Wandering ghostsCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Science
Wandering ghosts
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
American fiction; Ghost stories; Horror tales; Short stories
Anyhow, I know I never did tell any one but you. This is the first time
I have talked of all that, the first time since I took the train from
that place. I am not going to tell you all about the day. Miss Mamie
introduced me to her mother, who was a quiet, hard-faced old New England
farmer's widow, and to her cousins and relations; and there were plenty
of them, too, at dinner, and there was the parson besides. He was what
they call a Hard-shell Baptist in those parts, with a long, shaven upper
lip and a whacking appetite, and a sort of superior look, as if he
didn't expect to see many of us hereafter--the way a New York pilot
looks round, and orders things about when he boards an Italian
cargo-dragger, as if the ship weren't up to much anyway, though it was
his business to see that she didn't get aground. That's the way a good
many parsons look, I think. He said grace as if he were ordering the men
to sheet home the topgallant-sail and get the helm up. After dinner we
went out on the piazza, for it was warm autumn weather; and the young
folks went off in pairs along the beach road, and the tide had turned
and was beginning to come in. The morning had been clear and fine, but
by four o'clock it began to look like a fog, and the damp came up out of
the sea and settled on everything. Jack said he'd go down to his cottage
and have a last look, for the wedding was to be at five o'clock, or soon
after, and he wanted to light the lights, so as to have things look
cheerful.
"I will just take a last look," he said again, as we reached the house.
We went in, and he offered me another cigar, and I lit it and sat down
in the parlour. I could hear him moving about, first in the kitchen and
then upstairs, and then I heard him in the kitchen again; and then
before I knew anything I heard somebody moving upstairs again. I knew he
couldn't have got up those stairs as quick as that. He came into the
parlour, and he took a cigar himself, and while he was lighting it I
heard those steps again overhead. His hand shook, and he dropped the
match.
"Have you got in somebody to help?" I asked.
"No," Jack answered sharply, and struck another match.
"There's somebody upstairs, Jack," I said. "Don't you hear footsteps?"
"It's the wind, captain," Jack answered; but I could see he was
trembling.
"That isn't any wind, Jack," I said; "it's still and foggy. I'm sure
there's somebody upstairs."
"If you are so sure of it, you'd better go and see for yourself,
captain," Jack answered, almost angrily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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