The Red Eric, Robert Michael Ballantyne [free ebook novel txt] 📗

ghosts," said Dick Barnes stoutly, in a tone of voice that rendered the veracity of his assertion, to say the least of it, doubtful.

"Nother do I," remarked Nikel Sling, who had just concluded his culinary operations for the day, and sought to employ his brief interval of relaxation in social intercourse with his fellows. Being engaged in ministering to the animal wants of his comrades all day, he felt himself entitled to enjoy a little of the "feast of reason and the flow of soul" at night:

"No more duv I," added Phil Briant firmly, at the same time hitting his thigh a slap with his open hand that caused all round him to start.

"You don't, don't you?" said Tim Rokens, addressing the company generally, and looking round gravely, while he pushed the glowing tobacco into his pipe with the point of a marline-spike.

To this there was a chorus of "Noes," but a close observer would have noticed that nearly the whole conversation was carried on in low tones, and that many a glance was cast behind, as if these bold sceptics more than half expected all the ghosts that did happen to exist to seize them then and there and carry them off as a punishment for their unbelief.

Tim Rokens drew a few whiffs of his pipe, and looked round gravely before he again spoke; then he put the following momentous question, with the air of a man who knew he could overturn his adversary whatever his reply should be--

"An' why don't ye b'lieve in 'em?"

We cannot say positively that Tim Rokens put the question to Jim Scroggles, but it is certain that Jim Scroggles accepted the question as addressed to him, and answered in reply--

"'Cause why? I never seed a ghost, an' nobody never seed a ghost, an' I don't b'lieve in what I can't see."

Jim said this as if he thought the position incontestable. Tim regarded him with a prolonged stare, but for some time said nothing. At last he emitted several strong puffs of smoke, and said--

"Young man, did you ever _see_ your own mind?"

"No, in course not."

"Did anybody else ever see it?"

"Cer'nly not."

"Then of course you don't believe in it!" added Rokens, while a slight smile curled his upper lip.

The men chuckled a good deal at Jim's confusion, while he in vain attempted to explain that the two ideas were not parallel by any means. At this juncture, Phil Briant came to the rescue.

"Ah now, git out," said he. "I agree with Jim intirely; an' Tim Rokens isn't quite so cliver as he thinks. Now look here, lads, here's how it stands, 'xactly. Jim says he never seed his own mind--very good; and he says as how nobody else niver seed it nother; well, and wot then? Don't you observe it's 'cause he han't got none at all to see? He han't got even the ghost of one, so how could ye expect anybody to see it?"

"Oh, hold yer noise, Paddy," exclaimed Dick Barnes, "an' let's have a ghost story from Tim Rokens. He b'lieves in ghosts, anyhow, an' could give us a yarn about 'em, I knows, if he likes. Come along now, Tim, like a good fellow."

"Ay, that's it," cried Briant; "give us a stiff 'un now. Don't be afeard to skear us, old boy."

"Oh, I can give ye a yarn about ghosts, cer'nly," said Tim Rokens, looking into the bowl of his pipe in order to make sure that it was sufficiently charged to last out the story. "I'll tell ye of a ghost I once seed and knocked down."

"Knocked down!" cried Nikel Sling in surprise; "why, I allers thought as how ghosts was spirits, an' couldn't be knocked down or cotched neither."

"Not at all," replied Rokens; "ghosts is made of all sorts o' things-- brass, and iron, and linen, and buntin', and timber; it wos a brass ghost the feller that I'm goin' to tell ye about--"

"I say, Sling," interrupted Briant, "av ghosts wos spirits, as you thought they wos, would they be allowed into the State of Maine?"

"Oh, Phil, shut up, do! Now then, Tim, fire away."

"Well, then," began Rokens, with great deliberation, "it was on a Vednesday night as it happened. I had bin out at supper with a friend that night, and we'd had a glass or two o' grog; for ye see, lads, it was some years ago, afore I tuk to temp'rance. I had a long way to go over a great dark moor afore I could git to the place where I lodged, so I clapped on all sail to git over the moor, seein' the moon would go down soon; but it wouldn't do: the moon set when I wos in the very middle of the moor, and as the road wasn't over good, I wos in a state o' confumble lest I should lose it altogether. I looks round in all directions, but I couldn't see nothin'--cause why? there wasn't nothin' to be seen. It was 'orrid dark, I can tell ye. Jist one or two stars a-shinin', like half-a-dozen farden dips in a great church; they only made darkness wisible. I began to feel all over a cur'ous sort o' peculiar unaccountableness, which it ain't easy to explain, but is most oncommon disagreeable to feel. It wos very still, too--desperate still. The beatin' o' my own heart sounded quite loud, and I heer'd the tickin' o' my watch goin' like the click of a church clock. Oh, it was awful!"

At this point in the story the men crept closer together, and listened with intense earnestness.

"Suddently," continued Rokens--"for things in sich circumstances always comes suddently--suddently I seed somethin' black jump up right ahead o' me."

Here Rokens paused.

"Wot was it?" inquired Gurney, in a solemn whisper.

"It was," resumed Rokens slowly, "the stump of a old tree."

"Oh, I thought it had been the ghost," said Gurney, somewhat relieved, for that fat little Jack-tar fully believed in apparitions, and always listened to a ghost story in fear and trembling.

"No it wasn't the ghost; it was the stump of a tree. Well, I set sail again, an' presently I sees a great white thing risin' up ahead o' me."

"Hah! _that_ was it," whispered Gurney.

"No, that wasn't it," retorted Rokens; "that was a hinn, a white-painted hinn, as stood by the roadside, and right glad wos I to see it, I can tell ye, shipmates, for I wos gittin' tired as well as frightened. I soon roused the landlord by kickin' at the door till it nearly comed off its hinges; and arter gettin' another glass o' grog, I axed the landlord to show me my bunk, as I wanted to turn in.

"It was a queer old house that hinn wos. A great ramblin' place, with no end o' staircases and passages. A dreadful gloomy sort o' place. No one lived in it except the landlord, a dark-faced surly fellow as one would like to kick out of his own door, and his wife, who wos little better than his-self. They also had a hostler, but he slept with the cattle in a hout-house.

"`Ye won't be fear'd,' says the landlord, as he hove ahead through the long passages holdin' the candle high above his head to show the way, `to sleep in the far end o' the house. It's the old bit; the new bit's undergoin' repairs. You'll find it comfortable enough, though it's raither gusty, bein' old, ye see; but the weather ain't cold, so ye won't mind it.'

"`Oh! niver a bit,' says I, quite bold like; `I don't care a rap for nothin'. There ain't no ghosts, is there?'

"`Well, I'm not sure; many travellers wot has stayed here has said to me they've seed 'em, particklerly in the old part o' the buildin', but they seems to be quite harmless, and never hurts any one as lets 'em alone. I never seed 'em myself, an' there's cer'nly not more nor half-a-dozen on 'em--hallo!--'

"At that moment, shipmates, a strong gust o' cold air came rushin' down the passage we was in, and blow'd out the candle. `Ah! it's gone out,' said the landlord; `just wait here a moment, and I'll light it;' and with that he shuffled off, and left me in the blackest and most thickest darkness I ever wos in in all my life. I didn't dare to move, for I didn't know the channels, d'ye see, and might ha' run myself aground or against the rocks in no time. The wind came moanin' down the passage; as if all the six ghosts the landlord mentioned, and a dozen or two o' their friends besides, was a-dyin' of stommick-complaint. I'm not easy frightened, lads, but my knees did feel as if the bones in 'em had turned to water, and my hair began to git up on end, for I felt it risin'. Suddenly I saw somethin' comin' along the passage towards me--"

"That's the ghost, _now_," interrupted Gurney, in a tremulous whisper.

Rokens paused, and regarded his fat shipmate with a look of contemptuous pity; then turning to the others, he said--

"It wos _the landlord_, a-comin' back with the candle. He begged pardon for leavin' me in the dark so long, and led the way to a room at the far end o' the passage. It was a big, old-fashioned room, with a treemendius high ceiling, and no furniture, 'cept one chair, one small table, and a low camp-bed in a corner. `Here's your room,' says the landlord; `it's well-aired. I may as well mention that the latch of the door ain't just the thing. It sometimes blows open with a bang, but when you know it may happen, you can be on the look-out for it, you know, and so you'll not be taken by surprise. Good-night.' With that the fellow set the candle down on the small table at the bedside, and left me to my cogitations. I heerd his footsteps echoin' as he went clankin' along the passages; then they died away, an' I was alone.

"Now, I tell ye wot it is, shipmates; I've bin in miny a fix, but I niver wos in sich a fix as that. The room was empty and big; so big that the candle could only light up about a quarter of it, leavin' the rest in gloom. There was one or two old picturs on the walls; one on 'em a portrait of a old admiral, with a blue coat and brass buttons and white veskit. It hung just opposite the fut o' my bunk, an' I could hardly make it out, but I saw that the admiral kep his eye on me wheriver I turned or moved about the room, an' twice or thrice, if not more, I saw him wink with his weather eye. Yes, he winked as plain as I do myself. Says I to myself, says I, `Tim Rokens, you're a British tar, an' a whaler, an' a harpooner; so, Tim, my boy, don't you go for to be a babby.'

"With that I smoked a pipe, and took off my clo's, and tumbled in, and feeling a little bolder by this time, I blew out the candle.