He selected Friday, August 17th, 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 low 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 paralyzed with fear, and finally, to throw off the

winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with white, bleached bones and

one rolling eyeball, 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 OTIS 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

out-witted! 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 oath 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 this 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.

 

 

IV

 

 

 

The next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible excitement

of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect. His nerves were

completely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise. For five

days he kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up the point

of the blood-stain on the library floor. If the Otis family did not want

it, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people on a

low, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciating

the symbolic value of sensuous phenomena. The question of phantasmic

apparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a

different matter, and really not under his control. It was his solemn

duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the large

oriel window on the first and third Wednesdays in every month, and he

did not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations. It is

quite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the other hand,

he was most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural.

For the next three Saturdays, accordingly, he traversed the corridor as

usual between midnight and three o'clock, taking every possible

precaution against being either heard or seen. He removed his boots,

trod as lightly as possible on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a large

black velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun Lubricator for

oiling his chains. I am bound to acknowledge that it was with a good

deal of difficulty that he brought himself to adopt this last mode of

protection. However, one night, while the family were at dinner, he

slipped into Mr. Otis's bedroom and carried off the bottle. He felt a

little humiliated at first, but afterwards was sensible enough to see

that there was a great deal to be said for the invention, and, to a

certain degree, it served his purpose. Still in spite of everything he

was not left unmolested. Strings were continually being stretched across

the corridor, over which he tripped in the dark, and on one occasion,

while dressed for the part of "Black Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley

Woods," he met with a severe fall, through treading on a butter-slide,

which the twins had constructed from the entrance of the Tapestry

Chamber to the top of the oak staircase. This last insult so enraged

him, that he resolved to make one final effort to assert his dignity and

social position, and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians the

next night in his celebrated character of "Reckless Rupert, or the

Headless Earl."

He had not appeared in this disguise for more than seventy years; in

fact, not since he had so frightened pretty Lady Barbara Modish by means

of it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the present Lord

Canterville's grandfather, and ran away to Gretna Green with handsome

Jack Castletown, declaring that nothing in the world would induce her to

marry into a family that allowed such a horrible phantom to walk up and

down the terrace at twilight. Poor Jack was afterwards shot in a duel by

Lord Canterville on Wandsworth Common, and Lady Barbara died of a broken

heart at Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every way, it

had been a great success. It was, however an extremely difficult

"make-up," if I may use such a theatrical expression in connection with

one of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to employ a more

scientific term, the higher-natural world, and it took him fully three

hours to make his preparations. At last everything was ready, and he was

very pleased with his appearance. The big leather riding-boots that went

with the dress were just a little too large for him, and he could only

find one of the two horse-pistols, but, on the whole, he was quite

satisfied, and at a quarter-past one he glided out of the wainscoting

and crept down the corridor. On reaching the room occupied by the twins,

which I should mention was called the Blue Bed Chamber, on account of

the colour of its hangings, he found the door just ajar. Wishing to make

an effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of water

fell right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing his

left shoulder by a couple of inches. At the same moment he heard stifled

shrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed. The shock to his

nervous system was so great that he fled back to his room as hard as he

could go, and the next day he was laid up with a severe cold. The only

thing that at all consoled him in the whole affair was the fact that he

had not brought his head with him, for, had he done so, the consequences

might have been very serious.

He now gave up all hope of ever frightening this rude American family,

and contented himself, as a rule, with creeping about the passages in

list slippers, with a thick red muffler round his throat for fear of

draughts, and a small arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by the

twins. The final blow he received occurred on the 19th of September. He

had gone down-stairs to the great entrance-hall, feeling sure that

there, at any rate, he would be quite unmolested, and was amusing

himself by making satirical remarks on the large Saroni photographs of

the United States Minister and his wife which had now taken the place of

the Canterville family pictures. He was simply but neatly clad in a long

shroud, spotted with churchyard mould, had tied up his jaw with a strip

of yellow linen, and carried a small lantern and a sexton's spade. In

fact, he was dressed for the character of "Jonas the Graveless, or the

Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn," one of his most remarkable

impersonations, and one which the Cantervilles had every reason to

remember, as it was the real origin of their quarrel with their

neighbour, Lord Rufford. It was about a quarter-past two o'clock in

the morning, and, as far as he could ascertain, no one was stirring. As

he was strolling towards the library, however, to see if there were any

traces left of the blood-stain, suddenly there leaped out on him from a

dark corner two figures, who waved their arms wildly above their heads,

and shrieked out "BOO!" in his ear.

Seized with a panic, which, under the circumstances, was only natural,

he rushed for the staircase, but found Washington Otis waiting for him

there with the big garden-syringe, and being thus hemmed in by his

enemies on every side, and driven almost to bay, he vanished into the

great iron stove, which, fortunately for him, was not lit, and had to

make his way home through the flues and chimneys, arriving at his own

room in a terrible state of dirt, disorder, and despair.

 

After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition. The twins

lay in wait for him on several occasions, and strewed the passages with

nutshells every night to the great annoyance of their parents and the

servants, but it was of no avail. It was quite evident that his feelings

were so wounded that he would not appear. Mr. Otis consequently resumed

his great work on the history of the Democratic Party, on which he had

been engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organized a wonderful

clam-bake, which amazed the whole county; the boys took to lacrosse

euchre, poker, and other American national games, and Virginia rode

about the lanes on her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire,

who had come to spend the last week of his holidays at Canterville

Chase. It was generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, in

fact, Mr. Otis wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who,

in reply, expressed his great pleasure at the news, and sent his best

congratulations to the Minister's worthy wife.

 

The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in the

house, and though now almost an invalid, was by no means ready to let

matters rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests was the

young Duke of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, had

once bet a hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury that he would play dice

with the Canterville ghost, and was found the next morning lying on the

floor of the card-room in such a helpless paralytic state that, though

he lived on to a great age, he was never able to say anything again but

"Double Sixes." The story was well known at the time, though, of course,

out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt

was made to hush it up, and a full account of all the circumstances

connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's

_Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends_. The ghost, then,

was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence

over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his

own first cousin having been married _en secondes noces_ to the Sieur de

Bulkeley, from whom, as every one knows, the Dukes of Cheshire are

lineally descended. Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing to

Virginia's little lover in his celebrated impersonation of "The Vampire

Monk, or the Bloodless Benedictine," a performance so horrible that when

old Lady Startup saw it, which she did on one fatal New Year's Eve, in

the year 1764, she went off into the most piercing shrieks, which

culminated in violent apoplexy, and died in three days, after

disinheriting the Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations, and

leaving all her money to her London apothecary. At the last moment,

however, his terror of the twins prevented his leaving his room, and the

little Duke slept in peace under the great feathered canopy in the Royal

Bedchamber, and dreamed of Virginia.

 

 

V

A few days after this, Virginia and her curly-haired cavalier went out

riding on Brockley meadows, where she tore her habit so badly in getting

through a hedge that, on their return home, she made up her mind to go

up by the back staircase so as not to be seen. As she was running past

the Tapestry Chamber, the door of which happened to be open, she fancied

she saw some one inside, and thinking it was her mother's maid, who

sometimes used to bring her work there, looked in to ask her to mend

her habit. To her immense surprise, however, it was the Canterville

Ghost himself! He was sitting by the window, watching the ruined gold of

the yellowing trees fly through the air, and the red leaves dancing

madly down the long avenue. His head was leaning on his hand, and his

whole attitude was one of extreme depression. Indeed, so forlorn, and so

much out of repair did he look, that little Virginia, whose first idea

had been to run away and lock herself in her room, was filled with pity,

and determined to try and comfort him. So light was her footfall, and so

deep his melancholy, that he was not aware of her presence till she

spoke to him.

 

"I am so sorry for you," she said, "but my brothers are going back to

Eton to-morrow, and then, if you behave yourself, no one will annoy

you."

 

"It is absurd asking me to behave myself," he answered, looking round in

astonishment at the pretty little girl who had ventured to address him,

"quite absurd. I must rattle my chains, and groan through keyholes, and

walk about at night, if that is what you mean. It is my only reason for

existing."

 

"It is no reason at all for existing, and you know you have been very

wicked. Mrs. Umney told us, the first day we arrived here, that you had

killed your wife."

 

"Well, I quite admit it," said the Ghost, petulantly, "but it was a

purely family matter, and concerned no one else."

 

"It is very wrong to kill any one," said Virginia, who at times had a

sweet puritan gravity, caught from some old New England ancestor.

 

"Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics! My wife was very

plain, never had my ruffs properly starched, and knew nothing about

cookery. Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a magnificent

pricket, and do you know how she had it sent to table? However, it is

no matter now, for it is all over, and I don't think it was very nice of

her brothers to starve me to death, though I did kill her."

 

"Starve you to death? Oh, Mr. Ghost--I mean Sir Simon, are you hungry? I

have a sandwich in my case. Would you like it?"

 

"No, thank you, I never eat anything now; but it is very kind of you,

all the same, and you are much nicer than the rest of your horrid, rude,

vulgar, dishonest family."

 

"Stop!" cried Virginia, stamping her foot, "it is you who are rude, and

horrid, and vulgar, and as for dishonesty, you know you stole the

paints out of my box to try and furbish up that ridiculous blood-stain

in the library. First you took all my reds, including the vermilion, and

I couldn't do any more sunsets, then you took the emerald-green and the

chrome-yellow, and finally I had nothing left but indigo and Chinese

white, and could only do moonlight scenes, which are always depressing

to look at, and not at all easy to paint. I never told on you, though I

was very much annoyed, and it was most ridiculous, the whole thing; for

who ever heard of emerald-green blood?"

 

"Well, really," said the Ghost, rather meekly, "what was I to do? It is

a very difficult thing to get real blood nowadays, and, as your brother

began it all with his Paragon Detergent, I certainly saw no reason why I

should not have your paints. As for colour, that is always a matter of

taste: the Cantervilles have blue blood, for instance, the very bluest

in England; but I know you Americans don't care for things of this

kind."

 

"You know nothing about it, and the best thing you can do is to emigrate

and improve your mind. My father will be only too happy to give you a

free passage, and though there is a heavy duty on spirits of every kind,

there will be no difficulty about the Custom House, as the officers are

all Democrats. Once in New York, you are sure to be a great success. I

know lots of people there who would give a hundred thousand dollars to

have a grandfather, and much more than that to have a family ghost."

 

"I don't think I should like America."

 

"I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities," said Virginia,

satirically.

 

"No ruins! no curiosities!" answered the Ghost; "you have your navy and

your manners."

 

"Good evening; I will go and ask papa to get the twins an extra week's

holiday."

 

"Please don't go, Miss Virginia," he cried; "I am so lonely and so

unhappy, and I really don't know what to do. I want to go to sleep and I

cannot."

 

"That's quite absurd! You have merely to go to bed and blow out the

candle. It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at

church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping. Why, even

babies know how to do that, and they are not very clever."

 

"I have not slept for three hundred years," he said sadly, and

Virginia's beautiful blue eyes opened in wonder; "for three hundred

years I have not slept, and I am so tired."