was at his old tricks again.
“Light Toed Jim!” I repeated. “I should think so. Why, what do you
know about him?”
He smiled and nodded his head. “Light Toed Jim,” said he, “is in
Westford at this ’ere hidentical moment. Listen to me, officer. Light Toed
Jim is a-goin’ to crack a crib to-night. Said crib is the mansion of Miss
Singleton, that ’ere rich old lady as lives out on the Mapleton Road. You
know her—awfully rich, with naught but women servants and animals
about the place. There’s some very valyable plate there. That’s what Light
Toed Jim’s after. He’ll get in through the scullery window about 1 a. m.,
then he’ll pass through the back and front kitchens and into the butler’s
pantry—only it’s a butleress, ’cos there ain’t no men at all—and there he’ll
set to work on the safe. Some of his late pals in Portland give him the tip
about this ’ere job.”
“How did you come to hear of it?” I asked.
“Never mind, guv’nor. You wouldn’t understand. Now, I wants you to be
up there to-night and to nab Light Toed Jim red-handed, so to speak. It’ll
mean promotion for you, and it’ll suit me down to the ground. You wants to
be about and to watch him enter. Then follow him and dog him. And be
armed, officer, for Jim’ll fight like a tiger if you don’t draw his teeth first.”
“Now, look here, my man,” said I, “this is all very well, but it’s all
irregular. You must just tell me who you are and how you come to be in

Light Toed Jim’s secrets, and I’ll put it down in black and white.”
I turned away from him to get my writing materials. I was not half a
minute with my back to him, but when I turned round he was gone. The
door was shut, but I had heard no sound from it either opening or shutting.
Quick as thought I darted to it, tore it wide open, and looked down the
narrow staircase. There was no one there. I ran hastily downstairs into the
passage, and found my landlady, Mrs. Marriner, standing at the open door
with a female friend. “Mrs. Marriner,” I said, breaking in upon their
conversation, “which way did that man go who came downstairs just now?”
Mrs. Marriner looked at me strangely. “There ain’t been no man come
downstairs, Mr. Parker,” said she; “leastways, not this good three-quarters
of an hour, which me and Missis Higgins ’ere, as ’ave come out to take an
airing, her having been ironin’ all this blessed day, has been standin’ ’ere all
the time and ain’t never seen a soul.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “A man came down from my room just now—the
man you sent up twenty minutes since.”
Mrs. Marriner looked at me with an expression betokening the most
profound astonishment. Mrs. Higgins sighed deeply.
“Mr. Parker,” said Mrs. Marriner, “sorry am I to say it, sir, but you’re
either intoxicated or else you’re a-sickening for brain fever, sir. There ain’t
no person entered this door, in or out, for nigh onto an hour, as me and
Missis Higgins ’ere will take our Bible oaths on.”
I went upstairs and looked in the rooms on either side of mine. The man
was not there. I looked under my bed, and of course he was not there. He
must have gone downstairs. But then the women must have seen him. There
was only one door to the house. I gave it up in despair and began to smoke
my pipe. By the time I had drawn the last whiff I decided that if anyone was
“intoxicated,” it was probably Mrs. Marriner and Mrs. Higgins, and that my
strange visitor had departed by the door. I was not going to believe that he
had anything supernatural about him.
I had no duty that night, and as the hours wore on I found myself stern in
my resolve to go up to Miss Singleton’s house and see what I could make
out of my informant’s story. It was my opinion that my late visitor was a
whilom “pal” of Light Toed Jim, and that having become aware of the
latter’s plot, he had, for some reason of his own, decided to split on his old
chum. Thieves’ disagreement is an honest man’s opportunity, and I

determined to solve the truth of the story told me. Lest it should come to
nothing, I decided not to report the matter to my chief. If I could really
capture Light Toed Jim, my success would be all the more brilliant by being
suddenly sprung upon the authorities.
I made my plan of action rapidly. I took a revolver with me and went up
to Miss Singleton’s house. Fortunately, I knew the housekeeper there—a
middle-aged, strong-minded woman, not easily frightened, which was a
good thing. To her I communicated such information as I considered
necessary. She consented to conceal me in the room where the safe stood.
There was a cupboard close by the safe from which I could command a full
view of the burglar’s operations and pounce upon him at the right moment.
If only my information was to be relied upon, there was every chance of my
capturing the famous burglar.
Soon after midnight, when the house was all quiet, I went to the pantry
and got into the cupboard, locking myself in. There were two openings in
the panel, through either of which I was able to command a full view of the
room. My position was somewhat cramped, but the time soon passed away.
My mind was principally occupied in wondering if I was really about to
have a chance of distinguishing myself. Somehow, there was an air of
unreality about the events of the evening which puzzled me.
Suddenly I heard a sound which put me on the alert at once. It was
nothing more than the creaking of a board or opening of a door would make
in a quiet house; but it sounded intensified to my expectant ears. I drew
myself up against the door of the cupboard and placed my eye to the
opening in the panel. I had oiled the key of the door, and kept my fingers
upon it in readiness to spring upon the burglar at the proper moment. After
what seemed some time I saw the gleam of light through the keyhole of the
door opening into the pantry. Then it opened, and a man carrying a small
lantern came gently into the room. At first I could see nothing of his face;
but when my eyes grew accustomed to the hazy light I saw that I had been
rightly informed, and that the burglar was indeed no other than the famous
Light Toed Jim.
As I stood there watching him I could not help admiring the cool fashion
in which he went to work. He went over to the window and examined it. He
tried the door of the cupboard in which I stood concealed. Then he locked
the door of the pantry and turned his attention to the safe. He set his lamp

on a chair before the lock and took from his pocket as neat and pretty a
collection of tools as ever I saw. With these he went quietly and swiftly to
work.
Light Toed Jim was a somewhat slimly built fellow, with little muscular
development about him, while I am a big man with plenty of bone and
sinew. If matters had come to a fight between us I could have done what I
pleased with him; but I knew that Jim would not chance a fight. Somewhere
about him I felt sure there was a revolver, which he would use on the least
provocation. My plan, therefore, was to wait until his back was bent over
the lock of the safe, then to open the cupboard door noiselessly and fall
bodily upon him, pinning him to the ground beneath me.
Before long the moment came. He was working steadily away at the
lock, his whole attention concentrated on the job. The slight noise of his
drill was sufficient to drown the faint click of the key in the cupboard door.
I turned it quickly and tumbled right upon him, driving the tool out of his
hands and tumbling him into a heap at the foot of the safe. He uttered an
exclamation of rage and astonishment as he went down, and immediately
began to wriggle under me like an eel. As I kept him down with one hand I
tried to pull out the handcuffs with the other. This somewhat embarrassed
me, and the burglar profited by it to pull out a sharp knife. He had worked
himself round on his back, and before I realized what he was after he was
hacking furiously at me with his keen, dagger-like blade. Then I realized
that we were going to have a fight for it, and prepared myself. He tried to
run the knife into my side. I warded it off, but the blade caught the fleshy
part of my left arm and I felt a warm stream of blood spurt out.
That maddened me, and I seized one of the steel drills lying near at hand,
and hit my man such a blow over the temple that he collapsed at once, and
lay as if dead. I put the handcuffs on him instantly, and, to make matters
still more certain, I secured his ankles. Then I rose and looked at my arm.
The knife had made a nasty gash, and the blood was flowing freely, but it
was not serious; and when the housekeeper, who had just then appeared on
the scene, had bandaged it, I went out and secured the help of the first
policeman I met in conveying Light Toed Jim to the office.
I felt a proud man when I made my report to the inspector.
“Light Toed Jim?” said he. “What, James Bland? Nonsense, Parker.” But
I took him to the cells where Jim was being attended to by the doctor.

“You’re right, Parker,” he said. “That’s the man. Well, this will be a fine
thing for you.”
After a time, feeling a little exhausted, I went home to try and get some
sleep. The surgeon had attended to my arm, and told me it was but a
superficial wound. It felt sore enough in spite of that.
I had no sooner reached my lodgings than I saw sitting in my easy-chair
the strange man who had called upon me earlier in the evening. He rose to
his feet when I entered. I stared at him in utter astonishment.
“Well, guv’nor,” said he, “I see you’ve done it. You’ve got him square
and fair, I reckon?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ah!” he said, with a sigh of complete satisfaction. “Then I’m satisfied.
Yes, I don’t know as how there’s aught more I could say. I reckon as how
Light Toed Jim an’ me is quits.”
I was determined to find out who this man was this time. “Sit down,” I
said. “There’s a question or two I must ask you. Just let me get my coat off
and I’ll talk to you.” I took my coat off and went over to the bed to lay it
down. “Now then,” I began, and looked around at him. I said no more,
being literally struck dumb. The man was gone!
I began to feel uncomfortable. I ran hastily downstairs, only to find the
outer door locked and bolted, as I had left it a few minutes before. I went
back, utterly nonplussed. For an hour I pondered the matter over, but could
neither make head nor tail of it.
When I went down to the office next morning I was informed that the
burglar wanted to see me. I went to his cell, where he was lying in bed with
his head bandaged. I had hit him pretty hard, as it turned out, and it was
probable he would have to lie on the sick list for some days. “Well,
guv’nor,” said he, “you’d the best of me last night. You hit me rather hard
that time.”
“I was sorry to have to do it, my man,” I answered. “You would have
stabbed me if you could.”
“Yes,” he said, “I should. But I say, guv’nor, come a bit closer; I want to
ask you a question. How did you know I was on that little job last night?
For, s’elp me, there wasn’t a soul knew a breath about it but myself. I hadn’t

no pals, never talked to anybody about it, never thought aloud about it, as I
knows on. How came you to spot it, guv’nor?”
There was no one else in the cell with us, and I thought I might find out
something about my mysterious visitor of the night before. “It was a pal of
yours who gave me the information,” I said.
“Can’t be, guv’nor. No use telling me that. I ain’t got no pals—leastways
not in this job.”
“Did you ever know a man like this?” I described my visitor. As I
proceeded, Light Toed Jim’s face assumed an expression of real terror.
Whatever color there was in it faded away. I never saw a man look more
thoroughly frightened. “Yes, yes,” he said, eagerly. “In course I know who
it is. Why, it’s Barksea Bill, as I pal’d with at one time—and what did he
say, guv’nor—that he owed me a grudge? That we was quits at last? Right
you are, ’cos he did owe me a grudge. I treated Bill very shabby—very
shabby, indeed, and he swore solemn he’d have his revenge. On’y, guv’nor,
what you see wasn’t Barksea Bill at all, but his ghost, ’cos Barksea Bill’s
been dead and buried this three year.”
I was naturally very much exercised in my mind over this weird
development of the affair, and I used to think about it long after Light Toed
Jim had once more retired to the seclusion of Portland. While he was in
charge at Westford I tried more than once to worm some more information
out of him about the defunct Barksea Bill, but with no success. He would
say no more than that “Bill was dead and buried this three year;” and with
that I had to be content. Gradually I came to have a firm belief that I had
indeed been visited by Barksea Bill’s ghost, and I often told the story to
brother officers, and sometimes got well laughed at. That, however,
mattered little to me; I felt sure that any man who had gone through the
same experience would have had the same beliefs.
Of course I got my promotion and was soon afterward married. Things
went well with me, and I was lifted from one step to another. In my secret
mind I was always sure I owed my first rise to the burglar’s ghost, and I
should have continued to think so but for an incident which occurred just
five years after my capture of Light Toed Jim.
I had occasion to travel to Sheffield from Westford, and had to change
trains at Leeds. The carriage I stepped into was occupied by a solitary
individual, who turned his face to me as I sat down. Though dressed in

more respectable fashion, I immediately recognized the man who had
visited me so mysteriously at my lodgings. My first feeling was one of fear,
and I daresay my face showed it, for the man laughed.
“Hallo, guv’nor,” said he; “I see you knew me as soon as you come in.
You owes a deal to me, guv’nor; now, don’t you, eh?”
“Look here, my man,” I said, “I’ve been taking you for a ghost these five
years past. Now just tell me how you got in and out of my room that night,
will you?”
He laughed long and loud at that. “A ghost?” said he. “Well, if that ain’t
a good un! Why, easy enough, guv’nor. I was a-lodging for a day or two in
the same house. It’s easy enough, when you know how, to open a door very
quiet and to slip out, too.”
“But I followed you sharp, and looked for you.”
“Ay, guv’nor; but you looked down, and I had gone up! You should ha’
come up to the attics, and there you’d ha’ found me. So you took me for a
ghost? Well, I’m blowed.”
I told him what Light Toed Jim had said in the cell.
“Ay,” said he, “I dessay, guv’nor. You see, ’twas this way—it weren’t
Jim’s fault as I wasn’t dead. He tried to murder me, guv’nor, he did, and left
me a-lying for dead. So I ses to myself when I comes round that I’d pay him
out sooner or later. But after that I quit the profession, Jim’s nasty conduck
havin’ made me sick of it. So I went in for honest work at my old trade,
which was draining and pipe repairing. I was on a job o’ that sort in
Westford, near Miss Singleton’s house, when I see Light Toed Jim. I had a
hidea what he was up to, havin’ heard o’ the plate, and I watches him one or
two nights, and gets a notion ’ow he was going to work the job. Then, o’
course, you being a officer and close at hand I splits on him—and that’s
all.”
“But you had got the time and details correct?”
“Why, o’ course, guv’nor. I was an old hand—served many years at
Portland, I have, and I knew just how Jim would work it, after seeing his
perlim’nary observations. But a ghost! Ha, ha, ha! Why, guv’nor, you must
ha’ been a very green young officer in them days!”
Perhaps I was. At any rate I learned a lesson from the ci-devant Barksea
Bill—namely, that in searching a house it is always advisable to look up as

well as down.

A PHANTOM TOE.
I am not a superstitious man, far from it, but despite all my efforts to the
contrary I could not help thinking, directly I had taken a survey of my
chamber, that I should never quit it without going through a strange
adventure. There was something in its immense size, heaviness and gloom
that seemed to annihilate at one blow all my resolute skepticism as regards
supernatural visitations. It appeared to me totally impossible to go into that
room and disbelieve in ghosts.
The fact is, I had incautiously partaken at supper of that favorite Dutch
dish, sauerkraut, and I suppose it had disagreed with me and put strange
fancies into my head. Be this as it may I only know that after parting with
my friend for the night I gradually worked myself up into such a state of
fidgetiness that at last I wasn’t sure whether I hadn’t become a ghost
myself.
“Supposing,” ruminated I, “supposing the landlord himself should be a
practical robber and should have taken the lock and bolt from off this door
for the purpose of entering here in the dead of the night, abstracting all my
property, and perhaps murdering me! I thought the dog had a very cutthroat
air about him.” Now, I had never had any such idea until that moment, for
my host was a fat (all Dutchmen are fat), stupid-looking fellow, who I don’t
believe had sense enough to understand what a robbery or murder meant,
but somehow or other, whenever we have anything really to annoy us (and
it certainly was not pleasant to go to bed in a strange place without being
able to fasten one’s door), we are sure to aggravate it by myriads of
chimeras of our own brain.
So, on the present occasion, in the midst of a thousand disagreeable
reveries, some of the most wild absurdity, I jumped very gloomily into bed,
having first put out my candle (for total darkness was far preferable to its
flickering, ghostly light, which transformed rather than revealed objects),
and soon fell asleep, perfectly tired out with my day’s riding.
How long I lay asleep I don’t know, but I suddenly awoke from a
disagreeable dream of cutthroats, ghosts and long, winding passages in a
haunted inn. An indescribable feeling, such as I never before experienced,
hung upon me. It seemed as if every nerve in my body had a hundred spirits

tickling it, and this was accompanied by so great a heat that, inwardly
cursing mine host’s sauerkraut and wondering how the Dutchmen could
endure such poison, I was forced to sit up in bed to cool myself. The whole
of the room was profoundly dark, excepting at one place, where the
moonlight, falling through a crevice in the shutters, threw a straight line of
about an inch or so thick upon the floor—clear, sharp and intensely brilliant
against the darkness. I leave you to conceive my horror when, upon looking
at this said line of light, I saw there a naked human toe—nothing more.
For the first instant I thought the vision must be some effect of
moonlight, then that I was only half awake and could not see distinctly. So I
rubbed my eyes two or three times and looked again. Still there was the
accursed thing—plain, distinct, immovable—marblelike in its fixedness and
rigidity, but in everything else horribly human.
I am not an easily frightened man. No one who has traveled so much and
seen so much and been exposed to so many dangers as I, can be, but there
was something so mysterious and unusual in the appearance of this single
toe that for a short time I could not think what to be at, so I did nothing but
stare at it in a state of utter bewilderment.
At length, however, as the toe did not vanish under my steady gaze, I
thought I might as well change my tactics, and remembering that all
midnight invaders, be they thieves, ghosts or devils, dislike nothing so
much as a good noise I shouted out in a loud voice:
“Who’s there?”
The toe immediately disappeared in the darkness.
Almost simultaneously with my words I leaped out of bed and rushed
toward the place where I had beheld the strange appearance. The next
instant I ran against something and felt an iron grip round my body. After
this I have no distinct recollection of what occurred, excepting that a fearful
struggle ensued between me and my unseen opponent; that every now and
then we were violently hurled to the floor, from which we always rose again
in an instant, locked in a deadly embrace; that we tugged and strained and
pulled and pushed, I in the convulsive and frantic energy of a fight for life,
he (for by this time I had discovered that the intruder was a human being)
actuated by some passion of which I was ignorant; that we whirled round
and round, cheek to cheek and arm to arm, in fierce contest, until the room
appeared to whiz round with us, and that at least a dozen people (my fellow

traveler among them), roused, I suppose, by our repeated falls, came
pouring into the room with lights and showed me struggling with a man
having nothing on but a shirt, whose long, tangled hair and wild, unsettled
eyes told me he was insane. And then, for the first time, I became aware
that I had received in the conflict several gashes from a knife, which my
opponent still held in his hand.
To conclude my story in a few words (for I daresay all of you by this
time are getting very tired), it turned out that my midnight visitor was a
madman who was being conveyed to a lunatic asylum at The Hague, and
that he and his keeper had been obliged to stop at Delft on their way. The
poor fellow had contrived during the night to escape from his keeper, who
had carelessly forgotten to lock the door of his chamber, and with that
irresistible desire to shed blood peculiar to many insane people had
possessed himself of a pocketknife belonging to the man who had charge of
him, entered my room, which was most likely the only one in the house
unfastened, and was probably meditating the fatal stroke when I saw his toe
in the moonlight, the rest of his body being hidden in the shade.
After this terrible freak of his he was watched with much greater
strictness, but I ought to observe, as some excuse for the keeper’s
negligence, that this was the first act of violence he had ever attempted.

MRS. DAVENPORT’S GHOST.

BY FREDERICK P. SCHRADER.

Dear readers, do you agree with Hamlet? Do you believe that there is
more between heaven and earth than we dream of in our philosophy? Does
it seem possible to you that Eliphas Levy conjured up the shade of
Apollonius of Tyana, the prophet of the Magii, in a London hotel, and that
the great sage, William Crookes, drank his tea at breakfast several days a
week, for months in succession, in the society of the materialized spirit of a
young lady, attired in white linen, with a feather turban on her head?
Do not laugh! Panic would seize you in the presence even of a turbaned
spirit, and the grotesque spectacle would but intensify your terror. As for
me, I did not laugh last night on reading an account in a New York
newspaper of a criminal trial that will probably terminate in the death
penalty of the accused.
It is a sad case. I shudder as I transcribe the records of the trial from the
testimony of the hotel waiter, who heard the conversation of the two
confederates through a keyhole, and of forty thoroughly credible witnesses,
who testified to the same facts. What would be my feelings if I had seen the
beautiful victim with the gaping wound in her breast, into which she dipped
her finger to mark the brow of her murderer?
I.
About three o’clock on the afternoon of February 3, Professor Davenport
and Miss Ida Soutchotte, a very pale and delicate young girl, who had
submitted to the tests of Professor Davenport for a number of years, were
finishing their dinner in their room in the second story of a New York hotel.
Professor Benjamin Davenport was a celebrity, but it was said that he owed
his fame to somewhat questionable means. The leading spiritualists did not
repose the confidence in him that manifestly marked their regard for
William Crookes or Daniel Douglas Home.
“Greedy and unscrupulous mediums,” the author of Spiritualism in
America thinks, “are to blame for the most bitter attacks to which our cause
has been exposed. When the materializations do not take place as quickly as

circumstances require, they resort to trickery and fraud to extricate
themselves from a dilemma.”
Professor Benjamin Davenport belonged to these “versatile” mediums.
Aside from this, queer stories were afloat about him. He was secretly
accused of highway robbery in South America, cheating at cards in the
gambling houses of San Francisco, and the overhasty use of firearms
toward persons who had never offended him. It was said almost openly, that
the professor’s wife had died from abuse and grief at his infidelity. But in
spite of these annoying rumors, Mr. Davenport, by virtue of his skill as a
fraud and fakir, continued to exercise a great deal of influence upon certain
plain and simple-minded folks, whom it was impossible to convince that
they had not touched the materialized spirits of their brothers, mothers, or
sisters through the agency of his wonderful power. His professional success
received material accession from his swarthy, Mephisto-like countenance,
his deep, fiery eyes, his large curved nose, the cynical expression of his
mouth, and the lofty, almost prophetic tone of his words.
When the waiter had made his last visit—he did not go far—the
following conversation took place in the room:
“There is to be a seance this evening at the residence of Mrs. Harding,”
began the medium. “Quite a number of influential people will be there, and
two or three millionaires. Conceal under your skirt the blonde woman’s wig
and the white material in which the spirits usually make their appearance.”
“Very well,” replied Ida Soutchotte, in a resigned tone.
The waiter heard her pace the room. After a pause, she asked:
“Whose spirit are you going to control this evening, Benjamin?”
The waiter heard a loud, brutal laugh and the chair groaning beneath the
weight of the demonstrative professor.
“Guess.”
“How should I know?” she asked.
“I am going to conjure up the spirit of my dead wife.”
And another burst of laughter issued from the room, full of sinister
levity. A cry of terror burst from Ida’s lips. A muffled sound indicated to the
eavesdropper at the door that she was dragging herself to the feet of the
professor.
“Benjamin, Benjamin! don’t do it,” she sobbed.

“Why not? They say I broke Mrs. Davenport’s heart. The story is
damaging my reputation, but it will be forgotten if her spirit should address
me in terms of endearment from the other shore in the presence of
numerous witnesses. For you will speak to me tenderly, will you not, Ida?”
“No, no. You shall not do it; you shall not think of it. Listen to me, for
God’s sake. During the four years that I have been with you I have obeyed
you faithfully and suffered patiently. I have lied and deceived, like you; I
learned to imitate the sleep and symptoms of clairvoyants. Tell me, did I
ever refuse to serve you, or utter a word of complaint, even when my
shoulders bent with the weight of my burden, when you pierced the flesh of
my arms with knitting needles? Worse than all this, I imitated distant voices
behind curtains, and made mothers and wives believe that their sons and
husbands had come from a better world to communicate with them. How
often have I performed the most dangerous feats in parlors with the lamps
turned low? Clothed in a shroud or white muslin I essayed to represent
supernatural forms, whom tear-dimmed eyes recognized as those of
departed dear ones. You do not know what I suffered at this unhallowed
work. You scoff at the mysteries of eternity. I suffer the torments of an
impending retribution. My God! if some time the dead whom I counterfeit
should rise up before me with uplifted arms and dreadful imprecations! This
constant terror has injured my heart—it will kill me. I am consumed by
fever. Look how emaciated, how worn-out and downcast I am. But I am
under your control. Do as you like with me; I am in your power, and I want
it to be so. Have I ever complained? But do not force me to do this thing,
Benjamin. Have pity on me for what I have done for you in the past, for
what I am suffering. Do not attempt this mummery; do not compel me to
play the role of your dead wife, who was so tender and beautiful. Oh, what
put that thought into your mind? Spare me, Benjamin, I implore you!”
The professor did not laugh again. Amid the confusion of upturned
articles of furniture the eavesdropper distinguished the sound of a skull
striking the floor. He concluded that Professor Davenport had knocked Miss
Ida down with a blow of his fist, or had kicked her as she approached him.
But the waiter did not enter the room, as no one rang for him.
II.
That evening forty persons were assembled in Mrs. Joanne Harding’s
parlor, staring at the curtain where a spirit form was in process of

materializing. One dark lantern in a corner of the room contributed the light
that emphasized the darkness rather than relieved it. The room was
pervaded by profound silence, save the quickened, suppressed breathing of
the spectators. The fire in the grate cast mysterious rays of light, resembling
fugitive spirits, upon the objects around, almost indistinguishable in the
semi-gloom.
Professor Davenport was at his best this evening. The spirit world
obeyed him without hesitation, like their lawful master. He was the mighty
prince of souls. Hands that had no arms were seen picking flowers from the
vases; the touch of an invisible spirit conjured sweet melodies from the
keys of the piano; the furniture responded by intelligent rappings to the
most unanticipated questions. The professor himself elevated his form in
symbolical distortions from the floor to an altitude of three feet, indicated
by Mrs. Harding, and remained suspended in the air for a quarter of an hour,
holding live coals in his hands.
III.
But the most interesting, as well as the most conclusive, test was to be
the materialization of the spirit of Mrs. Arabella Davenport, which the
professor had promised at the beginning of the seance.
“The hour has come,” exclaimed the medium.
And while the hearts of all throbbed with anxious suspense, and their
eyes distended with painful expectancy of the promised materialization,
Benjamin Davenport stood before the curtain. In the twilight the tall man
with the disheveled hair and demon look, was really terrible and handsome.
“Appear, Arabella!” he exclaimed, in a commanding voice, with gestures
of the Nazarene at the sepulcher of Lazarus.
All are waiting——
Suddenly a cry burst from behind the curtain—a piercing, shuddering,
horrible shriek, the shriek of an expiring soul.
The spectators trembled. Mrs. Harding almost fainted. The medium
himself appeared surprised.
But Benjamin recovered his composure on seeing the curtain move and
admit the spirit.
The apparition was that of a young woman with long blonde tresses; she
was beautiful and pale, clad in some light, whitish material. Her breast was

bare, and on the left side appeared a bleeding wound, in which trembled a
knife.
The spectators arose and retreated, pushing their chairs to the wall.
Those who chanced to look at the medium noticed that a deathly pallor had
overspread his face, and that he was cowering and trembling.
But the young woman, Mrs. Arabella, the real one, whom he so well
remembered, she had come in response to his summons, and advanced in a
direct line toward Benjamin, who in terror covered his eyes to shut out the
ghastly sight, and with a cry fled behind the furniture. But she dipped the
finger of her thin hand into the blood from her wound and traced it across
the brow of the unconscious medium, the while repeating, in a slow,
monotonous tone that sounded like the echo of a wail, again and again:
“You are my murderer! You are my murderer!”
And while he was rolling and tossing in deadly terror on the floor they
turned up the lights.
The spirit had vanished. But in the communicating room, behind the
curtain, they found the body of poor Miss Ida Soutchotte with horribly
distorted features. A physician who was present pronounced it heart stroke.
And that is the reason that Prof. Benjamin Davenport appeared alone in a
New York courtroom to answer to the charge of having murdered his wife
four years ago in San Francisco.

THE PHANTOM WOMAN.
He took an all-possessing, burning fancy to her from the first. She was
neither young nor pretty, so far as he could see—but she was wrapped
round with mystery. That was the key of it all; she was noticeable in spite of
herself. Her face at the window, sunset after sunset; her eyes, gazing out
mournfully through the dusty panes, hypnotized the lawyer. He saw her
through the twilight night after night, and he grew at length to wait through
the days in a feverish waiting for dusk, and that one look at an unknown
woman.
She was always at the same window on the ground floor, sitting doing
nothing. She looked beyond, so the infatuated solicitor fancied, at him.
Once he even thought that he detected the ghost of a friendly smile on her
lips. Their eyes always met with a mute desire to make acquaintance. This
romance went on for a couple of months.
Gilbert Dent assured himself that nothing in this life can possibly remain
stationary, and he cudgeled his brain for a respectable manner of
introducing himself to his idol.
He had hardly arrived at this point when he received a shock. There
came an evening when she was not at the window.
Next morning he walked down Wood Lane on his way to the office. He
always went by train, but he felt a strong disinclination to go through
another day without a sight of her. His heart began to beat like a schoolgirl’s
as he drew near the house. If she should be at the window. He was almost
disposed to take his courage in his hand and call on her, and—yes, even—
tell her in a quick burst that she had mysteriously become all the world to
him. He could see nothing ridiculous in this course; the possibility of her
being married, or having family ties of any sort, had simply never occurred
to him.
However, she was not at the window; what was more, there was a
sinister silence, a sort of breathlessness about the whole place.
It was a very hot morning in late August. He looked a long time, but no
face came, and no movement stirred the house.

He went his way, walking like a man who has been heavily knocked on
the brow and sees stars still. That afternoon he left the office early, and in
less than an hour stood at the gate again. The window was blank. He pushed
the gate back—it hung on one hinge—and walked up the drive to the door.
There were five steps—five steps leading up to it. At the foot he wheeled
aside sharply to the window; he had a sick dread of looking through the
small panes—why he could not have told.
When at last he found courage to look he saw that there was a small
round table set just under the window—a work-table to all appearance; one
of those things with lots of little compartments all round and a lid in the
middle which shut over a well-like cavity for holding pieces of needlework.
He remembered that his mother had one—thirty years before.
Round the edge of the table was gripped a small, delicate hand. Gilbert
Dent’s eyes ran from this bloodless hand and slim wrist to a shoulder under
a coarse stuff bodice—to a rather wasted throat, which was bare and flung
back.
So this was the end—before the beginning. He saw her. She was dead;
twisted on the floor with a ghastly face turned up toward the ceiling, and
stiff fingers caught in desperation round the work table.
He stumbled away along the path and into the lane.
For a long time he could not realize the horror of this thing. The
influence of the decayed house hung over him—nothing seemed real. It was
quite dark when he moved away from the gate, and went in the direction of
the nearest police station. That she was dead—this woman whose very
name he did not know although she influenced him so powerfully—he was
certain; one look at the face would have told anyone that. That she was
murdered he more than suspected. He had seen no blood about; there had
been no mark on the long, bare throat, and yet the word rushed in his ears,
“Murder.”
Later on he went back with a police officer.
They broke into the house and entered the room. It was in utter darkness,
of course, by now. Dent, his fingers trembling, struck a match. It flared
round the walls and lighted them for a moment before he let it fall on the
dusty floor.
The policeman began to light his lantern and turned it stolidly on the
window. He had no reason for delay; he was eager to get to the bottom of

the business. His professional zeal was whetted; this promised to be a
mystery with a spice in it.
He turned the light full on the window; he gave a strange, choked cry,
half of rage, half of apprehension. Then he went up to Gilbert Dent, who
stood in the middle of the room with his hands before his eyes, and took his
shoulder and shook it none too gently.
“There ain’t nobody,” he said.
Dent looked wildly at the window—the recess was empty except for the
work-table. The woman was gone.
They searched the house; they minutely inspected the garden.
Everything was normal; everything told the same mournful tale—of
desertion, of death, of long empty years. But they found no woman, nor
trace of one.
“This house,” said the policeman, looking suspiciously into the lawyer’s
face, “has been empty for longer than I can remember. Nobody’ll live in it.
They do say something about foul play a good many years ago. I don’t
know about that. All I do know is that the landlord can’t get it off his
hands.”
It was doubtful if Gilbert Dent heard one word of what the man was
saying. He was too stunned to do anything but creep home—when he was
allowed to go—and let himself stealthily into his own house with a latch
key; he was afraid even of himself. He did not go to bed that night.
As for the mystery of the woman, the matter was allowed to drop; it
ended—officially. There was a shrug and a grin at the police station. The
impression there was that the lawyer had been drinking—that the dead
woman in the empty room was a gruesome freak of his tipsy brain.
* * * * *
A week or so later Dent called on his brother Ned—the one near relation
he had. Ned was a doctor; perhaps he was a shade more matter-of-fact than
Gilbert; at all events, when the latter told his story of the house and the
woman, he attributed the affair solely to liver.
“You are overworked”—the elder brother looked at the younger’s yellow
face. “An experience of this nature is by no means uncommon. Haven’t you
heard of people having their pet ‘spooks’?”

“But this was a real woman,” he declared. “I—I, well, I was in love with
her. I had made up my mind to marry her—if I could.”
Ned gave him a keen, swift glance.
“We’ll go to Brighton to-morrow,” he said, with quiet decision. “As for
your work, everything must be put aside. You’ve run completely down. You
ought to have been taken in hand before.”
They went to Brighton, and it really seemed as if Ned was right, and that
the woman at the window had been merely a nervous creation. It seemed so,
that is, for nearly three weeks, and then the climax came.
It was in the twilight—she had always been part of it—that Gilbert Dent
saw her again; the woman that he had found lying dead.
They were walking, the two brothers, along the cliffs.
The wind was blowing in their faces, the sea was booming beneath the
cliff. Ned had just said it was about time they turned back to the hotel and
had some dinner, when Gilbert with a cry leapt forward to the very edge of
the flat grass path on which they were strolling. The movement was so
sudden that his brother barely caught him in time. They struggled and
swayed on the very edge of the cliff for a second; Gilbert, possessed by
some sudden frenzy, seemed resolved to go over, but the other at last
dragged him backward, and they rolled together on the close, thick turf.
At this point Gilbert opened his eyes and tried to get on his feet.
“Better?” asked his brother, cheerfully, holding out a helping hand.
“Strange! The sea has that effect on some people. Didn’t think that you
were one of them.”
“What effect?”
“Vertigo, my dear fellow.”
“Ned,” said the other solemnly, “I saw her. It is not worth your while to
try to account for anything. I have been inclined to think that you were right
—that she, the woman at the window, was a fancy, that I had fallen in love
with a creation of my own brain; but I saw her again to-night. You must
have seen her yourself—she was within a couple of feet of you. Why did
you not try and save her? It was nothing short of murder to let her go over
like that. I did my best.”
“You certainly did—to kill us both,” said Ned, grimly.
Gilbert gave him a wild look.

After luncheon Ned persuaded him to rest—watched him fall asleep, and
then went out.
In the porch of the hotel he was met by a waiter on his return who told
him that Gilbert had left about a quarter of an hour after he had himself
gone out.
Directly he heard this he feared the worst; having, as is usual in such
cases, a very hazy idea of what the worst might be. Of course he must
follow without a moment’s delay; but a reference to the time-table told him
that there was not another train for an hour, and that was slow.
It was already getting dusk when he arrived there. He felt certain that
Gilbert would go there. He got to the end of the lane and walked up it
slowly, examining every house. There would be no difficulty in recognizing
the one he wanted; Gilbert had described it in detail more than once.
He stood outside the loosely hanging gate at last, and stared through the
darkness at the shabby stucco front and rank garden.
He went down a flight of steps to the back door, and finding it
unfastened, stepped into a stone passage. It was one of the problems of the
place that he should have avoided the main entrance door with a half-
admitted dread, and that, only half admitting still, he was afraid to mount
the long flight of stone stairs leading from the servants’ quarters. However,
he pulled himself together and went up to the room.
It was quite dark inside. He heard something scuttle across the floor; he
felt the grit and dust of years under his feet. He struck a match—just as
Gilbert had done—and looked first at the recess in which the window was
built. The match flared round the room for a moment and gave him a flash
picture of his surroundings. He saw the stripes of gaudy paper moving
almost imperceptibly, like tentacles of some sea monster, from the wall; he
saw a creature—it looked like a rat—scurry across the floor from the
window to the great mantelpiece of hard white marble.
If he had seen nothing more than this.
He saw in detail all that the first match had flashed at him. He saw his
brother lying on the floor; a ghastly coincidence, his hand was caught round
the edge of the work-table as hers had been. The other hand was clenched
across his breast; there was a look of great agony on his face.
A dead face, of course. This was the end of the affair. He was lying dead
by the window where the woman had sat every night at dusk and smiled at

him.
The second match went out; the brother of the dead man struck a third.
He looked again and closely. Then he staggered to his feet and gave a cry. It
rang through the empty rooms and echoed without wearying down the long,
stone passages in the basement.
Gilbert’s head was thrown back; his chin peaked to the ceiling. On his
throat were livid marks. The doctor saw them distinctly; he saw the grip of
small fingers; the distinct impression of a woman’s little hand.
* * * * *
The curious thing about the whole story—the most curious thing,
perhaps—is that no other eye ever saw those murderous marks. So there
was no scandal, no chase after the murderer, no undiscovered crime. They
faded; when the doctor saw his brother again in the full light and in the
presence of others his throat was clear. And the post mortem proved that
death was due to natural causes.
So the matter stands, and will.
But where the house and its overgrown garden stood runs a new road
with neat red and white villas.
Whatever secret it knew—if any—it kept discreetly.
Ned Dent is morbid enough to go down the smart new road in the
twilight sometimes and wonder.

THE PHANTOM HAG.
The other evening in an old castle the conversation turned upon
apparitions, each one of the party telling a story. As the accounts grew more
horrible the young ladies drew closer together.
“Have you ever had an adventure with a ghost?” said they to me. “Do
you not know a story to make us shiver? Come, tell us something.”
“I am quite willing to do so,” I replied. “I will tell you of an incident that
happened to myself.”
Toward the close of the autumn of 1858 I visited one of my friends, sub-
prefect of a little city in the center of France. Albert was an old companion
of my youth, and I had been present at his wedding. His charming wife was
full of goodness and grace. My friend wished to show me his happy home,
and to introduce me to his two pretty little daughters. I was feted and taken
great care of. Three days after my arrival I knew the entire city, curiosities,
old castles, ruins, etc. Every day about four o’clock Albert would order the
phaeton, and we would take a long ride, returning home in the evening. One
evening my friend said to me:
“To-morrow we will go further than usual. I want to take you to the
Black Rocks. They are curious old Druidical stones, on a wild and desolate
plain. They will interest you. My wife has not seen them yet, so we will
take her.”
The following day we drove out at the usual hour. Albert’s wife sat by
his side. I occupied the back seat alone. The weather was gray and somber
that afternoon, and the journey was not very pleasant. When we arrived at
the Black Rocks the sun was setting. We got out of the phaeton, and Albert
took care of the horses.
We walked some little distance through the fields before reaching the
giant remains of the old Druid religion. Albert’s wife wished to climb to the
summit of the altar, and I assisted her. I can still see her graceful figure as
she stood draped in a red shawl, her veil floating around her.
“How beautiful it is! But does it not make you feel a little melancholy?”
said she, extending her hand toward the dark horizon, which was lighted a
little by the last rays of the sun.

The afternoon wind blew violently, and sighed through the stunted trees
that grew around the stone cromlechs; not a dwelling nor a human being
was in sight. We hastened to get down, and silently retraced our steps to the
carriage.
“We must hurry,” said Albert; “the sky is threatening, and we shall have
scarcely time to reach home before night.”
We carefully wrapped the robes around his wife. She tied the veil around
her face, and the horses started into a rapid trot. It was growing dark; the
scenery around us was bare and desolate; clumps of fir trees here and there
and furze bushes formed the only vegetation. We began to feel the cold, for
the wind blew with fury; the only sound we heard was the steady trot of the
horses and the sharp clear tinkle of their bells.
Suddenly I felt the heavy grasp of a hand upon my shoulder. I turned my
head quickly. A horrible apparition presented itself before my eyes. In the
empty place at my side sat a hideous woman. I tried to cry out; the phantom
placed her fingers upon her lips to impose silence upon me. I could not utter
a sound. The woman was clothed in white linen; her head was cowled; her
face was overspread with a corpse-like pallor, and in place of eyes were
ghastly black cavities.
I sat motionless, overcome by terror.
The ghost suddenly stood up and leaned over the young wife. She
encircled her with her arms, and lowered her hideous head as if to kiss her
forehead.
“What a wind!” cried Madame Albert, turning precipitately toward me.
“My veil is torn.”
As she turned I felt the same infernal pressure on my shoulder, and the
place occupied by the phantom was empty. I looked out to the right and left
—the road was deserted, not an object in sight.
“What a dreadful gale!” said Madame Albert. “Did you feel it? I cannot
explain the terror that seized me; my veil was torn by the wind as if by an
invisible hand; I am trembling still.”
“Never mind,” said Albert, smiling; “wrap yourself up, my dear; we will
soon be warming ourselves by a good fire at home. I am starving.”
A cold perspiration covered my forehead; a shiver ran through me; my
tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and I could not articulate a sound; a

sharp pain in my shoulder was the only sensible evidence that I was not the
victim of an hallucination. Putting my hand upon my aching shoulder, I felt
a rent in the cloak that was wrapped around me. I looked at it; five perfectly
distinct holes—visible traces of the grip of the horrible phantom. I thought
for a moment that I should die or that my reason should leave me; it was, I
think, the most dreadful moment of my life.
Finally I became more calm; this nameless agony had lasted for some
minutes; I do not think it is possible for a human being to suffer more than I
did during that time. As soon as I had recovered my senses, I thought at first
I would tell my friends all that had passed, but hesitated, and finally did not,
fearing that my story would frighten Madame Albert, and feeling sure my
friend would not believe me. The lights of the little city revived me, and
gradually the oppression of terror that overwhelmed me became lighter.
So soon as we reached home, Madame Albert untied her veil; it was
literally in shreds. I hoped to find my clothes whole and prove to myself
that it was all imagination. But no, the cloth was torn in five places, just
where the fingers had seized my shoulder. There was no mark, however,
upon my flesh, only a dull pain.
I returned to Paris the next day, where I endeavored to forget the strange
adventure; or at least when I thought of it, I would force myself to think it
an hallucination.
The day after my return I received a letter from my friend Albert. It was
edged with black. I opened it with a vague fear.
His wife had died the day of my return.

FROM THE TOMB.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF DE MAUPASSANT BY E. C. WAGGENER.

The guests filed slowly into the hotel’s great dining-hall and took their
places, the waiters began to serve them leisurely, to give the tardy ones time
to arrive and to save themselves the bother of bringing back the courses;
and the old bathers, the yearly habitues, with whom the season was far
advanced, kept a close watch on the door each time it opened, hoping for
the coming of new faces.
New faces! the single distraction of all pleasure resorts. We go to dinner
chiefly to canvass the daily arrivals, to wonder who they are, what they do
and what they think. A restless desire seems to have taken possession of us,
a longing for pleasant adventures, for friendly acquaintances, perhaps, for
possible lovers. In this elbow-to-elbow life our unknown neighbors become
of paramount importance. Curiosity is piqued, sympathy on the alert and the
social instinct doubly active.
We have hatreds for a week, friendships for a month, and view all men
with the special eyes of watering-place intimacy. Sometimes during an
hour’s chat after dinner, under the trees of the park, where ripples a healing
spring, we discover men of superior intellect and surprising merit, and a
month later have wholly forgotten these new friends, so charming at first
sight.
There, too, more specially than elsewhere, serious and lasting ties are
formed. We see each other every day, we learn to know each other very
soon, and in the affection that springs up so rapidly between us there is
mingled much of the sweet abandon of old and tried intimates. And later on,
how tender are the memories cherished of the first hours of this friendship,
of the first communion in which the soul came to light, of the first glances
that questioned and responded to the secret thoughts and interrogatories the
lips have not dared yet to utter, of the first cordial confidence and delicious
sensation of opening one’s heart to someone who has seemed to lay bare to
you his own! The very dullness of the hours, as it were, the monotony of

days all alike, but renders more complete the rapid budding and blooming
of friendship’s flower.
That evening, then, as on every evening, we awaited the appearance of
unfamiliar faces.
There came only two, but very peculiar ones, those of a man and a
woman—father and daughter. They seemed to have stepped from the pages
of some weird legend; and yet there was an attraction about them, albeit an
unpleasant one, that made me set them down at once as the victims of some
fatality.
The father was tall, spare, a little bent, with hair blanched white; too
white for his still young countenance, and in his manner and about his
person the sedate austerity of carriage that bespeaks the Puritan. The
daughter was, possibly, some twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. She
was very slight, emaciated, her exceedingly pale countenance bearing a
languid, spiritless expression; one of those people whom we sometimes
encounter, apparently too weak for the cares and tasks of life, too feeble to
move or do the things that we must do every day. Nevertheless the girl was
pretty, with the ethereal beauty of an apparition. It was she, undoubtedly,
who came for the benefit of the waters.
They chanced to be placed at table immediately opposite to me; and I
was not long in noticing that the father, too, had a strange affection,
something wrong about the nerves it seemed. Whenever he was going to
reach for anything, his hand, with a jerky twitch, described a sort of
fluttering zig-zag, before he was able to grasp what he was after. Soon, the
motion disturbed me so much, I kept my head turned in order not to see it.
But not before I had also observed that the young girl kept her glove on her
left hand while she ate.
Dinner ended, I went out as usual for a turn in the grounds belonging to
the establishment. A sort of park, I might say, stretching clear to the little
station of Auvergne, Chatel-Guyon, nestling in a gorge at the foot of the
high mountain, from which flowed the sparkling, bubbling springs, hot
from the furnace of an ancient volcano. Beyond us there, the domes, small
extinct craters—of which Chatel-Guyon is the starting point—raised their
serrated heads above the long chain; while beyond the domes came two
distinct regions, one of them, needle-like peaks, the other of bold,
precipitous mountains.

It was very warm that evening, and I contented myself with pacing to
and fro under the rustling trees, gazing at the mountains and listening to the
strains of the band, pouring from the Casino, situated on a knoll that
overlooked the grounds.
Presently, I perceived the father and daughter coming toward me with
slow steps. I bowed to them in that pleasant Continental fashion with which
one always salutes his hotel companions. The gentleman halted at once.
“Pardon me, sir,” said he, “but may I ask if you can direct us to a short
walk, easy and pretty, if possible?”
“Certainly,” I answered, and offered to lead them myself to the valley
through which the swift river flows—a deep, narrow cleft between two
great declivities, rocky and wooded.
They accepted, and as we walked, we naturally discussed the virtue of
the mineral waters. They had, as I had surmised, come there on his
daughter’s account.
“She has a strange malady,” said he, “the seat of which her physicians
cannot determine. She suffers from the most inexplicable nervous
symptoms. Sometimes they declare her ill of a heart disease; sometimes of a
liver complaint; again of a spinal trouble. At present they attribute it to the
stomach—that great motor and regulator of the body—this Protean disease
of a thousand forms, a thousand modes of attack. It is why we are here. I,
myself, think it is her nerves. In any case it is sad.”
This reminded me of his own jerking hand.
“It may be hereditary,” said I, “your own nerves are a little disturbed, are
they not?”
“Mine?” he answered, tranquilly. “Not at all, I have always possessed the
calmest nerves.” Then, suddenly, as if bethinking himself:
“For this,” touching his hand, “is not nerves, but the result of a shock, a
terrible shock that I suffered once. Fancy it, sir, this child of mine has been
buried alive!”
I could find nothing to say, I was dumb with surprise.
“Yes,” he continued, “buried alive; but hear the story, it is not long. For
some time past Juliette had seemed affected with a disordered action of the
heart. We were finally certain that the trouble was organic and feared the
worst. One day it came, she was brought in lifeless—dead. She had fallen

dead while walking in the garden. Physicians came in haste, but nothing
could be done. She was gone. For two days and nights I watched beside her
myself, and with my own hands placed her in her coffin, which I followed
to the cemetery and saw placed in the family vault. This was in the country,
in the province of Lorraine.
“It had been my wish, too, that she should be buried in her jewels,
bracelets, necklace and rings, all presents that I had given her, and in her
first ball dress. You can imagine, sir, the state of my heart in returning
home. She was all that I had left, my wife had been dead for many years. I
returned, in truth, half mad, shut myself alone in my room and fell into my
chair dazed, unable to move, merely a miserable, breathing wreck.
“Soon my old valet, Prosper, who had helped me place Juliette in her
coffin and lay her away for her last sleep, came in noiselessly to see if he
could not induce me to eat. I shook my head, answering nothing. He
persisted:
“ ‘Monsieur is wrong; this will make him ill. Will monsieur allow me,
then, to put him to bed?’
“ ‘No, no,’ I answered. ‘Let me alone.’
“He yielded and withdrew.
“How many hours passed I do not know. What a night! What a night! It
was very cold; my fire of logs had long since burned out in the great
fireplace; and the wind, a wintry blast, charged with an icy frost, howled
and screamed about the house and strained at my windows with a curiously
sinister sound.
“Long hours, I say, rolled by. I sat still where I had fallen, prostrated,
overwhelmed; my eyes wide open, but my body strengthless, dead; my soul
drowned in despair. Suddenly the great bell gave a loud peal.
“I gave such a leap that my chair cracked under me. The slow, solemn
sound rang through the empty house. I looked at the clock.
“It was two in the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?
“Twice again the bell pulled sharply. The servants would never answer,
perhaps never hear it. I took up a candle and made my way to the door. I
was about to demand:
“ ‘Who is there?’ but, ashamed of the weakness, nerved myself and drew
back the bolts. My heart throbbed, my pulse beat, I threw back the panel

brusquely and there, in the darkness, saw a shape like a phantom, dressed in
white.
“I recoiled, speechless with anguish, stammering:
“ ‘Who—who are you?’
“A voice answered:
“ ‘It is I, father.’
“It was my child, Juliette.
“Truly, I thought myself mad. I shuddered, shrinking backward before
the specter as it advanced, gesticulating with my hand to ward off the
apparition. It is that gesture which has never left me.
“Again the phantom spoke:
“ ‘Father, father! See, I am not dead. Someone came to rob me of my
jewels—they cut off my finger—the—the flowing blood revived me.’
“And I saw then that she was covered with blood. I fell to my knees
panting, sobbing, laughing, all in one. As soon as I regained my senses, but
still so bewildered I scarcely comprehended the happiness that had come to
me, I took her in my arms, carried her to her room, and rang frantically for
Prosper to rekindle the fire, bring a warm drink for her, and go for the
doctor.
“He came running, entered, gazed a moment at my daughter in the chair
—gave a gasp of fright and horror and fell back—dead.
“It was he who had opened the vault, who had wounded and robbed my
child, and then abandoned her; for he could not efface all trace of his deed;
and he had not even taken the trouble to return the coffin to its niche; sure,
besides, of not being suspected by me, who trusted him so fully. We are
truly very unfortunate people, monsieur.”
He was silent.
Meanwhile the night had come on, enveloping in the gloom the still and
solitary little valley; a sort of mysterious dread seemed to fall upon me in
presence of these strange beings—this corpse come to life, and this father
with his painful gestures.
“Let us return,” said I, “the night has grown chill.”
And still in silence, we retraced our steps back to the hotel, and I shortly
afterward returned to the city. I lost all further knowledge of the two

peculiar visitors to my favorite summer resort.

SANDY’S GHOST.
“ ‘Commerdations fer the night, stranger? Waal, yes; I reckon we can fix
a place fer you. Hev a cheer an’ set you down.”
“Thank you. Don’t you find this rather a lonely place—no neighbors, no
nothing, that I can see? How came you to settle here, so far removed from
other habitations?”
“Waal, perhaps it’s best not ter ask too many questions ter once.”
“Beg your pardon. No offense was intended, I assure you. Simply idle
curiosity.”
“Don’t say ’nuther word, stranger, but come in an’ we’ll hev a snack fer
supper. Polly, bring on the victu’ls. Yer jes’ in time.”
Polly at once obeyed. She was a typical Western girl—tall, lithe, graceful
and limpid-eyed. She was clear-skinned and high-spirited, too, and in this
case ignorant through no fault of her own. John Barr’s eyes scanned her
intently, and a flush came to her cheeks. For the first time in her life she
was unpleasantly conscious of her bare feet. It may have been this that
made her stumble and spill some of the contents of an earthen bowl over the
guest’s knees as she placed it on the table.
Her eyes flashed and a tear of anger twinkled on the lashes. She stopped,
half meaning to apologize, but an oath from her father caused her to set the
bowl down heavily and to hurry from the cabin. A moment later Barr saw a
flutter of pink calico from behind a pile of rocks. Old Kit Robinson saw it,
too.
“Don’t wonder at yer sayin’ ’tain’t right. She’s a sma’t gal, and a good
looker, too, as should hev been sent away frum here ter school ter be
eddicated. But she won’t leave her no ’count dad. I orter be shot fer cussin’
her. But I ain’t what I use ter be. Settin’ here an’ keepin’ guard makes me
narvous.”
Barr’s eyes asked the question his lips refused to speak. Supper eaten,
the men went outside and sat with their chairs tilted back against the cabin.
Something in the younger man’s frank face had softened old Kit into a
reminiscent mood and made him strangely inclined to gratify an idle
curiosity.

The soft evening winds sighed through the branches of the tall spruce
pines, and the declining rays of the setting sun caused the shadow of the
rude home to stretch out longer across the greensward. From its shelter
where he sat John Barr looked out on the grand ranges of the Rockies and
wondered where in their vastness he would find the man he sought—the
finding of whom had brought him out into this wild and almost forsaken
mining camp.
“Stranger, I’ve took a likin’ ter you. Ye’ve a sumthin’ about you thet
reminds me of sum one I know, an’ you look like an honest chap. Say, do
you b’lieve in ghosts?”
He put the question very suddenly, and a look of disappointment crossed
his face when Barr told him that he did not believe in spooks.
“Waal, I’ve seen ’em!”
A thought connecting the pink calico with something in the past came to
Barr’s mind.
“Can’t you tell me about it?” he asked.
“I’d like ter if you’ll sw’ar, on yer derringer, never ter blab. Will you
sw’ar?”
The solitary guest started to smile, but the smile faded at the thought of
unshed tears in Polly’s eyes. It might make it easier for her if he humored
the old man.
“I’ll swear,” he said. And he did.
“Do you see yan old spruce at the turn of the trail an’ the cliff jes’ above?
Waal, thet’s the spot I’m watchin’ an’ guardin’ till the owner cums ter claim
it. I’m quick ter burn powder an’ a pretty sure shot. I know a man when I
sees him, an’ I ain’t easy fooled. Waal, ter begin with, I had a pardner once,
an’ he wuz a man, sure ’nough. He wuz frum the State of New York. I never
axed him as ter how so fine a gent cum ter be diggin’ an’ shov’lin’ in the
Rockies, though ter myself I said thar wuz sum good reason. He had light
hair, an’ we called him Sandy, fer short, an’ he wuz jes’ erbout as gritty as
sand. We wuz as unlike as any two fellers you ever saw. He wuz quietlike
an’ steady, an’ I wuz sorter wild an’ reckless an’ liked mounting dew mos’
too well. Waal, when we had a little dust scraped together, we would divvy,
an’ I tuk my share way down ter the station on the other side of the cliffs
an’ sent it off ter the bank in Helena. But I allers left sum hid whar the gal
would find it. Old Sandy hed a bank of his own thet no one knew erbout,

’cepting hisself, an’ ev’ry time we divided he’d carry part of it ter his hidin’
place, an’ then give the rest ter me ter send ter his boy, thet he said wuz
bein’ eddicated in sum college way up in Boston. He seemed ter think a
heap of thet boy. Arter awhile my old woman give out, an’ soon we laid her
away on the hillside. It wuz hard, stranger.”
Old Kit’s voice failed him for a moment, but he quickly regained his
composure and continued:
“But when old Sandy, my good old pard, give up I didn’t keer fer
nothin’. We buried him in style. All the boys frum round the diggin’s wuz
thar, an’ many an eye wuz wet. We didn’t hev nary a preacher, but the gal
she prayed at the grave. Fer the life of me I don’t know where she larnt it.
Reckon the old woman must hev told her. Next mornin’ the gal showed me
a letter thet Sandy give her jes’ afore he died. It wuz ter his boy, an’ she wuz
ter give it ter him if he ever cum out this way, an’ she’s got it yet.
“Thet same evenin’ after supper, feelin’ kinder glumish an’ like thar wuz
sumthin’ in my throat I couldn’t swaller, I tuk a stroll up the gulch. I went
on out ter the top of the edge of the big rock an’ got ter studyin’ whar I’d
find another pard like Sandy. All ter once I felt a hand touch my shoulder
kinder light once or twice. I jumped up, half expectin’ it wuz Sandy, but it
wuz only the gal. Waal, I wuz all tuk back at fust, an’ then I got mad.
“ ‘What air you doin’ up here?’ I axed, kinder rough. She hed tears in her
eyes as she looked at me, an’ said:
“ ‘Pap, don’t git mad. I wuz lonesum. I seed you cumin’ up this way, an’
I follered you, ’cause I wanted ter tell you thet Sandy said ter give his boy
his pile when he cums.’
“ ‘Waal,’ says I, ‘you might hev waited till I cum back ter the house.’ An’
then I sent her back.
“Arter she wuz gone I sot ter studyin’ whar in the world Sandy’s pile
wuz. I tried ter think whar could he hev hid it. But it warn’t no use. All ter
once I noticed it wuz plum dark, an’ as these mountings ain’t a he’lthy place
fer a man ter roam in arter nightfall, especially if he ain’t got his shootin’
irons on, I cut a pretty swift gait fer the shack.
“Jes’ as I cum round the bend thar at the pine I happened ter look up
terward the clift, an’ thar sot Sandy. Yes, sir. It wuz him sure as yer born.
My feet felt heavy as lead, an’ I couldn’t move frum the spot. I tried ter
holler, but it warn’t no go. Finally I gave a sudden jerk an’ made a step

terward him, an’ as I did so he disappeared. Then I made tracks fer home.
But I kept mum, ’cause I knowed the boys would say thet mounting dew
wuz lickin’ up my brains, an’ I would be seein’ snakes an’ sich things afore
long.
“The next night sumhow er ’nuther I thought ter go an’ see if he wuz thar
ag’in, an’ sure ’nough, thar he sot, lookin’ kinder sad an’ making marks on
the rocks with his fingers. I hed my hand on my gun this time, so I got a
little closter than afore. But, by hookey, he got away from me ag’in, nor did
he cum back.
“I could hardly wait fer the next night ter cum round. At the same time I
wuz on hand good an’ early, jes’ as it begun ter git dark, an’ the trees looked
like long spooks a-stretchin’ out their arms. I looked terward the clift, an’
thar he sot a-markin’ an’ a-scratchin’ on the rock with his fingers an’ still
looking sad. Now, this bein’ the third time, I kinder got bold, an’ I went a
little closter, an’ says:
“ ‘Sandy, wha-what’s the ma-mat-matter with you? Didn’t the boys do
the plantin’ right fer you?’
“Then as luck would hev it I thought of sumthin’ else right quick, an’ I
said:
“ ‘Or is it the dust you hev hid whar yer sittin’?’
“Waal, he looked up then, an’ the happiest smile cum ter his face, an’ all
ter once he disappeared ag’in. An’ since then I hev sot here an’ guarded the
place till the right one cums along ter claim it.
“Let’s see. What did you say yer name wuz?”
“Pardon me. I thought I had told you. My name is John Willett Barr.”
“Polly, oh, Polly! Cum hyar, gal. What wuz Sandy’s full name? I plum
fergot.”
“What you want ter know fer?” she asked. “I ain’t a-goin’ ter tell you
now. Thet’s my own secret.”
“Cum, cum, gal. Tell me ter once, or it won’t be he’lthy fer you.”
“Waal, then,” she answered stubbornly, “it’s John Willett Barr.”
At her reply the younger man’s face grew deathly pale, and he started up
from his chair, but Kit thrust him back into his seat, saying:
“Bring me the letter, Polly.”

“What are you goin’ ter do with it, pa?” she inquired, cautiously.
“I promised old Sandy on my oath ter keep it till the right one cums
erlong ter claim it, an’ I mean ter keep my word. The right one is here, gal.
Thar he sits. So trot thet letter out, an’ don’t parley long with me if you
knows when yer well off.”
Polly stared at the younger man in utter bewilderment for a moment.
Then, turning slowly, she stepped quietly into the cabin after the precious
document; an unusual gleam of joy lighted up her face and a suppressed
excitement shone in her eyes. Under her breath she said: “Sumhow er ruther
I felt he wuz the right one.”
Too truly, John Barr realized in that painful moment that he whom he
sought was now dead to him; that the father from whom he had been parted
so many years was sleeping that long, dreamless sleep in the clay mound on
the hillside, which marked his last resting place. As he turned to look at the
face of old, honest Kit, who had been his father’s friend during those long
years of forced exile, a happy smile lit up the old miner’s rugged features as
he pointed with his finger to the rock cliff near the old spruce vine, and
said, in an exultant, trembling voice:
“Thar he be, stranger—jes’ as I hev seen him many a night—yer dad—
my pard—pore old Sandy!”
With an eager voice John Barr sprang forward, and the mountains
echoed and re-echoed the plaintive cry of “Father! Father!” But his
outstretched arms clasped only emptiness and the darkening shadows of the
rapidly approaching night.

THE GHOSTS OF RED CREEK.

BY S. T.

To the northward of Mississippi City and its neighbor, Handsboro, there
extends a tract of pine forest for miles with but few habitations scattered
through it. Black and Red Creeks, with their numerous branches, drain this
region into the Pascagoula River to the eastward. With the swamps of
Pascagoula as a refuge, and the luxuriant and unfrequented bottoms of Red
and Black Creeks to browse upon, there are few choicer spots for deer.
Knowing this fact, a small party of gentlemen on the day before a crisp,
cold Christmas, started from Handsboro in a large four-wheeled wagon for
a thirty-mile drive into this wilderness of pine and a week’s sport after the
deer. The guide was Jim Caruthers, a true woodsman, and the driver and
general factotum, a jolly negro named Jack Lyons, than whom no one could
make a better hoe-cake and cook a venison steak. His laugh could be heard
a quarter of a mile, and his good nature was as expansive as the range of the
laughter.
The usual experiences of a hunting camp were heartily enjoyed during
the first days of this life out of doors; but its cream did not rise until about
the fifth night, when, from familiar intercourse, Jack Lyons became
loquacious, and after the day’s twenty or twenty-five-mile walk, would spin
yarns in front of the camp fire, which brought forgetfulness of fatigue.
The night before New Year’s was intensely cold. The cold north wind of
the afternoon had subsided at sunset, and only a gust now and again
touched the musical leaves of the pines, making them vibrant with that
mournful score of nature’s operas which even maestros have failed to catch.
In front of two new and white tents two sportsmen reclined at length
within reach of the warmth of the fire, while opposite them rested at ease
the guide and the worthy Jack Lyons.
Wearied with the day’s chase four stanch hounds—Ringwood, Rose, Jet
and Boxer—were dreaming of future quarry.
The firelight brought out in bright relief the trunks of the tall pines like
cathedral columns, and sparkling through the leafy dome overhead the

scintillating stars glistened with a diamond brightness. A silence which
added its influence to the scene rested about the borders of the creek below,
and gave more effect to the story of the veteran teamster than perhaps it
otherwise would have had.
“If de deer run down de creek,” said old Jack, smacking his lips over a
carefully prepared brewing of the real Campbellton punch, “wese boun’ to
see fun to-morrer, for dey’ll take us down thar by de old Gibbet’s place. In
daylight dere’s no place like it, but after nightfall, you bet you wouldn’t
catch dis nigger thar.”
Old Jack was naturally asked why he didn’t care about visiting the
Gibbet’s place at night. Asking to be excused until he filled his pipe, the
silence was unbroken until his return. He piled on more pine knots and
commenced:
“You kno’, gemmen, dat when de gunboats was in de sound we folks had
to travel way back hyar on dese roads outun de range of deir big guns. I was
’gaged by Mr. Harrison in hauling salt from de factory at Mississippi City,
on de beach ober to Mobile, an’ I had been making a trip ebery week or so.
Dis back country road was neber thought ob by de Federals, an’ we had
good times long de way, no shells and no shootin’.
“De nite, gemmen, I’se speakin’ of was a Friday, dat yous all knows is
unlucky. Well, you see, I hitched up Betsie an’ Rose in de lead, an’ ole Fox
an’ Blossom at de pole, an’ takes in de biggest load of salt dat team eber
carried. I starts out an’ crosses de Biloxi Riber at Han’sboro jes’ as de moon
was goin’ down. Yes, boss, dese roads weren’t no better den now, an’ de
rain had made ’em mighty rough when yer come to de holes.
“I sat in de seat whistlin’ ‘De Cows is in de Pea Patch,’ and a-thinkin’ of
Sarah Jamison, what was afterwards my wife, when I felt de off fore wheel
go ‘kersush’ in a hole up to de hub. I’d made seventeen miles out ob
Han’sboro. I did some cussin’, an’ den went to de fence, about twenty yards
off, an’ took out a rail to prize up de wheel. Den I saw I was at Mister
Gibbet’s place. I sez to myself, I’ll go up to de house an’ get old Mr. Gibbet
to give me a turn. I had done gone by dar two weeks afore an’ seed de old
man.
“Now, gemmen, yer listen to me, for what I’se tellin’ yer is as sure as
Jinny’ll blow de horn on de las’ day. I walked up to de house an’ dar I saw a
bright light inside. It showed out froo de windows, an’ I saw shadders of

Miss Gibbet and Mrs. Gibbet on de window curtain—shore, honeys, shore.
De front do’ was shet, an’ I steps up on ter de gallery an’ knocks wid de butt
end of my whip. I didn’t knock loud, needer. God bless us all, gemmen, de
lights went out like dat, an’ I hears set up a laugh, ha-ha-ha-ha. How dat set
my knees a-shakin’. I opens de do’, an’ dere was no sign of anybody. I
struck a match an’ all de furniture was moved out, an’ de old red curtain dat
I fought I seed was in rags. De whole family was gone, for shore. I didn’t
kno’ ’zactly what to think ’bout dem strange voices, but I started back to de
wagon, when it lightened, an’ bress God, dar in de front yard was six graves
jes’ made. Somefin’ wrong here, sed I; an’ I builds a fire by de wagon an’
digs de wheel out. Jes’ den old Squire Pasture kem along de road from
Mobile, an’ he tells me de news. Ole man Gibbet cut de froats of his wife
and fore chillerns an’ shoot hisself in de head outun jealousy of his wife.
Dey was all buried in de front yard, an’ de house was deserted ten days
befo’.
“Gemmen, when I hear dat, dem mules make de quickest time to Mobile
eber seed; an’ youse can tell me dar’s no ghosts, but yo’ don’ catch me roun’
dat log house of Gibbet’s ’ceptin’ sun’s an hour high.”
Jack looked suspiciously over his shoulder into the darkness and crawled
into his blanket, muttering:
“It scares dis nigger eben now to tell ’bout dat night.”
Sleep soon fell upon the camp, but the impression of old Jack’s story
survived the night, and the next day he still asserted its truth.

THE SPECTRE BRIDE.
The winter nights up at Sault Ste. Marie are as white and luminous as the
Milky Way. The silence that rests upon the solitude appears to be white
also. Nature has included sound in her arrestment. Save the still white frost,
all things are obliterated. The stars are there, but they seem to belong to
heaven and not to earth. They are at an immeasurable height, and so black is
the night that the opaque ether rolls between them and the observer in great
liquid billows.
In such a place it is difficult to believe that the world is peopled to any
great extent. One fancies that Cain has just killed Abel, and that there is
need for the greatest economy in the matter of human life.
The night Ralph Hagadorn started out for Echo Bay he felt as if he were
the only man in the world, so complete was the solitude through which he
was passing. He was going over to attend the wedding of his best friend,
and was, in fact, to act as the groomsman. Business had delayed him, and
he was compelled to make his journey at night. But he hadn’t gone far
before he began to feel the exhilaration of the skater. His skates were keen,
his legs fit for a longer journey than the one he had undertaken, and the tang
of the frost was to him what a spur is to a spirited horse.
He cut through the air as a sharp stone cleaves the water. He could feel
the tumult of the air as he cleft it. As he went on he began to have fancies. It
seemed to him that he was enormously tall—a great Viking of the
Northland, hastening over icy fiords to his love. That reminded him that he
had a love—though, indeed, that thought was always present with him as a
background for other thoughts. To be sure, he had not told her she was his
love, because he had only seen her a few times and the opportunity had not
presented itself. She lived at Echo Bay, too, and was to be the maid of
honor to his friend’s bride—which was another reason why he skated on
almost as swiftly as the wind, and why, now and then, he let out a shout of
exhilaration.
The one drawback in the matter was that Marie Beaujeu’s father had
money, and that Marie lived in a fine house and wore otter skin about her
throat and little satin-lined mink boots on her feet when she went sledding,
and that the jacket in which she kept a bit of her dead mother’s hair had a

black pearl in it as big as a pea. These things made it difficult—nay,
impossible—for Ralph Hagadorn to say anything more than “I love you.”
But that much he meant to have the satisfaction of saying, no matter what
came of it.
With this determination growing upon him he swept along the ice which
gleamed under the starlight. Indeed, Venus made a glowing path toward the
west and seemed to reassure him. He was sorry he could not skim down that
avenue of light from the love star, but he was forced to turn his back upon it
and face toward the northeast.
It came to him with a shock that he was not alone. His eyelashes were a
good deal frosted and his eyeballs blurred with the cold, and at first he
thought it an illusion. But he rubbed his eyes hard and at length made sure
that not very far in front of him was a long white skater in fluttering
garments who sped over the snows fast as ever werewolf went. He called
aloud, but there was no answer, and then he gave chase, setting his teeth
hard and putting a tension on his firm young muscles. But however fast he
might go the white skater went faster. After a time he became convinced, as
he chanced to glance for a second at the North Star, that the white skater
was leading him out of his direct path. For a moment he hesitated,
wondering if he should not keep to his road, but the strange companion
seemed to draw him on irresistibly, and so he followed.
Of course it came to him more than once that this might be no earthly
guide. Up in those latitudes men see strange things when the hoar frost is on
the earth. Hagadorn’s father, who lived up there with the Lake Superior
Indians and worked in the copper mines, had once welcomed a woman at
his hut on a bitter night who was gone by morning, and who left wolf tracks
in the snow—yes, it was so, and John Fontanelle, the half-breed, could tell
you about it any day—if he were alive. (Alack, the snow where the wolf
tracks were is melted now!)
Well, Hagadorn followed the white skater all the night, and when the ice
flushed red at dawn and arrows of lovely light shot up into the cold
heavens, she was gone, and Hagadorn was at his destination. Then, as he
took off his skates while the sun climbed arrogantly up to his place above
all other things, Hagadorn chanced to glance lakeward, and he saw there
was a great wind-rift in the ice and that the waves showed blue as sapphires
beside the gleaming ice. Had he swept along his intended path, watching

the stars to guide him, his glance turned upward, all his body at magnificent
momentum, he must certainly have gone into that cold grave. The white
skater had been his guardian angel!
Much impressed, he went up to his friend’s house, expecting to find
there the pleasant wedding furore. But someone met him quietly at the door,
and his friend came downstairs to greet him with a solemn demeanor.
“Is this your wedding face?” cried Hagadorn. “Why, really, if this is the
way you are affected, the sooner I take warning the better.”
“There’s no wedding to-day,” said his friend.
“No wedding? Why, you’re not——”
“Marie Beaujeu died last night——”
“Marie——”
“Died last night. She had been skating in the afternoon, and she came
home chilled and wandering in her mind, as if the frost had got in it
somehow. She got worse and worse and talked all the time of you.”
“Of me?”
“We wondered what it all meant. We didn’t know you were lovers.”
“I didn’t know it myself; more’s the pity.”
“She said you were on the ice. She said you didn’t know about the big
breaking up, and she cried to us that the wind was off shore. Then she cried
that you could come in by the old French Creek if you only knew——?”
“I came in that way,” interrupted Hagadorn.
“How did you come to do that? It’s out of your way.”
So Hagadorn told him how it came to pass.
And that day they watched beside the maiden, who had tapers at her
head and feet, and over in the little church the bride who might have been at
her wedding said prayers for her friend. Then they buried her in her
bridesmaid’s white, and Hagadorn was there before the altar with her, as he
intended from the first. At midnight the day of the burial her friends were
married in the gloom of the cold church, and they walked together through
the snow to lay their bridal wreaths on her grave.
Three nights later Hagadorn started back again to his home. They wanted
him to go by sunlight, but he had his way and went when Venus made her
bright path on the ice. He hoped for the companionship of the white skater.

But he did not have it. His only companion was the wind. The only voice he
heard was the baying of a wolf on the north shore. The world was as white
as if it had just been created and the sun had not yet colored nor man defiled
it.

HOW HE CAUGHT THE GHOST.
“Yes, the house is a good one,” said the agent; “it’s in a good
neighborhood, and you’re getting it at almost nothing; but I think it right to
tell you all about it. You are orphans, you say, and with a mother dependent
on you? That makes it all the more necessary that you should know. The
fact is, the house is said to be haunted——”
The agent could not help smiling as he said it, and he was relieved to see
an answering smile on the two faces before him.
“Ah, you don’t believe in ghosts,” he went on; “nor do I, for that matter;
but, somehow, the reputation of the house keeps me from having a tenant
long at a time. The place ought to rent for twice as much as it does.”
“If we succeed in driving out the ghost, you will not raise the rent?”
asked the boy, with a merry twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, no—not this year, at any rate,” laughed the agent. And so the
house was rented; and the slip of a girl and the tall lad, her brother, went
their way.
Within a week the family had moved into the house, and were delighted
with it. It was large and cool, with wide halls and fine stairways, and with
more room than they needed. But that did not matter in the least, for they
had always been cramped in small houses, suffering many discomforts; and
they never could have afforded such a place as this if it had not been
“haunted.”
“Blessings on the ghost!” cried Margaret, gaily, as she ran about as
merry as a child. “Who would be without a ghost in the house, when it
brings one like this?”
“And it is so near your school,” said the mother; “and I used to worry so
over the long walk; and David can come home to lunch now, and you don’t
know what a pleasure that will be.”
“It seems to me,” David gravely explained, “that if I should meet the
ghost I would treat him with the greatest politeness and encourage him to
stay. We shall not miss the room he takes, shall we? I think it would be well
to set aside that room over yours, Maggie, for his ghostship’s own, for we

shall not need that, you know. Besides, the door doesn’t shut, and he can go
in and out without breaking the lock.”
And then they all laughed and had a great deal of fun over the ghost,
which was a great joke to them.
They were very tired that night and slept soundly all night long. When
they met the next morning there was more laughter about the ghost which
was shy about meeting strangers, probably, and had made no effort to
introduce himself. For the next three days they were all hard at work, trying
to bring chaos into something like order; and then it was time for the school
to open, and Margaret was to begin teaching, and David inserted an
advertisement in the city papers for a maid-of-all-work, who might help
their mother in their absence.
For one whole day prospective colored servants presented themselves
and announced:
“Is dis de house whar dey wants a worklady? No, ma’am, I ain’ gwine to
work in dis house. Ketch me workin’ in no ha’nted house.”
After which they each and all departed, and others came in their stead.
One was secured after a while, but no sooner had she talked across the
fence with a neighbor’s servant than she, too, departed.
“Never mind, children,” said Mrs. Craig, wearily, “I would much rather
do the work than be troubled in this way.”
So the maid-of-all-work was dismissed and the Craig family locked the
doors and went to their rooms, worn out with the day’s anxieties.
They had been in the house four days, and there had been neither sight
nor sound of the ghost. The very mention of it was enough to start them all
to laughing, for they were thoroughly practical people, with a fondness for
inquiring into anything that seemed mysterious to them and for
understanding it thoroughly before they let it go.
David was soon sleeping the sound sleep of healthy boyhood, and all
was silent in the house, when Margaret stole softly into his room and laid
her hand on his arm. He was not easy to waken, and several minutes had
passed before he sat up in bed with an articulate murmur of surprise.
“Hush!” said Margaret, in a whisper, with her hand on his lips. “I want
you to come into my room and listen to a sound that I have been hearing for
some time.”

“Doors creaking,” suggested David, as he began to dress.
“Nothing of the kind,” was all she said.
They walked up the stairway, and along the upper hall to the door of the
unused room. Something was wrong with the lock and the door would not
stay fastened, as I have said.
Something that was not fear thrilled their hearts as they pushed the door
further ajar, and stood where they could see every foot of the vacant floor.
One of their own boxes stood in the middle of the room, but aside from that,
nothing was to be seen, and they looked at one another in silence.
“Hold the lamp a minute, Maggie,” David said, at last, and then he went
all over the room, and looked more particularly at its emptiness, and even
felt the walls.
“Secret panels, you know,” he said, with a smile, but it was a very
puzzled smile indeed.
“I can’t see what it could have been,” Margaret said, as they went down
the stairs.
“No, I can’t see, either, but I’m going to see,” said David. “That was a
chain, and chains don’t drag around by themselves, you know. A ghost
could not drag a chain, if he were to try.”
“The conventional ghost very often drags chains,” said Margaret, as she
closed the door of her room.
And then she lay awake all night and listened for the conventional ghost
that dragged a chain, but it seemed that the weight of the chain must have
wearied him, for he was not heard again.
The mother had slept through it all, and next morning they gave her a
vivid account of the night’s adventure.
“Perhaps it was someone in the house,” she said, in alarm. There were no
ghosts within the bounds of possibility, so far as she was concerned, but
burglars were very possible, indeed.
Then Margaret and David both laughed more than ever.
“What fun it would be,” said David, “for a burglar to get into this house
and try to find something worth carrying away!”
So they went on to the next night, all three fully determined to spend the
night in listening for the ghost, and running him to earth if possible.

But it was Margaret that heard the ghost, after all. She had been sleeping
and was suddenly startled wide awake, and there, overhead, was the sound
of the chain dragging; and just as she was on the point of springing out of
bed to call her brother, the chain seemed to go out of the upper room. She
lay still and listened, and in a moment she heard it again.
It was coming down the stairs.
There was no carpet on the stairs, and she could hear the chain drop from
step to step, until it had come the whole way down. There it was, almost at
the door of her room, and something that was strangely like fear kept her
lying still, listening in horrified silence.
Then it went along the hall, dragging close to the door; and then further
away; and back and forth for awhile; and then it began dragging back up the
stairs again. Step by step she could hear it drawn over the edge of every
step—and by the time it had reached the top she remembered herself and
called David.
Again did the brother and sister make a tour of the upper room, with the
lamp. Not only that, but they looked into every nook and corner of the
upper part of the house, and at last came back, baffled. They had seen
nothing extraordinary, and they had not heard a sound.
“I’m going to see that ghost to-night,” David said to his sister the next
evening.
“How?”
“I’m going to sit up all night at the head of the stairs. Don’t say anything
about it to mother; it might make her uneasy.”
So, after the household were all quiet, David slipped into his place at the
head of the stairs, and sat down to his vigil. He had placed a screen at the
head of the stairway so that it hid him from view—as if a ghost cared for a
screen—and he established himself behind it, and prepared to be as patient
as he could.
It seemed to him that hours so long had never been devised as those the
town clocks tolled off that night. He bore it until midnight moderately well,
because, he argued with himself, if there were any ghosts about they would
surely walk then; but they were not in a humor for walking; and still the
hours rolled on without any developments. He took the fidgets, and had
nervous twitches all over him, and at last he could endure it no longer, and

had leaned his head back against the wall and was going blissfully to sleep
when——
He heard a chain dragging just beyond the open door of that unused
room.
In spite of himself a shiver ran down his back. There was no mistaking
it; it was a real chain, if he had ever heard one. More than that, it had left
the room, and was coming straight towards the stairs. The hall was dark,
and it was impossible for him to see anything, although he strained his eyes
in the direction of the sound. And even while he looked it had passed
behind the screen, and was going down the stairs, dropping from step to
step with a clank.
Half way down a narrow strip of moonlight from a stair-window lay
directly across the steps. Whatever the thing was, it must pass through that
patch of light, and David leaned forward and watched.
Down it went from step to step, and presently it had slipped through the
light, and was down; and a little later it came back again, through the light,
and up the stairs, and back into that unused room.
And then David slapped his knees jubilantly, and ran down to his room,
and slept all the rest of the night.
Next morning he was very mysterious about his discoveries of the night
before.
“Oh, yes, I saw the ghost,” he said to Maggie. “There; don’t ask so many
questions; I’ll tell you more about it to-morrow, maybe.”
And that was all the information she could get from him. It was very
provoking.
That day David made a purchase down town and brought home a bulky
bundle, which he hid in his own room and would not let his sister even peep
at.
“I’m going to try to catch a ghost to-night,” he said, “and you know how
it is; if I brag too much beforehand, I shall be sure to fail.”
He was working with something in the hall after the others had retired;
but he did not sit up this time. He went to bed, and Margaret listened at his
door and found that he was soon asleep.
But away in the night they were all awakened by a squealing that
brought them all into the hall in a great hurry; and there, at the head of the

stairs, they found the huge rat-trap that David had set a few hours before,
and in the midst of the toils was a rat.
“Why, David,” exclaimed the mother, “I didn’t know that there was a rat
in the house.”
And then, all at once, she saw that there was a long chain hanging from a
little iron collar around the creature’s neck, and she and Margaret cried
together.
“And this was the ghost!”
Such a funny ghost when they came to think of it—this poor rat, with a
nest in some hole of the broken chimney. He had been someone’s pet, once,
perhaps; and now, the households he had broken up, the nights he had
disturbed, the wild sensations he had created—it made his captors laugh to
think that this innocent creature had been the cause of the whole trouble.
“I’ll get a cage for him, and take care of him for the rest of his life,” said
David. “We owe him so much that we can’t afford to be ungrateful.”
The next morning he took the ghost-in-a-cage and showed it to the agent,
and gave him a vivid account of the capture.
“So, you have a good house for about half price, all on account of that
rat,” exclaimed the agent, grimly. “Young man—but never mind, you
deserve it. What are you working for now? Six dollars a week? If you ever
want to change your place—suppose you come around here. I think you
need a business that will give you a chance to grow.”
And the agent and David shook hands warmly over the cage of the
“ghost.”

GRAND-DAME’S GHOST STORY.

BY C. D.

I don’t know whether you ever tell your children ghost stories or not;
some mothers don’t, but our mother, though of German descent, was
strong-minded on the ghost subject, and early taught all of her children to
be fearless mentally as well as physically, and, though dearly fond of
hearing ghost stories, especially if they were real true ghosts, we were sadly
skeptical as to their being anything of the kind that could harm. We were
quite learned in ghostly lore, knew all about “doppeigangers,” “Will o’ the
Wisp,” “blue lights,” etc., and we could not have a greater treat for good
behavior than for our mother to draw on her store of supernatural tales for
our entertainment. The story I am about to relate she told us one stormy
night, when, gathered round her chair in her own cozy sanctum, before a
cheerful fire, we ate nuts and apples, and listened while she recited “an o’er
true tale,” told her by her grandmother, who herself witnessed the vision:
It was a fearful night, the wind sobbed and wailed round the house like
lost spirits mourning their doom; the rain beat upon the casements, and the
trees, writhing in the torture of the fierce blast, groaned and swayed until
their tops almost swept the earth; bright flashes of lightning pierced even
through the closed shutters and heavy curtains, and the thunder had a sullen,
threatening roar that made your blood creep. It was a night to make one
seek to shut out all sound, draw the curtains close, stir the fire and nestle
deep in the arm-chair before it, with feet upon the fender, and have
something cheerful to think or talk about. But I was all alone; none in the
house with me but the servants, and the servants’ wing was detached from
the main part of the building, for I do not care to have menials near me, and
I had no loved ones near.
It was just such a night that Nancy Black died. “What a fearful night for
the soul to leave its earthly home and go out into the vast, unknown future!”
I spoke aloud, as, rousing from a train of thought, I drew my heavy mantle
closer round me, wheeled my arm-chair nearer the fire, and cuddled down
in it, burying my feet in the foot-cushion to warm them, for I felt strangely
cold. I was in the library; it was my usual sitting-room, for I seldom used

the parlors. What was the use? My books were my friends, and I loved best
to be with them. My children dead, or married and away, the cold, grand
parlors always seemed gloomy and sad; the ghosts of departed pleasures
haunted them, and I cared not to enter them.
It was a long, wide room across the hall from the parlors, running the
whole length of the house, and was lined with shelves from floor to ceiling.
My husband’s father had been a bibliomaniac, and my husband had had a
leaning that way also, and the shelves held many an old rare work that was
worth its weight in gold. The fire, though burning brightly, did not illume
one-half the room of which, sitting in the chimney corner, I commanded a
full view, and had been looking at the shadows playing on the furniture and
shelves, as the flame shot up, and after flickering a moment, would die out,
leaving a gloom which would break away into fantastic shadows as the
firelight would again shoot up.
While watching the gleams of light and darkling shades, unconsciously
the wailing of the storm outside attracted my attention, there seemed to be
odd noises of tapping on the windows, and sobs and sighs, as though
someone was entreating entrance from the fierce tumult; and as I sat there,
again I thought of Nancy Black, the old schoolgirl friend who had loved me
so dearly, and the night when she went forth to meet the doom appointed
her; resting my head upon my hand, I sat gazing in the fire, thinking over
her strange life, and still stranger death, and wondering what could have
become of the money and jewels that I knew she had once possessed.
While sitting thus, a queer sensation crept over me; it was not fear, but a
feeling as though if I’d look up I’d see something frightful; a shiver, not
like that of cold, ran from my head to my feet, and a sensation as though
someone was breathing icy cold breath upon my forehead, the same feeling
you would cause by holding a piece of ice to your cheek; it fluttered over
my face and finally settled round my lips, as though the unseen one was
caressing me, thrilling me with horror. But I am not fearful, nervous nor
imaginative, and resolutely throwing off the dread that fell upon me, I
turned round and looked up, and there, so close by my side that my hand,
involuntarily thrown out, passed through her seeming form, stood Nancy
Black. It was Nancy Black, and yet not Nancy Black; her whole body had a
semi-transparent appearance, just as your hand looks when you hold it
between yourself and a strong light; her clothing, apparently the same as

worn in life, had a wavy, seething, flickering look, like flames have, and yet
did not seem to burn.
“In the name of God, Nancy Black, what brought you here, and whence
came you?” I exclaimed.
A hollow whisper followed:
“Thank you, my old friend, for speaking to me, and, oh, how deeply I
thank you for thinking of me to-night—I shall have rest.”
Rest! I heard echoed, and a jeering laugh rang through the room that
made her quiver at its sound.
“I have been near you often; but always failed to find you in a condition
when you would be en rapport before to-night. What I came for I will tell
you; whence I come, you need not know; suffice it to say, that were I happy
I would not be here on such an errand, nor on such a night—it is only when
the elements are in a tumult, and the winds wail and moan, that we come
forth. When you hear these sounds it is souls of the lost you hear mourning
their doom—’tis then they wander up and down, to and fro, their only
release from their fearful home of torture and undying pain.
“I have come to tell you that you must go over to the old house, and in
the back room I always kept locked, have the carpet taken up from toward
the fireplace. You will see a plank with a knot-hole in it. Remove that, and
you will find what caused me to lose my soul—have prayers said for me,
for ’tis well to pray for the dead. The money and jewels give in charity;
bury in holy ground the others you find, and pray for them and me. Ah!
Jeannette, you thought your old friend, though strange and odd, pure and
innocent. It is a bitter part of my punishment that I must change your
thought of me. Farewell! Do not fail me, and I shall trouble you no more.
But whenever you hear that wind howl and sweep round the house as it
does to-night, know that the lost are near. It is their swift flight through
space—fleeing before the scourge of memory and conscience—that causes
that sound.
“That to-morrow you may not think you are dreaming, here is a token,”
and she touched the palm of my hand with her finger-tips, and as you see,
my child, to this day, there are three crimson spots in the palm of my hand
that nothing will eradicate.
“Do not fail me, and pray for us, Jeannette, pray,” and with a longing,
wistful gaze, and a deep, sobbing sigh, Nancy Black faded from my sight.

“Am I dreaming?” I exclaimed, as I rose from my chair and rang the
bell. When the servant entered, I bade him attend to the fire and light the
lamps, and I went through the room to see if any unusual arrangement of
the furniture could have caused the appearance, but nothing was apparent,
and I bade him send my maid to attend me in my chamber, for I could not
help feeling unwilling to remain in the library any longer that evening.
While making my toilet for the night my maid said:
“Have you burned your hand, madam?”
Glancing hastily down, I saw three dark crimson spots upon the palm of
my left hand. They had an odd look, seared as though touched by a red-hot
iron, yet the flesh was soft, not burned and not painful. Making some
excuse for it, I did not allude to it again, and dismissed her speedily, that I
might reflect undisturbed over the singular occurrence. There were the
marks upon my hand; I could not remove them, and they did not fade. In
fact, their deep red made the rest of the palm lose its pinkish hue and look
pale from the strong contrast. Could I have been asleep and dreamed it all,
and by any means have done this to myself? I thought, but finally
concluded that on the morrow I’d go over to Nancy Black’s old residence
and settle the question; and with that conclusion had to content myself until
the morrow came.
Nancy Black was an old friend from my girlhood, who had owned large
property in the town, and lived all alone in a spacious stone house directly
opposite my home, and who, when dying, had left me the sole legatee of her
property.
When morning came I took the keys, and, with my maid, went over to
Nancy’s house. It had never been disturbed since her death, which was
sudden and somewhat singular, and the furniture remained just as she left it
when taken to her last resting place. We went to the room Nancy had
directed. I bade Sarah take up the carpet, and, sure enough, there was a
plank with a knot-hole in it; so I sent her from the room, and lifted the plank
myself, and there, between the two joints, rested a long box, the lid not
fastened. Opening it, I was horrified to see two skeletons—those of an
infant and of a woman, small in stature and delicate frame. In a moment it
flashed before me that I saw all that remained of Nancy Black’s young
sister, a girl of seventeen, who had left home somewhat mysteriously years
ago, and had died while absent—at least, that was the version Nancy had

given of her absence, and no one had dreamed of doubting it, her tale was
so naturally told.
Left orphans when Lucy was only two years and Nancy eighteen, she
had devoted her life to the care of this young girl, and when she found her
sister had fallen, she, in her pride of name and position, had destroyed
mother and child, that her shame might not be known, and had lived all
those dreary years in that house with her fearful secret.
Round the box, heaped up on every side, were money and jewels, and a
parchment scroll among them had written on it: “Lucy’s share of our
father’s estate.” I carried out Nancy’s wishes to the letter, for I now firmly
believed that she had come to me herself that night. To avoid scandal
resting on the dead, I took our clergyman into my confidence, and with his
assistance had the remains buried quietly in consecrated ground. The money
and jewels were given to the poor, and the old building I turned into a home
for destitute females; and morning and night, as I kneel in prayer, I pray
forgiveness to rest upon Nancy Black and peace to her troubled soul.

A FIGHT WITH A GHOST.

BY Q. E. D.

“No, I never believed much in ghosts,” said the doctor. “But I was
always rather afraid of them.”
“Have you ever seen one?” asked one of the other men.
The doctor took his cigar out of his mouth and contemplated the ash for
a moment or two before replying. “I have had some rather startling
experiences,” he said, after a pause, during which the rest of us exchanged
glances, for the doctor has seen many things and is not averse to talking
about them in congenial company. “Would you care about hearing one of
them? It gives me the cold shivers now to speak of it.” We nodded, and the
doctor, taking a sip as an antidote to the shivers, began:
“You remember George Carson, who played for the ‘Varsity some years
ago; big chap, with a light mustache? Well, I saw a good deal of him before
he married, while he was reading for the bar in town. It was just after he
became engaged to Miss Stonor, who is now Mrs. Carson, that he asked me
to go down to a place which his people had taken in the country. Miss
Stonor was to be there and he wanted me to meet her. I could not go down
for Christmas Day, as I had promised to be with my people. But as I had
been working a bit too hard, and wanted a few days’ rest, I decided to run
down for a few days about the New Year.
“Woodcote was a pleasant enough place to look at. There were two
packs of hounds within easy distance, and it was not far enough from a
station to cut you off completely from the morning papers. The Carsons had
been lucky, I thought, in coming across such a good house at such a
moderate figure. For, as George told me, the owner had been obliged to go
abroad for his health, and was anxious not to leave the place empty all the
winter. It was an old house, with big gables and preposterous corners all
over the place, and you couldn’t walk ten paces along any of the passages
without tumbling up or down stairs. But it had been patched from time to
time and, among other improvements, a big billiard-room had been built out
at the back. A country house in the winter without a billiard-room, when the

frost stops hunting, is just—well, not even a gilded prison. The party was a
small one; besides George and his father and mother, there were only a
couple of Misses Carson, who, being somewhere in the early teens, didn’t
count, and Miss Stonor, who, of course, counted a good deal, and, lastly,
myself.
“Miss Stonor ought to have been happy, for George Carson, besides
being an excellent fellow all around, was by no means a bad match, being
an only son with considerable expectations. But, somehow or other, she did
not strike me as looking either very well or very happy. She gave me the
impression of having something on her mind, which made her alternately
nervous and listless. George, I fancied, noticed it, and was puzzled by it, for
I caught him several times watching her with an anxious and inquiring look,
but, as I was not there as a doctor, of course it was no business of mine,
though I discovered the reason before I left Woodcote.
“The second night after my arrival—we had been playing, I remember, a
family pool; the rest had gone upstairs to bed—George and I adjourned to a
sort of study, which he had arranged upstairs, for a final smoke and a chat
before turning in. The study was next to his bedroom, and parted off from it
by curtains. As we were settling down I missed my pipe, and remembered
that I had laid it down in the billiard-room. On principle I never smoke
another man’s pipe, so I lit a candle, the house being in darkness, and
started away in search of my own. The house looked awfully weird by the
flickering light of a solitary candle, and the stairs creaked in a particularly
gruesome way behind me, just for all the world as though someone were
following at my heels. I found my pipe where I had expected in the billiard-
room, and came back in perhaps a little more hurry than was absolutely
necessary. Which, perhaps, explains why I stumbled in the uncertain light
over a couple of unforeseen stairs, and dropped my candle. Of course it
went out, but after a little groping I found it. Having no matches with me I
was obliged to feel my way along the banisters, for it was so dark that I
could not see my hand in front of me. And as I slowly advanced, sliding my
hand along the broad balustrade at my side, it suddenly slid over something
cold and clammy, which was not balustrade at all; for, stopping dead, and
closing my fingers round it for an instant, I felt that I was holding another
hand, a skinny, bony hand, which writhed itself slowly from my grasp. And
though I could hear nothing and see nothing, I was yet conscious that
something was brushing past me and going up the stairs.

“ ‘Hi—what’s that? Who are you?’ I called.
“There was no answer.
“I admit that I was in a regular funk. I must have shown it in my face.
“ ‘What’s the matter?’ asked George, as I blundered into his study.
“ ‘Oh, nothing,’ I answered; ‘dropped my candle and lost the way.’
“ ‘But who were you talking to?’
“ ‘I was only swearing at the candle,’ I replied.
“ ‘Oh! I thought perhaps you had seen—somebody,’ replied George.
“Somehow I did not like to tell him the truth, for fear he would laugh at
my nervousness. But I determined to keep an eye on my liver, and take a
couple of weeks’ complete rest. That night I woke up several times with the
feeling of that confounded hand under my own—a clammy hand which
writhed as my fingers closed upon it.
“The next morning after breakfast I was in the billiard-room practicing
strokes while Carson was over at the stables. Presently the door opened, and
Miss Stonor looked in.
“ ‘Come in,’ I said; ‘George will be back from the stables in a few
minutes. Meanwhile we can have fifty up.’
“ ‘I wanted to speak to you,’ she said.
“She was looking very tired and ill, and I began to think I should not
have an uninterrupted holiday after all.
“ ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked, having closed the door and
come up to the table, where she stood leaning with both her hands upon it.
“ ‘No,’ I replied, missing an easy carrom as I remembered my experience
of last night, ‘but I believe in fancy.’
“ ‘And, supposing then that a person fancied he saw things, is there any
remedy?’
“ ‘What do you mean, Miss Stonor?’ I replied, looking at her in some
surprise. ‘Do you mean that you fancy——’
“I stopped, for Miss Stonor turned away, sat down on one of the easy-
chairs by the wall, and burst into tears.
“ ‘Oh! please help me’ she sobbed; ‘I believe I am going mad.’
“I laid down my cue and went over to her.

“ ‘Look here, Miss Stonor,’ I said, taking her hand, which was hot and
feverish, ‘I am a doctor, and a friend of George. Now tell me all about it,
and I’ll do my best to set it right.’
“She was in a more or less hysterical condition, and her words were
freely punctuated by sobs. But gradually I managed to elicit from her that
nearly every night since she came to Woodcote she had been awakened in
some mysterious way, and had seen a horrible face looking at her from over
the top of a screen which stood by the door of her bedroom. As soon as she
moved the face disappeared, which convinced her that the apparition
existed only in her imagination. That seemed to distress her even more than
if she had believed it to be a genuine ghost, for she thought her brain was
giving way.
“I told her that she was only suffering from a very common symptom of
nervous disorder, as indeed it was, and promised to send a groom into the
village to get a prescription made up for her. And, having made me promise
to breathe no word to anyone on the subject, more especially to George, she
went away relieved. Nevertheless, I was not quite certain that I had made a
correct diagnosis of the case. You see I had been rather upset myself not
many hours before. George was longer than I expected at the stable, and I
was just going to find him when at the door I met Mrs. Carson.
“ ‘Can you spare me one moment?’ she said, as I held open the door for
her. ‘I wanted to find you alone.’
“ ‘Certainly, Mrs. Carson, with pleasure; an hour, if you wish,’ I replied.
“ ‘It is so convenient, you know, to have a doctor in the house,’ she said,
with a nervous laugh. ‘Now I want you to prescribe me a sleeping draught.
My nerves are rather out of order, and—I don’t sleep as I should.’
“ ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘do you see faces—and such like things when you wake?’
“ ‘How do you know?’ she asked quickly.
“ ‘Oh, I inferred from the other symptoms. We doctors have to observe
all kinds of little things.’
“ ‘Well, of course, I know it is only fancy; but it is just as bad as if it
were real. I assure you it is making me quite ill; and I didn’t like to mention
it to Mr. Carson or to George. They would think I was losing my head.’
“I gave Mrs. Carson the same prescription as I had written for Miss
Stonor, though by that time the conviction had grown upon me that there

was something wrong which could not be cured by medicine. However, I
decided to say nothing to George about the matter at present. For I could
hardly utilize the confidence which had been placed in me by Miss Stonor
and Mrs. Carson. And my own experience of the night before would
scarcely have appeared convincing to him. But I determined that on the next
day—which was Sunday—I would invent an excuse for staying at home
from church and make some explorations in the house. There was obviously
some mystery at work which wanted clearing up.
“We all sat up rather late that night. There seemed to be a general
disinclination to go to bed. We stayed all together in the billiard-room until
nearly midnight, and then loitered about in the hall, talking in an aimless
sort of fashion. But at last Mrs. Carson said good-night, with a confidential
nod to me, and Miss Stonor murmured, ‘So many thanks; I’ve got it,’ and
they both went upstairs. George and I parted in the corridor above. Our
rooms were opposite each other.
“I did not begin undressing at once, but sat down and tried to piece
together some theory to account for the uncanniness of things. But the more
I thought, the more perplexing it became. There was no doubt whatever that
I had put my hand on something extremely alive and extremely unpleasant
the night before. The bare recollection of it made me shudder. What living
thing could possibly be creeping about the house in the dark? It was a man’s
hand. Of that I was certain from the size of it. George Carson was out of the
question, for he was in his room all the time. Nor was it likely that Mr.
Carson, senior, would steal about his own house in his socks and refuse to
answer when spoken to. The only other man in the house was an eminently
respectable-looking butler; and his hand, as I had noted particularly when
he poured out my wine at dinner, was plump and soft, whereas the
mysterious hand on the balustrade was thin and bony. And then, what was
the real explanation of the face which had appeared to the two ladies?
Indigestion might have explained either singly. Extraordinary coincidences
do sometimes occur, but it seemed too extraordinary that a couple of ladies
—one old and one young—should suffer from the same indigestion in the
same house, at the same time, and with the same symptoms. On the whole, I
did not feel at all comfortable, and looked carefully in all the cupboards and
recesses, as well as under the bed, before starting to undress. Then I went to
the door, intending to lock it. Just as my hand was upon the key, I heard a
soft step in the corridor outside, accompanied by a sound which was

something between a sigh and a groan. Very faint, but quite unmistakable,
and, under the circumstances, discomposing. It might, of course, be George.
Anyhow, I decided to look and see. I turned the handle gently and opened
the door. There was nothing to be seen in the corridor. But on the opposite
side I could see a door open, and George’s head peeping round the corner.
“ ‘Hullo!’ he said.
“ ‘Hullo!’ I replied.
“ ‘Was that you walking up the passage?’ he asked.
“ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘I thought it might be you.’
“ ‘Then who the devil was it?’ he said. ‘I’ll swear I heard someone.’
“There was silence for a few moments. I was wondering whether I had
better tell him of the fright I had already had, when he spoke again:
“ ‘I say, just come here for a bit, old fellow; I want to speak to you.’
“I stepped across the passage, and we went together into the little study
which adjoined his bedroom.
“ ‘Look here,’ he said, poking up the fire, which was burning low,
‘doesn’t it strike you that there is something very odd about this house?’
“ ‘You mean——’
“ ‘Well, I wouldn’t say anything about it to the master or Miss Stonor for
fear of frightening them. All the same, scarcely a night passes but I hear
curious footsteps on the stairs. You’ve heard them yourself, haven’t you?’
“ ‘Now you mention it,’ I said, ‘I confess I have.’
“ ‘And, what is more,’ he continued, ‘I was sitting here two nights ago
half asleep, and—it seems ridiculous, I know, but it’s a fact—I suddenly
saw a horrible face glaring at me from between those curtains behind you. It
was gone in a moment, but I saw it as plainly as I see you.’
“I moved my seat uneasily.
“ ‘Did you look in your bedroom or in the passage?’ I asked.
“ ‘Yes—at once,’ he replied. ‘There was nothing to be seen; but twice
again that night I heard footsteps passing—good God!’
“He started up in his chair, staring straight over my shoulder. I turned
quickly and saw the curtains which parted off the bedroom swing together.
“ ‘What is it?’ I asked, breathlessly.
“ ‘I saw it again—the same face—between the curtains.’

“I tore the hangings aside, and rushed into the next room. It was empty.
The lamp was burning upon a side table, and the door was open, just as
George had left it. In the passage outside all was quiet. I came back into the
study and found George running his fingers through his hair in perplexity.
“ ‘There is clearly one person too many in the house,’ I said. ‘I think we
ought to draw the place and find out who it is.’
“ ‘All right,’ said he, picking up the poker from the fireplace; ‘if it’s
anything made of flesh and blood this will be useful, and if not——’
“He stopped short, for at that instant the most awful shriek of horror rang
through the house—a shriek of wild, uncontrollable terror, such as I had
never heard before and I never hope to hear again. One moment we stood
staring at each other, dumbfounded. The next George Carson had dashed
out of the room and down the corridor to the stairs. I followed close behind
him. For we both knew that none but a woman in mortal fear would shriek
like that, and that that woman was Miss Stonor.
“Down the stairs we tumbled pell-mell in the darkness. But before I
reached the landing below, where Miss Stonor’s room was, I felt, as I had
felt the evening before, something brush swiftly past me. As I ran I turned
and caught at it in the dark. But my hand gripped only empty air. I was just
about to turn back and follow it, when a cry from George arrested me, and,
looking down, I saw him standing over the prostrate form of Miss Stonor.
The door of her room was open, and by the moonlight which streamed into
the room I could see her lying in her white nightdress across the threshold.
What followed in the next few minutes I can scarcely recall with accuracy.
The whole house was aroused by the poor girl’s awful shriek. She was quite
unconscious when we came upon her, but she revived more or less as soon
as Mrs. Carson and one of the terrified servants had lifted her into bed
again. Nothing intelligible could be gathered from her, however, as to the
cause of her fright; she only repeated, hysterically, again and again:
“ ‘Oh, the face; the face!’
“When I saw I could do her no further good for the present, I took
George by the arm and led him out of the room.
“ ‘Look here, George,’ I said, ‘we must find out the reason of this at
once. I am certain I felt something go by me as I came downstairs. Now
does that staircase lead anywhere but to our rooms?’
“George considered for a moment.

“ ‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘there is a door at the end of the passage which leads
up into a sort of lumber room.’
“ ‘Then we’ll explore it,’ I said. ‘For my part I can’t go to sleep until I’ve
got to the bottom of this. Get the man to bring a lantern along.’
“The butler looked as though he didn’t half like the enterprise, and, to
tell the truth, no more did I. It was the uncanniest job I ever undertook.
However, we started, the three of us. First of all we searched the rooms on
the floor above, where George and I slept. Everything was just as we had
left it. Then I pushed open the door at the end of the corridor. A crazy-
looking staircase led up into darkness. We went cautiously up, I first with a
candle, then George, and last of all the butler with a lantern. At the top we
stepped into a big, rather low room, with beams across the ceiling, and a
rough, uneven floor. Our lights threw strange shadows into the corners, and
more than once I started at what looked like a crouching human figure. We
searched every corner. There was nothing to be seen but a few old boxes, a
roll or two of matting, and some broken chairs. But in the far corner George
pointed out to me a rickety ladder which ended at a closed trap-door. Just
then I distinctly heard the curious, half groaning, half sighing sound which
had already puzzled me in the corridor below. We stood still and looked at
one another. We all heard the sound.
“ ‘Whatever it is, it’s up there,’ I said. ‘The question is, who is going
up?’
“George put his candle down upon the floor and stepped upon the ladder.
It cracked beneath his weight. He stopped.
“ ‘Come down; it won’t bear you,’ I said. ‘I shall have to go.’
“I don’t know that I was ever in such a queer funk as I was while I
slowly mounted that ladder, and pushed open the trap-door. I had formed no
clear idea of what I expected to find there. Certainly I was not prepared for
what happened. For no sooner was the trap-door fully open than there fell—
literally fell—upon me from the darkness above a thing in human shape,
which kicked and spat and tore at me as I stood clinging to the ladder. It
lasted but a moment or so, but in that moment I lived a lifetime of terror.
The ladder swayed and cracked beneath me, and I fell to the floor with the
thing gripping my throat like a vise. The next instant George had stunned it
with a blow from the poker and dragged it off me. It lay upon its back on

the floor—a ragged, hideous, loathsome shape. And the mystery was
solved.”
“But you haven’t told us what it really was,” said one of the listeners.
The doctor smiled.
“It was the owner of the house,” he replied. “He had not gone abroad. He
had gone to a private lunatic asylum with homicidal mania upon him. About
a fortnight before this he had managed to escape; and, having made his way
to his former home, had concealed himself, with a cunning often shown by
lunatics, in the loft. I suppose he had found enough to eat in his nightly
rambles about the house. The only wonder is that he didn’t kill someone
before he was caught.”

COLONEL HALIFAX’S GHOST STORY.
I had just come back to England, after having been some years in India,
and was looking forward to meet my friends, among whom there was none
I was more anxious to see than Sir Francis Lynton. We had been to Eton
together, and for the short time I had been at Oxford, before entering the
army, we had been at the same college. Then we had parted. He came into
the title and estates of the family in Yorkshire on the death of his
grandfather—his father had predeceased—and I had been over a good part
of the world. One visit, indeed, I had made him in his Yorkshire home,
before leaving for India, of but a few days.
It will be easily imagined how pleasant it was, two or three days after my
arrival in London, to receive a letter from Lynton, saying that he had just
seen in the papers that I had arrived, and, begging me to come down at once
to Byfield, his place in Yorkshire.
“You are not to tell me,” he said, “that you cannot come. In fact, you are
to come on Monday. I have a couple of horses which will just suit you; the
carriage shall meet you at Packham, and all you have got to do is to put
yourself in the train which leaves Kings Cross at twelve o’clock.”
Accordingly, on the day appointed, I started, in due time reached
Packham, losing much time on a detestable branch line, and there found the
dog-cart of Sir Francis awaiting me. I drove at once to Byfield.
The house I remembered. It was a low gable structure of no great size,
with old-fashioned lattice windows, separated from the park, where were
deer, by a charming terraced garden.
No sooner did the wheels crunch the gravel by the principal entrance,
than, almost before the bell was rung, the porch-door opened, and there
stood Lynton himself, whom I had not seen for so many years, hardly
altered, and with all the joy of welcome beaming in his face. Taking me by
both hands, he drew me into the house, got rid of my hat and wraps, looked
me all over, and then, in a breath, began to say how glad he was to see me,
what a real delight it was to have got me at last under his roof, and what a
good time we would have together, like the old days over again.

He had sent my luggage up to my room, which was ready for me, and he
bade me make haste and dress for dinner.
So saying he took me through a paneled hall, up an old oak staircase,
and showed me my room, which, hurried as I was, I observed was hung
with tapestry, and had a large four-post bed, with velvet curtains, opposite
the window.
They had gone in to dinner when I came down, despite all the haste I
made in dressing; but a place had been kept for me next Lady Lynton.
Besides my hosts, there were their two daughters, Colonel Lynton, a
brother of Sir Francis, the chaplain, and some others, whom I do not
remember distinctly.
After dinner there was some music in the hall, and a game of whist in the
drawing-room, and after the ladies had gone upstairs, Lynton and I retired
to the smoking-room, where we sat up talking the better part of the night. I
think it must have been near three when I retired. Once in bed I slept so
soundly that my servant’s entrance the next morning failed to arouse me,
and it was past nine when I awoke.
After breakfast and the disposal of the newspapers, Lynton retired to his
letters, and I asked Lady Lynton if one of her daughters might show me the
house. Elizabeth, the eldest, was summoned, and seemed in no way to
dislike the task.
The house was, as already intimated, by no means large; it occupied
three sides of a square, the entrance and one end of the stables making the
fourth side. The interior was full of interest—passages, rooms, galleries, as
well as hall, were paneled in dark wood and hung with pictures. I was
shown everything on the ground

“Losing much time on a detestable branch line.”

floor, and then on the first floor. Then my guide proposed that we should
ascend a narrow, twisting staircase that led to a gallery. We did as proposed,
and entered a handsome long room or passage leading to a small chamber at
one end, in which my guide told me her father kept books and papers.
I asked if anyone slept in this gallery, as I noticed a bed and fireplace,
and rods by means of which curtains might be drawn, enclosing one portion
where were bed and fireplace, so as to convert it into a very cosy chamber.
She answered “No;” the place was not really used, except as a playroom;
though, sometimes, if the house happened to be very full—in her great-
grandfather’s time—she had heard that it had been occupied.
By the time we had been over the house, and I had also been shown the
garden and the stables, and introduced to the dogs, it was nearly one

o’clock. We were to have an early luncheon, and to drive afterwards to see
the ruins of one of the grand old Yorkshire abbeys.
This was a pleasant expedition, and we got back just in time for tea, after
which there was some reading aloud. The evening passed much in the same
way as the preceding one, except that Lynton, who had some business, did
not go down into the smoking-room, and I took the opportunity of retiring
early in order to write a letter for the Indian mail, something having been
said as to the prospect of hunting the next day.
I had finished my letter, which was a long one, together with two or
three others, and had just got into bed, when I heard a step overhead, as of
someone walking along the gallery, which I now knew ran immediately
above my room. It was a slow, heavy, measured tread which I could hear
getting gradually louder and nearer, and then as gradually fading away, as it
retreated into the distance.
I was startled for a moment, having been told that the gallery was
unused; but the next instant it occurred to me that I had been told it
communicated with a chamber where Sir Francis kept books and papers. I
knew he had some writing to do, and I thought no more on the matter.
I was down the next morning at breakfast in good time. “How late you
were last night,” I said to Lynton, in the middle of breakfast. “I heard you
overhead after one o’clock.”
Lynton replied rather shortly: “Indeed you did not, for I was in bed last
night before twelve.”
“There was someone certainly moving overhead last night,” I answered,
“for I heard his steps as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life going
down the gallery.”
Upon which Colonel Lynton remarked that he had often fancied he had
heard steps on the staircase, when he knew that no one was about. He was
apparently disposed to say more, when his brother interrupted him
somewhat curtly, as I fancied, and asked me if I should feel inclined after
breakfast to have a horse and go out and look for the hounds. They met a
considerable way off, but if they did not find in the coverts they would first
draw, a thing not improbable, they would come our way, and we might fall
in with them about one o’clock and have a run. I said there was nothing I
should like better. Lynton mounted me on a very nice chestnut, and the rest

of the party having gone out shooting, and the young ladies being otherwise
engaged, he and I started about eleven o’clock for our ride.
It was a beautiful day, soft, with a bright sun, one of those beautiful days
which so frequently occur in the early part of November.
On reaching the hilltop where Lynton had expected to meet the hounds,
no trace of them was to be discovered. They must have found at once, and
run in a different direction. At three o’clock, after we had eaten our
sandwiches, Lynton reluctantly abandoned all hopes of falling in with the
hounds, and said we would return home by a slightly different route.
We had not descended the hill before we came on an old chalk quarry
and the remains of a disused kiln.
I recollected the spot at once. I had been here with Sir Francis on my
former visit, many years ago. “Why, bless me!” said I; “do you remember,
Lynton, what happened here when I was with you before? There had been
men engaged removing chalk, and they came on a skeleton under some
depth of rubble. We went together to see it removed, and you said you
would have it preserved till it could be examined by some ethnologist or
anthropologist, any one of those dry-as-dusts, to decide whether the remains
were dolichocephalous or brachycephalous—whether British, Danish, or—
modern. What was the result?”
Sir Francis hesitated a moment, and then answered, “It is true, I had the
remains removed.”
“Was there an inquest?”
“No. I had been opening some of the tumuli on the Wolds. I had sent a
crouched skeleton and some skulls to the Scarsborough museum. This, I
was doubtful about—whether it was a prehistoric interment—in fact, to
what date it belonged. No one thought of an inquest.”
On reaching the house, one of the grooms who took the horses, in
answer to a question from Lynton, said that Colonel and Mrs. Hampshire
had arrived about an hour ago, and that, one of the horses being lame, the
carriage in which they had driven over from Castle Frampton was to put up
for the night. In the drawing-room we found Lady Lynton pouring out tea
for her husband’s sister and her husband, who, as we came in, exclaimed:
“We have come to beg a night’s lodging.”
It appeared that they had been on a visit in the neighborhood, and had
been obliged to leave at a moment’s notice in consequence of a sudden

death in the house where they were staying, and that, in the impossibility of
getting a fly, their hosts had sent them over to Byfield.
“We thought,” Mrs. Hampshire went on to say, “that as we were coming
here the end of next week, you would not mind having us a little sooner; or
that, if the house were quite full, you would be willing to put us up
anywhere till Monday, and let us come back later.”
Lady Lynton interposed with the remark that it was all settled; and then,
turning to her husband, added: “But I want to speak to you for a moment.”
They both left the room together.
Lynton came back almost immediately, and, making an excuse to show
me, on a map in the hall, the point to which we had ridden, said, as soon as
we were alone, with a look of considerable annoyance: “I am afraid we
must ask you to change your room. Shall you mind very much? I think we
can make you quite comfortable upstairs in the gallery, which is the only
room available. Lady Lynton has had a good fire lit; the place is really not
cold, and it will be only for a night or two. Your servant has been told to put
your things together, but Lady Lynton did not like to give orders to have
them actually moved before my speaking to you.”
I assured him that I did not mind in the very least; that I should be quite
as comfortable upstairs; but that I did mind very much their making such a
fuss about a matter of that sort with an old friend like myself.
Certainly nothing could look more comfortable than my new lodging
when I went upstairs to dress. There was a bright fire in the large grate, an
arm-chair had been drawn up beside it, and all my books and writing things
had been put in, with a reading-lamp in the central position, and the heavy
tapestry curtains were drawn, converting this part of the gallery into a room
to itself. Indeed, I felt somewhat inclined to congratulate myself on the
change. The spiral staircase had been one reason against this place having
been given to the Hampshires. No lady’s long dress trunk could have
mounted it.
Sir Francis was necessarily a good deal occupied in the evening with his
sister and her husband, whom he had not seen for some time. Colonel
Hampshire had also just heard that he was likely to be ordered to Egypt, and
when Lynton and he retired to the smoking-room, instead of going there I
went upstairs to my own room to finish a book in which I was interested. I
did not, however, sit up long, and very soon went to bed.

Before doing so, I drew back the curtains on the rods, partly because I
like plenty of air where I sleep, and partly also because I thought I might
like to see the play of the moonlight on the floor in the portion of the
gallery beyond where I lay, and where the blinds had not been drawn.
I must have been asleep for some time, for the fire, which I had left in
full blaze, was gone to a few sparks wandering among the ashes, when I
suddenly awoke with the impression of having heard a latch click at the
further extremity of the gallery, where was the chamber containing books
and papers.
I had always been a light sleeper, but on the present occasion I woke at
once to complete and acute consciousness, and with a sense of stretched
attention which seemed to intensify all my faculties. The wind had risen,
and was blowing in fitful gusts round the house.
A minute or two passed, and I began almost to fancy I must have been
mistaken, when I distinctly heard the creak of the door, and then the click of
the latch falling back into place. Then I heard a sound on the boards as of
one moving in the gallery. I sat up to listen, and as I did so I distinctly heard
steps coming down the gallery.

“Who are you?”

I heard them approach and pass my bed; I could see nothing, all was
dark; but I heard the tread proceeding toward where were the uncurtained
and unshuttered windows, two in number; but the moon shone through only
one of these, the nearest—the other was dark, shadowed by the chapel or
some other building at right angles. The tread seemed to me to pause now
and again, and then continue as before.
I now fixed my eyes intently on the one illumined window, and it
appeared to me as if some dark body passed across it; but what? I listened
intently, and heard the step proceed to the end of the gallery, and then
return.
I again watched the lighted window, and immediately that the sound
reached that portion of the long passage it ceased momentarily, and I saw,
as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life, by moonlight, a figure of a

man with marked features, in what appeared to be a fur cap drawn over the
brows.
It stood in the embrasure of the window, and the outline of the face was
in silhouette; then it moved on, and as it moved I again heard the tread.
I was as certain as I could be that the thing, whatever it was, or the
person, whoever he was, was approaching my bed.
I threw myself back in the bed, and as I did see a mass of charred wood
on the hearth fell down and sent up a flash of—I fancy sparks, that gave out
a glare into the darkness, and by that—red as blood—I saw a face near me.
With a cry, over which I had as little control as the scream uttered by a
sleeper in the agony of a nightmare, I called, “Who are you?”
There was an instant during which my hair bristled on my head, as in the
horror of the darkness I prepared to grapple with the being at my side; when
a board creaked as if someone had moved, and I heard the footsteps retreat,
and again the click of the latch.
The next instant there was a rush on the stairs and Lynton burst into the
room, just as he had sprung out of bed, crying: “For God’s sake, what is the
matter? Are you ill?”
I could not answer. Lynton struck a light and leaned over the bed. Then I
seized him by the arm, and said, without moving: “There has been
something in this room—gone in thither.”
The words were hardly out of my mouth when Lynton, following the
direction of my eyes, had sprung to the end of the corridor and thrown open
the door there.
He went into the room beyond, looked round it, returned, and said: “You
must have been dreaming.”
By this time I was out of bed.
“Look for yourself,” said he, and he led me into the little room. It was
bare, with cupboards and boxes, a sort of lumber place. “There is nothing
beyond this,” said he, “no door, no staircase. It is a blind way.” Then he
added: “Now pull on your dressing-gown and come downstairs to my
sanctum.”
I followed him, and after he had spoken to Lady Lynton, who was
standing with the door of her room ajar in a state of great agitation, he
turned to me, and said: “No one can have been in your room. You see, my

and my wife’s apartments are close below, and no one could come up the
spiral staircase without passing my door. You must have had a nightmare.
Directly you screamed I rushed up the steps, and met no one descending;
and there is no place of concealment in the lumber-room at the end of the
gallery.”
Then he took me into his private snuggery, blew up the fire, lighted a
lamp, and said: “I shall be really grateful if you will say nothing about this.
There are some in the house and neighborhood who are silly enough as it is.
You stay here, and if you do not feel inclined to go to bed, read—here are
books. I must go to Lady Lynton, who is a good deal frightened, and does
not like to be left alone.”
He then went to his bedroom.
Sleep, as far as I was concerned, was out of the question, nor do I think
Sir Francis and his wife slept much, either.
I made up the fire, and after a time took up a book, and tried to read, but
it was useless.
I sat absorbed in thoughts and questionings till I heard the servants
stirring in the morning. I went to my own room, left the candle burning, and
got into bed. I had just fallen asleep when my servant brought me a cup of
tea at eight o’clock.
At breakfast Colonel Hampshire and his wife asked if anything had
happened in the night, as they had been much disturbed by noises overhead,
to which Lynton replied that I had not been very well, and had an attack of
cramp, and that he had been upstairs to look after me. From his manner I
could see that he wished me to be silent, and I said nothing accordingly.
In the afternoon, when everyone had gone out, Sir Francis took me into
his snuggery, and said: “Halifax, I am very sorry about that matter last
night. It is quite true, what my brother said, that steps have been heard
about this house, but I never gave heed to such things, putting all noises
down to rats. But after your experiences I feel that it is due to you to tell
you something, and also to make to you an explanation. There is—there
was—no one in the room at the end of the corridor, except the skeleton that
was discovered in the chalk-pit when you were here many years ago. I
confess I had not paid much heed to it. My archæological fancies passed; I
had no visits from anthropologists; the bones and skull were never shown to
experts, but remain packed in a chest in that lumber-room. I confess I ought

to have buried them, having no more scientific use for them, but I did not—
on my word, I forgot all about them, or, at least, gave no heed to them.
However, what you have gone through, and have described to me, has made
me uneasy, and has also given me a suspicion that I can account for that
body in a manner that had never occurred to me before.”
After a pause, he added: “What I am going to tell you is known to no one
else, and must not be mentioned by you—anyhow, in my lifetime. You
know now that, owing to the death of my father when quite young, I and my
brother and sister were brought up here with our grandfather, Sir Richard.
He was an old, imperious, hot-tempered man. I will tell you what I have
made out of a matter that was a mystery for long, and I will tell you
afterwards how I came to unravel it. My grandfather was in the habit of
going out at night with a young under-keeper, of whom he was very fond, to
look after the game and see if any poachers, whom he regarded as his
natural enemies, were about.
“One night, as I suppose, my grandfather had been out with the young
man in question, and, returning by the plantations, where the hill is steepest,
and not far from the chalk-pit you

“He and the keeper buried the body.”

remarked on yesterday, they came upon a man who, though not actually
belonging to the country, was well known in it as a sort of traveling tinker
of indifferent character and a notorious poacher. Mind this, I am not sure it
was at the place I mention; I only now surmise it. On the particular night in
question, my grandfather and the keeper must have caught this man setting
snares; there must have been a tussle, in the course of which, as subsequent
circumstances have led me to imagine, the man showed fight, and was
knocked down by one or the other of the two—my grandfather or the
keeper. I believe that after having made various attempts to restore him,
they found that the man was actually dead.
“They were both in great alarm and concern—my grandfather especially.
He had been prominent in putting down some factory riots, and had given
orders to the military to fire, whereby several lives had been lost. There was

a vast outcry against him, and a certain political party had denounced him
as an assassin. No man was more vituperated; yet now, in my conscience, I
believe he acted with both discretion and pluck, and arrested a mischievous
movement that might have led to much bloodshed. Be that as it may, my
impression is that he lost his head over this fatal affair with the tinker, and
that he and the keeper together buried the body secretly, not far from the
place where he was killed. I now think it was in the chalk-pit, and that the
skeleton found years after there belonged to this man.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, as at once my mind rushed back to the
figure with the fur cap that I had seen against the window.
Sir Francis went on: “The sudden disappearance of the tramp, in view of
his well-known habits and wandering mode of life, did not for some time
excite surprise; but, later on, one or two circumstances having led to
suspicion, an inquiry was set on foot, and among others, my grandfather’s
keepers were examined before the magistrates. It was remembered
afterwards that the under-keeper in question was absent at the time of the
inquiry, my grandfather having sent him with some dogs to a brother-in-law
of his who lived upon the moors; but whether anyone noticed the fact, or if
they did, preferred to be silent, no observations were made. Nothing came
of the investigation, and the whole subject would have been dropped if it
had not been that two years later, for some reasons I do not understand, but
at the instigation of a magistrate recently imported into the division, whom
my grandfather greatly disliked, and who was opposed to him in politics, a
fresh inquiry was instituted. In the course of that inquiry it transpired that,
owing to some unguarded words dropped by the under-keeper, a warrant
was about to be issued for his arrest. My grandfather, who had a fit of the
gout, was away from home at the time, but on hearing the news he came
home at once. The evening he returned he had a long interview with the
young man, who left the house after he had supped in the servants’ hall. It
was observed that he looked much depressed. The warrant was issued the
next day, but in the meantime the keeper had disappeared. My grandfather
gave orders to his people to do everything in their power to assist the
authorities in the search that was at once set on foot, but was unable himself
to take any share in it.
“No trace of the keeper was found, although at a subsequent period
rumors circulated that he had been heard of in America. But the man having
been unmarried, he gradually dropped out of remembrance, and as my

grandfather never allowed the subject to be mentioned in his presence, I
should probably never have known anything about it but for the vague
tradition which always attaches to such events, and for this fact, that after
my grandfather’s death, a letter came addressed to him from somewhere in
the United States from some one—the name different from that of the
keeper—but alluding to the past, and implying the presence of a common
secret, and, of course, with it came a request for money. I replied,
mentioning the death of Sir Richard, and asking for an explanation. I did get
an answer, and it is from that that I am able to fill in so much of the story.
But I never learned where the man had been killed and buried, and my next
letter to the fellow was returned with ‘deceased’ written across it.
Somehow, it never occurred to me till I heard your story that possibly the
skeleton in the chalk-pit might be that of the poaching tinker. I will now
most assuredly have it buried in the churchyard.”
“That certainly ought to be done,” said I.
“And,” said Sir Francis, after a pause, “I give you my word—after the
burial of the bones, and you are gone, I will sleep for a week in the bed in
the gallery, and report to you if I see or hear anything. If all be quiet, then—
well, you form your own conclusions.”
I left a day after. Before long I got a letter from my friend, brief, but to
the point: “All quiet, old boy; come again.”

THE GHOST OF THE COUNT.
Not far from the Alameda, in the City of Mexico, there is a great old
stone building, in which once lived a very wealthy and wicked Spanish
count. The house has about four floors, and ninety rooms, more or less. The
entire fourth floor is rented and occupied by a big American firm, and their
bookkeeper, an American girl, has given us the following true account of
the ghost that for years haunted the building. The second floor is
unoccupied, as no one cares to live there for obvious reasons. And the
bottom floor is also unoccupied, save for lumber rooms, empty boxes and
crates and barrels. And last of all is the great patio with its tiled floor, where
secretly in the night a duel was fought to the death by the wicked count and
a famous Austrian prince, who was one of Maximilian’s men. The count
was killed.
No one knows why the duel was fought; some say it was because of a
beautiful Spanish woman; some say that it was because of treasure that the
two jointly “conveyed,” and which the count refused to divide with his
princely “socio,” and more people—Mexicans—shrug their shoulders if
you ask about it, and say, “Quien sabe?”
“I saw a ghost here last night, Miss James,” announces our cashier with
much eclat and evident pride.
So great is the shock that I gasp, and my pen drops, spattering red ink on
my nice fresh cuffs, and (worse luck!) on the ledger page that I had just
totted up. It is ruined, and I will have to erase it, or—something! Wretched
man!
“I wish to goodness it had taken you off,” I cry, wrathfully, as I look at
the bespattered work. “Now will you just look here and see what you have
done? I wish you and your ghosts were in——”
“Gehenna?” he inquires, sweetly; “I’ll fix that—it won’t take half a
minute. And don’t look so stern, else I won’t tell you about the ‘espanto.’
And you will be sorry if you don’t hear about it—it would make such a
good story.” (Insinuatingly.)
“Then go ahead with it.” (Ungraciously.)

“Well, last night I was waiting for West. He was to meet me here, after
which it was our intention to hit the—that is, I mean we were going out
together. (I nod scornfully.) And it seems that while I was patiently waiting
here, in my usual sweet-tempered way, the blank idiot had his supper and
then lay down to rest himself for a while. You know how delicate he is?
(Another contemptuous nod.) Unfortunately he forgot the engagement, and
slept on. He says he never awoke until three o’clock, and so didn’t come,
thinking I wouldn’t be there. Meantime I also went to sleep, and might have
snoozed on until three, likewise, but for the fact that the ghost woke me
——”
“Well? Do go on,” I urge.
“The ghost woke me, as I said,” proceeds the simpleton, slowly. “It was
passing its cold fingers over my face and groaning. Really, it was most
extraordinary. At first I didn’t know what it was; then, as I felt the icy
fingers stroking my face and heard blood-curdling groans issuing from the
darkness, I knew what it was. And I remembered the story of the prince and
his little duel down in the patio, and knew it was the ghost of the prince’s
victim. By the way, you don’t know what a funny sensation it is to have a
ghost pat your face, Miss James——”
“Pat nothing,” I retort, indignantly. “I wonder you are not ashamed to tell
me such fibs. Such a ta-ra-diddle! And as for the man that the prince killed
downstairs, you know as well as I do that he was taken home to Spain and
buried there. Why, then, should he come back here, into our offices, and pat
your face?”
“Ah, that I can’t say,” with a supercilious drawl. “I can only account for
it by thinking that the ghost has good taste—better than that of some people
I know,” meaningly. “But honestly, I swear that I am telling you the truth—
cross my heart and hope to die if I am not! And you don’t know how brave I
was—I never screamed; in fact, I never made a sound; oh, I was brave!”
“Then what did you do?” sternly.
“I ran. Por Dios, how I ran! You remember with what alacrity we got
down the stairs during the November earthquake? (I remember only too
distinctly.) Well, last night’s run wasn’t a run, in comparison—it was a
disappearance, a flight, a sprint! I went down the four flights of stairs like a
streak of blue lightning, and the ghost flew with me. I heard the pattering of
its steps and its groans clean down to the patio door, and I assure you I quite

thought I had made such an impression that it was actually going on home
with me. And the thought made me feel so weak that I felt perforce obliged
to take a—have a—that is, strengthen myself with a cocktail. After which I
felt stronger and went home quite peacefully. But it was an uncanny
experience, wasn’t it?”
“Was it before or after taking that cocktail?” I ask, incredulously. “And
did you take one only or eleven?”
I am hard on the man, but he really deserves it. Ghosts! Spirits, perhaps,
but not ghosts. Whereat his feelings are quite “hurted”—so much so that he
vows he will never tell me anything again; I had better read about Doubting
Thomas; he never has seen such an unbelieving woman in all his life, and if
I were only a man he would be tempted to pray that I might see the ghost; it
would serve me right. Then, wrathfully departs, to notice me no more that
day.
Not believing the least bit in ghosts I gave the matter no more thought.
In fact, when you fall heir to a set of books that haven’t been posted for
nineteen days, and you have to do it all, and get up your trial balance, too,
or else give up your Christmas holidays, you haven’t much time to think
about ghosts, or anything else, except entries. And though I had been
working fourteen hours per day, the 24th of December, noon hour, found
me with a difference of $13.89. The which I, of course, must locate and
straighten out before departing next morning on my week’s holiday. Por
supuesto, it meant night work. Nothing else would do; and besides, our
plans had all been made to leave on the eight o’clock train next morning. So
I would just sit up all night, if need be, and find the wretched balance and
be done with it.
Behold me settled for work that night at seven o’clock in my own office,
with three lamps burning to keep it from looking dismal and lonely, and
books and ledgers and journals piled up two feet high around me. If hard
work would locate that nasty, hateful $13.89 it would surely be found. I had
told the portero downstairs on the ground floor to try and keep awake for a
time, but if I didn’t soon finish the work I would come down and call him
when I was ready to go home.
He lived in a little room, all shut off from the rest of the building, so that
it was rather difficult to get at him. Besides, he was the very laziest and
sleepiest peon possible, and though he was supposed to take care of the big

building at night, patrolling it so as to keep off ladrones, he in reality slept
so soundly that the last trumpet, much less Mexican robbers, would not
have roused him.
And for this very reason, before settling to my work I was careful to go
around and look to locks and bolts myself; everything was secure, and the
doors safely fastened. So that if ladrones did break through they would have
to be in shape to pass through keyholes or possess false keys.
With never a thought of spirits or porteros, or anything else, beyond the
thirteen dollars and eighty-nine cents, I worked and added and re-added and
footed up. And at eleven o’clock, grazia a Dios, I had the thirteen dollars all
safe, and would have whooped for joy, had I the time. However, I wasn’t
out of the woods yet, the sum of eighty-nine dollars being often more easy
of location than eighty-nine cents. The latter must be found, also, before I
could have the pleasure of shouting in celebration thereof.
At it I went again. After brain cudgeling and more adding and prayerful
thought I at last had under my thumb that abominable eighty cents. Eureka!
Only nine cents out. I could get it all straight and have some sleep, after all!
Inspired by which thought I smothered my yawns and again began to add. I
looked at my watch—ten minutes to twelve. Perhaps I could get it fixed
before one.
I suppose I had worked at the nine cents for about twenty minutes. One
of the cash entries looked to me to be in error. I compared it with the
voucher—yes, that was just where the trouble lay! Eleven cents—ten—nine
——
S-t-t! Out went the lights in the twinkling of an eye—as I sat, gaping in
my astonishment, from out of the pitchy darkness of the room came the
most dreary, horrible, blood-curdling groan imaginable. As I sat paralyzed,
not daring to breathe, doubting my senses for a moment, and then thinking
indignantly that it was some trick of that wretched cashier, I felt long, thin,
icy fingers passing gently over my face. Malgame Dios! what a sensation!
At first I was afraid to move. Then I nervously tried to brush the icy, bony
things away. As fast as I brushed, with my heart beating like a steam-
hammer, and gasping with deadly fear, the fingers would come back again;
a cold wind was blowing over me. Again came that dreadful groan, and too
frightened to move or scream, I tumbled in a heap on the floor, among the
books and ledgers. Then I suppose I fainted.

When I regained my senses I was still in a heap with the ledgers; still it
was dark and still I felt the cold fingers caressing my face. At which I
became thoroughly desperate. No ghost should own me! I had laughed at
the poor cashier and hinted darkly at cocktails. Pray, what better was I?
I scrambled to my feet, the fingers still stroking my face. I must address
them—what language—did they understand English or Spanish, I
wondered? Spanish would doubtless be most suitable, if indeed, it was the
ghost of the murdered count——.
“Will you do me the favor, Senor Ghost,” I started out bravely, in my
best Spanish, but with a very trembling voice, “to inform me what it is that
you desire? Is there anything I can do for you? Because, if not, I would like
very much to be allowed to finish my work, which I cannot do (if you will
pardon my abruptness) if I am not alone.”
(Being the ghost of a gentleman and a diplomat, surely he would take the
hint and vanish. Ojala!)
Perhaps the ghost did not understand my Spanish; at any rate there was
no articulate reply; there was another groan—again the fingers touched me,
and then there was such a mournful sigh that I felt sorry for the poor thing
—what could be the matter with it? With my pity, all fear was lost for a
moment, and I said to the darkness all about me:
“What is it that you wish, pobre senor? Can I not aid you? I am not
afraid—let me help you!”
The fingers moved uncertainly for a moment; then the ledgers all fell
down, with a loud bang; a cold hand caught mine, very gently—I tried not
to feel frightened, but it was difficult—and I was led off blindly, through the
offices. I could not see a thing—not a glimmer of light showed; not a sound
was heard except my own footsteps, and the faint sound of the invisible
something that was leading me along—there were no more groans, thank
goodness, else I should have shrieked and fainted, without a doubt. Only the
pattering footsteps and the cold hand that led me on and on.
We—the fingers and I—were somehow in the great hall, then on the
second floor, and at last on the stairs, going on down, flight after flight.
Then I knew that I was being led about by the fingers on the tiled floor of
the patio, and close to the portero’s lodge. Simpleton that he was! Sleeping
like a log, no doubt, while I was being led about in the black darkness by an
invisible hand, and no one to save me! I would have yelled, of course, but

for one fact—I found it utterly impossible to speak or move my tongue,
being a rare and uncomfortable sensation.
But where were we going? Back into the unused lumber rooms, joining
onto the patio? Nothing there, except barrels and slabs and empty boxes.
What could the ghost mean? He must be utterly demented, surely.
In the middle of the first room we paused. I had an idea of rushing out
and screaming for the portero, but abandoned it when I found that my feet
wouldn’t go. I heard steps passing to and fro about the floor, and waited,
cold and trembling. They approached me; again my hand was taken, and I
was led over near the corner of the room. Obedient to the unseen will, I bent
down and groped about the floor, guided by the cold fingers holding mine,
until I felt something like a tiny ring, set firmly in the floor. I pulled at it
faintly, but it did not move, at which the ghost gave a faint sigh. For a
second the cold fingers pressed mine, quite affectionately, then released me,
and I heard steps passing slowly into the patio, then dying away. Where was
it going, and what on earth did it all mean?
But I was so tired and wrought up I tried to find the door, but couldn’t
(the cashier would have been revenged could he have seen me stupidly
fumbling at a barrel, thinking it was the door), and at last, too fatigued and
sleepy to stand, I dropped down on the cold stone floor and went to sleep.
I must have slept for some hours, for when I awoke the light of dawn
was coming in at the window, and I sat up and wondered if I had taken
leave of my senses during the night. What on earth could I be doing here in
the lumber-room? Then, like a flash, I remembered, and, half
unconsciously, crept about on the floor seeking the small ring. There it was!
I caught it and jerked at it hard. Hey, presto, change! For it seemed to me
that the entire floor was giving way. There was a sliding, crashing sound,
and I found myself hanging on for dear life to a barrel that, fortunately,
retained its equilibrium, and with my feet dangling into space. Down below
me was a small, stone-floored room, with big boxes and small ones ranged
about the walls. Treasure! Like a flash the thought struck me, and with one
leap I was down in the secret room gazing about at the boxes.
But, alas! upon investigation, the biggest chests proved empty. The bad,
wicked count! No wonder he couldn’t rest in his Spanish grave, but must
come back to the scene of his wickedness and deceit to make reparation!
But the smaller chests were literally crammed with all sorts of things—big

heavy Spanish coins, in gold and silver—gold and silver dinner services,
with the crest of the unfortunate emperor; magnificent pieces of jeweled
armor and weapons, beautiful jewelry and loose precious stones. I
deliberately selected handfuls of the latter, giving my preference to the
diamonds and pearls—I had always had a taste for them, which I had never
before been able to gratify!—and packed them in a wooden box that I found
in the lumber-room. The gold and dinner services and armor, etc., I left as
they were, being rather cumbersome, and carried off, rejoicing, my big box
of diamonds and pearls and other jewelry.
Needless to say we didn’t go away for the holidays on the eight o’clock
train. But I did come down to the office and proceeded to locate my missing
nine cents. After which I unfolded the tale of the ghost and the treasure—
only keeping quiet the matter of my private loot. Of which I was heartily
glad afterwards. For when the government learned of the find what do you
suppose they offered me for going about with the ghost and discovering the
secret room and treasure? Ten thousand dollars! When I refused, stating that
I would take merely, as my reward, one of the gold dinner services, the
greedy things objected at first, but I finally had my way. And to this very
day they have no idea that I—even I—have all the beautiful jewels.
Wouldn’t they be furious if they knew it? But they aren’t apt to, unless they
learn English and read this story. Which isn’t likely.

THE OLD MANSION.
Down on Long Beach, that narrow strip of sand which stretches along
the New Jersey coast from Barnegat Inlet on the north to Little Egg Harbor
Inlet on the south, the summer sojourner at some one of the numerous
resorts, which of late years have sprung up every few miles, may, in
wandering over the sand dunes just across the bay from the village of
Manahawkin, stumble over some charred timbers or vestiges of crumbling
chimneys, showing that once, years back, a human habitation has stood
there. If the find rouses the jaded curiosity of the visitor sufficiently to
impel him to question the weatherbeaten old bayman who sails him on his
fishing trips he will learn that these relics mark the site of one of the first
summer hotels erected on the New Jersey coast.
“That’s where the Old Mansion stood,” he will be informed by Captain
Nate or Captain Sam, or whatever particular captain it may chance to be,
and if by good fortune it chances to be Captain Jim, he will hear a story that
will pleasantly pass away the long wait for a sheepshead bite.
It was my good luck to have secured Captain Jim for a preceptor in the
angler’s art during my vacation last summer, and his stories and
reminiscences of Long Beach were not the least enjoyable features of the
two weeks’ sojourn.
Captain Jim was not garrulous. Few of the baymen are. They are a
sturdy, self-reliant and self-controlled people, full of strong common sense,
but still with that firm belief in the supernatural which seems inherent in
dwellers by the sea.
“The Old Mansion,” said Captain Jim, “or the Mansion of Health, for
that was its full name, was built away back in 1822, so I’ve heard my father
say. There had been a tavern close by years before that was kept by a man
named Cranmer, and people used to come from Philadelphia by stage, sixty
miles through the pines, to ‘Hawkin, and then cross here by boat. Some
would stop at Cranmer’s and others went on down the beach to Homer’s
which was clear down at End by the Inlet. Finally some of the wealthy
people concluded that they wanted better accommodations than Cranmer
gave, so they formed the Great Swamp Long Beach Company, and built the
Mansion of Health. I’ve heard that when it was built it was the biggest hotel

on the coast, and was considered a wonder. It was 120 feet long, three
stories high, and had a porch running all the way around it, with a balcony
on top. It was certainly a big thing for those days. I’ve heard father tell
many a time of the stage loads of gay people that used to come rattling into
‘Hawkin, each stage drawn by four horses, and sometimes four or five of
them a day in the summer. A good many people, too, used to come in their
own carriages, and leave them over on the mainland until they were ready
to go home. There were gay times at the Old Mansion then, and it made
times good for the people along shore, too.”
“How long did the Old Mansion flourish, Captain?” I asked.
“Well, for twenty-five or thirty years people came there summer after
summer. Then they built a railroad to Cape May, and that, with the ghosts,
settled the Mansion of Health.”
“What do you mean by the ghosts?” I demanded.
“Well, you see,” said Captain Jim, cutting off a mouthful of navy plug,
“the story got around that the old house was haunted. Some people said
there were queer things seen there, and strange noises were heard that
nobody could account for, and pretty soon the place got a bad name and
visitors were so few that it didn’t pay to keep it open any more.”
“But how did it get the name of being haunted, Captain Jim?” I
persisted.
“Why, it was this way,” continued the mariner. “Maybe you’ve heard of
the time early in the fifties when the Powhatan was wrecked on the beach
here, and every soul on board was lost. She was an emigrant ship, and there
were over 400 people aboard—passengers and crew. She came ashore here
during the equinoctial storm in September. There wasn’t any life-saving
stations in them days, and everyone was drowned. You can see the long
graves now over in the ‘Hawkin churchyard, where the bodies were buried
after they came ashore. They put them in three long trenches that were dug
from one end of the burying-ground to the other. The only people on the
beach that night was the man who took care of the old mansion. He lived
there with his family, and his son-in-law lived with him. He was the
wreckmaster for this part of the coast, too. It wasn’t till the second day that
the people from ‘Hawkin could get over to the beach, and by that time the
bodies had all come ashore, and the wreckmaster had them all piled up on
the sand. I was a youngster, then, and came over with my father, and, I tell

you, it was the awfullest sight I ever saw—them long rows of drowned
people, all lying there with their white, still faces turned up to the sky. Some
were women, with their dead babies clasped tight in their arms, and some
were husbands and wives, whose bodies came ashore locked together in a
death embrace. I’ll never forget that sight as long as I live. Well, when the
coroner came and took charge he began to inquire whether any money or
valuables had been found, but the wreckmaster declared that not a solitary
coin had been washed ashore. People thought this was rather singular, as the
emigrants were, most of them, well-to-do Germans, and were known to
have brought a good deal of money with them, but it was concluded that it
had gone down with the ship. Well, the poor emigrants were given pauper
burial, and the people had begun to forget their suspicions until three or four
months later there came another storm, and the sea broke clear over the
beach, just below the Old Mansion, and washed away the sand. Next
morning early two men from ‘Hawkin sailed across the bay and landed on
the beach. They walked across on the hard bottom where the sea had
washed across, and, when about half way from the bay, one of the men saw
something curious close up against the stump of an old cedar tree. He called
the other man’s attention to it, and they went over to the stump. What they
found was a pile of leather money-belts that would have filled a
wheelbarrow. Every one was cut open and empty. They had been buried in
the sand close by the old stump, and the sea had washed away the covering.
The men didn’t go any further.
“They carried the belts to their boats and sailed back to ‘Hawkin as fast
as the wind would take them. Of course, it made a big sensation, and
everybody was satisfied that the wreckmaster had robbed the bodies, if he
hadn’t done anything worse, but there was no way to prove it, and so
nothing was done. The wreckmaster didn’t stay around here long after that,
though. The people made it too hot for him, and he and his family went
away South, where it was said he bought a big plantation and a lot of slaves.
Years afterward the story came to ‘Hawkin somehow that he was killed in a
barroom brawl, and that his son-in-law was drowned by his boat upsettin’
while he was out fishin’. I don’t furnish any affidavits with that part of the
story, though.
“However, after that nobody lived in the Old Mansion for long at a time.
People would go there, stay a week or two, and leave—and at last it was
given up entirely to beach parties in the day time, and ghosts at night.”

“But, Captain, you don’t really believe the ghost part, do you?” I asked.
Captain Jim looked down the bay, expectorated gravely over the side of
the boat, and answered, slowly:
“Well, I don’t know as I would have believed in ’em if I hadn’t seen the
ghost.”
“What!” I exclaimed; “you saw it? Tell me about it. I’ve always wanted
to see a ghost, or next best thing, a man who has seen one.”
“It was one August, about 1861,” said the captain. “I was a young feller
then, and with a half dozen more was over on the beach cutting salt hay. We
didn’t go home at nights, but did our own cooking in the Old Mansion
kitchen, and at nights slept on piles of hay upstairs. We were a reckless lot
of scamps, and reckoned that no ghosts could scare us. There was a big full
moon that night, and it was as light as day. The muskeeters was pretty bad,
too, and it was easier to stay awake than go to sleep. Along toward midnight
me and two other fellers went out on the old balcony, and began to race
around the house. We hollered and yelled, and chased each other for half an
hour or so, and then we concluded we had better go to sleep, so we started
for the window of the room where the rest were. This window was near one
end on the ocean side, and as I came around the corner I stopped as if I had
been shot, and my hair raised straight up on top of my head. Right there in
front of that window stood a woman looking out over the sea, and in her
arms she held a little child. I saw her as plain as I see you now. It seemed to
me like an hour she stood there, but I don’t suppose it was a second; then
she was gone. When I could move I looked around for the other boys, and
they were standing there paralyzed. They had seen the woman, too. We
didn’t say much, and we didn’t sleep much that night, and the next night we
bunked out on the beach. The rest of the crowd made all manner of fun of
us, but we had had all the ghost we wanted, and I never set foot inside the
old house after that.”
“When did it burn down, Captain?” I asked, as Jim relapsed into silence.
“Somewhere about twenty-five years ago. A beach party had been
roasting clams in the old oven, and in some way the fire got to the
woodwork. It was as dry as tinder, and I hope the ghosts were all burnt up
with it.”

A MISFIT GHOST.
Every boy with a knowledge of adventurous literature, otherwise
“novels of action,” knows of the “phantom ship,” the spook of the high
seas.
But it has not been known that ships themselves are haunted, and that in
the service of the United States Coast Survey there is a vessel now in
commission that is by her own officers supposed to be haunted.
Yet the Eagre, a 140-foot schooner of the coast survey, is looked upon in
the service as a very undesirable vessel to be aboard of. About her there is
an atmosphere of gloom that wardroom jest cannot dispel.
Duty on board her has been shunned as would be a pestilence, and
stories have been told by officers who have cruised aboard her that are not
good for timid people to hear. Officers have hesitated about telling these
uncanny stories, but they have become sufficiently well known to make a
billet to duty aboard the Eagre unwelcome among the coast survey men.
The Mohawk was launched June 10, 1875, at Greenpoint, and she was
then the largest sailing yacht afloat.
William T. Garner, her young millionaire owner, was very proud of his
new craft, and all the then leaders of New York society were invited to
participate in the good time afloat with which her launching was celebrated.
Commodore Garner, then but thirty-three years old, and his young wife
entertained charmingly, and the trim, speedy Mohawk was christened with
unusually merry festivities. Soon after that she was capsized by a sudden
squall off the landing at Stapleton, N. Y., and six people were drowned like
rats in her cabin and forecastle.
Then the Mohawk was raised at a cost of $25,000 and purchased by the
United States Government for the service of the coast survey. Her name was
changed to Eagre, for Jack Tar is proverbially superstitious, and with the old
name it would have been impossible to ship a crew.
Lieutenant Higby King describes his initial experience when he was
assigned to duty on the Eagre in this way:
“She had her full complement of officers minus one when I boarded her
at Newport to complete the list. Every cabin was occupied but the port

cabin by the companion way, and to that I was assigned.
“We had a jolly wardroom mess that night, and I retired from it early, as
I was tired by my journey to join the vessel. The others who were still at the
table regarded my retirement to the port cabin in absolute silence, having
bidden me good-night. Their silence did not lead me to suspect anything,
though I knew that the Eagre had once been the Mohawk. My cabin door
had the usual cabin lock of brass, and the porthole was also securely
fastened. There could have been no one under the bed or sofa, as beneath
each was a facing of solid oak paneling.
“I undressed lazily and left the light burning dimly in my bracket lamp. I
tried conscientiously to go to sleep for I don’t know how long with my back
turned to the light. The noise ceased in the wardroom after a time, and I
knew the others had turned in, but I felt unaccountably nervous and restless.
I turned over and faced the light, thoroughly wide awake, and there in the
single chair sat an elderly man, seemingly wrapt in deep thought. He was
dressed in a blue yachting reefer, and had a long, gray beard. His hands
were clasped in his lap, and his eyes were downcast. His face was not pale
and ghastly, as the faces of ghosts are popularly supposed to be, but ruddy
and weatherbeaten.
“I regarded him in scared silence for I don’t know how long, though it
seemed an hour when he, or it, or whatever it was, disappeared. During that
time the ghost, and such I now believe it to have been, made not a motion,
nor did it say anything. Presently I looked again, and it was gone.
“At breakfast the others watched me critically as I took my seat. I had
not intended to say anything about my experience, for I thought then I had
seen some sort of hallucination and strongly suspected that I was verging on
insanity. Lieutenant Irving asked me if I had slept well. I replied that I had.
‘Didn’t you see anything?’ he inquired. I then frankly admitted that I had
and described my experience. Then I learned that each one of the seven
others present had tried the port cabin at one time or another, and each had
seen the self-same apparition. It had acted in exactly the same way in each
case, except in the case of Irving, who shot at it with his pistol, when it
immediately disappeared. Some of the others had been led by their curiosity
to inquire if anyone lost on the Mohawk resembled the figure, and found
that none of the unfortunate ones at all fitted the description. It had been

dubbed by them the ‘misfit ghost.’ That one experience was enough for me,
and after that I, by courtesy, shared the cabin of another fellow.”
Lieutenant Irving and others corroborate the story of Lieutenant King,
and as additional evidence that the Eagre is haunted, Lieutenant Irving
describes a New Year’s eve experience of the Eagre’s officers, that is, to say
the least, novel in the way of supernatural manifestations.
“It was at mess. The first toast, ‘Sweethearts and Wives,’ had been
drunk, as it always is by Yankee sailors the world over on occasions of
festivity. Everyone was feeling happy, or, as Thackeray has it, ‘pleasant,’
when suddenly the sliding-doors separating the wardroom from the
companion way closed slowly with a loud, squeaking noise. They had
seldom been closed, and it took the entire strength of a man to start them
from their rusty fastenings. Yet upon this occasion they started easily and
closed tightly, while the officers jumped to their feet in breathless
astonishment. Half a dozen men hauled them open in haste, but not a soul
was behind them or anywhere about. ‘It must be our old friend of the port
cabin,’ suggested one, and in awe-stricken silence the health of the ‘misfit
ghost’ was drunk.”

AN UNBIDDEN GUEST.
My cousins, Kate and Tom Howard, married at Trinity, at Easter time,
concluded to commence housekeeping by taking one of those delightfully
expensively furnished, unfurnished cottages, with which the fashionable
watering place of W—— abounds, from whose rear windows one might
almost take a plunge into the surf, the beach beginning at the back door.
They went down quite early in May, being in a great hurry to try their
domestic experiment; and, as the evenings were still cold, they spent them
about the open fire, “spooning.”
It was upon one of those nights, about eleven o’clock, that they were
startled by a noise, as of some small object falling, soon followed by the
sound of heavy footsteps, and then quiet again reigned supreme. At once
Tom, poker in hand, boldly started in search of the burglar, followed by
Kate, wildly clutching at his coat-tail, and in a state of tremor. They looked
upstairs, under the various beds, Kate suggesting that in novels they were
always to be found there.
The dining-room was next explored, where all seemed well, and, lastly
the kitchen, where they found what was evidently a solution of the mystery.
The burglar had entered by the back door, which was found to be unlocked
and slightly ajar. The first excitement subsiding, they returned again to the
dining-room, where Tom, upon closer inspection, then discovered that one
of a pair of quaint little pepper-pots, wedding gifts, was missing, and other
small articles on the sideboard had been slightly disturbed.
The next morning, when Kate mildly remonstrated with the queen of the
kitchen for her carelessness, she received a shock by being told that it was
her usual custom to leave the door open, “so that it would be aisy,
convanient loike for the milkmaid.” They parted with her, and a new maid
was engaged, whose chief qualification for the place was that she was most
faithful in the discharge of her duties, especially in “locking up.”
While they mourned the loss of the pepper-pot, still it seemed so trifling
when they thought of that lovely repousse salad bowl, sent by Aunt Julia,
which stood near by, that nothing was said of the loss outside of the family,
and the little household settled into its normal state once more of “billing
and cooing.”

About a fortnight later, Tom started out one night with an old fisherman,
one of the natives, and a local “character,” to indulge in that delightful
pastime, so dear to the heart of man, known as “eeling,” and, as the night
was dark, the eels were particularly “sporty,” so that it was well on towards
the “wee sma’ hours” when Tom at last returned to the cottage.
He found all excitement within. Kate was in hysterics, and the new maid,
also weeping, was industriously applying the camphor bottle to her
mistress’ nose. The burglar, or ghost, as they had now decided, the windows
and doors being found to be securely locked this time, had been abroad
again, but had succeeded in purloining nothing. His royal ghostship had
amused himself, apparently, by simply walking about.
“Oh, Tom! he had on such heavy boots and was so dreadfully bold about
it,” said Kate, tearfully.
From that time Kate became nervous and refused to be left alone. Tom
started whenever a door creaked, and the “treasure” departed hurriedly,
saying, “Faith, the house is haunted, sure.”
After that Kate spent her days in “girl hunting,” and her nights in
answering shadowy advertisements that never materialized. They tried Irish,
English, Dutch, and a “heathen Chinee,” with a sprinkling of “colored
ladies” to vary the monotony. They seemed about to become famous
throughout the length and breadth of the land as “the family that changes
help once a week,” when they landed Treasure No. 2.
Shortly after her advent we were all asked down to W——, to help
celebrate their happiness, and incidentally to christen the new dinner set.
We were not a little surprised at finding Kate so pale and Tom rather
distrait. However, after a delightful dinner, that should have filled with
pleasure the most exacting bride, we adjourned to the piazza, leaving the
men to the contemplation of their cigars. We were enthusiastic in our praise
of the house, and congratulated Kate in securing such a prize, when, to our
horror, she burst into tears, and said: “Oh, girls, it’s a dreadful place; it’s
haunted!” and then tearfully proceeded with the details, until we all felt
creepy and suggested the parlor and lights.
It was not until long afterwards that Kate discovered that Tom had also
related the “ghost story” to the men, that evening, to which Ned Harris had
said, laconically, “Rats,” and Bob Shaw laughingly remarked, “Tom, old
chap, you really shouldn’t take your nightcap so strong.”

About the first of July the climax came. The ghost walked again, this
time taking not only the remaining pepper-pot, but also a silver salt-cellar.
Evidently he had a penchant for small articles, but unlike former times,
everything on the sideboard was in the greatest disorder. Aunt Julia’s salad
bowl was found on the floor, and not far away the cheese-dish, with its
contents scattered about. This time one of the windows was found half
open. A week later a note came to me from Kate, saying that she and Tom
had gone to Saratoga to spend the remainder of the season with her mother.
The following spring Tom received a note and parcel from Mr. B——,
the owner of the house at W——, which read as follows:
Dear Mr. Howard: I send you by express three articles of silver, which
my wife suggests may belong to you, as they are marked with your initials,
namely, two silver pepper-pots and a salt-cellar; they were found, the other
day, during the process of spring house cleaning, in a rat hole, behind the
sideboard. I forgot to have the holes stopped up last spring, or to caution
you against the water rats; the great fellows will get in, you know. Kind
regards to Mrs. Howard.
Very truly,
John B——.
The next season the “Ghost Club” was organized, the badge being a
small silver rat, bearing proudly aloft a tiny pepper-pot. We thoughtfully
offered Tom the presidency, but he declined, with offended dignity, from the
effects of which I think he will never fully recover.

THE DEAD WOMAN’S PHOTOGRAPH.
Virgil Hoyt is a photographer’s assistant up at St. Paul, and a man of a
good deal of taste. He has been in search of the picturesque all over the
West, and hundreds of miles to the north in Canada, and can speak three or
four Indian dialects, and put a canoe through the rapids. That is to say, he is
a man of an adventurous sort and no dreamer. He can fight well and shoot
well and swim well enough to put up a winning race with the Indian boys,
and he can sit all day in the saddle and not dream about it at night.
Wherever he goes he uses his camera.
“The world,” Hoyt is in the habit of saying to those who sit with him
when he smokes his pipe, “was created in six days to be photographed. Man
—and especially woman—was made for the same purpose. Clouds are not
made to give moisture, nor trees to cast shade. They were created for the
photographer.”
In short, Virgil Hoyt’s view of the world is whimsical, and he doesn’t
like to be bothered with anything disagreeable. That is the reason that he
loathes and detests going to a house of mourning to photograph a corpse.
The horribly bad taste of it offends him partly, and partly he is annoyed at
having to shoulder, even for a few moments, a part of someone’s burden of
sorrow. He doesn’t like sorrow, and would willingly canoe 500 miles up the
cold Canadian rivers to get rid of it. Nevertheless, as assistant photographer,
it is often his duty to do this very kind of thing.
Not long ago he was sent for by a rich Jewish family at St. Paul to
photograph the mother, who had just died. He was very much put out, but
he went. He was taken to the front parlor, where the dead woman lay in her
coffin. It was evident that there was some excitement in the household and
that a discussion was going on, but Hoyt wasn’t concerned, and so he paid
no attention to the matter.
The daughter wanted the coffin turned on end, in order that the corpse
might face the camera properly, but Hoyt said he could overcome the
recumbent attitude and make it appear that the face was taken in the
position it would naturally hold in life, and so they went out and left him
alone with the dead.

The face was a strong and positive one, such as may often be seen
among Jewish matrons. Hoyt regarded it with some admiration, thinking to
himself that she was a woman who had been used to having her own way.
There was a strand of hair out of place, and he pushed it back from her
brow. A bud lifted its head too high from among the roses on her breast and
spoiled the contour of the chin, so he broke it off. He remembered these
things later very distinctly and that his hand touched her bare face two or
three times.
Then he took the photographs and left the house.
He was very busy at the time and several days elapsed before he was
able to develop the plates. He took them from the bath, in which they had
lain with a number of others, and went to work upon them. There were three
plates, he having taken that number merely as a precaution against any
accident. They came up well, but as they developed he became aware of the
existence of something in the photograph which had not been apparent to
his eye. The mysterious always came under the head of the disagreeable
with him, and was therefore to be banished, so he made only a few prints
and put the things away out of sight. He hoped that something would
intervene to save him from attempting an explanation.
But it is a part of the general perplexity of life that things do not
intervene as they ought and when they ought, so one day his employer
asked him what had become of those photographs. He

“They left him alone with the dead.”

tried to evade him, but it was futile, and he got out the finished photographs
and showed them to him. The older man sat staring at them a long time.
“Hoyt,” said he, at length, “you’re a young man, and I suppose you have
never seen anything like this before. But I have. Not exactly the same thing,
but similar phenomena have come my way a number of times since I went
into the business, and I want to tell you there are things in heaven and earth
not dreamt of——”
“Oh, I know all that tommy-rot,” cried Hoyt, angrily, “but when
anything happens I want to know the reason why, and how it is done.”
“All right,” said his employer, “then you might explain why and how the
sun rises.”
But he humored the younger man sufficiently to examine with him the
bath in which the plates were submerged and the plates themselves. All was

as it should be. But the mystery was there and could not be done away with.
Hoyt hoped against hope that the friends of the dead woman would
somehow forget about the photographs, but of course the wish was
unreasonable, and one day the daughter appeared and asked to see the
photographs of her mother.
“Well, to tell the truth,” stammered Hoyt, “those didn’t come out as well
as we could wish.”
“But let me see them,” persisted the lady. “I’d like to look at them,
anyway.”

“He showed her the prints.”

“Well, now,” said Hoyt, trying to be soothing, as he believed it was
always best to be with women—to tell the truth, he was an ignoramus
where women were concerned—“I think it would be better if you didn’t see

them. There are reasons why——” he ambled on like this, stupid man that
he was, and of course the Jewess said she would see those pictures without
any further delay.
So poor Hoyt brought them out and placed them in her hand, and then
ran for the water pitcher, and had to be at the bother of bathing her forehead
to keep her from fainting.
For what the lady saw was this: Over face and flowers and the head of
the coffin fell a thick veil, the edges of which touched the floor in some
places. It covered the features so well that not a hint of them was visible.
“There was nothing over mother’s face,” cried the lady at length.
“Not a thing,” acquiesced Hoyt. “I know, because I had occasion to
touch her face just before I took the picture. I put some of her hair back
from her brow.”
“What does it mean, then?” asked the lady.
“You know better than I. There is no explanation in science. Perhaps
there is some in psychology.”
“Well,” said the lady, stammering a little and coloring, “mother was a
good woman, but she always wanted her own way, and she always had it,
too.”
“Yes?”
“And she never would have her picture taken. She didn’t admire herself.
She said no one should ever see a picture of hers.”
“So?” said Hoyt, meditatively. “Well, she’s kept her word, hasn’t she?”
The two stood looking at the pictures for a time. Then Hoyt pointed to
the open blaze in the grate.
“Throw them in,” he commanded. “Don’t let your father see them—
don’t keep them yourself. They wouldn’t be good things to keep.”
“That’s true enough,” said the lady, slowly. And she threw them in the
fire. Then Virgil Hoyt brought out the plates and broke them before her
eyes.
And that was the end of it—except that Hoyt sometimes tells the story to
those who sit beside him when his pipe is lighted.

THE GHOST OF A LIVE MAN.
We were in the South Atlantic Ocean, in the latitude of the island of
Fernando Norohna, about 40 degrees 12 minutes south, on board the barque
H. G. Johnson, homeward bound from Australia. I was the only passenger,
and we had safely rounded Cape Horn, with the barometer at 28 degrees 18
minutes, and yet had somehow miraculously escaped any extremely heavy
gale—had had light northerly and easterly winds till we reached 20 degrees,
and thence the southeast trades were sending us fast on our way to the
equator. I sat on deck smoking my pipe, with a glorious full moon shedding
its bright pathway across the blue waters, and chatting with the first mate, a
man some fifty-eight years of age, who had followed the sea since he was a
boy. For twenty years or more he had been mate or captain, and many and
varied were the experiences he could relate. A thorough sailor and skillful
navigator, he was as honest as the day is long—had a heart as big as an ox
and was an all-round good fellow and genial companion. Some of his yarns
might be taken cum grano salis, yet he always positively assured me that he
“was telling me the truth.” An account of a voyage that he made in a whaler
from the Southern Ocean to New Bedford seemed to me worthy to be
repeated. He had rounded Cape Horn six times and the Cape of Good Hope
twenty-six times, besides making many trips across the Western Ocean and
to South American ports. I give his account as near as possible in his own
words:
“It was in ’71 that I commanded the whaler Mary Jane. We had been out
from home over three years, and had on board a full cargo of whale oil,
besides 2,000 pounds of whalebone, which was then worth $5 per pound. I
also had been fortunate enough to find in a dead whale which we came
across a large quantity of ambergris, and our hearts were all very light as we
began our homeward voyage, and our thoughts all tended to the hearty
welcome which we should receive from wives and sweethearts when we
reached our journey’s end. Many a night as I lay in my berth I had thought
with great pleasure of the amount of money that would be coming to me
from the proceeds of our voyage when we arrived in New Bedford.
“I calculated that I had made $12,000 as my share of the proceeds of the
whalebone and oil—to say nothing of the ambergris, which I well knew

would bring at least $20,000, and one-half of which belonged to me. You
can therefore imagine that I was well pleased with myself as we went
bounding along through the southeast trades. We crossed the equator in
longitude 36 and soon after took strong northeast trades, and all was going
as well as I could wish. We had put the ship in perfect order, painted her
inside and out, and you would never have recognized her as the old whaling
ship that had for three years been plying the Southern Ocean for whales.
Never shall I forget an old bull whale that we tackled about two degrees to
the south of Cape Horn—but that is another story, which I will give you
another time.
“We had just lost the northeast trades and were entering the Gulf Stream.
I sat in my cabin with my chart on the table before me rolled up. I had just
picked our location on it, and was thinking that in a week more I should be
at home, surrounded by those near and dear to me, and relating to them the
story of my great good fortune.
“It was always my custom to work up my latitude and longitude about
four o’clock in the afternoon, and then after supper pick off her position on
the chart, have a smoke and perhaps just before retiring a nip of grog, and
then at 8.30 o’clock, as regular as a clock, I would turn in.
“I am a great smoker, and this day I had been smoking all the afternoon,
besides having had two or three nips. We had a dog on board whom we
called ‘Bosun,’ who had been out with us all the voyage, and who was
afraid of nothing. He had endeared himself to every man on board, and
when Bosun ‘took water’ something very serious was in the wind. This
night as I sat in the cabin I heard a most dismal howl from Bosun, and
called out to the mate to know what was the matter with the dog. He replied
that he ‘reckoned some of the men had been teasing him,’ and the
occurrence soon passed from my mind.
“Suddenly I saw someone coming down the after companion way into
the cabin. I supposed at first it was the mate and wondered that he had not
first spoken to me, but then I noticed that he wore clothes I had never seen
on the mate, and as he advanced into the cabin I saw his face. It was the
face of a man I had never seen in my life. He was thin and pale and
haggard, and as he advanced he looked about the cabin and at the rolled up
chart on the table. There seemed to be an appeal in his eyes, and then there

swept over his face a look of intense disappointment, and before I could
move or speak, he had vanished from my sight.
“Now I am a very practical man, and I at once straightened myself in my
chair and said to myself: ‘Well, old man, you have smoked one too many
pipes to-day, or else you have had one drink too much, for you have been
asleep in your chair and seen a ghost.’ I was quite satisfied that I had had a
dream, especially as I called to the mate and asked him if he had seen
anyone come below. He said no; that he had not left the deck for the last
hour, and the man at the wheel, directly in front of the door, was sure no
one had entered the cabin, so I convinced myself that I had had a very vivid
dream—though I could not help thinking of the matter all through the next
day.
“At eight o’clock the next evening I sat in the same place with my work
just finished and the chart lying rolled up on the table before me, when
suddenly the dog’s dismal howl rang through the ship, and looking up I saw
those same legs coming down the after companion. My hair fairly stood on
end, and yet to-day surely I was wide awake. I had only smoked one pipe
all day, and had not touched a drop of liquor. The same wan, emaciated
figure walked into the cabin, glanced inquiringly and appealingly at me, and
again there spread over his face that look of utter disappointment as if he
had sought something and failed to find it, and again he disappeared. I
rushed on deck to the mate and told him all I had seen during the last two
nights; but he made light of it, and assured me I had been asleep or smoking
too much. He did not like to suggest that I had been drinking. Still, I could
see that the thought that came into his mind was ‘The old man has seen ’em
again.’ I gave up trying to convince him, but requested that the next night,
from 8 to 8.30, he should sit with me in the cabin.
“How the next day passed I cannot tell. I only know that my thoughts
never left that ghostly visitant, and somehow I felt that the evening would
reveal something to me and the spell be broken. I made up my mind I
would speak to the thing, whatever it was, and I felt a sort of security in the
presence of the mate, who was a daring fellow and feared neither man nor
the devil. Neither rum nor tobacco passed my lips during the next day, and
eight o’clock found the mate and I sitting in the cabin, and this time the
chart lay open on the table beside us. Just as eight bells struck the dog’s
premonitory wail sounded, and looking up we both saw the figure
descending the cabin stairs. We both seemed frozen to our seats, and the

strange weirdness of the whole proceeding cast the same spell over the mate
and me alike, and we were both unable to move or speak. Slowly the figure
proceeded into the cabin and glanced around without a word, but with the
same expectant look on his face. His form was even more wasted, his
cheeks sunken and his eyes seemed almost out of sight so deeply were they
set in their sockets. As his eye fell on the open chart a look of supreme joy
fairly irradiated his features, and advancing to the table he placed one long,
bony finger on the chart, held it for a moment and then again disappeared
from our sight.
“For five minutes after he had left us we sat speechless. Then I managed
to say: ‘What do you think of that, Mr. Morris?’ ‘My God! sir, I don’t know
—it’s beyond me.’ Then my eyes fell on the open chart and there where the
finger had been was a tiny spot of blood, exactly on the point of longitude
63 degrees west and latitude 37 degrees north. We were then only about
fifty miles distant from that position, and immediately there came to me the
determination to steer the ship there; so I laid her course accordingly, and
posted a lookout in the crow’s nest. At five o’clock in the morning, just as
the east began to grow gray, the lookout called out: ‘Boat on the lee bow,’
and as we came up to it we found four men in it—three dead and one with
just a remnant of life left in him. We sewed the three bodies in canvas and
buried them in the ocean, and then gave all our attention to restoring life to
the poor emaciated frame, which, I then recognized, was the very man who
for three successive nights had visited me in my cabin.
“By judicious and careful nursing life gradually came back to him, and
in four days’ time he was able to sit up and talk with me in the cabin. It
seems he commanded the ship Promise, and she had taken fire and been
destroyed, and all hands had to take to the boats. Ten were in the boats at
first, but their food had given out, and one by one he had seen them die, and
one by one he had cast the bodies overboard. Finally he lost consciousness
and knew not whether his three remaining companions were dead or alive.
“Then he said he seemed in a dream to see a ship and tried to go to her
for help, but just as he would be going on board of her something would
seem to keep him back; three times in his dreams he tried to visit this ship,
and the last time there seemed to come to him a certain satisfaction, and he
felt that he had succeeded in his object. Turning to my table, he said: ‘Let
me take your chart; I’ll show you just where we were.’

“ ‘Stop,’ said I, ‘don’t take that chart, it is an old one and all marked
over. Mark your position on this new one.’ He took my pencil and knife,
and carefully sharpened his pencil. Then, taking my dividers, he measured
his latitude and longitude and placed a pencil dot at a point on the clean
chart. As he lifted his hand he said: ‘Oh, excuse me, captain, I cut my finger
in sharpening the pencil and have left a drop of blood on the chart.’
“ ‘Never mind,’ said I, ‘leave it there.’ And then I produced the old chart
and there, in an exactly corresponding place was the drop of blood left by
my ghostly visitor.”
Then looking steadily into my face the mate solemnly added: “I can’t
explain this, sir, perhaps you can; but I can tell you on my honor it is God’s
own truth that I have told you.”

THE GHOST OF WASHINGTON.
It was early on Christmas morning when John Reilly wheeled away
from a picturesque little village where he had passed the previous night, to
continue his cycling tour through eastern Pennsylvania. To-day his intention
was to stop at Valley Forge, and then to ride on up the Schuylkill Valley,
visiting in turn the many points of historical interest that lay along his route.
Valley Forge, his road map indicated, was but a short distance further on.
All around him were the hills and fields and roads over which Washington
and his half-starved army had foraged and roamed throughout the trying
winter of 1777-8—one hundred and twenty-six years ago.
It was a beautiful Christmas day, truly, and, as he wheeled along, young
Reilly’s thoughts were almost equally divided between the surrounding
pleasant scenery and the folks at home, who, he knew very well, were
assembling at just about the present time around a heavily laden Christmas
tree in the front parlor. The sun rose higher and higher and Reilly pedaled
on down the valley, passing every now and then quaint, pleasant-looking
farmhouses, many of which, no doubt, had been built anterior to the period
which had given the vicinity its history.
Arriving, finally, at a place where the road forked off in two directions,
Reilly was puzzled which way to go on. There happened to be a dwelling
close by. Accordingly he dismounted, left his wheel leaning against a gate-
post at the side of the road, and walked up a wretchedly flagged walk
leading to the house, with the idea of getting instructions from its inmates.
Situated in the center of an unkempt field of rank grass and weeds, the
building lay back from the highway probably one hundred and fifty feet. It
was long and low in shape, containing but one story and having what is
termed a gabled roof, under which there must have been an attic of no mean
size. On coming close to the house, a fact Reilly had not noticed from the
road became plainly evident. It was deserted. He saw that the roof and side
shingles were in wretched condition; that the window sashes and frames as
well as the doors and door frames were missing from the openings in the
side walls where once they had been, and that the entire side of the house,
including that part of the stone foundation which showed above the ground,

was full of cracks and seams. At first on the point of turning back, he
concluded to see what the interior was like anyway.
Accordingly he went inside. Glancing around the large dust-filled room
he had entered his gaze at first failed to locate any object of the least
interest. A rickety appearing set of steps went up into the attic from one side
of the apartment and over in one corner was a large open fireplace, from the
walls of which much of the brickwork had become loosened and fallen out.
Reilly had started up the steps toward the attic, when happening to look
back for an instant, his attention was attracted to a singular-looking, jug-
shaped bottle no larger than a vinegar cruet, which lay upon its side on the
hearth of the fireplace, partly covered up by debris of loose bricks and
mortar. He hastened back down the steps and crossed the room, taking the
bottle up in his hand and examining it with curiosity. Being partly filled
with a liquid of some kind or other the bottle was very soon uncorked and
held under the young man’s nose. The liquid gave forth a peculiar, pungent
and inviting odor. Without further hesitation Reilly’s lips sought the neck of
the bottle. It is hardly possible to describe the pleasure and satisfaction his
senses experienced as he drank.
While the fluid was still gurgling down his throat a heavy hand was
placed most suddenly on his shoulder and his body was given a violent
shaking. The bottle fell to the floor and was broken into a hundred pieces.
“Hello!” said a rough voice almost in Reilly’s ear. “Who are you,
anyway? And what are you doing within the lines? A spy, I’ll be bound.”
As most assuredly there had been no one else in the vicinity of the
building when he had entered it and with equal certainty no one had come
down the steps from the attic, Reilly was naturally surprised and mystified
by this unexpected assault. He struggled instinctively to break loose from
the unfriendly grasp, and when he finally succeeded he twisted his body
around so that he faced across the room. Immediately he made the
remarkable discovery that there were four other persons in the apartment—
three uncouth-looking fellows habited in fantastic but ragged garments, and
a matronly-looking woman, the latter standing over a washtub which had
been elevated upon two chairs in a corner near the fireplace. To all
appearance the woman had been busy at her work and had stopped for the
moment to see what the men were going to do; her waist sleeves were
rolled up to the shoulders and her arms dripped with water and soapsuds.

Over the tops of the tubs, partly filled with water, there were visible the
edges of several well-soaked fabrics. Too add to his astonishment he
noticed that in the chimney-place, which a moment before was falling apart,
but now seemed to be clean and in good condition, a cheerful fire burned,
and that above the flames was suspended an iron pot, from which issued a
jet of steam. He noticed also that the entire appearance of the room had
undergone a great change. Everything seemed to be in good repair, tidy and
neat; the ceilings, the walls and the door; even the stairway leading to the
attic. The openings in the walls were fitted with window sashes and well-
painted doors. The apartment had, in fact, evolved under his very eyesight
from a state of absolute ruin into one of excellent preservation.
All of this seemed so weird and uncanny, that Reilly stood for a moment
or two in the transformed apartment, utterly dumbfounded, with his mouth
wide open and his eyes all but popping out of his head. He was brought to
his senses by the fellow who had shaken him growling out:
“Come! Explain yourself!”
“An explanation is due me,” Reilly managed to gasp.
“Don’t bandy words with the rascal, Harry,” one of the other men spoke
up. “Bring him along to headquarters.”
Thereupon, without further parley, the three men marched Reilly in
military fashion into the open air and down to the road. Here he picked up
at the gate-post his bicycle, while they unstacked a group of three old-
fashioned-looking muskets located close by. When the young man had
entered the house a few minutes before, this stack of arms had not been
there. He could not understand it. Neither could he understand, on looking
back at the building as he was marched off down the road, the mysterious
agency that had transformed its dilapidated exterior, just as had been the
interior, into a practically new condition.
While they trudged along, the strangers exhibited a singular interest in
the wheel Reilly pushed at his side, running their coarse hands over the
frame and handle-bar, and acting on the whole as though they never before
had seen a bicycle. This in itself was another surprise. He had hardly
supposed there were three men in the country so totally unacquainted with
what is a most familiar piece of mechanism everywhere.
At the same time that they were paying so much attention to the wheel,
Reilly in turn was studying with great curiosity his singular-looking captors.

Rough, unprepossessing appearing fellows they were, large of frame and
unshaven, and, it must be added, dirty of face. What remained of their very
ragged clothing, he had already noticed, was of a most remarkable cut and
design, resembling closely the garments worn by the Continental
militiamen in the War of Independence. The hats were broad, low of crown,
and three-cornered in shape; the trousers were buff-colored and ended at the
knees, and the long, blue spike-tailed coats were flapped over at the
extremities of the tails, the flaps being fastened down with good-sized brass
buttons. Leather leggings were strapped around cowhide boots, through the
badly worn feet of which, in places where the leather had cracked open, the
flesh, unprotected by stockings, could be seen. Dressed as he was, in a
cleanly, gray cycling costume, Reilly’s appearance, most assuredly, was
strongly in contrast to that of his companions.
After a brisk walk of twenty minutes, during which they occasionally
met and passed by one or two or perhaps a group of men clothed and
outfitted like Reilly’s escorts, the little party followed the road up a slight
incline and around a well-wooded bend to the left, coming quite suddenly,
and to the captive, very unexpectedly, to what was without doubt a military
encampment; a village, in fact, composed of many rows of small log huts.
Along the streets, between the buildings, muskets were stacked in hundreds
of places. Over in one corner, on a slight eminence commanding the road up
which they had come, and cleverly hidden from it behind trees and
shrubbery, the young man noticed a battery of field pieces. Wherever the
eye was turned on this singular scene were countless numbers of soldiers all
garmented in three-cornered hats, spike-tailed coats and knee breeches,
walking lazily hither and thither, grouped around crackling fires, or
parading up and down the streets in platoons under the guidance of ragged
but stern-looking officers.
Harry stopped the little procession of four in front of one of the larger of
the log houses. Then, while they stood there, the long blast from a bugle
was heard, followed by the roll of drums. A minute or two afterward,
several companies of militia marched up and grounded their arms, forming
three sides of a hollow square around them, the fourth and open side being
toward the log house. Directly succeeding this maneuver there came
through the doorway of the house and stepped up the center of the square,
stopping directly in front of Reilly, a dignified-looking person, tall and

straight and splendidly proportioned of figure, and having a face of great
nobility and character.
The cold chills chased one another down Reilly’s back. His limbs
swayed and tottered beneath his weight. He had never experienced another
such sensation of mingled astonishment and fright.
He was in the presence of General Washington. Not a phantom
Washington, either, but Washington in the flesh and blood; as material and
earthly a being as ever crossed a person’s line of vision. Reilly, in his time,
had seen so many portraits, marble busts and statues of the great
commander that he could not be mistaken. Recovering the use of his
faculties, which for the moment he seemed to have lost, Reilly did the very
commonplace thing that others before him have done when placed
unexpectedly in remarkable situations. He pinched himself to make sure
that he was in reality wide awake and in the natural possession of his
senses. He felt like pinching the figure in front of him also, but he could not
muster up the courage to do that. He stood there trying to think it all out,
and as his thoughts became less stagnant, his fright dissolved under the
process of reasoning his mind pursued. To reason a thing out, even though
an explanation can only be obtained by leaving much of the subject
unaccounted for, tends to make one bolder and less shaky in the knees.
The series of strange incidents which he was experiencing had been
inaugurated in the old-fashioned dwelling he had visited after information
concerning the roads. And everything had been going along in a perfectly
normal way up to, the very moment when he had taken a drink from the
bottle found in the fireplace. But from that precise time everything had gone
wrongly. Hence the inference that the drinking of the peculiar liquid was
accountable in some way or other for his troubles. There was a supernatural
agency in the whole thing. That much must be admitted. And whatever that
agency was, and however it might be accounted for, it had taken Reilly back
into a period of time more than a hundred years ago, and landed him, body
and soul, within the lines of the patriot forces wintering at Valley Forge. He
might have stood there, turning over and over in his mind, pinching himself
and muttering, all the morning, had not the newcomer ceased a silent but
curious inspection of his person, and asked: “Who are you, sir?”
“John Reilly, at your pleasure,” the young man replied, adding a
question on his own account: “And who are you, sir?”

Immediately he received a heavy thump on his back from Harry’s hard
fist.
“It is not for you to question the general,” the ragged administrator of the
blow exclaimed.
“And it is not for you to be so gay,” Reilly returned, angrily, giving the
blow back with added force.
“Here, here!” broke in the first questioner. “Fisticuffs under my very
nose! No more of this, I command you both.” To Harry he added an extra
caution: “Your zeal in my behalf will be better appreciated by being less
demonstrative. Blows should be struck only on the battlefield.” To Reilly he
said, with a slight smile hovering over his face, “My name is Washington.
Perhaps you may have heard of me?”
To this Reilly replied: “I have, indeed, and heard you very well spoken
of, too.” Emboldened by the other’s smile, he ventured another question: “I
think my reckoning of the day and year is badly at fault. An hour ago I
thought the day was Christmas day. How far out of the way did my
calculation take me, sir?”
“The day is indeed Christmas day, and the year is, as you must know, the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven.”
Reilly again pinched himself.
“Why do you bring this man to me?” Washington now inquired, turning
to Harry and his companions.
“He is a spy, sir,” said Harry.
“That is a lie!” Reilly indignantly interpolated. “I have done nothing to
warrant any such charge.”
“We found him in the Widow Robin’s house, pouring strong liquor down
his throat.”
“I had gone inside after information concerning the roads——”
“Which he was getting from a bottle, sir.”
“If drinking from a bottle of necessity constitutes being a spy, I fear our
camp is already a hotbed,” Washington somewhat sagely remarked, casting
his eye around slyly at his officers and men. “Tell me,” he went on, with
sudden sternness, looking Reilly through and through, as though to read his
very thoughts, “is the charge true? Do you come from Howe?”

“The charge is not true, sir. I come from no one. I simply am making a
tour of pleasure through this part of the country on my bicycle.”
“With the country swarming with the men from two hostile armies, any
kind of a tour, save one of absolute necessity, seems ill-timed.”
“When I set out I knew nothing about any armies. The fact is, sir——”
Reilly started to make an explanation, but he checked himself on realizing
that the telling of any such improbable yarn would only increase the
hazardousness of his position.
“Well?” Washington questioned, in a tone of growing suspicion.
“I certainly did not know that your army or any other army was
quartered in this vicinity.” Reilly hesitated for lack of something further to
say. “You see,” he finally added, prompted by a happy idea, “I rode my
wheel from New York.”
“You may have come from New York, though it is hard to believe you
came on that singular-looking machine so great a distance. Where is the
horse which drew the vehicle?”
Reilly touched his bicycle. “This is the horse, sir, just as it is; the
vehicle,” he said.
“The man is crazy!” Harry exclaimed. Washington only looked the
incredulity he felt, and this time asked a double question.
“How can the thing be balanced without it be held upright by a pair of
shafts from a horse’s back, and how is the motive power acquired?”
For an answer Reilly jumped upon the wheel, and at a considerable
speed and in a haphazard way pedaled around the space within the hollow
square of soldiers. Hither and thither he went, at one second nearly
wheeling over the toes of the line of astonished, if not frightened,
militiamen; at the next, bearing suddenly down on Harry and his
companions and making them dance and jump about most alertly to avoid a
collision. Even the dignified Washington was once or twice put to the
necessity of dodging hurriedly aside when his equilibrium was threatened.
Reilly eventually dismounted, doing so with assumed clumsiness by
stopping the wheel at Harry’s back and falling over heavily against the
soldier. Harry tumbled to the ground, but Reilly dexterously landed on his
feet. At once he began offering a profusion of apologies.

“You did that by design!” Harry shouted, jumping to his feet. His face
was red with anger and he shook his fist threateningly at the bicyclist.
Washington commanded the man to hold his peace. Then to Reilly he
expressed a great surprise at his performance and a desire to know more
about the bicycle. The young man thereupon described the machine
minutely, lifting it into the air and spinning the wheels to illustrate how
smoothly they rotated.
“I can see it is possible to ride the contrivance with rapidity. It has been
put together with wonderful ingenuity,” Washington said, when Reilly had
replaced the wheel on the ground.
“And you, sir, it is but a toy,” an officer spoke up. “Put our friend on his
bundle of tin and race him against one of our horsemen and he would make
a sorry showing.”
Reilly smiled. “I bear the gentleman no ill-will for his opinion,” he said.
“Still, I should like to show him by a practical test of the subject that his
ignorance of it is most profound.”
“You would test the speed of the machine against that of a horse?”
Washington said, in amazement.
“I would, sir. You have a good road yonder. With your permission and a
worthy opponent I would make the test at once.”
“But, sir, the man is a spy,” Harry broke in. “Would it not be better to
throw a rope around his neck and give him his deserts?”
“The charge is by no means proven,” Washington replied. “Nor can it be
until a court martial convenes this afternoon. And I see no reason why we
may not in the meantime enjoy the unique contest which has been
suggested. It will make a pleasant break in the routine of camp life.”
A murmur of approval went up from the masses of men by whom they
were surrounded. While they had been talking it seemed as though
everybody in the camp not already on the scene had gathered together
behind the square of infantry.
“Then, sir,” Harry said, with some eagerness, “I would like to be the man
to ride the horse. There is no better animal than mine anywhere. And I
understand his tricks and humors quite well enough to put him to his best
pace.”

“I confess I have heard you well spoken of as a horseman,” Washington
said. “Be away with you! Saddle and bridle your horse at once.”
It was the chain of singular circumstances narrated above which brought
John Reilly into the most remarkable contest of his life. He had entered
many bicycle races at one time or other, always with credit to himself and to
the club whose colors he wore. And he had every expectation of making a
good showing to-day. Yet a reflection of the weird conditions which had
brought about the present contest took away some of his self-possession
when a few minutes later he was marched over to the turnpike and left to
his own thoughts, while the officers were pacing out a one mile
straightaway course down the road.
After the measurements had been taken, two unbroken lines of soldiers
were formed along the entire mile; a most evident precaution against Reilly
leaving the race course at any point to escape across the fields. Washington
came up to him again, when the preparations were completed, to shake his
hand and whisper a word or two of encouragement in his ear. Having
performed these kindly acts he left to take up a position near the point of
finish.
The beginning of the course was located close to the battery of half
concealed field pieces. Reilly was now conducted to this place. Shortly
afterward Harry appeared on his horse. He leered at the bicyclist
contemptuously and said something of a sarcastic nature partly under his
breath when the two lined up, side by side, for the start. To these slights
Reilly paid no heed; he had a strong belief that when the race was over
there would be left in the mutton-like head of his opponent very little of his
present inclination toward the humorous. The soldier’s mount was a
handsome black mare, fourteen and a half hands high; strong of limbs and
at the flanks, and animated by a spirit that kept her prancing around with
continuous action. It must be admitted that the man rode very well. He
guided the animal with ease and nonchalance when she reared and plunged,
and kept her movements confined to an incredibly small piece of ground,
considering her abundance of action.
“Keep to your own side of the road throughout the race. I don’t want to
be collided with by your big beast,” Reilly cautioned, while they were
awaiting two signals from the starter.

To this Harry replied in some derision, “I’ll give you a good share of the
road at the start, and all of it and my dust, too, afterward.” And then the
officer who held the pistol fired the first shot.
Reilly was well satisfied with the conditions under which the race was to
be made. The road was wide and level, smooth, hard and straight, and a
strong breeze which had sprung up, blew squarely against his back. His
wheel was geared up to eighty-four inches; the breeze promised to be a
valuable adjunct in pushing it along. Awaiting the second and last signal,
Reilly glanced down the two blue ranks of soldiers, which stretched away
into hazy lines in the distance and converged at the termination of the
course where a flag had been stuck into the ground. The soldiers were at
parade rest. Their unceasing movements as they chatted to one another,
turning their bodies this way and that and craning their heads forward to
look toward the starting point, and then jerking them back, made the lines
seem like long, squirming snakes. At the end of the course a thick bunch of
militiamen clogged the road and overspread into the fields.
Crack! The signal to be off. Reilly shoved aside the fellow who had been
holding his wheel upright while astride of it, and pushed down on the
pedals. The mare’s hoofs dug the earth; her great muscular legs straightened
out; she sprang forward with a snort of apparent pleasure, taking the lead at
the very start. Reilly heard the shout of excitement run along the two ranks
of soldiers. He saw them waving their arms and hats as he went by. And on
ahead through the cloud of dust there was visible the shadow-like outlines
of the snorting, galloping horse, whose hoof beats sounded clear and sharp
above the din which came from the sides of the highway. The mare crept
farther and farther ahead. Very soon a hundred feet or more of the road lay
between her and the bicyclist. Harry turned in his saddle and called out
another sarcasm.
“I shall pass you very soon. Keep to your own side of the road!” Reilly
shouted, not a bit daunted by the way the race had commenced. His head
was well down over the handle-bars, his back had the shape of the upper
portion of an immense egg. Up and down his legs moved; faster and faster
and faster yet. He went by the soldiers so rapidly that they only appeared to
be two streaks of blurry color. Their sharp rasping shouts sounded like the
cracking of musketry. The cloud of dust blew against the bicyclist’s head
and into his mouth and throat. When he glanced ahead again he saw with
satisfaction that the mare was no longer increasing her lead. It soon became

evident even that he was slowly cutting down the advantages she had
secured.
Harry again turned his head shortly afterward, doubtless expecting to
find his opponent hopelessly distanced by this time. Instead of this Reilly
was alarmingly close upon him. The man ejaculated a sudden oath and
lashed his animal furiously. Straining every nerve and sinew the mare for
the moment pushed further ahead. Then her pace slackened a bit and Reilly
again crept up to her. Closer and closer to her than before, until his head
was abreast of her outstretched tail. Harry was lashing the mare and
swearing at her unceasingly now. But she had spurted once and appeared to
be incapable of again increasing her speed. In this way they went on for
some little distance, Harry using his whip brutally, the mare desperately
struggling to attain a greater pace, Reilly hanging on with tenacity to her
hind flanks and giving up not an inch of ground.
A mile is indeed a very short distance when traversed at such a pace. The
finishing flag was already but a few hundred feet further on. Reilly realized
that it was time now to go to the front. He gritted his teeth together with
determination and bent his head down even further toward his front wheel.
Then his feet began to move so quickly that there was only visible an
indistinct blur at the sides of his crank shaft. At this very second, with a face
marked with rage and hatred, Harry brought his horse suddenly across the
road to thet part of it which he had been warned to avoid.
It is hard to tell what kept Reilly from being run into and trampled under
foot. An attempt at back pedaling, a sudden twist of the handle-bar, a lurch
to one side that almost threw him from his seat. Then, in the fraction of a
second he was over on the other side of the road, pushing ahead of the mare
almost as though she were standing still. The outburst of alarm from the
throats of the soldiers changed when they saw that Reilly had not been
injured; first into a shout of indignation at the dastardly attempt which had
been made to run him down, and then into a roar of delight when the
bicyclist breasted the flag a winner of the race by twenty feet.
As he crossed the line Reilly caught a glimpse of Washington. He stood
close to the flag and was waving his hat in the air with the enthusiasm of a
schoolboy. Reilly went on down the road slackening his speed as effectively
as he could. But before it was possible to entirely stop his wheel’s
momentum the noisy acclamations in his rear ceased with startling

suddenness. He turned in his saddle and looked back. As sure as St. Peter he
had the road entirely to himself. There wasn’t a soldier or the ghost of a
soldier in sight.
As soon as he could he turned his bicycle about and rode slowly back
along the highway, now so singularly deserted, looking hither and thither in
vain for some trace of the vanished army. Even the flag which had been
stuck into the ground at the end of the one-mile race course was gone. The
breeze had died out again and the air was tranquil and warm. In the
branches of a nearby tree two sparrows chirped and twittered peacefully.
Reilly went back to the place where the camp had been. He found there
only open fields on one side of the road and a clump of woodland on the
other. He continued on down the little hill up which Harry and his
companions had brought him a few hours previously and followed the road
on further, coming finally to the fork in it near which was located the old
farmhouse wherein he had been taken captive. The house was, as it had
been when he had previously entered it, falling apart from age and neglect.
When he went inside he found lying on the brick hearth in front of the
fireplace a number of pieces of broken glass.
The End.

True Ghost Stories
BY HEREWARD CARRINGTON

The author of this book is well known in both
America and Europe as a prominent scientific writer
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for Psychical Research for more than fifteen years, has
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happenings and visitants.
Other chapters are:
Phantasms of the Dead.
More Phantasms.
Haunted Houses.
Ghost Stories of a More Dramatic Order.
Historical Ghosts.
The Phantom Armies Seen in France.
Bibliography.
True Ghost Stories is a book of absorbing interest and cannot fail to
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