CHAPTER XI.
A Chapter on Ghosts, and a Ghost-story.
The events detailed in the last chapter, or at least that portion of them in which he himself had borne a share, were related by Ned Hayward to the party at Sir John Slingsby's after he had rejoined them at the dinner table, having done his best to remove the traces of his adventure from his personal appearance. The smoke and sand were washed away, the burnt and singed garments had been changed for others, and Ned Hayward still appeared a very good-looking fellow, not the less interesting perhaps in the eyes of the ladies there present for all that he had done and suffered. Nevertheless, the fine wavy curls of his brown hair, which had been burnt off, were not to be recovered in so short a time, and both his hands showed evident signs of having been injured by the fire. He was in high spirits, however, for the assurance that there could be nobody else in the cottage but the boy, unless it were Gimlet the poacher himself, of which there was no probability, had relieved the young gentleman's mind of a heavy weight, and he jested gaily with Sir John Slingsby, who vowed that with those hands of his he would not be able to throw a line for a fortnight, replied that he would undertake to catch the finest trout in the whole water before noon the next day.
"And now, my dear Sir," he continued, turning to the clergyman, "as you seem to know something of this good gentleman, Gimlet, and his affairs, I wish you'd give me a little insight into his history."
"It is a sad and not uncommon one," answered Dr. Miles, gravely, "and I will tell it you some other time. My poor parishioners have a superstitious feeling about that pit, and that cottage, for a man was murdered there some years ago. You will find multitudes of people who will vouch for his ghost having been seen sitting on the bank above, and under a solitary birch-tree."
"It won't sit there any more," answered Ned Hayward, laughing, "for the birch-tree and I rolled down into the pit together, as I tried to drop down by its help, thinking it was quite strong enough to support me."
"Then I am afraid the ghost is gone altogether for the future," said Dr. Miles, in a tone of some regret.
"Afraid! my dear doctor," exclaimed Miss Slingsby, "surely you do not want ghosts among your parishioners?"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Sir John Slingsby, with a merry, fat, overflowing chuckle, "Isabella means, my dear doctor, that you may make your flock as spiritual as you please, but not reduce them quite to spectres."
"No, papa, you are a wrong interpreter," rejoined his daughter, "I meant to say that of all men on earth, I should have thought Dr. Miles was the last to patronise a ghost."
"I don't know, my dear," replied the worthy clergyman, "a ghost is sometimes very serviceable in a parish. We are but children of a bigger growth, and a bugbear is as necessary sometimes for great babies as small ones, not that I ever used it or should use it; but the people's own imagination did that for me. I have heard, Sir John, that some men when they were lying out to shoot your deer, were scared away by one of them fancying he saw the ghost, and you saved two good haunches of venison, to say nothing of the pasty."
"By Jove, that was a jolly ghost indeed," answered Sir John Slingsby, "and I'll give him a crown the first time I meet him. Doctor, a glass of wine."
"If ghosts have such effects upon poachers," said Beauchamp, who had been speaking in a low tone to Miss Slingsby, "how happens it that this man, the father of the boy whom Captain Hayward brought hither, fixed his abode in the spirit's immediate neighbourhood?"
"Oh he is a sad unbelieving dog," said Dr. Miles; but then suddenly checking himself he added, "and yet I believe in that I do him injustice; there is some good in the man, and a great deal of imagination. Half his faults proceed from an ill-disciplined fancy; but the truth is, being a very fearless fellow, and of this imaginative disposition, I believe he would just as soon have a ghost for a next door neighbour as not. Therefore, I do not suppose that it was from any doubt of the reality of the apparition, but rather in defiance of it, that he setup his abode there; and perhaps he thought, too, that it might serve as a sort of safeguard to him, a protection against the intrusion of persons less bold than himself, at those hours when ghosts and he himself are wont to wander. He knew well that none of the country people would come near him then, for all the ignorant believe in apparitions more or less."
"Now, dear Dr. Miles, do tell me," cried Isabella Slingsby with a gay laugh, "whether some of the learned do not believe in them too. If it were put as a serious question to the Rev. Dr. Miles himself, whether he had not a little quiet belief at the bottom of his heart in the appearance of ghosts, what would he answer?"
"That he had never seen one, my dear," replied the clergyman, with a good-humoured smile, "but at the same time I must say that a belief in the occasional appearance of the spirits of the dead for particular purposes, is a part of our religion. I have no idea of a man calling himself a Christian and taking what parts of the Bible he likes, and rejecting or explaining away the rest. The fact of the re-appearance of dead people on this earth is more than once mentioned in Scripture, and therefore I believe that it has taken place. The purposes for which it was permitted in all the instances there noticed, were great and momentous, and it may very possibly be that since the Advent of Our Saviour, no such deviations from usual laws have been requisite. Of that, however, I can be no judge; but at all events my own reason tells me, that it is not probable a spirit should be allowed to revisit the glimpses of the moon for the purpose of making an old woman say her prayers, or frightening a village girl into fits."
"You are speaking alone of the apparition of the spirits of the dead," said Beauchamp, "did you ever hear of the appearance of the spirits of the living?"
"Not without their bodies, surely!" said Miss Clifford.
"Oh yes, my dear Mary," answered Dr. Miles, "such things are recorded, I can assure you, ay, and upon testimony so strong that is impossible to doubt that the witnesses believed what they related, whether the apparition was a delusion of their own fancy or not--indeed it is scarcely possible to suppose that it was a delusion, for in several instances the thing, whatever it was, made itself visible to several persons at once, and they all precisely agreed in the description of it."
"One of the most curious occurrences of the kind that ever I heard of," said Beauchamp, "was told me by a German gentleman to whom it happened. It was the case of a man seeing his own spirit, and although we are continually told we ought to know ourselves, few men have ever had such an opportunity of doing so as this gentleman."
"Oh do tell us the whole story, Mr. Beauchamp," cried Isabella, eagerly, "I must beg and entreat that you would not tantalise us with a mere glimpse of such a delightful vision, and then let fall the curtain again."
"My dear Bella, you are tantalising him," exclaimed her father. "Don't you see that you are preventing him from eating his dinner; at all events, we will have a glass of wine first; shall it be Hermitage, Mr. Beauchamp? I have some of 1808, the year before that rascal, Napoleon, mixed all the vintages together."
The wine was drunk, but immediately this was accomplished, Isabella renewed her attack, calling upon Mr. Beauchamp for the story, and in her eagerness laying one round taper finger upon his arm as he sat beside her, to impress more fully her commands upon him, as she said, "I must and will have the story, Mr. Beauchamp."
"Assuredly," he replied, in his usual quiet tone, "but first of all, I must premise one or two things, that you may give it all the weight it deserves. The gentleman who told it to me was, at the time of my acquaintance with him, a man of about seventy years of age, very simple in his manners, and, however excitable his fancy might have been in youth, he was at the time I speak of, as unimaginative a person as it is possible to conceive. He assured me most solemnly, as an old man upon the verge of eternity, that every word he spoke was truth, and now I will tell it as nearly in his own language as I can, and my memory is a very retentive one. You must remember, however, that it is he who is speaking, and not I; and fancy us sitting together, the old man and the young one, warming ourselves by a stove on a winter's night, in the fine old town of Nuremberg."