Some Haunted Houses of England & Wales.

by Elliott O'Donnell

I chose this tale as the least hackneyed and best authenticated of the many accounts I had heard of similar occult phenomena. It is given in the original text, the extracts being taken from the letter of one “S. W.” to his friend “Charles.”

“I had occasion one day,” he writes, “to visit the hamlet of Barnley, some miles distant from Tehiddy, where I was staying with some relations. My stay was unexpectedly prolonged till a late hour, and having promised to be at home before night, I was compelled to set out on my return much after the period at which it ought to have been commenced. Part of my road lay through a thick and lonely forest, and I confess that the task of traversing it would have been more agreeable at an earlier opportunity.

“My spirits were affected from some indefinable cause, and the chill, dark journey I was preparing to take did not tend to raise them. I swallowed a hasty cup of coffee with my friend, shook him cordially by the hand, and mounting my horse, was soon at a considerable distance from his house.

“I was approaching the verge of the forest, and had just entered a narrow outlet from it, when I heard the roll of distant thunder and felt the wet and heavy droppings of a copious rain. Having scarcely a league farther to travel before I reached home, I determined to urge my horse to the utmost, and escape, if possible, by his speed, from the impending storm. He broke at once into a gallop, when I struck him with the spur, but had scarcely gone a hundred paces before I was thrown from the saddle by his abrupt stopping, and pitched with the greatest violence to the ground. I lay stunned for a few moments by the fall; the first thing that brought me to a sense of my situation was a hoarse scream, uttered by some person who breathed close to my ear. The rein, which I had continued to grasp in falling, was at that moment torn violently out of my hand—I heard the noise of my courser’s hoofs as he started back—the scream was repeated, and something rushed past me that clanked as it went like a horseman’s heavy iron-cased sabre. I sprang up from the earth and threw out my arms to ascertain if any individual were actually passing; but the avenue was so narrow that I touched the hedges on each side of it, and felt instantly convinced that nothing human could have gone by. A recollection now flashed upon me that there was a tale of extreme horror connected with this part of the forest, and in spite of the principles which I summoned to my aid, it was in a mood of mingled desperation and amazement that I reflected on the circumstances with which my memory supplied me.

“The infirmary of Tehiddy, about twenty years ago, contained a female patient who was known by the name of Martha, and had been admitted to that asylum at the instance of a stranger. He stated himself to be her husband, and assured the director of the institution, with the appearance of the deepest sorrow, that she laboured under a lunacy of the most stubborn sort, which nothing but the most severe discipline attributed to his house was likely to abate.

“He advanced a large sum for the maintenance of this unhappy creature, saw her lodged in one of the strongest cells of the establishment, and, having recommended an unsparing use of the scourge, thought proper to depart. His meaning was not misunderstood. The shrieks of poor Martha were heard day and night in the vicinity of her dungeon, and suspicions soon prevailed that she was being sacrificed to the cruelty of her merciless keepers. An investigation of the case was proposed by some humane and spirited people, but a calamity of the most awful kind put a stop to their endeavours. Martha was found dead on the borders of the forest, at the very spot I have described to you, a piece of ragged iron being clenched in her grasp, with which she had torn and gashed her throat in a dreadful manner. The escape of this wretched being was never well explained, and hints were dropped that she had not left the prison alive. Her bloody and mangled remains excited a strong sensation among those who inspected them. Marks of the chain and the whip were conspicuous on every part of her body, and long tufts of her thin grey hair were glued together by the stream that had issued from a deep fracture in her head. The tokens of suicide, however, were undeniable, and the remains of the poor maniac were in consequence buried near the place where they were found.

“This occurrence had scarcely ceased to be the subject of conversation, when the whole town of Tehiddy was agitated by events of a yet more appalling character. Hoarse screams were heard in the still dark hours of night, and a pale bloodless face was seen pressing against several of the chamber windows. Fraud or delusion were naturally suspected in a business of this nature, and the most scrutinising inquiries were made into the evidence on which it rested. No detection took place, and the screams soon became so frequent that not a person continued to question their existence.

“It was midnight when I reached home, exhausted by anxiety and fatigue, and, being provided with a key to my apartments, the people of the house had not waited up to receive me. I drew off my boots and upper coat as a preliminary to the act of undressing, and seated myself in a large antique chair, from which, when divested of my clothes, I usually stepped into bed. Here I fell asleep owing to excessive weariness, and may the next slumber that is likely to end in so horrible a way be never broken.

“A dream was upon me full of blood and death; the shrieking maniac flitted through my brain in a thousand forms, and seemed, at one time, to stand over me brandishing a sword of fire.