LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 579, 27 April 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

STEEPSIDE. A Ghost Story. {Conti lived.) I put the book down and looked upward at the ceiling. There was nothing visible there save the grey dirt of years. I Yoked closely at the hideous blotch, and saw it rapidly soaking and widening its way into the paper, already sof’ened with age. As, of course, after this incident I was nob inclined to continue my studies of Addison and Steele, I shut the volume and replaced it on the shelves. Turning back towards the table to take up my candle, my eyes rested upon a full-length portrait immediately facing the bookcase. It was that of a young and bauds me woman w tli glossy black hair coiled round her head, but, I thought, with something repulsive in the proud, stony face and shadowed ejes. I raised the light above my head to geta better view of the painting. As I did this, it seemed to me that the countenance of the figure changed, or rather that a thing came between mo and it. It was a momentary distortion, as though a gust of wind had passed across the portrait and disturbed the outline of the features —the how and the why I know not —but the face changed ; nor shall I ever forget the sudden horror of the 1 ok it assumed. It was like that face of phantom ghastliness that we see sometimes in the delirium of fever the face that meets us and turns upon us in the mazes of nightmare, with a look that wakes us in the darkness, and drives the cold sweat out upon our forehead while we lie still and hold our breath for fear. Man as I was, I shuddered convulsively from bead to foot, and (ixed ray eyes earnestly on the terrible portrait. In a minute it was a mere picture again—an inanimate coloured canvas, wearing no expression upon its painted features save that the artist had given to it nearly a century ago. I thought then that the strange appearance I. had witnessed was probably the effect of the fitful candle-light, or an illusion of my own vision ; but now I believe otherwise. Seeing nothing further unusual in the picture, 1 turned my back upon it, and made a few steps towards the door, intending to quit this mysterious chamber of horrors, when a third and more hideous phenomenon riveted mo to the spot where I stood ; for, as I looked towards the oaken door in the corner, I became aware of something slowly filtering from beneath it, and creeping towards me. 0 heaven ! I had not long to look to know what that s unething was—it M'as blood red, thick, stealthy ! On it came, winding its way in a frightful stream into the room, soddening the rich carpet, and lying presently in a black pool at my feet. It had trickled in from the adjoining chamber—that chamber the entrance to which was closed by the bookcase. There were some great volumes on the ground before the door volumes which I had noticed when I entered the room, on account of the thick dust with which they were surrounded. They were lying now in a pool of stagnant blood. It would be utterly impossible for me to attempt to describe my sensations at that minute. I was not capable of feeling any distinct emotion. My brain seemed oppressed, I could scarcely breathe —scarcely move. I watched the dreadful stream oozing drowsily through the crevices of the mouldy, rotting woodwork—bulging out in great beads like raindrops on the sides of the door—trickling noiselessly down the knots of the carved oak. Still I stood and watched it, and it crept on slowly, slowly, like a living thing, and growing as it came, to my very feet. I cannot say how long I might have stood there, fascinated by it, had not something suddenly occurred to startle me into my senses again ; for full upon the back of my right hand fell, with a sullen, heavy sound, a second drop of bloodIt stung and burnt my flesh like molten lead, and the sharp, sudden pain it gave me shot up my arm and shoulder, and seemed in an instant to mount into my brain and pervade my whole being. I turned and fled from the terrible place with a shrill cry that rang through the empty corridors and ghostly rooms like nothing human. I turned and fled from the terrible place with a shrill that rang through the empty corridors and ghostly rooms like nothing human. I did not recognise it from my own voice—so strange it was—so totally unlike its accustomed sound ; and now, when I recall it, I am disposed to think it was surely not the cry of living mortal, but of that unknown Thing that passed before the portrait, and that stood beside me even then in the lonely room. Certain I am that the echoes of that cry had in them something inexpressibly fiendish, and through the deathly gloom of the mansion they came back, reverberated and repeated from a hundred invisible owners and galleries. Now I had to pass, on my return, a long, broad window that lighted the principal staircase. This window had neither shutters nor blind, and was composed of those small square panes that were in vogue a century ago. As 1 went by it, I threw a hasty, appalled glance behind me, and distinctly saw, even through the blurred and dirty glass, the figures of two women, one pursuing the other over the thick white snow outside. In the rapid view I had of them, I observed only that the first carried something in her hand that looked like a pistol, and her long black hair streamed behind her, showing darkly against the dead whiteness of the landscape. The arms of her pursuer were outstretched, as though she were calling to her companion to stop ; but perfect as was the silence of the night, and close as the figures seemed to be, 1 Ir ard no sound of a voice. Next I came to a second and smaller window which had been once boarded up, but with of time the plank had loosened and partly fallen, and here I paused a moment to look out. It still snowed slightly, but there was a clear moon, sufficient to throw a ghastly light upon the outside objects nearest to me. With tlie sleeve of my coat I rubbed away the dust and cobwebs which overhung the glass, and peered out. The two women were still hurrying onward, but the distance between them was considerably lessoned. And now for the first time a peculiarity about them struck me. It was this, that the figures were not substantial; they flickered and waved precisely like flames, as they ran. As I gazed at them the foremost turned her head to look at the woman behind her, and as she did so, stumbled, fell, and disappeared. She seemed to have suddenly dropped down a precipice, so quickly and so completely she vanished. The other figure stopped, wrung its hands wildly, and presently turned and fled in the direction of

the park-gates, and was soon lost in the obscurity of the distance. The sights I had just wit esscd in the panelled chamber had not been of a nature to inspire courage in any one, and I must candidly confess that my knees actually shook and my teeth rattled as I left the window and darted up the solitary passage to the baize door at the top of it. Would I had never unlocked that door. Would that the key had been lost, or that I had never set foot in fhis abominable house. Hastily I refastened the door, hung up the rusty key in its niche, and rushed into my own room, where I dropped into a chair with a deadly faintness spreading over me. I looked at my hand, where the clot of blood had fallen. It seemed to have burnt its way into my flesh, fur it no longer appeared on the surface, but, where it had been was a round, purple mark, with an outer ring, like the scar of a burn. That scar is on my hand now, and I suppose will be there all my life. I looked at my watch, which I had left behind me on the mantlepiece. It was five minutes past twelve. •Shouldl go to bed? I stirred the sinking fire into a blazo, and looked anxiously at my candle. 2S' either fire nor candles, I perceived, would last much longer. Before long both would be expended, and I should be in darkness. In darkness, and alone in that house. The bare idea of a night passed in such solitude was terrible to me. I tried to laugh at my fears, and reproached myself with weakness and cowardice. I reverted to the stereotyped method of consolation under circumstances of this description, and strove to persuade myself that, being guiltless, I bad no cause to fear the pow ers of evil. Bat in vain. Trembling from head to foot, I raked together the smouldering embers in the stove for the last time, wrapped my railway rug around me —for I dared not undress—and threw myself on the bed, where I lay sleepless until the dawn. But oh, what I endured all those weary hours no human creature can imagine. I watched the last sparks of the lire die out, one by one, and heard the ashe • slide and drop slowly upon the hearth. I watched the flame of the candle flare up and sink again a dozen times, and then at last expire, leaving me in utter darkness and silence. I fancid, ever and anon, that I could distinguish the sound of phantom feet coming down the corridor towards my room, and that the mysterious Presence I had cucountered in the panelled chamber stood at my bedside looking at me. or that a stealthy hnd touched mine. I felt the sweat up m my forehead, but I dared not move to wipe it away. 1 thought of people whose hair had turned white through terror in a few brief hours, and wondered what colour mine would be in the morning. And when at last—at last —the first grey glimmer of that morning peered through the window-blind, I hailed its appearance with much the same emotion as, no doubt, a traveller fainting with thirst in a desert would experience upon descrying a watery oasis in the midst of the burning sands. Long before the sun arose, I leapt from my couch, and having made a hasty toilette, I sallied out into the bleak, frosty air. It revived me at once, and brought new courage into my heart. Looking at the whitened expanse of lawn where last night I had seen the two women running, I could detect no sign of footmarks in the snow. The whole lawn presented an unbroken surface of sparkling crystals. I walked down the drive to the lodge. The old man, evidently an early bird, was in the act of unbarring his door as I appeared. ‘ Halloa, sir, you’re up betimes ! ’ he exclaimed. ‘Will yo just step in now and take somethin’ 7 My ole woman’s agoin’ to get out the breakfast. Slept well last night, sir ? ’ he continued, as I entered the little parlour ; ‘ the bed is rayther hard, I know ; but, ye see, it does well enow for my son George when he’s up here, which isna often. Ye look tired like, this mornin’; didna get much rest p’raps ? Ah ! now then, Bess, gi’ us another plate here, ole gal.’ (To he continued)