The Robber of the Poor Box.
It is not many years since, that in making some alterations in the parsonage of St. Michel du Valle, the workmen found under the flooring of one of the rooms a few small coins. They remembered that in the last century, a French priest, who had renounced his own religion, had been appointed curate of the parish by a non-resident Rector after having been duly licensed by the Bishop of Winchester; that, after leading a most irregular life to the great scandal of the parishioners, he had one day disappeared suddenly, and that after his departure the poor box in the church was found to have been broken open and robbed of its contents. It was not long before it was rumoured abroad that mysterious noises were heard in the dead of the night in the parsonage, as of someone walking through the rooms and dropping money as he went. No one doubted that the sacrilegious robber had left this mortal life, and that his ghost was doomed to revisit the scene of his iniquity, vainly endeavouring to make restitution to the widows and orphans, and to the aged and infirm pensioners of the church, of the money of which he had so unfeelingly deprived them.
The workmen were fully convinced that the coins which they had found were part of those which had been so sacrilegiously abstracted. They dared not retain them for their own use, but brought them to the Rector with a request that they might be given to the poor.[142]
[142] From Mrs. Thomas Bell, wife of the Rector of the Vale parish.
Burial of the Drowned.
In all ages and among all nations the burial of the dead has been looked upon as a sacred duty; and the belief is not yet extinct that until the body is consigned to the earth the spirit is doomed to wander about, seeking rest and finding none.
Great therefore is the guilt of him who, having found a corpse, neglects to provide for its sepulture. “Les morts recllament la terre, et ch’est leû derouait.” (The dead claim the earth, and it is their right).
A man who had gone down at low water to visit his nets, found a dead body stretched out on the sands. It was not that of any of his neighbours. A violent storm had raged a day or two previously, and there could be no doubt that some unfortunate vessel had gone down in the gale, and that the body before him was that of one of the crew. It was handsomely dressed, the clothes being of velvet, richly laced with gold. The avarice of the fisherman was excited, and his first thought was to search the pockets. A purse, containing what to a poor man was a considerable sum, was found, and, content with his morning’s work, the man hastened home, leaving the body to be carried away by the next tide. Great was his astonishment and affright, on entering his cottage, to see the dead man seated by the fireside, and looking sternly and reproachfully at him. His wife, to whom the phantom was not visible, perceived his trouble, and, pressed by her, he confessed what he had done. She upbraided him with his inhuman conduct, and, kneeling down with him, prayed the Almighty to forgive him his sin. They then hastened down to the beach, drew the corpse to shore, and buried it in a neighbouring field. On their return home the ghost of the drowned man had disappeared and was never more seen.[143]
[143] From Mrs. Savidan.
Editor’s Note.—An old fisherman named Mansell told Major Macleane, my informant, that it is most unlucky to keep a suit of clothes belonging to a drowned man, whether they have been washed ashore, or by whatever means they have entered your possession; for his spirit is sure to come back and reanimate his clothes and haunt you. The clothes should always be burnt or buried immediately.