



Produced by David Widger




THE LADY OF THE BARGE

AND OTHER STORIES

By W. W. Jacobs




THREE AT TABLE


The talk in the coffee-room had been of ghosts and apparitions, and
nearly everybody present had contributed his mite to the stock of
information upon a hazy and somewhat thread-bare subject.  Opinions
ranged from rank incredulity to childlike faith, one believer going so
far as to denounce unbelief as impious, with a reference to the Witch of
Endor, which was somewhat marred by being complicated in an inexplicable
fashion with the story of Jonah.

"Talking of Jonah," he said solemnly, with a happy disregard of the fact
that he had declined to answer several eager questions put to him on the
subject, "look at the strange tales sailors tell us."

"I wouldn't advise you to believe all those," said a bluff, clean-shaven
man, who had been listening without speaking much.  "You see when a
sailor gets ashore he's expected to have something to tell, and his
friends would be rather disappointed if he had not."

"It's a well-known fact," interrupted the first speaker firmly, "that
sailors are very prone to see visions."

"They are," said the other dryly, "they generally see them in pairs, and
the shock to the nervous system frequently causes headache next morning."

"You never saw anything yourself?"  suggested an unbeliever.

"Man and boy," said the other, "I've been at sea thirty years, and the
only unpleasant incident of that kind occurred in a quiet English
countryside."

"And that?"  said another man.

"I was a young man at the time," said the narrator, drawing at his pipe
and glancing good-humouredly at the company.  "I had just come back from
China, and my own people being away I went down into the country to
invite myself to stay with an uncle.  When I got down to the place I
found it closed and the family in the South of France; but as they were
due back in a couple of days I decided to put up at the Royal George,
a very decent inn, and await their return.

"The first day I passed well enough; but in the evening the dulness of
the rambling old place, in which I was the only visitor, began to weigh
upon my spirits, and the next morning after a late breakfast I set out
with the intention of having a brisk day's walk.

"I started off in excellent spirits, for the day was bright and frosty,
with a powdering of snow on the iron-bound roads and nipped hedges, and
the country had to me all the charm of novelty.  It was certainly flat,
but there was plenty of timber, and the villages through which I passed
were old and picturesque.

"I lunched luxuriously on bread and cheese and beer in the bar of a small
inn, and resolved to go a little further before turning back.  When at
length I found I had gone far enough, I turned up a lane at right angles
to the road I was passing, and resolved to find my way back by another
route.  It is a long lane that has no turning, but this had several, each
of which had turnings of its own, which generally led, as I found by
trying two or three of them, into the open marshes.  Then, tired of
lanes, I resolved to rely upon the small compass which hung from my watch
chain and go across country home.

"I had got well into the marshes when a white fog, which had been for
some time hovering round the edge of the ditches, began gradually to
spread.  There was no escaping it, but by aid of my compass I was saved
from making a circular tour and fell instead into frozen ditches or
stumbled over roots in the grass.  I kept my course, however, until at
four o'clock, when night was coming rapidly up to lend a hand to the fog,
I was fain to confess myself lost.

"The compass was now no good to me, and I wandered about miserably,
occasionally giving a shout on the chance of being heard by some passing
shepherd or farmhand.  At length by great good luck I found my feet on a
rough road driven through the marshes, and by walking slowly and tapping
with my stick managed to keep to it.  I had followed it for some distance
when I heard footsteps approaching me.

"We stopped as we met, and the new arrival, a sturdy-looking countryman,
hearing of my plight, walked back with me for nearly a mile, and putting
me on to a road gave me minute instructions how to reach a village some
three miles distant.

"I was so tired that three miles sounded like ten, and besides that, a
little way off from the road I saw dimly a lighted window.  I pointed it
out, but my companion shuddered and looked round him uneasily.

"'You won't get no good there,' he said, hastily.

"'Why not?' I asked.

"'There's a something there, sir,' he replied, 'what 'tis I dunno, but
the little 'un belonging to a gamekeeper as used to live in these parts
see it, and it was never much good afterward.  Some say as it's a poor
mad thing, others says as it's a kind of animal; but whatever it is, it
ain't good to see.'

"'Well, I'll keep on, then,' I said.  'Goodnight.'

"He went back whistling cheerily until his footsteps died away in the
distance, and I followed the road he had indicated until it divided into
three, any one of which to a stranger might be said to lead straight on.
I was now cold and tired, and having half made up my mind walked slowly
back toward the house.

"At first all I could see of it was the little patch of light at the
window. I made for that until it disappeared suddenly, and I found myself
walking into a tall hedge. I felt my way round this until I came to a
small gate, and opening it cautiously, walked, not without some little
nervousness, up a long path which led to