He said it irritated him.
Just then a slight noise reached us from the yard below, and he started and turned deathly black.
“You are ill,” I cried, springing towards him. “Tell me the best thing to do for you. Shall I drink some brandy, and give you the ghost of it?”
He remained silent, listening intently for a moment, and then he gave a sigh of relief, and the shade came back to his cheek.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “I was afraid it was the cock.”
“Oh, it’s too early for that,” I said. “Why it’s only the middle of the night.”
“Oh, that doesn’t make any difference to those cursed chickens,” he replied bitterly. “They would just as soon crow in the middle of the night as at any other time – sooner, if they thought it would spoil a chap’s evening out. I believe they do it on purpose.”
He said a friend of his, the ghost of a man who had killed a water-rate collector, used to haunt a house in Long Acre, where they kept fowls in the cellar, and every time a policeman went by and flashed his bull’s eye down the grating, the old cock there would fancy it was the sun, and start crowing like mad; when, of course, the poor ghost had to dissolve, and it would, in consequence get back home sometimes as early as one o’clock in the morning, swearing fearfully because it had only been out for an hour.
I agreed that it seemed very unfair.
“Oh, it’s an absurd arrangement altogether,” he continued, quite angrily. “I can’t imagine what our old man could have been thinking of when he made it. As I have said to him, over and over again, ‘Have a fixed time, and let everybody stick to it – say four o’clock in summer, and six in winter. Then one would know what one was about.’”
“How do you manage when there isn’t any cock handy?” I enquired.
He was on the point of replying, when again he started and listened. This time I distinctly heard Mr Bowles’s cock, next door, crow twice.
“There you are,” he said, rising and reaching for his hat. “That’s the sort of thing we have to put up with. What is the time?”
I looked at my watch, and found it was half-past three.
“I thought as much,” he muttered. “I’ll wring that blessed bird’s neck if I get hold of it.” And he prepared to go.
“If you can wait half a minute,” I said, getting out of bed, “I’ll go a bit of the way with you.”
“It’s very good of you,” he rejoined, pausing, “but it seems unkind to drag you out.”
“Not at all,” I replied. “I shall like a walk.” And I partially dressed myself, and took my umbrella; and he put his arm through mine, and we went out together.
Just by the gate we met Jones, one of the local constables.
“Goodnight, Jones,” I said (I always feel affable at Christmas time).
“Goodnight, sir,” answered the man a little gruffly, I thought. “May I ask what you’re a-doing of?”
“Oh, it’s all right,” I responded, with a wave of my umbrella. “I’m just seeing my friend part of the way home.”
He said, “What friend?”
“Oh, ah, of course,” I laughed. “I forgot. He’s invisible to you. He is the ghost of the gentleman that killed the wait. I’m just going to the corner with him.”
“Ah, I don’t think I would, if I was you, sir,” said Jones severely. “If you take my advice, you’ll say goodbye to your friend here, and go back indoors. Perhaps you are not aware that you are walking about with nothing on but a night shirt and a pair of boots and an opera hat. Where’s your trousers?”
I did not like the man’s manner at all. I said, “Jones! I don’t wish to have to report you, but it seems to me you’ve been drinking. My trousers are where a man’s trousers ought to be – on his legs. I distinctly remember putting them on.”
“Well, you haven’t got them on now,” he retorted.
“I beg your pardon,” I replied. “I tell you I have – I think I ought to know.”
“I think so too,” he answered, “but you evidently don’t. Now you come along indoors with me, and don’t let’s have any more of it.”
Uncle John came to the door at this point, having been awaked, I suppose, by the altercation, and at the same moment Aunt Maria appeared at the window in her nightcap.
I explained the constable’s mistake to them, treating the matter as lightly as I could, so as not to get the man into trouble, and I turned for confirmation to the ghost.
He was gone! He had left me without a word – without even saying goodbye!
It struck me as so unkind, his having gone off in that way, that I burst into tears, and Uncle John came out and led me back into the house.
On reaching my room, I discovered that Jones was right. I had not put on my trousers after all. They were still hanging over the bedrail. I suppose, in my anxiety not to keep the ghost waiting, I must have forgotten them.
Such are the plain facts of the case, out of which it must, doubtless, to the healthy, charitable mind appear impossible that calumny could spring.
But it has.
Persons – I say “persons” – have professed themselves unable to understand the simple circumstances herein narrated, except in the light of explanations at once misleading and insulting. Slurs have been cast and aspersions made on me by those of my own flesh and blood.
But I bear no ill feeling. I merely, as I have said, set forth this statement for the purpose of clearing my character from injurious suspicion.
Other Tales
Evergreens
They look so dull and dowdy in the sweet spring weather, when the snowdrops and crocuses are putting on their dainty frocks of white and mauve and yellow, and the baby buds from every branch are peeping with bright eyes out on the world and stretching forth soft little leaves towards the coming gladness of their lives. They stand apart, so cold and hard amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around them.
And in the deep, full summertime, when all the rest of nature dons its richest garb of green, and the roses clamber round the porch, and the grass waves waist-high in the meadow, and the fields are gay with flowers – they seem duller and dowdier than ever then, wearing their faded winter’s dress, looking so dingy and old and worn.
In the mellow days of autumn, when the trees, like dames no longer young, seek to forget their aged looks under gorgeous bright-toned robes of gold and brown and purple, and the grain is yellow in the fields, and the ruddy fruit hangs clustering from the drooping boughs, and the wooded hills in their thousand hues stretch like leafy rainbows above the vale – ah! – surely they look their dullest and dowdiest then. The gathered glory of the dying year is all around them. They seem so out of place among it, in their sombre, everlasting green, like poor relations at a rich man’s feast. It is such a weather-beaten old green dress. So many summers’ suns have blistered it, so many winters’ rains have beat upon it – such a shabby, mean old dress: it is the only one they have!
They do not look quite so bad when the weary winter weather is come, when the flowers are dead and the hedgerows are bare, and the trees stand out leafless against the grey sky, and the birds are all silent, and the fields are brown, and the vine clings round the cottage with skinny, fleshless arms, and they alone of all things are unchanged, they alone of all the forest are green, they alone of all the verdant host stand firm to front the cruel winter.
They are not very beautiful, only strong and staunch and steadfast – the same in all times, through all seasons – ever the same, ever green. The spring cannot brighten them, the summer cannot scorch them, the autumn cannot wither them, the winter cannot kill them.
There are evergreen men and women in the world, praise be to God! – not many of them, but a few. They are not the showy folk; they are not the clever, attractive folk. (Nature is an old-fashioned shopkeeper: she never puts her best goo
ds in the window.) They are only the quiet, strong folk: they are stronger than the world, stronger than life and death, stronger than Fate. The storms of life sweep over them, and the rains beat down upon them, and the biting frosts creep round them; but the winds and rains and the frosts pass away, and they are still standing, green and straight. They love the sunshine of life in their undemonstrative way – its pleasures, its joys. But calamity cannot bow them, sorrow and affliction bring not despair to their serene faces, only a little tightening of the lips; the sun of our prosperity makes the green of their friendship no brighter, the frost of our adversity kills not the leaves of their affection.
Let us lay hold of such men and women; let us grapple them to us with hooks of steel; let us cling to them as we would to rocks in a tossing sea. We do not think very much of them in the summertime of life. They do not flatter us or gush over us. They do not always agree with us. They are not always the most delightful society, by any means. They are not good talkers, nor – which would do just as well, perhaps better – do they make enraptured listeners. They have awkward manners, and very little tact. They do not shine to advantage beside our society friends. They do not dress well; they look altogether somewhat dowdy and commonplace. We almost hope they will not see us when we meet them just outside the club. They are not the sort of people we want to ostentatiously greet in crowded places. It is not till the days of our need that we learn to love and know them. It is not till the winter that the birds see the wisdom of building their nests in the evergreen trees.
And we, in our springtime folly of youth, pass them by with a sneer, the uninteresting, colourless evergreens, and, like silly children with nothing but eyes in their heads, stretch out our hands and cry for the pretty flowers. We will make our little garden of life such a charming, fairy-like spot, the envy of every passer-by! There shall nothing grow in it but lilies and roses, and the cottage we will cover all over with Virginia creeper. And, oh, how sweet it will look, under the dancing summer sunlight, when the soft west breeze is blowing!
And, oh, how we shall stand and shiver there when the rain and the east wind come!
Oh, you foolish, foolish little maidens, with your dainty heads so full of unwisdom! How often – oh! – how often, are you to be warned that it is not always the sweetest thing in lovers that is the best material to make a good-wearing husband out of? “The lover sighing like a furnace” will not go on sighing like a furnace for ever. That furnace will go out. He will become the husband, “full of strange oaths – jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel”, and grow “into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon”. How will he wear? There will be no changing him if he does not suit, no sending him back to be altered, no having him let out a bit where he is too tight and hurts you, no having him taken in where he is too loose, no laying him by when the cold comes, to wrap yourself up in something warmer. As he is when you select him, so he will have to last you all your life – through all changes, through all seasons.
Yes, he looks very pretty now – handsome pattern, if the colours are fast and it does not fade – feels soft and warm to the touch. How will he stand the world’s rough weather? How will he stand life’s wear-and-tear?
He looks so manly and brave. His hair curls so divinely. He dresses so well (I wonder if the tailor’s bill is paid?). He kisses your hand so gracefully. He calls you such pretty names. His arm feels so strong around you. His fine eyes are so full of tenderness as they gaze down into yours.
Will he kiss your hand when it is wrinkled and old? Will he call you pretty names when the baby is crying in the night, and you cannot keep it quiet – or, better still, will he sit up and take a turn with it? Will his arm be strong around you in the days of trouble? Will his eyes shine above you full of tenderness when yours are growing dim?
And you boys, you silly boys! – what materials for a wife do you think you will get out of the empty-headed coquettes you are raving and tearing your hair about? Oh! Yes, she is very handsome, and she dresses with exquisite taste (the result of devoting the whole of her heart, mind and soul to the subject, and never allowing her thoughts to be distracted from it by any other mundane or celestial object whatsoever); and she is very agreeable and entertaining and fascinating; and she will go on looking handsome, and dressing exquisitely, and being agreeable and entertaining and fascinating, just as much after you have married her as before – more so, if anything.
But you will not get the benefit of it. Husbands will be charmed and fascinated by her in plenty, but you will not be among them. You will run the show, you will pay all the expenses, do all the work. Your performing lady will be most affable and enchanting to the crowd. They will stare at her, and admire her, and talk to her, and flirt with her. And you will be able to feel that you are quite a benefactor to your fellow men and women – to your fellow men especially – in providing such delightful amusement for them, free. But you will not get any of the fun yourself.
You will not get the handsome looks. You will get the jaded face, and the dull, lustreless eyes, and the untidy hair with the dye showing on it. You will not get the exquisite dresses. You will get dirty, shabby frocks and slommicking dressing gowns, such as your cook would be ashamed to wear. You will not get the charm and fascination. You will get the after-headaches, the complainings and grumblings, the silence and sulkiness, the weariness and lassitude and ill temper that comes as such a relief after working hard all day at being pleasant!
It is not the people who shine in society, but the people who brighten up the back parlour; not the people who are charming when they are out, but the people who are charming when they are in, that are good to live with. It is not the brilliant men and women, but the simple, strong, restful men and women that make the best travelling companions for the road of life. The men and women who will only laugh as they put up the umbrella when the rain begins to fall, who will trudge along cheerfully through the mud and over the stony places – the comrades who will lay their firm hand on ours and strengthen us when the way is dark, and we are growing weak – the evergreen men and women, who, like the holly, are at their brightest and best when the blast blows chilliest – the staunch men and women.
It is a grand thing this staunchness. It is the difference between a dog and a sheep – between a man and an oyster.
Women, as a rule, are stauncher than men. There are women that you feel you could rely upon to the death. But very few men indeed have this dog-like virtue. Men, taking them generally, are more like cats. You may live with them and call them yours for twenty years, but you can never feel quite sure of them. You never know exactly what they are thinking of. You never feel easy in your mind as to the result of the next-door neighbour’s laying down a Brussels carpet in his kitchen.
We have no school for the turning-out of staunch men in this nineteenth century. In the old, earnest times, war made men staunch and true to each other. We have learnt up a good many glib phrases about the wickedness of war, and we thank God that we live in these peaceful trading times, wherein we can – and do – devote the whole of our thoughts and energies to robbing and cheating and swindling one another – to “doing” our friends and overcoming our enemies by trickery and lies – wherein, undisturbed by the wicked ways of fighting men, we can cultivate to better perfection the “smartness”, the craft and the cunning, and all the other “business-like” virtues on which we so pride ourselves, and which were so neglected and treated with so little respect in the bad old age of violence, when men chose lions and eagles for their symbols rather than foxes.
There is a good deal to be said against war. I am not prepared to maintain that war did not bring with it disadvantages, but there can be no doubt that, for the noblest work of nature – the making of men – it was a splendid manufactory. It taught men courage. It trained them in promptness and determination, in strength of brain and strength of hand. From its stern lessons they learnt fortitude in suffering, coolness in danger, ch
eerfulness under reverses. Chivalry, Reverence and Loyalty are the beautiful children of ugly War. But, above all gifts, the greatest gift it gave to men was staunchness.
It first taught men to be true to one another; to be true to their duty, true to their post; to be in all things faithful, even unto death.
The martyrs that died at the stake; the explorers that fought with Nature and opened up the world for us; the reformers (they had to do something more than talk in those days) who won for us our liberties; the men who gave their lives to science and art, when science and art brought, not as now, fame and fortune, but shame and penury – they sprang from the loins of the rugged men who had learnt, on many a grim battlefield, to laugh at pain and death, who had had it hammered into them, with many a hard blow, that the whole duty of a man in this world is to be true to his trust, and fear not.
Do you remember the story of the old Viking who had been converted to Christianity and who, just as they were about, with much joy, to baptize him, paused and asked, “But what – if this, as you tell me, is the only way to the true Valhalla – what has become of my comrades, my friends who are dead, who died in the old faith – where are they?”
The priests, confused, replied there could be no doubt those unfortunate folk had gone to a place they would rather not mention.
“Then,” said the old warrior, stepping back, “I will not be baptized. I will go along with my own people.”
He had lived with them, fought beside them; they were his people. He would stand by them to the end – of eternity. Most assuredly, a very shocking old Viking! But I think it might be worthwhile giving up our civilization and our culture to get back to the days when they made men like that.
The only reminder of such times that we have left us now is the bulldog, and he is fast dying out – the pity of it! What a splendid old dog he is! So grim, so silent, so staunch; so terrible, when he has got his idea of his duty clear before him; so absurdly meek, when it is only himself that is concerned.
After-Supper Ghost Stories Page 4