April 24.
St. Mark’s Eve.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Joe Brown—the Church Watch.
Sir,—As you solicit communications of local usages or customs, I send you some account of the “Watching the church” on St. Mark’s E’en, in Yorkshire. According to the superstitions of some other counties, the eve of St. John’s day is the privileged night for unquiet spirits to revisit the upper world, and flit over the scenes of their mortal existence. But, in Yorkshire, it was believed by the superstitious and the peasantry within these twenty years, and is so still perhaps, that if a person have the hardihood to place himself within the porch of the church, or in a position which commands the church door, on the ghostly e’en of St. Mark, (it must be St. Mark, O. S.,) he will see the souls of those whose bodies are to be buried at that church the following year, approach the church in the dead waste and middle of the night. The doors are flung open by some invisible hand just at twelve o’clock, and the spirits enter in the rotation their mortal bodies are to die in. This hour is an epitome of the year; those who are to die soon, enter the first—and those who will almost survive the year, do not approach until nearly one o’clock, at which time the doors are carefully closed and secured as they were in the day. Another remarkable feature in the shadowy pageant is this; those that come to an untimely end, are represented by their ghostly proxies, in the very article of dissolution. If a person is to be hanged, or to hang himself, as Burns says in his “Tam O’Shanter,”
“Wi’ his last gasp his gab will gape.”
If the person is to be drowned, his representative will come as if struggling and splashing in water, and so on in other cases of premature death. I must likewise mention, that the “church-watcher” pretends he is fixed in a state of impotence to his seat, during the ghostly hour, and only receives the use of his powers of locomotion when the clock strikes one. Another peculiarity attends this nocturnal scene: the souls of those who are to be seriously indisposed, likewise join the procession; they peep into the church, face about, and return to their wonted residences in their slumbering mortal habitations. But the souls of the condemned enter the church, and are not observed to return.
When a boy at home, I recollect a man who was said to watch the church; his name was “Joe Brown.” This man used to inspire my youthful fancy with great awe. I was not the only one who regarded him with fear: he contrived by a certain mysterious behaviour, to impress weak and youthful minds with feelings which bordered upon terror. His person is vividly imprinted on my memory; his face was broad, his features coarse, and he had what is called a hare-lip, which caused him to speak through the nose, or to snaffle, as they term it in Yorkshire. He never would directly acknowledge that he watched the church; but a mysterious shrug or nod tended to convey the assertion. Two circumstances which took place in my remembrance, served to stamp his fame as a ghost-seer. At the fair-tide, he quarreled with a young man, who put him out of the room in which they were drinking; he told his antagonist that he would be under the sod before that day twelve months, which happened to be the case. The other circumstance was this; he reported a young man would be drowned, who lived in the same street in which my father’s house was situated. I well recollect the report being current early in the year. On Easter Sunday, a fine young man, a bricklayer’s apprentice went to bathe in the river Ouse, (which runs by C——d, my native town,) and was drowned; this fulfilled his prediction, and made him be regarded with wonder. Whether excited by the celebrity such casual forebodings acquired him, or whether a knavish propensity lurked at the bottom of his affected visionary abstractedness, this last of the “church-watchers” turned out an arrant rogue; the latter years of his execrable existence were marked with rapine and murder. For a time he assumed the mask of religion, but the discipline of the sect he joined was too strict to suit his dishonest views. He was expelled the society for mal-practices, quickly joined himself to another, and afterwards associated with a loose young man, who, if alive, is in New South Wales, whither he was transported for life. They commenced a system of petty plunder, which soon increased to more daring acts of robbery and burglary. They withdrew to a distance from C——d for a time; a warrant was out against them for a burglary, of which they were the suspected perpetrators. They went to a small town where they were not known, and assumed the disguise of fortune-tellers. “Old Joe” was the “wise man,” and affected to be dumb, whilst his younger confederate, like a flamen of old, interpreted his mystic signs. They lodged at a house kept by two aged sisters, spinsters. They found that these females were possessed of a little money, and kept it in a box. One night they gave their hostesses sweetened ale, in which they had infused a quantity of laudanum. One of the poor women never woke again, but the other lived. These men were taken up and examined, but liberated for want of proof. They afterwards were suspected of having shot the Leeds and Selby carrier in the night; at length they were taken for stealing some hams, and in consequence of their bad character, sentenced to transportation for life. The termination of Joe’s life was remarkable; Sampson like, he drew destruction on his own head. When about to be embarked for Botany Bay, Joe, either touched by conscience, or through reluctance to leave England, made a confession of his crimes. He and his companion were removed from the Isle of Wight to York castle. Joe alone was put on his trial, and, though not convicted on his own confession, corroborating circumstances of his guilt were produced, and the sister of the poisoned female appeared against him. He was found guilty of the murder, and executed at York, at the Lent assizes of 1809. Sir Simon Le Blanc was the judge.
I have dwelt longer, perhaps, on the vile actions of this last of the “church-watchers” than will be amusing to the reader; but he seemed completely identified with the local superstitions of the county. In some degree he made them subservient to further his roguish designs, by assuming the goblin appearance of the “Barguest,” and, with his auxiliary, turned it to no bad account. This preternatural appearance alarmed the superstitious, who fled, pursued by the supposed demon. In their panic haste they would leave their doors or gates open, and the rogues never failed to turn these oversights to good account, plundering the house or robbing the premises. This statement is strictly true, they robbed several people in this novel and ingenious manner. By the by, it may be observed, that the “Barguest” is an out-of-door goblin, believed by the vulgar to haunt the streets and lanes of country towns and villages. Its alleged appearance indicates death, or some great calamity.
I am, Sir, &c.
J. P.
On Monday, April 24, 1825, the late Henry Fuseli, Esq., R. A. was buried in St. Paul’s cathedral, and a circumstance occurred at his funeral which ought to be known. A gentleman, whose intimacy with Mr. Fuseli seems to have been overlooked by the managers of the funeral, was desirous of paying the last sad tribute of respect to the remains of his friend. He waited the arrival of the body at the cathedral gate, and, after the authorized mourners had alighted, joined with others in following the procession. At the instant that the train from the mourning coaches had entered the great west doors, they were slammed to from within against all who bore not the undertaker’s habiliments of woe, and it was announced that the rest were to go round to the north door. At that door admittance was refused to all who would not pay “twopence a piece.” Those who “paid twopence” were thus permitted to hasten and rejoin the train. The corpse on being borne down the stairs of the vault was then followed as before. Here the door of the vault was suddenly thrust against all who were not mourners, ex officio, and a shilling demanded from each of the sympathizing attendants who had not on the funeral garments. Compliance with this further exaction qualified them to see the “funeral performed.” This was personally communicated to the editor by the gentleman referred to.