HE next morning when the Otis family met at breakfast,
they discussed the ghost at some length. The United States Minister
was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not
been accepted. 'I have no wish,' he said, 'to do the ghost any
personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length
of time he has been in the house, I don't think it is at all
polite to throw pillows at him' a very just
remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts
of laughter. 'Upon the other hand,' he continued, 'if he really
declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take
his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with
such a noise going on outside the bedrooms.'For the rest of the week, however,
they were undisturbed, the only thing that excited any attention
being the continual renewal of the blood-stain on the library
floor. This certainly was very strange, as the door was always
locked at night by Mr. Otis, and the windows kept closely barred.
The chameleon-like colour, also, of the stain excited a good
deal of comment. Some mornings it was a dull (almost Indian)
red, then it would be vermilion, then a rich purple, and once
when they came down for family prayers, according to the simple
rites of the Free American Reformed Episcopalian Church, they
found it a bright emerald-green. These kaleidoscopic changes
naturally amused the party very much, and bets on the subject
were freely made every evening. The only person who did not enter
into the joke was little Virginia, who, for some unexplained
reason, was always a good deal distressed at the sight of the
blood-stain, and very nearly cried the morning it was emerald-green.
The second appearance of the
ghost was on Sunday night. Shortly after they had gone to bed
they were suddenly alarmed by a fearful crash in the hall. Rushing
downstairs, they found that a large suit of old armour had become
detached from its stand, and had fallen on the stone floor, while,
seated in a high-backed chair, was the Canterville ghost, rubbing
his knees with an expression of acute agony on his face. The
twins, having brought their pea- shooters with them, at once
discharged two pellets on him, with that accuracy of aim which
can only be attained by long and careful practice on a writing-master,
while the United States Minister covered him with his revolver,
and called upon him, in accordance with Californian etiquette,
to hold up his hands! The ghost started up with a wild shriek
of rage, and swept through them like a mist, extinguishing Washington
Otis's candle as he passed, and so leaving them all in total
darkness. On reaching the top of the staircase he recovered himself,
and determined to give his celebrated peal of demoniac laughter.
This he had on more than one occasion found extremely useful.
It was said to have turned Lord Raker's wig grey in a single
night, and had certainly made three of Lady Canterville's French
governesses give warning before their month was up. He accordingly
laughed his most horrible laugh, till the old vaulted roof rang
and rang again, but hardly had the fearful echo died away when
a door opened, and Mrs. Otis came out in a light blue dressing-gown.
'I am afraid you are far from well,' she said, 'and have brought
you a bottle of Dr. Dobell's tincture. If it is indigestion,
you will find it a most excellent remedy.' The ghost glared at
her in fury, and began at once to make preparations for turning
himself into a large black dog, an accomplishment for which he
was justly renowned, and to which the family doctor always attributed
the permanent idiocy of Lord Canterville's uncle, the Hon. Thomas
Horton. The sound of approaching footsteps, however, made him
hesitate in his fell purpose, so he contented himself with becoming
faintly phosphorescent, and vanished with a deep churchyard groan,
just as the twins had come up to him.
On reaching his room he entirely
broke down, and became a prey to the most violent agitation.
The vulgarity of the twins, and the gross materialism of Mrs.
Otis, were naturally extremely annoying, but what really distressed
him most was, that he had been unable to wear the suit of mail.
He had hoped that even modern Americans would be thrilled by
the sight of a Spectre In Armour, if for no more sensible reason,
at least out of respect for their national poet Longfellow, over
whose graceful and attractive poetry he himself had whiled away
many a weary hour when the Cantervilles were up in town. Besides,
it was his own suit. He had worn it with great success at the
Kenilworth tournament, and had been highly complimented on it
by no less a person than the Virgin Queen herself. Yet when he
had put it on, he had been completely overpowered by the weight
of the huge breastplate and steel casque, and had fallen heavily
on the stone pavement, barking both his knees severely, and bruising
the knuckles of his right hand.
For some days after this he was
extremely ill, and hardly stirred out of his room at all, except
to keep the blood-stain in proper repair. However, by taking
great care of himself, he recovered, and resolved to make a third
attempt to frighten the United States Minister and his family.
He selected Friday, the 17th of August, for his appearance, and
spent most of that day in looking over his wardrobe, ultimately
deciding in favour of a large slouched hat with a red feather,
a winding-sheet frilled at the wrists and neck, and a rusty dagger.
Towards evening a violent storm of rain came on, and the wind
was so high that all the windows and doors in the old house shook
and rattled. In fact, it was just such weather as he loved. His
plan of action was this. He was to make his way quietly to Washington
Otis's room, gibber at him from the foot of the bed, and stab
himself three times in the throat to the sound of slow music.
He bore Washington a special grudge, being quite aware that it
was he who was in the habit of removing the famous Canterville
blood-stain, by means of Pinkerton's Paragon Detergent. Having
reduced the reckless and foolhardy youth to a condition of abject
terror, he was then to proceed to the room occupied by the United
States Minister and his wife, and there to place a clammy hand
on Mrs. Otis's forehead, while he hissed into her trembling husband's
ear the awful secrets of the charnel-house. With regard to little
Virginia, he had not quite made up his mind. She had never insulted
him in any way, and was pretty and gentle. A few hollow groans
from the wardrobe, he thought, would be more than sufficient,
or, if that failed to wake her, he might grabble at the counterpane
with palsy-twitching fingers. As for the twins, he was quite
determined to teach them a lesson. The first thing to be done
was, of course, to sit upon their chests, so as to produce the
stifling sensation of nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite
close to each other, to stand between them in the form of a green,
icy-cold corpse, till they became paralysed with fear, and finally,
to throw off the winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with
white bleached bones and one rolling eye-ball, in the character
of 'Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide's Skeleton,' a role in
which he had on more than one occasion produced a great effect,
and which he considered quite equal to his famous part of 'Martin
the Maniac, or the Masked Mystery.'
At half-past ten he heard the
family going to bed. For some time he was disturbed by wild shrieks
of laughter from the twins, who, with the light-hearted gaiety
of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves before they
retired to rest, but at a quarter past eleven all was still,
and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth. The owl beat against
the window panes, the raven croaked from the old yew-tree, and
the wind wandered moaning round the house like a lost soul; but
the Otis family slept unconscious of their doom, and high above
the rain and storm he could hear the steady snoring of the Minister
for the United States. He stepped stealthily out of the wainscoting,
with an evil smile on his cruel, wrinkled mouth, and the moon
hid her face in a cloud as he stole past the great oriel window,
where his own arms and those of his murdered wife were blazoned
in azure and gold. On and on he glided, like an evil shadow,
the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed. Once he
thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only
the baying of a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering
strange sixteenth-century curses, and ever and anon brandishing
the rusty dagger in the midnight air. Finally he reached the
corner of the passage that led to luckless Washington's room.
For a moment he paused there, the wind blowing his long grey
locks about his head, and twisting into grotesque and fantastic
folds the nameless horror of the dead man's shroud. Then the
clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled
to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done
so, than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid
his blanched face in his long, bony hands. Right in front of
him was standing a horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image,
and monstrous as a madman's dream! Its head was bald and burnished;
its face round, and fat, and white; and hideous laughter seemed
to have writhed its features into an eternal grin. From the eyes
streamed rays of scarlet light, the mouth was a wide well of
fire, and a hideous garment, like to his own, swathed with its
silent snows the Titan form. On its breast was a placard with
strange writing in antique characters, some scroll of shame it
seemed, some record of wild sins, some awful calendar of crime,
and, with its right hand, it bore aloft a falchion of gleaming
steel.
Never having seen a ghost before,
he naturally was terribly frightened, and, after a second hasty
glance at the awful phantom, he fled back to his room, tripping
up in his long winding-sheet as he sped down the corridor, and
finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister's jack-boots,
where it was found in the morning by the butler. Once in the
privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small
pallet-bed, and hid his face under the clothes. After a time,
however, the brave old Canterville spirit asserted itself, and
he determined to go and speak to the other ghost as soon as it
was daylight. Accordingly, just as the dawn was touching the
hills with silver, he returned towards the spot where he had
first laid eyes on the grisly phantom, feeling that, after all,
two ghosts were better than one, and that, by the aid of his
new friend, he might safely grapple with the twins. On reaching
the spot, however, a terrible sight met his gaze. Something had
evidently happened to the spectre, for the light had entirely
faded from its hollow eyes, the gleaming falchion had fallen
from its hand, and it was leaning up against the wall in a strained
and uncomfortable attitude. He rushed forward and seized it in
his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped off and rolled
on the floor, the body assumed a recumbent posture, and he found
himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a sweeping-
brush, a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet!
Unable to understand this curious transformation, he clutched
the placard with feverish haste, and there, in the grey morning
light, he read these fearful words:
YE OLDE GHOSTE
Ye Onlie True and Originale Spook.
Beware of Ye Imitationes.
All others are Counterfeite.The whole thing flashed across
him. He had been tricked, foiled, and outwitted! The old Canterville
look came into his eyes; he ground his toothless gums together;
and, raising his withered hands high above his head, swore, according
to the picturesque phraseology of the antique school, that when
Chanticleer had sounded twice his merry horn, deeds of blood
would be wrought, and Murder walk abroad with silent feet.
Hardly had he finished this awful
oath when, from the red-tiled roof of a distant homestead, a
cock crew. He laughed a long, low, bitter laugh, and waited.
Hour after hour he waited, but the cock, for some strange reason,
did not crow again. Finally, at half-past seven, the arrival
of the housemaids made him give up his fearful vigil, and he
stalked back to his room, thinking of his vain hope and baffled
purpose. There he consulted several books of ancient chivalry,
of which he was exceedingly fond, and found that, on every occasion
on which his oath had been used, Chanticleer had always crowed
a second time. 'Perdition seize the naughty fowl,' he muttered,
'I have seen the day when, with my stout spear, I would have
run him through the gorge, and made him crow for me an 'twere
in death!' He then retired to a comfortable lead coffin, and
stayed there till evening.
[Chapter Four]
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