dark journey I was preparing to take did not tend to raise them. I
swallowed a hasty cup of coffee with my friend, shook him cordially by
the hand, and mounting my horse, was soon at a considerable distance
from his house.
“I was approaching the verge of the forest, and had just entered a
narrow outlet from it, when I heard the roll of distant thunder and
felt the wet and heavy droppings of a copious rain. Having scarcely a
league farther to travel before I reached home, I determined to urge
my horse to the utmost, and escape, if possible, by his speed, from
the impending storm. He broke at once into a gallop, when I struck
him with the spur, but had scarcely gone a hundred paces before I was
thrown from the saddle by his abrupt stopping, and pitched with the
greatest violence to the ground. I lay stunned for a few moments by the
fall; the first thing that brought me to a sense of my situation was a
_hoarse scream_, uttered by some person who breathed close to my ear.
The rein, which I had continued to grasp in falling, was at that moment
torn violently out of my hand--I heard the noise of my courser’s hoofs
as he started back--the scream was repeated, and something rushed past
me that clanked as it went like a horseman’s heavy iron-cased sabre.
I sprang up from the earth and threw out my arms to ascertain if any
individual were actually passing; but the avenue was so narrow that I
touched the hedges on each side of it, and felt instantly convinced
that nothing human could have gone by. A recollection now flashed upon
me that there was a tale of extreme horror connected with this part of
the forest, and in spite of the principles which I summoned to my aid,
it was in a mood of mingled desperation and amazement that I reflected
on the circumstances with which my memory supplied me.
“The infirmary of Tehiddy, about twenty years ago, contained a female
patient who was known by the name of Martha, and had been admitted to
that asylum at the instance of a stranger. He stated himself to be
her husband, and assured the director of the institution, with the
appearance of the deepest sorrow, that she laboured under a lunacy of
the most stubborn sort, which nothing but the most severe discipline
attributed to his house was likely to abate.
“He advanced a large sum for the maintenance of this unhappy creature,
saw her lodged in one of the strongest cells of the establishment, and,
having recommended an unsparing use of the scourge, thought proper to
depart. His meaning was not misunderstood. The shrieks of poor Martha
were heard day and night in the vicinity of her dungeon, and suspicions
soon prevailed that she was being sacrificed to the cruelty of her
merciless keepers. An investigation of the case was proposed by some
humane and spirited people, but a calamity of the most awful kind put a
stop to their endeavours. Martha was found dead on the borders of the
forest, at the very spot I have described to you, a piece of ragged
iron being clenched in her grasp, with which she had torn and gashed
her throat in a dreadful manner. The escape of this wretched being was
never well explained, and hints were dropped that she had not left the
prison alive. Her bloody and mangled remains excited a strong sensation
among those who inspected them. Marks of the chain and the whip were
conspicuous on every part of her body, and long tufts of her thin grey
hair were glued together by the stream that had issued from a deep
fracture in her head. The tokens of suicide, however, were undeniable,
and the remains of the poor maniac were in consequence buried near the
place where they were found.
“This occurrence had scarcely ceased to be the subject of conversation,
when the whole town of Tehiddy was agitated by events of a yet more
appalling character. _Hoarse screams_ were heard in the still dark
hours of night, and a pale bloodless face was seen pressing against
several of the chamber windows. Fraud or delusion were naturally
suspected in a business of this nature, and the most scrutinising
inquiries were made into the evidence on which it rested. No detection
took place, and the screams soon became so frequent that not a person
continued to question their existence.
“It was midnight when I reached home, exhausted by anxiety and fatigue,
and, being provided with a key to my apartments, the people of the
house had not waited up to receive me. I drew off my boots and upper
coat as a preliminary to the act of undressing, and seated myself in a
large antique chair, from which, when divested of my clothes, I usually
stepped into bed. Here I fell asleep owing to excessive weariness, and
may the next slumber that is likely to end in so horrible a way be
never broken.
“A dream was upon me full of blood and death; the shrieking maniac
flitted through my brain in a thousand forms, and seemed, at one time,
to stand over me brandishing a sword of fire.
“The next moment, I lay benumbed, as it were, in my seat, while the
maniac advanced from a dark corner of the room, bearing in her right
hand a human skull replete with some poisonous sort of drink. This
horrible potion was lifted to my lips, which seemed to shut in vain
against it, the long, bony fingers of the phantom being thrust into my
mouth, so as to force a passage for her accursed mixture. It trickled
down to my very heart in slow, cold drops, and when lodged there
seemed, by a sudden transition, to burn and glow like flames of Etna;
spellbound as I was, such extreme agony passed my powers of endurance.
I uttered a frantic cry and sprang up from the chair, darting towards
the hag by whom my torment was inflicted. The glare of her red eyes
grew stronger as I advanced, and a lean, sallow arm was put out to
repel me. Fearing the detested touch, I hastily drew back; some article
of furniture intercepted me; I fell, and was plunged from the fall into
a chasm, which opened through the floor. The shock of this awoke me,
and the first proof I obtained of my actual perception was the sound of
that _hoarse scream_ which a few hours before had been uttered in the
forest. This scream was repeated--it seemed to issue from the windows.
I heard the casement flap, as if a strong wind were shaking it; and
though my sinews shrank and withered at the noise, yet I staggered to
this window as fast as my feet would carry me. A ray of light flashed
in as I reached it, and there, pressed close against the glass, I saw
the same pale, bloodless visage that has been already figured to you.
“Maddened by the sight, I clenched my hand and drove it fiercely at the
apparition.
“Its lips quivered--the _scream_ rang again through the apartment. I was
found next day without sense or motion, my hand dreadfully cut, and the
window shivered to pieces.”
PARK HOUSE, WESTMINSTER
THE CAVALIER’S GHOST
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead
Source of authenticity: Miscellaneous collection of Ghost Stories
by Baxter, Wesley and Simpson
Cause of haunting: Murder
(The following story is told _ad verbum_ in the language of the
eye-witness, the quaintness of his style being accounted for
by the period in which he lived.)
“I was always a very strong-minded man, and, until the time about which
I am going to speak, always ridiculed the idea of ghosts.
“You must know that about two years ago[7] I went to lodge at an
ancient house in Westminster, where nothing remarkable happened to me
for about three months; and then, on a night in November (too well do I
remember it), I saw such an appalling sight as I never before beheld.
[7] (Probably 1780.--ED.)
“Even were I starving to-morrow, I would not again enter that room--no,
not for a thousand pounds! I had been to the theatre, and on my way
home had drunk a single pint of porter, so that no doubt of my sobriety
can exist for a moment.
“My room was on the second storey of a house that, I should suppose,
had weathered well-nigh four hundred years, and was in former days an
isolated habitation.
“The room, surrounded by a wainscoting of oak to the height of five
feet, was very lofty, and even in the lightest days, owing to the
narrowness of the windows, was extremely gloomy. As I said before,
I returned from the theatre, and the snuff of the candle, which I
had extinguished on getting into bed, had not ceased to emit its
disagreeable effluvia when I beheld--my blood freezes when I think of
it--a young man, dressed in the habit of days gone by, gliding through
the wainscoting on the opposite side of the apartment to where I lay.
“I was completely paralysed--trembled violently in every limb--and the
perspiration fell in torrents from my brows.
“I felt for some time as if every nerve was cut asunder and every sense
benumbed.
“I exerted myself to speak, but in vain; my tongue cleaved to the roof
of my mouth, and I was obliged to remain a horror-stricken and inactive
spectator of the scene before me.
“The apparition remained for nearly ten minutes, which was ample time
for me to convince myself that it was no idle chimera of a diseased
imagination that stood before me. Yet although it remained so long a
time, I could not command sufficient resolution to challenge it or
summon any one to my aid--for I felt as though deprived of all energy,
and, in fact, I was so during the whole time of its visit, though my
sense of perception and consciousness were painfully acute.
“The expression of the countenance was peculiarly mild, and the
rich dark locks falling about the forehead and shoulders, and the
mustachios of the same hue, showed in horrid relief against the ashy,
chilling, and livid hue of the face.
“He wore a doublet of a kind of chocolate colour, richly embroidered
with gold lace, full loose breeches of a yellow leather, ornamented
uniformly with the doublet, and from each was suspended a bunch of
ribbon, adorned with a metal tag, reaching down nearly to the broad and
drooping tops of his light russet boots.
“A large travelling-cloak of dark blue cloth reached from the shoulders
down to the heels, hanging in full folds over the left arm, which was
extended towards the fireplace of my apartment.
“While I was gazing on him in stupid astonishment and terror, he raised
his right hand, and lifting from his head his broad, sable-feathered
hat, discovered to my agonising sight a deep and bloody wound in the
centre of the forehead.
“This action he then followed up with sighs and gesticulations which,
although I could not clearly understand, were apparently intended to
warn me of some impending danger.
“Harrowing as the sight was to my feelings, it was a mere nothing
to what I suffered when I beheld him advance, slowly and almost
imperceptibly, towards the spot where I lay, and fixing his dark,
piercing gaze upon me for nearly a minute, hold me in a more painful
and horrid inactivity than that in which the basilisk is said to hold
its victim.
“Although I knew from the expression in his eyes he wished me to
speak, and much as I desired to hear from him some of the mysteries
attached to the superphysical world, I could not articulate a sound (a
phenomenon which I have since learned invariably happens to psychists
at the crucial moment).
“At length he retired towards the wainscot, and raising both his
hands in the attitude of prayer, remained apparently wrapped in
deep contemplation for nearly three minutes, and then suddenly
disappeared--sinking into the floor at the bottom of the wainscotting.
As you may well suppose, I did not close my eyes again that night, but
as soon as it was light I proceeded to my landlord’s room, roused him,
and demanded to settle my account, for I determined in my own mind
never to re-enter the house which was visited in so superhuman a manner.
“With astonishment in his countenance, he received the amount of my
rent, at the same time inquiring what had caused this sudden aversion
to my apartment.
“I answered evasively, and as I left him I thought I observed a kind
of lurking consciousness of something wrong in his countenance, which
led me to surmise he was fully aware of the mysterious visits of the
apparition; and so it proved in the end, for, happening to meet him one
day in the park, I inveigled him into confessing that it was reported
in the neighbourhood that the house, and particularly the room in which
I slept, was haunted by the troubled spirit of a young cavalier of King
Charles the Second’s days, said to have been murdered there. ‘And,’ he
added, ‘during the time he had kept the house, no less than nine people
had left the apartment on account of the disturbances. He had concealed
this from me,’ he concluded, ‘fearing I might add one more to the list
of lodgers scared away by the supernatural vision.’”
GLOSSARY
ELEMENTAL. Otherwise known as Poltergeist. There are too many species
of this genus of spirit for me to attempt a classification in this
work. Broadly defined, an Elemental is a phantasm that has never
inhabited any kind of earthly body whether animal or vegetable. It
may be sub-human, as in the case of the Clock-ghost of Mulready;
sub-animal, as in the case of the Guilsborough apparition; or
sub-vegetable, as in the case of the ACTINOMYCES phenomenon near
Bath.
It is generally, but not always inimically disposed towards man.
One type of it, viz., the gnome, pixie, &c., avoid humanity as
much as possible; other types are merely mischievous, delighting
to frighten children by visiting their nurseries or pouncing out
upon them when at play in some deserted building or lonely by-road;
whilst other species are wholly evil, generating bacilli of foul
diseases or urging man to the commission of vicious acts and crime.
Their origin I reserve for another volume.
GHOST. The general name for phantasms, &c.
HALLUCINATION. Any supposed sensory perception that has no objective
counterpart within field of vision, hearing, &c.
CLAIRVOYANCE. The faculty or art of perceiving some distant scene
as though an actual eye-witness. A clairvoyant is often able to
describe (unconsciously) what he is witnessing.
DELUSION. Fancy. When one imagines one sees or hears something and
it exists ONLY in imagination. Hallucinations are either delusive,
when there is nothing to which they correspond in the objective
world, or veridical, when they correspond with events taking place
somewhere.
ILLUSION. Misinterpretation of some object actually present to the
sight, as, for example, when a cloak hanging on a peg is mistaken
for a man, or a ringing in the ears for sounds of bells.
METETHERICAL WORLD. The world beyond the ether, synonyms--spiritual,
superphysical.
PHANTASM. A ghost. Any occult phenomenon that is either visual or
auditory as distinct from a phantom which is only visual: or,
indeed, any superphysical presence that conveys the impression of
touch, smell, &c.
SUGGESTION. Process of impressing upon a person’s intelligence or
mind the thoughts and wishes of another intelligence or mind;
or ideas engendered by the appearance of certain localities,
furniture, &c., or simply by the atmosphere.
Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London
Transcriber’s note
Text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_, and text in small
capitals was changed to all capitals. Footnotes were placed after
the paragraph they refer to.
Small errors in punctuation were corrected without note. Also the
following changes were made, on page
32 “or” changed to “for” (Nor was I mistaken, for, on putting)
34 “momentory” changed to “momentary” (in momentary terror of some
fresh phenomenon)
47 “stifly” changed to “stiffly” (he said, bowing stiffly)
89 “nighfall” changed to “nightfall” (a very wide berth after
nightfall)
94 “give” changed to “gave” (parents who gave him a liberal
education)
117 ? changed to ! (they improvised an oven in the earth and ate it!)
146 “stool” changed to “stood” (lane in which the haunted elm stood)
149 “suprising” changed to “surprising” (it is not surprising that
they are now).
Otherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistencies in
spelling, hyphenation, etc.