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I was no believer in ghosts, but I had to hit on some theory there and then. My nerves had been out of order for a month or two, and the long railway journey must have played havoc with them. The whole thing was a hallucination. So I told myself while pulling the coverings off the skylights, but somehow got mighty little comfort out of it; and I will not deny that I fumbled a bit with the padlock on the main hatchway, or that I looked down a second time before setting foot on the companion ladder.

She was a sweet ship; and the air below, though stuffy, had no taste of bilge in it. I explored main cabin, sleeping cabins, forecastle. The movable furniture had been taken ashore, as I had been told; but the fixtures were in good order, the decorations in good taste. Not a panel had shrunk or warped, nor could I find any leakage. At the same time I could find no evidence that she had been visited lately by man or ghost. The only thing that seemed queer was the inscription “29.56” on the beam in the forecastle. It certainly struck me that the surveyor must have under-registered her, but for the moment I thought little about it.

Passing back through the main cabin I paused to examine one or two of the fittings–particularly a neat glass-fronted bookcase, with a small sideboard below it, containing three drawers and a cellaret. The bookcase was empty and clean swept; so also were the drawers. At the bottom of the cellaret I found a couple of flags stowed–a tattered yellow quarantine-signal tightly rolled into a bundle, and a red ensign neatly folded. As I lifted out the latter, there dropped from its folds and fell upon the cabin floor–a book.

I picked it up–a thin quarto bound in black morocco, and rather the worse for wear. On its top side it bore the following inscription in dingy gilt letters:–

JOB’S HOTEL, PENLEVEN,

VISITORS’ BOOK.

J. JOB,

Proprietor

.

Standing there beneath the skylight I turned its pages over, wondering vaguely how the visitors’ book of a small provincial hotel had found its way into that drawer. It contained the usual assortment of conventional praise and vulgar jocosity:–

Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Smith of Huddersfield,
cannot speak too highly of Mrs. Job’s ham and
eggs.–September 15, 1881.

Arrived wet through after a 15-mile tramp
along the coast; but thanks to Mr. and Mrs.
Job were soon steaming over a comfortable
fire.–John and Annie Watson, March, 1882.

Note appended by a humorist:

Then you sat on the hob, I suppose.

There was the politely patronising entry:

Being accustomed to Wolverhampton, I am
greatly pleased with this coast.–F. B. W.

The poetical effusion:

Majestic spot! Say, doth the sun in heaven
Behold aught to equal thee, wave-washed
Penleven? etc.

Lighter verse:

Here I came to take my ease,
Agreeably disappointed to find no fl–
Mrs. Job, your bread and butter
Is quite too utterly, utterly utter!

J. Harper, June 3rd, 1883.

The contemplative man’s ejaculation:

It is impossible, on viewing these Cyclopean cliffs,
to repress the thought, How great is Nature,
how little Man!
(A note: So it is, old chap! and a reproof
in another hand: Shut up! can’t you see
he’s suffering?)

The last entry was a brief one:

J. MacGuire, Liverpool. September 2nd, 1886.

Twilight forced me to close the book and put it back in its place. As I did so, I glanced up involuntarily towards the skylight, as if I half expected to find a pair of eyes staring down on me. Yet the book contained nothing but these mere trivialities. Whatever my apprehension, I was (as “J. Harper” would have said) “agreeably disappointed.” I climbed on deck again, relocked the hatch, replaced the tarpaulins, jumped into the boat and rowed homewards. Though the tide favoured me, it was dark before I reached Mr. Dewy’s quay-door. Having, with some difficulty, found the frape, I made the boat fast. I groped my way across his back premises and out into the gaslit street; and so to the Ship Inn, a fair dinner, and a sound night’s sleep.