There are also places, as well as houses, which have the reputation of being haunted, sometimes through the commission of a horrible crime in that particular locality, sometimes through the survival of some obscure local tradition. It matters not. Once give the place a bad name, and local tradition preserves the memory of it for many generations. Every schoolboy is familiar with the weird legend of Nix’s Mate, a submerged island at the entrance to Boston Harbor, where pirates were formerly hung in chains. Appledore Island, on the coast of New Hampshire, once had the name of being haunted by the uneasy ghost of one of Captain Kidd’s piratical crew. The face of the spectre was said by those who had seen it, or who thought they had seen it, to be dreadful to behold, and the neck to bear the livid mark of the hangman’s noose. Once, no islander could be found hardy enough to venture himself on Appledore after dark. Indeed, such places of fearsome reputation are found all over New England. For example, there is the shrieking woman of Marblehead, a remarkable spook, who at certain intervals of time could be heard uttering the most heartrending cries for mercy to her inhuman murderers. Then, again, there is the legend of Harry Main, reputed pirate and wrecker, who, by means of false lights, decoyed simple mariners to destruction on the shoals of Ipswich Bar, to which for his many crimes the wretch was doomed to be chained down to the fatal spot to which he had lured his unsuspecting victims.[20]
Quite naturally these legends mostly cluster about the seacoast, but now and then one is found in the interior. One corner of the town of Chester, New Hampshire, lifts into view an eminence known as Rattlesnake Hill, one rocky side of which is pierced entirely through, thus forming a cavern of great notoriety in all the country round. This cavern is known as the Devil’s Den, and many were the frightful stories told around winter firesides of the demons who, of yore, haunted it, and who, all unseen of mortal eyes, there held their midnight orgies within the gloomy recesses of the mountain.
There are two entrances to this cavern, both leading to an interior, subterranean chamber, whose vaulted roof is thickly studded with pear-shaped protuberances that are said to shine and sparkle when the flame of a torch sheds a ruddy glow upon them. According to popular tradition the path leading to the cavern was always kept open, summer and winter. Many years ago the poet Whittier put the legend into verse:—
“’Tis said that this cave is an evil place—
The chosen haunt of a fallen race—
That the midnight traveller oft hath seen
A red flame tremble its jaws between,
And lighten and quiver the boughs among,
Like the fiery play of a serpent’s tongue:
That sounds of fear from its chambers swell—
The ghostly gibber,—the fiendish yell;
That bodiless hands at the entrance wave—
And hence they have named it the Demon’s Cave.”
The persistent life of such local traditions as these fully attests to the belief of former generations of men in the active agency of the Evil One in human affairs. And not only this, but this omnipresent devil has actually left his mark, legibly stamped, in so many places, and his name in so many others, that to doubt his actual presence were not only unreasonable but ungenerous. Even his footprints are found here and there, yet strange to say, few represent a cloven foot. The sonorous names, Devil’s Pulpit and Devil’s Cartway, are found within a few miles of each other on the coast of Maine. Moreover, do we not know from a perusal of the testimony given at the celebrated witchcraft trials, that the arch-fiend had been both seen and spoken with in propria persona?
It used to be a not uncommon threat with quick-tempered people to say that if their wishes or expectations were not gratified to their liking, they would “haunt you” when they died. I myself have often heard this expression used either in jest or in earnest; and when used it never failed to leave a disagreeable impression on the listener.
It is not a great many years ago since an account was telegraphed all over the country, and duly appeared in the daily newspapers, of an honest citizen, a resident of one of the largest towns in Pennsylvania, whose wife “while yet in good health, frequently admonished her friends that she did not wish her body to be buried in a certain wet graveyard. She threatened to ‘speak to them’ if her wish was not granted, and went so far as to tell them how she would haunt them by coming back in ghostly form. The wife died, and her body was buried in the graveyard she had disliked. Now, strange as it may appear, her husband alleges that, since the funeral took place, she has appeared at his bedside several times each week, always looking at him, and always making motions with her bony hands, as a mark of her displeasure. The husband says he is unable to sleep, and also that he is sure the strange midnight visitor is none other than his wife. He declares that whatever other people may think of it, he himself firmly believes that he has brought the enmity of the spirit upon himself and children by their refusal to grant the wife’s last request. The children’s beds are also visited by her, as they say, and as a consequence the family is kept in constant alarm. One of the nearest neighbors has also seen the ‘spook’ several times, and corroborates the family in every particular. The terrified husband relates the facts himself, and it is the responsibility of the man that warrants publishing his story of the appearance of the spook. He gives the account of the strange happenings in a straightforward manner, which impresses a person with its truth, and he further says it is not imagination, a dream, or an attack of nightmare, but that the spook always comes when he is wide awake. The women and children of the neighborhood are in great terror, and the people hardly venture out of doors after dark.”
Upon the heels of this experience comes the following telegram to the Associated Press, thus disseminating, through its thousand channels, superstition broadcast:—
[“Copyright, 1899, by The Associated Press.]
“London, March 4, 1899. Another link in the chain of illfortune which has followed the famous Newstead Abbey was forged this week. It seems that a curse rests on the abbey, and that the eldest has never succeeded to the estate.
“Byron sold it to Col. Wildman in 1808, who died childless. The trustees sold it to Webb, the famous sportsman, whose eldest son died this week. Byron had the skull which was reported to have belonged to the ghost that haunted the abbey, and he used it as a punch bowl. Webb buried the skull, hoping to lay the ghost.”
As related to the general subject, it is too well known that certain persons to-day profess the power of conversing with disembodied spirits, to need more than a passing reference to this particular form of belief, which some hold to as firmly as to an article of religious faith, while others consider it a delusion or worse. Forty odd years ago spirit rappings convulsed society from one end of the country to the other. Spiritual séances were vehemently denounced from the pulpit, and while fully reported also by the press, the mediums were charged with being rank impostors, humbugs, and the like. Alleged exposure followed exposure. Yet somehow the belief, such as it is, has contrived to outlive ridicule, calumny, and persecution—the common lot of every new and startling departure from the older beliefs—until to-day it has acquired not only the right to live, but also that of calm discussion.