the place of execution, guarded by a party of Sir Charles Howard’s
Dragoons with fixed bayonets and muskets loaded with powder and ball,
where they joined fervently in the prayers with the minister, Croxford
delivering a paper to one of the attendant gaolers, which he desired
might be published for the satisfaction of the world. This document is
too long to quote _ad verbum_; a brief summary will suffice. In it John
Croxford says that he is about twenty-three years of age and by trade
a tailor, that he was born at Brixworth of creditable parents who gave
him a liberal education, and that his character and behaviour were very
good until about January 1760, when he got into bad company, which had
proved his ruin--this much he confessed, but denied that he had been
guilty of murder.
Benjamin Deacon writes that he was born at Spratton, is about
twenty-five years of age, and by trade a sawyer; that he bore a
tolerably good character until about Christmas last, when he committed
various crimes, but not murder.
Richard Butlin testifies that he was born of respectable parents at
Guilsborough, had a good education, is about twenty years of age, and
by trade a glover and breeches maker, that he has always borne a good
character and is innocent of murder.
The manuscript goes on to say that they--the said John Croxford, Benj.
Deacon and Richard Butlin--were to die the next day, being condemned on
the false oath of Ann Seamark, the vilest wretch that ever appeared
in a Court of Justice, and that there was not one word of truth in
her evidence and that of her boy, it being a hellish and malicious
contrivance of their’s to take away their lives, that Croxford was
never with Butlin until Guilsborough Feast, which was about the 25th of
October, and never was in the Close with Butlin and Deacon but once,
and that about the 15th of November, and never in the house with them;
and that in their opinion no murder had been committed.
That they did not doubt but the whole affair would be brought to light,
though too late to be of any service to them; and that they hoped Ann
Seamark would be rewarded according to her deserts, that they would die
in peace with her and with all the world, bearing her no malice, only
hoping the great God would make known their innocence.
The document winds up with these words: “Done in Northampton Gaol, the
night before the execution, as a caution to all good people. We, the
poor unhappy sufferers, do severally set our hands to this, it being
nothing but Truth,
“JOHN CROXFORD.
“BENJ. DEACON.
“RICHARD BUTLIN.”
At the place of execution they behaved with great fortitude, still
denying their knowledge of the murder, but confessing themselves guilty
of many irregularities. They gave much attention to the Divine Service,
and departed, advising all the spectators to beware of keeping bad
company and declaring that they died in peace with the world.
After their execution the body of Croxford was carried to Hollowell
Heath, in the parish of Guilsborough, where it was hanged in chains
on a gibbet erected for that purpose, the bodies of Deacon and Butlin
being delivered to a surgeon to be dissected.
This concludes the history of the Guilsborough murder, posterity
concurring with the verdict of the jury and agreeing that there were
sensible and useful grounds for the appearance of the Phantasm of the
perjured Croxford to the Chaplain of the Northampton Jail.
WOLSEY ABBEY, NEAR GLOUCESTER
THE DREADFUL SMELL
Technical form of apparitions: Phantasms of the dead
Source of authenticity: Copies almost _ad verbum_ from the MS.
lent me by Mrs. Browne, February 1908.
Cause of haunting: Vice and Premature Burial
My name is Elizabeth Rita Browne; I am a native of Birmingham and
my husband, John Alexander is the rector of a small parish near
Wolverhampton.
In the summer of 1900 my husband, who had long been ailing, never
having properly recovered from an attack of typhoid, was obliged to
take a holiday, engaging a locum to do his work.
Like the majority of clergymen, his stipend was not very large and
we could not, consequently, afford to go to any expensive place. An
advertisement in a well-known fashion gazette attracting our attention,
we at once made inquiries, with the result that Wolsey Abbey became
ours for three months at a practically nominal rent.
Of course it was in an extremely out-of-the-way spot; there was no
railway within six miles and the neighbourhood was dull, flat and
uninteresting; still we might have marvelled at getting it so absurdly
cheap, had we not heard that money was of no object to the owner, who
was a semi-millionaire.
We arrived early one evening in July; the sun was yet visible in the
sky and its dying efforts would have enhanced the meanest rural beauty.
I cannot say we were comfortably impressed with the building; it was of
course simply colossal compared with our own little home, but so grim
and grey, so forlorn and forbidding, and withal so inhospitable, that
a momentary fear seized me lest its leaden hued and crumbling walls
should prove our winding-sheets.
The grounds, overgrown with every imaginable kind of weed that here
attained Brobdingnagian dimensions, gently shelved down to the house,
which lay in a minute valley, dank, damp and dismal; the funereal
aspect being further augmented by clumps of giant pines and elms, the
shadows from which were already beginning to wave phantastically on
both walls and gables.
To our right, almost hidden by the thick foliage of the trees and
luxuriant herbage, we espied the twinkling surface of a sheet of water
which we subsequently learned was a tarn or lake of almost unfathomable
depth and darkness.
The principal feature of the mansion seemed to be that of antiquity, of
excessive antiquity, more particularly the Gothic monastic dome which,
resting on Norman columns, formed the termination of the left wing, the
right and central portion of the house dating back I believe to Henry
VIIth’s reign--though of this I have no positive proof.
The lapse of ages had wrought much discolouration, added to which was
the disfigurement caused by lichens and minute fungi that, spreading
over the whole exterior, hung in a fine tangled web-work from the
eaves. But apart from this there were no very great dilapidations, the
masonry remaining intact, whilst the woodwork, save for a few deep
rents and indentures, seemed to be in an extraordinarily good state of
repair.
The hand of nature had apparently been peremptorily and mysteriously
arrested in its work of dissolution and decay.
The inside of the house, though not belying the mournful expectations
we had formed from the exterior, drew from us all exclamations of
wonder and admiration--never had we seen such magnificent oak panelling,
nor such exquisitely carved ceilings, nor such vast stretches of
tapestry (worn and faded though it was), whilst the ebon blackness of
the floors, and the size and massiveness of the furniture, were what we
had hitherto only associated with the grandeur of a palace or castle.
My daughters Mary and Eunice were charmed and impressed, and both my
husband and I felt our misgivings rapidly diminish when a few minutes
later we were enjoying a dainty and well-cooked supper in one of the
large and stately reception rooms.
The first days of our sojourn there passed with the pleasant monotony
of well-earned rest; we rambled through the long and straggling and
seemingly interminable corridors of the house, and about the grounds
and gardens, finding much to marvel at, much to envy.
In the day time the sun struggling feebly through the trellised panes
of glass filled the rooms and passages with a crimson glow--a glow both
warming and enriching, but at various times and in certain places
startlingly and horribly suggestive of blood; the analogy struck me the
more forcibly each day I observed it, so much so that I grew afraid to
ascend the staircases--ALONE.
Mary and Eunice laughed at my misgivings; to them the house and
surroundings were the quintessence of mediæval splendour and romance;
they revelled in the grandeur of the interior trappings, in the freedom
of the vast park and gardens; it was only after the third week that
they, too, suddenly grew AFRAID.
But whereas my fears had been prompted by a comparison, a comparison
which, however near and repellent, still remained a COMPARISON, theirs
were generated by something which, although scarcely more tangible, was
unmistakably REAL.
They were constantly assailed by a SMELL--a cold, icy cold, pungent,
beastly smell, that would on some occasions approach them along a
corridor or staircase, and at others steal surreptitiously behind them
from some obscure nook or cranny.
It was foul, pestilential, inexplicable; they had never smelt anything
like it before; it was nothing recognisable; it neither emanated from
drainage nor from dead animals behind the skirting-boards; it was
nauseous, suffocating, freezing--and--as if it lived--it MOVED.
From the moment they first became aware of its presence, their pleasure
in the house ceased; all their time was now spent in the garden, but
in that part of the garden only whence no view of the tarn could be
obtained and where there were no trees.
Neither my husband nor I had encountered the Smell, but it was not
very long before the servants did--and--one by one they LEFT, nor could
we find any that were willing to take their place, the Abbey bearing a
very evil reputation in the neighbourhood.
The question of our daughters’ health began to cause us some anxiety;
were we doing right in remaining in the house and exposing them to the
danger of some serious malady? for although the origin of the Smell was
a mystery, the effect of so horrible a stench could not prove otherwise
than injurious.
We decided, therefore, to give up our tenancy at the expiration of
another week, the idea of quitting such palatial quarters and retiring
to the meanness of some petty villa or four-room cottage not disturbing
us half so much as our inability to arrive at the cause of that Smell.
In the silence of the night, when no other sounds were to be heard,
save the gentle beating of the branches against our window and the
occasional hooting of an owl, we lay awake and wondered, wondered why
it never came to us, but always to Mary and Eunice.
The house, I have said, was liberally furnished; both rooms and
passages were covered with soft if somewhat faded carpets; there was
no lack of tables, couches, chairs, &c., whilst the walls were adorned
with pictures which, though darkened by dust and blistered by the sun,
revealed the art of old and well-known masters; but it was the library
that attracted and pleased us most.
There arranged methodically in the ample bookcases were volumes of
every description; books of ancient lore, _Spectators_, _Tatlers_,
Richardson’s “Pamela,” Defoe’s “Moll of Flanders,” Tyndale’s Bible,
Dryden’s and Gifford’s Translations from the Classics, the Mysticisms
of Swedenborg, Behmen and Plotinus and countless others, many, even
of greater rarity and value, bound uniformly in those covers of rich
Moroccan leather so characteristic of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
One among all others had riveted our attention from the very first. I
have already alluded to the peculiar and ghastly phenomenon produced
by the sun’s rays penetrating the coloured glass in the corridors
and on the staircases; here it was even more pronounced though only
very locally, the full force of the rays being focussed in the most
startling manner on the metal clasp of a volume of stupendous size
and apparently vast antiquity; the result being that whereas the
entire book was bathed in a bloody halo, the others were left in a
comparatively clear and normal light.
Appalled yet fascinated by this unaccountable anomaly, we had several
times attempted to remove the volume in order to pry into its contents
but we were unable to do so, owing, we imagined, to its having stuck or
being fastened in some peculiar manner to the shelf--and we were afraid
to use any great force for fear of damaging the cover; consequently our
curiosity had to remain unsatisfied.
The night, however, preceding our departure from the Abbey (August
11) my husband had already left by a mid-day train, I was whiling
away the few remaining hours in the study--Mary and Eunice being as I
thought, engaged in packing--when--suddenly--I heard some one approach
the door as if on tiptoe. The next moment there came a loud knock and
the sonorous sound of the grandfather clock in the alcove beside me
commencing to strike seven, the two noises were almost simultaneous.
Wondering who my visitor could be--our only servant, a woman from the
nearest village, having left an hour ago--I smoothed my gown and walking
hastily to the door threw it open.
As I did so a current of cold air, tainted with the most disgusting
and detestable stench conceivable, sent me half staggering, half
choking backwards, and I perceived standing on the threshold, not ten
paces from me two figures of hellish horror. Featureless, fleshless,
foul, clad in the tattered, rotted garments of a monk and nun, they
confronted me motionless, silent, and then the voice of my Eunice
attracting their attention, they slowly wheeled round and glided
ghoulishly along the passage.
I gave one shriek of warning to Eunice as she hove in sight, carrying
in her arms a tray of odds and ends for me to sort.
For a second or so she stood too petrified to move--and--then--as
the THINGS appeared on the verge of touching her with their long,
outstretched arms, she dropped the tray and, uttering a kind of
terrified gasp, fled precipitately.
They did not pursue her, but gliding onward with the same mechanical
movements, suddenly vanished on reaching the wall at the end of the
corridor; nor did we, I am thankful to say see them again.
The SMELL had explained itself.
Anxious to get to Eunice and fearsome lest she should have fainted, I
was about to quit the study, when my eyes were attracted to an object
on the floor. It was the mysterious volume which, loosened from the
shelf in some miraculous fashion, had fallen to the ground, and now lay
open, its ponderous, gilded clasps undone and limp.
The fading sunlight concentrating its rays on the pages of the
book in a final and prodigiously bloody effort, enabled me to read
the following extract: “and for this great and unpardonable sin of
the Abbess Hilda and the Monk Nicholas, we--the Saintly and Beloved
Abbot Matthew, the learned Franciscan brother Raymond, the laymen and
labourers, Barber and Brooks together with I, Sir John Hickson Leigh,
Knight did entomb them alive, clasped in each other’s arms, cursing man
and blaspheming heaven, on the eve of the 11th day of August, 1521.
And of the exact spot in the Abbey of Wolsey wherein they be buried,
no man--save we who placed them there--knoweth, nor shall any discover
the same until the day cometh when the secrets of all flesh shall be
revealed.”
This much I read and no more for the light proving too strong for me, I
was compelled to remove my gaze and when I opened my eyes and saw again
the volume it had gone, and lo! to my intense and unfeigned amazement
it was back again in its customary place on the shelf, nor could the
united efforts of myself and daughters remove it from that spot.
Regarding this extraordinary incident, as the only feasible explanation
of the phenomena Eunice and I had seen, we could arrive at no other
conclusion than that the house (once Wolsey Abbey) was haunted by the
phantasms of the Abbess Hilda and the Monk Nicholas; and with such an
explanation we have had to be content.
NO. XYZ EUSTON ROAD
THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN IN THE HELIOTROPE SKIRT
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead
Source of authenticity: Personal experience of author
Cause of haunting: Murder
Of all the most annoying things in this world few are more so than
missing one’s train, especially when it happens to be the last in the
day.
This unpleasant experience happened to me one evening early
in September 1895. I came into Euston just as the 7 P.M. for
Northampton--the last train connected with Brixworth--was steaming out
of the station--and so, willy-nilly, I had to remain in town all night.
“Where to put up,” now became the absorbing question. I wanted to be
close to the station in order to catch the earliest morning train, but,
although there were plenty of rich men’s hotels, there seemed a sore
dearth of “go-betweens;” it was either five shillings the night or
sixpence; Purgatory or Hell: I could see no place that suited ME.
At last after traversing many squares and the more respectable of the
side streets, I retraced my steps, eventually alighting on a private
and inconsequential looking hotel in Euston Road.
The interior of the establishment was in keeping with the
exterior--gloomy and forbidding, and the damp, earthy smell that seemed
to rise from the basement made me gravely apprehensive of rheumatism;
still the tariff was in strict accordance with my means, and feeling
too tired to wander further, I decided to remain.
The room in which I had a very sparse supper was like the majority
of dining-rooms in middle-class hotels: overcrowded with unwieldy
furniture, frowsy, ill-ventilated; imagine that the table had been
laid once and for all (it had undoubtedly presented the same spectacle
for months), and that the cloth, never very white, was removed, only,
when it grew too begrimed even for the blunted susceptibilities of the
proprietress. I afterwards found that the beef did not belie its looks,
that the bread was in excellent accord, and that the water might well
have been the receptacle of innumerable generations of bacilli.
There were other visitors besides myself, either Germans or commercial
travellers, probably both; but as their conversation carried on
over plates of half raw meat, was neither particularly edifying nor
interesting, I preferred an antique number of _Vanity Fair_ until, at
length, tiring of that, I picked up a candlestick and made my way to
bed.
The moment I crossed the threshold of my room, that peculiar and
indefinable sensation that invariably suggests the immediate proximity
of the superphysical came over me, I felt sure the house was haunted.
But by what? Ah! that was the problem left for ME to solve.
The furniture of the room was of the orthodox lodging-house
type--inartistic, scant and seedy; a gaunt four-poster propped against
the middle of the wall running at right angles to the door was
adorned with exceedingly dirty valances of a nondescript pink and
white pattern; facing this was a fireplace the register of which was
of course down; to the left of this was a hanging wardrobe that I at
once examined and found to contain nothing more formidable than a
score or two of black-beetles that scuttled unceremoniously away into
holes at the sight of my candle; whilst on the opposite side of the
room, facing the window, was a rickety dressing-table surmounted by
a still more rickety looking-glass. In one corner of the room stood
a washing-stand from which the white paint had peeled in a hundred
places, and in the other corner a dismantled bureau that resembled some
vessel after a great storm. These, I believe, apart from a couple of
cane-bottomed chairs, constituted the entire furniture, nor can I say
this scantiness, taking into consideration the poorness of the quality,
was any matter of regret.
The carpet, undoubtedly the best feature of the room, and either an
Axminster or a Brussels--not being an expert on such a point I cannot
tell which--hid all the boarding save where the margins were stained
with a preparation of potash.
I give all these details to show that several years of practical
investigation of haunted houses had developed my inquiring faculties to
a very high degree, little, if anything, escaping my notice.
The _raison d’être_ of ghosts often lies where it is least expected; in
some article of furniture, not infrequently a cupboard near at hand, in
the panelling, the skirting, or, not infrequently again, on or under
the boards.
When I am in a haunted room, my first instinct, therefore, is to take a
very careful stock of my surroundings; the bare appearance or touch of
a piece of furniture often supplying me with the necessary clue.
On this occasion, however, nothing arousing my suspicions and feeling
abnormally sleepy, I bolted my door and lay on the bed; I say “on,”
not “in,” as a cursory glance at the pillow made me draw deductions as
to the sheets. Within a few minutes I went to sleep, falling into a
heavy, dreamless slumber from which I was suddenly and most alarmingly
awakened by the feeling I was no longer alone in the room.
Opening my eyes, I perceived the apartment flooded with a bright
unnatural light that apparently emanated from, or at all events
accompanied, the figure of a little old woman with yellow hair and a
heliotrope skirt. I noticed these idiosyncrasies of person and dress
directly, the nature of the light accentuating them, and my senses
being, as they always are in the presence of superphysical phenomena,
wonderfully and painfully acute.
Standing in front of the dressing-table, the eccentric individual
was examining herself with the greatest curiosity in the crazy
looking-glass to which allusion has already been made.
Her profile was angular, her lack of colour ghastly, whilst from her
ears hung that style of drop-earring worn by ladies in the days of the
crinoline; otherwise her costume might have belonged to the latter
seventies or early eighties. There was nothing actually HORRIBLE about
her, save her reflection, and as my eyes turned with irresistible
fascination towards the looking-glass, my blood turned to ice. The
surface of the mirror, made preternaturally bright, flashed back the
most hideous, the most incomparably HIDEOUS image of Fear.
Never! never in all my life had I seen depicted in aught but Wiertz’s
pictures such inconceivably awful terror as that which confronted me
there--and now as I gazed at it, a sickly curiosity seized me as to what
could be the origin of such Hellish Fear. Was it Fear of Death; of the
Unknown metetherical Abysses; of Eternal Damnation; of what?
Then--as I followed the direction of the dilating pupils--I saw--God
help me--the Cause! Descending from a few inches above her head were
the snake-like coils of a rope. Had I been able to turn my head, maybe
I should have seen whence they came; but I could not move a muscle,
and could only feel the keynote to some great and hitherto unsolvable
mystery was at hand but purposely hidden from me.
There was scant time for speculation. The enactment of this drama was
brief as it was lurid; uttering an appalling scream that was quickly
converted into a gurgle of the most blood-curdling significance, the
old lady clawed the air with her spidery fingers.
The murderer was pitiless, the noose coming to with an irresistible
snap, jerked the wretched victim off her feet.
For one instant--the most harrowing of all--I watched her falling
backwards; watched the changing of her deadly pallor into a deep
and vivid purple, watched the rolling of her starting eyeballs, the
foam-flakes on her lips, and the frenzied movements of her stiffening
arms and then--THEN--as she struck the ground with a reverberating
crash--all was darkness. The ghostly tragedy for this night at least was
over.
This I realised, but my nerves being too completely unstrung by what I
had witnessed to allow me to sleep, I crept under the counterpane and
lay there shivering till the welcome rays of early dawn converted the
room into another place. My first movement was to examine the scene of
the ghostly murder, and upon turning up the carpet, I discovered not a
bloodstain, but a comparatively new piece of boarding!
With that, drawing my own conclusions, I had to rest content--there was
nothing else in the room that could in any way have been transmuted
into evidence.
The moment the clock struck six I picked up my valise, and gobbling
down a lukewarm breakfast with little relish, quitted the house,
determining to pay it another visit before very long.
In this, however, I was doomed to disappointment. Some months elapsed
before I could again visit the neighbourhood of Euston, and when I did
so, I found the hotel had vanished nor have I to this day been able to
identify the house wherein I slept.
I have but lately been informed that a good many years ago (when we
middle-aged fogies were mere children) a singularly repulsive murder
was committed at a house in or near Euston Road, the victim being
a somewhat extraordinary old lady. Further details I do not know,
therefore I can only surmise that what I saw may possibly have been HER
phantasm--but please remember, it is ONLY a surmise.
PANMAUR HOLLOW MERIONETH
THE BLACK PEDLAR