Punch: Punch (76.1879)

12 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [January 11, 1879.

FRIENDS AT A DISTANCE.

Being a Brief Record of a feiv Winter-seasonable Visits to certain

Country Houses.

Visit the First.—Chapter IX.

ONTINUATION

of Legend

— To our
rooms —
Haunted
Chamber

— The first
surprise—■
A diffi-
culty.

" Bet,"
says Joss-
eyn Dyke,
continuing
the story of
the Earl,
the Coun-
tess, and
the Lover,
as we stand
before the
weird old
clock on the
landing,
"but they
are often
seen in the
house, on

the stairs, in the rooms, in the passages, the three Earls, the Countess
and her Lover, and that's my difficulty in getting any servants to
stop. They say they ivonH stay in the same house with Ghosts."

I pretend to smile at this unwillingness on their part, as a vulgar
prejudice arising from want of education. Still it is a dilemma for a
master, when his servants come to him and say, " Well, Sir, either
the Ghosts or ourselves must go. Which is it to be ? If the Ghosts
stay, we give notice." It is a difficulty.

Josslyx shakes his head and simply quotes, " 'There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio,' I am Horatio in this in-
stance, ' than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' " I admit the pro-
bability implied in this sentiment, and he continues, " How can you
explain the stoppage of this clock at this particular hour ? the im-
possibility of altering it ? the connection of this time with the
dreadful events I've just told you ? And, mind, these apparitions
are only seen at intervals of eight days, and then invariably at three
separate times, eight hours apart, within the twenty-four hours,
commencing at 8'25 in the morning, then at 4'25 in the afternoon,
then at 12'25 at midnight, and lastly at 8*25 a.h., when their visits
cease for another eight days."

I am just about to ask, " Have you seen them lately ? " when it
occurs to me that this is the title of some music-hall comic song,
most inappropriate to the occasion, and quite opposed to my present
state of mind, which is, to say the least of it, reverentially respectful
towards all Ghosts in general, and the Ghosts at The Mote, Moss End,
in particular.

" I don't talk about these things to everybody," observes Josslyn,
making a move, whereat his familiars look curiously at him, with
their heads on one side, as much as to say, ' Well, what are you
going to do now ? '

"No, it wouldn't do to tell everybody," I return, taking his
remark as highly flattering to myself.

" But," he says, pausing, after taking half a dozen steps down the
passage. " But, it is curious that this should be the eighth of the
month, and," he adds, taking out his watch, " I very rarely sit up
as late as this talking, least of all on such a subject."

" Late ! " I exclaim, '' surely it' s not past twelve." " The time by
me," he replies most impressively, " is exactly twenty-five minutes
past twelve?''

I refer to my own watch. _ Yes, that is the time. At least, by me,
it is exactly thirty-five minutes past, but then I always keep my
watch ten minutes fast.

I am staggered. I find myself murmuring, " So it is," and I am
conscious of the mechanism at work again in my head on the two
muffled words "Very strange—Very strange—Very strange! "

Josslyn is waiting for me at the end of the passage. Until I, as
it were, woke tip and saw him I was unconscious of standing still.
To say " Go on! I follow," occurs to me; but, like MacbeWs answer,
it sticks in my throat, for I remember they are Hamlets request to
the Ghost. Very strange—Very strange—Very strange !

" Here's your room," says Josslyn, throwing open the door.

I had hoped he was coming in to keep me company. No ; he only
nods at me, and says " Good night." I can't exercise hospitality to
my own host, and invite him to " step in and sit down."

I watch his retreating figure, accompanied by his familiars. Snap
slouching along as if he'd met a Ghost who had kicked him severely,
and Fiend with pointed head turning this way and that, and pointed
ears pricked up in a nervous state, as if ready to jump out of a
Ghost's way at the slightest and shortest notice.

Josslyn stops to look round, and say in a low whisper, " Gool will
call you in plenty of time. We breakfast at eight twenty-five
punctually. Good night."

Then he once more turns on his heel, and presently disappears
round a corner, then the light gradually dies away. The passage is
in darkness. I shut the door of my room, and—I haven't done such
a thing for years—examine the lock.

Then I say to myself, " Pooh ! what nonsense! "

Thank goodness, a cheerful fire.

I deposit my candle on the dressing-table. I light the other two.
I should like to light fifty, and have them all about the room, which,
on the other side, away from the light of fire and candles, is in
deepest shadow, though not in utter darkness.

I won't stop to think.

I don't like to brush my hair before the glass, lest I should see a
face peering over my shoulder. Nerves.

I '11 get into bed rapidly ; and I won't look at the grim old picture,
three-quarter length, which may be that of the wicked Earl of two
hundred years ago. I come to the conclusion that I won't cross the
room to put my boots outside. No; Gooe will take them in the
morning. I wonder if the wicked Earl put his boots outside, on the
night when —hang the wicked Earl!

Now for the candles—stay—is the fire blazing—yes—plenty of
cheery firelight—so one, two, three ! out go the candles ! And now,
with one jump—

No—something moving between my legs and the bed-post—
between me and the post—

Something which leaps on to the bed before I can get there.

I start back, and very nearly fall backwards into the fire-place.

What the ... ?

The Black Cat, on my bed, walking up and down like a perturbed
spirit on the counterpane, rubbing itself against the post, then taking
another turn, then looking at me .... and I at her. A pleasant
beginning of the night's rest. Myself and Black Cat vis d vis, the
cat having far and away the best of it, having its warm fur coat on,
and being on my bed, while I have anything but a warm fur coat on,
and not even my slippers, and I'm out of bed.

I don't like a strange cat in my room ; I don't like any animals in
my room; but specially a strange cat, when I'm—when I'm—well,
in fact, when I'm going to bed.

I should be afraid of falling asleep while a strange cat was there ;
though there 's not much chance of that, as I have heard well-
authenticated stories of a partiality, peculiar to cats, for sucking up
the breath of sleeping infants, and so killing them.

I am not an infant, it is true, but this is a cat, and when I'm
asleep, and only my head visible on the pillow, would a cat know
-whether I ivas an infant or not f

If the whole story isn't true, then all I can say now feelingly is,
that it's the sort of thing nurses tell children, who never forget it.
I haven't forgotten it. It's a very big cat, what they call a fine
cat, and it plucks, impatiently, with its fore claws spread out, at the
counterpane, in a tigerish way. Then it describes a sort of arch with
its back, and erects its tail rigidlv, as if some wild idea had entered
its cat's head of representing itself, bodily, as a model for a Norman
gateway, with a perpendicular tower at the side. No one ever yet
heard of a cat having gone mad on the subject of architecture, yet
this looks like it. It has a wild look about its eyes too. The longer I
regard the creature, the wilder it seems to become, and the more
energetically does it claw the counterpane, as though it were some-
thing alive that it felt a cruel delight in tearing to pieces. Then it
opens its red mouth and " wows,"—savagely, I think.

Tears ago I remember being in a kitchen when a cat had fits. It
flew madly round the place, smashing plates and soup-tureens (it
got its head into one—but backed out of it again furiously), biting
and scratching, and was finally knocked on the head by a bellhanger
with a hammer. The awful thing about that mad cat was that,
during the entire paroxysm, it never uttered a sound.

If this cat has fits, there is no hammer, and what is worse, no
bell-hanger to use it!__

Motto eor Spiers and Pond {the Australian Caterers).—A Bar
in the Strand is worth two in the Bush.

Promotion- for Mr. Parnell.—To be the Butt of the House of
Commons next Session.

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