Chapter II (2)

“Speak, Athos,” continued D’Artagnan; “deliver your opinion, and we four will execute it in the face of this city. One thing I am determined upon. This profanation must cease. We owe it to the Master.”

“Dumas would certainly will it so,” declared Porthos. “His mighty shade must not be troubled by these puppets. I have my muscles still, Athos has his brains, Aramis his priestly cunning, D’Artagnan his matchless blade.”

“This passes belief!” cried Aramis, suddenly shaking the _Globe_ aloft. He started to his feet, and his friends, moved by that close, mysterious sympathy which at all times united them, likewise leapt from their chairs.

“What now?” cried D’Artagnan, his dark eyes gleaming with Gascon fire.

“Another travesty! Another _Three Musketeers_--this time at a house of entertainment named the ‘Garrick,’ and executed by one Hamilton!”

“’Sdeath, this passes belief!” murmured Athos.

A tear stood in his eye, but he dashed it away, gripped his companions by the hand, and put one foot on the table. The others instantly followed his example.

“For auld lang syne!” cried Porthos, and, raising his bull-like voice, he made the electric-light fittings shake in the roof.

“So be it; Athos is right,” said Aramis.

“He is always right,” declared D’Artagnan.

“His word shall be obeyed to the last letter, by----!” swore Porthos.

“I have not spoken yet, however,” said Athos.

A roar of laughter greeted this sally, then the friends resumed their business and their meal.

“Briefly, in a little affair of this kind, expedition is the main factor,” declared Athos. “We are, of course, agreed,” he continued, “that these exhibitions must cease?”

“Agreed!” they shouted like one musketeer.

“Then the only question left is that of the penalty.”

“Let them die; it is the reward of sacrilege!” said Aramis coldly.

“Nay, they mean no evil; they probably know not what they do,” said Athos. “These poor knaves must live.”

“And I say they must die!” repeated Aramis.

The eyes of Aramis and Athos met, and both turned deathly pale.

“A quarrel?” asked Athos, with the delicate intonation of a royal prince.

Porthos and D’Artagnan waited in breathless suspense for the answer of Aramis.

“Heaven forbid!” cried the musketeer. “’Twill be time for that when we are back again on the shores of Styx. Duty first, pleasure afterwards.”

Athos bowed, and all four friends caressed each other warmly.

Porthos ordered more wine.

“To your plan,” cried D’Artagnan. “The night wanes and the playhouse opens its doors ere long.”

“We must be there at the rise of the curtain. We will disguise ourselves.”

“Nay, no disguise. There is nothing to fear.”

“So be it, then. We will take our place among the spectators, and at a given signal from D’Artagnan we will force a way to the stage. Then each man must draw and put a quarrel on the mummer who is impersonating him. If they do not instantly yield, their fate be upon their own shoulders.”

“I pray they may draw their weapons,” said Porthos.

“Pshaw! What glory comes to us from spitting of players? ’Tis as easy as toasting cheese,” said D’Artagnan.

They had now dined well, and Porthos called aloud for the reckoning.

“Hasten, lackey!” he cried, “or I shall lace thy black, frowsy jacket in a new pattern.”

The musketeers buckled on their swords, and D’Artagnan spoke to Athos.

“Our adventure, then, is bloodless--a mere farce, nothing like the good old times?”

Athos shook his head.

“Alas! I would it were so. But blood must flow. It is ever our fate to spill it. Two gentlemen must die to-night; we owe it to the Master.”

“Their names?” cried Aramis.

“Messieurs Sydney Grundy and Henry Hamilton.”

A look of terrible meaning flashed from eye to eye, and the avengers clasped each other’s hands.

Then Porthos flung two pistoles upon the table, and arm-in-arm the musketeers clanged and clashed out of the Criterion, to the relief of everybody present.

Their lackeys awaited them.

Mousqueton and Grimaud were directed to go into the pit of the theatre and join their masters on the stage at the critical moment; while Planchet and Bazin were to have the horses in readiness at the stage-door.

“And now?” said Porthos.

“_Pardieu!_ To Her Majesty’s Theatre!” answered D’Artagnan.

A flash of lightning flickered over Panton Street as the immortal four moved stealthily in that direction.

* * * * *

Among the first to enter Her Majesty’s Theatre on the night with which we are concerned were Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan. Porthos flung three pistoles into the box-office, and demanded four seats near the stage, while the clerk in charge regarded the coins with some suspicion.

“They are each worth sixteen English shillings,” said D’Artagnan shortly.

“Then I shall want another of them if you require a box,” replied the young man.

Porthos produced the money, and soon the four friends were comfortably seated in a stage-box.

“It is well,” said Athos. “From this place we may make our voices heard among the players, and work our will without shedding of blood; at least, it may be permitted to hope so.”

“Let me see,” answered Porthos; “what lies before us?”

“’Tis simple. We must put a stop to the performance, and we must secure the person of Sydney Grundy. One does not wish to slay him here in a place of entertainment; but he must be captured and removed,” declared Aramis. “We may safely leave that task to D’Artagnan.”

With increasing interest the warriors regarded the incoming audience, and marvelled at the changes Time had wrought upon human costume.

“_Pardieu!_ Look at the men!” said Porthos. “They are all attired even as the lackeys at the eating-house.”

“The English will never learn how to dress,” declared Aramis.

Then the band struck up, and the eyes of D’Artagnan, ranging through the theatre, met those of Mousqueton and Grimaud. He made a secret sign, which they showed was understood by an intelligent gleam in their eyes. Meantime Aramis and Athos carefully studied the programme. Presently the drama began, and from the very commencement roar upon roar of deep, lion-like sound thundered and echoed in the stage-box of the Musketeers. It was Porthos regarding his double on the stage.

“It is too droll--these English. Behold the worthy fellow! Look, dear friends, at the English Porthos! Inspect his thews and sinews. _Sang bleu!_ I could eat him like a French roll!”

Loud and indignant cries resounded through the theatre, and Mr. Tree, taking the centre of the stage much against his will, gazed inquiringly at the box from which rolled the huge voice of Porthos and drowned those of the performers. The actor-manager’s eyes met those of D’Artagnan, and he turned pale.

“They are there, the three Musketeers--the others!” he whispered to Milady in a voice swept by the deepest emotion.

“Not Hamilton’s?” asked Milady, her eyes flashing as much with indignation as natural feminine curiosity.

“No, no, Dumas’. And D’Artagnan is also there.”

“That is different,” she said, and manifested an inclination to retire to her dressing-room. Order was restored, however, and the play progressed. With characteristic bull-dog British courage the gentlemen of the stage struggled through their parts, drew their swords, and fretted their hour, each with an uneasy eye upon the stage-box.

But the Musketeers were not patient men, and a moment came, about half-way through the second act, when their eyes sought each other’s faces, and Aramis, without being asked to do so, rose and gathered the four swords, which were placed in a corner of the box.

Athos could not conceal the nobility of his character even at this moment.

“Consider,” he said, “that these good people may have wives and children dependent upon their efforts. They are probably doing their best.”

“And we must do ours,” said D’Artagnan sternly. “We owe it to the Master.”

“We are three to one, Athos,” said Porthos. “Aramis, D’Artagnan, and I are all of one mind. Regard your double upon the boards. If he cannot spur you to action, nothing can. For my part, I shall not draw my sword against any man here, because it would be murder, but my namesake on the stage must be whipped--that is, if he shows fight.”

“I shall try a pass with this Beerbohm Tree,” said D’Artagnan, “for he numbers twelve good inches more than I do, and would appear to have some slight familiarity with his weapon.”

“And I shall prick this Aramis of Sydney Grundy also,” declared the Aramis of Dumas.

“Are you ready?”

“We are ready.”

“Then follow me.”

In a moment D’Artagnan had bounded on to the stage. After him came Athos and Aramis, while a moment later, with a sound like thunder, the enormous bulk of Porthos followed. As ill-luck would have it, the giant miscalculated his distance, and fell into the footlights. The shock extinguished half of them, and frightened the orchestra to such an extent that every member of it, with the exception of the conductor, dived like a rabbit and became invisible.

“Your swords, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, advancing with a polite bow. “You will hardly refuse. I see by your looks that you know us.”

“Make way! make way!” shouted Mousqueton and Grimaud from the pit. Giving and receiving hard blows, they finally reached their masters’ sides.

Mr. Beerbohm Tree was in a tight place, according to the modern phrase. The house hung upon his words, and roared with savage delight at the unexpected spectacle. Mr. Tree, we repeat, was in a fix. Should he fight or call for base aid? Pride indicated the first course, prudence prompted the latter.

He made a sign to the pretended musketeers behind him.

But Aramis and D’Artagnan observed it, and leapt forward with an ancient expletive on their lips.

“Treachery! treachery! Then guard yourselves, gentlemen!” they cried.

There was a deathlike stillness. Only one sweet female voice cut the heated air like a knife. It was Milady calling for the police.

Whistles sounded and the hurried tramp of firemen and mechanics was heard behind the scenes.

“A breath of the good past times,” panted D’Artagnan, pinning Mr. Tree to the left upper entrance.

“Spirit of the old king!” cried Aramis, as the unfortunate gentleman who impersonated him fell pierced through the left lung.

“May we meet in heaven, my unhappy friend,” ejaculated Athos, while the actor who played his part expired in his arms from twenty mortal thrusts.

“But where is Monsieur Sydney Grundy?” cried D’Artagnan.

“He has escaped!” hissed Aramis. “A vehicle has just hurried from the stage-door.”

“We must follow to the world’s end if need be.”

Athos wiped his blade. There were tears upon it as well as blood.

“Where is Porthos?” he inquired.

Aramis stamped furiously and pointed to the bar.

Porthos was drinking bottled beer at the expense of the Haymarket Porthos.

“Traitor!” gasped Aramis.

“Not so!” said Athos sadly; “he teaches us a lesson. Had we done likewise these good men would not lie where they do.”

“Had Monsieur Tree offered me anything to drink----” said D’Artagnan thoughtfully.

But at the same moment Grimaud pulled at the sleeve of Athos, and said a few hasty words in the deaf and dumb alphabet of the fingers.

“We are surrounded,” said Athos quietly. “Fifty policemen stand between us and safety.”

“Porthos!” shouted all the others.

“Monsieur Porthos!” cried Mousqueton and Grimaud.

The giant drained a third bottle, then, shaking hands with his impersonator, returned to the stage.

“Forward!” cried D’Artagnan.

An illumination, in some respects resembling summer lightning, flashed along their blades, and police constables fell before them, mowed down like the grass of the field.

A groan of despair rattled in the dying throats of 29 B, 44 D, 83 X, 221 Z, and 339 T. Porthos had spitted them like a row of larks on a skewer!

The stage-door keeper was the last to fall. Behind them the roar of a maddened audience, deprived of half its money’s worth, sounded like the cry of fiends.

They gained the air at last. Their horses awaited them, each with a lackey at the stirrup.

“We have done our duty,” said Aramis.

“Only half of it,” answered D’Artagnan.

“What next?” inquired Athos. “No more blood, my dear D’Artagnan.”

“The ‘Garrick,’” answered the young Gascon, his eyes aflame.

Porthos laughed joyously. “This beer of England is good,” he said.

THE GAME OF LIFE

In the spirit I saw a strange pastime not long ago; but I did not know or guess the nature of the entertainment. At first it seemed no more than a big cricket-match, with all the world looking on and humanity playing against its enemies. But as I looked again, I perceived that the audience was a thing of shadows, a mighty, misty crowd of ghosts--those who had played each their innings, and now watched the Game of Life and the living play it.

’Twas a single-wicket game, and a mighty balcony overlooked the field of play. Recording Angels scored, Time umpired, Death bowled tirelessly and unchanged through the ages occupied by the Game of Life; but the fielders moved and came and went like a demon-dance. Vile red and black things were they, the very outcome of delirium as it seemed; and now one rose into hideous prominence, and Cholera or Small-pox snapped ten thousand players, and sent men, women, children to the shades; and now another showed deadly activity, as War or Sudden Death made havoc with the batsmen. A hideous crew they were, all tentacles and hydra-heads; they thronged the earth and the air around each player, and no stroke seemed safely out of their reach.

Consumption kept the wicket, and caught or stumped cruel numbers of promising players before they were well set; Fever stood at mid-on; Cancer fielded deep and fielded sure; Heart Disease was at point; Apoplexy at cover-point; and all the other fell things that rob man of life stood round--a seething, twisting mob of black and scarlet devils leapt out of a nightmare or a picture by Salvator Rosa.

Few batsmen were clean bowled, but many were run out and still more caught. Now and then, however, Death found his way to the wicket after a long innings, and sometimes an old man who had long defied the hungry field went down to the Grey Bowler himself. If a child came in, Croup and Scarlet Fever, and Whooping-Cough and Measles crept up to the wicket. Diphtheria was a deadly customer to the children, and at such times Death made an Englishman feel angry, for he bowled harder at the little ones than their stouter elders. But it has been pretty generally admitted, I believe, that Death, whatever else he may be, is no sportsman.

Despite their claws and fangs, their million eyes and million hands, the red fielders and the black missed a good few chances, whereat Death grinned. His average never troubled him; he knew it must come out well enough in the long run. Often a batsman profited not a little when thus let off, and many an innings was a treat to watch in its patience and skill, while others, on the contrary--most of them, in fact--wearied the spectator by their feebleness. Sometimes a ghostly roar greeted the fall of a wicket; usually great indifference marked the event; not seldom the onlookers manifested absolute relief.

Full of monstrous surprises is this game. The weakling defies Death for over after over, and gets the ball past all the claws and long arms to the boundary; the stout and brawny giant, who looks good for a century, tumbles pitifully into the first trap, and puts up a ball weakly to Rheumatic Fever or Pneumonia, as though he had forgotten that such fielders existed for him.

The Recording Angels suffered me to glance over some score-sheets, and I found them very interesting and astonishing reading; for in the Game of Life, unlike most games, it is not the spectator who can best judge of a man’s innings. It needs a recorder possessed of power more than human to score correctly. I found, for instance, that not a few batsmen who had played a very showy innings and kept up their wickets well, and afforded the crowd plenty of entertainment, had in reality added little or nothing to the Score of the World. Of course, in the Game of Life every ball counts; but the peculiarity of it is that a man may put on runs against himself. Every stroke is recorded in one of the score-books. There are two, but these never tally.

And then, in the spirit still, I found that my turn had come, and the great circle of grey spectators stretched round me and I walked forth alone to play my innings. Now the aspect of affairs was mightily changed for me. The fielders in their liveries of blood or ebony had all quite vanished away; Death himself had dwindled into a mere remote shadow; and as the ball came, it rolled so feebly and so weakly that I laughed and smote it, and marvelled that such bowling had ever proved difficult to anybody. I performed with confidence; I hit hard; I surprised myself and seemed to be playing a glorious game; but no applause reached me; the grey ghosts all had their backs turned; for many a time had they seen great innings played; and mine offered no shadow of interest to anybody but myself. Presently Death bowled a little straighter; but now I had got a good sight of the ball, and it seemed as big as a balloon, and I felt I could do what I liked with it. Suddenly, however, a delivery broke in, as I tried to cut it, and out of the invisible there started a livid monster, and stretched a huge hand that darkened all the sky. My heart grew cold, and my head sank between my shoulders, and I glared at the loathsome thing thus suddenly loosed upon me in my secure hour. For a moment the onlookers were interested; then a murmur like the wind in a winter wood ran amongst them, for the ball was dropped, and the hideous fielder again vanished. I had come back to my innings by a short cut, and, settling down once more, I played with a caution new to me, for I could never again forget the invisible terror waiting so close.

But this Game of Life grows harder and harder as a man keeps up his wicket. The bowling, so easy at first, increases in difficulty. To get the ball away is more and more arduous; the light grows bad so quickly; and a man is often hit by the ball towards the end and robbed of his nerve and courage. Those deathly charnel things in the field, too, creep nearer and nearer at the finish, and when once a man sees them waiting--waiting, watching, whispering--he knows he can score no more, and that the duration of his innings is now but a question for Death and Time.

In the gathering darkness I stood, and the ball was lost, for I could neither time it nor even see it any more. And I knew that I was not playing with a straight bat. Then a murmur of many voices rang in my ear, a sound of waters flowing, and a sensation of such weariness as only the dying know. Finally, there came a ball of terrible swiftness to me, and it struck the shoulder of my feeble bat and went into the darkness. Then followed the sound of hands upon it and of remote laughter; so I knew that my innings was ended. I strained to see what fiend had caught me; I yearned to know my score and in which book it should be found. But I could do none of these things, for Death, whose voice I had never heard until now, cried: “How’s that, Umpire?” And Time answered, “Out!”

“ALAS! POOR GHOST”

It is quite enough in this materialistic age that I say I am a ghost to make people turn up their noses at me; and when I add that I am a very second-rate spirit with the most mean spectral privileges, it will be readily gathered that my position in phantom circles is more or less a painful one.

To be plain, I am not an awe-inspiring apparition in any sense; I am not even passable; I never raised the hair or froze the blood of anybody; adults gaze unmoved at my most fearsome manifestations; children like me.

But I am a right ghost for all that. Time and space possess no significance for me, and hundreds of people have mistaken me for luminous paint after dark. Against these advantages, however, must be set the unhappy conditions of smallness and stoutness; for as in life I was of diminutive and plump habit, so do I now remain. I am, in fact, a short, fat ghost--a combination of qualities that promised from the first to be fatal to any spectral procedure on a high plane.

Thus, though I have haunted in all the best middle-class families, and once or twice taken a _locum tenens_ among county people; though I have foretold deaths, indicated buried treasure, pointed out secret staircases, corpses and so forth; though I have gone through the regular mill, my spirit has yet failed of acquiring even a reasonable reputation among men.

For the past fifty years I have dwelt in Herefordshire with some pleasant, self-made folks who suit me very well. Capon Hall is a very roomy mansion, possessing architectural advantages from my point of view, and situated in a somewhat densely-haunted district. The original owners got themselves destroyed in the time of Charles I., and the property, after many fluctuations of fortune, was ultimately purchased by Mr. John Smithson, a Manchester man. Here he resided, developed into a good old Squire of the right sort, and grew popular. He was a widower, and had two children, Ethel, a girl of eighteen, who lived with him, and William, a son of two or three and twenty, who entered the army and went to India. This youth married, became the father of a daughter, and sent the infant home to Capon Hall. Now, love may often appear where there is no respect, and when an element of real human affection entered into my ghostly life, I found it a comfortable and pleasing thing.

This baby Smithson loved me, and her regard was returned. Our attachment must be allowed platonic to a degree perhaps never before imagined, for Winifred has just attained to the age of three years, while I am above three hundred. She is a golden-haired, sunny little soul, making all the music and laughter of her home. I am an old, grey ghost, to whom the western wing of Capon Hall has for fifty years been consecrated.

With an accident to the Squire’s daughter, Miss Ethel Smithson, upon some occasion of fox-hunting, this narrative properly begins. She suffered an awkward tumble, and the young man who came to her aid had the good fortune to please the girl immensely. Squire Smithson, upon the narration of Mr. Talbot Warren’s bravery, could not for the life of him see anything to make a fuss about. “If a woman falls into a ditch, is it asking much of the man nearest at the time to pull her out?” he inquired. But Miss Ethel explained that the circumstances were of a very terrific nature, and how her hero, not content with seeing that she was safe and sound, had foregone all further sport, sacrificed his day’s pleasure, and insisted on riding with her to the nearest farmhouse.

She met Mr. Warren again soon afterwards, and continued to find peculiar pleasure in his society; while, finally, through mutual friends, the young man secured an invitation to Capon Hall for a week’s hunting.

He and his horse arrived. He proved uninteresting, and a sportsman of mean capabilities; but Ethel Smithson, blind to the youth’s colourless and negative nature, fell violently in love with him. Being, moreover, a wilful little soul, who did pretty much what she liked with a most indulgent parent, matters went nearly all her own way from the first.

But the Squire and Mr. Warren had nothing in common, and at times their manifold differences of opinion might have produced serious results save for the younger man’s caution. Talbot’s physical nerve was weak, he wanted pluck--a lack that Mr. Smithson quickly discovered, and made the boy’s life a burden to him.

Ethel always supported the weaker side in the many arguments arising from this question of bravery; and, on one occasion, after the Squire had made some allusions more pointed than polite to his guest’s rapidly acquired knowledge of gaps, gates and like aids to the judicious Nimrod, Miss Smithson thought proper to drag me into the conversation.

“How can the wild, reckless courage you admire, papa, compare with the cool mental nerve which may be shown to some purpose in the useful affairs of life? How many of the men who jump over hedges and ditches, and risk their stupid necks before the gaze of farm yokels, would sleep night after night in a haunted room, for instance, as Mr. Warren does here?”

“Our ghost!” roared the Squire. “Our little plump, roly-poly of a ghost! I’d make a better bogey with a sheet and a turnip!”

The man meant nothing; his remark was not intended offensively; but I chanced to be in the drawing-room at the time (on a little footstool by the fire), and I confess I felt hurt. People should be careful what they say in a haunted house. I have a friend doing some haunting about half a mile from here, who would come over and punish these folks horribly if I wished it. He belongs to the Reformation period, works between three and four in the morning, and during that weird hour can make a noise like china falling down a lift. But I am not vindictive. A phantom rarely reaches the age of three hundred without learning to control his temper.

“Physical bravery may be shown to greater advantage than in the hunting-field,” said Mr. Warren, answering the Squire.

“It may, I grant you, but that is a right good school for it; and a man who loses nerve at a critical moment there will, in my judgment, be likely to do so all through his life.”

“Are there no brave men who do not hunt?” asked Ethel.

“Thousands, my dear. You give us a beautiful feminine example of begging the question,” answered the parent. “Moral nerve is, I allow, a greater thing than physical bravery at its best; but courage of both kinds, according to my old-fashioned notions, should be the hall-mark of a man.”

Talbot expressed a hope that some opportunity might, ere long, be given him.

“I trust a chance of showing you that I do not lack either one sort of bravery or the other will come in my way, Mr. Smithson,” said he.

Then the company retired, and on the following day private business took Mr. Warren to Hereford for an hour or two. He returned, however, before luncheon; and that night transpired the monstrous event I am now about to relate. Although he slept in an apartment particularly associated with myself, I had not, I may here explain, vouchsafed an interview to our visitor, for reasons sufficiently sound. In my opinion, no good would have come of it. Mentally, Talbot Warren was not a coward; and the knowledge of this fact, combined with a certain underbred cubbishness in the young man’s treatment of inferiors, led me to suspect something derogatory to myself did I appear to him; but, after the recent conversation, I felt I had no choice.

As the clock struck twelve, therefore, on the night in question, I made my way through the wash-hand stand in the Russet Room and stood before Talbot Warren. I am nothing by gaslight, and to my surprise and irritation Warren’s gas still burnt. He was dressed and sitting by the fire examining a huge lethal weapon with two barrels. He looked up and caught my wan, weary eyes fixed upon him.

“Oh, you’re the ghost, I suppose?” he said rather carelessly.

I approached him and endeavoured to touch his brow with my icy forefinger; but he arose from his chair, regarded me insolently, and--I hate to write it--walked straight through me. I was never so put out in my life. I should have hardly conceived such a thing to be possible; I nearly choked with indignation. For sheer, unadulterated vulgarity, the man who intentionally walks through a ghost may fairly be said to stand alone. You tangible, ponderable people who read cannot remotely imagine my feelings; but any spectre will. Revenge was my one idea.

Having by this outrage convinced himself of my unsubstantial nature, the little cad looked me up and down critically and contemptuously. “Then,” said he, “_you_ can’t upset my plans, anyhow.”

The knowledge that he had plans comforted me somewhat. That they were nefarious I gathered from the pistol which he carried; and that I would confound and outwit him at all costs I also determined.

Not until two in the morning did he prepare for action. Meantime, rendering myself wholly invisible, I sat on a chest of drawers and watched him. At the hour named he shut his book, partially unrobed, put on his slippers, produced a “jemmy” and a dark lantern, picked up his weapon, and silently crawled downstairs.

The hideous truth flashed upon me. He was one of some gang of burglars, and now intended throwing open the house to his accomplices! What was to be done? Our household lay buried in sleep. Warren stole to the butler’s room. Once within it, a stroke or two from his detestable apparatus would put the plate at his mercy.

For one brief moment I lost my nerve. The responsibility of my position was terrible. Then I strung myself to the struggle, and attacked him. But in spite of my frantic gesticulations, aerial gyrations, and supernatural manifestations, the ruffian kept on his evil way unmoved. I dashed about, and tried hard to make him get excited and worried, but he was as cool as a cucumber, and told me to “keep my hair on”--whatever that might mean. Then, realising the futility of this course, I sped away, faster than thought, to alarm the house.

Squire Smithson was slumbering noisily on his right side as I loomed through the fireplace of his chamber and laid an icy digit upon his brow. He leapt up instantly, but laughed when he saw who it was.

“Hullo, Fatty! Feeling lonely, eh? Don’t worry me, my boy; I’ve got a busy day before me to-morrow. Stick to your own room, and get a rise out of that booby Warren. If you can’t frighten him, you’d better give up the business and go back where you came from.”

Then he turned with his face to the wall, and was asleep again instantly. That is the world all over. You may be breaking your heart about it; but it only laughs, and tells you to mind your own business, and not make a fool of yourself.

I went and woke the butler. I waved my drapery and pointed downstairs with actions that spoke louder than words. He sat up in bed and forgot himself altogether, and used language I shall not soil this page by repeating. It appeared that he was suffering from gout--the result of dishonesty in the wine-cellar--and had only managed to get to sleep a few moments before I roused him.

“’Ere ’ave I bin torn to pieces with agony for three mortal hours, and just drop off, and then you come with your beastly cold paw and wake me and bring back the torture a thousand times worse than ever. I’ll give warning; I won’t put up with you and your tomfoolery for any master alive. Why should I? Get out of this room, you little brute. Don’t stand there waving about, like a shirt on a clothes-line. Get on, get out of it, or I’ll strangle you.”

I went. It was no good stopping. He couldn’t strangle me, of course; but it is impossible to explain a difficult thing like burglary, in pantomime, to a man who can hardly see straight for temper. I almost wept ghostly tears. Never before had the pathos and powerlessness of my position been so impressed upon me.

In this sorry plight I sought my little friend Winifred, the Squire’s grand-daughter before mentioned. She was lying wide awake, silent and speculative, as small children will. I loomed through a screen, covered with pictures from Christmas numbers, and she arose from her cot, a wee, comical white figure, faintly illumined by a night-light.

“How is you, dear doast?” she inquired. My mystic presence always gratified her.

She chuckled and chirruped in baby fashion while I beckoned and moved towards the door.

“You funny old doast. Stand on ’oo little head, doast, like yesterday in de torridor.”

But I wasn’t there to fool. I wanted to get her out into the passage, then alarm her nurse and so the entire house.

“It’s too told to do playing to-night, doast,” she said.

“Cold!” I doubt if ever a phantom got up to such a temperature anywhere as I did on that occasion.

Then the nurse awoke, peeped two angry eyes over her counterpane, and gave me some plainly-worded advice.

“Shame on you, ghost! Ain’t you got nothing better to do than scare childer and wake decent women-folks? Be off with you, you fat old blackguard, or it’s a bell, book and candle I’ll fetch.”

I only wished she would fetch a bell--and ring it.

“Dood night, dear doast!” cried my small friend, as I sank through the floor into the footman’s chamber. Here further failure awaited me. I could not so much as wake the man. His was no natural sleep, but some species of loathsome hibernation peculiar to male menials and entirely beyond my power to conquer or dispel.

And downstairs the inexpressible Warren was filling a sack with choice spoil and drinking dry sherry from the decanter.

I dashed out of doors to see if anything could be done with the watch-dog, a massive brute, judged without sufficient reason to be ferocious. He was asleep, of course, but came forth from his kennel when I touched his nose, recognised me instantly, wagged his idiotic tail, and showed an evident desire to be patted. I couldn’t pat him, but I should like to have kicked him, and I’m not ashamed to say so. I tried to rouse the dog’s spirit; I threw imaginary stones, and frisked about and pretended to steal its supper; but the lumbering brute regarded me with that good-tempered glance bred from conscious superiority, and then went back into its kennel.

If ever a spirit was more utterly crushed, sat upon, scorned and smothered by the flesh than I that night, I should like to learn the particulars.

Warren had now taken his sack into the dining-room, had cut two window-panes out with a diamond (why, I could not at the time understand), and then, opening the window widely, lowered his booty into the garden. I fled out again to strike terror, if possible, into the hearts of his vile accomplices, but found, to my surprise, that there were none. Single-handed he was effecting this dark deed.

Then a final desperate resolution came to my mind; I would rouse Miss Ethel Smithson herself, and show her the man she loved in his true colours.

Even then my natural kindness of disposition caused me to hesitate. But if you see, as I did then, love’s young dream drifting into a nightmare, you are justified in shattering it. No burglar could bring true and lasting happiness into a gentlewoman’s life. That, at least, is my view.

“Why, ghost,” said Ethel, rubbing her eyes after I had waked her, “I don’t think it was kind of you to spoil a beautiful dream I was having about--but never mind, it won’t interest you.” I beckoned mystically, and she showed a little interest. I retreated, inch by inch, to the door, waving her after me. Hamlet’s father’s spirit never did anything better or more solemn and impressive. By all the curiosity of young ladies, she rose! She put on a dressing-gown and slippers! She said, “Whatever is it? I do hope there’s nothing happened to Talbot.” My heart bled for her, but I was firm, and she followed me out on to the dark landing.

A dim light flickered from a doorway far below. This Miss Smithson instantly observed, and deducing a theory therefrom with marvellous celerity, had the good sense to cry “Thieves!” as loud as she possibly could do so. Then she bolted into her father’s room, made the same remark, and finally retired to her own apartment, locking the door behind her.

Disorder was thereupon the order of the night, while the behaviour of the outrageous Warren passed belief. At the first sound of the tumult he deliberately fired off his pistol through the top of his hat, and discharged the other barrel into a rather valuable hunting picture which hung above the sideboard. He then leapt through the open window into the garden, rolled himself in the mud, rose and galloped off into the darkness, shouting “This way! Follow me: I’ve got the scoundrels! Help here, help!”

I need not point out that these expressions were calculated to give an utterly false impression of the situation and circumstances. I had been grossly deceived, as the rest of the family were now about to be.

Squire Smithson came down the front stairs with a life-preserver, and my hibernating footman rushed down the back stairs with another. The Squire kicked an umbrella-stand with his naked foot, and stopped a moment to talk to himself. This gave the hireling some advantage of ground, and when the head of the house reached his dining-room window, he found a man half-way out of it. It was too dark to distinguish friend or foe, and Squire Smithson, making a dash at the figure, brought down his life-preserver with considerable brute force. I cannot pretend to say I was sorry for this. The injured domestic screamed, and was about to beg for mercy, when a mutual recognition occurred, and he contented himself with giving warning. Then they tumbled out of the window together, and hastened to where great shouting arose from a distant shrubbery. A tramp, hearing the riot, got over the wall of the kitchen garden at the back of the house to help, and fell through the roof of a vinery. There he was ultimately discovered, cut to ribbons, and it took him all his time for an hour to explain his intentions. The dog, of course, began barking now as if he had known all from the first, and only waited the right moment; the maids were screaming in pairs from the different windows, and some fool in the house (the page-boy, I imagine) was beating the dinner-gong--doubtless to conceal his own cowardly emotions. For my own part, I was in twenty places at once, whirling through the dark air, issuing directions, explaining everything in dumb show, and making the entire concern as clear as daylight.

But nobody paid the very slightest attention to me.

Warren at length returned, breathless and bedraggled. He recovered with great apparent effort, gave utterance to a succession of dastardly falsehoods, and became the hero of the hour.

The scamp related how a noise had awakened him; how, seeing a light in the hall, he had crept downstairs, to find two ruffians with black masks lowering a sack of valuables out of the dining-room window; how he had hurled himself upon them with the courage of an army; how they had twice fired point-blank at him, and then fled; how he had followed them, seized one, and struggled with him; how, finally, uniting their efforts, they had succeeded in escaping from him.

And there was an end of the matter; for of course it appeared impossible to question the truth of the story, or raise any further doubt about the moral and physical pluck of a young man who could do these things.

Next morning the pistol was discovered in the garden; detectives wandered about, lunched at the Squire’s expense, found clues, and took the address of the tramp who had fallen into the greenhouse. This man had departed a physical wreck, swearing that he would never put himself out of the way again for anybody as long as he lived. I confess my ghostly heart went out to him. The local paper published two columns of sickening adulation upon the subject of Talbot Warren; Ethel’s father consented to her engagement, and--bitterest blow of all--thought it proper and decent to censure me at breakfast, before the servants, for the part that I had played.

“What’s the use of a paltry shade that cannot even scare burglars away from a family mansion?” he asked.

“The poor little chap tried his best,” said Ethel.

“Yes, after it was all over and the mischief nearly done. If he’d had the pluck of a mouse, he would have gone down to help Warren, instead of fluttering about making faces and doing nothing, and getting in the way. Why didn’t he speak up like a man?”

The brute Warren said he thought that most spectres were cowards at heart, and the butler ventured to agree with him.

I am leaving Capon Hall. These incidents have knocked all the spirit out of me. I wish to say no bitter word of anybody; it is more in sorrow than anger that I write; but misunderstanding so humiliating, coupled with loss of self-respect so complete, can neither be lightly forgiven nor forgotten.

Change, repose, lapse of ages are all necessary to the renewal of my shattered moral tone and vital principle. It may be many centuries before I revisit “the glimpses of the moon.” If I had my way I should never haunt again. In my case the game is not worth the phosphorescence. There obtains an idiotic belief among men that “all appearances are deceitful”; but that such a rule has many exceptions I can only trust this narrative will sufficiently attest.

GREENSMITH’S CHARADE

Candidly, if you were to ask me what I think of amateur acting generally, and charades in peculiar, I should tell you that in my opinion there is a very considerable compartment down below devoted exclusively to this peculiar form of torment. There the amateurs will do great things on a fiery stage; and the misguided people who have encouraged them during this life must make up their minds to sit solidly in red-hot stalls, without backs, through an eternity of indifferent acting. It is a source of satisfaction to me that I only helped to perform one charade in my life--which I ruined. And yet it seems rough to be jubilant about it, because that particular entertainment did two really great things for me--one in the little affair of Millicent Warne, the other touching Greensmith.

You don’t know Greensmith? Thank God for it; but let the thought that he still lives, and is loose, and may on some occasion cross your own path, chasten you when you are going strong and feel inclined to get above yourself. The time of these events being Christmas, I will not say what I think of Greensmith here, but merely hint that he is the smallest man and the biggest hound that ever cast a black spell on a pleasant party. His conceit is gigantic, his manners are loathsome, his ancestry runs into a Jew pedlar in the second generation and stops there. He has more opinions and less information than a Board School teacher. He is, moreover, a worm, and also a bounder. He lies, and he would break all the ten commandments every week of his life had he the pluck to do so. But if he may be allowed a strong point, it is cowardice. He wears an eyeglass with difficulty, waxes the points of an indifferent moustache, sports a red tie by day, diamonds by night, and is, to conclude, within the bounds of charity, the most unutterably deplorable parody of a human being that Nature ever turned out during a moment of weakness. So much for a mere judicial summary of Greensmith. If you want my private opinion concerning him, you can have it when this present blessed season of peace and good will has passed into limbo. I can’t blackguard a man at Christmas-time.

Greensmith and I joined old General Warne’s house-party about the third week in December. How Greensmith got in nobody ascertained with certainty, but I fancy his purse had something to do with it. Retired army men, with plenty of energy and nothing to occupy their minds, either spend their time in religious enterprises or mercantile ones; they dabble in missions and Church work, or stocks and shares, according to the bent of their genius. General Warne was one of those who go off to play in the City. There he met the ineffable Greensmith, and with some lack of wisdom invited the thing to spend Christmas at his place in Warwickshire. Now, mind you, I judge of every Johnnie by himself, and I was utterly unprejudiced in the matter of Greensmith when I first met him. I knew by the number and nature of the rings on his hand as he held it out that he wasn’t a gentleman; still, I told myself, this might be his misfortune and not his fault. A mere error of taste in jewellery is nothing. But when he opened his mouth, the horrible inner nature of the person appeared. He had the start of me by two days; yet his manners must have led you to suppose that he had enjoyed the privilege of knowing General Warne, his daughter, and his wife since they were born.

Now, I really did enjoy such a position so far as the General’s family was concerned. At five years of age I had proposed marriage to Millicent Warne and been accepted. Later on, when I was ten, the engagement was broken off by mutual understanding; but four years afterwards, when I had reached the age of fourteen, she twelve, and when we were both pretty well alive to the hollowness of the world, the engagement was renewed. I only mention this trifle to show what my relations with the Warnes amounted to. At the beginning of this narrative Millicent and I had been for many years detached. Our friendship was still sincere, but platonic, and we could discuss our romances without emotion. Indeed, on the very occasion of this house-party we had a conversation upon the subject of marriage. I was now twenty, Millicent two years younger, and we drew bright pictures of the single state, and encouraged one another to be resolute in our lofty ambition of sticking to it.

Well, you can see for yourself what I’m coming to; the Greensmith, with an amount of indecent haste impossible to a human being of any refinement or judgment, fell head over heels in love with Millicent Warne. His pretensions were merely those of the pocket; his appearance would have made the most ancient and amorous spinster think twice; his age placed him upon the confines of sere and yellow, for he was thirty-four. How he lorded it over everybody on the strength of his five thousand a year! How he explained that he was better mounted, groomed, dressed, educated, and mentally equipped than any other man at that time within the confines of Warwickshire! And all the time I knew that when I came of age, next year, I should be able to swamp him even in the matter of filthy lucre, as I did now in the matter of brain power. Not that I am anything worth mentioning mentally; but the man with one eye is king where all else are blind, and I at least had sense to know that I was not much better than a fool, whereas Greensmith was that pitiable spectacle, a fool who thinks himself a wise man.

Of course, I saw the growing intimacy and the barefaced way in which Millicent tolerated him, especially in my presence. I spoke about it more than once, and to my surprise, Miss Warne took up an attitude of indifference. We did not quarrel, because I am a man with whom it is impossible for a woman to be on bad terms; but we differed, and I watched the flirtation, for it was hardly less, with some discomfort. Here was the best girl I had ever seen or heard of deliberately encouraging a sort of man one did not like to see in the same hemisphere with her.

Greensmith’s charade brought matters to a climax in a way beyond human power to foretell. Of course, when the thing was proposed he took up the running. What he didn’t know about charades wasn’t worth knowing; so he undertook to write one, arrange the parts, paint the scenes, and stage-manage. Millicent, to my amazement, threw herself into the project very heartily, and seemed much disappointed when Greensmith said he should not act himself.

“The author never does,” he explained. “You are my puppets for the time being. It will take me all my time to rehearse you and lick you into shape.”

To hear Greensmith thus talk about licking county people into shape made my blood boil. It took Millicent two hours by the study clock to get me to promise to play a part. But I did it, chiefly that I might have an excuse for being present at rehearsals and so forth. A hard frost came at the critical moment, so hunting was suspended, and we had ample leisure for the charade.

Greensmith said, when he read his drivel to the company: “There are three syllables, and then the whole word; four scenes in all, and each depends upon the others. I’ve given a taste of Gilbert’s epigrammatic style in the first scene; the second suggests the robust manner of Jones; the third recalls Pinero.”

“And what shall you give us last,” I said, “Shakespeare?”

“No, myself,” he answered.

The word was ‘innocent,’ which Greensmith divided thus: ‘Inn,’ ‘No!’ ‘Scent.’ I really forget all the details, and they don’t signify now; but my part and Millicent’s stick in my memory, as well they may. Why, I shall never quite understand, but Greensmith arranged that Millicent and I should be lovers, that I should send her a letter proposing marriage in the first scene, that she should forward me an answer refusing my hand in the second. How little the idiot thought of what he was doing! What absurd and Satanic conceit he had, not to see the horrid jeopardy to his own private arrangements involved by this manner of planning the charade!

I chucked up my part four times during the first rehearsal; I chucked it up thirteen times in all before the night. Greensmith was entirely responsible for the chucking; Millicent’s marvellous tact so worked upon me that, against my better judgment, I resumed the character. He said once:

“If you’ll only be natural, old man, you’re all right. The part fits you like a glove. It was written for you.”

Now, seeing that the character I impersonated was a silly fool who didn’t know his own mind, and fancied he was not in love when he was all the time, this seemed hard enough to bear without being called ‘old man’ by a person like Greensmith. So I threw up the part again. That was the tenth time, or it may have been the eleventh. Anyway, Millicent so far prevailed with me that I found myself acting on the night. The first week in January it was; and the concern being in mediæval times, we were all got up in costume. Greensmith wanted to have everything archæologically correct, but they weren’t by long chalks, because everybody would wear what he liked, and the girls too. We had a stage and scenery out from Birmingham, and a man to paint our faces, and another to do limelight effects on us. I remember just at the last minute Greensmith asking me if I thought the big audience which crammed General Warne’s hall would call for the author. I said:

“If they do, you can get away through the hall window and hide in the park.” This stung him into retort.

He said:

“There’ll only be one target for brickbats, my boy, while you’re on the stage. Your solitary chance is to speak my words. I don’t believe you know your part a little bit.”

“I’m going to put some fun of my own into it,” I said, just to get his wool off.