 8. The Middle Toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Beers 1. It is well known that the old Manton House is haunted. In all the rural district near about, and even in the town of Marshall a mile away, not one person of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it. Incredulity is confined to those opinionated persons who will be called cranks as soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual domain of the Marshall advance. The evidence that the house is haunted is of two kinds, the testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular proof, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged against it by the ingenious, but facts within the observation of all are material and controlling. In the first place the Manton House has been unoccupied by mortals for more than 10 years, and with its outbuildings is slowly falling into decay, a circumstance which in itself the judicious will hardly venture to ignore. It stands a little way off the loneliest reach of the Marshall and Harrison Road, in an opening which was once a farm and is still disfigured with strips of rotting fence and half covered with brambles overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with a plow. The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though badly weather-stained and in dire need of attention from the glacier. The smaller male population of the region having attested in the manner of its kind is disapproval of dwelling without dwellers. It is two stories in height, nearly square, its front pierced by a single doorway flanked on each side by a window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding windows above, not protected, served to admit light and rain to the rooms of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about, and a few shade trees, somewhat the worst for wind, and leaning all in one direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to run away. In short, as the Marshall-town humorist explained in the columns of the advance, the proposition that the Manton House is badly haunted is the only logical conclusion from the premises. The fact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to another part of the country has no doubt done its share in directing public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena. To this house one summer evening came four men in a wagon. Three of them promptly alighted, and the one who had been driving hitched the team to the only remaining post of what had been a fence. The fourth remained seated in the wagon. Come, said one of his companions, approaching him while the others moved away in the direction of the dwelling. This is the place. The man addressed did not move. By God, he said harshly, this is a trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it. Perhaps I am, the other said, looking him straight in the face and speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in it. You will remember, however, that the choice of place was with your own ascent left to the other side. Of course if you are afraid of spooks, I am afraid of nothing, the man interrupted with another oath, and sprang to the ground. The two then joined the others at the door, which one of them had already opened with some difficulty, caused by rust of lock and hinge. All entered. Inside it was dark, but the man who had unlocked the door produced a candle and matches and made a light. He then unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage. This gave them entrance to a large square room that the candle but dimly lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust which partly muffled their footfalls. Cobwebs were in the ankles of the walls and depended from the ceiling like strips of rotting lice making undulatory movements in the disturbed air. The room had two windows and adjoining sides, but from neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surfaces of boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace, no furniture, there was nothing. Besides the cobwebs and the dust, the four men were the only objects there which were not a part of the structure. Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the candle. The one who had so reluctantly alighted was especially spectacular. He might have been called sensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deep-chested and broad-shouldered. Looking at his figure one would have said that he had a giant strength at his features that he would use it like a giant. He was clean-shaven, his hair rather closely cropped and gray. His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes and over the nose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followed the same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at what would otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain color but obviously enough too small. There was something forbidding in their expression which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The nose was well enough as noses go. One does not expect much of noses. All that was sinister in the man's face seemed accentuated by an unnatural power. He appeared altogether bloodless. The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace. They were such persons as one meets and forgets that he met. All were younger than the man described between whom and the eldest of the others who stood apart there was apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at each other. Gentlemen said the man holding the candle and keys. I believe everything is right. Are you ready Mr. Rosser? The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled. And you Mr. Grossmuth? The heavy man bowed and scowled. You will be pleased to remove your outer clothing? Their hats, coats, waistcoats, and neckwear were soon removed and thrown outside the door in the passage. The man with the candle now knotted and the fourth man, he who had urged Grossmuth to leave the wagon produced from the pocket of his overcoat two long, murderous looking buoy knives which he drew now from their leather scabbards. They are exactly alike, he said, presenting one to each of the two principles. For by this time the dullest observer would have understood the nature of this meeting. It was to be a duel to the death. Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle, and tested the strength of the blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their persons were then searched in turn, each by the second of the other. If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmuth, said the man holding the light, you will place yourself in that corner. He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door, with their Grossmuth retired, his second parting from him with a grasp of the hand which had nothing of cordiality in it. In the angle nearest the door Mr. Rosser stationed himself, and after a whispered consultation his second left him, joining the other near the door. At that moment the candle was suddenly extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have been done by a draft from the open door. Whatever the cause, the effect was startling. Gentlemen, said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar in the altered condition affecting the relations of the senses. Gentlemen, you will not move until you hear the closing of the outer door. A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner door, and finally the outer one closed with a concussion which shook the entire building. A few minutes afterward a bladed farmer's boy met a light wagon which was being driven furiously toward the town of Marshall. He declared that behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third, with its hands upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly to free themselves from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was clad in white, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the haunted house, as the lad could boast a considerable former experience with the supernatural thereabouts, his word had the weight justly due to the testimony of an expert. The story, in connection with the next day's events, eventually appeared in the advance, with some slight literary embellishments, and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred to would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their version of the night's adventure, but the privilege remained without acclaimant. 2. The events that led up to this duel in the dark were simple enough. One evening three young men of the town of Marshall were sitting in a quiet corner of the porch of the village hotel, smoking and discussing such matters as three educated young men of a southern village would naturally find interesting. Their names were King, Sancher, and Rosser. At a little distance, with an easy hearing, but taking no part in the conversation, sat a fourth. He was a stranger to the others. They merely knew that on his arrival by the stagecoach that afternoon he had written in the hotel register the name of Robert Grosssmith. He had not been observed to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk. He seemed indeed singularly fond of his own company, or, as the personnel of the advance expressed it, grossly addicted to evil associations. But then it should be said injustice to the stranger that the personnel was himself of a too convivial disposition fairly to judge one differently gifted and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an effort at an interview. I hate any kind of deformity in a woman, said King, whether natural or acquired. I have a theory that any physical defect has its correlative mental and moral defect. I infer, then, said Rosser, gravely, that a lady lacking the moral advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become Mrs. King an arduous enterprise. Of course you may put it that way, was the reply. But seriously, I once threw over a most charming girl on warning quite accidentally that she had suffered amputation of a toe. My conduct was brutal, if you like, but if I had married that girl, I should have been miserable for life and should have made her so. Whereas, said Sancher with a light laugh, by marrying a gentleman of more liberal view, she escaped with a parted throat. Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, she married Manton, but I don't know about his liberality. I'm not sure, but he cut her throat because he discovered that she lacked that excellent thing in woman, the middle toe of the right foot. Look at that chap, said Rosser in a low voice, his eyes fixed upon the stranger. That chap was obviously listening intently to the conversation. Damn his impudence, muttered King. What ought we to do? That's an easy one, Rosser replied, rising. Sir, he continued, addressing the stranger. I think it would be better if you would remove your chair to the other end of the veranda. The presence of gentlemen is evidently an unfamiliar situation to you. The man sprang to his feet and strode forward with clenched hands, his face white with rage. All were now standing. Sancher stepped between the belligerents. You are hasty and unjust, he said to Rosser. This gentleman has done nothing to deserve such language. But Rosser would not withdraw a word. By the custom of the country and the time, there could be but one outcome to the quarrel. I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman, said the stranger, who had become more calm. I have not an acquaintance in this region. Perhaps you, sir, bowing to Sancher, will be kind enough to represent me in this matter. Sancher accepted the trust. Somewhat reluctantly it must be confessed. For the man's appearance and manner were not at all to his liking. King, who during the colloquy had hardly removed his eyes from the stranger's face and had not spoken a word, consented with a nod to act for Rosser. And the upshot of it was that, the principles having retired, a meeting was arranged for the next evening. The nature of the arrangements has been already disclosed. The duel with knives in a dark room was once a commoner feature of southwestern life than it is likely to be again. How thin a veneering of chivalry covered the essential brutality of the code under which such encounters were possible, we shall see. 3. In the blaze of a midsummer noonday, the old manton house was hardly true to its traditions. It was of the earth, earthy. The sunshine caressed it warmly and affectionately, with evident disregard of its bad reputation. The grass greening all of the expanse and its front seemed to grow, not wrinkly, but with a natural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds blossomed quite like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows and populous with pleasant voiced birds, the neglected shade tree is no longer struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their burdens of sun and song. Even in the glassless upper windows was an expression of peace and contentment due to the light within. Over the stony fields the visible heat danced with a lively trimmer incompatible with the gravity which is an attribute of the supernatural. Such was the aspect under which the place presented itself to Sheriff Adams and two other men who had come out from Marshall to look at it. One of these men was Mr. King, the sheriff's deputy. The other, whose name was Brewer, was a brother of the late Mrs. Manton. Under a beneficent law of the state relating to property which has been for a certain period abandoned by an owner whose residence cannot be ascertained, the sheriff was legal custodian of a manton farm, and a pertinence is there unto belonging. His present visit was a mere perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased sister. By a mere coincidence the visit was made on the day after the night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another and very different purpose. His presence now was not of his own choosing. He had been ordered to accompany his superior, and at the moment could think of nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity and obedience to the command. Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise was not locked, the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor of the passage into which it opened, a confused heap of men's apparel. Examination showed it to consist of two hats and the same number of coats, waistcoats, and scarves, all in a remarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat defiled by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. With a new and lively interest in his own actions the sheriff now unlatched and pushed open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently vacant. No, as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human figure, that of a man crouching close in the corner. Something in the attitude made the intruders halt when they had barely passed the threshold. The figure more and more clearly defined itself. The man was upon one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated to the level of his ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the fingers spread and crooked like claws. The white face turned upward on the retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright. The mouth half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stone dead. Yet with the exception of a buoy knife, which had evidently fallen from his own hand, not another object was in the room. In thick dust that covered the floor were some confused footprints near the door and along the wall through which it opened. Along one of the adjoining walls, too, past the boarded up windows was the trail made by the man himself in reaching his corner. Instinctively and approaching the body, the three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the outthrown arms. It was as rigid as iron, and the application of a gentle force rocked the entire body without altering the relation of its parts. Brewer, pale with excitement, gazed intently into the distorted face. God of mercy, he suddenly cried. It is manton. You are right, said king, with an evident attempt at calmness. I knew manton. He then wore a full beard and his hair long, but this is he. He might have added. I recognized him when he challenged Rosser. I told Rosser and Sancher who he was before we played him this horrible trick. When Rosser left this dark room at our heels, forgetting his outer clothing and the excitement, and driving away with us in his shirt sleeves, all through the discreditable proceedings we knew with whom we were dealing, murderer and coward that he was. But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death, that he had not once moved from the corner where he had been stationed, that his posture was that of neither attack nor defense, that he had dropped his weapon, that he had obviously perished of sheer horror of something that he saw. These were circumstances which Mr. King's disturbed intelligence could not rightly comprehend. Groping an intellectual darkness for a clue to his maze of doubt, his gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day and in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror. In the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor, leading from the door by which they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of Manton's crouching corpse were three parallel lines of footprints, light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones those of small children, the inner, the women's. From the point at which they ended they did not return, they pointed all one way. Brewer, who had observed them at the same moment, was leaning forward in an attitude of rapt attention, horribly pale. Look at that, he cried, pointing with both hands at the nearest print of the woman's right foot, where she had apparently stopped and stood. The middle toe was missing. It was Gertrude. Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer. End of The Middle Toe of the Right Foot. End of section number eight of famous modern ghost stories, compiled by Dorothy Scarborough, recording by Matt Howell, Portland, Oregon. Section nine of famous modern ghost stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sarah Jennings. Famous modern ghost stories. Compiled by Dorothy Scarborough. Section nine. The Shell of Sense. By Olivia Howard Dunbar. It was intolerably unchanged. The dim, dark-toned room. In an agony of recognition, my glance ran from one to another of the comfortable, familiar things that my earthly life had been passed among. Incredibly distant from it all, as I essentially was, I noted sharply that the very gaps that I myself had left in the bookshelves still stood unfilled, that the delicate fingers of the ferns I had tended were still stretched futilely toward the light, that the soft, agreeable chuckle of my own little clock, like some elderly woman with whom conversation has become automatic, was undiminished. Unchanged. Or so it seemed at first. But there were certain trivial differences that shortly smote me. The windows were closed too tightly, for I had always kept the house very cool, although I had known that Theresa preferred warm rooms. And my work-basket was in disorder. It was preposterous that so small a thing should hurt me so. Then, for this was my first experience of the shadow-folded transition, the odd alteration of my emotions bewildered me. For at one moment the place seemed so humanly familiar, so distinctly my own proper envelope, that for love of it I could have lain my cheek against the wall. Well, in the next I was miserably conscious of strange new shrillnesses. How could they be endured, and had I ever endured them, those harsh influences that I now perceived at the window, light and colour so blinding that they obscured the form of the wind, tumult so discordant that one could scarcely hear the roses open in the garden below. But Theresa did not seem to mind any of these things. Disorder, it is true, the dear child had never minded. She was sitting all this time at my desk, at MY desk. Occupied, I could only too easily surmise how. In the light of my own habits of precision it was plain that some somber correspondence should have been intended to before, but I believed that I did not really reproach Theresa, for I knew that her notes, when she did write them, were perhaps less perfunctory than mine. She finished the last one as I watched her, and added it to the heap of black-bordered envelopes that lay on the desk. Poor girl, I saw now that they had cost her tears. Yet living beside her day after day, year after year, I had never discovered what deep tenderness my sister possessed. Toward each other it had been our habit to display only a temperate affection, and I remember having always thought it distinctly fortunate for Theresa, since she was denied my happiness, that she could live so easily and pleasantly without emotions of the devastating sort. And now, for the first time, I was really to behold her. Could it be, Theresa, after all, this tangle of subdued turbulences? Let no one suppose that it is an easy thing to bear, the relentlessly lucid understanding that I then first exercised, or that in its first enfranchisement the timid vision does not yearn for its old screens and mists. Suddenly, as Theresa sat there, her head filled with its tender thoughts of me, held in her gentle hands, I felt Alan's step on the carpeted stair outside. Theresa felt it too, but how, for it was not audible. She gave a start, swept the black envelopes out of sight, and pretended to be writing in a little book. Then I forgot to watch her any longer in my absorption in Alan's coming. It was he, of course, that I was awaiting. It was for him that I had made this first lonely, frightened effort to return, to recover. It was not that I had supposed he would allow himself to recognize my presence, for I had long been sufficiently familiar with his hard and fast denials of the invisible. He was so reasonable always, so sane, so blindfolded. But I had hoped that because of his very rejection of the ether that now contained me, I could perhaps all the more safely, the more secretly, watch him, linger near him. He was near now, very near. But why did Theresa, sitting there in the room that had never belonged to her, appropriate for herself his coming? It was so manifestly I who had drawn him, I whom he had come to seek. The door was ajar. He knocked softly at it. Are you there, Theresa? he called. He expected to find her, then, there in my room. I shrank back, fearing almost to stay. I shall have finished in a moment, Theresa told him, and he sat down to wait for her. No spirit still unreleased can understand the pang that I felt with Alan sitting almost within my touch. Almost irresistibly, the wish beset me to let him for an instant feel my nearness. Then I checked myself, remembering, oh absurd, piteous human fears, that my two unguarded closeness might alarm him. It was not so remote a time that I myself had known them, those blind, uncouth timidities. I came, therefore, somewhat nearer, but I did not touch him. I merely leaned toward him, and with incredible softness, whispered his name. That much I could not have foreborn. The spell of life was still too strong in me. But it gave him no comfort, no delight. Theresa, he called, in a voice dreadful with alarm, and in that instant the last veil fell, and desperately, scarce believingly, I beheld how it stood between them, those two. She turned to him, that gentle look of hers. Forgive me, came from him hoarsely, but I suddenly had the most unaccountable sensation. Can there be too many windows open? There is such a chill about. There are no windows open, Theresa assured him. I took care to shut out the chill. You are not well, Alan. Perhaps not, he embraced the suggestion. And yet I feel no illness apart from this abominable sensation that persists. Persists? Theresa, you must tell me. Do I fancy it, or do you too feel something strange here? Oh, there is something very strange here, she half sobbed. There always will be. Good Heaven's child, I didn't mean that. He rose and stood looking about him. I know, of course, that you have your beliefs, and I respect them, but you know equally well that I have nothing of the sort. So don't let us conjure up anything inexplicable. I stayed impelpably, imponderably near him. Wretched and bereft, though I was, I could not have left him while he stood denying me. What I mean, he went on in his low distinct voice, is a special and almost ominous sense of cold. Upon my soul, Theresa, he paused. If I were superstitious, if I were a woman, I should probably imagine it to seem a presence. He spoke the last word very faintly, but Theresa shrank from it nevertheless. Don't say that, Alan, she cried out. Don't think of it, I beg you. I've tried so hard myself not to think it, and you must help me. You know it is only perturbed uneasy spirits that wander. With her it is quite different. She has always been so happy. She must still be. I listened, stunned, to Theresa's sweet dogmatism. From what blind distances came her confident misapprehensions, how dense both for her and for Alan was the separating vapor. Alan frowned. Don't take me literally, Theresa, he explained. An eye, who a moment before had almost touched him, now held myself aloof and hurt him with a strange untried pity, newborn in me. I'm not speaking of what you call spirits. It's something much more terrible. He allowed his head to sink heavily on his chest. If I did not positively know that I had never done her any harm, I should suppose myself to be suffering from guilt, from remorse. Theresa, you know better than I perhaps. Was she content always? Did she believe in me? Believe in you, when she knew you to be so good, when you adored her. She thought that, she said it. Then what in Heaven's name ails me? Unless it is all as you believe, Theresa, and she knows now what she didn't know then, poor dear, and minds. Mines what? What do you mean, Alan? I, who with my perhaps illegitimate advantage saw so clear, knew that he had not meant to tell her. I did him that justice, even in my first jealousy. If I had not tortured him so by clinging near him he would not have told her. But the moment came and overflowed and he did tell her, passionate tumultuous story that it was. During all our life together, Alan's and mine, he had spared me, had kept me wrapped in the white cloak of an unblemished loyalty. But it would have been kinder, I now bitterly thought, if like many husbands he had years ago found for the story he now poured forth, some clandestine listener. I should not have known. But he was faithful and good, and so he waited till I, mute and chained, was there to hear him. So well did I know him, as I thought. So thoroughly had he once been mine, that I saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, before the words came. And yet when it came it lashed me with the whips of an unbearable humiliation, for I, his wife, had not known how greatly he could love. And that Teresa, soft little traitor, should in her still way have cared to? Where was the iron in her, I moaned with my stricken spirit, where the steadfastness, from the moment he bade her, she turned her soft little petals up to him, and my last delusion was spent. It was intolerable, and none the less so than in another moment she had, prompted by some belated thought of me, renounced him. Alan was hers, yet she put him from her. And it was my part to watch them both. Then in the anguish of it all I remembered, awkward, untutored spirit that I was, that I now had the great recourse. Whatever human things were unbearable I had no need to bear. I ceased therefore to make the effort that kept me with them. The pitiless poignancy was dulled, the sounds and the lights ceased, the lovers faded from me, and again I was mercifully drawn into the dim, infinite spaces. There followed a period whose lengths I cannot measure, during which I was able to make no progress in the difficult, dizzying experience of release. Earthbound, my jealousy relentlessly kept me. Though my two dear ones had foresworn each other, I could not trust them. For theirs seemed to me an affactation of a more than mortal magnanimity. Without a ghostly sentinel to prick them with sharp fears and recollection, who could believe that they would keep to it? Of the efficacy of my own vigilance, so long as I might choose to exercise it, I could have no doubt. For I had by this time come to have a dreadful exultation in the new power that lived in me. Repeated, delicate experiment had taught me how a touch or a breath, a wish or a whisper, could control Alan's axe, could keep him from Teresa. I could manifest myself as palely, as transiently as a thought. I could produce the merest necessary flicker, like the shadow of a just-opened leaf, on his trembling, tortured consciousness. And these unrealized perceptions of me he interpreted, as I had known that he would, as his soul's inevitable penance. He had come to believe that he had done evil and silently loving Teresa all these years, and it was my vengeance to allow him to believe this, to prod him ever to believe it afresh. I am conscious that this frame of mind was not continuous in me. For I remember, too, that when Alan and Teresa were safely apart and sufficiently miserable, I loved them as dearly as I ever had. More dearly, perhaps. For it was impossible that I should not perceive in my new emancipation that they were each of them something more and greater than the two beings I had once ignorantly pictured them. For years they had practised a selflessness of which I could once scarcely have conceived, and which even now I could only admire without entering into its mystery. While I had lived solely for myself, these two divine creatures had lived exquisitely for me. They had granted me everything, themselves nothing. For my undeserving sake their lives had been a constant torment of renunciation, a torment they had not sought to alleviate by the exchange of a single glance of understanding. There were even marvellous moments when, from the depths of my newly informed heart, I pitied them. Poor creatures, who, withheld from the infinite solaces that I had come to know, were still utterly within that shell of sense, so frail, so piteously contrived for pain. Within it, yes, yet exercising qualities that so sublimely transcended it, yet the shy, hesitating compassion that thus had birthed me was far from being able to defeat the earlier, earthlier emotion. The two I recognized were in a sort of conflict, and I, regarding it, assumed that the conflict would never end, that for years, as Alan and Teresa reckoned time, I should be obliged to withhold myself from the great spaces and linger, suffering, grudging, shamed, where they lingered. It can never have been explained, I suppose, what to do vitalised perceptions such as mine, the contact of mortal beings with each other appears to be. Once to have exercised this sense-freeed perception is to realise that the gift of prophecy, although the subject of such frequent marvel, is no longer mysterious. The merest glance of our sensitive and uncoiled vision can detect the strength of the relation between two beings, and therefore instantly calculate its duration. If you see a heavy weight suspended from a slender string, you know without any wizardry, then in a few moments the string will snap. Well, such, if you admit the analogy is prophecy, is foreknowledge. And it was thus that I saw it with Teresa and Alan, for it was perfectly visible to me that they would very little longer have the strength to preserve, near each other, the denuded, impersonal relationship that they, and that I, behind them, insisted on, and that they would have to separate. It was my sister, perhaps the more sensitive, who first realised this. It had now become possible for me to observe them almost constantly, the effort necessary to visit them had so greatly diminished. So that I watched her, poor anguished girl, prepare to leave him. I saw each reluctant movement that she made. I saw her eyes worn from self-searching. I heard her step grown timid from inexplicable fears. I entered her very heart, and heard its pitiful wild beating. And still I did not interfere. For at this time I had a wonderful, almost demoniical sense of disposing matters to suit my own selfish will. At any moment I could have checked their miseries, could have restored happiness and peace. Yet it gave me, and I could weep to admit it, a monstrous joy to know that Teresa thought she was leaving Alan of her own free intention, when it was I who was contriving, arranging, insisting, and yet she wretchedly felt my presence near her. I am certain of that. A few days before the time of her intended departure, my sister told Alan that she must speak with him after dinner. Our beautiful old house branched out from a circular hall with great arched doors at either end, and it was through the rear doorway that always in summer, after dinner, we had passed out into the garden adjoining. As usual, therefore, when the hour came Teresa led the way. That dreadful daytime brilliance that in my present state I found so hard to endure was now becoming softer. A delicate, capricious twilight breeze danced inconsequently through languidly wish-spring leaves. Lovely pale flowers blossomed like little moons in the dusk, and over them the breath of Minognet hung heavily. It was a perfect place, and it had so long been hours, Alan's and mine. It made me restless and a little wicked that those two should be there together now. For a little they walked about together, speaking of common daily things. Then suddenly Teresa burst out. I am going away, Alan. I have stayed to do everything that needed to be done. Now your mother will be here to care for you, and it is time for me to go. He stared at her and stood still. Teresa had been there so long, she so definitely to his mind belonged there. And she was, as I also had jealously known, so lovely there, the small, dark, dainty creature in the old hall on the wide staircases in the garden, life there without Teresa, even the intentionally remote, the perpetually renounced Teresa. He had not dreamed of it. He could not, so suddenly conceive of it. Sit here, he said, and drew her down beside him on a bench. And tell me what it means, why you are going. Is it because of something I have been, have done? She hesitated. I wondered if she would dare tell him. She looked out and away from him, and he waited long for her to speak. The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater. A moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in. To me, watching, listening, hovering, there came a dreadful purpose and a dreadful courage. Suppose for one moment Teresa should not only feel, but see me. Would she dare to tell him then? There came a brief space of terrible effort, all my fluttering uncertain forces strained to the utmost, the instant of my struggle was endlessly long, and the transition seemed to take place outside me, as when sitting in a train, motionless, seized the leagues of earth float by. And then in a bright, terrible flash I knew I had achieved it. I had attained visibility. Shuddering, insubstantial, but luminously apparent, I stood there before them. And for the instant that I maintained the visible state I looked straight into Teresa's soul. She gave a cry, and then, thing of silly, cruel impulses that I was, I saw what I had done. The very thing that I wished to avert I had precipitated, for Allen and his sudden terror and pity had bent and caught her in his arms, for the first time they were together, and it was I who had brought them. Then to his whispered urging to tell the reason of her cry, Teresa said, Frances was here. You did not see her standing there, under the lathoks, with no smile on her face. My dear, my dear, was all that Allen said. I had so long now lived invisibly with them, he knew that she was right. I suppose you know what it means, she asked him calmly. Dear Teresa, Allen said slowly, If you and I should go away somewhere, could we not evade all this ghostliness? And will you come with me? Distance would not banish her, my sister confidently asserted. And then she said softly, Have you thought what a lonely, awesome thing it must be to be so newly dead? Pity her, Allen. We who are warm and alive should pity her. She loves you still. That is the meaning of it all, you know. And she wants us to understand that for that reason we must keep apart. Oh, it was so plain in her white face as she stood there. And you did not see her? It was your face that I saw, Allen solemnly told her. Oh, how different he had grown from the Allen that I had known. And yours is the only face that I shall ever see. And again he drew her to him. She sprang from him. You are defying her, Allen, she cried. And you must not. It is her right to keep us apart if she wishes. It must be as she insists. I shall go, as I told you. And, Allen, I beg of you, leave me the courage to do as she demands. They stood facing each other in the deep dusk, and the wounds that I had dealt them gaped red and accusing. We must pity her, Teresa had said. And as I remembered that extraordinary speech, and saw the agony in her face, and the greater agony in Allen's, there came the great irreparable cleavage between mortality and me. In a swift, merciful flame the last of my mortal emotions, gross and tenacious they must have been, was consumed. My cold grasp of Allen loosened, and a new unearthly love of him bloomed in my heart. I was now, however, in a difficulty with which my experience in the newer state was scarcely sufficient to deal. How could I make it plain to Allen and Teresa that I wished to bring them together, to heal the wounds that I had made? Pityingly, remorsefully, I lingered near them all that night, and the next day, and by that time had brought myself to the point of a great determination. In the little time that was left, before Teresa should be gone, and Allen bereft and desolate, I saw the one way that lay open to me to convince them of my acquiescence in their destiny. In the deepest darkness and silence of the next night I made a greater effort than it will ever be necessary for me to make again. When they think of me, Allen and Teresa, I pray now that they will recall what I did that night, and that my thousand frustrations and selfishnesses may shrivel and be blown from their indulgent memories. Yet the following morning, as she had planned, Teresa appeared at breakfast, dressed for her journey. Above in her room there were the sounds of departure. They spoke little during the brief meal. But when it was ended, Allen said, Teresa, there is half an hour before you go. Will you come upstairs with me? I had a dream that I must tell you of. Allen. She looked at him, frightened, but went with him. It was a Francis you dreamed, she said quietly, as they entered the library together. Did I say it was a dream? But I was awake, thoroughly awake. I had not been sleeping well, and I heard twice the striking of the clock. And as I lay there, looking out at the stars and thinking of you, Teresa, she came to me, stood there before me in my room. It was no sheeted spectre, you understand. It was Francis, literally she, in some inexplicable fashion I seemed to be aware that she wanted to make me know something. And I waited, watching her face. After a few moments it came. She did not speak precisely. That is, I am sure I heard no sound. Yet the words that came from her were definite enough. She said, don't let Teresa leave you. Take her, keep her. Then she went away. Was that a dream? I had not meant to tell you, Teresa eagerly answered. But now I must, it is too wonderful. What time did your clock strike, Allen? One, the last time. Yes, it was then that I awoke, and she had been with me. I had not seen her, but her arm had been about me and her kiss was on my cheek. Oh, I knew, it was unmistakable. And the sound of her voice was with me. Then she bade you, too. Yes, to stay with you. I am glad we told each other. She smiled tearfully and began to fasten her wrap. But you are not going now, Allen cried. You know that you cannot, now that she has asked you to stay. Then you believe, as I do, that it was she, Teresa demanded. I can never understand, but I know, he answered her. And now you will not go? I am freed. There will be no further semblance of me in my old home, no sound of my voice, no dimmest echo of my earthly self. They have no further need of me, the two that I have brought together. Theirs is the fullest joy that the dwellers in the shell of sense can know. Mine is the transcendent joy of the unseen spaces. End of the shell of sense. End of section 9 of famous modern ghost stories. Section 10 of famous modern ghost stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Famous modern ghost stories. Compiled by Dorothy Scarborough. Section 10. The Woman at Seven Brothers. By Wilbur Daniels Thiel. From Lance End. I tell you, sir, I was innocent. I didn't know any more about the world at 22 than some do at 12. My uncle and aunt in Dunksbury brought me up strict. I studied hard in high school. I worked hard after hours, and I went to church twice on Sundays. And I can't see it's right to put me in a place like this with crazy people. Oh yes, I know they're crazy. You can't tell me. As for what they said in court about finding her with her husband, that's the inspector's lie, sir, because he's down on me and wants to make it look like my fault. No, sir. I can't say as I thought she was handsome, not at first. For one thing, her lips were too thin and white, and her colour was bad. I'll tell you a fact, sir, that first day I came off to the light, I was sitting on my cot in the storeroom. That's where the assistant keeper sleeps at the seven brothers, as lonesome as I could be, away from home for the first time, and the water all round me, and, even though it was a calm day, pounding enough on the ledge to send a kind of a whining up through all that solid rock of the tower. And when old Fetterson poked his head down from the living room, with the sunshine above making a kind of bright frame around his hair and whiskers, to give me a cheery make-yourself-to-home-son, I remember I said to myself, he's all right, I'll get along with him, but his wife's enough to sour milk. That was queer, because she was so much under him in age, along about twenty-eight or so, and him nearer fifty, but that's what I said, sir. Of course, that feeling wore off, same as any feeling will wear off sooner or later, in a place like the seven brothers. Couped up in a place like that, you come to know folks so well that you forget what they do look like. There was a long time I never noticed her, any more than you'd notice the cat. We used to sit of an evening, around the table, as if you were Fetterson there and me here, and her somewhere back there, in the rocker, knitting. Fetterson would be working on his Jacob's letter, and I'd be reading. He'd been working on that Jacob's letter a year, I guess, and every time the inspector came off with the tender, he was so astonished to see how good that letter was, that the old man would go to work and make it better. That's all he lived for. If I was reading, as I say, I daren't take my eyes off the book, or Fetterson had me, and then he'd begin. What the inspector said about him, how surprised the member of the board had been that time to see everything so clean about the light. What the inspector had said about Fetterson's being stuck here, in a second-class light, best keeper on the coast, and so on and so on, till either he or I had to go aloft and have a look at the wigs. He'd been there twenty-three years old, told, and he'd got used to the feeling that he was kept down unfair. So used to it, I guess, that he fed on it, and told himself how folks ashore would talk when he was dead and gone. Best keeper on the coast, kept down unfair. Not that he said that to me. No, he was far too loyal and humble and respectful, doing his duty without complaint as anybody could see. And all that time, night after night, hardly ever a word out of the woman. As I remember it, she seemed more like a piece of furniture than anything else. Not even a very good cook, nor over and above tidy. One day, when he and I were trimming the lamp, he passed a remark that his first wife used to dust the lens and take a pride in it. Not that he said a word against Anna, though. He never said a word against any living mortal. He was too upright. I don't know how it came about, or rather I do know, but it was so sudden and so far away from my thoughts that it shocked me, like the world turned over. It was at prayers. That night I remember Fedeson was uncommon long-winded. We'd had a batch of newspapers out by the tender, and at such times the old man always made a long watch of it, getting the world straightened out. For one thing, the United States minister to Turkey was dead. Well, from him and his soul Fedeson got on to Turkey and the Presbyterian college there, and from that to heathen in general. He rambled on and on like the serve on the ledge. Never coming to an end. You know how you'll be at prayers sometimes. My mind strayed. I counted the canes in the chair seat where I was kneeling. I played at the corner of the tablecloth between my fingers for a spell, and by and by my eyes went wandering up the back of the chair. The woman, sir, was looking at me. Her chair was back to mine, close, and both our heads were down in the shadow under the etch of the table, with Fedeson clear over on the other side by the stove. And there were her two eyes hunting mine between the spindles in the shadow. You won't believe me, sir, but I tell you I felt like jumping to my feet and running out of the room. It was so queer. I don't know what her husband was praying about after that. His voice didn't mean anything, no more than the seas on the ledge the way down there. I went to work to count the canes in the seat again, but all my eyes were on the top of my head. It got so I couldn't stand it. We were at the Lord's Prayer, saying a Tsing song together, when I had to look up again. And there her two eyes were, between the spindles, hunting mine. Just then all of us were saying, forgive us our trespasses. I thought of it afterward. When we got up she was turned the other way, but I couldn't help seeing our cheeks were red. It was terrible. I wondered if Fedeson would notice, though I might have known he wouldn't, not him. He wasn't too much of a hurry to get his Jacob's letter, and then he had to tell me for the tenth time what the inspector said that day about getting him another light. Kingdom come, maybe, he said. I made some excuse or other, and got away. Once in the storeroom, I sat down on my cot and stayed there a long time, feeling queer than anything. I read a chapter in the Bible, I don't know why. After I'd got my boots off, I sat with them in my hands for as much as an hour, I guess, staring at the oil tank, and its lopsided shadow on the wall. I tell you, sir, I was shocked. I was only 22, remember, and I was shocked and horrified. And when I did turn in, finally, I didn't sleep at all well. Two or three times I came too, sitting straight up in bed. Once I got up and opened the outer door to have a look. The water was like glass, dim, without a breath of wind, and the moon just going down. Over on the black shore I made out two lights in a village, like a pair of eyes watching. Lonely? My yes. Lonely and nervous. I had a horror of her, sir. The dingy boat hung on its David's just there in front of the door, and for a minute I had an awful hankering to climb into it, lower away and row off, no matter where. It sounds foolish. Well, it seemed foolish next morning, with the sun shining and everything as usual, Feddison sucking his pen and wagging his head over his eternal log, and his wife down in the rocker with her head in the newspaper, and her breakfast work still waiting. I guess that jarred it out of me more than anything else. Side of hers slouched down there with a stringy yellow hair and her dusty apron, and the pale back of her neck, reading the society notes. Society notes! Think of it. For the first time since I came to Seven Brothers I wanted to laugh. I guess I did laugh when I went to Loft to clean the lamp, and found everything so free and breezy, gulls flying high, and little whitecaps making under a westerly. It was like feeling a big load dropped off your shoulders. Feddison came up with his dust-rag and cocked his head at me. What's the matter, eh? said he. Nothing, said I, and then I couldn't help it. Seems kind of out of place for society notes, said I, out here at Seven Brothers. He was the other side of the lens, and when he looked at me he had a thousand eyes, all sober. For a minute I thought he was going on dusting, but then he came out and sat down on a sill. Sometimes, said he, I get the thinking, it may be a might dull for her out here. She's pretty young, Ray. Not much more on a girl, hardly. Not much more on a girl? It gave me a turn, sir, as though I'd see my aunt in short dresses. It's a good home for her, though, he went on slow. I've seen a lot worse, the shawl, Ray. Of course, if I could get a shawl light. King then comes a shawl light. He looked at me out of his deep-set eyes, and then he turned them around the lightroom, for I'd been so long. No, said he, wagging his head. It ain't for such as me. I never saw so humble a man. But, look here, he went on more cheerful. As I was telling her just now, a month from yesterday is our fourth anniversary, and I'm going to take her a shawl for the day, and give her a holiday, new hat and everything. A girl wants a might of excitement now and then, Ray. There it was again, that girl, and gave me the fidget, sir. I had to do something about it. It's close quarters for last names in a light, and I'd take into calling him Uncle Matt soon after I came. Now, when I was at table that noon, I spoke over to where she was standing by the stove, getting him another helper of Chowder. I guess I'll have some too, Aunt Anna, said I, match her effect. She never said a word, nor gave a sign. Just stood there, kind of round-shouldered, dipping the Chowder. And that night at prayers, I hitched my chair round the table, with its back the other way. You get awful lazy in a lighthouse, some ways. No matter how much tinkering you've got, there's still a lot of time, and there is such a thing as too much reading. The changes in weather get monotonous too, by and by. The light burns the same on a thick night as it does on a fair one. Of course, there's the ships, northbound, southbound, wind jammers, freighters, passenger boats full of people. In the watches at night, you can see the lights go by, and wonder what they are, how they're laden, where they'll fetch up and all. I used to do that almost every evening, when it was my first watch, sitting out on the walk around up there, with my legs hanging over the edge, and my chin propped on the railing. Lazy. The Boston boat was the prettiest to see, with the three tiers of portholes lit, like a string of pearls wrapped round and round a woman's neck. Well away too, for the ledge must have made a couple of hundred fathons off the light, like a white docked tooth of a breaker, even on the darkest night. Well, I was lulling there one night, as I say, watching the Boston boat go by, not thinking of anything special, when I heard the door on the other side of the tower open, and footsteps coming around to me. By and by I nodded toward the boat, and passed a remark that she was fetching in an uncommon closer night. No answer. I made nothing of that, for often times Fedeson wouldn't answer, and after I'd watched the lights crawling on through the darkest bell, just to make conversation, I said I guess there'd be a bit of weather before long. I've noticed that I, when there's weather coming on, and the wind in the northeast, you can hear the orchestra playing aboard her, just over there. I'll make it out now, do you? Yes, oh yes, I hear it all right. You can imagine I started, it wasn't him, but her, and there was something in the way she said that speech sir, something, well, unnatural, like a hungry animal snapping at a person's hand. I turned and looked at her side-wise. She was standing by the railing, leaning a little outward, the top of her from the waist picked out bright by the lens behind her. I didn't know what in the world to say, and yet I had a feeling I ought not to sit there, Mum. I wonder, said I, what that captain's thinking of, fetching and so handy tonight. It's no way, I tell you, if it wasn't for this light, she'd go to work and pile up on a ledge some thick night. She turned at that and stared straight into the lens. I didn't like the look of her face. Somehow, with its edges cut hard all round, and its two eyes closed down to slits like a cat's, it made a kind of mask. And then I went on, uneasy enough. And then, where'd all their music be all of a sudden, and their goings on, and their singing, and dancing? She clipped me off so quick it took my breath. Dancing, said I. That's dance music, said she. She was looking at the boat again. How do you know? I felt I had to keep on talking. Well, sir, she laughed. I looked at her. She had on a show of some stuff or other, the shiny and the light. She had it pulled tight around her with the two hands in front at her breast, and I saw her shoulders swaying in tune. How do I know? she cried. Then she laughed again, the same kind of a laugh. It was queer, sir, to see her and to hear her. She turned as quick as that, and leaned towards me. Don't you know how to dance, Ray? said she. No, I managed, and I was going to say, Aunt Anna. But the thing choked in my throat. I tell you, she was looking square at me all the time, with her two eyes, and moving with the music as if she didn't know it. By heaven, sir, it came over me of a sudden that she wasn't so bad looking after all. I guess I must have sounded like a fool. You, you see, said I. She's cleared the rip there now, and the music's gone. You, you hear? Yes, said she, turning back slow. That's where it stops every night, night after night. It stops just there, at the rip. When she spoke again, her voice was different. I never heard the like of it, thin and tore as a thread. It made me shiver, sir. I hate them, that's what she said. I hate them all. I'd like to see them dead. I'd love to see them torn apart on the rocks night after night. I could bathe my hands in their blood, night after night. And you know, sir, I saw it with my own eyes, her hands moving in each other above the rail. But it was a voice, though. I didn't know what to do or what to say, so I put my head through the railing and looked down at the water. I don't think I'm a coward, sir. But it was like a cold, ice-cold hand, taking hold of my beating heart. When I looked up, finally, she was gone. By and by I went in. I had a look at the lamp, hardly knowing what I was about. Then, seeing by my watch it was time for the old man to come on duty, I started to go below. In the Seven Brothers, you understand, the stair goes down in a spiral through a well against the south wall, and first there's the door to the keeper's room, and then you come to another, and that's the living room. And then down to the storeroom. And at night, if you don't carry a lantern, it's as black as the pit. Well, down I went, sliding my hand along the rail, and as usual, I stopped to give a wrap on the keeper's door in case he was taking a nap after supper. Sometimes he did. I stood there, blind as a bat, but my mind still up on the walk around. There was no answer to my knock. I hadn't expected any, just from habit and with my right foot already hanging down for the next step, I reached out to give the door one more tap for luck. Do you know, sir, my hand didn't fetch up on anything. The door had been there a second before, and now the door wasn't there. My hand just went on, going through the dark, on and on, and I didn't seem to have sense or power enough to stop it. I didn't seem any air in the well to breathe, and my ears were drumming to the surf. That's how scared I was. And there my hand touched the flesh of a face, and something in the dark said, Oh, no louder than a sigh. Next thing I knew, sir, I was down in the living room, warm and yellow-lit, with Feddison cocking his head at me, cross the table, where he was at the eternal Jacob's letter of his. What's the matter, eh? said he. Lord, say, Gray! Nothing, said I. Then I think I told him I was sick. That night I wrote a letter to A. L. Peters, the grain dealer in Duxbury, asking for a job. Even though it wouldn't go ashore for a couple of weeks, just the writing of it made me feel better. It's hard to tell you how those two weeks went by. I don't know why, but I felt like hiding in a corner all the time. I had to come to meals, but I didn't look at her, though, not once, unless it was by accident. Feddison thought I was still ailing, and nagged me to death with advice and so on. One thing I could care not to do, I can tell you, and that was to knock on his door, till I'd made certain he wasn't below in the living room, though I was tempted to. Yes, eh? That's a queer thing, and I wouldn't tell you if I hadn't set out to give you the truth. Night after night, stopping there on the landing in that black pit, the air gone out of my lungs, and the served drumming in my ears, and sweat standing cold on my neck, and one hand lifting up in the air. God forgive me, sir. Maybe I did wrong not to look at her more, drooping about her work in her gingham apron with her hair stringing. When the inspector came off with a tender that time, I told him I was through. That's when he took the dislike to me, I guess, for he looked at me kind of sneering and said, soft as I was, I'd have to put up with it till next relief. And then, said he, there'd be a whole house cleaning at Seven Brothers, because he'd gotten Featherson the birthed kingdom come. And with that, he slept the old man on the back. I wish he could have seen Featherson, sir. He sat down on my cot as if his knees had given way. Happy? You'd think he'd be happy with all his dreams come true. Yes, he was happy, beaming all over, for a minute. Then, sir, he began to shrivel up. It was like seeing a man cut down in his prime before your eyes. He began to wag his head. No, said he. No, no. It's not for such as me. I'm good enough for Seven Brothers, and that's all, Mr. Bayless. That's all. And for all the inspector could say, that's what he stuck to. He'd figured himself a martyr so many years, nursed that injustice like a mother with her first born, sir. And now, in his old age, so to speak, they weren't to rob him of it. Featherson was going to wear out his life in a second-class light, and folks would talk. That was his idea. I heard him hailing down as the tender was casting off. See you tomorrow, Mr. Bayless. Yep. Coming ashore with the wife for a spree. Anniversary. Yep. But he didn't sound much like a spree. They had robbed him partly after all. I wondered what she thought about it. I didn't know till night. She didn't show up to supper, which Featherson and I got ourselves. Had a headache, he said. It was my earlier watch. Her went and lit up, and came back to read his bell. He was finishing off the Jacob's letter, and thoughtful, like a man that's lost the treasure. Once or twice, I caught him looking about the room on the sly. It was pathetic, sir. Going up the second time, I stepped out on the walk around to have a look at things. She was there, on the seaward side, wrapped in that silky thing. A fair sea was running across the ledge, and it was coming on a little thick. Not too thick. After the ride, the Boston boat was blowing. Creeping up on a quarter-speed, there was another fellow behind her, and a fisherman's conch, farther offshore. I don't know why, but I stopped beside her and leaned on the rail. She didn't appear to notice me one way or another. We stood, then we stood, listening to the whistles, and the longer we stood, the more it got on my nerves, her not noticing me. I suppose she'd been too much on my mind lately. I began to be put out. I scraped my feet. I cuffed. By and by, I said out loud, Look here, I guess I'd better get out the foghorn, and give those fellows a toot. Why? said she, without moving her head. Calm as that. Why? gave me a turn, sir, for a minute I stared at her. Why? because if she don't pick up this light before many minutes, she'll be too close into air. Tidal have her on the rocks. That's why. I couldn't see her face, but I could see one of her silk shoulders lift a little, like a shrug. And there I kept on staring at her, a dumb one, sure enough. I know what brought me to was hearing the Boston boats three sharp toots as she picked up the light, mad as anything, and swung her a helmet pulled. I turned away from her, sweat stringing down my face, and walked around to the door. It was just as well, too, for the feed pipe was plugged in the lamp, and the wicks were popping. She'd have been out in another five minutes, sir. When I'd finished, I saw that woman standing in the doorway. Her eyes were bright. I had a horror of her, sir, a living horror. If only the light had been out, said she, low and sweet. God forgive you, said I. You don't know what you're saying. She went down the stair into the well, winding out of sight, and as long as I could see her, her eyes were watching mine. When I went myself, after a few minutes, she was waiting for me on that first landing, standing still in the dark. She took hold of my hand, though I tried to get it away. Good-bye, said she in my ear. Good-bye, said I. I didn't understand. You heard what he said today about Kingdom Come. Be it so, on his own head. I'll never come back here. Once I set foot ashore. I've got friends in Brightonborough, Ray. I got away from her, and started on down. But I stopped. Brightonborough? I whispered back. Why do you tell me? My throat was raw to the word, like a soul. So you'd know, said she. Well, sir, I saw them off next morning, down that new Jacob's letter into the dinghy-boat, her and a dress of blue velvet, and him in his best cutaway endabi, rowing away, smaller and smaller, the two of them. And then I went back and sat on my cot, leaving the door open, and the letter still hanging down the wall, along with the boat-falls. I don't know whether it was relief or what. I suppose I must have been worked up, even more than I'd thought those past weeks. For now it was all over, I was like a rag. I got down on my knees, sir, and prayed to God for the salvation of my soul. And when I got up, and climbed to the living-room, it was half past twelve by the clock. There was rain on the windows, and the sea was running blue-black under the sun. I'd sat there all the time, not knowing there was a squall. It was funny. The glass stood high, but those black squalls kept coming and going all afternoon, while I was at work up in the light-room. And I worked hard to keep myself busy. The first thing I knew it was five, and no sign of the boat yet. It began to get dim and kind of published gray over the land. The sun was down. I lit up, made everything snug, and got out the night-glasses to have another look for that boat. He'd said he intended to get back before five. No sign. And then, standing there, it came over me that of course he wouldn't be coming off. He'd be hunting her, poor old fool. It looked like I had to stand two men's watches that night. Never mind. I felt like myself again, even if I hadn't had any dinner or supper. Pride came to me that night on the walk around, watching the boats go by. Little boats, big boats, the Boston boat with all her pearls and her dance music. They couldn't see me. They didn't know who I was. But to the last of them, they depended on me. They say a man must be born again. Well, I was born again. I breathed deep in the wind. Dawn broke hard and red as a dying coal. I put out the light and started to go below. Born again, yes, sir. I felt so good I whistled in the well, and when I came to the first door on the stair, I reached out in the dark to give it a wrap for luck. And then, sir, the hair prickled all over my scalp, when I found my hand just going on and on through the air, the same as it had gone once before, and all of a sudden I wanted to yell, because I thought I was going to touch flesh. It's funny what they're just forgetting to close their door wall did to me, isn't it? Well, I reached for the latch and pulled it too with a bang, and ran down as if a ghost was after me. I got up some coffee and brought in bacon for breakfast. I drank the coffee. But somehow I couldn't eat all along of that open door. The light in the room was blurred. I got to thinking. I thought how she talked about those men, women and children on the rocks, and how she'd made to bathe her hands over the rail. I almost jumped out of my chair then. It seemed for a wink she was there beside the stove, watching me with a queer half-smile. Really, I seemed to see her for her flesh across the red tablecloth in the red light of dawn. Look here, said I, to myself, sharp enough, and then I gave myself a good laugh and went below. There I took a look out of the door, which was still open, with a letter hanging down. I made sure to see the poor old fool come pulling around the point before very long now. My boots were hurting a little, and, taking them off, I lay down on the cot to rest, and somehow I went to sleep. I had horrible dreams. I saw her again, standing in that blood-red kitchen, and she seemed to be washing her hands, and the serve on the latch was winding up the tower, louder and louder all the time, and what it whined was night after night, night after night! What woke me was cold water in my face. The storeroom was in gloom. That scared me at first. I thought night had come, and remembered the light. But then I saw the gloom was of a storm. The floor was shining wet, and the water in my face was spray, flung up through the open door. When I ran to close it, it almost made me dizzy to see the gray and white breakers marching past. The land was gone, the sky shut down heavy overhead. There was a piece of wreckage on the back of a swell, and the Jacob's letter was carried clean away. How that sea had picked up so quick, I can't think. I looked up my watch, and it wasn't four in the afternoon yet. When I closed the door, sir, it was almost dark in the storeroom. I'd never been in the light before in a gale of wind. I wondered why I was shivering so, till I found it was the floor below me shivering, and the walls and stair. Horrible crunchings and grindings ran away up the tower, and now and then there was a great thud somewhere like a cannon shot in a cave. I tell you, sir, I was alone, and I was an immortal fright for a minute or so. And yet I had to get myself together. There was the light up there, not tended to, and an early dark coming on, and a heavy night and all, and I had to go. And I had to pass that door. You'll say it's foolish, sir. Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten. But I began thinking of that door up there the minute I set foot on the stair, and all the way up through that howling dark well I dreaded to pass it. I told myself I wouldn't stop. I didn't stop. I felt the landing on their foot, and I went on. Four steps, five. And then I couldn't. I turned and went back. I put up my hand, and it went on into nothing. That door, sir, was open again. I left it be. I went on up to the light room and set to work. It was bedlam there, sir, screeching bedlam. But I took no notice. I kept my eyes down. I trimmed those seven wicks, sir, as neat as ever they were trimmed. I polished the brass till it shone, and I dusted the lens. It wasn't till that was done that I let myself look back to see who it was standing there, half out of sight in the well. It was her, sir. Where'd she come from? I asked. I remember my voice was sharp. Up Jacob's letter, said she, and hers was like the syrup of flowers. I shook my head. I was savage, sir. The letters carried away. I cast it off, said she, with a smile. Then, said I, you must have come while I was asleep. Another thought came on me, heavy as a ton of lead. And where's he, said I? Where's the boat? He's drowned, said she, as easy as that. And I let the boat go adrift. You wouldn't hear me when I called. But look here, said I, if you came through the storeroom, why didn't you wake me up? Tell me that. It sounds foolish enough, me standing like a lawyer in court, trying to prove she couldn't be there. She didn't answer for a moment. I guess she sighed, though I couldn't hear for the gale, and her eyes grew soft, sir, so soft. I couldn't, said she. You look so peaceful, dear one. My cheeks and neck went hot, sir, as if a warm iron was laid on them. I didn't know what to say. I began to stammer. What do you mean? But she was going back down the stair, out of sight. My God, sir! And I used not to think she was good looking. I started to follow her. I wanted to know what she meant. Then I said to myself, if I don't go, if I wait here, she'll come back. And I went to the weather-side, and stood looking out of the window. Not that there was much to see. It was growing dark, and the seven brothers looked like the mane of a running horse, a great, vast, white horse running into the wind. The air was a welter with it. I caught one peep of a fisherman, lying down flat, trying to weather the ledge, and I said, God help them all tonight. And then I went hot at sound with that God. I was right about her, though. She was back again. I wanted her to speak first, before I turned, but she wouldn't. I didn't hear her go out. I didn't know what she was up to, till I saw her coming outside on the walk-around, drenched wet already. I pounded on the glass for her to come in and not be a fool, if she heard she gave no sign of it. There she stood, and there I stood, watching her. Lord, sir, was it just that I'd never had eyes to see? Or are there women who bloom? Her clothes were shining on her, like a carving, and her hair was let down like a golden curtain, tossing and streaming in the gale. And there she stood, with her lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed, gazing straight away over the seven brothers, and her shoulders swaying as if in tune with the wind and water and all the ruin. And when I looked at her hands over the rails, sir, they were moving in each other as if they bathed. And then I remembered, sir. A cold horror took me. I knew now why she had come back again. She wasn't a woman, she was a devil. I turned my back on her. I said to myself, it's time to light up. You've got to light up. Like that, over and over, out loud. My hand was shivering so I could hardly find a match, and when I scratched it, it only flared a second and then went out into the back-draft from the open door. She was standing in the doorway, looking at me. It's queer, sir, but I felt like a child caught a mischief. I was going to light up, I managed to say, finally. Why? said she. No. I can't say it as she did. Why? said I. My God! She came nearer, laughing as if with pity. Low, you know. Your God? And who is your God? What is God? What is anything on a night like this? I drew back from her. All I could say anything about was the light. Why not the dark? said she. Dark is softer than light, tenderer, dearer than light. From the dark up here, away up here in the wind and storm, we can watch the ships go by, you and I. And you love me so. You've loved me so long, Ray. I never have. I struck out of her. I don't. I don't. Her voice was lower than ever, but there was the same laughing pity in it. Oh, yes, you have. And she was near me again. I have, I yelled. I'll show you. I'll show you if I have. I got another match, sir, and scratched it on the brass. I gave it to the first wick, the little wick that's inside all the others. It bloomed like a yellow flower. I have, I yelled, and gave it to the next. Then there was a shadow. And I saw she was leaning beside me, her two elbows on the brass, her two arms stretched out above the wicks, her bare forearms and wrists and hands. I gave a gasp. Take care! You'll burn them, for God's sake! She didn't move or speak. The match burned my fingers and went out, and all I could do was stare at those arms of hers, helpless. I'd never noticed their arms before. They were rounded and graceful and covered with a soft down, like a breath of gold. Then I heard her speaking close to my ear. Pretty arms, she said. Pretty arms! I turned. Her eyes were fixed on mine. They seemed heavy as if with sleep, and yet between their lids there were two wells, deep and deep, and as if they held all the things I'd ever thought or dreamt in them. I looked away from them, at her lips. Her lips were red as poppies, heavy with redness. They moved, and I heard them speaking. Poor boy, you love me so, and you want to kiss me, don't you? No, said I. But I couldn't turn around. I looked at her hair. I'd always thought it was stringy hair. Some hair curls naturally with them, they say, and perhaps that was it, for there were pearls of wet on it, and it was thick and shimmering around her face, making soft shadows by the temples. There was green in it, queer strands of green-like braids. What is it? said I. Nothing but weed, said she, with that slow sleepy smile. Somehow or other I felt calmer than I had any time. Look here, said I. I'm going to light this lamp. I took out a match, scratched it, and touched the third wick. The flame ran around, bigger than the other two together, but still her arms hung there. I bit my lip. By God I will, said I to myself, and I lit the fourth. It was fierce, sir, fierce, and yet those arms never trembled. I had to look around at her. Her eyes were still looking into mine, so deep and deep, and her red lips were still smiling with that queer, sleepy droop. The only thing was that tears were raining down her cheeks, big, glowing round, jeweled tears. It wasn't human, sir, but was like a dream. Pretty arms, she sighed, and then, as if those words had broken something in her heart, there came a great sob bursting from her lips. To hear it drove me mad. I reached to drag her away, but she was too quick, sir. She quenched from me, and slipped out from between my hands. It was like she faded away, sir, and went down in a bundle, nursing her poor arms, and mourning over them with those terrible broken sobs. The sound of them took the manhood out of me. You'd have been the same, sir. I knelt down beside her on the floor, and covered my face. Please, I moaned, please, please. That's all I could say. I wanted her to forgive me. I reached out her hand, blind for forgiveness, and I couldn't find her anywhere. I'd hurt her so, and she was afraid of me, of me, sir, who loved her so deep it drove me crazy. I could see her down the stair, though it was dim, and my eyes were filled with tears. I stumbled after her, crying, Please, please. The little wicks I'd lit were blowing in the wind from the door, and smoking the glass beside them black. One went out. I pleaded with them, the same as I would plead with a human being. I said I'd be back in a second. I promised. And I went on, down the stair, crying like a baby, because I'd hurt her, and she was afraid of me, of me, sir. She'd gone into her room. The door was closed against me, and I could hear her sobbing beyond it, broken-hearted. My heart was broken too. I beat on the door with my palms. I begged her to forgive me. I told her I loved her. And all the answer was that sobbing in the dark. And then I lifted a latch and went in, groping, pleading. Dearest, please, because I love you. I heard her speak down near the floor. There wasn't any anger in her voice, nothing but sadness and despair. No, said she. You don't love me, Ray. You never have. I do. I have. No, no, said she, as if she was tired out. Where are you? I was groping for her. I thought, and lit a match. She had got to the door and was standing there as if ready to fly. I went toward her, and she made me stop. She took my breath away. I heard your arms, said I, in a dream. No, said she, hardly moving her lips. She held them out to the mattress light for me to look, and there was never a scar on them. Not even that soft golden down was singed, sir. You can't hurt my body, said she, sad as anything. Only my heart, Ray, my poor heart. I tell you again, she took my breath away. I lit another match. How can you be so beautiful, I wondered. She answered in riddles, but oh, the sadness of her, sir. Because, said she, I've always so wanted to be. How come your eyes so heavy, said I? Because I've seen so many things I never dreamt of, said she. How come your hair so thick? It's the seaweed makes it thick, said she, smiling queer, queer. How come seaweed there? Out of the bottom of the sea. She talked in riddles, but it was like poetry to hear, or a song. How come your lips so red, said I? Because I've wanted so long to be kissed. Fire was on me, sir. I reached out to catch her, but she was gone, out of the door and down the stair. I followed stumbling. I must have tripped on the turn, for I remember going through the air and fetching up with a crash. And I didn't know anything for a spell. How long I can't say. When I came to, she was there, somewhere, bending over me, crooning, my love, my love, under her breath, like a song. But then, when I got up, she was not where my arms went. She was down the stair again, just ahead of me. I followed her. I was tottering and dizzy and full of pain. I tried to catch up with her in the dark of the storeroom. But she was too quick for me, sir. Always a little too quick for me. Oh, she was cruel to me, sir. I kept bumping against things, hurting myself still worse, and it was cold and wet, and a horrible noise all the while, sir. And then, sir, I found the door was open, and a sea had parted the hinges. I don't know how it all went, sir. I tell you, if I could, but it's all so blurred. Sometimes it seems more like a dream. I couldn't find her any more. I couldn't hear her. I went all over, everywhere. Once, I remember, I found myself hanging out of that door between the David's, looking down into those big black seas and crying like a baby. It's all riddles and blur. I can't seem to tell you much, sir. It was all... all... I don't know. I was talking to somebody else, not her. It was the inspector. I hardly knew it was the inspector. His face was as gray as a blanket, and his eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were twisted. His left wrist hung down, awkward. It was broken, coming aboard the light in that sea. Yes, we were in the living room. Yes, sir, and it was daylight, gray daylight. I tell you, sir, the man looked crazy to me. He was waving his good arm towards the weather windows, and what he was saying over and over was this. Look what you've done, damn you! Look what you've done! And what I was saying was this. I've lost her. I didn't pay any attention to him nor him to me. By and by he did, though. He stopped his talking all of a sudden, and his eyes looked like the devil's eyes. He put them up close to mine. He grabbed my arm with his good hand, and I cried. I was so weak. Johnson, said he. Is that it? By the living god, if you've got a woman out here, Johnson. No, said I. I've lost her. What do you mean you lost her? It was dark, said I. And it's funny how my head was clearing up. And the door was open, the storeroom door, and I was after her, and I guess she stumbled, maybe. And I lost her. Johnson, said he. What do you mean you sound crazy, downright crazy? Who? Her, said I. Fettison's wife. Who? Her, said I. And with that, he gave my arm another jerk. Listen, said he, like a tiger. Don't try that on me. It won't do any good. That kind of lies. Not where you're going to. Fettison and his wife, too. The both of them drowned dead on a doornail. I know, said I, nodding my head. I was so calm, it made him wild. You're crazy, crazy as a loon, Johnson. And he was chewing as the lip read. I know, because it was me that found the old man lying on backwater flats yesterday morning, me. And she'd been with him in the boat, too, because it appeased of her jacket tore off, tangled in his arm. I know, said I, nodding again, like that. You know what, you crazy, murdering fool? Those were his words to me, sir. I know, said I, what I know. And I know, said he, what I know. And there you are, sir. He's Inspector. I'm nobody. End of the Woman at Seven Brothers. End of section 10 of Famous Modern Ghost Stories. Section 11 of Famous Modern Ghost Stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Famous Modern Ghost Stories. Compiled by Dorothy Scarborough. Section 11. At the Gate by Myla Joe Closser. From The Century Magazine. By permission of The Century Company and Myla Joe Closser. A shaggy airdale centered his way along the high road. He had not been there before, that he was guided by the trail of his brethren who had preceded him. He had gone unwillingly upon this journey, yet with the perfect training of dogs he had accepted it without complaint. The path had been lonely and his heart would have failed him. Travelling as he must without his people had not these traces of countless dogs before him. Promise companionship of a sort at the end of the road. The landscape had appeared arid at first. For the translation from recent agony into freedom from pain had been so numbing in its swiftness that it was some time before he could fully appreciate the pleasant dog country through which he was passing. There were woods with leaves upon the ground through which to scurry. Long grassy slopes for extended runs and lakes into which he might plunge for sticks and bring them back to. But he did not complete his thought. For the boy was not with him. A little wave of homesickness possessed him. It made his mind easier to see far ahead a great gate as high as the heavens. Wide enough for all. He understood that only man built such barriers and by straining his eyes he fancied he could discern humans passing through the whatever lay beyond. He broke into a run that he might the more quickly gain this enclosure made beautiful by men and women. But his thoughts outran his pace. And he remembered that he had left the family behind and again this lovely new compound became not perfect since it would like the family. The scent of the dogs grew very strong now and coming nearer he discovered to his astonishment that at the myriads of those who had arrived ahead of him thousands were still gathered on the outside of the portal. They sat in a wide circle spreading out on each side of the entrance big little curly handsome mongrel thoroughbred dogs of every age complexion and personality all were apparently waiting for something someone and at the pad of the air dales feet on the hard road they arose and looked in his direction. That the interest passed as soon as they discovered the newcomer to be a dog puzzle him. In his former dwelling place a four-footed brother was greeted with enthusiasm when he was a friend with suspicious diplomacy when a stranger and with sharp reproof when an enemy but never had he been utterly ignored. He remembered something that he had read many times on great buildings with lofty entrances dogs not admitted the signs had said and he feared this might be the reason for the waiting circle outside the gate it might be that this noble portal stood as the dividing line between mere dogs and humans but he had been a member of the family rumping with them in the living room sitting at meals with them in the dining room going upstairs at night with them and the thought that he was to be kept out would be unendurable he despised the passive dogs they should be treating a barrier after the fashion of their old country leaping against it barking and scratching the nicely painted door he bounded up the last little hill to set them an example that he was still full of the rebellion of the world but he found no door to leap against he could see beyond the entrance dear masses of people yet no dog crossed the threshold they continued in their patient ring their gaze upon the winding road he now advanced cautiously to examine the gate it occurred to him that it must be fly time in this region and he did not wish to make himself ridiculous before all these strangers by trying to bolt through an invisible mesh like the one that had baffled him when he was a little chap yet there were no screens and despair entered his soul what bitter punishment these poor beasts must have suffered before they learned to stay on this side the arch that led to human beings what had they done on earth to merit this stolen bones troubled his conscience runaway days sleeping in the best chair until the key clicked in the lock these were sins at that moment an english bull terrier white with liver coloured spots and adjointy manner approached him snuffling in a friendly way no sooner had the bull terrier smelt his collar than he fell to expressing his joy at meeting him the air dales reserve was quite thawed by this welcome though he did not know just what to make of it i know you i know you exclaimed the bull terrier adding inconsequently what's your name tan ashanta they call me tammy was the answer with the pardonable break in the voice i know then said the bull terrier nice folks best ever said the air dale trying to be nonchalant and scratching a flea which was not there i don't remember you when did you know them about 14 tags ago when they were first married we keep track of time here by the licensed tags i had four this is my first and only one you were before my time i guess he felt young and shy come for a walk and tell me all about them was his new friend's invitation aren't we allowed in there asked him looking toward the gate sure you can go in whenever you want to some of us do at first but we don't stay like it better outside no no it isn't that then why are all you fellows hanging around here any old dog can see it's better beyond the arch you see we're waiting for our folks to come the air dale grasped it at once and nodded understandably i felt that way when i came along the road it wouldn't be what it's supposed to be without them it wouldn't be the perfect place not to us said the bull terrier fine i've stolen bones but it must be that i have been forgiven if i'm to see them here again it's the great good place all right but look here he added as a new thought struck him do they wait for us the older inhabitant coughed in slight embarrassment the humans couldn't do that very well it wouldn't be the thing to have them hang around outside for just a dog not dignified quite right a green tan i'm glad they go straight to their mansions i'd i'd hope to have them missing me as i am missing them he sighed but then they wouldn't have to wait so long oh well they're getting on don't be discouraged comforted the terrier and in the meantime it's like a big hotel in summer watching the new arrivals see there is something doing now all the dogs were aroused to excitement by a little figure making its way uncertainly up the last slope half of them started to meet it crowding about in a loving eager pack look out don't scare it caution the older animals while word was passed to those fathers from the gate quick quick a baby's come before they had entirely assembled however a good yellow hound pushed through the crowd gave one sniff at the small child and with the help of joy crouched at its feet the baby embraced the hound in recognition and the two moved toward the gate just outside the hound stopped to speak to an aristocratic saint bernard who had been friendly sorry to leave you old fellow he said but i'm going in to watch over the kid you see i'm all she has up here the bull terrier looked at the airdale for appreciation that's the way we do it he said proudly yes but the airdale put his head on one side in perplexity yes but what asked the guide the dogs that don't have any people the nobodies dogs that's the best of all oh everything is thought out here crouched down you must be tired and watch said the bull terrier soon they spied another small form making the turn in the road he wore a boy's scouts uniform but he was a little fearful for all that so new was this adventure the dogs rose again and snuffled but the better groomed of the circle held back and in their place a pack of odds and ends of the company ran down to meet him the boy scout was reassured by their friendly attitude and after petting them impartially he chose an old-fashioned black and tan and the two passed in tam looked questioningly they didn't know each other he exclaimed but they've always wanted to that's one of the boys who used to beg for a dog but his father wouldn't let him have one so all our strays wait for just such little fellows to come along every boy gets a dog and every dog gets a master i expect the boy's father would like to know that now commented the airdale no doubt he thinks quite often i wish i'd let him have a dog the bull terrier laughed you're pretty near the earth yet aren't you tam admitted it i've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys having them both in the family and a mother as well the bull terrier looped up in astonishment you don't mean to say they keep a boy sure greatest boy on earth ten this year well well this is news i wish they'd kept a boy when i was there the airdale looked at his new friend intently see here who are you he demanded but the other hurried on i used to run away from them just to play with a boy they'd punish me and i always wanted to tell them it was their fault for not getting one who are you anyway repeated tam talking all this interest in me too whose dog were you you've already guessed i see it in your quivering snout i'm the old dog that had to leave them about 10 years ago their old dog bully yes i'm bully they know each other with deeper affection then strolled about the glades shoulder to shoulder bully the more eagerly pressed for news tell me how are they getting along very well indeed they're paid for the house i i suppose you occupy the kennel no they said they couldn't stand it to see another dog in your old place bully stop to howl gently that touches me it's generous in you to tell it to think they miss me for a little while they went on in silence that as evening fell and the light from the golden streets inside of the city gave the only glow to the scene bully grew nervous and suggested that they go back we can't see so well at night and i like to be pretty close to the path especially toward morning tam assented and i will point them out you might not know them just at first oh we know them sometimes the babies have so grown up they're rather hazy in their recollection of how we look they think we're bigger than we are but you can't feel us dogs it's understood tam cunningly arranged that when he or she arrives you'll sort of make them feel at home while i wait for the boy that's the best plan assented bully kindly and if by any chance the little fellow should come first there's been a lot of them this summer of course you'll introduce me i shall be proud to do it and so with muzzles sunk between their paws and with their eyes straining down the pilgrims road they wait outside the gate end of at the gate end of section 11 of famous modern ghost stories