I recollect quite well you dropped your
light, and had no end of trouble to get it lighted again, and kept
knocking your head against the mantel-shelf and saying 'Don't' as if
somebody was doing it to you." "Go along with you. Will you listen, or won't you, while I tell the
horrid anecdote?" "Horrid, is it?" "Above a bit. It's enough to make all your hair stand on end, like
quills on a guinea hen, as the man says in the play; and I expect you'll
dream of it all night; so here goes, and don't you interrupt me any
more, now." "Go on. I won't." "Well, you know we had a pretty good fire here, as we have now; and as
twelve o'clock went ding-dong by old St. Dunstan's, we thought it was
time to have some sleep, and you lay down on the sofa, saying as you
could see by the fire light, while I took the candle to go up stairs to
bed with, you know--old Todd's bed, I suppose it is, on the
second-floor, and rather damp and thin, you know." "Goodness, gracious! tell me something I don't know, will you? Do you
want to drive a fellow out of his mind?" "Well--well, don't be hasty! I'm getting on. I took the light, and
shading it with one hand, for there's always a furious draught upon the
stairs of this house; up I went, thinking of nothing at all. Well, in
course, I had to pass the first-floor, which is shut up, you know, and
has all sorts of things in it." "Yes; go on--go on!" "Is it interesting?" "It is; only you go on. I'll warrant now it's a ghost you are coming
to." "No, it ain't; but don't percipitate, and you shall hear all about it. Let me see, where was I?--Oh, on the first-floor landing: But, as I say,
I was thinking of nothing at all, when, all of a sudden, I heard a very
odd kind of noise in the front room of the first-floor." "I wonder you didn't fall headlong down stairs with fright, candle and
all." "No, I didn't. It sounded like the murmur of people talking a long way
off. Then I began to think it must be in the next house; and I thought
of going up to bed, and paying no attention to it, and I did get up two
or three steps of the second-floor stairs, but still I heard it; and it
got such a hold of my mind, do you know, that I couldn't leave it, but
down I went again, and listened. I thought of coming to you; but,
somehow, I didn't do so." "Now, go on!" "Well, after listening with my ear against the door for some time, I was
certain that the sound was in the room; and I don't know how I screwed
up courage enough to open the door very gently, and look in!" "You did?" "I did; and the very moment I did so, out went the light as clean as if
you had taken your fingers and snuffed it out; but in the room there was
a strange pale kind of light, that wasn't exactly like twilight, nor
like moonlight, nor like any light that I ever saw, but you could see
everything by it as plain as possible." "Well--well?" "The room was crammed full of people, all dressed, and looking at each
other; and some of them were speaking; and upon all their clothes and
faces there was blood, sometimes more, and sometimes less; and all their
eyes looked like the eyes of the dead; and then one voice more loud than
the rest said--'All murdered!--All murdered by Todd! The Lord have mercy
upon his soul!'" "Oh, gracious! What did you do?" "I felt as if my breath was going from me, and my heart kept swelling
and swelling till I thought it would burst, and then I dropped the
candle; and the next time I come to my senses, I found myself lying on
the bed in the second floor, with all my clothes on!" "You dreamt it?" "Oh, no--no. It's no use telling me that. I only wish I thought so,
that's all." "But, I tell you, you did." "You may tell me as much as you like; but in the morning when I came
down, there was the candle on the first-floor landing, just as I had
dropped it. What do you think of that? Of course, after I drew out my
head again from the first-floor front room I must have gone up stairs in
the middle of my fright, and I dare say I fainted away, and didn't come
to myself again till the morning." "Oh, stuff! Don't try to make me believe in your ghost stories. If--if I
thought it was true, I should bolt out of the house this minute." "You would, really?" "Yes, to be sure; is a fellow to stay in a place with his hair
continually standing on end, I should like to know? Hardly. But it's all
stuff. Take another drop of brandy! Now I tell you what, if you have the
courage to go with me, I will take the light now and go up to the
first-floor, and have a good look all about it! What do you say to that,
now? Will you do it?" "I don't much mind." "Only say the word, and I am quite ready." "Well, I will. If so be they are there, they won't do us any harm, for
they took no more notice of me than as if I had been nothing at all. But
how you do shake!" "I shake? You never were more mistaken in all your life. It's you that's
shaking, and that makes you think I am. You are shaking, if you please;
and if you don't like the job of going up stairs, only say so; I won't
press it upon you!" "Oh, I'll go." "You are sure of it, now? You don't think it will make you ill? because
I shouldn't like that. Come now, only say at once that you would rather
not go, and there's an end to it." "Yes, but I rather would." "Come on, then--come on. Courage, my friend, courage. Look at me, and be
courageous. You don't see me shivering and shaking and shrinking. Keep
up your heart, and come on!" "You wretches," muttered Todd. "It shall go hard with me, now, but I
will play you some trick that shall go right to drive you out of your
shallow wits. Go! It is the very thing I would, of all others, have
wished you to do." It was quite clear that the man who had proposed going up stairs to
explore the first-floor, was much the more alarmed of the two; and now
that he had made the proposal, he would gladly have seized upon any
excuse for backing out of it, short of actually confessing that his
fears had got the better of him. No doubt he had been greatly in hopes
that his companion, who had told the ghost story, would have shrunk from
such an ordeal; but as he did not do so, there was no resource but to
carry it out or confess that it was but a piece of braggadocio, which he
wanted the firmness to carry out. He strove now to talk himself out of
his fears. "Come on--come on! Ghosts, indeed! There are no such things, of course,
as any reasonable man knows; and if there are, why, what harm can they
do us? I say, what harm can they do us?" "I don't know!" "You don't know? No, nor nobody else! Come on, I say. Of course
providence is providence, and if there are ghosts, I respect them very
much--very much indeed, and would do anything in the world to oblige
them!"