CHAPTER VIII
THE DEAD WALKS
The incident of the flying stone and the broken glass much disquieted us, and furnished matter of anxious discussion for several days. It gave us the first hint we had received that the influences that seemed to be busy about us included any of a malign or violent nature, and inspired a lively apprehension of other sinister happenings of which it might be the forerunner. There was, of course, the doubt as to whether the affair might not be due to human agency; had it stood by itself, no other idea would have occurred to us:—but although we tried to satisfy ourselves that some reckless or malicious person was the culprit, the attendant circumstances seemed to point away from that opinion. The force with which the missile was hurled indicated that no mischievous boy could have aimed it, while it appeared incredible that any man would take the risk of passing the clamorous dogs and crossing the wide yard to take a point-blank shot at the door—as the direct course of the stone showed had been done. Nor could it have been thrown from any considerable distance:—the laundry outhouse before mentioned, was not more than thirty feet from the door and protected it from any attack outside that limit. It was the behavior of the dogs, however, that puzzled us the most. Instead of welcoming our coming, as would naturally have been the case, they shrunk from the touch of our hands and gave no heed to our voices, but shook and shivered as if in an ague fit.
In spite of these facts, the event so much smacked of the material, and was so opposed in its nature to anything else that had happened, that we hesitated to attribute it to the agency of unseen powers; and as the week that followed was free of any alarming incident we decided to keep it out of the debit column of our account with the "spooks," and give them the credit of having had no part in it.
It was, I think (although I am uncertain about the exact date) about a fortnight after the stone-throwing episode, that I came home one afternoon much earlier than usual; and as my wife met me at the door I saw at once that look upon her face which had on several occasions advised me that something quite out of the ordinary had happened during my absence. It is hardly necessary for me to mention, in view of the record already made of the experience she had shared with me in that ill-omened house, that among her notable characteristics were high courage and self-control. On this occasion, however, her appearance alarmed me greatly. There was a presence of fear upon her; she was distraite and nervous, despite her evident effort to appear unconcerned; and the strange expression which I had often seen when her gaze seemed to follow the movements of shapes invisible to my grosser sense, still clouded her eyes.
I did not at once question her, although I was consumed with curiosity, and tried to quiet her evident, although suppressed, excitement by talking of the commonplace incidents of my day in town. But it was apparent that she did not hear a word I said:—indeed, her attitude and manner were as of one who listened to another voice than mine; and I soon lapsed into silence and sat watching her with a growing anxiety.
Suddenly the obsession with which she seemed to be contending passed away:—she turned impulsively to me and cried:
"We must leave this house! I have endured all I can! I will not remain here another day!"
"I knew that something was wrong the moment I saw you," I said. "Something very bad has happened—do you want to tell me what it is?"
"Oh, I cannot, I cannot!" she exclaimed. "It is too horrible; it would frighten you to death if I should tell you!"
"Anything that you have gone through, I ought to be able to hear of," I replied. "I think you had better tell me your story, and get it off your mind, before our friend comes home."
"Oh, he must never know it!" she cried. "Promise me that you will not tell him!"
"Of course I will not tell him, if you do not wish it," I assented. "And now let me know what has alarmed you."
During our conversation I had imagined all sorts of terrifying incidents as having occurred—but my wife's next words sent a shiver through me.
"Deeming has been here," she said.
"Deeming!" I exclaimed; "that devil!"
"Yes," she replied. "He did not try to harm me, but if there is a Hell he came from it. Oh, he is so wretched and unhappy! In spite of the horror of seeing him, I was never so sorry for any creature in all my life. Just to look at him was enough to make me know what is meant by 'the torments of the damned'—such awful suffering! I shall never get his sad and frightful face out of my mind!"—and she covered her face with her hands, as if still seeing the terrific vision that she had described.
When she had partially recovered her composure, she began at the beginning and told me the whole story. It so impressed me that, even at this distance of time, I remember perfectly every detail of the narration, and almost its every word, and with this recollection I set it down.
"It was about an hour before you came home," she began, "and I was sewing at the front window of my room, when I heard the latch of the gate click. I looked up, and saw that someone was coming into the yard. It was a man—a peddler, I thought—and I went to the door to tell him that I did not wish to buy anything. The door was open, although the outside screen door was shut and bolted. I had no idea at all that it was not a living human being; but when I got to the door and looked at the figure, which was standing just inside the gate and facing the house, I knew it was nothing that belonged to this world. It was misty and indistinct, and I could not make out any details of face or costume, except that the clothes seemed mean and cheap.
"I don't know how long I stood there," she continued, after a pause; "but by-and-by the Thing began to come toward me up the walk. It didn't seem exactly to walk—it just moved, I cannot tell you how; and as it got nearer, although I couldn't distinguish the features, I began to see the clothes quite clearly."
"What were the clothes like?" I here interrupted.
"They were the strangest-looking things I ever saw on anybody," she replied. "There was no style or fit to them, and they seemed more like clothes made of flour sacks than anything else—very coarse and ungainly. And an odd thing about them was that they had queer triangular black designs on them here and there. But the cap the figure wore was the strangest thing of all:—it was of dingy white cloth and fitted close to the head, and it had a sort of flap hanging down behind almost to the shoulders:—what did you say?"—for I had uttered a sudden ejaculation.
"Nothing," I replied:—"please go on."
"Well," she continued, "the figure came up to the two steps leading to the veranda, and I think, it would have come up to the door; but I said, 'Stop!' and it stood still where it was. It was still indistinct, and I felt as though it strained my eyes to see it; the face was vague, and did not seem like any face I had ever seen before.
"I said: 'Who are you, and what do you want?'
"The Thing held out something it had in its hand, but I couldn't make out what it was, and made the strangest reply. It said: 'Madame, do you want to buy some soap?'"
"Gracious powers!" I exclaimed:—"It was Deeming?—and he asked you to buy soap?"
"I did not know it was Deeming until later," replied my wife; "but I have told you what he said in his exact words. What could he mean by offering to sell me soap?"
"I have an idea about that which I will tell you of presently. But first let me hear the rest of the story."
"Well," she went on, "I told him I did not want any soap. 'But,' he said, 'I must sell some, and I beg of you to buy it'—and when I again refused, his voice took on the saddest, most pathetic tone, and he said: 'I thought you would. You were kinder to me when you saw me in the jail.' 'I never saw you before in my life!' I said—for truly I did not recognize him even then; but he said: 'Oh, yes, you have, and you tried to get Miss Rounsfell to come and see me.' 'What!' I cried; 'are you Deeming?'—and he said: 'Yes, madame, I am that unfortunate man.'
"I don't quite know what I said after that. I felt as though I should die of fright, and I think I screamed to him to go away, that the thought of his dreadful crimes horrified me so that I could not look at him, and that he must never come to me again. He looked at me reproachfully and turned away. I watched him go to the gate, open it as anyone might have done, and close it after him—then he vanished instantly, the moment he had got into the street. But I know he'll be back! He is suffering, and I am the only one he can reach. I don't know what he wants, but I cannot see him again. It will kill me or drive me mad if we stay here!"
I certainly felt that I had parted with my own wits by the time this astounding tale was concluded. It was so awful in its facts and in its suggestions, its details combined in such a mixture of the hideous and the grotesque, that I looked anxiously at my wife in the fear that what I personally knew to have taken place in the house had upset her mind, and produced this dreadful hallucination. But how to attribute to hallucination certain items in the story which referred to facts with which I was acquainted, but of which she was ignorant until her experience of the afternoon had revealed them to her?
At her express desire I had told her nothing of the execution which I had witnessed, and she had strictly refrained from reading about it in the newspapers:—yet she had described accurately, and in all its details, the garb he wore on the scaffold—the uncouth trousers and jacket of sacking, stamped with the "Broad Arrow" that marked both it and its wearer to be the property of the Crown, and the ghastly "death cap," with its pendent flap behind which was pulled forward and dropped over his face just before the trap was sprung!
And the soap!—that, as I explained to her, seemed the most gruesome feature of all. My theory regarding it may have been fanciful:—yet what was this poor bedeviled ghost more likely to have with him than a sample of the material that had been used upon the rope that hung him, to make it smooth and pliant, and swift of action in the noose?
But why had he wished to sell it, and what help could he hope to gain thereby? He had evidently come, not to frighten, but to crave relief from some distressed condition, and when he failed to gain it he had gone away disappointed, but in sorrow rather than in anger.
When morning came, after a night of which we spent the greater part in discussion of this new and disconcerting development, my wife surprised me by saying that she had changed her mind about leaving the house, and had decided to remain. I strongly remonstrated against her exposing herself to a more than possible danger, but she continued firm in her resolution—said she was convinced that the apparition had no purpose to harm or even alarm her, and that it might be her duty, as it would certainly be her effort, if it came again, to ascertain the cause of its disquiet, and, if possible, remove it.
This decision caused me great uneasiness for several days:—but as the spectre did not return I began to think that its first visit was also its last, and began to interest myself anew in the cantrips with which the house goblins continued to amuse themselves and mystify us.