Equally strange is the legend related of Swinsty Hall, which tells how its original founder was a poor weaver, who travelled to London at a time when the plague was raging, and finding many houses desolate and uninhabited, took possession of the money left without an owner, to such an extent that he loaded a waggon with the wealth thus acquired, and, returning to his home, he built Swinsty Hall. But he cannot cleanse himself from the contamination of the ill-acquired gold, and at times, it is said, his unquiet spirit has been seen bending over the Greenwell Spring rubbing away at his ghastly spoil. Mr. Henderson[329] gives the history of an apparition which, with retributive justice, once haunted a certain Yorkshire farmer. An old woman of Sexhow, near Stokesley, appeared after her death to a farmer of the place, and informed him that beneath a certain tree in his apple orchard he would find a hoard of gold and silver which she had buried there; the silver he was to keep for his trouble, but the gold he was to give to a niece of hers living in great poverty. The farmer went to the spot indicated, found the money, and kept it all to himself. But from that day his conscience gave him no rest, and every night, at home or abroad, old Nanny’s ghost dogged his steps. At last one evening the neighbours heard him returning from Stokesley market very late; his horse was galloping furiously, and as he passed a neighbour’s house, its inmates heard him screaming out, ‘I will, I will, I will!’ and looking out they saw a little old woman in black, with a large straw hat on her head, clinging to him. The farmer’s hat was off, his hair stood on end, as he fled past them uttering his fearful cry, ‘I will, I will, I will!’ But when the horse reached the farm all was still, for the rider was a corpse.
Tradition asserts that the ‘white lady’ who long haunted Blenkinsopp Castle, is the ghost of the wife of Bryan de Blenkinsopp, who quarrelled with her husband, and in a fit of spite she concealed a chest of gold that took twelve of the strongest men to carry into the castle. Filled with remorse for her undutiful conduct, the unhappy woman cannot rest in her grave, but her spirit is doomed to wander back to the old castle, and to mourn over the accursed wealth of which its rightful owner was defrauded.
An old farm, popularly known in the neighbourhood as ‘Sykes’ Lumb Farm,’ from having been inhabited for many generations by a family of the name of Sykes, was long haunted by an old wrinkled woman who, one night, being interrogated by an occupier of the farm as to the cause of her wandering about, made no reply, but proceeding towards the stump of an old apple tree in the orchard, pointed significantly to the ground beneath. On search being made, there was found buried deep in the earth a jar of money, on the discovery of which the phantom vanished.
Anecdotes of treasures concealed at the bottom of wells are of frequent occurrence, and the ‘white ladies’ who dwell in the lakes, wells, and seas of so many countries, are owners of vast treasures, which they occasionally offer to mortals. Tradition says that in a pool known as Wimbell Pond at Acton, Suffolk, is concealed an iron chest of money, and if any person approach the pond and throw a stone into the water, it will ring against the chest—a small white figure having been heard to cry in accents of distress, ‘That’s mine.’[330]
Scotland has many such stories. It is popularly believed that for many ages past a pot of gold has lain at the bottom of a pool beneath a fall of the rivulet underneath Craufurdland Bridge, about three miles from Kilmarnock. Many attempts have been made to recover this treasure, but something unforeseen has always happened to prevent a successful issue. ‘The last effort made, by the Laird of Craufurdland himself,’ writes Mr. Chambers,[331] ‘was early in the last century, at the head of a party of his domestics, who first dammed up the water, then emptied the pool of its contents, and had heard their instruments clink on the kettle, when a voice was heard saying:
Pow, pow!
Craufurdland tower’s a’ in a low!
Whereupon the laird left the scene, followed by his servants, and ran home to save what he could. Of course, there was no fire in the house, and when they came back to renew their operations, they found the water falling over the lin in full force. Being now convinced that a power above that of mortals was opposed to their researches, the laird and his people gave up the attempt. Such is the traditionary story, whether,’ adds Mr. Chambers, ‘founded on any actual occurrence, or a mere fiction of the peasants’ brain, cannot be ascertained; but it is curious that a later and well authenticated effort to recover the treasure was interrupted by a natural occurrence in some respects similar.’
Vast treasures are said to be concealed beneath the ruins of Hermitage Castle, but, as they are in the keeping of the Evil One, they are considered beyond redemption. Venturesome persons have occasionally made the attempt to dig for them, but a storm of thunder and lightning has generally deterred the adventurers from proceeding, otherwise, of course, the money would have long ago been found. It is ever, we are told, that such supernatural obstacles come in the way of these interesting discoveries. Mr. Chambers relates how ‘an honest man in Perthshire, named Finlay Robertson, about a hundred years ago, went with some stout-hearted companions to seek for the treasures which were supposed to be concealed in the darksome cave of a deceased Highland robber, but just as they had commenced operations with their mattocks, the whole party were instantaneously struck, as by an electric shock, which sent them home with fear and trembling, and they were ever after remarked as silent, mysterious men, very apt to take offence when allusion was made to their unsuccessful enterprise.’[332]
In Scotland and the North of England, the Brownie was regarded as a guardian of hidden treasure, and ‘to him did the Borderers commit their money or goods, when, according to the custom prevalent in wild insecure countries, they concealed them in the earth.’ Some form of incantation was practised on the occasion, such as the dropping upon the treasure the blood of a slaughtered animal, or burying the slain animal with it.[333]
According to the Welsh belief, if a person die while any hoarded money—or, indeed, metal of any kind, were it nothing more than old iron—is still secretly hidden, the spirit of that person cannot rest. Others affirm that it is only ill-gotten treasure which creates this disturbance of the grave’s repose; but it is generally agreed that the soul’s unquiet condition can only be relieved by finding a human hand to take the hidden metal, and throw it down the stream of a river. To throw it up a stream is useless. The spirit ‘selects a particular person as the subject of its attentions, and haunts that person till asked what it wants.’ A story is told of a tailor’s wife at Llantwit Major, a stout and jolly dame, who was thus haunted until she was worn to the semblance of a skeleton, ‘for not choosing to take a hoard honestly to the Ogmore’—the favourite river in Glamorganshire for this purpose. To quote her own words, ‘I at last consented, for the sake of quiet, to take the treasure to the river, and the spirit wafted me through the air so high that I saw below me the church loft and all the houses, as if I had leaned out of a balloon. When I took the treasure to throw it into the river, in my flurry I flung it up stream instead of down, and on this the spirit, with a savage look, tossed me into a whirlwind, and how ever I got back to my home I know not.’ The bell-ringers found her lying insensible in the Church lane, on their return from church, late in the evening.[334]