II

For fourscore years and ten did the same hard fortune pursue the owners of

Bangletop. Additions to the property were made immediately upon request of

possible lessees. The Greek chapel was constructed in 1868 at the mere

suggestion of a Hellenic prince, who came to England to write a history of

the American rebellion, finding the information in back files of British

newspapers exactly suited to the purposes of picturesque narrative, and no

more misleading than most home-made history. Bangletop was retired, "far

from the gadding crowd," as the prince put it, and therefore just the

place in which a historian of the romantic school might produce his

_magnum opus_ without disturbance; the only objection being that there was

no place whither the eminently Christian sojourner could go to worship

according to his faith, he being a communicant in the Greek Church. This

defect Baron Bangletop immediately remedied by erecting and endowing the

chapel; and his youngest son, having been found too delicate morally for

the army, was appointed to the living and placed in charge of the chapel,

having first embraced with considerable ardor the faith upon which the

soul of the princely tenant was wont to feed. All of these

improvements--chapel, priest, the latter's change of faith, and all--the

Bangletop agent put at the exceedingly low sum of forty-two guineas per

annum and board for the priest; an offer which the prince at once

accepted, stipulating, however, that the lease should be terminable at any

time he or his landlord should see fit. Against this the agent fought

nobly, but without avail. The prince had heard rumors about the cooks of

Bangletop, and he was wary. Finally the stipulation was accepted by the

baron, with what result the reader need hardly be told. The prince stayed

two weeks, listened to one sermon in classic university Greek by the

youthful Bangletop, was deserted by his cook, and moved away.

After the departure of the prince the estate was neglected for nearly

twenty-two years, the owner having made up his mind that the case was

hopeless. At the end of that period there came from the United States a

wealthy shoemaker, Hankinson J. Terwilliger by name, chief owner of the

Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company (Limited), of Soleton,

Massachusetts, and to him was leased Bangletop Hall, with all its rights

and appurtenances, for a term of five years. Mr. Terwilliger was the first

applicant for the hall as a dwelling to whom the agent, at the instance of

the baron, spoke in a spirit of absolute candor. The baron was well on in

years, and he did not feel like getting into trouble with a Yankee, so he

said, at his time of life. The hall had been a thorn in his flesh all his

days, and he didn't care if it was never occupied, and therefore he wished

nothing concealed from a prospective tenant. It was the agent's candor

more than anything else that induced Mr. Terwilliger to close with him for

the term of five years. He suspected that the Bangletops did not want him

for a tenant, and from the moment that notion entered his head, he was

resolved that he would be a tenant.

"I'm as good a man as any baron that ever lived," he said; "and if it

pleases Hankinson J. Terwilliger to live in a baronial hall, a baronial

hall is where Hankinson J. Terwilliger puts up."

"We certainly have none of the feeling which your words seem to attribute

to us, my dear sir," the agent had answered. "Baron Bangletop would feel

highly honored to have so distinguished a sojourner in England as yourself

occupy his estate, but he does not wish you to take it without fully

understanding the circumstances. Desirable as Bangletop Hall is, it seems

fated to be unoccupied because it is thought to be haunted, or something

of that sort, the effect of which is to drive away cooks, and without

cooks life is hardly an ideal."

Mr. Terwilliger laughed. "Ghosts and me are not afraid of each other," he

said. "'Let 'em haunt,' I say; and as for cooks, Mrs. H.J.T. hasn't had a

liberal education for nothing. We could live if all the cooks in creation

were to go off in a whiff. We have daughters too, we have. Good smart

American girls, who can adorn a palace or grace a hut on demand, not

afraid of poverty, and able to take care of good round dollars. They can

play the piano all the morning and cook dinner all the afternoon if

they're called on to do it; so your difficulties ain't my difficulties.

I'll take the hall at your figures; term, five years; and if the baron'll

come down and spend a month with us at any time, I don't care when, we'll

show him what a big lap Luxury can get up when she tries."

And so it happened the New York papers announced that Hankinson J.

Terwilliger, Mrs. Terwilliger, the Misses Terwilliger, and Master

Hankinson J. Terwilliger, Jun., of Soleton, Massachusetts, had plunged

into the dizzy whirl of English society, and that the sole of the

three-dollar shoe now trod the baronial halls of the Bangletops. Later it

was announced that the Misses Terwilliger, of Bangletop Hall, had been

presented to the queen; that the Terwilligers had entertained the Prince

of Wales at Bangletop; in fact, the Terwilligers became an important

factor in the letters of all foreign correspondents of American papers,

for the president of the Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company, of

Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), was now in full possession of the

historic mansion, and was living up to his surroundings.

For a time everything was plain sailing for the Americans at Bangletop.

The dire forebodings of the agent did not seem to be fulfilled, and Mr.

Terwilliger was beginning to feel aggrieved. He had hired a house with a

ghost, and he wanted the use of it; but when he reflected upon the

consequences below stairs, he held his peace. He was not so sure, after he

had stayed at Bangletop awhile, and had had his daughters presented to the

queen, that he could be so independent of cooks as he had at first

supposed. Several times he had hinted rather broadly that some of the old

New England homemade flap-jacks would be most pleasing to his palate; but

since the prince had spent an afternoon on the lawn of Bangletop, the

young ladies seemed deeply pained at the mere mention of their

accomplishments in the line of griddles and batter; nor could Mrs.

Terwilliger, after having tasted the joys of aristocratic life, bring

herself to don the apron which so became her portly person in the early

American days, and prepare for her lord and master one of those delicious

platters of poached eggs and breakfast bacon, the mere memory of which

made his mouth water. In short, palatial surroundings had too obviously

destroyed in his wife and daughters all that capacity for happiness in a

hovel of which Mr. Terwilliger had been so proud, and concerning which he

had so eloquently spoken to Baron Bangletop's agent, and he now found

himself in the position of Damocles. The hall was leased for a term,

entertainment had been provided for the county with lavish hand; but

success was dependent entirely upon his ability to keep a cook, his family

having departed from their republican principles, and the history of the

house was dead against a successful issue. So he decided that, after all,

it was better that the ghost should be allowed to remain quiescent, and he

uttered no word of complaint.

It was just as well, too, that Mr. Terwilliger held his peace, and

refrained from addressing a complaining missive to the agent of Bangletop

Hall; for before a message of that nature could have reached the person

addressed, its contents would have been misleading, for at a quarter after

midnight on the morning of the date set for the first of a series of grand

banquets to the county folk, there came from the kitchen of Bangletop Hall

a quick succession of shrieks that sent the three Misses Terwilliger into

hysterics, and caused Hankinson J. Terwilliger's sole remaining lock to

stand erect. Mrs. Terwilliger did not hear the shrieks, owing to a lately

acquired habit of hearing nothing that proceeded from below stairs.

The first impulse of Terwilliger _pere_ was to dive down under the

bedclothes, and endeavor to drown the fearful sound by his own labored

breathing, but he never yielded to first impulses. So he awaited the

second, which came simultaneously with a second series of shrieks and a

cry for help in the unmistakable voice of the cook; a lady, by-the-way,

who had followed the Terwilliger fortunes ever since the Terwilligers

began to have fortunes, and whose first capacity in the family had been

the dual one of mistress of the kitchen and confidante of madame. The

second impulse was to arise in his might, put on a stout pair of the

Terwilliger three-dollar brogans--the strongest shoe made, having been

especially devised for the British Infantry in the Soudan--and garments

suitable to the occasion, namely, a mackintosh and pair of broadcloth

trousers, and go to the rescue of the distressed domestic. This Hankinson

J. Terwilliger at once proceeded to do, arming himself with a pair of

horse-pistols, murmuring on the way below a soft prayer, the only one he

knew, and which, with singular inappropriateness on this occasion, began

with the words, "Now I lay me down to sleep."

"What's the matter, Judson?" queried Mrs. Terwilliger, drowsily, as she

opened her eyes and saw her husband preparing for the fray.

She no longer called him Hankinson, not because she did not think it a

good name, nor was it less euphonious to her ear than Judson, but Judson

was Mr. Terwilliger's middle name, and middle names were quite the thing,

she had observed, in the best circles. It was doubtless due to this

discovery that her visiting cards had been engraved to read "Mrs. H.

Judson-Terwilliger," the hyphen presumably being a typographical error,

for which the engraver was responsible.

[Illustration]

"Matter enough," growled Hankinson. "I have reason to believe that that

jackass of a ghost is on duty to-night."

At the word ghost a pseudo-aristocratic shriek pervaded the atmosphere,

and Mrs. Terwilliger, forgetting her social position for a moment, groaned

"Oh, Hank!" and swooned away. And then the president of the Terwilliger

Three-dollar Shoe Company of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), descended

to the kitchen.

Across the sill of the kitchen door lay the culinary treasure whose

lobster croquettes the Prince of Wales had likened unto a dream of

Lucullus. Within the kitchen were signs of disorder. Chairs were upset;

the table was lying flat on its back, with its four legs held rigidly up

in the air; the kitchen library, consisting of a copy of _Marie

Antoinette's Dream-Book_; a yellow-covered novel bearing the title _Little

Lucy; or, The Kitchen-maid who Became a Marchioness_; and _Sixty Soups, by

One who Knows_, lay strewn about the room, the _Dream-Book_ sadly torn,

and _Little Lucy_ disfigured forever with batter. Even to the unpractised

eye it was evident that something had happened, and Mr. Terwilliger felt a

cold chill mounting his spine three sections at a time. Whether it was the

chill or his concern for the prostrate cook that was responsible or not I

cannot say, but for some cause or other Mr. Terwilliger immediately got

down on his knees, in which position he gazed fearfully about him for a

few minutes, and then timidly remarked, "Cook!"

There was no answer.

"Mary, I say. Cook," he whispered, "what the deuce is the meaning of all

this?"

[Illustration]

A low moan was all that came from the cook, nor would Hankinson have

listened to more had there been more to hear, for simultaneously with the

moan he became uncomfortably conscious of a presence. In trying to

describe it afterwards, Hankinson said that at first he thought a cold

draught from a dank cavern filled with a million eels, and a rattlesnake

or two thrown in for luck, was blowing over him, and he avowed that it was

anything but pleasant; and then it seemed to change into a mist drawn

largely from a stagnant pool in a malarial country, floating through which

were great quantities of finely chopped sea-weed, wet hair, and an

indescribable atmosphere of something the chief quality of which was a

sort of stale clamminess that was awful in its intensity.

"I'm glad," Mr. Terwilliger murmured to himself, "that I ain't one of

those delicately reared nobles. If I had anything less than a right-down

regular republican constitution I'd die of fright."

And then his natural grit came to his rescue, and it was well it did, for

the presence had assumed shape, and now sat on the window-ledge in the

form of a hag, glaring at him from out of the depths of her unfathomable

eyes, in which, despite their deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of

red caused by small specks of that hue semioccasionally seen floating

across her dilated pupils.

"You are the Bangletop ghost, I presume?" said Terwilliger, rising and

standing near the fire to thaw out his system.

The spectre made no reply, but pointed to the door.

"Yes," Terwilliger said, as if answering a question. "That's the way out,

madame. It's a beautiful exit, too. Just try it."

"H'I knows the wi out," returned the spectre, rising and approaching the

tenant of Bangletop, whose solitary lock also rose, being too polite to

remain seated while the ghost walked. "H'I also knows the wi in, 'Ankinson

Judson Terwilliger."

"That's very evident, madame, and between you and me I wish you didn't,"

returned Hankinson, somewhat relieved to hear the ghost talk, even if her

voice did sound like the roar of a conch-shell with a bad case of grip. "I

may say to you that, aside from a certain uncanny satisfaction which I

feel at being permitted for the first time in my life to gaze upon the

linaments of a real live misty musty spook, I regard your coming here as

an invasion of the sacred rights of privacy which is, as you might say,

'hinexcusable.'"

[Illustration]

"Hinvaision?" retorted the ghost, snapping her fingers in his face with

such effect that his chin dropped until Terwilliger began to fear it might

never resume its normal position. "Hinvaision? H'I'd like to know 'oo's

the hinvaider. H'I've occupied these 'ere 'alls for hover two 'undred

years."

"Then it's time you moved, unless perchance you are the ghost of a

mediaeval porker," Hankinson said, his calmness returning now that he had

succeeded in plastering his iron-gray lock across the top of his otherwise

bald head. "Of course, if you are a spook of that kind you want the earth,

and maybe you'll get it."

"H'I'm no porker," returned the spectre. "H'I'm simply the shide of a poor

abused cook which is hafter revenge."

"Ah!" ejaculated Terwilliger, raising his eyebrows, "this is getting

interesting. You're a spook with a grievance, eh? Against me? I've never

wronged a ghost that I know of."

"No, h'I've no 'ard feelinks against you, sir," answered the ghost. "Hin

fact h'I don't know nothink about you. My trouble's with them Baingletops,

and h'I'm a-pursuin' of 'em. H'I've cut 'em out of two 'undred years of

rent 'ere. They might better 'ave pide me me waiges hin full."

"Oho!" cried Terwilliger; "it's a question of wages, is it? The Bangletops

were hard up?"

"'Ard up? The Baingletops?" laughed the ghost. "When they gets 'ard up the

Baink o' Hengland will be in all the sixty soups mentioned in that there

book."

"You seem to be up in the vernacular," returned Terwilliger, with a smile.

"I'll bet you are an old fraud of a modern ghost."

Here he discharged all six chambers of his pistol into the body of the

spectre.

"No taikers," retorted the ghost, as the bullets whistled through her

chest, and struck deep into the wall on the other side of the kitchen.

"That's a noisy gun you've got, but you carn't ly a ghost with cold lead

hany more than you can ly a corner-stone with a chicken. H'I'm 'ere to sty

until I gets me waiges."

[Illustration]

"What was the amount of your wages due at the time of your discharge?"

asked Hankinson.

"H'I was gettin' ten pounds a month," returned the spectre.

"Geewhittaker!" cried Terwilliger, "you must have been an all-fired fine

cook."

"H'I was," assented the ghost, with a proud smile. "H'I cooked a boar's

'ead for 'is Royal 'Ighness King Charles when 'e visited Baingletop 'All

as which was the finest 'e hever taisted, so 'e said, hand 'e'd 'ave

knighted me hon the spot honly me sex wasn't suited to the title. 'You

carn't make a knight out of a woman,' says the king, 'but give 'er my

compliments, and tell 'er 'er monarch says as 'ow she's a cook as is too

good for 'er staition.'"

"That was very nice," said Terwilliger. "No one could have desired a

higher recommendation than that."

"My words hexackly when the baron's privit secretary told me two dys

laiter as 'ow the baron's heggs wasn't done proper," said the ghost. "H'I

says to 'im, says I: 'The baron's heggs be blowed. My monarch's hopinion

is worth two of any ten barons's livin', and Mister Baingletop,' (h'I

allus called 'im mister when 'e was ugly,) 'can get 'is heggs cooked

helsewhere if 'e don't like the wy h'I boils 'em.' Hand what do you

suppose the secretary said then?"

"I give it up," replied Terwilliger. "What?"

"'E said as 'ow h'I 'ad the big 'ead."

"How disgusting of him!" murmured Terwilliger. "That was simply low."

"Hand then 'e accuged me of bein' himpudent."

"No!"

"'E did, hindeed; hand then 'e discharged me without me waiges. Hof course

h'I wouldn't sty after that; but h'I says to 'im, 'Hif I don't get me py,

h'I'll 'aunt this place from the dy of me death;' hand 'e says, ''Aunt

awy.'"

"And you have kept your word."

"H'I 'ave that! H'I've made it 'ot for 'em, too."

"Well, now, look here," said Terwilliger, "I'll tell you what I'll do.

I'll pay you your wages if you'll go back to Spookland and mind your own

business. Ten pounds isn't much when three-dollar shoes cost fifteen cents

a pair and sell like hot waffles. Is it a bargain?"

"H'I was sent off with three months' money owin' me," said the ghost.

"Well, call it thirty pounds, then," replied Terwilliger.

"With hinterest--compound hinterest at six per cent.--for two 'undred and

thirty years," said the ghost.

"Phew!" whistled Terwilliger. "Have you any idea how much money that is?"

"Certingly," replied the ghost. "Hit's just 63,609,609 pounds 6 shillings

4-1/2 pence. When h'I gets that, h'I flies; huntil I gets it h'I stys 'ere

an' I 'aunts."

"Say," said Terwilliger, "haven't you been chumming with an Italian ghost

named Shylock over on the other shore?"

"Shylock!" said the ghost. "No, h'I've never 'eard the naime. Perhaps 'e's

stoppin' at the hother place."

"Very likely," said Terwilliger. "He is an eminent saint alongside of you.

But I say now, Mrs. Spook, or whatever your name is, this is rubbing it

in, to try to collect as much money as that, particularly from me, who

wasn't to blame in any way, and on whom you haven't the spook of a claim."

"H'I'm very sorry for you, Mr. Terwilliger," said the ghost. "But my vow

must be kept sacrid."

"But why don't you come down on the Bangletops up in London, and squeeze

it out of them?"

"H'I carn't. H'I'm bound to 'aunt this 'all, an' that's hall there is

about it. H'I carn't find a better wy to ly them Baingletops low than by

attachin' of their hincome, hand the rent of this 'all is the honly bit of

hincome within my reach."

"But I've leased the place for five years," said Terwilliger, in despair;

"and I've paid the rent in advance."

"Carn't 'elp it," returned the ghost. "Hif you did that, hit's your own

fault."

"I wouldn't have done it, except to advertise my shoe business," said

Terwilliger, ruefully. "The items in the papers at home that arise from my

occupancy of this house, together with the social cinch it gives me, are

worth the money; but I'm hanged if it's worth my while to pay back

salaries to every grasping apparition that chooses to rise up out of the

moat and dip his or her clammy hand into my surplus. The shoe trade is a

blooming big thing, but the profits aren't big enough to divide with tramp

ghosts."

"Your tone is very 'aughty, 'Ankinson J. Terwilliger, but it don't haffeck

me. H'I don't care 'oo pys the money, an' h'I 'aven't got you into this

scripe. You've done that yourself. Hon the other 'and, sir, h'I've showed

you 'ow to get out of it."

"Well, perhaps you're right," returned Hankinson. "I can't say I blame you

for not perjuring yourself, particularly since you've been dead long

enough to have discovered what the probable consequences would be. But I

do wish there was some other way out of it. _I_ couldn't pay you all that

money without losing a controlling interest in the shoe company, and

that's hardly worth my while, now is it?"

"No, Mr. Terwilliger; hit is not."

"I have a scheme," said Hankinson, after a moment or two of deep thought.

"Why don't you go back to the spirit world and expose the Bangletops

there? They have spooks, haven't they?"

"Yes," replied the ghost, sadly. "But the spirit world his as bad as this

'ere. The spook of a cook carn't reach the spook of a baron there hany

more than a scullery-maid can reach a markis 'ere. H'I tried that when the

baron died and came over to the hother world, but 'e 'ad 'is spook

flunkies on 'and to tell me 'e was hout drivin' with the ghost of William

the Conqueror and the shide of Solomon. H'I knew 'e wasn't, but what could

h'I do?"

"It was a mean game of bluff," said Terwilliger. "I suppose, though, if

you were the shade of a duchess, you could simply knock Bangletop silly?"

"Yes, and the Baron of Peddlington too. 'E was the private secretary as

said h'I 'ad the big 'ead."

"H'm!" said Terwilliger, meditatively. "Would you--er--would you consent

to retire from this haunting business of yours, and give me a receipt for

that bill for wages, interest and all, if I had you made over into the

spook of a duchess? Revenge is sweet, you know, and there are some

revenges that are simply a thousand times more balmy than riches."

"Would h'I?" ejaculated the ghost, rising and looking at the clock. "Would

h'I?" she repeated. "Well, rather. If h'I could enter spook society as a

duchess, you can wager a year's hincome them Bangletops wouldn't be hin

it."

"Good! I am glad to see that you are a spook of spirit. If you had veins,

I believe there'd be sporting blood in them."

"Thainks," said the ghost, dryly. "But 'ow can it hever be did?"

"Leave that to me," Terwilliger answered. "We'll call a truce for two

weeks, at the end of which time you must come back here, and we'll settle

on the final arrangements. Keep your own counsel in the matter, and don't

breathe a word about your intentions to anybody. Above all, keep sober."

"H'I'm no cannibal," retorted the ghost.

"Who said you were?" asked Terwilliger.

"You intimated as much," said the ghost, with a smile. "You said as 'ow I

must keep sober, and 'ow could I do hotherwise hunless I swallered some

spirits?"

Terwilliger laughed. He thought it was a pretty good joke for a

ghost--especially a cook's ghost--and then, having agreed on the hour of

midnight one fortnight thence for the next meeting, they shook hands and

parted.

"What was it, Hankinson?" asked Mrs. Terwilliger, as her husband crawled

back into bed. "Burglars?"

"Not a burglar," returned Hankinson. "Nothing but a ghost--a poor, old,

female ghost."

"Ghost!" cried Mrs. Terwilliger, trembling with fright. "In this house?"

"Yes, my dear. Haunted us by mistake, that's all. Belongs to another place

entirely; got a little befogged, and came here without intending to,

that's all. When she found out her mistake, she apologized, and left."

[Illustration]

"What did she have on?" asked Mrs. Terwilliger, with a sigh of relief.

But the president of the Three-dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton,

Massachusetts (Limited), said nothing. He had dropped off into a profound

slumber.