The Canterville Ghost | Page 7

as he sped down the
corridor, and finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister's
jack-boots, where it was found in the morning by the butler. Once in
the privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small
pallet-bed, and hid his face under the clothes. After a time, however,
the brave old Canterville spirit asserted itself, and he determined to go
and speak to the other ghost as soon as it was daylight. Accordingly,
just as the dawn was touching the hills with silver, he returned towards
the spot where he had first laid eyes on the grisly phantom, feeling that,
after all, two ghosts were better than one, and that, by the aid of his
new friend, he might safely grapple with the twins. On reaching the
spot, however, a terrible sight met his gaze. Something had evidently
happened to the spectre, for the light had entirely faded from its hollow
eyes, the gleaming falchion had fallen from its hand, and it was leaning
up against the wall in a strained and uncomfortable attitude. He rushed
forward and seized it in his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped
off and rolled on the floor, the body assumed a recumbent posture, and
he found himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a
sweeping-brush, a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet!
Unable to understand this curious transformation, he clutched the
placard with feverish haste, and there, in the grey morning light, he
read these fearful words:--
+------------------------------------+ | YE OTIS GHOSTE | | Ye Onlie True
and Originale Spook, | | Beware of Ye Imitationes. | | All others are
counterfeite. | +------------------------------------+
The whole thing flashed across him. He had been tricked, foiled, and
out-witted! The old Canterville look came into his eyes; he ground his
toothless gums together; and, raising his withered hands high above his
head, swore according to the picturesque phraseology of the antique
school, that, when Chanticleer had sounded twice his merry horn, deeds
of blood would be wrought, and murder walk abroad with silent feet.
Hardly had he finished this awful oath when, from the red-tiled roof of

a distant homestead, a cock crew. He laughed a long, low, bitter laugh,
and waited. Hour after hour he waited, but the cock, for some strange
reason, did not crow again. Finally, at half-past seven, the arrival of the
housemaids made him give up his fearful vigil, and he stalked back to
his room, thinking of his vain oath and baffled purpose. There he
consulted several books of ancient chivalry, of which he was
exceedingly fond, and found that, on every occasion on which this oath
had been used, Chanticleer had always crowed a second time.
"Perdition seize the naughty fowl," he muttered, "I have seen the day
when, with my stout spear, I would have run him through the gorge,
and made him crow for me an 'twere in death!" He then retired to a
comfortable lead coffin, and stayed there till evening.

IV
[Illustration: "HE MET WITH A SEVERE FALL"]
The next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible
excitement of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect. His
nerves were completely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise.
For five days he kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up
the point of the blood-stain on the library floor. If the Otis family did
not want it, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people
on a low, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of
appreciating the symbolic value of sensuous phenomena. The question
of phantasmic apparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of
course quite a different matter, and really not under his control. It was
his solemn duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber
from the large oriel window on the first and third Wednesdays in every
month, and he did not see how he could honourably escape from his
obligations. It is quite 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 as usual between midnight and three o'clock, taking every
possible precaution against being either heard or seen. He removed his
boots, trod as lightly as possible on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a

large black velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun
Lubricator for oiling his chains. I am bound to acknowledge that it was
with a good deal of difficulty that he brought himself to adopt this last
mode of protection. However, one night, while the family were at
dinner,