Mr. Buggles's Conversion.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 3974, 16 March 1900, Page 6 (Supplement)

Mr. Buggles's Conversion.

By Grosvenor Bunster.

"Ghosts!" sneered Mr. Bnggte, "bah! rot! humbug! Figments of tbe imagination, my dear sir — disordered digestion, queer liTer and so on, /know. Why, sir, my wife, poor girl, used to say when she was. in A temper (as she usually was), used to say that if she died first she'd haunt me. Haunt me\ ha! ba! ha! Poor girl, poor silly girl I"

Mr. Buggies was sitting over his wine with three or four cronies. In the gloom of the evening, the fitful gleams of the fire had suggested to one of the guests the idea of ghosts. He was a tall, lean, sepulchral sort of man with a voice that seemed to issue from some hollow drum, and altogether one of those persons who, we should be naturally disposed to think, was given to supernatural fancies. Moreover, he drank gin. His name was Jabbs. "Well, I don't know," said Mr. Jubbs, " Perhaps some of these day's sht'li keep her word." 11 Eh ?" cried Mr. Buggies, Retting down j the glass which he was in the act of rising to j his lips. "En 7" " I say that perhaps she'll keep her worrt." " Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Buggies. " Don't talk like an ass, Jubbs. Tut, tut, to think that a man of your abilities and— ah— bo on, fihouldtalk like that." " Well," said a heavy-looking man named Jinki, " I don't knew," and he drank off his gla*s of port. " There' 9no telling," observed a small man with spectacles at the other end of the tablet '* Shakespeare tells ub that there are more things in Leaven, and earth than, ate dreamt of in our philosophy." " Shakespeare," said Mr. Boggles complacently, " was a— a— fool." 1 Mr. Buggies was not the first person in the world who had given utterance to this opinion. In the reign of the George the \ Third intellect, " Shakespeare is poor stuff," and the George the Third intellect is the [ average order. Mr. Jinks and Mr. Jubbs felt aggrieved. But when a man is dining with another he is, of course, compelled to keep bis opinions to himself. It wa9 not until they were walking through Fitzroy Gardens on their homeward way that they expressed them- j selves ver? strongly about Mr. Buggies' rude method of disposing of a debateable I question. •• If it hadn't been I was sitting there as hia gucst/'said Jinks, 'Td ha' told him what [thought of him." " Tell you what," said Jubbs, "it would lerve him right to give him a scare." 11 It would. If we could raise the ghost of ois wife now. Poor woman, no wonder she iied." " We'll do it," cried the other with enchusiasm. •' We'll do it. Confound the fellow with his self-opinionated airs. I'd dke to see him taken down a peg." Whereupon the two friends there and then resolved that the thing should be done, conrinccd that it would be the more easy of iccomplishment, inasmuch as each instinct.vely felt that Mr. Buggies was a rank icapos ter, and like most bodies, an arrant soward. Time passed, and Buggies still maintained ais defiant attitude as to the existence of ghosts. Nevertheless, he had latterly been lomewbat agitated by sundry and divers eccentric noises and movements around and about his house, which was a comfortable Habitation in Fitzroy, standing in a goodly garden and backed by a considerable field, wherein an Alderney cow grazed, Now this sow had latterly exhibited some evidence of nberrations of intellect. She would begin to oellow for no ascertainably reason about midnight, and if not locked up in the stable would tear around the enclosure furiously. Baggies consulted a veterinary surgeon, who examined the animal, and pronounced her as healthy a cow as any in existence. 11 Then what makes her fly around at night and bellow fit to raise the roof off?" cried Buggies, irritably. " Dashed if I can tell," Mid the Vet., •• unless something frighten 3 her. Maybe," he added, jocularly, "a ghost is around, and it don't agree with her." This was a joke, but it struck Buggies, not only as a bad one, but as one uncon- j sciously aimed at his heterodox notions in the subject of ghosts. He told the Vet. that be talked like a fool, but as be paid that worthy a guinea, the impertinence was pocketed with the cow— complacently. But this was not all. Contemporaneously with the cow movement, there were other signs "i 1 the air" of supernatural high Jinks. Every cat ih the freighborhood teemed to be animated by dome interest of unusual character. They scattered about the roof, moaning and spitting fearfully. The hooting of mopehawks could be heard ; while dismal moanings outside Buggies' bedroom window, and sometimes a weird but suppressed shriek added to these fearsome episodes. As for the watchdog, he yelped, and howled, and bayed, and barked until he grew as hoarse as a raven. And Buglows began to be nervous. He put the servants on watch, and got a policeman to keep an eye on the premises. No good ; tb* cow went on as before, so did the cara, did the mopeb&wks, so did the dog, and tbe moans and screams did not cease. It was j getting serious.- Buggies had to drink an I extra glass or two of toddy every night to I steady his nerves. He went so far as I to speak to hi 9 friends, with affected j jocularity, about these matters. But they looked grave ; Jinks shook his head solemnly, and Jubb's repeated Siiakeppeare's lines reflectively.

"Well, I'll end it somehow," said Buggies one starlit but rough night, &s he sat lisieni ing to the moaning of the wind, and the rat- ! tling of the window shutters. " There I There goes that darned cow Bgain, and— I and—" i A mournful cry was beard, as from one | in great agony, and just close to the house. ! Buggies shook. "If it be possible, after all," he muttered, " and she has kept ber word ! Perhaps I didn't treat her over and above well — sometimes." Sometimes I The late lamented Mrs. Bagglee b»'l led such » iifc tbat death znußt q»tc been welcome to her. A faint consciousness I of this circumstance added to the terrors wbicn now began to take hold upon Mr. Buggies' imagination. " I'll sell the place !!' he muttered, " and that cow shall be slaughtered tomorrow, j Gracious ! bow tbat dog is barking. I can't stand it; anything is better than this sus.J pense. I'll face it, whatever it ia." I Aed be buttoned up his coat, and clapped j his hat upon his bead with an air of manful ! determination, Seizing tbe first weapuaat ,' hand— it happened to be a hammer, vrfijob : he was in tbe habit of using to orack' geological specimens (for be dabbled in scitnee, did Buggies)— he issued forth into the garden. This he traversed. Nothing was to be seen, and it was with a firmer step and stouter heart tbat be passed into the field. Tbe cow was stabled, but she waß lowing mourn* j As I have said, tbe night was clear, bnt j the puib of wind which passed the field and : bent and swayed the trees therein, moaning the while, lent an uncanny influence to the time and scene. Again Mr. Bungles' spirits f-11, and a creepy feeling came over biro. He shivered, paused, and was about to turn hick, when his eyes fell upon an object, tbe flight of which made him jump into the air like an acrobat, dropping bis hammer in the action. And then he stood stock still, paralysed by fear, and gazing with eyes that started from their sockets, and suspended breathing at the thing before him. It was a figure of a woman, clothed from head to foot in a white garment, which covered her arms close into her body. Buggies could not recognise the features because they also were covered, but his excited imagination snd accusing conscience revealed to him tbat tbe figure wag tbat of h : 8 dead wife, and that witbout doubt she had k»-pt her woTd and had come from the shades to haunt him thus. The figure did not move, pave that it swayed in the wind in which its ghostly garments fluttered ever and anon. Mr. Buggies gazed until bis knee gare away, and at last, with a suppressed shriek, he fell to tbe ground insensible. How long he lay thus I do not know. When he recovered himself and sat up, and turned bis eyes fearfully to -sards the spot upon which be had seen the apparition it was gone. He crawled back fearfully to the house, let himself in with a latch-key, and repairing to a spirit closet, swallowed a vast plass of brandy ; then he crept 'to bed. But no sleep came to him. Tbe gruesome sight he bad looked upon haunted him j through the night, and for many a night { thereafter. Bat, singularly enough, from i tbat night tbe trouble ceased. The cow

ew«4 to bellow, tbf cttl btafrbtf fttii

concerts to juat And natural proportions, tbe watch-dosr'no ioneer barked bis tail off. And, though Butrgles set some stout fellows on the watcb none of them tver saw the ghost. 4s for the mopeiiawks. everybody sniirt-pred when Bu^rffles spoke about them. Mopehawks in tbe centre of Fitzroy — pooh I ridiculous 1

However, Mr. Baggies' experience had a very salutary effect- upon his mind and manner. He no longer argued with such doematic offensiveness. and, to the surprise of his friends, would listen to the most extraordinary statements with an air of credulity and humble trust, wholly different to that self-assertive manner with which be bad been won't to dispute matters beyond his ken. Altogether be was a changed man, and Jubband Jinks plumed themselves upon the success and effects of their plans, with very good reason.

For it was indeed to their ingenious invention that tbe matter was to be traced. The veterinary surgeon who bad been called in by Mr. Buggies to inspect tbe cow was in tbe secret. It was he who supplied certain herbs which, partaken of by the animal — being dropped into tbe field during the day — brought about spasms about midnight. Her beliowings were bat an expression of pain; but, as Mr. Bugglts could not read cow language he bad been unable to interpret these. As for the cats, the wicked conspirator bad gathered them far svA wide, encased their cliws m vsoiout shelia, tied their tails together, ana otb-erwiea c&asec) tbetn to contribute to ti;e h^feVn:*:. Ci course, all thi3 male the »ie? bsuk, *htia tin mopeliawliß «vere siauiaicu vsvy <sMuy. And furtfaci, the iigurs vraicii had *oarc Mr. tijgjr-ss *<) 'iKadfuiiy *»* nothing m^ 1 thaa a i«khioa-fMaie sach as Hasa-iirapfrft use in '.'x'iiiO'i la-diea' nresaes, Ths tnii after all, *rft3 «*/ 9itnj»t2, vut it ->a beap &:aJuci?d *i'£ **<>*» Ctt&lw tL«* Uj j^dbad been enabled to make it out, or expose the frand. Aad, as the result bad been so happy, Jinka and Jubbg consoled themselves witli tbe reflection that the end sometimes doeß, indeed, juaify the means.