Ghost Stories and Mysteries (32 page)

We were at dinner one evening, the three of us, when the door opened, and in staggered the new Francis—drunk. This was his first ‘Outbreak’ in the drink line, and my heart gave a bound as I thought that at last my enemy was delivered into my hand. He held on by the back of a chair, and laughed foolishly, “Givesh glassh wine,” he said.

I arose, approached him, and got his eyes under my control. He seemed to get uneasy, and muttered something about “an old ape,” and “knocking my blooming head off,” but I saw with joy that the fumes of drink were passing away, and I had him in my power.

I made some quick downward passes, throwing all my energy into them, and at my command he relinquished his hold of the chair, and walked steadily over to the sofa and laid himself down.

“Quick,” I said to Ben. “Put all your will into it, and be ready to slip into your body directly there’s a chance.” I very soon had him under my influence, and Boko Ben, an apparently lifeless shell, lay inert in an arm-chair.

I went over to the other, and throwing all the psychic force I possessed into my work, willed the soul of Sophy Humber out of the body of Francis Backford. The eyes were open, and gradually light and life went out of them, and I knew that she was gone.

There was an oppressive silence while Backford and I watched with intense anxiety. Then life kindled again in the eyes, the breath returned, and as Francis sat up in his proper self I dropped fainting and exhausted on a chair.

When I was restored to my senses the brothers were standing by me, and Boko Ben was sitting up in the arm-chair.

“I say,” he said, “that was a mean trick to take advantage of a man when he was screwed.”

We all three burst out laughing. The girl’s voice coming from the frame of the broken nosed bruiser was too funny; the soul of Sophy had taken refuge in Ben’s body.

I was about to offer to mesmerise her again, and give her a chance to go back to her own body, which was getting tired of waiting; but Backford whispered to me, “I think four-and-twenty hours in Ben’s body would do her good.”

I nodded assent, and Backford, turning to the sham pugilist, said, “Here, be off as quick as you can; you’ve got money in your pocket, and can get a lodging elsewhere.”

“What do you mean? I’m not going to be turned out.”

“Yes, you are, if you don’t go quietly; you’ve no business here.”

“But I won’t go. I’m big enough to smash the three of you, and I’ll do it.”

“No, you won’t. You have the size, but only the spirit of a girl inside it. Now go!”

“Send me to sleep, and let me get back to my own body,” said Ben, turning to me.

“Not to-night; I’m too tired out,” I replied.

Ben rose. He saw there was no help.

“Have a look at yourself in the glass before you go,” suggested Backford.

Ben approached the mantelpiece, and looked. He gave one heart-broken wail and went out. The disfigured face and broken nose were too much for the soul of Sophy Humber. For the first time I felt pity.

Next morning about twelve o’clock Ben appeared again, a dilapidated ruin. From what we could learn, he had sought to drown his sorrows in drink, obtained in threepenny “pubs.”; had passed the night in the police cell, and had only been just released.

I was about to take pity on him when Backford stopped me again. “Supposing Ben’s spirit does not come back for his body,” he said; “we don’t want the apparent corpse of a pugilist in the house.”

I took the hint, and made an appointment with Ben to meet me elsewhere. To make a long story short, I released the soul of Sophy, and as I saw about her wonderful recovery in the paper, I infer that she got back to her body safely. What became of Ben’s husk I know not, but as I’ve heard nothing of a startling discovery, I presume the rightful owner appropriated it again.

The Backfords had to sell their house and leave the district. Sophy had made it altogether too hot for them.

The legal actions were settled, and, altogether, it was a most costly experiment.

M’WHIRTER’S WRAITH

(1901-02)

I had been hard at work all day. The cook had made an effort and cooked a decent dinner. I had finished my smoke, and was just going to take a nip of whisky—a special case that an uncle of mine had sent out from Scotland—when I was conscious of a figure in the room.

I was alone in the house, so far as I knew. I could hear the cook and the two men arguing loudly in the kitchen verandah. The black-boys had permission to go and join a corroboree at the blacks’ camp. Who, then, was this stranger?

The figure, first shadowy and vague, grew more distinct, and soon became clearly defined as a tall gaunt man, with a vivid auburn beard and hair, and light-blue eyes. He looked inquiringly at me, and, when I rather plainly requested to know what he was doing in my room, he replied, in a strong Scotch accent,

“I’m M’Whirter!”

“The devil you are,” I said. “You’re the original M’Whirter, I suppose, who took up this is station and stocked it fifty years ago?”

“I’m the man,” he said.

“What brings you here?” I naturally asked. “I thought you died thirty years ago.”

“So I did; but, mon, you called me.”

Now just before coming in from the verandah I had looked around at the neat and well-kept surroundings of my home, plainly visible under a full moon, and I remember saying aloud, “If old M’Whirter could see this place now!” and apparently M’Whirter had heard the invitation and accepted it.

I may as well mention that old M’Whirter was a sort of tradition in the place. The legend ran that he was a tall raw-boned Scotchman, who lived on nothing, and made his men do the same, and worked like a cart-horse. The shade before me seemed to about fill the bill, and I began to think that the ghost of M’Whirter actually stood before me.

“Won’t you sit down?” I said.

“It’s just as weel,” replied the shadowy thing.

“Have some whisky?” I asked.

“Mon, it would be guid. I can smell it, but canna taste it. Ye ken I’m but a shadow.”

“Is there not something you can do?” I asked. “What the spook people called materialising. I knew a ghost in Sydney that materialised himself into a wig, a mask, and a pair of lazy tongs any time.”

“Mon, you’re clacking aboot those fechtless bodies called mediums. I’m a genuine ghost. But there may be something in it. A wee drap of whusky would no’ be amiss.”

“It came to me straight from Dundee.” He looked at it longingly. “There’s a doctor chiel in Karma that knows a lot,” he said. “I’ll go ask him,” and in an instant he was gone.

I waited patiently, and presently the visitor from Karma returned. At least there he was in the room again, but solid and human; no more shadowy and illusive.

“It is done,” he said. “Now, mon, rax us the whusky.” He filled out a stiff nip, and a beatific look came over his rugged face. He put his glass down with a sigh of satisfaction.

“Why dinna they keep that brew in Karma?” he remarked; “it would be no so bad then.” He sat down, and I handed him a pipe and tobacco, and he commenced to cut up and fill.

“What do you do in Karma?” I asked.

“We just contemplate,” he replied, as though somewhat weary.

“Don’t you form clubs, get up any whist parties, or cricket, or golf, or anything?”

He looked at me in dumb anger for a time.

“We just contemplate,” he repeated; then he reached across for the bottle and helped himself liberally.

“What were you wishing to see M’Whirter for?”

“Well, to see the improvements in the place since he took it up.”

“Improvement!” he repeated, and the sneer he threw into it was intense. “Losh, mon, I see no improvement!”

“That’s because you don’t understand modern things,” I replied, hotly.

“Deed, and I don’t,” he said, calmly. “It’s all sinfu’ waste and wicked extravagance the way you manage things these times.”

“There was not much show of management on this place when I bought it.”

“No. There was no’ a garden, for one thing,” he said, with the utmost contempt. “A guid feed of pigweed was eneuch for a man in those days.”

“And you got scurvy and barcoo-rot and every other kind of abomination. And you paid more for curing yourselves than I do for growing a few pumpkins and sweet potatoes.”

“Rax me the whusky,” said the ghost, and when he had helped himself again he went on: “Noo, the way you use leather on a station is heart-breaking. I would na geeve a bit of green-hide for the leather that was ever made. Oh, but green-hide is good, and bonnie, and mind you, mon, it costs nothing.”

“The way you fellows used to live was disgusting,” I said.

“Hoot, mon, there’s na pleasing you. You maun keep men doon, and no’ feed them o’er weel.”

“Nonsense, it’s just as easy to live well as badly up the bush. You used to eat nothing but weevily flour, just to make out that you were economical.”

“And is it economical you are talking? Oh, the sin o’t! To talk of throwing away guid flour just because o’ a wheen weevils in it! You’re awfu’ shy with that bottle, mon ! Rax us ma whusky.”

That’s what it had come to. It was his whisky now, and I suppose his station and everything. I began to question the sanity of my materialising suggestion. M’Whirter, unaccustomed to liquor for so long, was getting quarrelsome in his cups, and inclined to think that he was on earth again for good.

He finished the whisky and went to sleep with his head on the table, after calling me all sorts of names, amongst which he mentioned that he had his “doots” whether I wasn’t a “besom,” by which I understood him to mean that I was an old woman.

The morning star was bright when I turned in, but it seemed only five minutes before it was broad daylight and the wall-eyed cook was shaking me.

“There’s a man asleep in the next room, and he’s been at the whisky, sir. The stink of spirits is something awful there,” he said, reproachfully.

At once it flashed across me that the ghost of M’Whirter had not vanished at daylight, and was now on my hands all day. “It’s a man came late last night,” I said. “I know him. I’ll see to him. Bring in breakfast for two, and make some porridge.”

“He looks like a man who eats porridge,” said the cook, spitefully.

I guessed that there was not a dram left in the bottle. I got rid of him and woke M’Whirter up. He blinked like an owl at first, but gradually came to himself.

“It’s awkward,” he admitted. “The loon will buke me, and I’ll e’en get fined a year or two. They are machty stricht up there; but there, lad, I’ll stop with you all day, and gie you a lesson in station management.”

I thanked him, and, after freshening up a bit, we sat down to breakfast.

“D’ye no have a ‘morning’?” he asked.

“I expect you want one,” I said, and opened a fresh bottle. He had a nip, and then sat down to his “parritch,” as he called it.

‘“Mon!” he said with a shriek, “you are no putting sugar with the parritch? You are but making a pudding of it!”

“Mr. M’Whlrter,” I said, “if I like to make a pudding of my porridge, I suppose this is my own station, and I can do it if I like.”

“Oh, it’s your fash, not mine. But leetle did I think that I’d a sat at my own table and seen a callant eat his parritch with sugar.” He put half the salt-cellar on his plate, and groaned.

I groaned too. Fancy having the Scotch host of a pioneer squatter of the old days, with a turn for economy in his disposition, and a disposition to lecture and find fault, on your hands all day. There were six bottles of Dundee whisky left, and I felt all inward conviction amounting to a dead certainty that I would not get rid of him until they were all finished. After he had made a hearty breakfast—I may mention that I had broken my cook in to grill a steak very well, and the M’Whirter growled because his steak was not fried—we walked round the place, and I showed him all the improvements that had been made, and he sneered at every one. The only time he smiled was when we came across a gate that some fellow had pegged with a bit of dry wood—a broken branch, in fact.

“Eh! that looks like old times,” he said.

“Does it?” I remarked, for I am rather particular. “It will look like new times directly;” and I went up, gave the man who did it “beans,” and sent him down to make a proper peg to put in. We had to go in the store for a tomahawk, and M’Whirter followed us in and leaned against a case and looked round.

“I suppose you keep count of the tobacco by stick, when giving out a pound,” he said.

“No; we weigh it now.”

“Guid sakes! you lose on every pun’ you sell. Twenty sticks to the pun’, wet or dry that’s fair measure.”

“Oh! we don’t trouble about those little makes nowadays.”

“Little makes ma conscience! Noo there’s floor; I suppose you weigh that too?”

“I do.”

“A tinnie went to the pun’ with me. I’ve a mighty big thoome, and I always stickit it weel doon in the tinnie when I was measuring. That thoome has stood me in weel”; and he held out the member in question—a great, broad, splay sort of affair.