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Updated: May 19, 2025
Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as they called my vision, and that I had not seen it at all! But this statement from the colonel absolutely staggered the skipper, and he looked from me to the American and back again at me in the most bewildering manner possible; the old chief, Mr Stokes, and Garry O'Neil staring at the pair of us with equal amazement.
"So it were, Master Haldane; so it were," agreed the old boatswain, looking from me to the skipper and then at Colonel Vereker. "Well, I'm blowed! and I'm glad, then, for that there ghost-ship wor a rael ship arter all said and done. Now who was right, I'd like to know?" "Of course it was a real ship, you old dotard!" said the skipper gruffly and looking angrily at him.
Published by permission of Mitchell Kennerley, and taken from the volume, The Ghost-Ship and Other Stories. The Ghost-Ship Fairfield is a little village lying near the Portsmouth Road, about halfway between London and the sea.
Whenever a vacancy occurs, if I may express myself in that way, there are crowds of applications for the ghost-ship." "I had no idea that such a state of things existed," I said, becoming quite interested in the matter. "There ought to be some regular system, or order of precedence, by which you could all take your turns like customers in a barber's shop."
"You don't seem to know what you're saying, and I believe you've gone off your chump since you saw that `ghost-ship, as you called it! Go aloft, Haldane, and see what you can make of this blessed boat he says he sighted!"
"As sartin, Master Haldane," he answered solemnly, "aye, as sartin as that when we goes aboard her, as go aboard her we must, we shall both be a-goin' to our death! That's the `ghost-ship, Master Haldane, as you and I've seed three times afore. May I die this minute if she ain't!" "Die! don't talk such nonsense, Masters."
Now, I don't know much about ships, but I should think that that ghost-ship weighed a solid two hundred tons, and it seemed to me that she had come to stay; so that I felt sorry for landlord, who was a married man. "All the horses in Fairfield won't move her out of my turnips," he said, frowning at her.
"Ah, seein' is believin', I says," whined old Masters, not a whit shaken on the point, in spite of the skipper's scepticism. "Master Haldane seed it, and I seed it, and poor Jackson seed it." "Indeed?" cried the skipper. "I did not know he had been on deck before the accident." "It wore arter that, sir, that he seed the ghost-ship," said the old boatswain in reply to the implied question.
"She seems very solid for a ghost-ship," I said, seeing that landlord was bothered. "I should say it's a betwixt and between," he answered, puzzling it over; "but it's going to spoil a matter of fifty turnips, and missus she'll want it moved." We went up to her and touched the side, and it was as hard as a real ship. "Now, there's folks in England would call that very curious," he said.
Them that goes to sea oughter stick to the sea, that's what I says; and if they throws it up, though I hopes you won't, they allus live to repent it. I be truly sorry you be goin', and ah, Master Haldane, I sed as how summet 'ud come of our seein' that there blessed ghost-ship!"
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