FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
_The “Mystery” Library_
EDITED BY
J. WALKER McSPADDEN
FAMOUS GHOST STORIES
FAMOUS PSYCHIC STORIES
FAMOUS DETECTIVE STORIES
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
A Library of quite unusual tales culled from the most powerful writers,
chiefly American, English, and French. Each book contains special
introduction.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., NEW YORK
FAMOUS
MYSTERY STORIES
EDITED BY
J. WALKER McSPADDEN
Editor of “Famous Ghost Stories,” “Famous
Psychic Stories,” “Famous Detective
Stories,” etc.
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON _Richard Harris Barham_ 1
THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH _Erckmann-Chatrian_ 34
THE DESERTED HOUSE _Ernest T. W. Hoffmann_ 58
THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES _Washington Irving_ 86
THE PIPE _Anonymous_ 110
THE UPPER BERTH _F. Marion Crawford_ 139
THE DIAMOND LENS _Fitz-James O’Brien_ 172
THE HORLA _Guy de Maupassant_ 210
THE MUMMY’S FOOT _Théophile Gautier_ 248
THE THIEF _Anna Katharine Green_ 266
INTRODUCTION
“Famous Mystery Stories” completes a tetralogy begun a few years ago
with “Ghost Stories” and continued with “Detective” and “Psychic
Stories.” The responsive chord that each successive volume has struck
has emboldened the editor to continue a line of research which has
revealed many fascinating channels. A mass of enticing material has
been brought to light, which would fill many books of the present size;
and the problem has been one of selection and elimination. The group of
four books now complete under the title of the “The Mystery Library,”
while in no sense an anthology of the subject, will be found to contain
many typical examples of the bizarre and unusual, culled from the
ablest pens of America and Europe.
It is interesting to note the different methods of approach to your
true mystery story. Every such tale conceals a definite problem which
may or may not be solved; and when tested in the crucible of widely
divergent minds, the result is of value from more than one aspect.
In the present volume the reader will find representative stories
from American, English, Irish, French and German writers. Aside
from the individual merit of each tale, they afford a striking
study in contrasts, both in style and method of approach. By way of
illustration, no two stories could be more dissimilar in treatment
than the French and German examples herewith included. “The Mysterious
Sketch” by Erckmann-Chatrian, like its successor, “The Deserted House,”
by Hoffmann, is an excellent type of pure mystery tale, with the
mystery unexplained; but there the resemblance ends. The French joint
authors are concerned only with a hypothetical case. An artist draws a
fanciful sketch which proves to be the depiction of an actual tragedy.
Its effect upon the artist himself, rather than the how and why of the
drawing, is the concern of the story. Hoffmann’s tale also presents a
definite problem which is only half explained. It is a fantasy with
a touch of psychology, and affords its own raison d’être. “Hoffmann
preferred to remain a riddle to himself,” wrote a friend, “a riddle
which he always dreaded to have solved.”
Three stories involving a vein of humor are “The Spectre of
Tappington,” that delightful skit from “The Ingoldsby Legends”;
Irving’s tale of the Adelantado who sought the lost cities of the
Spanish Main; and “The Pipe.” Each may be commended as an after-dinner
solace, “The Pipe” providing a pleasant “smoke” although not altogether
harmless in its effects. It is by our old friend, Anonymous, who
has given us some of the best examples of literature in every age.
Irving on his part is always like a draught of ruddy wine; and in the
adventures of the misguided Adelantado we are reminded of our old
friend Rip Van Winkle. The author himself is not concerned with a
mystery per se, but is indulging in a characteristic flight of fancy
tinged with a quiet, ironical humor.
By way of contrast come a grisly tale of the sea from the masterly pen
of F. Marion Crawford. In “The Upper Berth” he weaves a mystery of
horror and haunting fear. It is redolent of stagnant seawater and slimy
sea-weeds. He is a hardened reader indeed who can read a yarn such as
this without a shudder. And yet the reader is led deliberately on to
the final climax. Unlike other mysteries it does not depend for its
power upon the unexpected. The narrator says in effect, “Gentlemen,
prepare for a shock!”--and his audience are shocked nevertheless.
“The Diamond Lens,” by Fitz-James O’Brien, is a classic of imagination
raised to the _nth_ degree. Through the manufacture of a microscope of
incalculable power, its possessor is enabled to discover worlds far
beyond the ken of man, and to find therein lovely beings. The height of
the fantastic is reached when the scientist falls in love with the tiny
animalcule--truly a hopeless passion! On re-reading this story one is
struck by the fact that even murder itself can be held subordinate to
other elements in a piece of fiction.
De Maupassant’s strange tale, “The Horla,” carries with it more than
a literary interest. It has a certain autobiographical flavor. De
Maupassant wielded one of the most powerful and versatile pens in
France of the last half century, and yet had a morbid, haunting fear of
going mad--a fear which was actually realized. “The Horla” is one of
the first vivid presentiments of a sinister personality overshadowing
his own. In another story, “Lui,” not here included, he also reveals
evidences of this overmastering terror. “I am afraid of the walls,
of the furniture, of the familiar objects which seem to me to assume
a kind of animal life. Above all I fear the horrible confusion of my
thought, of my reason escaping, entangled and scattered by an invisible
and mysterious anguish.”
A mystery story of more conventional type is that one by Anna Katharine
Green, one of America’s most prolific writers in this vein. In “The
Thief,” we have an example of circumstantial evidence, which wellnigh
brings its victim to social and spiritual ruin. He is saved only by the
faith of those who believe in him despite appearances.
“The Mummy’s Foot,” by Gautier, is a delightful example of Gallic
humor. Nothing could be more fanciful than the picture of the long-dead
Egyptian princess coming to reclaim her foot, which was being used as
a paper weight, and the assumption of its owner that he was thereby
entitled to claim her hand.
In the preparation of this work the editor has been constantly indebted
to publishers and writers for the use of special material. Thanks are
particularly due to The Macmillan Company and the heirs of F. Marion
Crawford for permission to use his work; and to Dodd, Mead & Company
and Anna Katharine Green, for the use of her story.
J. W. McS.
MONTCLAIR, N. J.
March 1, 1922.
THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
By RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
[Attribution: From “The Ingoldsby Legends, by Thomas Ingoldsby Esq.”]
“It is very odd, though; what can have become of them?” said Charles
Seaforth, as he peeped under the valance of an old-fashioned
bedstead, in an old-fashioned apartment of a still more old-fashioned
manor-house; “’tis confoundedly odd, and I can’t make it out at all.
Why, Barney, where are they?--and where the devil are you?”
No answer was returned to this appeal; and the lieutenant, who was, in
the main, a reasonable person--at least as reasonable a person as any
young gentleman of twenty-two in “the service” can fairly be expected
to be--cooled when he reflected that his servant could scarcely reply
extempore to a summons which it was impossible he should hear.
An application to the bell was the considerate result; and the
footsteps of as tight a lad as ever put pipe-clay to belt, sounded
along the gallery.
“Come in!” said his master. An ineffectual attempt upon the door
reminded Mr. Seaforth that he had locked himself in. “By Heaven!
this is the oddest thing of all,” said he, as he turned the key and
admitted Mr. Maguire into his dormitory.
“Barney, where are my pantaloons?”
“Is it the breeches?” asked the valet, casting an inquiring eye round
the apartment--“is it the breeches, sir?”
“Yes; what have you done with them?”
“Sure then your honor had them on when you went to bed, and it’s
hereabout they’ll be, I’ll be bail;” and Barney lifted a fashionable
tunic from a cane-backed arm-chair, proceeding in his examination.
But the search was vain: there was the tunic aforesaid; there was a
smart-looking kerseymere waistcoat; but the most important article of
all in a gentleman’s wardrobe was still wanting.
“Where can they be?” asked the master, with a strong accent on the
auxiliary verb.
“Sorrow a know I knows,” said the man.
“It must have been the devil, then, after all, who has been here and
carried them off!” cried Seaforth, staring full into Barney’s face.
Mr. Maguire was not devoid of the superstition of his countrymen, still
he looked as if he did not quite subscribe to the _sequitur_.
His master read incredulity in his countenance. “Why, I tell you,
Barney, I put them there, on that arm-chair, when I got into bed; and,
by heaven! I distinctly saw the ghost of the old fellow they told me
of, come in at midnight, put on my pantaloons, and walk away with them.”
“May be so,” was the cautious reply.
“I thought, of course, it was a dream; but then--where the devil are
the breeches?”
The question was more easily asked than answered. Barney renewed his
search, while the lieutenant folded his arms, and, leaning against the
toilet, sank into a reverie.
“After all, it must be some trick of my laughter-loving cousins,” said
Seaforth.
“Ah! then, the ladies!” chimed in Mr. Maguire, though the observation
was not addressed to him; “and will it be Miss Caroline or Miss Fanny,
that’s stole your honor’s things?”
“I hardly know what to think of it,” pursued the bereaved lieutenant,
still speaking in soliloquy, with his eye resting dubiously on the
chamber-door. “I locked myself in, that’s certain; and--but there must
be some other entrance to the room--pooh! I remember--the private
staircase; how could I be such a fool?” and he crossed the chamber to
where a low oaken doorcase was dimly visible in a distant corner. He
paused before it. Nothing now interfered to screen it from observation;
but it bore tokens of having been at some earlier period concealed by
tapestry, remains of which yet clothed the walls on either side of the
portal.
“This way they must have come,” said Seaforth; “I wish with all my
heart I had caught them!”
“Och! the kittens!” sighed Mr. Barney Maguire.
But the mystery was yet as far from being solved as before. True, there
_was_ the “other door”; but then that, too, on examination, was even
more firmly secured than the one which opened on the gallery--two
heavy bolts on the inside effectually prevented any coup de main on the
lieutenant’s bivouac from that quarter. He was more puzzled than ever;
nor did the minutest inspection of the walls and floor throw any light
upon the subject; one thing only was clear--the breeches were gone! “It
is _very_ singular,” said the lieutenant.
* * * * *
Tappington (generally called Tapton) Everard is an antiquated but
commodious manor-house in the eastern division of the county of Kent. A
former proprietor had been high-sheriff in the days of Elizabeth, and
many a dark and dismal tradition was yet extant of the licentiousness
of his life, and the enormity of his offenses. The Glen, which the
keeper’s daughter was seen to enter, but never known to quit, still
frowns darkly as of yore; while an ineradicable bloodstain on the oaken
stair yet bids defiance to the united energies of soap and sand. But it
is with one particular apartment that a deed of more especial atrocity
is said to be connected. A stranger guest--so runs the legend--arrived
unexpectedly at the mansion of the “bad Sir Giles.” They met in
apparent friendship; but the ill-concealed scowl on their master’s brow
told the domestics that the visit was not a welcome one; the banquet,
however, was not spared; the wine cup circulated freely--too freely,
perhaps, for sounds of discord at length reached the ears of even the
excluded serving-men, as they were doing their best to imitate their
betters in the lower hall. Alarmed, some of them ventured to approach
the parlor; one an old and favored retainer of the house, went so far
as to break in upon his master’s privacy. Sir Giles, already high in
oath, fiercely enjoined his absence, and he retired; not, however,
before he had distinctly heard from the stranger’s lips a menace that
“there was that within his pockets which could disprove the knight’s
right to issue that or any other command within the walls of Tapton.”
The intrusion, though momentary, seemed to have produced a beneficial
effect; the voices of the disputants fell, and the conversation was
carried on thenceforth in a more subdued tone, till, as evening closed
in, the domestics, when summoned to attend with lights, found not only
cordiality restored, but that a still deeper carouse was meditated.
Fresh stoups, and from the choicest bins, were produced; nor was it
till at a late, or rather early hour, that the revelers sought their
chambers.
The one allotted to the stranger occupied the first floor of the
eastern angle of the building, and had once been the favorite apartment
of Sir Giles himself. Scandal ascribed this preference to the facility
which a private staircase, communicating with the grounds, had afforded
him, in the old knight’s time, of following his wicked courses
unchecked by parental observation; a consideration which ceased to be
of weight when the death of his father left him uncontrolled master
of his estate and actions. From that period Sir Giles had established
himself in what were called the “state apartments,” and the “oaken
chamber” was rarely tenated, save on occasions of extraordinary
festivity, or when the yule log drew an unusually large accession of
guests around the Christmas hearth.
On this eventful night it was prepared for the unknown visitor, who
sought his couch heated and inflamed from his midnight orgies, and
in the morning was found in his bed a swollen and blackened corpse.
No marks of violence appeared upon the body; but the livid hue
of the lips, and certain dark-colored spots visible on the skin,
aroused suspicions which those who entertained them were too timid to
express. Apoplexy, induced by the excesses of the preceding night, Sir
Giles’s confidential leech pronounced to be the cause of his sudden
dissolution. The body was buried in peace; and though some shook their
heads as they witnessed the haste with which the funeral rites were
hurried on, none ventured to murmur. Other events arose to distract the
attention of the retainers; men’s minds became occupied by the stirring
politics of the day; while the near approach of that formidable
armada, so vainly arrogating to itself a title which the very elements
joined with human valor to disprove, soon interfered to weaken, if
not obliterate, all remembrance of the nameless stranger who had died
within the walls of Tapton Everard.
Years rolled on: the “bad Sir Giles” had himself long since gone to his
account, the last, as it was believed, of his immediate line; though
a few of the older tenants were sometimes heard to speak of an elder
brother, who had disappeared in early life, and never inherited the
estate. Rumors, too, of his having left a son in foreign lands, were at
one time rife; but they died away, nothing occurring to support them;
the property passed unchallenged to a collateral branch of the family,
and the secret, if secret there were, was buried in Denton churchyard,
in the lonely grave of the mysterious stranger. One circumstance
alone occurred, after a long-intervening period, to revive the memory
of these transactions. Some workmen employed in grubbing an old
plantation, for the purpose of raising on its site a modern shrubbery,
dug up, in the execution of their task, the mildewed remnants of what
seemed to have been once a garment. On more minute inspection, enough
remained of silken slashes and a coarse embroidery, to identify the
relics as having once formed part of a pair of trunk hose; while a few
papers which fell from them, altogether illegible from damp and age,
were by the unlearned rustics conveyed to the then owner of the estate.
Whether the squire was more successful in deciphering them was never
known; he certainly never alluded to their contents; and little would
have been thought of the matter but for the inconvenient memory of
an old woman, who declared she heard her grandfather say, that when
the “stranger guest” was poisoned, though all the rest of his clothes
were there, his breeches, the supposed repository of the supposed
documents, could never be found. The master of Tapton Everard smiled
when he heard Dame Jones’s hint of deeds which might impeach the
validity of his own title in favor of some unknown descendant of some
unknown heir; and the story was rarely alluded to, save by one or
two miracle-mongers, who had heard that others had seen the ghost of
Old Sir Giles, in his night-cap, issue from the postern, enter the
adjoining copse, and wring his shadowy hands in agony, as he seemed to
search vainly for something hidden among the evergreens. The stranger’s
deathroom had, of course, been occasionally haunted from the time of
his decease; but the periods of visitation had latterly become very
rare--even Mrs. Botherby, the housekeeper, being forced to admit that
during her long sojourn at the manor, she had never “met with anything
worse than herself”; though, as the old lady afterwards added upon more
mature reflection, “I must say I think I saw the devil once.”
Such was the legend attached to Tapton Everard, and such the story
which the lively Caroline Ingoldsby detailed to her equally mercurial
cousin, Charles Seaforth, lieutenant in the Hon. East India Company’s
second regiment of Bombay Fencibles, as arm-in-arm they promenaded a
gallery decked with some dozen grim-looking ancestral portraits, and,
among others, with that of the redoubted Sir Giles himself. The gallant
commander had that very morning paid his first visit to the house of
his maternal uncle, after an absence of several years passed with his
regiment on the arid plains of Hindoostan, whence he was now returned
on a three years’ furlough. He had gone out a boy--he returned a man;
but the impression made upon his youthful fancy by his favorite cousin
remained unimpaired, and to Tapton he directed his steps, even before
he sought the home of his widowed mother--comforting himself in this
breach of filial decorum by the reflection that, as the manor was so
little out of his way, it would be unkind to pass, as it were, the door
of his relatives, without just looking in for a few hours.
But he found his uncle as hospitable, and his cousin more charming
than ever; and the looks of one, and the requests of the other, soon
precluded the possibility of refusing to lengthen the “few hours” into
a few days, though the house was at the moment full of visitors.
The Peterses were there from Ramsgate; and Mr., Mrs., and the two Miss
Simpkinsons, from Bath, had come to pass a month with the family;
and Tom Ingoldsby had brought down his college friend, the Honorable
Augustus Sucklethumbkin, with his groom and pointers, to take a
fortnight’s shooting. And then there was Mrs. Ogleton, the rich young
widow, with her large black eyes, who, people did say, was setting
her cap at the young squire, though Mrs. Botherby did not believe
it; and, above all, there was Mademoiselle Pauline, her femme de
chambre, who “mon Dieu’d” everything and everybody, and cried “Quelle
horreur!” at Mrs. Botherby’s cap. In short, to use the last-named and
much-respected lady’s own expression, the house was “choke-full” to
the very attics--all save the “oaken chamber,” which, as the lieutenant
expressed a most magnanimous disregard of ghosts, was forthwith
appropriated to his particular accommodation. Mr. Maguire meanwhile
was fain to share the apartment of Oliver Dobbs, the squire’s own man;
a jocular proposal of joint occupancy having been first indignantly
rejected by “Mademoiselle,” though preferred with the “laste taste in
life” of Mr. Barney’s most insinuating brogue.
* * * * *
“Come, Charles, the urn is absolutely getting cold; your breakfast
will be quite spoiled; what can have made you so idle?” Such was the
morning salutation of Miss Ingoldsby to the militaire as he entered the
breakfast-room half-an-hour after the latest of the party.
“A pretty gentleman, truly, to make an appointment with,” chimed
in Miss Frances. “What is become of our ramble to the rocks before
breakfast?”
“Oh! the young men never think of keeping a promise now,” said Mrs.
Peters, a little ferret-faced woman with underdone eyes.
“When I was a young man,” said Mr. Peters, “I remember I always made a
point of----”
“Pray, how long ago was that?” asked Mr. Simpkinson from Bath.
“Why, sir, when I married Mrs. Peters, I was--let me see--I was----”
“Do pray hold your tongue, P., and eat your breakfast!” interrupted
his better half, who had a mortal horror of chronological references;
“it’s very rude to tease people with your family affairs.”
The lieutenant had by this time taken his seat in silence--a
good-humored nod, and a glance, half-smiling, half-inquisitive, being
the extent of his salutation. Smitten as he was, and in the immediate
presence of her who had made so large a hole in his heart, his manner
was evidently distrait, which the fair Caroline in her secret soul
attributed to his being solely occupied by her agrémens: how would she
have bridled had she known that they only shared his meditations with a
pair of breeches!
Charles drank his coffee and spiked some half-dozen eggs, darting
occasionally a penetrating glance at the ladies, in hope of detecting
the supposed waggery by the evidence of some furtive smile or conscious
look. But in vain; not a dimple moved indicative of roguery, nor did
the slightest elevation of eyebrow rise confirmative of his suspicions.
Hints and insinuations passed unheeded--more particular inquiries were
out of the question--the subject was unapproachable.
In the meantime, “patent cords” were just the thing for a morning’s
ride; and, breakfast ended, away cantered the party over the downs,
till, every faculty absorbed by the beauties, animate and inanimate,
which surrounded him, Lieutenant Seaforth of the Bombay Fencibles
bestowed no more thought upon his breeches than if he had been born on
the top of Ben Lomond.
Another night had passed away; the sun rose brilliantly, forming with
his level beams a splendid rainbow in the far-off west, whither the
heavy cloud, which for the last two hours had been pouring its waters
on the earth, was now flying before him.
“Ah! then, and it’s little good it’ll be the claning of ye,”
apostrophized Mr. Barney Maguire, as he deposited, in front of his
master’s toilet, a pair of “bran new” jockey boots, one of Hoby’s
primest fits, which the lieutenant had purchased in his way through
town. On that very morning had they come for the first time under the
valet’s depurating hand, so little soiled, indeed, from the turfy ride
of the preceding day, that a less scrupulous domestic might perhaps
have considered the application of “Warren’s Matchless,” or oxalic
acid, altogether superfluous. Not so, Barney: with the nicest care had
he removed the slightest impurity from each polished surface, and there
they stood, rejoicing in their sable radiance. No wonder a pang shot
across Mr. Maguire’s breast, as he thought on the work now cut out for
them, so different from the light labors of the day before; no wonder
he murmured with a sigh, as the scarce dried window-panes disclosed
a road now inch deep in mud. “Ah! then, it’s little good the claning
of ye!”--for well had he learned in the hall below that eight miles
of a stiff clay soil lay between the manor and Bolsover Abbey, whose
picturesque ruins, “Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay,” the party
had determined to explore. The master had already commenced dressing,
and the man was fitting straps upon a light pair of crane-necked spurs,
when his hand was arrested by the old question--“Barney, where are the
breeches?”
They were nowhere to be found!
Mr. Seaforth descended that morning, whip in hand, and equipped in
a handsome green riding-frock, but no “breeches and boots to match”
were there; loose jean trousers, surmounting a pair of diminutive
Wellingtons, embraced, somewhat incongruously, his nether man, vice the
“patent cords,” returned, like yesterday’s pantaloons, absent without
leave. The “top-boots” had a holiday.
“A fine morning after the rain,” said Mr. Simpkinson from Bath.
“Just the thing for the ’ops,” said Mr. Peters. “I remember when I was
a boy--”
“Do hold your tongue, P.,” said Mrs. Peters--advice which that
exemplary matron was in the constant habit of administering to “her
P.,” as she called him, whenever he prepared to vent his reminiscences.
Her precise reason for this it would be difficult to determine, unless
indeed, the story be true which a little bird had whispered into Mrs.
Botherby’s ear--Mr. Peters, though now a wealthy man, had received a
liberal education at a charity school, and was apt to recur to the days
of his muffin-cap and leathers. As usual, he took his wife’s hint in
good part, and “paused in his reply.”
“A glorious day for the ruins!” said young Ingoldsby. “But Charles,
what the deuce are you about? you don’t mean to ride through our lanes
in such toggery as that?”
“Lassy me!” said Miss Julia Simpkinson, “won’t you be very wet?”
“You had better take Tom’s cab,” quoth the squire.
But this proposition was at once overruled; Mrs. Ogleton had already
nailed the cab, a vehicle of all others the best adapted for a snug
flirtation.
“Or drive Miss Julia in the phaeton?” No; that was the post of Mr.
Peters, who, indifferent as an equestrian, had acquired some fame as
a whip while travelling through the midland countries for the firm of
Bagshaw, Snivelby, and Grimes.
“Thank you, I shall ride with my cousins,” said Charles, with as much
nonchalance as he could assume--and he did so; Mr. Ingoldsby, Mrs.
Peters, Mr. Simpkinson from Bath, and his eldest daughter with her
album, following in the family coach. The gentleman-commoner “voted the
affair d--d slow,” and declined the party altogether in favor of the
gamekeeper and a cigar. “There was ‘no fun’ in looking at old houses!”
Mrs. Simpkinson preferred a short séjour in the still-room with Mrs.
Botherby, who had promised to initiate her in that grand arcanum, the
transmutation of gooseberry jam into Guava jelly.
* * * * *
But what had become of Seaforth and his fair Caroline all this while?
Why, it so happened that they had been simultaneously stricken with
the picturesque appearance of one of those high and pointed arches,
which that eminent antiquary, Mr. Horseley Curties, has described in
his “Ancient records,” as “a Gothic window of the Saxon order”; and
then the ivy clustered so thickly and so beautifully on the other side,
that they went round to look at that; and then their proximity deprived
it of half its effect, and so they walked across to a little knoll, a
hundred yards off, and in crossing a small ravine, they came to what
in Ireland they call “a bad step,” and Charles had to carry his cousin
over it; and then when they had to come back, she would not give him
the trouble again for the world, so they followed a better but more
circuitous route, and there were hedges and ditches in the way, and
stiles to get over and gates to get through, so that an hour or more
had elapsed before they were able to rejoin the party.
“Lassy me!” said Miss Julia Simpkinson, “how long you have been gone!”
And so they had. The remark was a very just as well as a very natural
one. They were gone a long while, and a nice cosy chat they had; and
what do you think it was about, my dear miss?
“O, lassy me! love no doubt, and the moon, and eyes, and nightingales,
and----”
Stay, stay, my sweet young lady; do not let the fervor of your feelings
run away with you! I do not pretend to say, indeed, that one or more
of these pretty subjects might not have been introduced; but the
most important and leading topic of the conference was--Lieutenant
Seaforth’s breeches.
“Caroline,” said Charles, “I have had some very odd dreams since I have
been at Tappington.”
“Dreams, have you?” smiled the young lady, arching her taper neck like
a swan in pluming. “Dreams, have you?”
“Ay, dreams--or dream, perhaps, I should say; for, though repeated, it
was still the same. And what do you imagine was its subject?”
“It is impossible for me to divine,” said the tongue:--“I have not the
least difficulty in guessing,” said the eye, as plainly as ever eye
spoke.
“I dreamt--of your great-grandfather.”
There was a change in the glance--“My great-grandfather?”
“Yes, the old Sir Giles, or Sir John, you told me about the other day:
he walked into my bedroom in his short cloak of murrey-colored velvet,
his long rapier, and his Raleigh-looking hat and feather, just as the
picture represents him; but with one exception.”
“And what was that?”
“Why, his lower extremities, which were visible, were those of a
skeleton.”
“Well?”
“Well, after taking a turn or two about the room, and looking round him
with a wistful air, he came to the bed’s foot, stared at me in a manner
impossible to describe--and then he--he laid hold of my pantaloons;
whipped his long, bony legs into them in a twinkling; and, strutting
up to the glass, seemed to view himself in it with great complacency.
I tried to speak, but in vain. The effort, however, seemed to excite
his attention; for, wheeling about, he showed me the grimmest-looking
death’s head you can well imagine, and with an indescribable grin
strutted out of the room.”
“Absurd! Charles. How can you talk such nonsense?”
“But, Caroline--the breeches are really gone.”
* * * * *
On the following morning, contrary to his usual custom, Seaforth
was the first person in the breakfast parlor. A serious, not to say
anxious, expression was visible upon his good-humored countenance, and
his mouth was fast buttoning itself up for an incipient whistle, when
little Flo, a tiny spaniel of the Blenheim breed--the pet object of
Miss Julia Simpkinson’s affections--bounced out from beneath a sofa,
and began to bark at--his pantaloons.
They were cleverly “built” of a light-gray mixture, a broad stripe
of the most vivid scarlet traversing each seam in a perpendicular
direction from hip to ankle--in short, the regimental costume of the
Royal Bombay Fencibles. The animal, educated in the country, had
never seen such a pair of breeches in her life--Omne ignotum pro
magnifico! The scarlet streak, inflamed as it was by the reflection of
the fire, seemed to act on Flora’s nerves as the same color does on
those of bulls and turkeys; she advanced at the pas de charge, and her
vociferation, like her amazement, was unbounded. A sound kick from the
disgusted officer changed its character, and induced a retreat at the
very moment when the mistress of the pugnacious quadruped entered to
the rescue.
“Lassy me! Flo, what _is_ the matter?” cried the sympathizing lady,
with a scrutinizing glance levelled at the gentleman.
It might as well have lighted on a feather bed. His air of
imperturbable unconsciousness defied examination; and as he would not,
and Flora could not, expound, that injured individual was compelled
to pocket up her wrongs. Others of the household soon dropped in, and
clustered round the board dedicated to the most sociable of meals;
the urn was paraded “hissing hot,” and the cups which “cheer, but not
inebriate,” steamed redolent of hyson and pekoe; muffins and marmalade,
newspapers and finnan haddies, left little room for observation on
the character of Charles’s warlike “turn-out.” At length a look from
Caroline, followed by a smile that nearly ripened to a titter, caused
him to turn abruptly and address his neighbor. It was Miss Simpkinson,
who, was deeply engaged in sipping her tea and turning over her album.
The entreaties of the company were of course urgent. Mr. Peters, “who
liked verses,” was especially persevering, and Sappho, at length
compliant. After a preparatory hem, and a glance at the mirror to
ascertain that her look was sufficiently sentimental, the poetess
began:--
“There is a calm, a holy feeling,
Vulgar minds can never know,
O’er the bosom softly stealing,--
Chasten’d grief, delicious woe!
Oh! how sweet at eve regaining
Yon lone tower’s sequester’d shade--
Sadly mute and uncomplaining----”
--“Yow!--yeough!--yeough!--yow!--yow!” yelled a hapless sufferer from
underneath the table. It was an unlucky hour for quadrupeds; and if
“every dog will have his day,” he could not have selected a more
unpropitious one than this. Mrs. Ogleton, too, had a pet--a favorite
pug--whose squab figure, black muzzle, and tortuosity of tail, that
curled like a head of celery in a salad-bowl, bespoke his Dutch
extraction. Yow! yow! yow! continued the brute--a chorus in which Flo
instantly joined. Sooth to say, pug had more reason to express his
dissatisfaction than was given him by the muse of Simpkinson; the other
only barked for company. Scarcely had the poetess got through her first
stanza, when Tom Ingoldsby, in the enthusiasm of the moment, became so
lost in the material world, that, in his abstraction, he unwarily laid
his hand on the cock of the urn. Quivering with emotion, he gave it
such an unlucky twist, that the full stream of its scalding contents
descended on the gingerbread hide of the unlucky Cupid. The confusion
was complete; the whole economy of the table disarranged--the company
broke up in the most admired disorder--and “vulgar minds will never
know” anything more of Miss Simpkinson’s ode till they peruse it in
some forthcoming Annual.
Seaforth profited by the confusion to take the delinquent who had
caused this “stramash” by the arm, and to lead him to the lawn, where
he had a word or two for his private ear. The conference between the
young gentlemen was neither brief in its duration nor unimportant
in its results. The subject was what the lawyers call tripartite,
embracing the information that Charles Seaforth was over head and
ears in love with Tom Ingoldsby’s sister; secondly, that the lady
had referred him to “papa” for his sanction; thirdly and lastly, his
nightly visitations, and consequent bereavement. At the two first items
Tom smiled auspiciously; at the last he burst out into an absolute
guffaw.
“Steal your breeches! Miss Bailey over again, by Jove,” shouted
Ingoldsby. “But a gentleman, you say--and Sir Giles too. I am not sure,
Charles, whether I ought not to call you out for aspersing the honor of
the family.”
“Laugh as you will, Tom--be as incredulous as you please. One fact is
incontestable--the breeches are gone! Look here--I am reduced to my
regimentals; and if these go, to-morrow I must borrow of you!”
Rochefoucault says, there is something in the misfortunes of our very
best friends that does not displease us; assuredly we can, most of us,
laugh at their petty inconveniences, till called upon to supply them.
Tom composed his feature on the instant, and replied with more gravity,
as well as with an expletive, which, if my Lord Mayor had been within
hearing, might have cost him five shillings.
“There is something very queer in this, after all. The clothes, you
say, have positively disappeared. Somebody is playing you a trick;
and, ten to one, your servant has a hand in it. By the way, I heard
something yesterday of his kicking up a bobbery in the kitchen, and
seeing a ghost, or something of that kind, himself. Depend upon it,
Barney is in the plot.”
It now struck the lieutenant at once, that the usually buoyant spirits
of his attendant had of late been materially sobered down, his
loquacity obviously circumscribed, and that he, the said lieutenant,
had actually rung his bell three several times that very morning before
he could procure his attendance. Mr. Maguire was forthwith summoned,
and underwent a close examination. The “bobbery” was easily explained.
Mr. Barney had seen a ghost.
“A what? you blockhead!” asked Tom Ingoldsby.
“Sure then, and it’s meself will tell your honor the rights of it,”
said the ghost-seer. “Meself and Miss Pauline, sir,--or Miss Pauline
and meself, for the ladies comes first anyhow,--we got tired of the
hobstroppylous scrimmaging among the ould servants, that didn’t know a
joke when they seen one; and we went out to look at the comet--that’s
the rorybory-alehouse, they calls him in this country--and we walked
upon the lawn--and divil of any alehouse there was there at all;
and Miss Pauline said it was bekase of the shrubbery maybe, and why
wouldn’t we see it better beyonst the trees? and so we went to the
trees, but sorrow a comet did meself see there, barring a big ghost
instead of it.”
“A ghost? And what sort of a ghost, Barney?”
“Och, then, divil a lie I’ll tell your honor. A tall ould gentlemen
he was, all in white, with a shovel on the shoulder of him, and a big
torch in his fist--though what he wanted with that it’s meself can’t
tell, for his eyes like gig-lamps, let alone the moon and the comet,
which wasn’t there at all--and ‘Barney,’ says he to me--’cause why he
knew me--‘Barney,’ says he, ‘what is it you’re doing with the colleen
there, Barney?’--Divil a word did I say. Miss Pauline screeched, and
cried murther in French, and ran off with herself; and of course
meself was in a mighty hurry after the lady, and had no time to stop
palavering with him any way: so I dispersed at once, and the ghost
vanished in a flame of fire!”
Mr. Maguire’s account was received with avowed incredulity by both
gentlemen; but Barney stuck to his text with unflinching pertinacity.
A reference to Mademoiselle was suggested, but abandoned, as neither
party had a taste for delicate investigations.
“I’ll tell you what, Seaforth,” said Ingoldsby, after Barney had
received his dismissal, “that there is a trick here, is evident; and
Barney’s vision may possibly be a part of it. Whether he is most knave
or fool, you best know. At all events, I will sit up with you to-night,
and see if I can convert my ancestor into a visiting acquaintance.
Meanwhile your finger on your lip!”
* * * * *
Gladly would I grace my tale with recent horror, and therefore I do
beseech the “gentle reader” to believe, that if all the details to
this mysterious narrative are not in strict keeping, he will ascribe
it only to the disgraceful innovations of modern degeneracy upon the
sober and dignified habits of our ancestors. I can introduce him, it is
true, into an old and high-roofed chamber, its walls covered on three
sides with black oak wainscoting, adorned with carvings of fruit and
flowers long anterior to those of Grinling Gibbons; the fourth side
is clothed with a curious remnant of dingy tapestry, once elucidatory
of some Scriptural history, but of which not even Mrs. Botherby could
determine. Mr. Simpkinson, who had examined it carefully, inclined to
believe the principal figure to be either Bathsheba, or Daniel in the
lion’s den; while Tom Ingoldsby decided in favor of the King of Bashan.
All, however, was conjecture, tradition being silent on the subject. A
lofty arched portal led into, and a little arched portal led out of,
this apartment; they were opposite each other, and each possessed the
security of massy bolts on its interior. The bedstead, too, was not one
of yesterday, but manifestly coeval with days ere Seddons was, and when
a good four-post “article” was deemed worthy of being a royal bequest.
The bed itself, with all the appurtenances of palliasse, mattresses,
etc., was of far later date, and looked most incongruously comfortable;
the casements, too, with their little diamond-shaped panes and iron
binding, had given way to the modern heterodoxy of the sash-window. Nor
was this all that conspired to ruin the costume, and render the room a
meet haunt for such “mixed spirits” only as could condescend to don at
the same time an Elizabethan doublet and Bond-Street inexpressibles.
With their green morocco slippers on a modern fender, in front of
a disgracefully modern grate, sat two young gentlemen, clad in
“shawl-pattern” dressing-gowns and black silk stocks, much at variance
with the high cane-backed chairs which supported them. A bunch of
abomination, called a cigar, reeked in the left-hand corner of the
mouth of one, and in the right-hand corner of the mouth of the
other--an arrangement happily adapted for the escape of the noxious
fumes up the chimney, without that unmerciful “funking” each other
which a less scientific disposition of the weed would have induced.
A small pembroke table filled up the intervening space between them,
sustaining, at each extremity, an elbow and a glass of toddy--thus in
“lonely pensive contemplation” were the two worthies occupied, when the
“iron tongue of midnight had tolled twelve.”
“Ghost-time’s come!” said Ingoldsby, taking from his waistcoat pocket a
watch like a gold half-crown, and consulting it as though he suspected
the turret-clock over the stables of mendacity.
“Hush!” said Charles; “did I not hear a footstep?”
There was a pause--there was a footstep--it sounded distinctly--it
reached the door--it hesitated, stopped, and--passed on.
Tom darted across the room, threw open the door, and became aware of
Mrs. Botherby toddling to her chamber, at the other end of the gallery,
after dosing one of the housemaids with an approved julep from the
Countess of Kent’s _Choice Manual_.
“Good-night, sir!” said Mrs. Botherby.
“Go to the devil!” said the disappointed ghost-hunter.
An hour--two--rolled on, and still no spectral visitation; nor did
aught intervene to make night hideous; and when the turret-clock
sounded at length the hour of three, Ingoldsby, whose patience and grog
were alike exhausted, sprang from his chair, saying--
“This is all infernal nonsense, my good fellow. Deuce of any ghost
shall we see to-night; it’s long past the canonical hour. I’m off to
bed; and as to your breeches, I’ll insure them for the next twenty-four
hours at least, at the price of the buckram.”
“Certainly.--Oh! thank’ee--to be sure!” stammered Charles, rousing
himself from a reverie, which had degenerated into an absolute snooze.
“Good-night, my boy! Bolt the door behind me; and defy the Pope, the
Devil, and the Pretender!”
Seaforth followed his friend’s advice, and the next morning came down
to breakfast dressed in the habiliments of the preceding day. The charm
was broken, the demon defeated; the light grays with the red stripe
down the seams were yet in rerum naturâ, and adorned the person of
their lawful proprietor.
Tom felicitated himself and his partner of the watch on the result of
their vigilance; but there is a rustic adage, which warns us against
self-gratulation before we are quite “out of the wood.”--Seaforth was
yet within its verge.
A rap at Tom Ingoldsby’s door the following morning startled him as he
was shaving--he cut his chin.
“Come in and be damned to you!” said the martyr, pressing his thumb on
the sacrificed epidermis. The door opened, and exhibited Mr. Barney
Maguire.
“Well, Barney, what is it?” quoth the sufferer, adopting the vernacular
of his visitant.
“The master, sir--”
“Well, what does he want?”
“The loanst of a breeches, plase your honor.”
“Why, you don’t mean to tell me----By Heaven, this is too good!”
shouted Tom, bursting into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “Why,
Barney, you don’t mean to say the ghost has got them again?”
Mr. Maguire did not respond to the young squire’s risibility; the cast
of his countenance was decidedly serious.
“Faith, then, it’s gone they are, sure enough! Hasn’t meself been
looking over the bed, and under the bed, and _in_ the bed, for the
matter of that, and divil a ha’p’orth of breeches is there to the fore
at all:--I’m bothered entirely!”
“Hark’ee! Mr. Barney,” said Tom, incautiously removing his thumb, and
letting a crimson stream “incarnadine the multitudinous” lather that
plastered his throat,--“this may be all very well with your master, but
you don’t humbug _me_, sir:--tell me instantly what have you done with
the clothes?”
This abrupt transition from “lively to severe” certainly took Maguire
by surprise, and he seemed for an instant as much disconcerted as it is
possible to disconcert an Irish gentleman’s gentleman.
“Me? is it meself, then, that’s the ghost to your honor’s thinking?”
said he after a moment’s pause, and with a slight shade of indignation
in his tones: “is it I would stale the master’s things--and what would
I do with them?”
“That you best know:--what your purpose is I can’t guess, for I
don’t think you mean to ‘stale’ them, as you call it; but that you
are concerned in their disappearance, I am satisfied. Confound this
blood!--give me a towel, Barney.”
Maguire acquitted himself of the commission. “As I’ve a sowl, your
honor,” said he, solemnly, “little is it meself knows of the matter;
and after what I seen----”
“What you’ve seen! Why, what _have_ you seen?--Barney, I don’t want to
inquire into your flirtations; but don’t suppose you can palm off your
saucer eyes and gig-lamps upon me!”
“Then, as sure as your honor’s standing there, I saw him: and why
wouldn’t I, when Miss Pauline was to the fore as well as meself,
and----”
“Get along with your nonsense; leave the room, sir!”
“But the master?” said Barney, imploringly; “and without a
breeches?--sure he’ll be catching cowld!----”
“Take that, rascal!” replied Ingoldsby, throwing a pair of pantaloons
at, rather than to, him: “but don’t suppose, sir, you shall carry on
your tricks here with impunity; recollect there is such a thing as a
treadmill, and that my father is a county magistrate.”
Barney’s eye flashed fire; he stood erect, and was about to speak; but,
mastering himself, not without an effort, he took up the garment, and
left the room as perpendicular as a Quaker.
“Ingoldsby,” said Charles Seaforth, after breakfast, “this is now past
a joke; to-day is the last of my stay; for, notwithstanding the ties
which detain me, common decency obliges me to visit home after so long
an absence. I shall come to an immediate explanation with your father
on the subject nearest my heart, and depart while I have a change of
dress left. On his answer will my return depend! In the meantime tell
me candidly,--I ask it in all seriousness, and as a friend,--am I not
a dupe to your well-known propensity to hoaxing? have you not a hand
in----”
“No, by heaven, Seaforth; I see what you mean: on my honor, I am as
much mystified as yourself; and if your servant----”
“Not he:--if there be a trick, he at least is not privy to it.”
“If there be a trick? why, Charles, do you think----”
“I know not what to think, Tom. As surely as you are a living man, so
surely did that spectral anatomy visit my room again last night, grin
in my face, and walk away with my trousers: nor was I able to spring
from my bed, or break the chain which seemed to bind me to my pillow.”
“Seaforth!” said Ingoldsby, after a short pause, “I will----But hush!
here are the girls and my father.--I will carry off the females, and
leave you a clear field with the governor: carry your point with him,
and we will talk about your breeches afterwards.”
Tom’s diversion was successful; he carried off the ladies en masse
while Seaforth marched boldly up to the encounter, and carried “the
governor’s” outworks by a coup de main.