Part 8 (1/2)
So intolerable became life in this uncanny house that, in 1847, Joseph Proctor and his family moved to South s.h.i.+elds. For the last night of their residence was reserved a more than usually turbulent demonstration. ”There were,” says Mr Edmund Proctor, ”continuous noises during the night, boxes being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down the now carpetless stairs, non-human footsteps stumped on the floors, doors were, or seemed to be, clashed, and impossible furniture corded at random or dragged hither and thither by inscrutable agency; in short, a pantomimic or spiritualistic repet.i.tion of all the noises incident to a household flitting. A miserable night my father and mother had of it, as I have often heard from their own lips; not so much from terror at the unearthly noises, for to these they were habituated, as dread lest this wretched fanfaronade might portend the contemporary flight of the unwelcome visitors to the new abode. Fortunately for the family this dread was not realised.”
After undergoing various vicissitudes, the house was finally divided into small tenements, in which condition it still remains. But of late years nothing has been seen or heard of the ghostly visitors. Perhaps, smitten with dismay by the deterioration of their former dwelling-place, they have taken up their abode elsewhere. For Willingdon Mill, formerly gay with flowers and creepers, is now a wreck of its former self. The mill is used as a warehouse; the stables and outhouses have been pulled down; while the house stands out gaunt and forbidding, a picture of desolation and decay.
Mr W. T. Stead, in his ”Real Ghost Stories,” has given us many thrilling examples of nocturnal apparitions, and of these the uncanny experience of the Rev. H. Elwyn Thomas, of 35 Park Village East, N. W., is well worth repeating.
Mr Thomas, after having conducted a service at the church at Llangynidr, accompanied three young friends of his for about half-a-mile on their homeward way.
”When I wished good-night to my friends, it was about twenty minutes to nine, but still light enough to see a good distance.
The subject of our conversation all the way from the chapel until we parted was a certain eccentric old character who then belonged to the Crickhowell church. Many laughable incidents in his life had been related by my friends for my amus.e.m.e.nt, at which I laughed heartily again and again. I walked a little farther down the road than I intended, in order to hear the end of a very amusing story about him and the vicar of a neighbouring parish. Our conversation had no reference whatever to ghosts or ghostly things. Neither were we in the mood befitting a ghostly visitation. Personally I was a strong disbeliever in ghosts, and invariably ridiculed those who I then thought superst.i.tious enough to believe in them.
”When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends I saw on the bank of the ca.n.a.l (which runs parallel with the road for six or seven miles) what I thought at the moment was an old beggar. The spot was a very lonely one. The nearest house was a good quarter of a mile away. The night was as silent as death.
Not a single sound broke upon the silence from any quarter. I could not help asking myself where this old man had come from to such a place. I had not seen him in going down the road.
”I then turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look at him, and had no sooner done so than I saw within half-a-yard of me one of the most remarkable and startling sights I hope it will ever be my lot to see. Almost on a level with my own face I saw that of an old man, over every feature of which the putty-coloured skin was drawn tightly, except the forehead which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were extremely thin, and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those of a corpse, and the eyes, which seemed far back in the middle of the head, were unnaturally luminous and piercing. This terrible object was wrapped in two bands of old yellow calico, one of which was drawn under the chin and over the cheeks and tied at the top of the head, the other was drawn round the top of the wrinkled forehead and fastened at the back of the head.
So deep and indelible an impression it made on my mind, that were I an artist I could paint that face to-day, and reproduce the original (excepting, perhaps, the luminous eyes) as accurately as if it were photographed.
”What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a glance. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face again towards the village, and ran away from the horrible vision with all my might for about sixty yards. I then stopped and turned round to see how far I had outdistanced it, and, to my unspeakable horror, there it was still face to face with me, as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my umbrella and raised it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings when I could see nothing between the face and the ground except an irregular column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella went as a stick goes through water!
”I am sorry to confess that I again took to my heels with increasing speed. A little farther than the place of this second encounter, the road which led towards my host's house branched off the main road, the main road itself running right through the centre of the village, in the lower end of which it ran parallel with the churchyard wall. Having gone a few yards down the branch road, I reached a crisis in my fear and confusion when I felt I could act rationally: I determined to speak to the strange pursuer whatever he was, and I boldly turned round to face him for the third time, intending to ask him what he wanted, etc.,
”He had not followed me after I left the main road, but I could see the horribly fascinating face quite as plainly as when it was close by. It stood for two or three minutes looking intently at me from the centre of the main road. I then realised fully it was not a human being in flesh and blood; and with every vestige of fear gone I quickly walked towards it to put my questions. But I was disappointed, for no sooner had I made towards it than it moved quickly in the direction of the village. I saw it moving along, keeping the same distance from the ground, until it reached the churchyard wall; it then crossed the wall, and disappeared near where the yew-tree stood inside. The moment it disappeared I became unconscious. When I came to myself, two hours later, I was lying in the middle of the road, cold and ill. It took me quite an hour to reach my host's house, which was less than half-a-mile away, and when I reached it I looked so white and strange that my host's daughter, who had sat down with her father to wait my return, uttered a loud scream. I could not say a word to explain what had happened, though I tried hard several times. It was five o'clock in the morning when I regained my power of speech; even then I could only speak in broken sentences. The whole of the following week I was laid up with great nervous prostration.
”The strangest part of my story remains yet to be told. My host, after questioning me closely in regard to the features of the face, the place I had first seen it and the spot where it disappeared, told me that fifteen years before that time an old recluse, answering in every detail to my description (calicoes, bands and all), lived in a house whose ruins still stand close by where I first saw it, that he was buried in the exact spot in the churchyard where I saw the face disappearing, and that he was a very strange character altogether.
”I should like to add that I had not heard a syllable about this old man before the night in question, and that all the persons referred to in the above story are still alive.”
Here is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in _Light_. The narrator is a Colonel X.
”When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night the sentry came to tell me that there was something very extraordinary going on in the White Chapel, which, in those days, was used as a storeroom.
”I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed up and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly lit up, and presently priests in vestments and boys swinging silver censers came in and arranged themselves before an altar.
Then the large entrance doors opened and a procession of persons in old quaint costumes filed in. Walking alone was a lady in black, and behind her was a masked man, also in black, who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded away, and there was utter darkness.
”Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so laughed at that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a gentleman introduced himself as the keeper of the records of the Tower, and said that he had heard my story, but wished to hear it again from my own lips; and when I had told it he remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision has been seen by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's death.'”
It not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in a court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in ”Sights and Shadows,”
gives an account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year 1890.
”A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner, Miss Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of 23.
”The last-named persons took possession of it in due course; but two days subsequently they became aware of the presence of a spirit or ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs Kinney a.s.serted, 'threw heavy things at her,' and so alarmed and inconvenienced her, that in a very short period both husband and wife were forced to quit their abode.
”This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it; and, because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised to decline to pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to release them from their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's rent; and when this remained for sometime unpaid, sued them for it before Judge Kisby.
”A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants, who, having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in question, asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that of several other people. This, however, was disallowed by the judge.
”It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side or the other had been said regarding the haunting when the house was let; yet that the rent was due and must be paid.