GHOSTS.
“But stop,” says the courteous and prudent reader, “are there any
such things as ghosts?”
“Any ghostesses!” cries Superstition, who settled long since in the
country, near a church yard on a “rising ground,” “any ghostesses!
Ay, man, lots on ’em! Bushels on ’em! Sights on ’em! Why, there’s
one as walks in our parish, reglar as the clock strikes twelve—and
always the same round, over church-stile, round the corner, through
the gap, into Shorts Spinney, and so along into our close, where he
takes a drink at the pump—for ye see he died in liquor, and then
arter he squenched hisself, wanishes into waper.
“Then there’s the ghost of old Beales, as goes o’ nights and sows
tares in his neighbor’s wheat—I’ve often seed ’em in seed time.
They do say that Black Ben, the poacher, have riz, and what’s more,
walked slap through all the squire’s steel traps, without springing
on ’em. And then there’s Bet Hawkey as murdered her own infant—only
the poor little babby hadn’t learned to walk, and so can’t appear
ag’in her.”
THOMAS HOOD, _The Grimsby Ghost_.
That dark little room I described as so convenient during a terrific
thunderstorm or the prowling investigations of a burglar, began after
a while to get mysterious and uncanny, and I disliked, nay, dreaded to
enter it after dark. It was so still, so black, so empty, so chilly
with a sort of supernatural chill, so silent, that imagination conjured
up sounds such as I had never heard before. I had been told of an
extremely old woman, a great-great-grandmother, bed-ridden, peevish,
and weak-minded, who had occupied that room for nearly a score of
years, apparently forgotten by fate, and left to drag out a monotonous,
weary existence on not her “mattress grave” (like the poet Heine),
but on an immensely thick feather bed; only a care, a burden, to her
relations.
As twilight came on, I always carefully closed that door and shut the
old lady in to sleep by herself. For it seemed that she was still
there, still propped up in an imaginary bed, mumbling incoherently of
the past, or moaning out some want, or calling for some one to bring a
light, as she used to.
Once in a while, they told me, she would regain her strength
suddenly and astonish the family by appearing at the door. When the
grand-daughter was enjoying a Sunday night call from her “intended” it
was rather embarrassing.
I said nothing to my friends about this unpleasant room. But several
were susceptible to the strange influence. One thought she should not
mind so much if the door swung open, and a _portière_ concealed the
gloom. So a cheerful cretonne soon was hung. Then the fancy came that
the curtain stirred and swayed as if some one or something was groping
feebly with ghostly or ghastly fingers behind it. And one night, when
sitting late and alone over the embers of my open fire, feeling a
little forlorn, I certainly heard moans coming from that direction.
It was not the wind, for, although it was late October and the breezes
were sighing over summer’s departure, this sound was entirely different
and distinct. Then (and what a shiver ran down my back!) I remembered
hearing that a woman had been killed by falling down the steep cellar
stairs, and the spot on the left side where she was found unconscious
and bleeding had been pointed out to me. There, I heard it again!
Was it the wraith of the aged dame or the cries of that unfortunate
creature? Hush! Ellen can’t have fallen down!
I am really scared; the lamp seems to be burning dim and the last coal
has gone out. Is it some restless spirit, so unhappy that it must moan
out its weary plaint? I ought to be brave and go at once and look
boldly down the cellar stairs and draw aside that waving _portière_.
Oh, dear! If I only had some one to go with me and hold a light
and—there it is—the third time. Courage vanished. It might be some
dreadful tramp hiding and trying to drive me up-stairs, so he could get
the silver, and he would gladly murder me for ten cents—
“Tom,” I cried. “Tom, come here.” But Tom, my six-footer factotum, made
no response.
I could stand it no longer—the _portière_ seemed fairly alive, and I
rushed out to the kitchen where Ellen sat reading the _Ledger_, deep in
the horrors of The Forsaken Inn. “Ellen, I’m ashamed, but I’m really
frightened. I do believe somebody is in that horrid dark room, or in
the cellar, and where _is_ Tom?
“Bedad, Miss, and you’ve frightened the heart right out o’ me. It might
be a ghost, for there are such things (Heaven help us!), and I’ve seen
’em in this country and in dear old Ireland, and so has Tom.”
“You’ve seen ghosts?”
“Yes, indeed, Miss, but I’ve never spoke to any, for you’ve no right to
speak to a ghost, and if you do you will surely die.” Tom now came in
and soon satisfied me that there was no living thing in the darkness,
so I sat down and listened to Ellen’s experiences with ghosts.
THE FORMER MRS. WILKES.—“Now this happened in New York city, Miss, in
West 28th Street, and is every word true, for, my dear, I saw it with
my own eyes. I went to bed, about half-past nine it was this night,
and I was lying quietly in bed, looking up to the ceiling; no light on
account of the mosquitoes, and Maud, the little girl I was caring for,
a romping dear of seven or eight, a motherless child, had been tossing
about restless like, and her arm was flung over me. All at once I saw
a lady standing by the side of the bed in her night dress and looking
earnestly at the child beyond me. She then came nearer, took Maud’s arm
off me, and gently straightened her in bed, then stroked her face, both
cheeks—fondly, you know—and then stood and looked at the child. I said
not a word, but I wasn’t one bit afraid for I thought it was a living
lady. I could tell the color of her eyes and hair and just how she
looked every way. In the morning I described her to Mrs. Wilkes, and
asked, ‘Is there any strange lady in the house?’ ‘No, Ellen. Why?’ she
said. Then I said: ‘Why, there certainly was a pleasant-looking lady in
my room last night, in her night dress, and she patted Maud as if she
thought a sight of her.’
“‘Why,’ said my mistress, ‘that is surely the former Mrs. Wilkes!’
“She said that the older daughter had seen her several times standing
before her glass, fixing her hair and looking at herself, but if she
spoke to her or tried to speak, her mother would take up something and
shake it at her. And once when we were going up-stairs together Alice
screamed, and said that her mother was at the top of the stairs and
blew her cold breath right down on her. The stepmother started to give
her her slipper, but the father pitied her and would not allow her to
be whipped, and said ‘I’ll go up to bed with you, Alice.’”
“Did you ever see the lady in white again, Ellen?”
“Never, Ma’am, nor did I ever see any other ghost in this country that
I was sure was a ghost, but—Ireland, dear old Ireland, oh, that’s
an ancient land, and they have both ghosts and fairies and banshees
too, and many’s the story I’ve heard over there, and from my own dear
mother’s lips, and she would not tell a lie (Heaven rest her soul!),
and I’ve seen them myself over there, and so has Tom and his brother
too, Miss. Oh, many’s the story I could tell!”
“Well, Ellen, let me have one of your own—your very best.” And I went
for pencil and pad.
“And are ye going to pin down my story. Well, Miss, if ye take it just
as I say, and then fix it proper to be read, they’ll like it, for
people are crazy now to get the true ghost stories of dear old Ireland.
O Miss, when you go over, don’t forget my native place. It has a real
castle and a part of it is haunted, and the master doesn’t like to live
there—only comes once a year or so, for hunting—and the rabbits there
are as thick as they can be and the river chuck full of fish, but no
one can touch any game, or even take out one fish, or they would be
punished.”
“Yes, Ellen it’s hard, and all wrong, but we are wandering away from
your ghosts, and you know I am going to take notes. So begin.”
“Well, Miss, I was a sort of companion or maid to a blind lady in my
own town. I slept in a little room just across the landing from hers,
so as to always be within reach of her. I was just going to bed, when
she called for me to come in and see if there was something in the
room—something alive, she thought, that had been hopping, hopping all
around her bed, and frightened her dreadfully, poor thing, for, you
remember, she was stone blind, Miss, which made it worse. So I hurried
in and I shook the curtains, looked behind the bureau and under the
bed, and tried everywhere for whatever might be hopping around, but
could find nothing and heard not a sound. While I was there all was
still. Then I went into my room again, and left the door open, as I
thought Miss Lacy would feel more comfortable about it, and I was
hardly in my bed when she called again and screamed out with fear, for
It was hopping round the bed. She said I must go down-stairs and bring
a candle. So I had to go down-stairs to the pantry all alone and get
the candle. Then I searched as before, but found nothing—not a thing.
Well, my dear, I went into my room and kept my candle lighted this
time. The third time she called me she was standing on her pillow,
shivering with fright, and begged me to bring the light. It was sad,
because she was stone blind. She told me how It went hopping around the
room, with its legs tied like. And after looking once more and finding
nothing, she said I’d have to sleep in the bed with her and bring a
chair near the bed and put the lighted candle on it. For a long time
we kept awake, and watched and listened, but nothing happened, nothing
appeared. We kept awake as long as we could, but at last our eyes grew
very heavy, and the lady seemed to feel more easy. So I snuffed out the
candle. Out It hopped and kept a jumping on one leg like from one side
to the other. We were so much afraid we covered our faces; we dreaded
to see It, so we hid our eyes under the sheet, and she clung on to me
all shaking; she felt worse because she was blind.
“We fell asleep at daylight, and when I told Monk, the butler, he said
it was a corpse, sure—a corpse whose legs had been tied to keep them
straight and the cords had not been taken off, the feet not being
loosened. Why my own dear mother, that’s dead many a year (Heaven bless
her departed spirit!)—she would never tell a word that was not true—she
saw a ghost hopping in that way, tied-like, jumping around a bed—blue
as a blue bag; just after the third day she was buried, and my mother
(the Lord bless her soul!) told me the sons went to her grave and
loosened the cords and she never came back any more. Isn’t it awful?
And, bedad, Miss, it’s every word true. I can tell you of a young man
I knew who looked into a window at midnight (after he had been playing
cards, Miss, gambling with the other boys) and saw something awful
strange, and was turned by ghosts into a _shadow_.”
This seemed to be a thrilling theme, such as Hawthorne would have been
able to weave into the weirdest of weird tales, and I said, “Go on.”
“Well, he used to go playing cards about three miles from his home with
a lot of young men, for his mother wouldn’t have cards played in her
house, and she thought it was wicked, and begged him not to play. It’s
a habit with the young men of Ireland—don’t know as it’s the same in
other countries—and they play for a goose or a chicken. They go to some
vacant house to get away from their fathers, they’re so against it at
home. Why, my brother-in-law used to go often to such a house on the
side of a country road. Each man would in turn provide the candles to
play by, and as this house was said to be haunted, bedad they had it
all to themselves. Well, this last night that ever they played there—it
was Tom’s own brother that told me this—just as they were going to
deal the cards, a tall gentleman came out from a room that had been
the kitchen. He walked right up to them—he was dressed in black cloth
clothes, and wore a high black hat—and came right between two of the
men and told them to deal out the cards. They were too frightened even
to speak, so the stranger took the cards himself and dealt around to
each man. And afterward he played with them; then he looked at every
man in turn and walked out of the room. As soon as he cleared out of
the place, the men all went away as quick as ever they could, and
didn’t stop to put out the lights. Each man cleared with himself and
never stopped to look behind. And no one cared to play cards in that
house afterward any more. That was Tom’s own brother; and now the poor
young man who was going home at midnight saw a light in one of the
houses by the road, so he turned toward it, thinking to light his pipe.
Just before knocking, he looked in at the window. As soon as he peeped
in the light went out on him, and still he could see crowds of people,
as thick as grass, just as you see ’em at a fair—so thick they hadn’t
room to stand—and they kept swaying back and forth, courtesying like.
The kitchen was full, and looking through a door he saw a lot more of
fine ladies and gentlemen; they were laughing and having great fun,
running round the table setting out cups and saucers, just as if they
were having a ball. Just then a big side-board fell over with a great
crash, and all the fine people scampered away, and all was dark. So
he turned away on his heel and was so frightened, his mother said, he
could hardly get home from fear, and he had three whole miles to go.
Next day he was thrashing corn in the barn and something upset him and
pitched him head foremost across the flail. He rose, and three times he
was pitched like that across the flail, so he gave up and went home.
His mother asked him: ‘Johnny, what is the matter with you? You do look
very bad!’ So he up and told her what had happened to him in the barn,
and what he saw the night before. And he took suddenly sick and had to
keep his bed for nine weeks, and when he got up and was walking around,
he wasn’t himself any more, and the sister says to the mother: ‘Mother,
I’m sure that it isn’t Johnny that’s there. It’s only his shadow, for
when I look at him, it isn’t his features or face, but the face of
another thing. He used to be so pleasant and cheerful, but now he looks
like quite another man. Mother,’ said she, ‘we haven’t Johnny at all.’
Soon he got a little stronger and went to the capital town with corn.
Several other men went also to get their corn ground. They were all
coming home together a very cold night, and the men got up and sat on
their sacks of corn. The other horses walked on all right with them,
but Johnny’s horses wouldn’t move, not one step while he was on top of
the load. Well, my dear, he called for the rest to come and help him—to
see if the horses would go for them. But they would not move one step,
though they whipped them and shouted at them to start on, for Johnny
he was as heavy as lead. And he had to get down. Soon as he got down,
the horses seemed glad and went off on a gallop after the rest of the
train. So they all went off together, and Johnny wandered away into the
bogs. His friends supposed, of course, he was coming on, thought he was
walking beside his load; the snow was falling down, and perhaps they
were a little afraid. He was left behind. They scoured the country for
him next day, and, bedad, they found him, stiff dead, sitting against
a fence. There’s where they found him. They brought him on a door to
his mother. Oh, it was a sad thing to see—to see her cry and hear her
mourn!”
“And what more?” I asked.
“That’s all. He was waked and buried, and that’s what he got for
playing cards! And that’s all as true as ever could be true, for it’s
myself knew the old mother, and she told me it her very self, and she
cried many tears for her son.”