Part 4

At midnight of the very day They laid J. Wentworth Beane away, No sooner had the clock come round To 12 P. M. than from the ground Arose a spectre, lank and lean, With frigid air and haughty mien; No other than J. Wentworth Beane, Unchanged in all, except his pride-- If anything, intensified. He looked about him with that air Of supercilious despair That very stuck-up people wear At some society affair When no one in their set is there. Then, after brushing from his sleeves Some bits of mould and clinging leaves, And lightly dusting off his shoe, The iron gate he floated through, Just looking back the clock to note, As one who fears to miss a boat. Ten minutes later found him on The ghost’s Cunarder--“Oregon;” And ten days later by spook time He heard the hour of midnight chime From out the tower of Beanley Hall, And stood within the grave-yard wall Beside a stone, moss-grown and green, On which these simple words were seen:

IN MEMORY SIR GODFREY BEANE.

The while he gazed in thought serene A little ghost of humble mien, Unkempt and crooked, bent and spare, Accosted him with cringing air: “Most noble sir, ’t is plain to see You are not of the likes of me; You are a spook of high degree.” “My good man,” cried J. Wentworth B., “Leave me a little while, I pray, I’ve travelled very far to-day, And I desire to be alone With him who sleeps beneath this stone. I cannot rest till I have seen My ancestor, Sir Godfrey Beane.”

“Your ancestor! How can that be?” Exclaimed the little ghost, “when he, Last of his line, was drowned at sea Two hundred years ago; this stone Is to his memory alone. I, and I only, saw his end. As he, my master and my friend, Leaned o’er the vessel’s side one night I pushed him--no, it was not right, I own that I was much to blame; I donned his clothes, and took the name Of Beane--I also took his gold, About five thousand pounds all told; And so to Boston, Mass., I came To found a family and name-- I, who in former times had been Sir Godfrey’s--” “Wretch, what do you mean! Sir Godfrey’s what?” gasped Wentworth Beane. “Sir Godfrey’s valet!”

That same night, When the ghost steamer sailed, you might Among the passengers have seen A ghost of very abject mien, Faded and shrunk, forlorn and frayed,

The shadow of his former shade, Who registered in steerage class, J. W. Beane of Boston, Mass.

Now, gentle reader, do not try To guess the family which I Disguise as Beane--enough that they Exist on Beacon Hill to-day, In sweet enjoyment of their claims-- It is not well to mention names.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Bashful Earthquake, by Oliver Herford