PART II
I now append the account of the Croxford Trial copied (with as few alterations as possible) from the pamphlet reprinted by Mr. Henson of Northampton in 1848
At the Assizes held at Northampton on Thursday, August 2, 1764, came on before the Right Honourable the Lord Chief Baron Varker the trials of Benjamin Deacon, John Croxford, and Richard Butlin for the murder of a travelling pedlar—known only as Scottie—at a house of ill-fame called “Catslo”—in the Parish of Guilsborough, kept by one Thomas Seamark (who was executed at Northampton on April 23 last for a robbery on the highway) and had been a receptacle of thieves and highwaymen for some time.
The chief evidence against them was that of Anne Seamark, widow of the above Thomas Seamark. She deposed that sometime between Michaelmas and Christmas last the said pedlar (supposed to be one Thomas Corey) came to the said house where were at that time the said Seamark, Deacon, Croxford, and Butlin to whom he offered stockings, &c., for sale, but not agreeing as to the price, they proposed to murder him and directly Seamark knocked him down, Butlin fell upon his legs, Deacon upon his face to prevent him crying out and Croxford, pulling out a knife, cut his throat in such a manner that the head was almost off, but the body stirring a little, Croxford stabbed him in the head which put an end to his life.
They then stripped him and carried the clothes upstairs where Seamark’s three children were in bed; after which a hole was dug by Seamark in the close adjoining to the house where they buried the body; but thinking themselves not safe, they dug up the body again and cut it into several pieces.
These latter they put into an oven and were three days and nights trying to consume them; in the end succeeding only with the flesh and having to bury the bones which were now produced in court and held as testimony against them.
Being asked by the judge why she did not reveal the same before, Mrs. Seamark answered that her husband threatened to murder her if she mentioned it to anyone, whilst Croxford holding a knife to her throat with one hand and having a book in the other, swore he would instantly kill her if she did not take an oath to conceal all knowledge of the matter.
The next witness for the prosecution, Mrs. Seamark’s little boy of ten years of age, stated that on being kicked one day at school by a playmate, he had in a passion cried out that he would serve him as his daddy served “Scottie,” which statement being overheard by the schoolmaster, the latter called him into his presence and demanded an explanation.
On the witness refusing to comply, he was shut in a room by himself where he remained till the arrival of his mother.
In the meantime the Schoolmaster, who like everyone else in Guilsborough, had only known the Pedlar by the name of “Scottie,” and like other folk had wondered at his long absence from the village, seeing that many people owed him money and others were in want of goods, began to put two and two together and had arrived at the conclusion that the boy knew more than he dare tell, when Mrs. Seamark entered the house in a state of breathless alarm to know why her son had not “turned up” for his dinner. Whereupon the Schoolmaster had boldly taxed her with a knowledge of Scottie’s fate which after no little hesitation and a great many tears she had admitted.
This had led to the present witness confessing, that chancing to peep through the cracks of the chamber floor one afternoon, he had seen his father and some other men trying to burn some hands and feet in an oven, near to which were a light grey coat and a cane which he recognised as belonging to “Scottie” who had been to their house the day before. On being asked by the Judge if he could identify the prisoners with the men he had seen helping his father, he at once answered in the affirmative.
This concluded his testimony after which several other witnesses (whose evidence I cannot record here through lack of space) were then called; Croxford, Deacon and Butlin protesting their innocence of the crime laid against them, declaring that the whole case had been maliciously trumped up by Mrs. Seamark and her son.
After the evidence on both sides had been thoroughly examined, the judge summed up, and the jury after a quarter of an hour’s absence returned with a verdict of wilful murder; a demonstration being made by the prisoners against Ann Seamark as she left the Court.
On Saturday August 4th, the prisoners were carried from the jail to the place of execution, guarded by a party of Sir Charles Howard’s Dragoons with fixed bayonets and muskets loaded with powder and ball, where they joined fervently in the prayers with the minister, Croxford delivering a paper to one of the attendant gaolers, which he desired might be published for the satisfaction of the world. This document is too long to quote ad verbum; a brief summary will suffice. In it John Croxford says that he is about twenty-three years of age and by trade a tailor, that he was born at Brixworth of creditable parents who gave him a liberal education, and that his character and behaviour were very good until about January 1760, when he got into bad company, which had proved his ruin—this much he confessed, but denied that he had been guilty of murder.
Benjamin Deacon writes that he was born at Spratton, is about twenty-five years of age, and by trade a sawyer; that he bore a tolerably good character until about Christmas last, when he committed various crimes, but not murder.
Richard Butlin testifies that he was born of respectable parents at Guilsborough, had a good education, is about twenty years of age, and by trade a glover and breeches maker, that he has always borne a good character and is innocent of murder.
The manuscript goes on to say that they—the said John Croxford, Benj. Deacon and Richard Butlin—were to die the next day, being condemned on the false oath of Ann Seamark, the vilest wretch that ever appeared in a Court of Justice, and that there was not one word of truth in her evidence and that of her boy, it being a hellish and malicious contrivance of their’s to take away their lives, that Croxford was never with Butlin until Guilsborough Feast, which was about the 25th of October, and never was in the Close with Butlin and Deacon but once, and that about the 15th of November, and never in the house with them; and that in their opinion no murder had been committed.
That they did not doubt but the whole affair would be brought to light, though too late to be of any service to them; and that they hoped Ann Seamark would be rewarded according to her deserts, that they would die in peace with her and with all the world, bearing her no malice, only hoping the great God would make known their innocence.
The document winds up with these words: “Done in Northampton Gaol, the night before the execution, as a caution to all good people. We, the poor unhappy sufferers, do severally set our hands to this, it being nothing but Truth,
“John Croxford.
“Benj. Deacon.
“Richard Butlin.”
At the place of execution they behaved with great fortitude, still denying their knowledge of the murder, but confessing themselves guilty of many irregularities. They gave much attention to the Divine Service, and departed, advising all the spectators to beware of keeping bad company and declaring that they died in peace with the world.
After their execution the body of Croxford was carried to Hollowell Heath, in the parish of Guilsborough, where it was hanged in chains on a gibbet erected for that purpose, the bodies of Deacon and Butlin being delivered to a surgeon to be dissected.
This concludes the history of the Guilsborough murder, posterity concurring with the verdict of the jury and agreeing that there were sensible and useful grounds for the appearance of the Phantasm of the perjured Croxford to the Chaplain of the Northampton Jail.
WOLSEY ABBEY, NEAR
GLOUCESTER
THE DREADFUL SMELL
Technical form of apparitions: Phantasms of the dead
Source of authenticity: Copies almost ad verbum from the MS. lent me by Mrs. Browne, February 1908.
Cause of haunting: Vice and Premature Burial
My name is Elizabeth Rita Browne; I am a native of Birmingham and my husband, John Alexander is the rector of a small parish near Wolverhampton.
In the summer of 1900 my husband, who had long been ailing, never having properly recovered from an attack of typhoid, was obliged to take a holiday, engaging a locum to do his work.
Like the majority of clergymen, his stipend was not very large and we could not, consequently, afford to go to any expensive place. An advertisement in a well-known fashion gazette attracting our attention, we at once made inquiries, with the result that Wolsey Abbey became ours for three months at a practically nominal rent.
Of course it was in an extremely out-of-the-way spot; there was no railway within six miles and the neighbourhood was dull, flat and uninteresting; still we might have marvelled at getting it so absurdly cheap, had we not heard that money was of no object to the owner, who was a semi-millionaire.
We arrived early one evening in July; the sun was yet visible in the sky and its dying efforts would have enhanced the meanest rural beauty.
I cannot say we were comfortably impressed with the building; it was of course simply colossal compared with our own little home, but so grim and grey, so forlorn and forbidding, and withal so inhospitable, that a momentary fear seized me lest its leaden hued and crumbling walls should prove our winding-sheets.
The grounds, overgrown with every imaginable kind of weed that here attained Brobdingnagian dimensions, gently shelved down to the house, which lay in a minute valley, dank, damp and dismal; the funereal aspect being further augmented by clumps of giant pines and elms, the shadows from which were already beginning to wave phantastically on both walls and gables.
To our right, almost hidden by the thick foliage of the trees and luxuriant herbage, we espied the twinkling surface of a sheet of water which we subsequently learned was a tarn or lake of almost unfathomable depth and darkness.
The principal feature of the mansion seemed to be that of antiquity, of excessive antiquity, more particularly the Gothic monastic dome which, resting on Norman columns, formed the termination of the left wing, the right and central portion of the house dating back I believe to Henry VIIth’s reign—though of this I have no positive proof.
The lapse of ages had wrought much discolouration, added to which was the disfigurement caused by lichens and minute fungi that, spreading over the whole exterior, hung in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. But apart from this there were no very great dilapidations, the masonry remaining intact, whilst the woodwork, save for a few deep rents and indentures, seemed to be in an extraordinarily good state of repair.
The hand of nature had apparently been peremptorily and mysteriously arrested in its work of dissolution and decay.
The inside of the house, though not belying the mournful expectations we had formed from the exterior, drew from us all exclamations of wonder and admiration—never had we seen such magnificent oak panelling, nor such exquisitely carved ceilings, nor such vast stretches of tapestry (worn and faded though it was), whilst the ebon blackness of the floors, and the size and massiveness of the furniture, were what we had hitherto only associated with the grandeur of a palace or castle.
My daughters Mary and Eunice were charmed and impressed, and both my husband and I felt our misgivings rapidly diminish when a few minutes later we were enjoying a dainty and well-cooked supper in one of the large and stately reception rooms.
The first days of our sojourn there passed with the pleasant monotony of well-earned rest; we rambled through the long and straggling and seemingly interminable corridors of the house, and about the grounds and gardens, finding much to marvel at, much to envy.
In the day time the sun struggling feebly through the trellised panes of glass filled the rooms and passages with a crimson glow—a glow both warming and enriching, but at various times and in certain places startlingly and horribly suggestive of blood; the analogy struck me the more forcibly each day I observed it, so much so that I grew afraid to ascend the staircases—ALONE.
Mary and Eunice laughed at my misgivings; to them the house and surroundings were the quintessence of mediæval splendour and romance; they revelled in the grandeur of the interior trappings, in the freedom of the vast park and gardens; it was only after the third week that they, too, suddenly grew AFRAID.
But whereas my fears had been prompted by a comparison, a comparison which, however near and repellent, still remained a COMPARISON, theirs were generated by something which, although scarcely more tangible, was unmistakably REAL.
They were constantly assailed by a SMELL—a cold, icy cold, pungent, beastly smell, that would on some occasions approach them along a corridor or staircase, and at others steal surreptitiously behind them from some obscure nook or cranny.
It was foul, pestilential, inexplicable; they had never smelt anything like it before; it was nothing recognisable; it neither emanated from drainage nor from dead animals behind the skirting-boards; it was nauseous, suffocating, freezing—and—as if it lived—it MOVED.
From the moment they first became aware of its presence, their pleasure in the house ceased; all their time was now spent in the garden, but in that part of the garden only whence no view of the tarn could be obtained and where there were no trees.
Neither my husband nor I had encountered the Smell, but it was not very long before the servants did—and—one by one they LEFT, nor could we find any that were willing to take their place, the Abbey bearing a very evil reputation in the neighbourhood.
The question of our daughters’ health began to cause us some anxiety; were we doing right in remaining in the house and exposing them to the danger of some serious malady? for although the origin of the Smell was a mystery, the effect of so horrible a stench could not prove otherwise than injurious.
We decided, therefore, to give up our tenancy at the expiration of another week, the idea of quitting such palatial quarters and retiring to the meanness of some petty villa or four-room cottage not disturbing us half so much as our inability to arrive at the cause of that Smell.
In the silence of the night, when no other sounds were to be heard, save the gentle beating of the branches against our window and the occasional hooting of an owl, we lay awake and wondered, wondered why it never came to us, but always to Mary and Eunice.
The house, I have said, was liberally furnished; both rooms and passages were covered with soft if somewhat faded carpets; there was no lack of tables, couches, chairs, &c., whilst the walls were adorned with pictures which, though darkened by dust and blistered by the sun, revealed the art of old and well-known masters; but it was the library that attracted and pleased us most.
There arranged methodically in the ample bookcases were volumes of every description; books of ancient lore, Spectators, Tatlers, Richardson’s “Pamela,” Defoe’s “Moll of Flanders,” Tyndale’s Bible, Dryden’s and Gifford’s Translations from the Classics, the Mysticisms of Swedenborg, Behmen and Plotinus and countless others, many, even of greater rarity and value, bound uniformly in those covers of rich Moroccan leather so characteristic of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
One among all others had riveted our attention from the very first. I have already alluded to the peculiar and ghastly phenomenon produced by the sun’s rays penetrating the coloured glass in the corridors and on the staircases; here it was even more pronounced though only very locally, the full force of the rays being focussed in the most startling manner on the metal clasp of a volume of stupendous size and apparently vast antiquity; the result being that whereas the entire book was bathed in a bloody halo, the others were left in a comparatively clear and normal light.
Appalled yet fascinated by this unaccountable anomaly, we had several times attempted to remove the volume in order to pry into its contents but we were unable to do so, owing, we imagined, to its having stuck or being fastened in some peculiar manner to the shelf—and we were afraid to use any great force for fear of damaging the cover; consequently our curiosity had to remain unsatisfied.
The night, however, preceding our departure from the Abbey (August 11) my husband had already left by a mid-day train, I was whiling away the few remaining hours in the study—Mary and Eunice being as I thought, engaged in packing—when—suddenly—I heard some one approach the door as if on tiptoe. The next moment there came a loud knock and the sonorous sound of the grandfather clock in the alcove beside me commencing to strike seven, the two noises were almost simultaneous.
Wondering who my visitor could be—our only servant, a woman from the nearest village, having left an hour ago—I smoothed my gown and walking hastily to the door threw it open.
As I did so a current of cold air, tainted with the most disgusting and detestable stench conceivable, sent me half staggering, half choking backwards, and I perceived standing on the threshold, not ten paces from me two figures of hellish horror. Featureless, fleshless, foul, clad in the tattered, rotted garments of a monk and nun, they confronted me motionless, silent, and then the voice of my Eunice attracting their attention, they slowly wheeled round and glided ghoulishly along the passage.
I gave one shriek of warning to Eunice as she hove in sight, carrying in her arms a tray of odds and ends for me to sort.
For a second or so she stood too petrified to move—and—then—as the THINGS appeared on the verge of touching her with their long, outstretched arms, she dropped the tray and, uttering a kind of terrified gasp, fled precipitately.
They did not pursue her, but gliding onward with the same mechanical movements, suddenly vanished on reaching the wall at the end of the corridor; nor did we, I am thankful to say see them again.
The SMELL had explained itself.
Anxious to get to Eunice and fearsome lest she should have fainted, I was about to quit the study, when my eyes were attracted to an object on the floor. It was the mysterious volume which, loosened from the shelf in some miraculous fashion, had fallen to the ground, and now lay open, its ponderous, gilded clasps undone and limp.
The fading sunlight concentrating its rays on the pages of the book in a final and prodigiously bloody effort, enabled me to read the following extract: “and for this great and unpardonable sin of the Abbess Hilda and the Monk Nicholas, we—the Saintly and Beloved Abbot Matthew, the learned Franciscan brother Raymond, the laymen and labourers, Barber and Brooks together with I, Sir John Hickson Leigh, Knight did entomb them alive, clasped in each other’s arms, cursing man and blaspheming heaven, on the eve of the 11th day of August, 1521. And of the exact spot in the Abbey of Wolsey wherein they be buried, no man—save we who placed them there—knoweth, nor shall any discover the same until the day cometh when the secrets of all flesh shall be revealed.”
This much I read and no more for the light proving too strong for me, I was compelled to remove my gaze and when I opened my eyes and saw again the volume it had gone, and lo! to my intense and unfeigned amazement it was back again in its customary place on the shelf, nor could the united efforts of myself and daughters remove it from that spot.
Regarding this extraordinary incident, as the only feasible explanation of the phenomena Eunice and I had seen, we could arrive at no other conclusion than that the house (once Wolsey Abbey) was haunted by the phantasms of the Abbess Hilda and the Monk Nicholas; and with such an explanation we have had to be content.
NO. XYZ EUSTON ROAD
THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN IN THE
HELIOTROPE SKIRT
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead
Source of authenticity: Personal experience of author
Cause of haunting: Murder
Of all the most annoying things in this world few are more so than missing one’s train, especially when it happens to be the last in the day.
This unpleasant experience happened to me one evening early in September 1895. I came into Euston just as the 7 P.M. for Northampton—the last train connected with Brixworth—was steaming out of the station—and so, willy-nilly, I had to remain in town all night.
“Where to put up,” now became the absorbing question. I wanted to be close to the station in order to catch the earliest morning train, but, although there were plenty of rich men’s hotels, there seemed a sore dearth of “go-betweens;” it was either five shillings the night or sixpence; Purgatory or Hell: I could see no place that suited ME.
At last after traversing many squares and the more respectable of the side streets, I retraced my steps, eventually alighting on a private and inconsequential looking hotel in Euston Road.
The interior of the establishment was in keeping with the exterior—gloomy and forbidding, and the damp, earthy smell that seemed to rise from the basement made me gravely apprehensive of rheumatism; still the tariff was in strict accordance with my means, and feeling too tired to wander further, I decided to remain.
The room in which I had a very sparse supper was like the majority of dining-rooms in middle-class hotels: overcrowded with unwieldy furniture, frowsy, ill-ventilated; imagine that the table had been laid once and for all (it had undoubtedly presented the same spectacle for months), and that the cloth, never very white, was removed, only, when it grew too begrimed even for the blunted susceptibilities of the proprietress. I afterwards found that the beef did not belie its looks, that the bread was in excellent accord, and that the water might well have been the receptacle of innumerable generations of bacilli.
There were other visitors besides myself, either Germans or commercial travellers, probably both; but as their conversation carried on over plates of half raw meat, was neither particularly edifying nor interesting, I preferred an antique number of Vanity Fair until, at length, tiring of that, I picked up a candlestick and made my way to bed.
The moment I crossed the threshold of my room, that peculiar and indefinable sensation that invariably suggests the immediate proximity of the superphysical came over me, I felt sure the house was haunted. But by what? Ah! that was the problem left for ME to solve.
The furniture of the room was of the orthodox lodging-house type—inartistic, scant and seedy; a gaunt four-poster propped against the middle of the wall running at right angles to the door was adorned with exceedingly dirty valances of a nondescript pink and white pattern; facing this was a fireplace the register of which was of course down; to the left of this was a hanging wardrobe that I at once examined and found to contain nothing more formidable than a score or two of black-beetles that scuttled unceremoniously away into holes at the sight of my candle; whilst on the opposite side of the room, facing the window, was a rickety dressing-table surmounted by a still more rickety looking-glass. In one corner of the room stood a washing-stand from which the white paint had peeled in a hundred places, and in the other corner a dismantled bureau that resembled some vessel after a great storm. These, I believe, apart from a couple of cane-bottomed chairs, constituted the entire furniture, nor can I say this scantiness, taking into consideration the poorness of the quality, was any matter of regret.
The carpet, undoubtedly the best feature of the room, and either an Axminster or a Brussels—not being an expert on such a point I cannot tell which—hid all the boarding save where the margins were stained with a preparation of potash.
I give all these details to show that several years of practical investigation of haunted houses had developed my inquiring faculties to a very high degree, little, if anything, escaping my notice.
The raison d’être of ghosts often lies where it is least expected; in some article of furniture, not infrequently a cupboard near at hand, in the panelling, the skirting, or, not infrequently again, on or under the boards.
When I am in a haunted room, my first instinct, therefore, is to take a very careful stock of my surroundings; the bare appearance or touch of a piece of furniture often supplying me with the necessary clue.
On this occasion, however, nothing arousing my suspicions and feeling abnormally sleepy, I bolted my door and lay on the bed; I say “on,” not “in,” as a cursory glance at the pillow made me draw deductions as to the sheets. Within a few minutes I went to sleep, falling into a heavy, dreamless slumber from which I was suddenly and most alarmingly awakened by the feeling I was no longer alone in the room.
Opening my eyes, I perceived the apartment flooded with a bright unnatural light that apparently emanated from, or at all events accompanied, the figure of a little old woman with yellow hair and a heliotrope skirt. I noticed these idiosyncrasies of person and dress directly, the nature of the light accentuating them, and my senses being, as they always are in the presence of superphysical phenomena, wonderfully and painfully acute.
Standing in front of the dressing-table, the eccentric individual was examining herself with the greatest curiosity in the crazy looking-glass to which allusion has already been made.
Her profile was angular, her lack of colour ghastly, whilst from her ears hung that style of drop-earring worn by ladies in the days of the crinoline; otherwise her costume might have belonged to the latter seventies or early eighties. There was nothing actually HORRIBLE about her, save her reflection, and as my eyes turned with irresistible fascination towards the looking-glass, my blood turned to ice. The surface of the mirror, made preternaturally bright, flashed back the most hideous, the most incomparably HIDEOUS image of Fear.
Never! never in all my life had I seen depicted in aught but Wiertz’s pictures such inconceivably awful terror as that which confronted me there—and now as I gazed at it, a sickly curiosity seized me as to what could be the origin of such Hellish Fear. Was it Fear of Death; of the Unknown metetherical Abysses; of Eternal Damnation; of what?
Then—as I followed the direction of the dilating pupils—I saw—God help me—the Cause! Descending from a few inches above her head were the snake-like coils of a rope. Had I been able to turn my head, maybe I should have seen whence they came; but I could not move a muscle, and could only feel the keynote to some great and hitherto unsolvable mystery was at hand but purposely hidden from me.
There was scant time for speculation. The enactment of this drama was brief as it was lurid; uttering an appalling scream that was quickly converted into a gurgle of the most blood-curdling significance, the old lady clawed the air with her spidery fingers.
The murderer was pitiless, the noose coming to with an irresistible snap, jerked the wretched victim off her feet.
For one instant—the most harrowing of all—I watched her falling backwards; watched the changing of her deadly pallor into a deep and vivid purple, watched the rolling of her starting eyeballs, the foam-flakes on her lips, and the frenzied movements of her stiffening arms and then—THEN—as she struck the ground with a reverberating crash—all was darkness. The ghostly tragedy for this night at least was over.
This I realised, but my nerves being too completely unstrung by what I had witnessed to allow me to sleep, I crept under the counterpane and lay there shivering till the welcome rays of early dawn converted the room into another place. My first movement was to examine the scene of the ghostly murder, and upon turning up the carpet, I discovered not a bloodstain, but a comparatively new piece of boarding!
With that, drawing my own conclusions, I had to rest content—there was nothing else in the room that could in any way have been transmuted into evidence.
The moment the clock struck six I picked up my valise, and gobbling down a lukewarm breakfast with little relish, quitted the house, determining to pay it another visit before very long.
In this, however, I was doomed to disappointment. Some months elapsed before I could again visit the neighbourhood of Euston, and when I did so, I found the hotel had vanished nor have I to this day been able to identify the house wherein I slept.
I have but lately been informed that a good many years ago (when we middle-aged fogies were mere children) a singularly repulsive murder was committed at a house in or near Euston Road, the victim being a somewhat extraordinary old lady. Further details I do not know, therefore I can only surmise that what I saw may possibly have been HER phantasm—but please remember, it is ONLY a surmise.
PANMAUR HOLLOW
MERIONETH
THE BLACK PEDLAR
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead
Source of authenticity: “Ladies’ Cabinet,” 1835, and elsewhere
Cause of haunting: Murder
The “Ladies Cabinet” for 1835 contains an account of a haunting in Merioneth that seems to me of sufficient psychic interest to record.
Hence I append it; but since the original text is a trifle too intricate in places, I have taken the liberty to tell the story more or less in my own words:
“In the summer of 1832 I was on a walking tour in Wales; in selecting, as the principal scene of my operations, Merioneth, and chancing one evening to be overtaken by a storm, when midway between Dolgelly and Bala, I was speedily placed in the most unpleasant of predicaments. To go on I was afraid, to turn back was impossible; what could I do? The night was dark, the rain almost tropical, and the roadway so broken up with furrows that I could only grope along with the utmost difficulty; whilst the frequent windings, steep ascents, and sharp declivities not only added to my embarrassment, but greatly increased my weariness. At every few yards I either plunged into a miniature morass or, stumbling over a boulder, found myself smarting in the centre of a gorse bush.
“At length I grew desperate—human nature could stand it no longer—and resolving to perish with the cold rather than flounder on under such pitiable conditions, I threw myself down on a rock and prepared to lie there till daybreak.
“It is possible I had remained in this position for ten or so minutes, when I was roused to a sense of deliverance by the bright glow of a lamp, and starting up to my feet, I discovered I was no longer alone. Confronting me was the figure of a short man, wrapped in a shaggy great-coat, and wearing a slouched hat. He was holding a lantern in his hand. By a series of pantomimic gestures he assured me that his intentions were amicable, and that he was anxious to guide me to some place of shelter where I should have a more comfortable pallet than a bare rock.
“I accepted his offer, though not without some misgivings, as I could not remember ever having met with any one quite so uncouth or bizarre.
“Turning abruptly to the right he struck across a wide moor covered with gorse and innumerable boulders, and so studded with pools of water that I seemed to be in a perpetual state of wading. Emerging from this, we wended our way along the side of a precipice, at the bottom of which roared one of those mountain torrents so characteristic of all parts of Wales.
“Beckoning to me to follow, my guide mysteriously disappeared, and peering over the edge of the chasm, I perceived him, to my amazement, making his descent by an almost invisible and perpendicular pathway. For a second or so I hesitated, and then, making up my mind to brave anything rather than remain by myself in such an unfamiliar and dangerous neighbourhood, I gingerly lowered myself over the brink, and, after a few tumbles, succeeded in overtaking him just as he arrived at the bottom.
“We now found ourselves in a valley of stygian darkness, and of such restricted dimensions that the spray from the river bathed me from head to foot. My companion pressed resolutely on, and, maintaining the same extraordinary and uncanny silence, conducted me to a recess in the hillside where the outlines of a bare, dismantled house gradually arose to greet us. It was merely a pile of ruins, old, yet naked, without any of those evidences of vegetation one usually associates with the antique. I particularly noticed this deficiency; it impressed and perplexed me. If moss and lichens grew elsewhere—why not here?
“The situation of the house was strikingly romantic and weird—indeed, one could not well imagine a more dismal spot. A giant mass of black rock reared itself in the background like a Brobdingnagian bat. In the foreground, and at so close a distance that the spray blowing madly over my face and clothes drenched me to the skin, rushed a seething mass of sable water, whilst to accentuate all this Avernian horror, the wind whistled demoniacally, and the rain fell with ever-increasing fury. Turning to my guide, I impatiently requested him ‘to move on,’ and take me with the greatest expedition to the nearest available hostelry.
“In reply he took off his hat, and, thrusting his monstrous head forward, revealed to my horror-stricken gaze a shapeless, sodden mass of black flesh!
“The cause of his silence was now obvious—he couldn’t speak because he had no mouth; but neither had he eyes, ears, or nose; nothing but that awful, unmeaning, rotund protuberance.
“I stood aghast, too terrified to stir, almost too terrified to breathe, with the hideous Thing looming there before me, and the booming of the river behind. It was a ghastly situation.
“The creature advanced an inch—my blood turned to ice; it raised its arms—my soul sickened within me; it lunged suddenly forward—and—fell right through me. As it did so I heard a fiendish chuckle, which, dying slowly out, gave way to a succession of blood-curdling groans that seemed to proceed from the interior of the ruins. The figure, however, was nowhere to be seen; it must have dematerialised on the spot.
“Very much relieved at this, though still considerably frightened, I was now able to use my limbs, and turning my back on the ghostly building, I felt my way along the bank of the river. I dare not glance at the boiling foam, the very sound of it made my flesh creep; nor did I feel in any degree safe till a winding of the footpath brought me to a bridge, on the opposite side of which I saw the twinkling lights of many houses. I was now, once again, in the land of the living, and a substantial meal by a cosy fire helped, in a good measure, to dissipate my fears and recompense me for all the trials I had undergone.
“Prior to leaving the inn next day I learned from my host that the hollow was known to be haunted, and, on that account, was universally shunned after sunset. Half a century ago the ruins—then a neat grey cottage—had been inhabited by the Evanses, a bad, thriftless ‘lot.’
“At the instigation of her husband, and with the motive of robbery, Mrs. Evans, a buxom woman—handsome in a bad bold style—had flirted openly with a pedlar, known locally as ‘Black Dave.’
“This man was easily induced to put up at their house, and his suspicions being lulled to rest by the amorous overtures of the woman, he was surprised in his sleep and butchered.
“Fearing, however, either to commit the body to the river or bury it in their garden lest it should be found, and being at the time very hard pressed for food—they improvised an oven in the earth and ate it!
“The vengeance of Heaven was, however, close on their track; the cottage, paid for out of their ill-gotten gains, caught fire during a drunken carousal, and Mrs. Evans was burned to death, whilst her husband only lingered long enough to make a full confession of the crime.
“The house was never rebuilt; the phantasm of Dave, in the disgusting guise in which he appeared to me, still haunts the precincts, and, delighting to gull unsuspecting wayfarers, leads them out of their proper courses, guiding them with a fiendish skill to the black ruin—the scene of his ghastly murder.”
CATCHFIELD HALL, THE
MIDLANDS
THE TERRIBLE HEADS THAT RISE
THROUGH THE FLOOR
Technical form of apparitions: Phantoms of the dead
Source of authenticity: Accumulative hearsay evidence
No. — The Terrace, Worcester.
March 1, 1908.
Dear Mr. Elliott O’Donnell,
I thought you would be interested to hear I met Mrs. Blake last night at the Stowes, where I got out of her with no small amount of pumping an account of “what she saw” at that notorious ball at Catchfield some years ago. It is very horrible, too horrible, perhaps even for such a “spook gourmand” as you. Of course all the names I have given you are fictitious. You know there have been several libel cases lately, in connection with haunted houses so that one cannot be too careful. &c. &c. &c.
Yours sincerely,
Evelyn D. O’Grady.