Twenty-Five Ghost Stories
floor. I pulled at it faintly, but it did not move, at which the ghost
gave a faint sigh. For a second the cold fingers pressed mine, quite
affectionately, then released me, and I heard steps passing slowly into
the patio, then dying away. Where was it going, and what on earth did it
all mean?
But I was so tired and wrought up I tried to find the door, but couldn’t
(the cashier would have been revenged could he have seen me stupidly
fumbling at a barrel, thinking it was the door), and at last, too
fatigued and sleepy to stand, I dropped down on the cold stone floor
and went to sleep.
I must have slept for some hours, for when I awoke the light of dawn was
coming in at the window, and I sat up and wondered if I had taken leave
of my senses during the night. What on earth could I be doing here in
the lumber-room? Then, like a flash, I remembered, and, half
unconsciously, crept about on the floor seeking the small ring. There it
was! I caught it and jerked at it hard. Hey, presto, change! For it
seemed to me that the entire floor was giving way. There was a sliding,
crashing sound, and I found myself hanging on for dear life to a barrel
that, fortunately, retained its equilibrium, and with my feet dangling
into space. Down below me was a small, stone-floored room, with big
boxes and small ones ranged about the walls. Treasure! Like a flash the
thought struck me, and with one leap I was down in the secret room
gazing about at the boxes.
But, alas! upon investigation, the biggest chests proved empty. The bad,
wicked count! No wonder he couldn’t rest in his Spanish grave, but must
come back to the scene of his wickedness and deceit to make reparation!
But the smaller chests were literally crammed with all sorts of
things--big heavy Spanish coins, in gold and silver--gold and silver
dinner services, with the crest of the unfortunate emperor; magnificent
pieces of jeweled armor and weapons, beautiful jewelry and loose
precious stones. I deliberately selected handfuls of the latter, giving
my preference to the diamonds and pearls--I had always had a taste for
them, which I had never before been able to gratify!--and packed them in
a wooden box that I found in the lumber-room. The gold and dinner
services and armor, etc., I left as they were, being rather cumbersome,
and carried off, rejoicing, my big box of diamonds and pearls and other
jewelry.
Needless to say we didn’t go away for the holidays on the eight o’clock
train. But I did come down to the office and proceeded to locate my
missing nine cents. After which I unfolded the tale of the ghost and the
treasure--only keeping quiet the matter of my private loot. Of which I
was heartily glad afterwards. For when the government learned of the
find what do you suppose they offered me for going about with the ghost
and discovering the secret room and treasure? Ten thousand dollars! When
I refused, stating that I would take merely, as my reward, one of the
gold dinner services, the greedy things objected at first, but I finally
had my way. And to this very day they have no idea that I--even I--have
all the beautiful jewels. Wouldn’t they be furious if they knew it? But
they aren’t apt to, unless they learn English and read this story. Which
isn’t likely.
THE OLD MANSION.
Down on Long Beach, that narrow strip of sand which stretches along the
New Jersey coast from Barnegat Inlet on the north to Little Egg Harbor
Inlet on the south, the summer sojourner at some one of the numerous
resorts, which of late years have sprung up every few miles, may, in
wandering over the sand dunes just across the bay from the village of
Manahawkin, stumble over some charred timbers or vestiges of crumbling
chimneys, showing that once, years back, a human habitation has stood
there. If the find rouses the jaded curiosity of the visitor
sufficiently to impel him to question the weatherbeaten old bayman who
sails him on his fishing trips he will learn that these relics mark the
site of one of the first summer hotels erected on the New Jersey coast.
“That’s where the Old Mansion stood,” he will be informed by Captain
Nate or Captain Sam, or whatever particular captain it may chance to be,
and if by good fortune it chances to be Captain Jim, he will hear a
story that will pleasantly pass away the long wait for a sheepshead
bite.
It was my good luck to have secured Captain Jim for a preceptor in the
angler’s art during my vacation last summer, and his stories and
reminiscences of Long Beach were not the least enjoyable features of the
two weeks’ sojourn.
Captain Jim was not garrulous. Few of the baymen are. They are a sturdy,
self-reliant and self-controlled people, full of strong common sense,
but still with that firm belief in the supernatural which seems inherent
in dwellers by the sea.
“The Old Mansion,” said Captain Jim, “or the Mansion of Health, for that
was its full name, was built away back in 1822, so I’ve heard my father
say. There had been a tavern close by years before that was kept by a
man named Cranmer, and people used to come from Philadelphia by stage,
sixty miles through the pines, to ‘Hawkin, and then cross here by boat.
Some would stop at Cranmer’s and others went on down the beach to
Homer’s which was clear down at End by the Inlet. Finally some of the
wealthy people concluded that they wanted better accommodations than
Cranmer gave, so they formed the Great Swamp Long Beach Company, and
built the Mansion of Health. I’ve heard that when it was built it was
the biggest hotel on the coast, and was considered a wonder. It was 120
feet long, three stories high, and had a porch running all the way
around it, with a balcony on top. It was certainly a big thing for
those days. I’ve heard father tell many a time of the stage loads of gay
people that used to come rattling into ‘Hawkin, each stage drawn by four
horses, and sometimes four or five of them a day in the summer. A good
many people, too, used to come in their own carriages, and leave them
over on the mainland until they were ready to go home. There were gay
times at the Old Mansion then, and it made times good for the people
along shore, too.”
“How long did the Old Mansion flourish, Captain?” I asked.
“Well, for twenty-five or thirty years people came there summer after
summer. Then they built a railroad to Cape May, and that, with the
ghosts, settled the Mansion of Health.”
“What do you mean by the ghosts?” I demanded.
“Well, you see,” said Captain Jim, cutting off a mouthful of navy plug,
“the story got around that the old house was haunted. Some people said
there were queer things seen there, and strange noises were heard that
nobody could account for, and pretty soon the place got a bad name and
visitors were so few that it didn’t pay to keep it open any more.”
“But how did it get the name of being haunted, Captain Jim?” I
persisted.
“Why, it was this way,” continued the mariner. “Maybe you’ve heard of
the time early in the fifties when the Powhatan was wrecked on the beach
here, and every soul on board was lost. She was an emigrant ship, and
there were over 400 people aboard--passengers and crew. She came ashore
here during the equinoctial storm in September. There wasn’t any
life-saving stations in them days, and everyone was drowned. You can see
the long graves now over in the ‘Hawkin churchyard, where the bodies
were buried after they came ashore. They put them in three long trenches
that were dug from one end of the burying-ground to the other. The only
people on the beach that night was the man who took care of the old
mansion. He lived there with his family, and his son-in-law lived with
him. He was the wreckmaster for this part of the coast, too. It wasn’t
till the second day that the people from ‘Hawkin could get over to the
beach, and by that time the bodies had all come ashore, and the
wreckmaster had them all piled up on the sand. I was a youngster, then,
and came over with my father, and, I tell you, it was the awfullest
sight I ever saw--them long rows of drowned people, all lying there with
their white, still faces turned up to the sky. Some were women, with
their dead babies clasped tight in their arms, and some were husbands
and wives, whose bodies came ashore locked together in a death embrace.
I’ll never forget that sight as long as I live. Well, when the coroner
came and took charge he began to inquire whether any money or valuables
had been found, but the wreckmaster declared that not a solitary coin
had been washed ashore. People thought this was rather singular, as the
emigrants were, most of them, well-to-do Germans, and were known to have
brought a good deal of money with them, but it was concluded that it had
gone down with the ship. Well, the poor emigrants were given pauper
burial, and the people had begun to forget their suspicions until three
or four months later there came another storm, and the sea broke clear
over the beach, just below the Old Mansion, and washed away the sand.
Next morning early two men from ‘Hawkin sailed across the bay and landed
on the beach. They walked across on the hard bottom where the sea had
washed across, and, when about half way from the bay, one of the men saw
something curious close up against the stump of an old cedar tree. He
called the other man’s attention to it, and they went over to the stump.
What they found was a pile of leather money-belts that would have filled
a wheelbarrow. Every one was cut open and empty. They had been buried in
the sand close by the old stump, and the sea had washed away the
covering. The men didn’t go any further.
“They carried the belts to their boats and sailed back to ‘Hawkin as
fast as the wind would take them. Of course, it made a big sensation,
and everybody was satisfied that the wreckmaster had robbed the bodies,
if he hadn’t done anything worse, but there was no way to prove it, and
so nothing was done. The wreckmaster didn’t stay around here long after
that, though. The people made it too hot for him, and he and his family
went away South, where it was said he bought a big plantation and a lot
of slaves. Years afterward the story came to ‘Hawkin somehow that he was
killed in a barroom brawl, and that his son-in-law was drowned by his
boat upsettin’ while he was out fishin’. I don’t furnish any affidavits
with that part of the story, though.
“However, after that nobody lived in the Old Mansion for long at a time.
People would go there, stay a week or two, and leave--and at last it was
given up entirely to beach parties in the day time, and ghosts at
night.”
“But, Captain, you don’t really believe the ghost part, do you?” I
asked.
Captain Jim looked down the bay, expectorated gravely over the side of
the boat, and answered, slowly:
“Well, I don’t know as I would have believed in ’em if I hadn’t seen the
ghost.”
“What!” I exclaimed; “you saw it? Tell me about it. I’ve always wanted
to see a ghost, or next best thing, a man who has seen one.”
“It was one August, about 1861,” said the captain. “I was a young
feller then, and with a half dozen more was over on the beach cutting
salt hay. We didn’t go home at nights, but did our own cooking in the
Old Mansion kitchen, and at nights slept on piles of hay upstairs. We
were a reckless lot of scamps, and reckoned that no ghosts could scare
us. There was a big full moon that night, and it was as light as day.
The muskeeters was pretty bad, too, and it was easier to stay awake than
go to sleep. Along toward midnight me and two other fellers went out on
the old balcony, and began to race around the house. We hollered and
yelled, and chased each other for half an hour or so, and then we
concluded we had better go to sleep, so we started for the window of the