Ghost Stories and Mysteries (22 page)

“I am sure I don’t know,” replied Dodson.

This I felt was an untruth. “Mr Dodson,” I remarked in a severe tone; “I am sure you do know, therefore I expect a plain answer to my question. What did that man mean by saying that my father would be around after him?”

Dodson hesitated, then he blurted out: “The men have some foolish yarn that Mr Danvers, your father, walks.”

“Walks!” I repeated. “His ghost appears?”

“Something of the sort. If anything is left neglected the man who did it can’t rest—he dreams of your father until he has to get up and go and do what he left undone, even if it’s in the middle of the night.”

I could not help laughing. “The ghost must be a good overseer,” I said; “I suppose your men are always leaving, with this notion going about?”

“Not at all. They are not a bit afraid—they say he always speaks quite kindly to them.”

“More in sorrow than in anger,” I quoted.

“Precisely so. I saw him once myself. He looked in at my bedroom window; stared at me until I had to get up. Then I found that I had left the garden gate open, and one of the milkers had got in.”

I scarcely knew what to think of this communication. Bushmen, as a rule, are not in the least superstitious—they have too much night-work to fancy that the dark hours have uncanny denizens peculiar to themselves. Although I practiced cross-examination on Dodson I could get no more out of him, and, of course, it was useless asking the men. I remained on the station for another fortnight, but heard nothing more about the shade of my departed parent.

II.

Two months after my visit to Braganall, I was sitting in my chambers in Sydney, intent on my work, when, happening to raise my eyes, I saw my father in the room. He was dressed just as he was buried; he advanced to the table, and, without speaking, commenced to put the things on it straight. This was an old habit of his, as I at once recognised. Anything on the table not in its exact place always annoyed him. When everything was neat and square he sank into a chair and smiled kindly at me. Now I felt not the least surprise, strange to say. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for my father to pay me a visit, although I was fully aware that he was buried near the stockyard on Braganall.

“Jimmy,” he said, “I don’t think you have acted quite fair to me.”

“What’s the matter, governor?” I asked.

“Why did you not let me know you preferred this sort of thing?” and he indicated the papers on the table. “I thought you meant to look after the place yourself.”

“Honestly, I should have told you,” I replied, “but I thought you would be more contented if you did not know.”

My father shook his head. “I have nothing to say against Dodson,” he went on; “he is a very well-meaning young man, but he is going to make a great mistake, and I want you to write and stop him.”

I nodded, but kept silence.

My father then went into a detail of station-management with which I need not trouble the reader. I could see (for was I not my father’s pupil?) that it was just the kind of mistake that a young and enthusiastic manager like Dodson would fall into. I at once wrote the letter, and enclosed it in an envelope, my father watched complacently. When I had finished he said:

I don’t want to annoy you, Jim, but you see it’s this way. I’m in Kama at present.”

“Kama?”

“Yes, Kama Loka. I am on my way to Devachan, but these little worries rather delay me, for you see Kama is only an astral counterpart of our physical existence, and until I am quite satisfied that I need not bother any more about Braganall my entity will not be properly established in Devachan.”

“I understand,” I said, but, of course, I didn’t.

My father beamed on me with his old kindly look, and left.

He came to see me on little matters, once or twice after that. Several people came in and saw him there, but they only took him for a queer sort of client. Medicine and the law are privileged that way.

Once, however, he put me out a little, and forced me into the meanest action of my life. It was at a garden party, and a swell affair at that, when I suddenly became aware that all eyes were turned my way, and that my father, in his bush dress, was standing by me.

“Jim,” he said in an undertone, “I can’t help it, I’ve had no rest for a fortnight. There’s the gate-post of the drafting yard been pushed out of place, the gate doesn’t hang plumb, and Dodson doesn’t get it straightened up.”

“I’ll send him a telegram about it at once,” I answered, hastily.

“You will?” queried the old man. “You know I’ll never get to Devachan at this rate.”

“I will,” I affirmed, and then, for everyone was looking at us, I put my hand in my pocket, then into his hand, as though I was giving alms to a persistent begger, and he went away satisfied.

Now, to pass off the shade of one’s father as an intrusive loafer who had to be got rid of at any price, is, I think, the greatest piece of moral cowardice a man can be guilty of. I have never fully recovered my self-respect since.

These constant visits, however, made trouble upon the station. Dodson felt aggrieved that I should be always writing or wiring up about petty little things that might well be left to him, and, moreover, concluded that I must have a spy on the place who supplied me with the information. This led to his resignation, and put me in such a fix that, in desperation, I decided to sell the station.

Our neighbour on Braganall was an old friend of my father’s, and a man after his own heart. His two sons, unlike me, were squatters to the backbone; so I wrote to him and put the place under offer. Somewhat to my relief, my father or his astral counterpart, did not object to this. He seemed to think that, failing me, the sons of his old friend would do justice to Braganall. Negotiations were, therefore, soon concluded, and Manxton became the owner of the well-known DAV herd.

I had now some peace from the constant visitations of my father, and about that time I fell deeply in love. Contrary to proverbial wisdom, the course of our true love ran smoothly throughout, and our wedding day was approaching when I received a letter from young Manxton which somewhat unsettled me. We were old friends from boyhood’s time, therefore he addressed me without any ceremony. “Look here, old fellow,” his letter ran, “when the old man bought this place I don’t think he took delivery of any ghosts; at least, they were not mentioned in the agreement. I wish you could induce your ancestral spook to let me manage the station my own way.” Young Manxton had a blunt way of putting it, but under the circumstances, I felt I could pardon him.

I saw fresh trouble ahead, but could do nothing but write back and treat his letter as a joke.

III.

It wanted but a week to our wedding day, and Laura and I were deep in confidential conversation one evening when the astral figure of my father appeared. Laura gave a big jump and a little shriek at his sudden appearance, then sat quiet, whilst my father said:

“Jim, you must do something for me. I know you can’t properly interfere, but young Manxton is going to sell Silverside and go in for breeding trotters.”

At this moment Laura sprang up with a loud cry. “Jim! Jim!” she half shrieked, “it’s your father, I know him from the likeness you showed me. Oh! oh! it’s his ghost!”—and she went off into a faint, and I caught her and put her on the sofa. I looked reproachfully at the old man and he went out without opening the door, which was contrary to his usual habit. Then Laura’s mother came in and wanted to know what the matter was and who the stranger was she met in the hall. I said weakly I did not know, but would go after him if she would look after Laura, for I was anxious to get away before she came to.

I passed a restless night, and the next morning the post brought me a letter of farewell from my sweetheart. She pointed out clearly that there were but two conclusions to arrive at. Either my father was not dead and had committed some criminal action which necessitated his disappearance, or it was his ghost. Now, in either case our marriage was an impossibility—she could not marry a man whose father had served a term in gaol; nor could she become the wife of one who had a ghostly progenitor popping up at convenient and inconvenient times. To this there was no answer, at least I had none to offer; and it was not until I had worried my brains for hours that I saw a ray of hope ahead.

I wrote to Laura and her mother saying that I would offer them a satisfactory and ample explanation. Then I wrote to Manxton and asked him to delay the sale of Silverside (one of the sires of the Braganall stud) until he heard further from me. Then I sat and waited.

I was not disappointed; my father, looking very penitent, made his appearance. “I’m awfully sorry, Jim, but I was so upset when I found out that Manxton was going to sell Silverside that I came in without thinking.”

“It’s been my own fault as well,” I returned, for I could not bear to see the old chap so miserable. “However, I think I have found out a way to put things straight again. In the first place, I am going to buy Braganall back.”

My father shook his head; his business shrewdness was evidently a portion of the astral counterpart of his physical existence. “He’ll make you pay through the nose when he finds you want it. I know Manxton.”

“But I think you can assist me to get it back at my own figure,” I returned, and showed him young Manxton’s letter.

“Now, can’t you make things so ghostly uncomfortable up there that he’ll be glad to almost give me the place back?”

My father became perfectly luminous with delight. “Bless you, boy!” he said, and was about to vanish, when I recalled him.

“There’s more to be done yet. I have to make it right with Laura. I am going to manage Braganall myself, now that I am about to be married, but, for all that, some little slips may occur which might worry you and delay you on your passage to—where is it?”

“Devachan,” said my father.

“Devachan, yes. Do you think you could materialise a letter when you have anything to say? I shall probably keep a room somewhere in Sydney where you could write.”

“Certainly I could. Why did I not think of it before?”

“Now, will you be here to-morrow at eleven o’clock, and, before Laura and her mother, give me your word that you will in future confine yourself to letter-writing when anything goes wrong. You see it’s this way, Dad. I enjoy seeing you immensely, but the women, you know, are prejudiced.”

“I quite understand it,” replied the shade, and departed.

I called on Mrs Lyntott, Laura’s mother, who is a remarkably strong-minded woman, and laid the whole case before her. She reconciled me to Laura, and they agreed to meet my father at my rooms in the morning.

The inconsistency of womankind! Before that meeting concluded they had taken such a liking to that astral being that they both regretted deeply the compact that had been entered into. “I should have been very glad to see you occasionally, Mr Danvers,” said my prospective mother-in-law, and Laura uttered a like wish. However, the thing was done. A ghost must keep its word, once passed; and we parted with mutual feelings of regret.

Before leaving, my father whispered to me: “I gave young Manxton such a night of it last night I expect you’ll hear from him to-day.”

It is now many years since this happened, and as I have never received a materialised letter, I presume that earthly matters have ceased to trouble the good old gentleman, and my management of Braganall has been satisfactory. His conscious unit has, I hope, passed from Kama Loka to the higher spiritual plane of Devachan.

THE BOUNDARY RIDER’S STORY

(1895)

THE storm that had been brewing all the afternoon, gathered, towards nightfall, in great black clouds, cleft every now and then by jagged streaks of vivid lightning. Just after dark it burst in a fierce rush of rain and boom and rage of thunder. Blinding as the lightning was, it as only by its assistance that a belated traveller could keep his horse on the bridle-track he was following; for when darkness fell between the flashes, it seemed as though a black pall had been dropped over everything.

With heads bent down, the sodden man and horse plodded on until the rider found himself on a main road into which the track debouched.

“Another mile;” he muttered to himself; “and I’ll come to old Mac’s.” He touched his horse slightly with the spur and glanced nervously round. The travelling now improved, and ere long a dim light proclaimed his approach to some kind of habitation; soon afterwards he pulled up at the verandah of a small bush inn.

“Are you in Mac?” he roared with a voice that outdid the thunder, as he splashed down from his horse into a pool of water, and hastily proceeded to ungirth.

“Who’s there?” returned a voice, and the owner of it came out and peered into the darkness.

“Smithson! Lend us a pair of hobbles.”

“Jupiter! what are you doing out here such a night as this?” asked Mac as he handed him the hobbles.

“’Cos I’m a fool, that’s why,” said Smithson as he stooped down and buckled the straps. “Can’t go wrong for feed, I suppose?”

“Right up to the back door. Come in and get a change.”

Hanging his saddle and bridle on a peg riven into the slab, the late traveller followed his host into the bar. Mac put his head out of the back door and roared to somebody to bring in some tea; then reached down a bottle and placed it, with a glass, before his visitor. Smithson filled out a stiff drink, tossed it off neat, and gave a sigh of satisfaction. Having got a dry shirt and trousers, the traveller proceeded to simultaneously enjoy a good meal and his host’s curiosity.