Upon a wild winter night, some centuries ago, the old man who plied
the ferry-boat on Windermere, and who lived in a lonely cottage on the
Lancashire side of the Lake, was awakened from his sleep by an
exceedingly shrill and terrible shriek, which seemed to come from the
opposite shore. The wind was whistling and moaning round the house,
and for a little while the ferryman and his family fancied that the
cry by which they had been disturbed was nothing more than one of the
mournful voices of the storm; but soon again came another shriek, even
more awe-inspiring than the former one, and this was followed by
smothered shouts and groans of a most unearthly nature.
Against the wishes of his terrified relatives, who clung to him, and
besought him to remain indoors, the old fellow bravely determined to
cross the water, and heeding not the prayers of his wife and daughter,
he unfastened his boat, and rowed away. The two women, clasped in each
other's arms, trembling with fear, stood at the little door, and
endeavoured to make out the form of their protector; but the darkness
was too deep for them to see anything upon the lake. At intervals,
however, the terrible cry rang out through the gloom, and shrieks and
moans were heard loud above the mysterious noises of the night.
In a state of dreadful suspense and terror the women stood for some
time, but at length they saw the boat suddenly emerge from the
darkness, and shoot into the little cove. To their great surprise,
however, the ferryman, who could be seen sitting alone, made no effort
to land, and make his way to the cottage; so, fearing that something
dreadful had happened to him, and, impelled by love, they rushed to
the side of the lake. They found the old man speechless, his face as
white and blanched as the snow upon the Nab, and his whole body
trembling under the influence of terror, and they immediately led him
to the cottage, but though appealed to, to say what terrible object
he had seen, he made no other response than an occasional subdued
moan. For several days he remained in that state, deaf to their
piteous entreaties, and staring at them with wild-looking eyes; but at
length the end came, and, during the gloaming of a beautiful day, he
died, without having revealed to those around him what he had seen
when, in answer to the midnight cry, he had rowed the ferry-boat
across the storm-ruffled lake.
After the funeral had taken place the women left the house, its
associations being too painful to permit of their stay, and went to
live at Hawkshead, whence two sturdy men, with their respective
families, removed to the ferry. The day following that of the arrival
of the new-comers was rough and wild, and, soon after darkness had
hidden everything in its sable folds, across the lake came the fearful
cry, followed by a faint shout for a boat, and screams and moans. The
men, hardy as they were, and often as they had laughed at the story
told by the widow of the dead man, no sooner heard the first shriek
ring through the cottage than they were smitten with terror.
Profiting, however, by the experience of their predecessor, and
influenced by fear, they did not make any attempt to cross the lake,
and the cries continued until some time after midnight.
Afterwards, whenever the day closed gloomily, and ushered in a stormy
night, and the wind lashed the water of the lake into fury, the
terrible noises were heard with startling distinctness, until at
length the dwellers in the cottage became so accustomed to the noises
as not to be disturbed by them, or, if disturbed, to fall asleep again
after an ejaculation of 't' crier!' Pedlars and others who had to
cross the lake, however, were not so hardened, and after a time the
ferry-boat was almost disused, for the superstitious people did not
dare to cross the haunted water, save in the broad daylight of summer.
It therefore struck the two individuals who were most concerned in the
maintenance of the ferry that if they intended to live they must do
something to rid the place of its bad name, and of the unseen being
who had driven away all their patrons. In their extremity they asked
each other who should help them, if not the holy monks, who had come
over the sea to the abbey in the Valley of Deadly Night Shade; and one
of the ferrymen at once set out for Furness. No sooner had he set eyes
upon the stately pile erected by the Savignian and his companions than
his heart felt lighter, for he had a simple faith in the marvellous
power of the white-robed men, whose voices were seldom if ever heard,
save when lifted in worship during one of their seven daily services.
Knocking at the massive door, he was received by a ruddy-looking
servitor, who ushered him into the presence of the abbot. The ferryman
soon told his story, and begged that a monk might return with him to
lay the troubled spirit, and after hearing the particulars of the
visitation, the abbot granted the request, making a proviso, however,
that the abbey coffers should not be forgotten when the lake was freed
from the fiend.
No sooner had the visitor finished the meal set before him by the
hospitable monks than, in company with one of the holy men, he set out
homeward. As, by a rule of his order, the monk was not permitted to
converse, the journey was not an enlivening one, and the ferryman was
heartily glad when they reached his cottage.
The first night passed without any alarm, the monk and his hosts
spending the dreary hours in watching and waiting. The following day,
however, was as stormy as the worst enemy of the ferry could have
wished, and, when night fell, all the dwellers in the cottage, as well
as the silent monk, gathered together again to wait for the cries, but
some hours passed without any other sounds having been heard than
those caused by the restless wind, as it swept over the lake and among
the trees. The Cistercian was beginning to imagine himself the victim
of an irreverent practical joke, and that the stories of the spectral
crier which had reached the distant abbey long before the ferryman's
visit were a pack of falsehoods, when about midnight, he suddenly
jumped from the chair upon which he was dozing by the wood fire,
hastily made the sign of the cross, and hurriedly commended himself to
the protection of his patron saint, for sharp and clear came the dread
cry, followed rapidly by a number of shrieks and groans and a
smothered appeal for a boat.
In an instant one of the men, with courage doubtless inspired by the
presence of the holy man, shouldered the oars and opened the door, and
the monk at once stepped into the open air and hurried to the lake,
the men following at a respectful distance. The white-robed father was
the first to get into the boat, and the ferrymen hoped that he
intended to go alone, but he called upon them to propel the boat to
the middle of the lake, and much as they disliked the task, as it was
on their behalf that the monk was about to combat the evil spirit,
they could not well refuse to accompany him.
When they were about half-way across the lake the wind suddenly
lulled, and once more they heard the awful scream, and this time it
sounded as though the crier was quite close to them. The occupants of
the boat were terribly frightened, and one of them, after suddenly
shrieking 'he's here,' fainted, and lay still at the bottom of the
boat, while the monk and the other man stared straight before them, as
though petrified.
There was a fourth person present, a grim and ghastly figure, with the
trappings of this life still dangling about its withered and shrunken
limbs, and a gaping wound in its pallid throat. For a few minutes
there was a dead silence, but at last it was broken by the monk, who
rapidly muttered a prayer for protection against evil spirits, and
then took a bottle from a pocket of his robe, and sprinkled a few
drops of holy water upon himself and the ferryman, who remained in the
same statuesque attitude, and upon the unconscious occupant of the
bottom of the boat. After this ceremony, he opened a little book, and,
in a sonorous voice, intoned the form for the exorcism of a wandering
soul, concluding with _Vade ad Gehennam!_ when to the infinite relief
of the ferryman, and probably of the monk also, the ghastly figure
forthwith vanished.
The Cistercian asked to be immediately taken to the shore, and when he
neared the house, the little book was again brought into requisition,
and the spirit's visits, should it ever again put in an appearance,
limited to an old and disused quarry, a distance from the
cottage.{31}
From that time to this, the wild, lonely place has indeed been
desolate and deserted, the boldest people of the district not having
sufficient courage to venture near it at nightfall, and the more timid
ones shunning the locality even at noonday. These folks aver that
even yet, despite the prayers and exorcisms of the white-robed
Cistercian from Furness, whenever a storm descends upon the lake, the
Crier escapes from his temporary prison house, and revisits the scene
of his first and second appearance to men, and that on such nights,
loud above the echoed rumble of the thunder, and the lonely sough of
the wind, the benighted wayfarer still hears the wild shrieks and the
muffled cry for a boat.