by Lord Dunsany
The Ghosts
The argument that I had with my brother in his great lonely housewill scarcely interest my readers. Not those, at least, whom I hopemay be attracted by the experiment that I undertook, and by thestrange things that befell me in that hazardous region into which solightly and so ignorantly I allowed my fancy to enter. It was atOneleigh that I had visited him.
Now Oneleigh stands in a wide isolation, in the midst of a darkgathering of old whispering cedars. They nod their heads togetherwhen the North Wind comes, and nod again and agree, and furtivelygrow still again, and say no more awhile. The North Wind is to themlike a nice problem among wise old men; they nod their heads overit, and mutter about it all together. They know much, those cedars,they have been there so long. Their grandsires knew Lebanon, andthe grandsires of these were the servants of the King of Tyre andcame to Solomon's court. And amidst these black-haired children ofgrey-headed Time stood the old house of Oneleigh. I know not howmany centuries had lashed against it their evanescent foam of years;but it was still unshattered, and all about it were the things oflong ago, as cling strange growths to some sea-defying rock. Here,like the shells of long-dead limpets, was armour that men encasedthemselves in long ago; here, too, were tapestries of many colours,beautiful as seaweed; no modern flotsam ever drifted hither, noearly Victorian furniture, no electric light. The great traderoutes that littered the years with empty meat tins and cheap novelswere far from here. Well, well, the centuries will shatter it anddrive its fragments on to distant shores. Meanwhile, while it yetstood, I went on a visit there to my brother, and we argued aboutghosts. My brother's intelligence on this subject seemed to me tobe in need of correction. He mistook things imagined for thingshaving an actual existence; he argued that second-hand evidence ofpersons having seen ghosts proved ghosts to exist. I said that evenif they had seen ghosts, this was no proof at all; nobody believesthat there are red rats, though there is plenty of first-handevidence of men having seen them in delirium. Finally, I said Iwould see ghosts myself, and continue to argue against their actualexistence. So I collected a handful of cigars and drank severalcups of very strong tea, and went without my dinner, and retiredinto a room where there was dark oak and all the chairs were coveredwith tapestry; and my brother went to bed bored with our argument,and trying hard to dissuade me from making myself uncomfortable.All the way up the old stairs as I stood at the bottom of them, andas his candle went winding up and up, I heard him still trying topersuade me to have supper and go to bed.
It was a windy winter, and outside the cedars were muttering I knownot what about; but I think that they were Tories of a school longdead, and were troubled about something new. Within, a great damplog upon the fireplace began to squeak and sing, and struck up awhining tune, and a tall flame stood up over it and beat time, andall the shadows crowded round and began to dance. In distantcorners old masses of darkness sat still like chaperones and nevermoved. Over there, in the darkest part of the room, stood a doorthat was always locked. It led into the hall, but no one ever usedit; near that door something had happened once of which the familyare not proud. We do not speak of it. There in the firelight stoodthe venerable forms of the old chairs; the hands that had made theirtapestries lay far beneath the soil, the needles with which theywrought were many separate flakes of rust. No one wove now in thatold room--no one but the assiduous ancient spiders who, watchingby the deathbed of the things of yore, worked shrouds to hold theirdust. In shrouds about the cornices already lay the heart of theoak wainscot that the worm had eaten out.
Surely at such an hour, in such a room, a fancy already excited byhunger and strong tea might see the ghosts of former occupants. Iexpected nothing less. The fire flickered and the shadows danced,memories of strange historic things rose vividly in my mind; butmidnight chimed solemnly from a seven-foot clock, and nothinghappened. My imagination would not be hurried, and the chill thatis with the small hours had come upon me, and I had nearly abandonedmyself to sleep, when in the hall adjoining there arose the rustlingof silk dresses that I had waited for and expected. Then thereentered two by two the high-born ladies and their gallants ofJacobean times. They were little more than shadows--verydignified shadows, and almost indistinct; but you have all readghost stories before, you have all seen in museums the dresses ofthose times--there is little need to describe them; they entered,several of them, and sat down on the old chairs, perhaps a littlecarelessly considering the value of the tapestries. Then therustling of their dresses ceased.
Well--I had seen ghosts, and was neither frightened nor convincedthat ghosts existed. I was about to get up out of my chair and goto bed, when there came a sound of pattering in the hall, a sound ofbare feet coming over the polished floor, and every now and then afoot would slip and I heard claws scratching along the wood as somefour-footed thing lost and regained its balance. I was notfrightened, but uneasy. The pattering came straight towards theroom that I was in, then I heard the sniffing of expectant nostrils;perhaps 'uneasy' was not the most suitable word to describe myfeelings then. Suddenly a herd of black creatures larger thanbloodhounds came galloping in; they had large pendulous ears, theirnoses were to the ground sniffing, they went up to the lords andladies of long ago and fawned about them disgustingly. Their eyeswere horribly bright, and ran down to great depths. When I lookedinto them I knew suddenly what these creatures were, and I wasafraid. They were the sins, the filthy, immortal sins of thosecourtly men and women.
How demure she was, the lady that sat near me on an old-worldchair--how demure she was, and how fair, to have beside her with itsjowl upon her lap a sin with such cavernous red eyes, a clear caseof murder. And you, yonder lady with the golden hair, surely notyou--and yet that fearful beast with the yellow eyes slinks fromyou to yonder courtier there, and whenever one drives it away itslinks back to the other. Over there a lady tries to smile as shestrokes the loathsome furry head of another's sin, but one of herown is jealous and intrudes itself under her hand. Here sits an oldnobleman with his grandson on his knee, and one of the great blacksins of the grandfather is licking the child's face and has made thechild its own. Sometimes a ghost would move and seek another chair,but always his pack of sins would move behind him. Poor ghosts,poor ghosts! how many flights they must have attempted for twohundred years from their hated sins, how many excuses they must havegiven for their presence, and the sins were with them still--andstill unexplained. Suddenly one of them seemed to scent my livingblood, and bayed horribly, and all the others left their ghosts atonce and dashed up to the sin that had given tongue. The brute hadpicked up my scent near the door by which I had entered, and theymoved slowly nearer to me sniffing along the floor, and utteringevery now and then their fearful cry. I saw that the whole thinghad gone too far. But now they had seen me, now they were all aboutme, they sprang up trying to reach my throat; and whenever theirclaws touched me, horrible thoughts came into my mind andunutterable desires dominated my heart. I planned bestial things asthese creatures leaped around me, and planned them with a masterlycunning. A great red-eyed murder was among the foremost of thosefurry things from whom I feebly strove to defend my throat.Suddenly it seemed to me good that I should kill my brother. Itseemed important to me that I should not risk being punished. Iknew where a revolver was kept; after I had shot him, I would dressthe body up and put flour on the face like a man that had beenacting as a ghost. It would be very simple. I would say that he hadfrightened me--and the servants had heard us talking about ghosts.There were one or two trivialities that would have to be arranged,but nothing escaped my mind. Yes, it seemed to me very good that Ishould kill my brother as I looked into the red depths of thiscreature's eyes. But one last effort as they dragged me down--'Iftwo straight lines cut one another,' I said, 'the opposite anglesare equal. Let AB, CD, cut one another at E, then the angles CEA,CEB equal two right angles (prop. xiii.). Also CEA, AED equal tworight angles.'
I moved towards the door to get the revolver;
a hideous exultationarose among the beasts. 'But the angle CEA is common, therefore AEDequals CEB. In the same way CEA equals DEB. _QED_.' It wasproved. Logic and reason re-established themselves in my mind, therewere no dark hounds of sin, the tapestried chairs were empty. Itseemed to me an inconceivable thought that a man should murder hisbrother.