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[Illustration: St. Andrews Ghost Stories
By W. T. Linskill]
St Andrews
Ghost Stories
BY
W. T. LINSKILL
(Dean of Guild).
_FOURTH EDITION._
There are ghosts and phantoms round us,
On the mountains, on the sea;
Some are cold and some are clammy,
Some are hot as hot can be.
They can creep, and crawl, and hover,
And can howl, and shriek, and wail,
And those who want to hear of them
Must read this little tale.
W. T. L.
J. & G. INNES, _St Andrews Citizen_ Office.
1921.
DEDICATED TO MY OLD FRIENDS, JOHN L. LOW AND CHARLES BLAIR MACDONALD.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
THE BECKONING MONK, 1
THE HAUNTINGS AND MYSTERIES OF LAUSDREE CASTLE, 7
A HAUNTED MANOR HOUSE AND THE DUEL AT ST ANDREWS, 15
THE APPARITION OF THE PRIOR OF PITTENWEEM, 21
A TRUE TALE OF THE PHANTOM COACH, 27
THE VEILED NUN OF ST LEONARDS, 31
THE MONK OF ST RULE’S TOWER, 35
RELATED BY CAPTAIN CHESTER, 39
THE SCREAMING SKULL OF GREYFRIARS, 44
THE SPECTRE OF THE CASTLE, 49
THE SMOTHERED PIPER OF THE WEST CLIFFS, 55
THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE LADY OF THE HAUNTED TOWER, 59
CONCERNING MORE APPEARANCES OF THE WHITE LADY, 62
A SPIRITUALISTIC SEANCE, 66
THE APPARITION OF SIR RODGER DE WANKLYN, 70
THE BEWITCHED ERMENTRUDE, 75
A VERY PECULIAR HOUSE. 80
The Beckoning Monk.
Many years ago, about the time of the Tay Bridge gale, I was staying at
Edinburgh with a friend of mine, an actor manager. I had just come down
from the paint-room of the theatre, and was emerging from the stage-door,
when I encountered Miss Elsie H⸺, a then well-known actress.
“You are just the very person I wanted to meet,” she said. “Allow me to
introduce you to my friend, Mr Spencer Ashton. He’s not an actor, he’s an
artist, and he’s got such a queer, queer story about ghosts and things
near your beloved St Andrews.”
I bowed to Mr Ashton, who was a quiet-looking man, pale and thin, rather
like a benevolent animated hairpin. He reminded me somehow of Fred Vokes.
We shook hands warmly.
“Yes,” he said, “my story sounds like fiction, but it is a fact, as I can
prove. It is rather long, but it may possibly interest you. Where could
we foregather?”
“Come and dine with me at the Edinburgh Hotel to-night at eight. I’ll get
a private room,” I said.
“Right oh!” said he, and we parted.
That evening at eight o’clock we met at the old Edinburgh Hotel (now no
longer in existence), and after dinner he told me his very remarkable
tale.
“Some years ago,” he said, “I was staying in a small coast town in Fife,
not very far from St Andrews. I was painting some quaint houses and
things of the sort that tickled my fancy at the time, and I was very much
amused and excited by some of the bogie tales told me by the fisher folk.
One story particularly interested me.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
“Well, it was about a strange, dwarfish, old man, who, they swore, was
constantly wandering about among the rocks at nightfall; a queer, uncanny
creature, they said, who was ‘aye beckoning to them,’ and who was never
seen or known in the daylight. I heard so much at various times and from
various people about this old man that I resolved to look for him and see
what his game really was. I went down to the beach times without number,
but saw nothing worse than myself, and I was almost giving the job up as
hopeless, when one night ‘I struck oil,’ as the Yankees would say.”
“Good,” I said, “let me hear.”
“It was after dusk,” he proceeded, “very rough and windy, but with a
feeble moon peeping out at times between the racing clouds. I was alone
on the beach. Next moment I was _not_ alone.”
“Not alone,” I remarked. “Who was there?”
“Certainly not alone,” said Ashton. “About three yards from me stood a
quaint, short, shrivelled, old creature. At that time the comic opera
of ‘Pinafore’ was new to the stage-loving world, and this strange being
resembled the character of ‘Dick Deadeye’ in that piece. But this old man
was much uglier and more repulsive. He wore a tattered monk’s robe, had a
fringe of black hair, heavy black eyebrows, very protruding teeth, and a
pale, pointed, unshaven chin. Moreover, he possessed only one eye, which
was large and telescopic looking.”
“What a horrid brute,” I said.
“Oh! he wasn’t half so bad after all,” said Ashton, “though his
appearance was certainly against him. He kept beckoning to me with a
pale, withered hand, continually muttering, ‘Come.’ I felt compelled to
follow him, and follow him I did.”
I lit up another pipe and listened intently.
“He took me,” resumed Ashton, “into a natural cave, a cleft in the rocks,
and we went stumbling over the rocks and stones, and splashing into
pools. At least I did. He seemed to get along all right. At the far end
of this clammy cave, a very narrow staircase, cut out of solid rock,
ascended abruptly about twenty or thirty steps, then turned a corner and
descended again into a large passage. Then a mighty queer thing happened.”
“What might that be?” I enquired.
“Well, my guide somehow or other suddenly became possessed of a huge
great candlestick with a lighted candle in it, about three feet high,
which lit up the vaulted passage.
“‘We now stand in the monk’s sub-way,’ he said.
“‘Indeed, and who may you be? Are you a man or a ghost?’
“The queer figure turned. ‘I am human,’ he said, ‘do not fear me. I
_was_ a monk years ago, now I am reincarnate—time and space are nothing
whatever to me. I only arrived a short while ago from Naples to meet you
here.’”
“Good heavens, Ashton,” I said, “is this all true?”
“Absolutely true, my dear fellow,” said Ashton. “I was in my sound
senses, not hypnotised or anything of that sort, I assure you. On and
on we went, the little man with his big candle leading the way, and I
following. Two or three times the sub-way narrowed, and we had a tight
squeeze to get through, I can tell you.”
“What a rum place,” I interjected.
“Yes, it was that,” said Ashton, “but it got still rummer as we went
up and down more stairs, and then popped through a hole into a lower
gallery, and I noticed side passages branching off in several different
directions.
“‘Walk carefully and look where you tread,’ said my monkish guide. ‘There
are pitfalls here; be very wary.’
“Then I noticed at my feet a deep, rock-hewn pit about two feet wide
right across the passage. ‘What is that for?’ I asked. ‘To trap intruders
and enemies,’ said the little monk. ‘_Look down._’ I did so, and I saw at
the bottom, in a pool of water, a whitened skull and a number of bones.
We passed four or five such shafts in our progress.”
“’Pon my word, this beats me altogether,” I interpolated.
“It would have beaten me altogether if I had fallen into one of those
traps,” said Ashton. “Suddenly the close, damp, fungus sort of air
changed and I smelt a sweet fragrant odour. ‘I smell incense,’ I said to
the monk.
“‘It is the wraith, or ghost, of a smell,’ he said. ‘There has been no
incense hereaway since 1546. There are ghosts of sounds and smells,
just as there are ghosts of people. We are here surrounded by spirits,
but they are transparent, and you cannot see them unless they are
materialised, but you can feel them.’
“‘Hush, hark!’ said the monk, and then I heard a muffled sound of most
beautiful chiming bells, the like I never heard before.
“‘What is that?’
“‘The old bells of St Andrews Cathedral. That is the ghost of sounds long
ago ceased,’ and the monk muttered some Latin. Then all of a sudden I
heard very beautiful chanting for a moment or more, then it died away.
“‘That is the long dead choir of monks chanting vespers,’ remarked my
guide, sadly.
“At this period the monk and I entered a large, rock-hewn chamber, wide
and lofty. In it there were numerous huge old iron clamped chests of
different sizes and shapes.
“‘These,’ said the monk, ‘are packed full of treasures, jewels, and
vestments. They will be needed again some day. Above us _now_ there are
ploughed fields, but long ago right over our heads there existed a church
and monastery to which these things belonged.’ He pointed with a skinny
claw of a hand to one corner of the chamber. ‘There,’ he said, ‘is the
staircase that once led to the church above.’”
Ashton stopped and lit a cigar, then resumed.
“Well, on we went again, turning, twisting, going up steps, round
corners, through more holes, and stepping over pitfall shafts. It was a
loathsome and gruesome place.
“Out of a side passage I saw a female figure glide quickly along. She was
dressed as a bride for a wedding; then she disappeared.
“‘Fear not,’ said the monk, ‘that is Mirren of Hepburn’s Tower, the White
Lady, she can materialise herself and appear when she chooses, but she is
not reincarnate as I am.’
“Well, after we had gone on it seemed for hours, as I have described, the
monk paused.
“‘I fear I must leave you,’ he said, suddenly. ‘I am wanted. Before I go,
take this,’ and he placed in my hand a tiny gold cup delicately chased;
‘it is a talisman and will bring you good luck always,’ he said. ‘Keep
it safe, I may never see you again here, but do not forget.’
“Then I was alone in black darkness. He and his candle had vanished in a
second. Quite alone in that awful prison, heaven only knows how far below
the ground, I could never have gone back, and I feared to go forward. I
was entombed in a worse place than the Roman Catacombs, with no hope of
rescue, as it was unknown and forgotten by all.”
“What a fearful position to be in,” I said.
“I should think it was,” said Ashton. “The awful horror of it I can
never forget as long as I live. I was absolutely powerless and helpless.
I had lost my nerve, and I screamed aloud in an agony of mind. I had
some matches, and these I used at rare intervals, crawling carefully and
feeling my way along the slimy floor of the passage. I had a terrible
feeling, too, that something intangible, but horrible, was crawling along
after me and stopping when I stopped. I heard it breathing. I struck a
match, and it was lucky, for I just missed another of those pitfalls. By
the light of the match I saw a small shrine in an alcove which had once
been handsomely ornamented. My progress forward was suddenly stopped by
a gruesome procession of skeleton monks all in white. They crossed the
main sub-way from one side passage and entered another. Their heads were
all grinning skulls, and in their long bony fingers they bore enormous
candles, which illuminated the passage with a feeble blue glare.”
“It’s awful,” I remarked.
“On, and on, I slowly went. It seemed hours and hours. I was exhausted
and hungry and thirsty. After a time I passed through open oak
nail-studded doors that were rotting on their hinges, and then—_then_, I
saw a _sight so horrible_ that I would never mention it to anyone. I dare
not, I may know its meaning some day—I hope so—”
“What on earth was it?” I inquired eagerly.
“For heaven’s sake let me go on and do not ask about it,” said Ashton,
turning ghastly pale. “The horror of the whole thing so upset me that
my foot slipped, and I fell down what seemed to be a steep stairway.
As I struck the bottom I felt my left wrist snap, and I fainted. When
I regained my senses for a brief moment, I found that the White Lady,
bearing a taper, was bending kindly over me. She had a lovely face, but
as pale as white marble. She laid an icy cold hand on my hot brow, and
then all was darkness again.
“Now listen! Next time I came to myself and opened my eyes I was out of
the accursed passage. I saw the sky and the stars, and I felt a fresh
breeze blowing. Oh! joy, I was back on the earth again, that I knew. I
staggered feebly to my feet, and where on earth do you think I found I
had been lying?”
“I cannot guess,” I said.
“Just inside the archway of the old Pends gateway at St Andrews,” said
Ashton.
“How on earth did you get there?”
“Heaven knows,” said Ashton, “I expect the White Lady helped me somehow.
It all seemed like a fearful nightmare, but I had the gold cup in my
pocket and my broken wrist to bear testimony to what I had gone through.
To make a long story short, I went home to my people, where I lay for six
long weeks suffering from brain fever and shock. I always carry the cup
with me. I am not superstitious; but it brings me good luck _always_.”
Ashton showed me the monk’s gold cup. It was a beautiful little relic.
“Did you ever examine the place where you entered the passage?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, “I went there some years afterwards and found the
cave, but it has all fallen in now.”
“By Jove! It’s very late, thanks for the dinner, I must be off. Good
night.”
I lit a pipe and pondered over that curious story. The entrance to the
passage in the cave has fallen in; the exit from it in St Andrews is
unknown to Ashton—only the White Lady knows.
On the whole, the story is wrapped in mystery, and does not help one much
to unravel the wonders that lie in underground St Andrews. We may know
some day or never.
The Hauntings and Mysteries of Lausdree Castle.
It is many years ago since I was on a walking tour in the Highlands,
far to the north of Bonnie Glenshee; and when on the moorlands I was
overtaken, for my sins, by a regular American snowstorm—a genuine
blissard of the most pronounced type. I struggled along as well as I
could for some considerable time, and then I became aware that someone
was beside me. It was a young Highland lassie with a plaid over her head.
I was pleased to learn from her that her name was “Jean,” that she was
the niece of a neighbouring innkeeper, and that she would speedily convey
me to his haven of rest. We trudged along in the blinding snow without
a word, and I was more than thankful to the lassie when I at last found
myself out of the snow in a nice little sanded parlour with a glorious
fire of peat and logs blazing on the hospitable hearth. A glass of
something hot, brought by mine host, was most welcome.
I found there was one other storm-stayed traveller in the wee house, an
old family butler, whose name I discovered was Jeremiah Anklebone. He had
been on a visit to relations in the North, and had been caught in the
snow like myself. We were both thankful to find such a warm, cosy shanty
on such an inclement evening, and, to use a Scots term, we foregathered
at the ingle inside.
He asked me if I knew much about spirits, to which I replied that I had
just had a glass, but he at once explained that although not averse to
toddy, he alluded to spirits of another nature, viz., ghosts, banshees,
boggards, and the like.
I told him I had frequently been in so-called haunted places in various
countries, but had never seen or heard anything except owls, bats, rats,
or mice.
He ventured the remark I had often heard before, that I could not be
receptive, and I told him I was thankful that I was not.
He was a fine old fellow, an ideal family butler, and doubtless the
recipient of many family secrets. He had big mutton-chop whiskers and a
bald head, and looked as if he had served turtle soup all his life; but
it was _not_ soup he was soaked with—he seemed fairly saturated with
spook lore. He informed me, quite calmly, that he was gifted with the
remarkable faculty of seeing apparitions, demons, etc.
I could not help remarking that it seemed a very unpleasant faculty to
possess, but he quite differed with me, and got as warm as his toddy
on the subject. I shall not in a hurry forget that wild evening in the
Highland inn before that blazing fire, or the wonderful narrations I
heard from Butler Anklebone. Space precludes me from putting down here
_all_ the marvels he revealed to me.
It seemed all his life—he was 62—he had been gasping like a fish on a
river’s bank to get into a really well-haunted house, but had utterly
failed till he took the post of head butler at Lausdree Castle, which he
informed me was but a short distance from St Andrews. He gave me a most
tremendous description of the old castle, and from his account it seemed
to be the asylum and gathering place of _all_ the bogies in Britain
and elsewhere. Congregated together there were the Ice Maid, the Brown
Lady, a headless man, a cauld lad, a black maiden, the Flaming Ghost,
the Wandering Monk, a ghost called Silky, auld Martha, a radiant bay, an
iron knight, a creeping ghost, jumping Jock, old No-legs, Great Eyes,
a talking dog, the Corbie Craw, a floating head, a dead hand, bleeding
footprints, and many other curious creatures far too numerous to mention.
The Castle, he said, was full of uncouth and most peculiar sights and
sounds, including rappings, hammerings, shrieks, groans, crashings,
wailings, and the like.
“What a remarkable place,” I said to Mr Butler Anklebone, “and how do you
account for so many spectres in so limited an area?”
“Oh! there is no time or space for them,” he said, “they are earth-bound
spirits, and can go from one part of the globe to another in a second;
but they have their favourite haunts and meeting places just as we folks
have, and Lausdree seems to appeal to their varied tastes.”
He then went on to tell me some details of the Haunted Castle. “There are
supposed to be,” he said, “beneath the Castle splendid old apartments,
dungeons, winding passages, and cellars; but history states that any
of those persons who tried to investigate these mysteries _returned no
more_, so the entrances were walled up and are now completely lost sight
of.
“There is a built-up chamber, but no one durst open it, the penalty being
total blindness or death, and such cases are on record. There is also a
coffin room shaped exactly like its name; but one of the queerest places
at Lausdree is a small apartment with a weird light of its own. At night
this room can be seen from the old garden, showing a pale, uncanny,
phosphorescent glow.
“Mr Snaggers—that’s the footman—and I unlocked the door and examined the
place carefully. There is a table, a sofa, and a few old chairs therein,
and an all-pervading sickly light equally diffused. The furniture throws
no shadows whatever. The room seemed very chilly, and there was a feeling
as if all one’s vitality was being sucked out of one’s body, and drawing
one’s breath caused pain. Snaggers felt the same. No one could live long
in that eerie apartment. I know we were glad to lock it up again.
“Then there is a spiral stair, called ‘Meg’s Leg.’ I don’t know the
legend, but almost every night one hears her leg stumping up these steps.”
“What a creepy place it must be, to be sure,” I murmured, gravely.
“Yes!” said Anklebone, “and I tell you sir, Snaggers and I generally
arranged to go up to bed together; one always felt there was something
coming up the stairs behind one. When a person stopped, it stopped also,
and one could hear it breathing and panting, but nothing was to be seen.
Snaggers said one night when the candle went out he saw monstrous red
eyes, but I saw nothing then. The creeping creature I only saw twice,
it was like an enormous toad on spider’s legs. They say it has a human
head and face, but I only saw its back. Some folks say it is alive and
not a ghost, and that it hides somewhere in the cellars, but we never
could get a trace of it. One night I was going down to the service room
when my way was barred by a ghastly, tall figure, with great holes where
eyes should have been, so I just shut my eyes and rushed through it
downstairs. When I got down, I found all my clothes were covered with a
vile, sickly-smelling sticky sort of oil, and I had to destroy them all.”
“Go on, please,” I said, “you astonish me vastly.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s all very queer. Lausdree is haunted and
no mistake. Snaggers and I shared the same room. One night a great
blood-stained hand and arm came round the corner of the bed curtain and
tried to grab me. It was dead ice-cold too. Then a thing, an invisible
thing, used to patter into the room, puffing and groaning, and get under
the bed and heave it up, but we looked and there was never anything
there, and the door locked too. We saw a great black corkscrew thing one
night fall from the ceiling on to the floor and disappear, and then there
was a mighty rush along the passage. Outside the door a great crash,
a yell, and a groan dying away far below. There was a humorous spirit
also, the Iron Knight. We called him ‘Uncle.’ He was up to tricks. We
didn’t mind him. When the fat cook was sitting down to a meal, he’d pull
back her chair, and down she would come with a rare crash. If any of the
maids upset a tray of tea-things, or fell downstairs with the kettle, or
knocked over the great urn, they used to say—‘Oh! That’s Uncle again!’”
I told him (Mr Anklebone) that I was delighted there was a touch of
comedy in such a gruesome place, as I preferred comedians to ghosts any
day. One thing I learnt from his story, and that was, that if he was
head butler at Lausdree Castle, the head ghost was Sir Guy Ravelstocke,
whose portrait still hung in the old picture gallery. The Castle dated
back to Norman times, but about 1457 it fell into the hands of this
Sir Guy Ravelstocke, who had been educated at the “Stadium Generale,”
or University of Saint Andrews. He and his two friends, Geoffrey De
Beaumanoir and Roger Le Courville, held high revel and carnival in the
old halls of Lausdree, and were the terror of the whole countryside.
Sir Guy was a dissolute fellow, a gambler, and everything else bad. The
neighbours alleged that he had sold himself to Old Nick. He would spill
blood as if it was water, and he and his white steed, “Nogo,” were well
known all over Fife and the Lothians. He was held to be a free-booter, a
wizard and a warlock, a highwayman, a pirate, and a general desperado. He
had slain many men in mortal combat, and was found invulnerable.
“He must have been a sort of Michael Scott of Balwearie,” I remarked.
“He must have been a holy terror,” said the butler. “I’ve seen him often,
exactly like his portrait in the picture gallery. I’ve seen him in his
old-world dress with his sword hanging at his side, sometimes on his
white horse and sometimes on foot.
“There were always terrible knockings, shrieks, and crashes before he
appeared, and all our dogs showed the greatest terror. I slept in an old
four-poster bed, and he used to draw aside the curtain and glare at me
constantly. He nearly always was accompanied by the spectre of a negro
carrying his head under his arm. Sir Guy was a great traveller in foreign
lands, and, I have been told, used to bring back all sorts of curious
animals and insects with him. Perhaps that great toad thing I saw was one
of the creatures. I’ve heard toads live for ages.”
I said I believed that was quite true.
“I found a queer place one day,” said Anklebone. “I was going up the
turret staircase, and found some of the steps moved back. I got Mr
Snaggers and Darkgood, the gardener, and we tugged them out. We called
the master, and then we found narrow steps going down to a locked door.
We forced it open, and got into a stone chamber. There were skulls and
bones all over the place. Most of them belonged to animals, but there was
a horrible thing on the floor, a sort of mummified vampire bat, with huge
teeth and enormous outstretched wings, like thick parchment, and four
legs. Perhaps it was a regular vampire. They fanned folks to sleep with
their great wings, and then sucked their blood dry. We cleared out the
room, and buried all the things in a wood.
“Now,” said Anklebone, “I will tell you the end of Sir Guy Ravelstocke.
He brought back with him from them foreign parts a nigger servant, and
they called him the ‘Apostle.’ Well, one night,” continued Anklebone, “he
and his chums were dining, and full of wine, and the ‘A—Postal’ offended
them somehow, and Sir Guy stabbed him. Then they chained his hands and
feet together, took him to the dungeon, and filled his mouth, nose, and
ears full of clay and left him. That is the nigger ghost I saw always
with Sir Guy—the murdered negro.
“About two years after, Sir Guy and his friends were in the same room
drinking when there came a great hammering at the Castle door. Sir Guy
drew his sword, flung open the door, and plunged out into the darkness. A
few moments passed then his friends rushed out on hearing wild unearthly
shrieks, but there was no Sir Guy to be seen, he had totally disappeared,
and was never heard of or seen in life again. We found his remains three
years ago, but I will tell you of that directly. One day Snaggers and I
had gone to St Andrews to buy things. We were just at the end of South
Street when a horseman dashed past us at full gallop. ‘Heavens,’ said
Snaggers, ‘it’s Sir Guy as I live.’ He went bang into the big iron gates
at the Cathedral. When we came up the great gates were locked, and there
was Sir Guy leaning up against the west gable scowling at us, but the
white horse had gone, and he melted away as we looked. I saw him again
with the negro at Magus Muir, and alone one dark night in North Street.
“I was alone one evening in the room below the banquet hall at Lausdree
and heard a pattering on the table. On looking up I saw a stain in the
ceiling, and drops of blood were dropping down on the table and the
floor. The room above was the very place where the negro was stabbed.
Next morning we went into the room where I saw the blood drip, and there
was the mark of a bloody hand on the table, but no stain on the roof.
“Now for the discovery. I had often dreamed about an old overgrown well
there was in the gardens, and felt very suspicious of what might be
therein. Then the gardener and the woodman told me they had frequently
seen the awful spectre of Sir Guy and the ‘Apostle’ hovering round about
the thicket that enclosed what was known as the haunted well, and then
vanish in the brushwood without disturbing it. I felt sure that there lay
the mystery of Sir Guy Ravelstocke. This idea was soon after confirmed
by a curious occurrence. One morning Snaggers was dusting an old oil
painting over the huge mantelpiece, and above the weeping stone in the
great hall, when somehow or other he contrived to touch a secret spring
and the painting flew back, open in its frame, and revealed a chamber
beyond.
“We sent for master, and got down by some steps into the room. Such a
queer place! It was octagonal in shape, and there had been either a great
fire or an explosion there. The vaulted stone roof and floor were all
blackened and cracked, and the fireplace and wood-panelling were all
burnt and charred.”
“Perhaps the chapel,” I remarked.
“That is what master said,” replied the butler, “and there were remains
of burnt tapestry, charred wood, and documents all over the stone floor.
Master got one piece of burnt paper with faded writing on it in some
foreign tongue. The odd thing was the big picture. The eyes were sort of
convex-like, and two holes were bored in the pupil of each of its eyes,
so that anyone standing up on top of the stone stairs could see all that
took place in the great hall below, and hear also.
“Master took the piece of parchment and managed to make out a few words.
They were—‘I am sure that Ravelstocke lies in the old Prior’s Well,
with the dead nigger servant we placed there. I would not go near that
spot for my life. Heaven grant it may not come for me, I must leave the
place.’ That was all he could decipher on the burnt paper.
“‘We must explore that Prior’s Well (evidently that is its name)
to-morrow morning,’ said our master. We were all up at dawn, and got all
the men available to cut down the shrubs, bushes, and the undergrowth
round the well, the growth of ages. When the well was exposed it looked
very like the holy well at St Andrews, only it had been very finely
carved and ornamented at one time. The entrance was a Norman archway,
and the remains of an oak door still hung there. We found a shallow bath
shaped pool of muddy water inside, and a lot of broken stones and bits
of old statues and glass. At the far end was a large square opening a
few feet above the pool of water. We, of course, made for this, and
found there was a cell beyond. The whole well on one side was riven and
rent, either by lightning or the effects of an earthquake shock. If that
ancient well could have spoken it would have told us as queer tales as
St Rule’s Tower at St Andrews. There was a most curious, overpowering,
sickening odour inside the place, like a vault or charnel house.”
I remarked that I knew no smells worse than acetylene gas or the awful
smell I unearthed when digging, long ago, opposite the St Andrews
Cathedral.
“Well,” said Anklebone, “I can’t imagine a worse odour than there was
beside that Prior’s Well. It turned us all so faint. We had to get some
brandy. We got into the far cell, and there were two skeleton bodies on
the flagged floor. One was a blanched skeleton as far as the neck, but
the skull was well preserved, and matted black hair still clung on it and
round the jaws. All the teeth were in their place. Some rings had fallen
from the bony fingers, and a sword, all eaten away by rust, lay beside
the skeleton. The other was like a mummified ape, of a dark oak colour,
the nails on the fingers and toes being quite perfect. Chains, also
almost worn away, hung round the feet and hands.
“‘Good Heavens,’ said master, ‘it is Sir Guy Ravelstocke and the murdered
Apostle!’ There was no doubt of that whatever. We had them removed and
buried at once. The mystery was solved after all these long years.
“The nigger had been placed there, but the mystery of Sir Guy was
inexplicable. _Who came for him_ that night when he rushed out of the
door of Lausdree Castle, centuries ago, with his sword, and who carried
him to his doom in the Friar’s Well? No one can answer that terrible
question now. Oh! that the old well could speak and reveal its secret.”
A Haunted Manor House and the Duel at St Andrews; OR, The Old Brown Witch.
This can hardly be termed a St Andrews ghost story, but it is so
remarkably strange and weird that I have been specially requested to add
it to the series, and there is an allusion to St Andrews in it after all.
Several years ago we had in the Golf Club at Cambridge a Russian Prince
who took up golf, and the questions of spirits, bogies, witches,
banshees, death warnings, and the like, equally strongly. He was a firm
disbeliever in all of them, and belonged to a Phantasmalogical Research
Society to inquire into and expose all such things. I frequently have
long letters from him from all sorts of remote parts of the world where
he is investigating tales of haunted houses, churchyards, and so on;
but from this, his last letter, he seems to have contrived to meet a
_genuine_ and very unpleasant sort of spectre. Of course I suppress all
names.
“X⸺x Manor,
Feb. ⸺, 1905.
Dear W. T. L.,—Well, here I am, actually in a really haunted manor house
at last, and I have had a most horribly, weird, and uncanny experience
of a most loathsome appearance. I have been here a fortnight now—such a
queer, great old house, all turrets and towers, and damp wings covered
with ivy and creepers, and such small, narrow windows. It is on a slight
elevation, and has in bygone days had a moat around it. It is surrounded
by dense woods, and there is a black-looking lake at the back. The
staircases are all stone and very narrow, and there is an old chapel and
a coffin room in the house. In the garden, in a yew avenue, is a vault
and a tombstone, and thereby hangs my curious tale.
It seems that centuries ago a very unpleasant old widow lady, and a very
unpleasant son, had the old house. She was a very ugly and eccentric
creature, and a miser, and was nicknamed by the village folk “The
Brown Witch.” The tales about her ongoings told to this day are most
remarkable. It seems her son, who, according to all accounts, was a
shocking bad lot, was killed in a duel, and the old lady died shortly
afterwards a _raving maniac_.
She seems to have left a very curious will. I deal with only two
details in it. One was that the chamber in which she lived and died
was for ever to be left _untouched_ and _undisturbed_, but _unlocked_,
or the disturber would be cursed with instant blindness and ultimately
death. The second was that she was to be buried in the vault in the yew
avenue that she had specially made for her remains; that she was to be
dressed in her usual clothes and bonnet, and that she must be placed in
a tightly-sealed _glass coffin_, so as to be visible to any intruder.
My host told me the chamber or the vault in the grounds had never been
interfered with, but that her appearances had been very frequent to most
credible witnesses, and that such appearances all portended some dire
calamity to some one.
She had appeared and terrified many visitors, both in the house and in
the grounds. She had also been seen by the village pastor and by the
servants. He had never seen her himself, but he had taken every measure
he could think of to unravel the mystery, but in vain. The outdoor
servants were terrified, and would never remain, and one lady visitor had
been nearly driven mad by seeing her peering in at the window at dusk.
Of course, I laughed the tale to scorn, and also the story of the alarm
bell which tolled at intervals without any apparent or human agency. Not
even the bravest would dare to walk down the yew avenue after nightfall.
Well, I had been ten days in the house before anything happened. I must
say, the wind and the rats, and owls and bats, and the tapping noise
of the ivy on the old windows at night were rather creepy, but nothing
really out of the common happened till the other night.
My room was in a long, narrow, old gallery. After cards and billiards,
and at about 12.30, I was going off to my well-earned rest, and was
getting near my door in the gallery, when I saw a faint light coming
towards me round a corner. I went into my room and waited to see who
was wandering about so late at night. Then a figure stopped at my door,
evidently carrying a lighted old lantern. I raised my candle to have an
inspection, and then, oh! horror!—I staggered back for a moment, for
before me clearly stood the horrible figure of the old “Brown Witch.” A
cold sweat broke out all over me.
Far, far worse than the description. I saw her brown robe and the poke
bonnet, the horrible face, the huge black sockets of the eyes without
eyeballs, the nose gone, and, worst of all, that fearful grin, the cruel
grin of a maniac, a wicked, terrible face.
I opened my drawer and seized my always loaded revolver. I shouted
loudly, and fired _once_, _twice_, _thrice_. She never moved; only the
horrible mocking smile grew wider and more devilish. I rushed forward,
slammed my door to shut out the awful sight, and then collapsed back into
a chair.
I must have hit it each time for certain. An offensive charnel house
smell pervaded the air. Then the door flew open, and my host and several
men and servants rushed into the room, anxiously asking what was the
matter, and why I fired? I told them everything. We found the three
bullet shots in the wall opposite my door. They _must_ have passed
through that abominable horror.
Need I say I spent a wretched night? In fact, I sat up and never went
to bed at all. I resolved to leave next day early, but before doing
that I determined at all hazards, to go into that vault and see what
it contained, and also to carefully investigate the “Brown Witch’s”
chamber without disturbing anything in it. I told my host next day at
breakfast what I proposed doing, and he offered no objection whatever,
but declined absolutely to go near the vault or chamber himself, or to
let any of his household do so.
“Oh! by-the-by, did you ring the alarm bell in the tower last night?”
he asked me. “It was the sound of your shots and the great bell ringing
immediately afterwards that brought me along so quickly to your room. We
all heard it.”
I told him I knew nothing of it and never even heard the bell.
“I thought that,” he said, “for you were nearly off in a faint when we
all came in, and hardly knew us for a bit.
“I can’t make out the bell,” said my host, “or what on earth can make it
ring so. It has no rope, and it cannot possibly be the wind. I must have
it removed. Last time it rung loudly like that, my old housekeeper was
found dead in her bed in the morning.”
To make a long story short, the next thing I did was to get a couple of
labourers to shovel away the earth and find the lid of the old vault in
the yew avenue. This was soon done, and we quickly descended into the
place with lights. We found ourselves in a large-built, clammy chamber,
and on the floor lay a tattered and broken old lantern. At first we
thought the chamber was empty, but all of a sudden we noticed a niche at
one end and at once went forward to it. In this singular alcove was a
large glass box, or coffin, standing on its end, and in it and standing
upright was the horrible eyeless mummy (still arrayed in the brown robe
and poke bonnet) of the terrible creature I had seen in the gallery, and
with the same mocking, grinning mouth and the huge ugly teeth. The same
smell I have told you of before pervaded the whole place.
She was hermetically sealed up in this ghastly glass coffin and
preserved. We were all very glad to leave that charnel-house and cover
it up out of sight, but not out of memory. That would be perfectly
impossible to any of us. I can’t get that smell out of my nose yet. It
would sicken you.
Next, I went to the chamber with a friend and my bicycle lantern to
investigate. It was up a long, narrow stone stair. The old oak door (it
was unlocked, as I said before) soon yielded to our combined efforts
and creaked open, and we stood in a room of the middle ages. The old
shutters were tightly closed. The ceiling, which had once been handsomely
painted, was rapidly falling away, and the tapestry was rotting off the
walls. It had evidently once been a splendid apartment, but now it was
given up to rats and moths and spiders and damp. It chilled one to the
very marrow, and it had that same horrible smell. There was a four-poster
bed in one corner with rags and shreds of curtains, probably where the
old creature had died. The tables and chairs were covered with the dust
of ages. There was no carpet of any kind. An old spinet stood against the
wall; and papers were lying all over the place inches deep in dust. A few
charred logs of wood lay in the gaping old fireplace with its old-time
chimney corners, and there seemed to be bits of valuable old china and
bric-a-brac about the place. Many pictures had fallen off the walls,
but a few faded pencil drawings were still in their places. Just guess
my surprise and astonishment when I found they were Scottish views—one
of Edinburgh, one of Crail Church, and three of St Andrews, including
the old College and Chapel, the Castle, and St Leonards College, with
date 1676. Here was another most curious thing I determined to ask about
before I left. However, I touched nothing in the room, as I had promised
my host, and besides—you will laugh—I had no wish to be stricken with the
“Brown Witch’s” promised curse of blindness and ultimate death to any
intruder who touched her things. I dreaded her far too much since I had
seen her in the gallery and in her tomb, and heard of her bewitched alarm
bell, which portended death to some one.
Before I left, I mentioned the Scottish drawings in the witch’s room to
my host, and asked him if he could throw any light on how they came there.
Briefly, it seems that she (the witch) sent her son far away in those old
days to a Scottish University, and St Andrews was her choice. It seems
he was very quarrelsome in his cups, and frequently fought duels, and
generally proved the victor. One of the last he fought at Sauchope Stone,
near Crail, with a nephew of the Laird of Balcomie Castle, and they
fought with broadsword and buckler, and again the “Witch’s” son killed
his man. His last duel was fought on St Andrews sands with rapiers, and
he was run through the heart—a good job.
Now I must conclude. I am determined to investigate further the whole
most mysterious affair. If you ever visit this place, my host, Mr ⸺, says
he will let you explore the vault in the yew avenue, and see the coffin
and the old witch, and you may also go and look at the chamber. If you
ever do, take the advice of an old friend and do not _dare_ to touch
anything therein.
YOUR FRIEND TO COMMAND.
[Illustration]
The Apparition of the Prior of Pittenweem.
It was in September 1875 that I first met dear old Captain Chester (now
gone to his rest); and it was very many years before that date that he
rented his fearsomely haunted old house in St Andrews.
I was a Cambridge boy when I met him—how the undergraduates scorn that
term “boy.” He told me the following queer tales in the Poppledorf Avenue
at Bonn when I was on holiday.
The house he rented at St Andrews, from his accounts, must have been a
most unpleasant and eerie dwelling. Rappings and hammerings were heard
all over the house after nightfall, trembling of the walls, quiverings.
Heavy falls and ear-piercing shrieks were also part of the nightly
programme.
I suggested bats, rats, owls, and smugglers as the cause, which made
the old man perfectly wild with rage, and caused him to use most
unparliamentary language.
I pointed out that such language would probably have scared away any
respectable ghost. However, let me tell the story in his own peculiar way.
“My brother and I took the house, sir,” he said, “and we had a nephew and
some nieces with us. There were also three middle-aged English servants
at the time; and, gadsooth, sir, they had strange names. The cook
possessed the extraordinary name of Maria Trombone, the housemaid was
called Jemima Podge, and the other old cat was called Teresa Shadbolt.
“One evening I was sitting smoking in my study, when the door flew open
with a bang and Maria rushed in.
“‘Zounds! Mrs Trombone,’ I said, ‘how dare you come into my room like
this?’
“‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘there are _hawful_ things going on to-night.
I’m _frighted_ to death. I was washing hup, please sir, when something
rushed passed me with a rustle, and I got a great smack on the cheek with
a damp, cold hand, and then the place shook, and all the things clattered
like anything.’
“‘Nonsense, Trombone,’ I said, ‘you were asleep, or have you been
drinking, eh?’
“‘Lor’ bless you, sir, no! never a drop; but last night, sir, Teresa
Shadbolt had all the bedclothes pulled off her bed twice, sir, and Jane
said a tall old man in a queer dressing-gown came into her room and
brushed his white beard over her face, and, lor’, sir, didn’t you hear
her a-screamin’?’
“‘No, I’m hanged if I did. You must all be stark, staring mad, you know.’
“‘Not a bit of us, master,’ continued Mrs Trombone. ‘There is something
wrong about this blessed house—locked doors and windows fly wide open,
and the bells keep ringin’ at all hours of the night, and we hear steps
on the stairs when everyone is in bed, and knocks, and crashes, and
screams. Then the tables and things go moving about. No Christian could
put up with it, please sir. _We must all leave_.’
“Well, I got all those women up, and they told me deuced queer things,
but I squared them up at last.”
“How?” I inquired.
“I doubled their wages, sir, and I told them they might all sleep in
one room upstairs together, and I promised them a real good blow-out at
Christmas, and so on.
“Next my nephew and little nieces saw the old man with the long white
beard at various times in the passages and on the stairs. Oddly enough,
my little nieces got quite accustomed to see the aged man with the grey
beard, and were not a bit timid. They said he was just like the pictures
of old Father Christmas, and he looked kind.
“I never saw him,” continued Chester, “till one All Hallows Night, or
Hallowe’en as they termed it in St Andrews; but I will speak of that
later on.”
“Go on,” I said, “it is very interesting indeed to me.”
“The servants all saw him at times, and that old arch fiend, Trombone,
was constantly getting frightened, and breaking things and fainting. I
was myself annoyed by strange unearthly sounds when sitting smoking at
night late. There were curious rollings and rumblings under the house,
like enormous stone balls being bowled along, then a heavy thud followed
by intolerable silence. Then there was a curious sound like muffled
blinds being quickly drawn up and down; that and a sort of flapping and
rustling seemed to pervade the air.
“This perplexed me, and I got in a detective; but he found out nothing at
all. After much trouble and research I learned of the legend of the Prior
of Pittenweem and his connection with the old house.
“It seems when Moray and his gang of plunderers shut up St Monance Church
and the old Priory of Pittenweem, the last Prior (not Forman or Rowles),
a very old man, was cut adrift, and for some months lay hidden at Newark
Castle, food being brought him by some former monks. Newark Castle was
burned, and this old Prior fled to Balcomie Castle. From there he went to
Kinkell Cave near St Andrews.
“I know all those places well,” I said.
“After some weeks, and when winter came, he took refuge in the very old
house in which I lived. He seems to have been among both friends and foes
there, and brawls were quite common things within those walls.
“One night those long dead and forgotten old-world inhabitants were
startled from their slumbers by shots, the clashing of arms, and wild
yells. To make a long tale short, that old Prior of Pittenweem was never
seen by human eyes after that fearful night.
“Many suspected foul play, but in those times it was deemed best to
keep one’s mouth shut tight, and what mattered it if an old Prior
disappeared?”
“They were awful times those,” I said. “Glad we live in these days.”
“Well, now,” said the Captain, “I must come to the night of All Hallows
E’en, or Holy Even, when the spirits of the night are said to wander
abroad. We dined early in those days, and after dinner I walked down to
an old Clubhouse in Golf Place, of which I was an hon. member, to play
cards. It was a perfect night, and a few flakes of snow had begun to
fall, and the wind was keen and sharp. When I left the Club later the
ground was well covered with snow, but the storm had ceased, and the moon
and stars were shining bright in a clear sky. By Jove, sir, it was like
fairyland, and all the church towers and house tops were glittering in
the moonbeams.
“I wandered about the old place for fully an hour. It was lovely. I
was reluctant to go indoors. Gad, sir, I got quite sad and poetical. I
thought of my poor sister who died long ago and is buried in Stefano
Rodundo at Rome, and lots of other things. Then I thought of St Andrews
as it is and what it might have been. I thought of all its holy temples,
erected by our pious forefathers, and its altars and statues lying
desolate, ruined and profaned.
“At last I arrived at my own door, and entered—in a thoughtful mood. I
went to my study and put on my slippers and dressing gown. I had just sat
down and commenced reading when there came a most tremendous shivering
crash. I involuntarily cowered down. I thought the roof had fallen—at
least, gad, sir, I was flabbergasted. It woke everyone. The crash was
followed by a roaring sound.”
“It must have been an earthquake, Captain Chester,” I said.
“Zounds, sir, I don’t know what it was. I thought I was killed. Then my
nephew and I got a lamp and examined the house.
“Everything was right—nothing to account for the fearful noise. Finally,
we went downstairs to the vaulted kitchens. Zounds, sir, all of a sudden
my nephew gripped my arm, and with a cry of abject terror pointed to the
open kitchen door. ‘Oh, look there, look there!’ he almost screamed.
“I looked, and, gad, I got a queer turn. There facing us in the open
doorway was a very tall, shaven-headed old man with a long grey beard. He
had a white robe or cassock on, a linen rocket, and, above all, an almuce
or cloak of black hue lined with ermine--_The Augustinian Habit_. In one
hand he held a very large rosary, and he lent on a stout cudgel.
“As I advanced he retreated backwards, always beckoning to me—and I
followed lamp in hand. I _had_ to follow—could not help myself. Do you
know the way a serpent can fascinate or hypnotise its prey before it
devours them?”
“Yes,” I said, “I have seen the snakes at the Zoo do that trick.”
“Well, sir, I was hypnotised like that—precisely like that. He beckoned
and I followed.
“Suddenly I saw a little door in the corner of the kitchen standing
open—a door I had never noticed before. The shadowy vision backed towards
it. Still I followed. Then he entered its portals. As I advanced he grew
more and more transparent, and finally melted away, and the heavy door
shut upon him with a tremendous crash and rattle. The lamp fell from my
trembling hand and was shattered to fragments on the stone floor. I was
in pitch darkness—silence reigned—I don’t remember how I got out to the
light again.