XVI
GHOSTS
All the people in the town think that our house is haunted. They say that old Customs Officer Borgen, who used to own the house and who has been dead for many, many years is the ghost that haunts it.
The house is awfully old, with a tremendously long sloping roof, a big garret, lots of closets and poke-holes under the eaves, and a pitch-dark hall with unexpected steps, over which people who don’t know about them tumble head over heels.
Above the big garret, in the high peak of the roof, there are two lofts, one above the other; and it is in the topmost loft that the old customs officer walks about and busies himself; at least, so people say.
“V-s-s-s,” sounds from up there, and a little while after, “Bum, bum, bum.” It may be the wind in under the roof-tiles that says, “V-s-s-s,” but no one can explain the “Bum, bum, bum.” That must be the customs officer, you see.
The maids are always afraid to go to the uppermost loft after dark, and really it isn’t pleasant to go up there when it is light, either. It seems so queer, somehow, as if some one stood behind you all the time who would grab hold of your dress or your braids. Karsten is just as afraid as I am, but he will never own it; he just brags.
“Pooh! It’s nothing. Girls and women are afraid of everything. Well, here’s the boy so strong that he could and would throttle seven customs officers, if necessary.”
Ugh! Karsten has grown so conceited lately that he is beyond everything. He is always saying that I am nothing but a girl, but that he is a boy, he is. (Oh, you wait, Karsten Cocky-cub; you’ll get paid for such talk, depend upon it.)
The thought of the customs officer wouldn’t bother me much if I didn’t need now and then to go into the top loft, but I do need to, you see. Up there in one corner lies a great heap of papers that old Mr. Borgen left in the house, stiff yellow papers with accounts on them. Whenever Karsten and I want any paper,—and that is almost every day, you know,—we are allowed to take what we need from that heap.
Mother doesn’t like us to bring too much of the old dusty paper down at one time, and that’s why I have to go up often for it. But I go like the wind up and back again. Not that I have ever seen old Mr. Borgen there, but it isn’t pleasant to think that he rambles around the loft in his felt shoes and with a shade over his eyes. That’s the way he looks, people say.
One evening Father and Mother were going out to a party, and Karsten and I would be alone at home, except that I was to have Massa and Mina to supper. The weather was perfectly horrid that night. The wind wrestled with the old maple-trees around the house, pulled and tugged at them till they creaked. The branches of the pear-tree outside the drawing-room windows swayed to and fro and struck against the panes.
We had been romping at a great rate all the afternoon before dark, and had danced so hard that the drawing-room floor shook, and Ingeborg, the cook, had come up from the basement to know whether we were going to tear the house down. But we didn’t bother ourselves about what she said, for she is always fussy.
Later we teased Karsten, chasing him through all the rooms, the parlor, the little room, dining-room, living-room and out through the kitchen; and we kept shouting at him:
The boys at school call him that, and it always makes him furious. His white hair was standing straight up, his face was fiery red. Suddenly he turned and sprang towards us, waving a piece of knotted rope which he said was a Russian “knout.” Massa, Mina, and I screeched like locomotive whistles, hid behind doors and shrieked again in terror when Karsten caught us.
Just then Ingeborg appeared again and said in her scolding voice, “Now, children, don’t you know you shouldn’t race and romp like this so late in the evening, and here in this house where it isn’t safe, and in such weather?”
“Look out for the customs officer, Ingeborg; he’ll soon be here,” shouted Karsten.
Ingeborg shook her fist at him. “Don’t talk ugly, boy; he may come before you think.”
I don’t know why it was, but suddenly I lost all desire for noisy fun. I proposed that we go into the drawing-room again. Great, broken clouds hurried over the sky, the moon shone out now and then and gleamed into the room, bright and clear between the leafless, swaying branches.
I should much rather have had the lamps lighted, but since the others preferred sitting in the dark I said nothing. We packed ourselves together on a sofa in a corner. The moon had gone behind a cloud now, the branches kept tapping, tapping, the big room was perfectly dark and had grown cold, too.
“Let’s tell ghost-stories,” suggested Massa. “I suppose you have heard about Eyvind who met a ghost in the churchyard once.”
“Oh, Massa! don’t tell that. I’m so afraid I’m going to put my feet up on the sofa,” said Mina.
All of us must have our feet up, even Karsten the braggart.
“Well, people say, you know, that the attic in this house is haunted,” said Massa.
“Yes, but that is only nonsense,” said Karsten scornfully.
“Don’t you be so superior, Karsten boy,” I said. “You would not dare to go up in the top loft, not for a million dollars.”
“Yes, indeed, I dare.”
“Well, go then.”
“That would be the easiest thing in the world for me,” Karsten announced; “but there is nothing brave about going up there now.”
“Oh, he’s afraid!” “Shame on him!” “It’s a disgrace for a boy to be afraid.”
We taunted and teased him, all three of us, and pointed scornful fingers at him. “Sha-a-me!”
“I’d just as soon go up there this very minute, if that’s what you want,” said Karsten, stoutly.
Yes, it was exactly what we wanted. Another long argument from him, more and more teasing from us; at last he was sick of it.
“Well, I’m going. You shall see I’m no ’fraid-cat, not I.” And out of the door he ran. We heard him tramp up the attic stairs, and stumble around making all the noise he could as he crossed the long garret.
Never had I admired Karsten so much. He isn’t anything to admire in daily life, more’s the pity, but when he ran up to that haunted attic I had to admire him.
Down-stairs on the sofa we listened with nerves on edge. The wind whined and roared; there came a sudden, violent blast down the chimney, but we heard not a sound from Karsten. Oh, how terror-stricken I was! Suppose the ghost was choking Karsten that moment, and it was I who had teased him into going up there.
I sprang to the door. “Oh, Karsten, Karsten, come down! Come down!”
“Bum, bum, bum!” sounded with frightful distinctness from the loft.
“Did you hear that? Oh, oh, oh, Karsten, Karsten!”
A fresh blast of wind came, the hall door blew open, and in the very same instant there was such a bang and a crash up in the attic as I never heard the equal of. It sounded exactly like an earthquake. It’s true there’s never been an earthquake in our town and I don’t know what kind of noise it would make, but I imagine it would be just about as loud and terrifying as that thundering commotion in the loft. I thought I should die of fright. Massa, Mina, and I clung to each other.
“Oh, I shall die! My heart is thumping dreadfully,” I said.
Just then we heard Karsten. He darted through the hall in a flash, wild with fright.
“Oh, oh, oh, the customs officer said ‘V-s-s-s’ right in my ear!”
We took no long time to think, I assure you, but rushed all together to the door of the drawing-room that led into Father’s office. We did not dare run through the hall, for the customs officer was surely right on Karsten’s heels. It was perfectly pitch-dark in the office. Mina upset a chair as she ran, Massa dashed into a bookcase and screamed. My knees shook so that my legs would scarcely carry me when I got to the office entry.
There is only one door from the office to the courtyard. The important thing now was to unbolt this outside door quickly. Oh, how I pulled! At last I got the door open and the cold outside air struck us. I felt that we were saved as we rushed out into the black night.
“Let’s run home to my house,” said Massa.
So down the hill we all sprang in desperate haste, Karsten leading. How the wind blew! Not a person was to be seen on the whole street down which we ran as if for our lives.
We came within an inch of frightening the wits out of Massa’s mother when we rushed in upon her, white as a sheet and panting for breath. We could scarcely speak we were so terrified.
“Oh! Oh! Such a terrible noise, Mrs. Peckell,” I exclaimed. “Exactly like Pompeii.” I meant “Vesuvius,” but I didn’t remember the right name that minute.
When we had quieted down and had eaten some fig-cake and sweetmeats, we found to our amazement that Karsten denied positively that he had been afraid.
“I ran because you ran,” said he. “And it was just because it was so dark up there that I ran down from the loft. I am not a cat to see in the dark. The rumbling was terrible and something whispered ‘V-s-s-s’ close to my ears; but if the customs officer himself had come he’d have got a warm welcome. Here’s the boy to manage him,” said Karsten.
After a while Ingeborg, with a most bewildered face and carrying our outside things, came to Mrs. Peckell’s to inquire whether we were there.
When she couldn’t find us in any of the rooms and discovered the office door wide open she understood that we had gone out. She had been frightfully worried and had searched for us a long time, and now she was very angry.
“Who ever saw the like of you children? Such outrageous behavior!” grumbled Ingeborg, hurrying us home.
We were the ones who got the “warm welcome,” as Karsten calls it, when Father heard about the ghost. He immediately got a light and we had to go with him up into the loft. Right near the last flight of stairs lay the heavy old folding screen on top of a big tin bath-tub.
“Here is your earthquake, Inger Johanne,” said Father. “Don’t you remember that the tub hung here and the screen stood there? Karsten must have knocked them both down in his fright.”
“Yes, I did run against something,” said Karsten.
“You were the ghost yourself,” said Father. “And as for the other remarkable sounds that you tell of, I shall have a man up on the roof to-morrow to see to the tiles. He’ll put a stop to strange noises, I’ll warrant.”
Just think of its being only the big screen and the bath-tub that we had been so awfully frightened by! Karsten was extremely embarrassed.
Mother did not scold us or laugh at us. She said that those who had died were so happy and so much better off in heaven that they would not wish to come back here.
“Here is your earthquake, Inger Johanne,” said Father.
And that is surely true. For, really, when you come to think of it, what pleasure could it be for an old customs officer to go wandering about in the dark up in a loft?