“BALAAM” DECLARES HIMSELF A “SPIRITUALIST.”
“What may this mean,
That thou, dread corse,
Revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous?”
_Shakespeare._
Although two of the burglars engaged in the nocturnal attack on
Waverdale Hall had been safely lodged in gaol, the whole region round
about seemed to be infested with desperadoes, whose depredations where
continually being heard of, and whose outrages, alike on travellers
and dwellings, kept that portion of East Yorkshire in a state of
perpetual fear. Squire Fuller had not been able to obtain tidings of
the missing box, nor had the few and inefficient officers of justice
been able to lay hands on any other of these dangerous disturbers of
the public peace. To add to the general feeling of insecurity and
alarm, the villagers of Nestleton were much exercised by reports to
the effect that “Sister Agatha’s ghost,” to which my readers were
introduced in the first chapter of these veracious chronicles, had
latterly been seen by more than one belated villager who had passed
the ruins of the old Priory at the witching hour of night. Jake
Olliver, old Adam’s son and foreman on Gregory Houston’s farm,
declared that he himself, on his return from certain amatory visits to
Cowley Priory, had seen in the silvery moonlight the spirit of the
erratic nun, arrayed in flowing robes of white, and with a broad
crimson stain upon her breast. He saw her pace with outstretched arms
around the ruined walls, and then at a certain crumbling archway,
nearly overgrown with thorns and briars, a blue flame enveloped her,
and with a wild, weird shriek, she vanished from his sight. He did not
hesitate to confess that at the sight of that last phenomenon he took
to his heels and ran.
The burly landlord of the Green Dragon, too, had seen the awful
apparition. He deposed to two uncanny tenants of the haunted pile; but
as he was rather partial to the spirit of malt, it is more than likely
that he had an alcoholic gift of second sight, a faculty for “seeing
double.” Probably, even out of the mouth of two witnesses, the truth
would hardly have been established; but their story was confirmed in
its chief particulars by a pillar of the Church, no less a dignitary,
indeed, than the parish clerk.
It is not to be wondered at that the resurrection of Sister Agatha,
who had for some years forgotten to revisit the glimpses of the moon,
became the subject of subdued and anxious conversation at the Green
Dragon. There was none of its _habitues_ who dared to cast a doubt
upon the story except Piggy Morris. That saturnine ex-farmer had not
given up his visits to the bar-room as the result of his late
experiences, though it must be acknowledged that they had lately
become few and far between. He did not hesitate to call the witnesses
a parcel of cowards, and to insinuate with a sneer that the moonlight
visitor was nothing more dreadful than Farmer Houston’s white bullock,
which he himself had sold to its present owner some few weeks before.
“It’s all nonsense and gammon,” said Piggy Morris, as he pulled away
at his pipe in the chimney corner, “I don’t believe in ghosts, an’
them ’at does has got a maggot in their brains, in _my_ opinion.”
At this audacious utterance, the burly Boniface waxed exceeding wroth,
and being upheld by several beery supporters, who went in for the
ghost, blood-spot, blue-fire, scream and all, he replied,--
“I’ll tell you what it is, Piggy Morris. I don’t mind standing a quart
o’ Plymouth gin, if you’ll go at twelve o’clock to-night, and bring a
stone from the old Abbey with a bit of carving on it to show that
you’ve been there; an’ what’s more, I’ll draw beer enough to keep the
company together till you come back again.”
This challenge, and the prospect of a good supply of foaming ale, won
the emphatic approval of the assembled topers, who loudly dared Piggy
Morris to show the courage of his opinions.
“That’s easily done,” said Morris, bravely. “It’ll be twelve by I get
there; I’m off.”
He rapidly made his way along the back lane of the village until he
arrived at the gate leading into the field, at the further corner of
which stood the dark secluded ruins, from whose crumbling walls he
meant to take the witness of his deed of daring.
He did not feel exactly comfortable, but would not give himself time
to hesitate. He opened the gate, and noiselessly strode along the
paddock, towards the haunt of Sister Agatha’s restless ghost. Lifting
his eyes towards the hoary gables, standing gaunt and grim in the
sombre night, he saw a sight which drove the blood from his beating
heart. There, right before him, he saw the identical ghost of the
suicidal nun! A tall figure draped in white, with cadaverous face,
looking all the more deathly for the conventual linen bound tightly
round the brow, and the dark blood-stain on her breast. She stretched
her arm in silent menace to the astonished Morris, who stood
transfixed with fear. Slowly advancing to the centre of the broken
arch, she stood a moment in statuesque stillness, a low murmur rose
from her bloodless lips, a lurid light shone round her and through
her, culminating in a bluish vapour, out of which shriek after shriek
echoed through the ruins. Then the darkness gathered as before, and
the stillness was unbroken, save for the screech of the night owls and
the twitter of birds which had been disturbed by the dread nocturnal
scream! Piggy Morris, in a perfect ecstasy of terror, turned and fled,
nor paused, till pallid and panting, he flung himself upon the oaken
settle, saying,--
“It’s as true as Gospel! I’ve seen the ghost!”
The next day Piggy Morris was driving his light cart over Nestleton
Wold, with half-a-dozen porkers, covered by a net, in the body of his
ramshackle vehicle. These he was about to dispose of at Kesterton
Market. Half-way up a steepish hill, he stopped to give his not too
flourishing steed a rest, just where Old Adam Olliver was “laying
down” a quick-set hedge.
“Good mornin’,” said that cheery rustic. “Good mornin’, Maister
Morris. Then you’re off te Kesterton. Ah wop you’re tackin’ yer pigs
tiv a feyn markit, as t’ sayin’ is; an’ ’at you’ll cum back wiv a
empty cart an’ a full poss.”
“Nay, I haven’t much hope as far as t’ purse goes, but the pigs ’ll
hev to stop, whether they fetch little or much. But I’m fair bothered
out of my wits this mornin’, an’ not in good trim for making
bargains.”
“Why, bless uz,” said Adam, “Ah’s sorry for that. What’s matter wi’
yo’? Noo ah cum te leeak at yo’, you deea leeak a bit seedy like. Ah
wop all’s right at yam. Hoo’s t’ missis?”
“Oh, she’s all right, for anything I know. But I’ll tell you what it
is, Adam. I’ve seen Sister Agatha’s ghost!”
“Why, bless me soul, Piggy Morris! You’re t’ last man i’ t’ wolld ’at
ah sud expect te say that. Ah didn’t think ’at you’d neea mair sense
then te lissen te sitch an aud wife’s teeale as that.”
“Why, I thought so myself,” said Morris, in a tone of discontent at
having to succumb to the general belief. “But it isn’t ‘listenin’,’ as
you say. It’s _seein’_; and ’seein’s believin’,’ all the world round.
I tell you that I saw it last night about twelve o’clock, and I’ve not
got over it yet, and never shall, I doubt, for I was frightened out of
my seven senses.”
“Ha, ha! Ah fancy you must ha’e left all seven on ’em at yam. Ah’s of
opinion ’at it’s only fooaks ’at’s letten their wits gan
wool-getherin’ ’at sees that sooart o’ cattle. Ah’ve been up an’ doon
this neighbourhood for weel-nigh seventy year, an’ aud Balaam there’s
been wi’ ma’ meeast o’ t’ tahme; an’ ah’ve niwer seen nowt na warse
then him, an’ he’s niwer seen nowt mair awful then me. Balaam! hez
thoo ivver seen a boggle?”
Whatever may have been the cause of the coincidence, it is true that,
at that moment, Balaam was taken with one of those odd cantrips
peculiar to his tribe. He cocked his ears, set his tail on end, and
giving vent to a loud and continuous hee-ho that made the welkin ring,
he galloped round and round, as if in vigorous protest against the
sweeping scepticism of his matter-of-fact proprietor.
“There,” said Piggy Morris, with a sarcastic grin, “even your donkey
rebukes your unreasonable want of faith, and looks for all the world
as though he saw a ghost this minute.”
“Why,” said Adam laughing, “he _diz_ seeam te differ fre’ ma’ in his
judgment; but what can yo’ expect frev a donkey? Mebbe,” and this with
a humorous twinkle in his eye, “it’s gi’en te hasses te see ghausts
an’ te donkeys te beleeave in ’em; but I isn’t gannin’ te pin mah
faith te what they can testify, you may depend on’t.”
Piggy Morris was very irate at the uncomplimentary imputation.
“Donkeys here or donkeys there,” said he, “I tell you that I went o’
purpose to see for myself, because I would not believe what folks
said.”
“Why, if yo went te leeak for it, it isn’t mitch wunder ’at yo’ fun’
it. It was i’ ye’r fancy an’ ye’r een afoore yo’ went. An’ as yo’
teeak it wi’ yo’, it wad ha’e been a wunder if yo’ hadn’t catch’d a
glint on’t. Maister Morris! if yo’ wad nobbut gi’e ye’r heart te God,
that’ll lay all t’ ghausts i’ t’ wolld i’ t’ Rid Sea!”
“Nonsense,” said Piggy Morris, who did not mind the practical turn the
conversation was taking. Mounting his cart, he drove off to Kesterton
Market to dispose of his porkers, and to tell his nocturnal adventures
to more credulous hearers in the infragrant bar-room of the Cowley
Arms.
Adam Olliver picked up his slashing-knife and hedging-gloves, and
mounting that disciple of spiritualism, his four-footed retainer, he
cantered homeward, saying,--
“Balaam! If there is a ghaust, as thoo seeams te think, thoo an’ me
mun see it, an’ ah promise tha’ ’at if thoo dizn’t run away, ah
weean’t, an’ we’ll hev a crack o’ talk wi’ Sister Agatha’s ghaust.”
O, Adam Olliver! are you not aware that there are things between
heaven and earth not dreamt of in your philosophy? Both you and Balaam
will see the “sight horrific,” before many days are over, and when
that great event transpires, then, as the immortaliser of John Gilpin
says, “May I be there to see!”