Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens
Page: 30

aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf and
Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but
three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the
Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his hammock," as
he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as
the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is gray now, but as
handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--nay, handsomer. A
portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a
frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I
remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for
their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake
flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the
Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed
and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried,
"You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!" That he
is! And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet
him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be
vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it
fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America,
where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought
down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for,
he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling,
is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a
piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him
one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman.
Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently
as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a
world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge.
At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the
lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many
minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr.