by E. G. Swain
The church was not absolutely dark. Caleb remembered that he could make out the outlines of the windows, and that through the window nearest to him he saw a few stars. After his eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom he could see the lines of the seats taking shape in the darkness, and he had not long sat there before he could dimly see everything there was. At last he began to distinguish where books lay upon the shelf in front of him. And then he closed his eyes. He does not admit having fallen asleep, even for a moment. But the seat was restful, the neighbouring stove was growing warm, he had been through a long and joyous evening, and it was natural that he should at least close his eyes.
He insisted that it was only for a moment. Something, he could not say what, caused him to open his eyes again immediately. The closing of them seemed to have improved what may be called his dark sight. He saw everything in the church quite distinctly, in a sort of grey light. The pulpit stood out, large and bulky, in front. Beyond that, he passed his eyes along the four windows on the north side of the church. He looked again at the stars, still visible through the nearest window on his left hand as he was sitting. From that, his eyes fell to the further end of the seat in front of him, where he could even see a faint gleam of polished wood. He traced this gleam to the middle of the seat, until it disappeared in black shadow, and upon that his eye passed on to the seat he was in, and there he saw a man sitting beside him. Caleb described the man very clearly. He was, he said, a pale, old-fashioned looking man, with something very churchy about him. Reasoning also with great clearness, he said that the stranger had not come into the church either with him or after him, and that therefore he must have been there before him. And in that case, seeing that the church had been locked since two in the afternoon, the stranger must have been there for a considerable time.
Caleb was puzzled; turning therefore, to the stranger, he asked “How long have you been here?”
The stranger answered at once “Six hundred years.”
“Oh! come!” said Caleb.
“Come where?” said the stranger.
“Well, if you come to that, come out,” said Caleb.
“I wish I could,” said the stranger, and heaved a great sigh.
“What’s to prevent you?” said Caleb. “There’s the door, and here’s the key.”
“That’s it,” said the other.
“Of course it is,” said Caleb. “Come along.”
With that he proceeded to take the stranger by the sleeve, and then it was that he says you might have knocked him down with a feather. His hand went right into the place where the sleeve seemed to be, and Caleb distinctly saw two of the stranger’s buttons on the top of his own knuckles.
He hastily withdrew his hand, which began to feel icy cold, and sat still, not knowing what to say next. He found that the stranger was gently chuckling with laughter, and this annoyed him.”
“What are you laughing at?” he enquired peevishly.
“It’s not funny enough for two,” answered the other.
“Who are you, anyhow?” said Caleb.
“I am the kirk spook,” was the reply.
Now Caleb had not the least notion what a “kirk spook” was. He was not willing to admit his ignorance, but his curiosity was too much for his pride, and he asked for information.
“Every church has a spook,” said the stranger, “and I am the spook of this one.”
“Oh,” said Caleb, “I’ve been about this church a many years, but I’ve never seen you before.”
“That,” said the spook, “is because you’ve always been moving about. I’m very flimsy—very flimsy indeed—and I can only keep myself together when everything is quite still.”
“Well,” said Caleb, “you’ve got your chance now. What are you going to do with it?”
“I want to go out,” said the spook, “I’m tired of this church, and I’ve been alone for six hundred years. It’s a long time.”
“It does seem rather a long time,” said Caleb, “but why don’t you go if you want to? There’s three doors.”
“That’s just it,” said the spook, “They keep me in.”
“What?” said Caleb, “when they’re open.”
“Open or shut,” said the spook, “it’s all one.”
“Well, then,” said Caleb, “what about the windows?”
“Every bit as bad,” said the spook, “They’re all pointed.”
Caleb felt out of his depth. Open doors and windows that kept a person in—if it was a person—seemed to want a little understanding. And the flimsier the person, too, the easier it ought to be for him to go where he wanted. Also, what could it matter whether they were pointed or not?
The latter question was the one which Caleb asked first.
“Six hundred years ago,” said the spook, “all arches were made round, and when these pointed things came in I cursed them. I hate new-fangled things.”
“That wouldn’t hurt them much,” said Caleb.
“I said I would never go under one of them,” said the spook.
“That would matter more to you than to them,” said Caleb.
“It does,” said the spook, with another great sigh.
“But you could easily change your mind,” said Caleb.
“I was tied to it,” said the spook, “I was told that I never more should go under one of them, whether I would or not.”
“Some people will tell you anything,” answered Caleb.
“It was a bishop,” explained the spook.
“Ah!” said Caleb, “that’s different, of course.”
The spook told Caleb how often he had tried to go under the pointed arches, sometimes of the doors, sometimes of the windows, and how a stream of wind always struck him from the point of the arch, and drifted him back into the church. He had long given up trying.
“You should have been outside,” said Caleb, “before they built the last door.”
“It was my church,” said the spook, “and I was too proud to leave.”
Caleb began to sympathise with the spook. He had a pride in the church himself, and disliked even to hear another person say Amen before him. He also began to be a little jealous of this stranger who had been six hundred years in possession of the church, in which Caleb had believed himself, under the vicar, to be master. And he began to plot.
“Why do you want to get out?” he asked.
“I’m no use here,” was the reply, “I don’t get enough to do to keep myself warm. And I know there are scores of churches now without any kirk spooks at all. I can hear their cheap little bells dinging every Sunday.”
“There’s very few bells hereabouts,” said Caleb.
“There’s no hereabouts for spooks,” said the other. “We can hear any distance you like.”
“But what good are you at all?” said Caleb.
“Good!” said the spook. “Don’t we secure proper respect for churches, especially after dark? A church would be like any other place if it wasn’t for us. You must know that.”
“Well, then,” said Caleb, “you’re no good here. This church is all right. What will you give me to let you out?”
“Can you do it?” asked the spook.
“What will you give me?” said Caleb.
“I’ll say a good word for you amongst the spooks,” said the other.
“What good will that do me?” said Caleb.
“A good word never did anybody any harm yet,” answered the spook.
“Very well then, come along,” said Caleb.
“Gently then,” said the spook; “don’t make a draught.”
“Not yet,” said Caleb, and he drew the spook very carefully (as one takes a vessel quite full of water) from the seat.
“I can’t go under pointed arches,” cried the spook, as Caleb moved off.
“Nobody wants you to,” said Caleb. “Keep close to me.”
He led the spook down the aisle to the angle of the wall where a small iron shutter covered an opening into the flue
. It was used by the chimney sweep alone, but Caleb had another use for it now. Calling to the spook to keep close, he suddenly removed the shutter.
The fires were by this time burning briskly. There was a strong up-draught as the shutter was removed. Caleb felt something rush across his face, and heard a cheerful laugh away up in the chimney. Then he knew that he was alone. He replaced the shutter, gave another look at his stoves, took the keys, and made his way home.
He found his wife asleep in her chair, sat down and took off his boots, and awakened her by throwing them across the kitchen.
“I’ve been wondering when you’d wake,” he said.
“What?” she said, “Have you been in long?”
“Look at the clock,” said Caleb. “Half after twelve.”
“My gracious,” said his wife. “Let’s be off to bed.”
“Did you tell her about the spook?” he was naturally asked.
“Not I,” said Caleb. “You know what she’d say. Same as she always does of a Saturday night.”
* * * * * *
This fable Mr. Batchel related with reluctance. His attitude towards it was wholly deprecatory. Psychic phenomena, he said, lay outside the province of the mere humorist, and the levity with which they had been treated was largely responsible for the presumptuous materialism of the age. He said more, as he warmed to the subject, than can here be repeated. The reader of the foregoing tales, however, will be interested to know that Mr. Batchel’s own attitude was one of humble curiosity. He refused even to guess why the revenant was sometimes invisible, and at other times partly or wholly visible; sometimes capable of using physical force, and at other times powerless. He knew that they had their periods, and that was all.
There is room, he said, for the romancer in these matters; but for the humorist, none. Romance was the play of intelligence about the confines of truth. The invisible world, like the visible, must have its romancers, its explorers, and its interpreters; but the time of the last was not yet come.
Criticism, he observed in conclusion, was wholesome and necessary. But of the idle and mischievous remarks which were wont to pose as criticism, he held none in so much contempt as the cheap and irrational Pooh-Pooh.
BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE
By Ralph Adams Cram
BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE,
RED SPIRITS AND GRAY,
MINGLE, MINGLE, MINGLE,
YE THAT MINGLE MAY.
No. 252 Rue M. le Prince
When in May, 1886, I found myself at last in Paris, I naturally determined to throw myself on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene Marie d’Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a year or more ago on receiving word of the death of an aunt who had left him such property as she possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging from Eugene’s remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant for black magic, at least such was the common report.
Why she should leave all her property to d’Ardeche, no one could tell, unless it was that she felt his rather hobbledehoy tendencies towards Buddhism and occultism might some day lead him to her own unhallowed height of questionable illumination. To be sure d’Ardeche reviled her as a bad old woman, being himself in that state of enthusiastic exaltation which sometimes accompanies a boyish fancy for occultism; but in spite of his distant and repellent attitude, Mlle. Blaye de Tartas made him her sole heir, to the violent wrath of a questionable old party known to infamy as the Sar Torrevieja, the “King of the Sorcerers.”
This malevolent old portent, whose gray and crafty face was often seen in the Rue M. le Prince during the life of Mlle. de Tartas had, it seems, fully expected to enjoy her small wealth after her death; and when it appeared that she had left him only the contents of the gloomy old house in the Quartier Latin, giving the house itself and all else of which she died possessed to her nephew in America, the Sar proceeded to remove everything from the place, and then to curse it elaborately and comprehensively, together with all those who should ever dwell therein.
Whereupon he disappeared.
This final episode was the last word I received from Eugene, but I knew the number of the house, 252 Rue M. le Prince. So, after a day or two given to a first cursory survey of Paris, I started across the Seine to find Eugene and compel him to do the honours of the city.
Everyone who knows the Latin Quarter knows the Rue M. le Prince, running up the hill towards the Garden of the Luxembourg. It is full of queer houses and odd corners,—or was in ’86,—and certainly No. 252 was, when I found it, quite as queer as any. It was nothing but a doorway, a black arch of old stone between and under two new houses painted yellow. The effect of this bit of seventeenth-century masonry, with its dirty old doors, and rusty broken lantern sticking gaunt and grim out over the narrow sidewalk, was, in its frame of fresh plaster, sinister in the extreme.
I wondered if I had made a mistake in the number; it was quite evident that no one lived behind those cobwebs. I went into the doorway of one of the new hôtels and interviewed the concierge.
No, M. d’Ardeche did not live there, though to be sure he owned the mansion; he himself resided in Meudon, in the country house of the late Mlle. de Tartas. Would Monsieur like the number and the street?
Monsieur would like them extremely, so I took the card that the concierge wrote for me, and forthwith started for the river, in order that I might take a steamboat for Meudon. By one of those coincidences which happen so often, being quite inexplicable, I had not gone twenty paces down the street before I ran directly into the arms of Eugene d’Ardeche. In three minutes we were sitting in the queer little garden of the Chien Bleu, drinking vermouth and absinthe, and talking it all over.
“You do not live in your aunt’s house?” I said at last, interrogatively.
“No, but if this sort of thing keeps on I shall have to. I like Meudon much better, and the house is perfect, all furnished, and nothing in it newer than the last century. You must come out with me to-night and see it. I have got a jolly room fixed up for my Buddha. But there is something wrong with this house opposite. I can’t keep a tenant in it,—not four days. I have had three, all within six months, but the stories have gone around and a man would as soon think of hiring the Cour des Comptes to live in as No. 252. It is notorious. The fact is, it is haunted the worst way.”
I laughed and ordered more vermouth.
“That is all right. It is haunted all the same, or enough to keep it empty, and the funny part is that no one knows how it is haunted. Nothing is ever seen, nothing heard. As far as I can find out, people just have the horrors there, and have them so bad they have to go to the hospital afterwards. I have one extenant in the Bicêtre now. So the house stands empty, and as it covers considerable ground and is taxed for a lot, I don’t know what to do about it. I think I’ll either give it to that child of sin, Torrevieja, or else go and live in it myself. I shouldn’t mind the ghosts, I am sure.”
“Did you ever stay there?”
“No, but I have always intended to, and in fact I came up here today to see a couple of rake-hell fellows I know, Fargeau and Duchesne, doctors in the Clinical Hospital beyond here, up by the Parc Mont Souris. They promised that they would spend the night with me some time in my aunt’s house,—which is called around here, you must know, ‘la Bouche d’Enfer, ’—and I thought perhaps they would make it this week, if they can get off duty. Come up with me while I see them, and then we can go across the river to Véfour’s and have some luncheon, you can get your things at the Chatham, and we will go out to Meudon, where of course you will spend the night with me.”
The plan suited me perfectly, so we went up to the hospital, found Fargeau, who declared that he and Duchesne were ready for anything, the nearer the real “bouche d’enfer” the better; that the following Thursday they would both be off duty for the night, and that on that day they would join in an attempt to
outwit the devil and clear up the mystery of No. 252.
“Does M. l’Américain go with us?” asked Fargeau.
“Why of course,” I replied, “I intend to go, and you must not refuse me, d’Ardeche; I decline to be put off. Here is a chance for you to do the honours of your city in a manner which is faultless. Show me a real live ghost, and I will forgive Paris for having lost the Jardin Mabille.”
So it was settled.
Later we went down to Meudon and ate dinner in the terrace room of the villa, which was all that d’Ardeche had said, and more, so utterly was its atmosphere that of the seventeenth century. At dinner Eugene told me more about his late aunt, and the queer goings on in the old house.
Mlle. Blaye lived, it seems, all alone, except for one female servant of her own age; a severe, taciturn creature, with massive Breton features and a Breton tongue, whenever she vouchsafed to use it. No one ever was seen to enter the door of No. 252 except Jeanne the servant and the Sar Torrevieja, the latter coming constantly from none knew whither, and always entering, never leaving. Indeed, the neighbours, who for eleven years had watched the old sorcerer sidle crab-wise up to the bell almost every day, declared vociferously that never had he been seen to leave the house. Once, when they decided to keep absolute guard, the watcher, none other than Maître Garceau of the Chien Bleu, after keeping his eyes fixed on the door from ten o’clock one morning when the Sar arrived until four in the afternoon, during which time the door was unopened (he knew this, for had he not gummed a ten-centime stamp over the joint and was not the stamp unbroken) nearly fell down when the sinister figure of Torrevieja slid wickedly by him with a dry “Pardon, Monsieur! ” and disappeared again through the black doorway.
This was curious, for No. 252 was entirely surrounded by houses, its only windows opening on a courtyard into which no eye could look from the hôtels of the Rue M. le Prince and the Rue de l’Ecole, and the mystery was one of the choice possessions of the Latin Quarter.