The Fourth Ghost Story MEGAPACK: 25 Classic Haunts!

by Wildside Press

  She invited herself to the share of half my bed; she was restless, distrait, and even irritable; and when I was asked out to spend the day, dispensed with my company with an alacrity that was by no means flattering. Formerly, of an evening she used to herd the children home at sundown and tear me away from the delights of the reading-room at seven o’clock; now she hung about the library until almost the last moment, until it was time to put out the lamps, and kept the children with her, making transparent pretexts for their company. Often we did not arrive at home till half-past eight o’clock.

  I made no objections to these late hours. Neither did Charlie Chalmers, who often walked back with us and remained to dinner. I was amazed to notice that Aggie seemed delighted to have his company, for she had always expressed a rooted aversion to what she called “tame young men,” and here was this new acquaintance dining with us at least thrice a week!

  About a month after the picnic we had a spell of dreadful weather—thunderstorms accompanied by torrents. One pouring afternoon, Aggie and I were sitting over the drawing-room fire, whilst the rain came fizzing down among the logs and ran in rivers off the roof and out of the spouts. There had been no going out that day, and we were feeling rather flat and dull, as we sat in a kind of ghostly twilight, with all outdoor objects swallowed up in mist, listening to the violent battering of the rain on the zinc verandah, and the storm which was growling round the hills.

  “Oh, for a visitor!” I exclaimed; “but no one but a fish or a lunatic would be out on such an evening.”

  “No one, indeed,” echoed Aggie in a melancholy tone. “We may as well draw the curtains and have in the lamp and tea to cheer us up.”

  She had scarcely finished speaking when I heard the brisk trot of a horse along the road. It stopped at the gate and came rapidly down our avenue. I heard the wet gravel crunching under hoofs and—yes—a man’s cheery whistle. My heart jumped, and I half rose from my chair. It must be Charlie Chalmers braving the elements to see me!—such, I must confess, was my incredible vanity! He did not stop at the front door as usual, but rode straight into the verandah, which afforded ample room and shelter for half-a-dozen mounted men.

  “Aggie,” I said eagerly, “do you hear? It must be—”

  I paused—my tongue silenced by the awful pallor of her face and the expression of her eyes as she sat with her little hands clutching the arms of her chair, and her whole figure bent forward in an attitude of listening—an attitude of terror.

  “What is it, Aggie?” I said, “Are you ill?”

  As I spoke, the horse’s hoofs made a loud clattering noise on the stone-paved verandah outside, and a man’s voice—a young man’s eager voice—called, “Lucy!”

  Instantly a chair near the writing-table was pushed back and someone went quickly to the window—a French one—and bungled for a moment with the fastening—I always had a difficulty with that window myself. Aggie and I were within the bright circle of the firelight, but the rest of the room was dim, and outside the streaming grey sky was spasmodically illuminated by occasional vivid flashes that lit up the surrounding hills as if it were daylight. The trampling of impatient hoofs and the rattling of a door handle were the only sounds that were audible for a few breathless seconds; but during those seconds Pip, bristling like a porcupine and trembling violently in every joint, had sprung off my lap and crawled abjectly under Aggie’s chair, seemingly in a transport of fear. The door was opened audibly, and a cold, icy blast swept in, that seemed to freeze my very heart and made me shiver from head to foot.

  At this moment there came with a sinister blue glare—the most vivid flash of lightning I ever saw. It lit up the whole room, which was empty save for ourselves, and was instantly followed by a clap of thunder that caused my knees to knock together and that terrified me and filled me with horror. It evidently terrified the horse too; there was a violent plunge, a clattering of hoofs on the stones, a sudden loud crash of smashing timber, a woman’s long, loud, piercing shriek, which stopped the very beating of my heart, and then a frenzied struggle in the cruel, crumbling, treacherous shale, the rattle of loose stones and the hollow roar of something sliding down the precipice.

  I rushed to the door and tore it open, with that awful despairing cry still ringing in my ears. The verandah was empty; there was not a soul to be seen or a sound to be heard, save the rain on the roof.

  “Aggie,” I screamed, “come here! Someone has gone over the verandah and down the khud! You heard him.”

  “Yes,” she said, following me out; “but come in—come in.”

  “I believe it was Charlie Chalmers”—shaking her as I spoke. “He has been killed—killed—killed! And you stand and do nothing. Send people! Let us go ourselves! Bearer! Ayah! Khidmatgar!” I cried, raising my voice.

  “Hush! It was not Charlie Chalmers,” she said, vainly endeavouring to draw me into the drawing-room. “Come in—come in.”

  “No, no!”—pushing her away and wringing my hands. “How cruel you are! How inhuman! There is a path. Let us go at once—at once!”

  “You need not trouble yourself, Susan,” she interrupted; “and you need not cry and tremble—they will bring him up. What you heard was supernatural; it was not real.”

  “No—no—no! It was all real. Oh! That scream is in my ears still.”

  “I will convince you,” said Aggie, taking my hand as she spoke. “Feel all along the verandah. Are the railings broken?”

  I did as she bade me. No, though was wet and clammy, the railing was intact.

  “Where is the broken place?” she asked.

  Where, indeed?

  “Now,” she continued, “since you will not come in, look over, and you will see something more presently.”

  Shivering with fear and cold, drifting rain, I gazed down as she bade me, and there far below I saw lights moving rapidly to and fro, evidently in search of something. After a little delay they congregated in one place. There was a low, booming murmur—they had found him—and presently they commenced to ascend the hill, with the “hum-hum” of coolies carrying a burden.

  Nearer and nearer the lights and sounds came up to the very brink of the khud, past the end of the verandah. Many steps and many torches—faint blue torches held by invisible hands—invisible but heavy-footed bearers carried their burden slowly upstairs and along the passage, and deposited it with a dump in Aggie’s bedroom! As we stood clasped in one another’s arms and shaking all over, the steps descended, the ghostly lights passed up the avenue and disappeared in the gathering darkness. The repetition of the tragedy was over for that day.

  “Have you heard it before?” I asked with chattering teeth, as I bolted the drawing-room window.

  “Yes, the evening of the picnic and twice since. That is the reason I have always tried to stay out till late and to keep you out. I was hoping and praying you might never hear it. It always happens just before dark. I am afraid you have thought me very queer of late. I have told no end of stories to keep you and the children from harm—I have—”

  “I think you have been very kind,” I interrupted. “Oh, Aggie, shall you ever get that crash and that awful cry out of your head?”

  “Never!” hastily lighting the candles as she spoke.

  “Is there anything more?” I asked tremulously.

  “Yes; sometimes at night the most terrible weeping and sobbing in my bedroom,” and she shuddered at the mere recollection.

  “Do the servants know?” I asked anxiously.

  “The ayah Mumà has heard it, and the khánsámáh says his mother is sick and he must go, and the bearer wants to attend his brother’s wedding. They will all leave.”

  “I suppose most people know too?” I suggested dejectedly.

  “Yes, don’t you remember Mrs Starkey’s warnings and her saying that without the verandah the house was worth do
uble rent? We understand that dark speech of hers now, and we have not come to Cooper’s Hotel yet.”

  “No, not yet. I wish we had. I wonder what Tom will say? He will be here in another fortnight. Oh, I wish he was here now.”

  In spite of our heart-shaking experience, we managed to eat and drink and sleep, yea, to play tennis—somewhat solemnly, it is true—and go to the club, where we remained to the very last moment; needless to mention that I now entered into Aggie’s manoeuvre con amore. Mrs Starkey evidently divined the reason of our loitering in Kantia, and said in her most truculent manner, as she squared up to us:

  “You keep your children out very late, Mrs Shandon.”

  “Yes, but we like to have them with us,” rejoined Aggie in a meek apologetic voice.

  “Then why don’t you go home earlier?”

  “Because it is so stupid and lonely,” was the mendacious answer.

  “Lonely is not the word I should use. I wonder if you are as wise as your neighbours now? Come now, Mrs Shandon.”

  “About what?” said Aggie with ill-feigned innocence.

  “About Briarwood. Haven’t you heard it yet? The ghastly precipice and horse affair?”

  “Yes, I suppose we may as well confess that we have.”

  “Humph! You are a brave couple to stay on. The Tombs tried it last year for three weeks. The Paxtons took it the year before, and then sub-let it, not that they believed in ghosts—oh, dear no,” and she laughed ironically.

  “And what is the story?” I enquired eagerly.

  “Well the story is this. An old retired officer and his wife and their pretty niece lived at Briarwood a good many years ago. The girl was engaged to be married to a fine young fellow in the Guides. The day before the wedding what you know of happened, and has happened every monsoon ever since. The poor girl went out of her mind and destroyed herself, and the old colonel and his wife did not long survive her. The house is uninhabitable in the monsoon, and there seems nothing for it but to auction off the furniture and pull it down; it will always be the same as long as it stands. Take my advice and come into Cooper’s Hotel. I believe you can have that small set of rooms at the back. The sitting-room smokes, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “That will only be our very last resource,” said Aggie hotly.

  “It’s not very grand, I grant you, but any port in a storm.”

  Tom arrived, was doubly welcome, and was charmed with Briarwood. Chaffed us unmercifully and derided our fears until he himself had a similar experience, and he heard the phantom horse plunging in the verandah and that wild, unearthly and utterly appalling shriek. No, he could not laugh that away, and seeing that we had now a mortal abhorrence of the place, that the children had to be kept abroad in the damp till long after dark, that Aggie was a mere hollow-eyed spectre, and that we had scarcely a servant left, that—in short, one day we packed up precipitately and fled in a body to Cooper’s Hotel. But we did not basely endeavour to sub-let, nor advertise Briarwood as “a delightfully situated pucka-built house, containing all the requirements of a gentleman’s family.” No, no. Tom bore the loss of the rent and—a more difficult feat—Aggie bore Mrs Starkey’s insufferable, “I told you so.”

  Aggie was at Kantia again last season. She walked out early one morning to see our former abode. The chowkidar and parrot are still in possession, and are likely to remain the sole tenants on the premises. The parrot suns and dusts his ancient feathers in the empty verandah, which re-echoes with his cry of “Lucy, where are you, pretty Lucy?” The chowkidar inhabits a secluded go-down at the back, where he passes most of the day in sleeping, or smoking the soothing “hooka.” The place has a forlorn, uncared-for appearance now. The flowers are nearly all gone; the paint has peeled off the doors and windows; the avenue is grass-grown. Briarwood appears to have resigned itself to emptiness, neglect, and decay, although outside the gate there still hangs a battered board on which, if you look very closely you can decipher the words “To Let.”

  THE FOREIGNER, by Sarah Orne Jewett

  CHAPTER 1

  One evening, at the end of August, in Dunnet Landing, I heard Mrs. Todd’s firm footstep crossing the small front entry outside my door, and her conventional cough which served as a herald’s trumpet, or a plain New England knock, in the harmony of our fellowship.

  “Oh, please come in!” I cried, for it had been so still in the house that I supposed my friend and hostess had gone to see one of her neighbors. The first cold northeasterly storm of the season was blowing hard outside. Now and then there was a dash of great raindrops and a flick of wet lilac leaves against the window, but I could hear that the sea was already stirred to its dark depths, and the great rollers were coming in heavily against the shore. One might well believe that Summer was coming to a sad end that night, in the darkness and rain and sudden access of autumnal cold. It seemed as if there must be danger offshore among the outer islands.

  “Oh, there!” exclaimed Mrs. Todd, as she entered. “I know nothing ain’t ever happened out to Green Island since the world began, but I always do worry about mother in these great gales. You know those tidal waves occur sometimes down to the West Indies, and I get dwellin’ on ’em so I can’t set still in my chair, not knit a common row to a stocking. William might get mooning, out in his small bo’t, and not observe how the sea was making, an’ meet with some accident. Yes, I thought i’d come in and set with you if you wa’n’t busy. No, I never feel any concern about ’em in winter ’cause then they’re prepared, and all ashore and everything snug. William ought to keep help, as I tell him; yes, he ought to keep help.”

  I hastened to reassure my anxious guest by saying that Elijah Tilley had told me in the afternoon, when I came along the shore past the fish houses, that Johnny Bowden and the Captain were out at Green Island; he had seen them beating up the bay, and thought they must have put into Burnt Island cove, but one of the lobstermen brought word later that he saw them hauling out at Green Island as he came by, and Captain Bowden pointed ashore and shook his head to say that he did not mean to try to get in. “The old Miranda just managed it, but she will have to stay at home a day or two and put new patches in her sail,” I ended, not without pride in so much circumstantial evidence.

  Mrs. Todd was alert in a moment. “Then they’ll all have a very pleasant evening,” she assured me, apparently dismissing all fears of tidal waves and other sea-going disasters. “I was urging Alick Bowden to go ashore some day and see mother before cold weather. He’s her own nephew; she sets a great deal by him. And Johnny’s a great chum o’ William’s; don’t you know the first day we had Johnny out ’long of us, he took an’ give William his money to keep for him that he’d been a-savin’, and William showed it to me an’ was so affected, I thought he was goin’ to shed tears? ’Twas a dollar an’ eighty cents; yes, they’ll have a beautiful evenin’ all together, and like’s not the sea’ll be flat as a doorstep come morning.”

  I had drawn a large wooden rocking-chair before the fire, and Mrs. Todd was sitting there jogging herself a little, knitting fast, and wonderfully placid of countenance. There came a fresh gust of wind and rain, and we could feel the small wooden house rock and hear it creak as if it were a ship at sea.

  “Lord, hear the great breakers!” exclaimed Mrs. Todd. “How they pound!—there, there! I always run of an idea that the sea knows anger these nights and gets full o’ fight. I can hear the rote o’ them old black ledges way down the thoroughfare. Calls up all those stormy verses in the Book o’ Psalms; David he knew how old sea-goin’ folks have to quake at the heart.”

  I thought as I had never thought before of such anxieties. The families of sailors and coastwise adventurers by sea must always be worrying about somebody, this side of the world or the other. There was hardly one of Mrs. Todd’s elder acquaintances, men or women, who had not at some time or other made a sea voyage, and there was often
no news until the voyagers themselves came back to bring it.

  “There’s a roaring high overhead, and a roaring in the deep sea,” said Mrs. Todd solemnly, “and they battle together nights like this. No, I couldn’t sleep; some women folks always goes right to bed an’ to sleep, so’s to forget, but ’taint my way. Well, it’s a blessin’ we don’t all feel alike; there’s hardly any of our folks at sea to worry about, nowadays, but I can’t help my feelin’s, an’ I got thinking of mother all alone, if William had happened to be out lobsterin’ and couldn’t make the cove gettin’ back.”

  “They will have a pleasant evening,” I repeated. “Captain Bowden is the best of good company.”

  “Mother’ll make him some pancakes for his supper, like’s not,” said Mrs. Todd, clicking her knitting needles and giving a pull at her yarn. Just then the old cat pushed open the unlatched door and came straight toward her mistress’s lap. She was regarded severely as she stepped about and turned on the broad expanse, and then made herself into a round cushion of fur, but was not openly admonished. There was another great blast of wind overhead, and a puff of smoke came down the chimney.

  “This makes me think o’ the night Mis’ Cap’n Tolland died,” said Mrs. Todd, half to herself. “Folks used to say these gales only blew when somebody’s a-dyin’, or the devil was a-comin’ for his own, but the worst man I ever knew died a real pretty mornin’ in June.”

  “You have never told me any ghost stories,” said I; and such was the gloomy weather and the influence of the night that I was instantly filled with reluctance to have this suggestion followed. I had not chosen the best of moments; just before I spoke we had begun to feel as cheerful as possible. Mrs. Todd glanced doubtfully at the cat and then at me, with a strange absent look, and I was really afraid that she was going to tell me something that would haunt my thoughts on every dark stormy night as long as I lived.