By the Barrow River, and Other Stories

by Edmund Leamy

I never had a decided opinion one way or the other on the subject of ghosts—that is to say, I was never able to affirm my belief in them, nor was I willing, on the other hand, to deny that occasionally they visited the glimpses of the moon. Nothing, however, would induce me to spend a night in a churchyard, and indeed, it would cost me a considerable effort to pass by one on a country road after nightfall if I chanced to be alone. The fact is, I suffered for many years, and from my earliest childhood from the effects of a morbid imagination. I had, when little over six years old, received a terrible shock by the suicide of a neighbour. I had often seen him pass by the door of the house in which we lived. He was, as well as I remember, an engineer, and he had a rather peculiar cast of countenance, which had made a deep impression on me. I did not see him lying dead, but I followed a crowd mainly composed of women which attended the coffin, as it was being borne on the shoulders of four men, to the house of the deceased. When the coffin was taken inside the door the crowd remained for a long time outside, and of course the fatal deed formed the sole topic of conversation. I was close to three or four women who were listening to another who was giving a most graphic description of the manner in which the unhappy man had taken his life. The details were probably the offspring of her imagination, but they sank into my mind and the recollection of them cost me hours and nights of the bitterest agony—an agony indeed, impossible to describe. I have not forgotten them yet, though close on half a century has passed away.

I was, as I have mentioned, only about six years old at the time, and I was sent to bed every night about eight o’clock. I slept at the top of the house, and in the same room one of the servants also slept. I have no recollection of having, prior to the time I speak of, felt any fear when left alone in the room in the dark, but the night on which I heard the account of the suicide was to open a new experience for me, and to leave a mark upon my mind and character which has never been wholly effaced.

I remember well, as if it were only last night, hearing the footfalls of the servant as she descended the stairs after having put me to bed. I can remember, too, the noises in the street, the sound of feet and the voices talking, when suddenly in the dark, and close to my face, I saw the face of the dead man! I have purposely omitted the details of the suicide, nor do I wish to describe here the face as I saw it. Let it suffice to say that it was exactly in the condition as described by the woman in the crowd. It was the peculiar face which I had been accustomed to see, only hideously marred by wounds.

I screamed as it came close to me—screamed as if my life was in my throat—screamed and screamed, but no help came. I was at the top of a high house and the door was closed. I covered my head with the clothes until I was almost smothered. I closed my eyes fast to shut out the horrid sight as I hoped, but only to see it more clearly. Sometimes the face, while preserving the likeness to the peculiar face of the engineer, as I was wont to see it when he was alive, seemed to spread itself out and then contract, and every lineament of it seemed to be in convulsive motion. The pressure of the clothes and the suffocating heat forced me at length to lift them up, and again I screamed—screamed like a wild animal in agony. At last I was heard. Someone came quickly up the stairs. The door was flung open, and the candle lighted. It was the servant.

“My God! What’s the matter?” she exclaimed, as she saw me trembling as if I were in a fit and covered with perspiration.

I tried to explain as well as I could, and she endeavoured to soothe me. She remained by my side until I fell into a disturbed sleep. And for months after she, by the doctor’s orders, who was called in next day, sat in the room until I slept. And for many years, until I became almost a man, I never ventured to sleep except in a lighted room.

But whenever I was alone, either at night time, or at day time, I was liable to see the faces such as I have since read in De Quincey’s volume haunt the dreams of opium eaters. I have often started back shuddering from these faces, which have appeared suddenly in front of me when going by myself along a country road, even in the broad noon-day, when the sun was shining. And when people often expressed surprise that I never could be induced to visit a wake-house, they little knew that I could do so only at the price of being haunted for months by what I saw there, whenever I found myself alone.

I have narrated all this chiefly because it may serve in some degree to account for the phenomena which I witnessed under the circumstances I am about to describe.

About twenty years ago I paid a long promised visit to a friend, Gerald F——, who then lived in one of the counties bordering on Dublin, but who has since died.