Chapter 7 of 11 · 3978 words · ~20 min read

Part 7

Many years ago, when knights, maids and dragons ruled the romantic world, there lived a maid within the castle who was betrothed to a young knight of a neighbouring domain. The day of the wedding was fixed and all would have ended happily were it not for a great tragedy which overcame the proceedings. One day, just after paying his court to the young lady, the knight was set upon by robbers, killed, and his body flung into the moat. His fiancée could see all this, but was unable to help, but she was so overcome that she threw herself over the parapet into the moat after him. The body of the knight was found some time later washed up on the sea-shore, but that of the maid was never discovered, and the belief is that she still haunts the castle awaiting the arrival of her beloved.

A Daylight Ghost Story

SOME years ago, some friends took a house for three months at the seaside. In August, I went to stay with them arriving about three on a sunny afternoon. Coming downstairs from the bedroom, I had to pass the open door of a room immediately at the foot of the stairs. Standing just inside, with her back towards me, was a woman dressed in drab, and with her hair arranged in an old-fashioned way; she was looking out of a window, and I paused a moment wondering who it was. I continued my way down and, when within three yards of her, the figure vanished. I went into the room, looked all round—no one there. Then I realised it was a ghost.

Next day I saw a coloured photo of a woman with dress and hair just like the apparition’s. It was not until some weeks later that we were told the portrait was of the owner's first wife. The house had been left her by a relative, and she had planned to have the window, at which I had seen her standing, changed into a bow. Sudden illness seized her and she died, trying to say something about the window.

Some other friends who had the house lent them before this time, saw the figure of a woman going before them up the stairs, but there was no one. Another friend was sitting on the lawn facing that window when the house was empty, and saw the figure of a woman pass across it. She went into the house—no one there—all doors locked.

It was not until months later that we told each other what we had seen.

Are not these apparitions what Mrs. Besant calls “thought-forms?” This woman knew nothing of me; her thoughts came back to the familiar spot and the familiar dress. When I came too near this “form” apparently so solid, but as evanescent as a soap bubble, it broke and vanished.

“The Very Same Ghost”

AS a young medical student on holiday I used often to stay with a doctor uncle, and even now, looking back after all these years, I feel grateful for all I learnt while accompanying him on his rounds.

Uncle Will was a bachelor, too matter-of-fact and prosaic ever to fall in love, I thought. The more surprised, therefore, was I one day to hear him recount his treatment of a patient, a young lady suffering only from what to me seemed an acute attack of hysteria, nothing more. This patient was one of those highly-strung young ladies who easily develop hysteria, and the story she narrated to Uncle Will of what had brought her to the pitiful state she was in seemed to me a tissue of rubbish. She vividly described her meeting with a real ghost on her way home late from a party, alone, through some accidental misunderstanding. Her way lay past a lonely mansion infrequently occupied, rich in historical associations, but so far unclaimed by any ghost. Miss S———, however, succeeded in describing the one she saw in great detail, from his cavalier hat to his buckled shoes. He was leaning against a gate through which she had to pass, and he moved aside courteously to make way for her. She thanked him, and to her horror, he vanished into thin air. The clear moonlight and the snow combined to make any rational explanation impossible.

That was her tale. “A silly fanciful girl, over-excited by the evening's pleasure,” was my comment.

“Yet this girl came a distance of three miles through the worst thunderstorm we've had for years, in the dead of night, to fetch me to her sick mother a short while ago,” answered Uncle Will, and then added: “Good thing I’m her medical man and not a raw fellow like you, laddie; I can understand her, because (I have told no one else) I myself have seen at the very same place the very same ghost.”

The Phantom Carriage

SOME years ago, whilst staying at a little town in Somerset, I became acquainted with the chauffeur of a family who resided in a stately old mansion, standing in a large and well-kept park.

One evening, as the family were away, I was invited to pay my friend a visit. The walk of two miles brought me to the drive gates, and from there to the house was about three-quarters of a mile across the park, which was divided in several places by iron railings, having white gates across the drive. These were always kept closed when the family were away.

After a chat and smoke with my friend, I started my homeward journey about 9:30, it being a beautiful moonlight night. I had got about one-third of the way down the drive when a pair of carriage lamps loomed out ahead, and knowing the people were away, I was surprised to meet a conveyance coming to the house so late at night. The lights came nearer and I could distinctly hear the horses’ hoofs on the drive. I had just reached one of the gates and decided to stay and hold it open for the vehicle to pass. On came the two-horse carriage which was now quite visible, and I shouted to the driver that I would hold the gate open for him, but I got no reply. The carriage was now within about ten yards, when, suddenly, the whole lot disappeared.

One can quite imagine my feelings as I clung to the gate, not knowing whether to go forward or back to the house. I learned afterwards that this conveyance had been seen several years before by some of the old servants.

London

CRYPTS have always held a strange fascination for me. Although a staunch sceptic, I am deeply interested in psychical research, and I have systematically sought out crypts on the supposition that if there are such things as ghosts they would surely prefer to manifest themselves in those creepy vaults. But only once has a ghost appeared to me, and that was in the crypt of a hoary old church in Lincolnshire. I was quite alone; the verger was away from home, and I had to borrow the keys from the rector. It was late on a September afternoon and the light, even with the aid of my bicycle lamp, was very dim. I wandered around, examining dates on tombs until, passing behind a pillar, I was scared to see a man dressed in black leaning against the recumbent effigy of some medieval worthy. “That must be the verger, after all,” I thought; “but how strange! He must have duplicate keys.” So I approached him—cautiously, I admit—and, as I did so, he rose slowly, raised a deprecating hand, as though to stop my advance, and then gradually vanished into space! The dark eeriness of the place rather got on my nerves, and I slipped out quickly to tell the rector of my experience. “Ah!” said he, “you've evidently seen Black Robert the Monk. There's a legend here that in the fifteenth century the poor fellow was locked in the crypt for some offence; but they forgot all about him for a time and when they went to release him, he was stark dead. His ghost appears occasionally, and the visitation, strange to say, is said to bring the church good luck. One would have expected him to cherish a grudge. Anyhow, last time, a wealthy patron gave £100 to our fund. This time—er—” “It will be only half a crown,” I responded.

An Unwelcome Travelling Companion

A MOST weird experience I once had made me less cynical about ghosts. I travelled regularly by the 8:30 a.m. train to the town where I worked, and the train was usually crowded with business people. I soon began to notice that one compartment was always empty, but for no apparent reason. One morning, arriving at the last minute, I climbed into the deserted carriage as the whistle sounded. I settled down to a book and gave no thought to my solitude. The train had been travelling some minutes when I was disturbed by a slight noise which sounded like subdued sobbing. It was not a corridor train, so I could only explore beneath the seats, but found nothing there. I eventually put it down to the noise of the engine, but, as the train gathered speed, the noise became distinct from any other sound and seemed to get louder and more plaintive. The thought of the coming tunnel made my heart beat quickly. The sobbing stopped before we reached the tunnel, however, but, as the overpowering darkness engulfed the carriage, I had a ghastly sensation of being choked. This lasted for at least two minutes. I tried to cry out, but, perhaps from sheer fright, no sound came from my throat. As we steamed out of the tunnel, the sobbing re-started, but, after a while, panted itself into silence, which seemed to my now hysterical nerves more terrible than the wailing noise itself. I practically tottered out of that train on reaching my destination, and was not surprised to learn afterwards that there had been a suicide in that compartment which accounted for the passengers avoiding it.

The Black Dog of the Cotswolds

WEST-COUNTRYMEN are very sensitive to ridicule. That is why a stranger might inquire from Bath to Bredon without obtaining a single admission concerning the Black Dog of the Cotswolds. But let him live amongst us; let him gain our confidence, and he may interview witnesses by the dozen. Few, indeed, have met the creature face to face, though many claim a distant glimpse, and it would be hard to find a shepherd past middle-age who had not come upon the foot-prints of the phantom, starting from nowhere and leading nowhere, in the early morning snow. Always in the snow he comes and always by moonlight. It is now some three years since old Dick Slingbraces passed to rest, leaving the following story to perpetuate his memory.

“Dogs or foxes had been making havoc with the early lambs,” said he; “and one February night I took my gun to watch for the varmints in the lee of the sheeppens, there being mebbe an inch of snow on the land. The east wind was like a knife from the grindstone, with clouds racing past the moon well on in her second quarter. I might have closed my eyes for a second or two with the cold, and when I opened them, sir, there he stood not thirty yards away—a coal-black hound bigger than a prize ram, and of no breed on earth. I knew him in an instant—the Black Dog of the Wolds. Now you don’t shoot a dog until he takes a lamb if you want the law on your side, but, fearing for my life, I pointed my gun at him—and he vanished to nowhere. I dropped the muzzle and, all of a shake, I peeped over my shoulder, only to see him behind me, the moonlight striking into his eyes like blue flames. With a choking, dizzy feeling I screwed my old gums together and up with my gun again—and again he vanished. Ay, and again he was behind me. How long he played with me in this fashion I don’t recollect, but, in the end, the gun went off of itself, and the next thing my grandson George, was helping me up and asking me if I felt better. And being three-score and ten, the following week I put by my crook and took to my old age pension. They say,” added the old shepherd, “he mostly comes as a warning that ‘tis time to retire; but I will mention that morning showed the snow trampled like a fold-yard, but never a print beyond the boundary wall.”

It Happened in Ireland

MANY years ago, I used to visit a brother and sister-in-law living in a rambling old house in Ireland. Nightly, the household would gather in the dining-room for prayers, after which we retired to our rooms—the maids to their quarters at the far end of the house—my brother and sister-in-law would leave me at my door and then pass down the corridor to their own room.

I am usually a sound sleeper. Nevertheless, midnight would find me awake listening to the ructions in the dining-room below—the click, click of glasses and decanters, excited voices, doors opening, banging—after a little while, silence. On the first occasion I asked my brother why he made so much unnecessary noise at midnight. He looked troubled and simply remarked that he had not gone downstairs again. I tackled my sister-in-law, but all to no purpose. Deciding that they were indulging in drinking bouts on the sly, I said no more.

One night, however, feeling very tired and unable to sleep because of the noise, I was furious and decided to see for myself what my relations were up to. I slipped on my dressing-gown and slippers and made for my door; but not before the handle was turned violently and, although in total darkness, I could feel a current of air from the open door (I always locked it before retiring). Then a tremendous “Force” seemed to be pushing me backwards towards the bed, where, conscious of another “presence” in the room, I fell back exhausted.

My brother and sister-in-law listened attentively to the recital of the previous night’s happenings, expressed their regret for so disturbed a night, and advised me to forget all about it.

Not a little chagrined at their reticence, I resolved to return home at once.

On the way to the station, I met the clergyman—a very intellectual man—who happened to be a frequent visitor at the house. I related the midnight happenings, my surmise, and, lastly, the unaccountable experience of the previous night. I quite expected him to pooh-pooh the whole thing. Instead, he looked very grave, said that in olden times the surrounding hills were infested by a band of particularly murderous brigands who made that house their occasional headquarters. Men were decoyed, robbed and disposed of within its gates. “And,” he ended, “we can but pray and hope that the poor, unquiet spirits may be granted a final resting-place. Do not, my child, make it a subject of idle gossip.”

A School Teacher's Story

SOME years ago, I, along with a sister ten years older than myself, was teaching in a Midland town. We had the greatest difficulty in obtaining rooms, no one seemed to want lady teachers. At last we succeeded, but not to our liking, as the house was old and gloomy and the landlady of a very saturnine countenance. We found she and her daughter were the only other occupants of the house.

As it was winter time, we asked if she had an attic where we could store our bikes. We were told that there was no attic.

We were nightly disturbed by strange sounds as of someone going up and down stairs and raking the fire—this, after the landlady and her daughter had retired hours before. When questioned, the landlady only replied that the house was old and creaky.

I was eighteen and full of ghosts, but my sister was of the cool unimaginative kind and not in the least nervy. She was constantly reassuring me that everything was all right, but I knew she thought different, as she never left me alone, and we always went up stairs together, even in the day time.

Our bedroom looked out on to the river, and the Midland railway ran between.

A chest of drawers stood in one corner, and one of the drawers was full of papers, which the landlady informed us were left by a previous boarder who had occupied our rooms, and promised to return for them. Several were legal-looking documents, and the rest a mass of old correspondence.

One day, as I was leaving the bath-room, a gleam of winter sunshine revealed an opening in the panelling opposite. On looking I saw a stair and a tray at the bottom with the remains of a meal. I immediately brought my sister. To say we were amazed is putting it mildly, after our landlady’s denial of an attic. We felt this had been the repast of our nightly disturber, but did not mention it to the landlady.

A few nights after, there was a singular happening. I awoke in the early hours to find my sister sitting up in bed. I drowsily asked her if she was ill, but she answered rather abruptly and told me to go to sleep. I was roused by her manner and sat up trying to peer into her face. After much questioning, she said: “There has been a man in this room.” Although I was terrified, I tried to laugh and say “That is impossible as our door is locked and bolted.”

My thoughts had gone to the occupant of the attic. She said: “This was no human visitor; he went over to the chest and examined the papers, and then came and leaned over the bed in a grief-stricken attitude.” She was so calm whilst telling it and described the man as very tall and slightly bent, with a sad face and iron-grey hair.

Needless to add, we prayed for daylight and got to school as early as possible, where our ghost caused great excitement, the other teachers giving credence to the story, coming from my sister and not my imaginative self.

On returning to our rooms for lunch, the landlady came in with a newspaper and pointed out a paragraph giving an account of a man being cut to pieces on the railway just at the back of the house. She said, “He had your rooms Miss, and those were his papers.” My sister said he was a tall man and went on to give the landlady a description of our midnight visitor. She said: “Why, Miss, did you know him,” and then my sister told her the story. She said it was an exact likeness of the man who had always promised to return for the papers. That explains our ghostly visitor. We made a hasty exit that same day.

Weeks after, we heard of the police raiding the house and capturing an escaped prisoner. It was the landlady’s husband, and she had had him in hiding all those weeks. That explained the tread on the stairs and the raking of the fire when the prisoner escaped from his attic hiding.