On the very first evening after Patullo and his spouse had taken up their abode in the house, a circumstance took place which effectually deterred them and all others from ever again inhabiting it. About one in the morning, as the worthy couple were lying awake in their bed, not unconscious of a considerable degree of fear, a dim uncertain light proceeding from the gathered embers of their fire, and all being silent around them, they suddenly saw a form like that of a calf, but without the head, come through the lower panel of the door and enter the room. A spectre more horrible, or more spectre-like conduct, could scarcely have been conceived. The phantom immediately came forward to the bed; and setting its fore-feet upon the stock, looked steadfastly in all its awful headlessness at the unfortunate pair, who were of course almost ready to die with fright. When it had contemplated them thus for a few minutes, to their great relief it at length took away its intolerable person, and slowly retiring, gradually vanished from their sight. As might be expected, they deserted the house next morning; and from that time forward, no other attempt was ever made to embank this part of the world of light from the aggressions of the world of darkness.
In the course of our experience we have met with many houses in “Auld Reekie” which have the credit of being haunted. There is one at this day [1829] in Buchanan’s Court, Lawnmarket, in the same “land” in which the celebrated editor of the Edinburgh Review first saw the light. It is a flat, and has been shut up from time immemorial. The story goes, that one night, as preparations were making for a supper party, something occurred which obliged the family, as well as all the assembled guests, to retire with precipitation, and lock up the house. From that night to this it has never once been opened, nor was any of the furniture withdrawn;—the very goose which was undergoing the process of being roasted at the time of the dreadful occurrence is still at the fire! No one knows to whom the house belongs; no one ever inquires after it; no one living ever saw the inside of it;—it is a condemned house! There is something peculiarly dreadful about a house under these circumstances. What sights of horror might present themselves if it were entered! Satan is the ultimus hæres of all such unclaimed property.
Besides the numberless old houses in Edinburgh that are haunted, there are many endowed with the simple credit of having been the scenes of murders and suicides. Some we have met with, containing rooms which had particular names commemorative of such events, and these names, handed down as they had been from one generation to another, usually suggested the remembrance of some dignified Scottish families, probably the former tenants of the houses.
The closed house in Mary King’s Close (behind the Royal Exchange) is believed by some to have met with that fate for a very fearful reason. The inhabitants at a very remote period were, it is said, compelled to abandon it by the supernatural appearance which took place in it, on the very first night after they had made it their residence. At midnight, as the goodman was sitting with his wife by the fire, reading his Bible, and intending immediately to go to bed, a strange dimness which suddenly fell upon the light caused him to raise his eyes from the book. He looked at the candle, and saw it was burning blue. Terror took possession of his frame. He turned away his eyes from the ghastly object; but the cure was worse than the disease. Directly before him, and apparently not two yards off, he saw the head as of a dead person looking him straight in the face. There was nothing but a head, though that seemed to occupy the precise situation in regard to the floor which it might have done had it been supported by a body of the ordinary stature. The man and his wife fainted with terror. On awaking, darkness pervaded the room. Presently the door opened, and in came a hand holding a candle. This advanced and stood—that is, the body supposed to be attached to the hand stood—beside the table, whilst the terrified pair saw two or three couples of feet skip along the floor, as if dancing. The scene lasted a short time, but vanished quite away upon the man gathering strength to invoke the protection of Heaven. The house was of course abandoned, and remained ever afterwards shut up.
THE WINDY YULE.
By John Galt.
It was in the course of the winter after the decease of Bailie M‘Lucre, that the great loss of lives took place, which, everybody agreed, was one of the most calamitous things that had for many a year befallen the town.
Three or four vessels were coming with cargoes of grain from Ireland; another from the Baltic with Norway deals; and a third from Bristol, where she had been on a charter for some Greenock merchants.
It happened that, for a time, there had been contrary winds, against which no vessel could enter the port, and the ships whereof I have been speaking were all lying together at anchor in the bay, waiting a change of weather. These five vessels were owned among ourselves, and their crews consisted of fathers and sons belonging to the place, so that, both by reason of interest and affection, a more than ordinary concern was felt for them; for the sea was so rough, that no boat could live in it to go near them, and we had our fears that the men on board would be very ill off. Nothing, however, occurred but this natural anxiety, till the Saturday, which was Yule. In the morning the weather was blasty and sleety, waxing more and more tempestuous till about midday, when the wind checked suddenly round from the nor’-east to the sou’-west, and blew a gale as if the prince of the powers of the air was doing his utmost to work mischief. The rain blattered, the windows clattered, the shop-shutters flapped, pigs from the lum-heads came rattling down like thunder claps, and the skies were dismal both with cloud and carry. Yet, for all that, there was in the streets a stir and a busy visitation between neighbours, and every one went to their high windows, to look at the five poor barks that were warsling against the strong arm of the elements of the storm and the ocean.