A STRANGE STORY.
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS.
BY
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON (_LORD LYTTON_.)
"To doubt and to be astonished is to recognize our ignorance. Hence itis that the lover of wisdom is in a certain sort a lover of mythi[Greek: phylomythos pos], for the subject of mythi is the astonishingand marvellous."--SIR W. HAMILTON (after Aristotle), _Lectures onMetaphysics_, vol. i. p. 78.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1897.
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS;
OR, THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN.
* * * * *
A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said tome one day, as if between jest and earnest, "Fancy! since we last metI have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."
"Really haunted,--and by what?--ghosts?"
"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks agomy wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quietstreet, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments,Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the house, liked therooms, engaged them by the week,--and left them the third day. Nopower on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and Idon't wonder at it."
"What did you see?"
"Excuse me; I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitiousdreamer,--nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on myaffirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidenceof your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what wesaw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupesof our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) thatdrove us away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of uswhenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in whichwe neither saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of allwas, that for once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly womanthough she be,--and allowed, after the third night, that it wasimpossible to stay a fourth in that house. Accordingly, on the fourthmorning I summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us,and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would notstay out our week." She said dryly, "I know why; you have stayedlonger than any other lodger. Few ever stayed a second night; nonebefore you a third. But I take it they have been very kind to you."
"'They,--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.
"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them.I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as aservant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don'tcare,--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be withthem, and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary acalmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversingwith her further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and Ito get off so cheaply."
"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better thanto sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one whichyou left so ignominiously."
My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straighttowards the house thus indicated.
It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull butrespectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up,--no bill at thewindow, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, abeer-boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me,"Do you want any one at that house, sir?"
"Yes, I heard it was to be let."
"Let!--why, the woman who kept it is dead,--has been dead these threeweeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J---- offeredever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, L1 a week just toopen and shut the windows, and she would not."
"Would not!--and why?"
"The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead inher bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her."
"Pooh! You speak of Mr. J----. Is he the owner of the house?"
"Yes."
"Where does he live?"
"In G---- Street, No. ----."
"What is he? In any business?"
"No, sir,--nothing particular; a single gentleman."
I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, andproceeded to Mr. J----, in G---- Street, which was close by the streetthat boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J----at home,--an elderly man with intelligent countenance andprepossessing manners.
I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard thehouse was considered to be haunted,--that I had a strong desire toexamine a house with so equivocal a reputation; that I should begreatly obliged if he would allow me to hire it, though only for anight. I was willing to pay for that privilege whatever he might beinclined to ask. "Sir," said Mr. J----, with great courtesy, "thehouse is at your service, for as short or as long a time as youplease. Rent is out of the question,--the obligation will be on myside should you be able to discover the cause of the strange phenomenawhich at present deprive it of all value. I cannot let it, for Icannot even get a servant to keep it in order or answer the door.Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may use that expression, not onlyby night, but by day; though at night the disturbances are of a moreunpleasant and sometimes of a more alarming character. The poor oldwoman who died in it three weeks ago was a pauper whom I took out of aworkhouse; for in her childhood she had been known to some of myfamily, and had once been in such good circumstances that she hadrented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior educationand strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce to remainin the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and thecoroner's inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighborhood, Ihave so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house,much more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent free for a yearto any one who would pay its rates and taxes."
"How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?"
"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The oldwoman I spoke of, said it was haunted when she rented it betweenthirty and forty years ago. The fact is, that my life has been spentin the East Indies, and in the civil service of the Company. Ireturned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle,among whose possessions was the house in question. I found it shut upand uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, that no one wouldinhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spentsome money in repairing it, added to its old-fashioned furniture a fewmodern articles,--advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. Hewas a colonel on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and adaughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the nextday; and, although each of them declared that he had seen somethingdifferent from that which had scared the others, a something still wasequally terrible to all. I really could not in conscience sue, noreven blame, the colonel for breach of agreement. Then I put in the oldwoman I have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house inapartments. I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days. Ido not tell you their stories,--to no two lodgers have there beenexactly the same phenomena repeated. It is better that you shouldjudge for yourself, than enter the house with an imaginationinfluenced by previous narratives; only be prepared to see and to hearsomething or other, and take whatever precautions you yourselfplease."
"Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in thathouse?" "Yes. I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylightalone in that house. My curiosity is not satisfied, but it isquenched. I have no desire to renew
the experiment. You cannotcomplain, you see, sir, that I am not sufficiently candid; and unlessyour interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually strong, Ihonestly add, that I advise you _not_ to pass a night in that house."
"My interest _is_ exceedingly keen," said I; "and though only a cowardwill boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yetmy nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have theright to rely on them,--even in a haunted house."
Mr. J---- said very little more; he took the keys of the house out ofhis bureau, gave them to me,--and, thanking him cordially for hisfrankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off myprize.
Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned myconfidential servant,--a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper,and as free from