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THE DRUMMER GHOST................................................................................................................................1

A bit of village, we can hardly call it a street; at best, the mere fagend of a street; six houses and a church

This is by no means the whole of Johnsonville, for the greater number of its dwellings lie in a neighboring

hollow, clustered industriously beside the milldam over the Wampoosue, or loafing, as it were, at the two

ends of the wooden bridge, or straggling, like picnickers, down the course of the black streamlet. But as these

are all hidden from us by trees, and are, moreover, of not the least consequence to our story, we will not

invade their sequestered insignificance. A young man, and also, of course, a young woman, demand our

"Your uncle s appearance quite interests me," says Mr. Adrian Underhill. "Isn't there something, I don't

"I don't perceive that there is, except his appetite for wives; he is just finishing his third."

To think of a girl of nineteen, and a blond, blueeyed girl at that, making such a speech! But in Miss Marian

Turner's auburn there was a slightly disquieting dash of red, and about the corners of her rosy mouth there

Furthermore, she carried herself upright, in a knightly manner, always ready for joust; she had a quick,

positive step, as if she knew to the ends of her little bootees what she wanted; and there was a look in her

eyes which declared, "I always mean more than I say." Clearly, if she had not seen life, she had guessed more

"Is that speaking lightmindedly of uncles?" she added. "I don't remember that it is anywhere commanded to

be reverential towards them. Well, I mustn't perplex you. Don't mention my queerness to anyone."

"Of course not," answered Mr. Underhill, meanwhile studying her with profound attention.

Just graduated from Winslow University, and from the quiet, bookish sociables of New Boston, he had

fancied himself well read up in young ladies, and was almost awed at meeting one whom he could not

understand. She said and did the most original things; that is, he considered them most original; and to him

what was the difference? Moreover, she had a way of ordering him which was quite new in his experience,

for he had been a bit of a Grandison among the female circles of New Boston, and at home he was an only

son, the natural governor of his mother and sisters. What was still more curious, and what was even alarming,

"There he is," she resumed, nodding towards a tall, thin, haggard man of fiftyfive, who just then appeared in

the veranda of the brick house; "he looks as if he wanted to see one of us. It can't be me. You had better come

Underhill hesitated. Parents in New Boston had put it to him about his "intentions," and perhaps Mr. Joshua

Turner was waiting to ask him what he meant to do for Marian. He was aware that he had paid the girl some

undeniable courtship, and still he was perplexedly conscious that he did not as yet hanker for marriage. But

he drifted along, as is the manner of his unwise sex, and so presently found himself in the veranda of the

While Marian walked haughtily into the dwelling, without speaking to or looking at her uncle, the latter

arrested Underhill with a grim, skeletonlike shake of the hand. Although a landgoing citizen from his youth,

Mr. Joshua Turner was as long and lean and brown as the Ancient Mariner, and had moreover somewhat of

his ghostly expression of enchantment. A shock of towzled, irongray hair; a high, narrow, wrinkled, tawny

forehead; hollow black eyes, surrounded with circle on circle of brown and yellow; a lofty Roman nose,

looking across a wide, thinlipped mouth at a projecting chin; cheeks so sunken and pitted that they put you

in mind of the epithets weatherbeaten and wormeaten; the whole face discolored by bile, indigestions, and

lack of exercise, and corroded by care; the expression eager, anxious, and troubled, to the verge of lunacy;

"Mr. Underhill, come into the parlor," he said, in a deep, tremulous voice. "I have something private, strictly

Leading the way into a sombre, curtained room, rendered additionally funereal by that musty smell which

country parlors are apt to have, he turned the key in the door, and, without inviting his guest to sit,

"Mr. Underhill, I am almost crazy," he said. "I don't know but I am quite crazy. If I am, it is the drummer

the invisible, ghostly, fiendish, infernal drummer who has made me so. Who wouldn't be crazy with that

Here he began to beat upon his left hip, in the manner of one drumming, meanwhile repeating rapidly,

Underhill looked on in amazement and some slight alarm, suspecting that the man was really insane. He

mustered up what anecdotes he had heard of lunatics, glanced at the door and windows, in order to settle

upon his best method of escape, and finally took a chair by the fireplace, so as to have the poker within easy

"Yes, that is his devilish tune," resumed Turner. "He began it only three days ago, and it has already driven

me nearly mad. You are a college man; perhaps you can explain it all. I will tell you the whole story. I was

sitting there, in that very chair where you are sitting now, when I first heard him. I was reading a paper,

reading about one of Sherman's battles, when he came drumming down the street. I thought it was a pack

of boys, or a company of furloughed soldiers. But it stopped, or he stopped, or she stopped, whatever it may

be, and drummed so long and loud that I laid down my candle and went to the window. I looked out; I could

After two or three long sighs of profound depression, he resumed: "I thought that the boys or the soldiers had

passed, and I went back to the fire. Then it began in the hall, softly, very softly, rubadubdub.

Thinking that some joker was playing pranks upon me, I rushed to the door and opened it. Nothing was there.

I went through the hall; I ran upstairs and downstairs; I looked into every room; nobody! But when I came

back to the parlor, something quiet and cold, like a breath of winter wind, followed me. I slammed the door

behind me, and I hoped that I had shut the thing out. Then I took up my paper and tried to read. But I was

Here he stopped his march from corner to corner, and commenced circling a chair which stood in the centre

"It started at the door," he continued, "and drummed straight up to me, rubadubdub; then it drummed all

around me, twice, in a circle, rubadubdub, rubadubdub; then it stood between me and the hearth, chilling

me through, such a dubdub, rubadubdub, rubadubdub. It had begun softly, but as it went on it beat louder

and louder and louder, until at last it almost deafened me with its cursed uproar."

Once more he drummed violently on his hips, repeating in a hurried stammer, "Rubadubdub, rubadubdub,

Underhill, as may be supposed, was thinking fast without coming to any conclusion. He made a hasty muddle

of the Stratford Mysteries, Rochester Knockings, Cock Lane Ghost, and Salem Witchcraft, and did not

perceive that any light was thereby shed upon the case now brought under his consideration. Meanwhile he

"Since then he has never left me for a day," resumed the Unafflicted." "I have struck at him, and kicked at

him, and thrown books at him, without touching anything, or hearing anything escape. But he has drummed;

O, how he has drummed! Nothing will stop his drumming. He will drum me out of my senses; he will drum

me out of my life. That is my story, Mr. Underhill. Can you make anything of it?"

It is not judicious to tell a man that he is a maniac, especially when there is a likelihood that he is one. Instead

of venturing on this slightly perilous discourtesy, our young friend meekly replied, "No, Mr. Turner, I can't at

once make anything of it. My college education doesn't seem to come in play here," he added. "This sort of

thing wasn't lectured upon by the professors. If I had only been a medical student! It does strike me, Mr.

Turner, that this is a matter of nerves. Have you consulted your doctor? Why not call him in?

"My doctor is an old fool," exploded the haunted man. "He would give me a bluepill or some morphine.

What good would that do me? Do you suppose the drummer would care if I should take all the bluepills in

the universe? I won't have any medicine. I am a well man and a sane man, whatever you think to the

contrary," he asseverated, loudly, his eyes glowing like fires within their deep, discolored hollows.

Although his expression was not reassuring, Underhill nodded assent to his declaration of sanity, being much

"Come here tonight at ten o'clock, and you shall hear him for yourself," continued Turner. Then judge

The seance was agreed upon, and the young man departed. As he went out, he gave the house a keener glance

of investigation than he had hitherto bestowed upon it. The plan was obvious at first sight: a broad hall

running from front to rear, with two rooms on each side; the second story an almost pr' cise counterpart of the

first; above, the usual pointed attic The flooring was of considerable extent, while the stories w. e not more

The material was brick, originally soft, and now very old, so that the exterior had become strangely haggard

and pitted, as if from a complex attack of architectural consumption and smallpox. It seemed as if the

building were not only infirm with age, but infected, disfigured, and unwholesome with disease. A coat of

glaring red paint, put on within the last three or four years, reminded one of rouge on the wrinkled visage of a

dowager. In spite of the fresh coloring without, and the new papering within, the building had a moldering

look and a musty odor. Underhill could not help conceding that the nineteenth century, as it exists in the

United States of America, rarely offers a more suitable hauntingplace to a ghost.

At a quarter to ten in the evening, he returned to the house, and was received by Turner in the parlor.

"Excuse my wife for not seeing you," said the haunted man. "She has gone to bed. Her health is very feeble,

and this mystery has nearly prostrated her. As for my niece, she has her own ways; I don't pretend to govern

her. By the way, you may think it odd, Mr. Underhill, that I should make my niece earn her own living, in

part, at least, as a school teacher. I do it from principle, sir. Young people should learn how hard it is to get

money; then they will know how to keep it. I understand that people talk about it; but what business is it of

Underhill nodded; he rather thought that the young lady might make a better wife for a poor man because of

this system of education; and he, just beginning the world, was a poor man, the very one that he was thinking

of for her. Not finding it easy, however, to converse concerning Miss Marian, he asked: "Any more light as to

Rubadubdub! There was no doubt about it; a drum of some sort was being beaten upon by something;

rubadub dub, down the street, through the dooryard, and into the veranda; there it rattled furiously for a

moment, and then stopped. Underhill was so startled by the sound, it so surprised and convinced, or

deluded, his hitherto incredulous soul, that he felt his skin writhe and the roots of his hair shudder.

Perhaps he would not have been so moved had he not seen all the yellowish and brownish patches of Turner's

complexion bleach to an ashcolor at the first sound of the ghostly tattoo. For a full minute the two sat

motionless, staring at each other with an air of sentenced criminals. When the young man recovered himself,

he sprang up, and stepped softly toward the door, his idea being to steal into the veranda, and surprise some

practical joker. His companion arrested him with a wave of the hand, and a hoarse whisper, "It is coming in."

Did it come in? Underhill was not quite satisfied as to that point. The rattle of a drum entered, no doubt; it

rolled through the parlor in a distressingly audible manner; but did the mysterious agency which produced it

likewise find ingress? Turner evidently believed that the drummer, whoever or whatever it might be, was in

the parlor; his ghastly glare said thus much, and he vehemently asserted it afterwards; but the younger man,

Underhill's first impulse, however, was towards faith; he believed what he saw that his companion believed.

For a minute it seemed to him that the drummer entered with a soft rattatta, the mere trembling of the

sticks on the sheepskin; that within a few seconds thereafter he commenced beating a march at the door and

continued it straight up to Turner; then came a circling around the haunted man, followed by a furious long

roll between him and the fire. This was Underhill's first impression, and while it lasted it was a terrible one.

He had supposed that he was a radical unbeliever in spiritual manifestations; that, if phenomena purporting to

be of that nature were presented to his attention, he would receive them with perfect coolness; that he would

laugh the mystery to scorn and proceed to unravel it. But on the present occasion his soul did not work in this

satisfactory fashion. He was almost paralyzed intellectually; he glared about the room wherever Turner

Presently his mind swung back towards its normal rationality, and caught once more at the suspicion that the

creator of the noise was in the hall. Rising softly and gliding to the door, he cautiously opened it. No one!

nothing but the rolling of the drum; nothing but a clamor without a cause. Another remarkable fact was that

the drumming did not seem quite so clear without as within. Unchecked by this observation, to which in fact

he then hardly gave a thought, he walked to the lower end of the passage, severely shook a venerable

overcoat which hung there upon a nail, returned as far as the foot of the stairway, and mounted to the upper

It seemed to him now as if he were nearing the mystery; and finding another stairway, he pushed on to the

garret, but there the uproar grew dull again. He had in his hand a candle which he had taken from the lower

passage, and which answered in the Turner house the purpose of an entry lamp. By its light he glanced over

the trunks, broken furniture, dismissed demijohns and bottles, fragments of carpets and other indescribable

rubbish, which ordinarily encumber a garret, without discovering the smallest fraction of a band of music.

Moreover the noise had ceased; it had died away as he set foot on the creaking garret floor; the house was as

Now back to the second floor; and here he made a discovery. Marian Turner, dressed in her everyday guise

and holding a lighted candle in her hand, met him with a mournful and stern countenance which put him in

"I have none now," she answered, her voice shaking with unmistakable emotion. "You will learn yet that he

is dead." After a brief hesitation she continued more firmly: "My uncle put him to a trade, and he hated it.

Last year he ran away and joined the army as a drummerboy. He would have been sixteen today, if he had

Here her selfpossession quite broke down, and she burst into a loud sobbing. Underhill tried to offer

encouragement; he took her hand, and then he drew her towards him: indeed we have reason to suspect that

she cried for a while upon his shoulder. At last she raised her head, and whispering, "Tell my uncle," slipped

Returning to the parlor, Underhill found Turner, his face buried in his hands, shivering in front of the fire. At

the entry of the young man, the elder, without removing his bony fingers from his sunken eyes, inquired in a

"No. But perhaps I might, if you had gone with me. I didn't know the house and couldn't get about it fast

"Have you seen nothing?" inquired Underhill, wondering why Turner covered his eyes.

"No," answered the haunted man, dropping his hands, "I tell you there is nothing to be seen." After a moment

"O, I met your niece upstairs," said Underhill. "She told me to tell you well, it is very unaccountable and

painful; but she has a strong impression that her brother a drummerboy, she called him that he is

"Ah!" exclaimed Turner, springing to his feet and staring at the young man with an expression of intense

horror. "What did you tell me that for? O my God! What did you say it for? Do you want to drive me into the

After walking about the room for a moment, he partially recovered his selfpossession, and broke out

peevishly: "What does the fool mean by such nonsense! I won't have it in my house, I won't have people

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Turner. I was in fault for telling you. Don't lay blame upon her. I assure you that she

As the only response to this was a groan, Underhill concluded that he could do little good by prolonging his

During the next day, he learned something new about the Turners. It is time now to explain that he was a

lawyer, and that he had set up his virgin shingle in Johnsonville, with the intention of removing to New

Boston at the first flattering opportunity. Into his office strolled an elderly male gossip, one of those men who

do the "heavy standing round" in villages, and who have discovered whispering galleries at certain sunny

"Curious goingson at Josh Turner's, I understand," said this useful personage, dropping into one of

Underhill's armchairs. "Sat up with 'em last night, I understand. Say he's troubled with a ghost. Pshaw! No

ghosts nowadays; ain't legal tender; don't circulate. It's a bad conscience, that's what it is. Tell you, Josh

Turner's got an awful sinkhole in one corner of his conscience. Hadn't treated those children right,

brother's children, too, only brother. Sam Turner came home, seven years ago, with fifty thousand dollars

and two motherless children. Sam died, left Josh executor, gardeen of the boy and girl. Where'd the

money go to? Josh Turner can't tell. Sam's estate settled up for nothing, an' Josh Turner turned out rich. Never

made enough before to lay up anything, and here he is rich, retired from business, investing in railroads,

painting his house. Looks kind of ugly, don't it? Then he made the girl teach school, and 'prenticed the boy to

a trade, and let him run off to the army. Can't say I'd take Josh Turner's conscience for all his money. Well, I

must be going. Don't mention this, Mr. Underhill. A lawyer ought to know how to keep secrets. Good

From other sources our young barrister learned further particulars. The four children who had been born to

Joshua Turner by his first two wives were now all away from home, the two girls prosperously married, the

boys in successful business. By his living wife he had another boy, at present five years old. In this youngster

the whole affection of both father and mother seemed to have centered. They cared little for the other

children; they cared nothing for the nephew and niece. It was currently reported in Johnsonville that little

Jimmy Turner would inherit the whole, or nearly the whole, of the Josh Turner property.

"The old woman will bring that around certain," said Phineas Munson, the gossip above mentioned, during a

second call on Underhill; "she won't let the old man catch his last breath till he makes out a will in favor of

her Jimmy. Dunno why I call her old, though; ain't more than forty. S'pose I call her so because she's such a

poor, sickly, faded creetur. She's in a decline, and coughs to kill. But, sick as she is, she's got a temper like a

wildcat, and she governs Josh Turner at the first yelp. By the way, heard any more about the ghost? Say it's a

drummer, and drums like sixty. Wonder if Freddy Turner's dead? However, I don't believe in ghosts. All

fiddle faddle. Haw, haw, haw," he laughed just here. "I said, all fiddlefaddle. No drumming, don't ye see?

While Underhill was thus studying the shadows of the Turner past, the village was going mad about the

ghost. The Johnsonville drummings ought long since to have taken their place, in the history of "spiritual

manifestations," by the side of the Stratford Mysteries and the Rochester Knockings. The house was invaded

by so many people, and they were there at times in such incommodious crowds, that the Turners were nearly

as much troubled by the living as by their spiritual visitant. What added to the excitement was the publication

of a list of the casualties in one of Sherman's minor battles, wherein the name of Frederic Turner figured

among the dead. Nothing could be more obvious than that the drummer was the ghost of Joshua Turner's

Of course, efforts were made to trace the disturbance to a human, or at least a physical origin. The village

materialists, that is to say, the doctor, the apothecary, Phineas Munson, and two or three more, nosed about

the house by day and watched it by night. One talked of a peculiar circulation in the chimney; another of a

loose shingle on the roof which clattered in the wind; another suspected little Jimmy Turner, and wanted to

tie him up. A11 these frantic hypotheses were laughed to scorn by the great majority of Johnsonvillians, who

Curiously enough, Mrs. Turner was one of the most vehement of the unbelievers. This determined woman,

feeble and ghastly under the prolonged gripe of consumption, searched the dwelling from garret to cellar, by

day and by night, to discover the trick which she declared was being played upon her household. In this

investigation she displayed a feverish eagerness which was attributed partly to her native fervor of character

and partly to the nervous excitability of invalidism. Small, meager, and narrowshouldered, her clothes

hanging straight along her skeleton figure, her puny and pointed face of a uniform waxen yellow, her large,

prominent, lusterless eyes wandering hurriedly from object to object, her shrunken, glassy forefinger

beckoning here and there in tremulous suspicion, she was woeful and almost terrible to look upon. So

anxious was she to dissipate the mystery, that, passionately as she loved her little boy, she threatened him and

whipped him to make him avow that he did the drumming. Then, when convinced of his innocence, she cried

and coughed over him until it seemed as if her flickering life would go out in the spasm.

Against the assumption that the noises were produced by Frederic Turner's ghost, she argued with

praiseworthy energy though inexcusable logic. At first, she scouted the idea that the boy was dead, asserting

that he would yet reappear to make trouble for his family. When further news demolished this supposition,

she declared that the drummings had commenced a week after the decease, so that there could be no

connection between the two facts. But popular credulity stepped in here to controvert her; people now

remembered to have heard the mysterious uproar for some time back; one and another had been startled by it

a week before Josh Turner complained of it; in short, the dates of the drumming and the death became

identical. Even the cautious and intelligent were obliged to admit that the manifestations began several days

before the news of the boy's decease reached the village, and to infer that this circumstance tended to

disprove all supposition of trickery. Why should a person, who did not know that Fred Turner was dead, set

For the ear of her husband, Mrs. Turner had another theory which she did not care to make public. "It's that

"But you've searched her room and found nothing," groaned the husband, as sick in soul as his wife in body.

"Yes, but I shall find something. She's precious sly and deep, but I shall find her out yet. I have my eye on

"Yes, she did. You believe me, Joshua Turner, she did. She had a letter or something. Then she knew that the

news would get to us later, and she begun her tantrums. O, she's precious deep, precious deep! I wish she

"I wish he hadn't gone," moaned the husband. "I wish I'd treated him better, and kept him by us."

"Joshua Turner, you haven't got the spirit of a man. If you had half my spunk, sick and dying as I am, you

wouldn't whimper that way. Everything has gone right, except that you are a coward, a poor, feeble, sick

headed creature, afraid of your own shadow. If you only would pluck up a spirit and let this thing worry

"Well," she gasped, laying her hand on her breast as if to aid the action of her withered lungs, "well, it 's

killing me, too. That is, you are killing me. But do I flinch? Just look at me and see how I bear it. I wish to

"Sarah Turner, you have no conscience," he replied, in a tone which was not so much reproachful as

"How dare you say that to me, Josh Turner? And you know who I am suffering for and slaving for! It isn't for

myself that I care," she continued, coughing and crying. "It 's for Jimmy. I want Jimmy to be well off. And

"See here," she called after him, suppressing her tears. "If I find that girl is doing it, will you turn her out of

He hesitated, looking at her sternly, and at last sighed, "No; I have done harm enough to Sam's children."

She turned her back upon him and left him, with an ejaculation of anger and contempt.

Meanwhile the manifestations pursued their course, to the beatitude of the wonderloving, and the perplexity

of the philosophical. One noteworthy circumstance was that the drummer seemed to hate a crowd. He rarely

vouchsafed his music to the swarms of curious who invaded the house, while he poured it forth without stint

to enliven the solitude of the Turners. He drummed rarely on a Sunday, frequently on a Saturday, and almost

always in the evening. His favorite place of recreation was the parlor, and the listener in whom he delighted

was Joshua Turner. Nevertheless, he sometimes assailed little Jimmy with long rolls and tattoos which almost

drove him out of his fiveyearold senses. The poor child was hysterically afraid of the ghostly visitant, and,

"There! don't be scared at it," she was once heard to whisper, while looking in his face with the anxiety of

ardent love. "If Jimmy won't mind it, he shall be very rich some day, and have all the pretty things he wants."

At last, Joshua Turner remarked, apropos of a clamor which had driven the boy into spasms, "Sarah, it is

"I know it," she burst out with a despairing cry. "O, I wish you and I were both dead. Then it would stop."

"Joshua Turner, don't you do it!" she gasped, tottering up to him and putting her tallowy face close to his.

"Don't you do what you're thinking of! If you do, I '11 haunt you. I will. I '11 haunt you to the grave, and

Not long after this interview, Mrs. Turner began to hint to the neighbors that her husband's mind was failing.

The charge seemed natural enough; it was countenanced by his extravagance of speech and violence of

manner; at times, especially when he talked of the drummer, his conversation was little less than maniacal.

For instance, he once broke out in the following fashion upon gossip Phineas Munson, meantime walking

frantically round the rocking chair in which that gentleman was blandly oscillating.

"What do you come here for? Rubadubdub" (beating on his hip); "is that it? Like drumming? I '11 drum for

you. Rubadubdub, rubadubdub. I '11 be your ghost, Mr. Munson, I '11 furnish you with the music of the

spheres; send the whole band around to your house every evening; give you a diabolical drumming serenade;

give you one now. Rubadub dub, rubadubdub, rubadub dub. Had enough of it, Mr. Munson? Now go to

every house in the village and report that you have seen the ghost. Do you want anybody to look more like a

ghost than I do? I tell you I shall be one shortly; I am being killed by this thing and these people. Why can't

they let me bear my torment alone? Why can't you go home, Mr. Munson? Yes, GO HOME!"

"Tell you I never was so insulted in my life," repeated Phineas to his fellowcitizens. "Begin to think the old

woman's right. Turner must be cracked. Wouldn't 'a' pitched into me so, if he hadn't been. Ought to have a

conservator and a keeper. If he ain't watched, there'll be more ghosts of his manufacture."

What was the attitude of Marian Turner during this grotesque and yet horrible drama? Underhill watched her

narrowly, not so much in a spirit of philosophical investigation, as because he was on the verge of being in

love with her. The theory which he had constructed for the girl was, that she knew that she had been

plundered by her uncle, and that she was now engaged in terrifying the plunderer into a restitution. Looking

at her from this point of view, he was astonished at the determination, the hardness of spirit, with which she

persecuted this family. She was killing her uncle and his wife; she was driving her childish cousin into

chronic hysteria; yet she did not flinch. Perhaps she excused herself on the ground that the two elders had

been in a manner the slayers of her brother, and that it was not in reality she, but their own evil consciences,

which put them to the torture. Nevertheless, he would have been glad to discover in her more of feminine

gentleness and even feminine weakness. It must be admitted that man does not easily adore a selfhelpful

Meanwhile the girl fascinated him. In the first place, she was the belle of the village, and the belles of other

places were too far away to counteract her attraction. In the second place, she was bright and strange; she had

entertaining oddities of thought and utterance; she had what he considered dazzling flashes of sarcasm. On

the whole, she was the most interesting and original girl that he had ever seen, even putting aside her

"Talking of ghosts," she one day said to Underhill, "I only know of Mrs. Turner. Did you ever see another

person in this world, who so evidently belonged in the next? Why don't she follow her two predecessors?

How it must provoke them to see her linger so, and the house new painted and papered!"

"I haven't a particle. Why should I pity a woman who would marry such an inveterate womankiller as my

He reminds me of the returned missionaries who used to come to South Hadley School to pick out second

and third wives. Why is it that missionaries have such a matrimonial hunger? I suppose it is living among

"People joke the most when they are most unhappy," she answered, coldly. "That is, some people. Do you

suppose I am gay?" she continued, with energy. Here I am, earning my own living, liable to be homeless any

day, and wearing black for my only brother. Think of it. How do you suppose I can be softhearted towards

Here she stopped, as if she were saying more than was prudent; in another moment she pressed her hands to

her face and began to sob. It is not difficult to believe that this interview might have ended in a very common

and yet very efficacious sort of comforting; but just as Underhill had taken the girl's hand, a servant appeared

They were soon at the door of Mrs. Turner's room; there was silence within, broken only by gurgling gasps

for breath; the consumptive was stretched, pallid and quivering, on the bed; the husband was leaning over

her, his face almost as cadaverous as hers. Marian Turner walked to the side of the dying woman, and looked

at her steadily without speaking. Underhill hesitated, and then advanced, slowly, on tiptoe.

"They have gone for him," replied Joshua Turner, without lifting his eyes from that incarnate spasm.

The invalid was struggling violently, not seemingly to live, but to speak. She rolled her glassy eyes

frightfully; her dry, blue lips opened again and again, but only to gasp; her whole frame joined feebly in the

wrestling for words. It was evident, from the dullness and the fixed direction of her eyes, that she did not see

any one, and it is almost certain that she was not aware of the presence of Marian and Underhill. At last the

utterance came; it was a kind of voiceless whispering; it merely breathed, "Don't do it, Joshua!"

"Here is Marian," replied the husband, doubtless fearing lest the ruling passion might avow too much. "Have

A strange look crossed the dying face; it was an expression of many conflicting emotions; it hated, defied,

implored, and wheedled. It said: "I detest you, don't rob my child; I have been your enemy, don't take

But this look, and the emotion which writhed beneath it, exhausted her strength; she had not another word, or

even another change of countenance, for any one on earth; the planning s, pleadings, and fightings of her

feverish life were over. There was an air and almost a movement of sinking, and as it were flattening, into the

calmness of dissolution. Expression slid from her lips; the waxen yellow of her skin turned ashy; the

The husband, already accustomed to such scenes, was the only one of the three spectators who instantly

recognized the great change. He laid his ear upon the body, listened awhile for breathing, slowly raised his

neglected head, shook it solemnly rather than sadly, and exhaled a profound sigh. The expression in his face,

like that in the face of his wife, was mainly "long disquiet merged in rest." It seemed as if he were glad that

the struggle was over, as if he were soothingly conscious of relief from oppression, as if he breathed freer

Divining from his manner the presence of death, Marian Turner shuddered slightly and drew a pace

backward. Then she stood like a statue, looking at the corpse askant and with slightly contracted eyes, as one

sometimes watches an object of aversion while desiring to turn away from it. Her mien was that of distaste,

Underhill was the only one who spoke; and his words were but a commonplace of announcement and

surprise: She is she is dead good heavens!" This was the only utterance of emotion over the body of

one who had just gasped out a life of passionate hatred and love. The child for whom this mother had plotted

and throbbed was not even in the village, having been sent the day before on a visit to one of his halfsisters.

Underhill retired from the scene with exceedingly painful impressions. What struck him most disagreeably

was, not the fact of dissolution, but the coldness with which it had been regarded. Not that he wondered and

groaned over the widower: it seemed natural that the decease of a third wife should be endured with

equanimity; moreover, the departed had been a wretched invalid, and the survivor was a man; finally, what

But that Marian should firmly carry her dislikes up to the verge of the grave was a circumstance which filled

him with alarm and almost with horror. A woman, and not a relenting tear; almost a child, and not a start of

pity! He called up, over and over again, the sidelong gaze of aversion which she had bent upon the helpless

corpse, itself at peace with all the world. "What sort of a wife will she make?" was the selfish but natural

question of the young man as he strolled alone at midnight by the sluggish stream of the Wampoosue, as

black, silent, and funereal as if it were a gigantic grave. He walked there at that hour because he could not

Death, however, brought one relieving change in this drama; from the time that he entered the household, the

drummer left it. Not another ghostly reveille or tattoo or long roll gladdened the ears of the gossips and

wonderlovers who had hitherto delighted in such uproars. During the funeral, the dwelling was filled and

surrounded by a dense crowd, attracted by the belief that extraordinary manifestations would mingle with the

burial rites, and so regardless of decorum in its curiosity that not a room was left unvisited by stealthy feet

and peering faces. At times the whisper and buzz of discussion rose so loudly as to drown the voice of the

clergyman. At other moments a suspense of expectation seemed to settle upon every one, producing a sudden,

universal, profound silence which was inexpressibly sombre. But amid all the debate, and through all the

agony of listening, not a note came from the mysterious visitant whose advent was so desired. Probably the

During the following week Underhill did not see any of the Turners. He was afraid to meet Marian, lest he

should be fascinated by her presence, and should offer himself as her husband, only to repent of it for life.

While he admitted that the girl had had great provocations, and was still suffering under grievous injustice, he

could not clear her of a suspicion of cruelty. If she were really the author of the mysterious noises, she might

be charged with having hastened the death of her aunt, and that with the full knowledge of what she was

doing. No one could have watched the wild excitement of the consumptive during the last three weeks,

without perceiving that it was lessening her hold on life. On the other hand, the drumming had ceased with

her death. That looked like compunction; in that there was some mercy of womanliness, and from it he drew

In the midst of his indecisions he received a message requesting him to call upon Mr. Turner. He found the

widower much changed, no longer wild in manner and language, as during the whole course of the

"manifestations"; with something, indeed, of his native excitability in the tones of his voice, but, on the

"Mr. Underhill," he said, pointing to writing materials on the table, "I wish to make a new will. Can you do it

"Begin it thus," said the widower, bending his shaggy head low, as if in humiliation: "The last will and

"Let us avoid expressions which may lead to doubts of sanity," remarked the lawyer. "There have been

singular circumstances of late in your life. If your will is to be anywise unusual "

"Leave it out then," interrupted Turner, with the abrupt pettishness of a sickly man. "So I must not even

After a moment, during which he bent his head almost to his lean knees, he resumed: "Here it is. Ten

thousand dollars to my son, James Pettengill Turner. All the rest of my estate, real and personal, to my niece,

It was written; two neighbors were called in as witnesses; the testator affixed his signature. As soon as he was

once more alone with Underhill, he walked feebly to the door, and called in a hoarse voice for his niece.

Presently the girl entered, bowed gravely to the lawyer, and seated herself at a distance from her uncle, not

"Marian," said Turner, rising, and handing her the will, "read this through, and speak to me."

She read it, gradually flushing with emotion, and when it was finished, she raised her eyes to his face, but still

without uttering a word. Evidently she was oppressed by surprise, and hampered by the presence of

"The whole estate is sixty thousand dollars. Are you willing that James should have ten thousand?" asked the

"If you wish it," he continued, "I will give up the property at once, though I am dying.

Some hard barrier in the girl's heart gave way at once, and she threw herself into her uncle's arms, crying

upon his neck. The outburst astonished the man who had called it forth; never before, probably, had any adult

member of his family met him with tears and kisses; it was not thus that the Turners expressed themselves.

His words were, "Marian, I thank you; Marian, you are a very strange girl"; and then he let her leave him.

Underhill, differently educated in the language of emotion, was unspeakably delighted with the sight of this

gush of tenderness, and stole away from the room with a haze of moisture across his eyelashes.

The very next day he heard that Joshua Turner was ill. He offered his services as a nurse, and for a fortnight

was almost hourly in the house, watching the progress of an evidently hopeless malady. Through the clouds

of a brain fever the invalid heard, and at times beheld, his old tormentor. He continually complained of the

drummer; through the windows and down the chimney came the drummer; the street rang and the house

trembled with the infernal music of the drummer; at the judgmentseat, ready to bear witness against him,

The bemoanings and adjurations of the haunted man were horrible. "Has the demon come again?" he shouted,

in a high, hard scream. "See him there, stepping through the wall. My nephew? Have I devils for nephews?

How is that? Ah! I belong to him; I must go to him. O, hear him! Can nobody stop his beating? Is there no

During a lucid interval, Underhill said to him, "You have been a little out of your head."

"I have been out of my head for months, for years," he returned, in the husky whisper which was now his

only voice. "I have done only one sane thing in five years. Restitution! Restitution!"

When Underhill returned to the house on the following morning, Marian said to him, in a trembling whisper,

He hailed the tone of sorrow and tenderness with such joy that he forgot the solemnity of the moment, and

We must pass over six months; during their flight the hand was kissed many times again. Underhill and

Marian Turner were engaged. She was greatly changed from what she was when he first knew her. Either

prosperity, or penitence for some evil done, had divested her of her old bitterness, and even made her

exceptionally gentle. She had taken her little cousin James to her heart, and was doing by him the part of a

mother. In deep mourning for her brother, uncle, and aunt, she usually had a pensive gravity which befitted

At last she was Mrs. Underhill. Among the many confessions which she doubtless made to her husband, did

she admit a connection with the mystery of the drummings? No; not a word on that subject; not a response

when it was mentioned. Nor did Underhill question her; he did not care to open old sorrows.

But one day he discovered, inside the lath and plaster casing of the parlor, a square tin pipe, four inches deep

by seven or eight broad, the remnant of some ancient heating apparatus. The opening by which it had once

communicated with the room was simply covered over with wall paper, while the upper extremity terminated

in the closet of a chamber which, in the time of the manifestations, had been occupied by Marian Turner.

It struck him that a drum beaten in this closet might have sounded below as if in the parlor, and, beaten gently

outside of a window, might have produced an illusion that it was coming down the street. A perturbed

conscience, the imagination of a sickly man, and the epidemic power of popular credulity, might have

completed the delusion. The mystery was as simple as a conundrum after you know it.

But he discovered no drum, and he put no queries concerning the drummer, so that we have a margin for

charitable doubt as to Marian, and also a pleasing chance for faith in mysteries.