THE HAUNTED LODGE
A considerable number of people are alive who can testify to the truth
of the facts I now narrate. I regret that I have not been able to
investigate this case personally, but I hope to do so before very long.
In the spring of 1901, my sister and her husband, Major Stewart, rented
an old shooting lodge in Argyllshire. The place was charmingly situated,
the shooting and fishing excellent, and the scenery around was noted for
its romantic beauty.
Though the main portion of the house was old, a new wing had been added
for the sleeping accommodation of servants, and this arrangement shut
them off at night from the ancient part of the dwelling. The original
kitchen still remained in use.
The servants had been sent on in advance to prepare the lodge, and when
Major and Mrs. Stewart arrived they were at once confronted with the
information that the place bore a very evil reputation. The villagers
had not hesitated to prime the maids with all sorts of creepy stories,
eminently calculated to cause their precipitate departure. Luckily for
the master and mistress the maids had been with them for some years, and
were neither of a timid age nor disposition, so the household settled
comfortably down, in those long spring and summer days, which in the
north means practically no darkness.
My sister had banished the alleged hauntings from her mind, and probably
the maids had done likewise, for all was going quietly and well, when
suddenly, after a week's residence, there came a rude reminder.
Major and Mrs. Stewart were both awakened one night by unmistakable
sounds of very noisy burglars, who appeared to have broken into the
house through the kitchen quarters. The major lit a candle, and looked
at his watch. It was just on midnight. What puzzled them both was the
noise the intruders made. Burglars naturally tread softly and
stealthily, but these men stamped about in heavy boots, and were engaged
in throwing about heavy articles. There seemed to be quite a number of
accomplices involved in the enterprise, and they displayed an amazing
indifference to detection.
My sister and her husband decided that events could not be left to take
their course. This matter must be looked into. The major armed himself
with a loaded revolver. My sister armed herself with a lighted candle
and a box of matches, and together they crept softly downstairs on their
way to the kitchen.
All this time the noises continued. Stamping of heavy feet, crashing
down of heavy weights, but on the way downstairs a first glimmering that
the supernatural came into this affair began to dawn upon my sister. She
became aware that an invisible presence was following them.
The noises continued as they cautiously and silently crept towards the
kitchen. As they reached the door, suddenly utter silence fell. Inside
nothing was disarranged. There were no signs of burglars, everything was
as usual.
Considerably mystified Major and Mrs. Stewart returned to bed, and were
not disturbed again that night.
The next day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the same sounds began
again. This time the noise was easily located in one of the unused
bedrooms on the top floor of the house. Heavily shod men were tramping
about the floor overhead, throwing down heavy boxes and making a
considerable disturbance.
Major and Mrs. Stewart ascended on tiptoe, and when outside the closed
door listened intently. There was no mistake this time. Nothing could
sound more human than the activity going on inside that room. Half a
dozen men at least were in possession of it, and those men had to be
confronted. Luckily they had no means of escape. This time they really
would be caught.
After a few minutes of silent listening the major, whose hand was on the
knob, threw open the door and bounded into the room.
Instant silence--nothing--not even the whisk of a defiant rat's tail!
The husband and wife sat down and stared at one another in utter
bewilderment. The bright spring daylight seemed to mock them as it
flooded every chink and cranny.
Shortly after this occurrence three guests came to stay, two women and a
man. They were given bedrooms on the top floor, but the room whence the
disturbance had come was left severely alone. The household, with one
accord, welcomed their advent as a pleasant distraction, and it was
unanimously agreed that they should be kept in absolute ignorance of
what had taken place.
The next morning the three guests all had the same story to tell, of
having had no sleep. Heavily booted men kept passing their doors, and
heavy articles were flung about in adjacent rooms. They had spent a
night of terror. No one had possessed sufficient courage to look out
into the corridor, along which the men were passing, and they had kept
lights burning in their rooms till full daybreak. They refused to sleep
again upon that floor.
My sister moved them down to the second floor, on which she herself
slept, and a thorough investigation of the house, outside and inside,
was made. No conclusion was come to.
The noises continued on the following night, but being overhead, and
more distant, they were more endurable.
A second male guest now arrived, and the assembled household waited in
breathless interest to see how the ghosts would affect him. Nothing
whatever was told to him, and he was lodged in a bedroom immediately
underneath the noisy one.
The next morning, after all had passed a disturbed night, it was found
that some of the noises had proceeded from the new guest. He had carried
some of his blankets out into the garden and had slept there. He
remained on, but refused to sleep in the house, and a tent was rigged up
for him outside. He stated that the disturbances were too much for his
nerves, though he had no idea what they were. His behavior, on the first
night, in retiring to the garden, was meant as a strong protest against
such treatment of a tired guest. His temper had got the upper hand of
him, after fruitless efforts to sleep, and, finally, he had tramped
downstairs with an armful of blankets, anticipating many apologies next
morning from host and hostess, and a peaceful night to follow.
The following day a new maid arrived. She slept in the old part of the
house, and shortly afterwards asked my sister if the house was haunted,
as she had been kept awake by "heavy people running past her door with
naked feet."
By this time it was only the influence of the staid old servants which
prevented the younger ones from taking flight. My sister and her husband
were not alarmed, they were profoundly interested.
The summer passed on, and there were days and weeks when nothing was
heard, then quite suddenly the disturbances would begin again. As the
noises sounded so very human it was extremely difficult to believe that
they really did not proceed from incarnate beings, and my sister told me
that time after time, as she listened, she would say to herself, "Now,
beyond a shadow of doubt there are men in that room." She would creep
upstairs, listen for some time with her hand on the door-knob--then
suddenly throw it open--to find nothing. She never wearied of trying to
surprise those invisible men.
At times when her husband was away from home, she would spend the entire
night in an obstinate attempt to solve the mystery. When she had no
guests, and the servants were asleep in their new wing, she would awake
to the noise. Taking her candle she would mount on bare, silent feet to
the floor above, and listen at the door, often for half an hour at a
time. She had no fear, but intense curiosity. It was easy to trace what
was going on in the room. Men were packing, moving heavy boxes, throwing
down heavy articles, walking about the floor with ponderous tread. First
they would be at one end of the room, then move on to the other.
Sometimes they approached so near the door behind which she stood, that
she expected to see it open, and to be confronted by several burly
ruffians. She would rush suddenly in, candle in hand, only to be
received in sudden, utter silence. Not even the scurry of a scared
mouse. After half an hour of patient waiting within the room, she would
leave it, close the door, and sit down on the staircase. In a few
moments the disturbance was again in full swing.
Were I writing an account of these hauntings for the Psychical Society I
should go into the most minute details; suffice it here to say, that
during all this time every sort of investigation had been carried out by
practical men and women, who had personally heard the disturbances, and
who were keenly interested in the phenomena.
Rats were, of course, the first natural suggestion, but no one put forth
this theory after having once, with their own ears, heard the
disturbances. No one could advance any rational conclusion. The whole
affair was baffling in the extreme.
It would have been simple enough to leave the place and forfeit the
rent, but my sister and her husband loved the sport and the beauty of
the surroundings, and were determined to remain, unless anything worse
developed. No one ever saw anything unpleasant, or even suggestive of
the supernatural, and the whole household had become more or less
indifferent to the noises. They brought no harm to anybody, and might be
safely ignored.
Mrs. Stewart had four Pomeranian dogs which did not produce a calming
effect upon their human companions. They were constantly seeing things,
bristling and showing every sign of terror. Into the noisy room they
refused to go, and they objected to being left a moment alone. They
slept in my sister's bedroom.
One night she was alone in the old house. Major Stewart had gone on
business to Edinburgh, and the servants had retired to bed in their own
wing. Mrs. Stewart was sitting in the smoking-room, reading an
interesting novel by the light of a lamp. A good fire burned, and the
four Poms were asleep on the hearth-rug. The door was slightly ajar, and
outside it ran a short corridor.
Suddenly, at its far end a terrible noise arose. A very different noise
to anything that had been heard before, and one so blood-curdling that
Mrs. Stewart at last knew the meaning of mortal fear.
Two men were fighting desperately, swaying and wrestling, and snarling
fiercely like two tigers locked in deathly combat. She glanced at the
dogs. They were sitting up, staring with terrified eyes at the door,
their bodies quivering, their little fangs showing. Then--with a
bound--they were off, tearing for dear life along the corridor towards
the stairs.
It was a situation that demanded considerable nerve. Impossible to sit
there alone in the dead of night, and listen to that hideous din, but a
few yards from the door. She must follow the dogs as swiftly as she
dared.
She took up the lamp and moved stealthily to the door. The corridor was
in complete darkness, and in that darkness the two men fought
desperately, and below their breath they raved, groaned, blasphemed,
incoherently. One long drawn out babel of breathless discord.
In an overwhelming rush of terror Mrs. Stewart made a dash for the
stairs, but while still in the corridor she heard flying feet
approaching her from the end she was trying to reach. She shrank back
against the wall, the flying feet passed in a wild tempestuous rush, and
as they did so the lamp was struck violently out of her hand, and she
was left in complete darkness.
She reached her bedroom and locked the door, then she lighted the
candles and looked for the dogs. She found them huddled together in
abject terror under her bed.
The next day my sister called upon the lady who owned the place, and
recounting her experiences asked to be told the origin of the hauntings.
She was told the following story:--
Many years previously a farmer, who was a widower, lived in the lodge
with an only son, who was grown up. The old farmer married again, a
pretty young girl, and the son fell in love with his stepmother. A
quarrel ensued, and a desperate conflict, in which the father stabbed
his son to death.
The Stewarts did not leave the haunted lodge till some long time after
the events I have narrated; in fact, my sister inhabited it after her
husband died, during a stay in the South of England.
It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the actual cause of the
disturbances. How do ghosts contrive to make such a noise? The common
answer would be, "They were astral noises heard clairaudiently." But was
every one in the house clairaudient? It is possible, but most unlikely.
When the noises began every one under that roof heard them, and
continued to hear them till they ceased.
The lodge is still to let, so perhaps the mystery may yet be unraveled.
Will a member of the Psychical Society not try his luck? The rent is
low, the sport, of more than one kind, is excellent.
In the course of time my widowed sister married again, and her second
husband has given me a curious and gruesome story of an experience which
came to him whilst he was still a bachelor. I will give it in his own
words:--
"About fourteen years ago I retired from the London Stock Exchange, and
owing to ill health I was advised by my doctor to take a long sea
voyage. This advice I followed, and much benefited by rest and sea air I
returned to London, after an absence of nine months.
"Always having lived an active life I could not contemplate settling
down in utter idleness, and I consulted my solicitor on the subject of
work.
"He told me that a client of his had just bought a flourishing and
well-known mill in North Wales. He proposed to run it for a time alone,
and then turn it into a company or syndicate, as he had not sufficient
capital of his own to ensure its ultimate success. In due time, my
solicitor gave me a letter of introduction to this man, and I went to
stay at his house close to the mill, which he had just bought.
"It was a rambling old place, which in the good old days had been a
coaching inn. Owing to bad management the landlord had failed, and for
many years it had stood empty and 'to let.' It was a queer idea, I
thought, to turn a coaching inn into a private residence, more
especially as I soon heard that it had a very evil reputation.
"Though I made many inquiries in the neighborhood I could never get
anything more definite than that there was some evil influence in the
house. Every one who lived in it came to a bad or violent end. I
concluded that its proximity to his work caused the mill owner to
purchase it, and I thought no more of the matter.
"If I was favorably impressed, my intention was to put a certain amount
of capital into the concern and learn the trade, but after staying for a
few days with the mill owner, I came to the conclusion that I would have
nothing to do with so odd a person.
"He was of medium height and very thin, with rather straggling hair
turning gray, and a sallow, hollow-cheeked face. He had a curious habit
of glancing suddenly behind him, as if some one had just tapped him on
the shoulder, and several other little traits bespoke an extreme
nervousness of disposition.
"One night I entered a room where he happened to be, and discovered him
staring at himself in a mirror. I suppose I exhibited some surprise, for
he wheeled round on me and cried, 'Well! how do you think I am looking?'
"Had I answered truthfully I should have said, 'Stark, staring mad.' His
face was ghastly pale, and his eyes were blazing. I made some careless
reply, and shortly afterwards left the house to play a game of billiards
with some acquaintances I had made. There I was given some interesting
information. The mill owner was a declared bankrupt.
"I returned to the house at ten o'clock, and at once retired to bed,
without again seeing my unfortunate host.
"The next morning I was awakened at half-past seven by my hostess
knocking at my door, and inquiring if I had seen anything of her
husband. I replied that I had seen nothing of him, but if she was
anxious I would dress quickly and have a look round for him. This offer
she accepted with gratitude. The station was not far distant, and she
suggested that he might have taken the train to Manchester. Would I go
and make inquiries?
"I was soon on the way, and interviewed a porter, who informed me he had
seen the mill owner about an hour ago, not on the platform, but staring
at the rails. The man had watched him, thinking his behavior suspicious,
and remembering the evil reputation of his dwelling, but after a while
he had turned away, and was last seen walking rapidly off in the
direction of his own home.
"I went back and reported what I had heard, and the very anxious wife
suggested that I should snatch a hasty breakfast and then make inquiries
at a farm a mile off, which was also their property. This I readily
consented to do. I was extremely sorry for the poor woman, and though
she did not make a confidant of me, I could see she was consumed with
anxiety.
"My errand was quite fruitless, nothing was known of the master, no one
had seen him, and back I went to the mill house, feeling by this time
that probably the wife had every cause for her anxiety.
"I saw nothing of her when I entered. I looked into every room on the
ground floor, and was just going to ring for a servant, when I fancied I
heard a faint cry.
"I went out into the hall and listened intently. The voice was calling
from somewhere below the ground, and I thought at once of the huge
cellars I had been shown, where once the good old ale had been brewed
and stored. I ran to the door which led to the cellars; it was open, and
then I clearly heard a woman's voice crying, 'Oh! bring a knife! bring
a knife quickly!'
"I darted back into the dining-room and caught up the first knife I
could find, a ham carver, then hastened to the door and began descending
the dark stairs.
"The cellars were fairly well lighted by two grated windows, and a
horrible sight met my eyes. There stood the wife, bending under the
weight of her husband, who was suspended by a rope round his neck from
the great beam overhead. One glance at the hideously distorted face, the
glazed eyes protruding from their sockets, the gaping mouth and swollen
tongue, told me the worst.
"Hastily I severed the rope, and the wife and her dead husband sank to
the ground together.
"There was little to be done. We laid the corpse flat on the stone
floor, and I persuaded her to leave it and come upstairs with me, and
wait for the arrival of the doctor and police. This she consented to do.
She was very quiet and composed, a curious apathy of indifference
possessed her, and I would far rather have seen her in floods of natural
tears.
"By evening the house had fallen into a dead silence. The doctor had
pronounced life to be extinct, and the corpse had been carried up to an
unused bedroom immediately over the smoking-room. The police found that
the mill owner had committed suicide by hanging. He had jumped off a
stone slab, after having adjusted the rope to the beam and his own
throat. With the exception of an old nurse who was devoted to her
mistress, the servants all departed in a body, and the house was left
brooding under a weight of intolerable depression.
"I did not blame the servants. As a matter of fact, there was nothing I
would have liked better than to quit the mill house there and then, and
never set foot in it again, but I had the desolate widow to consider. I
could not leave her alone, whilst there was still the smallest
possibility of my being of use. Added to this I had the queerest feeling
that she required protection, though from what I would have been at a
loss to say.
"Another feeling, which I combated violently, was a sensation of being
mocked and jeered at by some unseen entity. I was being urged to get out
of the house, to recognize my own impotence, to mind my own business,
and when I metaphorically replied, 'Get thee behind me, Satan,' I could
have sworn I heard a sly laugh.
"Of course I told myself all this was but the result of a shock to the
nerves, and I was not going to pay any attention to it, so despite my
intense longing to run out of the house I settled down with the daily
paper, a cigarette, and a novel in the smoking-room, and resolutely
turned my thoughts away from the tragedy.
"The widow, and her old nurse, who had promised me not to leave her
mistress for a moment, had retired together for the night, so I felt
satisfied, so far as they were concerned.
"I suppose I must have dozed off, for I was suddenly roused broad awake
by footsteps overhead, in the room where the corpse lay. I sat up
straight and listened intently. Were my nerves playing tricks with me?
No; certainly not. There was no mistaking that sound for hallucination.
It was perfectly clear and distinct. A man was walking about overhead,
and the only man save myself within these walls had hanged himself by
the neck until he was dead. There it was--the sound. A man's footsteps
pacing slowly up and down the floor of the bedroom above, from end to
end, backwards and forwards.
"I considered what I had better do. I was sure the widow and the old
nurse were in the bedroom, quite at the other end of the house. Probably
they were both asleep. I hoped so. What had I better do--nothing? Yet
this inaction irked me. My curiosity was intense. The supernatural had
never occupied much of my thoughts, but now it began to do so. Those
steps must proceed from the supernatural. There was no other
explanation. I was the only live man in the house.
"At last I could stand it no longer. I jumped up and proceeded upstairs.
The lights had been left to me to extinguish; they were still on, and I
saw at once that the door of the bedroom was open.
"I entered the room, lit the gas and searched every corner. No living
thing was present. The dead man lay in rigid lines beneath a sheet. I
left the room again in darkness, and carefully closing the door I went
softly along to the widow's room, and knocked very gently.
"The old nurse came to the door. She told me her mistress was asleep,
and that the doctor had given her a sleeping draught. Neither of them
had left the room since they entered it to go to bed, more than an hour
ago.
"I went downstairs again and took up the newspaper, but almost
immediately the footsteps began once more overhead, in the room where
the dead man lay.
"The sound was soft and stealthy at first, then it grew louder. The same
footsteps moving about the floor, up and down, up and down. I am not
ashamed to say that I felt a cold sweat break out all over me. I could
not stand that sound any longer. I made up my mind to go to bed.
"I removed my shoes and turned out the light. As I did so I could have
sworn I heard a sly, low laugh behind me. I crept upstairs. The door of
that horrible room was again open. With a shaking hand I closed it, and
hurried to my bedroom, locking the door at once.
"The next day I told my experiences to one of the acquaintances I had
made, and he volunteered to come in and keep me company until the
funeral was over. I gladly accepted his offer. I did not hear the
footsteps again. I conclude because the widow was sitting with us on the
following nights, and the ghost had no desire to terrify her."