Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/572

 old estate of that name. He had at least secured it in its entirety, ghost and all, nor was it long before this family phantom (a hoary-headed and miserly Rosewarne), put in an appearance. It was in the drive, the third night after Ezekiel Grosse had come into possession, that he was first accosted. "Follow me," said the spectre, as he led the way to a lonely hollow in the adjacent wood, "Dig, and you will find," and he pointed to a huge moss-grown stone. "There will you see the accumulated hoard of Roger Rosewarne, the miser. I am he. In life I sent the poor and needy penniless from my door, and damned them for their impertinent supplications, for which I am doomed to experience the pangs of starvation throughout endless eternity, unless the hidden treasure be wisely dispensed!"

The next moment the bewildered lawyer found himself alone. It's needless to say that, before many days had passed, the whole of that buried wealth had been transferred by him to his own private coffers, and was soon being expended, regardless of the ghost's warning, in the wildest extravagance. Gallants more famed for their profanity than their wit, accompanied by powdered and painted beauties, now held high revel in those ancestral halls, more especially on one Christmas Eve, when, as the clock struck midnight, the lights grew dim and blue, and the miser's ghost, in a phosphorescence all its own, appeared slowly descending the broad oaken staircase, cursing, as it did so, the founder of the feast, who, squandering in debauchery his easily-acquired gold, condemned, by doing so, the perturbed soul of the Miser of Rosewarne to walk the earth to all eternity.

A certain clergyman, detained late one night at a friend's house, accepted, unhesitatingly, the offer of sleeping accommodation in the only disengaged room—the haunted chamber. Now, as the reverend gentleman made it a practice never to travel ever so short a distance without some abstruse theological work in his pocket for perusal at odd moments, it is not surprising that on this occasion he sat up till after the witching hour; indeed, it was nearly one o'clock a.m. when, in a complete but threadbare mediæval suit, the vapoury spirit of yet another miser—a skinflint ancestor of the clergyman's host-appeared before him, whom the ready-witted parson at once interviewed somewhat as follows;—

"Pardon me, sir, you are, doubtless, a resident in this neighbourhood?"

"I am!" replied the somewhat flabby phantom in sepulchral tones.

"Ah! just so. You live, if I may be allowed the expression, in this house; have done so, in fact, for some time past?"

"Three hundred years."

"Dear me! you don't say so?"

"I do."

"And have subscribed, naturally, to many local charities—eh?"

"Devil-a-bit," said the skinflint's ghost, clutching the bag of sovereigns he carried more closely to his bony sides. "Devil-a-bit, sir."

"Well, then," replied the cleric, "you'll pardon my saying so, I know, but don't you think it's about time you did?" and with this he politely presented a subscription list for the renovation of the parish church. "You will see," he went on, "I have here the names of some of the most influential" He could proceed no further. The smell of sulphur was simply unbearable, and the miser's ghost was laid for ever. The room has since been converted into a nursery.

Immediately below the sketch which illustrates the preceding anecdote is to be found one of the late lamented Terese des Moulin, of whom our dear old friend Ingoldsby discourses so graphically in "The Black Mousquetaire;" how being haunted o' nights by the ghost of a beautiful nun of that name, whom he had deceived, his brother officers, fearing he would go mad, decided to disillusionise him by introducing into his room, at the hour when his victim was said to appear, none other than her twin sister "Agnes," who continued also as a nun, and, playing the part of a ghost, was at a given moment to be unmasked, so that, having been proved to be mortal, his hallucination might be explained away, as a practical joke. The opportunity, however, never came, for at one and the same moment the actual ghost of the injured one appeared, which was visible only to the Mousquetaire himself. She seated herself by the side of her living sister. Now, two sisters Terese were too much even for that devil-may-care officer. He raised himself in bed, glared at the double apparition, and shrieked, with a weird, almost diabolic halloo—

"Mon Dieu! V'là deux! By the Pope, there are Two!" whereupon he immediately collapsed, fell back, and—died.