Chapter 13
"Hush!" she said. "Dad's a good sort. But you can't measure him by other people's standards. And yet--oh, it's maddening, this life! Day after day--loneliness. Nothing but stone walls and rusty armor and books. We're rich, but what do we get out of it? I have nobody of my own age to talk to. How the years are passing! After a while--I'll be--an old maid. I'm twenty-one now!" I heard a sob. Her pretty head was bowed in her hands.
Desperately I seized the bars of the window and miraculously they parted. I leaned across the sill and drew her hands gently down.
"Listen to me," I said. "If I break in and steal you away from this, will you go?"
"Go?" she said. "Where?"
"My aunt lives at Seven Oaks, less than an hour from here by train. You can stay there till your father comes to his reason."
"It's quite like father _never_ to come to his reason," she reflected. "Then I should have to be self-supporting. Of course, I should appreciate employment in a candy shop--I think I know all the principal kinds."
"Will you go?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied simply, "I'll go. But how can I get away from here?"
"To-night," I said, "is Christmas Eve, when Pierrepont the Ghost is supposed to walk along the wall--right under this window. You don't believe that fairy story, do you?"
"No."
"Neither do I. But can't you see? The haunted wall begins at my window on one end of the castle and ends at your window on the other. The bars of your cell, I see, are nearly all loose."
"Yes," she laughed, "I pried them out with a pair of scissors."
I could hear Hobson's voice across the court giving orders to servants.
"Your father's coming. Remember to-night," I whispered.
"Midnight," she said softly, smiling out at me. I could have faced flocks and flocks of dragons for her at that moment. The old man was coming nearer. I swung to the ground and escaped into a ruined court.
Well, the hours that followed were anxious and busy for me. I worked in the glamour of romance like a soldier about to do some particularly brave and foolish thing. From the window of my room I looked down on the narrow, giddy wall below. It _was_ a brave and foolish thing. Among the rubbish in an old armory I found a coil of stout rope, forty or fifty feet of it. This I smuggled away. From a remote hall I borrowed a Crusader's helmet and spent the balance of the afternoon in my room practicing with a sheet across my shoulders, shroud-fashion.
We dined grandly at eight, the old man and I. He drank thirstily and chatted about the ghost, as you might discuss the chances in a coming athletic event. After what seemed an age he looked at his watch and cried: "Whillikens! Eleven o'clock already! Well, I'll be going up to watch from the haunted room. I think, Jeff, that you'll bring me luck to-night."
"I am sure I shall!" I answered sardonically, as he departed.
Three quarters of an hour later, wearing the Crusader's helmet and swathed in a bedsheet, I let myself down from the window to the haunted wall below. It was moonlight, bitter cold as I crouched on the wall, waiting for the stroke of twelve, when I should act the spook and walk along that precarious ledge to rescue Anita.
The "haunted wall," I observed from where I stood, was shaped like an irregular crescent, being in plain view of Hobson's "haunted room" at the middle, but not so at its north and south ends, where my chamber and Anita's tower were respectively situated. I pulled out my watch from under my winding-sheet. Three minutes of twelve. I drew down the vizor of my helmet and gathered up my cerements preparatory to walking the hundred feet of wall which would bring me in sight of the haunted room where old Hobson kept his vigil. Two minutes, one minute I waited, when--I suddenly realized I was not alone.
A man wearing a long cloak and a feather in his cap was coming toward me along the moonlit masonry. Aha! So I was not the only masquerading swain calling on the captive princess in the prison tower. A jealous pang shot through me as I realized this.
The man was within twenty feet of me, when I noticed something. He was not walking on the wall. _He was walking on air, three or four feet above the wall._ Nearer and nearer came the man--the Thing--now into the light of the moon, whose beams seemed to strike through his misty tissue like the thrust of a sword. I was horribly scared. My knees loosened under me, and I clutched the vines at my back to save me from falling into the moat below. Now I could see his face, and somehow fear seemed to leave me. His expression was so young and human.
"Ghost of the Pierrepont," I thought, "whether you walk in shadow or in light, you lived among a race of Men!"
His noble, pallid face seemed to burn with its own pale light, but his eyes were in darkness. He was now within two yards of me. I could see the dagger at his belt. I could see the gory cut on his forehead. I attempted to speak, but my voice creaked like a rusty hinge. He neither heeded nor saw me; and when he came to the spot where I stood, he did not turn out for me. He walked _through_ me! And when next I saw him he was a few feet beyond me, standing in mid-air over the moat and gazing up at the high towers like one revisiting old scenes. Again he floated toward me and poised on the wall four feet from where I stood.
"What do you here to-night?" suddenly spoke, or seemed to speak, a voice that was like the echo of a silence.
No answer came from my frozen tongue. Yet I would gladly have spoken, because somehow I felt a great sympathy for this boyish spirit.
"It has been many earth-years," he said, "since I have walked these towers. And ah, cousin, it has been many miles that I have been called to-night to answer the summons of my race. And this fortress--what power has moved it overseas to this mad kingdom? Magic!"
His eyes seemed suddenly to blaze through the shadows.
"Cousin," he again spoke, "it is to you that I come from my far-off English tomb. It was your need called me. It is no pious deed brings you to this wall to-night. You are planning to pillage these towers unworthily, even as I did yesterday. Death was my portion, and broken hearts to the father I wronged and the girl I sought."
"But it is the father wrongs the girl here," I heard myself saying.
"He who rules these towers to-day is of stern mind but loving heart," said the ghost. "Patience. By the Star that redeems the world, love should not be won _to-night_ by stealth, but by--love."
He raised his hands toward the tower, his countenance radiant with an undying passion.
"_She_ called to me and died," he said, "and her little ghost comes not to earth again for any winter moon or any summer wind."
"But you--you come often?" my voice was saying.
"No," said the ghost, "only on Christmas Eve. Yule is the tide of specters; for then the thoughts of the world are so beautiful that they enter our dreams and call us back."
He turned to go, and a boyish, friendly smile rested a moment on his pale face.
"Farewell, Sir Geoffray de Pierrepont," he called to me.
Into the misty moonlight the ghost floated to that portion of the wall directly opposite the haunted room. From where I stood I could not see this chamber. After a moment I shook my numb senses to life. My first instinct was one of strong human curiosity, which impelled me to follow far enough to see the effect of the apparition on old Hobson, who must be watching at the window.
I tiptoed a hundred feet along the wall and peered around a turret up to a room above, where Hobson's head could easily be seen in a patch of light. The ghost, at that moment, was walking just below, and the effect on the old man, appalling though it was, was ludicrous as well. He was leaning far out of the window, his mouth wide open; and the entire disk of his fat, hairless head was as pallid as the moon itself. The specter, who was now rounding the curve of the wall near the tower, swerved suddenly, and as suddenly seemed to totter headlong into the abyss below. As he dropped, a wild laugh broke through the frosty air. It wasn't from the ghost. It came from above--yes, it emanated from Thaddeus Hobson, who had, apparently, fallen back, leaving the window empty. Lights began breaking out all over the castle. In another moment I should be caught in my foolish disguise. With the courage of a coward, I turned and ran full tilt along the dizzy ledge and back to my window, where I lost no seconds scrambling up the rope that led to my room.
With all possible haste I threw aside my sheet and helmet and started downstairs. I had just wrestled with a ghost; I would now have it out with the old man. The castle seemed ablaze below. I saw the flash of a light skirt in the picture gallery, and Anita, pale as the vision I had so lately beheld, came running toward me.
"Father--saw it!" she panted. "He had some sort of sinking spell--he's better now--isn't it awful!" She clung to me, sobbing hysterically.
Before I realized what I had done, I was holding her close in my arms.
"Don't!" I cried. "It was a good ghost--he had a finer spirit than mine. He came to-night for you, dear, and for me. It was a foolish thing we planned."
"Yes, but I wanted, I wanted to go!" she sobbed now crying frankly on my shoulder.
"You _are_ going with me," I said fiercely, raising her head. "But not over any ghost-ridden breakneck wall. We're going this time through the big front door of this old castle, American fashion, and there'll be an automobile waiting outside and a parson at the other end of the line."
We found Thaddeus Hobson alone, in the vast hall looking blankly at the fire.
"Jeff," he said solemnly, "you sure brought me luck to-night if you can call it such being scared into a human icicle. Br-r-r! Shall I ever get the cold out of my backbone? But somehow, somehow that foggy feller outside sort of changed my look on things. It made me feel _kinder_ toward living folks. Ain't it strange!"
"Mr. Hobson," I said, "I think the ghost has made us _all_ see things differently. In a word, sir, I have a confession to make--if you don't mind."
And I told him briefly of my accidental meeting with Anita in the donjon, of the practical joke we planned, of our sudden meeting with the _real_ ghost on the ramparts. Mr. Hobson listened, his face growing redder and redder. At the finish of my story he suddenly leaped to his feet and brought his fist down on the table with a bang.
"Well, you little devils!" he said admiringly, and burst into loud laughter. "You're a spunky lad, Jeff. And there ain't any doubt that the de Pierreponts are as good stuff as you can get in the ancestry business. The Christmas supper is spread in the banquet hall. Come, de Pierrepont, will you sup with the old Earl?"
* * * * *
The huge oaken banquet hall, lined with rich hangings, shrunk us to dwarfs by its vastness. Golden goblets were at each place. A butler, dressed in antique livery, threw a red cloak over Hobson's fat shoulders. It was a whim of the old man's.
As we took our places, I noticed the table was set for four.
"Whose is the extra place?" I asked.
The old man at first made no reply. At last he turned to me earnestly and said: "Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No," I replied. "Yet how else can I explain that vision I saw on the ramparts?"
"Is the fourth place for him?" Anita almost whispered.
The old man nodded mutely and raised a golden goblet.
"To the Transplanted Ghost!" I said. It was an empty goblet that I touched to my lips.
THE LAST GHOST IN HARMONY
BY NELSON LLOYD
From _Scribner's Magazine_. Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers and Nelson Lloyd.
The Last Ghost in Harmony
BY NELSON LLOYD
From his perch on the blacksmith's anvil he spoke between the puffs of his post-prandial pipe. The fire in the forge was out and the day was going slowly, through the open door of the shop and the narrow windows, westward to the mountains. In the advancing shadow, on the pile of broken wheels on the work-bench, on keg and barrel, they sat puffing their post-prandial pipes and listening.
* * * * *
For a partner in business I want a truthful man, but for a companion give me one with imagination. To my mind imagination is the spice of life. There is nothing so uninteresting as a fact, for when you know it that is the end of it. When life becomes nothing but facts it won't be worth living; yet in a few years the race will have no imagination left. It is being educated out. Look at the children. When I was young the bogey man was as real to me as pa and nearly as much to be feared of, but just yesterday I was lectured for merely mentioning him to my neffy. So with ghosts. We was taught to believe in ghosts the same as we was in Adam or Noar. Nowadays nobody believes in them. It is unscientific, and if you are superstitious you are considered ignorant and laughed at. Ghosts are the product of the imagination, but if I imagine I see one he is as real to me as if he actually exists, isn't he? Therefore he does exist. That's logic. You fellows have become scientific and admits only what you see and feel, and don't depend on your imagination for anything. Such being the case, I myself admit that the sperrits no longer ha'nt the burying-ground or play around your houses. I admit it because the same condition exact existed in Harmony when I was there, and because of what was told me by Robert J. Dinkle about two years after he died, and because of what occurred between me and him and the Rev. Mr. Spiegelnail.
Harmony was a highly intellectual town. About the last man there with any imagination or interesting ideas, excepting me, of course, was Robert J. Dinkle. Yet he had an awful reputation, and when he died it was generally stated privately that the last landmark of ignorance and superstition had been providentially removed. You know he had always been seeing things, but we set it down to his fondness for hard cider or his natural prepensity for joshing. With him gone there was no one left to report the doings of the sperrit-world. In fact, so widespread was the light of reason, as the Rev. Mr. Spiegelnail called it, that the burying-ground became a popular place for moonlight strolls. Even I walked through it frequent on my way home from Miss Wheedle's, with whom I was keeping company, and it never occurred to me to go any faster there, or to look back over my shoulder, for I didn't believe in such foolishness. But to the most intellectual there comes times of doubt about things they know nothing of nor understand. Such a time come to me, when the wind was more mournfuller than usual in the trees, and the clouds scudded along overhead, casting peculiar shadders. My imagination got the best of my intellect. I hurried. I looked back over my shoulder. I shivered, kind of. Natural I see nothing in the burying-ground, yet at the end of town I was still uneasy-like, though half laughing at myself. It was so quiet; not a light burned anywhere, and the square seemed lonelier than the cemetery, and the store was so deserted, so ghostly in the moonlight, that I just couldn't keep from peering around at it.
Then, from the empty porch, from the empty bench--empty, I swear, for I could see plain, so clear was the night--from absolute nothing come as pleasant a voice as ever I hear.
"Hello!" it says.
My blood turned icy-like and the chills waved up and down all through me. I couldn't move.
The voice came again, so natural, so familiar, that I warmed some, and rubbed my eyes and stared.
There, sitting on the bench, in his favorite place, was the late Robert J. Dinkle, gleaming in the moonlight, the front door showing right through him.
"I must appear pretty distinct," he says in a proud-like way. "Can't you see me very plain?"
See him plain! I should think so. Even the patches on his coat was visible, and only for the building behind him, he never looked more natural, and hearing him so pleasant, set me thinking. This, says I, is the sperrit of the late Robert J. Dinkle. In life he never did me any harm and in his present misty condition is likely to do less; if he is looking for trouble I'm not afraid of a bit of fog. Such being the case, I says, I shall address him as soon as I am able.
But Robert got tired waiting, and spoke again in an anxious tone, a little louder, and ruther complaining, "Don't I show up good?" says he.
"I never see you looking better," I answered, for my voice had came back, and the chills were quieter, and I was fairly ca'm and dared even to move a little nearer.
A bright smile showed on his pale face. "It is a relief to be seen at last," he cried, most cheerful. "For years I've been trying to do a little ha'nting around here, and no one would notice me. I used to think mebbe my material was too delicate and gauzy, but I've conceded that, after all, the stuff is not to blame."
He heaved a sigh so natural that I forgot all about his being a ghost. Indeed, taken all in all, I see that he had improved, was solemner, had a sweeter expression and wasn't likely to give in to his old prepensity for joshing.
"Set down and we will talk it over," he went on most winning. "Really, I can't do any harm, but please be a little afraid and then I will show up distincter. I must be getting dim now."
"You are," says I, for though I was on the porch edging nearer him most bold, I could hardly see him.
Without any warning he gave an awful groan that brought the chills waving back most violent. I jumped and stared, and as I stared he stood out plainer and solider in the moonlight.
"That's better," he said with a jolly chuckle; "now you do believe in me, don't you? Well, set there nervous-like, on the edge of the bench and don't be too ca'm-like, or I'll disappear."
The ghost's orders were followed explicit. But with him setting there so natural and pleasant it was hard to be frightened and more than once I forgot. He, seeing me peering like my eyesight was bad, would give a groan that made my blood curdle. Up he would flare again, gleaming in the moonlight full and strong.
"Harmony's getting too scientific, too intellectual," he said, speaking very melancholic. "What can't be explained by arithmetic or geography is put down as impossible. Even the preachers encourage such idees and talk about Adam and Eve being allegories. As a result, the graveyard has become the slowest place in town. You simply can't ha'nt anything around here. A man hears a groan in his room and he gets up and closes the shutters tighter, or throws a shoe at a rat, or swears at the wind in the chimney. A few sperrits were hanging around when I was first dead, but they were complaining very bad about the hard times. There used to be plenty of good society in the burying-ground, they said, but one by one they had to quit. All the old Berrys had left. Mr. Whoople retired when he was taken for a white mule. Mrs. Morris A. Klump, who once oppyrated 'round the deserted house beyond the mill had gave up in disgust just a week before my arrival. I tried to encourage the few remaining, explained how the sperritualists were working down the valley and would strike town any time, but they had lost all hope--kept fading away till only me was left. If things don't turn for the better soon I must go, too. It's awful discouraging. And lonely! Why folks ramble around the graves like even I wasn't there. Just last night my boy Ossy came strolling along with the lady he is keeping company with, and where do you s'pose they set down to rest, and look at the moon and talk about the silliest subjecks? Right on my headstone! I stood in front of them and did the ghostliest things till I was clean tired out and discouraged. They just would not pay the least attention."
The poor old ghost almost broke down and cried. Never in life had I known him so much affected, and it went right to my heart to see him wiping his eyes with his handkercher and snuffling.
"Mebbe you don't make enough noise when you ha'nt," says I most sympathetic.
"I do all the regular acts," says he, a bit het up by my remark. "We always were kind of limited. I float around and groan, and talk foolish, and sometimes I pull off bedclothes or reveal the hiding-place of buried treasure. But what good does it do in a town so intellectual as Harmony?"
I have seen many folks who were down on their luck, but never one who so appealed to me as the late Robert J. Dinkle. It was the way he spoke, the way he looked, his general patheticness, his very helplessness, and deservingness. In life I had known him well, and as he was now I liked him better. So I did want to do something for him. We sat studying for a long time, him smoking very violent, blowing clouds of fog outen his pipe, me thinking up some way to help him. And idees allus comes to them who sets and waits.
"The trouble is partly as you say, Robert," I allowed after a bit, "and again partly because you can't make enough noise to awaken the slumbering imagination of intellectual Harmony. With a little natural help from me though, you might stir things up in this town."
You never saw a gladder smile or a more gratefuller look than that poor sperrit gave me.
"Ah," he says, "with your help I could do wonders. Now who'll we begin on?"
"The Rev. Mr. Spiegelnail," says I, "has about all the imagination left in Harmony--of course excepting me."
Robert's face fell visible. "I have tried him repeated and often," he says, kind of argumentative-like. "All the sign he made was to complain that his wife talked in her sleep."
I wasn't going to argue--not me. I was all for action, and lost no time in starting. Robert J., he followed me like a dog, up through town to our house, where I went in, leaving him outside so as not to disturb mother. There I got me a hammer and nails with the heavy lead sinker offen my fishnet, and it wasn't long before the finest tick-tack you ever saw was working against the Spiegelnails' parlor window, with me in a lilac-bush operating the string that kept the weight a-swinging. Before the house was an open spot where the moon shone full and clear, where Robert J. walked up and down, about two feet off the ground, waving his arms slow-like and making the melancholiest groans. Now I have been to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ frequent, but in all my life I never see such acting. Yet what was the consequences? Up went the window above, and the Rev. Mr. Spiegelnail showed out plain in the moonlight.
"Who is there?" he called very stern. You had otter see Robert then. It was like tonic to him. He rose up higher and began to beat his arms most violent and to gurgle tremendous. But the preacher never budged.
"You boys otter be ashamed of yourselves," he says in a severe voice.
"Louder, louder," I calls to Robert J., in answering which he began the most awful contortions.
"You can hear me perfectly plain," says the dominie, now kind of sad-like. "It fills my old heart with sorrow to see that yous all have gone so far astray."
Hearing that, so calm, so distinct, so defiant, made Robert J. stop short and stare. To remind him I gave the weight an extra thump, and it was so loud as to bring forth Mrs. Spiegelnail, her head showing plain as she peered out over the preacher's shoulder. The poor discouraged ghost took heart, striking his tragicest attitude, one which he told me afterwards was his pride and had been got out of a book. But what was the result?
"Does you hear anyone in the bushes, dear?" inquires Mr. Spiegelnail, cocking his ears and listening.
"It must be Ossy Dinkle and them bad friends of his," says she, in her sour tone.
Poor Robert! Hearing that, he about gave up hope.
"Don't I show up good?" he asks in an anxious voice.
"I can see you distinct," says I, very sharp. "You never looked better."