Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
As in Mrs. Hooper's version, the dénoûment was brought about by the
aid of a clergyman. Men of this profession have always been considered
the most efficient guardians against the powers of darkness. He,
with the help of Mrs. M----, made the excavation in the cellar which
brought to light the half-consumed skeleton. Here, unfortunately, is a
gap in the evidence. The remains were pronounced by medical authority
to be human, but was that authority reliable? was that doctor skilled
in comparative anatomy? If not, the bones might have been those of a
sheep, buried perchance in the cellar by a provident dog.
The house still stands, or did recently, in Washington street. The
builder was a sea-captain returning after a long absence with plenty
of money, supposed by the townspeople to have been acquired in the
slave-trade or by piracy. There was also a young woman, house-keeper
to this Captain Kidd, who disappeared about the time that he did
himself.
Mrs. M---- was fond of narrating this story, and, having a pretty
talent that way, she had versified it; though I am bound to say that
in plain prose it was much more effective. She was an Englishwoman,
had seen much of the world, and was a person of considerable reading
and cultivation. She had moral and physical courage in an uncommon
degree, and was thoroughly reliable, so that this story is to me as
well authenticated as one can well be at second hand.
I have another incident of the same shadowy and quasi-supernatural
kind to relate, which took place in the same street of that town,
formerly much affected by ghosts and other supernatural appearances.
I say formerly, for what spirit, however perturbed, could revisit the
glimpses of the moon in a modern villa, or abide long within the sound
of the steam-whistle?
Some years ago I was living in Newport in an old-fashioned house, also
built by a retired sea-captain in the early part of the century, but,
unlike the other, there were no tales of terror connected with it
that I ever heard of. At 1 p.m. on a winter's day, in the midst of a
furious snow-storm, as we sat at dinner, we heard a commotion in the
kitchen. Instead of the expected joint, enter a pallid woman: "Oh,
please come out and see Martha!" The lady of the house hastened to
the kitchen, and found Martha, the cook, almost fainting upon a chair.
"What is the matter?" As soon as she could speak she gasped out, "Oh,
that face at the window!" The window of the kitchen looked out upon
the garden, which had a high fence all around it. I at once ran out
to see if any person was there: the ground was covered with a pure and
untrodden surface of snow six or eight inches deep. This was rather
startling, when inside the window a woman was fainting at the sight
of some fearful appearance on the outside. I looked out on the street,
which ran alongside the garden fence, and which was not much of a
thoroughfare. There were no tracks to be seen in the snow. No human
foot had lately been in the garden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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