Adopting An Abandoned Farm - Kate Sanborn (new books to read txt) 📗

/> It was not the wind, for, although it was late October and the breezes were sighing over summer's departure, this sound was entirely different and distinct. Then (and what a shiver ran down my back!) I remembered hearing that a woman had been killed by falling down the steep cellar stairs, and the spot on the left side where she was found unconscious and bleeding had been pointed out to me. There, I heard it again! Was it the wraith of the aged dame or the cries of that unfortunate creature? Hush! Ellen can't have fallen down!

I am really scared; the lamp seems to be burning dim and the last coal has gone out. Is it some restless spirit, so unhappy that it must moan out its weary plaint? I ought to be brave and go at once and look boldly down the cellar stairs and draw aside that waving <i>portière. Oh, dear! If I only had some one to go with me and hold a light and - there it is - the third time. Courage vanished. It might be some dreadful tramp hiding and trying to drive me up-stairs, so he could get the silver, and he would gladly murder me for ten cents -

"Tom," I cried. "Tom, come here." But Tom, my six-footer factotum, made no response.

I could stand it no longer - the <i>portière seemed fairly alive, and I rushed out to the kitchen where Ellen sat reading the <i>Ledger, deep in the horrors of The Forsaken Inn. "Ellen, I'm ashamed, but I'm really frightened. I do believe somebody is in that horrid dark room, or in the cellar, and where <i>is Tom?

"Bedad, Miss, and you've frightened the heart right out o' me. It might be a ghost, for there are such things (Heaven help us!), and I've seen 'em in this country and in dear old Ireland, and so has Tom."

"You've seen ghosts?"

"Yes, indeed, Miss, but I've never spoke to any, for you've no right to speak to a ghost, and if you do you will surely die." Tom now came in and soon satisfied me that there was no living thing in the darkness, so I sat down and listened to Ellen's experiences with ghosts.

THE FORMER MRS. WILKES. - "Now this happened in New York city, Miss, in West 28th Street, and is every word true, for, my dear, I saw it with my own eyes. I went to bed, about half-past nine it was this night, and I was lying quietly in bed, looking up to the ceiling; no light on account of the mosquitoes, and Maud, the little girl I was caring for, a romping dear of seven or eight, a motherless child, had been tossing about restless like, and her arm was flung over me. All at once I saw a lady standing by the side of the bed in her night dress and looking earnestly at the child beyond me. She then came nearer, took Maud's arm off me, and gently straightened her in bed, then stroked her face, both cheeks - fondly, you know - and then stood and looked at the child. I said not a word, but I wasn't one bit afraid for I thought it was a living lady. I could tell the color of her eyes and hair and just how she looked every way. In the morning I described her to Mrs. Wilkes, and asked, 'Is there any strange lady in the house?' 'No, Ellen. Why?' she said. Then I said: 'Why, there certainly was a pleasant-looking lady in my room last night, in her night dress, and she patted Maud as if she thought a sight of her.'

"'Why,' said my mistress, 'that is surely the former Mrs. Wilkes!'

"She said that the older daughter had seen her several times standing before her glass, fixing her hair and looking at herself, but if she spoke to her or tried to speak, her mother would take up something and shake it at her. And once when we were going up-stairs together Alice screamed, and said that her mother was at the top of the stairs and blew her cold breath right down on her. The stepmother started to give her her slipper, but the father pitied her and would not allow her to be whipped, and said 'I'll go up to bed with you, Alice.'"

"Did you ever see the lady in white again, Ellen?"

"Never, Ma'am, nor did I ever see any other ghost in this country that I was sure was a ghost, but - Ireland, dear old Ireland, oh, that's an ancient land, and they have both ghosts and fairies and banshees too, and many's the story I've heard over there, and from my own dear mother's lips, and she would not tell a lie (Heaven rest her soul!), and I've seen them myself over there, and so has Tom and his brother too, Miss. Oh, many's the story I could tell!"

"Well, Ellen, let me have one of your own - your very best." And I went for pencil and pad.

"And are ye going to pin down my story. Well, Miss, if ye take it just as I say, and then fix it proper to be read, they'll like it, for people are crazy now to get the true ghost stories of dear old Ireland. O Miss, when you go over, don't forget my native place. It has a real castle and a part of it is haunted, and the master doesn't like to live there - only comes once a year or so, for hunting - and the rabbits there are as thick as they can be and the river chuck full of fish, but no one can touch any game, or even take out one fish, or they would be punished."

"Yes, Ellen it's hard, and all wrong, but we are wandering away from your ghosts, and you know I am going to take notes. So begin."

"Well, Miss, I was a sort of companion or maid to a blind lady in my own town. I slept in a little room just across the landing from hers, so as to always be within reach of her. I was just going to bed, when she called for me to come in and see if there was something in the room - something alive, she thought, that had been hopping, hopping all around her bed, and frightened her dreadfully, poor thing, for, you remember, she was stone blind, Miss, which made it worse. So I hurried in and I shook the curtains, looked behind the bureau and under the bed, and tried everywhere for whatever might be hopping around, but could find nothing and heard not a sound. While I was there all was still. Then I went into my room again, and left the door open, as I thought Miss Lacy would feel more comfortable about it, and I was hardly in my bed when she called again and screamed out with fear, for It was hopping round the bed. She said I must go down-stairs and bring a candle. So I had to go down-stairs to the pantry all alone and get the candle. Then I searched as before, but found nothing - not a thing. Well, my dear, I went into my room and kept my candle lighted this time. The third time she called me she was standing on her pillow, shivering with fright, and begged me to bring the light. It was sad, because she was stone blind. She told me how It went hopping around the room, with its legs tied like. And after looking once more and finding nothing, she said I'd have to sleep in the bed with her and bring a chair near the bed and put the lighted candle on it. For a long time we kept awake, and watched and listened, but nothing happened, nothing appeared. We kept awake as long as we could, but at last our eyes grew very heavy, and the lady seemed to feel more easy. So I snuffed out the candle. Out It hopped and kept a jumping on one leg like from one side to the other. We were so much afraid we covered our faces; we dreaded to see It, so we hid our eyes under the sheet, and she clung on to me all shaking; she felt worse because she was blind.

"We fell asleep at daylight, and when I told Monk, the butler, he said it was a corpse, sure - a corpse whose legs had been tied to keep them straight and the cords had not been taken off, the feet not being loosened. Why my own dear mother, that's dead many a year (Heaven bless her departed spirit!) - she would never tell a word that was not true - she saw a ghost hopping in that way, tied-like, jumping around a bed - blue as a blue bag; just after the third day she was buried, and my mother (the Lord bless her soul!) told me the sons went to her grave and loosened the cords and she never came back any more. Isn't it awful? And, bedad, Miss, it's every word true. I can tell you of a young man I knew who looked into a window at midnight (after he had been playing cards, Miss, gambling with the other boys) and saw something awful strange, and was turned by ghosts into a <i>shadow."

This seemed to be a thrilling theme, such as Hawthorne would have been able to weave into the weirdest of weird tales, and I said, "Go on."

"Well, he used to go playing cards about three miles from his home with a lot of young men, for his mother wouldn't have cards played in her house, and she thought it was wicked, and begged him not to play. It's a habit with the young men of Ireland - don't know as it's the same in other countries - and they play for a goose or a chicken. They go to some vacant house to get away from their fathers, they're so against it at home. Why, my brother-in-law used to go often to such a house on the side of a country road. Each man would in turn provide the candles to play by, and as this house was said to be haunted, bedad they had it all to themselves. Well, this last night that ever they played there - it was Tom's own brother that told me this - just as they were going to deal the cards, a tall gentleman came out from a room that had been the kitchen. He walked right up to them - he was dressed in black cloth clothes, and wore a high black hat - and came right between two of the men and told them to deal out the cards. They were too frightened even to speak, so the stranger took the cards himself and dealt around to each man. And afterward he played with them; then he looked at every man in turn and walked out of the room. As soon as he cleared out of the place, the men all went away as quick as ever they could, and didn't stop to put out the lights. Each man cleared with himself and never stopped to look behind. And no one cared to play cards in that house afterward any more. That was Tom's own brother; and now the poor young man who was going home at midnight saw a light in one of the houses by the road, so he turned toward it, thinking to light his pipe. Just before knocking, he looked in at the window. As soon as he peeped in the light