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Chapter VIII · The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

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Chapter eight of the Book of Dreams and Ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording.
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All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
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volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Mary Maxwell. The Book
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of Dreams and Ghosts by Andrew Lang, Chapter eight. The ghost in the
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following famous tale had a purpose. He was a Highland ghost a Campbell,
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and desired vengeance on mc niven, who murdered him. The ghost practically cried
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Kruhan and tried to rouse the Klan, failing in this owing to Enverrog's loyalty
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to his oath, the ghost uttered a prophecy. The tale is given in
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the words of Miss Elspeth Campbell, who collected it at Enverroll from the Highland
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narrator. She adds a curious supplementary tradition in the Argyle family Taekwonderoga. It
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was one evening in the summer of the year seventeen fifty five that Campbell of
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Inverol was on Kruehan hillside. He was startled by seeing a man coming towards
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him at full speed, A man ragged, bleeding and evidently suffering agonies of
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terror. The avengers of blood are on my track. Oh save me,
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the poor wretch managed to gasp out. Verol, filled with pity for the
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miserable man, swore by the word of an Enverral, which never failed friend
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or foe, yet to save him. Verol then led the stranger to the
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secret cave on Kruhan hillside. None knew of this cave but the Laird of
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Enverarl himself, as the secret was most carefully kept and had been handed down
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from father to son for many generations. The entrance was small, and no
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one passing would for an instant suspect it to be other than a tod's hole.
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But within were fair sized rooms, one containing a well of the purest
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spring water. It is said that Wallace and Bruce had made use of this
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cave in earlier days. Here Inveroos left his guest. The man was so
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overcome by terror that he clung to Inverov's plaid, imploring him not to leave
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him alone. Inverrov was filled with disgust that this cowardly conduct, and already
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almost repented having plaited his word to save such a worthless creature. On Iverov's
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return home, he found a man in a state of great excitement waiting to
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see him. This man informed him of the murder of his Enverros foster brother
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by one McNiven. We have said he tracked the murderer to within a short
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distance of this place, and I am here to warn you in case he
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should seek your protection. Inverov turned pale and remained silent, not knowing what
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answer to give. The man, knowing the love that subsided between the foster
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brothers, thought this silence arose from grief alone, and left the house to
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pursue the search for McNiven further. The compassion Inverrow felt for the trembling man
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he had left in the cave turned to hate when he thought of his beloved
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foster brother murdered. But as he had plaited his words to save him,
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save him, he must and would as soon. Therefore, as night fell,
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he went to the cave with food and promised to return with more the
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next day. Thoroughly worn out, as soon as he reached home he retired
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to rest, but sleep he could not, so taking up a book he
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began to read. A shadow fell across the page. He looked up and
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saw his foster brother standing by the bedside, but oh how changed, his
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fair hair clotted with blood, his face pale and drawn, and his garments
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all gory. He uttered the following words, Enverras, shield not the murderer.
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Blood must flow for blood, and then faded away out of sight.
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In spite of the spirit's commands, Verras remained true to his promise and returned
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next day to mc niven with fresh provisions. That night, his foster brother
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again appeared to him, uttering the same warning, Enverrah, Enverras, shield
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not the murderer. Blood must flow for blood. At daybreak, Verrah hurried
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off to the cave and said to macnibbin, I can shield you no longer.
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You must escape as best you can. Enverrah now hoped to receive no
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further visit from the vengeful spirit. In this he was disappointed, for at
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the usual hour the ghost appeared, and in anger said, I have warned
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you once, I have warned you twice. It is too late. Now
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we shall meet again at Taekwonderoga Inverro rose before dawn and went straight to the
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cave. Macnibbn was gone. Verras saw no more of the ghost, but
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the adventure left him a gloomy melancholy man. Many a time he would wander
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on Kruhan hillside, brooding over his vision, and people passing him would see
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the far away look in his eyes and would say to one another, the
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poor lad he is I thinking on him? That is gone. Only his
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dearest friends knew the cause of his melancholy. In seventeen fifty six, the
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war between the English and French in America broke out. The forty second Regiment
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embarked and landed at New York in June of that year. Campbell of Inveroll
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was a major in the regiment. The lut colonel was Francis Grant. From
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New York. The forty second proceeded to Albany, where the regiment remained inactive
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till the spring of seventeen fifty seven. One evening, when the forty second
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were still quartered at this place, Inverro asked the colonel if he had ever
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heard of a place called Taekwonderoga. Colonel Grant replied he had never heard the
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name before Verraw then told his story. Most of the officers were present at
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the time. Some were impressed, others were inclined to look upon the whole
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thing as a joke, but seeing how very much disturbed Inverras was about it
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all, even the most unbelieving refrained from bantering him. In seventeen fifty eight,
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an expedition was to be directed against Chiconderoga on Lake George, a fort
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erected by the French. The Highlanders were to form part of this expedition.
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The force was under Major General Abercrombie. Tekonderoga was called by the French Saint
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Louis, really Fort Caroline, and Vera knew it by no other name.
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One of the officers told Colonel Grant that the Indian name of the place was
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Ticonderoga. Grant, remembering Campbell's story, said, for God's sake, don't
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let Campbell know this, or harm will come of it. The troops embarked
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on Lake George and landed without opposition near the extremity of the lake. Early
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in July. They marched from there through woods upon Teiconderoga, having had one
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successful skirmish with the enemy driving them back with considerable loss. Lord Howe was
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killed in this engagement on the tenth of July. The assault was directed to
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be commenced by the pickets. The grenadiers were to follow supported by the battalions
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and reserves. The Highlanders and fifty fifth Regiment formed the reserve in vain.
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The troops attempted to forced their way through the Avetus, they themselves being exposed
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to a heavy artillery and musket fire from the enemy. Well under covered,
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the Highlanders could no longer be restrained and rushed forward from the reserve, cutting
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and carving their way through trees and other obstacles with their claymores. The deadly
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fires still continued from the fort. As no ladders had been provided for scaling
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the breastwork, the soldiers climbed on to one another's shoulders and made holes for
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their feet in the face of the work with their swords and bayonets, but
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as soon as a man reached the top he was thrown down. Captain John
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Campbell and a few men succeeded at last in forcing their way over the breastworks,
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but were immediately cut down. After a long and desperate struggle, lasting
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in fact nearly four hours, General Abercrombie gave orders for a retreat. The
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troops could hardly be prevailed upon to retire, and it was not till the
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order had been given for the third time that the Highlanders withdrew from the hopeless
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encounter. The loss sustained by the regiment was as far eight officers, nine
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sergeants and two hundred and ninety seven men killed, seventeen officers, ten sergeants
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and three hundred and six men wounded. Verro, after having fought with the
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greatest courage, received at length his death wound. Colonel Grant hastened to the
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dying man's side, who looked reproachfully at him and said, you deceived me.
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This is Taekonderoga, for I have seen him. Verra never spoke again.
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Inverras's son, an officer in the Sadan regiment, also lost his life
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at Tekonderoga. On the very day that these events were happening, in far
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away America, two ladies, Miss Campbell of Durine and her sister were walking
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from Kilmloo to Inverrey and had reached the then new bridge over the array.
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One of them happened to look up at the sky. She gave a call
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to her sister to look also. They both of them saw in the sky
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what looked like a siege going on. They saw the different regiments with their
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colors and recognized many of their friends among the Highlanders. They saw Veras and
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his son fall, and other men whom they knew. When they reached Inverary,
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they told all their friends of the vision they had just seen. They
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also took down the names of those they had seen fall, and the time
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and date of the occurrence. The well known Danish physician Sir William Hart,
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was together with an Englishman and a servant, walking round the castle of invery
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These men saw the same phenomena and confirmed the statements made by the two ladies.
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Weeks after, the Gazette corroborated their statements in its account of the attempt
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made on Ticonderoga. Every detail was correct in the vision, down to the
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actual number of the killed and wounded, but there was sorrow throughout argyle long
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before the gazette appeared. We now give the best detainable version of a yet
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more famous legend, the Tyrone Ghost. The literary history of the Tyrone Ghost
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is curious. In eighteen o two, Scott views the tale as the foundation
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of his ballot The Eve of Saint John, and referred to the tradition of
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a notable Irish family in a note in eighteen fifty eight, the subject was
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discussed in Notes and Queries. A reference was given to Lyons privately printed Grand
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Juries of Westmeath from seventeen fifty one. The version from that rare work,
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a version dated Dublin August eighteen o two, was published in Notes and Queries
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of twenty four July eighteen fifty eight. In December eighteen ninety six, a
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member of the Beresford family published in the Nines, a journal of the Wiltshire
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Regiment. The account which follows derived from Mist Currmore, written by Lady Betty
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Cobb, granddaughter of the ghostseer Lady Beresford. The writer in the Nines remembers
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Lady Betty. The account of eighteen o two is clearly derived from the Curramore
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or Mez, but omits dates called Sir Tristram Beresford. Sir Marcus leaves out
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the visit to gil Hall where the ghost appeared, and substitutes blanks for the
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names of persons concerned. Otherwise, the differences in the two versions are mainly
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verbal. The Beresford Ghost there is a Carramore a seat of Lord Waterford in
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Ireland. A manuscript account of the tale, such as it was originally received
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and implicitly believed in by the children and grandchildren of the lady to whom Lord
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Tyrone is supposed to have made the supernatural appearance after death. The account was
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written by Lady Betty Cobb, the youngest daughter of Marcus, Earl of Tyrone,
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and granddaughter of Nicola s, Lady Beresford. She lived to a good
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old age in full use of all her faculties, both of body and mind.
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I can myself remember her for when a boy I passed through Bath on
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a journey with my mother, and we went to her house there and head
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luncheon. She appeared, to my juvenile imagination a very appropriate person to revise
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and transmit such a tale, and fully adapted to do ample justice to her
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subject manner. It never has been doubted in the family that she received the
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full particulars in early life, and that she heard the circumstances such as they
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were believed to have occurred, from the nearest relatives of the two persons the
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supposed actors in this mysterious interview, viz. From her own father, Lord
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Tyrone, who died in seventeen sixty three, and from her aunt, Lady
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Riverston, who died in seventeen sixty three. Also, these two were both
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with their mother, Lady Burresford, on the day of her deceased, and
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they, without assistance or witness, took off from their parents wrists the black
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bandage which she had always worn on all occasions and times, even at court.
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As some very old persons who looped well into the eighteenth century testified,
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having received their information from eye witnesses of the fact, there was an oil
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painting of this lady in tyrone House, Dublin, representing her with a black
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ribbon bound round her wrist. This portrait disappeared in an unaccountable manner. It
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used to hang in one of the drawing rooms in that mansion with other family
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pictures. When Henry, Marquis of Waterford sold the old town residence of the
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family and its grounds to the government as the site of the Education Board,
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he directed mister Watkins, a dealer in pictures and a man of considerable knowledge
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in works of art and virtue, to collect the pictures, et cetera,
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et cetera, which were best adapted for removal to Currmore. Mister Watkins especially
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picked out this portrait, not only as a good work of art, but
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as one which, from its associations, deserved particular care and notice. When,
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however, the lot arrived at Cermore and was unpacked, no such picture
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was found, and though mister Watkins took great pains and exerted himself to the
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utmost to trace what had become of it, to this day, nearly forty
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years, not a hint of its existence has been received or heard of.
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John Lapour, Lord Deceise, was the eldest son of Richard, Earl of
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Tyrone and of Lady Dorothy Annisley, daughter of Arthur, Earl of Anglesey.
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He was born sixteen sixty five, succeeded his father sixteen ninety and died fourteenth
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October sixteen ninety three. He became Lord Tyrone at his father's death, and
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is the ghost of the story. Nicholas Sophie Hamilton was the second and youngest
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daughter and co heiress of Hugh, Lord Glenawally, who was also Baron Lunge
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in Sweden. Being a zealous royalist, he had, together with his father,
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migrated to that country in sixteen forty three and returned from it at the
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restoration. He was of a good old family and held considerable landed property in
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the County Tyrone, near Ballygali. He died there in sixteen seventy nine.
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His eldest daughter and co heiress, Arabella Susanna, married in sixteen eighty three
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Sir John McGill of Gilhall in the County down Nicola s the second daughter,
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was born in sixteen sixty seve and married Sir Tristram Beresford in sixteen eighty seven.
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Between that and sixteen ninety three, two daughters were born, but no
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son to inherit the ample landed estates of his father, who most anxiously wished
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and hoped for an heir. It was under these circumstances, and at this
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period, that the manuscripts state that Lord Tyrone made his appearance after death,
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and all the versions of the story without variation, attribute the same cause and
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reason. Bee is a solemn promise mutually interchanged in early life between John Lapour,
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then Lord Decease, afterwards Lord Tyrone, and Nicholas S. Hamilton,
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that whichever of the two died, the first should, if permitted, appear
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to the survivor for the object of declaring the approval or rejection by the deity
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of the revealed religion as generally acknowledged, of which the departed one must be
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fully cognizant, but of which they both had in their youth entertained unfortunate doubts.
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In the month of backtom Over sixteen ninety three, Sir Tristram and Lady
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Beresford went on a visit to her sister, Lady mac gill, at Gilhall,
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now the seat of Lord Clanwilliam, whose grandmother was eventually the heiress of
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Sir j mc gill's property. One morning, Sir Tristram rose early, leaving
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Lady burst for to sleep, and went out for a walk before breakfast.
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When his wife joined the table very late, her appearance and the embarrassment of
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her manner attracted general attention, especially that of her husband. He made anxious
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inquiries as to her health and asked her a part what had occurred to her
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risk, which was tied up with black ribbon tightly bound round it. She
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earnestly entreated him not to inquire more than or thereafter as to the cause of
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her wearing or continuing afterwards to wear that ribbon, for she added, you
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will never see me without it. He replied, since you urge it so
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vehemently. I promise you not to inquire more about it. After completing her
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hurried breakfast, she made anxious inquiries as to whether the post had yet arrived.
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It had not yet come in, and Sir Tristram asked, why are
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you so particularly eager about letters today? Because I expect to hear of Lord
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Tyrone's death, which took place on Tuesday. Well remarked, Sir Tristram,
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I never should have put you down for a superstitious person, but I suppose
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that some idle dream has disturbed you. Shortly after the servant brought in the
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letters. One was sealed with black wax. It is as I expected.
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She cries, he is dead. The letter was from Lord Tyrone's stewart to
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inform them that his master had died in Dublin on Tuesday, fourteenth October at
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four p m. Sir Tristram endeavored to console her and begged her to restrain
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her grief. When she assured him that she felt relieved and easier now that
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she knew the actual fact, she added, I can now give you a
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most satisfactory piece of intelligence, viz. That I am with child, and
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that it will be a boy, a son, was born in the following
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July. Sir Tristram survived its birth little more than six years after his death.
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Lady Beresford continued to reside with her young family at his place in the
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County of Derry, and seldom went from home. She hardly mingled with any
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neighbors or friends, excepting with mister and Missus Jackson of Coleraine. He was
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the principal personage in that town and was, by his mother a near relative
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of Sir Tristram. His wife was the daughter of Robert Gorges l l d.
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A gentleman of good old English family and possessed of a considerable estate in
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the County Meath, by Jane Loftus, daughter of Sir Adam Loftus of Rathbamhan
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and sister of Lord Lisbon. They had an only son, Richard Georges,
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who was in the army and became a general officer very early in life.
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With the Jacksons, Lady Beresford maintained a constant communication and lived on the most
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intimate terms, while she deemed determined to eschew all other society and to remain
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in her chosen retirement. At the conclusion of three years thus passed one luckless
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day. Young Georges most vehemently pro professed his passion for her and solicited her
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hand, urging his suit in a most passionate appeal, which was evidently not
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mispleasing to the fair widow, and which, unfortunately for her, was successful.
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They were married in seventeen o four. One son and two daughters were
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born to them, when his abandoned and dissolute conduct forced her to seek and
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to obtain a separation. After this had continued for four years, General Georges
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pretended extreme penitence for his past misdeeds, and with the most solemn promises of
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amendment, induced his wife to live with him again, and she became the
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mother of a second son. The day month after her confinement happened to be
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her birthday, and having recovered and feeling herself equal to some exertion, she
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sent for her son, Sir Marcus Beresford, then twenty years old, and
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her married daughter, Lady Riverston. She also invited Doctor King, the Archbishop
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of Dublin, who was an intimate friend and an old clergyman who had christened
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her, and who had always kept up a most kindly intercourse with her,
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during her whole life to make up a small party to celebrate the day.
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In the early part of it, Lady Beresford was engaged in a kindly conversation
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with her old friend, the Clergyman, and in the course of it said,
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you know that I am forty eight this day. No, indeed,
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he replied, you are only forty seven, for your mother had a dispute
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with me once on the very subject of your age, and I, in
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consequence sent and consulted the registry, and can most confidently assert that you are
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only forty seven this day. You have signed my death warrant. Then she
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cried, leave me. I pray, for I have not much longer to
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live, but have many things of grave importance to settle before I die.
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Send my son and my daughter to me immediately. The clergyman did as he
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was bidden. He directed Sir Marcus and his sister to go instantly to their
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mother, and he sent to the archbishop and a few other friends to put
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them off from joining the birthday party. When her two children repaired to Lady
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Beresford, she thus addressed them, I have something of deep importance to communicate
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to you, my dear children, before I die. You are no strangers
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to the intimacy and the affection which subsisted in early life between the Lord Tyrone
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and myself. We were educated together when young under the same roof in the
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pernicious principles of deism. Our real friends afterwards took every opportunity to convince us
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of our error, but their arguments were insufficient to overpower and uproot our infidelity,
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though they had the effect of shaking our confidence in it, and thus
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leaving us wavering between the two opinions. In this perplexing state of doubt,
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we made a solemn promise, one to the other, that whichever died first,
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should, if permitted, appear to the other for the purpose of declaring
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what religion was the one acceptable to the Almighty. One night years after this
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interchange of promises, I was sleeping with your father at Gilhall, when I
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suddenly awoke and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting visibly by the side of the bed.
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I screamed out and vainly endeavored to rouse Sir Tristram, tell me, I
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said, Lord Tyrone, why and wherefore are you here at this time of
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night? Have you then forgotten our promise to each other? Pledged in early
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life. I died on Tuesday at four o'clock. I have been permitted thus
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to appear in order to assure you that the revealed religion is the true and
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only one by which we can be saved. I am also suffered to inform
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you that you are with child and will produce a son who will marry my
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heiress, That Sir Tristram will not live long when you will marry again,
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and you will die from the effects of childbirth in your forty seventh year.
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I beg from him some convincing sign or proof that when the morning came,
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I might rely upon it and feel satisfied that his appearance had been real and
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that it was not the phantom of my imagination. He caused the hangings of
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the bed to be drawn in an unusual way and impossible manner, through an
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iron hook. I was still not satisfied when he wrote his signature in my
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pocketbook. I wanted, however, more substantial proof of his visit. When
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he laid his hand, which was cold as marble, on my wrist,
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the sinews shrunk up, the nerves withered at the touch. Now, he
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said, let no mortal eye whilst you live ever see that wrist and vanished.
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While I was conversing with him, my thoughts were calm, but as
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soon as he disappeared, I felt chilled with horror and dismay. A cold
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sweat came over me, and I again endeavored, but vainly, to awaken
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Sir Tristram. A flood of tears came to my relief, and I fell
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asleep. In the morning, your father got up without disturbing me. He
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had not noticed anything extraordinary about me or the bed hangings. When I did
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arise, I found a long broom in the gallery outside the bedroom door,
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and with great difficulty I unhooded the curtain, fearing that the position of it
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might excite surprise and cause inquiry. I bound up my wrist with black ribbon
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before I went down to breakfast, where the agitation of my mind was too
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visible not to attract attention. Sir Tristram made many anxious queries as to my
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health, especially as to my sprained wrist. As he conceived mine to be,
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I begged him to drop all questions as to the bandage, even if
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I continued to adopt it for any length of time. He kindly promised me
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not to speak of it any more, and he kept his promise faithfully.
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You, my son, came into the world as predicted, and your father
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died six years after. I then determined to abandon society and its pleasures and
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not mingle again with the world, hoping to avoid the dreadful predictions as to
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my second marriage. But alas in the one family with which I held constant
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and friendly intercourse, I met the man whom I did not regard with perfect
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indifference. Though I struggled to conquer by every means the passion, I at
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length yielded to his solicitations, and, in a fatal moment for my own
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peace, I became his wife. In a few years, his conduct fully
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justified my demand for a separation, and I fondly hoped to escape the fatal
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prophecy. Under the illusion that I had passed my forty seventh birthday, I
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was prevailed upon to believe in his amendment and to pardon him. I have,
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however, heard from undoubted authority that I am only forty seventh this day,
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and I know that I am about to die. I die, however,
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without the dread of death, fortified as I am by the sacred precepts
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of Christianity and upheld by its promises. When I am gone, I wish
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that you, my children, should imbind this black ribbon and alone behold my
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wrist before I am consigned to the grave. She then requested to be left,
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that she might lie down and compose herself, and her children quitted the
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apartment, having desired her attendant to watch her, and if any change came
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on, to summon them to her bedside. In an hour, the bell
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rang and they hastened to the call, but all was over. The two
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children, having ordered every one to retire, knelt down by the side of
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the bed. When Lady Riverston unbound the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly
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as Lady Beresford had described it, every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk.
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Her friend, the Archbishop, had had her buried in the Cathedral of Saint
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Patrick in Dublin, in the Earl of Corks Tomb, where she now lies.
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The writer now professes his disbelief in any spiritual presence and explains his theory
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that Lady Beresford's anxiety about Lord Tyrone deluded her by a vivid dream during which
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she heard her wrist of all ghost stories. The Tyrone or Beresford ghost has
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most variants. Following Monsieur Hareau in the Journal Dite Savants. I have tracked
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the tale the death compact and the wound inflicted by the ghost on the hand
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or wrist or brow of the seer, through Henry Moore, the Melanchton,
26:44
and a medieval sermon by Otis Dscherson to William of Malmesbury, a range of
26:51
seven hundred years. Missus Grant of Lagan has a rather recent case, and
26:56
I have heard of another in the last ten years. Coumet has case in
27:00
sixteen twenty five. The specter leaves the sable score of fingers four on a
27:06
board of wood. Now for a modern instance of a gang of ghosts with
27:11
purpose. When I narrated the story which follows to an eminent moral philosopher,
27:15
he remarked, at a given point, Oh, the ghost spoke, did
27:19
she? And displayed skepticism. The evidence, however, left him, as
27:23
it leaves me at a standstill, not convinced, but agreeably perplexed. The
27:29
ghosts here are truly old fashioned. My story is and must probably remain,
27:33
entirely devoid of proof as far as any kind of ghostly influence is concerned.
27:40
We find ghosts appearing and imposing a certain course of action on a living witness
27:44
for definite purposes of their own. The course of action prescribed was undeniably pursued,
27:49
and apparently the purpose of the ghost was fulfilled. But what that purpose
27:53
was their agent declines to state, and conjecture is hopelessly baffled. The documents
28:00
in the affair have been published by the Society for Psychical Research Proceedings, Volume
28:04
eleven, page five forty seven, and are here used for reference. But
28:10
I think the matter will be more intelligible if I narrated exactly as it came
28:14
under my own observation. The names of persons and places are all fictitious,
28:18
and are the same as those used in the documents published by the Society for
28:22
Psychical Research. Half past one o'clock in October eighteen ninety three, I was
28:30
staying in a town which we shall call Rappingham. One night, I and
28:36
some kinsfolk dined with another old friend of all of us, a doctor Ferrier.
28:41
In the course of dinner, he asked a propos de bautis, have
28:45
you heard of the ghost in Blake Street? A sunny, pleasant street of
28:48
respectable but uninteresting antiquity in Rappingham. We had none of us heard of the
28:52
ghost, and begged the doctor to enlighten our ignorance. His story ran,
28:57
thus, I have it in his own writing, as far as its essence
29:00
goes. The house, he said, belongs to my friends, the Applebee's,
29:04
who led it, as they live elsewhere. A quiet couple took it
29:08
and lived in it for five years. When the husband died and the widow
29:11
went away, they made no complaint. While tenants, the house stood empty
29:15
for some time, and all I know personally about the matter is that I,
29:19
my wife and their children were in the dining room one Sunday when we
29:22
heard unusual noises in the drawing room overhead. We went through the rooms,
29:27
but could find no cause or explanation of the disturbance, and thought no more
29:32
about it. About six or seven years ago I led the house to a
29:36
mister Buckley, who was still the tenant. He was unmarried, and his
29:40
family consisted of his mother and sisters. They preceded him to put the place
29:44
in order, and before his arrival came to me in some irritation, complaining
29:48
that I had let them a haunted house. They insisted that there were strange
29:52
noises as if heavy weights were being dragged about, were heavy footsteps pacing in
29:57
the rooms and on the stairs. I said that I knew nothing about the
30:00
matter. The stairs are of stone. Water is only carried up to the
30:04
first floor. There is an unused system of hot air pipes. Something went
30:10
wrong with the water mane in the area once, but the noises lasted after
30:14
it was mended. I think mister Buckley, when he arrived, never heard
30:18
anything unusual. But one evening, as he walked upstairs carrying an ink bottle,
30:22
he found his hand full of some liquid. Thinking that he had spilt
30:26
the ink, he went to a window where he found his hand full of
30:30
water to account for which there was no stain on the ceiling or anything else
30:33
that he could discover. On another occasion, one of the young ladies was
30:37
kneeling by a trunk in the attic alone when water was switched over her face,
30:42
as if from a wet brush. There was a small pool of water
30:47
on the floor, and the wall behind her was sprinkled. Time went on
30:52
and the disturbances were very rare, in fact, ceased for two years till
30:56
the present week. When Missus Clawton, a widow accompanied by two of re
30:59
chain children, came to stay with the Buckleys. She had heard of the
31:03
disturbances and the theory of hauntings. I don't know if these things interested her
31:07
or not. Early on Monday, ninth October, Missus Clayton came to consult
31:11
me. Her story was this about a quarter past one on Sunday night or
31:17
Monday morning. She was in bed with one of her children, the other
31:19
sleeping in the room. She was awakened by footsteps on the stair, and
31:23
supposed that a servant was coming to call her to Miss Buckley, who was
31:27
ill. The steps stopped at the door, then the noise was repeated.
31:33
Missus Clayton lit her bedroom candle, opened the door and listened. There was
31:37
no one there. The clock on the landing pointed to twenty minutes past one.
31:41
Missus Clayton went back to bed, read a book, fell asleep,
31:45
and woke to find the candle still lit but low in the socket. She
31:48
heard a sigh and saw a lady unknown to her, her head swathed in
31:52
a soft white shawl, her expression gentle and refined, her features much emaciated.
32:00
The appearance said follow me, and Missus Clawton taking the bedroom candle,
32:05
rose and followed out on to the landing, and so into the adjacent drawing
32:08
room. She can not remember opening the door, which the housemaid had locked
32:13
outside, and she owns that this passage is dream like in her memory.
32:17
Seeing that her candle was flickering out, she substituted for it a pink one
32:22
taken from a chiffonier. The figure walked nearly to the windows, turned three
32:27
quarters round, said tomorrow, and was no more seene. Missus Clawton went
32:31
back to her room, where her eldest child asked, who is the lady
32:36
in white? Only me mother go to sleep, she thinks, she answered.
32:39
After lying awake for two hours with gas burning, she fell asleep.
32:45
The pink candle from the drawing room chiffonier was in her candlestick. In the
32:47
morning, After hearing the lady's narrative, I told her to try change of
32:52
air, which she declined as cowardly. So as she would stay on at
32:55
mister Buckley's, I suggested that an electric alarm can communicating with miss Buckley's room
33:00
should be rigged up, and this was done next morning. About one the
33:07
Buckleys were aroused by a tremendous peal of the alarm Missus Clawton. They found
33:10
in a faint Next morning she consulted me as to the whereabouts of a certain
33:15
place, let me call it Merrewsby. I suggested the use of a postal
33:20
directory. We found Marriwsby, a place extremely unknown to fame, in an
33:24
agricultural district, about five hours from London, in the opposite direction from Rappingham
33:30
to this place. Missus Clawton said she must go in the interest and by
33:35
the order of certain ghosts whom she saw on Monday night, and whose injunctions
33:38
she had taken down in a notebook. She has left Rappingham for London,
33:43
and there said the doctor, my story ends for the present. We expected
33:47
it to end for good and all, but in the course of the week
33:50
came a communication to the doctor in writing for Missus Claughton's governess. This lady.
33:54
On Missus Clawton's arrival at her London house Friday, thirteenth October, passed
34:00
a night perturbed by sounds of weeping, loud moans, and a very odd
34:05
noise overhead, like some electric battery gone wrong, In fact, much like
34:08
the warning of a jack running down which Old Jeffrey used to give at the
34:13
Wesley's house in Epworth. There were also heavy footsteps and thuds as of moving
34:17
weighty bodies. So far the Governess. This curious communication I read at Rappingham
34:23
on Saturday, fourteenth October or Sunday fifteenth October. On Monday I went to
34:29
town. In the course of the week I received a letter from my kinsman
34:32
in Rappingham saying that Missus Clawton had written to Doctor Ferrier telling him that she
34:37
had gone to Marewsby on Saturday, had accomplished the bidding of the ghosts,
34:42
and had lodged with one Joseph Wright, the parish clerk. Her duty had
34:45
been to examine the Merrowsby parish registers and to compare certain entries with information given
34:52
by the ghosts and written by her in her note book. If the entries
34:55
in the parish register tallied with her notes, she was to pass the time
35:00
between one o'clock and half past one alone in Meersby Church and receive a communication
35:07
from the specters. All this she said she had done, and in evidence
35:10
of her journey, enclosed her half ticket to Marewsby, which a dream had
35:15
warned her would not be taken on her arrival. She also sent a weight
35:20
rose from a grave to doctor Furrier, a gentleman in no sympathy with the
35:23
Jacobite cause, which indeed has no connection whatever with the matter in hand.
35:29
On hearing of this letter from missus Clawton, I confess not knowing the lady.
35:34
I remained purely skeptical. The railway company, however, vouched for the
35:37
ticket. The Rector of Marriwsby, being appealed to knew nothing of the matter.
35:42
He therefore sent for his curate in parish clerk. Did a lady pass
35:46
part of Sunday night in the church. The clerk in the curate admitted that
35:51
this unusual event had occurred. A lady had arrived from London on Saturday evening,
35:55
had lodged with Wright the parish clerk, had asked for the parish registers,
36:00
had compared them with her note book after morning service on Sunday, and
36:04
had begged leave to pass part of the night in the church. The curate
36:07
in vain tried to dissuade her, and finally, washing his hands of it,
36:12
had left her to write the clerk to him. She described a mister
36:15
George Howard to cease one of the ghosts. He recognized the description, and
36:21
he accompanied her to the church on a dark night, starting at one o'clock.
36:24
She stayed alone, without a light in the locked up church from one
36:29
twenty to one forty five, when he led her out. There now remained
36:32
no doubt that Missus Clawton had really gone to maresby a long and disagreeable journey,
36:37
and had been locked up in the church alone at a witching hour.
36:40
Beyond this point we have only the statements of Missus Clawton, made to Lord
36:45
Bute, Mister Myers, and others, and published by the Society for Psychical
36:49
Research. She says that after arranging the alarm bell on Monday night, October
36:54
ninth, tenth, she fell asleep, reading in her dressing gown, lying
36:58
outside her bed. She wakened and found the lady of the White Shaw bending
37:02
over her. Missus Clayton said, am I dreaming? Or is it true?
37:07
The figure gave as testimony to character a piece of information. Next,
37:12
Missus Claughton saw male ghost, tall, dark, healthy, sixty years old,
37:16
who named himself as George Howard, buried in Meersby churchyard, Maresby being
37:22
a place of which Missus Clawton, like most people now heard for the first
37:27
time, he gave the dates of his marriage and death, which are correct
37:30
and have been seen by mister Myers in Missus Claughton's note book. He bade
37:35
her verify these dates at Maresby and wait at one fifteen in the morning at
37:39
the grave of Richard Hart, a person, like all of them, unknown
37:44
to Missus Clawton, at the southwest corner of the South Aisle in Meersby Church.
37:50
This mister Hart died on fifteenth May seventeen forty five, and missed many
37:54
events of interest by doing so. Mister Howard also named and described a right
38:00
of Maresby as a man who would help her, and he gave minute local
38:04
information. Next came a phantom of a man whose name Missus Clawton is not
38:08
free to give. He seemed to be in great trouble, at first covering
38:13
his face with his hands, but later removing them. These three specters were
38:17
to meet Missus Clawton in Maresby Church and give her information of importance on a
38:22
matter concerning apparently the third and only unhappy appearance. After these promises and injunctions,
38:30
the phantoms left and Missus Clawton went to the door to look at the
38:32
clock. Feeling faint, she rang the alarm when her friends came and found
38:37
her in a swoon on the floor. The hour was one twenty. What
38:42
Missus Claughton's children were doing all this time, and whether they were in the
38:45
room or not, does not appear. On Thursday, Missus Clawton went to
38:50
town and her governess was perturbed, as we have seen. On Friday night,
38:53
Missus Clawton dreamed and nuther of things that connected with her journey. A
38:58
page of the notes made from this dream was shown to mister Myers. Thus
39:01
her half ticket was not to be taken. She was to find a mister
39:06
Francis, concerned in the private affairs of the ghosts which needed rectifying, and
39:10
so forth, these premonitions with others were all fulfilled. Missus Clawton, in
39:15
the church at night, continued a conversation with the ghosts whose acquaintance she had
39:20
made at Rappingham. She obtained, it seems, all the information needful to
39:24
settling the mysterious manners which disturbed the male ghost who hid his face. And
39:29
on Monday morning she visited the daughter of mister Howard in her country house in
39:32
a park. Recognized the strong likeness to her father, and carried out all
39:37
things desired by the dead to the full, as had been requested. The
39:42
wishes expressed to her were perfectly rational, reasonable, and of natural importance.
39:47
The clerk right attests the accuracy of Missus Claughton's description of mister Howard, whom
39:52
he knew, and the correspondence of her dates with those in the parish register
39:57
and on the graves, which he found for her at her request. Mister
40:00
Myers, from a very partial knowledge of what the Mersby ghost's business was,
40:05
thinks the reasons for not revealing this matter entirely sufficient. The ghost's messages to
40:10
survivors affected the intended results, says Missus Claughton of this story, the only
40:16
conceivable natural explanation is that Missus Clawton, to serve her private ends, paid
40:22
secret preliminary visits to Merisby, got up there a number of minute facts,
40:28
chose a haunted house at the other end of England as a first scene in
40:31
her little drama, and made the rest of the troublesome journeys, not to
40:36
mention the uncomfortable visit to a dark church at midnight, and did all this
40:39
from a hysterical love of notoriety, this desirable boon she would probably never have
40:45
obtained, even as far as it is consistent with a pseudonym, if I
40:50
had not chanced to dine with doctor Ferrier while the adventure was only beginning,
40:54
as there seemed to be a chance of taking a ghost on the half volley,
40:59
I at once committed indicated the first part of the tale to the Psychical
41:01
Society, using pseudonyms as here throughout, and two years later Missus Clawton consented
41:08
to tell the society as much as she thinks it fair to reveal this,
41:14
it will be confessed, is a roundabout way of obtaining fame, and an
41:16
ordinary person in Missus Clawton's position would have gone to the Psychical Society at once,
41:22
as Mark Twain meant to do when he saw the ghost, which turned
41:24
out to be a very ordinary person. There I leave these ghosts, my
41:30
mind being in a just balance of agnosticism. If ghosts at all, they
41:35
were ghosts with a purpose. The species is now very rare. The purpose
41:39
of the ghost in the following instance was trivial, but successfully accomplished. In
41:45
place of asking people to do what it wanted, the ghost did the thing
41:49
itself. Now The modern theory of ghosts, namely that they are delusions of
41:53
the senses of the seers, caused somehow by the mental action of dead or
41:58
distant people, not seem to apply. In this case, the ghost produced
42:02
an effect on a material object put out the light. The Reverend d W.
42:09
G. Gwynn m D. Was a physician in Holy Orders. In
42:14
eighteen fifty three, he lived at Pea House near Taunton, where both he
42:19
and his wife were made uncomfortable by auditory experiences to which they could find no
42:23
clue or in common English, they heard mysterious noises during the night, writes
42:29
doctor Gwynn, I became aware of a draped figure passing across the foot of
42:32
the bed towards the fireplace. I had the impression that the arm was raised,
42:37
pointing with a hand towards the mantelpiece on which a night light was burning.
42:43
Missus gwyn at the same moment seized my arm and the light was extinguished.
42:49
Notwithstanding I distinctly saw the figure returning towards the door, and being under
42:53
the impression that one of the servants and found her way into our room,
42:58
I leaped out of bed to intercept the intruder, but found and saw nothing.
43:02
I rushed to the door and endeavored to follow the supposed intruder. And
43:07
it was not until I found the door locked as usual that I was painfully
43:10
impressed. I need hardly say that Missus Gwynn was of a very nervous state.
43:15
She asked me what I had seen, and I told her she had
43:19
seen the same figure. But writes Missus Gwynn, I distinctly saw the hand
43:23
of the figure placed over the night light, which was at once extinguished.
43:28
Missus gwyn also heard the rustle of the tall manlike figure's garments. In addition
43:34
to the night light, there was moonlight in the room. Other people had
43:37
suffered many things in the same house, unknown to doctor Missus Gwynn, who
43:43
gave up the place soon afterwards. In plenty of stories we hear of ghosts
43:46
who draw curtains or open doors, and these apparent material effects are usually called
43:52
part of the seer's delusion. But the night light certainly went out under the
43:57
figure's hand and was re lit by doctor Gwyne. Either the ghost was an
44:01
actual entity, not a mere hallucination of two people, for the extinction of
44:07
the light was a curious coincidence, end of Chapter eight,