Wandering Ghosts

ns of trust. He was not the man to be led away by an idle tale, and the mere fact that he was willing to join me in the investigation was proof that he thought there was something seriously w

o lose passengers over

he came up to me, and drew me aside from the beat of the othe

a pretty rough time of it. You see I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will ask you to sign your name to a

stood a little further down the passage, watching us, with his usual grin, as though certain t

or," he suggested. "One of us can sit on it. Not

of the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By the captain's advice I lighted my reading lantern, and placed it so that it shone upon t

y soon accomplished, as it consisted merely in looking beneath the lower

eing to get in," I said, "or for

If we see anything now, it must be eithe

the edge of th

was known to have been a little touched, and he had taken his passage without the knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the middle of the night, and threw himself overboard, before the officer who had the watch

n happens?" I remark

it happening on board of other ships. Well, as I was saying, that occurred in March. On t

to turn very slowly upon the screw-so slowly, however, that I was not sure it moved at all. I watched it intently, fixin

tone of conviction. "No, it doe

would have opened during the day; but I found it th

certainly loosened, for by an eff

sea running in. I came below and found everything flooded, the water pouring in every time she rolled, and the whole port swinging from the top bolts-not the porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut it, but the water did some damage. Ever since that the place smells of

the cabin. "Now, to smell like this, the place must be damp," I continued, "and yet when I examine

e of the bed, and the captain at the same moment started to his feet with a loud cry of surprise. I had turned with the intention of taking down the lantern to examine it, when I heard his exclamation, and immediately afterwards his call for help. I sprang towards him. He was wrestling with all his might with the brass loop of the port. It seemed to turn aga

voice, his eyes almost starting from his head. "Hold the

rang upon the lower bed, and seized s

pery, oozy, horrible thing-the dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face. I wrestled with the de

him on his feet his face was white and his lips set. It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow

my disturbed senses that it made its exit through the open port, though how that was possible, considering the smallness of the aperture, is more than any one can tell. I lay a long time up

ed to raise the captain. He groaned and moved, and at last c

cheme of running half a dozen four-inch screws through the door of 105; and if ever you take a passage in the Kamtschat

in was very silent, and never sailed again in that ship, though it is still running. And I will not sail in her either. It was a very disagreeable exp

ATERS OF

ATERS OF

than upon my possessing any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am too imaginative, and the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes, connected with each other

en destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from the aqueduct supplies great fountains, and runs down into huge oblong basins in the terraced gardens, one below the other, each surrounded by a broad pavement of marble between the water and the flower-beds. The waste surplus finally escapes through an artificial grotto, some thirty yards l

how I used to appeal for explanations to Judith, my Welsh nurse. She dealt in a strange mythology of her own, and peopled the gardens with griffins, dragons, good genii and bad, and filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a

uld threaten that, if I did not go to sleep, the Woman of the Water

my spirits. I was silent and sad from my childhood. There was a great clock-tower above, from which the hours rang dismally during the day and tolled like a knell in the dead of night. There was no light nor life in the house, for my mother was a helpless invalid, and my father had grown melancholy in his long task of caring for her. He was a thin, dark ma

near her feet, and she would ask me what I had been doing, and what I wanted to do. I dare say she saw already the seeds of a

the Welsh nurse was sitting sewing in the next room. Suddenly I heard her groan, and say in a strange

to her skirts. I can remember the look i

e crooned, working herself in her chair. "One-two-a l

he took me back to bed and sang me

ght. It was a great room, my day nursery, full of sun when there was any; and when the days were dark it was the most cheerful place in the house. My mother grew rapidly worse, and I was transfer

Welshwoman. And she was right. My father took the room after my mo

ay the light after putting me to bed. Then she took me up again, and wrapped me in a little gown, and led me away to my father's roo

d never seemed to be a very bad place to me, nor all the people to be miserable sinners, even when I was most melancholy. I do not remember that any one ever did me any great injustice, nor that I was ever oppressed or ill-treated in any way, even by the boys at school. I was sad, I suppose, because my childhood was

fe to bet against me, no matter what the appearances might be. I became discouraged and listless in everything. I gave up the idea of competing for any distinction at the University, comforting myself with the thought that I could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree. The day before the examination began I fell ill; and when at last I recovered, after a narrow escape from death, I turned my back upon Oxford, and went down alone to visit the old

f my absence. Nothing earthly could affect those old grey walls that had fought the elements for so many centuries. The garden was more wild than I remembered it; the marble causeways about the pools looked more yellow and damp than of old, and the whole p

eper, and to call them by name. My old nurse I knew at once. She had grown very grey since she heard the coffins fall in the nursery f

I asked, trying to laugh a little. "D

swered the Welshwom

laughed. But old Judith turned ve

cing behind her at the ancient housekeeper, who tottered

nd and muttering, "The heavy one-all of lead," and then leading a little boy through the long corridors to see his father lying dead in a great easy-chair before a smouldering fire. So we went over the house, and I chose the rooms where I would live; and the servan

the room I had selected for my study, and sat down in a deep chair, under a bright light, to think, or to let

people always like running water and the sound of it at night, though I cannot tell why. I sat and listened in the gloom, for it was dark below, and the pale moon had not yet climbed over the hills in front of me, though all the air above was light with her rising beams. Slowly the white halo in the eastern sky ascended in an arch above the wooded crests, making the outline of the mountains more intensely black by contrast, as though the head of some great white saint were rising from behind a screen in a vast cathedral, throwing misty glories from bel

at me as I sat still upon my bench. She was close to me-so close that I could have touched her with my hand. But I was transfixed and helpless. She stood still for a moment, but her expression did not change. Then she passed swiftly away, and my hair stood up on m

he direction in which I thought the figure had gone; but there was nothing to be seen-nothing but the broad paths, the tall, dark evergreen hedges, the tossing water of the fountains and the smooth pool below. I fell back upon the seat and recalled the face I had seen. Strange to say, now that the first impression had passed, there was nothing startling in the reco

ugh the shadow and through the moonlight; and I crossed the water by the rustic bridge above the artificial grotto, and climbed slowly up again to the highest terrace by the other side. The air seemed sweeter, and I was very calm, s

e sighed, and gone to bed more sad than ever, at such a melancholy conclusion. To-night I felt happy, almost for the first time in my life. The gloomy old study seemed cheerful when I went in. The old pictures on the walls smiled at me, and I sat down

my windows to the summer air, and looked down at the garden, at the stretches of gre

of this place," I exclaimed.

ught of most was the ghostly figure I had seen in the garden that first night after my arrival. I went out every evening and wandered through the walks and paths; but, try as I might, I did not see my vision again. At last, after many days, the memory grew more faint, and my old moody nature gradually overcame the temporary sense of lightness I had experie