The Canterville Ghost

Chapter 4

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.