IN WHICH A CERTAIN TROUBLED SPIRIT WALKS.
Mr. Dangerfield was at the club that night, and was rather in spirits
than otherwise, except, indeed, when poor Charles Nutter was talked of.
Then he looked grave, and shrugged, and shook his head, and said--
'A bad business, Sir; and where's his poor wife?'
'Spending the night with us, poor soul,' said Major O'Neill, mildly,
'and hasn't an idaya, poor thing; and indeed, I hope, she mayn't hear
it.'
'Pooh! Sir, she must hear it; but you know she might have heard worse,
Sir, eh?' rejoined Dangerfield.
'True for you, Sir,' said the major, suspending the filling of his pipe
to direct a quiet glance of significance at Dangerfield, and then
closing his eyes with a nod.
And just at this point in came Spaight.
'Well, Spaight!'
'Well, Sir.'
'You saw the body, eh?' and a dozen other interrogatories followed, as,
cold and wet with melting snow, dishevelled, and storm-beaten--for it
was a plaguy rough night--the young fellow, with a general greeting to
the company, made his way to the fire.
''Tis a tremendous night, gentlemen, so by your leave I'll stir the
fire--and, yes, I seen him, poor Nutter--and, paugh, an ugly sight he
is, I can tell you; here Larry, bring me a rummer-glass of punch--his
right ear's gone, and a'most all his right hand--and screeching hot, do
you mind--an', phiew--altogether 'tis sickening--them fishes, you
know--I'm a'most sorry I went in--you remember Dogherty's whiskey shop
in Ringsend--he lies in the back parlour, and wondherful little changed
in appearance.'
And so Mr. Spaight, with a little round table at his elbow, and his
heels over the fender, sipped his steaming punch, and thawed inwardly
and outwardly, as he answered their questions and mixed in their
speculations.
Up at the Mills, which had heard the awful news, first from the Widow
Macan, and afterwards from Pat Moran, the maids sat over their tea in
the kitchen in high excitement and thrilling chat--'The poor master!'
'Oh, the poor man!' 'Oh, la, what's that?' with a start and a peep over
the shoulders. 'And oh, dear, and how in the world will the poor little
misthress ever live over the news?' And so forth, made a principal part
of their talk. There was a good accompaniment of wind outside, and a
soft pelting of snow on the window panes, 'and oh, my dear life, but
wasn't it dark!'
Up went Moggy, with her thick-wicked kitchen candle, to seek repose; and
Betty, resolving not to be long behind, waited only 'to wash up her
plates' and slack down the fire, having made up her mind, for she grew
more nervous in solitude, to share Moggy's bed for that night.
Moggy had not been twenty minutes gone, and her task was nearly ended,
when--'Oh, blessed saints!' murmured Betty, with staring eyes, and
dropping the sweeping-brush on the flags, she heard, or thought she
heard, her master's step, which was peculiar, crossing the floor
overhead.
She listened, herself as pale as a corpse, and nearly as breathless; but
there was nothing now but the muffled gusts of the storm, and the close
soft beat of the snow, so she listened and listened, but nothing came of
it.
''Tis only the vapours,' said Betty, drawing a long breath, and doing
her best to be cheerful; and so she finished her labours, stopping every
now and then to listen, and humming tunes very loud, in fits and starts.
Then it came to her turn to take her candle and go up stairs; she was a
good half-hour later than Moggy--all was quiet within the house--only
the sound of the storm--the creak and rattle of its strain, and the
hurly-burly of the gusts over the roof and chimneys.
Over her shoulder she peered jealously this way and that, as with
flaring candle she climbed the stairs. How black the window looked on
the lobby, with its white patterns of snow flakes in perpetual
succession sliding down the panes. Who could tell what horrid face might
be looking in close to her as she passed, secure in the darkness and
that drifting white lace veil of snow? So nimbly and lightly up the
stairs climbed Betty, the cook.
If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that
peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she
reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a
spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.
Crouching in the deep doorway on the right of the lobby, the cook, I
say, saw something--a figure--or a deep shadow--only a deep shadow--or
maybe a dog. She lifted the candle--she peeped under the candlestick:
'twas no shadow, as I live, 'twas a well-defined figure!
He was draped in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was
Charles Nutter's face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the
fascination lasted--while you might count one, two, three,
deliberately--that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no
mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she
did. The light glimmered on his white eye-balls.
Starting up, he struck at the candle with his hat. She uttered a loud
scream, and flinging stick and all at the figure, with a great clang
against the door behind, all was swallowed in instantaneous darkness;
she whirled into the opposite bed-room she knew not how, and locked the
door within, and plunged head-foremost under the bed-clothes, half mad
with terror.
The squall was heard of course. Moggy heard it, but she heeded not; for
Betty was known to scream at mice, and even moths. And as her door was
heard to slam, as was usual in panics of the sort, and as she returned
no answer, Moggy was quite sure there was nothing in it.
But Moggy's turn was to come. When spirits 'walk,' I've heard they make
the most of their time, and sometimes pay a little round of visits on
the same evening.
This is certain; Moggy was by no means so great a fool as Betty in
respect of hobgoblins, witches, banshees, pookas, and the world of
spirits in general. She eat heartily, and slept soundly, and as yet had
never seen the devil. Therefore such terrors as she that night
experienced were new to her, and I can't reasonably doubt the truth of
her narrative. Awaking suddenly in the night, she saw a light in the
room, and heard a quiet rustling going on in the corner, where the old
white-painted press showed its front from the wall. So Moggy popped her
head through her thin curtains at the side, and--blessed hour!--there
she saw the shape of a man looking into the press, the doors being wide
open, and the appearance of a key in the lock.
The shape was very like her master. The saints between us and harm! The
glow was reflected back from the interior of the press, and showed the
front part of the figure in profile with a sharp line of light. She said
he had some sort of thick slippers over his boots, a dark coat, with the
cape buttoned, and a hat flapping over his face; coat and hat and all,
sprinkled over with snow.
As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, and
with an awful ejaculation she cried, ''Tis you, Sir!'
'Don't stir, and you'll meet no harm,' he said, and over he posts to the
bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to
be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with
that she supposed she swooned away; for the next thing she remembered
was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a
sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she
gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more,
and the tread passed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down
stairs.
In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door
and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had
left them the night before.
You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light,
and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy
matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and
jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in
the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut,
discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable
companionship.