with hobbies and fads of various kinds, but I never met a man of such
curious personality as this old friend of mine, Captain Chester. All his
methods and ideas were purely original. Everyone has some hobby; his
hobby was ghost and spook-hunting.
We were sitting one lovely September evening in the gardens of one of the
hotels at Bonn, which stretched down to the river Rhine, listening to the
band and watching the great rafts coming down the river from the Black
Forest.
“By Jove, sir,” said the old man, “I have shot big game in the Rockies,
and hunted tigers and all that sort of thing; but, zooks! sir, I
prefer hunting ghosts any day. That Robert de Montrose was the first
I saw. There are shoals of these shades about, a perfect army of them
everywhere, especially in St Andrews. Gad, sir, you should hear the
banshees shrieking at night in the Irish bogs. I don’t believe in your
infernal sea serpents, but I’ve seen water kelpies in the Scottish and
American lakes.”
I told him I had never heard a banshee or seen a water kelpie.
“Very likely, sir, very probable. Everyone can’t see and hear these
things. _I can._”
I told him I had never seen a disembodied spirit, and didn’t want to.
“Gad, zooks! sir, I consider disinspirited bodies far worse. They are
quite common. I allude to human bodies that have lost their spirits or
souls, and yet go about among us. Zounds! sir, my cousin is one of them.
“Ah,” he continued, “detached personality is a curious thing. I can
detach my personality, can you?”
“Most certainly not,” I said, “what the deuce do you mean?”
“Mean,” he said, “I mean my spirit can float out of my body at will. My
spirit becomes a sort of mental balloon. I can then defy destiny.”
“How in thunder do you manage to do it anyway?”
“By practice, sir, of course. When my spirit floats out of my body, I
can see my own old body sitting in my armchair and an ugly old wreck of
a body it is. It is bad for one, I admit; it is very weakening. Another
thing may happen; another wandering spirit may suddenly take possession
of one’s body, and then one’s own spirit can’t get back again, and it
becomes a wandering spirit, and is always trying to force itself into
other people’s bodies. Then one’s spirit gets into a mental bunker, you
see.”
“I don’t see a bit. It is most unpleasant. Tell me about ghosts you have
seen, and about that dagger you gave Major Montrose.”
“Oh! so then you are not interested in eliminated personality?”
“Not a bit,” I said, “I don’t know what it is. Tell me about that dagger
for a change.”
“Oh! ah! Well, the dagger Robert of Montrose gave me proved of great use
to my old friend, Bob Montrose, on _many_ occasions. It had a wonderful
power of its own. Once he got into a broil with a lot of Spanish fellows
one night, and as he was unarmed at the time he was in a remarkably tight
corner. Suddenly something slipped into his hand, and, by Jove, sir, it
was the dagger, and that dagger saved his life. Another time he found
himself in an American train with a raving lunatic, and if it had not
been for the protecting dagger he’d have been torn limb from limb. After
that he took it everywhere with him.”
“Where is it now?”
“Well, there’s an odd thing if you like. Bob died in the Isle of France,
where Paul and Virginia used to be. He was killed by a fall, and is
buried there. He left the dagger to me in his will, but no human eyes
have ever seen that dagger since his death. It may have been stolen, or
it may have gone back to where it came from into Robert of Montrose’s
stone kist in the old Chapter-House at St Andrews Cathedral. Probably
its usefulness was at an end, and it was needed no more. Bob told me one
queer thing about that dagger. _Once a year_ near Christmastide (the
dagger hung on the wall of his bedroom) it used to exude a thick reddish
fluid like blood, which used to cover the blade in large drops, and it
remained so for several hours—and, again, sometimes at night it used to
shine with a bright light of its own.”
“That is indeed wonderful,” I said, lighting another cheroot, “but tell
me more about the St Andrews bogles. Astral bodies, dual personality, and
things of that kind depress me a bit.”
“Well, that is odd,” said old Chester, “I love them. When I was in St
Andrews I rented a fine old house, with huge thick walls, big fireplaces,
funny corkscrew stairs, such rum holes and corners, and big vaulted
kitchens. It’s all pulled down now, I believe, and a bran new house
built; but I hear the vaulted rooms below are left exactly as they were.
People didn’t take to the old house; they heard noises and rappings, and
saw things in the night, and so on. _We all saw things._ My brother met
the ghost of a horrible looking old witch, quite in the orthodox dress,
on the Witch Hill above the Witch Lake. It upset him terribly at the
time—made him quite ill—nerves went all to pot—would not sleep in a room
by himself after that. He made me devilish angry, sir, I can tell you.”
“Perhaps it was Mother Alison Craik, a well-known witch, who was burnt
there.”
“Likely enough, sir, it may have been the old cat you mention, an old
hag. Then my nephew and I saw that phantom coach in the Abbey Walk one
windy moonlight night. It passed us very quickly, but made a deuced row,
like a lifeboat carriage.”
“What was it like?”
“Like a huge black box with windows in it, and a queer light inside. It
reminded me of a great coffin. Ugly looking affair; very uncanny thing to
meet at that time of night and in such a lonely spot. It was soon gone,
but we heard its rumbling noise for a long time.”
“What were the horses like, eh?”
“Shadowy looking black things, like great black beetles with long thin
legs.”
“And what was the driver like?” I asked.
“He was a tall thin, black object also, like a big, black, lank lobster,
with a cocked hat on the top. That’s all I could see. On the top of the
coach was an object that looked like a gigantic tarantula spider, with
a head like a moving gargoyle. I can’t get at the real history of that
mysterious old coach yet. I don’t believe it has anything whatever to do
with the murdered prelates, Beaton or Sharpe. However, the coach does go
about. Another wraith I saw at the Castle of St Andrews was that of James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. He lies
buried in the crypt of Faarveile Church, close to the cattegut. Before
his death he was a prisoner at Malmo; then he was sent to Denmark, and
died in the dungeon of the State prison at Drachsholm.”
“I am awfully interested,” I said, “about those times, and in Bothwell
and Mary in particular.”
“Odd’s fish, sir,” said Chester, “so am I. I went to Faarveile to see
Bothwell’s well-preserved body. The verger took me down a trap-door near
the altar, and there it lies in a lidless box, a very fine face, with a
cynical and mocking mouth. He murdered Darnley, and he was treated and
buried as a murderer in those bygone days. At Malmo folks say he was
tormented by the ghosts of his mad wife, Jane Huntly, and by Darnley. He
ended his days in misery, and serve him devilish well right, say I. I
love and revere lovely Mary Stuart. Damn it, sir, he deserted her when
she was in a fix at Carberry Hill, the curmudgeon.”
“But what of the appearances of the Earl you saw?”
“Met him twice at the Castle—no mistaking him—a big, knightly, handsome
fellow. Spirits can easily at times assume their earthly form and dress.
I recognised him at once—the sneering lips and all, just like his
pictures, too. When he glided past me his teeth were chattering like a
dice-box, and the wind was whistling through his neck bones. I addressed
him boldly by name, but he melted away. One sees these apparitions with
one’s mental eyes. I saw him again leaning against the door that leads to
that oubliette in the Sea Tower of the Castle. Egad, sir, he _exactly_
resembled the body I saw in the old crypt at Faarveile. He often appears
there, and at Hermitage Castle also. No mistake, sir, that was Hepburn,
the Earl of Bothwell. I must tell you _some other time_—(it’s getting
very late now)—of the ghosts I saw in my house at St Andrews, and of
the Prior or Monk of Pittenweem. I must turn into bed now. I go to the
service at the Cathedral here early to-morrow.”
Then the tall figure of Captain Chester strode away and left me alone to
my meditations.
Well! I suppose if _I had been_ Captain Chester, left alone there in
those gardens, I’d have seen a ghost or two with my mental eyes; but,
instead, I saw a fat waiter approaching, who told me my supper awaited me.
[Illustration]
The Screaming Skull of Greyfriars.
I never met a better fellow in the world than my old friend, Allan
Beauchamp. He had been educated at Eton, and Magdalen at Oxford, after
which he joined a crack regiment, and later on took it into his head
to turn doctor. He was a great traveller and a magnificent athlete.
There was no game in which he did not excel. Curiously enough, he hated
music; he had no ear for it, and he did not know the difference between
the airs of “Tommy, make room for your uncle” and “The Lost Chord.” He
was tremendously proud of his pedigree; he had descended from the de
Beauchamps, and one of his ancestors, he gravely informed people, had
helped Noah to get the wasps and elephants into the Ark. Another of them
seems to have been not very far away in the Garden of Eden. In fact,
they seem to have been quite prehistoric. He was quite cracked on the
subject of brain transference, telepathy, spiritualism, ghosts, warnings,
and the like, and on these points he was most uncanny and fearsome. The
literature he had about them was blood curdling. He believed in dual
personality, and in visions, horoscopes, and dreams. He showed me a
pamphlet he had written, entitled “The Toad-faced Demon of Lone Devil’s
Dyke.” He was always flitting about Britain exploring haunted houses and
castles, and sleeping in haunted rooms when it was possible. Some years
ago Beauchamp and myself, accompanied by his faithful valet, rejoicing in
the name of Pellingham Truffles, went to the Highlands for a bit of quiet
and rest, and it was there I heard his curious story of the skull.
We were sitting over a cosy fire after dinner. It was snowing hard
outside, and very cold. Our pipes were alight and our grog on the table,
when Allan Beauchamp suddenly remarked—“It’s a deuced curious thing for a
man to be always followed about the place by a confounded grinning skull.”
“Eh, what,” I said, “who the deuce is being followed about by a skull?
It’s rubbish, and quite impossible.”
“Not a bit,” said my friend, “I’ve had a skull after me more or less for
several years.”
“It sounds like a remark a lunatic would make,” I rejoined rather
crossly. “Do not talk bunkum. You’ll go dotty if you believe such
infernal rot.”
“It is not bunkum or rot a bit,” said Allan, “It’s gospel truth. Ask
Truffles, ask Jack Weston, or Jimmy Darkgood, or any of my south country
pals.”
“I don’t know Jack Weston or Jimmy Darkgood,” I said, “but tell me the
whole story, and some day, _if it’s good_, I’ll put it in the _St Andrews
Citizen_.”
“It’s mostly about St Andrews,” said Beauchamp, “so here goes, but shove
on some coals first.”
I did so, and then requested him to fire away.
“It was long, long ago, I think about the year 1513, that one of my
ancestors, a man called Neville de Beauchamp, resided in Scotland. It
seems he was an uncommonly wild dog, went in for racing and cards, and
could take his wine and ale with any of them even in those hard-drinking
days. He was known as Flash Neville. Later on he married a pretty girl,
the daughter of a silk mercer in Perth, who, it seems, died (they said
of a broken heart) two years after. Neville de Beauchamp was seized with
awful remorse, and became shortly after a monk in Greyfriars Monastery at
St Andrews. After Neville’s wife’s death, her relations seem to have been
on the hunt after him, burning for revenge, and the girl’s brother, a
rough, wild dog in those stormy days, at last managed to track his quarry
down in the monastery at St Andrews.”
“Very interesting,” I said, “that monastery stood very nearly on the site
of the present infant school, and we found the well in 1880. Well, what
did this brother do, eh?”
“It seems that one afternoon after vespers he forced his way into the
Monastery Chapel, sought out Neville de Beauchamp, and slashed off
his head with a sword in the aisle of the Kirk. Now a queer thing
happened—his body fell on the floor, but the severed head, with a wild
scream, flew up to the chapel ceiling and vanished through its roof.”
“Mighty queer that,” I said.
“The body was reverently buried,” went on Allan, “but the head never was
recovered, and, whirling through the air over the monastery, screaming
and groaning most pitifully, it used to cause great terror to the monks
and others o’ nights. It was a well-known story, and few cared to venture
in that locality after nightfall. The head soon became a skull, and since
that time has always haunted some member of the house of Beauchamp. Now
comes a strange thing. I went a few years ago and lived in rooms at
St Andrews for a change, and while there I heard of my uncle’s death
somewhere abroad. I had never seen him, but I had frequently heard that
he was very much perplexed and worried by the tender attentions paid him
by the skull of Neville de Beauchamp, which was always turning up at odd
times and in unexpected places.”
“This is a grand tale,” I said.
“Now I come on the job,” said Allan, ruefully. “That uncle was the very
last of our family, and I wondered if that skull would come my way. I
felt very ill and nervous after I got the news of my uncle’s death. A
strange sense of depression and oppression overcame me, and I got very
restless. One stormy evening I felt impelled by some strange influence to
go out. I wandered about the place for several hours and got drenched. I
felt as if I was walking in my sleep, or as if I had taken some drug or
other. Then I had a sort of vision—I had just rounded the corner of North
Bell Street.”
“Now called Greyfriars Garden,” I remarked.
“Yes! Well, when I got around that corner I saw a large, strange building
before me. I opened a wicket gate and entered what I found to be the
chapel; service was over, the lights were being extinguished, and the air
was laden with incense. As I knelt in a corner of the chapel I saw the
whole scene, the tragedy of which I had heard, enacted all over again. I
saw that monk in the aisle, I saw a man rush in and cut off his head.
I saw the body fall and the head fly up with a shriek to the roof. When
I came to myself I found I was sitting on the low wall of the school. I
was very cold and wet, and I got up to go home. As I rose I saw lying on
the pavement at my feet what appeared to be a small football. I gave it a
vicious kick, when to my horror it turned over and I saw it was a skull.
It was gnashing its teeth and moaning. Then with a shriek it flew up in
the air and vanished. A horrible thing. Then I knew the worst. The skull
of the monk Neville de Beauchamp had attached itself to me for life, I
being the last of the race. Since then it is almost always with me.”
“Where is it now?” I said, shuddering.
“Not very far away, you bet,” he said.
“It’s a most unpleasant tale,” I said. “Good night, I’m off to bed after
that.”
I was in my first sleep about an hour afterwards, when a knock came at my
door, and the valet came in.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but the skull has _just come
back_. It’s in the next room. Would you like to see it?”
“Certainly not,” I roared. “Get away and let me go to sleep.”
Then and there I firmly resolved to leave next morning. I hated skulls,
and I fancied that probably it might take a fancy to me, and I had no
desire to be followed about the country by a skull as if it was a fox
terrier.
Next morning I went in to breakfast. “Where is that beastly skull?” I
said to Allan.
“Oh, it’s off again somewhere. Heaven knows where; but I have had another
vision, a waking vision.”
“What was it?”
“Well,” said Allan, “I saw the skull and a white hand which seemed to
beckon to me beside it. Then they slowly receded and in their place was
what looked like a big sheet of paper. On it in large letters were the
words—_Your friend, Jack Weston, is dead_. This morning I got this wire
telling me of his sudden death. Read it.”
That afternoon I left the Highlands and Allan Beauchamp.
Since then I have constant letters from him from his home in England. He
has tried every means possible to get rid of that monk’s skull; but they
are of no avail, it always returns. So he has made the best he can of it,
and keeps it in a locked casket in an empty room at the end of a wing of
the old house. He says it keeps fairly quiet, but on stormy nights wails
and gruesome shrieks are heard from the casket in that closed apartment.
I heard from him last week. He said:—
“DEAR W. T. L.,—I don’t think I mentioned that twice a year the skull of
Neville de Beauchamp vanishes from its casket for a period of about two
days. It is never away longer.
“I wonder if it still haunts its old monastery at St Andrews where its
owner was slain. Do write and tell me if anyone now in that vicinity
hears or sees the screaming skull of my ancestor, Neville de Beauchamp.”
[Illustration]
The Spectre of the Castle.
Several years had elapsed since I met the butler of Lausdree Castle
in the Highland Inn. I had just come up from the south of England for
some golf and fresh air, and was looking over my letters one morning at
breakfast when I opened the following missive:—
Lausdree Castle,
......
SIR,—Yours to command. Sir, I have not forgot our pleasant talk
on that snowy night up in the far north, when you were pleased
to be interested in my experiences of Lausdree. Could you very
kindly meet me any day and time you choose to fix at Leuchars?
And oblige,
Your obedient servant,
JEREMIAH ANKLEBONE.
_P.S._—I have something to divulge to you connected with St
Andrews that may absorb your mind.
Accordingly, I fixed up arrangements and met Mr Anklebone at Leuchars,
where we went to the nearest hostelry and ordered the best lunch they had
there. Jeremiah looked thinner, older, and whiter than when I last saw
him, doubtless owing to his frequent communing with spirits.
“How is Lausdree getting on?” I meekly inquired, “and what of the ghosts?”
“It is getting on fine, sir. I have had a number of new experiences since
I had the pleasure of seeing you last. You must understand, sir, that my
family for generations have been favoured with occult powers. My father
was a great seer, and my great-grandfather, Mr Concrikketty Anklebone, of
the Isle of Skye, was a wonderful visionary.”
Now, Anklebone was an interesting old fellow, but he had a tiresome habit
of wandering away from his theme, and, as it were, getting off the main
road into a labyrinth of bye-ways, and one had, metaphorically, to push
him out of these side lanes and place him on his feet again in the main
road.
“Before I come to St Andrews Castle,” he said, “I must tell you about a
queer episode of an astral body at Lausdree, a disentangled personality,
as it were.”
“Push along,” I said, “and tell me.”
“Well, one afternoon after luncheon the master and I were in the dining
hall, when we saw a gentleman crossing the lawn towards the castle. He
was a tall man in a riding dress, with curly hair and a large flowing
moustache. He came up to the window and looked in earnestly at us, and
then walked along the gravel-walk round to the castle door. ‘Hullo!’ said
the master, ‘that is my old friend, Jack Herbert, to whom I have let
Lausdree for this summer. What on earth can bring him here? I’ll go to
the door myself and let him in. He never said he was coming.’
“In a minute or two the master came back looking bewildered. ‘Anklebone,’
he said, ‘that’s a _very_ queer thing; there is nobody there!’ ‘Perhaps,’
I suggested, ‘the gentleman has gone round to the stables’; so we both
hurried off to look, but not a sign of anyone could be seen, and we
stared blankly at each other. We could not make it out. Two days after,
the master got a letter from Mr Jack Herbert telling him he had had a bad
fall off his horse, had injured his spine, and was confined to bed.
“Mr Herbert went on to say that two days before, while he was asleep, he
dreamt vividly that he was at Lausdree; that he crossed the lawn to the
window of the dining hall, and, looking in, saw my master and the butler
(that’s me) in the room. He was going round to the front door when he
awoke. Now that was his _astral body_ that Master and I saw. He loved
Lausdree, and during sleep he came and paid us that visit. Queer, isn’t
it? Ten days after, he died. He wanted to see the old castle before he
died, and his force of will power brought his double self, or astral
body, to visit us. _It is not so uncommon_ as people think.
“Numbers of people are seen in two places at once far apart. Look at
Archbishop Sharpe of St Andrews. He was in Edinburgh, at Holyrood I
think, and sent his servant over post haste to St Andrews to bring back
some papers he had forgotten there. When his trusty servant went up
to his study in the Novum Hospitium to get the papers from the desk,
lo! there was the Archbishop sitting in his usual chair and scowling
at him. He told the Archbishop this when he returned with the papers
to Edinburgh, but his Grace sternly bade him be silent and mention the
matter to no one on pain of death.
“Now, sir, it seems that my master is able to see astral bodies, for
he saw Mr Jack Herbert, but I doubt if he could see a _real spirit_.
Perhaps, sir,” suggested Anklebone, politely, “you might be able to see
astral bodies?”
“Thank you very much indeed,” I replied, “but I’m ⸺ if I want to see
anything of the sort; but I have heard a tale of an eminent man in London
who took a nap in his armchair every afternoon, and while asleep appeared
to his friends in different parts of the country, but I doubt the fact
very much.”
“Ah!” said the butler, very solemnly, “only about one in a thousand has
the power of visualising real spirits. Many ordinary persons have _long_
sight, and some have _short_ sight, but most people are short-sighted
when ghosts are visible. The ghosts are really there all the time. Some
people cannot see them, but can feel their presence or touch only. Most
animals can see spirits; sometimes they are killed with terror when they
see the spirits.”
I pulled the bell rope and ordered some spirits for the butler. “I don’t
think that will kill you with terror,” I said when it arrived.
He looked grateful, and remarked that talking was dry work, however
interesting the subject might be.
“Now, look here, Mr Anklebone,” I said, “you know, I daresay, the stories
about the Cathedral, the Haunted Tower, and all that. Please tell me what
your experiences have been there.”
Anklebone’s whole appearance suddenly changed; he gripped my arm
violently, shivered and shuddered, and turned ghastly pale. I thought he
was going to have a fit.
“For pity’s sake, sir,” he said, trembling, “ask me nothing about that.
There is something _too terrible_ there, but I dare not reveal what I
know and have seen to anyone. Do not allude to it again or it will drive
me mad.”
He lay back in his chair for a few moments with his eyes closed and
shaking all over, but he gradually recovered his usual appearance.
“I wish to tell you about the Castle Spectre,” he said, weakly.
I must confess that I felt nonplussed and disappointed at the turn the
conversation had taken, as whatever my private opinion was regarding the
worthy Jeremiah’s curious statements, still I felt anxious to find out
his experiences at the Cathedral particularly. However, I swallowed my
disappointment like a Trojan, and begged him to proceed.
He gulped down his spirits and informed me he felt better again, but he
did not seem quite himself for some time.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I often used to climb over the Castle wall after
dusk, and smoke my pipe and meditate on all the grand folk that must have
been there in bygone days before the smash-up. I thought of lovely young
Queen Mary, of Mary Hamilton, and her other Maries, of Lord Darnley, of
the poet Castelar, of Lord Arran, and the Duke of Rothesay, and all the
Stuart Kings that used to be there. Then I thought of Prior Hepburn and
poor murdered Cardinal Beaton, and of monks, knights, and lovely wenches
that used to frequent the old place. I loved it, for I have read history
a lot. One could not help thinking of the feasting, revelry, and pageants
of those interesting old times, and the grand services in the churches,
and what fine dresses everybody wore.”