Chapter XXVI: Book II: The Second Phantom

One! The stroke of the far-off bell had hardly died before the front door closed with a reverberating clang. Steps were heard along the passage; the library door swung open of itself, and the Knocker――yes, the Knocker――slowly strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his eyes――no! there could be no mistake about it――it was the Knocker’s face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon.

“It’s a cold evening,” said the Haunted Man.

“It is,” said the Goblin, in a hard, metallic voice.

“It must be pretty cold out there,” said the Haunted Man, with vague politeness. “Do you ever――will you――take some hot water and brandy?”

“No,” said the Goblin.

“Perhaps you’d like it cold, by way of change?” continued the Haunted Man, correcting himself, as he remembered the peculiar temperature with which the Goblin was probably familiar.

“Time flies,” said the Goblin coldly. “We have no leisure for idle talk. Come!” He moved his ghostly truncheon towards the window, and laid his hand upon the other’s arm. At his touch the body of the Haunted Man seemed to become as thin and incorporeal as that of the Goblin himself, and together they glided out of the window into the black and blowy night.

In the rapidity of their flight the senses of the Haunted Man seemed to leave him. At length they stopped suddenly.

“What do you see?” asked the Goblin.

“I see a battlemented medieval castle. Gallant men in mail ride over the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntletted fingers to fair ladies, who wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray and tournament. I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of delicate women, and shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I see a Jewess about to leap from a battlement. I see knightly deeds, violence, rapine, and a good deal of blood. I’ve seen pretty much the same at Astley’s.”

“Look again.”

“I see purple moors, glens, masculine women, barelegged men, priggish bookworms, more violence, physical excellence, and blood. Always blood――and the superiority of physical attainments.”

“And how do you feel now?” said the Goblin.

The Haunted Man shrugged his shoulders.

“None the better for being carried back and asked to sympathise with a barbarous age.”

The Goblin smiled and clutched his arm; they again sped rapidly through the black night and again halted.

“What do you see?” said the Goblin.

“I see a barrack room, with a mess table, and a group of intoxicated Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving challenges to duel. I see a young Irish gentleman capable of performing prodigies of valour. I learn incidentally that the acme of all heroism is the cornetcy of a dragoon regiment. I hear a good deal of French! No, thank you,” said the Haunted Man hurriedly, as he stayed the waving hand of the Goblin, “I would rather _not_ go to the Peninsular, and don’t care to have a private interview with Napoleon.”

Again the Goblin flew away with the unfortunate man, and from a strange roaring below them, he judged they were above the ocean. A ship hove in sight, and the Goblin stayed its flight, “Look,” he said, squeezing his companion’s arm.

The Haunted Man yawned. “Don’t you think, Charles, you’re rather running this thing into the ground? Of course, it’s very moral and instructive, and all that. But aint there a little too much pantomime about it! Come now!”

“Look!” repeated the Goblin, pinching his arm malevolently. The Haunted Man groaned.

“Oh, of course, I see Her Majesty’s ship Arethusa. Of course I am familiar with her stern First Lieutenant, her eccentric Captain, her one fascinating, and several mischievous midshipmen. Of course, I know it’s a splendid thing to see all this, and not to be sea-sick. Oh, there the young gentlemen are going to play a trick on the purser. For God’s sake let us go,” and the unhappy man absolutely dragged the Goblin away with him.

* * * * *

The Haunted Man started, and――woke. The bright sunshine streamed into the room. The air was sparkling with frost. He ran joyously to the window and opened it. A small boy saluted him with “Merry Christmas.” The Haunted Man instantly gave him a Bank of England note. “How much like Tiny Tim, Tom and Bobby that boy looked――bless my soul, what a genius this Dickens has!”

A knock at the door, and Boots entered.

“Consider your salary doubled instantly. Have you read _David Copperfield_?”

“Yezzur.”

“Your salary is quadrupled. What do you think of the _Old Curiosity Shop_?”

The man instantly burst into a torrent of tears, and then into a roar of laughter.

“Enough. Here are five thousand pounds. Open a porter-house, and call it ‘Our Mutual Friend.’ Huzza! I feel so happy!” And the Haunted Man danced about the room.

And so, bathed in the light of that blessed sun, and yet glowing with the warmth of a good action, the Haunted Man, haunted no longer, save by those shapes which make the dreams of children beautiful, reseated himself in his chair, and finished _Our Mutual Friend_.

“Sensation Novels,” first introduced to the British public by the late John Camden Hotten in 1871, has been since republished by Ward, Lock & Co., London.

“DOMBEY AND SON” FINISHED.
_Part the Best and Last._