Fairfield is a little village lying near the Portsmouth Road about
half-way between London and the sea. Strangers who find it by
accident now and then, call it a pretty, old-fashioned place; we who
live in it and call it home don't find anything very pretty about it,
but we should be sorry to live anywhere else. Our minds have taken
the shape of the inn and the church and the green, I suppose. At all
events we never feel comfortable out of Fairfield.
Of course the Cockneys, with their vasty houses and noise-ridden
streets, can call us rustics if they choose, but for all that
Fairfield is a better place to live in than London. Doctor says that
when he goes to London his mind is bruised with the weight of the
houses, and he was a Cockney born. He had to live there himself when
he was a little chap, but he knows better now. You gentlemen may
laugh--perhaps some of you come from London way--but it seems to me
that a witness like that is worth a gallon of arguments.
Dull? Well, you might find it dull, but I assure you that I've
listened to all the London yarns you have spun tonight, and they're
absolutely nothing to the things that happen at Fairfield. It's
because of our way of thinking and minding our own business. If one
of your Londoners were set down on the green of a Saturday night when
the ghosts of the lads who died in the war keep tryst with the lasses
who lie in the church-yard, he couldn't help being curious and
interfering, and then the ghosts would go somewhere where it was
quieter. But we just let them come and go and don't make any fuss,
and in consequence Fairfield is the ghostiest place in all England.
Why, I've seen a headless man sitting on the edge of the well in
broad daylight, and the children playing about his feet as if he were
their father. Take my word for it, spirits know when they are well
off as much as human beings.
Still, I must admit that the thing I'm going to tell you about was
queer even for our part of the world, where three packs of
ghost-hounds hunt regularly during the season, and blacksmith's
great-grandfather is busy all night shoeing the dead gentlemen's
horses. Now that's a thing that wouldn't happen in London, because of
their interfering ways, but blacksmith he lies up aloft and sleeps as
quiet as a lamb. Once when he had a bad head he shouted down to them
not to make so much noise, and in the morning he found an old guinea
left on the anvil as an apology. He wears it on his watch-chain now.
But I must get on with my story; if I start telling you about the
queer happenings at Fairfield I'll never stop.
It all came of the great storm in the spring of '97, the year that we
had two great storms. This was the first one, and I remember it very
well, because I found in the morning that it had lifted the thatch of
my pigsty into the widow's garden as clean as a boy's kite. When I
looked over the hedge, widow--Tom Lamport's widow that was--was
prodding for her nasturtiums with a daisy-grubber. After I had
watched her for a little I went down to the "Fox and Grapes" to tell
landlord what she had said to me. Landlord he laughed, being a
married man and at ease with the sex. "Come to that," he said, "the
tempest has blowed something into my field. A kind of a ship I
think it would be."
I was surprised at that until he explained that it was only a
ghost-ship and would do no hurt to the turnips. We argued that
it had been blown up from the sea at Portsmouth, and then we
talked of something else. There were two slates down at the
parsonage and a big tree in Lumley's meadow. It was a rare
storm.
I reckon the wind had blown our ghosts all over England.
They were coming back for days afterwards with foundered horses
and as footsore as possible, and they were so glad to get back
to Fairfield that some of them walked up the street crying like
little children. Squire said that his great-grandfather's
great-grandfather hadn't looked so dead-beat since the battle
of Naseby, and he's an educated man.
What with one thing and another, I should think it was a week before
we got straight again, and then one afternoon I met the landlord on
the green and he had a worried face. "I wish you'd come and have a
look at that ship in my field," he said to me; "it seems to me it's
leaning real hard on the turnips. I can't bear thinking what the
missus will say when she sees it."
I walked down the lane with him, and sure enough there was a
ship in the middle of his field, but such a ship as no man had
seen on the water for three hundred years, let alone in the
middle of a turnip-field. It was all painted black and covered
with carvings, and there was a great bay window in the stern
for all the world like the Squire's drawing-room. There was a
crowd of little black cannon on deck and looking out of her
port-holes, and she was anchored at each end to the hard
ground. I have seen the wonders of the world on picture-postcards,
but I have never seen anything to equal that.
"She seems very solid for a ghost-ship," I said, seeing the landlord
was bothered.
"I should say it's a betwixt and between," he answered, puzzling it
over, "but it's going to spoil a matter of fifty turnips, and missus
she'll want it moved." We went up to her and touched the side, and it
was as hard as a real ship. "Now there's folks in England would call
that very curious," he said.
Now I don't know much about ships, but I should think that that
ghost-ship weighed a solid two hundred tons, and it seemed to me
that she had come to stay, so that I felt sorry for landlord, who was
a married man. "All the horses in Fairfield won't move her out of my
turnips," he said, frowning at her.
Just then we heard a noise on her deck, and we looked up and saw that
a man had come out of her front cabin and was looking down at us very
peaceably. He was dressed in a black uniform set out with rusty gold
lace, and he had a great cutlass by his side in a brass sheath. "I'm
Captain Bartholomew Roberts," he said, in a gentleman's voice, "put
in for recruits. I seem to have brought her rather far up the
harbour."
"Harbour!" cried landlord; "why, you're fifty miles from the sea."
Captain Roberts didn't turn a hair. "So much as that, is it?" he said
coolly. "Well, it's of no consequence."
Landlord was a bit upset at this. "I don't want to be unneighbourly,"
he said, "but I wish you hadn't brought your ship into my field. You
see, my wife sets great store on these turnips."
The captain took a pinch of snuff out of a fine gold box that he
pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with a silk
handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. "I'm only here for a few
months," he said; "but if a testimony of my esteem would pacify your
good lady I should be content," and with the words he loosed a great
gold brooch from the neck of his coat and tossed it down to landlord.
Landlord blushed as red as a strawberry. "I'm not denying she's fond
of jewellery," he said, "but it's too much for half a sackful of
turnips." And indeed it was a handsome brooch.
The captain laughed. "Tut, man," he said, "it's a forced sale, and
you deserve a good price. Say no more about it;" and nodding good-day
to us, he turned on his heel and went into the cabin. Landlord walked
back up the lane like a man with a weight off his mind. "That tempest
has blowed me a bit of luck," he said; "the missus will be much
pleased with that brooch. It's better than blacksmith's guinea, any
day."
Ninety-seven was Jubilee year, the year of the second Jubilee, you
remember, and we had great doings at Fairfield, so that we hadn't
much time to bother about the ghost-ship though anyhow it isn't our
way to meddle in things that don't concern us. Landlord, he saw his
tenant once or twice when he was hoeing his turnips and passed the
time of day, and landlord's wife wore her new brooch to church every
Sunday. But we didn't mix much with the ghosts at any time, all
except an idiot lad there was in the village, and he didn't know the
difference between a man and a ghost, poor innocent! On Jubilee Day,
however, somebody told Captain Roberts why the church bells were
ringing, and he hoisted a flag and fired off his guns like a loyal
Englishman. 'Tis true the guns were shotted, and one of the round
shot knocked a hole in Farmer Johnstone's barn, but nobody thought
much of that in such a season of rejoicing.
It wasn't till our celebrations were over that we noticed that
anything was wrong in Fairfield. 'Twas shoemaker who told me first
about it one morning at the "Fox and Grapes." "You know my great
great-uncle?" he said to me.
"You mean Joshua, the quiet lad," I answered, knowing him well.
"Quiet!" said shoemaker indignantly. "Quiet you call him, coming home
at three o'clock every morning as drunk as a magistrate and waking up
the whole house with his noise."
"Why, it can't be Joshua!" I said, for I knew him for one of the most
respectable young ghosts in the village.
"Joshua it is," said shoemaker; "and one of these nights he'll find
himself out in the street if he isn't careful."
This kind of talk shocked me, I can tell you, for I don't like to
hear a man abusing his own family, and I could hardly believe that a
steady youngster like Joshua had taken to drink. But just then in
came butcher Aylwin in such a temper that he could hardly drink his
beer. "The young puppy! the young puppy!" he kept on saying; and it
was some time before shoemaker and I found out that he was talking
about his ancestor that fell at Senlac.
"Drink?" said shoemaker hopefully, for we all like company in our
misfortunes, and butcher nodded grimly.
"The young noodle," he said, emptying his tankard.
Well, after that I kept my ears open, and it was the same story all
over the village. There was hardly a young man among all the ghosts
of Fairfield who didn't roll home in the small hours of the morning
the worse for liquor. I used to wake up in the night and hear them
stumble past my house, singing outrageous songs. The worst of it was
that we couldn't keep the scandal to ourselves and the folk at
Greenhill began to talk of "sodden Fairfield" and taught their
children to sing a song about us:
"Sodden Fairfield, sodden Fairfield, has no use for bread-and-butter,
Rum for breakfast, rum for dinner, rum for tea, and rum for supper!"
We are easy-going in our village, but we didn't like that.
Of course we soon found out where the young fellows went to get the
drink, and landlord was terribly cut up that his tenant should have
turned out so badly, but his wife wouldn't hear of parting with the
brooch, so that he couldn't give the Captain notice to quit. But as
time went on, things grew from bad to worse, and at all hours of the
day you would see those young reprobates sleeping it off on the
village green. Nearly every afternoon a ghost-wagon used to jolt down
to the ship with a lading of rum, and though the older ghosts seemed
inclined to give the Captain's hospitality the go-by, the youngsters
were neither to hold nor to bind.
So one afternoon when I was taking my nap I heard a knock at the
door, and there was parson looking very serious, like a man with a
job before him that he didn't altogether relish. "I'm going down to
talk to the Captain about all this drunkenness in the village, and I
want you to come with me," he said straight out.
I can't say that I fancied the visit much, myself, and I tried to
hint to parson that as, after all, they were only a lot of ghosts it
didn't very much matter.
"Dead or alive, I'm responsible for the good conduct," he said, "and
I'm going to do my duty and put a stop to this continued disorder.
And you are coming with me John Simmons." So I went, parson being a
persuasive kind of man.
We went down to the ship, and as we approached her I could see the
Captain tasting the air on deck. When he saw parson he took off his
hat very politely and I can tell you that I was relieved to find that
he had a proper respect for the cloth. Parson acknowledged his salute
and spoke out stoutly enough. "Sir, I should be glad to have a word
with you."
"Come on board, sir; come on board," said the Captain, and I could
tell by his voice that he knew why we were there. Parson and I
climbed up an uneasy kind of ladder, and the Captain took us into the
great cabin at the back of the ship, where the bay-window was. It was
the most wonderful place you ever saw in your life, all full of gold
and silver plate, swords with jewelled scabbards, carved oak chairs,
and great chests that look as though they were bursting with guineas.
Even parson was surprised, and he did not shake his head very hard
when the Captain took down some silver cups and poured us out a drink
of rum. I tasted mine, and I don't mind saying that it changed my
view of things entirely. There was nothing betwixt and between about
that rum, and I felt that it was ridiculous to blame the lads for
drinking too much of stuff like that. It seemed to fill my veins with
honey and fire.
Parson put the case squarely to the Captain, but I didn't listen much
to what he said; I was busy sipping my drink and looking through the
window at the fishes swimming to and fro over landlord's turnips.
Just then it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they
should be there, though afterwards, of course, I could see that that
proved it was a ghost-ship.
But even then I thought it was queer when I saw a drowned sailor
float by in the thin air with his hair and beard all full of bubbles.
It was the first time I had seen anything quite like that at
Fairfield.
All the time I was regarding the wonders of the deep parson was
telling Captain Roberts how there was no peace or rest in the village
owing to the curse of drunkenness, and what a bad example the
youngsters were setting to the older ghosts. The Captain listened
very attentively, and only put in a word now and then about boys
being boys and young men sowing their wild oats. But when parson had
finished his speech he filled up our silver cups and said to parson,
with a flourish, "I should be sorry to cause trouble anywhere where I
have been made welcome, and you will be glad to hear that I put to
sea tomorrow night. And now you must drink me a prosperous voyage."
So we all stood up and drank the toast with honour, and that noble
rum was like hot oil in my veins.
After that Captain showed us some of the curiosities he had brought
back from foreign parts, and we were greatly amazed, though
afterwards I couldn't clearly remember what they were. And then I
found myself walking across the turnips with parson, and I was
telling him of the glories of the deep that I had seen through the
window of the ship. He turned on me severely. "If I were you, John
Simmons," he said, "I should go straight home to bed." He has a way
of putting things that wouldn't occur to an ordinary man, has parson,
and I did as he told me.
Well, next day it came on to blow, and it blew harder and harder,
till about eight o'clock at night I heard a noise and looked out into
the garden. I dare say you won't believe me, it seems a bit tall even
to me, but the wind had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the
widow's garden a second time. I thought I wouldn't wait to hear what
widow had to say about it, so I went across the green to the "Fox and
Grapes", and the wind was so strong that I danced along on tiptoe
like a girl at the fair. When I got to the inn landlord had to help
me shut the door; it seemed as though a dozen goats were pushing
against it to come in out of the storm.
"It's a powerful tempest," he said, drawing the beer. "I hear there's
a chimney down at Dickory End."
"It's a funny thing how these sailors know about the weather," I
answered. "When Captain said he was going tonight, I was thinking it
would take a capful of wind to carry the ship back to sea, but now
here's more than a capful."
"Ah, yes," said landlord, "it's tonight he goes true enough, and,
mind you, though he treated me handsome over the rent, I'm not sure
it's a loss to the village. I don't hold with gentrice who fetch
their drink from London instead of helping local traders to get their
living."
"But you haven't got any rum like his," I said, to draw him out.
His neck grew red above his collar, and I was afraid I'd gone too
far; but after a while he got his breath with a grunt.
"John Simmons," he said, "if you've come down here this windy night
to talk a lot of fool's talk, you've wasted a journey."
Well, of course, then I had to smooth him down with praising his rum,
and Heaven forgive me for swearing it was better than Captain's. For
the like of that rum no living lips have tasted save mine and
parson's. But somehow or other I brought landlord round, and
presently we must have a glass of his best to prove its quality.
"Beat that if you can!" he cried, and we both raised our glasses to
our mouths, only to stop half-way and look at each other in amaze.
For the wind that had been howling outside like an outrageous dog had
all of a sudden turned as melodious as the carol-boys of a Christmas
Eve.
"Surely that's not my Martha," whispered landlord; Martha being his
great-aunt that lived in the loft overhead.
We went to the door, and the wind burst it open so that the handle
was driven clean into the plaster of the wall. But we didn't think
about that at the time; for over our heads, sailing very comfortably
through the windy stars, was the ship that had passed the summer in
landlord's field. Her portholes and her bay-window were blazing with
lights, and there was a noise of singing and fiddling on her decks.
"He's gone," shouted landlord above the storm, "and he's taken half
the village with him!" I could only nod in answer, not having lungs
like bellows of leather.
In the morning we were able to measure the strength of the storm, and
over and above my pigsty there was damage enough wrought in the
village to keep us busy. True it is that the children had to break
down no branches for the firing that autumn, since the wind had
strewn the woods with more than they could carry away. Many of our
ghosts were scattered abroad, but this time very few came back, all
the young men having sailed with Captain; and not only ghosts, for a
poor half-witted lad was missing, and we reckoned that he had stowed
himself away or perhaps shipped as cabin-boy, not knowing any better.
What with the lamentations of the ghost-girls and the grumbling of
families who had lost an ancestor, the village was upset for a while,
and the funny thing was that it was the folk who had complained most
of the carryings-on of the youngsters, who made most noise now that
they were gone. I hadn't any sympathy with shoemaker or butcher, who
ran about saying how much they missed their lads, but it made me
grieve to hear the poor bereaved girls calling their lovers by name
on the village green at nightfall. It didn't seem fair to me that
they should have lost their men a second time, after giving up life
in order to join them, as like as not. Still, not even a spirit can
be sorry for ever, and after a few months we made up our mind that
the folk who had sailed in the ship were never coming back, and we
didn't talk about it any more.
And then one day, I dare say it would be a couple of years after,
when the whole business was quite forgotten, who should come
trapesing along the road from Portsmouth but the daft lad who had
gone away with the ship, without waiting till he was dead to become a
ghost. You never saw such a boy as that in all your life. He had a
great rusty cutlass hanging to a string at his waist, and he was
tattooed all over in fine colours, so that even his face looked like
a girl's sampler. He had a handkerchief in his hand full of foreign
shells and old-fashioned pieces of small money, very curious, and he
walked up to the well outside his mother's house and drew himself a
drink as if he had been nowhere in particular.
The worst of it was that he had come back as soft-headed as he went,
and try as we might we couldn't get anything reasonable out of him.
He talked a lot of gibberish about keel-hauling and walking the
plank and crimson murders--things which a decent sailor should know
nothing about, so that it seemed to me that for all his manners
Captain had been more of a pirate than a gentleman mariner. But to
draw sense out of that boy was as hard as picking cherries off a
crab-tree. One silly tale he had that he kept on drifting back to,
and to hear him you would have thought that it was the only thing
that happened to him in his life. "We was at anchor," he would say,
"off an island called the Basket of Flowers, and the sailors had
caught a lot of parrots and we were teaching them to swear. Up and
down the decks, up and down the decks, and the language they used
was dreadful. Then we looked up and saw the masts of the Spanish
ship outside the harbour. Outside the harbour they were, so we threw
the parrots into the sea and sailed out to fight. And all the
parrots were drownded in the sea and the language they used was
dreadful." That's the sort of boy he was, nothing but silly talk of
parrots when we asked him about the fighting. And we never had a
chance of teaching him better, for two days after he ran away again,
and hasn't been seen since.
That's my story, and I assure you that things like that are happening
at Fairfield all the time. The ship has never come back, but somehow
as people grow older they seem to think that one of these windy
nights she'll come sailing in over the hedges with all the lost
ghosts on board. Well, when she comes, she'll be welcome. There's one
ghost-lass that has never grown tired of waiting for her lad to
return. Every night you'll see her out on the green, straining her
poor eyes with looking for the mast-lights among the stars. A
faithful lass you'd call her, and I'm thinking you'd be right.
Landlord's field wasn't a penny the worse for the visit, but they do
say that since then the turnips that have been grown in it have
tasted of rum.