Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
“Well, ring and ask,” said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as
practical.
The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she
had made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and
hadn’t been there since. No, she hadn’t no other key. Mr Simpson he
kep’ the keys; he’d be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been
up.
This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been
taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on
tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had
been played with them. Mr and Mrs Simpson furthermore agreed that
neither of them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person
whatever during the day. Nor could Parkins, fair-minded man as he was,
detect anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that
indicated guilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had
been imposing on the Colonel.
The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout
the evening. When he bade goodnight to Parkins, he murmured in a gruff
undertone:
“You know where I am if you want me during the night.”
“Why, yes, thank you, Colonel Wilson, I think I do; but there isn’t
much prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. By the way,” he added, “did
I show you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.”
The Colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle.
“Can you make anything of the inscription?” asked Parkins, as he took
it back.
“No, not in this light. What do you mean to do with it?”
“Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it to some of
the archaeologists there, and see what they think of it; and very
likely, if they consider it worth having, I may present it to one of
the museums.”
“’M!” said the Colonel. “Well, you may be right. All I know is that, if
it were mine, I should chuck it straight into the sea. It’s no use
talking, I’m well aware, but I expect that with you it’s a case of live
and learn. I hope so, I’m sure, and I wish you a good night.”
He turned away, leaving Parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the
stair, and soon each was in his own bedroom.
By some unfortunate accident, there were neither blinds nor curtains to
the windows of the Professor’s room. The previous night he had thought
little of this, but tonight there seemed every prospect of a bright
moon rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later
on. When he noticed this he was a good deal annoyed, but, with an
ingenuity which I can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the
help of a railway-rug, some safety-pins, and a stick and umbrella, a
screen which, if it only held together, would completely keep the
moonlight off his bed. And shortly afterwards he was comfortably in
that bed. When he had read a somewhat solid work long enough to produce
a decided wish for sleep, he cast a drowsy glance round the room, blew
out the candle, and fell back upon the pillow.
He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter
shook him up in a most unwelcome manner. In a moment he realized what
had happened: his carefully-constructed screen had given way, and a
very bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was
highly annoying. Could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen?
or could he manage to sleep if he did not?
For some minutes he lay and pondered over the possibilities; then he
turned over sharply, and with his eyes open lay breathlessly listening.
There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the
opposite side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there
must be rats or something playing about in it. It was quiet now. No!
the commotion began again. There was a rustling and shaking: surely
more than any rat could cause.
I can figure to myself something of the Professor’s bewilderment and
horror, for I have in a dream thirty years back seen the same thing
happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it
was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an
empty bed. He was out of his own bed in one bound, and made a dash
towards the window, where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he
had propped his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he
could have done, because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden
smooth motion, slipped from the bed and took up a position, with
outspread arms, between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins
watched it in a horrid perplexity. Somehow, the idea of getting past it
and escaping through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have
borne—he didn’t know why—to touch it; and as for its touching him, he
would sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. It
stood for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what
its face was like. Now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all
at once the spectator realized, with some horror and some relief, that
it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms
in a groping and random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became
suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and darted towards it,
and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder
as he had never in his life thought it possible. In a very few moments
it seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into
the area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time
what manner of thing it was.
Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once
describe something of it in my hearing, and I gathered that what he
chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face
_of crumpled linen._ What expression he read upon it he could not or
would not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is
certain.
But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable
quickness it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and
waved, one corner of its draperies swept across Parkins’s face. He
could not, though he knew how perilous a sound was—he could not keep
back a cry of disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It
leapt towards him upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way
through the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch
of his voice, and the linen face was thrust close into his own. At
this, almost the last possible second, deliverance came, as you will
have guessed: the Colonel burst the door open, and was just in time to
see the dreadful group at the window. When he reached the figures only
one was left. Parkins sank forward into the room in a faint, and before
him on the floor lay a tumbled heap of bed-clothes.
Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping
everyone else out of the room and in getting Parkins back to his bed;
and himself, wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of
the night. Early on the next day Rogers arrived, more welcome than he
would have been a day before, and the three of them held a very long
consultation in the Professor’s room. At the end of it the Colonel left
the hotel door carrying a small object between his finger and thumb,
which he cast as far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it.
Later on the smoke of a burning ascended from the back premises of the
Globe.
Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at
the hotel I must confess I do not recollect. The Professor was somehow
cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of
the reputation of a troubled house.
There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if
the Colonel had not intervened when he did. He would either have fallen
out of the window or else lost his wits. But it is not so evident what
more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done
than frighten. There seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it
save the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel,
who remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of the
opinion that if Parkins had closed with it it could really have done
very little, and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole
thing, he said, served to confirm his opinion of the Church of Rome.
There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the
Professor’s views on certain points are less clear cut than they used
to be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a
surplice hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a
scarecrow in a field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than
one sleepless night.
THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS
I
Verum usque in præsentem diem multa garriunt inter se Canonici de
abscondito quodam istius Abbatis Thomæ thesauro, quem sæpe, quanquam
adhuc incassum, quæsiverunt Steinfeldenses. Ipsum enim Thomam adhuc
florida in ætate existentem ingentem auri massam circa monasterium
defodisse perhibent; de quo multoties interrogatus ubi esset, cum risu
respondere solitus erat: “Job, Johannes, et Zacharias vel vobis vel
posteris indicabunt”; idemque aliquando adiicere se inventuris minime
invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis opera, hoc memoria præcipue dignum
iudico quod fenestram magnam in orientali parte alæ australis in
ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro depictis impleverit: id quod et
ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem posita demonstrant. Domum quoque
Abbatialem fere totam restauravit: puteo in atrio ipsius effosso et
lapidibus marmoreis pulchre cælatis exornato. Decessit autem, morte
aliquantulum subitanea perculsus, ætatis suæ anno lxxiido,
incarnationis vero Dominiæ mdxxixo.
“I suppose I shall have to translate this,” said the antiquary to
himself, as he finished copying the above lines from that rather rare
and exceedingly diffuse book, the _Sertum Steinfeldense
Norbertinum._[5] “Well, it may as well be done first as last,” and
accordingly the following rendering was very quickly produced:
[5] An account of the Premonstratensian abbey of Steinfeld, in the
Eiffel, with lives of the Abbots, published at Cologne in 1712 by
Christian Albert Erhard, a resident in the district. The epithet
_Norbertinum_ is due to the fact that St Norbert was founder of the
Premonstratensian Order.
Up to the present day there is much gossip among the Canons about a
certain hidden treasure of this Abbot Thomas, for which those of
Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story is
that Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large
quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. He was often asked where
it was, and always answered, with a laugh: “Job, John, and Zechariah
will tell either you or your successors.” He sometimes added that he
should feel no grudge against those who might find it. Among other
works carried out by this Abbot I may specially mention his filling the
great window at the east end of the south aisle of the church with
figures admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and arms in the
window attest. He also restored almost the whole of the Abbot’s
lodging, and dug a well in the court of it, which he adorned with
beautiful carvings in marble. He died rather suddenly in the
seventy-second year of his age, A.D. 1529.
The object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of
tracing the whereabouts of the painted windows of the Abbey Church of
Steinfeld. Shortly after the Revolution, a very large quantity of
painted glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of Germany and
Belgium to this country, and may now be seen adorning various of our
parish churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. Steinfeld Abbey was