Chapter 4
[Illustration: "HE MET WITH A SEVERE FALL"]
The next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible excitementof the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect. His nerves werecompletely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise. For fivedays he kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up the pointof the blood-stain on the library floor. If the Otis family did not wantit, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people on alow, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciatingthe symbolic value of sensuous phenomena. The question of phantasmicapparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of course quite adifferent matter, and really not under his control. It was his solemnduty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the largeoriel window on the first and third Wednesdays in every month, and hedid not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations. It isquite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the other hand,he was most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural.For the next three Saturdays, accordingly, he traversed the corridor asusual between midnight and three o'clock, taking every possibleprecaution against being either heard or seen. He removed his boots,trod as lightly as possible on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a largeblack velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun Lubricator foroiling his chains. I am bound to acknowledge that it was with a gooddeal of difficulty that he brought himself to adopt this last mode ofprotection. However, one night, while the family were at dinner, heslipped into Mr. Otis's bedroom and carried off the bottle. He felt alittle humiliated at first, but afterwards was sensible enough to seethat there was a great deal to be said for the invention, and, to acertain degree, it served his purpose. Still in spite of everything hewas not left unmolested. Strings were continually being stretched acrossthe corridor, over which he tripped in the dark, and on one occasion,while dressed for the part of "Black Isaac, or the Huntsman of HogleyWoods," he met with a severe fall, through treading on a butter-slide,which the twins had constructed from the entrance of the TapestryChamber to the top of the oak staircase. This last insult so enragedhim, that he resolved to make one final effort to assert his dignity andsocial position, and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians thenext night in his celebrated character of "Reckless Rupert, or theHeadless Earl."
[Illustration: "A HEAVY JUG OF WATER FELL RIGHT DOWN ON HIM."]
He had not appeared in this disguise for more than seventy years; infact, not since he had so frightened pretty Lady Barbara Modish by meansof it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the present LordCanterville's grandfather, and ran away to Gretna Green with handsomeJack Castletown, declaring that nothing in the world would induce her tomarry into a family that allowed such a horrible phantom to walk up anddown the terrace at twilight. Poor Jack was afterwards shot in a duel byLord Canterville on Wandsworth Common, and Lady Barbara died of a brokenheart at Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every way, ithad been a great success. It was, however an extremely difficult"make-up," if I may use such a theatrical expression in connection withone of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to employ a morescientific term, the higher-natural world, and it took him fully threehours to make his preparations. At last everything was ready, and he wasvery pleased with his appearance. The big leather riding-boots that wentwith the dress were just a little too large for him, and he could onlyfind one of the two horse-pistols, but, on the whole, he was quitesatisfied, and at a quarter-past one he glided out of the wainscotingand crept down the corridor. On reaching the room occupied by the twins,which I should mention was called the Blue Bed Chamber, on account ofthe colour of its hangings, he found the door just ajar. Wishing to makean effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of waterfell right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing hisleft shoulder by a couple of inches. At the same moment he heard stifledshrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed. The shock to hisnervous system was so great that he fled back to his room as hard as hecould go, and the next day he was laid up with a severe cold. The onlything that at all consoled him in the whole affair was the fact that hehad not brought his head with him, for, had he done so, the consequencesmight have been very serious.
[Illustration: "MAKING SATIRICAL REMARKS ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS"]
He now gave up all hope of ever frightening this rude American family,and contented himself, as a rule, with creeping about the passages inlist slippers, with a thick red muffler round his throat for fear ofdraughts, and a small arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by thetwins. The final blow he received occurred on the 19th of September. Hehad gone down-stairs to the great entrance-hall, feeling sure thatthere, at any rate, he would be quite unmolested, and was amusinghimself by making satirical remarks on the large Saroni photographs ofthe United States Minister and his wife which had now taken the place ofthe Canterville family pictures. He was simply but neatly clad in a longshroud, spotted with churchyard mould, had tied up his jaw with a stripof yellow linen, and carried a small lantern and a sexton's spade. Infact, he was dressed for the character of "Jonas the Graveless, or theCorpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn," one of his most remarkableimpersonations, and one which the Cantervilles had every reason toremember, as it was the real origin of their quarrel with theirneighbour, Lord Rufford. It was about a quarter-past two o'clock inthe morning, and, as far as he could ascertain, no one was stirring. Ashe was strolling towards the library, however, to see if there were anytraces left of the blood-stain, suddenly there leaped out on him from adark corner two figures, who waved their arms wildly above their heads,and shrieked out "BOO!" in his ear.
[Illustration: "SUDDENLY THERE LEAPED OUT TWO FIGURES."]
Seized with a panic, which, under the circumstances, was only natural,he rushed for the staircase, but found Washington Otis waiting for himthere with the big garden-syringe, and being thus hemmed in by hisenemies on every side, and driven almost to bay, he vanished into thegreat iron stove, which, fortunately for him, was not lit, and had tomake his way home through the flues and chimneys, arriving at his ownroom in a terrible state of dirt, disorder, and despair.
After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition. The twinslay in wait for him on several occasions, and strewed the passages withnutshells every night to the great annoyance of their parents and theservants, but it was of no avail. It was quite evident that his feelingswere so wounded that he would not appear. Mr. Otis consequently resumedhis great work on the history of the Democratic Party, on which he hadbeen engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organized a wonderfulclam-bake, which amazed the whole county; the boys took to lacrosseeuchre, poker, and other American national games, and Virginia rodeabout the lanes on her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire,who had come to spend the last week of his holidays at CantervilleChase. It was generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, infact, Mr. Otis wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who,in reply, expressed his great pleasure at the news, and sent his bestcongratulations to the Minister's worthy wife.
The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in thehouse, and though now almost an invalid, was by no means ready to letmatters rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests was theyoung Duke of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, hadonce bet a hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury that he would play dicewith the Canterville ghost, and was found the next morning lying on thefloor of the card-room in such a helpless paralytic state that, thoughhe lived on to a great age, he was never able to say anything again but"Double Sixes." The story was well known at the time, though, of course,out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attemptwas made to hush it up, and a full account of all the circumstancesconnected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's_Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends_. The ghost, then,was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influenceover the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, hisown first cousin having been married _en secondes noces_ to the Sieur deBulkeley, from whom, as every one knows, the Dukes of Cheshire arelineally descended. Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing toVirginia's little lover in his celebrated impersonation of "The VampireMonk, or the Bloodless Benedictine," a performance so horrible that whenold Lady Startup saw it, which she did on one fatal New Year's Eve, inthe year 1764, she went off into the most piercing shrieks, whichculminated in violent apoplexy, and died in three days, afterdisinheriting the Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations, andleaving all her money to her London apothecary. At the last moment,however, his terror of the twins prevented his leaving his room, and thelittle Duke slept in peace under the great feathered canopy in the RoyalBedchamber, and dreamed of Virginia.