Uncle Cornelius his story. It was a dull evening in November. A drizzling
mist had been falling all day about the old farm. Harry Haywood and his
two sisters sat in the house place expecting a visit from their uncle, Cornelius
Heywood. This uncle lived alone, occupying the first floor above a chemist's shop
in the town, and had just enough of money over to buy books that
nobody seemed ever to have heard of but himself, for he was a student
in all those regions of speculation in which anything to be called knowledge is impossible.
What a dreary night, said Kate. I wish uncle would come and
tell us a story. A cheerful wish, said Harry. Uncle Corny is
a lively companion, isn't he. You can't even blunder through a Joe Miller
without tacking a moral to it, and then trying to persuade you that the
joke of it depends on the moral. Here he comes, said Kate,
as three distinct glows the knob of his walking stick announced the arrival of Uncle
Cornelius. She ran to the door to open it. The air had been
very still all day, but as he entered, he seemed to have brought
the wind with him, for the first moan of it pressed against, rather
than shook, the casement of the low sealed room. Uncle Cornelius was very
tall, and very thin, and very pale, with large gray eyes that
looked greatly larger because he wore spectacles of the most delicate hair steel with the
largest pebble eyes that ever were seen. He gave them a kindly greeting,
but too much in earnest, even in shaking hands to smile over it.
He sat down in the armchair by the chimney corner. I have been particular
in my description of him in order that my reader may give due weight to
his words. I am such a believer in words that I believe everything depends
on who says them. Uncle Cornelius Heywood's story, told word for word by
Uncle Timothy Warren would not have been the same story at all. Not one
of the listeners would have believed a syllable of it from the lips of round
bodied, red faced, small eyed little Uncle tim Whereas from Uncle Corny,
disbelieve one of his stories. If you could one word more concerning him,
his interest in everything conjectured or believed relative to the awful borderland of this world,
and the next was only equaled by his disgust at the vulgar, unimaginative
forms which curiosity about such subjects has assumed in the present day. With a
yearning after the unseen, like that of a child for the lifting of the
curtain of a theater, he declared that, rather than accept such a spirit
world, as the would be seers of the nineteenth century thought or pretended,
to reveal the prophets of a poperized workhouse immortality invented by a poverty stricken soul,
an ascent so greedy that it would gor John Carrion, he would rejoice
to believe that a man had just as much of a soul as the cabbage
of Iamblicus, namely an aerial double of his body. I'm so glad you're
come, uncle, said Kate. Why wouldn't you come to dinner? We
have been so gloomy. Well, Katie, you know I don't admire eating.
I never could bear to see a cow tearing up the grass with her
long tongue. As he spoke, he looked very much like a cow,
yet a way of opening his jaws while he kept his lips closely pressed together,
that made his cheeks fall in and his face look awfully long and dismal.
I consider eating he went on such an animal exercise that it ought always
to be performed in private. You never saw me dine kate, never,
Uncle, But I have seen you drink nothing but water. I must confess,
yes, that is another affair. According to one eye witness, that
is no more than the disembodied can do. I must confess, however,
that, although well attested, the story is to me scarcely credible. Fancy
a glass of Bavarian beer lifted into the air without a visible hand, turned
upside down, and set empty on the table, and no splash on the
floor or anywhere else. A solitary gleam of humor shone through the great eyes
of the spectacles as he spoke. Oh, Uncle, how can you believe
such nonsense? Said Janet. I do not say I believed it, did
I? But why not? The story has at least a touch of imagination
in it. That is a strange reason for believing a thing, Uncle said
Harry, you might have a worse Harry. I grant it is not sufficient,
but it is better than that commonplace aspect, which is the ground of
most faith. I believe I did say that the story puzzled me, But
how can you give it any quarter at all? Uncle? It does me
no harm. There it is between the boards of an old German book.
There, let it remain well. You will never persuade me to believe such
things, said Janet. Wait till I ask you, Janet returned her uncle
gravely. I have not the slightest desire to convince you. How do we
get into this unprofitable current of talk. We will change it at once our
consols. Harry, oh, uncle, said Kate. We were longing for
a story, and just as I thought you were coming to one, off
you go to consols. I thought a ghost story at least was coming,
said Janet. You did your best to stop at Janet, said Harry.
Janet began an angry retort, but Cornelius interrupted her. You never heard me
tell a ghost story, Janet. You have just told one about a drinking
ghost, Uncle, said Janet, in such a tone that Cornelius replied,
well, take that for your story, and let us talk of something else.
Janet apparently saw that she had been rude, and said as sweetly as
she might. Ah, but you didn't make that one, uncle, You
got it out of a German book. Make it make a ghost story,
repeated Cornelius. No that I never did. Such things are not to be
trifled with, are they? Said Janet. I at least have no inclination
to trifle with them. But really and truly, uncle, persisted Janet,
you don't believe in such things? Why should I either believe or disbelieve in
them? They are not essential to salvation. I presume you must do the
one or the other. I suppose I beg your pardon. You suppose wrong.
It would take twice the proof I have ever had to make me believe
in them, and exactly your prejudice, and allow me to say ignorance to
make me disbelieve in them. Neither is within my reach. I postpone judgment.
But you young people, of course, are wiser and know all about
the question. Oh uncle, I'm so sorry, said Kate. I'm sure
I did not mean to vex you, not at all, Not at all,
my dear. It wasn't you, do you know? Kate went on,
anxious to prevent anything unpleasant, for there was something very black perched on
Janet's forehead. I have taken to reading about that kind of thing. I
beg you will give it up at once. You will bewilder your brains till
you are ready to believe anything, if only it be absurd enough. Nay,
you may come to find the element of vulgarity essential to believe. I
should be sorry to the heart to believe concerning a horse or dog what they
tell you nowadays about Shakespeare and Burns. What have you been reading, my
girl? Don't be alarmed, uncle, only some highland legends which are too
absurd, either for my belief or for your theories. I don't know that,
Kate. Why what could you do with such shapeless creatures as hot their
fords and pools? For instance? They are as featureless as the faces of
the mountains, and so much the more terrible. But that does not make
it easier to believe in them, said Harry. I only said, returned
his uncle, that their shapelessness adds to their horror. But you allowed almost
at least, Uncle, said Kate, that you could find a place in
your theories even for those shapeless creatures. Cornelius sat silent for a moment,
then, having first doubled the length of his face and restored it to its
natural condition, said thoughtfully, I suspect, Katy, if you were to
come upon an ichthyosaurus or a pterodactyl asleep in the shoreburry, you would hardly
expect your report of it to be believed all at once, either by Harry
or Janet. I suppose not, Uncle, But I can't see what.
Of course such a thing could not happen here and now. But there was
a time when and a place where such a thing may have happened. Indeed,
in my time a traveler two have got pretty soundly disbelieved for reporting what
they saw the last of an expiring race which had strayed over the natural verge
of its history, coming to life in some neglected swamp, itself a remnant
of the slime of chaos. I never heard you talk like that before,
Uncle, said Harry. If you go on like that, you'll land me
in a swamp. I'm afraid I wasn't talking to you at all, Harry.
Kate challenged me to find a place for kelpies and such like in the
theories. She does me the honor of supposing I cultivate. Then you think
uncle that all these stories are only legends, which, if you could follow
them up, would lead you back to some one of the awful monsters that
have since quite disappeared from the Earth. It is possible those stories may be
such legends, but that was not what I intended to lead you to.
I gave you that only a something like what I am going to say.
Now? What if, mind, I only suggested, What if the direful
creatures whose report lingers in these tales should have an origin far older still?
What if they were remnants of a vanishing period of the Earth's history long antecedent
to the birth of Mastodon and Iguanodon, a stage, namely, when the
world as we call it had not yet become quite visible, was not yet
so far finished as to part from the invisible world that was its mother,
and which on its part, had not then become quite invisible, was only
almost such, and when, as a credible consequence, strange shapes of those
now invisible regions gorgons and chimeras dire might be expected to glue, mellowed occasionally
from the awful fauna of an ever generating world upon that one which was being
born of it. Hence the life periods of a world being long and slow,
some of these huge, unformed bulks of half created matter might somehow,
like the megatherium of later times, a baby creation to them at age long
intervals, clothed in a mighty terror of shapelessness, into the half recognition of
human beings, whose consternation at the uncertain vision were barrier enough to prevent all
further knowledge of its substance. I begin to have some notion of your meaning,
uncle, said Kate. But then said Janet, all that must be
over by this time. That world has been invisible now for many years,
ever since you were born. I suppose, Janet, the changes of a
world are not to be measured by the changes of its generations. Oh but
uncle, there can't be any such things. You know that as well as
I do. Yes, just as well, and no better. There can't
be any ghosts now, nobody believes such things. Oh as to ghosts,
that is quite another thing. I did not know you were talking with reference
to them. It is no wonder if one can get nothing sensible out of
you, Janet, when your discrimination is no greater than to lump everything marvelous
helpies, ghosts, vampires, devils, which is fairies, nightmares, and
I don't know what all under them one head of ghosts, and we haven't
been saying a word about them. If one were to disprove to you the
existence of the effrets of Eastern tales, you would consider the whole argument concerning
the reappearance of the departed Upset. I congratulate you on your powers of analysis
and induction, Miss Janet, But it matters very little whether we believe in
ghosts, as you say or not. Provided we believe that we are ghosts.
That within this body, which so many people are ready to consider their
own very selves, there lies a ghostly embryo at least, which has an
inner side to it God only can see, which says I, concerning itself,
and which will soon have to know whether or not it can appear to
those whom is left behind, and thus solve the question of ghosts for itself.
At least, then you do believe in ghosts, uncle, said Janet,
in a tone that certainly was not respectful. Surely I said nothing of
the sort, Janet, the man most convinced that he had himself had such
an interview as you hint at, would find ought to find it impossible to
convince anyone else of it. You're quite out of my depth, uncle,
said Harry. Surely any honest man ought to be believed. Honesty is not
all by any means that it is necessary to being believed. It is impossible
to convey a conviction of anything. All you can do is to convey a
conviction that you are convinced. Of course, what satisfied you might satisfy another.
But till you can present him with the sources of your conviction, you
cannot present him with the conviction. And perhaps not even then you can tell
him all about it. Can't you tell a man about a ghost affording him
the source of your conviction? Is it the same as a ghost appearing to
him? Really, Harry, you cannot even convey the impression a dream has
made upon you. But isn't that just because it is only a dream?
Not at all? The impression may be deeper and clearer on your mind than
any fact of the next morning will make. You will forget the next day
altogether, but the impression of the dream will remain through all the following whirl
and storm of what you call facts. Now, a conviction may be likened
to a deep impression on the judgment or the reason, or both. No
one can feel it, but the person who is convinced it cannot be conveyed.
I fancy that is just what those who believe in spirit rapping would say.
There are the true and false of convictions, as of everything else.
I mean that a man may take that for a conviction in his own mind,
which is not a conviction, but only resembles one. But those to
whom you refer profess to appeal to facts. It is on the ground of
those facts, and with the more earnestness, the more reason they can give
for receiving them as facts, that I refuse all their deductions with abhorrence.
I mean that if what they say is true, the thinker must reject with
contempt the claim to anything like revelation therein. Then you do not believe in
ghosts after all, said Kate, in a tone of surprise. I did
not say so, my dear, Will you be reasonable or will you not?
Dear uncle, do tell us what you really think. I have been
telling you what I think ever since I came, Katie, and you won't
take in a word I say. I have been taking in every word,
Uncle, and trying hard to understand it as well, did you ever see
a ghost? Uncle? Cornelius Heywood was silent. He shut his lips and
opened his jaws till his cheeks almost met in the vacuum. A strange expression
crossed the strange countenance, and the great eyes of his spectacles looked as if,
at the very moment they were seeing something no other spectacles could see.
Then his jaws closed with a snap, his countenance brightened, A flash of
humor came through the goggle eyes of Pebble, and at length he actually smiled
as he said, Really, Katie, you must take me for a simpleton.
How uncle to think if I had ever seen a ghost, I would
confess the fact before a set of creatures like you, all spinning your webs
like so many spiders to catch and devour old Daddy long legs. By this
time Harry had grown quite grave. Indeed, I am very sorry, uncle,
he said, if I have deserved such a rebuke. No, no,
my boy, said Cornelius, I did not mean it more than half.
If I had meant it, I would not have said it. If
you really would like here, he paused. Indeed we should, uncle,
said Kate, earnestly. You should have heard what we were saying just before
you came in. All you were saying, Katy, Yes, answered Kate
thoughtfully. The worst we said was that you could not tell a story without
well we did say, tacking a moral to it. Well, well,
I mustn't push it. A man has no right to know what people say
about him. It unfits him for occupying his real position amongst them. He
least of all, has anything to do with it. If his friends won't
defend him, he can't defend himself. Besides, what people say is so
often untrue. I don't mean to others, but to themselves. Their hearts
are more honest than their mouths. But Janet doesn't want a strange story.
I'm sure Janet certainly was not one to have chosen for a listener to such
a tale. Her eyes were so small that no satisfaction could possibly come of
it. Oh, I don't mind, uncle, she said, with half
affected indifference, as she searched in her box for silk to mend her gloves.
You are not very encouraging, I must say, returned her uncle,
making another cow face. I will go away if you like, said Janet,
pretending to rise. No, never mind, said her uncle hastily.
If you don't want me to tell it, I want you to hear it.
And before I have done that may have come to the same thing.
Perhaps then you really are going to tell us a ghost story, said Kate,
drawing her chair nearer to her uncle's, and then finding this did not
satisfy her sense of propinquity to the source of the expected pleasure, drawing a
stool from the corner and seating herself almost on the hearthrug at his knee.
I did not say, so, returned Cornelius. Once more, I said,
I would tell you a strange story. You may call it a ghost
story if you like. I do not pretend to determine what it is.
I confess it will look like one. Though after so many delays, Uncle
Cornelius now plunged almost hurriedly into his narration. In the year eighteen twenty,
he said, in the month of August, I fell in love. Here
the girls glanced at each other. The idea of Uncle Corney in love and
in the very same century in which they were now listening to the confession was
too astonishing to pass without ocular remark. But if he observed it. He
took no notice of it. He did not even pause. In the month
of September I was refused. Consequently, in the month of October, I
was ready to fall in love again. Take particular care of yourself, Harry,
for a whole month, at least after your first disappointment, for you
will never be more likely to do a foolish thing. Please yourself after the
second. If you are silly, then you may take what you get,
for you will deserve it, except it be good fortune. Did you do
a foolish thing, then, uncle, said Harry demurely. I did,
as you will see, for I fell in love. I don't see anything
so very foolish in that. I have repented it since, though, don't
interrupt me again, please. In the middle of October. Then, in
the year eighteen twenty, in the evening, I was walking across Russell Square
on my way home from the British Museum, where I had been reading all
day. You see, I have a full intention of being precise, Janet.
I'm sure I don't know why you make the remark to me, Uncle,
said Janet, with an involuntary toss of her head. Her uncle only
went on with his narrative. I begin at the very beginning of my story,
he said, for I want to be particular as to everything that can
appear to have had anything to do with what came afterwards. I had been
reading, I say, all the morning in the British Museum, and as
I walked, I took off my spectacles to ease my eyes. I need
not tell you that I am shortsighted now, for that you know well enough.
But I must tell you that I was shortsighted then, and helpless enough
without my spectacles, though I was not quite so much as I am now,
for I find at all nonsense about shortsighted eyes improving with age. Well.
I was walking along the south side of Russell Square with my spectacles in
my hand, and feeling a little bewildered in consequence, for it was quite
the dusk of the evening, and shortsighted people require more light than others.
I was feeling, in fact, almost blind. I had got more than
half way to the other side when from the crossing that cuts off the corner
in the direction of Montague Place, just as I was about to turn towards
it, an old lady stepped upon the curbstone of the pavement looked at me
for a moment and passed an occurrence. Not very remarkable, certainly, But
the lady was remarkable, and so was her dress. I am not good
at observing, and am still worse at describing dress. Therefore, I can
only say that hers reminded me of an old picture. That is, I
had never seen any anything like it except in old pictures. She had no
bonnet and looked as if she had walked straight out of an ancient drawing room
in her evening attire. Of her face, I shall say nothing now.
The next instant I met a man on the crossing who stopped and addressed me.
So shortsighted was I that though I recognized his voice as one I ought
to know, I could not identify him until I had put on my spectacles,
which I did instinctively in the act of returning his greeting. At the
same moment, I glanced over my shoulder after the old lady. She was
nowhere to be seen. Where are you looking at, said James Heatheridge.
I was looking after that old lady, I answered, But I can't see
her. What old lady? Said Heatheridge, with just a touch of impatience.
You must have seen her, I returned, You are not more than
three yards behind her. Where is she? Then? She must have gone
down one of the areas, I think, But she looked a lady,
though an old fashioned. Have you been dining, asked James, in a
tone of doubtful inquiry. No, I replied, not suspecting the insinuation.
I've only just come from the museum. Then I advise you to call on
your medical man before you go home. Medical man returned, I have no
medical man. What do you mean I never was better in my life.
I mean that there was no old lady. It was an illusion, and
that indicates something wrong. Besides, you did not know me when I spoke
to you. That is nothing, I returned. I had just taken off
my spectacles, and without them I shouldn't know my own father. How was
it you saw the old lady? Then the affair was growing serious under my
friends cross questioning. I did not at all like the idea of his supposingly
subject to hallucinations, so I answered with a laugh, Ah, to be
sure that explains it. I am so blind without my spectacles that I shouldn't
know an old lady from a big dog. There was no big dog,
said Heatheridge, shaking his head, as the fact for the first time dawned
upon me that although I had seen the old lady clearly enough to make a
sketch of her, even to the features of her careworn, eager old face,
I had not been able to recognize the well known countenance of James Heatheridge.
That's what comes of reading till the optic nerve is weakened. He went
on. You will cause yourself serious injury if you do not pull up in
time. I'll tell you what I'm going home next week. Will you go
with me? You are very kind, I answered, not altogether rejecting the
proposal, for I felt that a little change to the country would be pleasant,
and I was quite my own master, for I had, unfortunately means
equal to my wants, and had no occasion to follow any profession. Not
a very desirable thing for a young man. I can tell you, Master
Harry, I need not keep you over the commonplaces of pressing and yielding.
It is enough to say that he pressed and that I yielded. The day
was fixed for our departure together, but something or other I forget what occurred
to make him advance the date, and it was resolved that I should follow
later in the month. It was a drizzly afternoon in the beginning of the
last week of October when I left the town of Bradford and a post chaise
to drive to Luton Grange, the property of my friend's father. I had
hardly left the town and the twilight had only begun to deepen when glancing from
one of the windows of the chaise, I fancied I saw between me and
the hedge the dim figure of a horse keeping pace with us. I thought,
in the first interval of unreason, that it was a shadow from my
own horse, but reminded myself the next moment that there could be no shadow
where there was no light. When I looked again, I was at the
first glance convinced that my eyes had deceived me. At the second, I
believe once more that a shadow is something with the movements of a horse,
and harness was keeping pace with us. I turned away again with some discomfort,
and not till we had reached an open moorland road, whence a little
watery light was visible on the horizon. Could I summon up courage enough to
look out once more. Certainly, then there was nothing to be seen,
and I persuaded myself that it had been all a fancy, and lighted a
cigar. With my feet on the cushions before me. I had soon lifted
myself on the clouds of tobacco, far above all the terrors of the night,
and believed them vanished forever. But my cigar coming to an end,
just as we turned into the avenue that led up to the grange, I
found myself once more glancing nervously out of the window. The moment the trees
were about me, there was, if not a shadowy horse out there by
the side of the chaise, yet certainly more than half that conviction in here
in my consciousness. When I saw my friend, however, standing on the
doorstep, dark against the glow of the hall fire, I forgot all about
it. And I need not add that I did not make it a subject
of conversation when I entered, for I was well aware that it was essential
to a man's reputation that his senses should be accurate, though his heart might,
without prejudice swarm with shadows, and his judgment be a very stable of
hobbies. I was kindly received. Missus Heatheridge had been dead for some years,
and Latitia, the eldest of the family, was at the head of
the household. She had two sisters, little more than girls. The father
was a burly yet gentlemanlike Yorkshire squire who ate well, drank well, looked
radiant, and hunted twice a week in this pastime. His son joined him
when in the humor which happened scarcely so often, I, who had never
crossed a horse in my life, took his apology for not being able to
mount me very coolly, assuring him that I would rather loiter about with a
book than be in at the death of the best hunted fox in Yorkshire.
I very soon found myself at home with the Heatheridges, and very soon again
I began to find myself not so much at home for Miss Heatherage. Letitia,
as I soon ventured to call her, was fascinating. I have told
you, Katie, that there was an empty place in my heart looked to
the door, then, Katie, that was what made me so ready to
fall in love with Letitia. Her figure was graceful, and I think even
now her face would have been beautiful but for a certain contraction of the skin
over the nostrils, suggesting an invisible thumb and forefinger pinching them, which repelled
me, Although I did not then know what it indicated. I had not
been with her one evening before the impression it made on me had vanished,
and that so entirely that I could hardly recall the perception of the peculiarity which
had occasioned it. Her observation was remarkably keen, and her judgment generally correct.
She had great confidence in it herself. Nor was she devoid of sympathy
with some of the forms of human imagination. Only they never seemed to possess
for her any relation to practical life that was to be ordered by the judgment
alone. I do not mean, she ever said, so, I am
only giving the conclusions I came to afterwards. It is not necessary that you
should have any more thorough acquaintance with her mental character. One point in her
moral nature of special consequence to my narrative will show itself by and by I
did all I could to make myself agreeable to her, and the more I
succeeded, the more delightful she became. In my eyes. We walked in
the garden and grounds. Together. We read, or rather I read and
she listened. Read poetry, Katie, sometimes till we could not read any
more for certain haziness and huskiness, which, look now, I am afraid
considerably more absurd than they really were, or even ought to look. In
short, I considered myself thoroughly in love with her. And wasn't she in
love with you? Uncle, don't interrupt me, child, I don't know,
I hoped so. Then I hope the contrary. Now she liked me.
I am sure that is not much to say. Liking is very pleasant
and very cheap. Love is as rare as a star. I thought the
stars were anything but rare, Uncle. That's because you never went out to
find one for yourself, Katie. They would prove a few miles apart then,
but it would be big enough when I did find it, right,
my dear, That is the way with love. Letitia was a good housekeeper.
Everything was punctual as clockwork. I used the word advisedly. If her
father, who was punctual to one date the dinner hour, made any remark
to the contrary as he took the carving knife, Letitia would instantly send one
of her sisters to question the old clock in the hall and report the time
to half a minute. It was sure to be found that if there was
a mistake, the mistake was in the clock. But although it was certainly
a virtue to have her household in such perfect order, it was not a
virtue to be impatient with every infringement of its rules on the part of others.
She was very severe, for instance, upon her two younger sisters,
if the moment after the second bell had rung they were not seated at the
dinner table. Washed and aproned. Order was a very idol with her.
Hence the house was too tidy for any sense of comfort. If you left
an open book on the table, you would, on returning to the room
a moment after, find it. Put aside, what the furniture of the
drawing room was like, I never saw, for not even on Christmas Day,
which was the last day I spent there, was it uncovered. Everything
in it was kept in bibbs and pinafore. Even the carpet was covered with
a cold and slippery sheet of brown. Holland mister Heatheridge never entered that room,
and therein was wise James remonstrated once. She answered him quite kindly,
even playfully, but no change followed. What was worse, she made very
wretched tea. Her father never took tea, neither did James. I was
rather fond of it, but I soon gave it up. Everything her father
partook of was first rate. Everything else was somewhat poverty stricken. My pleasure
in Letitia's society prevented me from making practical deductions from such trifles. I shouldn't
have thought you knew anything about eating, uncle, said Janet. The less
a man eats, the more he likes to have it good Janet. In
short, there can be no harm in saying it now. Letitia was so
far from being like the name of her baptism. And most names are so
good that they are worth thinking about. No children are named after bad ideas.
Letitia was so far unlike hers as to be stingy, an abominable fault.
But I repeat, the notion of such a fact was far from me
then and now from my story. The first of November was a very lovely
day, quite one of the halcyon days of Saint Martin's summer. I was
sitting in a little arbor I had just discovered with a book in my hand,
not reading, however, but daydreaming. When lifting my eyes from the
ground, I was startled to see through a thin shrub in front of the
arbor what seemed the form of an old lady seated, apparently reading from a
book on her knee. The sight instantly recalled the old lady of Russell Square.
I started to my feet, and then, clear of the intervening bush,
saw only a great stone, such as abounded on the moors in the
neighborhood, with a lump of quartz set on the top of it. Some
childish taste had put it there for an ornament. Smiling at my own folly,
I sat down again and reopened my book. After reading for a while,
I glanced up again and once more started to my feet, overcome by
the fancy that there verily sat the old lady reading. You will say it
indicated an excited condition of the brain, possibly, but I was, as
far as I can recall, quite collected and reasonable. I was almost vexed
this second time, and sat down once more to my book. Still,
every time I looked up, I was startled afresh. I doubt, however,
if the trifle is worth mentioning, or has any significance, even in
relation to what followed. After dinner, I strolled out by myself, leaving
father and son over their claret. I did not drink wine, and from
the lawn I could see the windows of the library, whither Letitia commonly retired
from the dinner table. It was a very lovely, soft night. There
was no moon, but the star looked wider awake than usual. Dew was
falling, but the grass was not yet wet, and I wondered about on
it for half an hour. The stillness was somehow strange. It had a
wonderful feeling in it, as if something were expected, as if the quietness
were the mold in which some event or other was about to be cast.
Even then I was a reader of certain sorts of recondite lore. Suddenly I
remembered that this was the eve of all souls. This was a night on
which the dead came out of their graves to visit their old homes. Poor
dead, I thought with myself, have you any place to call a home?
Now? If you have, surely you will not wander back here,
or all that you called home has either vanished or given itself to others to
be their home now and yours no more. What an awful doom the old
fancy has allotted you to dwell in your graves all the year, and creep
out this one night to enter at the midnight door left open for welcome,
A poor welcome, truly, just an open door, a clean swept floor,
and a fire to warm your rain sodden limbs. The household asleep,
and the houseplace swarming with the ghosts of ancient times, the miser, the
spendthrift, the profligate, the coquette. For the good ghosts sleep and are
troubled, with no waking like yours. Not one man sleepless like yourselves,
to question you and be answered after the fashion of the old nursery rhyme.
What makes your eyes so hold I've lain so long among them mold? What
makes your feet so broad? I've walked more than I ever rode? Yet
who can tell I went on to myself? It may be your hell to
return. Thus it may be that only on this one night of all the
year you can show yourself to him who can see you, But that the
place where you were wicked is the hades to which you are doomed for ages.
I thought and thought till I began to feel the air alive about me,
and was enveloped in the vapors that dimmed the eyes of those who strained
them. For one peep through the dull mica windows that will not open on
the world of ghosts. At length, I cast my fancies away and fled
from them to the library, where a bodily presence of Letitia made the world
of ghosts appear shadowy. Indeed, what a reality there is about a bodily
presence, I said to myself, as I took my chamber candle in my
hand. But what is there more real in a body? I said again,
as I crossed the hall. Surely nothing, I went on as I
ascended the broad staircase to my room. The body must vanish if there be
a spirit that will remain. A body can but vanish, a ghost can
appear. I woke in the morning with a sense of such discomfort as made
me spring out of bed. At once my foot lighted upon my spectacles.
How they came to be on the floor I could not tell, for I
never took them off when I went to bed. When I lifted them,
I found they were in two pieces. The bridge was broken. This was
awkward. I was so utterly helpless without them. Indeed, before I could
lay my hand on my hair brush, I had to peer through one eye
of the parted pair. When I looked at my watch after I was dressed,
I found I had risen an hour earlier than usual. I groped my
way downstairs to spend the hour before breakfast in the library. No sooner was
I seated with a book than I heard the voice of Letitia scolding the butler
in no very gentle tones for leaving the garden door open all night. The
moment I heard this, the strange occurrences I am about to relate began to
dawn upon my memory the door had been opened the night long between all saints
and all souls. In the middle of that night, I awoke. Suddenly.
I knew it was not the morning by the sensations I had, for
the night feels altogether different from the morning. It was quite dark, My
heart was beating violently, and I either hardly could or hardly dared breathe.
A nameless terror was upon me, and my sense of hearing was, apparently,
by the force of its expectation, unnaturally roused and keen. There it
was a slight noise in the room, slight but clear, and with an
unknown significance about it. It was awful to think it would come again.
I do believe it was only one of those creeks and the timbers which announced
the torpid age, long sinking flow of every house back to the dust,
a motion to which the flow of the glacier is as a torrent, but
which is no less inevitable and sure. Day and night it ceases not but
only in the night, when house and heart are still do we hear it?
No wonder it should sound fearful, for are we not the immortal dwellers
in ever crumbling clay? The clay is so near us, and yet not
of us, that its every movement starts afresh dismay, For what will its
final ruin disclose when it falls from about us? Where shall we find that
we have existed all the time? My skin tingled with the bursting of the
moisture from its purse. Something was in the room beside me, A confused,
indescribable sense of utter loneliness, and yet awful presence was upon me,
mingled with a dreary, hopeless desolation, as of burnt out love and aimless
life. All at once I found myself sitting up. The terror that a
cold hand might be laid upon me, or a cold breath blow on me,
or a corpse like face bend down through the darkness over me had broken
my bonds. I would meet half way whatever might be. Approaching the moment
that my will burst into action, the terror began to ebb. The room
in which I slept was a large one, perfectly dreary with tidiness. I
did not know till afterwards that it was Letitia's room, which she had given
up to me rather than prepare another. The furniture, all but one article,
was modern and commonplace. I could not help remarking to myself afterwards how
utterly void the room was, of the nameless charm of feminine occupancy. I
had seen nothing to wake a suspicion of its being a lady's room. The
article I've accepted was an ancient bureau, elaborate and ornate, which stood on
one side of the large bow window. The very morning before, I had
seen a bunch of keys hanging from the upper part of it, and had
peeped in, finding however, that the pigeonholes were full of papers. I
closed it at once. I should have been glad to use it, but
clearly it was not for me. At that bureau, the figure of a
woman was now seated, and the posture of one writing. A strange dim
light was around her. But whence it proceeded, I never thought of inquiring,
as if I too had stepped over the bourne and was a ghost myself.
All fear was now gone. I got out of bed and softly crossed
the room to where she was seated. If she should be beautiful, I
thought, for I had often dreamed of a beautiful ghost that made love to
me. The figure did not move. She was looking at a faded brown
paper, some old love letter, I thought, and stepped nearer. So
cool was I now that I actually peeped over her shoulder. With mingled surprise
and dismay, I found that the dim page over which she bent was that
of an old account book, ancient household record in rusty ink, held up
to the glimpses of the waning moon which shone through the parting and the curtains,
their entries of shillings and pence of pounds, there was not one,
No doubt, pounds and farthings are much the same in the world of thought,
the true spirit world. But in the ghosts world this eagerness over shillings
and pence must mean something awful. To think that coins which had since been
worn smooth in other pockets, and purses which had gone back to the mint
and been melted down to come out again and yet again with the heads of
new kings and queens, That dinners eaten by men and women and children whose
bodies had since been eaten by the worms, that polish for the floors,
inches of whose thickness had since been worn away. That the hundred nameless trifles
of a life utterly vanished should be perplexing, annoying, and worst of all
interesting the soul of a ghost who had been in hades for centuries. The
writing was very old fashioned, and the words were contracted. I could read
nothing but the moneys and one single entry corinths versus currents for a Christmas pudding.
Most likely, Ah, poor lady, the pudding and not the Christmas
was her care, not the delight of the children over it, but the
beggarly pence which it cost, and she cannot get it out of her head,
although her brain was powdered, all as thin as flower ages ago in
the mortar of death, alas poor ghost. It needs no treasured hoard left
behind, no floor stained with the blood of the murdered child, no wickedly
hidden parchment of landed rights. An old account book is enough for the hell
of the housekeeping gentlewoman. She never lifted her face or seemed to know that
I stood behind her. I left her and went into the bow window,
where I could see her face. I was right. It was the same
old lady I had met in Russell Square, walking in front of James Heatherage.
Her withered lips went moving, as if they would have uttered words had
the breath been commissioned. Thither, her brow was contracted over her thin nose,
and once and again her shining forefinger went up to her temple, as
if she were pondering some deep problem of humanity. How long I stood gazing
at her, I do not know, But at last I withdrew to my
bed and left her struggling to solve that which she could never solve. Thus
it was a symbolic problem of her own life and she had failed to eat
it. I remember nothing more. She may be sitting there, still solving
at the unsolvable. I should have felt no inclination with the broad son of
the squire's face, the keen eyes of James, and the beauty of Letitia
before me at the breakfast table to say a word about what I had seen,
even if I had not been afraid of the doubt concerning my sanity which
the story would certainly awaken. What with the memories of the night and the
want of my spectacles, I passed a very dreary day, dreading the return
of the night. For cool as I had been in her presence, I
could not regard the possible reappearance of the ghost with equanimity. But when the
night did come, I slept soundly till the morning the next day. Not
being able to read with comfort, I went wandering about the place, and
at length began to fit the outside and inside of the house together. It
was a large and rambling edifice, parts of it very old, parts comparatively
modern. I first found my own window, which looked out of the back.
Below this window, on one side there was a door. I wondered
whither it led, but found it locked at the moment James approached from the
stables. Where does this door lead, I asked him, I will get
the key, he answered, It is rather a queer old place. We
used to like it when we were children. There's a stair, you see,
he said, as he threw the door open. It leads up over
the kitchen. I followed him up the stair. There's a door into your
room, he said, but it's always locked now. And here's Granny's room,
as they call it. Though why, I have not the least idea,
he added, as he pushed open the door of an old fashioned parlor,
smelling very musty. A few old books lay on a side table.
A china ball stood beside them, with some shriveled, scentless rose leaves in
the bottom of it. The cloth that covered the table was riddled by moss,
and the spider legged chairs were covered with dust. A conviction sees me
that the old bureau must have belonged to this room, and I soon found
the place where I judged it must have stood. But the same moment I
caught sight of a portrait on the wall above the spot I had fixed upon
by jove. I cried involuntarily. That's the very old lady I met in
Russell Square. Nonsense, said James. Old fashioned ladies are like babies.
They all look the same. That's a very old portrait, so I see,
I answered, it is like a zukro. I don't know whose it
is, he answered hurriedly, And I thought he looked a little queer.
Is she one of the family, I asked. They say so, But
who or what she was? I don't know. You must ask Letty,
he answered. The more I look at it, I said, the more
I am convinced it is the same old lady. Well, he returned with
a laugh. My old nurse used to say she was rather restless. But
it's all nonsense. That bureau in my room looks about the same date as
this furniture, I remarked. It used to stand just there, he answered,
pointing to the space under the picture. Well, I remember with what
awe we used to regard it, for, they said, the old lady
kept her accounts at it. Still we never dared touch the bundles of yellow
papers in the pigeon holes. I remember thinking Letty a very heroine once when
she touched one of them with the tip of her forefinger. She had got
yet more courageous by the time she had it moved into her own room.
Then that is your sister's room. I am occupied, I said, yes,
I am ashamed of keeping her out of it. Oh, she'll do
well enough if I were she, though, I added, I would send
that bureau back to its own place. What do you mean, Heywood,
do you believe every old wife's tale that was ever told. She may get
affright some day, That's all I replied. He smiled with such an evident
mixture of pity and contempt that for the moment I almost disliked him, and,
feeling certain that Letitia would receive any such hint in a somewhat similar manner,
I did not feel inclined to offer her any advice with regard to the
bureau, Little kour joined. The rest of my visit worthy of remark,
somehow or other, I did not make my progress with Letitia. I believe
I had begun to see into her character a little, and therefore did not
get deeper in love. As the days went on, I know I became
less absorbed in her society, though I was still anxious to make myself agreeable
to her. Or perhaps more properly, to give her a favorable impression of
me. I do not know whether she perceived any difference in my behavior,
but I remember that I began again to remark the pinched look of her nose,
and to be a little annoyed with her for always putting aside my book.
At the same time, I dare say I was provoking, for I
never was given to tidiness myself. At length. Christmas Day arrived. After
breakfast, the Squire, James, and the two girls arranged to walk to
church. Letitia was not in the room at the moment. I excuse myself
on the ground of a headache, for I had had a bad night.
When they left, I went up to my room, threw myself on the
bed, and was soon fast asleep. Along I slept, I did not
know, but I woke again with that indescribable yet well known sense of not
being alone. The feeling was scarcely less terrible in the daylight than it had
been in the darkness. With the same sudden effort as before, I sat
up in the bed. There was the figure at the open bureau in precisely
the same position as on the former occasion, but I could not see it
so distinctly. I rose as gently as I could, and approached it after
the first physical terror. I am not a coward. Just as I got
near enough to see the account book open on the folding cover of the bureau,
she started up, and turning revealed the face of Letitia. She blushed
Crimson. I beg your pardon, mister Haywood, she said, in great
confusion. I thought you had gone to church with the rest. I had
lain down with a headache and gone to sleep, I replied. Forgive me,
miss Heatheridge, I added, for my mind was full of the dreadful
coincidence. Don't you think you would have been better at church than balancing your
accounts on Christmas Day? The better day, the better deed. She said,
with a somewhat offended air, and turned to walk from the room.
Excuse me, Letitia, I resumed, very seriously, But I want to
tell you something. She looked conscious. It never crossed me that perhaps she
fancied I was going to make a confession. Far other things were then in
my mind, for I thought how awful it was if she, too,
like the ancestral ghost, should have to do an age long penance. Of
haunting that bureau and those horrid figures, and I had suddenly resolved to tell
her the whole story. She listened with varying complexion and face half turned aside.
When I had ended, which I fear I did was something of a
personal appeal, she lifted her head and looked me in the face, with
just a slight girl on her thin lip, and answered me. If I
had wanted a sermon, mister Haywood, I should have gone to church for
it. As for the ghost, I am sorry for you, so saying,
she walked out of the room. The rest of the day I did
not find very merry. I pleaded my headache as an excuse for going to
bed early. How I hated the room now next morning, immediately after breakfast,
I took my leave of Luton Grange and lost a good wife, perhaps
for the sake of a ghost, uncle, said Janet. If I lost
a wife at all, it was a stingy one. I should have been
ashamed of her all my life long. Better than a spendthrift, said Janet.
How do you know that? Returned her uncle? All the difference I
see is that the extravagant ruins, the rich and the stingy robs the poor.
But perhaps she repented, Uncle said Kate, I don't think she did.
Katie. Look here, Uncle Nelius drew from the breast pocket of his
coat a black edged letter. I have kept up my friendship with her brother,
he said. All he knows about the matter is that either we had
a quarrel or she refused me. He is not sure which I must say
for Letitia that she was no tattler. Well, here's a letter I had
from James this very morning. I will read it to you, my dear
Heywood. We have had a terrible shot this morning. Letty did not come
down to breakfast, and Lizzie went to see if she was ill. We
heard her scream, and rushing up, there was poor Letty sitting at the
old Bureau quite dead. She had fallen forward on the desk, and herb's
housekeeping book was crumpled up under her. She had been so all night long,
we suppose, for she was not undressed and was quite cold. The
doctor say it was disease of the heart. There, said Uncle Corney,
folding up the letter. Do you think the ghost had anything to do with
that? Uncle asked Kate, almost under her breath. How should I know,
my dear. Possibly it's very sad, said Janet. But I don't
see the good of it all. If the ghost had come to tell that
she had hidden away money in some secret place in the old bureau, one
would see why she had been permitted to come back. But what was the
good of those accounts after they were over and done with? I don't believe
in the ghost, ah, Janet, Janet, But those wretched accounts were
not over and done with. You see, that is the misery of it.
Uncle Cornelius rose, without another word, bade them good night, and
walked out into the wind. And if Uncle Cornelius His story by George McDonald