The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
terror, imagining he heard the unaccountable noise of footsteps, had
evidently supplied that which had reached my ear, and in his alarm at
my approach had discharged his firearm at the supposed marauder.
Pleasant for me if he had taken a better aim: So I thought as I
dragged his unconscious body into his bedroom, and busied myself by
restoring it to sensation.
As soon as he opened his eyes, and was sufficiently recovered to
answer me, I asked,--
“What on earth made you discharge your gun, Dawson? I must take it out
of your keeping, if you are so careless about using it.”
“I didn’t fire, sir.”
“Nonsense! you don’t know what you are talking about. I heard the shot
distinctly as I came downstairs.”
“I am only telling you the truth, sir. There is the fowling-piece in
that corner. I have not drawn the trigger since you last loaded it.”
I went up and examined the weapon. What Dawson had said was correct.
It had not been used.
“Then who did fire?” I said, impatiently. “I could swear to having
heard the report.”
“And so could I, sir. It was that that knocked me over.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, sir, pray take the mistress and the children away from this place
as soon as possible. It’s no robbers that go up and down these stairs
of nights, sir. It’s something much worse than that.”
“Dawson, if you begin to talk such folly to me, I’ll discharge you on
the spot. I believe the whole lot of you have gone mad.”
“But listen to my story, sir. I had gone to bed last night, as tired
as possible, and thinking of nothing but getting a good long sleep.
The first thing that roused me was some one trying the handle of my
door. I lay and listened to it for some time before I was fully awake,
and then I thought maybe you wanted something out of my room, and was
trying not to wake me; so I got out of bed and opened the door. But
there was nobody there, though I fancied I heard some one breathing
hard a few yards off from me. Well, I thought to myself, sir, this is
all nonsense; so I came back to bed again, and lay down. But I
couldn’t sleep; for directly the door was closed, I heard the
footsteps again, creep, creeping along the passage and the wall, as
though some one was crouching and feeling his way as he went. Then the
handle of the door began to creak and turn again--I see it turn, sir,
with my own eyes, backwards and forwards, a dozen times in the
moonlight; and then I heard a heavier step come stumbling downstairs,
and there seemed to be a kind of scuffle. I couldn’t stand it no
longer, so I opened the door again; and then, as I’m a living
Christian, sir, I heard a woman’s voice say ‘Father!’ with a kind of
sob, and as the sound was uttered there came a report from the first
landing, and the sound of a fall, and a deep groan in the passage
below. And it seemed to go right through me, and curdle my blood, and
I fell all of a heap where you found me. And it’s nothing natural,
sir, you may take my word for it; and harm will come of your stopping
in this house.”
So saying, poor Dawson, who seemed in real earnest, fell back on his
pillow with a heavy sigh.
“Dawson,” I said, critically, “what did you eat for supper last
night?”
“You’re never going to put down what I’ve told you, sir, to supper. I
took nothing but a little cold meat, upon my word. And I was as
sensible, till that shot knocked me over, as you are this moment.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you seriously believe the report of a
firearm could have reached your ears without one having been
discharged?”
“But didn’t you say you heard it yourself, sir?”
This knocked me over, and I did not know what to answer him. In the
attempt to allay what I considered his unreasonable fear, I had
forgotten my own experience in the matter. And I knew that I had
heard, or imagined I heard, a shot fired, and it would be very
difficult for any one to persuade me I was mistaken. Still, though I
held no belief in supernatural agencies, I was an earnest student of
the philosophical and metaphysical school of Germany, and acquainted
with all the revealed wonders of magnetism and animal electricity. It
was impossible to say whether some such effect as I have described
might not have been produced upon my brain by the reflection of the
fear or fancy on that of my servant; and that as he had imagined the
concussion of firearms, so I might have instantaneously received the
impression of his mind. It was a nice question for argument, and not
one to be thought over at that moment. All my present business lay in
the effort to disabuse Dawson’s mind of the reality of the shock it
had received.
“I said I fancied I heard something like the report of a firearm; but
as none had been fired, of course I must have been mistaken. Come,
Dawson, I must go back, or Mrs. Delamere will wonder what has become
of me. I conclude you are not such a coward as to be afraid to be left
by yourself?”
“I never feared a man in my life, sir; but the strongest heart can’t
stand up against spirits.”
“Spirits!” I exclaimed, angrily. “I wonder what on earth you will talk
to me about next? Now, I’ll tell you what it is, Dawson--if I hear
anything more of this, or am disturbed again at night by your folly,
I’ll pack you back to London without a character. Do you understand
me?”
“I understand you, sir,” the man answered, humbly; and thereupon I
left him to himself.
But, as I reascended the staircase, I was not satisfied either with my
own half-formed solution of the mystery, or my servant’s reception of
my rebuke. He evidently would prefer dismissal to passing such another
night. I could read the resolution in his face, although he had not
expressed it in so many words. When I reached my wife’s room, I was
still more surprised. Janie and the child lay in a profound slumber. I
had expected to find both of them in a state of anxious terror to
learn the meaning of the noise that was going on below; but they had
evidently heard nothing. This welcome fact, however, only tended to
confirm me in the belief I had commenced to entertain, of the whole
circumstance being due to some, perhaps yet undiscovered, phase of
brain reading, and I fell to sleep, resolved to make a deeper study of
the marvels propounded by Mesmer and Kant. When I awoke, with the
bright June sun streaming in at the windows, I had naturally parted
with much of the impression of the night before. It is hard to
associate any gloomy or unnatural thoughts with the unlimited glory of
the summer’s sunshine, that streams into every nook and cranny, and
leaves no shadows anywhere. On this particular morning it seemed to
have cleared the cobwebs off all our brains. The child had forgotten
all about the occurrence of the night. I was, as usual, ready to laugh
away all ghostly fears and fancies; and even Janie seemed to regard
the matter as one of little moment.
“What was the matter last night, Arthur, dear?” she asked, when the
subject recurred to her memory. “I was so sleepy I couldn’t keep awake
till you came up again.”
“Didn’t you hear the fearful battle I held with the goblins in the
hall?” I demanded, gaily, though I put the question with a
purpose--“the shots that were exchanged between us, and the groans of
the defeated, as they slunk away into their haunted coal-cellars and
cupboards?”
“Arthur, what nonsense! Was there any noise?”
“Well, I frightened Dawson, and Dawson frightened me; and we squabbled
over it for the best part of an hour. I thought our talking might have
disturbed you.”
“Indeed, it didn’t, then. But don’t mention it before Cissy, Arthur,
even in fun, for she declares she heard some one walking about the
room, and I want her to forget it.”
I dropped the subject; but meeting Dawson as I was smoking my pipe in
the garden that afternoon, I ventured to rally him on his fright of
the night before, and to ask if he hadn’t got over it by that time.
“No, sir; and I never shall,” he replied, with a sort of shiver. “And
I only hope you may come to be convinced of the truth of it before
it’s too late to prevent harm you may never cease to repent of.”
There was so much respectful earnestness in the man’s manner, that I
could not resent his words nor laugh at them, as I had done before;
and I passed by him in thoughtful silence.
What if there were more in all this than I had ever permitted myself
to imagine? What if the assertions of my man-servant, the unaffected
terror of my wife and child, the fears of my nurse, the evident
shrinking of the old woman who had charge of the house, the opposition
from the servants of the neighbouring town, combined with what I had
heard myself, were not simple chimeras of the brain--fancies
engendered by superstition or timidity or ignorance; but indications
of a power beyond our control, the beginning and the end of which may
alike remain unknown until all things are revealed? I had, with the
majority of educated men, manfully resisted all temptation to believe
in the possibility of spirits, of whatever grade, making themselves
either seen or heard by mortal senses. I use the word “manfully,”
although I now believe it to be the height of manliness to refuse to
discredit that which we cannot disprove, and to have sufficient
humility to accept the belief that there are more things in heaven and
earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. But at that juncture I
should have considered such a concession both childish and cowardly.
Yet, there was sufficient doubt in my mind, notwithstanding the
glorious June sun, respecting my adventure of the night before, that I
resolved, whatever happened, that I would satisfy myself as to the
value of the fears of those about me.
I could not keep my wife and children in a house where they might be
liable at any moment to be frightened out of their seven senses, from
whatever cause, without ascertaining the reason of it. Some reason
there must be, either natural or otherwise; and I determined, if
possible, to learn it that very night. I would not tell Dawson or
anyone of my intention; but I would keep watch and ward in the old
parlour on the ground floor, so as to be ready to rush out at a
moment’s notice, and seize any intruder who might attempt to disturb
us. I still believed--I could not but believe--that the footsteps
which so many of us had heard were due to some trickster, who wished
to play upon our nerves in that lonely old house. I had heard of such
things being done, purposely to keep visitors away; and I determined,
whosoever it might be, whether our own servants or strangers, that
they must take their chance of being shot down like any other robber.
According to my resolution, I said nothing to Janie, but tried to
render the evening as cheerful and merry a one as possible.
I ordered strawberries and cream into the hayfield, and played with my
troop of little ones there, until they were so tired they could hardly
walk for the short distance that lay between them and their beds. As
soon as they were dismissed, and we had returned to the house, I laid
aside the newspapers that had arrived by that morning’s post, and
which I usually reserved for the evening’s delectation, and taking my
wife upon my knee, as in the dear old courting days, talked to her
until she had forgotten everything but the topics on which we
conversed, and had no time to brood upon the coming night, and the
fears it usually engendered. Then, as a last duty, I carried to Dawson
with my own hands a strong decoction of brandy and water, with which
I had mixed something that I knew, under ordinary circumstances, must
make him sleep till daylight.
“Drink this,” I said to him. “From whatever cause, our nerves were
both shaken last night, and a little stimulant will do neither of us
harm.”