The Haunted Homestead Part 31

And, worst of all, we were disturbed all night by the noisy pa.s.sage of these revelers returning home.

On Sundays and Sunday nights this was insufferable. It seemed as if ten times as many revelers went out in the day and came back ten times as much intoxicated and as noisy in the night! Our poor old Ca.s.sandra vowed that when we changed the farm for the city house it was bad enough, but when we changed the city house for the suburban cottage, "we jest did it--jumped right out'n de fryin' pan inter de fire!"

However, a terrible event soon occurred at the Willow Cottage that crowded everything else out of our heads.

It was the night of the Fourth of July. All day long crowd after crowd had pa.s.sed our house on their way out there. From early in the morning until late at night the road was kept clouded with the dust, that settled upon everything in and around our house. We were glad when, late at night, the revelry seemed to cease, and we were permitted to be at peace.

We retired, and, exhausted by the exciting annoyances of the day, I fell asleep. I know not how long I had slept, when I was suddenly aroused by the noise of many persons hurrying past the house in apparently a state of great excitement. In another moment I perceived that all the family had been aroused as well as myself. They hurried into my room, which was the front chamber of the second floor, and thus from a secure point commanded the street. We all crowded to the two windows, left the candles unlighted that we might not be seen, and remained as mute as mice that we might not be heard.

The stars were very bright, and we could distinctly see the hurrying crowd in the road below. Some were running in the direction of the Willow Cottage, while others were hastening thence. These opposite parties, meeting, would exchange a few vehement words and gestures, and then speed upon their several ways.

At last a man, running against another immediately under the window, inquired:

"For Heaven's sake, what is the matter at the Willow Cottage?"

"Don't stop me, for the Lord's sake! O'Donnegan, the landlord, has killed young Keats, the only son of Colonel Keats! I am running to fetch his father!"

"Heavens and earth! another murder within that accursed house! That is the third!" exclaimed the questioner, in a voice of horror.

The men separated in opposite directions, the one running toward the town, the other toward the scene of the outrage. The same questions and the same answers were quietly heard between other meeting parties, who separated, running in opposite ways, as the first had done. The dreadful news was thus confirmed.

We drew back our heads and looked each other in the face in consternation. We knew none of the parties concerned, yet we could not compose ourselves to sleep that night.

The next day was a terrible one to the friends of the murdered and the murderer.

Once more--the third time--a coroner's inquest sat upon a dead body at the Willow Cottage. But this time their verdict, made up after a careful investigation and patient deliberation, was of a more fatal character.

It was that "The deceased came to his death by blows upon the head from a bludgeon in the hands of Patrick O'Donnegan."

O'Donnegan, who was under arrest, awaiting the verdict, was then fully committed to stand his trial at the approaching session of the criminal court.

The establishment at the Willow Cottage was broken up, the furniture sold, the house closed, and the premises once more advertised for rent.

But now with the bad odor hanging around the place, no one wished to take it, and the house remained idle upon the proprietor's hands.

Meantime the trial of O'Donnegan approached. He was arraigned, convicted and sentenced, in a shorter s.p.a.ce of time than I ever heard of in the trial of any criminal. Many people thought that the prosecution was conducted in a vindictive spirit, and that the friends of the deceased exerted every faculty, sparing neither influence nor expense in the pursuit of a conviction. They retained the best counsel in the country to a.s.sist the State's attorney, while on the other hand the poor wretch of a prisoner had no defense except that appointed for him by the court.

However that might be, in the short s.p.a.ce of one month from the time of committing the homicide, he was sentenced to die, and in six weeks from his conviction he expiated his crime upon the scaffold.

It was about the middle of September, of that eventful year, when a rumor arose--as all rumors arise, mysteriously--that the Willow Cottage was haunted; that ghostly lights flitted through its chambers; that ghostly revelers held midnight orgies in its deserted halls; and that the murderer and the murdered still played their game at ninepins, or waged their last war along its lonely corridors.

While these reports were rife in the neighborhood, our Grandmother Hawkins turned a deaf ear, or threw in a good-humored, sarcastic word to the marvel-mongers--upon one occasion launching at them and us the time-honored proverb:

"You will never see anything worse than yourselves, my dears."

"I believe you, mistress, honey! for long as I lib on dis yeth, and feared as I is o' ghoses, I nebber see nothin' worse nor myse'f yet--dough, the Lord betune me an' harm, I sartinly saw de debbil once--I did," observed old Ca.s.sy, sapiently.

"If no one else takes the Willow Cottage beforehand, just wait until my term is up here, and then if Mr. Buzzard will let it to a small, quiet family on anything like reasonable terms, you'll see how we meet spectres," said our grandmother.

"Too late, Aunt Rachel! The Willow Cottage is let," exclaimed Will Rackaway, who had a few minutes previously joined our party.

"Let, is it? Ah! well, I hope it is not to another rum-seller!"

"No, indeed! to another guess tenant! to Colonel Manly, of the ---- regiment, who is now ordered to join General Armistead, in Florida, and who takes the cottage as a pleasant country home for his wife and children during his absence."

"Hum-m me! then we shall have neighbors. I am very well reconciled,"

said Mrs. Hawkins.

A few weeks after this conversation the new tenants were settled in the Willow Cottage, and the colonel embarked for Florida.

Grandmother Hawkins was rather slow and ceremonious in all her dealings with society. Therefore she "took her time" in calling upon Mrs. Manly.

Consequently, upon the very morning that she set out to pay that lady a visit she met a train of furniture drays proceeding from the premises, and heard to her great astonishment that the family were moving away.

"And they have been only here a week!" exclaimed the old lady, by unmitigated astonishment thrown for a moment off her guard.

Significant looks and mysterious gestures were the only comments made by the servants upon the subject.

And Mrs. Hawkins, thinking it improper to push inquiries in that quarter, sent in her respects and good wishes to Mrs. Manly, and then, without having alighted from her carryall, gave the order to turn the horse's head homeward.

You may judge the surprise with which we heard the news of this flitting; but as our grandmother had asked no questions, she could give us no information.

Others, however, were not so discreet. Inquiries were made and answered, and soon the news flew all over the country that Mrs. Manly, upon account of the mysterious noises that nightly disturbed her rest, found it impossible to live in the house.

The cottage remained idle for some weeks, and then was taken by another family, who stayed ten days, then vanished--whispering the same cause for their abandonment of the premises.

The excitement of the neighborhood increased. There was nothing talked of but the haunted house. Large parties visited the spot during daylight, who, after the most curious investigation, found nothing unusual about the looks of the place. But no tenant could be induced to take it, and it remained idle for several weeks, at the end of which time a family from down the country moved up, and reading of this fine place to let, and not knowing its "haunted" reputation, engaged it at once. The name of the newcomers was Ferguson. The neighborhood waited the event in deep interest.

Upon the day after their settlement at the cottage, as we were just about to sit down to our very early breakfast, there was a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of a good-looking, motherly, colored woman, who announced herself as "Aunt Hannah, ole Ma.r.s.e Josh Ferguson's 'oman," and stood waiting.

"Well, Hannah, you look tired--sit down on that stool and let us know how we can do you good," said Mrs. Hawkins.

"Thanky, mist'ess--no time to sit, honey; 'deed I hasn't--I come to see if you would 'form me where I could buy a little drap o' cream, for ole ma.r.s.e coffee. Our cows; hasn't riv' from below yet."

"You cannot buy cream at all in this neighborhood, but I will supply your master, with great pleasure, until his cows come home."

"Thanky, mist'ess! thanky, honey! I 'cepts of it wid all de comfort in life! An' if so be you-dem wants any plums, or pears, or squinches, for 'serves, we'd s'ply you in like manner."

After this Aunt Hannah came every morning for her pitcher of cream. One morning I overheard her talking with Ca.s.sy in the kitchen.

"How you dew likes your new place?" inquired Ca.s.sy.

"Hush, honey!" exclaimed the other, with an air of deep mystery.

"Lord! 'deed, now?" whispered Ca.s.sy.

"Trufe I'm telling you!" replied Hannah.

"Do any one sturve you o' nights?"

"Hush, honey!"

"Who?"