From _Can Such Things Be?_ by Ambrose Bierce. Copyright by the
Neale Publishing Company. By permission of the publishers.
I
It is well known that the old Manton house is haunted. In all the rural
district near about, and even in the town of Marshall, a mile away, not
one person of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it; incredulity is
confined to those opinionated persons who will be called "cranks" as
soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demesne
of the Marshall _Advance_. The evidence that the house is haunted is of
two kinds; the testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular
proof, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and
ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged
against it by the ingenious; but facts within the observation of all are
material and controlling.
In the first place the Manton house has been unoccupied by mortals for
more than ten years, and with its outbuildings is slowly falling into
decay--a circumstance which in itself the judicious will hardly venture
to ignore. It stands a little way off the loneliest reach of the
Marshall and Harriston road, in an opening which was once a farm and is
still disfigured with strips of rotting fence and half covered with
brambles overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with the
plow. The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though badly
weather-stained and in dire need of attention from the glazier, the
smaller male population of the region having attested in the manner of
its kind its disapproval of dwelling without dwellers. It is two stories
in height, nearly square, its front pierced by a single doorway flanked
on each side by a window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding
windows above, not protected, serve to admit light and rain to the rooms
of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about, and a
few shade trees, somewhat the worse for wind, and leaning all in one
direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to run away. In short,
as the Marshall town humorist explained in the columns of the _Advance_,
"the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only
logical conclusion from the premises." The fact that in this dwelling
Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and
cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to
another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing
public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena.
To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a wagon. Three of
them promptly alighted, and the one who had been driving hitched the
team to the only remaining post of what had been a fence. The fourth
remained seated in the wagon. "Come," said one of his companions,
approaching him, while the others moved away in the direction of the
dwelling--"this is the place."
The man addressed did not move. "By God!" he said harshly, "this is a
trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it."
"Perhaps I am," the other said, looking him straight in the face and
speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in it. "You will
remember, however, that the choice of place was with your own assent
left to the other side. Of course if you are afraid of spooks--"
"I am afraid of nothing," the man interrupted with another oath, and
sprang to the ground. The two then joined the others at the door, which
one of them had already opened with some difficulty, caused by rust of
lock and hinge. All entered. Inside it was dark, but the man who had
unlocked the door produced a candle and matches and made a light. He
then unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage. This
gave them entrance to a large, square room that the candle but dimly
lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust, which partly muffled
their footfalls. Cobwebs were in the angles of the walls and depended
from the ceiling like strips of rotting lace making undulatory movements
in the disturbed air. The room had two windows in adjoining sides, but
from neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surfaces of
boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace, no
furniture; there was nothing: besides the cobwebs and the dust, the four
men were the only objects there which were not a part of the structure.
Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the candle. The one
who had so reluctantly alighted was especially spectacular--he might
have been called sensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deep
chested, and broad shouldered. Looking at his figure, one would have
said that he had a giant's strength; at his features, that he would use
it like a giant. He was clean shaven, his hair rather closely cropped
and gray. His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes, and
over the nose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followed the
same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at what would
otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these,
glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain color, but
obviously enough too small. There was something forbidding in their
expression, which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The
nose was well enough, as noses go; one does not expect much of noses.
All that was sinister in the man's face seemed accentuated by an
unnatural pallor--he appeared altogether bloodless.
The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace; they were
such persons as one meets and forgets that he met. All were younger than
the man described, between whom and the eldest of the others, who stood
apart, there was apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at
each other.
"Gentlemen," said the man holding the candle and keys, "I believe
everything is right. Are you ready, Mr. Rosser?"
The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled.
"And you, Mr. Grossmith?"
The heavy man bowed and scowled.
"You will be pleased to remove your outer clothing."
Their hats, coats, waistcoats, and neckwear were soon removed and thrown
outside the door, in the passage. The man with the candle now nodded,
and the fourth man--he who had urged Grossmith to leave the
wagon--produced from the pocket of his overcoat two long,
murderous-looking bowie-knives, which he drew now from their leather
scabbards.
"They are exactly alike," he said, presenting one to each of the two
principals--for by this time the dullest observer would have understood
the nature of this meeting. It was to be a duel to the death.
Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle and
tested the strength of the blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their
persons were then searched in turn, each by the second of the other.
"If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith," said the man holding the
light, "you will place yourself in that corner."
He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door, whither
Grossmith retired, his second parting from him with a grasp of the hand
which had nothing of cordiality in it. In the angle nearest the door Mr.
Rosser stationed himself, and after a whispered consultation his second
left him, joining the other near the door. At that moment the candle was
suddenly extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have
been done by a draught from the opened door; whatever the cause, the
effect was startling.
"Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar in the
altered condition affecting the relations of the senses--"gentlemen, you
will not move until you hear the closing of the outer door."
A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner door; and
finally the outer one closed with a concussion which shook the entire
building.
A few minutes afterward a belated farmer's boy met a light wagon which
was being driven furiously toward the town of Marshall. He declared that
behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third, with its hands
upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly
to free themselves from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was
clad in white, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the
haunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable former experience
with the supernatural thereabouts his word had the weight justly due to
the testimony of an expert. The story (in connection with the next day's
events) eventually appeared in the _Advance_, with some slight literary
embellishments and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred
to would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their version of
the night's adventure. But the privilege remained without a claimant.