By the marriage-bed of their lords, ’tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And ’tis held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes—but not to grieve.
When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
’Tis shadowed by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.
Holland House has had the reputation of being haunted by the spirit of the first Lord Holland; and, in 1860, there was published in ‘Notes and Queries,’ by the late Edmund Lenthal Swifte, Keeper of the Crown Jewels, the account of a spectral illusion witnessed by himself in the Tower. He says that in October, 1817, he was at supper with his wife, her sister, and his little boy, in the sitting-room of the jewel-house. To quote his own words: ‘I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife, when, on putting it to her lips, she exclaimed, “Good God! what is that?” I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and the table; its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure. This lasted about two minutes, when it began to move before my sister-in-law; then, following the oblong side of the table, before my son and myself, passing behind my wife, it paused for a moment over her right shoulder. Instantly crouching down, and with both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, “O Christ! it has seized me!” It was ascertained,’ adds Mr. Swifte, ‘that no optical action from the outside could have produced any manifestation within, and hence the mystery has remained unsolved.’ Speaking of the Tower, we learn from the same source how ‘one of the night sentries at the jewel-office was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from underneath the jewel-room door. He thrust at it with his bayonet which stuck in the door. He dropped in a fit and was carried senseless to the guardroom.... In another day or two the brave and steady soldier died at the presence of a shadow.’ Windsor Castle, as report goes, was haunted by the ghost of Sir George Villiers, who appeared to an officer in the king’s wardrobe and warned him of the approaching fate of the Duke of Buckingham.[265]
According to Johnson, the ‘Old Hummums’ was the scene of the ‘best accredited ghost story’ that he had ever heard, the spirit of a Mr. Ford, said to have been the riotous parson of Hogarth’s ‘Midnight Conversation,’ having appeared to a waiter; and Boswell, alluding to a conversation which took place at Mr. Thrale’s house, Streatham, between himself and Dr. Johnson, thus writes: ‘A waiter at the Hummums, in which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, he met him; going down again, he met him a second time. When he came up he asked some of the people of the house what Ford could be doing there. They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a fever, and when he recovered he said he had a message from Ford to deliver to some women, but he was not to tell what, or to whom. He walked out, he was followed, but somewhere about St. Paul’s they lost him. He came back, and said he had delivered the message, and the women exclaimed, “Then we are all undone.”’ There is the so-called ‘Mystery of Berkeley Square,’ No. 50 having been reputed to be haunted. But a long correspondence on the subject in the pages of ‘Notes and Queries’ proved this to be a fallacy, the rumour, it would seem, having arisen from ‘its neglected condition when empty, and the habits of the melancholy and solitary hypochondriac when occupied by him.’ Lord Lyttelton, however, wrote in ‘Notes and Queries’ of November 16, 1872, thus: ‘It is quite true that there is a house in Berkeley Square (No. 50) said to be haunted, and long unoccupied on that account. There are strange stories about it, into which this deponent cannot enter.’ What these strange stories were may be gathered from ‘Mayfair’ of May 10, 1879—an interesting illustration of how rapidly legendary stories spring up on little or no basis. ‘The house in Berkeley Square contains at least one room of which the atmosphere is supernaturally fatal to body and mind. A girl saw, heard, and felt such horror in it that she went mad, and never recovered sanity enough to tell how or why. A gentleman, a disbeliever in ghosts, dared to sleep in it, and was found a corpse in the middle of the floor, after practically ringing for help in vain. Rumour suggests other cases of the same kind, all ending in death, madness, or both, as the result of sleeping, or trying to sleep, in that room. The very party walls of the house, when touched, are found saturated with electric horror. It is uninhabited, save by an elderly man and woman who act as caretakers; but even these have no access to the room. That is kept locked, the key being in the hands of a mysterious and seemingly nameless person, who comes to the house once every six months, locks up the elderly couple in the basement, and then unlocks the room and occupies himself in it for hours.’
Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devonshire, was long said to be haunted by the daughter of a former baron, who bore a child to her own father, afterwards strangling the fruit of their incestuous intercourse; and all kinds of weird noises are heard at Ewshott House, Hampshire. Bagley House, near Bridport, is haunted by the ghost of a Squire Lighte, who committed suicide; and at Astwood Court, once the seat of the Culpepers, was an old oak table, removed from the side of the wainscot in 1816, respecting which tradition declares that it bore the impress of the fingers of a lady ghost who, it has been suggested, probably tired of appearing to no purpose, at last struck the table in a rage and vanished for ever. Holt Castle was supposed, in bygone years, to be haunted by a mysterious lady in black who, in the still hours of the night, occasionally walked in a certain passage near the attics. It was likewise said that the cellar had been occupied by an ill-favoured bird like a raven, which would sometimes pounce upon any person who ventured to approach a cask for drink, and, having extinguished the candle with a horrid flapping of wings, would leave its victims prostrate with fright. A solution, however, has been given to this legend that ‘would imply a little cunning selfishness on the part of the domestics who had the care of the ale and cider depôt.’[266]
At Althorp, the seat of Earl Spencer, is said to have appeared the ghost of a favourite groom, and Cumnor Hall, the supposed scene of the murder of Lady Amy Bobsart, was haunted by her apparition. According to Mickle—
In that Manor now no more
Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball;
For, ever since that dreary hour,
Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.
The village maids, with fearful glance,
Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall;
Nor ever lead the merry dance
Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.
Full many a traveller oft hath sighed
And pensive wept the Countess’s fall,
As, wandering onward, they espied
The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.