“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.”