Weird and Witty Tales of Mystery (24 page)

"Perhaps he kept his countenance veiled?" queried the Duchess, who was
beginning to remember that she never did like ghost stories.

"That was what I was never able to find out. I have asked several
people who saw the ghost, and none of them could tell me anything about
its face, and yet while in its presence they never noticed its
features, and never remarked on their absence or concealment. It was
only afterward when they tried to recall calmly all the circumstances
of meeting with the mysterious stranger, that they became aware that
they had not seen its face. And they could not say whether the features
were covered, or whether they were wanting, or what the trouble was.
They knew only that the face was never seen. And no matter how often
they might see it, they never fathomed this mystery. To this day nobody
knows whether the ghost which used to haunt the little old house in
Salem had a face, or what manner of face it had."

"How awfully weird!" said Baby Van Rensselaer. "And why did the ghost
go away?"

"I haven't said it went away," answered Uncle Larry, with much dignity.

"But you said it
used
to haunt the little old house at Salem, so I
supposed it had moved. Didn't it?"

"You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet Duncan used to spend most of
his summer vacations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered him at all,
for he was the master of the house—much to his disgust, because he
wanted to see for himself the mysterious tenant at will of his
property. But he never saw it, never. He arranged with friends to call
him whenever it might appear, and he slept in the next room with the
door open; and yet when their frightened cries waked him the ghost was
gone, and his only reward was to hear reproachful sighs as soon as he
went back to bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not fair of
Eliphalet to seek an introduction which was plainly unwelcome."

Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by getting up and tucking a
heavy rug snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the sky was now
overcast and gray and the air was damp and penetrating.

"One fine spring morning," pursued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet Duncan
received great news. I told you that there was a title in the family in
Scotland, and that Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger
son. Well, it happened that all Eliphalet's father's brothers and
uncles had died off without male issue except the eldest son of the
eldest, and he, of course, bore the title, and was Baron Duncan of
Duncan. Now the great news that Eliphalet Duncan received in New York
one fine spring morning was that Baron Duncan and his only son had been
yachting in the Hebrides, and they had been caught in a black squall,
and they were both dead. So my friend Eliphalet Duncan inherited the
title and the estates."

"How romantic!" said the Duchess. "So he was a baron!"

"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he was a baron if he chose. But he
didn't choose."

"More fool he," said Dear Jones sententiously.

"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "I'm not so sure of that. You see,
Eliphalet Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyes
to the main chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck until
he could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the
Scotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the late
Lord Duncan, having married money, kept up such state as he could out
of the revenues of the dowry of Lady Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decided
that he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in New York, living
comfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland, living
scantily on his title."

"But he kept his title?" asked the Duchess.

"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he kept it quiet. I knew it, and a
friend or two more. But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put Baron
Duncan of Duncan, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, on his shingle."

"What has all this got to do with your ghost?" asked Dear Jones
pertinently.

"Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal with another ghost. Eliphalet
was very learned in spirit lore—perhaps because he owned the haunted
house at Salem, perhaps because he was a Scotchman by descent. At all
events, he had made a special study of the wraiths and white ladies and
banshees and bogies of all kinds whose sayings and doings and warnings
are recorded in the annals of the Scottish nobility. In fact, he was
acquainted with the habits of every reputable spook in the Scotch
peerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan ghost attached to the
person of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of Duncan."

"So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also a
haunted man in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.

"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem
ghost, although it had one peculiarity in common with its
trans-Atlantic fellow-spook. It never appeared to the holder of the
title, just as the other never was visible to the owner of the house.
In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all. It was a guardian
angel only. Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on Baron
Duncan of Duncan, and warn him of impending evil. The traditions of the
house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt a
premonition of ill fortune. Some of them had yielded and withdrawn from
the venture they had undertaken, and it had failed dismally. Some had
been obstinate, and had hardened their hearts, and had gone on reckless
of defeat and to death. In no case had a Lord Duncan been exposed to
peril without fair warning."

"Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off
the Hebrides?" asked Dear Jones.

"Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There is
extant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes
before he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he had
to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up the trip.
Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, the latter
would have been spared a journey across the Atlantic."

"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron
died?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.

"How did he come over," queried Dear Jones—"in the steerage, or as a
cabin passenger?"

"I don't know," answered Uncle Larry calmly, "and Eliphalet, he didn't
know. For as he was in danger, and stood in no need of warning, he
couldn't tell whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was on
the watch for it all the time. But he never got any proof of its
presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, just
before the Fourth of July. He took a friend down with him—a young
fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was
fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little
unpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten
years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn't likely to be
much frightened by a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on
the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military
law. A little after twelve o'clock, just as they began to think it was
about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house.
It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a
name to. It was an indeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of
sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at
Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet
knew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died
away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its
intensity. Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he
felt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraith
of the Duncans."

"Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?"
inquired the Duchess anxiously.

"Both of them were there," answered Uncle Larry. "You see, one of them
belonged to the house and had to be there all the time, and the other
was attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow him
there; wherever he was there was the ghost also. But Eliphalet, he had
scarcely time to think this out when he heard both sounds again, not
one after another, but both together, and something told him—some sort
of an instinct he had—that those two ghosts didn't agree, didn't get
on together, didn't exactly hit it off; in fact, that they were
quarreling."

"Quarreling ghosts! Well, I never!" was Baby Van Rensselaer's remark.

"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity," said
Dear Jones.

And the Duchess added, "It would certainly be setting a better
example."

"You know," resumed Uncle Larry, "that two waves of light or of sound
may interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these
rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or
darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went
into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic
manifestations, a regular dark séance. A tambourine was played upon, a
bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room."

"Where did they get the banjo?" asked Dear Jones sceptically.

"I don't know. Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine.
You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical
instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on
the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do
you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on
harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines.
These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all the modern
improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own
musical weapons. At all events, they had them there in the little old
house at Salem the night Eliphalet and his friend came down. And they
played on them and they rang the bell, and they rapped here, there, and
everywhere. And they kept it up all night."

"All night?" asked the awe-stricken Duchess.

"All night long," said Uncle Larry solemnly; "and the next night, too.
Eliphalet did not get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On the
second night the house ghost was seen by the officer; on the third
night it showed itself again; and the next morning the officer packed
his grip-sack and took the first train to Boston. He was a New Yorker,
but he said he'd sooner go to Boston than see that ghost again.
Eliphalet, he wasn't scared at all, partly because he never saw either
the domiciliary or the titular spook, and partly because he felt
himself on friendly terms with the spirit world, and didn't scare
easily. But after losing three nights' sleep and the society of his
friend, he began to be a little impatient, and to think that the thing
had gone far enough. You see, while in a way he was fond of ghosts, yet
he liked them best one at a time. Two ghosts were one too many. He
wasn't bent on making a collection of spooks. He and one ghost were
company, but he and two ghosts were a crowd."

"What did he do?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.

"Well, he couldn't do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would get
tired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spook
to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they
wouldn't let him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling and quarreling
incessantly; they manifested and they dark-séanced as regularly as the
old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bells
and they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo about
the house, and worse than all, they swore."

"I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language," said the
Duchess.

"How did he know they were swearing? Could he hear them?" asked Dear
Jones.

"That was just it," responded Uncle Larry; "he could not hear them—at
least not distinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and stifled
rumblings. But the impression produced on him was that they were
swearing. If they had only sworn right out, he would not have minded it
so much, because he would have known the worst. But the feeling that
the air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing and after
standing it for a week, he gave up in disgust and went to the White
Mountains."

"Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose," interjected Baby Van
Rensselaer.

"Not at all," explained Uncle Larry. "They could not quarrel unless he
was present. You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him,
and the domiciliary ghost could not leave the house. When he went away
he took the family ghost with him leaving the house ghost behind. Now
spooks can't quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more than
men can."

"And what happened afterward?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty
impatience.

"A most marvelous thing happened. Eliphalet Duncan went to the White
Mountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of Mount
Washington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and this
classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a
remarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first
sight, and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was so
deep in love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and to
wonder whether she might ever be induced to care for him a little—ever
so little."

"I don't think that is so marvelous a thing," said Dear Jones glancing
at Baby Van Rensselaer.

"Who was she?" asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia.

"She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter of
old Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley and Sutton."

"A very respectable family," assented the Duchess.

"I hope she wasn't a daughter of that loud and vulgar old Mrs. Sutton
whom I met at Saratoga, one summer, four or five years ago?" said Dear
Jones.