The Express.
London, England, 1859-12-12 00:00:00

The Haunted Holes. The liztri!Chtistmas umber

e! AU am Year Resat OsallestedlCll•ll.2l
" All the Ter Semi* oos.
For the leat eight err shoe yeas the Chehtmas
amber se Hoemeholi Werth bah leen looked fee at
amends of family firesides en both sides of the
Atlantic as one of the good thisys of the season :
semithing to be reed with the eager Mete of ouriceity,
and talked over, like the visit ofa loved end welcome
fried, at leisure : very different in digestibility from
that great national Institution, composed of
all the deadliest ingredients of the housekeeper's
room, which confounds foreigners, and makes
December and January favourite months in the
medical calendar. The recipe for thus " Christmas
Neater," which Mr. Dickens "conducts" (since he
left eff writing those exquisite little stories which
still bold rapturous audiences suspended on his lips
as be reads them) appears to be—a little wonder' a
little mystery, something tender and humorously
sad, something broadly and furiously farcical, a sus-
picion of the terrible, a spice of the romantic, a dash
of danger and adventure by land and water—all
stirred ep with healthy human charity, and pre-
served wholesome with manly common sense. The
result of this social confection (which, by the
by., it not ,spoiled by the united labours
of half-a.dosen cooks) is a healthful, refresh-
ing, and invigorating entreaties, neither too
stimulating, nor too substantial, nor too light,
but enough of all these qualities, and admirably
mixed. All the Year Round continues and im-
proves cal the good traditions of the periodical which
it has absorbed into its substance, and among these
traditions none are better worth continuing than the
Christmas Numbers. The Bret of the new series is
full of vigour and promise; forty-eight double-
columned pegs. sparkling with the light, and glow-
iug with the warmth, of hearty human sympathies.
The work of not lees than six hands is
discernible in the stories of which this" Haunted
House " is built up, but the " styles" melt into each
other under the composing touch of the chief artist;
and, though there are many orders, there is no
disorder of architecture apparent in the work, which
is more than can be said of English architecture in
general. We dare say Mr. Dickens is accused in
some quarters of being • morbidly" (a killing word I)
fond of ghosts and haunted houses. For our own
part we honestly plead an old and early weeknem for •
ghost story by flee-light. It is pleasant to tell a tale of
terror to an audience of young ladies who are " all of
a tremble." Besides, there is en element in our
nature which loves to dally with the mysteries
" between which and this state of existence is inter-
posed the barrier of that great trial end change that
fall on all the things that live;" and it is precisely
this element that loess to believe in houses haunted,
and in family Rheas. At any rate the Haunted
House of All the Year Round is (we beg to assure
the prudent mothers and positive fathers of nervous
young people) a house that had only been haunted
by an "coded woman with a howl," u 'key the
atableboy (who is shrewdly suspected of having
himself been the "howl") described the spectre;
by the usual accompaniments of creaking staircases,
banging doors, and, as the landlord remarked, " all
the bells ringing with nobody to ring them, and all
sorts of feet treading about with no feet there."
But the key to the whole mystery was easily found
by the servant, who had no vested interest in ghosts.
' Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something
in this house."
" No, sir?' he whispered, greedily opening his eyes.
" Goded lady air
" Don't be frightened," said I. "It was a figure rather
like you."
L. sir
" Ikry I" add I, shaking hands with him warmly ; I may
my aSectionetely; •if there is any truth in these ghost-
stories, the greatest service I ean do you Is to fire at that
figure. Aid I promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do
It with this gun if I see it again."
The young man thanked me, and took his leave with awes
Illi,lieerecipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I ho-
my meant to him, because I bed never quite forgotten
Lis throwing his cap at the bell; because I had, on another
omission, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far
from the bell, one night when it had burn out ringing; and
because I had remarked that we were at our ghoetlies
whenever he came up in the evening to comfort the servants.
Let ma de 'key no injustice. He wee afraid of tee home,
1 and bdbeed in its being haunted ; sad yet be would play
fehe le the haunting aids, so surely sa ha got an opportunity.
The Odd Girl's case wee exactly similar. She went about the
house in • state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and
wilfully, and Invented many of the alarms she speed, and
made unsay of the sonde we hoard. I bad had my eye on
the two, and I know it. It is not neooawy for ma, here, to
amount for this preposterous state of min ; I cantata my-
self with remitting that It is familiarly known to every
ta-
tolUgeet mac who has had fair medical, legal, or other
watchful experience; that it is es well established and as
°cam* • stele of mind as any with which observers are
acquainted; saddest it is one of the first elements, above all
odium, vatiandly to be suspected in, and strictly looked for,
and aspirated from, any question oithis kind.
However, it was impossible to exist in the house
with servants who would be haunted, so oar
friend who tells the story of the bowie, and how
its ghosts came to be exorcised, at the sugges-
tion of his maiden sister "oast about among their
friends for a certain selected number of the most
reliable and willing to form a society in the house
for three months, wait upon themselves and one
another, live cheerfully and socially,and see what hap-
pens." At the end of November, accordingly, the party
—aa jolly • party as were ever got together at Christ-
mu—came down and took possession of the house.
We must not pick out the currants from the plum-
padding, but we will add that they drew lots for
bedrooms, thoroughly searched the homes, without
discovering a sign of the "coded lady," OT of the
" howl," or of " the ridiculous old ghost of the female
gender who went up and down, carrying the ghat
of a wine bottle," or of the "impalpable jackass
whom nobody was ever able to catch." 'We then,"
sathji_chief of the society—
celled one another to witness, that we were not
thire;7llTbe &waived, or to deceive—which we considered
pretty much the mme thing—and that, with a serious sense
ef rsepoasibility, we would be strictly true to one another,
and would strictly follow out the truth. The undsritanding
wee estabbibed, that any one who heard unusual noises in
the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at
my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of
holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since th.t then
present boor of our coming together in the haunted home,
should be brought to light ice the good of all ; and that we
would hold our peace on the subject till then, =lees on some
remarkable provocation to break silence.
" The engagement was faithfully kept, and nobody
revealed anything. All we knew was, if anybody's
room was haunted, no one looked the worse fur it."
So, after a merry Christmas, they all sat down
on Twelfth Night, round a "glorious cake," and
" the Ghost in the Clock Room" was called for, and
told a most effecting and noble lore story, which
receives the following interpretation : '• My, cousin's
wife, in her great love for her husband, and in her
gratitude to him for the change her love had
wrought in her, had told us through his lips her own
story. To this succeeds " the Ghost in the Double
Room," who, through the month of Alfred Starling,
relates an extravagantly farcical story of a lover
stricken with the ague, which, to the credit of the
lover, though not of his inventor, tarns out to be •
dream. Then comes the turn of "the Ghost in the
Picture Room," who tells her story, for it is Belinda
who speaks, in "a low,clear voice," and in sweet melo-
dious verse. Next, "The Ghost in the Cupboard
Room," in the shape of Mr. Beaver, a fine old sea cap-
tain, takes the wheel, and his experience of being left
in the hold of a brig on the Spanish main by • gang
of pirates, with a slow match jammed into a barrel
of gunpowder and tied round a tallow dip alongside
his face, is something to make the reader's hair
stand on end. Only the imaginatiou of Wilkie
Collins could have conceived the situation, and
only his startling power of ferias the real with the
unreal, end representing with marvellous detail
every circumstance of an event that never happened,
could have created so terrible a picture out of a common
bedroom candlestick. It is a picture that no reader
will essily. forget. It was new the tarn of the Chief
of the moiety, and if we have taken the liberty to
swigs the authorship of " the Ghent in the lag.