“What did you want of me?” he asked.
“I wanted to enjoy your conversation. I did so greatly when I met you here before.”
“You found me amusing?”
“Interesting!” I said.
“You didn’t think me cracked?”
“Cracked?—My dear sir—!” I protested.
“I’m the sanest man in the country. I know that is what insane people always say; but generally they can’t prove it. I can!”
“I believe it,” I said. “But I am curious to know how such a thing can be proved.”
He was silent awhile.
“I will tell you. I once committed, unintentionally, a great crime. Now I pay the penalty. I give up my life to it. I don’t shirk it; I face it squarely, knowing perfectly what it is. I haven’t tried to bluff it off; I haven’t begged off from it; I haven’t run away from it. The penalty is terrible, but I have accepted it. I have been a philosopher!
“If I were a Catholic, I might have turned monk, and spent the rest of my life in fasting and praying. That is no penalty; that is an evasion. I might have blown my brains out—I might have gone mad. I wouldn’t do either. I would simply face the music, take the consequences. As I say, they are awful! I take them on certain days, four times a year. So it has been these twenty years; so it will be as long as I last. It’s my business; it’s my avocation. That’s the way I feel about it. I call that reasonable!”
“Admirably so!” I said. “But you fill me with curiosity and with compassion.”
“Especially with curiosity,” he said, cunningly.
“Why,” I answered, “if I know exactly what you suffer I can pity you more.”
“I’m much obliged. I don’t want your pity; it won’t help me. I’ll tell you something, but it’s not for myself; it’s for your own sake.” He paused a long time and looked all round him, as if for chance eavesdroppers. I anxiously awaited his revelation, but he disappointed me. “Are you still studying theology?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” I answered, perhaps with a shade of irritation. “It’s a thing one can’t learn in six months.”
“I should think not, so long as you have nothing but your books. Do you know the proverb, ‘A grain of experience is worth a pound of precept’? I’m a great theologian.”
“Ah, you have had experience,” I murmured sympathetically.
“You have read about the immortality of the soul; you have seen Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Hopkins chopping logic over it, and deciding, by chapter and verse, that it is true. But I have seen it with these eyes; I have touched it with these hands!” And the old man held up his rugged old fists and shook them portentously. “That’s better!” he went on; “but I have bought it dearly. You had better take it from the books—evidently you always will. You are a very good young man; you will never have a crime on your conscience.”
I answered with some juvenile fatuity, that I certainly hoped I had my share of human passions, good young man and prospective Doctor of Divinity as I was.
“Ah, but you have a nice, quiet little temper,” he said. “So have I—now! But once I was very brutal—very brutal. You ought to know that such things are. I killed my own child.”
“Your own child?”
“I struck her down to the earth and left her to die. They could not hang me, for it was not with my hand I struck her. It was with foul and damnable words. That makes a difference; it’s a grand law we live under! Well, sir, I can answer for it that her soul is immortal. We have an appointment to meet four times a year, and then I catch it!”
“She has never forgiven you?”
“She has forgiven me as the angels forgive! That’s what I can’t stand—the soft, quiet way she looks at me. I’d rather she twisted a knife about in my heart—O Lord, Lord, Lord!” and Captain Diamond bowed his head over his stick, and leaned his forehead on his crossed hands.
I was impressed and moved, and his attitude seemed for the moment a check to further questions. Before I ventured to ask him anything more, he slowly rose and pulled his old cloak around him. He was unused to talking about his troubles, and his memories overwhelmed him. “I must go my way,” he said; “I must be creeping along.”
“I shall perhaps meet you here again,” I said.
“Oh, I’m a stiff-jointed old fellow,” he answered, “and this is rather far for me to come. I have to reserve myself. I have sat sometimes a month at a time smoking my pipe in my chair. But I should like to see you again.” And he stopped and looked at me, terribly and kindly. “Some day, perhaps, I shall be glad to be able to lay my hand on a young, unperverted soul. If a man can make a friend, it is always something gained. What is your name?”
I had in my pocket a small volume of Pascal’s “Thoughts,” on the fly-leaf of which were written my name and address. I took it out and offered it to my old friend. “Pray keep this little book,” I said. “It is one I am very fond of, and it will tell you something about me.”
He took it and turned it over slowly, then looking up at me with a scowl of gratitude, “I’m not much of a reader,” he said; “but I won’t refuse the first present I shall have received since—my troubles; and the last. Thank you, sir!” And with the little book in his hand he took his departure.
I was left to imagine him for some weeks after that sitting solitary in his arm-chair with his pipe. I had not another glimpse of him. But I was awaiting my chance, and on the last day of June, another quarter having elapsed, I deemed that it had come. The evening dusk in June falls late, and I was impatient for its coming. At last, toward the end of a lovely summer’s day, I revisited Captain Diamond’s property. Everything now was green around it save the blighted orchard in its rear, but its own immitigable grayness and sadness were as striking as when I had first beheld it beneath a December sky. As I drew near it, I saw that I was late for my purpose, for my purpose had simply been to step forward on Captain Diamond’s arrival, and bravely ask him to let me go in with him. He had preceded me, and there were lights already in the windows. I was unwilling, of course, to disturb him during his ghostly interview, and I waited till he came forth. The lights disappeared in the course of time; then the door opened and Captain Diamond stole out. That evening he made no bow to the haunted house, for the first object he beheld was his fair-minded young friend planted, modestly but firmly, near the doorstep. He stopped short, looking at me, and this time his terrible scowl was in keeping with the situation.
“I knew you were here,” I said. “I came on purpose.”
He seemed dismayed, and looked round at the house uneasily.
“I beg your pardon if I have ventured too far,” I added, “but you know you have encouraged me.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I reasoned it out. You told me half your story, and I guessed the other half. I am a great observer, and I had noticed this house in passing. It seemed to me to have a mystery. When you kindly confided to me that you saw spirits, I was sure that it could only be here that you saw them.”
“You are mighty clever,” cried the old man. “And what brought you here this evening?”
I was obliged to evade this question.
“Oh, I often come; I like to look at the house—it fascinates me.”
He turned and looked up at it himself. “It’s nothing to look at outside.” He was evidently quite unaware of its peculiar outward appearance, and this odd fact, communicated to me thus in the twilight, and under the very brow of the sinister dwelling, seemed to make his vision of the strange things within more real.
“I have been hoping,” I said, “for a chance to see the inside. I thought I might find you here, and that you would let me go in with you. I should like to see what you see.”
He seemed confounded by my boldness, but not altogether displeased. He laid his hand on my arm. “Do you know what I see?” he asked.
“How can I know, except as you said the other day, by experience? I want to have the experience. Pray, open the
door and take me in.”
Captain Diamond’s brilliant eyes expanded beneath their dusky brows, and after holding his breath a moment, he indulged in the first and last apology for a laugh by which I was to see his solemn visage contorted. It was profoundly grotesque, but it was perfectly noiseless. “Take you in?” he softly growled. “I wouldn’t go in again before my time’s up for a thousand times that sum.” And he thrust out his hand from the folds of his cloak and exhibited a small agglomeration of coin, knotted into the corner of an old silk pocket-handkerchief. “I stick to my bargain no less, but no more!”
“But you told me the first time I had the pleasure of talking with you that it was not so terrible.”
“I don’t say it’s terrible—now. But it’s damned disagreeable !”
This adjective was uttered with a force that made me hesitate and reflect. While I did so, I thought I heard a slight movement of one of the window-shutters above us. I looked up, but everything seemed motionless. Captain Diamond, too, had been thinking; suddenly he turned toward the house. “If you will go in alone,” he said, “you are welcome.”
“Will you wait for me here?”
“Yes, you will not stop long.”
“But the house is pitch-dark. When you go you have lights.”
He thrust his hand into the depths of his cloak and produced some matches. “Take these,” he said. “You will find two candlesticks with candles on the table in the hall. Light them, take one in each hand and go ahead.”
“Where shall I go?”
“Anywhere—everywhere. You can trust the ghost to find you.”
I will not pretend to deny that by this time my heart was beating. And yet I imagine I motioned the old man with a sufficiently dignified gesture to open the door. I had made up my mind that there was in fact a ghost. I had conceded the premise. Only I had assured myself that once the mind was prepared, and the thing was not a surprise, it was possible to keep cool. Captain Diamond turned the lock, flung open the door, and bowed low to me as I passed in. I stood in the darkness, and heard the door close behind me. For some moments, I stirred neither finger nor toe; I stared bravely into the impenetrable dusk. But I saw nothing and heard nothing, and at last I struck a match. On the table were two old brass candlesticks rusty from disuse. I lighted the candles and began my tour of exploration.
A wide staircase rose in front of me, guarded by an antique balustrade of that rigidly delicate carving which is found so often in old New England houses. I postponed ascending it, and turned into the room on my right. This was an old-fashioned parlor, meagerly furnished, and musty with the absence of human life. I raised my two lights aloft and saw nothing but its empty chairs and its blank walls. Behind it was the room into which I had peeped from without, and which, in fact, communicated with it, as I had supposed, by folding doors. Here, too, I found myself confronted by no menacing specter. I crossed the hall again, and visited the rooms on the other side; a dining-room in front, where I might have written my name with my finger in the deep dust of the great square table; a kitchen behind with its pots and pans eternally cold. All this was hard and grim, but it was not formidable. I came back into the hall, and walked to the foot of the staircase, holding up my candles; to ascend required a fresh effort, and I was scanning the gloom above. Suddenly, with an inexpressible sensation, I became aware that this gloom was animated; it seemed to move and gather itself together. Slowly—I say slowly, for to my tense expectancy the instants appeared ages—it took the shape of a large, definite figure, and this figure advanced and stood at the top of the stairs. I frankly confess that by this time I was conscious of a feeling to which I am in duty bound to apply the vulgar name of fear. I may poetize it and call it Dread, with a capital letter; it was at any rate the feeling that makes a man yield ground. I measured it as it grew, and it seemed perfectly irresistible; for it did not appear to come from within but from without, and to be embodied in the dark image at the head of the staircase. After a fashion I reasoned—I remember reasoning. I said to myself, “I had always thought ghosts were white and transparent; this is a thing of thick shadows, densely opaque.” I reminded myself that the occasion was momentous, and that if fear were to overcome me I should gather all possible impressions while my wits remained. I stepped back, foot behind foot, with my eyes still on the figure and placed my candles on the table. I was perfectly conscious that the proper thing was to ascend the stairs resolutely, face to face with the image, but the soles of my shoes seemed suddenly to have been transformed into leaden weights. I had got what I wanted; I was seeing the ghost. I tried to look at the figure distinctly so that I could remember it, and fairly claim, afterward, not to have lost my self-possession. I even asked myself how long it was expected I should stand looking, and how soon I could honorably retire. All this, of course, passed through my mind with extreme rapidity, and it was checked by a further movement on the part of the figure. Two white hands appeared in the dark perpendicular mass, and were slowly raised to what seemed to be the level of the head. Here they were pressed together, over the region of the face, and then they were removed, and the face was disclosed. It was dim, white, strange, in every way ghostly. It looked down at me for an instant, after which one of the hands was raised again, slowly, and waved to and fro before it. There was something very singular in this gesture; it seemed to denote resentment and dismissal, and yet it had a sort of trivial, familiar motion. Familiarity on the part of the haunting Presence had not entered into my calculations, and did not strike me pleasantly. I agreed with Captain Diamond that it was “damned disagreeable.” I was pervaded by an intense desire to make an orderly, and, if possible, a graceful retreat. I wished to do it gallantly, and it seemed to me that it would be gallant to blow out my candles. I turned and did so, punctiliously, and then I made my way to the door, groped a moment and opened it. The outer light, almost extinct as it was, entered for a moment, played over the dusty depths of the house and showed me the solid shadow.
Standing on the grass, bent over his stick, under the early glimmering stars, I found Captain Diamond. He looked up at me fixedly for a moment, but asked no questions, and then he went and locked the door. This duty performed, he discharged the other—made his obeisance like the priest before the altar—and then without heeding me further, took his departure.
A few days later, I suspended my studies and went off for the summer’s vacation. I was absent for several weeks, during which I had plenty of leisure to analyze my impressions of the supernatural. I took some satisfaction in the reflection that I had not been ignobly terrified; I had not bolted nor swooned—I had proceeded with dignity. Nevertheless, I was certainly more comfortable when I had put thirty miles between me and the scene of my exploit, and I continued for many days to prefer the daylight to the dark. My nerves had been powerfully excited; of this I was particularly conscious when, under the influence of the drowsy air of the seaside, my excitement began slowly to ebb. As it disappeared, I attempted to take a sternly rational view of my experience. Certainly I had seen something—that was not fancy; but what had I seen? I regretted extremely now that I had not been bolder, that I had not gone nearer and inspected the apparition more minutely. But it was very well to talk; I had done as much as any man in the circumstances would have dared; it was indeed a physical impossibility that I should have advanced. Was not this paralyzation of my powers in itself a supernatural influence? Not necessarily, perhaps, for a sham ghost that one accepted might do as much execution as a real ghost. But why had I so easily accepted the sable phantom that waved its hand? Why had it so impressed itself? Unquestionably, true or false, it was a very clever phantom. I greatly preferred that it should have been true—in the first place because I did not care to have shivered and shaken for nothing, and in the second place because to have seen a well-authenticated goblin is, as things go, a feather in a quiet man’s cap. I tried, therefore, to let my vision rest and to stop turning it over. But an impulse stronger than my will recurred at interval
s and set a mocking question on my lips. Granted that the apparition was Captain Diamond’s daughter; if it was she it certainly was her spirit. But was it not her spirit and something more?
The middle of September saw me again established among the theologic shades, but I made no haste to revisit the haunted house.
The last of the month approached—the term of another quarter with poor Captain Diamond—and found me indisposed to disturb his pilgrimage on this occasion; though I confess that I thought with a good deal of compassion of the feeble old man trudging away, lonely, in the autumn dusk, on his extraordinary errand. On the thirtieth of September, at noonday, I was drowsing over a heavy octavo, when I heard a feeble rap at my door. I replied with an invitation to enter, but as this produced no effect I repaired to the door and opened it. Before me stood an elderly negress with her head bound in a scarlet turban, and a white handkerchief folded across her bosom. She looked at me intently and in silence; she had that air of supreme gravity and decency which aged persons of her race so often wear. I stood interrogative, and at last, drawing her hand from her ample pocket, she held up a little book. It was the copy of Pascal’s “Thoughts” that I had given to Captain Diamond.
“Please, sir,” she said, very mildly, “do you know this book?”
“Perfectly,” said I, “my name is on the fly-leaf.”
“It is your name—no other?”
“I will write my name if you like, and you can compare them,” I answered.
She was silent a moment and then, with dignity—“It would be useless, sir,” she said, “I can’t read. If you will give me your word that is enough. I come,” she went on, “from the gentleman to whom you gave the book. He told me to carry it as a token—a token—that is what he called it. He is right down sick, and he wants to see you.”
“Captain Diamond—sick?” I cried. “Is his illness serious?”
“He is very bad—he is all gone.”
I expressed my regret and sympathy, and offered to go to him immediately, if his sable messenger would show me the way. She assented deferentially, and in a few moments I was following her along the sunny streets, feeling very much like a personage in the Arabian Nights, led to a postern gate by an Ethiopian slave. My own conductress directed her steps toward the river and stopped at a decent little yellow house in one of the streets that descend to it. She quickly opened the door and led me in, and I very soon found myself in the presence of my old friend. He was in bed, in a darkened room, and evidently in a very feeble state. He lay back on his pillow staring before him, with his bristling hair more erect than ever, and his intensely dark and bright old eyes touched with the glitter of fever. His apartment was humble and scrupulously neat, and I could see that my dusky guide was a faithful servant. Captain Diamond, lying there rigid and pale on his white sheets, resembled some ruggedly carven figure on the lid of a Gothic tomb. He looked at me silently, and my companion withdrew and left us alone.
Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves And Ghosts - 25 Classic Stories Of The Supernatural Page 22
