The Best Ghost Stories | Page 9

a matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the
transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The narrative is drawn
up "by a gentleman, a Justice of Peace at Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person."
And, moreover, "the discourse is attested by a very sober gentlewoman, who lives in
Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave lives." The Justice
believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put upon by any
fallacy--and the kinswoman positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is
related and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as may be, from
Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent or publish such a
story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of so much honesty and virtue,
and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety." Skepticism itself could not resist this
triple court of evidence so artfully combined, the Justice attesting for the discerning spirit
of the sober and understanding gentlewoman his kinswoman, and his kinswoman
becoming bail for the veracity of Mrs. Bargrave. And here, gentle reader, admire the
simplicity of those days. Had Mrs. Veal's visit to her friend happened in our time, the
conductors of the daily press would have given the word, and seven gentlemen unto the
said press belonging, would, with an obedient start, have made off for Kingston, for
Canterbury, for Dover,--for Kamchatka if necessary,--to pose the Justice, cross-examine
Mrs. Bargrave, confront the sober and understanding kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up
from her grave, rather than not get to the bottom of the story. But in our time we doubt
and scrutinize; our ancestors wondered and believed.

Before the story is commenced, the understanding gentlewoman (not the Justice of
Peace), who is the reporter, takes some pains to repel the objections made against the
story by some of the friends of Mrs. Veal's brother, who consider the marvel as an
aspersion on their family, and do what they can to laugh it out of countenance. Indeed, it
is allowed, with admirable impartiality, that Mr. Veal is too much of a gentleman to
suppose Mrs. Bargrave invented the story--scandal itself could scarce have supposed
that--although one notorious liar, who is chastised towards the conclusion of the story,
ventures to throw out such an insinuation. No reasonable or respectable person, however,
could be found to countenance the suspicion, and Mr. Veal himself opined that Mrs.
Bargrave had been driven crazy by a cruel husband, and dreamed the whole story of the
apparition. Now all this is sufficiently artful. To have vouched the fact as universally
known, and believed by every one, nem. con., would not have been half so satisfactory to
a skeptic as to allow fairly that the narrative had been impugned, and hint at the character
of one of those skeptics, and the motives of another, as sufficient to account for their
want of belief. Now to the fact itself.
Mrs. Bargrave and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, and had protested their
attachment should last as long as they lived; but when Mrs. Veal's brother obtained an
office in the customs at Dover, some cessation of their intimacy ensued, "though without
any positive quarrel." Mrs. Bargrave had removed to Canterbury, and was residing in a
house of her own, when she was suddenly interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Veal, as she
was sitting in deep contemplation of certain distresses of her own. The visitor was in a
riding-habit, and announced herself as prepared for a distant journey (which seems to
intimate that spirits have a considerable distance to go before they arrive at their
appointed station, and that the females at least put on a habit for the occasion). The spirit,
for such was the seeming Mrs. Veal, continued to waive the ceremony of salutation, both
in going and coming, which will remind the reader of a ghostly lover's reply to his
mistress in the fine old Scottish ballad:--
Why should I come within thy bower? I am no earthly man; And should I kiss thy rosy
lips, Thy days would not be lang.
They then began to talk in the homely style of middle-aged ladies, and Mrs. Veal proses
concerning the conversations they had formerly held, and the books they had read
together. Her very recent experience probably led Mrs. Veal to talk of death, and the
books written on the subject, and she pronounced ex cathedrá, as a dead person was best
entitled to do, that "Drelincourt's book on Death was the best book on the subject ever
written." She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, two Dutch books which had been translated,
and