Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

It is interesting to note, even at this stage, a sudden change in Mr. Mannering’s reactions. They now seemed entirely egotistical, and were to be elicited only by stimuli directly associated with physical matters. The nephew kicked a hole in a screen in his drunken fury, he flung a burning cigar-end down on the carpet, he scratched matches on the polished table. His uncle witnessed this with the calm of one whose sense of property and of dignity has become numbed and paralyzed; he felt neither fury nor mortification. Had he, by one of those sudden strides by which all such development takes place, approached much nearer to his goal, complete vegetation? His concern for the threatened modesty of Cousin Jane, which had moved him so strongly only a few hours earlier, must have been the last dying flicker of exhausted altruism; that most human characteristic had faded from him. The change, however, in its present stage, was not an unmixed blessing. Narrowing in from the wider and more expressly human regions of his being, his consciousness now left outside its focus not only pride and altruism, which had been responsible for much of his woe, but fortitude and detachment also, which, with quotations from the Greeks, had been his support before the whole battery of his distresses. Moreover, within its constricted circle, his ego was not reduced but concentrated, his serene, flowerlike indifference toward the ill-usage of his furniture was balanced by the absorbed, flowerlike single-mindedness of his terror at the thought of similar ill-usage directed toward himself.

Inside the study the nephew still fumed and swore. On the mantelpiece stood an envelope, addressed in Mr. Mannering’s handwriting to Cousin Jane. In it was the letter he had written from town, describing His nephew’s disgraceful conduct. The young man’s eye fell upon this and, unscrupulous, impelled by idle curiosity, he took it up and drew out the letter. As he read, his face grew a hundred times blacker than before.

“What?” he muttered, “ ‘a mere race-course cad... a worthless vulgarian... a scoundrel of the sneaking sort’... and what’s this? ‘...cut him off absolutely...’ What?” said he, with a horrifying oath, “Would you cut me off absolutely? Two can play at that game, you old devil!”

And he snatched up a large pair of scissors that lay on the desk, and burst into the hothouse...

Among fish, the dory, they say, screams when it is seized upon by man; among insects, the caterpillar of the death’s-head moth is capable of a still, small shriek of terror; in the vegetable world, only the mandrake could voice its agony — till now.

The Ghost of Alexander Perks, A.B by Robert Dean Frisbie

I

The Pirara is a garrulous old hooker, proud of her departed days and fond of reminiscing to me during the night watches below. At times she is querulous, too, complaining of the cargoes of rancid copra she must carry in her old age; of the native passengers who mess up her decks, tie awnings of patchwork quilts to the rigging, and whittle their initials in the rail; or of the parsimony of her owners, who refuse to buy a new winch — the old one is in a sorry plight — or replace the rusty old foretopmast stay. She even growls at me, her mate, though the Lord knows that I do my best; but it is hard to keep awake on clear nights during the twelve-to-four watch.

“Lackadaisy!” she groaned to-night, breaking into my dreams. “This is a lubber’s shift! Rancid copra bulging my poor old ribs; engine-room grease and bilge water washing over my kelson. Why don’t you pay a little attention to the pumps? You haven’t sounded my well for a week! Fine mate you are for such a lady as me!”

“That is unfair!” I cried in my sleep. “You know that I watched Six-Seas pumping during the dog-watch.”

The old schooner laughed derisively. “What a fib!” she cried. “Watched, indeed! You sat on the wheel box twiddling your thumbs, and you took Six-Seas’ word for it when he said the pumps had sucked!” Then sharply, not giving me time to reply: “Don’t say anything! Not a word out of you! You’ll only lie and make me angry, and that’ll be bad for your soul and my digestion!”

She fell silent as she wallowed in a long trough; then, with a groan — more from habit than anything else; for, like all old folks, she makes much of her troubles — she rose to the top of a long sea and lumbered down the other side.