Nightmare Abbey, Thomas Love Peacock [top ten books to read TXT] 📗

The bowl goes trim: the moon doth shine:
And our ballast is old wine.

Mr. Cypress, having his ballast on board, stepped, the same evening, into his bowl, or travelling chariot, and departed to rake seas and rivers, lakes and canals, for the moon of ideal beauty.

XII

It was the custom of the Honourable Mr. Listless, on adjourning from the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout, attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was haunted. Mrs. Hilary’s gentlewoman, for whom Fatout had lately conceived a tendresse, had been, as she expressed it, “fritted out of her seventeen senses” the preceding night, as she was retiring to her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone. “Sacre⁠—cochon⁠—bleu!” exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath⁠—“I vould not meet de revenant, de ghost⁠—non⁠—not for all de bowl-de-ponch in de vorld.”

“Fatout,” said the Honourable Mr. Listless, “did I ever see a ghost?”

“Jamais, monsieur, never.”

“Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of my nerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There⁠—loosen the lace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice of eating⁠—Not too loose⁠—consider my shape. That will do. And I desire that you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one is apt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of a chill, particularly if one opens one’s eyes suddenly on one’s dressing gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.”

The Honourable Mr. Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout from bringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking of that which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in his mind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest of the company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr. Flosky, whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any story of any ghost that had ever appeared to anyone, was entitled to any degree of belief?

Mr. Flosky

By far the greater number, to a very great degree.

The Honourable Mr. Listless

Really, that is very alarming!

Mr. Flosky

Sunt geminoe somni portoe. There are two gates through which ghosts find their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In the latter case, a ghost is a deceptio visus, an ocular spectrum, an idea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. I dare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.

The Honourable Mr. Listless

I am happy to say, I never have, for one.

The Reverend Mr. Larynx

We have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism to disbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purpose of asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.

The Honourable Mr. Listless

Because Job was too frightened to give one.

The Reverend Mr. Larynx

Spectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with which Moses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel. Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent into the army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.

Mr. Toobad

Saying, “The devil is come among you, having great wrath.”

Mr. Flosky

Saint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert, and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was going forward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretended martyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up his ghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, being on his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who had every night taken possession of the table d’hôte, and consumed a copious supper.

Mr. Hilary

Jolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possession of the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine, and threw the empty bottles at his head.

The Reverend Mr. Larynx

An atrocious act.

Mr. Flosky

Pausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult of combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their curiosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.

The Reverend Mr. Larynx

I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last