CHAPTER XII
It was the custom of the Honourable Mr Listless, on adjourning fromthe bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a secondtoilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout,attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, andinformed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey washaunted. Mrs Hilary's _gentlewoman_, for whom Fatout had latelyconceived a _tendresse_, had been, as she expressed it, 'fritted outof her seventeen senses' the preceding night, as she was retiring toher bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking alongone of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turbanon its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when sherecovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone.'_Sacre--cochon--bleu_!' exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberateemphasis to every portion of his terrible oath--'I vould not meet de_revenant_, de ghost--_non_--not for all de _bowl-de-ponch_ in devorld.'
'Fatout,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'did I ever see a ghost?'
'_Jamais_, monsieur, never.'
'Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of mynerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There--loosen thelace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice ofeating--Not too loose--consider my shape. That will do. And I desirethat you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do notbelieve in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one isapt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of achill, particularly if one opens one's eyes suddenly on one's dressinggown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.'
The Honourable Mr Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout frombringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking ofthat which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in hismind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest ofthe company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr Flosky,whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any storyof any ghost that had ever appeared to any one, was entitled to anydegree of belief?
MR FLOSKY
By far the greater number, to a very great degree.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
Really, that is very alarming!
MR FLOSKY
_Sunt geminoe somni portoe_. There are two gates through which ghostsfind their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In thelatter case, a ghost is a _deceptio visus_, an ocular spectrum, anidea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. Idare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
I am happy to say, I never have, for one.
THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
We have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism todisbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purposeof asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
Because Job was too frightened to give one.
THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
Spectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with whichMoses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel.Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent intothe army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.
MR TOOBAD
Saying, The devil is come among you, having great wrath.
MR FLOSKY
Saint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert,and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was goingforward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretendedmartyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up hisghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, beingon his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who hadevery night taken possession of the _table d'hote_, and consumed acopious supper.
MR HILARY
Jolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possessionof the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine,and threw the empty bottles at his head.
THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
An atrocious act.
MR FLOSKY
Pausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult ofcombatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that thosewho went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for theircuriosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.
THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last place whereany one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been into it forthree months, and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening thedoor, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing gown, sitting inmy arm-chair, and reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment,and so did I; and what it was or what it wanted I have never been ableto ascertain.
MR FLOSKY
It was an idea with the force of a sensation. It is seldom that ghostsappeal to two senses at once; but, when I was in Devonshire, thefollowing story was well attested to me. A young woman, whose loverwas at sea, returning one evening over some solitary fields, sawher lover sitting on a stile over which she was to pass. Her firstemotions were surprise and joy, but there was a paleness andseriousness in his face that made them give place to alarm. Sheadvanced towards him, and he said to her, in a solemn voice, 'The eyethat hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eye is upon me, but I amnot.' And with these words he vanished; and on that very day and hour,as it afterwards appeared, he had perished by shipwreck.
The whole party now drew round in a circle, and each related someghostly anecdote, heedless of the flight of time, till, in a pause ofthe conversation, they heard the hollow tongue of midnight soundingtwelve.
MR HILARY
All these anecdotes admit of solution on psychological principles.It is more easy for a soldier, a philosopher, or even a saint, to befrightened at his own shadow, than for a dead man to come out of hisgrave. Medical writers cite a thousand singular examples of the forceof imagination. Persons of feeble, nervous, melancholy temperament,exhausted by fever, by labour, or by spare diet, will readily conjureup, in the magic ring of their own phantasy, spectres, gorgons,chimaeras, and all the objects of their hatred and their love. Weare most of us like Don Quixote, to whom a windmill was a giant, andDulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our ownimagination, though we do not all go so far as to see ghosts, or tofancy ourselves pipkins and teapots.
MR FLOSKY
I can safely say I have seen too many ghosts myself to believe intheir external existence. I have seen all kinds of ghosts: blackspirits and white, red spirits and grey. Some in the shapes ofvenerable old men, who have met me in my rambles at noon; someof beautiful young women, who have peeped through my curtains atmidnight.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
And have proved, I doubt not, 'palpable to feeling as to sight.'
MR FLOSKY
By no means, sir. You reflect upon my purity. Myself and my friends,particularly my friend Mr Sackbut, are famous for our purity. No, sir,genuine untangible ghosts. I live in a world of ghosts. I see a ghostat this moment.
Mr Flosky fixed his eyes on a door at the farther end of the library.The company looked in the same direction. The door silently opened,and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery, with the semblanceof a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up theapartment. Mr Flosky, familiar as he was with ghosts, was not preparedfor this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the oppositedoor. Mrs Hilary and Marionetta followed, screaming. The Honourable MrListless, by two turns of his body, rolled first off the sofa andthen under it. The Reverend Mr Larynx leaped up and fled with so muchprecipitation, that he overturned the table on the foot of Mr Glowry.Mr Glowry roared with pain in the ear of Mr Toobad. Mr Toobad's alarmso bewildered his senses, that, missing the door, he threw up one ofthe windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and earsin the moat. Mr Asterias and his son, who were on the w
atch for theirmermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, anddragged him to land.
Scythrop and Mr Hilary meanwhile had hastened to his assistance, and,on arriving at the edge of the moat, followed by several servants withropes and torches, found Mr Asterias and Aquarius busy in endeavouringto extricate Mr Toobad from the net, who was entangled in the meshes,and floundering with rage. Scythrop was lost in amazement; but MrHilary saw, at one view, all the circumstances of the adventure, andburst into an immoderate fit of laughter; on recovering from which, hesaid to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobadwas highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilarysoftened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knotof his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see,gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the presentdominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have nodoubt but that the apparition of this night was Apollyon himself indisguise, sent for the express purpose of terrifying me into thiscomplication of misadventures. The devil is come among you, havinggreat wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.'
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