The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told

by Stephen Brennan

  ‘I understand the drift of your catechism, though my brother doesn’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t be hard on Silas, sir. He isn’t the only Christian who leaves his Christianity in the pew when he goes out of church. You will never make us friends with John Jago, try as you may. Why, what have you got there, Mr Lefrank? May I die if it isn’t my stick! I have been looking for it everywhere!’

  The thick beechen stick had been feeling uncomfortably heavy in my invalid hand for some time past. There was no sort of need for my keeping it any longer. John Jago was going away to Narrabee, and Silas Meadowcroft’s savage temper was subdued to a sulky repose. I handed the stick back to Ambrose. He laughed as he took it from me.

  You can’t think how strange it feels, Mr Lefrank, to be out without one’s stick,’ he said. ‘A man gets used to his stick, sir; doesn’t he? Are you ready for your breakfast?’

  ‘Not just yet. I thought of taking a little walk first.’

  ‘All right, sir. I wish I could go with you; but I have got my work to do this morning, and Silas has his work too. If you go back by the way you came, you will find yourself in the garden. If you want to go further, the wicket-gate at the end will lead you into the lane.’

  Through sheer thoughtlessness, I did a very foolish thing. I turned back as I was told, and left the brothers together at the gate of the stable-yard.

  V THE NEWS FROM NARRABEE

  Arrived at the garden, a thought struck me. The cheerful speech and easy manner of Ambrose plainly indicated that he was ignorant thus far of the quarrel which had taken place under my window. Silas might confess to having taken his brother’s stick, and might mention whose head he had threatened with it. It was not only useless, but undesirable, that Ambrose should know of the quarrel. I retraced my steps to the stable-yard. Nobody was at the gate. I called alternately to Silas and to Ambrose. Nobody answered. The brothers had gone away to their work.

  Returning to the garden, I heard a pleasant voice wishing me ‘Good morning.’ I looked round. Naomi Colebrook was standing at one of the lower windows of the farm. She had her working-apron on, and she was industriously brightening the knives for the breakfast-table, on an old-fashioned board. A sleek black cat balanced himself on her shoulder, watching the flashing motion of the knife as she passed it rapidly to and fro on the leather-covered surface of the board.

  ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘I want to speak to you.’

  I noticed, as I approached, that her pretty face was clouded and anxious. She pushed the cat irritably off her shoulder: she welcomed me with only the faint reflection of her bright, customary smile.

  ‘I have seen John Jago,’ she said. ‘He has been hinting at something which he says happened under your bedroom-window this morning. When I begged him to explain himself he only answered, “Ask Mr Lefrank: I must be off to Narrabee.” What does it mean? Tell me right away, sir! I’m out of temper, and I can’t wait!’

  Except that I made the best instead of the worst of it, I told her what had happened under my window as plainly as I have told it here. She put down the knife that she was cleaning, and folded her hands before her, thinking.

  ‘I wish I had never given John Jago that meeting,’ she said. ‘When a man asks anything of a woman, the woman, I find, mostly repents it if she says yes.’

  She made that quaint reflection with a very troubled brow. The moonlight-meeting had left some unwelcome remembrances in her mind. I saw that as plainly as I saw Naomi herself.

  What had John Jago said to her? I put the question with all needful delicacy, making my apologies beforehand.

  ‘I should like to tell you,’ she began, with a strong emphasis on the last word.

  There she stopped. She turned pale; then suddenly flushed again to the deepest red. She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever.

  ‘I mustn’t tell you,’ she resumed, with her head down over the knife. ‘I have promised not to tell anybody. That’s the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hush! here’s the spy who saw us last night on the walk, and who told Silas!’

  Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen-door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer Book; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age can look at a younger and prettier woman than herself.

  ‘Prayers, Miss Colebrook,’ she said, in her sourest manner. She paused, and noticed me standing under the window. ‘Prayers, Mr Lefrank,’ she added, with a look of devout pity, directed exclusively to my address.

  ‘We will follow you directly, Miss Meadowcroft,’ said Naomi.

  ‘I have no desire to intrude on your secrets, Miss Colebrook.’

  With that acrid answer, our priestess took herself and her Prayer Book out of the kitchen. I joined Naomi, entering the room by the garden-door. She met me eagerly.

  ‘I am not quite easy about something,’ she said. ‘Did you tell me that you left Ambrose and Silas together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Suppose Silas tells Ambrose of what happened this morning?’

  The same idea, as I have already mentioned, had occurred to my mind. I did my best to reassure Naomi.

  ‘Mr Jago is out of the way,’ I replied. ‘You and I can easily put things right in his absence.’

  She took my arm.

  ‘Come in to prayers,’ she said. ‘Ambrose will be there, and I shall find an opportunity of speaking to him.’

  Neither Ambrose nor Silas was in the breakfast-room when we entered it. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, Mr Meadowcroft told his daughter to read the prayers. Miss Meadowcroft read, thereupon, in the tone of an injured woman taking the throne of mercy by storm, and insisting on her rights. Breakfast followed; and still the brothers were absent. Miss Meadowcroft looked at her father, and said, ‘From bad to worse, sir. What did I tell you?’ Naomi instantly applied the antidote: ‘The boys are no doubt detained over their work, uncle.’ She turned to me. ‘You want to see the farm, Mr Lefrank. Come and help me to find the boys.’

  For more than an hour we visited one part of the farm after another, without discovering the missing men. We found them at last near the outskirts of a small wood, sitting, talking together, on the trunk of a felled tree.

  Silas rose as we approached, and walked away, without a word of greeting or apology, into the wood. As he got on his feet I noticed that his brother whispered something in his ear; and I heard him answer, ‘All right!’

  ‘Ambrose, does that mean you have something to keep a secret from us?’ asked Naomi, approaching her lover with a smile. ‘Is Silas ordered to hold his tongue?’

  Ambrose kicked sulkily at the loose stones lying about him. I noticed, with a certain surprise, that his favourite stick was not in his hand, and was not lying near him.

  ‘Business,’ he said, in answer to Naomi, not very graciously—‘business between Silas and me. That’s what it means, if you must know.’

  Naomi went on, woman-like, with her questions, heedless of the reception which they might meet with from an irritated man.

  ‘Why were you both away at prayers and breakfast-time?’ she asked next. ‘We had too much to do,’ Ambrose gruffly replied, ‘and we were too far from the house.’

  ‘Very odd,’ said Naomi. ‘This has never happened before, since I have been at the farm.’

  ‘Well, live and learn. It has happened now.’

  The tone in which he spoke would have warned any man to let him alone. But warnings which speak by implication only are thrown away on women. The woman, having still something in her mind to say, said it.

  ‘Have you seen anything of John Jago this morning?’

  The smouldering ill temper of Ambrose burst suddenly—why, it was impossible to guess—into a flame.

  ‘How many more questions am I to answer?’ he broke out, violently. ‘Are you the parson, putting me through my catechism? I have seen nothing of John Jago and I have got my work to go on with. Will that do for you?’

  He turned with
an oath, and followed his brother into the wood. Naomi’s bright eyes looked up at me, flashing with indignation.

  ‘What does he mean, Mr Lefrank, by speaking to me in that way? Rude brute! How dare he do it?’ She paused: her voice, look, and manner suddenly changed. ‘This has never happened before, sir. Has anything gone wrong? I declare, I shouldn’t know Ambrose again, he is so changed. Say, how does it strike you?’

  I still made the best of a bad case.

  ‘Something has upset his temper,’ I said. ‘The merest trifle, Miss Colebrook, upsets a man’s temper sometimes. I speak as a man, and I know it. Give him time, and he will make his excuses, and all will be well again.’

  My presentation of the case entirely failed to reassure my pretty companion. We went back to the house. Dinner-time came, and the brothers appeared. Their father spoke to them of their absence from morning prayers—with needless severity, as I thought. They resented the reproof with needless indignation on their side, and left the room. A sour smile of satisfaction showed itself on Miss Meadowcroft’s thin lips. She looked at her father; then raised her eyes sadly to the ceiling, and said, ‘We can only pray for them, sir.’

  Naomi disappeared after dinner. When I saw her again, she had some news for me.

  ‘I have been with Ambrose,’ she said, ‘and he has begged my pardon. We have made it up, Mr Lefrank. Still—still—’

  ‘Still—what, Miss Naomi?’

  ‘He is not like himself, sir. He denies it; but I can’t help thinking he is hiding something from me.’

  The day wore on: the evening came. I returned to my French novel. But not even Dumas himself could keep my attention to the story. What else I was thinking of I cannot say. Why I was out of spirits I am unable to explain. I wished myself back in England: I took a blind, unreasoning hatred to Morwick Farm.

  Nine o’clock struck; and we all assembled again at supper, with the exception of John Jago. He was expected back to supper; and we waited for him a quarter of an hour, by Mr Meadowcroft’s own directions. John Jago never appeared.

  The night wore on, and still the absent man failed to return. Miss Meadowcroft volunteered to sit up for him. Naomi eyed her, a little maliciously I must own, as the two women parted for the night. I withdrew to my room, and again I was unable to sleep. When sunrise came, I went out, as before, to breathe the morning air.

  On the staircase I met Miss Meadowcroft ascending to her own room. Not a curl of her stiff grey hair was disarranged: nothing about the impenetrable woman betrayed that she had been watching through the night.

  ‘Has Mr Jago not returned?’ I asked.

  Miss Meadowcroft slowly shook her head, and frowned at me.

  ‘We are in the hands of Providence, Mr Lefrank. Mr Jago must have been detained for the night at Narrabee.’

  The daily routine of the meals resumed its unalterable course. Breakfast-time came and dinner-time came, and no John Jago darkened the doors of Morwick Farm. Mr Meadowcroft and his daughter consulted together, and determined to send in search of the missing man. One of the more intelligent of the labourers was despatched to Narrabee to make enquiries.

  The man returned late in the evening, bringing startling news to the farm. He had visited all the inns and all the places of business resort in Narrabee; he had made endless enquiries in every direction, with this result—no one had set eyes on John Jago. Everybody declared that John Jago had not entered the town.

  We all looked at each other, excepting the two brothers, who were seated together in a dark corner of the room. The conclusion appeared to be inevitable. John Jago was a lost man.

  VI THE LIME-KILN

  Mr Meadowcroft was the first to speak.

  ‘Somebody must find John,’ he said.

  ‘Without losing a moment,’ added his daughter.

  Ambrose suddenly stepped out of the dark corner of the room.

  ‘I will enquire,’ he said.

  Silas followed him.

  ‘I will go with you,’ he added.

  Mr Meadowcroft interposed his authority.

  ‘One of you will be enough; for the present, at least. Go you, Ambrose. Your brother may be wanted later. If any accident has happened (which God forbid), we may have to enquire in more than one direction. Silas, you will stay at the farm.’

  The brothers withdrew together—Ambrose to prepare for his journey, Silas to saddle one of the horses for him. Naomi slipped out after them. Left in company with Mr Meadowcroft and his daughter (both devoured by anxiety about the missing man, and both trying to conceal it under an assumption of devout resignation to circumstances, I need hardly add that I, too, retired, as soon as it was politely possible for me to leave the room. Ascending the stairs on my way to my own quarters, I discovered Naomi half hidden in a recess formed by an old-fashioned window-seat on the first landing. My bright little friend was in sore trouble. Her apron was over her face, and she was crying bitterly. Ambrose had not taken his leave as tenderly as usual. She was more firmly persuaded than ever that ‘Ambrose was hiding something from her.’ We all waited anxiously for the next day. The next day made the mystery deeper than ever.

  The horse which had taken Ambrose to Narrabee was ridden back to the farm by a groom from the hotel. He delivered a written message from Ambrose which startled us. Further enquiries had positively proved that the missing man had never been near Narrabee. The only attainable tidings of his whereabouts were tidings derived from vague report. It was said that a man like John Jago had been seen the previous day in a railway car, travelling on the line to New York. Acting on this imperfect information, Ambrose had decided on verifying the truth of the report by extending his enquiries to New York.

  This extraordinary proceeding forced the suspicion on me that something had really gone wrong. I kept my doubts to myself; but I was prepared, from that moment, to see the disappearance of John Jago followed by very grave results.

  The same day the results declared themselves.

  Time enough had now elapsed for report to spread through the district the news of what had happened at the farm. Already aware of the bad feeling existing between, the men, the neighbours had been now informed (no doubt by the labourers present) of the deplorable scene that had taken place under my bedroom-window. Public opinion declares itself in America without the slightest reserve, or the slightest care for consequences. Public opinion declared on this occasion that the lost man was the victim of foul play, and held one or both of the brothers Meadowcroft responsible for his disappearance. Later in the day, the reasonableness of this serious view of the case was confirmed in the popular mind by a startling discovery. It was announced that a Methodist preacher lately settled at Morwick, and greatly respected throughout the district, had dreamed of John Jago in the character of a murdered man, whose bones were hidden at Morwick Farm. Before night the cry was general for a verification of the preacher’s dream. Not only in the immediate district, but in the town of Narrabee itself, the public voice insisted on the necessity of a search for the mortal remains of John Jago at Morwick Farm.

  In the terrible turn which matters had now taken, Mr Meadowcroft the elder displayed a spirit and an energy for which I was not prepared.

  ‘My sons have their faults,’ he said—‘serious faults, and nobody knows it better than I do. My sons have behaved badly and ungratefully towards John Jago; I don’t deny that either. But Ambrose and Silas are not murderers. Make your search. I ask for it; no, I insist on it, after what has been said, injustice to my family and my name!’

  The neighbours took him at his word. The Morwick section of the American nation organised itself on the spot. The sovereign people met in committee, made speeches, elected competent persons to represent the public interests, and began the search the next day. The whole proceeding, ridiculously informal from a legal point of view, was carried on by these extraordinary people with as stern and strict a sense of duty as if it had been sanctioned by the highest tribunal in the land.

  Naomi met the
calamity that had fallen on the household as resolutely as her uncle himself. The girl’s courage rose with the call which was made on it. Her one anxiety was for Ambrose.

  ‘He ought to be here,’ she said to me. ‘The wretches in this neighbourhood are wicked enough to say that his absence is a confession of his guilt.’

  She was right. In the present temper of the popular mind the absence of Ambrose was a suspicious circumstance in itself.

  ‘We might telegraph to New York,’ I suggested, ‘if you only knew where a message would be likely to find him.’

  ‘I know the hotel which the Meadowcrofts use at New York,’ she replied. ‘I was sent there, after my father’s death, to wait till Miss Meadowcroft could take me to Morwick.’

  We decided on telegraphing to the hotel. I was writing the message, and Naomi was looking over my shoulder, when we were startled by a strange voice speaking close behind us.

  ‘Oh! that’s his address, is it?’ said the voice. ‘We wanted his address rather badly.’ The speaker was a stranger to me. Naomi recognised him as one of the neighbours. ‘What do you want his address for?’ she asked, sharply.

  ‘I guess we’ve found the mortal remains of John Jago, miss,’ the man replied. ‘We have got Silas already, and we want Ambrose, too, on suspicion of murder.’

  ‘It’s a lie!’ cried Naomi, furiously—‘a wicked lie!’

  The man turned to me.

  ‘Take her into the next room, mister,’ he said, ‘and let her see for herself.’

  We went together into the next room.

  In one corner, sitting by her father, and holding his hand, we saw stern and stony Miss Meadowcroft, weeping silently. Opposite to them, crouched on the window-seat,—his eyes wandering, his hands hanging helpless,—we next discovered Silas Meadowcroft, plainly self-betrayed as a panic-stricken man. A few of the persons who had been engaged in the search were seated near, watching him. The mass of the strangers present stood congregated round a table in the middle of the room. They drew aside as I approached with Naomi, and allowed us to have a clear view of certain objects placed on the table.