voices in low consultation, as if a band of men had collected outside
the railings. Could there be any indication without of the horrors these
walls contained?
But no; the gaunt house-front kept its secret too well; they were merely
the waits. They saluted me with the old carol, 'God rest you, merry
gentleman, let nothing you dismay!' which should have encouraged me, but
it didn't, and they followed that up by a wheezy but pathetic rendering
of 'The Mistletoe Bough.'
For a time I did not object to them; while they were scraping and
blowing outside I felt less abandoned and cut off from human help, and
then they might arouse softer sentiments in the Curse upstairs by their
seasonable strains: these things do happen at Christmas sometimes. But
their performance was really so infernally bad that it was calculated
rather to irritate than subdue any evil spirit, and very soon I rushed
to the window and beckoned to them furiously to go away.
Unhappily, they thought I was inviting them indoors for refreshment, and
came round to the gate, when they knocked and rang incessantly for a
quarter of an hour.
This must have stirred the Curse up quite enough, but when they had
gone, there came a man with a barrel organ, which was suffering from
some complicated internal disorder, causing it to play its whole
repertory at once, in maddening discords. Even the grinder himself
seemed dimly aware that his instrument was not doing itself justice, for
he would stop occasionally, as if to ponder or examine it. But he was
evidently a sanguine person and had hopes of bringing it round by a
little perseverance; so, as Parson's Green was well-suited by its quiet
for this mode of treatment, he remained there till he must have reduced
the Curse to a rampant and rabid condition.
He went at last, and then the silence that followed began to my excited
fancy (for I certainly _saw_ nothing) to be invaded by strange sounds
that echoed about the old house. I heard sharp reports from the
furniture, sighing moans in the draughty passages, doors opening and
shutting, and--worse still--stealthy padding footsteps, both above and
in the ghostly hall outside!
I sat there in an ice-cold perspiration, until my nerves required more
bracing, to effect which I had recourse to the spirit-case.
And after a short time my fears began to melt away rapidly. What a
ridiculous bugbear I was making of this thing after all! Was I not too
hasty in setting it down as ugly and hostile before I had seen it ...
how did I know it was anything which deserved my horror?
Here a gush of sentiment came over me at the thought that it might be
that for long centuries the poor Curse had been cruelly
misunderstood--that it might be a _blessing_ in disguise.
I was so affected by the thought that I resolved to go up at once and
wish it a merry Christmas through the keyhole, just to show that I came
in no unfriendly spirit.
But would not that seem as if I was afraid of it? I scorned the idea of
being afraid. Why, for two straws, I would go straight in and pull its
nose for it--if it _had_ a nose!
I went out with this object, not very steadily, but before I had
reached the top of the dim and misty staircase, I had given up all ideas
of defiance, and merely intended to go as far as the corridor by way of
a preliminary canter.
The coffin-lid door stood open, and I looked apprehensively down the
corridor; the grim metal fittings on the massive door of the Grey
Chamber were gleaming with a mysterious pale light, something between
the phenomena obtained by electricity and the peculiar phosphorescence
observable in a decayed shell-fish; under the door I saw the reflection
of a sullen red glow, and within I could hear sounds like the roar of a
mighty wind, above which peals of fiendish mirth rang out at intervals,
and were followed by a hideous dull clanking.
It seemed only too evident that the Curse was getting up the steam for
our interview. I did not stay there long, because I was afraid that it
might dart out suddenly and catch me eavesdropping, which would be a
hopelessly bad beginning. I got back to the dining-room, somehow; the
fire had taken advantage of my short absence to go out, and I was
surprised to find by the light of the fast-dimming lamp that it was a
quarter to twelve already.
Only fifteen more fleeting minutes and then--unless I gave up Chlorine
and her fortune for ever--I must go up and knock at that awful door, and
enter the presence of the frightful mystic Thing that was roaring and
laughing and clanking on the other side!
Stupidly I sat and stared at the clock; in five minutes, now, I should
be beginning my desperate duel with one of the powers of darkness--a
thought which gave me sickening qualms.
I was clinging to the thought that I had still two precious minutes
left--perhaps my last moments of safety and sanity--when the lamp
expired with a gurgling sob, and left me in the dark.
I was afraid of sitting there all alone any longer, and besides, if I
lingered, the Curse might come down and fetch me. The horror of this
idea made me resolve to go up at once, especially as scrupulous
punctuality might propitiate it.
Groping my way to the door, I reached the hall and stood there, swaying
under the old stained-glass lantern. And then I made a terrible
discovery. I was not in a condition to transact any business; I had
disregarded Sir Paul's well-meant warning at dinner; I was not my own
master. I was lost!
The clock in the adjoining room tolled twelve, and from without the
distant steeples proclaimed in faint peals and chimes that it was
Christmas morn. My hour had come!
Why did I not mount those stairs? I tried again and again, and fell down
every time, and at each attempt I knew the Curse would be getting more
and more impatient.
I was quite five minutes late, and yet, with all my eagerness to be
punctual, I could _not_ get up that staircase. It was a horrible
situation, but it was not at its worst even then, for I heard a jarring
sound above, as if heavy rusty bolts were being withdrawn.
The Curse was coming down to see what had become of me! I should have to
confess my inability to go upstairs without assistance, and so place
myself wholly at its mercy!
I made one more desperate effort, and then--and then, upon my word, I
don't know how it was exactly--but, as I looked wildly about, I caught
sight of my hat on the hat-rack below, and the thoughts it roused in me
proved too strong for resistance. Perhaps it was weak of me, but I
venture to think that very few men in my position would have behaved any
better.
I renounced my ingenious and elaborate scheme for ever, the door
(fortunately for me) was neither locked nor bolted, and the next moment
I was running for my life along the road to Chelsea, urged on by the
fancy that the Curse itself was in hot pursuit.
* * * * *
For weeks after that I lay in hiding, starting at every sound, so
fearful was I that the outraged Curse might track me down at last; all
my worldly possessions were at Parson's Green, and I could not bring
myself to write or call for them, nor indeed have I seen any of the
Catafalques since that awful Christmas Eve.
I wish to have nothing more to do with them, for I feel naturally that
they took a cruel advantage of my youth and inexperience, and I shall
always resent the deception and constraint to which I so nearly fell a
victim.
But it occurs to me that those who may have followed my strange story
with any curiosity and interest may be slightly disappointed at its
conclusion, which I cannot deny is a lame and unsatisfactory one.
They expected, no doubt, to be told what the Curse's personal appearance
is, and how it comports itself in that ghastly Grey Chamber, what it
said to me, and what I said to it, and what happened after that.
This information, as will be easily understood, I cannot pretend to
give, and, for myself, I have long ceased to feel the slightest
curiosity on any of these points. But for the benefit of such as are
less indifferent, I may suggest that almost any eligible bachelor would
easily obtain the opportunities I failed to enjoy by simply calling at
the old mansion at Parson's Green, and presenting himself to the baronet
as a suitor for his daughter's hand.
I shall be most happy to allow my name to be used as a reference.
_A FAREWELL APPEARANCE._
A DOG STORY FOR CHILDREN.
[Illustration: D]
'Andy, come here, sir; I want you.' The little girl who spoke was
standing by the table in the morning-room of a London house one summer
day, and she spoke to a small silver-grey terrier lying curled up at the
foot of one of the window curtains.
As Dandy happened to be particularly comfortable just then, he pretended
not to hear, in the hope that his child-mistress would not press the
point.
But she did not choose to be trifled with in this way: he was called
more imperiously still, until he could dissemble no longer and came out
gradually, stretching himself and yawning with a deep sense of injury.
'I know you haven't been asleep; I saw you watching the flies,' she
said. 'Come up here, on the table.'
Seeing there was no help for it, he obeyed, and sat down on the
table-cloth opposite to her, with his tongue hanging out and his eyes
blinking, waiting her pleasure.
Dandy was rather particular as to the hands he allowed to touch him, but
generally speaking, he found it pleasant enough (when he had nothing
better to do) to resign himself to be pulled about, lectured, or
caressed by Hilda.
She was a strikingly pretty child, with long curling brown locks, and a
petulant profile, which reminded one of Mr. Doyle's charming wilful
little fairy princesses.
On the whole, although Dandy privately considered she had taken rather a
liberty in disturbing him, he was willing to overlook it.
'I've been thinking, Dandy,' said Hilda, reflectively, 'that as you and
Lady Angelina will be thrown a good deal together when we go into the
country next week, you ought to know one another, and you've never been
properly introduced yet; so I'm going to introduce you now.'
Now Lady Angelina was only Hilda's doll, and a doll, too, with perhaps
as few ideas as any doll ever had yet--which is a good deal to say.
Dandy despised her with all the enlightenment of a thoroughly superior
dog; he considered there was simply nothing in her, except possibly
bran, and it had made him jealous and angry for a long time to notice
the influence that this staring, simpering creature had managed to gain
over her mistress.
'Now sit up,' said Hilda. Dandy sat up. He felt that committed him to
nothing, but he was careful not to look at Lady Angelina, who was
lolling ungracefully in the work-basket with her toes turned in.
'Lady Angelina,' said Hilda next, with great ceremony, 'let me introduce
my particular friend Mr. Dandy. Dandy, you ought to bow and say
something nice and clever, only you can't; so you must give Angelina
your paw instead.'
Here was an insult for a self-respecting dog! Dandy determined never to
disgrace himself by presenting his paw to a doll; it was quite against
his principles. He dropped on all fours rebelliously.
'That's very rude of you,' said Hilda, 'but you shall do it. Angelina
will think it so odd of you. Sit up again and give your paw, and let
Angelina stroke your head.'
The dog's little black nose wrinkled and his lips twitched, showing his
sharp white teeth: he was not going to be touched by Angelina's flabby
wax hand if he could help it!
Unfortunately, Hilda, like older people sometimes, was bent upon forcing
persons to know one another, in spite of an obvious unwillingness on at
least one side, and so she brought the doll up to the terrier, and,
taking one limp pink arm, attempted to pat the dog's head with it.
This was too much: his eyes flamed red like two signal lamps, there was
a sharp sudden snap, and the next minute Lady Angelina's right arm was
crunched viciously between Dandy's keen teeth.
After that there was a terrible pause. Dandy knew he was in for it, but
he was not sorry. He dropped the mangled pieces of wax one by one, and
stood there with his head on one side, growling to himself, but wincing
for all that, for he was afraid to meet Hilda's indignant grey eyes.
'You abominable, barbarous dog!' she said at last, using the longest
words she could to impress him. 'See what you've done! you've bitten
poor Lady Angelina's arm off.'
He could not deny it; he had. He looked down at the fragments before
him, and then sullenly up again at Hilda. His eyes said what he
felt--'I'm glad of it--serves her right; I'd do it again.'
'You deserve to be well whipped,' continued Hilda, severely; 'but you do
howl so. I shall leave you to your own conscience' (a favourite remark
of her governess) 'until your bad heart is touched, and you come here
and say you're sorry and beg both our pardons. I only wish you could be
made to pay for a new arm. Go away out of my sight, you bad dog; I can't
bear to look at you!'
Dandy, still impenitent, moved leisurely down from the table and out of
the open door into the kitchen. He was thinking that Angelina's arm was
very nasty, and he should like something to take the taste away. When he
got downstairs, however, he found the butcher was calling and had left
the area gate open, which struck him as a good opportunity for a ramble.
By the time he came back Hilda would have forgotten all about it, or she
might think he was lost, and find out which was the more valuable
animal--a silly, useless doll, or an intelligent dog like himself.
Hilda saw him from the window as he bolted out with tail erect. 'He's
doing it to show off,' she said to herself; 'he's a horrid dog
sometimes. But I suppose I shall have to forgive him when he comes
back!'
However, Dandy did not come back that night, nor all next day, nor the
day after that, nor any more; for the fact was, an experienced
dog-stealer had long had his eye upon him, and Dandy happened to come
across him that very morning.
He was not such a stupid dog as to be unaware he was doing wrong in
following a stranger, but then the man had such delightful suggestions
about him of things dogs love to eat, and Dandy had started for his run
in a disobedient temper.
So he followed the broken-nosed, bandy-legged man till they reached a
narrow lonely alley, and then just as Dandy was thinking about going
home again, the stranger turned suddenly on him, hemmed him up in a
corner, caught him dexterously up in one hand, tapped him sharply on
the head, and slipped him, stunned, into a capacious inside pocket.
* * * * *
'I thought werry likely I should come on you in 'ere, Bob,' said a
broken-nosed man in a fur cap, about a week after Dandy's disappearance,
to a short, red-faced, hoarse man who was drinking at the bar of a
public-house.
'Ah,' said the hoarse man; 'well, you ain't fur out as it happens.'
'Yes, I did,' said the other. 'I met your partner the other day, and he
tells me you're looking out for a noo Toby dawg. I've got a article
somewheres about me at this moment I should like you to cast a eye
over.'
And, diving into his inside pocket he fished out a small shining
silver-grey terrier which he slammed down rather roughly on the pewter
counter.
Of course the terrier was Hilda's lost Dandy. For some reason or other,
the dog-stealer had not thought it prudent to claim the reward offered
for him as he had intended to do at first, and Dandy, not being of a
breed in fashionable demand, the man was trying to get rid of him now
for the best price he could obtain from humble purchasers.
'Well, we _do_ want a understudy, and that's a fact,' said the hoarse
man, who was one of the managers of Mr. Punch's Theatre. 'The Toby as
travels with us now is breakin' up, getting so blind he don't know
Punch from Jack Ketch. But that there animal 'ud never make a 'it as a
Toby,' he said, examining Dandy critically: 'why, that's bin a
gen'leman's dawg once, that has--we don't want no amatoors on our show.'
'It's the amatoors as draws nowadays,' said the dog-fancier: 'not but
what this 'ere partic'lar dawg has his gifts for the purfession. You see
him sit up and smoke a pipe and give yer his paw, now.'
And he put Dandy through these performances on the sloppy counter. It
was much worse than being introduced to Angelina; but hunger and
fretting and rough treatment had broken down the dog's spirit, and it
was with dull submission now that he repeated the poor little tricks
Hilda had taught him with such pretty perseverance.
'It's no use talking,' said the showman, though he began to show some
signs of yielding. 'It takes a tyke born and bred to make a reg'lar
Toby. And this ain't a young dog, and he ain't 'ad no proper dramatic
eddication; he's not worth to us not the lowest you'd take for him.'
'Well now, I'll tell you 'ow fur I'm willing to meet yer,' said the
other persuasively; 'you shall have him, seein' it's _you_, for----' And
so they haggled on for a little longer, but at the end of the interview
Dandy had changed hands, and was permanently engaged as a member of Mr.
Punch's travelling company.
A few days after that Dandy made acquaintance with his strange
fellow-performers. The men had put the show up on a deserted part of a
common near London, behind the railings of a little cemetery where no
one was likely to interfere with them, and the new Toby was hoisted up
on the very narrow and uncomfortable shelf to go through his first
interview with Mr. Punch.
When that popular gentleman appeared at his side Dandy examined him with
pricked and curious ears. He was rather odd-looking, but his smile,
though there was certainly a good deal of it, seemed genial and
encouraging, and the poor dog wagged his tail in a conciliatory
manner--he wanted some one to be kind to him again.
'The dawg's a fool, Bob,' growled Jem, the other proprietor of the show,
a little shabby dirty-faced man with a thin and ragged red beard, who
was watching the experiment from the outside; 'he's a-waggin' his
bloomin' tail--he'll be a-lickin of Punch's face next! Try him with a
squeak.'
And Bob produced a sound which was a hideous compound of chuckle,
squeak, and crow, when Dandy, in the full persuasion that the strange
figure must be a new variety of cat, flew at it blindly.
But though he managed to get a firm grip of its great hook nose, there
was not much satisfaction to be got out of that--the hard wood made his
teeth ache, and besides, in his excitement he overbalanced himself and
came suddenly down upon Mr. Robert Blott inside, who swore horribly and
put him up again.
Then, after a little highly mysterious dancing up and down, and wagging
his head, Mr. Punch, in the most uncalled-for manner, hit Dandy over the
head with a stick, in order, as Jem put it, 'to get up a ill-feeling
between them'--a wanton insult that made the dog madder than ever.
He did not revenge himself at once: he only barked furiously and
retreated to his corner of the stage; but the next time Punch came
sidling cautiously up to him, Dandy made, not for his wooden head, but
for a place between his shoulders which he thought looked more yielding.
There was a savage howl from below, Punch dropped in a heap on the
narrow shelf, and Mr. Blott sucked his finger and thumb with many
curses.
Mr. Punch was not killed, however, though Dandy had at first imagined he
had settled him. He revived almost directly, when he proceeded to rain
down such a shower of savage blows from his thick stick upon every part
of the dog's defenceless body, that Dandy was completely subdued long
before his master thought fit to leave off.
By the time the lesson came to an end, Dandy was sore and shaken and
dazed, for Bob had allowed himself to be a little carried away by
personal feeling. Still it only showed Dandy more plainly that Mr.
Punch was not a person to be trifled with, and, though he liked him as
little as ever, he respected as well as feared him.
Unfortunately for Dandy, he was a highly intelligent terrier, of an
inquiring turn of mind, and so, after he had been led about for some
days with the show, and was able to think things over and put them
together, he began to suspect that Punch and the other figures were not
alive after all, but only a particularly ugly set of dolls, which Mr.
Blott put in motion in some way best known to himself.
From the time he was perfectly certain of this he felt a degraded dog
indeed. He had scorned once to allow himself to be even touched by
Angelina (who at least was not unpleasant to look at, and always quite
inoffensive): now, every hour of his life he found himself ordered about
and insulted before a crowd of shabby strangers by a vulgar tawdry doll,
to which he was obliged to be civil and even affectionate--as if it was
something real!
Dandy was an honest dog, and so, of course, it was very revolting to his
feelings to have to impose upon the public in this manner; but Mr.
Punch, if he was only a doll, had a way of making himself obeyed.
And though in time the new Toby learnt to perform his duties respectably
enough, he did so without the least enthusiasm: it wounded his
pride--besides making him very uncomfortable--when Punch caught hold of
his head, and something with red whiskers and a blue frock took him by
the hind legs, and danced jerkily round the stage with him. He hated
that more than anything. Day by day he grew more miserable and homesick.
He loathed the Punch and Judy show and every doll in it, from the hero
down to the ghost and the baby. Jem and Bob were not actually unkind to
him, and would even have been friendly had he allowed it; but he was a
dainty dog, with a natural dislike to ill-dressed and dirty persons, and
shrank from their rough if well-meant advances. He never could forget
what he had once been, and what he was, and often, in the close
sleeping-room of some common lodging-house, he dreamed of the
comfortable home he had lost, and Hilda's pretty imperious face, and
woke to miss her more than ever.
At first his new masters had been careful to keep him from all chance of
escape, and Bob led him after the show by a string; but, as he seemed to
be getting resigned to his position, allowed him to run loose.
He was trotting tamely at Jem's heels one hot August morning, followed
by a small train of admiring children, when all at once he became aware
that he was in a street he knew well--he was near his old home--a few
minutes' hard run and he would be safe with Hilda!
He looked up sideways at Jem, who was beating his drum and blowing his
pipes, with his eyes on the lower and upper windows. Bob's head was
inside the show, and both were in front and not thinking of him just
then.
Dandy stopped, turned round upon the unwashed children behind, looked
wistfully up at them, as much as to say, 'Don't tell,' and then bolted
at the top of his speed.
There was a shrill cry from the children at once of 'Oh, Mr. Punch, sir,
please--your dawg's a-runnin' away from yer!' and angry calls to return
from the two men. Jem even made an attempt to pursue him, but the drum
was too much in his way, and a small dog is not easily caught at the
best of times when he takes it into his head to run away. So he gave it
up sulkily.
Meanwhile Dandy ran on, till the shouts behind died away. Once an errand
boy, struck by the parti-coloured frill round the dog's neck, tried to
stop him, but he managed to slip past him and run out into the middle of
the road, and kept on blindly, narrowly escaping being run over several
times by tradesmen's carts.
And at last, panting and exhausted, he reached the well-remembered gate,
out of which he had marched so defiantly, it seemed long ages ago.
The railings were covered with wire netting inside, as he knew, but
fortunately some one had left the gate open, and he pattered eagerly
down the area steps feeling safe and at home at last.
The kitchen door was shut, but the window was not, and, as the sill was
low, he contrived to scramble up somehow and jump into the kitchen,
where he reckoned upon finding friends to protect him.
But he found it empty, and looking strangely cold and desolate; only a
small fire was smouldering in the range, instead of the cheerful blaze
he remembered there, and he could not find the cook--an especial
patroness of his--anywhere.
He scampered up into the hall, making straight for the morning-room,
where he knew he should find Hilda curled up in one of the arm-chairs
with a book.