They hear no sound, the swell is strong,
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock.
‘O Christ! It is the Inchcape rock!’
But it is too late—the ship is doomed:
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair;
He cursed himself in his despair.
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even in his dying fear
One dreadful sound could the rover hear,
A sound as if with the Inchcape bell,
The devil below was ringing his knell.
Indeed, there are all kinds of whimsical stories current of phantom bells, and according to a tradition at Tunstall, in Norfolk, the parson and churchwardens disputed for the possession of some bells which had become useless because the tower was burnt. But, during their altercation, the arch-fiend quickly travelled off with the bells, and being pursued by the parson, who began to exorcise in Latin, he dived into the earth with his ponderous burden, and the place where he disappeared is a boggy pool of water, called ‘Hell Hole.’ Notwithstanding the aversion of the powers of darkness to such sounds, even these bells are occasionally permitted to favour their native place with a ghostly peal. Similarly, at Fisherty Brow, near Lonsdale, there is a sort of hollow where, as the legend runs, a church, parson, and congregation were swallowed up. On a Sunday morning the bells may be heard ringing a phantom peal by anyone who puts his ear to the ground.
Occasionally, it is said, phantom music, by way of warning, is heard just before a death, instances of which are numerous.
Samuel Foote, in the year 1740, while visiting at his father’s house in Truro, was kept awake by sounds of sweet music. His uncle was at about the same time murdered by assassins. This strange occurrence is thus told by Mr. Ingram.[340] Foote’s maternal uncles were Sir John Goodere and Captain Goodere, a naval officer. In 1740 the two brothers dined at a friend’s house near Bristol. For a long time they had been on bad terms, owing to certain money transactions, but at the dinner-table a reconciliation was, to all appearance, arrived at between them. But, on his return home, Sir John was waylaid by some men from his brother’s vessel, acting by his brother’s authority, carried on board, and deliberately strangled, Captain Goodere not only unconcernedly looking on, but furnishing the rope with which the crime was committed. The strangest part of this terrible tale, however, remains to be told. On the night the murder was perpetrated, Foote arrived at his father’s house in Truro, and he used to relate how he was kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he tried to fancy it was a serenade got up by some of the family to welcome him home, but not being able to discover any trace of the musicians, he came to the conclusion that he was deceived by his own imagination. He shortly afterwards learnt that the murder had been consummated at the same hour of the same night as he had been haunted by the mysterious sounds.