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THE HAUNTED HOUSE by Charles Dickens

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Author Topic: THE HAUNTED HOUSE by Charles Dickens  (Read 1165 times)
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Curse of the Demon
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« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2009, 01:16:49 am »

To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted
house, and was already half resolved to take it.  So, after
breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and
harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to
a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel
persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and
by Ikey.

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal.  The
slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were
doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built,
ill-planned, and ill-fitted.  It was damp, it was not free from dry
rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim
of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's
hands whenever it's not turned to man's account.  The kitchens and
offices were too large, and too remote from each other.  Above
stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches
of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well
with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the
bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells.  One of
these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters,
MASTER B.  This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most.
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« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2009, 01:17:00 am »

"Who was Master B.?" I asked.  "Is it known what he did while the
owl hooted?"

"Rang the bell," said Ikey.

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young
man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself.  It was a
loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound.  The
other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to
which their wires were conducted:  as "Picture Room," "Double Room,"
"Clock Room," and the like.  Following Master B.'s bell to its
source I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent
third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the ****-loft,
with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly
small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-
piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb.  The
papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with
fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door.
It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made
a point of pulling the paper down.  Neither the landlord nor Ikey
could suggest why he made such a fool of himself.
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« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2009, 01:17:15 am »

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I
made no other discoveries.  It was moderately well furnished, but
sparely.  Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the
house; the rest was of various periods within the last half-century.
I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county
town to treat for the house.  I went that day, and I took it for six
months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden
sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very
handsome, sensible, and engaging).  We took with us, a deaf stable-
man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person
called an Odd Girl.  I have reason to record of the attendant last
enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female
Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement.
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« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2009, 01:17:28 am »

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw
cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was
most depressing.  The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of
intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested
that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2
Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of
anything happening to her from the damp.  Streaker, the housemaid,
feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr.  The Odd Girl, who
had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made
arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery
window, and rearing an oak.

We went, before dark, through all the natural--as opposed to
supernatural--miseries incidental to our state.  Dispiriting reports
ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and
descended from the upper rooms.  There was no rolling-pin, there was
no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know what it
is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the
last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the
landlord be?  Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful
and exemplary.  But within four hours after dark we had got into a
supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen "Eyes," and was in
hysterics.
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« Reply #19 on: October 20, 2009, 01:17:46 am »

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to
ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left
Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or
any one of them, for one minute.  Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd
Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from
her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar
applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon.

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under
these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master
B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled
until the house resounded with his lamentations!

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the
mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory
of Master B.  Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats,
or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one
cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't know;
but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until
I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in other
words, breaking his bell short off--and silencing that young
gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever.
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« Reply #20 on: October 20, 2009, 01:17:57 am »

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers
of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very
inconvenient disorder.  She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed
with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions.  I would address
the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had
painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s
bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that
that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no
better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and
the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in
the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a
mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible
means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied
spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?--I say I would become
emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an
address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd
Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among
us like a parochial petrifaction.
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« Reply #21 on: October 20, 2009, 01:18:47 am »

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most
discomfiting nature.  I am unable to say whether she was of an
usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her,
but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of
the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.  Combined
with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those
specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face and
nose.  In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her
head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable
Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of
money.  Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a
garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the
Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes
regarding her silver watch.

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was
among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky.  Hooded
woman?  According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of
hooded women.  Noises?  With that contagion downstairs, I myself
have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so
many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood
if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries.  Try this
in bed, in the dead of the night:  try this at your own comfortable
fire-side, in the life of the night.  You can fill any house with
noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your
nervous system.
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« Reply #22 on: October 20, 2009, 01:19:00 am »

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and
there is no such contagion under the sky.  The women (their noses in
a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always
primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-
triggers.  The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions
that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established
the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic.  If
Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should
presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so
constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go
about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is
called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with.
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« Reply #23 on: October 20, 2009, 01:19:26 am »

It was in vain to do anything.  It was in vain to be frightened, for
the moment in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to show the
owl.  It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord
on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and
combinations.  It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells,
and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down
inexorably and silence it.  It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let
torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and
recesses.  We changed servants, and it was no better.  The new set
ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better.  At last, our
comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched,
that I one night dejectedly said to my sister:  "Patty, I begin to
despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we
must give this up."

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, John,
don't give it up.  Don't be beaten, John.  There is another way."

"And what is that?" said I.

"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of this
house, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or
me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into
our own hands."
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« Reply #24 on: October 20, 2009, 01:19:39 am »

"But, the servants," said I.

"Have no servants," said my sister, boldly.

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the
possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions.  The
notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful.
"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and
we know they are frightened and do infect one another," said my
sister.

"With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative tone.

(The deaf stable-man.  I kept him in my service, and still keep him,
as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.)

"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles.  And what
does that go to prove?  Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody
unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever
given, or taken!  None."
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« Reply #25 on: October 20, 2009, 01:19:53 am »

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired,
every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no
other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water.  That the pail
of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I
had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after that
minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering.
Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many
uproars.  An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his
supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble,
and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the
general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie.

"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles.  And considering,
John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be
kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast
about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most
reliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait
upon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--and
see what happens."

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot,
and went into her plan with the greatest ardour.
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« Reply #26 on: October 20, 2009, 01:20:03 am »

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our
measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in
whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month
unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and
mustered in the haunted house.

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while
my sister and I were yet alone.  It occurring to me as not
improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he
wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but
unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came
in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own
throat.  I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun?  On
his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her," I begged
the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine.

"SHE'S a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a double-
barrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago.  "No
mistake about HER, sir."
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« Reply #27 on: October 20, 2009, 01:20:13 am »

"Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something in this
house."

"No, sir?" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes.  "'Ooded lady,
sir?"

"Don't be frightened," said I.  "It was a figure rather like you."

"Lord, sir?"

"Ikey!" said I, shaking hands with him warmly:  I may say
affectionately; "if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the
greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure.  And I
promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I
see it again!"
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« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2009, 01:20:23 am »

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little
precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor.  I imparted my
secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his
cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed
something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one
night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that
we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to
comfort the servants.  Let me do Ikey no injustice.  He was afraid
of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would
play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity.
The Odd Girl's case was exactly similar.  She went about the house
in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully,
and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the
sounds we heard.  I had had my eye on the two, and I know it.  It is
not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state
of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known
to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other
watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a
state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that
it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be
suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any
question of this kind.
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« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2009, 01:20:34 am »

To return to our party.  The first thing we did when we were all
assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms.  That done, and every
bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined
by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if
we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting
party, or were shipwrecked.  I then recounted the floating rumours
concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.:  with others,
still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation,
relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went
up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an
impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch.  Some of
these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to
one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words.
We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not
there to be deceived, or to deceive--which we considered pretty much
the same thing--and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we
would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out
the truth.  The understanding was established, that any one who
heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them,
should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last
night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that
then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house,
should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would
hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable
provocation to break silence.
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