No. 3 suddenly emptied on to the floor. Loud crashes in all parts of
the house.
“April 10, 11 P.M. On going up to bed, we find room No. 4 aglow with
a pale green light and filled with a faint sickly odour, which we at
once recognised as identical with that smelt there at the time of my
mother’s decease and which we considered was peculiar to her disease.
“I must mention that after her death, the room had been thoroughly
renovated, the old flooring replaced by new, the walls repapered and
everywhere well disinfected with the strongest carbolic. My mother had
died at 11 P.M.
“April 12, 13, 14, 15; 11 P.M. The same light and smell.
“April 20. Joan fell over some large obstacle in the hall, hurting
herself badly. She could see nothing, but was half suffocated with a
stench similar to the one already described.
“April 30, 2.20 A.M. Both my wife and I distinctly felt something brush
across our faces. We lit a candle and perceived to our horror two long
black antennæ (like the antennæ of a monstrous beetle) waving to and
fro on our pillow.
“We spent the rest of the night on the drawing-room chairs and sofa.
“May 1. Shut up the house.”
NOTE.--An attempt to solve the mystery surrounding these hauntings
will appear in a subsequent volume.
THE WAY MEADOW, SOMERSET
THE INVISIBLE HORROR
Technical form of haunting: Unknown
Source of authenticity: Personal and other experiences
Cause of haunting: Unknown
In my boyhood days I was very fond of making long excursions on foot,
my peregrinations taking me many miles from Bristol, which was at that
time my home. On one of these occasions I took a route that led me past
Bath, and eventually arrived at a village that particularly fascinated
me.
Lying in a hollow by the side of a sluggish river, or stream, it
presented an exceedingly attractive appearance to my somewhat romantic
eyes. I especially liked the whitewashed cottages, with their thatched
roofs, diamond-fashioned window-panes, walls and trellised arches
covered with jasmine and Virginian creepers; their tiny gardens
crowded with foxgloves and roses, and their quaint, their very quaint
chimney-pots, from which arose spiral columns of fleecy-looking smoke.
It was a pretty village, a pre-eminently peaceful village; a village
that was rendered almost fantastic by the close proximity of a queerly
constructed water-mill; it was a sunny village, remarkably hot in
summer, but intensely cold in winter.
The stream to which I have alluded ran its tortuous course through a
succession of open meadows. In the corner of one was a pond, a deep
and silent piece of water that was supposed to be connected in some
way with the miniature river. It struck me as a very proper place for
a bathe, the weeping willows that fringed its margins affording an
effectual screen to the prying eyes of children; whilst the gently
sloping banks of spongy grass were softer to the tread than any towel.
To add to my inducements the sun was unusually hot, which made the
thought of a bath very tempting after my long tramp over dry monotonous
roads.
Plunging in, I was, however, immeasurably surprised to find that,
despite the abnormal heat, the water was icy cold, and that the
scalding rays from above did not appear to have the slightest effect on
the temperature.
Taking a few rapid strokes, I found myself nearing the opposite bank,
and was preparing to turn about when a sudden panic seized me, and,
fancying I was being pursued, I scrambled ashore.
Seeing nothing, and consequently assured that my fears were due to
the trickeries of imagination, I once again entered the water and was
well on my return voyage when I experienced the same sensation. I
seemed to feel the presence of some extremely hostile and repulsive
body--something that lived in the pool and bitterly resented intrusion.
So strong was this feeling that I would not on any account have bathed
there again--at least, not alone.
In response to my inquiries in the village, I learned that the meadow,
which went by the name of “The Way,” bore a very evil reputation,
being carefully avoided by the local people after nightfall. Though
nothing had been actually seen there, those who had attempted to cross
the field in the dusk emphatically declared they were assailed by an
“invisible something” that was indescribably cold and horrid, and that
they only escaped from it after the most strenuous exertions.
Nothing short of force would induce a dog or a horse to enter the
meadow, and farmers fought shy of letting their cattle graze there;
indeed, should any farmer be so foolish as to do so his beasts
invariably died.
I suppose I looked a trifle sceptical at this, as the blacksmith
remarked: “Don’t smile, sir; if you saw Way Field, and especially the
pool, after twilight, you would form a very different idea of it to
what you do now. In the day-time it is, as you see, all sunlight and
daisies, an ideal spot for tea in the hay; but in the evening the
aspect undergoes a complete change. The temperature is invariably lower
there than it is in any of the other meadows, whilst the shadows that
crowd upon the grass are not in the least representative of any trees!
Curious, sir, is it not?”
I readily agreed it was curious, and I was so deeply impressed by
all that had occurred that, years afterwards, when chance once again
brought me in the district, I lost no time in setting off to visit the
pond.
To my astonishment it was gone, and its site was now occupied by the
kitchen garden of a large house, evidently the abode of some person of
means.
I made inquiries and had but little difficulty in obtaining an
introduction to the owner who was not only acquainted with what I
already knew, but was able and willing to give me further information,
with the stipulation, however, that on no account must I mention either
his name or that of the locality. He wanted, he explained, to sell the
place and he could not hope to get a fair price for it, if the story of
the hauntings appeared in print.
“I have been here three years!” he began, “during which time I have
had no less than eight housekeepers and twenty-five servants (my usual
staff consists of four); that signifies a good few changes. Eh?”
“Yes, it has been a confounded nuisance!” he went on, “none of them
would stay on account of the ghost! I pooh-poohed the thing at first,
although I honestly felt there was something very queer about the
place, but when one after another came to me with the same yarns, I was
obliged to admit there might be something in it.
“Their complaints, though differing slightly in small
technicalities--due, perhaps, to their unequal descriptive powers--were
on the whole co-incidental; frightful dreams, sudden awakenings
without any apparent cause, strange creakings on the staircases, the
foot-falls of something soft and indefinable, the rattling and turning
of door handles, and over and above everything else the most pronounced
feeling of insecurity.
“‘I won’t on any account remain downstairs after the rest have gone to
bed,’ one of my housekeepers observed on my asking her to sit up for
me, ‘the very first night I stayed here--before I had heard any rumour
of the place being haunted--I underwent the most unpleasant sensations
on being left alone. I instinctively felt some uncanny creature had
begun to walk the house as soon as the lights were out. No, sir. I am
ready and anxious to fulfil all my other duties, save this, and if it
is really indispensable, why I fear, sir, you must get someone else in
my place.’
“This I promptly did, but all to no effect. The newcomer had not been
with me a week before she approached me with a very woe-begone face.
“‘I am sorry, sir,’ she said, ‘I must give notice. I am by no means
nervous, indeed I have always laughed at ghosts, but there is something
unmistakably the matter with this place, especially the garden!’
“‘The garden!’ I exclaimed, ‘Come, it’s the first time I have heard
there’s anything amiss with the garden.’
“‘But not the last, I’ll warrant you,’ she remarked caustically. ‘Why
sir, unless I am very much mistaken, the origin of the disturbances
lies in that garden, over there,’ and she shot a bony forefinger (why
should housekeepers invariably have bony fingers?) in the direction of
the filled-in pond. ‘As I was gathering some lettuce there last night
I felt (I could see nothing) some horribly cold and sticky thing clasp
me in its arms. It must have been hiding among the raspberry canes.
Struggling with all my might I managed to free myself just as a mass of
fetid jelly was closing over my throat and mouth. Oh! how desperately
I struggled, and what a blessed relief it was to be free from that
loathsome presence. I can assure you, sir, I ran across the garden as
fast as any girl, nor did I pause for one second, till Johnson and
one of the maids came to my assistance. They did not ask me what had
happened, bless you sir, they knew! Nor was a word said about it at
supper, no one dare even as much as mention the thing by gaslight!’
“It was useless, Mr. O’Donnell, to try and persuade the woman to remain
with me after THAT, she went and, by the bye, I have just heard she has
recently undergone an operation for tumour in some provincial hospital.
“With my next housekeeper I was rather more fortunate. She stayed with
me for more than six months before showing any of the usual signs of
restlessness.
“Then she came to the point without the least embarrassment, springing
her surprise on me over the breakfast cups.
“‘I must leave!’ she said demurely, proceeding at the same time to pour
out the coffee, ‘there is a certain dampness here that is very trying
to one subject to rheumatism, as well as to one’s nerves.’
“I started guiltily. ‘A dampness! Nerves! you astonish me,’ I
stammered, ‘pray explain yourself.’ She did so.
“‘What I mean is,’ she observed, ‘that I can never enter the lower part
of the kitchen garden without being persistently followed by a “mist”--I
should have put it down to mere imagination, had I not accidentally
heard some one speak about the ghost, and I at once concluded that the
mist must in some way be connected with it--am I not right?’
“Of course I assented--what else could I do?
“‘I thought so,’ she went on demurely, ‘I suppose you do not think it
necessary to tell your applicants the place is haunted?’
“I shook my head feebly and muttered: ‘Continue.’
“‘Last night,’ she said, ‘the mist was more pertinacious than ever--it
not only pursued me in the garden, but came to my window after I had
gone to bed. I was looking at the moon when the temperature of the room
suddenly fell to zero, the moonlight blurred, and to my amazement I saw
the mist clinging to the window-pane. Mr. ----, I am not a nervous woman
as a rule, but I wouldn’t stay in this house another month under any
conditions.’
“She went--and once again I had to go through all the bother of
advertising. The wretched thing now began to haunt more vigorously
than ever. It attacked Emily, the cook, on the kitchen staircase, and
Mark, my general factotum, in the stables, both leaving in consequence,
and both being afterwards taken very ill. Indeed it was the report
of their illness that prompted me to wage war against the ghost--if
I had to leave the house, it should not be till I had ascertained
something more definite about my enemy. I would try and discover its
identity--what it actually was! With this end in view I laid every
trap imaginable, my ingenuity being at length rewarded by finding a
faint and barely perceptible impression on the surface of a very large
tray full of a carefully prepared mixture of gelatine and wax. I had
placed the tray in one of the passages usually frequented by the EVIL
PRESENCE. On examining the impression under a powerful microscope I
fancied I could detect innumerable granules composed of radiating
threads with bulbous terminations.
“Elated at my success and wondering very much what it represented, I
took a photograph of the impression and sent it to a medical friend--a
bacteriologist--in London, whom I knew to be interested in psychical
research. In the course of a few days he came to see me, and, pointing
to the wax tablet, remarked:
“‘I showed the photograph you sent me to some of my colleagues, and we
came to the conclusion that the impression bore a distinct likeness to
a number of actinomyces, which, as you may know, are a kind of fungi
inimically disposed to every kind of animal--cattle in particular.
Indeed they are in the main responsible for one of the most common and
deadly bovine diseases which is called actinomycosis, and is acquired
by cattle eating infected barley or other cereal, the actinomyces
adhering to the tongue or jaw.
“‘In man the disease is very similar in its clinical character and may
be caused by a number of organisms belonging to the streptothrix group
(I fear this is rather too technical for you) forming colonies in the
tissues and obtaining access to the body from a carious tooth or not
infrequently from the tonsil.
“‘The disease is sometimes wrongfully diagnosed as tuberculosis; it
usually occurs in farmers, millers, and others who are brought in
contact with grain; it has a tendency to spread locally, and although
not dangerous in itself, may become so by attacking important organs or
by becoming generalised, thereby giving rise to pyæmic abscesses in all
parts of the body.
“‘In the description of the assault on your housekeeper, to which you
gave special prominence (and rightly so) in your letter, you mentioned
that the EVIL PRESENCE tried to “get at her mouth”--well that would be
in strict accordance with the _modus operandi_ of actinomyces, the
primary endeavour of which is to obtain a passage through the lips.
Furthermore, you gathered from local gossip that the unfortunate woman
had undergone an operation in some provincial hospital for tumours;
now tumours are usually one of the sure indications of the nature and
progress of the disease.
“‘Lastly, you referred to fatality in any cattle allowed to graze in
the haunted meadow. Now you know from what I have already told you that
cattle are the favourite victims of the fungi.
“‘From these deductions then, one must inevitably arrive at the
conclusion--that the haunting here is due to nothing more or less than
the phantasm of a giant mass of ACTINOMYCES--and as this type of spirit
would undoubtedly be proof against exorcism my only advice to you is to
shut up the house and go.’
“Afterwards, with a view to corroborate my friend’s theory, partly
for his satisfaction, partly for my own, I am afraid, Mr. O’Donnell,
I agreed to rather a cruel thing--the proposal being that we should
experiment on one of our dogs--Spot. Turning him loose in the lower
extremity of the garden, we took up a position in the loft of a
neighbouring barn, where we clearly saw each act in the grim but
exciting drama.
“To begin with, Spot did not at all appreciate being left alone.
From the very first he manifested distinct signs of uneasiness, his
preliminary barks of disapproval speedily changing to those of fear and
culminating in howls of positive terror, as tucking his tail between
his legs, he careered madly round the enclosure.
“He did not, however, keep up this pace for long, but soon showed
unmistakable signs of flagging, coming to an abrupt halt sooner than we
had expected.
“The Evil Presence had, we felt sure, got hold of him.
“Thrust back on his haunches and snapping viciously, his eyes
protruding and his mouth foaming, poor Spot presented such an
appearance of impotence and terror that I rose to interfere and would
doubtless have done so, had I not been persuaded to the contrary by my
medical friend, whose professional interests he either could not or
would not sacrifice for the sake of sentiment.
“Poor Spot eventually died, and our _post mortem_ pointed to
ACTINOMYCOSIS--his body being literally perforated with abscesses.
“Thus you see, Mr. O’Donnell, in discovering the identity of the
phantasm I accomplished--in part at all events--my purpose; the cause of
the haunting must, I am afraid, remain a mystery.”[5]
[5] In a subsequent volume I have attempted to give a
satisfactory solution.
NO. -- HACKHAM TERRACE SWINDON
THE GHASTLY SCREAMS ON THE STAIRCASE
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of dead
Cause of hauntings: Unknown
Last December I journeyed up from Cornwall, as usual, to the annual
concert given by my old school, Clifton College, and at the subsequent
House Supper I made the acquaintance of several O. C.s who were
considerably my juniors in point of age.
We chatted together for a long time, and in the course of our
conversation touched upon the superphysical.
“You couldn’t have a better authenticated instance of a haunted house,”
one of my young friends remarked, “than that of No. --, Hackham Terrace,
Swindon. Isn’t that so, Neilson? You come from Swindon.”
Neilson agreed.
“I know the people who live there,” my informant, Jarvis, continued,
“and they have seen and heard the phantasm over and over again.”
“What form does it take?” I asked.
“A shrieking woman’s.”
“Like the ghost of Tehiddy,” I ejaculated.
“I have never heard of the ghost of Tehiddy,” Jarvis rejoined, “but
I cannot conceive anything more gruesome than the Hackham Terrace
apparition. Let me tell you some of Mrs. Belmont’s experiences.
“You must know the house is quite new, the Belmont’s being the first
tenants, and that nothing has been discovered, so far, that can in any
way account for the hauntings.
“To proceed, about a month after they had taken the house, every one
was aroused in the middle of the night by a succession of the most
unearthly screams, coming, so it seemed, from the basement of the house.
“For some seconds no one ventured out of their rooms, and then, Mrs.
Belmont very pluckily taking the lead, other members of the family
followed her down-stairs.
“Arriving at the commencement of the passage leading to the kitchen,
they all saw an indefinable black object lying on the ground.
“Frozen to the spot with horror, the Belmonts watched the thing slowly
rise, developing as it did so until it assumed the appearance and
dimensions of a gigantic naked woman. But what was so inconceivably
horrid about her was the face: she had no eyes, their places being
filled by ordinary flesh.
“Confronting them for some moments in silence, she suddenly and
without the least warning assumed a horizontal position in mid-air,
dematerialised, and passed through the wall in the guise of a
rectangular mass of pale blue light. Could anything be more ghastly?”
“It has parallels in the luminous woman known as Proctor’s ghost,
Wellington, near Newcastle, and in a house, also new, in Portishead.
Can you tell me any further experiences there?”
“Yes,” Jarvis rejoined; “one of the servants was breaking coal in
the cellar one evening, when the hammer was unceremoniously snatched
from her hand, the candle blown out, and a blue, tatooed arm thrust
so roughly against her face that one of her front teeth was actually
loosened.
“She screamed, and the arm vanished.
“Still another incident: One of the Belmont boys, Percy, was preparing
to get into bed one night, when something caught him sharply by the
foot, and looking down, he saw to his surprise a large hairy hand
encircling his ankle.
“He particularly noticed the nails, which, though filbert in shape,
were excessively long and dirty.
“Mumbling a prayer, the first that came into his mind, he emphasised
it by a violent kick. He could not say which produced the desired
effect--the prayer or the kick--but the hand let go its hold, and the
next moment a shapeless mass of blue something rising from the bed, and
hovering for the briefest duration of time on a level with his eyes,
disappeared through the ceiling.
“On another occasion, when Mrs. Belmont was in the conservatory
watering flowers, one of the pots behind her suddenly fell to the
ground with a crash.
“She turned round and found herself confronted by a blue face that
occupied the spot where the pot had stood.
“Too dismayed and startled even to think of escape, she stood rooted to
the spot, gazing at the evil thing in open-mouthed horror. What was it?
“Though resembling a man in contour and features, its expression was
too thoroughly bestial to belong to anything human.
“The eyes, deep, sunken and lurid, leered malignantly at her, whilst
the mouth was distorted into a diabolical grin.
“The apparition had no body.
“Mrs. Belmont is of the opinion she might have stayed there till
doomsday had not the unexpected arrival of the gardener scared the
thing away--it disappeared as he entered the greenhouse door and its
place was once again taken by the flower-pot!
“Mrs. Belmont had another unpleasant experience only this week.
“As she was crossing the landing to her bedroom one morning, some one
seized her by her shoulders, and, pulling her violently backwards,
threw her on the floor.
“She was then gripped by the throat (so firmly that the impressions of
the fingers could be seen next day), and on looking up she encountered
the same awful face she had seen in the conservatory.
“The hateful thing was now in full possession of a body which, blue and
hairy, accorded well with the strangely animal expression in its eyes.
“Mrs. Belmont was too fascinated and horror-stricken to struggle, and
she thinks she would undoubtedly have been strangled had not succour
once again arrived at the most opportune moment.
“Her rescuer this time was Bruce, a very pugnacious Irish terrier.
“Nothing daunted, and contrary to what one is led to expect from the
generality of psychic tales, Bruce flew at the figure.
“The phantasm immediately dissolved into a blue vapour and vanished.
“I could enumerate many other occasions on which similar occult
phenomena occurred in the house; sometimes the eyeless woman would be
seen gliding down the staircase or heard screaming in the passages; at
other times the blue man would pounce upon his unsuspecting victims
out of some dark sequestered corner, or frighten them to the verge
of a fit, by simply peering at them through a door or window--the
manifestations always terminating in a bluish vapour.”
“The house, you say, was quite new,” I observed.
Jarvis nodded.
“Then the history of the hauntings,” I replied, “must either be in
some piece of furniture or in the ground itself. The blue man with the
bestial expression in his face and tatoo-marks on his arms suggests to
me the probability that he is a phantasm of an ancient Celt.
“Possibly he was a suicide or murderer; possibly he was neither, but is
merely tied to this earth by his animal propensities--in either case, he
would hover round the place of his burial, and his naturally ferocious
spirit would be rendered doubly ferocious at being disturbed.
“The woman, of course, may have been some one associated with him in
this life--the lack of eyes the sign of some dreadful depravity in her
nature.”[6]
[6] A more thorough solution to these hauntings will appear in
a subsequent volume.
APPENDIX TO NO. -- HACKHAM TERRACE, SWINDON
At Jarvis’s request, I related to him the story of “The Screaming Woman
of Tehiddy,” taken from a collection of remarkable narratives on the
certainty of supernatural visitations from the dead to the living,
impartially compiled from the works of Baxter, Wesley, Simpson, &c.
I chose this tale as the least hackneyed and best authenticated of the
many accounts I had heard of similar occult phenomena. It is given in
the original text, the extracts being taken from the letter of one
“S. W.” to his friend “Charles.”
“I had occasion one day,” he writes, “to visit the hamlet of Barnley,
some miles distant from Tehiddy, where I was staying with some
relations. My stay was unexpectedly prolonged till a late hour, and
having promised to be at home before night, I was compelled to set
out on my return much after the period at which it ought to have been
commenced. Part of my road lay through a thick and lonely forest, and I
confess that the task of traversing it would have been more agreeable
at an earlier opportunity.