When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

"Her name, same as mine, Daver-hill." He made the mistake, fatal to clear speech, of overdoing articulation. All the more that it caused a false aspirate; not a frequent error with him, in spite of his long association with defective speakers. It relieved her mind. Clearly a surname and a prefix. She had not got it right yet, though. She forgot she had it written down, already.

"I did not hear the first name clear, sir. Would you mind saying it again?"

He did not answer at once. He was looking fixedly ahead, as though something had caught his attention in the coppice they were approaching. A moment later, without looking round, he answered rapidly:—"Same name as mine—you've got it written down, on the paper I gave you." And then, without another word, he turned and ran. He was so quick afoot, in spite of the halting gait he had shown in walking, that he was through the hedge he made for, across the grassland, and half-way over the stubble-field that lay between it and a plantation, before she knew the cause of his sudden scare. Then voices came from the coppice ahead—a godsend to the poor old lady, whose courage had been sorely tried by the interview—and she quickened her pace to meet them. She did not see the fugitive vanish, but pressed on.

Yes—just as she thought! One of the voices was that of Harry Costrell, her grandson-in-law; another that of a stranger to her, a respectable-looking man she was too upset to receive any other impression of, at the moment; and the third that of her granddaughter. Such a relief it was, to hear the cheerful ring of her greeting.

"Why, Granny, we thought you strayed and we would have to look for ye in Chorlton Pound.... Why, Granny darling, whatever is the matter? There—I declare you're shaking all over!"

Old Phoebe showed splendid discipline. It was impossible to conceal her agitation, but she could make light of it. She had a motive. Remember that that great grandchild of hers had been born over a twelvemonth ago! "My dear," she said, "I've been just fritted out of my five wits by a man with a limp, that took me for his mother and I never saw him in my life." It did not seem to her that this was "splitting upon" the man. After all, she would have to account for him somehow, and it was safest to ascribe insanity to him.

But the respectable-looking man had suddenly become an energy with a purpose. "Which way's the man with the limp gone?" said he; adding to himself, in the moment required for indicating accurately the fugitive's vanishing-point in the plantation:—"He's my man!" Granny Marrable's pointing finger sent him off in pursuit before either of the others could ask a question or say a word. Harry, the grandson, wavered a moment between grandfilial duty and the pleasures of the chase, and chose the latter, utilising public spirit as an excuse for doing so.

Maisie junior was not going to allow her grandmother to stay to see the matter out, nor indeed did the old lady feel that her own strength could bear any further trial. On the way home to the cottage at Dessington she gave a reserved version of her strange interview, always laying stress on the insanity she confidently ascribed to her terrifying companion. As soon as he had died out of the immediate present, she began to find commiseration for him.

But then, how about the mission of the respectable man, who had, it appeared, represented himself as a police-officer on the track of an atrocious criminal, about the charges against whom he had almost kept silence, merely saying that he was a returned convict, and liable to arrest on that ground alone, but that he was "wanted" on several accounts? He had followed his quarry to Grantley Thorpe, arriving by an early train, to find that a man answering to his description had started on foot a couple of hours previously, having asked his way to Ancester Towers. He had followed him there in a hired gig; and, of course, found the connecting clue at Solmes's cottage, and followed him on to Dessington, calling at "T. Hancock's Old Truepenny" by the way, and being guided by T. Hancock's information to run the gig round by the road and intercept his man at the end of the short cut. The younger Maisie and her young brother-in-law, coming by in search of her overdue grandmother, had entered into conversation with him; and he had accompanied them as far as the other side of the coppice wood, and given them the particulars of his errand above stated.

It was all very exciting, and rather horrible. But old Phoebe kept back all her horrors, and even the man's claim to be the son of an old person who had gone to Strides Cottage. Mrs. Prichard she said never a word of, much as she longed to tell the whole story. But she was greatly consoled for this by the succulence of her year-old great-grandson, whose grip, even during sleep, was so powerful as to elicit a forecast of a distinguished future for him, as a thieftaker.