Robert Hunter's Ghost.
It was a gusty night; the wind violently high even for the seaside;
and Miss Thornycroft sat over the fire in her own sitting-room,
listening to it as it whirled round the house and went booming away
over the waste of waters.
Anna Chester was with her. Anna had shunned the Red Court of late; but
she could not always refuse Miss Thornycroft's invitations without
attracting notice; and she had heard that Isaac was to be away from
home that day.
They had spent the hours unhappily. Heavy at heart, pale in
countenance, subdued in spirit, it seemed to each that nothing in the
world could bring pleasure again. Anna was altered just as much as
Miss Thornycroft; worn, thin, haggard-eyed. Captain Copp's wife,
seeing the change in Anna, and knowing nothing of the real cause, set
it down to one that must inevitably bring discovery of the marriage in
its train, and was fretting herself into fiddle-strings. Dinner was
over; tea was taken; the evening went on. Quite unexpectedly Mr.
Thornycroft and his eldest son arrived; Anna saw also, to her dismay,
that Isaac was in; but none of them approached the sitting-room. Hyde,
coming in later to replenish the fire, said the justice was not very
well, and had retired to rest; Mr. Richard and Mr. Isaac had gone out.
And the two girls sat on together, almost hearing the beating of each
other's hearts.
"I wonder if the ghost is abroad this windy night!" exclaimed Anna, as
a wild gust dashed against the windows and shook the frames.
"Don't joke about that, Anna," said Miss Thornycroft, sharply.
Anna looked round in surprise: nothing had been further from her
thoughts than to joke; and indeed she did not know why she said it.
"Of course the report is a very foolish one," she resumed "I cannot
think how any people can profess to believe it."
"Isaac saw it last night," said Mary Anne, quietly.
"Nonsense!" cried Anna.
"Ah! so I have answered when others said they saw it. But Isaac is
cool and practical; entirely without superstition; the very last man I
know, save perhaps Richard, to be led away by fear or fancy. He was
passing the churchyard when he saw--if not Robert Hunter, some one
dressed up to personate him; but the features were Robert Hunter's
features, Isaac says; they were for a moment as distinct as ever he
had seen them in life."
"Did he tell you this?"
"Yes."
"Could he have been deceived by his imagination?"
"I think not. When a cool, collected man, like my brother Isaac,
dispassionately asserts such a thing, in addition to the terrified
assertions of others, I at least believe that there must be some
dreadful mystery abroad, supernatural or otherwise."
"A mystery?"
"Yes, a mystery. Putting aside all questions of the figure, how is it
that the _coat_ can appear in the churchyard, when it remains all the
while in safe custody at the Mermaid?"
Anna sat down, overwhelmed with the confusion of ideas that presented
themselves. The chief one that struggled upwards was--how should she
ever have courage to pass the churchyard that night?
"Mary Anne! why did he not speak to it?"
"Because some people came up at the time, and prevented it. When he
looked again the figure was gone."
Precisely so. All this, just as Mary Anne described it, had happened
to Isaac Thornycroft on the previous night. Robert Hunter, the hat
drawn low on his pale face, the unmistakeable coat buttoned round him,
had stood there in the churchyard, looking just as he had looked in
life. To say that Isaac was not staggered would be wrong--he was--but
he recovered himself almost instantly, and was about to call out to
the figure, when Mr. Kyne came past with young Connaught, and stopped
him. Isaac and his family had to guard against certain discoveries
yet; and in the presence of the superintendent of the coastguard,
whose suspicions were already too rife, he did not choose to proceed
to investigation.
Silence supervened. The young ladies sat on over the fire, each
occupied with her sad and secret thoughts. The time-piece struck
half-past eight.
"What can have become of Sarah?" exclaimed Anna. "Mrs. Copp was not
well, and my Aunt Amy said she should send for me early."
Scarcely had the words left her lips, when that respectable personage
entered head foremost. Giving the door a bang, she sank into an
arm-chair. Anna stood up in wonder; Miss Thornycroft looked round.
"You may well stare, young ladies, but I can't stand upon no forms nor
ceremonies just now. I don't know whether my senses is here or yonder,
and I made bold to come in at the hall door, as being the nearest, and
make straight for here. There's the ghost at this blessed moment in
the churchyard."
Anna, with a faint cry, drew near to Miss Thornycroft, and touched her
for company. The latter spoke.
"Your fancy must have deceived you, Sarah."
"If anything has deceived me, it's my eyes," returned Sarah, really
too much put out to stand on any sort of ceremony whether in speech or
action--"which is what they never did yet, Miss Thornycroft. When it
struck eight my mistress told me to go for Miss Chester. I thought I'd
finish my ironing first, which took me another quarter of an hour; and
then I put my blanket and things away to come. Just as I was opening
the house door I heard the master's voice singing out for me, and went
into the parlour. 'Is it coals, sir?' I asked. 'No, it's not coals,'
says he; and I saw by his mouth he was after some nonsense. 'It's to
tell you to take care of the ghost.' 'Oh, bran the ghost,' says I; 'I
should give it a knock if it come anigh me.' And so I should, young
ladies."
"Go on, go on," cried Mary Anne Thornycroft.
"I come right on to the churchyard, and what we had been saying made
me turn my eyes to it as I passed. Young ladies," she continued,
drawing the chair closer, and dropping her voice to a low, mysterious
key, "if you'll believe me, there stood Robert Hunter. He was close by
that big tombstone of old Marley's, not three yards from his own
grave!"
Mary Anne Thornycroft seemed unwilling to admit belief in this, in
spite of what she had herself been relating to Miss Chester. "Rely
upon it, Sarah, your fears deceived you."
"Miss, I hadn't got any fears; at any rate, not before I saw him.
There he was: his features as plain as ever they'd need be, and that
uncommon coat on, which I'm sure was never made for anybody but a Guy
Fawkes."
"Were you frightened then?"
"I was not frightened, so to say, but I won't deny that I felt a
creepishness in my skin; and I'd have given half-a-crown out of my
pocket to see any human creature come up to bear me company. I might
have spoke to it if it had give me time: I don't know: but the moment
it saw me it glided amid the gravestones, making for the back of the
church. I made off too as fast as my legs would carry me, and come
straight in here. I knew my tongue must let it out, and I thought it
better for you to hear it than them timorous servants in the kitchen."
"Quite right," murmured Miss Thornycroft.
"I never did believe in ghosts," resumed Sarah; "never thought to do
it, and I'm not going to begin now. But after to-night, I won't mock
at the poor wretches that have been frightened by Robert Hunter's."
What now was to be done? Anna Chester would not attempt to go home and
pass the churchyard with no protector but Sarah. Hyde was not to be
found; and there seemed nothing for it but to wait until Richard or
Isaac came in.
But neither came. Between nine and ten Captain Copp made his
appearance in hot anger, shaking his stick and stamping his wooden leg
at Sarah.
Had the vile hussey taken up her gossiping quarters at the Red Court
Farm for the night? Did she think--
"I could not get Miss Chester away," interposed Sarah, drowning the
words. "The ghost is in the churchyard. I saw it as I came past."
The sailor-captain was struck dumb. One of _his_ women-kind avow
belief in a ghost? He had seen a mermaid himself; which creatures were
known to exist; but ghosts were fabulous things, fit for nothing but
the fancies of marines. Any sailor in his fo'castle that had confessed
to seeing ghosts, would have got a taste of the yardarm. "Get your
things on this minute," concluded the captain, angrily, to Anna. "I'll
teach you to be afraid of rubbishing ghosts! And that vile bumboat
woman! coming here with such a tale!"
"It's my opinion ghosts _is_ rubbish, and nothing better; for I don't
see the good of 'em; but this was Robert Hunter's for all that," spoke
the undaunted "bumboat-woman." "I saw his face and his eyes as plain
as ever I see my own in the glass, and that precious white coat of his
with the ugly fur upon it. Master, you can't say that I gave as much
as half an ear to this talk before to-night."
"You credulous sea-serpent!" was the captain's retort. "And that same
coat lying yet in the tallet at the Mermaid with the blood upon it,
just as it was taken off the body! Ugh! fie upon you!"
"If there's apparitions of bodies, there may be apparitions of coats,"
reasoned Sarah, between whom and her choleric but good-hearted master
there was always a fight for the last word. "If it hadn't been for
knowing his face, I should say some ill-conditioned jester had
borrowed the coat from the Mermaid and put it on."
Away pegged the captain in his rage, scarcely allowing himself to say
good-night to Miss Thornycroft; and away went Sarah and Miss Chester
after him, as close as circumstances permitted.
As they neared the churchyard Anna ventured to lay hold of the
captain's arm, and bent her head upon it, in spite of his mocking
assurances that a parson's daughter ought to be on visiting terms with
a churchyard ghost; trusting to him to guide her steps. The captain
was deliberating, as he avowed afterwards, whether to guide her into
the opposite ditch, believing that a ducking would be the best panacea
for all ghostly fears; when Sarah, who was a step in the rear, leaped
forward and clung violently to his blue coat-tails.
"There!" she cried in a shrill whisper, before the astonished
gentleman could free his tails or give vent to proper indignation,
"there it is again, behind old Marley's tomb! Now then, master, is
that the coat, or is it not?"
The captain was surprised into turning his eyes to the churchyard;
Anna also, as if impelled by some irresistible fascination. It was too
true. Within a few yards of them, in the dim moonlight--for the cloudy
moon gave but a feeble light--appeared the well-known form of the
ill-fated Robert Hunter, the very man whose dead body Captain Copp had
helped to lay in the grave, so far as having assisted as a mourner at
his funeral.
The captain was taken considerably aback; had never been half so much
so before an unexpected iceberg; his wooden leg dropped submissively
down and his mouth flew open. He had the keen eye of a seaman, and he
saw beyond doubt that the spirit before him was indeed that of Robert
Hunter. Report ran in the village afterwards that the gallant captain
would have made off, but could not rid himself from the grasp of his
companions.
"Hallo! you sir!" he called out presently, remembering that in that
vile Sarah's presence his reputation for courage was at stake, but
there was considerable deference, not to say timidity, in his tone,
"what is it you want, appearing there like a figure-head?"
The ghost, however, did not wait to answer; it had already
disappeared, vanishing into air, or behind the tombstones. Captain
Copp lost not a moment, but tore away faster than he had ever done
since the acquisition of his wooden leg, Anna sobbing convulsively on
his arm, and Sarah hanging on to his coat-tails. A minute afterwards
they were joined by Isaac Thornycroft, coming at a sharp pace from the
direction of the village.
"Take these screeching sea-gulls home for me," cried the sailor to
Isaac. "I'll go down to the Mermaid, and with my own eyes see if the
coat is there. Some land-lubber's playing a trick, and has borrowed
Hunter's face and stole the coat to act it in."
"Spare yourself the trouble," rejoined Isaac. "I have come straight
now from the Mermaid, and the coat is there. We have been looking at
it but this instant. It is under the hay in the room over the stable,
doubled up and stiff, having dried in the folds."
"I should like to keelhaul that ghost," cried the discomfited captain.
"I'd rather have seen ten mermaids."
Isaac Thornycroft, with an imperative gesture, took Anna on his own
arm, leaving the captain to peg on alone, with Sarah still in close
proximity to the coattails. He did not say what he had been doing all
the evening, or why he should have come up at that particular
juncture.
Upon the return of Richard to the Red Court an hour or two earlier,
Isaac drew him at once out of the house to impart to him this curious
fact of Hunter's ghost--as Coastdown phrased it--making its appearance
nightly in the churchyard. Truth to say, the affair was altogether
puzzling Isaac, bringing him trouble also. He had seen it himself the
previous evening. Who was it? what did it want? whence did it come?
That it wore Hunter's face and form was indisputable. What then was
it? His ghost?--a kind of marvel which Isaac had never yet believed
in,--or a man got up to personate him? Of course what Isaac feared
was, that it might lead to discovery of various matters connected with
the past.
He imparted all this to Richard. Richard scorned the information at
first, ridiculed the affair, would not believe in the fear. Isaac
proposed that they should go together to the churchyard, conceal
themselves behind a convenient tombstone, watch for the appearance,
and pounce upon it. Richard mockingly refused; if he went at all to
the place he'd go by himself and deal with the "ghost" at leisure. At
present he had business with Tomlett.
They went together to Tomlett's cottage, and sat there talking. The
baker's boy came up on an errand; and as Mrs. Tomlett answered the
door they heard him tell her that "the ghost was then--then--in the
churchyard, his face and his coat awful white."
"The coat has been stolen from the Mermaid," spoke Richard in his
decisive tones.
"That fact was easy to be ascertained," Isaac answered. And, rising at
once from his seat, he went to the Mermaid there and then. Calling
Pettipher, they went up the ladder to the tallet, and Isaac convinced
himself that there the coat lay, untouched, and in fact unusable. From
thence he went his way to the churchyard, intending to see what he
could do with the ghost himself, and thus overtook Captain Copp and
his party.
Nothing of this did he say to Anna. Leaving the ghost for the time
being, he went on to Captain Copp's. She held his arm, not daring to
let it go; her mind in a state of extreme distress. Trembling from
head to foot went she; a sob breaking from her now and again.
"What can it be looking for?" burst from her in her grief and
perplexity. "For you?"
For the thought, the fear that had been beating its terrible refrain
in her brain was, that Robert Hunter's spirit, unable to rest, had
come to denounce his destroyer. Such tales had over and over again
been told in the world's history: why should not this be but another
to add to them?
"Anna!" answered Isaac in a tone of surprise and remonstrance, "you
cannot seriously believe that it is Hunter's spirit. Why talk
nonsense?"
Which reply she looked upon as an evasive one. "Can you solve the
mystery then?" she asked. "That thing in the churchyard wears as
surely Hunter's face and form as you wear yours or I mine. It is not
himself: he is dead and buried; what then is it?"
"Not his ghost," spoke Isaac. Whether he, the cool-headed, practical,
worldly man, who believed hitherto in ghosts just as much as he did in
fairies, felt perfectly sure himself upon the point now, at least he
deemed it right to insist upon it to his wife.
No more was said. But for Captain Copp's turning back to converse with
Isaac (having in a degree recovered his equanimity) he might have
striven to get an explanation with his wife there and then.
"Come in, come in, and take a sup of brandy," cried the hospitable
captain when they arrived at his house. "That beast of a ghost!"
"Oh, Sarah, what can have kept you!" exclaimed the captain's wife, in
as complaining a tone as so gentle a woman could use. "I have had
everything to do myself; the gruel to make for Mrs. Copp, the hot
water to take upstairs; the--"
"It is not my fault, ma'am," interrupted the subdued Sarah, as she
rubbed her shoes on the mat. "Miss Chester was afraid to come home
with me alone. There's Robert Hunter in the churchyard."
Amy Copp glanced at her husband, expecting an explosion of wrath at
the words. To her surprise, the captain heard them in patient silence,
his face as meek as any lamb's.
"Bring some hot water, Sarah, and get out the brandy," said he.
Mixing a stiff glass for himself, Isaac declining to take any, he
passed another in silence to Sarah. Anna had escaped upstairs: her
usual custom when Isaac was there.
"Much obliged, sir, but I don't care for brandy," was Sarah's answer.
"My courage is coming back to me, master."
Amy looked from one to the other, not knowing what to make of either.
"Have you really seen anything?" she asked.
"Seen Hunter, coat and all," gravely replied the captain. "Shiver my
wooden leg, if we've not! I say, mother," he called out, stumping to
the foot of the stairs. "Mother!"
"What is it, Sam?" called back Mrs. Copp, who was beginning to
undress, and had not yet taken her remedies for the cold.
"Mother, you know that mermaid in the Atlantic--the last voyage you
went with us? You wouldn't believe that I saw it; you've only laughed
at me ever since: well, I've seen the ghost to-night; so don't you
disbelieve me any more."
Captain Copp returned to the parlour, and in a minute his mother
walked in after him. She wore black stockings, fur slippers, a
petticoat that came down to the calves of her legs; a woollen shawl,
and an enormous night-cap. Isaac Thornycroft smothered an inclination
to laugh, but Mrs. Copp stood with calm equanimity, regardless of the
defects of her costume.
"What's that about the ghost, Sam?"
"I saw it to-night, mother. It stood near its own grave in the
churchyard. And I hope you won't go on at me about that mermaid, after
this. It had got long bright green hair, as I've always said, and was
combing it out."
"The ghost had?"
"No, the mermaid. The ghost was Hunter's. It looked just as he'd used
to look."
Mrs. Copp stood rubbing her nose, and thinking the captain's
conversion a very sudden one.
"Is this a joke, Sam?"
"A joke! Why, mother, I tell ye I saw it. Ask Sarah. I called out to
know what it wanted, and why it came; but it wouldn't answer me."
"Well, it's strange," observed Mrs. Copp. "Sam's a simpleton about
mermaids, but I'd have backed him as to ghosts. But now: you may have
observed perhaps, all of you, that I've not said a syllable to
ridicule this ghost of poor dead Mr. Hunter, and I'll tell you why.
Last June, in Liverpool, a friend of mine was sitting up with her
father, who was ill, when her sister's spirit appeared to her. It was
between twelve and one at night--twenty minutes to one, in fact, for
there was a clock in the room, and she had looked at it only a minute
before; the candle--"
"Oh, mother, don't; pray don't!" implored poor Amy Copp, going into a
cold perspiration, for she held a firm belief in things supernatural.
"This one ghost is enough for us without any more. I shall never like
to go up to bed alone again."
"The candle gave as good as no light, for the snuff was a yard long
a'most, with a cauliflower on the top," continued Mrs. Copp, who
persisted in telling her tale, supremely indifferent to her
daughter-in-law's fears and her own robes. "Emma Jenkins, that was her
name, heard a rustle in the room; it seemed to come in at the door,
which was put open for air, flutter across, and stir the bed-curtains.
(Don't you be foolish, Amy!) Naturally, Emma Jenkins looked up, and
there she saw her sister, who had died a year before. The figure
seemed to give just a sigh and vanish. Now," said Mrs. Copp, applying
the moral, "if that was a ghost, this may be."
"You always said, you know, mother, that you didn't believe in
ghosts."
"Neither did I, Sam But Emma Jenkins is not one to be taken in by
fancy; as stands to reason, considering that she has gone thirteen
voyages with her husband, short and long. Sea-going people are not
liable to see ghosts where there's no ghosts to see; they have
got their wits about them, and keep their eyes open. What are you
smiling at, Mr. Thornycroft? Mrs. Jenkins had taken a glass of
brandy-and-water, perhaps? Well, I don't know; sitting up with the
sick is cold work, especially when they are too far gone to have
anything done for 'em. But she always liked rum best."
The story over, Captain Copp plunged into a full account of the
night's adventures, enlarging on the questions he asked with the view
of bringing the ghost to book, and what he would have done had it only
stayed. Sarah gave her version of the sight, both in going and coming.
Mrs. Copp, forgetting her cold, plunged into another story of a man
who died at sea the first time she sailed with her husband, and the
belief of the sailors that he haunted the ship all the while it lay in
Calcutta harbour; all to the shivering horror of poor Amy Copp; and
Isaac Thornycroft, waking up from his reverie by fits and starts, sat
on until midnight, like a man in a miserable dream.