Penguin Book Of Indian Ghost Stories (2 page)

Ruskin Bond

At a ruin upon a hill outside the town,

I found some shelter from a summer storm.

An alcove in a wall, moss-green and redolent of bats,

But refuge from the wind and rain; and entrance once

To what had been a home, a mansion large and spacious;

Now dream-wrecked, desolate.

And as I stood there, pondering

Upon the mutability of stone, I thought I heard

A haunting cry, insistent on the wind—

‘Oh son, please let me in,

Oh son, please let me in ….’

Just the soughing of the wind

In the bending, keening pines;

Just the rain sibilant on old stones;

Or was it something more, a voice

Trapped in the woof of time, imploring still,

And lingering at some door which stood

Where now I sheltered on a barren hill.

At home, that night, I settled down

To read, the bedlamp on. The night was warm,

The storm had passed and all was still outside,

When something, someone, moved about, came tapping on the door.

‘Who’s there?’ I called.

The tapping stopped. And then,

Entreating, came that voice again:

‘Oh son, please let me in!’

‘Who’s there, who’s there?’ I cried,

And crossed the cold stone floor,

Paused for a moment, hand on catch,

Then opened wide the door.

Bright moonlight streamed across the sill

And crept along the stair;

I peered outside, to right and left:

Bright road returned my stare.

But long before the dawn, I heard

That tapping once again;

Not on the door this time, but nearer still—

Now rapping quickly on the window-pane.

I lay quite still and held my breath

And thought—surely it’s the old oak tree,

Leaves gently tapping on the glass,

Or a moth, or some great beetle winging past.

But through the darkness, pressing in,

As though in me it sought its will,

As though in me it yet would dwell—

‘Oh son, please let me in ….

Oh son, please let me in!’

F.W. Bain

(Translated from the Sanskrit by F.W. Bain (1901), in
A Digit of the Moon
.)

There was once a Brahman named Kritákrita
¹
who neglected the study of the Wédas, and walked in the black path, abandoning all his duties,
²
and associating with gamblers, harlots, and outcasts. And he frequented the cemeteries at night, and became familiar with ghosts and vampires and dead bodies, and impure and unholy rites and incantations. And one night, amid the flaming of funeral pyres and the reek of burning corpses, a certain vampire
³
of his acquaintance said to him: ‘I am hungry: bring me fresh meat to devour, or I will tear you in pieces.’ Then Kritákrita said: ‘I will bring it, but not for nothing. What will you give me for it?’ The vampire replied: ‘Bring me a newly slain Brahman, and I will teach you a spell for raising the dead.’ But Kritákrita said: ‘That is not enough.’ And they haggled in the cemetery about the price. At last that abandoned Brahman said: ‘Throw in a pair of dice that will enable me always to win at play, and I will bring you the flesh you require.’ So the vampire said: ‘Be it so.’ Then Kritákrita went away, and knowing no other resource secretly murdered his own brother, and brought him to the cemetery at midnight. And the vampire kept his word, giving him the dice, and teaching him the spell.

Then some time afterwards, Kritákrita said to himself: ‘I will try the efficacy of this spell that the vampire has taught me.’ So he
procured the body of a dead Chándála,
⁴
and taking it at the dead of night to the cemetery, placed it on the ground, and began to recite the spell. But when he had got halfway through, he looked at the corpse, and saw its left arm, and leg, and eye moving horribly with life, the other half being still dead. And he was so terrified at the sight, that he utterly forgot the rest of the spell, and leaped up and ran away. But the corpse jumped up also, and a vampire entered its dead half, and it rushed rapidly after him, shuffling on one leg, and rolling its one eye, and yelling indistinctly: ‘
Underdone, overdone, undone!’
⁵
But Kritákrita fled at full speed to his house, and getting into bed lay there trembling. And after a while he fell asleep. And then suddenly he awoke, hearing a noise, and he looked and saw the door open, and the corpse of that dead Chándála came in, and shuffled swiftly towards him on its left leg, rolling its left eye, with its dead half hanging down beside it, and crying in a terrible voice: ‘
Underdone, overdone, undone.’
And Kritákrita sprang out of bed, and ran out by another door, and mounting a horse, fled as fast as he could to another city a great way off.

And there he thought: ‘Here I am safe.’ So he went day after day to the gambling hall, and playing with his dice, won great sums of money, and lived at his ease, feasting himself and others. But one night, when he was sitting among the gamblers in the gambling hall, throwing the dice, he heard behind him a noise of shuffling. And he looked round, and saw, coming swiftly towards him on one leg, the corpse of that dead Chándála, with its dead half rotting and hanging down, and its left eye rolling in anger, and calling out in a voice of thunder: ‘
Underdone, overdone, undone.’
And he rose up with a shriek, and leaped over the table, and fled away by an opposite door and left that city, and ran as fast as he could, constantly looking behind him through the forest for many days and nights, never daring to stop even to take breath, till he reached
another city a long way off. And there he remained, disguised and concealed, as it were, in a hole. But all the gamblers in that gambling saloon died of fear.

And after some time he again accumulated wealth by gambling in that city, and lived in extravagance at his ease. But one night, when he was sitting with a courtesan whom he loved, in the inner room of her house, he heard the noise of shuffling. And he looked round, and saw once more the corpse of that dead Chándála coming swiftly towards him on one leg, with its dead half, from whose bones the flesh had rotted away, hanging down, and its left eye blazing with flames of rage, calling out with a voice like the scream of Ráwana: ‘
Underdone, overdone, undone!’
Then that woman then and there abandoned the body in her terror. And Kritákrita rose up, and ran out by a door, which led out upon the balcony, while the Chándála hastened after him. And finding no other outlet, Kritákrita flung himself down into the street, and was dashed to pieces, and died.

John Lang

I cannot leave Meerut without taking the reader to the churchyard of that station.

An Indian churchyard presents a very different aspect to a churchyard in England, or elsewhere. The tombs, for the most part, are very much larger. When first erected, or newly done up, they are generally, of
chunam
(plaster), which somewhat resembles Roman cement; but after exposure to only one rainy season, and one hot weather they become begrimed and almost black. The birds, flying from structure to structure, carry with them the seeds of various plants and herbs, and these if not speedily removed, take root and grow apace. A stranger wandering in the churchyard of Meerut might fancy that he is amidst ruins of stupendous antiquity, if he were not aware of the fact that fifty years have scarcely elapsed since the first Christian corpse was deposited within those walls which now encircle some five acres of ground, literally covered with tombs, in every stage of preservation and decay. I was conducted in my ramble through the Meerut churchyard by an old and very intelligent pensioner, who had originally been a private in a regiment of Light Dragoons. This old man lived by the churchyard, that is to say, he derived a very comfortable income from looking after and keeping in repair the tombs of those whose friends are now far away; but whose thoughts, nevertheless, still turn occasionally to that Christian enclosure.

‘I get, sir, for this business,’ said the old man, pointing with his stick to a very magnificent edifice, ‘two pounds a year. It is not much, but it is what I asked, and it pays me very well, sir. And if you should go back to England, and ever come across any of her family, I hope, sir, you will tell them that I do my duty by the grave;
not that I think they have any doubt of it, for they must know—or, leastways, they have been told by them they can believe—that if I never received a farthing from them I would always keep it in repair, as it is now. God bless her, and rest her soul! She was as good and as beautiful a woman as ever trod this earth.’

‘Who was she?’

‘The wife of an officer in my old regiment, sir. I was in her husband’s troop. He’s been out twice since the regiment went home, only to visit this grave; for he has long since sold out of the service, and is a rich gentleman. The last time he came was about five years ago. He comes what you call incog.; nobody knows who he is, and he never calls on anybody. All that he now does in this country is to come here—stop for three days and nights—putting up at the dak bungalow, and spending his time here, crying. It is there that he stands—where you stand now—fixing his eyes on the tablet, and sometimes laying his head down on the stone, and calling out her name: “Ellen! Ellen! My own dear Ellen!” He did love her surely, sir.’

‘Judging from the age of the lady—twenty-three, and the date of her death—he must be rather an old man now.’

‘Yes, sir. He must be more than sixty; but his love for her memory is just as strong as ever. She died of a fever, poor thing. And for that business,’ he again pointed with his stick to a tomb admirably preserved, ‘I used to get two pounds ten shillings a year. That is the tomb of a little girl of five years old, the daughter of a civilian. The parents are now dead. They must be, for I have not heard of ’em or received anything from ’em for more than six years past.’

‘Then, who keeps the tomb in repair?’

‘I do, sir. When I am here with my trowel and mortar, and whitewash, why shouldn’t I make the outside of the little lady’s last home on earth, as bright and as fair as those of her friends and neighbours? I have a nursery of ’em, as I call it, over in yonder corner—the children’s corner. Some of ’em are paid for—others not; but when I’m there, doing what’s needful, I touch ’em up all alike—bless their dear little souls. And somehow or other every good action meets its own reward, and often when we least expect
it. Now, for instance, sir, about three years and a half ago, I was over there putting the nursery in good order, when up comes a grey-headed gentleman, and looks about the graves. Suddenly he stopped opposite to one and began to read, and presently he took out his pocket-handkerchief and put it to his eyes.

“Did you know that little child, sir?” said I, when it was not improper to speak. “Know it?” said he, “Yes. It was my own little boy.” “Dear me, sir!” I answered him. “And you are, then, Lieutenant Statterleigh?” “I was,” said he, “but I am now the colonel of a regiment that has just come to India, and is now stationed at Dinapore. But tell me, who keeps this grave in order?” “I do, sir,” says I. “At whose expense?” says he. “At nobody’s, sir,” says I. “It is kept in order by the dictates of my own conscience. Your little boy is in good company here; and while I am whitening the tombs of the other little dears, I have it not in my heart to pass by his, without giving it a touch also.”

‘Blest, if he didn’t take me to the house where he was staying, and give me five hundred rupees! That sort of thing has happened to me more than five or six times in my life—not that I ever hope or think of being paid for such work and labour when I am about it.’

‘That must have been a magnificent affair,’ said I, pointing to a heap of red stone and marble. ‘But how comes it in ruins?’

‘It is just as it was left, sir. The lady died. Her husband, a judge here, took on terribly; and ordered that tomb for her. Some of the stone was brought from Agra, some from Delhi; but before it was put together and properly erected he married again, and the work was stopped. I was present at the funeral. There was no getting him away after the service was over, and at last they had to resort to force and violence, in fact, to carry him out of the yard. But the shallowest waters, as the proverb says, sir, always make the most noise, while those are the deepest that flow on silently. Yonder is a funny tomb, sir,’ continued the old man, again pointing with his stick. ‘There!-close to the tomb of the lady which I first showed you.’

‘How do you mean, funny?’ I asked, observing nothing particular in the structure.

‘Well, sir, it is funny only on account of the history of the two gentlemen whose remains it covers,’ replied the old man, leading me to the tomb. ‘One of these young gentlemen, sir, was an officer—a lieutenant—in the Bengal Horse Artillery; the other was an ensign in a Royal Regiment of the Line. There was a ball; and by some accident that beautiful lady of our regiment had engaged herself to both of them for the same dance. When the time came, both went up and claimed her hand. Neither of them would give way; and the lady not wishing to offend either by showing a preference, and finding herself in a dilemma, declined to dance with either. Not satisfied with this, they retired to the veranda, where they had some high words, and the next morning they met—behind the church there—and fought a duel, in which both of them fell, mortally wounded. They had scarcely time to shake hands with one another, when they died. In those days matters of the kind were very easily hushed up; and it was given out—though everybody knew to the contrary—that one had died of fever, and the other of cholera; and they were both buried side by side in one grave; and this tomb was erected over them at the joint expense of the two regiments to which they belonged. I get ten rupees a year for keeping this grave in order.’

‘Who pays you?’

‘A gentleman in Calcutta, a relation of one of them. I’ll tell you what it is, sir. This foolish affair, which ended so fatally, sowed the seeds of the fever that carried off that beautiful and good woman, yonder. She was maddened by the thought of being the cause of the quarrel in which they lost their lives. I knew them both, sir, from seeing them so often on the parade-ground, and at the bandstand; very fine young men they were, sir. Yes; here they sleep in peace.’

‘Whose tombs are those?’ I asked, pointing to some two or three hundred, which were all exactly alike, and in three straight lines: in other words, three deep.

‘Those are the tombs of the men of the Cameronians, sir. These graves are all uniform, as you observe. Fever made sad havoc with that regiment. They lost some three companies in all. Behind them are the tombs of the men of the Buffs, and behind them the tombs
of the men of other Royal Regiments of Infantry—all uniform, you see, sir; but those of each regiment, rather differently shaped. To the right, flanking the infantry tombs, are the tombs of the men of the Cavalry, Eighth and Eleventh Dragoons, and Sixteenth Lancers. In the rear of the Cavalry are the tombs of the Horse and Foot Artillery men—all uniform, you see, sir. Egad! If they could rise just now, what a pretty little army they would form—of all ranks—some thousands of ’em, and well officered, too, they would be; and here a man to lead them. This is the tomb of Major General Considine, one of the most distinguished men in the British army. He was the officer that the Duke of Wellington fixed upon to bring the Fifty-third Foot into good order, when they ran riot in Gibraltar, some years ago. This is the tomb of General Considine, rotting and going rapidly to decay, though it was only built in the year eighteen hundred and forty-five.

‘A great deal of money is squandered in the churchyards in India. Tombs are erected, and at a great expense frequently. After they are once put up it is very seldom that they are visited or heeded. Tens of thousands of pounds have been thrown away on the vast pile of bricks and mortar and stone that you now see within this enclosure; and, with the exception of a few, all are crumbling away. A Hindoo said to me the other day, in this graveyard, “Why don’t you English burn your dead, as we do, instead of leaving their graves here, to tell us how much you can neglect them, and how little you care for them? What is the use of whitening a few sepulchres amidst this mass of black ruin?” I had no answer to give the fellow, sir. Indeed, the same thought had often occurred to me, while at work in this wilderness.

‘Do you not think, sir, that the government, through its own executive officers, ought to expend a few hundred pounds every year on these yards, in order to avert such a scandal and disgrace? I do not speak interestedly. I have as much already on my hands as I can perform, if not more; but I do often think that there is really some reason in the Hindoo’s remarks. All these graves that you see here so blackened and left to go to ruin, are the graves of men who have served their country and died in its service. Very little money would keep the yard free from this grass and these rank weeds,
and very little more would make all these tombs fit to be seen; for neither labour nor whitewash is expensive in this part of the world. One would hardly suppose, on looking about him just now, that the sons and daughters of some of the best families in England are buried here, and that in a very short time no one will be able to distinguish the spot where each is lying: so defaced and so much alike will all the ruins become. What, sir, I repeat, is the use of throwing away money in building tombs, if they are not kept in repair? Instead of laying out fifty or a hundred pounds on a thing like this, why not lay out only five pounds on a single head-stone, and put the rest out at interest to keep it up?’

‘Or a small slab with an iron railing round it?’

‘Ah, sir; but then you would require an European to remain here, and a couple of native watchmen to see that the railings were not carried off by the villagers. As it is, they never allow an iron railing to remain longer than a week, or so long as that. They watch for an opportunity, jump over this low wall, and tear them down, or wrench them off and away with them.’

‘But surely there is someone to watch the yard?’

‘Yes, two sweepers. And when it is found out that a grave has been plundered of its railings, or that the little marble tablet which some have, has been taken away, they deny all knowledge of the matter, and are simply discharged, and two others are put into their places. It would not be much to build a comfortable little bungalow for an European—a man like myself, for instance—and give the yard into his charge, holding him responsible for any damage done, and requiring him to see that the grave of every Christian—man, woman, and child—is kept in good order. But horrible as is the condition of this churchyard—looking as it does, for the most part, more like a receptacle for the bodies of felons than those of good and brave soldiers and civilians, and their wives and children—it is really nothing when compared with the graveyard at Kernaul.

‘Kernaul you know, sir, was our great frontier station some twenty years ago. It was, in fact, as large a station as Umballah now is. It had its church, its playhouse, its barracks for cavalry, infantry, and artillery, its mess-houses, magnificent bungalows, and all the
rest of it. For some reason or other—but what that reason was I could never discover, nor anybody else to my knowledge—the station was abandoned with all its buildings, which cost the government and private individuals lakhs and lakhs of rupees. You may be pretty sure that the villagers were not long in plundering every house that was unprotected. Away went the doors and windows, the venetians, and every bar, bolt, nail, or bit of iron upon which they could lay their fingers; not content with this, the brutes set fire to many or nearly all of the thatched bungalows, in the hope of picking up something amongst the ruins. The church—the largest and best in the Upper Provinces, with no one to take care of it—was one of the first places that suffered. Like the other buildings, it was despoiled of its doors, windows, benches, bolts, nails, etc., and they carried away every marble tablet therein erected, and removeable without much difficulty. And the same kind of havoc was made in the burial-ground—the tombs were smashed, some of the graves, and especially the vaults, opened; and plainly enough was it to be seen that the low caste men had broken open the coffins and examined their contents, in the hope of finding a ring, or an earring, or some other ornament on the person of the dead.

‘I went there a year ago on some business connected with the grave of a lady whose husband wished her remains to be removed to Meerut, and placed in the same vault with those of his sister, who died here about eighteen months since. I was not successful, however. There was no trace of her tomb. It was of stone, and had been taken away bodily, to pave the elephant shed or camel yard, perhaps, of some rich native in the neighbourhood. Looking around me, as I did, and remembering Kernaul when it was crowded with Europeans, it seemed to me as though the British had been turned out of the country by the natives, and that the most sacred spot in the cantonment had been desecrated out of spite or revenge. And it is just what they would do if ever they got the upper hand.’