borrowed the necessary funds and had soon made all preliminary arrangements for running the wraith of Barnjum on a short tour in the provinces, deciding to open at Tenby, in South Wales.
I took every precaution, travelling by night and keeping within doors all day, lest the shade (which was deplorably destitute of the commonest professional pride) should get about and exhibit itself beforehand for nothing; and so successful was I, that when it first burst upon a Welsh audience, from the platform of the Assembly Rooms, Tenby, no ghost could have wished for a more enthusiastic reception, and—for the first and last time—I felt positively proud of it!
But the applause gradually subsided, and was succeeded by an awkward pause. It had not struck me till that moment that it would be necessary to do or say anything in particular during the exhibition, beyond showing the spectators round the phantom, and making the customary assurance that there was no deception and no concealed machinery, which I could do with a clear conscience. But a terrible conviction struck me as I stood there bowing repeatedly, that the audience had come prepared for a comic duologue, with incidental music and dances.
This was quite out of the question, even supposing that Barnjum’s ghost would have helped me to entertain them, which, perhaps, I could scarcely expect. As it was, it did nothing at all, except grimace at the audience and make an idiotic fool of itself and me—an exhibition of which they soon wearied. I am perfectly certain that an ordinary magic lantern would have made a far deeper impression upon them.
Whether the wraith managed in some covert way, when my attention was diverted, to insult the national prejudices of that sensitive and hot-blooded nation, I cannot say. All I know is, that after sitting still for some time they suddenly rose as one man; chairs were hurled at me through the ghost, and the stage was completely wrecked before the audience could be induced to go away.
It was all over. I was hopelessly ruined now! My weak fancy that even a spectre would have some remnants of common decency and good-feeling hanging about it, had put the finishing touch to my misfortunes!
I paid for the smashed platform and windows with the money that had been taken at the doors, and then I travelled back to London, third class, that night, with the feeling that everything was against me.
* * * *
It was Christmas, and I was sitting gloomily in my shabby Bloomsbury lodgings, watching with a miserable, apathetic interest Barnjum’s wraith as, clad in a Roman toga, topboots, and a turban, it flitted about the horsehair furniture.
I was wondering if they would admit me into any workhouse while the spectre continued my attendant; I was utterly and completely wretched, and now, for the first time, I really repented my conduct in having parted with Barnjum so abruptly by the bleak cliff side, that bright June morning.
I had heard no more of him—I knew he must have reached the bottom after his fall, because I heard the splash he made—but no tidings had come of the discovery of his body; the lake kept its dark secret well.
If I could only hope that this insidious shade, now that it had hounded me down to poverty, would consider this as a sufficient expiation of my error and go away and leave me in peace! But I felt, only too keenly, that it was one of those one-idea’d apparitions, which never know when they have had enough of a good thing—it would be sure to stay and see the very last of me!
All at once there came a sharp tap at my door, and another figure strode solemnly in. This, too, wore the semblance of Barnjum, but was cast in a more substantial mould, and possessed the power of speech, as I gathered from its addressing me instantly as a cowardly villain.
I started back, and stood behind an arm-chair, facing those two forms, the shadow and the solid, with a feeling of sick despair. “Listen to me,” I said, “both of you: so long as your—your original proprietor was content with a single wraith, I put up with it; I did not enjoy myself—but I endured it. But a brace of apparitions is really carrying the thing too far; it’s more than any one man’s fair allowance, and I won’t stand it. I defy the pair of you. I will find means to escape you. I will leave the world! Other people can be ghosts as well as you—it’s not a monopoly! If you don’t go directly, I shall blow my brains out!”
There was no firearm of any description in the house, but I was too excited for perfect accuracy.
“Blow your brains out by all means!” said the solid figure; “I don’t know what all this nonsense you’re talking is about. I’m not a ghost that I’m aware of; I’m alive (no thanks to you); and, to come back to the point—scoundrel!”
“Barnjum—and alive!” I cried, almost with relief. “If that is so,” I added, feeling that I had been imposed upon in a very unworthy and ungentlemanly manner, “will you have the goodness to tell me what right you have to this ridiculous apparition here?”
He did not seem to have noticed it particularly till then. “Hullo!” he said, looking at it with some curiosity, “what d’ye call that thing?”
“I call it a beastly nuisance!” I said. “Ever since—since I last saw you, it’s been following me about everywhere in a—in a very annoying manner!”
Will it be believed that the unfeeling brute only chuckled at this? “I don’t know anything about it,” he said, “but all I can say is that it serves you jolly well right, and I hope it will go on annoying you.”
“This is ungenerous,” I said, determined to appeal to any better feelings he might have; “we did not part on—on the best of terms perhaps—”
“Considering that you kicked me over a precipice when I wasn’t looking,” he retorted brutally, “we may take that as admitted.”
“But, at all events,” I argued, “it is ridiculous to cherish an old grudge all this time; you must see the absurdity of it yourself.”
“No, I don’t,” he said.
I determined to make a last effort to move him. “It is Christmas Eve, Barnjum,” I said earnestly, “Christmas Eve. Think of it. At this hour, thousands of throbbing human hearts are speeding the cheap but genial Christmas card to such of their relations as they consider at all likely to respond with a turkey. The costermonger, imaginative for the nonce, is investing damaged evergreens with a purely fictitious value, and the cheery publican is sending the member of his village goose-club back to his cottage home, rich in the possession of a shot-distended bird and a bottle of poisonous port. Hear my appeal. If I was hasty with you, I have been punished. That detestable thing on the hearthrug there has dogged my path to misery and ruin; you cannot be without some responsibility for its conduct. I ask you now, as a man—nay, as an individual—to call it off. You can do it well enough if you only choose; you know you can.”
But Barnjum wouldn’t; he only looked at his own wraith with a grim satisfaction as it capered in an imbecile fashion upon the rug.
“Do,” I implored him; “I would do it for you, Barnjum. I’ve had it about me for six months, and I am so sick of it.”
Still he hesitated. Some waits outside were playing one of those pathetic American melodies—I forget now whether it was “Silver Threads among the Gold,” or “In the Sweet By-and-By”—but, at all events, they struck some sympathetic chord in Barnjum’s rough bosom, for his face began to twitch, and presently he burst unexpectedly into tears.
“You don’t deserve it,” he said between his sobs, “but be it so”; then, turning to the ghost, he added: “Here, you,
