THE next morning when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed
the ghost at some length. The United States Minister was naturally a
little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. ‘I have
no wish,’ he said, ‘to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say
that, considering the length of time he has been in the house, I don’t
think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him’—a very just remark, at
which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. ‘Upon
the other hand,’ he continued, ‘if he really declines to use the Rising
Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him. It would be
quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the
bedrooms.’
For the rest of the week, however, they were undisturbed, the only thing
that excited any attention being the continual renewal of the blood-stain
on the library floor. This certainly was very strange, as the door was
always locked at night by Mr. Otis, and the windows kept closely barred.
The chameleon-like colour, also, of the stain excited a good deal of
comment. Some mornings it was a dull (almost Indian) red, then it would
be vermilion, then a rich purple, and once when they came down for family
prayers, according to the simple rites of the Free American Reformed
Episcopalian Church, they found it a bright emerald-green. These
kaleidoscopic changes naturally amused the party very much, and bets on
the subject were freely made every evening. The only person who did not
enter into the joke was little Virginia, who, for some unexplained
reason, was always a good deal distressed at the sight of the
blood-stain, and very nearly cried the morning it was emerald-green.
The second appearance of the ghost was on Sunday night. Shortly after
they had gone to bed they were suddenly alarmed by a fearful crash in the
hall. Rushing downstairs, they found that a large suit of old armour had
become detached from its stand, and had fallen on the stone floor, while,
seated in a high-backed chair, was the Canterville ghost, rubbing his
knees with an expression of acute agony on his face. The twins, having
brought their pea-shooters with them, at once discharged two pellets on
him, with that accuracy of aim which can only be attained by long and
careful practice on a writing-master, while the United States Minister
covered him with his revolver, and called upon him, in accordance with
Californian etiquette, to hold up his hands! The ghost started up with a
wild shriek of rage, and swept through them like a mist, extinguishing
Washington Otis’s candle as he passed, and so leaving them all in total
darkness. On reaching the top of the staircase he recovered himself, and
determined to give his celebrated peal of demoniac laughter. This he had
on more than one occasion found extremely useful. It was said to have
turned Lord Raker’s wig grey in a single night, and had certainly made
three of Lady Canterville’s French governesses give warning before their
month was up. He accordingly laughed his most horrible laugh, till the
old vaulted roof rang and rang again, but hardly had the fearful echo
died away when a door opened, and Mrs. Otis came out in a light blue
dressing-gown. ‘I am afraid you are far from well,’ she said, ‘and have
brought you a bottle of Dr. Dobell’s tincture. If it is indigestion, you
will find it a most excellent remedy.’ The ghost glared at her in fury,
and began at once to make preparations for turning himself into a large
black dog, an accomplishment for which he was justly renowned, and to
which the family doctor always attributed the permanent idiocy of Lord
Canterville’s uncle, the Hon. Thomas Horton. The sound of approaching
footsteps, however, made him hesitate in his fell purpose, so he
contented himself with becoming faintly phosphorescent, and vanished with
a deep churchyard groan, just as the twins had come up to him.
On reaching his room he entirely broke down, and became a prey to the
most violent agitation. The vulgarity of the twins, and the gross
materialism of Mrs. Otis, were naturally extremely annoying, but what
really distressed him most was, that he had been unable to wear the suit
of mail. He had hoped that even modern Americans would be thrilled by
the sight of a Spectre In Armour, if for no more sensible reason, at
least out of respect for their national poet Longfellow, over whose
graceful and attractive poetry he himself had whiled away many a weary
hour when the Cantervilles were up in town. Besides, it was his own
suit. He had worn it with great success at the Kenilworth tournament,
and had been highly complimented on it by no less a person than the
Virgin Queen herself. Yet when he had put it on, he had been completely
overpowered by the weight of the huge breastplate and steel casque, and
had fallen heavily on the stone pavement, barking both his knees
severely, and bruising the knuckles of his right hand.
For some days after this he was extremely ill, and hardly stirred out of
his room at all, except to keep the blood-stain in proper repair.
However, by taking great care of himself, he recovered, and resolved to
make a third attempt to frighten the United States Minister and his
family. He selected Friday, the 17th of August, for his appearance, and
spent most of that day in looking over his wardrobe, ultimately deciding
in favour of a large slouched hat with a red feather, a winding-sheet
frilled at the wrists and neck, and a rusty dagger. Towards evening a
violent storm of rain came on, and the wind was so high that all the
windows and doors in the old house shook and rattled. In fact, it was
just such weather as he loved. His plan of action was this. He was to
make his way quietly to Washington Otis’s room, gibber at him from the
foot of the bed, and stab himself three times in the throat to the sound
of slow music. He bore Washington a special grudge, being quite aware
that it was he who was in the habit of removing the famous Canterville
blood-stain, by means of Pinkerton’s Paragon Detergent. Having reduced
the reckless and foolhardy youth to a condition of abject terror, he was
then to proceed to the room occupied by the United States Minister and
his wife, and there to place a clammy hand on Mrs. Otis’s forehead, while
he hissed into her trembling husband’s ear the awful secrets of the
charnel-house. With regard to little Virginia, he had not quite made up
his mind. She had never insulted him in any way, and was pretty and
gentle. A few hollow groans from the wardrobe, he thought, would be more
than sufficient, or, if that failed to wake her, he might grabble at the
counterpane with palsy-twitching fingers. As for the twins, he was quite
determined to teach them a lesson. The first thing to be done was, of
course, to sit upon their chests, so as to produce the stifling sensation
of nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite close to each other, to
stand between them in the form of a green, icy-cold corpse, till they
became paralysed with fear, and finally, to throw off the winding-sheet,
and crawl round the room, with white bleached bones and one rolling
eye-ball, in the character of ‘Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide’s Skeleton,’ a
_rôle_ in which he had on more than one occasion produced a great effect,
and which he considered quite equal to his famous part of ‘Martin the
Maniac, or the Masked Mystery.’
At half-past ten he heard the family going to bed. For some time he was
disturbed by wild shrieks of laughter from the twins, who, with the
light-hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves
before they retired to rest, but at a quarter past eleven all was still,
and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth. The owl beat against the
window panes, the raven croaked from the old yew-tree, and the wind
wandered moaning round the house like a lost soul; but the Otis family
slept unconscious of their doom, and high above the rain and storm he
could hear the steady snoring of the Minister for the United States. He
stepped stealthily out of the wainscoting, with an evil smile on his
cruel, wrinkled mouth, and the moon hid her face in a cloud as he stole
past the great oriel window, where his own arms and those of his murdered
wife were blazoned in azure and gold. On and on he glided, like an evil
shadow, the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed. Once he
thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only the baying
of a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering strange
sixteenth-century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the rusty dagger
in the midnight air. Finally he reached the corner of the passage that
led to luckless Washington’s room. For a moment he paused there, the
wind blowing his long grey locks about his head, and twisting into
grotesque and fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man’s
shroud. Then the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was
come. He chuckled to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had
he done so, than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid
his blanched face in his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was
standing a horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous
as a madman’s dream! Its head was bald and burnished; its face round,
and fat, and white; and hideous laughter seemed to have writhed its
features into an eternal grin. From the eyes streamed rays of scarlet
light, the mouth was a wide well of fire, and a hideous garment, like to
his own, swathed with its silent snows the Titan form. On its breast was
a placard with strange writing in antique characters, some scroll of
shame it seemed, some record of wild sins, some awful calendar of crime,
and, with its right hand, it bore aloft a falchion of gleaming steel.
Never having seen a ghost before, he naturally was terribly frightened,
and, after a second hasty glance at the awful phantom, he fled back to
his room, tripping up in his long winding-sheet as he sped down the
corridor, and finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister’s
jack-boots, where it was found in the morning by the butler. Once in the
privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small
pallet-bed, and hid his face under the clothes. After a time, however,
the brave old Canterville spirit asserted itself, and he determined to go
and speak to the other ghost as soon as it was daylight. Accordingly,
just as the dawn was touching the hills with silver, he returned towards
the spot where he had first laid eyes on the grisly phantom, feeling
that, after all, two ghosts were better than one, and that, by the aid of
his new friend, he might safely grapple with the twins. On reaching the
spot, however, a terrible sight met his gaze. Something had evidently
happened to the spectre, for the light had entirely faded from its hollow
eyes, the gleaming falchion had fallen from its hand, and it was leaning
up against the wall in a strained and uncomfortable attitude. He rushed
forward and seized it in his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped
off and rolled on the floor, the body assumed a recumbent posture, and he
found himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a sweeping-brush,
a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet! Unable to
understand this curious transformation, he clutched the placard with
feverish haste, and there, in the grey morning light, he read these
fearful words:—
YE OLDE GHOSTE
Ye Onlie True and Originale Spook.
Beware of Ye Imitationes.
All others are Counterfeite.
The whole thing flashed across him. He had been tricked, foiled, and
outwitted! The old Canterville look came into his eyes; he ground his
toothless gums together; and, raising his withered hands high above his
head, swore, according to the picturesque phraseology of the antique
school, that when Chanticleer had sounded twice his merry horn, deeds of
blood would be wrought, and Murder walk abroad with silent feet.
Hardly had he finished this awful oath when, from the red-tiled roof of a
distant homestead, a cock crew. He laughed a long, low, bitter laugh,
and waited. Hour after hour he waited, but the cock, for some strange
reason, did not crow again. Finally, at half-past seven, the arrival of
the housemaids made him give up his fearful vigil, and he stalked back to
his room, thinking of his vain hope and baffled purpose. There he
consulted several books of ancient chivalry, of which he was exceedingly
fond, and found that, on every occasion on which his oath had been used,
Chanticleer had always crowed a second time. ‘Perdition seize the
naughty fowl,’ he muttered, ‘I have seen the day when, with my stout
spear, I would have run him through the gorge, and made him crow for me
an ’twere in death!’ He then retired to a comfortable lead coffin, and
stayed there till evening.