Date: 1917-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Mystery; Murder; Ghosts; Weird Fiction
Description: Short stories in varied moods tell of the mysterious and the macabre. Some have a humorous tone as they describe fantastical events (“Green Bottle”, “A Bit of a Banshee”, “Son of Shaemas O’Shea”), while others will take you into some very dark places indeed (“Spurs”; “Silent, White, and Beautiful”).
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

BIZARRE

TOD ROBBINS

MobileRead Edition
2023

Short stories in varied moods investigate the mysterious and the macabre.

Some have a humorous tone as they describe fantastical events (“Green Bottle”, “A Bit of a Banshee”, “Son of Shaemas O’Shea”), while others will take you into some very dark places indeed (“Spurs”; “Silent, White and Beautiful”).

Clarence Aaron Robbins (25 June 1888 – May 10, 1949), billed as C. A. Robbins and better known as Tod Robbins, was an American author of horror and mystery fiction, particularly novels and short story collections. Writing for mainstream pulp magazines, he specialized in horror fiction dealing with themes of madness and cruelty. His work often contains bizarre and frightening plots, sometimes influenced by writers like Oscar Wilde and Robert W. Chambers. His novel The Unholy Three (1917), about side-show performers on a crime spree, was twice adapted for the screen, starring Lon Chaney both times. His short story “Spurs” was the basis for the 1932 cult film Freaks.

“…good pulp fiction, with a note of whimsy and sophistication that is unusual in the form.” —E. F. Bleiler

The contents of this book were first published 1918 ~ 1926. This ebook is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

CONTENTS:

- Silent, White and Beautiful
- Crimson Flowers
- An Eccentric
- Spurs
- Cockcrow Inn
- The Bibulous Baby
- Wild Wullie, the Waster
- Who Wants a Green Bottle?
- A Bit of a Banshee
- The Son of Shaemas O’Shea

Silent, White
and Beautiful

I

Tomorrow at this time I shall be dead! I have repeated this phrase over and over since breakfast with the utmost calmness, with the utmost resignation. In no way have I attempted to blind myself to the truth. He who does that is lost. The philosopher alone is wise. Before the clear calm eyes of reason, the imaginary terrors of dissolution become infinitesimal specks of dust. I breathe upon them and they are gone.

And yet I cannot visualize my death. I have tried to many times, but have failed. Sitting down on the left hand corner of my cot, I attempt to picture the execution. My imagination has always been supernaturally acute. I can see the room and the chair — the chair dreaded by so many. And the witnesses? Yes, I can see them all those sensation-mongers. There is one fat old gentleman in a striped flannel waistcoat — an old gentleman who keeps on smiling and smiling. One would think he were at a wedding, his smile is so forced and unreal. And the others are like statues, grouped together to represent something.

Yes, I can see them all. But they are not looking at me. No, they are looking at another man — a man who has seated himself in the chair. But this man is not I. No, though he sits in my place, wears the new suit which was given me, bears my dishonored name, he is not I. And although I attempt to analyze this man’s emotions, read the secret workings of that brain, understand the feelings of one in the shadow, the blade of imagination bends in my mind, becoming useless and dull.

Tomorrow at this time I shall be dead! This phrase no longer conjures up anything. Like a child who has repeated the Lord’s Prayer over and over, so have I repeated, “Tomorrow at this time I shall be dead,” till the words have become meaningless, sinking back into the black unexplored caverns of sound. And that this hand which guides the pencil — this live human hand — will in so short a space be motionless and powerless, cold and senseless, seems as impossible as the wildest dream. The voice of reason pounds dully against my eardrums, but cannot gain admittance. Perhaps it is better so.

Am I afraid of death? No. Then why have I taken up the pencil? Because, although I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of something which lurks on the invisible frontier — something which is quite apart from both life and death — something which reads my words, my looks, my gestures. And because of this silent sentinel in my cell, I have become a stranger to myself — an uncouth awkward stranger. The egoist has fled, the artist who crushed conventionality beneath his heel; and in his place stands an unknown, terrible fellow — a fellow who needs watching. I could have pleaded insanity at my trial and escaped the chair. It is so easy for me to act. But now — Why could not the judge and jury see me now?

But I must not peer too long into my soul. Introspection looks down the shaft, and soon sees the grinning face of Madness floating on the black water. The austere countenance of the philosopher casts back a reflection which he recognizes with a shudder. The moon may be — But I must not wander.

One source of solace has been with me constantly during my days of imprisonment. To a man such as I — a man condemned to death — the daily newspapers are of great value. It is comforting to realize that there are thousands, nay millions, of human beings who are cognizant of my existence, perhaps intimately interested in the outcome of my career. During these last few weeks, as never before, I have felt myself to be an important link in the human chain — a link which daily holds the attention of a multitude of minds. I, the unknown sculptor, the young man of limited means and limited reputation, am now something of a celebrity. What an enduring hold has egotism! I caught myself smiling a self-satisfied smile when I wrote, “something of a celebrity.” Avaunt, False Pride! You are in the presence of the shadow. Back, back to the highway of life, where the multitude sit in the sunlight. I have no need of you here.

I realize perfectly what a storm of curiosity my actions have aroused and it is not my purpose to leave this planet without a satisfying answer to the question which I myself have raised. You, who have so often studied my striking portrait in the papers, you, who have so puzzled over my whimsical acts during the ill-fated month of March, you, my friends and admirers, shall learn of everything which prompted me to a series of crimes destined to set the world of sensation agog.

And you, my fair readers, you, whose soft cheeks so quickly change from rose to lily, you, who shudder and turn away, look again into the face which you have covertly abstracted from the newspaper — the face of René Galien, your humble servant; Rene Galien who created that group “The Happy Family.” Respect is akin to fear, is it not’? You shall respect me.

II

I come of an old French family. There is the blood of kings in my veins. You smile; but it is a fact, I assure you. Have you not noted in my many portraits, the finely chiseled features, the aristocratic curl to the lips, the small shell-like ears? But my hands! They are what tell the story. The long tapering fingers, the delicacy of wrist and palm — yes, these are the hands of one refined by the gradual process of centuries. Why do my eyes hold your attention then, when I have such hands as these?

After the Revolution, my great grandfather emigrated to America. Since then the Galiens have been bobbing up and down like corks. You know how it is one year a mansion, servants, horses, dogs; another year a boarding house, genteel respectability, a single suit shiny at the elbows and knees. That comes from an excess of aristocratic blood in a plebeian age. The male members of my family have never been saving with their money. My father cried out on his deathbed:

“It is glorious to die in debt. One has succeeded in cheating one’s enemy, the world.”

A strange man was he, with a laugh like the cackling of a frightened hen and dry, shriveled hands which rustled in the empty pockets of his frock-coat like banknotes.

My mother died before I can remember. At an early age I was sent to a school in Paris. Once a year I was allowed to cross the sea and visit my father in New York. He would meet me each time at the pier, looking very somber in his frock-coat. I remember that towards the last his face seemed as yellow as the pale bloodless oranges one buys.

He resided at a small boarding-house in Thirty-third street — a French boarding-house where one encountered all manner of odd characters. Madame Fabien, the landlady, was a woman well on in middle life. At the time of which I speak, she attempted to maintain a semblance of youth by a plentiful use of cosmetics. Her face, as haggard as a death’s head, had a vivid splash of color beneath each prominent cheekbone; and above it, her hair, yellow and fuzzy, reminded me of sun-dried weeds. Her eyes were a bitter blue, but they softened when they looked upon my father.

In some way — perhaps by his glib tongue and polished manners — he had wormed himself into the landlady’s good grace. The pitcher of cream always stood beside his place at the breakfast table; and, when he came to die, for many nights she went about the house mewing like a sick cat. No doubt with him was buried the last romance of her checkered career. Perhaps the realization of this added to the poignancy of her grief.

Madame Fabien had a daughter of about my own age who did much to make my visits to New York agreeable. She was a pretty vivacious child, with a mind far too precocious for her years. Looking through keyholes had given one of her eyelids an unconscious droop. She had made herself the bane of the boarders’ existence. It is needless to say that what youthful innocence a French boarding-school had left me, vanished after a month’s sojourn at Madame Fabien’s.

After my father’s death, I returned to Paris with a letter of introduction to an old friend of the landlady’s — a certain Paul Montaigne. He was a successful sculptor of the period — a man, who, if he had not been addicted to drugs, might have reached high places.

From the first I loved him, There was something restful in his companionship — something which reminded me of a calm autumn day. He gave me the key which opened the door to a new resplendent world. Art was his mistress. She soon became mine. Before long I, too, could see the beauty in ugliness, the joy in tears. If he had lived, what might I not have done?

Paul Montaigne adopted me. I posed for him; I swept up the studio; I enlivened him when he was plunged into one of those fits of melancholy which followed his excesses. In return for this, he taught me his art. I was an apt pupil. Soon I conceived several small pieces of my own, which I sold on the Paris streets. Once a week I took my stand on the Rue Montmartre and peddled my wares to any passerby.

One afternoon I returned to the studio and found my benefactor dead. He was lying at the feet of a statue upon which he had been working — a statue representing Justice. His body seemed to be in an attitude of supplication. A thin ribbon of blood crawled towards the door like a miniature river of red. He had cut his throat. It seemed unbelievable at first. When I saw him lying thus, I felt that I had lost everything in the world. Dropping the bag which contained several tiny statues I had not sold, I sank to my knees and began to blubber like a baby. There the concierge found me an hour later, sobbing as though my heart would break.

After Paul Montaigne’s death, I returned to America. It seemed to me that I could make my fortune there much more readily. Surely in the United States competition was not so great. My four years with the sculptor had given me a foundation few could boast of Montaigne had often told me that I possessed a talent which was in no way inferior to his own. It was with high hopes that I set sail from France.

On arriving in New York, I took a cab to the familiar boarding-house. Madame Fabien opened the door for me. I scarcely recognized her. In the four years which had elapsed she had become an old hag and looked every day of sixty. After my father’s death she had evidently buried her cosmetics. Her face, wrinkled and yellow, was so thin that the sharp protruding cheekbones seemed at any moment about to penetrate the skin; her scanty hair was now a splotched gray; and she leaned heavily on her cane in the doorway, reminding me of the witches in Macbeth. But her eyes had not changed. No, they were that same bitter blue. Now they looked at me suspiciously from be neath a ragged boudoir cap.

“Well?” said she.

“Is this Madame Fabien?” I asked, suspecting that my memory had played me tricks.

“Yes, this is Madame Fabien. What is it you wish of me, young man?”

“I am René Galien,” I answered, stepping forward. “Do you not remember me?”

“Mon Dieu!” The old woman’s expression changed from suspicion to joy. She tapped me playfully on the shoulder with her cane. “Come in, come in! course it is René. Why, you are your father over again! The same carriage of the head, the same air distingué. Only the eyes are different. But come to these old arms. I have heard such things of you from Paul! You are the great sculptor now, is it not so?”

In spite of an inner qualm, I submitted myself to the old hag’s embraces. She pinched my cheeks with fingers as yellow as sticks of cinnamon; she rose on tiptoe to press her lips to my forehead; she smoothed my silky hair with the palm of her hand — a palm which was as rough as a nutmeg grater. She was like the cracked dusty vase in which lies buried the trampled rose-leaves of the preceding spring. Once a vessel of desire, she had been quaffed to the very dregs.

“Louise will be delighted to see you, René,” she said, leering up at me. “Ah, you blush, eh! You remember her — the little cat that she was. But now! How she has changed! Like you, she has grown tall and beautiful. And such a figure! The art students draw her twice during the week. How the pencils shake in their hands, how their eyes stare and stare! They are like men in a trance — so beautiful is she!”

“Is she a model?” I asked.

“Yes; but there is none other like her in New York. When my last boarder left, it was necessary that she do something. We must live, is it not so? But I will tell her that you are here. She will be overjoyed.”

Madame Fabien hobbled down the passageway, leaving me standing in the hot stuffy hall. As I watched her figure receding in the shadows, I made up my mind to remain in her good graces. I had been barely able to scrape up enough money in Paris to pay for my passage; I was now in a well-nigh penniless condition. Of course I would soon be successful, but in the meantime I must not neglect any slight smile of fortune. Before the old woman returned with her daughter, I had made up my mind to be enthusiastic.

Louise did not make my rôle difficult to play. She had, indeed, matured into a kind of rare if sulky beauty. Her full lips, although pouting and discontented, were still inviting; and, although her figure was rather buxom according to my standard, still there were men who would have thought it perfect. My raised hands and upturned eyes therefore, while delighting both mother and daughter, even to myself had no savor of the ludicrous.

“Is she not changed?” asked Madame Fabien.

“Changed!” I cried. “Ma Foi! she is transfigured!”

Louise blushed and smiled. Evidently I had pleased her.

“You, yourself, have altered for the better,” she said, looking at me quaintly. “You are no longer the ugly duckling.”

I murmured a graceful acknowledgment, then, turning to her mother, immediately reverted to the point in hand.

“Do you still take boarders?” I asked. “If so, I would consider myself fortunate in securing—”

“Most certainly you may board here,” the old woman answered. “At present there is no one, and we can give you the better attention. My fees are moderate to the son of an old friend.”

Again Louise smiled, disclosing two rows of large white teeth.

“Follow me,” she said, picking up my valise in spite of my protests. “I will show you to your room.”

Madame Fabien leered at me as I passed her. She again reached up and pinched my cheek. It nauseated me. Without the slightest compunction, I could have put my hands on her weed-like throat and choked the life out of her. Even then I felt that she and I could not live under the same roof without disastrous results. I hesitated for a moment on the landing before I followed Louise up the creaking staircase.

III

I must break off for the time. Father Flynn has been shown into my cell. Why does he insist on offering ghostly consolation to me? Can he not realize that I am a man of adamant will, of unshakable determination?

This priest in the sunshine dares to come to me in the shadow — dares to come to me and cry:

“See, there is everlasting life!”

Everlasting life? Bah! Rather everlasting death — everlasting death with its calm immobility — everlasting death with its enigmatic smile. Yes, there I will be reigning like a mountain peak, cold, still and thoughtful.

But now Father Flynn is approaching. His long black robe brushes over the floor of my cell with a swishing sound. His solemn eyes are fixed upon my face. About his neck a crucifix is suspended. Christ hangs on this crucifix, tiny, weak, and helpless — Christ made into a doll. When he speaks of life everlasting, I shall point at his toy Christ and laugh.

IV

Father Flynn has left me. His brain, heavy and ponderous as a medieval battle-ax, was no match for the lightning thrusts of mine. I have hurt him in a sensitive spot beneath his armor of religion; I have penetrated his self-esteem. He now doubts himself, which is far worse than doubting God. Like an old woman who suddenly encounters a mouse in her bedroom, like an old woman with dragging skirts and downcast eyes, he has hurried from the cell. In his opinion, I am eternally damned — a man for whom the jaws of Hell are yawning. I have refused to reverence the doll dangling from his neck, therefore I am as one lost.

Poor old man! I pity him for his childish credulity, while I envy him his simple trust. But if I had had a Christ, if I had had a sacred symbol of something greater than myself, I would not hang it about my neck and be content. Ah no! I would build for it a pedestal; and on this pedestal I would place it so that it could sneer down on the passing people, sneer down on the passing people in the dust. And in its eyes would be hot anger; and in its hand, a reeking sword. Away with your tiny toy Christ, Father Flynn. Mine would be gigantic and terrible gigantic, terrible, and red! But I must compose myself. Already night stretches out her ebony wings over the world. When the first rays of dawn creep into my cell, they will come and take me away. Meanwhile Death is waiting in the corner. He, alone, does not fear me; He, alone, can return the look in my eyes. Before that grim sentinel my glance wavers and falls. I will take up the pencil and finish my record; yes, although the pitiless specter continues to stare at me with his dull lackluster eyes.

V

When I took up my residence with Madame Fabien, I intended remaining there only a short time. It seemed to me that my genius would find recognition before many weeks went by. In the meanwhile it was necessary for me to live — and where could I live on credit except at Madame Fabien’s?

The old Frenchwoman ensconced me in a large room on the topmost floor — a room which had once served as an artist’s studio. It had a north light; and was in every way suitable for a workshop. I had brought over with me from Paris the tools of my trade; and it was not long before I started working in dead earnest. Ere a month went by, I had created several miniatures which I thought I could dispose of for a fair sum.

My moments of leisure were spent with Louise and her mother. I felt it necessary to keep in the good graces of both women. But what a bore it was! My flesh fairly crawled when Madame Fabien touched me. It was as much as I could do to submit to her caresses. And then the atmosphere of the house began to get on my nerves. It was so hot and stuffy downstairs, and a sweet sickening odor hovered about everything. In the parlor there were a multitude of photographs, representing Madame Fabien in her youth. She had evidently been a vaudeville performer of versatile repertoire. There were pictures of her walking a tightrope, a parasol above her head, smiling sentimentally at space; pictures of her in knickerbockers, riding an old-fashioned bicycle; pictures of her in tights, toe-dancing on a horse’s back. And in all these photographs she resembled Louise. Yes, there was the same haggard face with high cheekbones and petulant lips, the same full-bosomed, broad-hipped figure, the same sensual drooping eyelids. Thirty years ago my landlady had been another Louise. And, when I realized this, what little affection I had for the girl faded. Although I continued to ply her assiduously with compliments, my words no longer had the slightest ring of truth.

And as the weeks went by, I came to realize that it would be difficult to escape my environment. Daily a web of attachment took shape. Both these women regarded me now with an air of ownership. To Madame Fabien, I was a living embodiment of one to whom she had given the last dying sparks of passion; to Louise I was a companion of childhood suddenly transformed into a fairy prince who had crossed the seas to win her.

And I? Why, struggle as I might to free myself, my feet were sinking in the quicksand. A month passed, and I had not sold a single piece of work. Where else could I go? I was penniless and in debt. Contrary to my expectations, my miniatures went begging. These imaginative figures which I had sold so easily in Paris — these weird gargoyles, nymphs and satyrs, were shuddered at, but never bought.

I found myself battering my head against an obstinate senseless wall of optimism. The beauty which lurks in ugliness, the transcending horror depicted in my work, the morbid terror which enwrapped those tiny figures — all was quite lost on the stupid smiling people who passed me by. They hurried on, these people; hurried on through the tunnel of life unheedingly, looking neither up nor down, quite immersed in their own bright dreams and unwilling to contemplate the stern austere countenance of Art. I might have gone on for centuries in my garret, striving, creating, and quite unnoticed, were it not for that group “The Happy Family.”

At last my affairs reached a climax. I could no longer avoid Fate. I married Louise. Yes, loathing her with all my soul, seeing in her a future Madame Fabien, I married her. It came about like this:

One afternoon, while I was at work, a knock sounded on my door. It was Louise. The night before she had heard me express a wish for a female model. She had come to offer her services. Yes, she was quite willing to pose for me. It was no trouble at all. She would be ready in a moment now.

With brazenness, even for a professional model, she began to disrobe. I attempted to detain her. I put my hand on her arm, but she only kissed me and called me a foolish boy.

“Are we not already as good as married?” said she. I did not realize how truly she spoke until I looked over her shoulder and saw Madame Fabien standing in the doorway. I was positive that something was about to happen. My landlady, among her other accomplishments, had at one time been a melodramatic tragedienne. On her face was mirrored the rôle which she was about to play.

“So!” she cried in a voice which squeaked like a violin out of tune. “So! I find you thus! Is this how you repay me, René? Has it not been enough to live here week after week, to take board and lodging from me gratis, to receive from my hands all the attention of a mother, without attacking the virtue of my daughter? No, don’t attempt to explain away your guilt. Thank God my eyes can still be trusted! Louise, go to your room! I will talk to this young man alone.”

Fifteen minutes later, all was over. I had agreed to marry Louise on the following day. That old virago had so battered me with words that my brain was reeling. I would have signed my death-warrant to have gotten rid of her. And she, when the victory had been won, when my promise had been gained, immediately relapsed into a sickly sentimental air. She pinched my cheek and lavished me with endearments; she called me her own beautiful boy; she bade Louise fetch a bottle of Madeira from the cellar, and pledged my health in the sweet wine till her eyes grew misty and her voice sounded dull and indistinct.

And I? Why, I bowed and smiled, and kept on bowing and smiling till I felt like a mechanical doll attached to a giant’s finger. And the smile seemed to grow and grow till it covered my face with painful agitated wrinkles; and my head grew heavy and bulbous, so that it became difficult to raise and lower it in time to the old woman’s eager, querulous questions.

At last they left me to myself.

VI

On the following day Louise and I were married. What a mockery! As the words fell slowly from the priest’s mouth — words which weighed me down as though they had been so many pellets of lead — I had a wild impulse to leap to my feet, to shake the girl’s hand from my arm and dash out of that church never to return. My one cowardly trait, my dread of penury and hunger, forced me to remain. And as I knelt before the altar, looking up into the priest’s wrinkled face, I became unpleasantly conscious of Madame Fabien’s proximity. I felt her breath fanning the back of my neck. Involuntarily I shuddered and yet beads of perspiration dotted my forehead. At last the ceremony was over, and we returned home.

Home! What a blasphemous title to apply to such a place! And yet the roof sheltered my head, the walls shut out the darkness and the cold. Where else could I find as much, I asked myself. Think of the irony of it! I, a young man of talent, an individualist, an artist, and yet forced to acknowledge such a defeat. It was then I came to the realization that there was something wrong with the world. Surely it had been rolling downhill for ages — a wicked ball bent on destruction. In vain we Supermen seek to push it up, to place it on the heights — it evades our eager hands and descends into the black depths. To this day, I cannot contemplate its final degradation without a feeling of regret, even of horror.

It is not my purpose to dwell too long on my married life. Suffice it to say, that it soon became unendurable to me. Living with one woman constantly is prone to wear on the nerves of the sensitive man; but, when this woman is lacking in both mentality and feeling, artistic appreciation and higher aspirations, she becomes a burning coal of agony which one is forced to hold to one’s bare breast. Before a week had passed, I hated Louise as I had never thought to hate any human being.

What made it worse, the girl positively adored me. She gave me no peace. She would break into my studio while I was at work, and shower me with loathsome caresses. I had no solitude of the soul so necessary to an artist. She sought to occupy every cranny of my life. If I reprimanded her, if, driven to desperation, I struck her, waves of hysterics would follow — hysterics, that abomination of woman — and to avoid this shrieking inferno it was necessary for me to calm her with kisses and protestations of affection.

Then there was Madame Fabien — Madame Fabien with her fishy eyes! How her tongue clattered! have often thought that she must have assassinated my father with it. And life was still strong in this bag of old bones! It shown evilly out of her bitter blue eyes; it spoke volubly through her dry, shriveled lips. She might live twenty years more — live and persecute me.

One night inspiration touched me the inspiration of “The Happy Family.” True perception springs from contrast. It has always been my experience that in the city one can visualize the country with an acute clarity. So it is with all things. The musician composes a dirge on a bright spring day; the starving poet writes an ode to sparkling wine and luscious fruit. Thus it was in my case. From a confirmed unbeliever in marriage, I could now see the joys of wedlock. My own unfortunate affair had conjured up in my mind an ideal picture of wedded bliss — a happy family, united in thought and deed; a silent, happy family who found mere speech unnecessary to a complete mental understanding.

And as I sat at dinner, listening to the shrill voices of the women, watching their distorted mouths and glistening eyes, in an instant it became apparent what made them so hideous, so revolting. It was life that marred them; hot, noisy life which twisted them into repellent shapes; life which made them detestable and unforgivable. As statues — deprived of breath, motion, speech — they would no longer cause me any pain. On the contrary, I might be proud of them. Madame Fabien could very well have been Rodin’s ‘Courtesan,’ alive, clothed and speaking. Such ugliness was beautiful in art. It was only when it stepped down from its pedestal that it became loathsome and degraded. And Louise? If she would not speak in that whining tone, if her face could always remain calm and placid, if she could be placed in an artistic posture with her chin resting on her hand — why, she would be beautiful!

And then in my imagination I saw them as statues; saw them sitting there, silent, white and beautiful; saw them sitting on a pedestal, united and peaceful, cleansed of life’s impurities, quietly waiting for the children yet unborn — I saw “The Happy Family”!

Why was it not possible to make them so? A few drops of poison in their coffee, and life would quickly fade away. And then? Why, then I would carry them up to my studio where I had so often worked before. But this time I would not work in vain. No, I would make statues of them — enclose them in a special preparation of clay which might last through all the centuries. Their bodies would not decompose in such a covering. It would be easy — easy! Perhaps I could sell them to an art dealer. At this thought, I laughed aloud.

“Why are you laughing, René?” asked Madame Fabien with one of her quick, suspicious looks.

“I was thinking of what an excellent statue you would make, mama. May I use you for a model?”

She shook her bony head at me like an old vulture.

“Careful, René, careful,” she mumbled. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Youth should respect age.”

“But I was in earnest, mama,” I assured her.

“Bah!” She rose and hobbled off on her cane, leaving Louise to wash up the dinner things.

For the moment I was free.

Telling my wife that I had to post a letter, I put on my hat and left the house.

When I returned I had a small vial of poison in my waistcoat pocket.

As I lay beside Louise that night, I dreamed peacefully of “The Happy Family.”

VII

Have you ever considered what a childishly simple thing it is to take a human life? We are all so trusting with our fellows, so guileless and trusting, that, when the murderous hand reaches out to cut the cord of existence, we stand blinking our eyes stupidly, quite unable to realize the danger. If it were not for the bodies of his victims — bodies which, although silent, bear unfaltering testimony to the truth — the assassin might stalk unmolested through the world. Our immortality seems so assured to us, that we seldom question the eyes of those who may have it in their keeping.

Louise and her mother suspected nothing. On the following evening, when I suggested that I prepare their coffee in a manner new to them — a method which I had picked up in Paris — they assented readily. It was only when I placed the two steaming cups upon the table that any difficulty arose.

“I should not drink any coffee,” said Madame Fabien, shaking her head sorrowfully.

I felt a sudden flicker of fear.

“Why not, mama?” I murmured, bending over her solicitously.

“It keeps me awake at night. I cannot sleep when I drink coffee.”

I could not refrain from smiling.

“Never fear, mama,” I answered reassuringly. “This coffee is so prepared that you will not be troubled by insomnia. I guarantee that you will sleep soundly tonight — very soundly.”

And then, without hesitation, without fear, almost without taking breath, these two women drank their poisoned coffee. I watched them with a calm, impersonal curiosity. And yet the next few moments were the most embarrassing moments of my life. I felt. that I was conversing with specters. Everything I said rang out of tune. I attempted to joke, and my witticisms fell far below humor. I attempted to laugh, and my own familiar laugh sounded as hoarse and guttural as the cawing of a crow. And these two women seemed like stiff formal strangers who could not in any way be amused.

Madame Fabien was the first to go. One side of her shriveled face drew up into knots, as though a cord in her cheek had been suddenly pulled. She clapped her hand to her stomach.

“Oh!” she cried.“I suffer! I — I — . Get the doctor. Get the—”

She rolled to the floor, and lay there kicking and clawing like a wounded wildcat.

Louise rose and bent over her.

“René, run out and get Dr. Milburn,” she called over her shoulder in an agitated voice.

I had no desire to see them die. A wanton taste for cruelty has never been one of my characteristics. I quitted the room, and, mounting the stairs to my studio, spent a few peaceful moments over a cigar. When I returned to the dining room, I found both women dead. Louise’s body lay across her mother’s. Her upturned face wore an expression of amazement. It was as though I had given her a sudden surprise.

Then the real work began. That night I toiled like a galley-slave. I carried the bodies up to my studio; I disrobed them; I burned the clothing piecemeal; and then I commenced my famous group, “The Happy Family.”

With the firm, sure hand of an artist, I enclosed them in clinging garments of clay; I gave them immortal skins which might last through all eternity. And now that the life had gone out of them, these women were no longer repulsive to me. No, on the contrary, I felt a sensation of ennobling pride as I busied myself about them, placing them on the pedestal, making of them enduring works of art. When the sun finally peered in at me through the blind, two statues confronted me two statues so lifelike, so virile, that the hand of Rodin himself could not have done better.

My work enraptured me. At last I had created something which might live. What a contrast was this! — Madame Fabien so thin and withered, cowering in the early light; and beside her, Louise, so strong and buxom, her chin resting in the hollow of her hand. This was art! For the first time in my life I loved them. I was so proud of them that it was all I could do to refrain from running out into the street and bringing back with me the first passerby to see what I had done. For the moment I was living on the sunlit heights of great achievement.

VIII

Unfortunately the artist is never satisfied with his first creation. He must go on and on, enlarging his original conception, until sometimes it winds itself about him like a many-membered octopus and sucks the life out of him.

So it was with me. For a week I busied myself in the studio, constructing a large pedestal for my statues; but at the end of that time, I found myself longing to add to the group. What was a happy family without children, I asked myself. A mother-in-law and a wife were all very well; but surely, without tender human plants sprouting up about them, they were meaningless and thrown away. Yes, both were lonely and must have childish companionship. The longing look on Louise’s face touched my heart.

It was shortly after this that I began to visit the park. With bags of candy in my pocket, I soon made friends with a multitude of children. Finally I selected two rosy-cheeked little dears — a boy and a girl of four and five, who seemed worthy to join “The Happy Family.” By promises of sweets beyond their wildest dreams, I enticed them to my house one afternoon. The rest was easy. Two sticks of peppermint, the vial — and that night, cleansed and beautiful, white and spotless, turned into tiny statues, they knelt at Louise’s feet.

Another week of blissful contemplation went by; and then the loneliness on Louise’s face again caused me an acute pain. Madame Fabien, of course, was perfectly content to sit silent in the sunlight with her grandchildren about her; but Louise was still young, still imbued with thoughts of love, still desirous of male companionship. She must have a husband. It was necessary that I procure her one. Then indeed “The Happy Family” would be complete.

One afternoon, as I sat pondering in my studio, the doorbell rang. When I answered it, I found a tall good-looking young man on the stoop. Evidently fate was again playing into my hand. This young man would make an ideal husband for Louise. I could not refrain from smiling, as I stood aside and bade him enter.

“Is this Madame Fabien’s house?” he asked, stepping into the hallway.

“Yes.”

“Is she at home? May I see her?”

“No, she has gone to the country for a month,” I murmured. “She may be away even longer.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well,” said the young man, eyeing me suspiciously, “I have a warrant to search the house. I am a police officer. See this.” He threw back his coat, disclosing a metal badge.

In spite of myself, my voice was a trifle unsteady when I spoke.

“But why do you wish to search the house?”

“For evidence,” the young man answered. “Several children have been kidnapped lately. Two of them were seen entering this house.”

He pushed past me and began mounting the stairs. I followed him. My heart was beating wildly; but my face, I feel convinced, was as expressionless as a bare wall. As he searched the different rooms on the second floor, it became quite clear to me that I was perfectly safe. How could he suspect my statues of concealing what he sought? Soon I would lead him to my studio and thus divert all suspicion from “The Happy Family.” And afterwards, when he had found nothing, I would offer him a cooling drink of my own concoction — a drink which would contain an everlasting sleeping potion. Already I could see him on the pedestal beside Louise — a silent, loving husband.

“If you are ready,” I said to the young man, “I will show you my studio. I am a sculptor. You will find children there, but they are only statues.”

He ignored my pleasantry and merely nodded. He was a very brusque young man.

“Show me your studio,” he said.

I conducted him to it in silence. Opening the door, I stood aside and motioned him to enter. My heart was now beating calmly and evenly. No fear lurked in my soul. I would show this young man my statues, and perhaps he would appreciate what art could do. I was introducing him to his future family. Soon he would be sitting there, white, motionless, and smiling.

He looked about the room carelessly, and finally his eyes became fixed on the statues.

“They’re good,” he muttered, “ — damnably good!”

And then turning to me with a new respect, he said: “I had an ambition to become a sculptor myself. I studied at the school, but couldn’t make a go of it. I know enough about the game though, to realize how good these are. Rodin himself wouldn’t be ashamed of that old woman. What do you call this group?”

“‘The Happy Family,’” I answered

“‘The Happy Family’?” he repeated thoughtfully. “They don’t look very happy — any of them. They look as if they had just been surprised by something — unpleasantly surprised. Take that old woman, for instance. She looks—”

“Nonsense!” I broke in angrily. “They are happy — happy.” This young man’s stupidity began to aggravate me. “In life they would have been loathsome and repulsive. But here? Look at this old woman!”

I approached and put my hand proudly on her shriveled shoulder. “She is a masterpiece. She—”

“Look out!” cried the detective suddenly. “Look out! She’s falling!”

I uttered a cry of horror and clutched at Madame Fabien. But it was too late! Unconsciously I had leaned my full weight for an instant on her shoulder; and now, swaying once or twice, she was falling forward. In vain I sought to clasp her in my arms, to shield her body with mine, she bore me over backwards and we both came toppling to the floor. The plaster, covering her face, was broken into a thousand bits; and then the head of Madame Fabien — the head with its ghastly grin and glassy eyes — like some evil Jack-in-the-box, popped out into the sunlight.

I remembered nothing more. The room, the detective, the statues, were swallowed up in blackness. I fainted. When I regained consciousness, it was to find myself jolting through the streets on my way to prison.

IX

It is morning. Already the gray light of dawn is sifting through the window. My task is over. I have told you faithfully the story of “The Happy Family.” And now that the tale is told, now that the time grows short, I want to impress upon you, the reading public, you who have become so interested in my fate, that I, René Galien, am not afraid of death. Tomorrow they may lie about me in the papers; they may say I had to be carried to the chair, that I wept, that I pleaded, that I even prayed. But you, my admirers, my friends, my brothers, shall not believe them. No, I only fear something which lurks on the invisible frontier; something which is approaching steadily and relentlessly. What is this something? I do not know. But it is not death…. No, it is not death.

“Smart Set”, Apr 1918

Silent, White and Beautiful
and Other Stories (1920)

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)

Crimson Flowers

John Carewe was working in his garden. Far away, over the distant hilltops, the dying sun hung like a huge paper lantern on an invisible wire. Against this lurid background the small, bent figure of the old man resembled a spider weaving its web before the open grate.

Leaning on the hedge, I spoke to him. “So you are at work again, Mr. Carewe. How are your flowers progressing?”

Dropping his shovel nervously, he turned his yellow, shrunken face toward me. From the midst of the roses it looked like a misplaced sunflower.

“So you have been watching me,” he cried in a shrill, quavering voice. “That is good for people — to watch me at work. It may teach them other things than gardening.”

“What, for instance?”

“Why, life itself. The mind is a garden, my friend. What lies hidden there must spring to life. These flowers are crimson thoughts. See how quickly they grow — grow into deeds if I do not cut them each day. So must all men do if they would live in the sunlight; they must cut the crimson thoughts out of their gardens, even as I.”

Once more he bent over his flowers. Picking up the shears with grim satisfaction, he began cutting off their languid, drooping heads.

“But this must be a very wicked garden,” I said. “What is buried here?”

“Ah,” said he, “you would like to know that, eh? What a man my son was! You can have no idea — such a sly one, such a cruel one, such a bloodthirsty one! Crimson thoughts were in his head continually, but now they grow nicely in my garden. He ruined me; he tortured me; he made my head revolve on my shoulders — yes, actually revolve like a wheel.

“But now I have him here, and he supports me in my old age. Each day I sell his thoughts — his evil, crimson thoughts. What a revenge that is! He lies there, grinding his teeth because of it, and he can do nothing — nothing.

“When the hangman was through with him they gave me what was left for my garden. But have a thought, lady; have a crimson thought for a remembrance.”

So saying, he rose and hobbled toward me with a single flower in his hand — a flower that glowed like a handful of the bloody sunset in the west.

“The Thrill Book”, 01 Oct 1919

An Eccentric

“Did I ever tell you the story of Jonah Ladew and the well?” the detective asked, leaning back in his chair and contemplating me through a cloud of tobacco smoke. “No? Well, perhaps it will while away a few minutes of this tiresome trip.”

And here’s the story
as the detective told it.

When I was a very young man, if suspicion makes the detective, I was far further advanced in my profession than I am at present. My eyes and ears were perpetually seeking for criminal faces and whispered conversations; my mind was a revolving roulette wheel of numbered crimes; and my hands were continually itching for some rogue’s collar.

I first met Jonah Ladew while I was spending a hard-earned vacation in a little country place many miles from the city. It was a beautiful spring day. As I walked through the orchard, the blossoms above my head seemed like a snowstorm arrested in midair. The perfume of flowers bathed in dew, the singing of a multitude of birds, the stream of golden sunlight pouring down from a cloudless sky, turned this little grove of trees into a veritable Eden and for the nonce cleansed my mind of the black, sooty specks of suspicion which clung to it like cinders. The world seemed a brighter and cleanlier place than I had imagined.

Following a little, winding path, l soon found myself on the outskirts of the orchard. There, fifty yards in front of me, stood a small, white house. evidently newly painted and suggesting in the sunlight a country girl decked out in her finery. An old-fashioned stone well was immediately in front of the house, and bending over it, his back toward me, was the stoutest man I have ever seen. He was so fat, indeed, that from the rear he looked like an animal dressed in rnen’s clothes. His small, round head was bent forward; his great, red neck was covered with perspiration and flies. Although his hands, his shoulders, his legs, suggested violent movement, he remained perfectly motionless till I approached and touched him on the arm. At that, he wheeled about and faced me.

“Have you dropped something into the well?” I asked.

His bulbous cheeks, which had been suffused with blood, now turned sickly white; his round, bulging eyes avoided mine.

“What?” he said, in a shrill, piping voice, and his right hand, like a monstrous, purple beetle; fluttered up to his breast.

“I asked you if you had dropped anything in the well,” I said sternly, fixing him with my eyes.

“Dropped anything in the well?” he repeated. “That’s a funny question! Why should I drop anything into. the well?”

“You were looking down into it as though you had — just this way.”

Pushing past him, I bent down and glanced into the well. Far below, I saw a circle of dim light, like a disk of glass, which reflected a shadowy head. It was water and nothing more. Suddenly I heard a shrill laugh and, looking up, saw the fat man convulsed with merriment. He was tittering like a great washerwoman.

“Well,” I asked. “what is it?”

“You looked so funny peering down,” he said, gasping and wiping his face with his shirt-sleeve. “You looked as though you expected to see something. You couldn’t though, could you?”

“No — only water. But I think I’ll have a drink of it. I’m rather thirsty.”

“No, don’t,” he muttered. “That water isn’t very good; I never drink it.”

“I think I’ll try it just the same. I’m partial to the well water about here.” Grasping the windlass, I began to turn it.

The bucket came up easily enough. But, as I continued to turn the windlass, I saw a strange expression steal over my companion’s bloated face. bending over the well: he stared down with dilated eyes and open mouth. As the bucket rose slowly into view, his whole huge body began to tremble like a figure made of jelly. Suddenly, with a hoarse cry, he put his hand into the black aperture and, seizing the rim of the bucket, turned it upside down. I heard its contents splash back into the well.

“Nobody ever drinks that water!” he cried, turning on me with a strange light in his eyes. “Nobody ever drank it but brother Joe.”

“And where’s brother Joe?”

“Ah,” said he with a titter, “nobody knows that — nobody! He left home years ago and he never came back. Since then that water’s been left alone.”

“Well, if I can’t have a drink, I’ll be off, Mr. —”

“Ladew’s my name — Jonah Ladew.”

“Well, good afternoon, Mr. Ladew.”

“Good afternoon,” he said, with another of his girlish titters. Turning about, he lumbered off toward the little white house.

For a moment I stood looking irresolutely at the well, then I hurried back to the orchard. When I reached the grove of trees, I hid myself behind some underbrush and waited. Nearly an hour passed. Then I saw the front door of the white house open and the heavy figure of Jonah Ladew come out. Looking about him on all sides, he again approached the well. Bending over it, he began to turn the windlass. From my hiding-place, I could hear him talking to himself in a shrill voice. Occasionally his girlish titter rang out on the still air.

“Ah, there you are, Joseph!” he cried. “How do you like it down there? Now you’re coming up, you see — up into the beautiful, clear air where the flowers are blooming. Higher, higher — now you’re nearly up. I can see your face so plainly. Remember how you used to kick me, Joseph? Do you, Joseph? That’s high enough, Joseph. Now we’ll go down, down, down.”

And then Jonah Ladew dropped the handle of the windlass; the rope ran out: the bucket fell into the water. He raised and lowered that bucket fully fifty times, while the birds sang above my head, the blossoms fluttered down like tiny stars, and the breeze murmured its soft refrain through the branches. It is only by violent contrast that the heights of horror can be reached. In this beautiful spot that tittering mammoth madman crooning over his well was peculiarly revolting. Finally, bathed in perspiration, I leaped to my feet and hurried off to the village. Fifteen minutes later I entered the mayor’s office.

“Well, what can I do for you?” the mayor asked.

“There’s a murderer in town!” I cried.

“Where?” said he, looking lazily at the windows, the doors, the tables.

“His name is Jonah Ladew. He lives in a small, white house on the other side of Smith’s cherry orchard.”

“Oh, he’s not a murderer,” said the mayor wearily. “He’s just an eccentric.”

“I know he’s insane, but he’s a murderer as well. His brother has been missing for years. I know where he’s been all this time. He’s been at the bottom of Jonah’s well.”

“You have been watching old Jonah — I can see that,” said the mayor with a smile. “He is a bit eccentric at times, but he’s right smart at some things. Jonah’s smart at selling apples.”

“And his brother?”

“Why, Joe’s been lying in the graveyard twenty years now. He was shot in a drunken scrap down the river. Joe was a mean scoundrel. He used to like to get a man down and then jump on him. Looked a lot like Jonah, only taller. Some people say that Jonah wouldn’t be the way he is if it hadn’t been for the beatings Joe used to give him. Jonah may be carrying a grudge; it wouldn’t surprise me if he was.”

“And you’re sure of all this?” I asked suspiciously.

“Why, man,” said the mayor, pulling his beard and half closing his eyes. “I was one of Joe’s pallbearers! What a sweating time we did have of it! He was a powerful big man, was Joe.”

•   •   •

That ended the detective’s narrative. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the train rumbling over the tracks and the rattling of the windowpanes in their sockets.

“So Jonah Ladew wasn’t a murderer after all?” I said at length.

“Well, that all depends,” said the detective, staring up thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Yes and no. It was a crime that had been committed in the brain.”

“The Thrill Book”, 01 Oct 1919

Spurs

I

Jacques Courbé was a romanticist. He measured only twenty-eight inches from the soles of his diminutive feet to the crown of his head; but there were times, as he rode into the arena on his gallant charger, St. Eustache, when he felt himself a doughty knight of old about to do battle for his lady.

What matter that St. Eustache was not a gallant charger except in his master’s imagination — not even a pony, indeed, but a large dog of a nondescript breed, with the long snout and upstanding ears of a wolf? What matter that M. Courbé’s entrance was invariably greeted with shouts of derisive laughter and bombardments of banana skins and orange peel? What matter that he had no lady, and that his daring deeds were severely curtailed to a mimicry of the bareback riders who preceded him? What mattered all these things to the tiny man who lived in dreams, and who resolutely closed his shoe-button eyes to the drab realities of life?

The dwarf had no friends among the other freaks in Copo’s Circus. They considered him ill-tempered and egotistical, and he loathed them for their acceptance of things as they were. Imagination was the armor that protected him from the curious glances of a cruel, gaping world, from the stinging lash of ridicule, from the bombardments of banana skins and orange peel. Without it, he must have shriveled up and died. But these others? Ah, they had no armor except their own thick hides! The door that opened on the kingdom of imagination was closed and locked to them; and although they did not wish to open this door, although they did not miss what lay beyond it, they resented and mistrusted anyone who possessed the key.

Now it came about, after many humiliating performances in the arena, made palatable only by dreams, that love entered the circus tent and beckoned commandingly to M. Jacques Courbé. In an instant the dwarf was engulfed in a sea of wild, tumultuous passion.

Mlle. Jeanne Marie was a daring bareback rider. It made M. Jacques Courbé’s tiny heart stand still to see her that first night of her appearance in the arena, performing brilliantly on the broad back of her aged mare, Sappho. A tall, blonde woman of the amazon type, she had round eyes of baby blue which held no spark of her avaricious peasant’s soul, carmine lips and cheeks, large white teeth which flashed continually in a smile, and hands which, when doubled up, were nearly the size of the dwarf’s head.

Her partner in the act was Simon Lafleur, the Romeo of the circus tent — a swarthy, herculean young man with bold black eyes and hair that glistened with grease, like the back of Solon, the trained seal.

From the first performance M. Jacques Courbé loved Mlle. Jeanne Marie. All his tiny body was shaken with longing for her. Her buxom charms, so generously revealed in tights and spangles, made him flush and cast down his eyes. The familiarities allowed to Simon Lafleur, the bodily acrobatic contacts of the two performers, made the dwarf’s blood boil. Mounted on St. Eustache, awaiting his turn at the entrance, he would grind his teeth in impotent rage to see Simon circling round and round the ring, standing proudly on the back of Sappho and holding Mlle. Jeanne Marie in an ecstatic embrace, while she kicked one shapely, bespangled leg skyward.

“Ah, the dog!” M. Jacques Courbé would mutter. “Someday I shall teach this hulking stable-boy his place! Ma foi, I will clip his ears for him!”

St. Eustache did not share his master’s admiration for Mlle. Jeanne Marie. From the first he evinced his hearty detestation for her by low growls and a ferocious display of long, sharp fangs. It was little consolation for the dwarf to know that St. Eustache showed still more marked signs of rage when Simon Lafleur approached him. It pained M. Jacques Courbé to think that his gallant charger, his sole companion, his bedfellow, should not also love and admire the splendid giantess who each night risked life and limb before the awed populace. Often, when they were alone together, he would chide St. Eustache on his churlishness.

“Ah, you devil of a dog!” the dwarf would cry. “Why must you always growl and show your ugly teeth when the lovely Jeanne Marie condescends to notice you? Have you no feelings under your tough hide? Cur, she is an angel, and you snarl at her! Do you not remember how I found you, a starving puppy in a Paris gutter? And now you must threaten the hand of my princess! So this is your gratitude, great hairy pig!”

Jacques Courbé had one living relative — not a dwarf, like himself, but a fine figure of a man, a prosperous farmer living just outside the town of Roubaix. The elder Courbé had never married; and so one day, when he was found dead from heart failure, his tiny nephew — for whom, it must be confessed, the farmer had always felt an instinctive aversion — fell heir to a comfortable property. When the tidings were brought to him, the dwarf threw both arms about the shaggy neck of St. Eustache and cried out:

“Ah, now we can retire, marry and settle down, old friend! I am worth many times my weight in gold!”

That evening, as Mlle. Jeanne Marie was changing her gaudy costume after the performance, a light tap sounded on the door.

“Enter!” she called, believing it to be Simon Lafleur, who had promised to take her that evening to the Sign of the Wild Boar for a glass of wine to wash the sawdust out of her throat. “Enter, mon chéri!”

The door swung slowly open; and in stepped M. Jacques Courbé, very proud and upright, in the silks and laces of a courtier, with a tiny gold-hilted sword swinging at his hip. Up he came, his shoe-button eyes all a-glitter to see the more than partially revealed charms of his robust lady. Up he came to within a yard of where she sat; and down on one knee he went and pressed his lips to her red-slippered foot.

“Oh, most beautiful and daring lady,” he cried, in a voice as shrill as a pin scratching on a windowpane, “will you not take mercy on the unfortunate Jacques Courbé? He is hungry for your smiles, he is starving for your lips! All night long he tosses on his couch and dreams of Jeanne Marie!”

“What play-acting is this, my brave little fellow?” she asked, bending down with the smile of an ogress. “Has Simon Lafleur sent you to tease me?”

“May the black plague have Simon!” the dwarf cried, his eyes seeming to flash blue sparks. “I am not play-acting. It is only too true that I love you, mademoiselle; that I wish to make you my lady. And now that I have a fortune, now that—” He broke off suddenly, and his face resembled a withered apple. “What is this mademoiselle?” he said, in the low, droning tone of a hornet about to sting. “Do you laugh at my love? I warn you mademoiselle — do not laugh at Jacques Courbé!”

Mlle. Jeanne Marie’s large, florid face had turned purple from suppressed merriment. Her lips twitched at the comers. It was all she could do not to burst out into a roar of laughter.

Why, the ridiculous little manikin was serious in his love-making! This pocket-sized edition of a courtier was proposing marriage to her! He, this splinter of a fellow, wished to make her his wife! Why, she could carry him about on her shoulder like a trained marmoset!

What a joke this was — what a colossal, corset-creaking joke! Wait till she told Simon Lafleur! She could fairly see him throw back his sleek head, open his mouth to its widest dimensions, and shake with silent laughter. But she must not laugh — not now. First she must listen to everything the dwarf had to say; draw all the sweetness out of this bonbon of humor before she crushed it under the heel of ridicule.

“I am not laughing,” she managed to say. “You have taken me by surprise. I never thought, I never even guessed…”

“That is well, mademoiselle,” the dwarf broke in. “I do not tolerate laughter. In the arena I am paid to make laughter; but these others pay to laugh at me. I always make people pay to laugh at me!”

“But do I understand you aright, M. Courbé? Are you proposing an honorable marriage?”

The dwarf rested his hand on his heart and bowed. “Yes, mademoiselle, an honorable marriage, and the wherewithal to keep the wolf from the door. A week ago my uncle died and left me a large estate. We shall have a servant to wait on our wants, a horse and carriage, food and wine of the best, and leisure to amuse ourselves. And you? Why, you will be a fine lady! I will clothe that beautiful big body of yours with silks and laces! You will be as happy, mademoiselle, as a cherry tree in June!”

The dark blood slowly receded from Mlle. Jeanne Marie’s full cheeks, her lips no longer twitched at the comers, her eyes had narrowed slightly. She had been a bareback rider for years, and she was weary of it. The life of the circus tent had lost its tinsel. She loved the dashing Simon Lafleur; but she knew well enough that this Romeo in tights would never espouse a dowerless girl.

The dwarf’s words had woven themselves into a rich mental tapestry. She saw herself a proud lady, ruling over a country estate, and later welcoming Simon Lafleur with all the luxuries that were so near his heart. Simon would be overjoyed to marry into a country estate. These pygmies were a puny lot. They died young! She would do nothing to hasten the end of Jacques Courbé. No, she would be kindness itself to the poor little fellow; but, on the other hand, she would not lose her beauty mourning for him.

“Nothing that you wish shall be withheld from you as long as you love me, mademoiselle,” the dwarf continued. “Your answer?”

Mlle. Jeanne Marie bent forward, and, with a single movement of her powerful arms, raised M. Jacques Courbé and placed him on her knee. For an ecstatic instant she held him thus, as if he were a large French doll, with his tiny sword cocked coquettishly out behind. Then she planted on his cheek a huge kiss that covered his entire face from chin to brow.

“I am yours!” she murmured, pressing him to her ample bosom. “From the first I loved you, M. Jacques Courbé!”

II

The wedding of Mlle. Jeanne Marie was celebrated in the town of Roubaix, where Copo’s Circus had taken up its temporary quarters. Following the ceremony, a feast was served in one of the tents, which was attended by a whole galaxy of celebrities.

The bridegroom, his dark little face flushed with happiness and wine, sat at the head of the board. His chin was just above the tablecloth, so that his head looked like a large orange that had rolled off the fruit-dish. Immediately beneath his dangling feet, St. Eustache, who had more than once evinced by deep growls his disapproval of the proceedings, now worried a bone with quick, sly glances from time to time at the plump legs of his new mistress. Papa Copo was on the dwarf’s right, his large round face as red and benevolent as a harvest moon. Next to him sat Griffo, the giraffe boy, who was covered with spots, and whose neck was so long that he looked down on all the rest, including M. Hercule Hippo, the giant. The rest of the company included Mlle. Lupa, who had sharp white teeth of an incredible length, and who growled when she tried to talk; the tiresome M. Jejongle, who insisted on juggling fruit, plates and knives, although the whole company was heartily sick of his tricks; Mme. Samson, with her trained baby boa constrictors coiled about her neck and peeping timidly, one above each ear; Simon Lafleur and a score of others.

The bareback rider had laughed silently and almost continually ever since Jeanne Marie had told him of her engagement. Now he sat next to her in his crimson tights. His black hair was brushed back from his forehead and so glistened with grease that it reflected the lights overhead, like a burnished helmet. From time to time he tossed off a brimming goblet of Burgundy, nudged the bride in the ribs with his elbow, and threw back his sleek head in another silent outburst of laughter.

“And you are sure that you will not forget me, Simon?” she whispered. “It may be some time before I can get the little ape’s money.”

“Forget you, Jeanne?” he muttered. “By all the dancing devils in champagne, never! I will wait as patiently as Job till you have fed that mouse some poisoned cheese. But what will you do with him in the meantime, Jeanne? You must allow him no liberties. I grind my teeth to think of you in his arms!”

The bride smiled, and regarded her diminutive husband with an appraising glance. What an atom of a man! And yet life might linger in his bones for a long time to come. M. Jacques Courbé had allowed himself only one glass of wine, and yet he was far gone in intoxication. His tiny face was suffused with blood, and he stared at Simon Lafleur belligerently. Did he suspect the truth?

“Your husband is flushed with wine!” the bareback rider whispered. “Ma foi, madame, later he may knock you about! Possibly he is a dangerous fellow in his cups. Should he maltreat you, Jeanne, do not forget that you have a protector in Simon Lafleur.”

“You clown!” Jeanne Marie rolled her large eyes roguishly, and laid her hand for an instant on the bareback rider’s knee. “Simon, I could crack his skull between my finger and thumb, like this hickory nut!” She paused to illustrate her example, and then added reflectively: “And, perhaps, I shall do that very thing, if he attempts any familiarities. Ugh! The little ape turns my stomach!”

By now the wedding guests were beginning to show the effects of their potations. This was especially marked in the case of M. Jacques Courbé’s associates in the sideshow.

Griffo, the giraffe boy, had closed his large brown eyes, and was swaying his small head languidly above the assembly, while a slightly supercilious expression drew his lips down at the comers. M. Hercule Hippo, swollen out by his libations to even more colossal proportions, was repeating over and over: “I tell you I am not like other men. When I walk, the earth trembles!” Mlle. Lupa, her hairy upper lip lifted above her long white teeth, was gnawing at a bone, growling unintelligible phrases to herself and shooting savage, suspicious glances at her companions. M. Jejongle’s hands had grown unsteady, and, as he insisted on juggling the knives and plates of each new course, broken bits of crockery littered the floor. Mme. Samson, uncoiling her necklace of baby boa constrictors, was feeding them lumps of sugar soaked in rum. M. Jacques Courbé had finished his second glass of wine, and was surveying the whispering Simon Lafleur through narrowed eyes.

There can be no genial companionship among great egotists who have drunk too much. Each one of these human oddities thought that he or she alone was responsible for the crowds that daily gathered at Copo’s Circus; so now, heated with the good Burgundy, they were not slow in asserting themselves. Their separate egos rattled angrily together, like so many pebbles in a bag. Here was gunpowder which needed only a spark.

“l am a big — a very big man!” M. Hercule Hippo said sleepily. “Women love me. The pretty little creatures leave their pygmy husbands, so that they may come and stare at Hercule Hippo of Copo’s Circus. Ha, and when they return home, they laugh at other men always! ‘You may kiss me again when you grow up,’ they tell their sweethearts.”

“Fat bullock, here is one woman who has no love for you!” cried Mlle. Lupa, glaring sidewise at the giant over her bone. “That great carcass of yours is only so much food gone to waste. You have cheated the butcher, my friend. Fool, women do not come to see you! As well might they stare at the cattle being led through the street. Ah, no, they come from far and near to see one of their own sex who is not a cat!”

“Quite right,” cried Papa Copo in a conciliatory tone, smiling, and rubbing his hands together. “Not a cat, mademoiselle, but a wolf. Ah, you have a sense of humor! How droll!”

“I have a sense of humor,” Mlle. Lupa agreed, returning to her bone, “and also sharp teeth. Let the erring hand not stray too near!”

“You, M. Hippo and Mlle. Lupa, are both wrong,” said a voice which seemed to come from the roof. “Surely it is none other than me whom the people come to stare at!”

All raised their eyes to the supercilious face of Griffo, the giraffe boy, which swayed slowly from side to side on its long, pipe-stem neck. It was he who had spoken, although his eyes were still closed.

“Of all the colossal impudence!” cried the matronly Mme. Samson. “As if my little dears had nothing to say on the subject!” She picked up the two baby boa constrictors, which lay in drunken slumber on her lap, and shook them like whips at the wedding guests. “Papa Copo knows only too well that it is on account of these little charmers, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, that the sideshow is so well attended!”

The circus owner, thus directly appealed to, frowned in perplexity. He felt himself in a quandary. These freaks of his were difficult to handle. Why had he been fool enough to come to M. Jacques Courbé’s feast? Whatever he said would be used against him.

As Papa Copo hesitated, his round, red face wreathed in ingratiating smiles, the long deferred spark suddenly alighted in the powder. It all came about on account of the carelessness of M. Jejongle, who had become engrossed in the conversation and wished to put in a word for himself. Absent-mindedly juggling two heavy plates and a spoon, he said in a petulant tone:

“You all appear to forget me!”

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when one of the heavy plates descended with a crash on the thick skull of M. Hippo; and M. Jejongle was instantly remembered. Indeed he was more than remembered; for the giant, already irritated to the boiling-point by Mlle. Lupa’s insults, at this new affront struck out savagely past her and knocked the juggler head-over-heels under the table.

Mlle. Lupa, always quick-tempered and especially so when her attention was focused on a juicy chicken bone, evidently considered her dinner companion’s conduct far from decorous, and promptly inserted her sharp teeth in the offending hand that had administered the blow. M. Hippo, squealing from rage and pain like a wounded elephant, bounded to his feet, overturning the table.

Pandemonium followed. Every freak’s hands, teeth, feet, were turned against the others. Above the shouts, screams, growls and hisses of the combat, Papa Copo’s voice could be heard bellowing for peace:

“Ah, my children, my children! This is no way to behave! Calm yourselves, I pray you! Mlle. Lupa, remember that you are a lady as well as a wolf!”

There is no doubt that M. Jacques Courbé would have suffered most in this undignified fracas had it not been for St. Eustache, who had stationed himself over his tiny master and who now drove off all would-be assailants. As it was, Griffo, the unfortunate giraffe boy, was the most defenseless and therefore became the victim. His small, round head swayed back and forth to blows like a punching bag. He was bitten by Mlle. Lupa, buffeted by M. Hippo, kicked by M. Jejongle, clawed by Mme. Samson, and nearly strangled by both the baby boa constrictors, which had wound themselves about his neck like hangmen’s nooses. Undoubtedly he would have fallen a victim to circumstances, had it not been for Simon Lafleur, the bride and half a dozen of her acrobatic friends, whom Papa Copo had implored to restore peace. Roaring with laughter, they sprang forward and tore the combatants apart.

Jacques Courbé was found sitting grimly under a fold of the tablecloth. He held a broken bottle of wine in one hand. The dwarf was very drunk, and in a towering rage. As Simon Lafleur approached with one of his silent laughs, M. Jacques Courbé hurled the bottle at his head.

“Ah, the little wasp!” the bareback rider cried, picking up the dwarf by his waistband. “Here is your fine husband, Jeanne! Take him away before he does me some mischief. Parbleu, he is a bloodthirsty fellow in his cups!”

The bride approached, her blonde face crimson from wine and laughter. Now that she was safely married to a country estate, she took no more pains to conceal her true feelings.

“Oh, la, la!” she cried, seizing the struggling dwarf and holding him forcibly on her shoulder. “What a temper the little ape has! Well, we shall spank it out, of him before long!”

“Let me down!” M. Jacques Courbé screamed in a paroxysm of fury. “You will regret this, madame! Let me down, I say!”

But the stalwart bride shook her head. “No, no, my little one!” she laughed. “You cannot escape your wife so easily! What, you would fly from my arms before the honeymoon!”

“Let me down!” he cried again. “Can’t you see that they are laughing at me?”

“And why should they not laugh, my little ape? Let them laugh, if they will; but I will not put you down. No, I will carry you thus, perched on my shoulder, to the farm. It will set a precedent which brides of the future may find a certain difficulty in following!”

“But the farm is quite a distance from here, my Jeanne,” said Simon Lafleur. “You are as strong as an ox, and he is only a marmoset: still, I will wager a bottle of Burgundy that you set him down by the roadside.”

“Done, Simon!” the bride cried, with a flash of her strong white teeth. “You shall lose your wager, for I swear that I could carry my little ape from one end of France to the other!”

Jacques Courbé no longer struggled. He now sat bolt upright on his bride’s broad shoulder. From the flaming peaks of blind passion he had fallen into an abyss of cold fury. His love was dead, but some quite alien emotion was rearing an evil head from its ashes.

“So, madame, you could carry me from one end of France to the other!” he droned in a monotonous undertone. “From one end of France to the other! I will remember that always, madame!”

“Come!” cried the bride suddenly. “I am off. Do you and the others, Simon, follow to see me win my wager.”

They all trooped out of the tent. A full moon rode the heavens and showed the road, lying as white and straight through the meadows as the parting in Simon Lafleur’s black, oily hair. The bride, still holding the diminutive bridegroom on her shoulder, burst out into song as she strode forward. The wedding guests followed. Some walked none too steadily. Griffo, the giraffe boy, staggered pitifully on his long, thin legs. Papa Copo alone remained behind.

“What a strange world!” he muttered, standing in the tent door and following them with his round blue eyes. “Ah, these children of mine are difficult at times — very difficult!”

III

A year had rolled by since the marriage of Mlle. Jeanne Marie and M. Jacques Courbé. Copo’s Circus had once more taken up its quarters in the town of Roubaix. For more than a week the country people for miles around had flocked to the sideshow to get a peep at Griffo, the giraffe boy; M. Hercule Hippo, the giant; Mlle. Lupa, the wolf lady; Mme. Samson, with her baby boa constrictors; and M. Jejongle, the famous juggler. Each was still firmly convinced that he or she alone was responsible for the popularity of the circus.

Simon Lafleur sat in his lodgings at the Sign of the Wild Boar. He wore nothing but red tights. His powerful torso, stripped to the waist, glistened with oil. He was kneading his biceps tenderly with some strong-smelling fluid.

Suddenly there came the sound of heavy, laborious footsteps on the stairs. Simon Lafleur looked up. His rather gloomy expression lifted, giving place to the brilliant smile that had won for him the hearts of so many lady acrobats.

“Ah, this is Marcelle!” he told himself. “Or perhaps it is Rose, the English girl; or, yet again, little Francesca, although she walks more lightly. Well, no matter — whoever it is, I will welcome her!”

But now the lagging, heavy footfalls were in the hall; and, a moment later, they came to a halt outside the door. There was a timid knock.

Simon Lafleur’s brilliant smile broadened. “Perhaps some new admirer who needs encouragement,” he told himself. But aloud he said: “Enter, mademoiselle!”

The door swung slowly open and revealed the visitor. She was a tall, gaunt woman dressed like a peasant. The wind had blown her hair into her eyes. Now she raised a large, toil-worn hand, brushed it back across her forehead and looked long and attentively at the bareback rider.

“You do not remember me?” she said at length.

Two lines of perplexity appeared above Simon Lafleur’s Roman nose; he slowly shook his head. He, who had known so many women in his time, was now at a loss. Was it a fair question to ask a man who was no longer a boy and who had lived? Women change so in a brief time! Now this bag of bones might at one time have appeared desirable to him.

Parbleu! Fate was a conjurer! She waved her wand; and beautiful women were transformed into hags, jewels into pebbles, silks and laces into hempen cords. The brave fellow, who danced tonight at the prince’s ball, might tomorrow dance more lightly on the gallows tree. The thing was to live and die with a full belly. To digest all that one could — that was life!

“You do not remember me?” she said again.

Simon Lafleur once more shook his sleek, black head. “I have a poor memory for faces, madame,” he said politely. “It is my misfortune, when there are such beautiful faces.”

“Ah, but you should have remembered, Simon!” the woman cried, a sob rising up in her throat. “We were very close together, you and I. Do you not remember Jeanne Marie?”

“Jeanne Marie!” the bareback rider cried. “Jeanne Marie, who married a marmoset and a country estate? Don’t tell me, madame, that you—”

He broke off and stared at her, open-mouthed. His sharp black eyes wandered from the wisps of wet, straggling hair down her gaunt person till they rested at last on her thick cowhide boots, incrusted with layer on layer of mud from the countryside.

“It is impossible.” he said at last.

“It is indeed Jeanne Marie,” the woman answered, “or what is left of her. Ah, Simon, what a life he has led me! I have been merely a beast of burden! There are no ignominies which he has not made me suffer!”

“To whom do you refer?” Simon Lafleur demanded. “Surely you cannot mean that pocket edition husband of yours — that dwarf, Jacques Courbé?”

“Ah, but I do, Simon! Alas, he has broken me!”

“He — that toothpick of a man?” the bareback rider cried, with one of his silent laughs. “Why, it is impossible! As you once said yourself, Jeanne, you could crack his skull between finger and thumb like a hickory nut!”

“So I thought once. Ah, but I did not know him then, Simon! Because he was small, I thought I could do with him as I liked. It seemed to me that I was marrying a manikin. ‘I will play Punch and Judy with this little fellow,’ I said to myself. Simon, you may imagine my surprise when he began playing Punch and Judy with me!”

“But I do not understand, Jeanne. Surely at any time you could have slapped him into obedience!”

“Perhaps,” she assented wearily, “had it not been for St. Eustache. From the first that wolf dog of his hated me. If I so much as answered his master back, he would show his teeth. Once, at the beginning, when I raised my hand to cuff Jacques Courbé, he sprang at my throat and would have torn me limb from limb, had not the dwarf called him off. I was a strong woman, but even then I was no match for a wolf!”

“There was poison, was there not?” Simon Lafleur suggested.

“Ah, yes, I, too, thought of poison; but it was of no avail. St. Eustache would eat nothing that I gave him; and the dwarf forced me to taste first of all food that was placed before him and his dog. Unless I myself wished to die, there was no way of poisoning either of them.”

“My poor girl!” the bareback rider said, pityingly. “I begin to understand; but sit down and tell me everything. This is a revelation to me, after seeing you stalking homeward so triumphantly with your bridegroom on your shoulder. You must begin at the beginning.”

“It was Just because I carried him thus on my shoulder that I have had to suffer so cruelly,” she said, seating herself on the only other chair the room afforded. “He has never forgiven me the insult which he says I put upon him. Do you remember how I boasted that I could carry him from one end of France to the other?”

“I remember. Well, Jeanne?”

“Well, Simon, the little demon has figured out the exact distance in leagues. Each morning, rain or shine, we sally out of the house — he on my back, the wolf dog at my heels — and I tramp along the dusty roads till my knees tremble beneath me from fatigue. If I so much as slacken my pace, if I falter, he goads me with his cruel little golden spurs; while, at the same time, St. Eustache nips my ankles. When we return home, he strikes so many leagues off a score which he says is the number of leagues from one end of France to the other. Not half that distance has been covered, and I am no longer a strong woman, Simon. Look at these shoes!”

She held up one of her feet for his inspection. The sole of the cowhide boot had been worn through; Simon Lafleur caught a glimpse of bruised flesh caked with the mire of the highway.

“This the third pair that I have had,” she continued hoarsely. “Now he tells me that the price of shoe leather is too high, that I shall have to finish my pilgrimage barefooted.”

“But why do you put up with all this, Jeanne?” Simon Lafleur asked angrily. “You, who have a carriage and a servant, should not walk at all!”

“At first there was a carriage and a servant,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, “but they did not last a week. He sent the servant about his business and sold the carriage at a nearby fair. Now there is no one but me to wait on him and his dog.”

“But the neighbors?” Simon Lafleur persisted. “Surely you could appeal to them?”

“We have no near neighbors; the farm is quite isolated. I would have run away many months ago, if I could have escaped unnoticed; but they keep a continual watch on me. Once I tried, but I hadn’t traveled more than a league before the wolf dog was snapping at my ankles. He drove me back to the farm, and the following day I was compelled to carry the little fiend till I fell from sheer exhaustion.”

“But tonight you got away?”

“Yes,” she said, with a quick, frightened glance at the door. “Tonight I slipped out while they were both sleeping, and came here to you. I knew that you would protect me, Simon, because of what we have been to each other. Get Papa Copo to take me back in the circus, and I will work my fingers to the bone! Save me, Simon!”

Jeanne Marie could no longer suppress her sobs. They rose in her throat, choking her, making her incapable of further speech.

“Calm yourself, Jeanne,” Simon Lafleur said soothingly. “I will do what I can for you. I shall have a talk with Papa Copo tomorrow. Of course, you are no longer the same woman that you were a year ago. You have aged since then; but perhaps our good Papa Copo could find you something to do.”

He broke off and eyed her intently. She had stiffened in the chair; her face, even under its coat of grime, had gone a sickly white.

“What troubles you, Jeanne?” he asked a trifle breathlessly.

“Hush!” she said, with a finger to her lips. “Listen!”

Simon Lafleur could hear nothing but the tapping of the rain on the roof and the sighing of the wind through the trees. An unusual silence seemed to pervade the Sign of the Wild Boar. “Now don’t you hear it?” she cried with an inarticulate gasp. “Simon, it is in the house — it is on the stairs!”

At last the bareback rider’s less sensitive ears caught the sound his companion had heard a full minute before. It was a steady pit-pat, pit-pat, on the stairs, hard to dissociate from the drip of the rain from the eaves; but each instant it came nearer, grew more distinct.

“Oh, save me, Simon; save me!” Jeanne Marie cried, throwing herself at his feet and clasping him about the knees. “Save me! It is St. Eustache!”

“Nonsense, woman!” the bareback rider said angrily, but nevertheless he rose. “There are other dogs in the world. On the second landing there is a blind fellow who owns a dog. Perhaps it is he you hear.”

“No, no — it is St. Eustache’s step! My God, if you had lived with him a year, you would know it, too! Close the door and lock it!”

“That I will not,” Simon Lafleur said contemptuously. “Do you think I am frightened so easily? If it is the wolf dog, so much the worse for him. He will not be the first cur I have choked to death with these two hands!”

Pit-pat, pit-pat — it was on the second landing. Pit-pat, pit-pat —  now it was in the corridor, and coming fast. Pit-pat —  All at once it stopped.

There was a moment’s breathless silence, and then into the room trotted St. Eustache. M. Jacques Courbé sat astride the dog’s broad back, as he had so often done in the circus ring. He held a tiny drawn sword; his shoe-button eyes seemed to reflect its steely glitter.

The dwarf brought the dog to a halt in the middle of the room, and took in, at a single glance, the prostrate figure of Jeanne Marie. St. Eustache, too, seemed to take silent note of it. The stiff hair on his back rose up, he showed his long white fangs hungrily, and his eyes glowed like two live coals.

“So I find you thus, madame!” M. Jacques Courbé said at last. “It is fortunate that I have a charger here who can scent out my enemies as well as hunt them down in the open. Without him, I might have had some difficulty in discovering you. Well, the little game is up. I find you with your lover!”

“Simon Lafleur is not my lover!” she sobbed. “I have not seen him once since I married you until tonight! I swear it!”

“Once is enough,” the dwarf said grimly. “The impudent stable-boy must be chastised!”

“Oh, spare him!” Jeanne Marie implored. “Do not harm him, I beg of you! It is not his fault that I came! I—”

But at this point Simon Lafleur drowned her out in a roar of laughter.

“Ho, ho!” he roared, putting his hands on his hips. “You would chastise me, eh? Nom d’un chien! Don’t try your circus tricks on me! Why, hop-o’-my-thumb, you who ride on a dog’s back like a flea, out of this room before I squash you! Begone, melt, fade away!” He paused, expanded his barrel-like chest, puffed out his cheeks, and blew a great breath at the dwarf. “Blow away, insect,” he bellowed, “lest I put my heel on you!”

Jacques Courbé was unmoved by this torrent of abuse. He sat very upright on St. Eustache’s back, his tiny sword resting on his tiny shoulder.

“Are you done?” he said at last, when the bareback rider had run dry of invectives. “Very well, monsieur! Prepare to receive cavalry!” He paused for an instant, then added in a high, clear voice: “Get him, St. Eustache!”

The dog crouched, and, at almost the same moment, sprang at Simon Lafleur. The bareback rider had no time to avoid him and his tiny rider. Almost instantaneously the three of them had come to death grips. It was a gory business.

Simon Lafleur, strong man as he was, was bowled over by the wolf dog’s unexpected leap. St. Eustache’s clashing jaws closed on his right arm and crushed it to the bone. A moment later the dwarf, still clinging to his dog’s back, thrust the point of his tiny sword into the body of the prostrate bareback rider.

Simon Lafleur struggled valiantly, but to no purpose. Now he felt the fetid breath of the dog fanning his neck, and the wasp-like sting of the dwarf’s blade, which this time found a mortal spot. A convulsive tremor shook him and he rolled over on his back. The circus Romeo was dead.

Jacques Courbé cleansed his sword on a kerchief of lace, dismounted, and approached Jeanne Marie. She was still crouching on the floor, her eyes closed, her head held tightly between both hands. The dwarf touched her imperiously on the broad shoulder which had so often carried him.

“Madame,” he said, “we now can return home. You must be more careful hereafter. Ma foi, it is an ungentlemanly business cutting the throats of stable-boys!”

She rose to her feet, like a large trained animal at the word of command.

“You wish to be carried?” she said between livid lips.

“Ah, that is true, madame,” he murmured. “I was forgetting our little wager. Ah, yes! Well, you are to be congratulated, madame — you have covered nearly half the distance.”

“Nearly half the distance,” she repeated in a lifeless voice.

“Yes, madame,” M. Jacques Courbé continued. “I fancy that you will be quite a docile wife by the time you have done.” He paused, and then added reflectively: “It is truly remarkable how speedily one can ride the devil out of a woman — with spurs!”

Papa Copo had been spending a convivial evening at the Sign of the Wild Boar. As he stepped out into the Street he saw three familiar figures preceding him — a tall woman, a tiny man, and a large dog with upstanding ears. The woman carried the man on her shoulder; the dog trotted at her heels.

The circus owner came to a halt and stared after them. His round eyes were full of childish astonishment.

“Can it be?” he murmured. “Yes, it is! Three old friends! And so Jeanne Marie still carries him! Ah, but she should not poke fun at M. Jacques Courbé! He is so sensitive; but, alas, they are the kind that are always henpecked!”

“Munsey’s” magazine, Feb 1923

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)

Cockcrow Inn

Cockcrow Inn stands defiantly facing the sea. For countless years it has stood thus, holding at naught the greatest strength of wind and water, quite careless of the dazzling thunderstorms which on sultry summer evenings attack it as though with lifted sword-blades — a staunch old dwelling raised by hands long gone back into their native dust. And on wild winter nights, when the waves thunder out their war-song on the beach, when the wind screams its challenge to the sky, when all nature’s resources seem bent on destruction, the windows of this hostelry twinkle cheerily for lonely travelers by land or sea. It feeds the hungry and warms the cold; and only once in all its ten-score years has it failed to ward off the spirits of darkness which, if the villagers are to be believed, infest the moaning caves of Wishbone Point.

But I must let Ben Tibbit tell you the story as he told it to me, hunched up before his fireside like a shriveled old boot put there to dry — Ben Tibbit with the long, wizened neck and ferret eyes.

I was new to that country then, coming straight from the city. Death had been rapping on my office door in town. What I needed was a breath of salt air and a place to stretch my legs. Wishbone Point soon made me into a new man.

But the Tibbits! There’s a tribe for you — all cut in one mold, like Noah and his family out of my nephew’s ark. You can’t mistake a Tibbit. There’s little Archibald, just learning to crawl, like a baby rattler; and there are Mother and Aunt Tibbit, fat women both — yet get a peep at them through the tap-room window on their way to church of a Sunday; see the swing of their long, thin necks like Strasbourg geese about to be fed, and you straightway know them for Tibbits; and, last of all, there’s old Ben himself in his chimney corner, snuffling sin out through his nose over the Bible — a Tibbit every inch of him, well-seasoned by fourscore years and ten — a bent twig of the devil’s briarbush which caught in his grandmother’s skirts, as he’ll tell you himself after a hot toddy. What a neck the man has — long and lean as a swan’s, with an odd Adam’s Apple peeping through like a half-swallowed frog on its way to the gullet! What a slim, sly neck, twisting this way and that, for all it’s so wrinkled and yellow — what a neck to smother a hiccough!

Now when I first took up my quarters at Cockcrow Inn, what from the condition of my nerves, which were all of a snarl like macaroni in a bowl of soup, I couldn’t do the Tibbit family justice. It seemed to me that there were too many of them, and all too much alike. I took a violent dislike to the breed. But this silly dislike soon turned to pity when I learned the truth of the matter.

I think that wild Hallowe’en night, when old Ben first opened his heart to me, marked the turning of the tide. What man could have withheld his sympathy? Poor old doddering chap, he had been marked at birth for the devil’s fruit; he and his son and his grandson. Could he help what had befallen Nancy Greer, that wild slip of a lass who had once served a strange guest at Cockcrow Inn in the days when the country was new? No, nor could she, for that matter — although she might have attended the burning of Anna Mulvane, and thus cheated the devil. But I must begin at the beginning.

As I have said, it was a wild Hallowe’en. All day it had been blowing hard; now the waves came crashing down on the beach like falling towers. A venomous wind was abroad — a frantic, tearing wind which charged at Cockcrow Inn, shaking the solid doors on their hinges, bellowing down the great chimney and slipping through each crack and cranny. And the outer night was filled with wandering voices. It held them all like an ebony cup — laughter and tears, joy and sorrow.

“Bad weather,” said Ben Tibbit, laying his Bible aside with a sigh. “All the praying in the world won’t alter it. It’s Hallowe’en.”

“Hallowe’en, eh?” said I. “I suppose the witches will be riding their broomsticks.”

“Aye, that they will,” he muttered, uncoiling his neck and squinting up at the oak-paneled ceiling. “And there should be many to ride, for it’s not like it was in my grandfather’s day. In those good old times they couldn’t go traipsing about just as they pleased. No, sir. Just let them cast a spell over man or beast, woman or fowl, and they had short shrift of it. But now, how is it? Why, folks are only too pleased to have them for neighbors. There’s Witch Cabbot, who lives over by Bloody Creek. To my knowledge she cured little Archibald of warts by just a wave of her wand, and yet no one puts a lighted torch to her skirts. There’s no religion left in the land, Mr. Tremain.”

“But it was different in your grandfather’s day?” I suggested.

“It was so,” said he, with a solemn roll of his head. “Men were men then. They didn’t let the devil have it all his own way. They met fire with fire. Fourteen witches my grandfather helped to drag to the stake; seventeen pirates he saw hanged by the neck. There was enough hanging and burning then in these parts to keep a good Christian satisfied. I remember my sister’s first skip-rope came off the gallows-tree — a well-tarred bit of hemp if ever there was one.”

“Can you remember your grandfather?” I asked.

“And could I be forgetting him, sir, when there was not another such in all this countryside? Big and red he was, with a mane like a lion. A mighty man once his blood was up. Why, I’ve seen him take two sizable lads by the scruff of the neck and knock their heads together till they were silly from it, and he over eighty at the time with a back bowed by years! There never was a stronger man than my grandfather, though since his day the Tibbits have dwindled. You see, sir, the family tree has withered root and branch from consorting with ghosts and the like of that.”

“Ghosts?” said I, sniffing a story.

“Aye, ghosts — red-handed, black-bearded ghosts! Scum of the high seas who had made their own graves too hot to hold them! Ghosts with cutlasses in their hands and murder in their hearts! Damned souls that the devil himself would be glad to be rid of!”

“Spin me the yarn, Mr. Tibbit.”

“Gladly,” said he. “But first I must be asking you a question. You’ve been staying at Cockcrow Inn now for over a week, and you’ve seen every mother’s son of us. Now, Mr. Tremain, have you noticed anything unwholesome? A peculiar family resemblance that — A sort of—” He paused, and I saw his red-rimmed eyes glimmer out at me from the chimney-seat. “A kind of a—”

“You mean your necks, Mr. Tibbit?” I said, helping him out as best I could. “You’ve all got long, graceful necks like swans.”

“Swans be damned, sir!” he cried with a sudden heat, strange to come from a man who lived so close to his Bible. “To Hell’s fire with your swans!”

“I was meaning you no offense, Mr. Tibbit,” I hastened to add. “Perhaps you have an aversion to swans. I should rather say—” I was about to mention geese, but thought better of it.

“Never mind what our necks look like,” he said with a bitter smile. “We Tibbits are all cursed with them. For five generations not one of us has got off scot-free. We’ve prayed and we’ve fasted, we’ve worn out the knees of our breeches and the very patience of God. See Archibald there, the poor little toad!”

I looked to where he pointed and saw that child of misfortune trying patiently to hang his white kitten with a piece of curtain cord. But before I could interfere, it squirmed out of his hands and was off to the attic, leaving Archibald on his back, squalling.

“The poor little toad!” Ben Tibbit continued with a shake of his grizzled head. “Look how he lies, like a turtle!”

“You were about to tell me your story,” I ventured.

“Well, then, to begin,” said he, “you must know that the country was wild in my grandfather’s youth. And if the country was wild, the sea was wilder. Black-hearted gentry there were afloat who swore by the Jolly Roger. Many a brave ship’s crew walked the plank not five miles off Wishbone Point — many a corpse has bumped up on the sand like a bag of grain after the rats are through with it. What from pirates and witches, a body couldn’t sleep safe in his bed at night for fear he’d wake up with a slit throat in the morning or maybe as mad as a hatter.

“Now, of all the pirates off our coast, there was none the country-folk feared as much as Whitechapel Willie. He was a Londoner born, was Willie — smooth as oil and fond of the lassies. The girls hereabouts used to quake in their beds, for he was not always content with his luck on the sea, but would come scudding in on cloudy nights, a dozen hairy lads to bear him company. Then he’d creep up to some lonely farmer’s house and snatch a maid from her bed or the good wife herself, were she comely. It was a crying shame, and the neighborhood was fair sick of it.

“It happened that my grandfather was courting Nancy Greer at the time — and Cockcrow Inn,in a manner of speaking. She was the only daughter of Anthony Greer, landlord here then. The girl was a fair catch, and my grandfather was not the lad to let a good alehouse slip through his fingers once he gripped it. Besides all this, as I’ve often heard him say, Nancy was a comely lass with a way about her to make men follow at her heels like dogs after a butcher wagon. Not that she gave any of them favors, for my grandfather was jealous to a fault, and quick tempered with rivals.”

“And Whitechapel Willie?” I asked.

“Well, Willie was different,” said Ben Tibbit reminiscently. “I’ll not say that he didn’t worry my grandfather when his black bark was seen off the Point. You see, he had the name on the high seas of being of close kin to the devil — a reputation he fostered by chewing mouthfuls of glass like they were no more than plugs of tobacco, picking up live coals between finger and thumb to drop down the necks of his crew, and swallowing sword-blades, which he claimed sharpened his wits. From one thing and another, my grandfather did not fancy him much as a rival. And so, when Willie was finally caught and hanged on the beach, he lent a hand to the business with a grin on his face.”

“So Whitechapel Willie was caught and hanged?” I said a trifle regretfully.

“He was so. And my grandfather, who was appointed hangman that year, slipped the halter about his neck as pleased as Punch — the more especial as Nancy Greer was looking on and Whitechapel Willie was rolling his wicked black eyes at her. Here was this bloody-minded pirate on the brink of the grave, about to be hung up for his sins like the Tibbits’ wash on a Monday, and him rolling his wicked black eyes at our Nancy and dancing at her like a bear on the end of a chain! It was a sight to make your blood run cold, Mr. Tremain.

“‘Think on your sins, wretched man!’ says my grandfather, very stern, giving the halter a jerk to cut off a ribald rhyme in the making. ‘Say your prayers, unhappy sinner!’

“So he swung him up as high as a kite to dance out his life in the air, and the country-folk took a long breath of relief and went about their business. My grandfather and Nancy Greer were the last to go, for there was not a man so religious as he, nor one who took more joy in a burning or a hanging. But Nancy was trembling from it, and he had to throw his great-coat about her.

“‘One pirate the less, Heaven be praised!’ says my grandfather in a voice like a deacon.

“But Nancy Greer didn’t answer him at all, just stared up at Willie, who was still jigging a bit on the gallows-tree. So strange a look she had on her face, and such a wild eye along with it, that he straightway began to look about for a witch. And lucky it was for Bess Cabbot that she hadn’t been born yet to pick up driftwood on the beach, for as like as not she’d have been burned with her own faggots.

“Well, Mr. Tremain, the hanging of Whitechapel Willie kept my grandfather in good spirits for upward of a month. In those days the Tibbit family had built themselves a house on the other side of Wishbone Point, where they did all the hanging; and he had but to cross his own doorsill to see Willie hanging as neat as a turkey-cock in Butcher Flint’s window. Those were the times when the country-folk hereabouts let a pirate swing for a space till the red-handed gentry offshore got a sniff of him, which was sure to be good for their morals. A fine lesson it was to the lads and lassies, and a sure sign to strangers that Christianity had taken deep root in the land.

“As I have said, my grandfather was pleased to see Whitechapel Willie hanging there. Not that he was puffed up with pride over his handiwork, for he was modest as hangmen go; but just because he took an honest delight in having strung up with his own hands one of the devil’s kin. Pleased and merry he was to see Willie jigging against the sunset till one Hallowe’en, a hundred and fifty years ago tonight — a black Hallowe’en for the Tibbits if ever there was one.

“It was another such evening as this, Mr. Tremain — a howling wind for the witches to ride on, black as the mouth of hell, with never a star a-quiver. It was no night to be out, but my grandfather was not the man to be turned aside from his duty. You see, they were burning Anna Mulvane, the witch of Whittington Common, beside the old Court House; and he had promised to take Nancy Greer on the pillion behind him, thinking that the sight might put the fear of God in her. So he saddled and bridled his nag, Queen Bess, and set off for Cockcrow Inn.

“It chanced, Mr. Tremain, that he rode along the beach, which was a short cut, although a bad one to follow on such a night. He had to pass under the gallows-tree before he was ten minutes in the saddle. Now, what from it being Hallowe’en, and so black that you couldn’t see hand before face, another man might have thought twice before taking the beach-road. But not so my grandfather. On he went, singing a snatch of a hymn, not from fear, but just because he was partial to holy music, thinking no doubt of the good fire where he could warm his cold hands at the expense of Anna Mulvane, when all of a sudden Queen Bess planted all four feet deep in the sand and let out a snort like a dragon.

“Now he was taken quite by surprise and came within an ace of losing his grip of the saddle; yet he steadied himself after a bit and gave Queen Bess a taste of his heels. But she wouldn’t move an inch, just stood with her ears laid back and shook all over. Well, being a quick-tempered man, my grandfather was about to draw his saber and give her the flat of it as a lesson in manners, when, all of a sudden, there came a flash of lightning which showed him a hair-raising sight.”

“What was it?” I asked breathlessly.

Ben Tibbit took a long pull at his pipe before he answered me. His face was all working with excitement and his eyes glowed like a cat’s in the dark. “What was it?” said he very slowly. “Why, I’ll tell you, Mr. Tremain. My grandfather had ridden up to the gallows, never knowing it at all; and that flash of lightning, like a torch out of heaven, had showed him a mighty strange thing.”

“What?” I demanded.

“Why, Whitechapel Willie had gone.”

“Gone?”

“Aye, there he had been hanging to my grandfather’s knowledge for a good three weeks or more, as dead as a herring, swinging back and forth like a pendulum of that clock yonder, a plaything for the birds and the wind and the rain — and now, come Hallowe’en, he wasn’t there anymore.”

“Perhaps some of his friends landed and cut him down,” I suggested.

“That’s what my grandfather was thinking after he’d rubbed his eyes for a bit. And hot anger rose up in the man. He had hanged Willie so neatly and all to no purpose. So he drew out his Bible and swore a great oath on it that he’d have the heart of this snatcher of bodies before the year had run out. But after a time the wind cooled him off a bit; and, knowing that nothing more could be made of the matter, he beat his nag forward with the flat of his sword, riding on with a heavy weight of curses behind his closed lips.

“Queen Bess trotted forward bravely enough once she had passed the gallows-tree till she came up alongside a tall, dark shape of a man striding along the beach like one in a hurry. Now my grandfather drew rein, perhaps feeling the need of companionship, or maybe just to break the news about Whitechapel Willie. And the moon peeped out for a bit, like a timid bride from behind a lace curtain, and showed him that the man had his chin on his breast. Tall and thin he was; and he didn’t cast any shadow, though the light was bright enough.

“And my grandfather fell to wondering who it could be, knowing most of the men in the village whom he had thrown about like rag dolls in his day. Was it Red Tim, the blacksmith? No, Tim was shorter and broader. Was it Richard Bell, the barber? No, Bell had more of a stoop to his shoulders. Now wasn’t it Parson Peabody’s wild young brother — him who was said to be mad when the moon was full? He was just such a figure of a man, silent and moody — a bad companion, but better than none on a wild Hallowe’en.

“‘God be with you, friend,’ said my grandfather through his nose like a parson. ‘Mayhap you’re on your way to the burning?’

“‘I am cold,’ said the wayfarer then in a voice shrill as a crowing cock. ‘Think you, good hangman, that it will be cheerful there as in the devil’s kitchen?’

“‘That it will,’ my grandfather answered, not relishing mention of the devil’s name on such a night, but making allowances for the parson’s brother. ‘They’ve planned a great fire by the Court House.’

“‘Good!’ cried the wayfarer with a shiver. ‘Think you it would warm me, Hangman Tibbit? The cold of many a black night has eaten into my bones like quicklime.’

‘“It’ll warm you,’ says my grandfather. ‘And there will be rare sport besides. Anna Mulvane will be squalling like a dozen cats once the fire touches her.’

“And then at these merry words the wayfarer let out a laugh shrill as a cock crowing in the dawn — an unwholesome laugh, Mr. Tremain, which made Queen Bess rear up from sheer fright of it. ‘Hee, hee, hee!’ he cried with a wicked roll of his head, ‘There’s a cloven hoof peeping out from under the robe of the priest!’

“‘What may you be meaning by that, friend?’ my grandfather asked.

“‘Never you trouble your head over the matter, Hangman Tibbit,’ says the wayfarer with an ill-favored grin. ‘Stick to your trade. There’s a science to it you’ve not quite mastered. When all’s said and done, what you hang up is as likely as not to come down and be treading a jig-step on a black Hallowe’en!’

“‘If you’re meaning the disappearance of Whitechapel Willie off the gallows-tree,’ my grandfather cried in a towering passion, ‘I’ll have you know that some rogue in these parts cut him down. I’ve sworn to clip the ears of that man if I once lay eyes on him!’

‘“A coward sprinkles threats on all sides of him like a pot shaking pepper,’ says the wayfarer with a sneer. ‘Spur on, Hangman Tibbit, for I’m wanting only my own company.’

“Now, Mr. Tremain, had it not been Hallowe’en and he late for the burning of Anna Mulvane, and had he not thought that this impudent rascal was own brother to Parson Peabody, there’s no doubt at all in my mind but my grandfather would have made short work of him. But, as it was, he swallowed his righteous wrath like a dose of bitter medicine; and, wasting no more words on the matter, but just putting it down to the liquor which must be shaking up and down in the man’s belly to make him so bold, he clapped his spurs into Queen Bess and was off like the wind.

“Well, it wasn’t long before he rode up to Cockcrow Inn and stamped into this very taproom. It was a cheery place then, as it is now. A great log was spluttering a bit on the hearthstone and the easy chairs were gathered cozy about it, as if they had tiptoed out from the corners to have a friendly chat in the firelight. But there wasn’t a drinking man in the place — all having tramped over the hill to the burning.

“‘Nancy Greer! Nancy Greer!’ my grandfather bellows like a bull that is mating. ‘Where have you got to, Nancy?’

“And in a little while she comes down the great stairs into his arms, and he gives her a squeeze fit to crack the ribs of a bear. But she, being a lusty lass, only giggles a bit and blushes a bit, and tells him that he shouldn’t be carrying on so.

“And at that he takes a proud look around the room, like a man who feels he has the property in his pocket; and then he bends down and gives her a loud smack — a masterful kiss to smother an argument.

“‘That’s for you, my good wench,’ says he very lordly, for there wasn’t every girl who could boast of such favor. ‘Is your father at home, Nancy?’

“‘No, sir,’ says she, dropping him a low curtsey. ‘He’s just stepped over the hill to the burning of Anna Mulvane.’

“‘And so he should do,’ said my grandfather then as though from the pulpit. ‘’Tis the duty of every Christian in the land. Get your bonnet and shawl, Nancy.’

“But she shakes her head at that and sets her mouth hard. ‘I’m not going to the burning of Anna Mulvane, Mr. Tibbit.’ says she very firm

“‘Not going!’ cried my grandfather, quite taken aback. ‘What ails you, lass? Why, the whole congregation will be there, and Parson Peabody is to light the faggots with his own hand! Come, get your bonnet and shawl!’

“‘I’m not feeling so spry, Mr. Tibbit,’ says she, looking down on the floor like a sinner. ‘It’ll be cold by the Court House. There’s a bitter wind abroad, and I — ’

“But my grandfather cut her short, having smelt out a lie. ‘Tell me the truth, Nancy Greer,’ said he. ‘Out with it, girl. Why is it that you fear to go to the burning of Anna Mulvane?’

“And now she just blurted out the black truth like the silly wench that she was. ‘I like Anna Mulvane!’ she cried, in a voice all broken with sobs. ‘I don’t believe she’s a witch! And even if she is, I don’t care! I like her!’

“‘Have a care, Nancy Greer!’ says my grandfather right solemnly.

“But she went on for all that, words falling from her in a shower. ‘Why must you be always taking me to hangings and burnings? I hate them, Mr. Tibbit — yes, hate them! There was the time you men of the church burned poor old widow Penwin. Mind how her hair flamed up, Mr. Tibbit, and how she clawed it? I see her yet in my dreams!’

“‘Nancy Greer,’ my grandfather said very sternly, ‘did I not know you for a good lass at heart, these wicked words might go hard with you. Mayhap you’re bewitched. Come, I’ll wrestle with the devil which possesses you. Nancy, bring me a bottle of wine and we’ll sit ourselves down by the fireside and say a few prayers to break this enchantment.”

“Now, Mr. Tremain, Nancy Greer calmed down in a jiffy, as is the habit of most lasses once they get their own way. She was quick to bring him a bottle of her father’s very best wine, for it was a night when good spirits could do no harm. And my grandfather was nothing loath to make love and toast his toes a bit. Perhaps he had grown a trifle weary of burnings, like a man who has gone too much to the playhouse. Besides, if the worst came to the worst, he could still get to the Court House in time to pocket a handful of ashes for luck.

“Well, there he sat, Mr. Tremain, with Nancy on his knee, sipping Anthony Greer’s rare old wine and thinking of the day when he’d be master of Cockcrow Inn, when all of a sudden there came such a loud peal of thunder that the whole house seemed to shake from it. And on its heels there followed a great blast of wind that rattled the windowpanes in their sockets and blew open the oaken door as though the devil himself had put a shoulder to it.

“‘God save us!’ cried Nancy, jumping up in a fright. ‘I’d best be bolting the doors and the windows!’

“But my grandfather answered nothing at all — just sat back, pop-eyed.”

Ben Tibbit paused to light his long clay pipe, and I took advantage of his silence to stir the fire a bit. We were both needing the warmth and cheer of it.

“What ailed your grandfather?” I asked at length.

“Matter enough, sir,” said he between puffs. “A strange guest had been blown into Cockcrow Inn. I say blown, Mr. Tremain, for it was like that. In he came, swirling from side to side like an autumn leaf caught in a gale. For all he was so long and lean and solemn, there was a strange, unwholesome gaiety about him, like a wreath of smoke hanging over a bonfire.”

“What manner of man was he, Mr. Tibbit?” I asked.

“Well, at first it was hard to make out, for he was all wrapped up in a long black cloak. But after he had skipped up to the fire and stretched his arms over it, my grandfather caught a glimpse of his face.

“Long and lean it was, Mr. Tremain, with a great hooked nose poking out like a vulture’s. And to make matters worse, he had but one eye, like a windowpane with fire shining through it. The other was just a hole in his head and as black as a rabbit’s burrow. But more disturbing than all was the unhealthy pallor of his skin, all soggy with damp like a mushroom that has stood out too long in the wet.

“‘God be with you, friend,’ said my grandfather, not forgetting his manners. ‘Are you cold?’

“‘Aye, cold — cold!’ said the stranger in a voice like a crowing cock. ‘Think you, Hangman Tibbit, that a man can lie out for a round score nights, blowing this way and that to every stray puff of wind like a whirligig, without just becoming as damp as a towel in a tap-room? I’m needing a bed of red-hot coals to lie on, Hangman Tibbit!’

“All this time he had been bending so close over the fire that it was a wonder his cloak did not flare up from it; but now he took a step back and began to unwind a long muffler from about his neck. And my grandfather could see that this stranger’s clothes were in a most shocking state. Were it not for his cloak, the man might as well have been naked. Tattered and torn were his breeches and jerkin as though by the claws of wild beasts; and through a rent in his hose his bare calf showed green and moldy. And in all, he was in no fit state to be in a lass’s company; and my grandfather would have told him as much had it not been Hallowe’en.

“Now, as I have said, this scarecrow of a man was unwinding a woolen muffler which sat tight about his neck. Coil on coil he unwound, and, strange to tell, with each coil his head tilted more to one side, till at last he was grinning at my grandfather from his bony left shoulder. A most disquieting thing to see, Mr. Tremain.

“Next he sat himself down and drained my grandfather’s flagon without so much as a by-your-leave. ‘You do yourself proud, Hangman Tibbit,’ said he. ‘Young women and old wine — they betoken a man whether in Heaven or Hell. Now bring me a flagon, Nancy Greer, and we’ll drink to your bonnie blue eyes.

“My grandfather, a proud man when in liquor, was loath to drink with such ragged company; but it being Hallowe’en and no one about to mark him, he clinked glasses with this wind-tossed traveler out of the night as friendly as possible. And what from the good wine he had already drunk, and what from the bumpers that followed, it wasn’t long before he and his guest were as lively as limpets. He even sent Nancy down to the cellar for another bottle — and she was loath to be going for fear she’d be missing some of the stranger’s sallies. For it seems that this ragged fellow had a rare humor, once you forgot his wagging head and his ruby-red eye.

“The tales he told them, Mr. Tremain, would fairly make your sides split — about shiploads of people walking the plank like a flock of sheep on their way to the butcher’s, about wild pranks played at sea when strong men were hanged up by their toes to the rigging, about how one Captain Shark had his own cook served up to the crew in the form of apple dumplings. And my poor grandfather tried to hold his own with him, telling of the humorous sights that he’d seen at the hangings and burnings hereabouts. But he couldn’t make a go of it, for they all seemed like skimmed milk at the best. So he shook his head as the stranger’s stories grew wilder and wilder, reflecting no doubt that this merry fellow’s youth had not been without blemish. And also he began to think that his roving eye fell on his Nancy more than was seemly.

“‘On your feet, Hangman Tibbit!’ the stranger cried out at last with a flourish. ‘On your feet, you lubberly swine, for I’ve a toast for you!’

“‘I’ll have you know — ’ my grandfather began in a towering passion. But he got no further with it, for this ragged stranger drowned him out with small respect and less manners. The ditty he sang in his high crowing voice ran something like this:

“‘Here’s to Whitechapel Willie who sails the four seas,

He’s known from Calcutta to Florida Keys.

With a puncheon of rum and a dirk in each hand,

In a snug little lugger a league from the land,

For wine and women and plenty of duff

He’d sink a whole fleet and not call it enough.

For he’s Whitechapel Willie who sails the four seas,

Well known from Calcutta to Florida Keys.’

“‘Whitechapel Willie!’ my grandfather cried. ‘Did you mention the name of Whitechapel Willie?’

“‘Aye, pumpkin head!’ said the stranger. ‘I did sing of Whitechapel Willie. What then, pop-eyed hangman?’

“Now, Mr. Tremain, there’s no doubt at all in my mind but that my grandfather would there and then have slain this fellow had it not been for a strange trick of memory which tormented him. He had even laid his hand on his sword-hilt, so far had he gone in the matter, when something familiar about this stranger’s manner held his arm back. Where had he seen that hooked nose before? He must find out before he slew him, or else his curiosity might go begging through life. Thus he reasoned, and once swallowed his anger.

“‘I hanged Whitechapel Willie with my own hands not a month back,’ says he, rather proud.

“‘And did you so, Hangman Tibbit?’ cried the stranger then, with a wink at Nancy. ‘Blast your soul for a bungler! I was passing the gallows-tree not an hour gone, and there was no fruit on it for bird or beast. Mayhap Willie has slipped your halter come Hallowe’en?

“‘When I hang a man he stays hanged!’ my grandfather bellowed. ‘The devil himself could not slip my noose!’

“‘Is it so?’ said the stranger with a sneer and a smile. ‘Nancy, my dear, surely a dead man is of more worth to a lively lass than this hulking, hiccoughing homespun. Sit you down on my knee, girl, and I’ll sing to you of Whitechapel Willie:

“‘Now Whitechapel Willie was wooing a wench,

Pipe up on your flutes and your fiddles;

He sat her down on a cobbler’s bench,

Sing high, sing low, sing — ’

“But now my grandfather drowned him out with a volley of oaths which would have done justice to any pirate. He was fair foaming with rage, for out of the corner of his eye he could see Nancy creeping over toward this stranger like a bird once the snake beckons it. Something had to be done to keep this rogue in his place, or it might very well be that he’d have Cockcrow Inn and the girl in his pocket.

“‘Draw, you crowing cock of perdition!’ cried my grandfather, overturning the table just to show what manner of man he was. ‘Sing your dirty gutter songs, will you!’

“And at that the stranger leaped to his feet. ‘So that’s your tune, Hangman Tibbit!’ says he. ‘Well, we’ll both dance to it!’

“Now, Mr. Tremain, it wasn’t longer than it would take a man to call for a bottle of Scotch before swords were out and sparks flying. Back and forth it went, blade crossing blade in thrust and parry — a great roaring of oaths from my grandfather and a smashing of chairs and tables that stood in his path. Up and down this very taproom they fought — the swords all a-quiver to be killing and the black night peeping in through the lattice.

“My grandfather was a grand swordsman, as he’s told me himself in this very chimney corner. Few there were who’d faced his saber and lived to tell of the matter. But tonight — what from it being Hallowe’en, when devils are strong and saints are weak — he was far from having his own way of it. This scarecrow of a man was like smoke to prick with a sword-point. Light he was as thistle-down, short at one moment and tall at the next, leaping about as nimble as a goat and with no sign of tiring. And now cold suspicion of the truth flowed into my grandfather’s brain. Surely if this man were of flesh and blood he’d have been stretched on the floor long since. Perhaps it was Satan himself; or, at least, his lieutenant.

“But the Tibbit family are not easily daunted. Blinded with sweat he was, and shaking; but he fought on gallantly for all that, crying loudly on God to protect him. And then, as though in answer to his prayers, the point of the stranger’s sword wavered; and my grandfather, thrusting forward with a hymn of praise on his lips, saw the point of his sword slip into the rascal as though he were made of green cheese — saw it slip in like a skewer in mutton and saw it come out again, all bright and shining.

“Now, being a man of quick perception, he knew for certain that something was amiss. Here was the blade of his saber as clean as a whistle when it should have been red and dripping; and here was this ragged wisp of a swordsman hopping about as gay as a canary. It was enough to put the fear of the devil in a man, Mr. Tremain.

“Well, my grandfather staggered back against the wall from the fright of it, and all the wine went out of his head. So this was what came of sitting snug in a tap-room when he should have attended the burning of Anna Mulvane. Well, he was in for it now, and no dodging the issue. If only he could get the holy Bible out of his pocket to ward off this fiend from the pit.

“But there was no time for that now, Mr. Tremain, for the stranger was at him again like a cat on a mouse. Up and down the tap-room it went, swords rattling like the devil’s dice-box, and my grandfather put to it to keep on his feet. Lucky it was for him that the hilt of his saber was fashioned like a cross, which guarded him against the devilry afoot. Had it not been, he would have met death with his boots on, and not like a Christian in bed. But as it was, his head was swimming from the sweating fatigue of it, and his knees were clicking together like castanets, and his breath was whistling in his throat like the wind down this chimney. All in all, he was in no fit state for fence.

“Well, matters went on from bad to worse. Soon my grandfather got wandering a bit in his head. It seemed to him that the room was spinning around like a top. Faster and faster it went: and then, all of a sudden a great gust of wind pushed the tap-room door open and out of the night came a wild, wind-tossed company. Black, hairy lads were these, all dressed in silks and laces, marching in with a swing and a swagger — wild lads who had sailed the Spanish main, stained to the eyes with blood and treasure — rollicking bucks who would cut a throat for a bottle of grog or play a prank on a parson. In they marched, two by two, and formed a solemn ring about him — a ring of faces like you see in dreams, bearded all, with eyes red as coals in the gloaming.

“And as he fought wearily on, with hope of Heaven fast fading, the tattered swordsman before him burst out into song which the others soon raised to a roaring chorus. And now my grandfather felt that he, too, was singing, in spite of himself, and against all reason:

“‘Here’s to Whitechapel Willie who sails the four seas,

He’s known from Calcutta to Florida Keys.

With a puncheon of rum and a dirk in each hand,

In a snug little lugger a league from the land,

For wine and women and plenty of duff

He’d sink a whole fleet and not call it enough.

For he’s Whitechapel Willie who sails the four seas,

Well known from Calcutta to Florida Keys.’

“And now he knew for certain with whom he had crossed swords on this black Hallowe’en, and all hope flickered out of him. Also he recognized two or three of the hairy lads who looked on — gentlemen of fortune these whom he had strung up right gaily at one time or another. And now that he felt that the devil had his own way with him, that it was useless to struggle further, he leaped back and snapped the blade of his saber across his bent knee. What was left of it was but the hilt, made into the likeness of a cross as I have told you, Mr. Tremain. This he managed to clasp to his breast before he fell on the floor in a swoon,”

Ben Tibbit broke off to throw another log of wood on the fire, which was dying down to red ashes. His neck lengthened incredibly for an instant as he bent forward to warm his wrinkled old hands.

“And who was this rollicking swordsman out of the night?” I asked. “Surely it was not Whitechapel Willie?”

“Aye, so my grandfather was thinking,” said Ben Tibbit with a shake of his head. “Whitechapel Willie come down from the gallows-tree on a black Hallowe’en. But hear me out first, Mr. Tremain, and then you can be judging the matter.

“As I have told you, my grandfather had dropped in his tracks from fear or fatigue. How long he lay in a swoon on this tap-room floor he never knew; but, when he opened his eyes again, the place was as black as a pit. Not a candle glimmered, and the log in the fireplace had sputtered out, leaving the room as damp as a cellar.

“‘Nancy!’ he cried, sitting up in a fright. ‘Nancy!’

“But there was no answer at all, just the whimper of the wind in the fireplace and the sad sigh of the waves on the beach. So he climbed to his feet and lighted one of the candles. Ghastly it was and silent, with broken furniture lying all about; but with no sign of woman or devil. My grandfather was fair sweating with fear.

“But he tramped from attic to cellar, stopping every now and then like a child in the dark to bellow ‘Nancy! Nancy!’ And then out he went into the night, which was graying with the first pallor of dawn. Long spirals of mist stole up from the grass and went creeping away in the dark; the stars were still bright overhead and winking; the wind had died down to a breath which just wagged the leaves on the birches.

“Giving no thought to Queen Bess, he tramped down to the beach where the waves were like weary sinners confessing. And standing there, his feet buried deep in the sand, he bellowed ‘Nancy! Nancy!’ over the breast of the sea.

“But there was no answer at all — just the sad waves confessing to the wickedness done out there beyond, and once the mournful cry of a gull. Lonely it was and drear, with the morning not born yet; and he was glad to turn way before his voice was quite gone.

“He plodded down the beach, still fuddled in his head from the night’s devilry and not thinking or caring over-much where he might be going, when, all of a sudden, he heard a strange sound coming out of the mist far ahead. It was a shrill crowing sound like a cock makes on a dunghill, only louder and with a quaver to it which turned it into a wicked laugh most unpleasant to hear.”

“Whitechapel Willie!” I broke in.

“So my grandfather was thinking, and he began to run. For now with the promise of dawn in the air, and Hallowe’en about spent, he was brave enough to face man or devil. On he ran with that wild laugh still stinging his ears, till soon he saw the gallows-tree looming up black through the mist — the gallows-tree and something that dangled there, jigging a bit on the heels of the wind.”

“Whitechapel Willie?” I asked.

“Sure enough, Mr. Tremain — Whitechapel Willie. There he was, strung up for the world to see, a ball of dried meat that the birds might peck at, the same as he had been before Hallowe’en.

“But my grandfather had spied something else which made the hair on his head ruffle up. There, at the foot of the gallows, dim as a dream in the pallid dawn, was a queer shape all wrapped up in an old black cloak. Swinging back and forth like a gate in the wind, it crouched there in the dust. Forlorn and broken it was, like an old woman come to grieve on the graves of her dead; and it was only after he had stepped up to it that he knew it for Nancy.

“‘My lass,’ said he, severe as a judge of the land, ‘why sit you here beneath the gallows-tree?’

“But she made him no answer — just stared up with wild eyes and broke out into a snatch of a song which ran something like this:

“‘The devil he put on the robe of a priest,

Sing high, sing low, my lasses;

So Willie and I sat long at the feast,

Sing high, sing low, my lasses.’

“‘What ails you, Nancy?’ cried my grandfather in a fright. ‘Are you bewitched?’

“But still she made him no answer — just stared up, wild-eyed, at the gallows-tree and sang another snatch of her ribald ditty:

+
“‘Now Willie was merry as he could be,

Sing high, sing low, my lasses;

But the devil was rude to wink at me,

Sing high, sing low, my lasses.’

“Well, my grandfather clapped his great hand over her mouth, for he saw that all sense had been bewitched out of the girl, and feared she might sing something which she might have to burn for later. So he bottled up her music here and then and, picking her up in his arms, carried her back to Cockcrow Inn. And that about ends my story, Mr. Tremain.”

“But how long was it before she regained her reason?” I asked, not at all satisfied.

“Never, rightly speaking. She was always breaking out into songs about Whitechapel Willie — some of them scandalous. I remember one time when I was a mite of a lad in church with her, and she piped up on a ditty which made the congregation stare, I can tell you.”

“And your grandfather was willing to marry a madwoman?”

“He was so, Mr. Tremain. He was wont to say that his Nancy was better than a watchdog the way she’d pipe up if anyone stirred beneath stairs of a night. And then there was Cockcrow Inn to be considered. Was he going to let that slip through his fingers just because Nancy Greer wasn’t as sensible as some?”

“Did he ever find out what had happened to her?” I asked.

Ben Tibbit flushed and shook his head. “Yes and no,” said he. “Of course there were times when he had to close his ears to her pipings There were ditties of hers that — Well, the least said about them the better, Mr. Tremain. She’s in her grave now, poor woman. Like a cackling goose she went about Cockcrow Inn in my childhood, mad as a hatter and merry — a handsome old dame despite her wild eyes and wilder music. There was the savor of the sea in her, Mr. Tremain — a wild, rollicking spirit which has hanged many a man, but which is rare to find in a woman. A chap could hear her from the attic to the cellar when she came out full blast with one of her ditties — all about rum and murder and pieces of eight.”

“But the curse laid on your family?” I broke in. “Your necks? How did you come by them?”

Ben Tibbit made me no answer. Rising painfully to his feet, he began to blow out the candles which were guttering in their sockets. Picking up little Archibald by the belt and holding him at arm’s length as though he were a large snapping turtle, he turned on the threshold for a last word.

“All the families have their skeletons,” said he. “Well sir, I let ours out of the closet tonight to dance a bit for your pleasure, it being black Hallowe’en, when men grow talkative by the fireside. But I don’t want you to be thinking that I’d throw mud at my own grandmother. No, sir. Nancy Greer was an honest lass; and, had she gone to the burning of Anna Mulvane, all this would not have happened. It was a slip that cost her dear and the Tibbits dearer. A good evening to you, Mr. Tremain.”

“Mystery Magazine”, 01 Mar 1926

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)

The Bibulous Baby

“The strangest event in my life happened last summer,” said my traveling companion. “I have only ventured to tell this story to my wife and brother. It is so unique and apparently so beyond human belief that if I published it broadcast I would be looked upon by the world as an impostor of the first water.”

“And did your wife and brother believe you?” I asked.

“Well, not exactly. Yes and no. They believed that I thought I was telling the truth. The one imagined that the tale sprang from the effects of strong drink; the other blamed the strength of the summer sun. But I assure you it was neither. I had had a few glasses of absinth, certainly; but I have been accustomed to this drink since childhood. The sun, indeed, was very hot; but it was as nothing compared to the heat I have experienced in the tropics.”

“The story, doctor?” I ventured.

“Ah,” said he, “you will laugh; but nevertheless I will give it to you. Mirth is the reward one gets from the world when one gives something new to it. People laugh entirely too much, and smile only with their lips. Look into a man’s eyes — they alone are the true mirrors of emotion.

•   •   •

On the fifteenth of last August I was living at a seaside resort not far from the city. It was the warmest day of the summer, and the people had taken to the water. Sitting on the veranda of the hotel with a glass of absinth on the arm of my chair, I could see the blue expanse of ocean stretching out from the beach like a velvet rug lying on a floor of whitest marble. Not a breath of air ruffled that placid surface; not a wrinkle of thought rested on the calm forehead of the sea. And above it the sun hung stationary in the heavens, resembling an open porthole of a burning ship seen through the blue haze of evening.

On the beach, men and women were running about, caricaturing by their grotesque, awkward movements the play of children, as grown people do when they attempt to cheat Father Time. In the water, round objects could be seen bobbing up and down like pieces of cork, and it seemed strange that these little globes should be moving about, guided by the brains that they contained; and stranger still that, if one should suddenly sink out of sight for several moments, a great excitement would turn these shouts of laughter into screams, these movements of animal joy into gesticulations of horror.

Sitting all alone on that hotel veranda, I continued to sip my absinth and to meditate on the scene before me. Suddenly I saw a very pretty young girl approaching, pushing a baby carriage before her. The child was evidently sleeping and was concealed under a canopy of mosquito netting; the girl looked longingly out to sea, while two lines of irritation furrowed her forehead.

Acting on a sudden impulse, I spoke to her: “You’ll pardon me, but couldn’t I be of some assistance? I see that you like bathing, and it’s quite a wonderful day for it. I could take care of the baby while you have a plunge.”

She hesitated and again looked out to sea. “I’m very much obliged,” she began, “but mother told me to take care of” — at this she hesitated, and I thought I saw her face darken — “of my little brother,” she finished.

“But I could take care of him for a time. He won’t be any trouble. He’s fast asleep.”

“Yes, he is asleep,” she said, lifting the mosquito netting and looking down at the little red face lying on the lace pillow. “Thank you so much; I think I will go in bathing.” And, wheeling the baby carriage up beside me, she turned and hurried off toward the bath houses on the shore.

Again my eyes returned to the bathers, and my hand lifted the glass of absinth to my lips. How black and tiny some of the heads looked far out on the water! Here, in this bathtub of the city, life was a precious thing; yet there was an abundance of it, a superfluity of it. I had been in thinly populated countries where it was not thought of so highly.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said a voice beside me which sounded like a key turning in a rusty lock, “but I’m very thirsty, and absinth is my favorite drink.”

I turned about in surprise, and was thunderstruck to see that I was apparently still alone. No one stood back of my chair; no one was behind the pillar on my right, and no one crouched behind the baby carriage, as I had first suspected. But as I stared about me the voice again spoke in its strange, quavering tones.

“Lift up the mosquito net over the carriage,” it said. “It’s damnably hot in here!”

Almost mechanically I did as I was told, and in a moment more was looking down into the little, red, wrinkled face of a baby. As I gazed at the shapeless nose, at the bald head and loose-lipped mouth, the eyes opened and looked up at me. What I felt then you can never imagine, my friend; I cannot describe it to you. I can only say that it was horrible — horrible past belief. I had expected the frightened, innocent stare of awakened childhood; in place of it I saw the vicious, knowing leer of wicked old age. With a cry of horror I reeled back and put my hands before my eyes.

“Well,” said the voice again, and now I knew that it, too, was old — as old as an echo in a haunted house; “well, my young friend, do I get a taste of your absinth or not?”

“What are you?” I cried as soon as I could speak.

“Young man,” said the baby, squinting evilly at me over his blanket, “I’m about the dryest child in the world. Do you know what I’ve been getting to drink lately? I’ve been getting milk — milk from a dirty, blue-nosed bottle! Everybody takes advantage of me because I’m too old to kick up a disturbance. Why, my own grandchild — the one who was wheeling me just now — takes advantage of me. Family pride is all very well, but what is getting me is I’ve only got four more weeks to live, and I might as well be a live one till the very end.”

“Just a moment,” said I, taking a long drink of absinth to steady my nerves. “Now you can tell me everything. You may unburden yourself to me as though I were your father.”

“Well,” he snarled, “if I tell you the story, will you empty the milk out of my bottle and fill it up with absinth?”

“Yes, readily,” I answered.

“So I’m selling my family pride for a bottle of absinth,” said he. “Well, no matter, here it goes. My grandfather owned a large plantation before the war. Like many another Southern gentleman of that time, he preferred the joys of the body to the joys of the spirit. Wine in plenty, women in plenty, tobacco in plenty — that was his idea of life. But there was one thing that worried my grandfather.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Old age,” said the baby solemnly. “It was his one fear. And when it finally came — when gout laid hold of his feet and time pulled out his hair — he was a pitiful object to behold. Lying on his back, he cursed life and said that it started from the wrong end; that if men were born old and grew younger year by year, then they’d have something to live for, instead of cursing every day that came. And on the night when he died he sold his soul to the devil, or so my old negro nurse used to say. On the following morning I was born.”

“And how long ago was that, my little friend?” I asked.

“Eighty-five years ago last December,” said the baby. “Of course I can’t remember as far back as that. My first recollection is of standing before the mirror while my mother combed out my long gray beard. Yes, I had a beard then; and they say it was snow white when I was born. But when I remember it first it was gray — a beautiful silver gray. That was a long time ago, and I wish I had one now.

“And yet, even then I wasn’t happy. I’d try to get the old men in the village interested in blind-man’s buff and tag; but they wouldn’t play with me and I felt lonely. People began to talk when they saw me rolling my hoop in the street or playing marbles with the boys; so mother had to tell them that I was an uncle of hers in his second childhood, fearing that they might guess the truth. Sometimes the old men would beckon me into the tavern, buy me some absinth, and, when I had drunk it, send me home tottering on my feet.

“And so time passed. Gradually I grew taller and stronger; the gray began to fade out of my beard in patches, and mother was now thought by strangers to be my sister. I no longer played marbles with the boys or rolled my hoop along the pavement No, now the girls whom I met on the street would make my heart beat all out of tune. But they never looked at me; or, if they did, they would say, ‘He is old enough to be our father,’ and pass by. But there was one who said, ‘What young eyes he has!’ I married that girl and settled down with the optimistic belief that nothing could shatter my happiness.

“But the years went by, and each one that passed made me younger and my dear wife older. Finally we met on the tide of life, each drifting toward a separate goal. And we could not hold each other. We passed by swiftly, unable even to clasp hands. I must have suffered then, yet my hair lost all its gray; I was growing to be a comparatively young man. And I had children, and they soon grew older than I; and they had children, and they grew older than I — till now all that is left me is a taste for absinth, the taste that I acquired when the old men used to send me home from the tavern in the days of my drunken, gray-haired childhood. How I used to cry when they wouldn’t play marbles with me!

“Ah, well, ah, well, now I’m eighty-five and a baby with the tastes of an old man. Yet they won’t give me my absinth, and expect me to say nothing about myself because of family pride. It seems I am a monster — something to be hidden away in a perambulator. Ah, but the ladies give me privileges sometimes which they’d scarcely give if they knew my age. I have four more weeks of life. How do I know? Why, the doctor of the hotel examined me this morning and said that I am just four weeks old. But give me your absinth, sir. Don’t take advantage of me because I am old and helpless.”

•   •   •

“And did you give him your absinth?” I asked.

“Yes,” said my friend, “I filled his milk bottle with it. He was so weak that I had actually to put the nipple in his mouth. Then I went up to my room, leaving him sucking peacefully. Four weeks later I read his death notice in the paper. Well, what do you think of that, sir?”

“I think it is quite remarkable,” I answered.

“The Thrill Book”, 01 Jul 1919

Wild Wullie, the Waster

I

I must bridge the River Styx and retrace my steps to the other shore. It is difficult for me to once again inhabit the worn-out shell which for so many years I called myself; to mentally conjure up the petty human emotions which spurred me to rash words and still rasher deeds; to describe to you, my gentle ghostly readers, the lamentable and inexcusable quarrel which ended so disastrously for Roderick Ding wall and myself. However, I must not dodge the issue. I have taken up the pen, and I will not turn back. Unfortunately for my natural egotism, this chronicle opens at a period when I was still alive.

As I sit beside the library window in a pale shaft of moonlight, what a pitiful atom of dust my former mortal self appears! Blown hither and thither by every earthly passion, it yet had the colossal conceit to consider itself a reasonable being living according to a reasonable plan. Roderick is sitting near me, his chin resting on his hand. The white linen about his throat glimmers faintly. Poor Roderick! He was another such as I — both blind atoms whirling in the wind. And now he must wear that stock always or else — But I must begin at the beginning or there can be no end.

When my brother, the twelfth Laird of Brangler, died I was living a shabby, out-at-elbows existence in a small boarding-house in London. Since my father’s death, forty years before, Alexander and I had scarcely laid eyes on one another. Perhaps I was to blame for this; for, although I had run through a considerable part of the family fortune, I had never squandered a grain of the family pride — but I rather think it was my memory of him which held me back like a ball and chain.

He was a mean man even when young — mean and cunning with a white film over one eye like a patch of frost on a window-pane. They say he had a bag of gold pieces still clutched in his fist when they fished him out of the lake back of the house; and that, if he could have made up his mind to let go of it, he might have weathered it through to the other bank. How ever, that’s beside the question.

When I received word that Alexander was dead, my first thought was of Roderick. He and I had grown old together. Starting out as wild lads, we had had vices enough to fill a stable. But a vice is a poor nag to ride when a man has no gold spurs strapped to his heels. Then old age and old wine had taken the marrow out of our bones. Two doddering fossils now, all we cared for was our Saturday-night game of billiards.

Once a week we met in a rowdy basement just off the Strand and played with cues like shillalahs and billiard-balls like the eggs of some unsystematic mother goose.

Now, of course, all this could be changed. Roderick and I would pack up and leave London for good. We would settle at Brangler Hall and there regale ourselves in a manner becoming elderly gentlemen of means. I remembered with a kindling of the blood the well appointed billiard-room my father had installed shortly before his death. Surely the rats and spiders had not been able to completely destroy this sanctum during my brother’s unsympathetic reign. And then there was the old gentleman’s wine cellar. Surely between those hallowed walls the mellow port and burgundy had gained the subtle tang which only longevity bestows. Although, as I have already said, my friend and I had pawned most of our vices, still a glass of rare old wine could enhance the moments we spent tête-à-tête. Say what you will, it is only the old who can appreciate the old.

Roderick entered into my plans for the future with enthusiasm. The prospect of a happy old age spent in the seclusion of Brangler Hall, with unlimited leisure to bestow on his favorite pastime, brought a glint to his eye and a flush to his cheek. He even trod a few steps of the Highland fling, his old knee-bones clattering together like castanets.

Well, to cut a long story short, we sailed for Scotland that very week with never a thought of the black trouble in store for us. Indeed, as we drove up the broad driveway, we were more like two schoolboys out on a jaunt than two gray-bearded old sinners with not many more years of life in our bones at the most. Every tree and bush, every thicket and hedge, seemed to hold out a hand in greeting. And the old house itself, with the red ivy clinging to it like the rusted armor of my forebears, had all the look of a proud mother.

“Welcome home!” the wind seemed to be singing through the fir-trees. “Welcome home to Brangler Hall!”

As soon as Roderick and I had removed the stains of travel, we hurried down to the banquet hall. Here it was, in this great wainscoted room — a room where the gentry for miles around had so often wined and feasted till the break of dawn — that we met with our first mischance. Two steaming bowls were waiting for us, one at either end of the board, and they contained nothing but a meager mess of porridge. I give you my word, the very portraits on the walls curled their lips at the sight of it.

“Like master, like man,” I thought to myself and clapped my hand down on the bell. And then old Tam — serving man in the family for fifty-odd years — hobbled in, soft-footed in his list slippers.

“What’s the meaning of this?” said I, cocking my eye at the bowl of porridge. “Is such hogs’ swill fit for the Laird of Brangler Hall and his guest?”

At that, Tam grinned at me in a most disrespectful fashion. “Aye,” he mumbled. “It’s been gude enow for the Laird of Brangler Hall and his guests for mony years. ’Tis better for the saul when the belly’s no ower full o’ flesh and fowl and ither puir murdered beasties — so at least my dead master was thinkin’.”

“He and his thoughts are buried together,” I broke in sternly. “There’s a new master in Brangler Hall, and you’d best be minding it. Now be off to the kitchen and tell the cook to serve us something fit for a gentle man’s stomach. And you can be bringing back with you a bottle of wine from the cellar.”

“But I dinna ken rightly whar to be lookin’ for the wine, Master Wullie.”

“You need not be looking,” Roderick broke in very sharp. “By the shade of your nose, it should lead you aright.”

Tam left the room with a grieved air.

“Daft fules both!” I heard him mutter under his breath. “A puir body’s no safe wi’ ‘em.” But for all his dolorous shakes of the head, his prolonged sighs, when next he appeared he carried with him cheer for two hungry and thirsty men — a nice cut of venison and a bottle of wine gray with cobwebs.

You may be sure that Roderick and I did the provender ample justice. Between mouthfuls, I cross questioned Tam about my dead brother. As yet the mystery attached to his sudden and ungentlemanly demise had not been cleared up.

“What induced the laird to go out of the house at that time of the night?” I asked.

Tam’s wizened face drew up into knots of cunning.

“’Tis no so difficult to understand,” he mumbled. “’Twas just the fear of his ain brother spurred him on.”

“The fear of me?”

“Just that. Dr. MacPherson told him a month back that his days were numbered. He got thinkin’ o’ the ill use ye’d be puttin’ to all the gude siller he’d saved betimes. The thought o’ that was like fire in the puir body’s brain. ‘Wild Wullie, the Waster,’ was his name for ye in his best moods. Soon he got wanderin’ awa’ from the Hall, searchin’ nae doot for a hidin’-place for his treasure. Midnight was his favorite hour for prowlin’ aboot the grounds. One dark night he slipped into the lake by mischance. Alec was a gude lad, but one who wadna let a bag o’ siller slip frae his fingers once he gripped it. I misdoot this wee vice led him to his watery grave — him, who should hae died like a Christian between white sheets, with God lookin’ on and smilin’ or maybe droppin’ a tear from His een. It’s great and wonderful what the power of prayer—”

“Roderick,” I broke in, rising, “let’s you and me seek the seclusion of the billiard-room. Religion is the one subject which Tam and I agree upon.”

The old man gave me a disbelieving stare as I turned to the door.

“‘Wild Wullie, the Waster’ a Christian!” he mumbled. “Na, na! I’ll no believe that till the puir sauls in the kirk-yard rise up and confirm the glad news. ‘Wild Wullie, the Waster’ is kin to the prodigal son. First he maun lie down with hogs and eat husks. So ’tis written in the gude Book.”

II

Soon Roderick and I settled comfortably into the groove of our new existence. Fortunately the billiard-room, although in disuse for so many years, had been kept scrupulously clean. Tam did not number laziness among his faults. Each morning, with a gray duster wound tight about his bald pate, resembling a decrepit old pirate retired from the high seas, he superintended the maids at their work. And what a taskmaster he was with the lasses! — his sharp, old tongue snapping behind their bent backs like the lash of a dog-whip, his bitter blue eyes roving here and there for a speck of dust overlooked. Like many another old bachelor, he considered that the opposite sex owed him a lasting debt, and was not slow in taking his payment in threats and gibes.

But Roderick and I gave Tam little heed, except to see that he provided us with the wine and food due our station. All our time was spent at billiards. Winter set in before we had been a week in Brangler Hall — great falls of snow which made the driveway impassable and a steady wind from the northeast which cut the face like sharp, snapping twigs. So we had no mind to go out, but just stayed in the house as snug as two fleas on a sheep-dog, and played billiards from morn till night.

Now, say what you will, it’s a difficult thing to see but one face day after day and not in time grow to hate it. And it’s aggravating for two men to sit by the fireside with nothing to say to each other but just the threadbare topics of speech grown thin from over-handling. There’s madness in solitary confinement, yes; but there’s madness and there’s murder when two are locked up in the same cage.

It was not long before Roderick began to get on my nerves. He had a slow, hesitating way of speech which set my eardrums tingling as though a handful of nettles had been thrown into them, a wart just beneath his right cheekbone which seemed to grow larger as the days went by; but what aggravated me most in the man was his Adam’s apple. It was a gymnastic Adam’s apple, popping up and down like a Jack-in-the-box; and it was as large and round as a billiard-ball, making the wrinkled skin of his neck all tight and shining where it bulged out like an orange through a paper bag. Toward the last, the sight of it would unnerve me so that I would often miss a simple shot.

Now, do not judge by this that my nerves alone were chafed raw. Roderick has since confided in me that there were little mannerisms of my own which touched him on sensitive spots like a lash. The way I had of clicking my tongue when I had made a difficult shot, the leisurely fashion with which I took aim, the jubilant air in which I called out the points I had scored all these trifles at the time made him see red.

Well, matters went on from bad to worse between us. Soon we had no civil word for one another. Silent we were for the most part, sitting with averted eyes while Tam poured out the wine with a sour grin. The friendly rivalry of old times had disappeared entirely, giving place to a dour determination to win at all costs, a sweating anxiety over each shot. As Tam said — we were ganging clean daft over that deil’s game.

At last our smoldering resentment flared up into open hatred and even bloodshed. What a disgraceful scene it was for two doddering old men who should have long since put worldly matters out of their heads! It came about like this:

One bitter cold night in December — a night when the wind was waltzing around the house like a mad old lady, beating out time to her antics by clapping the shutters together like castanets — Roderick and I, as usual, repaired to the billiard-room in grim silence. Each man drew his cue from the rack as though it had been a sword, and then our final game of billiards in the flesh began.

Roderick won the toss. With frowning brows and stealthy-sliding Adam’s apple, he bent over the table and made a very pretty three-cushioned shot. He followed that up with another which very nicely bunched the balls in one corner. At that, he paused to shoot a scornful grin at me over his shoulder. Then he bent forward again with the air of a man who intends making the most of a good opportunity.

Now, as the cue moved slowly back and forth between his finger-bones, just as he was about to shoot, a great gust of wind dropped down the chimney and blew a handful of ashes into my face. I sneezed — God bless me, how could I help it? — Roderick’s bent elbow twitched and the cue-ball slipped to one side, missing both the others as neat as a whistle.

“I see you’ve missed your shot,” said I, speaking pleasant enough.

“Missed!” says he, looking up with a fiery red face. “By God, Mr. Campbell, your ancestors should be proud of you this night!”

“How’s that, Mr. Dingwall?” I asked, cold as ice. The jerking Adam’s apple of the man made my gorge rise.

“By that, Mr. Campbell, I’m meaning that ’tis not a gentlemanly way to resort to such tricks and contrivances while engaged in sport. In short, Mr. Campbell, to sneeze at such a critical moment is proof enough for me of what I’ve long suspected.”

“And what may that be, Mr. Dingwall?”

“That there’s very little of the gentleman about you but the name, Mr. Campbell,” he says very short, turning his back on me.

“A clip-eared, bob-tailed kind of gentleman were you always, although I was fool enough not to heed it.”

Now, there’s a strain of the wild MacGregor blood in me — blood which makes me see red at an insult. Roderick’s words and his lifted lip stirred up a raging Rob Roy. Without a thought to our lifelong friendship, I strode up to the man and struck him with my open hand which brought the crimson to his cheek.

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head when speaking to your betters, Mr. Dingwall!” I cried.

At that, being a man of some temper himself, he went wild, and was at me with the cue in his hand. Up and down the room it went — blow for blow, cues rattling like the devil’s dice-box, and with no thought in either of us but to kill. At the best, it was no Christian sight to see.

What with the rattling of cues and roaring of oaths, it was no time before old Tam and the waiting lasses were peering in at us through the open door.

“Gude save us!” cried Tam, wringing his hands for all there was a wicked light in his eye. “Gude save us! What’s all this to do? Put by your weepons, gentlemen! Think on your ain gray hairs!”

But we gave him no heed. We had warmed to our work by now, and the devil himself could not have parted us. Both skilled swordsmen when young, some of our former prowess had returned to us. Two nimble old bucks we were, leaping about like chestnuts on the hob. Soon Tam’s tune changed. Some of the fire of combat had oiled his old joints. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him hopping about.

“Gude stroke, Master Wullie!” he cried as I laid my cue across Roderick’s shoulders. “Gude stroke, Master Wullie! Gie it to him again! Dinna step back, Master Wullie! It’s no the way o’ a Campbell! Watch his een — that’s aye the fashion wi’ swordsmen. Hoot, mon! Guard your head, Master Wullie! Ah, the deil’s in it!”

At that moment my cue slipped from my hand. Before Roderick realized what had happened, he struck again — this time at my now unprotected head. A great flame leaped up before my eyes, followed almost immediately by silence and blackness. I felt that I was dying — I died.

III

As all true ghosts know, the transition from one life to another is instantaneous. And yet what momentous transformations take place in the mind! All our meager human thoughts are enlarged a thousand times. The puzzling enigmas of human existence immediately become childishly simple. A great tide of understanding sweeps through us, making us blush for our former blunders. The knowledge of the infinite — that enduring mental peace of clarified vision — unites us forever. We are a great brotherhood of spirits in which both competition and jealousy are unknown.

Hardly had I died before I opened my eyes and lived again. I was standing immediately above my discarded, mortal shell. Now I looked down on it with contempt. I had thought rather highly of my body only a few short minutes ago, now I viewed it with disgust. So this was the thing which I had been pampering all these years, feeding it lavishly, obeying its vicious caprices, and even studying it with adoring eyes in my shaving mirror. What a fool I had been!

Surely there was nothing lovable in this fat old man lying dead on the carpet — in this waxen puppet with the lackluster eyes and protruding paunch. For the first time I caught a true vision of myself, and it was far from flattering.

“Gude save us! Ye’ve slain Master Wullie!”

It was Tam who thus broke the silence. He was on his knees beside the corpse with his hand on its breast. His withered old face was ashen, and his head shook from side to side as though he had the palsy.

My eyes sought Roderick. He was standing in identically the same spot as when I had seen him at my last gasp his feet wide apart, his right hand grasping the billiard cue. But the expression of his face had changed. On it now was written a great horror and self-loathing.

“I’ll just be gangin’ awa’ to Dr. MacPherson,” said Tam, rising unsteadily to his feet and stepping through me as though I had been so much air. “Not that there’s ony hope at all,” he added sourly. “Master Wullie’s puir saul hae sped.” At the door he paused, and I knew that he was whispering to the scared lasses: “Mary, just slip awa’ to Squire Templeton’s ower the hill and tell him murder’s been done at the Hall. Peg, bide here a bit and keep your een on that Dingwall man. Justice will no owerlook this, I’m thinkin’.”

When Roderick and I were left alone together, he went down on his knees by the corpse. He was shaking all over like a tree in a gale, and his Adam’s apple was leaping about as though demented.

“God help me!” he muttered. “God help me!”

Well, I put my hand on his shoulder then, so great a pity I had for the man, and I spoke kind words in his ear — but neither my touch nor my voice was consoling at all. You see, he could neither feel my hand nor yet hear my voice; and I knew it well enough at the time, but habit was too strong for me.

And also I knew what was going on in his brain. Self-destruction was plotting there. And how was he to know that it is only the blow which a man strikes himself that leaves a telltale mark in his second life? But I knew, and I feared for my friend.

After a time he stood up again with a wild light in his eye. “They’ll never take me alive,” he says very solemn, and tramps out of the room without so much as a look behind.

Down the great hall he went, while I flitted at his heels — down the great hall and out into the moonlight and cold. Then away through the snow he plodded, taking long steps like a man walking a race; and I still at his heels, like a spaniel.

Well, there was a full moon that night — a calm moon with a patient, sorrowful face. Across the glistening snow she beckoned us on to the lake which shone like a black diamond through the trees. Roderick never paused or faltered. He was a firm man, once he had made up his mind; and I knew there was no stopping him. Soon we were standing on the bank, all glistening now as though encrusted with tiny sapphires. And it was here I met my brother.

Yes, there he sat as lonely as a scarecrow, his blind eye squinting up at the moon and all frosted with cold, a bag of gold pieces gripped tight in his fist. All in all, he was a deplorable sight to see.

“So this is what comes of taking your own life!” I thought as I seated myself beside him. “Will Roderick be such another?”

After a moment Alexander spit a piece of ice out of his mouth and spoke. “Wullie,” he says very pleasant, while the icicles in his beard tinkled faintly like tiny bells, “Wullie, are ye bringin’ me company?” And he jerked his thumb toward Roderick, who stood very tall and straight on the bank.

“God forbid, Alec!” said I, slipping into the familiar speech of our boyhood. “It’s no the sort o’ death I’d be wishin’ a friend of mine. Nor the sort o’ life after,” I added, with a look at his frosty eye.

“Ye’ll no be haunting him then to his end?” he says with a kind of sigh. “Weel, that’s a pity. It’s lonely here on winter nights — unco lonely! But in the summer it’s no so wearisome. We hae the music o’ frogs and whippoorwills and wee hoot-owls. Ye should see the bats frisk aboot to it. It’s a merry spot in the summer.”

“He’ll no join ye wi’ my consent,” I broke in sharply.

“But, mon, I tell ye he’d like it in the summer,” Alexander says as smooth as oil. “There’s life here then — weasels and ferrets and snakes ye can wear aboot your neck like a chain.” He bent forward, and I felt his breath like a cold draft in my ear. “And there’s money, Wullie muckle gold pieces to spend.”

At that I laughed aloud. “I misdoot ye’d be only too glad, Alec, to have him share your load. But he’ll no do that, for I’m thinkin’ this lake has a good foot of ice above water. He canna very weel drown himsel’ tonight.”

“But he can try,” says Alexander, still hopeful. “He can try, Wullie. Now, should he dive from that bank yonder, he’d crack his skull like a hickory-nut. Canna he no try, Wullie?”

“Na, na!” I cried in anger. “Ye hae no changed muckle since lang syne. Ye are ever thinkin’ o’ yersel ‘, Alec. But ye canna hae Roderick — even now he’s awa’ to the house.”

Indeed, Roderick had turned away with a doleful shake of his head, and was plodding back wearily over the snow. His black shadow lay at our feet.

“’Tis a pity,” says Alexander then with a shake of his head and a hypocritical smile. “I’m thinkin’ he’ll be findin’ a worse way to shake off his skin — some coarse, bluddy way, nae doot. Weel, ’tis yer ain business, Wullie.”

With that, my brother turned his back on me and closed his eyes. But I could see by the way he munched his jaws that he was out of sorts with the world. He never even wished me good night as I flitted away.

Well, as I followed Roderick back to the house, Alexander’s unpleasant prophecy haunted me. What could I do to keep my friend from some rash act which would leave a lasting mark in his life to come? Then, for the first time, I realized the pitiful impotence of a ghost to shape the affairs of the living. I wrung my hands in despair as I flitted over the snow.

But soon a ray of hope came to me. Surely there was one thing I could do — I could appear before Roderick in my old bodily shape at twelve o’clock. It was the unwritten law of the spirit world. At twelve o’clock, then, if he lived till that hour, I would appear before him and make him understand by gestures the severe punishment which attended the crime of suicide.

By now we had reached the house. Roderick, with out a glance to right or left, mounted the stairs to his own room. In gloomy silence he approached his dresser, pulled out one of the drawers, and took a razor from it. As he opened it, the blade shone blue in the moonlight.

You can imagine my feelings, then, my gentle ghostly readers. Horror overmastered me. I called to him, but he did not hear me; I seized his arm, but it passed through my fingers. And now my only hope rested in the grandfather clock which stood in the hall. Would it strike twelve before this crime was perpetrated?

One fact gave me hope. Roderick did not seem to be in any hurry about cutting his throat. On the contrary, he went about his preparations with marked deliberation. Several times he felt the edge of the razor with his thumb, and once he stropped it carefully to a fine edge. Finally he raised it to his throat, but even then he hesitated. Evidently he wished to taste the unlawful sweets of suicide to the dregs.

Lowering the razor, he was plunged into a profound reverie. I heard him murmur: “If I don’t get it over with, they’ll swing me up as high as a church steeple. Think of the disgrace in a Dingwall dangling from the gallow’s-tree. I maun do it.”

Again he lifted the razor till it hovered just beneath his Adam’s apple. But at that very instant, to my joy, the clock below stairs began to strike twelve. “I’ll wait till it’s done,” he muttered peevishly. “It’s—”

But I gave him no time to finish his sentence. With a glad cry, I leaped out of the shadows and confronted him in my bodily form. Pointing at his throat, I shook my head angrily.

Alas, poor Roderick! He thought that I’d come out of my grave to see that he went into his. At my sudden appearance, his hand shot backward and the blue steel blade sheared his throat from ear to ear.

And as I bent over him, as I tried to quench the flow of his blood, he cowered away with fear and loathing in his eyes. “Gang awa, ye warlock!” he gasped through foam-flecked lips. “Gang awa — the deil and ye hae done for me!” Then his head slithered back on the floor, and he died with the black curse of suicide on him.

IV

Now it wasn’t longer than the space of a deep breath before Roderick lived again. But it was as I had thought — the poor man bore the mark of his last earthly misdeed. His throat, where the razor had bitten home, was not a pretty thing to see. Red it was, and gaping like a toothless laugh. But poor Roderick did not heed it at first. He was all for shaking my hand and thanking me for what I had tried to do.

“To think,” said he, with a tear in his eye, “that you should have bothered so over a man who had just taken your life! That bespeaks a kind heart, Willie Campbell. A misdirected good action is none the less a good action.”

“Misdirected?” I cried. “What may you be meaning by that?”

“It’s as plain as the nose on your face, man,” says he, giving his corpse on the floor a scornful look. “Am I not better out of that ugly carcass when all’s said and done?”

“Perhaps,” said I, realizing that the man had not as yet grasped the truth. “But will you be saying that, Roderick, when you know the worst? Step up to the mirror on the wall and just be taking a look at yourself.”

At that his face fell, and I could see that there was fear in him. He wheeled about on his heel and stepped up to the mirror, which shone gray in the moonlight. For a long moment he stood there without a word then I heard a click in his throat like a clock running down.

“Good God!” he cried, putting his hands over his eyes. “Good God!”

And that was all I could get out of him for a long time. Poor Roderick! A neat man he had been in life, a man who had ever kept an eye on his personal appearance; and now in death he was a neat ghost by temperament and training, super-sensitive to anything which might mar his good looks. No wonder the sight of that red, smiling throat was enough to turn the joy of resurrection sour in his mouth.

Well, I did my best to console him. But it was hard going at the best. Finally I hit on a scheme which made him brighten up a bit.

“You’d best wear a white stock from now onwards, Roderick,” I suggested. “It’s becoming enough to a ghost with your cast of feature. And it’s neat as a pin, Roderick.”

“Neat it may be,” he says with a sour smile, “but it’s an article of dress I never much fancied. It’s suggestive of boils. However, when the deil drives—” He shook his fist at the mirror. “Well, Willie man, I’ll be doing just as you say.”

The stock worked miracles with my friend’s peace of mind. It wasn’t long before Roderick was his old merry self again. And also it had a quieting effect To say nothing of his cut throat, on my own nerves. he had always had a gymnastic Adam’s apple which, in my opinion, was better hid. With the stock nicely tied, his long, curly locks all silvery in the moonlight, he was as handsome a ghost as a man could find in a night’s walk.

We soon settled back into our midnight game of billiards — only now there was no bitterness at all, but just pride in our skill and mutual understanding. And we discarded the cues altogether, just guiding the balls by the strength of our minds. A calm, thoughtful game it was, with the moon as a marker — the balls clicking gently together, and now and then the sad sigh of the wind in the fireplace.

And we were careful not to let Tam and the waiting lasses get sight or sound of us. We knew well enough that if they once caught a glimpse of us standing about in the corners, they’d be out of the house in no time. Then who could we get to tidy the billiard-room and brush the dust from the table? It’s been my experience that only a silly, childish ghost goes about trying to impress humans by maybe a groan or two or by the glimpse of his face in the moonlight. What’s to be gained by it? — just silence and dust and loneliness. A deserted house with the cobwebs dangling from the ceiling, and the rats playing hide-and-go-seek in the walls, is no proper home, as I have found by bitter experience.

Well, as I have already said, Roderick and I were silent and wary. But we hadn’t taken into consideration Tam’s prying, thieving ways — his old ears religiously pricked for the devil’s gossip, his old eyes squinting through keyholes and around corners. One night he caught us red-handed.

It was well past twelve o’clock. Roderick and I had been playing billiards for upwards of an hour. Absorbed in our game, and thinking the servants safe in bed and snoring, we were little prepared for the sudden opening of the door and the flashing on of the lights. In fact, Roderick had just made a shot, and the ball was still rolling.

“What hae I told ye?” cried Tam, hopping about like a Punch and Judy. “The deil’s playin’ billiards in Brangler Hall!”

He spoke to a solemn man who had come in with him, a man wearing glasses whom I recognized as Law yer McTavish, of Edinborough. The two of them were staring at the billiard balls with their eyes nearly popping out of their heads.

“A very pretty shot,” said McTavish at last with a kind of sick smile. “Three cushions and never a hitch to it! A well-planned shot. What’s the trick to it, Tam?”

“There’s no trick at all!” cried Tam in anger. “’Tis naething more nor less than Master Wullie and his friend playin’ at billiards. Mony’s the night I’ve stood out in the hall in my night-cap and slippers, drawn frae my bed by the click o’ the balls. I canna rightly dance attendance on ghaists. It’s no seemly for a mon o’ my years.”

While Tam thus expressed himself, McTavish examined the billiard-table carefully. First he picked up the balls and held them to his short-sighted eyes; next he rolled them across the green cloth; and finally he bent down and looked under the table. Roderick and I, swathed in our garments of invisibility, interchanged smiles. All he could get would be a crick in the neck for his pains.

“Ye’ll find naething o’ interest,” Tam continued. “Weel enow I grasp that ye lawyer bodies hae little or no respect for the ways o’ the deil. Ye think ye’ve improved on’ em, nae doot. Howsomever, here’s real witchcraft afoot, and ye may as weel confess it.”

At that, McTavish looked up and straightened his back. “I can’t understand it, and that’s true enough,” said he. “Now, if the window had been up, I’d say the wind might have done it. Or if we had not switched the lights on, I’d say a rat had started the ball rolling with the swish of his tail. But as it is, perhaps—”

“Hoot, mon!” cried Tam peevishly. “Gie the deil credit and hae done! ’Tis no muckle matter when all’s said — just a wee three-cushion shot like I’ve seen Master Wullie contrive mony’s the time.”

McTavish ran his hand through his hair. “I think the least said about this the better,” he muttered. “Keep a quiet tongue in your head when the new owner of Brangler Hall arrives in the morning.”

“I’ll no be aboot the premises,” said Tam. “’Tis time I was restin’ my auld bones. I’m awa wi’ the sunrise.”

“Well, I wouldn’t talk about it to the neighbors,” McTavish continued. “Silence is golden.” He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a guinea. “Here’s for your trouble, my man,” he says very lordly. “Now, you can just be showing me the upstairs rooms before I take my departure.”

With that, the two of them stole out of the room, peering back warily over their shoulders, and leaving Roderick and me to our thoughts and our billiards. But I could not give the game my undivided attention for wondering about the new owner of Brangler Hall.

V

Tam was as good as his word. At the first peep of dawn, just as Roderick and I were off to the attic where we rested for the day, we saw him hobbling away across the snow. There was a great sack on his back, containing his worldly goods, and a round dozen bottles of my father’s best wine besides; and a stout staff in his hand like the holy men of old time leaned their weight upon. As he breasted the hill, a shaft of sunlight turning his bald pate to a halo, he seemed more like a saint than a sinner.

“Now who’ll be dusting up after us?” says Roderick very solemn. “A neat man’s been lost to Brangler Hall, Willie.”

“Neat he may have been,” said I. “But he was not too well disposed toward us, I’m thinking. Peeping through keyholes at an hour when decent bodies are in their beds, pricking his ears to catch an echo from hell like an old woman living over an ale-house! No, Roderick, I think Brangler Hall’s well rid of him.”

“It may be,” says he with his eye at the broken lattice. “But he was neat, for all that — and neatness comes next to godliness. He kept the billiard-table in grand shape, Willie. But who’s this coming up the driveway? I’m thinking it’s the new master of Brangler Hall.”

At that, I wheeled about on my heel and took an other long look through the shutter. A carriage had drawn up in front of the house; and out of it presently stepped two handsome young lads, dressed in the height of fashion. One was tall and dark as the night, with a cast of feature which proclaimed him a Camp bell; the other was short and broad, with flaxen hair and a bold blue eye. They could have scarcely numbered two-score years between them.

“I’m thinking the taller one is my own cousin’s son, Hector Campbell,” I said with a sudden warmth in my heart. “By right he falls heir to the Hall. Is he no a bonnie laddie?”

“Aye,” says Roderick, with his face to the lattice, “he’s got the Campbell looks. But the other, Willie! Man, man, who do you think that fair-haired laddie is?”

“Surely no kin of yours, Roderick?”

“He is that!” cried Roderick. “My own brother’s son. He was in Oxford the last time I heard of him. The world’s a small place, Willie.”

“So small we’re always rubbing elbows. Hector was at Oxford, too. They’re fast friends, no doubt; and here for the vacation together. Well, we’ll give them a warm welcome to Brangler Hall.”

“Welcome?” says Roderick, with a sad smile. “Alas, but we cannot! If they see hide or hair of us, they’ll be off like startled bucks. We’d just better be hiding ourselves as much as possible. ’Tis the only way for two ghosts to keep their guests satisfied.”

“But we can hover about unbeknownst to them,” said I. “And maybe we can get joy from their company — listening to their young voices and perhaps directing their tastes in wine, or entering into their sport with out so much as by-your-leave.”

“Be careful, Willie,” says Roderick very solemn. “You must not forget for a moment that a ghost is a ghost and a laddie a laddie. They’re not altogether companionable.”

Well, neither Roderick nor I could sleep that day for thinking of the two lads beneath stairs. Although we had been contented enough up to this, now the great ache of loneliness was in our bones. The sight of these two young kinsfolk of ours brought up a thousand recollections of our own youth — not nice tales for a Sunday-school perhaps; but still diverting enough to keep our sides shaking till dusk.

No sooner had night fairly settled in than we flitted out of the attic and down the great stairs to the banquet-hall. The young men by now were seated at table, doing justice to every dish put before them. And what merry lads they were, laughing and joking, with never a care; drinking their wine as gentlemen should and giving no heed to the shadows of Brangler Hall! It was a joy to watch them. Soon Roderick and I were grinning in spite of ourselves; and once, try as I would, the dry humor of my young kinsman was too much for me, and I ventured a laugh.

“What’s that?” cried Hector, with a start. “Have they got ghosts hereabouts, Jamie?”

“So they tell me in the village,” said young Ding wall with a grin. “But I’m thinking that noise you heard was just the wind wheezing a bit in the chimney.”

“It sounded uncommonly like a laugh,” says Hector. “But what did they tell you in the village, Jamie?”

“I was strolling down there this afternoon, and I ran into an odd-looking old chap with a head as bald as a billiard-ball. I hadn’t more than passed the time of day with him before he began a wild tale about the ghosts who played billiards at Brangler Hall. It seems he was a servant here when your kinsman, ‘Wild Wullie, the Waster,’ and my daft Uncle Roderick fought each other with billiard cues. He remembered it all; and it was a rare tale, I can tell you.”

“And did he say their ghosts walked?”

“He did that,” said Jamie. “It seems that the two of them steal out of the graveyard each night to play billiards. You’re in rare luck to own a haunted house.”

Hector drained his glass at a swallow and laughed. “I am so,” says he. “But it’s a pity the lasses did not figure in his tale. I have no aversion for them, be they of this world or the next.”

“Nor I,” says Jamie. “But we’ll just have to be contenting ourselves with what’s here. What do you say if we play billiards ourselves tonight and cheat the ghosts of their game?”

“I’m your man!” cried Hector, jumping to his feet. “It’s a long time since we’ve crossed cues, Jamie.”

Well, without any more words on the matter, the two lads strode into the billiard-room, Roderick and I close at their heels. As luck would have it, Hector Camp bell picked up my old cue, while Jamie chose his dead uncle’s. Then the game started — if you could call it a game, which I much misdoubt.

I give you my word, those two made us blush for them. The way they handled their cues was enough to sicken a man. They had no skill in their fingers and less in their heads. The simplest shot was too much for them. It was all Roderick and I could do to hold our tongues and our tempers in check.

Well, time went drearily on till the stroke of twelve, with never a flash of excitement. They’d shoot and they’d miss, and they’d shoot again till my back teeth were all of an edge. Here they were, the young fools, keeping Roderick and me from our game — and they with no more right to be playing than two scarecrows in a wheat-field. My old fingers were fair itching for the cue.

At last Roderick could stand it no longer. “Willie,” he whispered, “this fool game is near driving me daft. Let’s you and me take a hand.”

“And how may we be doing that?” I murmured. “The way it looks now, these lads will be playing till morning.”

“Never worry your head over that, man,” says Roderick in my ear. “They shouldn’t count. It’s only by sheer luck that they ever score a point. Eliminate them from the game altogether. Or better yet, you play your kinsman’s shots for him by the strength of your mind, and I’ll just be helping Jamie.”

“But will it work, Roderick?”

“At least there’s no harm in trying,” says he. “Now, concentrate, Willie. It’s your shot, for Hector Campbell’s juggling the cue between his fingers.”

Well, I did as he told me. With the full force of my mind, I planned a very neat shot with a reverse English to it. Around the table the cue ball went and clicked against the others, like a mother kissing her children.

“Well played!” cried Jamie, with a laugh. “I suppose you planned that shot, Hector?”

Young Campbell looked up with a startled face. “I’ll not say so much as that,” says he. “However, here goes for another try.” Once more he bent over the table.

Instantly I focused my mind on a draw shot which might gather the balls together like sheep in a hurdle. It worked to the queen’s taste, and this time Jamie let out an oath of astonishment. But Hector was too amazed to speak at all and just stared at the balls, pop eyed.

“Go on!” says Jamie, with a wry smile. “The deil’s in your finger-bones.”

So Hector went on; and before he was through he chalked up a hundred points or more. I was in rare form that night, and I could see that old Roderick was on pins and needles to be playing. At last his chance came. Hector shot before I had time to think, and missed the two other balls entirely.

Jamie had been silent for some time back, but now he spoke up. “Hector Campbell,” he says very solemn, “if I had not known you since we were bairns together, I’d be thinking that you’d been laying for bets. As it is, I see there’s only one answer for this scandalous conduct — man, you’re bewitched.”

“It’s your turn, Jamie,” said my kinsman, putting the best face he could on the matter.

“My turn, is it?” cried Jamie, with a laugh. “Well, I’ll not profit by it much, I’m thinking. However, here’s hoping I get a grip of the deil’s tail.”

Now, as Jamie got ready to shoot, I could see Roderick’s face twitching with excitement. His eyes were glowing like live coals as he bent over his kinsman’s shoulder. I could see that he was planning the shot.

Well, it worked admirably. Around the table the cue ball went, taking the cushions at just the right angle, and then click, click, and the thing was done.

“Well played, Jamie!” cried Hector, clapping his hands. “Say what you will, the deil’s not partial. He’s come here to lend us both a hand with our game. Shoot again, Jamie.”

So Jamie shot again and again with never a miss at all till the day was breaking — shot with a white face of fear and a glance from time to time over his shoulder. Roderick was in fine form. Never had I seen him take such care with each play. Something of the old sweating pride in his skill was written on his fur rowed forehead; and there was a twitch of a smile to his lips which I didn’t quite fancy.

When the dawn finally broke like a bubble of blood, we flitted up to the attic after seeing the lads to their beds. Roderick was still grinning like a sick cat — a nasty grin which set all my nerves on edge.

“I’m thinking Jamie had the better of your kinsman,” says he, just before we closed our eyes for the day.

“You’ll not say that tomorrow at this time, Roderick Dingwall!” I cried hotly. “I’ll see to it that Hector holds his own!”

“You mean you’ll try,” he says with a grin. “But if I were you, Willie, I would not set my heart on it.”

VI

Now, the life of a ghost is hard sometimes, and none knows it better than I. Just as long as a body keeps to his own and doesn’t go mixing himself up into human affairs, he’s as safe and happy as a bug in a rug. But just let him once start being too companionable with flesh and blood, then all hell’s let loose.

And the same is true of a mortal. If he once consorts with ghosts by even so much as a prayer to the devil, as likely as not he’ll be marked for life like an apple which hangs too long on the tree. Many a man has been ruined by just a walk with a friendly ghost in the moonlight. Such companionship, if it leads to nothing worse, exposes a human to boils and fits and, some say, a touch of Saint Vitus’s dance as well.

At the time, Roderick and I, being inexperienced ghosts, knew nothing of all this. We entered into our kinsmen’s nightly game of billiards with a vim. But gradually, as time passed, a change came over the players, and over us as well. The lads would no longer chaff each other about a remarkable shot. No; they began to take their new-found skill as a matter of course. And we, for our part, began to feel the old sting of rivalry. Bitter competition crept into the game. We no longer planned their shots for the joy of it, but rather as a blow directed at the other. A deadly feud sprang up between the house of Campbell and the house of Dingwall.

Well, matters went from bad to worse, as the saying is. Soon Roderick and I had no civil words for each other. And the lads were just the same, glowering and glooming at one another across the table, with sarcastic speech from time to time, like the sputtering of wet powder. One night, at small provocation — an argument over the careless way young Campbell had of scoring his tally — the four of us would have been at each other’s throats if the dawn had not intervened.

When Roderick and I climbed up to our attic that morning, I had a glimmer of reason. What was all this leading to but just murder and suicide again? Here were these two handsome laddies being haunted into their graves by two selfish old ghosts who wouldn’t leave them alone at their game! What right had we to interfere? — we who were supposed to have given up the sinful joys of the flesh.

“Roderick,” said I, addressing him for the first time in ten days — “Roderick, all this must stop.”

“If you are referring to your kinsman’s inability to count correctly,” he says very stiffly, “why, I’m agreeing with you in the matter, Mr. Campbell.”

“Man, man!” I cried, grasping him by the arm in my excitement. “Cannot you see where this game is leading? And the bonnie laddies below stairs! Are you wanting their blood on your head, Roderick Dingwall? Was not mine enough?”

“When a gentleman is owed a debt by another gentleman, he should not be the first to speak of it,” says Roderick, still very stately. But for all that, I could see that he had given heed to my words.

“This is no time to stand on your dignity, man!” I cried, pressing my point. “Another night and it may be too late! There was murder in Jamie’s eyes but a few moments back!”

“And Hector was showing his teeth like a wildcat,” Roderick put in. “But just what are you advising, Willie?”

“That we stop this game for once and for all.”

“And how may that be done? The lads are prepared to play it out to the bitter end. Each is deter mined to vanquish the other.”

“But suppose we make the game ridiculous?” I cried, with the germ of an idea taking root in my brain. “Suppose we sicken them of it by not only subtracting our own skill but by making them bungle the most simple shot?”

Roderick was silent for a moment, evidently giving thought to my plan. “It sounds feasible enough, Willie,” he said at last. “Man, it should work.”

Well, after that, we turned in for the day in a couple of old linen chests, and soon were sleeping peacefully. Little did we think that our plans would go all awry. Two silly old ghosts, we thought we had solved our difficulties.

That night Jamie and Hector sat late over their wine in brooding silence. It was well after eleven before they entered the billiard-room and drew their cues from the rack. They had the look on their faces of men who were determined to do or die.

Jamie won the toss, and I tipped Roderick the wink. He concentrated his mind on a miss to such an extent that his kinsman’s cue barely grazed the white ball, moving it but a few inches to one side.

At that, Jamie rapped out an oath. “I miscued!” he cried. “Hell’s fire! I forgot to use the chalk!”

“That’s a pity,” said Hector with a polite sneer. “It’s a game that requires thought.” He ostentatiously chalked his cue and bent over the table to shoot.

Now, in my turn, I concentrated on a miss, but with more delicacy than Roderick. This time the cue ball ran in the right direction, but I saw to it that it missed the others by a hair.

Hector looked amazed. “I missed!” he muttered. “That’s strange! It was an easy shot enough!”

Now it was Jamie’s turn to sneer. “I’ve seen you miss easier shots than that. I guess your streak of luck’s about through. Science will tell in the end,” says he, and misses a carom which a blindfolded child could have made.

Well, they bungled shot after shot. But they kept at it just the same. And the longer they played the worse their tempers grew. They were not so much disgusted with the game as they were just disgusted with one another. Roderick and I were at our wits’ end. At any moment we expected to see murder done.

“Shall we give them back some of our skill?” Roderick whispered.

“It wouldn’t do any good now,” I murmured sadly. “I’m afraid we’ve been consorting too much with the lads.”

Hardly had I spoken before the climax came. Hector was taking aim, when Jamie, intent on chalking his cue, accidentally brushed against his arm. At that, my kinsman straightened his back and his eyes flashed sparks.

“I’ll trouble you to play like a gentleman, Mr. Dingwall,” says he cold as ice. “While you’re in the house of a Campbell, you’d best remember that it’s not a Campbell’s way to stoop to stable-boy’s tricks to win a game.”

At that, Jamie puffed up like a pouter-pigeon. “By God, Mr. Campbell,” cried he, “I’ll have you know that a Dingwall can learn nothing from a Campbell but just how to lead cattle away in the moonlight!”

Now, at this direct blow at the MacGregor blood in his veins, Hector struck Jamie with his open hand across the cheekbone. And Jamie, being a lad of some spirit himself, was at him like a wild man with his cue gripped by the small end.

“My God!” I cried to Roderick, wringing my hands. “Stop them before it’s too late. We’ve driven them to this, just you and I! Man, man, stop them before murder’s done!”

“What can I do, Willie?” he wailed, with his face in his hands. “What can I do?”

Just at this moment the clock in the hallway struck bravely above the din of the rattling cues. It was twelve — that hour when ghosts can assume their old bodily form.

Hardly had the last stroke died away before Roderick raised his face. On it was a look of brave purpose. A sensitive man he had always been, sensitive to a fault about his personal appearance, but now I read in his eyes a great renunciation. “What are you about to do, Roderick?” I whispered.

For answer, his hand went up to his stock and began to fumble with the safety pin which held it in place. Unwinding the band of white linen, he leaped to his feet and bounded between the combatants. Then, assuming his old bodily form, he pointed at the gaping wound in his throat. “Desist!” he cried in an agonized voice. “Look on me, Jamie! I am the spirit of your Uncle Roderick, the suicide. Behold in me, Hector Campbell, the ghost of him who murdered ‘Wild Wullie, the Waster’!”

It was a magnificent act. When one considers the super-sensitiveness of his nature, one must give Roderick due credit. He had sacrificed his personal vanity to make his appearance effective. At the best, that slit throat of his was an unsightly thing to see.

And if the act were magnificent, so were the results of the act. The combatants dropped their cues in horror. For an instant they stared open-mouthed at this terrible apparition, then they turned and fled, bare headed, out into the starlit night.

“Roderick,” I cried, grasping his hand, “I congratulate you!”

But with averted eyes and trembling fingers he was hurriedly replacing his stock, and so gave me no heed. At last he murmured: “Whatever will Jamie be thinking of his own uncle this night?”

It was the one complaint I ever heard out of the man.

All this happened a long time ago. Since that night Roderick and I have had Brangler Hall quite to ourselves. Hector and Jamie have never ventured back. In fact, we’ve seen no mortal face in thirty long years. No doubt, it is better so.

But the rats and spiders give us no peace. Long ago they ended our billiards, tearing the cloth on the table to shreds and weaving their webs from corner to corner. Then there is the dust which half covers the balls, and which only mortal hand may remove. Often, sitting idle in a corner, we have wished that thieving old Tam were still with us.

Roderick is smiling at me as I write. He thinks my literary aspirations are a pose. Like many another kindly ghost, he is perfectly content to sit in the moonlight and twiddle his thumbs. Because he has lived on such intimate terms with me, he cannot understand why I should have an artistic bent. Perhaps these pages will open his eyes. Indeed, Wild Wullie, the Waster, is Wild Wullie, the Waster, no more.

“All-Story Weekly”, 14 Feb 1920

Silent, White and Beautiful
and Other Stories (1920)

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)

Who Wants a Green Bottle?

I

Suddenly there came a flash of lightning, so brilliant, so dazzling, that all the wild countryside was lit up for an instant as though by an immense conflagration. Then, far off, from the other side of those threatening, hump-backed mountains, I heard a low, rumbling sound as night once more closed and barred her ebony doors.

But in that brief moment I had caught a glimpse of what I sought. There, not a hundred yards away, on a rise of ground overlooking the road and the valley, was the long, low building which a second before the lightning had traced on a madly galloping background of clouds. Now, although my eyes were still straining in that direction, I saw nothing. Not a light beckoned. The house, the hill, the sky, had been blotted out.

Nevertheless I had the general direction. Backing the car into a nest of bushes beside the road, I took out my small electric flashlight and began to ascend the slope.

It was a stiff climb for a corpulent man well over fifty; soon I was breathing like one of my asthmatic patients. What little breath I had left was swept away by a gust of wind which struck me full in the face, just as I breasted the slope. It took me quite by surprise — for down below I could have held a lighted match till it burned my fingers — and snatched off my soft hat, spinning it away somewhere into space. My legs were not too steady under me when I reached the house. For a space I leaned against one of the large, white pillars on the veranda to regain my breath and my dignity.

As I waited, another gust, straight from the lake, went howling by, stirring the tall pine-trees about the house into a muttering, mutinous revolt and causing a loose shutter somewhere in the upper blackness to beat out a devil’s tattoo against the ivy-covered wall. Then suddenly all became silence again — a brilliant silence lit up by a flash of lightning which showed me the rounded bowl of the valley and the white stretch of road. And on its heels there followed such a crash of thunder that the whole landscape seemed to turn sick and dizzy.

“This is no night to be out,” I thought, and, wasting no more time, rapped sharply on the door.

Scarcely had the echo of my knocking died away when the windows on the lower floor winked out at me; and, before I could so much as brush the wind-tossed hair out of my eyes, the door swung open and I came face to face with the Laird of Lockleaven.

After the blackness which had followed the flash of lightning, that hallway seemed blazing. And there he stood, as long and lean as a fishing-pole, looking out at me with the great terror-stricken eyes of a startled deer. He wore some kind of fuzzy bathrobe which made him seem even taller; and he had a mad tuft of gray hair on his chin which twitched oddly — or maybe it was the wind stroking it. That was all I caught at a glance.

“Come in, Dr. O’Brien,” he said with a bow like a dancing-master. “You’re late.”

Now what from the battering of the wind, the loss of my best hat, and perhaps a glass too many at the Claymore, I was too fuddled already to marvel much at his words. Not a thought did I give to how he knew my name or why he expected me at all, till after the door had closed on the night.

“You’ll pardon my intrusion, sir,” I said as soon as I got my breath. “The fact is that I was motoring home, and a half mile up the road my headlights flickered out. Now, if there had been a moon, or—”

But he cut me short with a wave of his hand. “Nonsense, Dr. O’Brien!” he said as sharp as the crack of a whip. “I was expecting you; and this lady and gentleman — they were expecting you, too.” He jerked his thumb toward the wall.

Wheeling about in some confusion at that, I came face to face with a hard-featured old chap in a periwig glaring down at me from a mildewed picture-frame. To his right was the portrait of a very determined old lady with a pointed chin that curled up like the toe of an old slipper. She had a fan in her hand, but she held it as I have seen boys grip their shillalahs on the way to the county-fair.

“Ancestors?” I asked with a half-hearted chuckle, for the stony eyes of the painted lady had somehow or other gotten under my skin.

“My great grandfather and grandmother, Sir Robert Lockleaven and his lady,” he says rather proud. “Now step this way, Dr. O’Brien. There’s a fire in the library and a bottle of good old port uncorked. And I’m thinking you’ll be needing both before the dawn breaks.”

With that he ushered me into as cheery a room as I ever want to see. In the days when this house had been built, they knew the meaning of fireplaces. It did my heart good to see the great log flaring up on the hearth, a log the size of a well-grown tree-trunk; in front of it, a semicircle of easy-chairs that tired men could sleep in; and, last of all, the mahogany table with two glasses and a decanter of wine which glowed ruby-red where the light touched it. And even the glimpse I caught of other sour-faced portraits on the wall failed to overshadow my good spirits.

He motioned me into one of the easy-chairs and, pouring out two glasses of port, handed me one and raised the other aloft. “Here’s success to you, Dr. O’Brien!” he cried, while his frightened eyes flashed and once again the mad wisp of hair on his chin twitched oddly.

“And here’s success to you,” said I, draining my glass at a swallow, for the dust of the road had got into my throat. “That goes without saying,” said he. “If you win, I win. Do you happen to have a green glass bottle in your pocket, Dr. O’Brien?”

“A green glass bottle?” I said dumfounded. “What ever would I be doing with a green glass bottle, Mr. —”

“Lockleaven’s the name,” he muttered, seating himself and adjusting the folds of his bathrobe as I have seen old ladies do with their skirts after getting into a bus. “I was christened Robert Lockleaven after my great grandfather.” He bent his head and began to pick nervously at a loose strand of worsted. “I’m pretty well known in the village,” he finished with a haughty tilt to his chin.

At that I started so that I nearly dropped the glass. I was new to that country, but already ‘the name was familiar enough. Indeed it had more than once figured in Scottish history. But gradually that fiery stream had slackened; and now, if report could be believed, the last of the line was a man weakened in both body and mind. In the village he was known as “The daft Laird of Lockleaven;” and scandalous stories were still told of his escapades before old age had taken the marrow out of his bones.

Now, as he refilled my glass, I studied the man. He had the high, broad forehead of a thinker, the deep-set, fiery eyes of a dreamer, the firmly arched nose and expanding nostrils of a warrior. But the lower half of his face was deplorable. Here all the weaknesses of his soul were laid bare. The pitiable indecision of that twitching chin, the animal pout of the thickish red lips, the long, yellow tooth poking out at each side of his mouth — all these were enough to give a Christian the shivers.

“How did you know that I was coming tonight, Mr. Lockleaven?” I asked.

“Know it!” he cried with an unpleasant snicker. “Why, I know everything.” He paused, and a look of caution creased his jowls. “Besides, didn’t I send Meg for you?” he finished.

“I’ve been away for the week, and—”

But again he cut me short with a quick motion of his hand. “Never puzzle your head over that, man,” he cried peevishly. “There’s more pressing matters afoot. What’s crystal-gazing and such bairns’ play when it comes to the saving of a live, human soul?”

“Is there someone sick here?” I asked.

“So there is,” he said soberly; “so there is — unco sick. But sh! What’s that?”

Usually I am as steady as the next man. But there was something in the Laird of Lockleaven’s eyes, something in the Laird of Lockleaven’s voice, which grated on my nervous system like sandpaper. I felt goose flesh rippling up my back.

For several moments we both sat silent, listening to the reverberating thunder which still echoed faintly far off in the hills, to the crackling of the fire, to the scampering of the mice behind the wainscoting in the wall.

“Do you hear them?” he asked.

“I hear nothing,” I answered sharply enough; “nothing but the thunder and the fire and the mice in the wall.”

“The mice!” cried the Laird of Lockleaven with a quick, low laugh. “Did you ever hear tell of mice that could sing and talk and cry? Put your ear to the wall and listen.”

To humor him I did as he told me. At first I could hear nothing; but soon a low, suppressed note, very much like a muffled sob, made my eardrum tingle.

“Poor Aunt Mary!” said the Laird of Lockleaven solemnly. “She wouldn’t stop mourning in life and now she cannot. Night and day I hear her, night and day.”

With a mighty effort I shook off the strange, numbing fear which was creeping over me like a coverlet of snow. “Mr. Lockleaven,” I cried with a forced laugh, “you are to be congratulated — you have singing mice in your wall! They’re not too common, but there are such things. Look, there goes one now!” I pointed to a little, brown speck which scurried across the room and vanished somewhere in the shadows.

The Laird of Lockleaven raised his head. “My grandfather has just let his cattle out to graze,” he murmured.

“What did you say?” I asked, making no sense out of his words.

For a moment he was silent, and then he cried out in a loud, authoritative voice: “Will you listen to me, Dr. O’Brien, or will I just have to be trusting my soul to Meg’s withered hands and dim eyes? Will you listen to the tale I’ve got to tell, Dr. O’Brien?”

I took a long pull at the port before I spoke. My nerves were trembling like fiddle-strings. I had an odd fancy that the portraits on the wall — all those hard featured, sour-faced Lockleavens — had poked their heads out of their frames to lend an ear to our talk. “I am awaiting your pleasure, sir,” I said very slowly.

II

The Lockleavens are an ill-starred race, my host began. The balance of sanity is not in them. Each one of my house must either ride or be ridden. They saddle and bridle a hobby, then spur it till both horse and man are foundered. Whether it be generosity or greed, swashbuckling or psalm-singing, drunkenness or sobriety, each of us travels too far on that road.

My uncle, the tenth Laird of Lockleaven, like others of our blood, spurred his hobby a wee bit too far. As a young man he had the name in the countryside of being a canny laddie; at middle age, when I first remember him, he was as withered as a dead branch, with a pinched, frost-bitten face and bitter blue eyes. He had begun by being careful with the small fortune his gambling father had left him; he ended by nearly starving his household to death to fill the great money-chest at the head of his bed.

One by one he got rid of the extra mouths to feed, till at last there was only Meg and me to minister to him. What a spider of a man he was — going about the house, soft-footed, in his list slippers and cocking his eye at us if we so much as blinked at his iron-bound chest. I can see him now with his sidelong gait, his long thin fingers stroking his beard like bent twigs in a hedge, and his silly, solitary smile wrinkling the loose skin of his jowls.

When he came to die there was little mourning in Lockleaven Hall. I was a lean lad of eighteen on the night when the great sickness gripped him. Meg set me to watch at his bedside, while she scuttled off to the village for Dr. McLean. Before she left she lighted the old-fashioned tapers above his bed; and I sat all hunched up in one corner, watching the light flickering over the sick man’s face and the heaving of the bedclothes at each long breath.

How long I sat there, to this day I don’t know — it might have been an hour or more — but after a time I grew drowsy and closed my eyes for a bit. When I opened them again, there had come a change. The laird had been lying flat on his back, his eyes on the ceiling; but now he lay on one side, his face to the wall. The frayed fringe of his whiskers trembled slightly, but his loud breathing had ceased.

I rose and approached my uncle with a feeling of awe that death should have hovered so near while I slept; and then, as I put my hand on the foot-board of his bed and looked down, horror gripped me by the hair. Horror did I say? It was more than that. It was just as though my brain had been turned into soft, quivering jelly.

My eyes had wandered to my uncle’s gray beard. There, through the tangled meshes on the pillow, I saw a tiny crouching form and a pair of flaming pinpoint eyes. For an instant it glared up at me like a cornered rat under a wisp of hay; and then, with a shrill squeak, away it swished under the rumpled bedclothes and was gone.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The Laird of Lockleaven paused to wipe gleaming drops of perspiration from his forehead. Through the silence which followed his words, I heard a great commotion behind the wainscoting — a galloping as of a troop of horse, a shrill piteous squeaking, and then a sound which might have been a distant bugle-call.

“You hear them?” he said with a haggard smile. “That’s Mad Anthony and his hounds. They’ve sighted a buck, or I’m much mistaken.”

“There’s an army of rats and mice in your walls,” I broke in with an involuntary shudder, for the knowing, listening tilt of his head was an unhealthy thing to see.

“Rats and mice there are for those who hunt and ride,” he said. “But it’s not these I have in mind, nor one of them I saw that night through the tangle of my dead uncle’s beard.”

“What was it then?” I asked, taking another long drink of port to steady me.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

I’m coming to that, said he. After my uncle’s death, the chest of money was mine. You can readily surmise that I lost no time in opening it. Having no taste of pleasure up to this — for the most part going about in rags with a belly as empty as a toy balloon — it was no wonder that I played pitch and toss with the ten commandments.

I can give you my word that I lived the devil of a life for a round dozen years, with never a breathing spell on the Sabbath, till my uncle’s old chest sounded as hollow as a drum when I gave it a tap with the toe of my boot. And Meg grew soft and yellow as a tub of butter from good living and gin; and tales were told in the village of how she was seen taking a glass with the devil on Black Friar’s Heath.

Well, time went on with a jig-step till one All Soul’s Eve — twenty years ago tonight. I had had a few gentlemen playing cards with me up at the Hall, but they had ridden off before midnight in a black rage with some cock-and-bull story of how I had slipped a card up my sleeve.

I was sitting in this very chair, nodding a bit, an empty glass in my hand, when what should I see but a gold piece lying on the carpet at my feet. I was about to reach down for it — for I was always a careful man even in drink — when out of the corner of my eye I spied something which made the hair on my head ruffle up.

You can believe it or not — but there, creeping out from the wall, was a wee man no bigger than my thumb; a wee man in a yellow gown and nightcap, with a few threads of beard hanging from his chin. On all fours he was creeping toward me, wagging his head as he came.

“A fairy!” I said to myself, remembering what Meg had told me of the tiny folk who dance in the moonlight. “If I can catch him, he’ll give me a wish.” So I waited as patient as Job with my eyelashes lowered, snoring a bit just to put heart in him, till up he came and laid hold of the gold piece. Then you should have seen the sweating time he had over it! First he’d bend his crooked old back and hoist and hoist till he had lifted it up a pin’s breadth on one side; and then, just as he thought he had it fairly started, down it would come on his knuckle-bones and he’d let out a shrill squeak like a mouse. It was all I could do to watch him and not roar with laughter.

“So!” I thought to myself. “After all the good things I’ve heard tell of you from Meg, you’re nothing but a pack of thieves when it comes to that! Break into my house and steal my gold, will you?” As quick as a flash, I leaned down and clapped my glass over him — and he with his back still bent over the coin.

But he wasn’t quiet long. No sooner did he have the bottom of the tumbler as a roof for his head, than up he jumped as spry as you please. And what a commotion there was! First he leaped straight up like a startled buck, and the top of his head clinked against the glass; next he whirled about with outstretched arms, making a noise all the time like a beetle caught between two windowpanes; and then, when there came no hope from Heaven or Hell, down he flopped on his knees and whimpered and whined till all the tumbler was tinkling with it.

By this time, as you may guess, I was near dead from laughing so. But soon I remembered that it was All-Soul’s Eve and that, if Meg did not lie, a wish might be had for the asking. So I got down on all fours and squinted through the tumbler. Then, of a sudden, I knew the wee man and I clapped my hand to my mouth to keep back a yell.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

III

The Laird of Lockleaven paused. All his face was twitching till it seemed to me that he hadn’t one face but a dozen. But his eyes were still; they looked like two frozen lakes in the moonlight.

“And who was the little man?” I asked.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

There was only one mortal man could cock his eye like a Kelpie, he answered solemnly. ’Twas none other than my dead and buried uncle.

Yes, there he sat in his old yellow robe and slippers, his nightcap clapped on his head all awry, his bitter blue eyes eating holes in my self-esteem. It was a sight to make your blood run cold. And he was champing his lean old jaws at me like one who has the taste of bitter words on his tongue.

“Well, Uncle Peter,” said I, though my teeth were clicking together from fright, “it’s a pleasure to welcome you home to the Hall. And to see you so spry for a man of your years,” I added, for he had made a spring against the glass like a spider at a fly.

“Robbie Lockleaven,” my uncle cried, “I’ll have the hide off you for this!”

“You will not, Uncle Peter,” said I. “You’ll stay right where you are as a disgusting example of an old man in his cups!”

At that his eyes glowed like two fireflies and his beard curled up, till I would have taken to my heels had it not been for the good liquor in me. As small as he was, I couldn’t forget the fear I had of him.

“Robbie Lockleaven,” he cried again in a voice like a pin scratching against the windowpane, “you’re a spendthrift and worse! You’re building up a mountain of trouble in the life to come. But just lift up the tumbler, laddie, and I’ll let bygones be bygones. Ye’ll no be adding disrespect to your ither sins? You’ll no be sic a fule, Robbie?”

Now as his speech began to soften into the dialect of the countryside, I saw plain enough that I had the upper hand. Besides, when it came to that, how could a mite of a man do me bodily harm? Thinking in this wise, I spoke up bravely enough.

“I’ll lift up the glass under one condition, Uncle Peter,” I said. “It’s All Soul’s Eve; it’s only fair that a body should wish a wish. Grant me a wish, and I’ll let you go free.”

Well, he grinned a bit in an uncommonly nasty way, he stroked his beard a bit, and then he lifted his voice in a whine. “Hae ye no had my bonny treasure-box?” he squalled. “Hae ye no scattered my siller to the four winds like chaff? Hae ye no made me come oot o’ the wall to lift precious guineas till my back is no more than a broken reed?”

Now I knew that I had won the victory, and I laughed aloud. “You old foxy-eyed thief!” I cried. “I’ve caught you fair; and a wish I will have. You can’t go prowling about Lockleaven Hall when you should be six feet deep in the kirk-yard, stealing my money and playing pranks altogether unseemly for a man of your years, without just paying the piper. A wish I will have.”

“Weel then, have your wish and be damned!” Uncle Peter cried in a rage. “Wish quick now, for the fumes of vile liquor in this glass are making my auld head spin around like a whirligig.”

Well, I thought for a while before I spoke. Finally I said: “There’s only one thing worth knowing to a worldly wise man like me. I’m going to ask you for that which has no weight in the hand, but is more precious than jewels. I’m just seeking knowledge of Heaven and Hell. What’s the human soul like, Uncle Peter; and what follows life for the good and the bad?”

Now the old man again cocked his eye at me and stroked his beard, like I’d often seen him do while driving home a good bargain. “So that’s your wish, Robbie?” he says, smooth as syrup.

By the tone of his voice, the manner he had of stroking his beard, and most of all by the glint in his eye, I knew well enough that trouble was brewing. But I couldn’t retract, having once stated my wish in the Kings’ English. So I answered, “Just that,” and held my breath like a man under water.

“Weel then, to begin,” said Uncle Peter with a twitch of a smile, “the human soul is just a wee mite o’ a man like me. I am the human soul of Peter Lockleaven, deceased.”

“Did you take shape after death?” I asked.

“Na, na,” says he. “I was always in the man like the core in an apple. You have one as weel, Robbie Lockleaven — a canny wee man, hidin’ within, as like to yoursel’ as two peas. Hae ye no felt him tinkerin’ awa at your brain?”

“Nonsense!” said I. “Such a theory is contrary to science.”

“Is it so?” he cried. “To modern science, ye mean. There were wise men of old who knew well enough that the human soul had a body to it. Did they no debate lang syne on the matter — growin’ red in the face ower the question of how many souls could be dancin’ a Hieland fling on the point of a needle? Robbie, will ye be denyin’ that the human body weighs a wee mite less when the soul has sped?”

“So I have heard,” I answered with a flicker of fear. “Yet surely it can be accounted for by—”

But Uncle Peter brushed my words aside as though they had been so many dead leaves. “Na, na,” he piped. “it canna be accounted for — except ye believe lees. There’s nae doot aboot it — a human soul there is, with a body to it and all.”

“Then, Uncle Peter,” I said, “will you explain to me how it is that doctors don’t see it when they operate; or why we don’t get a glimpse of it when we see a man die?”

“I will that,” said Uncle Peter with a smile and a sneer. “We souls are no ower anxious to be poked at and handled. When a doctorin’ man cuts into our hame, we just scuttle awa to anither room till he’s done with his work. Say he’s tinkerin’ at the brain; weel, we take to our heels and hide in the belly.”

“And when a man dies?” I broke in.

“When a man dies, we just bide our time till naebody’s heedin’; and then awa we go to Heaven or Hell. It’s simple enough, laddie, when they’re bendin’ ower the deceased, half-blinded by tears — or maybe the fule doctor’s feelin’ for heartbeats and not carin’ ower much what the soul may be at — to scuttle awa to the foot of the bed, to slip to the floor and go tip-toin’ off in the dark. But, mind ye, I’m no sayin’ that we hae no been seen one time or anither. There was yoursel, Robbie, poppin’ your een at me when I was bidin’ my time in the dead Laird of Lockleaven’s beard.”

In spite of myself my knees began to shake from fright. Uncle Peter had begun to chuckle; his merriment came through the tumbler like the chirping of a sick canary.

“And where does your soul go to when it leaves the body?” I asked.

“Heaven or Hell lies in the walls of ilka hame,” said he. “Lockleaven Hall is well stocked with souls, Robbie. Dinna ye hear ’em scramblin’ aboot in the wainscotin’, chatterin’ and whimperin’, blowin’ on horns and pipin’ on bagpipes? Rats and mice? Na, na. Though some of ’em we hae for Mad Anthony, who is never content till he’s thrown his leg ower the back of a nag and is awa to the huntin’. Twa-score Lockleavens hae died in this house — twa-score souls are in yonder wall. You’ll be joinin’ us soon, Robbie, I’m thinkin’.”

But still I wasn’t convinced that Uncle Peter was telling the truth. “If I let you out of the tumbler,” I said, “you’ll just have to show me Heaven and Hell.”

“I canna do that, Robbie,” he whined. “Heaven is no for me. They wouldna hae us prowlin’ aboot through that blessed wall. Now will a visit to Hell content ye?”

Well, I thought so hard for a minute that my head ached; and then, all of a sudden, I made up my mind like a man jumping off a high cliff. “I’ll just have to be contented with Hell, Uncle Peter,” I said, “seeing that you’re not over-anxious to take me to Heaven.”

“Dinna think that!” he cried with a shake of his head. “The will is there, but the godliness is missin’. Now just lift up the tumbler, Robbie, and we’ll be startin’ in twa shakes.”

“And you will not take to your heels?” I asked.

“Na, na,” he muttered. “I couldna do that on All Souls’ Eve.”

“And you’ll bring me back safe out of Hell, Uncle Peter?” I said, not liking the grin that twitched his flea-bitten beard.

“That I will, laddie,” he says very solemn.

Well, Dr. O’Brien, I took a long drink out of a bottle of Scotch which stood on the table and then I bent down and lifted the tumbler. And my dead uncle sat still as a toad the while, and never so much as blinked an eye.

“Now sit ye doun beside me, Robbie,” he said. And when I had done as he wished, he began to sing a snatch of a song which ran something like this:

“Dinna ye hear the pipes of Locklear

Aweepin’ and whimperin’ oot there in the night?

Dinna ye greet for souls that maun keep

A watchin’ and waitin’ for threads o’ the light?

Come oot o’ the body

Wee souls while ye can,

There’s buckets o’ toddy

For ilka wee man.”

Hardly had his voice died away, when everything seemed to vanish into space. I felt that I was enclosed in some kind of shadowy dungeon — or rather at the bottom of some pit down which a faint light sifted. And with this feeling, there came a wild desire to escape. I climbed up and up and soon came to the mouth of the tunnel. Squeezing between two jagged lines of ivory pillars which blocked my path, I leaped out into the open.

At the next moment, I was rolling down a steep declivity with the speed of lightning. Soon I collided violently with Uncle Peter at the bottom — an Uncle Peter who had suddenly regained his full stature and who was regarding me sourly.

“Ye daft fule!” he cried, rubbing his back. “Is that ony way to be runnin’ against a man? Ye should look afore ye leap oot o’ sic a tall hame.”

IV

Well, Dr. O’Brien, I looked up and saw that I was standing in the shadow of a gigantic statue — a statue which I thought must be at least two hundred feet tall. It sat cross-legged with bowed head and its huge tunnel-like mouth was open.

“What’s that, Uncle Peter?” I asked.

“That’s naething more nor less than your ain body, Robbie Lockleaven,” he said very solemn. “I’ve charmed your soul oot o’ it.”

“I see you’ve grown to full size!” I cried.

“Na, na,” said he. “It’s you that’s grown small as a match. But we’d best be on our way, Robbie, for it’s a lang walk to the wall of Hell and I’m no so spry as I was.”

Well, as you may guess, my head was spinning around from all I’d heard; so I thought it best to say no more, but to follow his lead. When he started ambling off with a jerk of his head at me, I put my best foot forward and was at his heels in no time.

First we skirted a small tower of glass, which Uncle Peter said was the tumbler — not that I believed him or could — and off we started across a level space where long red grass sprouted up above my slippers.

“Ye should tear up this carpet, Robbie,” Uncle Peter called back over his shoulder. “It’s most unco wearisome when a body’s leg-weary.”

But I made him no answer, for I was looking about and wondering at all I saw. I seemed to be on a kind of desert. As far as the eye could reach, the landscape was level, except for the statue and several weird wooden structures which rose up on each side of it. The sky was a threatening gray. Not a star glimmered. But somewhere in the remote distance, I saw a gigantic sun which lighted the whole landscape with blazing effrontery. “So this is Hell!” I murmured.

“Na, na,” said Uncle Peter, uneasily. “We hae no reached it yet. This is naething more than the library of Lockleaven Hall.”

“What’s Hell like, Uncle Peter?” I asked, coming up alongside of him.

“Hell?” he cried with a start. “Why, Hell is just Hell! Ye can be takin’ notes soon enow, Robbie. It’s an unco wearisome place.”

“Then why were you so anxious to go back to it?” I couldn’t help asking, for the drink and curiosity were still strong in me.

“Anxious to gang back!” cried Uncle Peter. “Are ye daft, Robbie? If ye had a wee mite of sense, ye’d have just kept me in that bonnie glass till Judgment day. And I’d have thanked ye for it on my bended knees, Robbie; though I’m a temperate man with a distaste for the smell o’ strong drink.”

“You were clamoring loud enough to get out of it,” said I.

“Nae doot,” he muttered. “But ye shouldna hae given me heed. ’Twas not me that was clamorin’, Robbie, but the spirit of Hell which gives me no rest. After we leave our mortal bodies behind us, we can no longer do just as we please. We’ve just got to scuttle awa on the devil’s errands, and pay with sweat for our sins.”

“And how do you pay, Uncle Peter?” I asked.

“Why, just by livin’ under the same roof with a fule like you,” he says very sharp. “Do ye no think I sweat tears o’ blood when I see ye throwin’ my gude siller awa like it was chaff? Twa-score times hae I seen my bright gold pieces lyin’ on the carpet; twa-score times hae I bent my auld back to ’em — just to find them ower heavy to lift. Me, who they say was a wee bit too canny, to see sic wastefulness in Lockleaven Hall!”

Uncle Peter had worked himself up into such a fury that I thought it best to say no more for the present; so once again I glanced about me.

We had been walking at a brisk pace for upward of a half-hour, yet, on looking over my shoulder, I could still see that gigantic seated colossus which my uncle assured me was my own body. Indeed, from this distance, I noted a certain resemblance to myself. Of course, when I had been standing directly under it, it had seemed all out of human proportion; but now, from a mile or so away, I noted with an odd sensation of fear that it had something strangely familiar about it. Perhaps it was the incongruity of a statue wearing dressing-gown and slippers which caused great beads of perspiration to spring out on my brow.

As I continued to stare back, I suddenly heard a threatening roar above my head and, looking up, saw a flock of strange birds flying swiftly past. Larger than eagles and inky black, they emitted a thundering sound like a thousand steam-engines going at once. Soon they became black specks in the distance, specks which hovered over the statue. Finally I saw one of them descend on its nose.

“Never fash your head ower them, Robbie,” said Uncle Peter. “They’re naething more nor less than house-flies taking a wee flight. Come awa, laddie.”

I turned about. As I did so, I saw, very dim and hazy in the distance, a black, towering cliff which seemed to rise straight up into the somber sky.

“’Tis the wall of Hell,” said Uncle Peter sadly and started off at a brisk pace.

Now, as I followed him, pushing through the tangle of red grass, I fell to wondering what the old gentleman meant when he said that he’d have been happy to live out his days in my whiskey glass. Perhaps, if I found Hell to be such an unpleasant place as he hinted, I could cheat it in time, had I once the secret.

“Were you safe from Hell in that glass, Uncle Peter?” I asked.

“Not altogether,” he said kind of careless over his shoulder. “They couldna hae got me out, but they would hae tormented me sore. Had it been a green glass bottle, Robbie — as green as the sea — why, I’d hae been as safe as a bug in a rug.”

At that I burst out into a laugh. “Thank you kindly, Uncle Peter!” I cried. “So a green glass bottle is the refuge from Hell? I’ll be minding that when my time comes to die.”

And then, as I saw plainly, the old gentleman could have snapped his own nose off in rage. But all he said was: “Ah weel, Robbie, there’s mony a slip twixt the cup and the lip. Ye canna hide awa in green glass bottles when Hell is beckonin’.”

But now we were in the shadow of the cliff. And well might Uncle Peter call it a wall, for it shot straight up with no foothold for man or beast. And away to the left, a great cave had been scooped out of it; and in this cave, roaring and thundering, was a many headed sheet of flame fully a hundred feet high.

“Is that Hell?” I asked.

“Na, na,” said Uncle Peter with a snort of contempt. “That’s naething but your ain fireplace and a wee birch log sputterin’ a bit. Come this way, Robbie, if ye are seekin’ Hell.”

At that, Uncle Peter took my hand as though I were a bairn and led me right up to the face of the cliff. Then I saw that it was no cliff at all, rightly speaking; but just a great wall of dark-colored wood which ran up and up till it lost itself in the sky. And down at my feet was a round hole in this wall, just large enough for a man to put his head and shoulders through.

“I’ll gang first,” whispered Uncle Peter. And he got down on his knees and popped into that hole as smooth as a rat.

Before I followed, I turned and took a last look at the world I was leaving.

There, that strange desert stretched away as flat as the palm of your hand; and there, like a giant brooding over the universe, sat that great statue of me in its gown and slippers, its jaw dropped low on its chest. How I pitied it then, Dr. O’Brien — — yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell why. There it sat, staring out over that crimson grass with its sightless eyes. “You are leaving me forever,” it seemed to be saying, “me who has carried you in sickness and health, in joy and in sorrow! Shame on your soul, Robbie Lockleaven!”

“Now that ye are at Hell’s gate, do ye fear to enter?” said Uncle Peter, popping his head out of the hole and sneering at me. “I misdoot ye have heart for the venture.”

For answer, I flopped down on my hands and knees and, after a tight squeeze of it, crawled after him through the gates of Hell.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

V

Again the Laird of Lockleaven paused to wipe glistening drops of moisture from his forehead; while I took advantage of his silence to stir the fire a bit. Indeed, I was needing the warmth and cheer of it. What from my host’s wild words, the distant rumble of thunder and all, I was never before so much in want of creature comforts. I have seen mad men enough in my day, but never one with such a plausible way of telling a tale as this same old chap in his gown and felt slippers.

And to make matters worse, as the saying is, the rats and mice in the wall were never still for a minute. I could hear them tripping and traipsing about as though they were dancing; and, every now and then, a thin, quavering squeak which sounded uncommonly like a poorly played fiddle.

“It’s the Highland fling they’re dancing,” said the Laird of Lockleaven with a ghastly grin. “Do you get the lilt of it, Dr. O’Brien?” And he began to sway his head from side to side and tap out the tune with the toe of his slipper.

“You were about to tell me of Hell,” I said, thinking the man was better talking.

“To be sure,” said he with a start. “I had just entered the jaws of Hell, had I not?”

“You had,” I answered, wishing with all my heart that he had stayed there.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Well, Dr. O’Brien, it was a tight squeeze at first; and so black that you couldn’t see hand before face. But after a few minutes of crawling, we got through the neck and into the belly of Hell, so to speak. The tunnel grew bigger and bigger till a man could stand on his feet. And then a strange, green, quivering light came creeping along the black roof like a snake.

“Where does this unwholesome light come from?” I asked in a voice which I intended to make low, but which echoed through the vault like the boom of a cannon.

Uncle Peter chuckled at that, and it made a most horrid din. “’Tis naething more nor less,” said he, “than the sulfur ta’en from matches. Hae ye no heard Meg complainin’ about findin’ wee broken bits of ’em lyin’ on the carpet? Weel, for all her witchcraft, she had no suspicion ’twas her auld master had a hand in it.”

He turned and started on again, still cackling to himself over his thieving, while I followed uneasily beneath the band of quivering light. At first the passage was so straight that you might have shot an arrow down it, but soon it began to twist a bit from side to side like the trail of a man coming home from the alehouse. And then, on a sudden, a wind arose, hot as the breath of a furnace a strange wind made up of a multitude of voices, indistinct, muffled, vaguely reproachful and filled with a great longing to be heard. But there were so many of them and so intermingled that they were like drops of water in a swiftly moving stream.

“Where does this wind come from, Uncle Peter?” I asked.

“Death-bed repentences, Robbie,” he answered. “Breath wasted lang syne by puir fules who knew no better. They thought nae doot that God would be lendin’ an ear to their skirlin’. Dead men’s lees, laddie, choaked in dust.”

For some time we plodded on in silence, while that melancholy wind swept past us like a perpetual lament. A cold sweat broke out on me from the heat of it, and all the time I was shaken by fear. And then, on a sudden, Uncle Peter spun around on his heel and pushed me up against the wall.

“Hush, laddie!” he whispered hot in my ear. “The hunt’s on, or I’m much mistaken. Mad Anthony is ridin’ hard tonight; he’s no the man to turn aside for anither soul. Flatten yoursel to the wall, Robbie! Dinna ye hear the thunderin’ and screechin’? All Hell’s let loose when Mad Anthony rides!”

And now, Dr. O’Brien, I heard a great hubbub. First, there came to my ears the clear note of a hunting horn; next, a shrill scream and a thundering as of horses’ hoofs; and then, as I peered fearfully into the gloom, I saw the huge figure of a man astride some strange round-eared beast. Down this wild rider swept on me like the wind, with never a look to right or left, leaning low on the neck of his steed like a man winning a race. And not four jumps behind, were a dozen gray monsters with long dragging tails.

But before I had time to draw breath, before I could so much as let out a groan, they were past me and vanishing in the shadows. And now I heard Uncle Peter’s unpleasant snicker.

“Ha, ha, Robbie,” he says, nudging me with the point of his elbow, “ye’re no owerpleased with Hell, I’m thinkin’. But never ye fash yoursel aboot Mad Anthony. He, who was for always huntin’ the puir beasties, must now be hunted by ’em. There’s a kind o’ justice in Hell, Robbie. ’Tis only with me they’ve been owersevere.”

“What’s he being hunted by?” I asked with a shudder.

“Just a half dozen o’ rats, Robbie,” said Uncle Peter. “And Mad Anthony’s ridin’ a wee gray mousie. But step along, laddie; we hae muckle to see ere the dawn breaks.”

Uncle Peter started off again at a kind of ambling trot. Although I was trembling in every limb, I followed close at his heels. We went on down the passage for a hundred yards or so and then took a sudden turn to the right which brought us up sharp in a large chamber which had no less than four phosphorescent ribbons of light on the ceiling. There were a score of dark figures in the center of this chamber; and a monotonous stream of talk rose from them, as though the floodgates of reason had been swept away.

“What manner of place is this?” I asked.

“’Tis just the council-room of those puir souls that went aboot the world tryin’ to make ithers understand them,” said Uncle Peter very solemnly. “Step up, Robbie, and lend an ear to their talk.”

I strode up to the group. Although I was nearly deafened by their uproar, I managed to overhear a few words of a man and a woman who stood on the out skirts. Looking up into his face piteously, she was saying, “Hector Lockleaven, canna ye no understand me? My soul is—” And he was saying at the same time, giving no heed to her, “Anna, my dear, canna ye no understand me? When I do this it is not because—” And then both his words and hers were swept away in a furious torrent of words from the others — words which battered against the ceiling and fell back again, hollow and dead. I heard a loud buzzing about me of “Won’t you listen?”  “Can’t you understand?”  “I’ve got something to tell you,” till I couldn’t bear it any longer and, shoving my thumbs in my ears, hurried back to my uncle.

“Not one of them hears what the other is saying!” I cried. “They’re all talking at once, Uncle Peter! What’s the meaning of it?”

He grinned at me in his queer way and turned to go. “All those souls,” he mumbled over his shoulder, “hae pestered the lives oot o’ ithers by bein’ ower communicative. Tak warnin’, Robbie. If ye want to be understood in the world, say naething aboot yoursel.”

Uncle Peter led the way out of that chamber and into another, several hundred yards further down the passage. This was larger than the first, and even more noisy. Before we reached it, my ears were deafened by a thundering sound as though a thousand hammers were beating on iron, intermingled with loud shouts and deep groans.

“Here ye will find the chieftains of Lockleaven who were ower fond of blood and rapine,” said Uncle Peter when we reached the threshold. “These gentry were quick to draw steel.”

I saw a dozen figures in armor, slashing at each other as though their blood were up. The clashing of their claymores, the clanking of their shields, their shouts and groans, made the hollow chamber echo like a drum.

I watched them for several moments with a beating heart. “No one falls, Uncle Peter!” I cried at last.

“Quite right,” said he with a bitter smile. “We hae no victors and no vanquished here — and no rest. They must just keep at it, with aching backs and wheezing lungs, till the end of time. This is Hell, Robbie.”

“I think I’ll be stepping back into the library, Uncle Peter,” I said. “You’ve shown me more than I wanted to see.”

“Ye’ll no be ganging hame till ye’ve had a peep at your ain chamber?” murmured Uncle Peter in his most persuasive tone. “I’ll no rest content till I’ve given ye a glimpse at Pleasure Hall.”

“Pleasure Hall?” said I.

“Pleasure Hall,” said he. “’Tis the room we hae gi’en to those jolly souls who hae frisked aboot. Ye’ll find gude company there, Robbie.”

Now by this time I had had a bellyful of Hell. But I could not offend Uncle Peter on his own hearth-stone, so to speak; so I just followed where he led. Well, we may have walked for a dozen score yards or more, when suddenly I heard such a howling and screaming and sobbing that it was enough to make your blood run cold. I can hear that hubbub yet in my dreams. And pretty soon we came to a bright light, and then—

•   •   •   •   •

The Laird of Lockleaven broke down and clasped his hands over his eyes. And then he began to tremble in his armchair like a leaf in a gale.

For my part, I finished the wine in my glass and stirred the fire and wished for the dawn to break. If the rats and mice had only kept still, I could have stood the shadows in Lockleaven Hall. How they did creep out at me from the corners! And the portraits seemed to be nodding and winking on the walls.

At last my host dropped his hands from his face. “I cannot tell you of Pleasure Hall,” he said very solemn. “What I saw there is locked in my breast for all time. But this I will say: No man could have seen what I saw and gone about thereafter like other men. It left a red mark on my brain like the touch of a bloody hand.”

“There’s no doubt about that,” I thought to myself. But aloud I said: “Did your uncle guide you safely back out of Hell, Mr. Lockleaven?”

“Yes, he did that. But he kept chuckling all the way like a man who is well pleased with a stroke of business. I didn’t pay him much heed, for my mind was on other matters. We got out of Hell, some way or other, and waded back across the miles of red grass till we came to the big statue of me which sat with its chin on its breast. Now he chanted some devil’s rhyme and up I popped into the statue’s mouth and squeezed through the ivory pillars. Then, before a man could call for hot Scotch, I blinked my eyes open and saw Uncle Peter scuttling away, turned into a wee man not as big as a pencil.”

“And you let him go back to Hell?” I asked.

“I did so,” said the Laird of Lockleaven with a weary gesture. “After the unpleasant time he’d given I wouldn’t have saved Uncle Peter had I been able. Besides, there was no green glass bottle handy.”

VI

After the Laird of Lockleaven had told his tale, he closed his eyes like a man who is tired. The lamp on the table was going out in a fretful, flickering way; and had it not been for the lusty log in the fireplace, the room would have been as black as a cellar.

“I’m afraid I’m keeping you out of bed, Mr. Lockleaven,” I said at last. “There’s the dampness of morning in the air. Why not turn in and leave me here? I’ll be off when the light is strong enough to see the road by.”

But he wouldn’t listen to that. “No, no,” he said, sitting up with a start. “There are many matters we’ve got to face ere daybreak.”

“Matters to face, Mr. Lockleaven? What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I’m saying!” he cried, wiggling his beard at me in an excited way. “First we’ll drink a toast to the confusion of Hell; then we’ll prepare our plans.”

He rose to his feet and poured out two glasses of wine. Then he handed me one with a courtly bow, but he hid the other for an instant in the folds of his gown ere he lifted it on high.

“Here’s confusion to Hell!” he shouted, and drained the glass without once taking his lips from the brim.

“With all my heart, Mr. Lockleaven,” said I, following suit. “From what you’ve told me this night, ’tis not a country I’d like to be traveling in.”

“Then get yourself a green glass bottle when your time comes to die,” he muttered. “That’s what I’m doing this night.”

“But, Mr. Lockleaven,” I put in, persuasive enough, “your time’s not come yet. There’s a round score of years to run before you’ll be tipping your hat to the devil.”

At that, he laughed as wild as a loon on the lake. “So you think so, Dr. O’Brien?” he cried. “And do you suppose that I’d be willing to live those years with the devils of doubt gnawing away inside, not knowing at what moment my soul might pop out and be off to the wall of Hell? No, no, I’ve had enough of this life; now I’m just longing to rest in a green glass bottle.”

“Don’t tell me,” said I, “that you’ve—”

“Just that,” said he, very calm. “I’ve taken a wee nip of poison. It was in that glass of port. No, don’t trouble me, man,” — for I had leaped to my feet — “just give heed to my words.”

“If you’ve taken poison, I’ll have it out of you!” I cried.

“You’ll not,” said he, “for it’s—” And he mentioned the name of the deadliest drug known to man. “But there are matters of more importance on hand. Come close, for already I’m feeling its grip on me.”

As I bent over the dying Laird of Lockleaven, he raised his voice to a shrill halloo. “Meg!” he cried, “Meg! You bag of old bones, where are you?”

Now hardly had the echo of his voice died away, when I saw the library door swing open. And there, on the threshold, curtsying and grinning, was a scrawny old woman with the long white whiskers of a cat. In one hand she held something which flashed green where the light touched it.

“Have you got the bottle, Meg?” cried the Laird of Lockleaven.

“Aye, that I have, Robbie,” she cackled, stepping up to him like a walking broomstick. “’Tis the bonnie one oot o’ the cellar with the wee angels stamped all ower it. Ye can rest quiet betimes, Robbie.”

The Laird of Lockleaven heaved a deep sigh of relief and the twitching of his beard ceased as though by magic. “Well done, tried and trusted servant,” he muttered, and his chin sank down on his breast.

But soon he bethought himself of something and raised his great eyes to my face. “’Tis your duty as a medical-man, Dr. O’Brien,” he said with a catch in his breath which I knew meant the beginning of the end, “to tell Meg the exact moment when the spark of life flickers out; and then to help her find my soul and pop it into the bottle.”

“Whar think ye it’ll be hidin’ when it’s weel oot o’ your body?” piped Meg, champing her nutcracker jaws. “I dinna ken rightly whar to be searchin’.”

“Just search my body from top to toe!” cried the Laird of Lockleaven in a breaking voice. “And Dr. O’Brien, here, will be lending you a helping hand. Oh, but the pain grips me!” And his face seemed to writhe up into ridges and knots, while the knuckles of his hands stood out white from the grip he had on the arms of the chair.

Now, being a doctor of long experience, I had seen many men die in my time — some with a smile and a sigh like tired children going off to sleep, some fighting hard for their breath with the black dread of Hell deep down in their eyes, some making a great hubbub for fear St. Peter was taking a nap and wouldn’t open the gate to their rapping — but never one of them all had played such a tune on the strings of my heart as this long, lean Laird of Lockleaven.

We carried him over to the couch by the window where the light from the fire could scarce reach us. And we propped a pillow under his head, then sat ourselves down and waited for death and the morning. But how long the man took to die! A dozen times I thought his soul had sped; but when I’d bent down, I’d see the mournful gleam of his eyes and the twitch of his beard which meant that life was still in him.

Once he murmured low: “Have you the green glass bottle handy?”

And Meg, who held it tight to her breast, piped up: “I hae it, Robbie.”

Well, the gray of morning was sifting through the blind like the mildewed shreds of a rotting pall, when the Laird of Lockleaven sat up on a sudden as quick as the blade of a jackknife. “I’m a dead man!” he cried in a voice which seemed to come from far down underground. “I’m a dead man! Take heed, for my soul is ganging awa!” And at that he fell back with a gasp and a sigh.

But before I could so much as reach out to feel for his heart beats, Meg, that withered old witch, had sprung on him like a cat on a mouse. “I’ll find your bonnie soul, Robbie!” she mumbled. And she began to paw him in a manner I thought unseemly.

“Away with you, old she-cat!” I cried, for it made my blood run cold to see her antics. “Have you no respect for the dead?”

But she paid me no heed — just began to cackle away like a dozen hens disturbed in the night.

“Get out of this!” I shouted. “Get down from that perch, or I’ll give you the back of my hand!”

Now she let out a squeal like a Banshee; and I saw both her withered old hands slip under his robe and grip hold of something. Then she turned her head over her shoulder; and, though the light was still dim enough, I could see that her eyes were as bright as a toad’s and that the long gray hairs on her chin were trembling.

“I hae it fast!” she cried. “The soul of Robbie Lockleaven will no sup in Hell this day! Will ye just hand me the bottle, Dr. O’Brien?”

“I will not, Meg,” I said, for the light of dawn was giving me commonsense. “All night I’ve been lending an ear to the most scandalous lies that ever were told. You’re mad, like your master before you; and I’m through with dancing attendance on goblins and fairies.”

“Mon, mon,” cried Meg in a voice shrill with alarm, “don’t be standin’ there blasphemin’! If ye willna bring me the bottle, just grip Robbie’s wee soul tight — it’s owerstrong for these auld fingers!”

Well, as you’ve found out by this for yourselves, I am an accommodating, easy-going man. In an instant I realized that the only way to get Meg off her master’s chest was by humoring her a bit. Madness is kindlier disposed when you pat it on the back. So I nodded my head, without any more to say on the matter, and leaned down and put my hands where she showed me.

“Do ye feel the wee body o’ it?” she mumbled, cocking her eye at me.

“Yes,” said I — for at the moment I had felt something through his robe which might have been a chamois-bag where he kept a charm against evil.

“Weel, hold tight to it,” she said, “while I’m gettin’ the bottle. A human soul is an unco canny beastie when it’s fairly oot o’ the body.”

“Never you fear for that,” said I. “I’ll never let go of it this side of Hell.”

I’ve often noticed that when a man throws big brave words up into the air they’re as like as not to come down on his head. So it happened to me. No sooner had I said my say, thinking that I had a bag of beads in my fist and nothing more, no sooner had Meg come down from her perch and hobbled off for the bottle, than I let out a yell and loosened my grip. And well might I stagger back from the fright of it, for the bag had come alive in my hand.

Alive, did I say? Yes, and more than that. It had kicked out like a beast caught in a net; it had wriggled and turned; and, last of all, it had set its teeth in my thumb. And I have the scar to this day to prove that my story is true.

“Mother of God! What’s that?” I cried as soon as I could speak at all.

Then Meg spun around on her heel. “Ye fule!” she cried. “Ye have let Robbie’s soul slip frae your fingers!” And then, as I stood silent with a great fear at my heart, she scuttled back to the Laird of Lock leaven. “Quick!” she cried. “Dinna be gapin’ and gabblin’ there! On your knees, mon, and be searchin’ the floor; while I give a look to the couch.”

Well, I did as she told me — for, somehow or other, I believed all she said. But it was a black business crawling over the carpet, with not light enough yet to make out what lurked in the corners. Once I caught sight of something near the fireplace which scampered away into the wall when I reached out a hand. What ever it was, it was too quick to be caught by a portly old chap on all fours. At last, winded and dusty, I climbed to my feet.

Meg, too, had given up the search. She now sat beside her dead master, rocking back and forth, her face in her hands. Never will I forget that scene if I live to be a hundred — the pallid light of dawn resting on both the quick and the dead; the Laird of Lock leaven rumpled and shaken like a pillow in the search for his soul; and that old hag, crouched down beside him, swinging back and forth like a gate in the wind.

“The Laird of Lockleaven is ganging awa!” she moaned.

“Nonsense, woman!” I cried sharply enough. “’Twas nothing more nor less than a mouse in his gown. Now I’m off to the village for help. He’s in no fit state to go into his grave.”

But Meg never so much as lifted her face from her hands. Bending backward and forward, giving no heed to my words, she mournfully chanted that dismal refrain: “The Laird of Lockleaven is ganging awa! the Laird of Lockleaven is ganging awa!” And to my over-strained nerves it seemed, that behind the wainscoting in the wall, I heard an echo of her lament rising and falling with the melancholy cadence of the wind: “The Laird of Lockleaven is ganging awa! — The Laird of Lockleaven is ganging awa!”

•   •   •   •   •

You have heard my story. Now, what do you think? Was it a mouse I held in the fold of his gown, or was it But why should I put such thoughts in your head? They’ve worried me now for ten long years worried me so that each night I put my ear to the wall, listening and wondering, till I seem to hear voices and music and the treading of feet.

Perhaps it was a mouse after all. Don’t let such thoughts work into your mind. If they once get in, they’ll rattle about like dice in a cup. And they’ll make you do very strange things — things which you wouldn’t confide to your neighbors.

What sort of things? Why, soon you’ll be collecting bottles of every shape and size known to man — little ones and big ones, thin ones and fat ones, round ones and square ones.

And here’s a queer thing! They may be all shapes, and they may be all sizes; but there’s only one color you’ll want. And that color will be green — pale green like the sea. Isn’t that strange, now?

“All-Story Weekly”, 12 Dec 1918

Silent, White and Beautiful
and Other Stories (1920)

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)

A Bit of a Banshee

Shaemas O’Shea was walking along Mulberry Lane. He carried a hat — but not on his head. It was tucked away beneath his arm; and his crop of crisp black curls bobbed this way and that in the mad March breeze. The sullen sun painted his shadow on the sidewalk behind him. Long and thin and black it was, with a droop of the head to the left which bespoke either deep thought or strong drink.

“Well, here I am,” young Shaemas was thinking, “clear out of Ireland and all, on a crooked street with the sun being murdered in front of me by the bloody look of the sky, and with never an adventure to lay hand to.”

Now it wasn’t more than a stride further down Mulberry Lane he’d got, before an adventure pops out of a lopsided house and grabs him by the bony elbow. And like all adventures that happen to young poets, this one was a girl — only prettier than most, plump as a partridge, with eyes as ornamental as they were useful, which says more for them than ever Shaemas O’Shea said afterwards in spite of the beautiful words the man had on the tip of his gen for a penny apiece.

“You’re a poet?” she cried, holding fast to him like she was afraid he might bolt.

“I am,” he answers without mincing the matter. “And pleased to serve you,” says he with a low bow, “any hour of the day or night.”

“Then come along inside,” she says. “Mother’s waiting.”

“Waitin for whom?” he asks, puzzled.

“Why, for you first; and for death afterwards,” she replies, dragging him up the stoop by the arm. “Would you be cooling your heels down here when there’s a dying woman beckoning to you?”

Well, as Shaemas O’Shea has since told me, his head was in such a whirl from the dark beauty of the lass and the strange tongue of her, that she could have led him straight into the red hot belly of Hell and never a whimper out of him. Was she not an adventure — and a damned pretty one at that — and was he not a poet, as mad as most, with a soft spot in his heart and his head for the likes of her?

So Shaemas O’Shea didn’t hold back at all — just followed her lead, up the crumbling stoop of the lopsided house and into a hall as black as a cellar. Pretty soon they came to a door with a flicker of candlelight stealing out through the crack of it.

“Mother,” she calls, “I’ve found my young man.”

“Bring him in,” says a voice as mournful as the wind wailing through a keyhole. “Bring him in, dearie. There’s not much light left in my eyes nor breath in my lungs.”

So the girl leads Shaemas O’Shea in by the hand. And there are lighted candles standing on the mantlepiece which show him a little brown mummy of a woman lying in the middle of a big four-poster bed. There are more hairs on her chin than on the top of her head; her eyes are like dying coals in the fireplace; and there are so many deep wrinkles in the wizened face of her that when she opens her mouth to speak it gives him a start, he having guessed that it lay lower.

At the first glance Shaemas sees only her; but now a big, round-bellied priest rises up from the floor where he’s been telling his beads, and makes the sign of the cross like he’s in dead earnest about it. Trembling all over he is, like a holy man made out of jelly; and he has such a grip on his crucifix that the knuckle-bones in his hands stand out as white as water-washed pebbles.

“Come over to the bed, young man,” the old woman croaks, beckoning to Shaemas O’Shea with a skinny forefinger. “You’re in time for the wedding.”

“And who’ll be getting married?” he asks, innocent like, stepping up to her.

“Listen to the gay young spalpeen!” the old woman cried with a twitch of a smile thrown at the priest. “And him a poet, with an imagination and all! Sure, my dear young man, who would be getting married but just you and my daughter, Bridget?”

“But I wasn’t thinking of getting married, Mam,” says Shaemas O’Shea, knocked all of a heap like.

“Sure, and you wouldn’t,” she agrees, smooth as syrup. “And what man would be getting married who had given a thought to it first? Father Flynn, are you ready to make them man and wife?”

“I am, Widow Malone,” says the priest, hoarse as a crow.

“But I’m not ready,” Shaemas O’Shea cried out. “Why, I’ve never been properly introduced to your daughter.”

“Marriage will take care of that,” she replies. “Sure, ’tis the only way for a girl and boy to be knowing each other! Introduced, is it? Faith, you’d think that this lad was the Prince of Wales — bad cess to him! — and not a hobble-de-hoy, hayrick poet with more words than praties in his belly!”

“But how did you know I was a poet?” Shaemas O’Shea asks to gain time. ‘

“Never you trouble your poor head over that, my lad,” she says, real motherly. “You’re a poet, right enough — both by the look and the smell of you — and all you’re needing is a bit of a wife to steady you. Didn’t I see you coming two blocks away; and, me being at death’s door with a great sickness, didn’t I say to Bridget here: ‘There’s a husband for you, walking down Mulberry Lane; so just you go out and catch the lad, dearie, and be bringing him in to me.’”

“But my head’s spinning around,” says poor Shaemas O’Shea. “How could you be telling that I was coming down Mulberry Lane — you a dying woman, tied to your bed by mortal sickness?”

“That’s no great matter,” she says, rather proud. “If you must know, ’tis just a touch of second-sight I inherited from my grandmother who was burned for a witch in the old country.”

“If it’s the gospel truth you’re speaking,” says Shaemas O’Shea, shaking his head, “Why, then this same second-sight should have told you that there’s nothing at all in my pockets but holes. A poet makes a poor husband, if reports of the breed are
true; and a poor poet is like a millstone ‘round a pretty girl’s neck, and her fallen into the ocean.”

“Maybe you’re right,” replies Widow Malone. “But I’ve just set my heart on seeing Bridget married and settled down before I’m laid at rest. And there are only two kinds of men would be appreciating my daughter’s peculiar gift — an undertaker and a poet. As for myself, being o d and sensible-minded, I favored an undertaker; but Bridget would have none of him.”

“I can see your point, Mam,” says Shaemas O’Shea, still hopeful. “There’s your funeral to be thought of — the expense of having to do the thing proper outside the family circle. I think it unreasonable and undutiful of Bridget not to be minding—”

But at this point in his fine speech, just as he’s thinking of winding it up with a flourish and taking his departure, there comes a sudden interruption which chokes off the high sounding words in his throat. Bridget, who’s been holding tight to his arm all this time as silent as sin, lets out a screech with a twitter in the middle of it, like an owl makes in the still of the night — a weird yowl it was, lonely and drear as the devil’s laughter coming up from some deep pit in the earth — a cry fit to make the gooseflesh ripple up a rave man’s back and a bald man thankful that he lost the hair on the top of his head.

Widow Malone sits up as quick as the blade of a jackknife, while Father Flynn begins mumbling a bit of a prayer. And as for Shaemas O’Shea — why, he gives Bridget’s mouth, which is like the letter O, a curious glance and lets on to himself that he’ll not be going yet awhile.

“I thought that would interest you,” says Widow Malone. “There isn’t every girl, my dear young man, born with a gift like Bridget’s. Father Flynn be quick with the marriage. Death’s got a grip on my throat!”

“Hold on!” cries Shaemas O’Shea. A poet he was, but not the man to lose his head entirely just because a girl had a yowl not common to most. “Hold on!” he says. “I’m not marrying till I learn the truth of this matter. I’ll acknowledge that your daughter has just emitted a yell which stirs my imagination. It made me see an evil moon, like a fiery white face with the skull showing through; a bare, wind-twisted tree with a row of vultures perching on it mournful; a battlefield where dead soldiers are searching for parts of themselves that they lost in the big fight; a funeral where the late-departed is driving the hearse; a suicide; a murder; a—”

“Who cares what you saw?” Widow Malone breaks in with scant ceremony. “Keep your poetry to yourself. I’m only a poor practical, dying woman with a grown daughter to marry off.”

“No offense meant, Mam,” says Shaemas O’Shea, very humble. “I’m only wanting to know whether this howl of your daughter’s was come by naturally?”

“Sure, and it was,” the old woman replies. “Her own grandmother was that way till they stones her to death back of the churchyard.”

“And what way was that way?” asks Shaemas O’Shea.

“Why a bit of a banshee, to be sure!” Widow Malone cries, nearly out of breath and quite out of patience. “Don’t tell mt that you, who call yourself a poet, never heard tell of a banshee!”

“I have that, Mam,” Shaemas O’Shea replies, speaking up for himself. “They’re spirits in the old country that whimper and whine outside a house where they’ll be hanging crape in the morning.”

“True for you,” she says. “That’s a banshee. Now sometime: in my gifted family there’s a baby born, like Bridget here, with the yowl of a banshee inside her. Sure, it’s a strange and wonderful gift!”

“Aye, that it is,” puts in Father Flynn. “And it’s a rare gift to have a banshee bride.”

“That’s true enough, holy father,” says Shaemas O’Shea “But is Bridget reliable?”

“As true as the clock strikes,” Widow Malone says proudly.

And at that Shaemas O’Shea makes up his mind. He had wanted adventure — — well, here it was to be had for the plucking A man could go further and fare worse.

“Sure,” he says to himself, “Bridget is as pretty a banshee as a lad could find in a night’s walk. And that cute little howl of he stirs the imagination in me. It’s a powerful poet I’d be with h at my elbow!”

So when Father Flynn steps up to the pair of them Shaemas O’Shea never so much as blinks an eyelash. Patient as Job he is till it’s all over, and him turned into a husband now, the head of a house with no house to go to, and maybe the father sometime of baby banshees — patient he is till the knot is tied, then he turns to Widow Malone.

But she isn’t there any more — just the broken shell of her, dead and flat on her back as a flounder. Smaller she looks, and more withered; and the second-sight has flickered out of her rolled-up eyes. The practical dying woman is a practical dead woman now — with no fun to her at all, like you see sometimes when the going is easy, but just a sour determination writ on her wrinkled old face to be made tidy as soon as may be tucked away in her coffin.

“No wonder she favored an undertaker over a poet,” says Shaemas O’Shea to himself with a shudder. “To think that such a practical, far-seeing woman should have given birth to a banshee!”

•   •   •

Now there are plenty of tales told round the peat fires in old Ireland about Shaemas O’Shea and his banshee bride, Bridget — black stories for the most art, giving little credit to the pair of them. They do say in the County of Cork, where this grand poet was born, that Shaemas, in spite of his fine scorn of things worldly, was not above hiring out his gifted woman at so much a night to the undertakers. They tell how these undertakers would be leading her from one darkened house to another in the big city till she’d stop short in her tracks, throw back her head, and let out a yowl. And then they say as how these penny-pinching blackguards would be putting down the numbers of the houses where Bridget had stopped so that they could be sending ‘round their cards bright and early in the morning.

However that may be, Shaemas O’Shea made money, one way or another — enough for their passage back to the old country — and it was here I met him one summer afternoon, with his good wife beside him, sitting pensive like on the top of a hayrick.

“Home again, Shaemas?” says I.

“Home again, Pat,” he answers, rather sour, “if you might call this mound of moldy hay a home.”

“Poets have fared worse,” I says, remembering his calling.

“Sure, and poets have fared better,” he replies with a scoff. “Why, I’ve been paid as high as a penny a word for my writing in New York City!”

“Your wife?” I inquires.

“Sure, my wife,” he lets on mighty proud. “Perhaps you’ve heard tell that she’s a bit of a banshee?”

“I have that,” I replies, doffing my hat to the slim, silent, owl-eyed woman beside him. “It’s all over Ireland.”

“Is that so?” he says, very pleased. “News travels fast in the old country.”

“Have you heard tell about your Uncle, Shaemas?” says I. “Not the poor one who through drink is living in Widow Rorke’s pigs; but the rich one who owns the grand house on the brow of the hill.”

“Not a word, Pat. What’s come to him?”

“Nothing — ’less it is death. The man’s a sick man, and he’s been asking for you.”

“I’ve heard that tale before,” Shaemas replies with a doubtful shake of the head. “But each time I’ve gone to his deathbed only to find that he wasn’t so sick that he couldn’t get better.”

“There’s your banshee bride,” I reminds him. “Sure, couldn’t she be sniffing out the truth of the matter?”

And at that, Shaemas O’Shea grins all over his face. “A true word you’ve spoken, Patrick McNulty!” he says from the top of his hayrick. “And to think that it should be me who was forgittin’ what Bridget could do when the mood’s on her! Tonight, the moon rises, we’ll be taking ourselves up to the meadow of my dear uncle’s house. Maybe he’s bought himself a fierce dog, Pat?”

“The devil a one,” I tell him, “that a proper banshee can scare the bark out of by just a good yowl or two. I’m wishing you luck, Shaemas; for your uncle’s a cruel, hard landlord, and I’ve been owing him a bit of money these three months past.”

“We’ll be canceling that bit of a debt,” he says, “and all goes well with our venture. Keep your ears open, come midnight, man, and it may be you’ll be hearing a bit of a screech. Good-by to you, Patrick McNulty.”

Well, it so happened that I didn’t give the matter much more thought. That night I slept so sound that I snored the pig awake. But I was up betimes in the morning and over to the big house to see how Peter O’Shea was faring.

Poorly he looked, with his nightcap set all awry on his head and the face of the man as yellow as ripe corn in the bin. But for all that he wasn’t forgetting the trifle of money I was owing him — him with his treasure chest fairly bursting with gold, enough for a lifetime, and the man’s days were fewer in front of him than the toes on his feet!

“Have you a dog that howls at the moon, Pat?” he asks as I’m about to take my departure.

“The devil a one,” says I.

“There was such a beast outside my window last night. He kept me awake till morning.”

“And that will be a bad omen, Mr. O’Shea,” says I.

“The devil a bit,” says he. “It’s a good omen, and I’ll be proving it. My nephew came back to me from foreign parts this day.”

“Not Shaemas?” says I, acting surprised like.

“Him and none other,” says he. “And he’s married a pretty young wife and settled down. ‘I’m through with poetry, Uncle Peter,’ he tells me. ‘I’ve come home to help you work your land’. And there he is now, down by the brook, plowing up the rich black soil.”

“Shaemas O’Shea plowing in this broiling sun?” says I.

“Him and none other,” says old man O’Shea very proud. “Just you step down that way, Pat, and you’ll be seeing him or yourself.”

Well, I did as he told me; and pretty soon I came on Shaemas working like a red hot devil out of hell. Seeing me, he stopped for a moment and wiped the honest sweat out of his eyes.

“I see you’ve turned farmer, Shaemas,” I says.

“Yes, bad cess to that withered limb of an uncle of mine!” he replies with a scowl. “’Tis the only way I can make my peace with him. Six days more, and the place will be mine; then I’m through with this dirty business.”

“Six days from now you’ll be master here?” I ask.

“Six days and no more,” says he. “Bridget yowled six times last night — a yowl for each day left him, as her custom is, and, come Saturday next, Uncle Peter will have breathed his last. It’s a comforting thing to think on.”

“I’d better be off home,” I tell him. “You’ll be wanting to get back to work.”

“Not wanting,” says he; “but that old fox has his face at the window, and it’s best that I appear industrious. Good-day to you, Patrick McNulty.”

Well, I bid him good-day and leave Shaemas O’Shea to his toil. And a sweating time he has over it — he being a poet born and no hand with a plow — while all the time his uncle’s looks out out at him through a bedroom window. And yellow it is as the pumpkins the lads cut eye-holes in for the candlelight to flicker through on an All Souls’ Eve; and there’s a mad tuft of beard on the chin of it, wiggling this way and that, like a handful of corn-silk caught up by the breeze.

So that’s the last I ever see of Shaemas O’Shea’s uncle in the live flesh like he was born.

•   •   •

They’ll still be telling in the old country of what a grand man Shaemas O’Shea was making of himself after his good wife, Bridget — her who was maybe a bit of a banshee — yowled Peter O’Shea into his grave. And they’ll be telling you of the fine clothes he was wearing, and the good drink that brightened the nose of the man, and the rich food that swelled out his belly — but not a whisper you’ll hear as to how he came to be writing that powerful poem that made him famous around the world and back again.

Sure, there’s none knows the truth of that business but just myself, and maybe a pig or two, and the little red cock that roosts each night on the foot of my bed, and the calf — but perhaps he was sleeping — and the two sheep I bought from Anna Mulvane, and the bit of a little brown hen that cackled and laid an egg the midst of it. Fowls and dumb beasts, you’ll be saying; but are they not the best listeners to a man when black trouble is astride the back of him?

It all came about some six years after Peter O’Shea was laid to rest in the churchyard. A black night it was, with never a star aquiver — a night fit for witches and banshees and the like of that to be having a fling with us mortals — a night when a Christian is safer beside his own fireside, with the crucifix handy to hit the devil over the head and the dirty thief come in by the door.

Well, it was me that was sleeping peaceful that night. Peaceful and warm I was, dreaming a bit of a dream with no harm to it, when all of a sudden I was yanked out of my sleep as though by the hair of the head.

A banshee yowl had come down the wind to me, clear and true as a bugle-call. And the mournfulest yowl it was — a yowl like a corpse would make should his widow sit on his grave with her lover; a yowl fit to quicken the dead and freeze the living.

“That will be over by the big house,” I tell myself. “Bridget is prowling a bit on the grounds. It’s Shaemas O’Shea who should be putting a muzzle and chain on her. ’Tis not right that a hard-working man like me should be despoiled of his sleep by a banshee, and she a married woman. It’s me that will be putting in a complaint at the big house come morning.”

But there I was wrong, for who should come striding down the hill but Shaemas O’Shea before the dawn was gray in the sky. And a sick man he looked, for all the fat of him.

“You’re up early, Mr. O’Shea,” says I, very polite. “Will you be taking a seat?”

“I will that,” says he, “for I’m needing it. And don’t be calling me Mr. O’Shea,” he says, “but Shaemas — poor Shaemas O’Shea who married a bit of a banshee.”

“Poor?” says I. “Sure, you’re having a joke on me.”

“The devil a joke, Pat,” he says, very serious. “Poor I said and poor I’m meaning. A man’s wealth lies in the days of his life — for the doing of God’s work and the like of that — and it’s Shaemas O’Shea who will be cold as the fish in the sea come the Sabbath! It’s a dying man I am, Pat — me who was a grand poet in New York City!”

“A dying man?” says I. “Sure, you’re having a bit of a joke, Mr. O’Shea. Young you are yet — young and fast as a round-rumped bullock. ’Tis my own self is nearer the graveyard.”

“Not so it is,” he says, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Just give ear to what I’ll be telling you.”

“I’m all ears,” says I, “and eyes for the crying. Tell us your tale, Mr. O’Shea.”

“Tonight’s a black night,” says he, “a black and sorrowful night for Shaemas O’Shea. Sleeping I was and dreaming a bit of a dream of all the good I was doing the countryside, when what should I hear but a bit of a screech.

“‘That will be Bridget,’ I tell myself, ‘singing her song of death outside of old Squire Clancy’s door — him whom I housed for the night after his hunter went lame on him. I’d best be getting my hand over her mouth for this is no way to be entertaining a guest at the dead of the night.’

“Well, Pat,” says he, “I was half right and half wrong, as the saying is. It was Bridget, sure enough; but the devil a bit she was serenading Squire Clancy. She was nearer home. Nearer did I say? By the saints above and the devils below, there she sat at the foot of my bed — she, in her nightgown and slippers, with a dreamy look in her big black eyes — there she sat, with her head thrown back, howling her own good man into his grave!”

“Maybe there’s some mistake, Mr. O’Shea.”

“The devil a mistake!” says he. “Six yowls she let out of the ungrateful throat of her — the throat down which my partridges have gone, and my pastry, and my wine — six yowls and no more, a yowl for each day in which the breath of life is left me. A cruel business, Pat!”

“Cruel and hard, Mr. O’Shea,” says I very polite, but not forgetting the bit of silver I’d been owing him for more than a month. “Cruel and hard, sir, but the ways of the Almighty are passing strange.”

“This is more like the work of the devil,” says he. “It’ll be a black day for Ireland when they’ll be putting Shaemas O’Shea under the sod. It was me who was a grand poet in New York City,” he says. “Did you know that they paid me a penny a word for my writings, Pat?”

“I did that,” I replied. “Sure, it must have been the fine words you had in you! But where have they all flown to since you got back to the old country?”

“I’ve wasted them,” says he, “on the viper I took to my bosom. And for all the fineness of them, and the worth of them and the grand sound they made when flung on the air, it’s her that’s closed her ears to them more times than once! An extravagant woman when it came to wasting her husband’s words, Pat!”

“True for you, sir,” says I. “It’s you that’s been too kind to her.”

“I have that,” says he. “And who should be more grateful than a banshee when a man is willing to be lending her his good name?”

“And her to be keeping it after he has no further use for it,” says I. “’Tis she that should be grateful, Mr. O’Shea.”

At that Shaemas O’Shea rises up in a hurry and lets on that it’s time he was taking to his bed. “It’s only decent,” says he, “that a dying man should stay on the flat of his back and not be lending false hope to others by walking about brave in the sunlight.”

“And how are you faring, Mr. O’Shea?” says I.

“As well as could be expected with death ‘round the corner,” gays he. “Draw up your chair, Pat, for there’s a poem I want to be reading you.”

But just as I’m doing what he asks me, and just as he’s turning over his papers and clearing his throat, who should come in by the door but her who was Bridget Malone. As pale as a moonbeam she is; and she stands there staring at the two of us with the great round eyes of an owl. Then she lets a little low cry out of her, like a starving cat makes when a bird swoops over its head, and down she sinks at the foot of the bed all of a heap like. And silent she is from that time forward — more silent than is healthy in a woman whose husband is readin his poetry.

“You heard her, Pat?” says Shaemas O’Shea with a bitter smile. “And that’s the viper I’ve treasured in my bosom!”

“A sad end to be yowled into the grave by the missus,” says I.

“Sad is no name for it,” says he. “But as the tongue of her is quiet for the time, we’ll just be getting on with the poem.”

Now you’ve all heard tell of “The Lament of Shaemas O’Shea,” for it’s a poem that has been ‘round the world like a traveling salesman. But there are deaf people and blind people and people with no more book learning in their heads than have Widow Rorke’s pigs, and to them I’ll be having a word to say on the matter.

“The Lament of Shaemas O’Shea” is a sorrowful poem with six parts to it — one part for each day after Bridget howled first in the dead of the night. Starting out in a rage and a blind wonder and a questioning of Providence who has blundered so badly as to bundle such a gifted man into his grave, we find this grand poem winding along more tranquilly and sorrowfully and philosophically to the sea of death.

And now Shaemas is wondering why the sweet little flowers are creeping up from the earth when soon there will be no proper nose in all Ireland to sniff the fragrance out of the hearts of them. And won’t the moon be wearing a widow’s veil for Shaemas O’Shea — for him who sang about the white loveliness of her in New York City for a penny a word? Sure, she would be doing just that. Then what would the lovers do, and the mad people and the tides she beckoned up on the beach? And the sun? Wouldn’t he be thinking it was a cruel injustice to his good friend Shaemas O’Shea and not be lending his warmth and his light to the world any more? And the stars? Who had treated them so kind in poetry as just Shaemas O’Shea? Were they the ones to forget? And there were the birds, and the wind, and the grass underfoot, and the tall trees that wagged their green tongues in the gloaming, and the great blue sea beyond — sure, what would be the use of them all once Shaemas O’Shea was laid in his grave?

Sure, it’s a grand poem, whether you look at it from in front or behind. And Shaemas O’Shea was the man to do it justice that night.

“Well, what are you thinking of it, Pat?” said he when he was done.

“A great and grand poem, Mr. O’Shea!” I tell him, wiping the tears out of my eyes. “It’s a genius you are, and a credit to Ireland!”

“That’s true enough,” says he, without mincing the matter. “Now just be taking a look at the clock yonder.”

“It’s midnight,” says I.

“To the minute?” he says, sitting bolt upright in bed and looking surprised.

“To the minute, Mr. O’Shea,” says I, “and a fraction beyond.”

“Then it’s me should be a dead man!” cried Shaemas O’Shea. “‘Twas at midnight that Bridget first started to yowl!”

“And are you not feeling sick?” says I.

“The devil a bit!” he replies, hopping out of bed as brisk as a cat. “What can be the meaning of it? Bridget!” says he, giving his wife a shake by the shoulder. “Bridget,” he yells, “it’s past midnight, and I’m still on the two feet of me!”

But she makes him no answer — just lies there regardless of the man and his hand on her shoulder. And now the truth sweeps over Shaemas O’Shea like an ocean wave and drops him to his knees.

“She’s dead,” he says in a low voice. “Bridget is dead.”

“And it will not be as bad as that,” says I.

“She’s dead,” he says, like he hadn’t heard me at all. “And to think that it was me who called her this and called her that — thinking that she was yowling Shaemas O’Shea into his grave while all the time it was only her own death she was giving tongue to under the moon! Sure, Bridget, my darling, it’s a sad and desolate man you’re leaving behind.”

“But a fine poet, Mr. O’Shea,” I says to console him.

“Aye, thanks to Bridget here,” says he, looking up through his tears. “’Twas her and the gift of her that went into the making of ‘The Lament of Shaemas O’Shea.’ And oh, Pat,” he says in a voice all broken with sobs, “’twas a grand adventure to be married to a bit of a banshee!”

“Forum”, Dec 1924

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)

The Son of Shaemas O’Shea

Now maybe you’ve heard tell of Shaemas O’Shea and his banshee bride, Bridget, and of the grand poet he was making of himself when his. good missus yowled herself into her grave. And maybe it’s you that’s been wondering what came to the poor lad after the dirty grave digger dropped green sods on the better half of him. Sure, and if you’re wanting to be put straight on the matter, ’tis my own self will loosen the tongue out of my cheek.

After the wake was over and the burying was over, a sad and desolate man was Shaemas O’Shea. Land and a grand house he had; and a pot of money to spend, with a comfortable belly to be spending it on — still a sorrowful face he turned on the world and wet eyes to the sky. Like a sick bull, he went bellowing across his broad acres with no pride to him at all.

One morning, before sun-up, I catches him at it — or, maybe, it was him that catches me, snaring one of his hares back of a hedge. Whichever way it was, we had a few words on the matter.

“Good morning, Mr. O’Shea,” says I, very polite, holding the hare behind the back of me.

“You’re up early, Mr. O’Shea,” says I.

“It’s me that’s never been to bed at all, at all,” he replies, rolling a gloomy eye on me. “But who’s given you leave to be snaring my hares, Patrick McNulty? Let me be tending you a piece of advice,” he says very sorrowful. “What a man can’t be hiding behind the back of him, is better not hid.”

“Sure, Mr. O’Shea,” I says,“it’s you that’s too smart for me altogether. You’ve spoiled the bit of a surprise I had planned for you. Worrying about your health and your loss of appetite, ’twas me that was bringing up to your worship’s house this prize hare that’s been raised on the very sweetest of greens for your honor’s own table.”

“’Tis a wonder bees don’t fly into your mouth when you open it, Pat,” he says. “Sure, the tongue of you drips honey. But let’s have a look at the beast.”

Well, I would have been doing what he asked me, only the jaws of my trap had left the mark of their nip on the hare’s off hind paw; so, instead, I let her slip out of my hand, as though by chance, and away she hops over the meadow.

“Bad cess to her!” I yells. “She’s got clean away from me! The devil’s in the beast,” I says, “not wanting to be served at your honor’s table. Look at her hop, and with never a kindly glance thrown over her shoulder. There hops ingratitude,” I tells Shaemas O’Shea.

“Ingratitude with a lame paw,” he replies with the twitch of a smile. “Sure, I’m thinking the poor beast has felt the jaws of a trap. But we’ll be saying no more about that for the present, for I’m a sad and sorrowful widow man who’s wanting a word of good cheer and advice.”

“And whatever you may be wanting, I’ll be pleased to be giving,” I says, very generous. “What black troubles have their teeth in you, Mr. O’Shea?”

“Troubles enough, Pat,” says he with a sigh. “Here am I, with a grand house on the brow of the hill and a grand name for the writing of poetry, and with never a chick nor a child to be calling my own, nor a good wife left to be warming my bed for me on these cold winter nights. ’tis lonely I am and solitary as a snail; and, although the editors in New York City are hot after me to be writing them another grand poem, ’tis naught I can do but just twiddle my thumbs. The devil a word I can be writing, Pat, without a beautiful and unusual and gifted woman’s got a finger in my ink pot,” says he.

“And that’s the way with most poets, Mr. O’Shea,” I tell him. “Sure, they’re the lads to be wanting the women. Still, in a case like yours, with a banshee bride safe under ground these twelve months, ’tis not such an unreasonable wish to be wishing over your left shoulder at the new moon. Children and a wife, is it? And which will you be wanting first?”

“A wife,” says he, as moral as you please.

“Grandly spoken,” says I. “But if a wife is all you’re wanting at first, Mr. O’Shea, sure, ’tis you, and the likes of you, that could be taking your pick of them from here to Dublin.”

“Mayhaps,” says he, “and be no better pleased at the altar. Remember, Patrick McNulty, it’s none other than Shaemas O’Shea who’s to be contented in the matter — him who lived a handful of years with a bit of a banshee. Do you think it likely now that a man would be taking home with him just any common colleen on two legs? No, Pat — after Bridget Malone — there’s no other wife I’ll be having but just one with a peculiar gift of her own.”

“If you’re meaning banshees, Mr. O’Shea,” says I, “sure, there’s none left of them in Ireland at all, since the church won’t be letting them get married offhand.”

“That’s true enough,” he replies. “But are there not others abroad after nightfall with a gift or two? Come, Pat, be thinking a thought for me, for I’m clean desperate for a bit of a romance.”

Well, I thought so hard that my head ached and then I remembered old Witch Gafhney. And, by the same token, I recalled her long-legged daughter, Monica — she who had found the last snake left in Ireland and had a bad name in the countryside for giving the lie to Saint Patrick. So I up and spoke about the pair of them to Shaemas O’Shea.

“How would a witch be suiting you, Mr. O’Shea?” I says.

“Not so bad, Pat,” he replies a bit thoughtful. “There should be inspiration for the writing of poetry in a witch. But who have you in mind, Pat?”

“Witch Gafhney,” I says, bold as brass.

“Her?” he cries, sorrowful like. “Why, there’s nothing at all to the woman but bones. I’m an ethereal dreamer and all, Pat, like they call me in the papers, but I’m damned if I’m not wanting a well-placed pound or two of flesh on a woman and she to be my wife. Think again, Pat.”

“There’s her daughter, Monica,” I says, more hopeful.

“She’s grown into a fine full armful for any man that’s not got the fear of Saint Patrick eating away at his heart. ’Tis Monica Gafhney who caught the only snake left in Ireland and is wearing the beast for a girdle about the slim waist of her.”

“You interest me, Pat,” Shaemas O’Shea replies. “And it’s me that will be paying my respects to Witch Gafhney this very day. But I’m not thinking that much will come of it. Snake charmers soon lose their charm for a man like me. But what sort of a snake is that she wears round her waist, Pat?”

“The last snake in Ireland,” says I..

“And that will be an uncommon snake,” he says, very pleased, “and by the same token, the colleen may be an uncommon colleen as well.”

“She’ll be that,” says I. “The own daughter of Witch Gafhney is sure to be having a gift or two, be it only the evil eye.”

But here I broke off with a cry of surprise, for what should I see but a hare come hopping across the meadow. And she was the same hare I had caught not an hour back, for I could see she was lame in the off hind paw. Up she hopped, cocking her eye at us most roguish; and then, as she passed Shaemas O’Shea, she waggled one of her ears at him like she was beckoning.

“Well,” says he, “the poor beast is sore hurt, Pat, and she’s begging to be put out of her misery. So it’s me that will be doing just that and then be taking her home to be cooked later. Shame on you, for your cruelty to dumb beasts, Pat,” he says, reaching down to get a grip on the ears of her.

But the hare dodges his hand as neat as you please; and off she hops, very slow and painful, with Shaemas O’Shea at the heels of her. Away the two of them go — she cocking her eye at him most coquettish; he waiting his chance to get a grip on her away they go, till pretty soon they’re lost entirely over the brow of the hill.

“And that will be a strange hare, Patrick McNulty,” I tell myself. “Did you see the pink, rolling, lovesick eyes of her? ’tis as well for you, my lad, that you let her go free. All the world over, the devil is catching good men in his trap; and, sure, ’tis only in Ireland that a Christian, like me, may be turning the tables on him.”

II

Now I didn’t give much thought to Shaemas O’Shea for upwards of a year, there being the pigs to tend and other matters more personal; so it was a surprise to me to learn that he’d been courting Monica Gafhney and married the girl outright in the teeth of the church. And all the neighbors were shocked like to hear of how Witch Gafhney and her broomstick had moved into the big house on the brow of the hill; for, as they reasoned it, a witch, if she is to be respected at all, must just stick to her own hut and not be putting on airs with the gentry and the wizards and the like of that. Sure, there she was, as snug as a flea on a sheep dog, in a grand room of her own at the top of the house, with her broomstick peeping out of the window, ready to hand on any black night when the wind was high.

And there was talk of how Shaemas O’Shea had been clean bewitched into marrying the girl — if a girl she was, which most misdoubted; and of how Bridget Malone, his banshee bride in the churchyard, would not be lying easy to see her good man in such wicked company, but would come popping out of the grave, like a Jack-in-the-box, on some All Souls’ Eve; and of how the master of the big house had bought himself a fine dog, and a cat, and a hare, and a bit of a pig to keep him company on the black nights when his wife and mother-in-law would be flapping up the chimney and off on the breeze. And there was a great deal more said not fit for a decent man to be lending an ear to; so I told them as much and went on tending to my own business, which was bad enough with the rent so high.

Now one night a matter of some few months after the wedding, while I’m sitting down before my bit of a fire, all snug and comfortable, there comes a tap on the door. And the little red cock wakes up and lets a shrill crow out of him; and the pig, that’s been snoring peaceable under the bed, starts squealing like a sharp knife was at the throat of him; and the fowls begin clucking altogether, same as frightened women in the dark.

“And who might that be?” says I, making the sign of the cross.

“It might be the devil,” says a voice that makes me feel easier. “It might be the devil, Pat; but, as it so happens, ’tis only Shaemas O’Shea.”

“Step in, Mr. O’Shea,” says I, drawing back the bolt from the door. “’Tis a proud man I am to be having the likes of you under my roof at any hour of the day or night.”

“Do you hear him?” he says, like he was speaking to someone out there in the dark. “’Tis you that have naught to be ashamed of with me for your lord and master. Trot in then, my beauty.”

And then, as I open the door wide for him, what should come limping in but a great white dog that’s a mite lame in the off hind paw — a dog carrying its fine bushy tail slicked back between its legs and looking a bit ashamed of itself, as a beast will do when a man gives it a boot in the ribs. Behind the dog, steps Shaemas O’Shea, very proud and happy, and careful not to be treading on its toes.

“And what do you think of her, Pat?” in one breath. “Isn’t she a beauty, now?” says he

Well, I’m not the man to be disappointing another in his choice — whether it be horse, woman, or dog — when a cheery word, perhaps, will be making him put his hand in his pocket. And so now — although I don’t fancy the way the brute slinks at my heels, with one eye cocked roguishly up at me praise for her slips out of my mouth most before I knows it. “A proper bitch, Mr. O’Shea,” I says to him. “As proper a bitch as a man ever laid eyes on.”

Now no sooner were these generous words out of me before I was regretting my kindness; for what does this misguided, misbegotten beast do but let a howl out of the ungrateful throat of her and nip me cruel by the calf of the leg. And then, before I can be giving her so much as the toe of my boot as a lesson in manners, she bolts out of the room through the half open door and gets clean away into the night.

“That will teach you to be keeping a civil tongue in your head, my man,” says Shaemas O’Shea, very red in the face. “Had she not nipped you sore, ’tis my own self would have blackened your eye.”

“And what may you be meaning by that, Mr. O’Shea?” says I, with my head in a whirl, standing on the one leg of me to ease the pain in the other. “Sure, I’m thinking ’tis mad you are like your hell hound before you. And it’s me that will be putting in a complaint at the magistrate’s come the morning and a petition to have that great, ugly beast shot that I was fool enough to say a good word for.”

“And do you call that a good word to be calling a lady, Pat?” says he with a scowl. “Take shame on your foul mouth to have hatched it! A lady is a lady, Pat, whether she be on two feet or all fours.”

“A lady!” says I very bitter. “Sure, if you call that limping, lopsided, cross-eyed—”

But at that Shaemas O’Shea drops a great hand over my mouth and pushes me back on the settle. And there’s the light of murder in the two blazing eyes of him.

“Silence, Pat!” he roars, like a lion, “or ’tis me that will be quieting you with that poker yonder! No man alive can be speaking so of the wife I’ve taken to my bosom!”

“Your wife!” says I, as soon as I can talk at all. “Your wife! And how may that be, Mr. O’Shea?”

“That’s simple enough,” he replies, calming down and rubbing the gleaming sweat from his brow. “’Tis you that’s been laboring under a slight miscomprehension. What you were taking for a beautiful, white collie dog, Pat, was nothing more nor less than Mrs. Shaemas O’Shea — God bless her!”

“Her that was Monica Gafhney?” says I.

“The same,” says he. “A gifted colleen, Pat, and I’m proud of her.”

“She makes up into a fine, big, broth of a dog,” I says, trying to sooth his wounded feelings. “And it’s the long, sharp teeth she has for biting! Sure, ’tis a lucky man you are, Mr. O’Shea.”

“I am that,” he says, very proud. “But you haven’t seen the half of her tricks. You should see her playing a pig, or a cat, or a rabbit. She does it so natural, Pat.”

“I can well believe it,” says I, tying a bit of a rag around my shinbone. “She was most uncommon like a dog just now. But you were saying, Mr. O’Shea, that she can play hare as well as hounds?”

“You should know that, Pat,” says he, giving me a nudge in the ribs, “for it was yourself who snared her in my hedge one day and then let her go free again.”

“So that was Monica?” says I with a start.

“None other,” says he. “’Twas Monica herself, come up to frisk a bit in my meadow.”

“But how often is she in the human flesh these days?” I ask him.

“Not so often as is wholesome,” says he with a gloomy face. “’Tis mostly like a whipped dog she goes about, Pat, since the Church refused to sanction our marriage. To a religious colleen, like Monica, a marriage in a lawyer’s office is next to no marriage at all.”

“That’s true enough,” says I. “But tell me this, your honor: Is it the way she feels that shapes her flesh?”

“Just so, Pat,” he tells me. “My Monica has the gift of giving free expression to her feelings — a grand and wonderful gift. All of us in this wicked world are animals under our skins. Take yourself, Pat — there’s a dozen kinds of dumb beasts under the thick hide of you. ’Tis true you favor an ape in the face — just as a I favor a lion — but both of us are but walking menageries at the best. When you sit yourself down at the table for a snack to eat after a long day in the fields, you still look like an ape, though you eat like a pig. When I write the beautiful love poetry to some colleen of my dreams, sure, I’m all tenderness and sweetness, like a cooing dove, and yet I still favor a lion.”

“And Mrs. O’Shea?” says I.

“Sure, Mrs. O’Shea, Pat,” he says, “is different from us poor common mortals. ’tis she who has the rare gift of giving free expression to her feelings. Faith, when she feels like a pig, Pat, my Monica turns into a pig; and when she’s feeling cattish, there she is again, with a long bushy tail and cruel claws to be scratching your eyes out; and when, perhaps, she’s feeling a mite low in her moral character, no dog could be baying at the sad moon sadder than her; and then, when it comes to having a family, sure I’m thinking that the rabbit in her won’t be disappointing me altogether.”

“And how did she come by this wonderful gift, Mr. O’Shea?” says I. “Is it Witch Gafhney’s doing?”

“No, no,” says he. “’Tis the snake that explained the trick to her — the last snake in Ireland that she caught with her own two hands. ’Tis a sly, little serpent, Pat. Sure, and didn’t he twine himself around Saint Patrick’s hose when he was driving out all the other reptiles from Ireland; and didn’t the holy man, taking him for a dispensation from Providence, let him go free? And so,” says Shaemas O’Shea to me, “’tis a garter snake that reptile’s been called from that day to this.”

“A sly little serpent, Mr. O’Shea,” I says.

“Sly is no name for him,” says he. “Sly and slick, Pat. And it’s him that’s been teaching my Monica to give free expression to her feelings.”

Well, Shaemas O’Shea told me a lot more about his Monica before he was through; of how when she was a cat — and that was when he had been having a glass too many with Squire O’Brien down at Tally-ho Hall, as like as not; or, perhaps, he’d only stopped on his way home from the hunt to be chucking Landlord Flaherty’s pretty barmaid under the chin — she would be hard to please, indeed, what with her yowling and her scratching at his boots with her claws. Not such a pleasant spoken pussy was she then; unless, by chance, a mouse scuttled out from the wall, when she’d be off in a fright to the back of a chair; for, cat or no cat, the colleen could not be forgetting that she was a woman born. And he let on as how sometimes the rich food at the big house went to her head — she being used to the coarse victuals in a poor witch’s house and how then she would be changing herself into a pig before his very eyes; and how that might have been embarrassing for company had she forgotten her manners, which, pig or no pig, were most genteel.

And he hinted that, as a dog, although she favored her bit of a bone, she was house broken quite and most delicate-natured in the parlor.

But, for all the brave words of the man, I could see that black trouble was astride the back of him. So I ups and tells him as much.

“There’s a hitch somewhere,” says I. “What’s ailing you, Mr. O’Shea?”

“I’m going to be a father within a month, Pat,” he burst out all of a sudden, and the tears are standing in his honest blue eyes. “Four weeks from now and there’ll be flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, squalling away in the big house on the brow of the hill.”

“And isn’t that grand news to think of, Mr. O’Shea!” says I, grasping his hand. “’Twas the dearest wish of your heart.”

“True for you, Pat,” he replies, chewing his under lip hard. “A child in the house is better than a fire on the hearth. And who has a better right to a son than just Shaemas O’Shea?”

“None,” says I.

“A fine, brave, upstanding son on two feet, that’s what I’m deserving sure enough and that’s what I’m not likely to be getting, Pat,” he says, smothering a sob. “It’s more like that a pup will be born to me; or a cat with my cast of features; or, maybe, a hare with ears like a jackass; or, yet again, a wee suckling pig.”

“Sure, and it won’t be as bad as that, Mr. O’Shea,” I tell him.

“And who’ll be knowing?” says he with a bitter smile. “My Monica’s been changing so rapid of late that God only knows what she’ll be like when the child is born of her. And I’ll be in two minds, Pat,” he tells me, “whether to be calling in Dr. McManus, of Dublin College, or Michael Leary, the Corktown vet.”

“You might better be calling in both,” I tells him, “and be taking no chances. If the worst comes to the worst, they could be having a consultation together which no one can live or die respectable without these days.”

“’Twill be a black hour for me, anyhow,” he says, biting his nails. “And I’m needing a tried and trusty friend to be lifting the whiskey glass to my lips when I’m wanting stimulants. Can I count on you, Pat?”

“Sure, and you can, Mr. O’Shea,” I tell him. “And, maybe, should it turn out to be a bit of a pig — which is liable to cause gossip among the gentry — I can be whisking it out of the house under my coat and away with it down to the cottage, where it will have all the comforts of home and friendly companionship.”

“A son of mine grunting under your bed?” he says with a shudder. “God save me from that, Pat!”

“Better under my bed with the other pig,” says I with some spirit, “than being pushed round in a little wheel chair with a lace cap, sitting coy on his head, and a bottle of milk in his snout.”

“You’re right, Pat,” he replies, in a voice all broken with sobs. “He’s yours if he’s born in any such blackguardly shape. But suppose the shaver turns out to be a mite of a cat, with my cast of features; or, maybe a dog with my eyes; or yet, again, a hare with my speed of foot and graceful carriage?”

“I’ll be taking any of them,” I says with more caution, “for a consideration. A pig I’ll cherish for just the love of it — but a dog, or a cat, or a hare, is another matter altogether. Pedigreed pets can be sold at the county fair; but, begging your pardon, Mr. O’Shea, what man in all Ireland would be buying for his broth of a boy a cat, a dog, or a hare, that’s half witch and half poet?”

“I’ll not be denying you’re right, Pat,” says he. “And, if the worst comes to the worst, it will be Shaemas O’Shea who’ll be putting his hand in his pocket. So I can be counting on you, Pat?”

“You can, Mr. O’Shea,” says I; and there and then we shake hands on it.

III

I’ll never be forgetting the night that Shaemas O’Shea’s son was born into the world. Clear it was, when I set out — clear and cold, with the sky all ablaze like a jeweler’s shop window. And, as I breasted the hill where the big house stands, the moon, white as a witch, was peeping crafty over Shaemas O’Shea’s rooftree.

“A grand night to be born into this wicked world,” I tell myself. “’Tis like nature not to be forgetting her good friend, Shaemas O’Shea, for the kind poetry he’s wrote about her at one time or another and she’s hanging out all those lucky stars in his honor.”

Well, I find the master of the big house waiting for me in the library, which once was his uncle’s; and, for all the healthy fat of the man, he’s trembling so from worriment that good whiskey is rolling down, over the rim of his glass. There’s no blood in his cheeks at all; and his eyes are near popping out of his head for the fear of what they’ll be seeing before morning.

“Set yourself down by the fireside, Pat,” says he, “and be pouring yourself out a glass of spirits. ’Twill not be long now before I’ll be getting an heir.”

“And isn’t that the grand news, Mr. O’Shea!” says I, doing as he bids me. “But how is the missus faring?”

“Better than might be expected, Pat,” he replies. “For near on a fortnight now she’s lain quiet in her bed like any common colleen in the County of Cork.”

“No changing from better to worse?” I ask him.

“Never a bark, or a grunt, or a yowl out of her,” he says very pleased. “And only last night she unwinds the sly little serpent from off the waist of her and throws the dirty blackguard head over heels out through the window.”

“Sure, it’s glad I am to hear you say that, Mr. O’Shea,” I tell him. “So she’s set in her ways of being a woman at last?”

“I’ll not be going so far as to say that,” he replies, wiping the glistening sweat from his brow. “She’s been most unnaturally sweet and good tempered and angelic — yes, that’s the word, Pat — for any woman it’s been my luck to break bread with in this wicked world.”

“And that will be good news, indeed, Mr. O’Shea,” says I. “’Tis the motherhood bubbling up in her.”

“But, oh, Pat,” he says, “it’s not natural at all to be seeing my wild Monica lying there, for all the world like a white feathery angel!”

“Sure, the devil’s wife, herself, would be popping out of Hell to give birth to a child,” I says to please him. “But what does Dr. McManus, from Dublin College, think of the case ; or Michael Leary, the Corktown vet.? And what do the two of them make of it by putting their heads together, Mr. O’Shea?”

“Nothing at all, Pat,” says he with a gloomy face. “Sure, didn’t they both walk out on me not an hour ago! Walking backwards they were, and bowing and crossing themselves till they reached the door; and then the two of them made a break for it down the hill, like the devil himself was but a jump behind. And that’s why I’m after sending for you,” says Shaemas O’Shea.

“Thank you kindly,” says I. “But, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll be going. Sure, if Michael Leary did not stay on the case, then it’s certain I am that no cats or dogs, pigs or hares, will be born under the O’Shea rooftree this night.”

With that I toss off my spirits neat and reach for my hat, when who should come in by the door but old Witch Gafhney. And evil she looks, swollen out like a toad from over-feeding herself on her son-in-law’s bounty — evil and crafty, yet all of a-quiver from the fear of God which looks out of her red-rimmed eyes.

“Hee-hee,” she cackles, pointing a crooked finger at Shaemas O’Shea. “A child’s been born to you, son-in-law. You’d best be laying your hands on him, for he’s a bit too spry for the likes of me. Hee-hee,” she cackles, “the lad’s a broth of a boy!”

Now Shaemas O’Shea rises up from his chair with a great cry of joy.

“Come along in with me,” says he, “and we’ll be taking a peep at my son and heir.”

And, although I’ve a feeling against it — not liking the gleam in Witch Gafhney’s red eyes — there’s nothing I can do but just follow his lead. So pretty soon we come to a grand room at the top of the house; and in the two of us go, as brave as you please. But hardly had we put foot over the threshold, when some manner of creature rises up in the air and slaps me a bang with the tip of its wing.

“Bats!” says I, staggering back from the fright of it and throwing the windows wide. “Scat, you beasts! Be minding your head, Mr. O’Shea! Are they gone now?”

But Shaemas O’Shea doesn’t answer at all — just stands there, pop-eyed. And now Witch Gafhney hobbles in, all out of shape like a wrinkled old brogan, and lets a yell out of the wizened throat of her.

“You blundering, misguided blackguards,” she screams at the two of us, “you’ve gone and let young Master O’Shea fly out by the window! And what will I be telling my angel of a daughter when she’s asking to be holding him in her arms, come the morning? May the black curse of the Gafhneys fall on the pair of you! Achoon for the little cherub that has took to its wings in flight.”

“And was that my son and heir that flew out by the window, mother?” says Shaemas O’Shea, like a man drunk with wine.

“Take shame on yourself for doubting it!” cries Witch Gafhney in a temper. “And who else’s son and heir think you it could be and him born a cherub? Could my daughter Monica be making herself into an angel by giving free expression to the holy feelings of her near motherhood — just to be bringing into the world for your sake the first cherub in Ireland that ever was fathered by the likes of a poet — had she a black secret on her soul. Your son and heir he was, Shaemas; and I’m thinking it’s you that little deserve him.”

“And has Monica gone and turned herself into an angel?” asks Shaemas O’Shea, all of a heap like.

“Sure, and she has,” Witch Gafhney says very sharp, “a fine, beautiful angel with wings white as a swan’s. But now, after I am telling her of the fine little cherub she’s lost, I’m thinking it’s horns she’ll be growing on her head for you, Shaemas, and claws on her fingers and toes.”

“’Twas not my fault at all, mother,” he tells her, shaking with fear. “Sure, and it was me who was the proud father but a moment back to be seeing the wee nipper flying about brave over my head! This is Pat’s doing — the blackguard!” says he.

“And is it not all for the best, Mr. O’Shea?” I says, speaking up for myself. “Those who have wings will be using them, sir, one time or another. Sure, and you wouldn’t be clipping your own son’s fine feathers like a dirty poll-parrot and chaining a holy cherub up on its perch for the world to be feeding it sugar?”

“No,” says he, “I couldn’t rightly be doing that.”

“Well, then, Mr. O’Shea,” says I, warming up to my subject, “is it not better to have him flying straight off to heaven so that he can be singing your praises — telling them all up there what a grand poet you are and a credit to any cherub to have as a father — rather than to see him moulting down here with nothing at all to eat but just angel cake?”

“True for you, Pat,” Shaemas O’Shea replies, and the face of the man is now all wreathed in smiles. “Sure, that bit of a lad will not be forgetting his father. And maybe it’s a prank or two I can be indulging myself in, down here below, knowing all the while that I’ve got a son and heir speaking up for me in heaven. And now, with a wife sure to turn devil, it’s me that will have to be kicking up my heels a bit just in the way of self defense like.”

“’Twill be no particular strain on you, Shaemas,” says Witch Gafhney with an evil smile.

But Shaemas O’Shea pays her no heed — just stands there with his eyes on the open window. And the tears have dried on his cheeks and he’s swallowed the sobs in his throat. A grand man he seems, from in front or behind, all puffed up with pride like a turkey-cock.

“And, oh, Pat,” he says, “’tis you can be telling the neighbors what manner of heir was born to Shaemas O’Shea this night. Not throughout all Ireland has there ever been seen the like. For sons may come,” says he, “and sons may go, but cherubs go on forever.”

Who Wants a Green Bottle?
and Other Uneasy Tales (1926)