“What is it about that old house in Sherbourne?” said Aunt Nabby to Sam
Lawson, as he sat drooping over the coals
of a great re one October evening.
Aunt Lois was gone to
Boston on
a visit; and, the
smart spice of her scepticism being absent, we felt the more freedom to start our story-teller on one of his legends.
Aunt Nabby sat trotting
her knitting-needles on a blue-mixed yarn stocking. Grandmamma was knitting in unison at the other side of the
re. Grandfather sat studying
“The Boston Courier.” The wind outside
was sighing in tful wails, creaking the pantry-doors, occasionally pu ng in a vicious gust down the broad throat of the chimney. It was a drizzly, sleety evening;
and the wet lilac bushes
now and then rattled and splashed against the window as the wind moaned and whispered through them.
We boys had made preparation for a
comfortable evening.
We had enticed Sam to the chimney corner, and drawn him a mug of cider. We had set down a
row
of apples
to roast on the hearth, which even now were giving faint sighs and sputters as their plump sides burst in the genial heat. The big oak
back-log simmered and bubbled, and distilled large drops down
amid the ashes; and the great hickory forestick had just burned out
into solid bright
coals, faintly skimmed over with white ashes. The whole area of the big chimney was full of a sleepy warmth and brightness just calculated to
call
forth fancies and visions.
It only wanted somebody now to set Sam o ; and Aunt
Nabby broached the ever-interesting subject of haunted houses.
“Wal, now, Miss Badger,” said Sam, “I
ben over there, and walked round that are house consid’able; and I talked with Granny Hokum and Aunt Polly, and
they’ve putty much come to the conclusion that they’ll hev to move out on’t. Ye see these ’ere noises, they keep ’em awake nights; and Aunt Polly, she gets
’stericky; and Hannah Jane, she says, ef they stay in the house,
she can’t live
with ’em no longer. And what can them lone women do without
Hannah Jane? Why, Hannah Jane, she says these two months past she’s seen a woman, regular, walking up and down the
front hall between twelve and one o’clock at night; and
it’s jist the image
and body of old Ma’am Tillotson, Parson Hokum’s mother, that everybody
know’d was a thunderin’ kind o’ woman, that kep’ every thing
in a muss while she was alive.
What the old crittur’s up to now there ain’t no knowin’. Some folks seems to think it’s a sign Granny
Hokum’s time’s comin’. But Lordy massy I says she to me, says she, ‘Why, Sam, I
don’t know nothin’ what I’ve done, that Ma’am Tillotson should
be set loose on me.’ Anyway they’ve all got so narvy, that Jed Hokum has ben up from Needham,
and is goin’ to cart ’em all over to live with him. Jed, he’s for hushin’ on’t up, ’cause he says it brings
a bad name on the property. Wal, I talked with Jed about it; and says I to Jed, says I, ‘now, ef you’ll take my advice,
jist you
give that are old house a regular
overhaulin, and paint it over with tew coats o’ paint, and that are’ll clear ’em out, if any thing will. Ghosts is like bedbugs,—they can’t stan fresh paint,’ says I.
‘They allers clear out. I’ve seen it tried on a ship that got haunted.’”
“Why, Sam, do ships get haunted?”
“To be sure they do!—haunted the wust kind. Why, I could tell ye a story’d make your har rise on e’end, only I’m ’fraid of frightening boys when they’re jist going to bed.”
“Oh! you can’t frighten Horace,” said my grandmother. “He will go and sit
out there in the graveyard till nine o’clock nights, spite of all I
tell him.”
“Do tell, Sam!” we urged. “What was it about the ship?” Sam lifted his mug of cider, deliberately turned
it
round
and
round
in
his
hands, eyed it a ectionately, took a long drink, and set it down in front of him
on the hearth, and began:—
“Ye ’member I telled you how I went to sea down East, when I was
a boy,
’long with Tom Toothacre. Wal, Tom, he reeled
o a yarn one night that was
’bout the toughest I ever hed the pullin’ on. And it
come all straight,
too, from Tom. ’Twa’n’t none o’ yer hearsay: ’twas what he seen with his own eyes. Now, there wa’n’t no nonsense ’bout Tom, not a bit on’t ; and he wa’n’t afeard o’ the divil himself; and he ginally saw through
things about as straight as
things could be seen through.
This ’ere happened when Tom was mate
o’ ‘The Albatross,’ and they was a-runnin’ up to the Banks for a fare o’ sh. ‘The Albatross’ was as handsome
a craft as ever ye see; and
Cap’n Sim Witherspoon, he was skipper—a rail nice likely man he was. I heard Tom tell
this ’ere one night to the boys on ‘The Brilliant,’ when they was all a-settin’ round the stove in the cabin one foggy night that we was to
anchor in Frenchman’s Bay, and all kind o’ layin’ o loose.
“Tom, he said they was having a famous run up to the Banks. There was a
spankin’ southerly, that blew ’em along like all natur’; and they was hevin’ the best kind of a
time, when this ’ere southerly brought
a pesky fog down on
’em, and it grew thicker than hasty-puddin’. Ye see, that are’s the pester
o’ these ’ere southerlies: they’s the biggest fog-breeders there is goin’. And so, putty
soon, you couldn’t see half ship’s length afore you.
“Wal, they all was down to supper, except
Dan Sawyer at the wheel, when there come sich a crash as if heaven and earth was a-splittin’, and then a scrapin’ and thump bumpin’ under the ship, and gin ’em sich a h’ist that the pot o’ beans went rollin’, and brought
up jam ag’in the bulk-head; and the fellers was keeled over,—men and pork and beans
kinder permiscus.
“‘The divil!’ says Tom Toothacre, ‘we’ve run down somebody. Look out, up there !’
“Dan, he shoved the helm hard
down, and put her up to the wind, and sung out, ‘Lordy massy! we’ve struck her right amidships!’
“‘Struck what?’ they all yelled, and tumbled up on deck.
“‘Why, a little schooner,’ says Dan. ‘Didn’t see her till we was right on her. She’s gone down tack and sheet.
Look! there’s part o’ the wreck a- oating o : don’t ye see?’
“Wal, they didn’t see, ’cause it
was so thick you couldn’t hardly see your hand afore your face. But they put about, and sent out a boat, and kind
o’ sarched round; but, Lordy massy
ye might as well looked
for a drop of water in the Atlantic Ocean. Whoever they was, it was all done gone and over with
’em for this life, poor critturs!
“Tom says they felt confoundedly about it; but what could they do? Lordy
massy! what can any on us do? There’s places where folks jest lets go ’cause they hes to. Things ain’t as they want ’em, and they can’t alter ’em. Sailors ain’t so rough as they look: they’z feelin’ critturs, come to put things right to
’em. And there wasn’t one on ’em who wouldn’t ’a’ worked all night for a chance o’ saving some o’ them poor fellows. But there ’twas, and ’twa’n’t no use trying.
“Wal, so they sailed
on; and by ’m by the wind kind o’ chopped round no’theast, and then come round east, and sot in for one of them regular
east blows and drizzles that takes the starch out o’ fellers more’n a regular storm. So they concluded they might as well put into a little
bay there, and come to anchor.
“So they sot an anchor-watch, and all turned in.
“Wal, now comes the particular curus
part
o’ Tom’s story; and it was more curus ’cause Tom was one that wouldn’t ’a’ believed no other man that had told
it. Tom was one o’ your sort of philosophers. He was fer lookin’ into things, and wa’n’t in no hurry ’bout believin’; so that this ’un was more
’markable on account of it’s bein’ Tom that seen it than
ef it had ben others. “Tom says that night he hed a pesky toothache that sort o’ kep’ grumblin’
and jumpin’ so he couldn’t go to sleep;
and he lay in his bunk, a-turnin’ this way and that, till long past
twelve o clock.
“Tom had a ’thwart-ship bunk where he could see into every bunk on board, except Bob Co n’s; and Bob was on the anchor-watch. Wal, he lay there, tryin’ to go to sleep, hearin’ the men snorin’ like bull-frogs in a swamp, and
watchin’ the lantern a-swingin’ back
and forward; and the sou’westers and pea-jackets were kinder throwin’ their long shadders up and down as the vessel sort o’ rolled and pitched,—for there was a heavy swell on,—and
then he’d hear Bob Co n tramp, tramp, trampin’ overhead,—for Bob had a pretty heavy foot of his own,—and all sort o’ mixed up together
with Tom’s toothache, so he couldn’t get to sleep. Finally, Tom, he bit o a great
chaw
o’
’baccy, and
got it well sot in his cheek, and kind o’ turned over to lie on’t, and
ease the pain. Wal, he says he laid a spell,
and dropped o in a sort o’ doze,
when he woke in sich a chill his teeth chattered, and the pain come on like a
knife, and
he bounced over, thinking the re had gone out in the stove.
“Wal, sure enough,
he see a man a-crouchin’ over the stove, with his back to him, a-stretchin’ out his hands to warm ’em. He had on a sou’wester and a pea-jacket, with a red tippet round his neck;
and his clothes was drippin’ as if he’d just come in from a rain.
“‘What the divil!’ says Tom. And he riz right up, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Bill Bridges,’ says he,
‘what shine
be you up to now?’ For Bill was a master
oneasy crittur, and allers a-gettin’ up and walkin’ nights; and Tom, he thought
it was Bill. But in a minute he looked over, and there, sure enough,
was Bill, fast asleep
in his bunk, mouth wide open, snoring like a Jericho ram’s-horn. Tom looked
round, and counted
every man in
his bunk, and then says he,
‘Who the devil is this? for there’s Bob Co n on deck, and the rest is all here.’
“Wal, Tom wa’n’t a man to be put under too easy. He hed his thoughts about him allers; and the fust he thought
in every pinch was what to do. So he sot considerin’ a minute, sort o’ winkin’ his eyes to be sure he saw straight,
when, sure enough, there come another man backin’ down the companion- way.
“‘Wal, there’s Bob Co n, anyhow,’ says Tom to himself. But no, the other man, he turned: Tom see his face; and, sure as you live, it was the face of a
dead corpse. Its eyes was sot,
and it jest came as still across the cabin, and sot down by the stove, and kind o’ shivered, and put out its hands as if it was
gettin’ warm.
“Tom said that there was a cold air round
in the cabin, as if an iceberg was comin’ near, and he felt cold chills running down his back; but he jumped out of his
bunk, and took a step forward. ‘Speak!’ says he. ‘Who be you? and what do you want?’
“They never spoke, nor looked up, but kept kind o’ shivering and crouching over the
stove.
“‘Wal,’ says Tom, ‘I’ll see who you be, anyhow.’ And he walked right up to the last man that come in, and reached out to catch hold of his
coat-collar; but his hand jest went through
him like moonshine, and in a minute he all faded away; and
when he turned round the other one was gone too. Tom stood there, looking this way and that; but there warn’t nothing but the old stove,
and the lantern swingin’, and the men all snorin’ round in their bunks. Tom, he sung out to Bob Co
n. ‘Hullo, up there!’ says he. But Bob never answered, and
Tom, he went up, and found Bob down on his knees, his teeth a-chatterin’ like a bag o’ nails, trying to say his prayers; and
all he could
think of was, ‘Now I lay me,’ and he kep going
that over and over. Ye see, boys, Bob was a dre ul wicked, swearin’ crittur, and hadn’t said no prayers since he was tew years old,
and it didn’t come natural to him. Tom give a grip on his collar, and shook
him. ‘Hold yer yawp,’ said he. ‘What you howlin’ about? What’s up?’
“‘Oh, Lordy massy!’ says Bob, ‘we’re sent for,—all on us,—there’s been two on ’em: both on ’em went right by me!’
“Wal, Tom,
he hed his own thoughts;
but he was bound to get to the
bottom of things, anyway. Ef ’twas the devil, well and good—he wanted to know it.
Tom
jest wanted to hev the matter settled
one way or t’other: so he got Bob
sort
o’ stroked down, and made him tell what he saw.
“Bob, he stood to it that he was a-standin’ right for’ard, a-leanin’ on the windlass, and kind o’ hummin’ a tune, when he looked
down, and see a sort o’ queer light in the fog; and he went and took a look over the bows, when up came a man’s head in a sort of sou’wester, and then a pair of hands, and catched at the bob-stay; and then the hull
gger of a
man riz right out o’ the water, and clim up on the martingale till he could
reach the jib-stay with his hands, and then he swung himself right up onto the bowsprit,
and stepped
aboard, and went past Bob, right aft, and
down into the cabin. And he hadn’t more’n got down, afore he turned round,
and there was another comin’ in over the bowsprit,
and he went by him, and down below: so there was two on
’em, jest as Tom had seen in the
cabin.
“Tom he studied on it a spell, and
nally says he, ‘Bob, let you and me keep
this ’ere to ourselves, and see ef it’ll come again. Ef it
don’t, well and good:
ef it does—why, we’ll see about it.’
“But Tom he told Cap’n Witherspoon, and the Cap’n he agreed to keep an eye out the next night.
But there warn’t nothing said to
the rest o’ the
men.
“Wal, the next night they put Bill Bridges on
the watch. The fog had lifted, and they had a fair wind, and was going on steady. The men all turned in, and
went fast asleep, except
Cap’n Witherspoon, Tom and Bob Co
n. Wal, sure enough, ’twixt twelve and one o’clock, the same thing came over, only there war four men ’stead o’ two. They come in jes’ so over the bowsprit,
and they looked neither to right nor left, but clim down stairs, and sot down, and crouched and shivered over the stove jist like the others. Wal, Bill Bridges,
he came tearin’ down like a wild-cat, frightened half
out o’ his wits, screechin’,
‘Lord, have mercy! we’re all goin’ to the
devil!’ And then they all vanished.
“‘Now, Cap’n, what’s to be done?’ says Tom. ‘Ef these ’ere fellows is
to take
passage, we can’t do nothin’ with the boys: that’s clear.’
“Wal, so it turned out; for, come next night, there was six on ’em come in,
and the story got round, and the boys was all on eend. There wa’n’t no doin’ nothin’ with ’em. Ye see, it’s allers jest
so.
Not but what dead folks is jest as
’spectable as they was afore they’s dead. These might ’a’ been as good fellers as any aboard; but it’s human natur’. The minute a feller’s dead, why, you
sort o’ don’t know ’bout him; and it’s kind o’ skeery hevin’ on him round; and so
’twan’t no wonder the boys didn’t feel as if they could go on with the vy’ge, ef these ’ere fellers was all to take
passage. Come to look,
too, there war
consid’able of a leak stove in the vessel; and the boys, they all stood to it, ef they went farther, that they’d all go to the bottom.
For, ye see, once the story
got a-goin’, every one on ’em saw
a new thing every night. One on ’em saw
the baitmill a-grindin’, without no hands to grind it; and another saw fellers up
aloft,
workin’ in the sails. Wal, the fact war, they jest had to put about,—run
back to Castine.
“Wal, the owners, they hushed up things the best they could;
and they put the vessel on the stocks, and worked her over,
and put a new coat
o’ paint on her, and called her ‘The Betsey Ann’; and she went a good vy’ge to the Banks,
and brought home the biggest fare o’ sh that had been for a
long time; and she’s made good vy’ges ever since; and that jest proves what I’ve been a-saying,
—that there’s nothin’ to drive out ghosts like fresh paint.”
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