The Fourth Ghost Story MEGAPACK ®. Sarah Orne JewettЧитать онлайн книгу.
the identical life-preserver with which he committed it.
THREE SPANISH LADIES, by Walter E. Marconette
Originally published in Spaceways #1, November 1938.
A Tale Told by a Wraith....
“Si, Si, Senor Saint Petair! It was at Irun that I lost my life. You wish to hear the story? Very well, but first you must understand that I have loved, or thought I loved, three women at the same time.”
“Do not smile, senor Saint; it is not a frivilous matter. To love one woman, that is bad enough; but to love two, that is terrible. Just imagine my woes with three!”
At this point the wraith with the very Spanish accent shifted his position on the cloud he occupied with St. Peter. Finally he settled back with a loud sigh, if ghosts may be said to sigh, and continued his narration.
“The first was Juanita. She was tall and slim and lithe. The second was Carlotta. She eked out a bare existence by selling flowers on the street for a few coppers an ounce. Her figure was short and rather plump with skin as brown as a nut.
“The third was quite different, senor Saint, a blonde. Delores, the daughter of old Don Hernandez, was half French. You see, her father met his wife on one of his annual visits to Paris.”
“Well, senor Saint, I loved the three and became more miserable as the days slid by. I might still be in the dilemma, but then the revolution came.”
“When France’s legions marched to attack Irun (that is my home city up on the French frontier), I joined the loyalist forces. They pounded us with heavy artillery for days, shelling, shelling ceaselessly until men began to go mad from it. Then, our vigilance relaxed, the rebels poured in. All that day we fought like demons, but ever we were pushed back.”
“And then, by one of those weird coincidences which do occur at times to mystify us, I rounded a corner and found, crouched low in a doorway, my three loves. Not knowing each other, yet hiding together!”
“I had hardly perceived the girls when suddenly I was struck. I felt the slug’s deadening impact, felt it tear its fiery way through my flesh, and heard a sickening crunch and splintering as my bones gave way.”
“As I crumpled, I was glad. Yes, glad, for I knew my love problems were solved. Regardless of the seething hell about me, the one girl who really loved me would reach my side. And, senor Saint, would you believe it, I calmly wondered which of the three it would be as I lay there!”
“A hand touched my shoulder; I heard someone call my name softly. With a mighty effort I opened my eyes…and peered into those of…Dios!…Jose, my sergeant!”
“There and then I wished I might die. Si, those fascists were very, very obliging fellows, for they dropped a heavy shell almost on top of us.
“By the way, Senor Saint Petair, is my friend Jose here? He isn’t? My, can it be that he is in…in…in…in the other place?”
BRICKETT BOTTOM, by Amyas Northcote
Originally appeared in In Ghostly Company (1921).
The Reverend Arthur Maydew was the hard-working incumbent of a large parish in one of our manufacturing towns. He was also a student and a man of no strong physique, so that when an opportunity was presented to him to take an annual holiday by exchanging parsonages with an elderly clergyman, Mr. Roberts, the Squarson of the Parish of Overbury, and an acquaintance of his own, he was glad to avail himself of it.
Overbury is a small and very remote village in one of our most lovely and rural counties, and Mr. Roberts had long held the living of it.
Without further delay we can transport Mr. Maydew and his family, which consisted only of two daughters, to their temporary home. The two young ladies, Alice and Maggie, the heroines of this narrative, were at that time aged twenty-six and twenty-four years respectively. Both of them were attractive girls, fond of such society as they could find in their own parish and, the former especially, always pleased to extend the circle of their acquaintance. Although the elder in years, Alice in many ways yielded place to her sister, who was the more energetic and practical and upon whose shoulders the bulk of the family cares and responsibilities rested. Alice was inclined to be absent-minded and emotional and to devote more of her thoughts and time to speculations of an abstract nature than her sister.
Both of the girls, however, rejoiced at the prospect of a period of quiet and rest in a pleasant country neighbourhood, and both were gratified at knowing that their father would find in Mr. Roberts’ library much that would entertain his mind, and in Mr. Roberts’ garden an opportunity to indulge freely in his favourite game of croquet. They would have, no doubt, preferred some cheerful neighbours, but Mr. Roberts was positive in his assurances that there was no one in the neighbourhood whose acquaintance would be of interest to them.
The first few weeks of their new life passed pleasantly for the Maydew family. Mr. Maydew quickly gained renewed vigour in his quiet and congenial surroundings, and in the delightful air, while his daughters spent much of their time in long walks about the country and in exploring its beauties.
One evening late in August the two girls were returning from a long walk along one of their favourite paths, which led along the side of the Downs. On their right, as they walked, the ground fell away sharply to a narrow glen, named Brickett Bottom, about three-quarters of a mile in length, along the bottom of which ran a little-used country road leading to a farm, known as Blaise’s Farm, and then onward and upward to lose itself as a sheep track on the higher Downs. On their side of the slope some scattered trees and bushes grew, but beyond the lane and running up over the farther slope of the glen was a thick wood, which extended away to Carew Court, the seat of a neighbouring magnate, Lord Carew. On their left the open Down rose above them and beyond its crest lay Overbury.
The girls were walking hastily, as they were later than they had intended to be and were anxious to reach home. At a certain point at which they had now arrived the path forked, the right hand branch leading down into Brickett Bottom and the left hand turning up over the Down to Overbury.
Just as they were about to turn into the left hand path Alice suddenly stopped and pointing downwards exclaimed:
“How very curious, Maggie! Look, there is a house down there in the Bottom, which we have, or at least I have, never noticed before, often as we have walked up the Bottom.”
Maggie followed with her eyes her sister’s pointing finger. “I don’t see any house,” she said.
“Why, Maggie,” said her sister, “can’t you see it! A quaint-looking, old-fashioned red brick house, there just where the road bends to the right. It seems to be standing in a nice, well- kept garden too.”
Maggie looked again, but the light was beginning to fade in the glen and she was short-sighted to boot.
“I certainly don’t see anything,” she said. “But then I am so blind and the light is getting bad; yes, perhaps I do see a house,” she added, straining her eyes.
“Well, it is there,” replied her sister, “and to-morrow we will come and explore it.” Maggie agreed readily enough, and the sisters went home, still speculating on how they had happened not to notice the house before and resolving firmly on an expedition thither the next day. However, the expedition did not come off as planned, for that evening Maggie slipped on the stairs and fell, spraining her ankle in such a fashion as to preclude walking for some time.
Notwithstanding the accident to her sister, Alice remained possessed by the idea of making further investigations into the house she had looked down upon from the hill the evening before; and the next day, having seen Maggie carefully settled for the afternoon, she started off for Brickett Bottom. She returned in triumph and much intrigued over her discoveries, which she eagerly narrated to her sister.
Yes. There was a nice, old-fashioned red brick house, not very large and set in a charming, old- world garden in the Bottom. It stood on a tongue of land jutting