he had gone down at christmas, where our host

had opened up his house on the maine coast,

for the week's holidays, and we were all,

on christmas night, sitting in the great hall,

about the corner fireplace, while we told

stories like those that people, young and old,

have told at christmas firesides from the first,

till one who crouched upon the hearth, and nursed

his knees in his claspt arms, threw back his head,

and fixed our host with laughing eyes, and said,

"this is so good, here—with your hickory logs

blazing like natural-gas ones on the dogs,

and sending out their flicker on the wall

and rafters of your mock-baronial hall,

all in fumed-oak, and on your polished floor,

and the steel-studded panels of your door—

i think you owe the general make-believe

some sort of story that will somehow give

[pg 108]a more ideal completeness to our case,

and make each several listener in his place—

or hers—sit up, with a real goose-flesh creeping

all over him—or her—in proper keeping

with the locality and hour and mood.

come!" and amid the cries of "yes!" and "good!"

our host laughed back; then, with a serious air,

looked around him on our hemicycle, where

he sat midway of it. "why," he began,

but interrupted by the other man,

he paused for him to say: "nothing remote,

but something with the actual yankee note

of here and now in it!" "i'll do my best,"

our host replied, "to satisfy a guest.

what do you say to barberry cove? and would

five years be too long past?" "no, both are good.

go on!" "you noticed that big house to-day

close to the water, and the sloop that lay,

stripped for the winter, there, beside the pier?

well, there she has lain just so, year after year;

and she will never leave her pier again;

but once, each spring she sailed in sun or rain,

for bay chaleur—or bay shaloor, as they

like better to pronounce it down this way."

"i like shaloor myself rather the best.

but go ahead," said the exacting guest.

[pg 109]and with a glance around at us that said,

"don't let me bore you!" our host went ahead.

"captain gilroy built the big house, and he

still lives there with his aging family.

he built the sloop, and when he used to come

back from the banks he made her more his home,

with his two boys, than the big house. the two

counted with him a good half of her crew,

until it happened, on the banks, one day

the oldest boy got in a steamer's way,

and went down in his dory. in the fall

the others came without him. that was all

that showed in either one of them except

that now the father and the brother slept

ashore, and not on board. when the spring came

they sailed for the old fishing-ground the same

as ever. yet, not quite the same. the brother,

if you believed what folks say, kissed his mother

good-by in going; and by general rumor,

the father, so far yielding as to humor

his daughters' weakness, rubbed his stubbly cheek

against their lips. neither of them would speak,

but the dumb passion of their love and grief

in so much show at parting found relief.

[pg 110]

"the weeks passed and the months. sometimes they heard

at home, by letter, from the sloop, or word

of hearsay from the fleet. but by and by

along about the middle of july,

a time in which they had no news began,

and holding unbrokenly through august, ran

into september. then, one afternoon,

while the world hung between the sun and moon,

and while the mother and her girls were sitting

together with their sewing and their knitting,—

before the early-coming evening's gloom

had gathered round them in the living-room,

helplessly wondering to each other when

they should hear something from their absent men,—

they saw, all three, against the window-pane,

a face that came and went, and came again,

three times, as though for each of them, about

as high up from the porch's floor without

as a man's head would be that stooped to stare

into the room on their own level there.

its eyes dwelt on them wistfully as if

longing to speak with the dumb lips some grief

they could not speak. the women did not start

or scream, though each one of them, in her heart,

[pg 111]knew she was looking on no living face,

but stared, as dumb as it did, in her place."

here our host paused, and one sigh broke from all

our circle whom his tale had held in thrall.

but he who had required it of him spoke

in what we others felt an ill-timed joke:

"well, this is something like!" a girl said, "don't!"

as if it hurt, and he said, "well, i won't.

go on!" and in a sort of muse our host

said: "i suppose we all expect a ghost

will sometimes come to us. but i doubt if we

are moved by its coming as we thought to be.

at any rate, the women were not scared,

but, as i said, they simply sat and stared

till the face vanished. then the mother said,

'it was your father, girls, and he is dead.'

but both had known him; and now all went on

much as before till three weeks more were gone,

when, one night sitting as they sat before,

together with their mother, at the door

they heard a fumbling hand, and on the walk

up from the pier, the tramp and muffled talk

of different wind-blown voices that they knew

for the hoarse voices of their father's crew.

[pg 112]then the door opened, and their father stood

before them, palpably in flesh and blood.

the mother spoke for all, her own misgiving:

'father, is this your ghost? or are you living?'

'i am alive!' 'but in this very place

we saw your face look, like a spirit's face,

there through that window, just three weeks ago,

and now you are alive!' 'i did not know

that i had come; all i know is that then

i wanted to tell you folks here that our ben

was dying of typhoid fever. he raved of you

so that i could not think what else to do.

he's there in bay shaloor!'

"well, that's the end."

and rising up to mend the fire our friend

seemed trying to shun comment; but in vain:

the exacting guest came at him once again;

"you must be going to fall down, i thought,

there at the climax, when your story brought

the skipper home alive and well. but no,

you saved yourself with honor." the girl said, "oh,"

who spoke before, "it's wonderful! but you,

how could you think of anything so true,

so delicate, as the father's wistful face

coming there at the window in the place

[pg 113]of the dead son's! and then, that quaintest touch,

of half-apology—that he felt so much,

he had to come! how perfectly new england! well,

i hope nobody will undertake to tell

a common or garden ghost-story to-night."

our host had turned again, and at her light

and playful sympathy he said, "my dear,

i hope that no one will imagine here

i have been inventing in the tale that's done.

my little story's charm if it has one

is from no skill of mine. one does not change

the course of fable from its wonted range

to such effect as i have seemed to do:

only the fact could make my story true."