THE HAUNTED HOUSE by Charles Dickens

[Curse of the Demon]

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.

[Curse of the Demon]

We were, in number and in character, as follows:

First--to get my sister and myself out of the way--there were we
two.  In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I
drew Master B.'s.  Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel,
so called after the great astronomer:  than whom I suppose a better
man at a telescope does not breathe.  With him, was his wife:  a
charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous
spring.  I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to
bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may
do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and
I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left her
endearing and bright face behind.  They drew the Clock Room.  Alfred
Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty
for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine,
usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room
within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I
was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind
or no wind.  Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be "fast"
(another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much
too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have
distinguished himself before now, if his father had not
unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year,
on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to
spend six.  I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or
that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per
cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his
fortune is made.  Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a
most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture
Room.  She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business
earnestness, and "goes in"--to use an expression of Alfred's--for
Woman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that
is woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and
ought not to be.  "Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper
you!" I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of
her at the Picture-Room door, "but don't overdo it.  And in respect
of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments
being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet
assigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men
who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural
oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes
spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers,
aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf and
Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it."  However, I digress.

[Curse of the Demon]

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room.  We had but
three other chambers:  the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the
Garden Room.  My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his hammock," as
he called it, in the Corner Room.  I have always regarded Jack as
the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed.  He is gray now, but as
handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--nay, handsomer.  A
portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a
frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow.  I
remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for
their silver setting.  He has been wherever his Union namesake
flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the
Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed
and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried,
"You know Jack Governor?  Then you know a prince of men!"  That he
is!  And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet
him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be
vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.

[Curse of the Demon]

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it
fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America,
where she died.  This was a dozen years ago or more.  He brought
down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for,
he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling,
is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a
piece in his portmanteau.  He had also volunteered to bring with him
one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman.
Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently
as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a
world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge.
At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the
lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many
minutes.  He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr.
Undery, my friend and solicitor:  who came down, in an amateur
capacity, "to go through with it," as he said, and who plays whist
better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning
to the red cover at the end.

[Curse of the Demon]

I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal
feeling among us.  Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful
resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever
ate, including unapproachable curries.  My sister was pastrycook and
confectioner.  Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn about,
and on special occasions the chief cook "pressed" Mr. Beaver.  We
had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was
neglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding
among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least
one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.

[Curse of the Demon]

We had a few night alarms in the beginning.  On the first night, I
was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in his
hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me
that he "was going aloft to the main truck," to have the weathercock
down.  It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my
attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said
somebody would be "hailing a ghost" presently, if it wasn't done.
So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the
wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern
and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a
cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon
nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they
both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I
thought they would never come down.  Another night, they turned out
again, and had a chimney-cowl off.  Another night, they cut a
sobbing and gulping water-pipe away.  Another night, they found out
something else.  On several occasions, they both, in the coolest
manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom
windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul"
something mysterious in the garden.

[Curse of the Demon]

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed
anything.  All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no one
looked the worse for it.



CHAPTER II--THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'S ROOM



When I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained
so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to
Master B.  My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold.
Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having
been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill.  Whether the initial
letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black,
Brown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird.  Whether he was a foundling,
and had been baptized B.  Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B.
was short for Briton, or for Bull.  Whether he could possibly have
been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own
childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch?

With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much.  I also
carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of
the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he
couldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good
at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant Boyhood
Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth,
Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball?

So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B.

[Curse of the Demon]

It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a
dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him.  But, the
instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my
thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial
letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet.

For six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.'s room, when I
began to perceive that things were going wrong.

The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning
when it was but just daylight and no more.  I was standing shaving
at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and
amazement, that I was shaving--not myself--I am fifty--but a boy.
Apparently Master B.!

[Curse of the Demon]

I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there.  I looked
again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression
of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get
one.  Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room,
and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and
complete the operation in which I had been disturbed.  Opening my
eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in
the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four
or five and twenty.  Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes,
and made a strong effort to recover myself.  Opening them again, I
saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been
dead.  Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in
my life.

Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I
determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the
present general disclosure.  Agitated by a multitude of curious
thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter
some new experience of a spectral character.  Nor was my preparation
needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o'clock in
the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed
with the skeleton of Master B.!

I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also.  I then heard a
plaintive voice saying, "Where am I?  What is become of me?" and,
looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B.

[Curse of the Demon]

The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion:  or rather,
was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and-
salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons.  I observed
that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the
young ghost, and appeared to descend his back.  He wore a frill
round his neck.  His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be
inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some
feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I
concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually
taken a great deal too much medicine.

"Where am I?" said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice.  "And
why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that
Calomel given me?"

I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't
tell him.

"Where is my little sister," said the ghost, "and where my angelic
little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?"

[Curse of the Demon]

I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to
take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with.  I
represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human
experience, come out well, when discovered.  I urged that I myself
had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school
with, and none of them had at all answered.  I expressed my humble
belief that that boy never did answer.  I represented that he was a
mythic character, a delusion, and a snare.  I recounted how, the
last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall
of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible
subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic.  I
related how, on the strength of our having been together at "Old
Doylance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social
offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of
belief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved
to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam
with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a
proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being
abolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many
thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes.

The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare.  "Barber!" it
apostrophised me when I had finished.

"Barber?" I repeated--for I am not of that profession.

[Curse of the Demon]

"Condemned," said the ghost, "to shave a constant change of
customers--now, me--now, a young man--now, thyself as thou art--now,
thy father--now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a
skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning--"

(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.)

"Barber!  Pursue me!"

I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a
spell to pursue the phantom.  I immediately did so, and was in
Master B.'s room no longer.

Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been
forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told
the exact truth--particularly as they were always assisted with
leading questions, and the Torture was always ready.  I asseverate
that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by the
ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any
of those.  Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a
goat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman),
holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and
less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to
have more meaning.

[Curse of the Demon]

Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare
without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance
on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse.  The very smell
of the animal's paint--especially when I brought it out, by making
him warm--I am ready to swear to.  I followed the ghost, afterwards,
in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which,
the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again
ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and
very old bellows.  (In this, I appeal to previous generations to
confirm or refute me.)  I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey:
at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his
stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on
ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings,
from fairs; in the first cab--another forgotten institution where
the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver.

Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in
pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more
wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to
one experience from which you may judge of many.

I was marvellously changed.  I was myself, yet not myself.  I was
conscious of something within me, which has been the same all
through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its
phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who
had gone to bed in Master B.'s room.  I had the smoothest of faces
and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like
myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs,
behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most
astounding nature.

[Curse of the Demon]

This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio.

The other creature assented warmly.  He had no notion of
respectability, neither had I.  It was the custom of the East, it
was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the
corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet
memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of
imitation.  "O, yes!  Let us," said the other creature with a jump,
"have a Seraglio."

It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the
meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to
import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss
Griffin.  It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human
sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great
Haroun.  Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let
us entrust it to Miss Bule.

[Curse of the Demon]

We were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead Ponds;
eight ladies and two gentlemen.  Miss Bule, whom I judge to have
attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society.  I
opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed
that she should become the Favourite.

Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and
charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the
idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss
Pipson?  Miss Bule--who was understood to have vowed towards that
young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on
the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and
lock--Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson,
disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common.

Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea
of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly
replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair
Circassian.

"And what then?" Miss Bule pensively asked.