I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop by the way, to look at the house. My health required a temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn’t been to sleep at all;—upon which question, in the first imbecility of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager5 by battle with the p. 122man who sat opposite me. That opposite man had had, through the night—as that opposite man always has—several legs too many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable6 conduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil and a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating7 notes related to the jolts8 and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed9 aspect, and his demeanour became unbearable10.
It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller and said:
“I beg your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in me?” For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty.
The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a lofty look of compassion11 for my insignificance12:
“In you, sir?—B.”
“B, sir?” said I, growing warm.
“I have nothing to do with you, sir,” returned the gentleman; “pray let me listen—O.”
At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a Rapper: one of a sect16 for (some of) whom I have the highest respect, but whom I don’t believe in. I was going to ask him the question, when he took the bread out of my mouth.
“You will excuse me,” said the gentleman contemptuously, “if I am too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all about it. I have passed the night—as indeed I pass the whole of my time now—in spiritual intercourse17.”
“O!” said I, somewhat snappishly.
“The conferences of the night began,” continued the gentleman, turning several leaves of his note-book, “with this message: ‘Evil communications corrupt18 good manners.’”
“Sound,” said I; “but, absolutely new?”
“New from spirits,” returned the gentleman.
I could only repeat my rather snappish “O!” and ask if I might be favoured with the last communication.
“‘A bird in the hand,’” said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, “‘is worth two in the Bosh.’”
p. 123“Truly I am of the same opinion,” said I; “but shouldn’t it be Bush?”
“It came to me, Bosh,” returned the gentleman.
The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. “My friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway carriage. How do you do? There are seventeen thousand four hundred and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like travelling.” Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific intelligence. “I am glad to see you, amico. Come sta? Water will freeze when it is cold enough. Addio!” In the course of the night, also, the following phenomena19 had occurred. Bishop Butler had insisted on spelling his name, “Bubler,” for which offence against orthography20 and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful21 mystification) had repudiated22 the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint23 authors of that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet24, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots.
If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily25 glad to get out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free air of Heaven.
By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious26 laws by which they are sustained; the gentleman’s spiritual intercourse seemed to me as poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped to examine it attentively27.
It was a solitary28 house, standing29 in a sadly neglected garden: a pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about the time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped30 over the garden wall, announcing that it was “to let on very reasonable terms, well p. 124furnished.” It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front windows, which were excessively melancholy31, and the site of which had been extremely ill chosen.
It was easy to see that it was an avoided house—a house that was shunned32 by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire33 some half a mile off—a house that nobody would take. And the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted house.
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1
accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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2
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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3
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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4
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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5
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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6
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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7
aggravating
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| adj.恼人的，讨厌的 | |
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8
jolts
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的名词复数 ) | |
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9
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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10
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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12
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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13
enunciated
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| v.（清晰地）发音( enunciate的过去式和过去分词 )；确切地说明 | |
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14
vowel
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| n.元音；元音字母 | |
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15
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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16
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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17
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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18
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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19
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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20
orthography
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| n.拼字法，拼字式 | |
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21
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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22
repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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23
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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24
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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25
mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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26
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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28
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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29
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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30
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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32
shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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