My aunt was a lady of large frame, strong mind, and great
resolution; she was what might be termed a very manly woman. My
uncle was a thin, puny little man, very meek and acquiescent, and
no match for my aunt. It was observed that he dwindled and
dwindled gradually away, from the day of his marriage. His wife’s
powerful mind was too much for him; it wore him out. My aunt,
however, took all possible care of him, had half the doctors in
town to prescribe for him, made him take all their prescriptions,
_willy nilly_, and dosed him with physic enough to cure a whole
hospital. All was in vain. My uncle grew worse and worse the more
dosing and nursing he underwent, until in the end he added
another to the long list of matrimonial victims, who have been
killed with kindness.
“And was it his ghost that appeared to her?” asked the
inquisitive gentleman, who had questioned the former storyteller.
“You shall hear,” replied the narrator:—My aunt took on mightily
for the death of her poor dear husband! Perhaps she felt some
compunction at having given him so much physic, and nursed him
into his grave. At any rate, she did all that a widow could do to
honor his memory. She spared no expense in either the quantity or
quality of her mourning weeds; she wore a miniature of him about
her neck, as large as a little sun dial; and she had a
full-length portrait of him always hanging in her bed chamber.
All the world extolled her conduct to the skies; and it was
determined, that a woman who behaved so well to the memory of one
husband, deserved soon to get another.
It was not long after this that she went to take up her residence
in an old country seat in Derbyshire, which had long been in the
care of merely a steward and housekeeper. She took most of her
servants with her, intending to make it her principal abode. The
house stood in a lonely, wild part of the country among the gray
Derbyshire hills; with a murderer hanging in chains on a bleak
height in full view.
The servants from town were half frightened out of their wits, at
the idea of living in such a dismal, pagan-looking place;
especially when they got together in the servants’ hall in the
evening, and compared notes on all the hobgoblin stories they had
picked up in the course of the day. They were afraid to venture
alone about the forlorn black-looking chambers. My ladies’ maid,
who was troubled with nerves, declared she could never sleep
alone in such a “gashly, rummaging old building;” and the
footman, who was a kind-hearted young fellow, did all in his
power to cheer her up.
My aunt, herself, seemed to be struck with the lonely appearance
of the house. Before she went to bed, therefore, she examined
well the fastenings of the doors and windows, locked up the plate
with her own hands, and carried the keys, together with a little
box of money and jewels, to her own room; for she was a notable
woman, and always saw to all things herself. Having put the keys
under her pillow, and dismissed her maid, she sat by her toilet
arranging her hair; for, being, in spite of her grief for my
uncle, rather a buxom widow, she was a little particular about
her person. She sat for a little while looking at her face in the
glass, first on one side, then on the other, as ladies are apt to
do, when they would ascertain if they have been in good looks;
for a roystering country squire of the neighborhood, with whom
she had flirted when a girl, had called that day to welcome her
to the country.
All of a sudden she thought she heard something move behind her.
She Looked hastily round, but there was nothing to be seen.
Nothing but the grimly painted portrait of her poor dear man,
which had been hung against the wall. She gave a heavy sigh to
his memory, as she was accustomed to do, whenever she spoke of
him in company; and went on adjusting her nightdress. Her sigh
was re-echoed; or answered by a long-drawn breath. She looked
round again, but no one was to be seen. She ascribed these sounds
to the wind, oozing through the rat holes of the old mansion; and
proceeded leisurely to put her hair in papers, when, all at once,
she thought she perceived one of the eyes of the portrait move.
“The back of her head being towards it!” said the story-teller
with the ruined head, giving a knowing wink on the sound side of
his visage—“good!”
“Yes, sir!” replied drily the narrator, “her back being towards
the portrait, but her eye fixed on its reflection in the glass.”
Well, as I was saying, she perceived one of the eyes of the
portrait move. So strange a circumstance, as you may well
suppose, gave her a sudden shock. To assure herself cautiously of
the fact, she put one hand to her forehead, as if rubbing it;
peeped through her fingers, and moved the candle with the other
hand. The light of the taper gleamed on the eye, and was
reflected from it. She was sure it moved. Nay, more, it seemed to
give her a wink, as she had sometimes known her husband to do
when living! It struck a momentary chill to her heart; for she
was a lone woman, and felt herself fearfully situated.
The chill was but transient. My aunt, who was almost as resolute
a personage as your uncle, sir, (turning to the old
story-teller,) became instantly calm and collected. She went on
adjusting her dress. She even hummed a favorite air, and did not
make a single false note. She casually overturned a dressing box;
took a candle and picked up the articles leisurely, one by one,
from the floor, pursued a rolling pin-cushion that was making the
best of its way under the bed; then opened the door; looked for
an instant into the corridor, as if in doubt whether to go; and
then walked quietly out.
She hastened down-stairs, ordered the servants to arm themselves
with the first weapons that came to hand, placed herself at their
head, and returned almost immediately.
Her hastily levied army presented a formidable force. The steward
had a rusty blunderbuss; the coachman a loaded whip; the footman
a pair of horse pistols; the cook a huge chopping knife, and the
butler a bottle in each hand. My aunt led the van with a red-hot
poker; and, in my opinion, she was the most formidable of the
party. The waiting maid brought up the rear, dreading to stay
alone in the servants’ hall, smelling to a broken bottle of
volatile salts, and expressing her terror of the ghosteses.
“Ghosts!” said my aunt resolutely, “I’ll singe their whiskers for
them!”
They entered the chamber. All was still and undisturbed as when
she left it. They approached the portrait of my uncle.
“Pull me down that picture!” cried my aunt.
A heavy groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, was
heard from the portrait. The servants shrunk back. The maid
uttered a faint shriek, and clung to the footman.
“Instantly!” added my aunt, with a stamp of the foot.
The picture was pulled down, and from a recess behind it, in
which had formerly stood a clock, they hauled forth a
round-shouldered, black-bearded varlet, with a knife as long as
my arm, but trembling all over like an aspen leaf.
“Well, and who was he? No ghost, I suppose!” said the inquisitive
gentleman.
“A knight of the post,” replied the narrator, “who had been
smitten with the worth of the wealthy widow; or rather a
marauding Tarquin, who had stolen into her chamber to violate her
purse and rifle her strong box when all the house should be
asleep. In plain terms,” continued he, “the vagabond was a loose
idle fellow of the neighborhood, who had once been a servant in
the house, and had been employed to assist in arranging it for
the reception of its mistress. He confessed that he had contrived
his hiding-place for his nefarious purposes, and had borrowed an
eye from the portrait by way of a reconnoitering hole.”
“And what did they do with him—did they hang him?” resumed the
questioner.
“Hang him?—how could they?” exclaimed a beetle-browed barrister,
with a hawk’s nose—“the offence was not capital—no robbery nor
assault had been committed—no forcible entry or breaking into the
premises—”
“My aunt,” said the narrator, “was a woman of spirit, and apt to
take the law into her own hands. She had her own notions of
cleanliness also. She ordered the fellow to be drawn through the
horsepond to cleanse away all offences, and then to be well
rubbed down with an oaken towel.”
“And what became of him afterwards?” said the inquisitive
gentleman.
“I do not exactly know—I believe he was sent on a voyage of
improvement to Botany Bay.”
“And your aunt—” said the inquisitive gentleman—“I’ll warrant she
took care to make her maid sleep in the room with her after
that.”
“No, sir, she did better—she gave her hand shortly after to the
roystering squire; for she used to observe it was a dismal thing
for a woman to sleep alone in the country.”
“She was right,” observed the inquisitive gentleman, nodding his
head sagaciously—“but I am sorry they did not hang that fellow.”
It was agreed on all hands that the last narrator had brought his
tale to the most satisfactory conclusion; though a country
clergyman present regretted that the uncle and aunt, who figured
in the different stories, had not been married together. They
certainly would have been well matched.
“But I don’t see, after all,” said the inquisitive gentleman,
“that there was any ghost in this last story.”
“Oh, if it’s ghosts you want, honey,” cried the Irish captain of
dragoons, “if it’s ghosts you want, you shall have a whole
regiment of them. And since these gentlemen have been giving the
adventures of their uncles and aunts, faith and I’ll e’en give
you a chapter too, out of my own family history.”