Ghost Stories

by Leslie S. Klinger

  “He could hold foot with the youngest; and he was strong, and had a fine fresh colour in his face; and his eyes were like a hawk’s; and there was not a break in his voice—and him near upon threescore and ten!

  “At last and at long last it came to be the March before he was seventy—the worst March ever known in all these parts—such blowing, sheeting, snowing, had not been experienced in the memory of man; when one blusterous night some foreign vessel went to bits on the Purple Headland. They say it was an awful sound to hear the death-cry that went up high above the noise of the wind; and it was as bad a sight to see the shore there strewed with corpses of all sorts and sizes, from the little cabin-boy to the grizzled seaman.

  “They never knew who they were or where they came from, but some of the men had crosses, and beads, and such like, so the priest said they belonged to him, and they were all buried deeply and decently in the chapel graveyard.

  “There was not much wreckage of value drifted on shore. Most of what is lost about the Head stays there; but one thing did come into the bay—a puncheon3 of brandy.

  “The Squire claimed it; it was his right to have all that came on his land, and he owned this sea-shore from the Head to the breakers—every foot—so, in course, he had the brandy; and there was sore illwill because he gave his men nothing, not even a glass of whiskey.

  “Well, to make a long story short, that was the most wonderful liquor anybody ever tasted. The gentry came from far and near to take share, and it was cards and dice, and drinking and story-telling night after night—week in, week out. Even on Sundays, God forgive them! The officers would drive over from Ballyclone, and sit emptying tumbler after tumbler till Monday morning came, for it made beautiful punch.

  “But all at once people quit coming—a word went round that the liquor was not all it ought to be. Nobody could say what ailed it, but it got about that in some way men found it did not suit them.

  “For one thing, they were losing money very fast.

  “They could not make head against the Squire’s luck, and a hint was dropped the puncheon ought to have been towed out to sea, and sunk in fifty fathoms of water.

  “It was getting to the end of April, and fine, warm weather for the time of year, when first one and then another, and then another still, began to take notice of a stranger who walked the shore alone at night. He was a dark man, the same colour as the drowned crew lying in the chapel graveyard, and had rings in his ears, and wore a strange kind of hat, and cut wonderful antics as he walked, and had an ambling sort of gait, curious to look at. Many tried to talk to him, but he only shook his head; so, as nobody could make out where he came from or what he wanted, they made sure he was the spirit of some poor wretch who was tossing about the Head, longing for a snug corner in holy ground.

  “The priest went and tried to get some sense out of him.

  “‘Is it Christian burial you’re wanting?’ asked his reverence; but the creature only shook his head.

  “‘Is it word sent to the wives and daughters you’ve left orphans and widows, you’d like?’ But no; it wasn’t that.

  “‘Is it for sin committed you’re doomed to walk this way? Would masses comfort ye? There’s a heathen,’ said his reverence; ‘Did you ever hear tell of a Christian that shook his head when masses were mentioned?’

  “‘Perhaps he doesn’t understand English, Father,’ says one of the officers who was there; ‘Try him with Latin.’

  “No sooner said than done. The priest started off with such a string of ayes and paters that the stranger fairly took to his heels and ran.

  “‘He is an evil spirit,’ explained the priest, when he stopped, tired out, ‘and I have exorcised him.’”

  “But next night my gentleman was back again, as unconcerned as ever.

  “‘And he’ll just have to stay,’ said his reverence, ‘For I’ve got lumbago in the small of my back, and pains in all my joints—never to speak of a hoarseness with standing there shouting; and I don’t believe he understood a sentence I said.’

  “Well, this went on for a while, and people got that frightened of the man, or appearance of a man, they would not go near the sand; till in the end, Squire Ennismore, who had always scoffed at the talk, took it into his head he would go down one night, and see into the rights of the matter.

  “He, maybe, was feeling lonesome, because, as I told your honour before, people had left off coming to the house, and there was nobody for him to drink with.

  “Out he goes, then, bold as brass; and there were a few followed him. The man came forward at sight of the Squire and took off his hat with a foreign flourish. Not to be behind in civility, the Squire lifted his.

  “‘I have come, sir,’ he said, speaking very loud, to try to make him understand, ‘to know if you are looking for anything, and whether I can assist you to find it.’

  “The man looked at the Squire as if he had taken the greatest liking to him, and took off his hat again.

  “‘Is it the vessel that was wrecked you are distressed about?’

  “There came no answer, only a mournful shake of the head.

  “‘Well, I haven’t your ship, you know; it went all to bits months ago; and, as for the sailors, they are snug and sound enough in consecrated ground.’

  “The man stood and looked at the Squire with a queer sort of smile on his face.”

  “‘What do you want?’ asked Mr. Ennismore in a bit of a passion. ‘If anything belonging to you went down with the vessel, it’s about the Head you ought to be looking for it, not here—unless, indeed, it’s after the brandy you’re fretting!’

  “Now, the Squire had tried him in English and French, and was now speaking a language you’d have thought nobody could understand; but, faith, it seemed natural as kissing to the stranger.

  “‘Oh! That’s where you are from, is it?’ said the Squire. ‘Why couldn’t you have told me so at once? I can’t give you the brandy, because it mostly is drunk; but come along, and you shall have as stiff a glass of punch as ever crossed your lips.’ And without more to-do off they went, as sociable as you please, jabbering together in some outlandish tongue that made moderate folks’ jaws ache to hear it.

  “That was the first night they conversed together, but it wasn’t the last. The stranger must have been the height of good company, for the Squire never tired of him. Every evening, regularly, he came up to the house, always dressed the same, always smiling and polite, and then the Squire called for brandy and hot water, and they drank and played cards till cockcrow, talking and laughing into the small hours.

  “This went on for weeks and weeks, nobody knowing where the man came from, or where he went; only two things the old housekeeper did know—that the puncheon was nearly empty, and that the Squire’s flesh was wasting off him; and she felt so uneasy she went to the priest, but he could give her no manner of comfort.

  “She got so concerned at last that she felt bound to listen at the diningroom door; but they always talked in that foreign gibberish, and whether it was blessing or cursing they were at she couldn’t tell.

  “Well, the upshot of it came one night in July—on the eve of the Squire’s birthday—there wasn’t a drop of spirit left in the puncheon—no, not as much as would drown a fly. They had drunk the whole lot clean up—and the old woman stood trembling, expecting every minute to hear the bell ring for more brandy, for where was she to get more if they wanted any?” “All at once the Squire and the stranger came out into the hall. It was a full moon, and light as day.”

  “‘I’ll go home with you to-night by way of a change,’ says the Squire.

  “‘Will you so?’ asked the other.

  “‘That I will,’ answered the Squire. “‘It is your own choice, you know.’

  “‘Yes; it is my own choice; let us go.’

  “So they went. And the housekeeper ran up to the window on the great staircase and watched the way they took. Her niece lived there as housemaid, and she came and watched, too; and, afte
r a while, the butler as well. They all turned their faces this way, and looked after their master walking beside the strange man along these very sands. Well, they saw them walk on, and on, and on, and on, till the water took them to their knees, and then to their waists, and then to their arm-pits, and then to their throats and their heads; but long before that the women and the butler were running out on the shore as fast as they could, shouting for help.

  “Well?” said the Englishman.

  “Living or dead, Squire Ennismore never came back again. Next morning, when the tides ebbed again, one walking over the sand saw the print of a cloven foot—that he tracked to the water’s edge. Then everybody knew where the Squire had gone, and with whom.”

  “And no more search was made?”

  “Where would have been the use searching?”

  “Not much, I suppose. It’s a strange story, anyhow.”

  “But true, your honour—every word of it.”

  “Oh! I have no doubt of that,” was the satisfactory reply.

  1 Mrs. Riddell may be referring here to a well-known story from about 1864 in which the wine cellar of a wealthy man’s estate in Blackheath was said to be haunted. When the merchant finally organized a search party, they discovered, behind the barrels, a snoring servant who had imbibed another kind of spirit from the barrels.

  2 All of the locations used in this story are fictitious.

  3 A puncheon was a cask that held about eighty gallons.

  The Philosophy of Relative Existences

  by FRANK STOCKTON

  Remembered today perhaps solely for his story “The Lady, or the Tiger?” (1882), widely anthologized and read wherever fine writing is taught, Frank R. Stockton (1834–1902) was a prolific American writer and humorist. He wrote many children’s tales popular in the late Victorian era—some subsequently illustrated by Maurice Sendak—as well as early speculative fiction. The following first appeared in The Century Magazine (Aug. 1892).

  In a certain summer, not long gone, my friend Bentley and I found ourselves in a little hamlet which overlooked a placid valley, through which a river gently moved, winding its way through green stretches until it turned the end of a line of low hills and was lost to view. Beyond this river, far away, but visible from the door of the cottage where we dwelt, there lay a city. Through the mists which floated over the valley we could see the outlines of steeples and tall roofs; and buildings of a character which indicated thrift and business stretched themselves down to the opposite edge of the river. The more distant parts of the city, evidently a small one, lost themselves in the hazy summer atmosphere.

  Bentley was young, fair-haired, and a poet; I was a philosopher, or trying to be one. We were good friends, and had come down into this peaceful region to work together. Although we had fled from the bustle and distractions of the town, the appearance in this rural region of a city, which, so far as we could observe, exerted no influence on the quiet character of the valley in which it lay, aroused our interest. No craft plied up and down the river; there were no bridges from shore to shore; there were none of those scattered and half-squalid habitations which generally are found on the outskirts of a city; there came to us no distant sound of bells; and not the smallest wreath of smoke rose from any of the buildings.

  In answer to our inquiries our landlord told us that the city over the river had been built by one man, who was a visionary, and who had a great deal more money than common sense. “It is not as big a town as you would think, sirs,” he said, “because the general mistiness of things in this valley makes them look larger than they are. Those hills, for instance, when you get to them are not as high as they look to be from here. But the town is big enough, and a good deal too big; for it ruined its builder and owner, who when he came to die had not money enough left to put up a decent tombstone at the head of his grave. He had a queer idea that he would like to have his town all finished before anybody lived in it, and so he kept on working and spending money year after year and year after year until the city was done and he had not a cent left. During all the time that the place was building hundreds of people came to him to buy houses, or to hire them, but he would not listen to anything of the kind. No one must live in his town until it was all done. Even his workmen were obliged to go away at night to lodge. It is a town, sirs, I am told, in which nobody has slept for even a night. There are streets there, and places of business, and churches, and public halls, and everything that a town full of inhabitants could need; but it is all empty and deserted, and has been so as far back as I can remember, and I came to this region when I was a little boy.”

  “And is there no one to guard the place?” we asked; “no one to protect it from wandering vagrants who might choose to take possession of the buildings?”

  “There are not many vagrants in this part of the country,” he said, “and if there were they would not go over to that city. It is haunted.”

  “By what?” we asked.

  “Well, sirs, I scarcely can tell you; queer beings that are not flesh and blood, and that is all I know about it. A good many people living hereabouts have visited that place once in their lives, but I know of no one who has gone there a second time.”

  “And travellers,” I said, “are they not excited by curiosity to explore that strange uninhabited city?”

  “Oh yes,” our host replied; “almost all visitors to the valley go over to that queer city—generally in small parties, for it is not a place in which one wishes to walk about alone. Sometimes they see things and sometimes they don’t. But I never knew any man or woman to show a fancy for living there, although it is a very good town.”

  This was said at supper-time, and, as it was the period of full moon, Bentley and I decided that we would visit the haunted city that evening. Our host endeavored to dissuade us, saying that no one ever went over there at night; but as we were not to be deterred he told us where we would find his small boat tied to a stake on the river-bank. We soon crossed the river, and landed at a broad but low stone pier, at the land end of which a line of tall grasses waved in the gentle night wind as if they were sentinels warning us from entering the silent city. We pushed through these, and walked up a street fairly wide, and so well paved that we noticed none of the weeds and other growths which generally denote desertion or little use. By the bright light of the moon we could see that the architecture was simple, and of a character highly gratifying to the eye. All the buildings were of stone, and of good size. We were greatly excited and interested, and proposed to continue our walks until the moon should set, and to return on the following morning—“to live here, perhaps,” said Bentley. “What could be so romantic and yet so real? What could conduce better to the marriage of verse and philosophy?” But as he said this we saw around the corner of a cross-street some forms as of people hurrying away.

  “The spectres,” said my companion, laying his hand on my arm.

  “Vagrants, more likely,” I answered, “who have taken advantage of the superstition of the region to appropriate this comfort and beauty to themselves.”

  “If that be so,” said Bentley, “we must have a care for our lives.”

  We proceeded cautiously, and soon saw other forms fleeing before us and disappearing, as we supposed, around corners and into houses. And now suddenly finding ourselves upon the edge of a wide, open public square, we saw in the dim light—for a tall steeple obscured the moon—the forms of vehicles, horses, and men moving here and there. But before, in our astonishment, we could say a word one to the other, the moon moved past the steeple, and in its bright light we could see none of the signs of life and traffic which had just astonished us.

  Timidly, with hearts beating fast, but with not one thought of turning back, nor any fear of vagrants—for we were now sure that what we had seen was not flesh and blood, and therefore harmless—we crossed the open space and entered a street down which the moon shone clearly. Here and there we saw dim figures, which quickly disappeared; but, approaching a low s
tone balcony in front of one of the houses, we were surprised to see, sitting thereon and leaning over a book which lay open upon the top of the carved parapet, the figure of a woman who did not appear to notice us.

  “That is a real person,” whispered Bentley, “and she does not see us.”

  “No,” I replied; “it is like the others. Let us go near it.”

  We drew near to the balcony and stood before it. At this the figure raised its head and looked at us. It was beautiful, it was young; but its substance seemed to be of an ethereal quality which we had never seen or known of. With its full, soft eyes fixed upon us, it spoke.

  “Why are you here?” it asked. “I have said to myself that the next time I saw any of you I would ask you why you come to trouble us. Cannot you live content in your own realms and spheres, knowing, as you must know, how timid we are, and how you frighten us and make us unhappy? In all this city there is, I believe, not one of us except myself who does not flee and hide from you whenever you cruelly come here. Even I would do that, had not I declared to myself that I would see you and speak to you, and endeavor to prevail upon you to leave us in peace.”

  The clear, frank tones of the speaker gave me courage. “We are two men,” I answered, “strangers in this region, and living for the time in the beautiful country on the other side of the river. Having heard of this quiet city, we have come to see it for ourselves. We had supposed it to be uninhabited, but now that we find that this is not the case, we would assure you from our hearts that we do not wish to disturb or annoy any one who lives here. We simply came as honest travellers to view the city.”

  The figure now seated herself again, and as her countenance was nearer to us, we could see that it was filled with pensive thought. For a moment she looked at us without speaking. “Men!” she said. “And so I have been right. For a long time I have believed that the beings who sometimes come here, filling us with dread and awe, are men.”