The Canterville Ghost

He had hoped that even modern Americans would be excited when they saw a Ghost In Armour. If they did not get excited because he was so scary, they should have become excited because their national poet, Longfellow wrote about knights. The ghost had read Longfellow's beautiful poetry many times while waiting for the Cantervilles to return from London.

Anyway the armour he had tried to wear was his own armour. He had worn it at the Kenilworth competition for knights, and even Queen Elizabeth the first had said that it was very good armour. Yet when the ghost had tried to put the armour on, the heavy steel and the big helmet had been much too heavy for him and he had fallen on the stone floor. He had hurt himself badly, losing the skin from both his knees, and bruising his right hand.

After this happened, the ghost was extremely ill. For several days he hardly moved out of his room, except to put more blood on the stain in the library. But after a lot of rest, he started to feel better. So he thought that for the third time he would try to frighten the United States Ambassador and his family. He decided that the family would see him again on Friday, the 17th of August. Once he had decided this, he spent most of that day choosing what clothes to wear. He finally decided that he would wear a large hat with a red feather, a cloth used to wrap the bodies of dead people, and a rusty dagger.