Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: 'Such grotesque attitudes as his figure assumed I
never saw.']
Ghost I Have Met And Some Others
By John Kendrick Bangs
With Illustrations by
Newell, Frost, and Richards
TO
CHOICE SPIRITS
EVERYWHERE
CONTENTS
GHOSTS THAT HAVE HAUNTED ME
THE MYSTERY OF MY GRANDMOTHER'S HAIR SOFA
THE MYSTERY OF BARNEY O'ROURKE
THE EXORCISM THAT FAILED
THURLOW'S CHRISTMAS STORY
THE DAMPMERE MYSTERY
CARLETON BARKER, FIRST AND SECOND
ILLUSTRATIONS
"SUCH GROTESQUE ATTITUDES AS HIS FIGURE ASSUMED I NEVER SAW"
"I TURNED ABOUT, AND THERE, FEARFUL TO SEE, SAT THIS THING GRINNING
AT ME"
"THE FRIENDLY SPECTRE STOOD BY ME"
"HE FLED MADLY THROUGH THE WAINSCOTING OF THE ROOM"
"THEN HE SET ABOUT TELLING ME OF THE BEAUTIFUL GOLD AND SILVER WARE
THEY USE IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS"
"THERE WAS NO ONE THERE"
"I DRAINED A GLASS OF COOKING-SHERRY TO THE DREGS"
"IT HAD TURNED WHITE"
"IT IS NOT OFTEN THAT ONE'S LITERARY CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST"
"'SIX IMPTY CHAIRS, SORR'"
"'L--LUL--LET ME OUT!' HE GASPED".
"'I SHALL KEEP SHOVING YOU FOR EXACTLY ONE YEAR'"
"I WAS FORCIBLY UNCLAD"
"HE WAS AMPLY PROTECTED"
"PINNED HIM TO THE WALL LIKE A BUTTERFLY ON A CORK"
"FACE TO FACE"
"HE RATTLED ON FOR HALF AN HOUR"
"THE DEMON VANISHED"
"'DOESN'T DARE LOOK ME IN THE EYE!'"
"'LOOK AT YOUR SO-CALLED STORY AND SEE'"
"IT WAS TO BE THE EFFORT OF HIS LIFE"
"WHEN HE ROSE UP IN THE MORNING HE WOULD FIND EVERY SINGLE HAIR ON
HIS HEAD STANDING ERECT"
"'WEARS HIS QUEUE POMPADOUR, I SEE'"
GHOSTS I HAVE MET, AND SOME OTHERS
GHOSTS THAT HAVE HAUNTED ME
A FEW SPIRIT REMINISCENCES
If we could only get used to the idea that ghosts are perfectly
harmless creatures, who are powerless to affect our well-being
unless we assist them by giving way to our fears, we should enjoy
the supernatural exceedingly, it seems to me. Coleridge, I think it
was, was once asked by a lady if he believed in ghosts, and he
replied, "No, madame; I have seen too many of them." Which is my
case exactly. I have seen so many horrid visitants from other worlds
that they hardly affect me at all, so far as the mere inspiration of
terror is concerned. On the other hand, they interest me hugely; and
while I must admit that I do experience all the purely physical
sensations that come from horrific encounters of this nature, I can
truly add in my own behalf that mentally I can rise above the
physical impulse to run away, and, invariably standing my ground, I
have gained much useful information concerning them. I am prepared
to assert that if a thing with flashing green eyes, and clammy
hands, and long, dripping strips of sea-weed in place of hair,
should rise up out of the floor before me at this moment, 2 A.M.,
and nobody in the house but myself, with a fearful, nerve-destroying
storm raging outside, I should without hesitation ask it to sit down
and light a cigar and state its business--or, if it were of the
female persuasion, to join me in a bottle of sarsaparilla--although
every physical manifestation of fear of which my poor body is
capable would be present. I have had experiences in this line which,
if I could get you to believe them, would convince you that I speak
the truth. Knowing weak, suspicious human nature as I do, however, I
do not hope ever to convince you--though it is none the less true--
that on one occasion, in the spring of 1895, there was a spiritual
manifestation in my library which nearly prostrated me physically,
but which mentally I hugely enjoyed, because I was mentally strong
enough to subdue my physical repugnance for the thing which suddenly
and without any apparent reason materialized in my arm-chair.
I'm going to tell you about it briefly, though I warn you in advance
that you will find it a great strain upon your confidence in my
veracity. It may even shatter that confidence beyond repair; but I
cannot help that. I hold that it is a man's duty in this life to
give to the world the benefit of his experience. All that he sees he
should set down exactly as he sees it, and so simply, withal, that
to the dullest comprehension the moral involved shall be perfectly
obvious. If he is a painter, and an auburn-haired maiden appears to
him to have blue hair, he should paint her hair blue, and just so
long as he sticks by his principles and is true to himself, he need
not bother about what you may think of him. So it is with me. My
scheme of living is based upon being true to myself. You may class
me with Baron Munchausen if you choose; I shall not mind so long as
I have the consolation of feeling, deep down in my heart, that I am
a true realist, and diverge not from the paths of truth as truth
manifests itself to me.
This intruder of whom I was just speaking, the one that took
possession of my arm-chair in the spring of 1895, was about as
horrible a spectre as I have ever had the pleasure to have haunt me.
It was worse than grotesque. It grated on every nerve. Alongside of
it the ordinary poster of the present day would seem to be as
accurate in drawing as a bicycle map, and in its coloring it simply
shrieked with discord.
If color had tones which struck the ear, instead of appealing to the
eye, the thing would have deafened me. It was about midnight when
the manifestation first took shape. My family had long before
retired, and I had just finished smoking a cigar--which was one of a
thousand which my wife had bought for me at a Monday sale at one of
the big department stores in New York. I don't remember the brand,
but that is just as well--it was not a cigar to be advertised in a
civilized piece of literature--but I do remember that they came in
bundles of fifty, tied about with blue ribbon. The one I had been
smoking tasted and burned as if it had been rolled by a Cuban
insurrectionist while fleeing from a Spanish regiment through a
morass, gathering its component parts as he ran. It had two distinct
merits, however. No man could possibly smoke too many of them, and
they were economical, which is how the ever-helpful little madame
came to get them for me, and I have no doubt they will some day
prove very useful in removing insects from the rose-bushes. They
cost $3.99 a thousand on five days a week, but at the Monday sale
they were marked down to $1.75, which is why my wife, to whom I had
recently read a little lecture on economy, purchased them for me.
Upon the evening in question I had been at work on this cigar for
about two hours, and had smoked one side of it three-quarters of the
way down to the end, when I concluded that I had smoked enough--for
one day--so I rose up to cast the other side into the fire, which
was flickering fitfully in my spacious fireplace. This done, I
turned about, and there, fearful to see, sat this thing grinning at
me from the depths of my chair. My hair not only stood on end, but
tugged madly in an effort to get away. Four hairs--I can prove the
statement if it be desired--did pull themselves loose from my scalp
in their insane desire to rise above the terrors of the situation,
and, flying upward, stuck like nails into the oak ceiling directly
over my head, whence they had to be pulled the next morning with
nippers by our hired man, who would no doubt testify to the truth of
the occurrence as I have asserted it if he were still living, which,
unfortunately, he is not. Like most hired men, he was subject to
attacks of lethargy, from one of which he died last summer. He sank
into a rest about weed-time, last June, and lingered quietly along
for two months, and after several futile efforts to wake him up, we
finally disposed of him to our town crematory for experimental
purposes. I am told he burned very actively, and I believe it, for
to my certain knowledge he was very dry, and not so green as some
persons who had previously employed him affected to think. A cold
chill came over me as my eye rested upon the horrid visitor and
noted the greenish depths of his eyes and the claw-like formation of
his fingers, and my flesh began to creep like an inch-worm. At one
time I was conscious of eight separate corrugations on my back, and
my arms goose-fleshed until they looked like one of those miniature
plaster casts of the Alps which are so popular in Swiss summer
resorts; but mentally I was not disturbed at all. My repugnance was
entirely physical, and, to come to the point at once, I calmly
offered the spectre a cigar, which it accepted, and demanded a
light. I gave it, nonchalantly lighting the match upon the goose
-fleshing of my wrist.
[Illustration: I TURNED ABOUT, AND THERE, FEARFUL TO SEE, SAT THIS
THING GRINNING AT ME.]
Now I admit that this was extraordinary and hardly credible, yet it
happened exactly as I have set it down, and, furthermore, I enjoyed
the experience. For three hours the thing and I conversed, and not
once during that time did my hair stop pulling away at my scalp, or
the repugnance cease to run in great rolling waves up and down my
back. If I wished to deceive you, I might add that pin-feathers
began to grow from the goose-flesh, but that would be a lie, and
lying and I are not friends, and, furthermore, this paper is not
written to amaze, but to instruct.
Except for its personal appearance, this particular ghost was not
very remarkable, and I do not at this time recall any of the details
of our conversation beyond the point that my share of it was not
particularly coherent, because of the discomfort attendant upon the
fearful hair-pulling process I was going through. I merely cite its
coming to prove that, with all the outward visible signs of fear
manifesting themselves in no uncertain manner, mentally I was cool
enough to cope with the visitant, and sufficiently calm and at ease
to light the match upon my wrist, perceiving for the first time,
with an Edison-like ingenuity, one of the uses to which goose-flesh
might be put, and knowing full well that if I tried to light it on
the sole of my shoe I should have fallen to the ground, my knees
being too shaky to admit of my standing on one leg even for an
instant. Had I been mentally overcome, I should have tried to light
the match on my foot, and fallen ignominiously to the floor then and
there.
There was another ghost that I recall to prove my point, who was of
very great use to me in the summer immediately following the spring
of which I have just told you. You will possibly remember how that
the summer of 1895 had rather more than its fair share of heat, and
that the lovely New Jersey town in which I have the happiness to
dwell appeared to be the headquarters of the temperature. The
thermometers of the nation really seemed to take orders from
Beachdale, and properly enough, for our town is a born leader in
respect to heat. Having no property to sell, I candidly admit that
Beachdale is not of an arctic nature in summer, except socially,
perhaps. Socially, it is the coolest town in the State; but we are
at this moment not discussing cordiality, fraternal love, or the
question raised by the Declaration of Independence as to whether all
men are born equal. The warmth we have in hand is what the old lady
called "Fahrenheat," and, from a thermometric point of view,
Beachdale, if I may be a trifle slangy, as I sometimes am, has heat
to burn. There are mitigations of this heat, it is true, but they
generally come along in winter.
I must claim, in behalf of my town, that never in all my experience
have I known a summer so hot that it was not, sooner or later--by
January, anyhow--followed by a cool spell. But in the summer of 1895
even the real-estate agents confessed that the cold wave announced
by the weather bureau at Washington summered elsewhere--in the
tropics, perhaps, but not at Beachdale. One hardly dared take a bath
in the morning for fear of being scalded by the fluid that flowed
from the cold-water faucet--our reservoir is entirely unprotected by
shade-trees, and in summer a favorite spot for young Waltons who
like to catch bass already boiled--my neighbors and myself lived on
cracked ice, ice-cream, and destructive cold drinks. I do not myself
mind hot weather in the daytime, but hot nights are killing. I can't
sleep. I toss about for hours, and then, for the sake of variety, I
flop, but sleep cometh not. My debts double, and my income seems to
sizzle away under the influence of a hot, sleepless night; and it
was just here that a certain awful thing saved me from the insanity
which is a certain result of parboiled insomnia.
It was about the 16th of July, which, as I remember reading in an
extra edition of the _Evening Bun_, got out to mention the fact, was
the hottest 16th of July known in thirty-eight years. I had retired
at half-past seven, after dining lightly upon a cold salmon and a
gallon of iced tea--not because I was tired, but because I wanted to
get down to first principles at once, and remove my clothing, and
sort of spread myself over all the territory I could, which is a
thing you can't do in a library, or even in a white-and-gold parlor.
If man were constructed like a machine, as he really ought to be, to
be strictly comfortable--a machine that could be taken apart like an
eight-day clock--I should have taken myself apart, putting one
section of myself on the roof, another part in the spare room,
hanging a third on the clothes-line in the yard, and so on, leaving
my head in the ice-box; but unfortunately we have to keep ourselves
together in this life, hence I did the only thing one can do, and
retired, and incidentally spread myself over some freshly baked
bedclothing. There was some relief from the heat, but not much. I
had been roasting, and while my sensations were somewhat like those
which I imagine come to a planked shad when he first finds himself
spread out over the plank, there was a mitigation. My temperature
fell off from 167 to about 163, which is not quite enough to make a
man absolutely content. Suddenly, however, I began to shiver. There
was no breeze, but I began to shiver.
"It is getting cooler," I thought, as the chill came on, and I rose
and looked at the thermometer. It still registered the highest
possible point, and the mercury was rebelliously trying to break
through the top of the glass tube and take a stroll on the roof.
"That's queer," I said to myself. "It's as hot as ever, and yet I'm
shivering. I wonder if my goose is cooked? I've certainly got a
chill."
I jumped back into bed and pulled the sheet up over me; but still I
shivered. Then I pulled the blanket up, but the chill continued. I
couldn't seem to get warm again. Then came the counterpane, and
finally I had to put on my bath-robe--a fuzzy woollen affair, which
in midwinter I had sometimes found too warm for comfort. Even then I
was not sufficiently bundled up, so I called for an extra blanket,
two afghans, and the hot-water bag.
Everybody in the house thought I had gone mad, and I wondered myself
if perhaps I hadn't, when all of a sudden I perceived, off in the
corner, the Awful Thing, and perceiving it, I knew all.
I was being haunted, and the physical repugnance of which I have
spoken was on. The cold shiver, the invariable accompaniment of the
ghostly visitant, had come, and I assure you I never was so glad of
anything in my life. It has always been said of me by my critics
that I am raw; I was afraid that after that night they would say I
was half baked, and I would far rather be the one than the other;
and it was the Awful Thing that saved me. Realizing this, I spoke to
it gratefully.
"You are a heaven-born gift on a night like this," said I, rising up
and walking to its side.
"I am glad to be of service to you," the Awful Thing replied,
smiling at me so yellowly that I almost wished the author of the
_Blue-Button of Cowardice_ could have seen it.
"It's very good of you," I put in.
"Not at all," replied the Thing; "you are the only man I know who
doesn't think it necessary to prevaricate about ghosts every time he
gets an order for a Christmas story. There have been more lies told
about us than about any other class of things in existence, and we
are getting a trifle tired of it. We may have lost our corporeal
existence, but some of our sensitiveness still remains."
"Well," said I, rising and lighting the gas-logs--for I was on the
very verge of congealment--"I am sure I am pleased if you like my
stories."
"Oh, as for that, I don't think much of them," said the Awful Thing,
with a purple display of candor which amused me, although I cannot
say that I relished it; "but you never lie about us. You are not at
all interesting, but you are truthful, and we spooks hate libellers.
Just because one happens to be a thing is no reason why writers
should libel it, and that's why I have always respected you. We
regard you as a sort of spook Boswell. You may be dull and stupid,
but you tell the truth, and when I saw you in imminent danger of
becoming a mere grease spot, owing to the fearful heat, I decided to
help you through. That's why I'm here. Go to sleep now. I'll stay
here and keep you shivering until daylight anyhow. I'd stay longer,
but we are always laid at sunrise."
"Like an egg," I said, sleepily.
"Tutt!" said the ghost. "Go to sleep, If you talk I'll have to go."
And so I dropped off to sleep as softly and as sweetly as a tired
child. In the morning I awoke refreshed. The rest of my family were
prostrated, but I was fresh. The Awful Thing was gone, and the room
was warming up again; and if it had not been for the tinkling ice in
my water-pitcher, I should have suspected it was all a dream. And so
throughout the whole sizzling summer the friendly spectre stood by
me and kept me cool, and I haven't a doubt that it was because of
his good offices in keeping me shivering on those fearful August
nights that I survived the season, and came to my work in the autumn
as fit as a fiddle--so fit, indeed, that I have not written a poem
since that has not struck me as being the very best of its kind, and
if I can find a publisher who will take the risk of putting those
poems out, I shall unequivocally and without hesitation acknowledge,
as I do here, my debt of gratitude to my friends in the spirit
world.
Manifestations of this nature, then, are harmful, as I have already
observed, only when the person who is haunted yields to his physical
impulses. Fought stubbornly inch by inch with the will, they can be
subdued, and often they are a boon. I think I have proved both these
points. It took me a long time to discover the facts, however, and
my discovery came about in this way. It may perhaps interest you to
know how I made it. I encountered at the English home of a wealthy
friend at one time a "presence" of an insulting turn of mind. It was
at my friend Jarley's little baronial hall, which he had rented from
the Earl of Brokedale the year Mrs. Jarley was presented at court.
The Countess of Brokedale's social influence went with the château
for a slightly increased rental, which was why the Jarleys took it.
I was invited to spend a month with them, not so much because Jarley
is fond of me as because Mrs. Jarley had a sort of an idea that, as
a writer, I might say something about their newly acquired glory in
some American Sunday newspaper; and Jarley laughingly assigned to me
the "haunted chamber," without at least one of which no baronial
hall in the old country is considered worthy of the name.
[Illustration: 'THE FRIENDLY SPECTRE STOOD BY ME']
"It will interest you more than any other," Jarley said; "and if it
has a ghost, I imagine you will be able to subdue him."
I gladly accepted the hospitality of my friend, and was delighted at
his consideration in giving me the haunted chamber, where I might
pursue my investigations into the subject of phantoms undisturbed.
Deserting London, then, for a time, I ran down to Brokedale Hall,
and took up my abode there with a half-dozen other guests. Jarley,
as usual since his sudden "gold-fall," as Wilkins called it, did
everything with a lavish hand. I believe a man could have got
diamonds on toast if he had chosen to ask for them. However, this is
apart from my story.
I had occupied the haunted chamber about two weeks before anything
of importance occurred, and then it came--and a more unpleasant,
ill-mannered spook never floated in the ether. He materialized about
3 A.M. and was unpleasantly sulphurous to one's perceptions. He sat
upon the divan in my room, holding his knees in his hands, leering
and scowling upon me as though I were the intruder, and not he.
"Who are you?" I asked, excitedly, as in the dying light of the log
fire he loomed grimly up before me.
"None of your business," he replied, insolently, showing his teeth
as he spoke. "On the other hand, who are you? This is my room, and
not yours, and it is I who have the right to question. If you have
any business here, well and good. If not, you will oblige me by
removing yourself, for your presence is offensive to me."
"I am a guest in the house," I answered, restraining my impulse to
throw the inkstand at him for his impudence. "And this room has been
set apart for my use by my host."
"One of the servant's guests, I presume?" he said, insultingly, his
lividly lavender-like lip upcurling into a haughty sneer, which was
maddening to a self-respecting worm like myself.
I rose up from my bed, and picked up the poker to bat him over the
head, but again I restrained myself. It will not do to quarrel, I
thought. I will be courteous if he is not, thus giving a dead
Englishman a lesson which wouldn't hurt some of the living.
"No," I said, my voice tremulous with wrath--"no; I am the guest of
my friend Mr. Jarley, an American, who--"
"Same thing," observed the intruder, with a yellow sneer. "Race of
low-class animals, those Americans--only fit for gentlemen's
stables, you know."
This was too much. A ghost may insult me with impunity, but when he
tackles my people he must look out for himself. I sprang forward
with an ejaculation of wrath, and with all my strength struck at him
with the poker, which I still held in my hand. If he had been
anything but a ghost, he would have been split vertically from top
to toe; but as it was, the poker passed harmlessly through his misty
make-up, and rent a great gash two feet long in Jarley's divan. The
yellow sneer faded from his lips, and a maddening blue smile took
its place.
"Humph!" he observed, nonchalantly. "What a useless ebullition, and
what a vulgar display of temper! Really you are the most humorous
insect I have yet encountered. From what part of the States do you
come? I am truly interested to know in what kind of soil exotics of
your peculiar kind are cultivated. Are you part of the fauna or the
flora of your tropical States--or what?"
And then I realized the truth. There is no physical method of
combating a ghost which can result in his discomfiture, so I
resolved to try the intellectual. It was a mind-to-mind contest, and
he was easy prey after I got going. I joined him in his blue smile,
and began to talk about the English aristocracy; for I doubted not,
from the spectre's manner, that he was or had been one of that
class. He had about him that haughty lack of manners which bespoke
the aristocrat. I waxed very eloquent when, as I say, I got my mind
really going. I spoke of kings and queens and their uses in no
uncertain phrases, of divine right, of dukes, earls, marquises--of
all the pompous establishments of British royalty and nobility--with
that contemptuously humorous tolerance of a necessary and somewhat
amusing evil which we find in American comic papers. We had a battle
royal for about one hour, and I must confess he was a foeman worthy
of any man's steel, so long as I was reasonable in my arguments; but
when I finally observed that it wouldn't be ten years before Barnum
and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth had the whole lot engaged for
the New York circus season, stalking about the Madison Square Garden
arena, with the Prince of Wales at the head beating a tomtom, he
grew iridescent with wrath, and fled madly through the wainscoting
of the room. It was purely a mental victory. All the physical
possibilities of my being would have exhausted themselves futilely
before him; but when I turned upon him the resources of my fancy, my
imagination unrestrained, and held back by no sense of responsibility,
he was as a child in my hands, obstreperous but certain to be subdued.
If it were not for Mrs. Jarley's wrath--which, I admit, she tried to
conceal--over the damage to her divan, I should now look back upon
that visitation as the most agreeable haunting experience of my life; at
any rate, it was at that time that I first learned how to handle ghosts,
and since that time I have been able to overcome them without trouble--
save in one instance, with which I shall close this chapter of my
reminiscences, and which I give only to prove the necessity of
observing strictly one point in dealing with spectres.
[Illustration: "HE FLED MADLY THROUGH THE WAINSCOTING OF THE ROOM"]
It happened last Christmas, in my own home. I had provided as a
little surprise for my wife a complete new solid silver service
marked with her initials. The tree had been prepared for the
children, and all had retired save myself. I had lingered later than
the others to put the silver service under the tree, where its happy
recipient would find it when she went to the tree with the little
ones the next morning. It made a magnificent display: the two dozen
of each kind of spoon, the forks, the knives, the coffee-pot, water
-urn, and all; the salvers, the vegetable-dishes, olive-forks,
cheese-scoops, and other dazzling attributes of a complete service,
not to go into details, presented a fairly scintillating picture
which would have made me gasp if I had not, at the moment when my
own breath began to catch, heard another gasp in the corner
immediately behind me. Turning about quickly to see whence it came,
I observed a dark figure in the pale light of the moon which
streamed in through the window.
"Who are you?" I cried, starting back, the physical symptoms of a
ghostly presence manifesting themselves as usual.
"I am the ghost of one long gone before," was the reply, in
sepulchral tones.
I breathed a sigh of relief, for I had for a moment feared it was a
burglar.
"Oh!" I said. "You gave me a start at first. I was afraid you were a
material thing come to rob me." Then turning towards the tree, I
observed, with a wave of the hand, "Fine lay out, eh?"
"Beautiful," he said, hollowly. "Yet not so beautiful as things I've
seen in realms beyond your ken."
And then he set about telling me of the beautiful gold and silver
ware they used in the Elysian Fields, and I must confess Monte
Cristo would have had a hard time, with Sindbad the Sailor to help,
to surpass the picture of royal magnificence the spectre drew. I
stood inthralled until, even as he was talking, the clock struck
three, when he rose up, and moving slowly across the floor, barely
visible, murmured regretfully that he must be off, with which he
faded away down the back stairs. I pulled my nerves, which were
getting rather strained, together again, and went to bed.
[Illustration: "THEN HE SAT ABOUT TELLING ME OF THE BEAUTIFUL GOLD
AND SILVER WARE THEY USE IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS."]
_Next morning every bit of that silver-ware was gone_; and, what is
more, three weeks later I found the ghost's picture in the Rogues'
Gallery in New York as that of the cleverest sneak-thief in the
country.
All of which, let me say to you, dear reader, in conclusion, proves
that when you are dealing with ghosts you mustn't give up all your
physical resources until you have definitely ascertained that the
thing by which you are confronted, horrid or otherwise, is a ghost,
and not an all too material rogue with a light step, and a
commodious jute bag for plunder concealed beneath his coat.
"How to tell a ghost?" you ask.
Well, as an eminent master of fiction frequently observes in his
writings, "that is another story," which I shall hope some day to
tell for your instruction and my own aggrandizement.
THE MYSTERY OF MY GRANDMOTHER'S HAIR SOFA
It happened last Christmas Eve, and precisely as I am about to set
it forth. It has been said by critics that I am a romancer of the
wildest sort, but that is where my critics are wrong. I grant that
the experiences through which I have passed, some of which have
contributed to the gray matter in my hair, however little they may
have augmented that within my cranium--experiences which I have from
time to time set forth to the best of my poor abilities in the
columns of such periodicals as I have at my mercy--have been of an
order so excessively supernatural as to give my critics a basis for
their aspersions; but they do not know, as I do, that that basis is
as uncertain as the shifting sands of the sea, inasmuch as in the
setting forth of these episodes I have narrated them as faithfully
as the most conscientious realist could wish, and am therefore
myself a true and faithful follower of the realistic school. I
cannot be blamed because these things happen to me. If I sat down in
my study to imagine the strange incidents to which I have in the
past called attention, with no other object in view than to make my
readers unwilling to retire for the night, to destroy the peace of
mind of those who are good enough to purchase my literary wares, or
to titillate till tense the nerve tissue of the timid who come to
smile and who depart unstrung, then should I deserve the severest
condemnation; but these things I do not do. I have a mission in life
which I hold as sacred as my good friend Mr. Howells holds his. Such
phases of life as I see I put down faithfully, and if the Fates in
their wisdom have chosen to make of me the Balzac of the
Supernatural, the Shakespeare of the Midnight Visitation, while
elevating Mr. Howells to the high office of the Fielding of
Massachusetts and its adjacent States, the Smollett of Boston, and
the Sterne of Altruria, I can only regret that the powers have dealt
more graciously with him than with me, and walk my little way as
gracefully as I know how. The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune I am prepared to suffer in all meekness of spirit; I accept
them because it seems to me to be nobler in the mind so to do rather
than by opposing to end them. And so to my story. I have prefaced it
at such length for but one reason, and that is that I am aware that
there will be those who will doubt the veracity of my tale, and I am
anxious at the outset to impress upon all the unquestioned fact that
what I am about to tell is the plain, unvarnished truth, and, as I
have already said, it happened last Christmas Eve.
I regret to have to say so, for it sounds so much like the
description given to other Christmas Eves by writers with a less
conscientious regard for the truth than I possess, but the facts
must be told, and I must therefore state that it was a wild and
stormy night. The winds howled and moaned and made all sorts of
curious noises, soughing through the bare limbs of the trees,
whistling through the chimneys, and, with reckless disregard of my
children's need of rest, slamming doors until my house seemed to be
the centre of a bombardment of no mean order. It is also necessary
to state that the snow, which had been falling all day, had clothed
the lawns and house-tops in a dazzling drapery of white, and, not
content with having done this to the satisfaction of all, was still
falling, and, happily enough, as silently as usual. Were I the "wild
romancer" that I have been called, I might have had the snow fall
with a thunderous roar, but I cannot go to any such length. I love
my fellow-beings, but there is a limit to my philanthropy, and I
shall not have my snow fall noisily just to make a critic happy. I
might do it to save his life, for I should hate to have a man die
for the want of what I could give him with a stroke of my pen, and
without any special effort, but until that emergency arises I shall
not yield a jot in the manner of the falling of my snow.
Occasionally a belated home-comer would pass my house, the sleigh
-bells strung about the ample proportions of his steed jingling loud
above the roaring of the winds. My family had retired, and I sat
alone in the glow of the blazing log--a very satisfactory gas
affair--on the hearth. The flashing jet flames cast the usual
grotesque shadows about the room, and my mind had thereby been
reduced to that sensitive state which had hitherto betokened the
coming of a visitor from other realms--a fact which I greatly
regretted, for I was in no mood to be haunted. My first impulse,
when I recognized the on-coming of that mental state which is
evidenced by the goosing of one's flesh, if I may be allowed the
expression, was to turn out the fire and go to bed. I have always
found this the easiest method of ridding myself of unwelcome ghosts,
and, conversely, I have observed that others who have been haunted
unpleasantly have suffered in proportion to their failure to take
what has always seemed to me to be the most natural course in the
world--to hide their heads beneath the bed-covering. Brutus, when
Caesar's ghost appeared beside his couch, before the battle of
Philippi, sat up and stared upon the horrid apparition, and suffered
correspondingly, when it would have been much easier and more
natural to put his head under his pillow, and so shut out the
unpleasant spectacle. That is the course I have invariably pursued,
and it has never failed me. The most luminous ghost man ever saw is
utterly powerless to shine through a comfortably stuffed pillow, or
the usual Christmas-time quota of woollen blankets. But upon this
occasion I preferred to await developments. The real truth is that I
was about written out in the matter of visitations, and needed a
reinforcement of my uncanny vein, which, far from being varicose,
had become sclerotic, so dry had it been pumped by the demands to
which it had been subjected by a clamorous, mystery-loving public. I
had, I may as well confess it, run out of ghosts, and had come down
to the writing of tales full of the horror of suggestion, leaving my
readers unsatisfied through my failure to describe in detail just
what kind of looking thing it was that had so aroused their
apprehension; and one editor had gone so far as to reject my last
ghost-story because I had worked him up to a fearful pitch of
excitement, and left him there without any reasonable way out. I was
face to face with a condition--which, briefly, was that hereafter
that desirable market was closed to the products of my pen unless my
contributions were accompanied by a diagram which should make my
mysteries so plain that a little child could understand how it all
came to pass. Hence it was that, instead of following my own
convenience and taking refuge in my spectre-proof couch, I stayed
where I was. I had not long to wait. The dial in my fuel-meter
below-stairs had hardly had time to register the consumption of
three thousand feet of gas before the faint sound of a bell reached
my straining ears--which, by-the-way, is an expression I profoundly
hate, but must introduce because the public demands it, and a ghost
-story without straining ears having therefore no chance of
acceptance by a discriminating editor. I started from my chair and
listened intently, but the ringing had stopped, and I settled back
to the delights of a nervous chill, when again the deathly silence
of the night--the wind had quieted in time to allow me the use of
this faithful, overworked phrase--was broken by the tintinnabulation
of the bell. This time I recognized it as the electric bell operated
by a push-button upon the right side of my front door. To rise and
rush to the door was the work of a moment. It always is. In another
instant I had flung it wide. This operation was singularly easy,
considering that it was but a narrow door, and width was the last
thing it could ever be suspected of, however forcible the fling.
However, I did as I have said, and gazed out into the inky blackness
of the night. As I had suspected, there was no one there, and I was
at once convinced that the dreaded moment had come. I was certain
that at the instant of my turning to re-enter my library I should
see something which would make my brain throb madly and my pulses
start. I did not therefore instantly turn, but let the wind blow the
door to with a loud clatter, while I walked quickly into my dining
-room and drained a glass of cooking-sherry to the dregs. I do not
introduce the cooking-sherry here for the purpose of eliciting a
laugh from the reader, but in order to be faithful to life as we
live it. All our other sherry had been used by the queen of the
kitchen for cooking purposes, and this was all we had left for the
table. It is always so in real life, let critics say what they will.
[Illustration: "THERE WAS NO ONE THERE"]
This done, I returned to the library, and sustained my first shock.
The unexpected had happened. There was still no one there. Surely
this ghost was an original, and I began to be interested.
"Perhaps he is a modest ghost," I thought, "and is a little shy
about manifesting his presence. That, indeed, would be original,
seeing how bold the spectres of commerce usually are, intruding
themselves always upon the privacy of those who are not at all
minded to receive them."
Confident that something would happen, and speedily at that, I sat
down to wait, lighting a cigar for company; for burning gas-logs are
not as sociable as their hissing, spluttering originals, the genuine
logs, in a state of ignition. Several times I started up nervously,
feeling as if there was something standing behind me about to place
a clammy hand upon my shoulder, and as many times did I resume my
attitude of comfort, disappointed. Once I seemed to see a minute
spirit floating in the air before me, but investigation showed that
it was nothing more than the fanciful curling of the clouds of smoke
I had blown from my lips. An hour passed and nothing occurred, save
that my heart from throbbing took to leaping in a fashion which
filled me with concern. A few minutes later, however, I heard a
strange sound at the window, and my leaping heart stood still. The
strain upon my tense nerves was becoming unbearable.
[Illustration: "I DRAINED A GLASS OF COOKING SHERRY TO THE DREGS"]
"At last!" I whispered to myself, hoarsely, drawing a deep breath,
and pushing with all my force into the soft upholstered back of my
chair. Then I leaned forward and watched the window, momentarily
expecting to see it raised by unseen hands; but it never budged.
Then I watched the glass anxiously, half hoping, half fearing to see
something pass through it; but nothing came, and I began to get
irritable.
I looked at my watch, and saw that it was half-past one o'clock.
"Hang you!" I cried, "whatever you are, why don't you appear, and be
done with it? The idea of keeping a man up until this hour of the
night!"
Then I listened for a reply; but there was none.
"What do you take me for?" I continued, querulously. "Do you suppose
I have nothing else to do but to wait upon your majesty's pleasure?
Surely, with all the time you've taken to make your début, you must
be something of unusual horror."
Again there was no answer, and I decided that petulance was of no
avail. Some other tack was necessary, and I decided to appeal to his
sympathies--granting that ghosts have sympathies to appeal to, and I
have met some who were so human in this respect that I have found it
hard to believe that they were truly ghosts.
"I say, old chap," I said, as genially as I could, considering the
situation--I was nervous, and the amount of gas consumed by the logs
was beginning to bring up visions of bankruptcy before my eyes--
"hurry up and begin your haunting--there's a good fellow. I'm a
father--please remember that--and this is Christmas Eve. The
children will be up in about three hours, and if you've ever been a
parent yourself you know what that means. I must have some rest, so
come along and show yourself, like the good spectre you are, and let
me go to bed."
I think myself it was a very moving address, but it helped me not a
jot. The thing must have had a heart of stone, for it never made
answer.
"What?" said I, pretending to think it had spoken and I had not
heard distinctly; but the visitant was not to be caught napping,
even though I had good reason to believe that he had fallen asleep.
He, she, or it, whatever it was, maintained a silence as deep as it
was aggravating. I smoked furiously on to restrain my growing wrath.
Then it occurred to me that the thing might have some pride, and I
resolved to work on that.
"Of course I should like to write you up," I said, with a sly wink
at myself. "I imagine you'd attract a good deal of attention in the
literary world. Judging from the time it takes you to get ready, you
ought to make a good magazine story--not one of those comic ghost
-tales that can be dashed off in a minute, and ultimately get
published in a book at the author's expense. You stir so little
that, as things go by contraries, you'll make a stirring tale.
You're long enough, I might say, for a three-volume novel--but--ah--
I can't do you unless I see you. You must be seen to be appreciated.
I can't imagine you, you know. Let's see, now, if I can guess what
kind of a ghost you are. Um! You must be terrifying in the extreme--
you'd make a man shiver in mid-August in mid-Africa. Your eyes are
unfathomably green. Your smile would drive the sanest mad. Your
hands are cold and clammy as a--ah--as a hot-water bag four hours
after."
And so I went on for ten minutes, praising him up to the skies, and
ending up with a pathetic appeal that he should manifest his
presence. It may be that I puffed him up so that he burst, but,
however that may be, he would not condescend to reply, and I grew
angry in earnest.
"Very well," I said, savagely, jumping up from my chair and turning
off the gas-log. "Don't! Nobody asked you to come in the first
place, and nobody's going to complain if you sulk in your tent like
Achilles. I don't want to see you. I could fake up a better ghost
than you are anyhow--in fact, I fancy that's what's the matter with
you. You know what a miserable specimen you are--couldn't frighten a
mouse if you were ten times as horrible. You're ashamed to show
yourself--and I don't blame you. I'd be that way too if I were you."
I walked half-way to the door, momentarily expecting to have him
call me back; but he didn't. I had to give him a parting shot.
"You probably belong to a ghost union--don't you? That's your
secret? Ordered out on strike, and won't do any haunting after
sundown unless some other employer of unskilled ghosts pays his
spooks skilled wages."
I had half a notion that the word "spook" would draw him out, for I
have noticed that ghosts do not like to be called spooks any more
than negroes like to be called "niggers." They consider it vulgar.
He never yielded in his reserve, however, and after locking up I
went to bed.
For a time I could not sleep, and I began to wonder if I had been
just, after all. Possibly there was no spirit within miles of me.
The symptoms were all there, but might not that have been due to my
depressed condition--for it does depress a writer to have one of his
best veins become sclerotic--I asked myself, and finally, as I went
off to sleep, I concluded that I had been in the wrong all through,
and had imagined there was something there when there really was
not.
"Very likely the ringing of the bell was due to the wind," I said,
as I dozed off. "Of course it would take a very heavy wind to blow
the button in, but then--" and then I fell asleep, convinced that no
ghost had ventured within a mile of me that night. But when morning
came I was undeceived. Something must have visited us that Christmas
Eve, and something very terrible; for while I was dressing for
breakfast I heard my wife calling loudly from below.
[Illustration: "IT HAD TURNED WHITE"]
"Henry!" she cried. "Please come down here at once."
"I can't. I'm only half shaved," I answered.
"Never mind that," she returned. "Come at once."
So, with the lather on one cheek and a cut on the other, I went
below.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Look at that!" she said, pointing to my grandmother's hair-sofa,
which stood in the hall just outside of my library door.
It had been black when we last saw it, but as I looked I saw that a
great change had come over it.
_It had turned white in a single night!_
Now I can't account for this strange incident, nor can any one else,
and I do not intend to try. It is too awful a mystery for me to
attempt to penetrate, but the sofa is there in proof of all that I
have said concerning it, and any one who desires can call and see it
at any time. It is not necessary for them to see me; they need only
ask to see the sofa, and it will be shown.
We have had it removed from the hall to the white-and-gold parlor,
for we cannot bear to have it stand in any of the rooms we use.
THE MYSTERY OF BARNEY O'ROURKE
A very irritating thing has happened. My hired man, a certain Barney
O'Rourke, an American citizen of much political influence, a good
gardener, and, according to his lights, a gentleman, has got very
much the best of me, and all because of certain effusions which from
time to time have emanated from my pen. It is not often that one's
literary chickens come home to roost in such a vengeful fashion as
some of mine have recently done, and I have no doubt that as this
story progresses he who reads will find much sympathy for me rising
up in his breast. As the matter stands, I am torn with conflicting
emotions. I am very fond of Barney, and I have always found him
truthful hitherto, but exactly what to believe now I hardly know.