THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN
CHAPTER I--The Gift Bestowed



Everybody said so.

Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true.
Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the
general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has
taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong,
that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may
sometimes be right; "but THAT'S no rule," as the ghost of Giles
Scroggins says in the ballad.

The dread word, GHOST, recalls me.

Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my
present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He
did.

Who could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his
black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and
well-proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-
weed, about his face,--as if he had been, through his whole life, a
lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of
humanity,--but might have said he looked like a haunted man?

Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy,
shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never,
with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or
of listening to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it
was the manner of a haunted man?

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and grave,
with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set
himself against and stop, but might have said it was the voice of a
haunted man?

Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part
laboratory,--for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned
man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of
aspiring ears and eyes hung daily,--who that had seen him there,
upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments
and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the
wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by
the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some
of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held
liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his power to
uncombine them, and to give back their component parts to fire and
vapour;--who that had seen him then, his work done, and he
pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame,
moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead,
would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber
too?
"1102680251"
THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN
CHAPTER I--The Gift Bestowed



Everybody said so.

Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true.
Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the
general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has
taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong,
that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may
sometimes be right; "but THAT'S no rule," as the ghost of Giles
Scroggins says in the ballad.

The dread word, GHOST, recalls me.

Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my
present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He
did.

Who could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his
black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and
well-proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-
weed, about his face,--as if he had been, through his whole life, a
lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of
humanity,--but might have said he looked like a haunted man?

Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy,
shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never,
with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or
of listening to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it
was the manner of a haunted man?

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and grave,
with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set
himself against and stop, but might have said it was the voice of a
haunted man?

Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part
laboratory,--for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned
man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of
aspiring ears and eyes hung daily,--who that had seen him there,
upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments
and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the
wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by
the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some
of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held
liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his power to
uncombine them, and to give back their component parts to fire and
vapour;--who that had seen him then, his work done, and he
pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame,
moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead,
would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber
too?
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THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN

THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN

by Charles Dickens
THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN

THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN

by Charles Dickens

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CHAPTER I--The Gift Bestowed



Everybody said so.

Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true.
Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the
general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has
taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong,
that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may
sometimes be right; "but THAT'S no rule," as the ghost of Giles
Scroggins says in the ballad.

The dread word, GHOST, recalls me.

Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my
present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He
did.

Who could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his
black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and
well-proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-
weed, about his face,--as if he had been, through his whole life, a
lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of
humanity,--but might have said he looked like a haunted man?

Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy,
shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never,
with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or
of listening to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it
was the manner of a haunted man?

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and grave,
with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set
himself against and stop, but might have said it was the voice of a
haunted man?

Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part
laboratory,--for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned
man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of
aspiring ears and eyes hung daily,--who that had seen him there,
upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments
and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the
wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by
the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some
of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held
liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his power to
uncombine them, and to give back their component parts to fire and
vapour;--who that had seen him then, his work done, and he
pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame,
moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead,
would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber
too?

Product Details

BN ID: 2940013197435
Publisher: SAP
Publication date: 08/06/2011
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 91 KB
Age Range: 9 - 12 Years

About the Author

About The Author
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is probably the greatest novelist England has ever produced, the author of such famous books as A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and Oliver Twist. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life — along with his indelible characters — have made his books beloved by readers the world over. Dickens was born in Landport, Portsea, England and died in Kent after suffering a stroke. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know hunger, privation, and the horrors of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. These unfortunate early life experiences helped shape many of his greatest works.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington
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