LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1074, 6 December 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE GHOUL. Cekewoop Street is so called because for generations it has been celebrated for its manufacture of coffins. Against one jamb of every door rests a highly finished oak coffin with brass mountings and breastplate ; and against the other jamb one of plain deal, rudely put together and having nothing to break the monotony of its sides but four blistered black handles. In this street, day and night, saws grate and squeal, and hammers rouse uncertain hollow sounds.

While walking down the street one sees within the doors great broad-shouldered men reaching up to strike nails in six-foot-fives, or stooping to tack three-foot twos as they lie across their knees. The little girls rock their dolls to sleep in coffins for cradles. The boys mount small coffins on wheels and race along the street carrying two or three young children, or maybe a pet dog, in their strange chariot. So rich is this place in its wares that it is a boast of the people who dwell there that if anyone, from a duke to a halfpenny ice man at the corner, were to drop down dead on the pavement, he could be fittingly accommodated and sent home without the least infringement of the sumptuary law. For those who are engaged in the business the street is not a gloomy one; they find sources of gratification and solace denied to the mere visitor. Apart from the general advantages of the trade, it affords the means of consoling individual hearts when most tried. At the time the worthy Edmond Gosfort lost his wife, the mother of his grown-up sous, was he not consoled and comforted, and did he not dry his eyes, upon hearing that there was a nice elm shell in stock just the iioV nd afterwards, when he mentioned with no little pi ide the healing consideration, did be not say that tor the greatest lady in London an order could not have been executed with greater despatch ? When fat Michael Clarke’s mother-in-law died, did not Michael come forward and give her the ‘old maple nest-egg’ as they used to call it ? Ever since its marriage it had lain on his bauds because of the warp in the lid and the crack in the bottom. A s the old lady lay in it, had he not whispered to a neighbour that ho never saw on his mother-in-law anything which, to his mind, became ner so well, and that ‘them two eyesores was going away together !’ For the general public, however, Cerewocd street were a dismal and repelling aspect. To such a degree did prejudice act upon the popular instinct that, from one end of the ■ street to the other, there waa not a eingle

householder unconnected with funerals or funeral matters—except one. About midway down the street stood a low dingy shop, the windows and jambs of which displayed several narrow slips of printed paper signifying the willingness of the proprietor to buy or sAI second hand books or to lend any b ok on his shelves at the rate of one penny the day.

The window was almost completely blinded up with books. From the outside no one could see into the shop, A barricade of cases at the door prevented side-long glances penetrating. A dull, forgotten air hung about the place. In the uncleaned windows cobwebs spread from one row of books to another. The dead flies of many years lay like husks of black corn between leaves and panes of glass, or half buried in deep dust on the show-board and inner edges of the sash.

The interior of the shop disclosed a wilderness of hooks and dust. The open space before the counter measured no more than eight feet by six. Ail the rest was books, hooka, books, and a little old man. The little old man owned the business, and had, because of singular tastes displayed by him, been called the Ghoul.

He was low sized and thin, with a large bald forehead mottled with red, a prominent nose, grey-blue eyes, and heavy hands badly articulated. His dress consisted of- a long rusty black coat, rusty black waistcoat open half-way down his bust, exposing a shirt of dubious purity, and black threadbare small-clothes. People judged him to be about sixty-five years of age Absolutely nothing was known of his history. Some said he had never been married; but there were rumours remote and weird to the contrary. No one in Cerewood street had ever known, or heard of, or seen a member of his family ; but against hasty conclusions from this it was urged that no one had ever explored the upper regions of his house. His neighboros on either side were fiercely at variance as to whether there were or were not any occupant but himself. Ou one side it was averred that words, and moans, and cries had been heard ; while on the other it was held that such sounds existed only in fancy ; or, at most, were but the sawings and hammerings twisted into the service of mystery by a willing imagination.

The Ghoul had taken the house thirty years before. He had entered into occupation at midnight; no one about the place had seen him come, but far into the morning those on both sides had heard his boxes and bales of books being tossed hither and thither. For a week the shutters remained up. When the shop was opened, the arrangements were precisely the same as those seen thirty years afterwards.

JNeither the rear nor front windows of the house were ever opened. Blinds covered them completely. The neighbours on the opposite side of the street now and then saw a skylight raised. But it never moved while the Ghoul, was in the shop. It it Avere open when a shower came on, he went up and shut it. To any one present at the time, he would say — ‘By gad, sir ! 1 have left the skylight open, and there’s the rain—there’s the rain. Excuse me a minute till I let it doAvn.’ .As often as the Ghoul wanted to bo emphatic he prefaced what he had to say with ‘By gad, sir ! ’ paying no regard to the sex of the person in Avhose presence he spoke. This habit had inspired several lady customers of his with supemtitious notions. 4 For,’ said one, 4 how could he say 44 sir ” to me ? And I believe he’s talking to Some One Else,’ with a shudder and an uneasy look round, 4 the whole time.’ And truth to tell, the eyes of the Ghoul were often absent from the place and the people present and the business in hand.

He indulged, too, in a habit of soliloquising which affrighted the timid sex. He had frequently been found apossrophisinghis shadow, or a pile of books, or a pot of paste ; and the worst feature of these soliloquies happened to bo that the only intelligible words every caught by anyone coming in unawares were these self-same ones, *By gad sir !’ all the rest being a wild chaos of articulation. This made the women shiver and turn pale. ‘h l o one’—said a thin woman who always wore a drab dress and a cap with strings untied— ‘ no one can make out a word of what he says at them times, except a sorb of curse ; and no Christian human being can understand him. What, then, can he be doing but talking to Some One in their own language / in which you know, my dear, curses is like blessings, or how dye-dos.’ But by far the most disquieting habit of the Ghoul was one also indulged in when he believed himself to be alone. It consisted in bending his body until his head lay on a level with his knees, and then walking or rather jumping forward on his heels, muttering and mumbling the while in hissing tones. Once or twice when surprised by a syupathetio neighbour, and asked if he suffered from pain or cramp, lie had answered with some little confusion that he did not feel ill, adding by way of explanation :

4 By gad, sir ! 1 was only thinking—only thinking.’ (To he continued.)