Another curious phantom warning to sailors seen in years gone by was the ‘Hooper,’ or the ‘Hooter,’ of Sennen Cove, Cornwall. This was supposed to be a spirit which took the form of a band of misty vapour, stretching across the bay, so opaque that nothing could be seen through it. According to Mr. Hunt,[256] ‘it was regarded as a kindly interposition of some ministering spirit, to warn the fisherman against venturing to sea. This appearance was always followed, and often suddenly, by a severe storm. It is seldom or never now seen. One profane old fisherman would not be warned by the bank of fog, and, as the weather was fine on the shore, he persuaded some young men to join him. They manned a boat, and the aged leader, having with him a threshing-flail, declared that he would drive the spirit away, and he vigorously beat the fog with the “threshel,” as the flail is called. The boat passed through the fog, and went to sea, but a severe storm arose, and no one ever saw the boat or the men again, since which time the “Hooper” has been rarely seen.’ Similarly a mist over the river Cymal, in Wales, is thought to be the spirit of a traitoress, who lost her life in the lake close by. Tradition says she had conspired with pirates to rob her lord of his domain, and was defeated by an enchanter.[257]

But sailors’ yarns are so proverbially remarkable that the reader must estimate their value for himself, not forgetting how large a factor in their production is the imagination, worked upon by nervous credulity and superstitious fear, a striking instance of which is recorded by a correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine:’ ‘My friend, Captain Mott, R.N., used frequently to repeat an anecdote of a seaman under his command. This individual, who was a good sailor and a brave man, suffered much trouble and anxiety from his superstitious fears. When on the night watch, he would see sights and hear noises in the rigging and the deep, which kept him in a perpetual fever of alarm. One day the poor fellow reported upon deck that the devil, whom he knew by his horns and cloven foot, stood by the side of his hammock the preceding night, and told him that he had only three days to live. His messmates endeavoured to remove his despondency by ridicule, but without effect; and the next morning he told the tale to Captain Mott, with this addition, that the fiend had paid him a second nocturnal visit, announcing a repetition of the melancholy tidings. The captain in vain expostulated with him on the folly of indulging such groundless apprehensions; and the morning of the fatal day being exceedingly stormy, the man, with many others, was ordered to the topmast to perform some duty among the rigging. Before he ascended he bade his messmates farewell, telling them that he had received a third warning from the devil, and that he was confident he should be dead before night. He went aloft with the foreboding of evil on his mind, and in less than five minutes he lost his hold, fell upon the deck, and was killed on the spot.’

CHAPTER XXII
PHANTOM DRESS

According to a popular ghost doctrine, the spirits of the departed ‘generally come in their habits as they lived,’ and as George Cruikshank once remarked,[258] ‘there is no difference in this respect between the beggar and the king.’ For they come—

Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in silken gowns.

And he adds that all narrators agree that ‘the spirits appear in similar or the same dresses which they were accustomed to wear during their lifetime, so exactly alike that the ghost-seer could not possibly be mistaken as to the identity of the individual.’ Horatio, describing the ghost to Hamlet, says—

A figure like your father,
Armed at all points, exactly cap-à-pé.

And it is further stated that the ghost was armed ‘from top to toe,’ ‘from head to foot,’ that ‘he wore his beaver up;’ and when Hamlet sees his father’s spirit he exclaims—