The Water Ghost of Harrowby Corridor by John Kendrick Bangs

“The Water Ghost of Harrowby Corridor” by John Kendrick Bangs is a macabre brief story that mixes humor with supernatural components. Printed in 1891, the story facilities across the cursed Harrowby Corridor, the place every Christmas Eve, a spectral determine drenched in water seems to hang-out the inhabitants. The ghost, a former occupant who perished tragically, brings an unnerving and protracted flood that leaves the manor in chaos. The protagonist, decided to rid his house of this annual menace, devises a intelligent plan to confront and in the end outwit the ghost.

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Corridor by John Kendrick Bangs (1891)

The difficulty with Harrowby Corridor was that it was haunted, and, what was worse, the ghost didn’t content material itself with merely showing on the bedside of the bothered one that noticed it, however endured in remaining there for one mortal hour earlier than it will disappear.

It by no means appeared besides on Christmas Eve, after which because the clock was putting twelve, by which respect alone was it missing in that originality which in today is a sine qua non of success in spectral life. The homeowners of Harrowby Corridor had finished their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy woman who rose up out of the most effective bed room ground at midnight, however with out avail. They’d tried stopping the clock, in order that the ghost wouldn’t know when it was midnight; however she made her look simply the identical, with that fearful miasmatic character of hers, and there she would stand till the whole lot about her was totally saturated.

Then the homeowners of Harrowby Corridor calked up each crack within the ground with the easiest high quality of hemp, and over this was positioned layers of tar and canvas; the partitions have been made water-proof, and the doorways and home windows likewise, the proprietors having conceived the notion that the unexorcised woman would discover it tough to leak into the room after these precautions had been taken; however even this didn’t suffice. The next Christmas Eve she appeared as promptly as earlier than, and frightened the occupant of the room fairly out of his senses by sitting down alongside of him and gazing together with her cavernous blue eyes into his; and he observed, too, that in her lengthy, aqueously bony fingers bits of dripping sea-weed have been entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends she drew throughout his brow till he turned like one insane. After which he swooned away, and was discovered unconscious in his mattress the subsequent morning by his host, merely saturated with sea-water and fright, from the mixed results of which he by no means recovered, dying 4 years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration on the age of seventy-eight.

The subsequent yr the grasp of Harrowby Corridor determined to not have the most effective spare bed room opened in any respect, pondering that maybe the ghost’s thirst for making herself unpleasant could be glad by haunting the furnishings, however the plan was as unavailing as the numerous that had preceded it.

The ghost appeared as common within the room—that’s, it was supposed she did, for the hangings have been dripping moist the subsequent morning, and within the parlor beneath the haunted room an awesome damp spot appeared on the ceiling. Discovering nobody there, she instantly got down to be taught the rationale why, and she or he selected none different to hang-out than the proprietor of the Harrowby himself. She discovered him in his personal cosey room consuming whiskey—whiskey undiluted—and felicitating himself upon having foiled her ghostship, when abruptly the curl went out of his hair, his whiskey bottle crammed and overflowed, and he was himself in a situation much like that of a person who has fallen right into a water-butt. When he recovered from the shock, which was a painful one, he noticed earlier than him the girl of the cavernous eyes and sea-weed fingers. The sight was so sudden and so terrifying that he fainted, however instantly got here to, due to the huge quantity of water in his hair, which, trickling down over his face, restored his consciousness.

Now it so occurred that the grasp of Harrowby was a courageous man, and whereas he was not significantly keen on interviewing ghosts, particularly such quenching ghosts because the one earlier than him, he was to not be daunted by an apparition. He had paid the girl the praise of fainting from the consequences of his first shock, and now that he had come to he meant to search out out a couple of issues he felt he had a proper to know. He would have favored to placed on a dry go well with of garments first, however the apparition declined to depart him for an on the spot till her hour was up, and he was pressured to disclaim himself that pleasure. Each time he would transfer she would observe him, with the outcome that the whole lot she got here involved with acquired a ducking. In an effort to heat himself up he approached the fireplace, an unlucky transfer because it turned out, as a result of it introduced the ghost immediately over the fireplace, which instantly was extinguished. The whiskey turned completely worthless as a comforter to his chilled system, as a result of it was by this time diluted to a proportion of ninety per cent of water. The one factor he might do to beat back the evil results of his encounter he did, and that was to swallow ten two-grain quinine capsules, which he managed to place into his mouth earlier than the ghost had time to intrude. Having finished this, he turned with some asperity to the ghost, and mentioned:

“Far be it from me to be rude to a lady, madam, however I’m hanged if it wouldn’t please me higher in the event you’d cease these infernal visits of yours to this home. Go sit out on the lake, in the event you like that form of factor; soak the water-butt, if you want; however don’t, I implore you, come right into a gentleman’s home and saturate him and his possessions on this approach. It’s damned unpleasant.”

“Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe,” mentioned the ghost, in a gurgling voice, “you don’t know what you’re speaking about.”

“Madam,” returned the sad householder, “I want that comment have been strictly truthful. I used to be speaking about you. It could be shillings and pence—nay, kilos, in my pocket, madam, if I didn’t know you.”

“That may be a little bit of specious nonsense,” returned the ghost, throwing a quart of indignation into the face of the grasp of Harrowby. “It might rank excessive as repartee, however as a remark upon my assertion that you just have no idea what you’re speaking about, it savors of irrelevant impertinence. You have no idea that I’m compelled to hang-out this place yr after yr by inexorable destiny. It’s no pleasure to me to enter this home, and wreck and mildew the whole lot I contact. I by no means aspired to be a shower-bath, however it’s my doom. Have you learnt who I’m?”

“No, I don’t,” returned the grasp of Harrowby. “I ought to say you have been the Woman of the Lake, or Little Sallie Waters.”

“You’re a witty man on your years,” mentioned the ghost.

“Effectively, my humor is drier than yours ever shall be,” returned the grasp.

“Little doubt. I’m by no means dry. I’m the Water Ghost of Harrowby Corridor, and dryness is a high quality totally past my wildest hope. I’ve been the incumbent of this extremely disagreeable workplace for 200 years to-night.”

“How the deuce did you ever come to get elected?” requested the grasp.

“Via a suicide,” replied the spectre. “I’m the ghost of that truthful maiden whose image hangs over the mantel-piece within the drawing-room. I ought to have been your great-great-great-great-great-aunt if I had lived, Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe, for I used to be the personal sister of your great-great-great-great-grandfather.”

“However what induced you to get this home into such a predicament?”

“I used to be to not blame, sir,” returned the girl. “It was my father’s fault. He it was who constructed Harrowby Corridor, and the haunted chamber was to have been mine. My father had it furnished in pink and yellow, understanding nicely that blue and grey fashioned the one mixture of colour I might tolerate. He did it merely to spite me, and, with what I deem a correct spirit, I declined to dwell within the room; whereupon my father mentioned I might dwell there or on the garden, he didn’t care which. That night time I ran from the home and jumped over the cliff into the ocean.”

“That was rash,” mentioned the grasp of Harrowby.

“So I’ve heard,” returned the ghost. “If I had recognized what the implications have been to be I mustn’t have jumped; however I actually by no means realized what I used to be doing till after I used to be drowned. I had been drowned every week when a sea-nymph got here to me and knowledgeable me that I used to be to be one in every of her followers eternally afterwards, including that it must be my doom to hang-out Harrowby Corridor for one hour each Christmas Eve all through the remainder of eternity. I used to be to hang-out that room on such Christmas Eves as I discovered it inhabited; and if it ought to prove to not be inhabited, I used to be and am to spend the allotted hour with the top of the home.”

“I’ll promote the place.”

“That you simply can not do, for additionally it is required of me that I shall seem because the deeds are to be delivered to any purchaser, and disclose to him the terrible secret of the home.”

“Do you imply to inform me that on each Christmas Eve that I don’t occur to have someone in that guest-chamber, you’ll hang-out me wherever I could also be, ruining my whiskey, taking all of the curl out of my hair, extinguishing my fireplace, and soaking me by to the pores and skin?” demanded the grasp.

“You could have said the case, Oglethorpe. And what’s extra,” mentioned the water ghost, “it doesn’t make the slightest distinction the place you’re, if I discover that room empty, wherever chances are you’ll be I shall douse you with my spectral pres—”

Right here the clock struck one, and instantly the apparition pale away. It was maybe extra of a trickle than a fade, however as a disappearance it was full.

“By St. George and his Dragon!” ejaculated the grasp of Harrowby, wringing his fingers. “It’s guineas to hot-cross buns that subsequent Christmas there’s an occupant of the spare room, or I spend the night time in a bath-tub.”

However the grasp of Harrowby would have misplaced his wager had there been anyone there to take him up, for when Christmas Eve got here once more he was in his grave, by no means having recovered from the chilly contracted that terrible night time. Harrowby Corridor was closed, and the inheritor to the property was in London, the place to him in his chambers got here the identical expertise that his father had gone by, saving solely that, being youthful and stronger, he survived the shock. Every part in his rooms was ruined—his clocks have been rusted within the works; a fantastic assortment of water-color drawings was totally obliterated by the onslaught of the water ghost; and what was worse, the flats beneath his have been drenched with the water soaking by the flooring, a harm for which he was compelled to pay, and which resulted in his being requested by his landlady to vacate the premises instantly.

The story of the visitation inflicted upon his household had gone overseas, and nobody might be acquired to ask him out to any perform save afternoon teas and receptions. Fathers of daughters declined to allow him to stay of their homes later than eight o’clock at night time, not understanding however that some emergency may come up within the supernatural world which might require the sudden look of the water ghost on this on nights apart from Christmas Eve, and earlier than the mystic hour when weary churchyards, ignoring the foundations that are supposed to manipulate well mannered society, start to yawn. Nor would the maids themselves have aught to do with him, fearing the destruction by the sudden incursion of aqueous femininity of the costumes which they held most expensive.

So the inheritor of Harrowby Corridor resolved, as his ancestors for a number of generations earlier than him had resolved, that one thing should be finished. His first thought was to make one in every of his servants occupy the haunted room on the essential second; however on this he failed, as a result of the servants themselves knew the historical past of that room and rebelled. None of his associates would consent to sacrifice their private consolation to his, nor was there to be present in all England a person so poor as to be keen to occupy the doomed chamber on Christmas Eve for pay.

Then the thought got here to the inheritor to have the hearth within the room enlarged, in order that he may evaporate the ghost at its first look, and he was felicitating himself upon the ingenuity of his plan, when he remembered what his father had advised him—how that no fireplace might stand up to the girl’s extraordinarily contagious dampness. After which he bethought him of steam-pipes. These, he remembered, might lie a whole bunch of ft deep in water, and nonetheless retain enough warmth to drive the water away in vapor; and on account of this thought the haunted room was heated by steam to a withering diploma, and the inheritor for six months attended day by day the Turkish baths, in order that when Christmas Eve got here he might himself stand up to the terrible temperature of the room.

The scheme was solely partially profitable. The water ghost appeared on the specified time, and located the inheritor of Harrowby ready; however scorching because the room was, it shortened her go to by not more than 5 minutes within the hour, throughout which period the nervous system of the younger grasp was wellnigh shattered, and the room itself was cracked and warped to an extent which required the outlay of a giant sum of cash to treatment. And worse than this, because the final drop of the water ghost was slowly scorching itself out on the ground, she whispered to her would-be conqueror that his scheme would avail him nothing, as a result of there was nonetheless water in nice a lot the place she got here from, and that subsequent yr would discover her rehabilitated and as exasperatingly saturating as ever.

It was then that the pure motion of the thoughts, in going from one excessive to the opposite, urged to the ingenious inheritor of Harrowby the means by which the water ghost was in the end conquered, and happiness as soon as extra got here inside the grasp of the home of Oglethorpe.

The inheritor supplied himself with a heat go well with of fur under-clothing. Donning this with the furry facet in, he positioned over it a rubber garment, tightfitting, which he wore simply as a lady wears a jersey. On prime of this he positioned one other set of under-clothing, this go well with manufactured from wool, and over this was a second rubber garment like the primary. Upon his head he positioned a light-weight and cozy diving helmet, and so clad, on the next Christmas Eve he awaited the approaching of his tormentor.

It was a bitterly chilly night time that delivered to a detailed this twenty-fourth day of December. The air exterior was nonetheless, however the temperature was beneath zero. Inside all was quiet, the servants of Harrowby Corridor awaiting with beating hearts the result of their grasp’s marketing campaign towards his supernatural customer.

The grasp himself was mendacity on the mattress within the haunted room, clad as has already been indicated, after which—

The clock clanged out the hour of twelve.

There was a sudden banging of doorways, a blast of chilly air swept by the halls, the door main into the haunted chamber flew open, a splash was heard, and the water ghost was seen standing in conjunction with the inheritor of Harrowby, from whose outer gown there streamed rivulets of water, however whose personal individual deep down below the varied clothes he wore was as dry and as heat as he might have wished.

“Ha!” mentioned the younger grasp of Harrowby. “I’m glad to see you.”

“You’re the most authentic man I’ve met, if that’s true,” returned the ghost. “Could I ask the place did you get that hat?”

“Definitely, madam,” returned the grasp, courteously. “It’s a little moveable observatory I had made for simply such emergencies as this. However, inform me, is it true that you’re doomed to observe me about for one mortal hour—to face the place I stand, to take a seat the place I sit?”

“That’s my delectable destiny,” returned the girl.

“We’ll exit on the lake,” mentioned the grasp, beginning up.

“You possibly can’t eliminate me that approach,” returned the ghost. “The water received’t swallow me up; in truth, it’ll simply add to my current bulk.”

“However,” mentioned the grasp, firmly, “we are going to exit on the lake.”

“However, my expensive sir,” returned the ghost, with a pale reluctance, “it’s fearfully chilly on the market. You may be frozen exhausting earlier than you’ve been out ten minutes.”

“Oh no, I’ll not,” replied the grasp. “I’m very warmly dressed. Come!”
This final in a tone of command that made the ghost ripple.

And so they began.

They’d not gone far earlier than the water ghost confirmed indicators of misery.

“You stroll too slowly,” she mentioned. “I’m practically frozen. My knees are so stiff now I can hardly transfer. I beseech you to speed up your step.”

“I ought to prefer to oblige a woman,” returned the grasp, courteously, “however my garments are moderately heavy, and 100 yards an hour is about my pace. Certainly, I believe we might higher sit down right here on this snowdrift, and discuss issues over.”

“Don’t! Don’t achieve this, I encourage!” cried the ghost. “Let me transfer on. I really feel myself rising inflexible as it’s. If we cease right here, I shall be frozen stiff.”

“That, madam,” mentioned the grasp slowly, and seating himself on an ice-cake—”that’s the reason I’ve introduced you right here. We’ve got been on this spot simply ten minutes, we’ve fifty extra. Take your time about it, madam, however freeze, that’s all I ask of you.”

“I can not transfer my proper leg now,” cried the ghost, in despair, “and my overskirt is a strong sheet of ice. Oh, good, form Mr. Oglethorpe, gentle a hearth, and let me go free from these icy fetters.”

“By no means, madam. It can’t be. I’ve you ultimately.”

“Alas!” cried the ghost, a tear trickling down her frozen cheek. “Assist me,
I encourage. I congeal!”

“Congeal, madam, congeal!” returned Oglethorpe, coldly. “You could have drenched me and mine for 200 and three years, madam. To-night you could have had your final drench.”

“Ah, however I shall thaw out once more, and then you definitely’ll see. As an alternative of the comfortably tepid, genial ghost I’ve been in my previous, sir, I shall be iced-water,” cried the girl, threateningly.

“No, you received’t, both,” returned Oglethorpe; “for if you end up frozen fairly stiff, I shall ship you to a cold-storage warehouse, and there shall you stay an icy murals eternally extra.”

“However warehouses burn.”

“In order that they do, however this warehouse can not burn. It’s manufactured from asbestos and surrounding it are fire-proof partitions, and inside these partitions the temperature is now and shall eternally be 416 levels beneath the zero level; low sufficient to make an icicle of any flame on this world—or the subsequent,” the grasp added, with an ill-suppressed chuckle.

“For the final time let me beseech you. I might go on my knees to you,
Oglethorpe, have been they not already frozen. I encourage of you don’t doo—”

Right here even the phrases froze on the water ghost’s lips and the clock struck one. There was a momentary tremor all through the ice-bound type, and the moon, popping out from behind a cloud, shone down on the inflexible determine of a gorgeous lady sculptured in clear, clear ice. There stood the ghost of Harrowby Corridor, conquered by the chilly, a prisoner all the time.

The inheritor of Harrowby had received ultimately, and to-day in a big storage home in London stands the frigid type of one who won’t ever once more flood the home of Oglethorpe with woe and sea-water.

As for the inheritor of Harrowby, his success in dealing with a ghost has made him well-known, a fame that also lingers about him, though his victory befell some twenty years in the past; and so removed from being unpopular with the truthful intercourse, as he was after we first knew him, he has not solely been married twice, however is to guide a 3rd bride to the altar earlier than the yr is out.

Extra like this