A GHOST ON A BICYCLE.

Evening Post, Volume XLIV, Issue 8, 9 July 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GHOST ON A BICYCLE.

A group of cyclists were seated l'OUTrid the firo in the comfortable inn <tn Pont-y-Pridd, in North Wales. Their talk wns of thrilling experiences on the wheel, and, just as the interest was beginning to flag, Tom Bodkin asked if any of the company had ever seen a ghost upon a bicycle. Nearly all of them laughed at the. idea. "Don't laugh, gentlemen," said Bodkin, quietly, "I saw one!" 11 The thing happened in this way. To begin at the beginning, Dick Naggo and mysolf were runniug neck and neck for a dear little girl ¦whom I shall call Sophie Bylos. " Sophie was a tormenting little witch. She flirted with both of us in a thoroughly impartial way ; and if either of us attempted any of those foolish remonstrances that fellows desperately in love will sometimes venture on in such provoking circumstances, she would only toss her dainty little head, and, elevating her slightly retroussS noso, shrug her shoulders disdainfully, and say, ' Please don't Bpeak to me any more, Tom ' — or Dick, as the case might be. " Now, Dick and I, strange to say, ¦were the best of friends, although we were the best of rivals. We had been chums for several years, lodging in the samo ' digs,' and getting on together capitally. "When we discovered that we were both hopelessly gone over Sophie we had a long talk over the matter, and the upshot of it was that wo shook hands over a fair agreement to go in for her, each of üb, fairly and squarely, and let the best man win, neither taking any mean advantage of the other. "Things went on very nicely "under this working arrangement for about six months. I often met Dick riding back after visiting Sophie at her suburban cottage-near Stepaside, and he as often met me, but no oftener, for it was in the bond that such visits should be exactly equal in number. "We always laughed goodXmmonredly at each other when we tnot thus, chaffed each other about our prospects of success, and went off and had a drink ; so you see we were honourable chums. " For tome months we led this sort of life, and nothing could be more satisfactory to either Diok or me — unless either of us would take himself to Jericho, out of the other's way. But as this was a very remote contingency indeed, we accepted the situation in a spirit of beatific cheerfulness, and made the best we could of it. " Sophie had only one relative living — but that was quite a sufficient number. It was her father — and he was a terror. " Among the virtues Mr. Byles rejoiced in — and they were too numerous to particularize — was that of rigid honesty. He had never got into debt to the extent of a penny in his life, he used to boast ; and he detested those who did. " The old man seemed to have an impartial sort of liking for both Dick and me. He didn't object to our paying our addresses to his daughter, but seemed to be trying, like ourselves, to find out which of us she liked best — perhaps with equal unsuccess. At any rate, he always met us civilly, and chatted to us in his own dry way on such intereating topics as the weather and the crops, the stock and share market, and the like. "Dick and myself were then ia the enjoyment of a modest income each — quite enough for him, for he was not of an extravagant turn ; but hardly enough for me, for my tastes were more luxurious. " However, financial matters were not in Dick's case, any more than my own, ever thought of for a moment in connection with our mutually dear Sophie. We would have taken her without a permy — but we knew very well she wouldn't come so, whenever she made up her mind. " One evening I met Dick riding "back from Stepaside, after one of the regulation visits, as I was going out to take his place. He jumped down off his bicycle, and came over to me iv a state of great perturbation. "'Tom!' said he, 'I'm in great trouble, old fellow. I have to go away for a fortnight. There's a maiden aunt of mine very ill, over in Hamburg, and she wants to see me. I'm to be her heir, you see, and I can't possibly refuse.' "'I don't see why you should, my boy,' I replied ; ' neither do I perceive why you should be so dreadfully agitated. You're a lucky dog, 80 you are — coming in for a fortune.' " ' Don't see it !' he cried, opening his eyes in astonishment. * What is Sophie to do in my absence.' " ' Don't trouble your head about that,' I answered. ' She'll get along just as usual, I'm sure.' " 'But you — you won't surely take any advantage of my absence, Tom ? If I had your promise on that I'd feel quite relieved.' " ' Well, that's rather hard, Dick,' I returned. ' I don't see why my arrangements should be affected by your maiden aunt's proceedings. The old lady ia not going to make me her heir.' "' But, don't you see, Tom, that my absence would be giving you an unfair advantage? You're too honourable a fellow, I know, to avail yourself of it.' "•Look here, Dick,' I said at length, after he had gone on in this strain for' awhile, ( I'll go this far to oblige you: I'll not come out here, again for a fortnight. If you're back in that time well and good, if you're not the bargain is at an end.' " 'Do you give me your word on that, Tom?' he asked, brightening up. "'I do,' I returned; 'you may haunt me when you die, if I break it. Now be off.' " We shook hands and parted, and when I saw our beloved Sophie I informed her of the arrangement agreed upon. She said she didn't mind, as she was going on a visit to a frientl in Wicklow for a week. But I thought she was secretly voxed, all the same. "I was discussing breakfast one morning about a week afterwards, glancing, over the newspaper now and then ac I feaated, when sud-

denly my eye caught the heading — ' Fatal accident to a Dublin gentleman.' " I immediately looked at the item, and to my horror, found that it related to my unhappy friend, Dick. He had jumped out of a railway carriage while the train was in motion, got jammed between it and the platform, and was killed. " Tho news upset me a good deal, although I could not help feeling that it cleared the ground for me in one important direction. Still, I was very much attached to poor Dick, and I couldn't bring myself to visit Sophie for a couple of days ufter I heard the sad tidings, in order to break them to her. " The year was getting fast into the sere and yellow leaf. October had brought its short and its (sometimes) lovely moonlight nights ; and it was on one of these — a glorious one it was — that I started off, with ; an equally balanced admixture of grief and hopeful elation in my heart, for the bower of my Sophio — my own Sophie, as I fondly hoped soon to call her now — to unfold my gruesome tale. " I had got about half way to my destinntian, when it occured to me that I ought to strike a match and have a quiet puff of the soothing weed, as nothing could be more in keeping with the peaceful quiet of the scene. No sooner thought of than done ; and I was in the act of remounting, with pipe aglow, when my eye caught sight of another coming in the same direction, but at a considerable distance behind. " This circumstance caused me no emotion in particular, and I forgot all about it as I sped on afresh. I slackened my pace to spin out the distance until I had finished my pipe, and whs drawing on easily towards Stepaside, when some instinct or j other made me glance backwards I down the road. "The other traveller had gained upon me with remarkable celerity He was now not more than forty or fifty yards behind. " What a wonderful resemblance he bore at that distance to my dear friend, Dick. His garments looked white in the ghostly moonlight. Dick, when riding all last summer, had worn a suit of white flannel, as the stranger's seemed to be. And it appeared to me, as I paused, thunderstricken and trembling, for a moment in my ride, that his form was exactly that of my dead friend ! " I was never superstitious, yet now for an instant a feeling of awe came over me ; but as I wobbled to the ground off my machine, under its influence, I began to curse myself vigorously for a womanish fool, and, jumping up with the celerity of fully recovered spirits, I set my steel steed off with a lively start, and began to race away from the awesome stranger. "I went at a spanking pace for some time, but I could not help turning my head backwards again Boon, to note how far I had left him behind. "Horror of horrors' He was gaining on me still. " He was only a few yards behind. I could not distinguish his face ; but the figure and the way it sat on the machine were the same as Dick's. " Again I spurted madly. Great beads of cold sweat burst out upon my temples, and an icy feeling crept through my frame, even to the marrow of my bones, despite the heat into which the exercise had thrown me. My terror lent me strength. I must get away from this horrible phantom, even though my heart should snap in the effort. I tore along the road now like a maniac. " I was just turning the corner of the rustic lane which led up to Sophie's bower, when my machine came plump against a form engaged in doing the same from the lane side of the angle. The consequences were disastrous to both travellers. ¦"Machine and myself threw a double Bomersault over £he body of the pedestrian. When we both regained our feet I thought I should turn into stone when I encountered the Gorgon-like eye of my intended father-in-law. "'Hang it, man!' he shouted, as soon as he recognised me, and found his voice, ' what the dickens are you staring at me for, instead of apologising for nearly killing me ? One would think you had seen a ghost !' "'I have seen a ghost, sure enough, sir,' I answered with trembling lips ; ' the ghost of my poor dead friend, Dick ; and see, there it comes !' " The white figure had arrived at the corner of the lane, full in the ghastly glare of the dazzling moonlight. It dismounted, and advanced towards where wo stood. " I held up both my hands to shut out the fearsome sight. " ' Don't come near me,' I cried, in an agony of desperation, ' until you tell me whether you are a man or the ghost of my' dead friend, Dick.' "The thing laughed; it was a horrible human laugh. " ' No ghost, sir,' it replied, as its coarse chuckle ceased, ' but a messenger from a man who has ghosted you long enough in vain for tj|is little bill of £7 10s for clothes— Mr. Tippet, the tailor, of Graf ton-street. Here 'tis for you, sir, now ; and if you don't pay it by 12 o'clock to-morrow I'm instructed to invite you to an interview with the Recorder, at Green-street Court house.' '* This was my romance of the wheel. It shattered my day dream, and lost me my Sophie. Old Byles turned on mo with all the scorn of an enraged money-lender who never owed a man a penny, and bade me never again show my face at the cottage. "The fickle Sophie ratified this decision, and shortly afterwards married a wealthy pawnbroker who had, a couple of months before, laid his third spouse under the sod in Glasnevin ; and lam left here with my faithful bicycle."