At the Ghost Hour

The House of the

UNBELIEVING

THOMAS

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF

PAUL HEYSE

BY

FRANCIS A. VAN SANTFORD

WITH DECORATIONS BY
ALICE C. MORSE

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

MDCCCXCIV

Copyright, 1894, by
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.

THE HOUSE OF THE UNBELIEVING THOMAS

In a provincial town of northern Germany there is a street in which the ancient, high-gabled houses bear, inscribed in Gothic letters, upon the lintels of their doors or upon little sandstone tablets, such honorable or fanciful names as "The Good Shepherd," "Noah's Dove," "The Palms of Peace," "The Rose of Sharon," and underneath, the date of their erection.

In former days this street had been one of the main arteries of the city, whose staid, orthodox inhabitants coveted inward spiritual illumination rather than the light and air which penetrate from without. Since then new generations had arisen, fired with the spirit of aggressive enlightenment, and the importance of these old families, content with the stray sunbeams that made their way over the tall roofs, had declined perceptibly. One by one, they had died off behind their "Palms of Peace" and their "Roses of Sharon," and had made way for the bustling children of the new era, whose light and cheerful dwellings sprang up around the dingy old street.

From one of the houses, which had grown almost black under the storms of three centuries, the street had received its name. Upon a block of stone above the wide entrance there were cut, in letters so weather-worn as to be scarcely legible, these words: "The Unbelieving Thomas, 1534." From this, the street had been christened Thomas Lane--a title which it still bears, though, only in official documents and on the map of the city. In common parlance it had been known for more than fifty years as "Ghosts' Lane"--again because of that same ancient building which was responsible for its correct name. For every one knew that the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was haunted; and even the most cold-blooded free-thinkers of the town could not escape a slight shiver when business forced them to tread the neglected pavement of this street.

Why this old three-storied structure, so firm despite its great age, had been inhabited all these years only by poor unabsolved souls, no one could tell. With one man who had had the hardihood to purchase the house, things had turned out badly enough. A Jew, to whom the great, empty rooms seemed suitable for a warehouse, had been established there less than two years, when one morning he was found with a bit of silk stuff twisted about his neck, hanging from the crosspiece of a window in the largest room. And it subsequently became evident that Fortune had turned her back upon this man, once prosperous and well-to-do, and there was nothing for him but to steal out of the world and leave his accumulation of debts behind him.

Nothing save the house itself and its dusty furnishings remained to the creditors; and as no purchaser appeared, they were forced to vent their chagrin in fierce glances at the gray, weather-beaten sign over the door, upon which, in huge black lettering, was the name of the firm: "Commission and Dispatch House of Moritz Feigenbaum."

Now, although the whole house was so securely bolted and barred that it would have been impossible for a thief to carry anything out of it, the court deemed it necessary to provide for some oversight of the place, so that no lovers of darkness, counterfeiters or bands of dynamiters should take refuge there. Fortunately, there happened to be a poor cobbler, whose little house had been destroyed by a flood, and who declared himself willing to undertake the duties of janitor. This valiant person--Wenzel Kospoth by name, an emigrant from Bohemia--took possession of the porter's room by the entrance without further delay, regarding this free shelter as a sufficient recompense for his services, which were simple enough. He had to open the great, black, outer door each morning, and to close it again at night; and now and then he took a survey of the three stories to see that no bulging wall threatened the downfall of the whole. The entire day he was free to devote to his small custom, which remained true to him, even in the haunted house; although certain anxious good wives had scruples about venturing across the threshold to get a pair of defective boots mended in this unwholesome atmosphere.

For, in fact, honest Wenzel Kospoth, with his bony, grizzled face and small, black eyes, deep-set under their bushy brows, did not seem quite canny to his new neighbors, hardened though they were to the traditions of the street.

As he took but little sleep, they could often see him, through the window of the ground floor, squatted on his low stool, his lank arms, in their shirt-sleeves, braced upon his knees, and lying open on his leather apron a large, old-time book, in which he would read industriously until long after midnight, by the light of his little lamp. It was only an old Bohemian Bible, which he could now understand with difficulty, for he had crossed the German border when only a lad. Those who spied upon him, however, regarded the copper-bound volume as a book of magic, and believed nothing less than that this singular stranger with the foreign name had taken the post of janitor in the haunted house that he might conduct there, undisturbed, his magical intercourse with evil spirits.

Wenzel Kospoth, when told of this report, laughed in his gray beard, and muttered something in Bohemian, which might have meant either yes or no. In his inmost soul he had a contempt for the stupid Germans, and fancied that this very Bible reading made him greatly their superior; so that, far from dispelling their superstitions, he seized upon an accidental opportunity to strengthen them.

An old acquaintance of his whom he had met in his Sunday walks to a neighboring village had come to want through no fault of her own. She was a little woman of about forty, who, though brought up in town, had, when quite young, married a peasant's son--a drunkard, as it proved. He had squandered all her small savings, and dying suddenly, had left her with a six-year-old child. As she was clever at sewing, the young widow earned many a pretty groschen as village tailoress. But, unfortunately, her good heart led her to apply her skill not only to the needs of the outer, but to those of the inner man as well, and to dispose of her little store of recipes