of which town he seemed to be a native. The captain of the vessel was a
man of a variable temper, sometimes kind and courteous to his men, but
subject to fits of humour, dislike, and passion, during which he was
very violent, tyrannical, and cruel. He took a particular dislike at one
sailor aboard, an elderly man, called Bill Jones, or some such name. He
seldom spoke to this person without threats and abuse, which the old
man, with the license which sailors take on merchant vessels, was very
apt to return. On one occasion Bill Jones appeared slow in getting out
on the yard to hand a sail. The captain, according to custom, abused the
seaman as a lubberly rascal, who got fat by leaving his duty to other
people. The man made a saucy answer, almost amounting to mutiny, on
which, in a towering passion, the captain ran down to his cabin, and
returned with a blunderbuss loaded with slugs, with which he took
deliberate aim at the supposed mutineer, fired, and mortally wounded
him. The man was handed down from the yard, and stretched on the deck,
evidently dying. He fixed his eyes on the captain, and said, "Sir, you
have done for me, but _I will never leave you_" The captain, in return,
swore at him for a fat lubber, and said he would have him thrown into
the slave-kettle, where they made food for the negroes, and see how much
fat he had got. The man died. His body was actually thrown into the
slave-kettle, and the narrator observed, with a _naïveté_ which
confirmed the extent of his own belief in the truth of what he told,
"There was not much fat about him after all."
The captain told the crew they must keep absolute silence on the subject
of what had passed; and as the mate was not willing to give an explicit
and absolute promise, he ordered him to be confined below. After a day
or two he came to the mate, and demanded if he had an intention to
deliver him up for trial when the vessel got home. The mate, who was
tired of close confinement in that sultry climate, spoke his commander
fair, and obtained his liberty. When he mingled among the crew once more
he found them impressed with the idea, not unnatural in their situation,
that the ghost of the dead man appeared among them when they had a spell
of duty, especially if a sail was to be handed, on which occasion the
spectre was sure to be out upon the yard before any of the crew. The
narrator had seen this apparition himself repeatedly--he believed the
captain saw it also, but he took no notice of it for some time, and the
crew, terrified at the violent temper of the man, dared not call his
attention to it. Thus they held on their course homeward with great fear
and anxiety.
At length, the captain invited the mate, who was now in a sort of
favour, to go down to the cabin and take a glass of grog with him. In
this interview he assumed a very grave and anxious aspect. "I need not
tell you, Jack," he said, "what sort of hand we have got on board with
us. He told me he would never leave me, and he has kept his word. You
only see him now and then, but he is always by my side, and never out of
my sight. At this very moment I see him--I am determined to bear it no
longer, and I have resolved to leave you."
The mate replied that his leaving the vessel while out of the sight of
any land was impossible. He advised, that if the captain apprehended any
bad consequences from what had happened, he should run for the west of
France or Ireland, and there go ashore, and leave him, the mate, to
carry the vessel into Liverpool. The captain only shook his head
gloomily, and reiterated his determination to leave the ship. At this
moment the mate was called to the deck for some purpose or other, and
the instant he got up the companion-ladder he heard a splash in the
water, and looking over the ship's side, saw that the captain had thrown
himself into the sea from the quarter-gallery, and was running astern at
the rate of six knots an hour. When just about to sink he seemed to make
a last exertion, sprung half out of the water, and clasped his hands
towards the mate, calling, "By----, Bill is with me now!" and then sunk,
to be seen no more.
After hearing this singular story Mr. Clerk asked some questions about
the captain, and whether his companion considered him as at all times
rational. The sailor seemed struck with the question, and answered,
after a moment's delay, that in general _he conversationed well enough_.
It would have been desirable to have been able to ascertain how far this
extraordinary tale was founded on fact; but want of time and other
circumstances prevented Mr. Clerk from learning the names and dates,
that might to a certain degree have verified the events. Granting the
murder to have taken place, and the tale to have been truly told, there
was nothing more likely to arise among the ship's company than the
belief in the apparition; as the captain was a man of a passionate and
irritable disposition, it was nowise improbable that he, the victim of
remorse, should participate in the horrible visions of those less
concerned, especially as he was compelled to avoid communicating his
sentiments with any one else; and the catastrophe would in such a case
be but the natural consequence of that superstitious remorse which has
conducted so many criminals to suicide or the gallows. If the
fellow-traveller of Mr. Clerk be not allowed this degree of credit, he
must at least be admitted to have displayed a singular talent for the
composition of the horrible in fiction. The tale, properly detailed,
might have made the fortune of a romancer.
I cannot forbear giving you, as congenial to this story, another
instance of a guilt-formed phantom, which made considerable noise about
twenty years ago or more. I am, I think, tolerably correct in the
details, though I have lost the account of the trial. Jarvis
Matcham--such, if I am not mistaken, was the name of my hero--was
pay-sergeant in a regiment, where he was so highly esteemed as a steady
and accurate man that he was permitted opportunity to embezzle a
considerable part of the money lodged in his hands for pay of soldiers,
bounty of recruits (then a large sum), and other charges which fell
within his duty. He was summoned to join his regiment from a town where
he had been on the recruiting service, and this perhaps under some shade
of suspicion. Matcham perceived discovery was at hand, and would have
deserted had it not been for the presence of a little drummer lad, who
was the only one of his party appointed to attend him. In the
desperation of his crime he resolved to murder the poor boy, and avail
himself of some balance of money to make his escape. He meditated this
wickedness the more readily that the drummer, he thought, had been put
as a spy on him. He perpetrated his crime, and changing his dress after
the deed was done, made a long walk across the country to an inn on the
Portsmouth road, where he halted and went to bed, desiring to be called
when the first Portsmouth coach came. The waiter summoned him
accordingly, but long after remembered that, when he shook the guest by
the shoulder, his first words as he awoke were: "My God! I did not kill
him."
Matcham went to the seaport by the coach, and instantly entered as an
able-bodied landsman or marine, I know not which. His sobriety and
attention to duty gained him the same good opinion of the officers in
his new service which he had enjoyed in the army. He was afloat for
several years, and behaved remarkably well in some actions. At length
the vessel came into Plymouth, was paid off, and some of the crew,
amongst whom was Jarvis Matcham, were dismissed as too old for service.
He and another seaman resolved to walk to town, and took the route by
Salisbury. It was when within two or three miles of this celebrated city
that they were overtaken by a tempest so sudden, and accompanied with
such vivid lightning and thunder so dreadfully loud, that the obdurate
conscience of the old sinner began to be awakened. He expressed more
terror than seemed natural for one who was familiar with the war of
elements, and began to look and talk so wildly that his companion became
aware that something more than usual was the matter. At length Matcham
complained to his companion that the stones rose from the road and flew
after him. He desired the man to walk on the other side of the highway
to see if they would follow him when he was alone. The sailor complied,
and Jarvis Matcham complained that the stones still flew after him and
did not pursue the other. "But what is worse," he added, coming up to
his companion, and whispering, with a tone of mystery and fear, "who is
that little drummer-boy, and what business has he to follow us so
closely?" "I can see no one," answered the seaman, infected by the
superstition of his associate. "What! not see that little boy with the
bloody pantaloons!" exclaimed the secret murderer, so much to the terror
of his comrade that he conjured him, if he had anything on his mind, to
make a clear conscience as far as confession could do it. The criminal
fetched a deep groan, and declared that he was unable longer to endure
the life which he had led for years. He then confessed the murder of the
drummer, and added that, as a considerable reward had been offered, he
wished his comrade to deliver him up to the magistrates of Salisbury, as
he would desire a shipmate to profit by his fate, which he was now
convinced was inevitable. Having overcome his friend's objections to
this mode of proceeding, Jarvis Matcham was surrendered to justice
accordingly, and made a full confession of his guilt But before the
trial the love of life returned. The prisoner denied his confession, and
pleaded Not Guilty. By this time, however, full evidence had been
procured from other quarters. Witnesses appeared from his former
regiment to prove his identity with the murderer and deserter, and the
waiter remembered the ominous words which he had spoken when he awoke
him to join the Portsmouth coach. Jarvis Matcham was found guilty and
executed. When his last chance of life was over he returned to his
confession, and with his dying breath averred, and truly, as he thought,
the truth of the vision on Salisbury Plain. Similar stories might be
produced, showing plainly that, under the direction of Heaven, the
influence of superstitious fear may be the appointed means of bringing
the criminal to repentance for his own sake, and to punishment for the
advantage of society.
Cases of this kind are numerous and easily imagined, so I shall dwell on
them no further; but rather advert to at least an equally abundant class
of ghost stories, in which the apparition is pleased not to torment the
actual murderer, but proceeds in a very circuitous manner, acquainting
some stranger or ignorant old woman with the particulars of his fate,
who, though perhaps unacquainted with all the parties, is directed by a
phantom to lay the facts before a magistrate. In this respect we must
certainly allow that ghosts have, as we are informed by the facetious
Captain Grose, forms and customs peculiar to themselves.
There would be no edification and little amusement in treating of clumsy
deceptions of this kind, where the grossness of the imposture detects
itself. But occasionally cases occur like the following, with respect to
which it is more difficult, to use James Boswell's phrase, "to know what
to think."
Upon the 10th of June, 1754, Duncan Terig, _alias_ Clark, and Alexander
Bain MacDonald, two Highlanders, were tried before the Court of
Justiciary, Edinburgh, for the murder of Arthur Davis, sergeant in
Guise's regiment, on the 28th September, 1749. The accident happened not
long after the civil war, the embers of which were still reeking, so
there existed too many reasons on account of which an English soldier,
straggling far from assistance, might be privately cut off by the
inhabitants of these wilds. It appears that Sergeant Davis was missing
for years, without any certainty as to his fate. At length, an account
of the murder appeared from the evidence of one Alexander MacPherson (a
Highlander, speaking no language but Gaelic, and sworn by an
interpreter), who gave the following extraordinary account of his cause
of knowledge:--He was, he said, in bed in his cottage, when an
apparition came to his bedside and commanded him to rise and follow him
out of doors. Believing his visitor to be one Farquharson, a neighbour
and friend, the witness did as he was bid; and when they were without
the cottage, the appearance told the witness he was the ghost of
Sergeant Davis, and requested him to go and bury his mortal remains,
which lay concealed in a place he pointed out in a moorland tract called
the Hill of Christie. He desired him to take Farquharson with him as an
assistant. Next day the witness went to the place specified, and there
found the bones of a human body much decayed. The witness did not at
that time bury the bones so found, in consequence of which negligence
the sergeant's ghost again appeared to him, upbraiding him with his
breach of promise. On this occasion the witness asked the ghost who were
the murderers, and received for answer that he had been slain by the
prisoners at the bar. The witness, after this second visitation, called
the assistance of Farquharson, and buried the body.
Farquharson was brought in evidence to prove that the preceding witness,
MacPherson, had called him to the burial of the bones, and told him the
same story which he repeated in court. Isabel MacHardie, a person who
slept in one of the beds which run along the wall in an ordinary
Highland hut, declared that upon the night when MacPherson said he saw
the ghost, she saw a naked man enter the house and go towards
MacPherson's bed.
Yet though the supernatural incident was thus fortified, and although
there were other strong presumptions against the prisoners, the story of
the apparition threw an air of ridicule on the whole evidence for the
prosecution. It was followed up by the counsel for the prisoners asking,
in the cross-examination of MacPherson, "What language did the ghost
speak in?" The witness, who was himself ignorant of English, replied,
"As good Gaelic as I ever heard in Lochaber." "Pretty well for the ghost
of an English sergeant," answered the counsel. The inference was rather
smart and plausible than sound, for, the apparition of the ghost being
admitted, we know too little of the other world to judge whether all
languages may not be alike familiar to those who belonged to it. It
imposed, however, on the jury, who found the accused parties not guilty,
although their counsel and solicitor and most of the court were
satisfied of their having committed the murder. In this case the
interference of the ghost seems to have rather impeded the vengeance
which it was doubtless the murdered sergeant's desire to obtain. Yet
there may be various modes of explaining this mysterious story, of which
the following conjecture may pass for one.
The reader may suppose that MacPherson was privy to the fact of the
murder, perhaps as an accomplice or otherwise, and may also suppose
that, from motives of remorse for the action, or of enmity to those who
had committed it, he entertained a wish to bring them to justice. But
through the whole Highlands there is no character more detestable than
that of an informer, or one who takes what is called Tascal-money, or
reward for discovery of crimes. To have informed against Terig and
MacDonald might have cost MacPherson his life; and it is far from being
impossible that he had recourse to the story of the ghost, knowing well
that his superstitious countrymen would pardon his communicating the
commission entrusted to him by a being from the other world, although he
might probably have been murdered if his delation of the crime had been
supposed voluntary. This explanation, in exact conformity with the
sentiments of the Highlanders on such subjects, would reduce the whole
story to a stroke of address on the part of the witness.
It is therefore of the last consequence, in considering the truth of
stories of ghosts and apparitions, to consider the possibility of wilful
deception, whether on the part of those who are agents in the supposed
disturbances, or the author of the legend. We shall separately notice an
instance or two of either kind.
The most celebrated instance in which human agency was used to copy the
disturbances imputed to supernatural beings refers to the ancient palace
of Woodstock, when the Commissioners of the Long Parliament came down to
dispark what had been lately a royal residence. The Commissioners
arrived at Woodstock, 13th October, 1649, determined to wipe away the
memory of all that connected itself with the recollection of monarchy in
England. But in the course of their progress they were encountered by
obstacles which apparently came from the next world. Their bed-chambers
were infested with visits of a thing resembling a dog, but which came
and passed as mere earthly dogs cannot do. Logs of wood, the remains of
a very large tree called the King's Oak, which they had splintered into
billets for burning, were tossed through the house, and the chairs
displaced and shuffled about. While they were in bed the feet of their
couches were lifted higher than their heads, and then dropped with
violence. Trenchers "without a wish" flew at their heads of free will.
Thunder and lightning came next, which were set down to the same cause.
Spectres made their appearance, as they thought, in different shapes,
and one of the party saw the apparition of a hoof, which kicked a
candlestick and lighted candle into the middle of the room, and then
politely scratched on the red snuff to extinguish it. Other and worse
tricks were practised on the astonished Commissioners who, considering
that all the fiends of hell were let loose upon them, retreated from
Woodstock without completing an errand which was, in their opinion,
impeded by infernal powers, though the opposition offered was rather of
a playful and malicious than of a dangerous cast.
The whole matter was, after the Restoration, discovered to be the trick
of one of their own party, who had attended the Commissioners as a
clerk, under the name of Giles Sharp. This man, whose real name was
Joseph Collins of Oxford, called _Funny Joe_, was a concealed loyalist,
and well acquainted with the old mansion of Woodstock, where he had been
brought up before the Civil War. Being a bold, active spirited man, Joe
availed himself of his local knowledge of trap-doors and private
passages so as to favour the tricks which he played off upon his masters
by aid of his fellow-domestics. The Commissioners' personal reliance on
him made his task the more easy, and it was all along remarked that
trusty Giles Sharp saw the most extraordinary sights and visions among
the whole party. The unearthly terrors experienced by the Commissioners
are detailed with due gravity by Sinclair, and also, I think, by Dr.
Plott. But although the detection or explanation of the real history of
the Woodstock demons has also been published, and I have myself seen it,
I have at this time forgotten whether it exists in a separate
collection, or where it is to be looked for.
Similar disturbances have been often experienced while it was the custom
to believe in and dread such frolics of the invisible world, and under
circumstances which induce us to wonder, both at the extreme trouble
taken by the agents in these impostures, and the slight motives from
which they have been induced to do much wanton mischief. Still greater
is our modern surprise at the apparently simple means by which terror
has been excited to so general an extent, that even the wisest and most
prudent have not escaped its contagious influence.
On the first point I am afraid there can be no better reason assigned
than the conscious pride of superiority, which induces the human being
in all cases to enjoy and practise every means of employing an influence
over his fellow-mortals; to which we may safely add that general love of
tormenting, as common to our race as to that noble mimick of humanity,
the monkey. To this is owing the delight with which every school-boy
anticipates the effects of throwing a stone into a glass shop; and to
this we must also ascribe the otherwise unaccountable pleasure which
individuals have taken in practising the tricksy pranks of a goblin, and
filling a household or neighbourhood with anxiety and dismay, with
little gratification to themselves besides the consciousness of
dexterity if they remain undiscovered, and with the risk of loss of
character and punishment should the imposture be found out.
In the year 1772, a train of transactions, commencing upon Twelfth Day,
threw the utmost consternation into the village of Stockwell, near
London, and impressed upon some of its inhabitants the inevitable belief
that they were produced by invisible agents. The plates, dishes, china,
and glass-ware and small movables of every kind, contained in the house
of Mrs. Golding, an elderly lady, seemed suddenly to become animated,
shifted their places, flew through the room, and were broken to pieces.
The particulars of this commotion were as curious as the loss and damage
occasioned in this extraordinary manner were alarming and intolerable.
Amidst this combustion, a young woman, Mrs. Golding's maid, named Anne
Robinson, was walking backwards and forwards, nor could she be prevailed
on to sit down for a moment excepting while the family were at prayers,
during which time no disturbance happened. This Anne Robinson had been
but a few days in the old lady's service, and it was remarkable that she
endured with great composure the extraordinary display which others
beheld with terror, and coolly advised her mistress not to be alarmed or
uneasy, as these things could not be helped. This excited an idea that
she had some reason for being so composed, not inconsistent with a
degree of connexion with what was going forward. The afflicted Mrs.
Golding, as she might be well termed, considering such a commotion and
demolition among her goods and chattels, invited neighbours to stay in
her house, but they soon became unable to bear the sight of these
supernatural proceedings, which went so far that not above two cups and
saucers remained out of a valuable set of china. She next abandoned her
dwelling, and took refuge with a neighbour, but, finding his movables
were seized with the same sort of St. Vitus's dance, her landlord
reluctantly refused to shelter any longer a woman who seemed to be
persecuted by so strange a subject of vexation. Mrs. Golding's
suspicions against Anne Robinson now gaining ground, she dismissed her
maid, and the hubbub among her movables ceased at once and for ever.
This circumstance of itself indicates that Anne Robinson was the cause
of these extraordinary disturbances, as has been since more completely
ascertained by a Mr. Brayfield, who persuaded Anne, long after the
events had happened, to make him her confidant. There was a love story
connected with the case, in which the only magic was the dexterity of
Anne Robinson and the simplicity of the spectators. She had fixed long
horse hairs to some of the crockery, and placed wires under others, by
which she could throw them down without touching them. Other things she
dexterously threw about, which the spectators, who did not watch her
motions, imputed to invisible agency. At times, when the family were
absent, she loosened the hold of the strings by which the hams, bacon,
and similar articles were suspended, so that they fell on the slightest
motion. She employed some simple chemical secrets, and, delighted with
the success of her pranks, pushed them farther than she at first
intended. Such was the solution of the whole mystery, which, known by
the name of the Stockwell ghost, terrified many well-meaning persons,
and had been nearly as famous as that of Cock Lane, which may be hinted
at as another imposture of the same kind. So many and wonderful are the
appearances described, that when I first met with the original
publication I was strongly impressed with the belief that the narrative
was like some of Swift's advertisements, a jocular experiment upon the
credulity of the public. But it was certainly published _bona fide_, and
Mr. Hone, on the authority of Mr. Brayfield, has since fully explained
the wonder.[85]
[Footnote 85: See Hone's "Every-Day Book," p. 62.]
Many such impositions have been detected, and many others have been
successfully concealed; but to know what has been discovered in many
instances gives us the assurance of the ruling cause in all. I remember
a scene of the kind attempted to be got up near Edinburgh, but detected
at once by a sheriff's officer, a sort of persons whose habits of
incredulity and suspicious observation render them very dangerous
spectators on such occasions. The late excellent Mr. Walker, minister at
Dunottar, in the Mearns, gave me a curious account of an imposture of
this kind, practised by a young country girl, who was surprisingly quick
at throwing stones, turf, and other missiles, with such dexterity that
it was for a long time impossible to ascertain her agency in the
disturbances of which she was the sole cause.