The 7th Ghost Story

by Frank Belknap Long

  And then they all laughed and had a great deal of fun over the ghost, which was a great joke to them.

  They were very tired that night and slept soundly all night long. When they met the next morning there was more laughter about the ghost which was shy about meeting strangers, probably, and had made no effort to introduce himself. For the next three days they were all hard at work, trying to bring chaos into something like order; and then it was time for the school to open, and Margaret was to begin teaching, and David inserted an advertisement in the city papers for a maid-of-all-work, who might help their mother in their absence.

  For one whole day prospective colored servants presented themselves and announced:

  “Is dis de house whar dey wants a worklady? No, ma’am, I ain’ gwine to work in dis house. Ketch me workin’ in no ha’nted house.”

  After which they each and all departed, and others came in their stead. One was secured after a while, but no sooner had she talked across the fence with a neighbor’s servant than she, too, departed.

  “Never mind, children,” said Mrs. Craig, wearily, “I would much rather do the work than be troubled in this way.”

  So the maid-of-all-work was dismissed and the Craig family locked the doors and went to their rooms, worn out with the day’s anxieties.

  They had been in the house four days, and there had been neither sight nor sound of the ghost. The very mention of it was enough to start them all to laughing, for they were thoroughly practical people, with a fondness for inquiring into anything that seemed mysterious to them and for understanding it thoroughly before they let it go.

  David was soon sleeping the sound sleep of healthy boyhood, and all was silent in the house, when Margaret stole softly into his room and laid her hand on his arm. He was not easy to waken, and several minutes had passed before he sat up in bed with an articulate murmur of surprise.

  “Hush!” said Margaret, in a whisper, with her hand on his lips. “I want you to come into my room and listen to a sound that I have been hearing for some time.”

  “Doors creaking,” suggested David, as he began to dress.

  “Nothing of the kind,” was all she said.

  They walked up the stairway, and along the upper hall to the door of the unused room. Something was wrong with the lock and the door would not stay fastened, as I have said.

  Something that was not fear thrilled their hearts as they pushed the door further ajar, and stood where they could see every foot of the vacant floor. One of their own boxes stood in the middle of the room, but aside from that, nothing was to be seen, and they looked at one another in silence.

  “Hold the lamp a minute, Maggie,” David said, at last, and then he went all over the room, and looked more particularly at its emptiness, and even felt the walls.

  “Secret panels, you know,” he said, with a smile, but it was a very puzzled smile indeed.

  “I can’t see what it could have been,” Margaret said, as they went down the stairs.

  “No, I can’t see, either, but I’m going to see,” said David. “That was a chain, and chains don’t drag around by themselves, you know. A ghost could not drag a chain, if he were to try.”

  “The conventional ghost very often drags chains,” said Margaret, as she closed the door of her room.

  And then she lay awake all night and listened for the conventional ghost that dragged a chain, but it seemed that the weight of the chain must have wearied him, for he was not heard again.

  The mother had slept through it all, and next morning they gave her a vivid account of the night’s adventure.

  “Perhaps it was someone in the house,” she said, in alarm. There were no ghosts within the bounds of possibility, so far as she was concerned, but burglars were very possible, indeed.

  Then Margaret and David both laughed more than ever.

  “What fun it would be,” said David, “for a burglar to get into this house and try to find something worth carrying away!”

  So they went on to the next night, all three fully determined to spend the night in listening for the ghost, and running him to earth if possible.

  But it was Margaret that heard the ghost, after all. She had been sleeping and was suddenly startled wide awake, and there, overhead, was the sound of the chain dragging; and just as she was on the point of springing out of bed to call her brother, the chain seemed to go out of the upper room. She lay still and listened, and in a moment she heard it again.

  It was coming down the stairs.

  There was no carpet on the stairs, and she could hear the chain drop from step to step, until it had come the whole way down. There it was, almost at the door of her room, and something that was strangely like fear kept her lying still, listening in horrified silence.

  Then it went along the hall, dragging close to the door; and then further away; and back and forth for awhile; and then it began dragging back up the stairs again. Step by step she could hear it drawn over the edge of every step—and by the time it had reached the top she remembered herself and called David.

  Again did the brother and sister make a tour of the upper room, with the lamp. Not only that, but they looked into every nook and corner of the upper part of the house, and at last came back, baffled. They had seen nothing extraordinary, and they had not heard a sound.

  “I’m going to see that ghost tonight,” David said to his sister the next evening.

  “How?”

  “I’m going to sit up all night at the head of the stairs. Don’t say anything about it to mother; it might make her uneasy.”

  So, after the household were all quiet, David slipped into his place at the head of the stairs, and sat down to his vigil. He had placed a screen at the head of the stairway so that it hid him from view—as if a ghost cared for a screen—and he established himself behind it, and prepared to be as patient as he could.

  It seemed to him that hours so long had never been devised as those the town clocks tolled off that night. He bore it until midnight moderately well, because, he argued with himself, if there were any ghosts about they would surely walk then; but they were not in a humor for walking; and still the hours rolled on without any developments. He took the fidgets, and had nervous twitches all over him, and at last he could endure it no longer, and had leaned his head back against the wall and was going blissfully to sleep when—

  He heard a chain dragging just beyond the open door of that unused room.

  In spite of himself a shiver ran down his back. There was no mistaking it; it was a real chain, if he had ever heard one. More than that, it had left the room, and was coming straight towards the stairs. The hall was dark, and it was impossible for him to see anything, although he strained his eyes in the direction of the sound. And even while he looked it had passed behind the screen, and was going down the stairs, dropping from step to step with a clank.

  Half way down a narrow strip of moonlight from a stair-window lay directly across the steps. Whatever the thing was, it must pass through that patch of light, and David leaned forward and watched.

  Down it went from step to step, and presently it had slipped through the light, and was down; and a little later it came back again, through the light, and up the stairs, and back into that unused room.

  And then David slapped his knees jubilantly, and ran down to his room, and slept all the rest of the night.

  Next morning he was very mysterious about his discoveries of the night before.

  “Oh, yes, I saw the ghost,” he said to Maggie. “There; don’t ask so many questions; I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow, maybe.”

  And that was all the information she could get from him. It was very provoking.

  That day David made a purchase down town and brought home a bulky bundle, which he hid in his own room and would not let his sister even peep at.

  “I’m going to try to catch a
ghost tonight,” he said, “and you know how it is; if I brag too much beforehand, I shall be sure to fail.”

  He was working with something in the hall after the others had retired; but he did not sit up this time. He went to bed, and Margaret listened at his door and found that he was soon asleep.

  But away in the night they were all awakened by a squealing that brought them all into the hall in a great hurry; and there, at the head of the stairs, they found the huge rat-trap that David had set a few hours before, and in the midst of the toils was a rat.

  “Why, David,” exclaimed the mother, “I didn’t know that there was a rat in the house.”

  And then, all at once, she saw that there was a long chain hanging from a little iron collar around the creature’s neck, and she and Margaret cried together.

  “And this was the ghost!”

  Such a funny ghost when they came to think of it—this poor rat, with a nest in some hole of the broken chimney. He had been someone’s pet, once, perhaps; and now, the households he had broken up, the nights he had disturbed, the wild sensations he had created—it made his captors laugh to think that this innocent creature had been the cause of the whole trouble.

  “I’ll get a cage for him, and take care of him for the rest of his life,” said David. “We owe him so much that we can’t afford to be ungrateful.”

  The next morning he took the ghost-in-a-cage and showed it to the agent, and gave him a vivid account of the capture.

  “So, you have a good house for about half price, all on account of that rat,” exclaimed the agent, grimly. “Young man—but never mind, you deserve it. What are you working for now? Six dollars a week? If you ever want to change your place—suppose you come around here. I think you need a business that will give you a chance to grow.”

  And the agent and David shook hands warmly over the cage of the “ghost.”

  COLONEL HALIFAX’S GHOST STORY, by Anonymous

  Taken from Twenty-Five Ghost Stories (1904).

  I had just come back to England, after having been some years in India, and was looking forward to meet my friends, among whom there was none I was more anxious to see than Sir Francis Lynton. We had been to Eton together, and for the short time I had been at Oxford, before entering the army, we had been at the same college. Then we had parted. He came into the title and estates of the family in Yorkshire on the death of his grandfather—his father had predeceased—and I had been over a good part of the world. One visit, indeed, I had made him in his Yorkshire home, before leaving for India, of but a few days.

  It will be easily imagined how pleasant it was, two or three days after my arrival in London, to receive a letter from Lynton, saying that he had just seen in the papers that I had arrived, and, begging me to come down at once to Byfield, his place in Yorkshire.

  “You are not to tell me,” he said, “that you cannot come. In fact, you are to come on Monday. I have a couple of horses which will just suit you; the carriage shall meet you at Packham, and all you have got to do is to put yourself in the train which leaves Kings Cross at twelve o’clock.”

  Accordingly, on the day appointed, I started, in due time reached Packham, losing much time on a detestable branch line, and there found the dog-cart of Sir Francis awaiting me. I drove at once to Byfield.

  The house I remembered. It was a low gable structure of no great size, with old-fashioned lattice windows, separated from the park, where were deer, by a charming terraced garden.

  No sooner did the wheels crunch the gravel by the principal entrance, than, almost before the bell was rung, the porch-door opened, and there stood Lynton himself, whom I had not seen for so many years, hardly altered, and with all the joy of welcome beaming in his face. Taking me by both hands, he drew me into the house, got rid of my hat and wraps, looked me all over, and then, in a breath, began to say how glad he was to see me, what a real delight it was to have got me at last under his roof, and what a good time we would have together, like the old days over again.

  He had sent my luggage up to my room, which was ready for me, and he bade me make haste and dress for dinner.

  So saying he took me through a paneled hall, up an old oak staircase, and showed me my room, which, hurried as I was, I observed was hung with tapestry, and had a large four-post bed, with velvet curtains, opposite the window.

  They had gone in to dinner when I came down, despite all the haste I made in dressing; but a place had been kept for me next Lady Lynton.

  Besides my hosts, there were their two daughters, Colonel Lynton, a brother of Sir Francis, the chaplain, and some others, whom I do not remember distinctly.

  After dinner there was some music in the hall, and a game of whist in the drawing-room, and after the ladies had gone upstairs, Lynton and I retired to the smoking-room, where we sat up talking the better part of the night. I think it must have been near three when I retired. Once in bed I slept so soundly that my servant’s entrance the next morning failed to arouse me, and it was past nine when I awoke.

  After breakfast and the disposal of the newspapers, Lynton retired to his letters, and I asked Lady Lynton if one of her daughters might show me the house. Elizabeth, the eldest, was summoned, and seemed in no way to dislike the task.

  The house was, as already intimated, by no means large; it occupied three sides of a square, the entrance and one end of the stables making the fourth side. The interior was full of interest—passages, rooms, galleries, as well as hall, were paneled in dark wood and hung with pictures. I was shown everything on the ground floor, and then on the first floor. Then my guide proposed that we should ascend a narrow, twisting staircase that led to a gallery. We did as proposed, and entered a handsome long room or passage leading to a small chamber at one end, in which my guide told me her father kept books and papers.

  I asked if anyone slept in this gallery, as I noticed a bed and fireplace, and rods by means of which curtains might be drawn, enclosing one portion where were bed and fireplace, so as to convert it into a very cosy chamber.

  She answered, “No;” the place was not really used, except as a playroom; though, sometimes, if the house happened to be very full—in her great-grandfather’s time—she had heard that it had been occupied.

  By the time we had been over the house, and I had also been shown the garden and the stables, and introduced to the dogs, it was nearly one o’clock. We were to have an early luncheon, and to drive afterwards to see the ruins of one of the grand old Yorkshire abbeys.

  This was a pleasant expedition, and we got back just in time for tea, after which there was some reading aloud. The evening passed much in the same way as the preceding one, except that Lynton, who had some business, did not go down into the smoking-room, and I took the opportunity of retiring early in order to write a letter for the Indian mail, something having been said as to the prospect of hunting the next day.

  I had finished my letter, which was a long one, together with two or three others, and had just got into bed, when I heard a step overhead, as of someone walking along the gallery, which I now knew ran immediately above my room. It was a slow, heavy, measured tread which I could hear getting gradually louder and nearer, and then as gradually fading away, as it retreated into the distance.

  I was startled for a moment, having been told that the gallery was unused; but the next instant it occurred to me that I had been told it communicated with a chamber where Sir Francis kept books and papers. I knew he had some writing to do, and I thought no more on the matter.

  I was down the next morning at breakfast in good time. “How late you were last night,” I said to Lynton, in the middle of breakfast. “I heard you overhead after one o’clock.”

  Lynton replied rather shortly: “Indeed you did not, for I was in bed last night before twelve.”

  “There was someone certainly moving overhead last night,” I answered, “for I heard his steps as distinctly as
I ever heard anything in my life going down the gallery.”

  Upon which Colonel Lynton remarked that he had often fancied he had heard steps on the staircase, when he knew that no one was about. He was apparently disposed to say more, when his brother interrupted him somewhat curtly, as I fancied, and asked me if I should feel inclined after breakfast to have a horse and go out and look for the hounds. They met a considerable way off, but if they did not find in the coverts they would first draw, a thing not improbable, they would come our way, and we might fall in with them about one o’clock and have a run. I said there was nothing I should like better. Lynton mounted me on a very nice chestnut, and the rest of the party having gone out shooting, and the young ladies being otherwise engaged, he and I started about eleven o’clock for our ride.

  It was a beautiful day, soft, with a bright sun, one of those beautiful days which so frequently occur in the early part of November.

  On reaching the hilltop where Lynton had expected to meet the hounds, no trace of them was to be discovered. They must have found at once, and run in a different direction. At three o’clock, after we had eaten our sandwiches, Lynton reluctantly abandoned all hopes of falling in with the hounds, and said we would return home by a slightly different route.

  We had not descended the hill before we came on an old chalk quarry and the remains of a disused kiln.

  I recollected the spot at once. I had been here with Sir Francis on my former visit, many years ago. “Why, bless me!” said I; “do you remember, Lynton, what happened here when I was with you before? There had been men engaged removing chalk, and they came on a skeleton under some depth of rubble. We went together to see it removed, and you said you would have it preserved till it could be examined by some ethnologist or anthropologist, any one of those dry-as-dusts, to decide whether the remains were dolichocephalous or brachycephalous—whether British, Danish, or—modern. What was the result?”