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A COLLECTION
OF TRUE AND
LEGENDARY
GHOST
STORIES
^'^- w '-
These gripping true ghost
tales, together with some
compelling legends, are
among the most vivid col-
lected hy Elliott O'Donnell
in more than half a century
spent ghost-hunting.
He writes of creeping
hands, vengeful
phantoms
and tortured wraiths exactly
as they were seenfrom ac-
counts by witnesses, and
from records made at the
time or shortly
afterwards.
Besides
documenting the
cases of others,
O'Donnell
has sat many nights* vigils,
alone, with well-known per-
sonalities.
He has investi-
gated
numerous
cases of
supernatural
phenomena, dis-
turbing and horrifying,
from
inexplicable
hauntings
in
lonely country
mansions to
houses in the heart of towns
cursed by appalling
events of
the past.
No one on reading
these
tales hy
Britain's
renowned
ghost-hunter
can remain a
sceptic.
Or refrain
from a shiver in
the dark.
<V^T
THE
SCREAMING SKULLS
and Other Ghost Stories
The collected True tales andlegends
of
ELLIOTT O'DONNELL, ghost-
hunter for more than half a century
By
ELLIOTT O'DONNELL
Arranged by H. Ludlam
Author
of
"A Biography of
Dracuta"
LONDON
W. FOULSHAM & CO. LTD.
NEW YORK * TORONTO ' CAPE TOWN * BY
W. FOULSHAM & CO. LTD.,
Yeovil Road, Slough, Bucks, England
Elliott O'DonncU
1964
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
by Witlmer Brothers and Harom Limited
Birkenhead
CONTENTS
The
Veiled Ghost of Highgate
The Screaming Skulls of Calgarth Hall
The Fifth Stair
The Fatal Phantom of Eringle Truagh
The Grey Horror
The Ghost of Fred Archer
The Haunting of the Gory Hotel
The London Villa of Ghostly Dread
An Unsolved Mystery
The Haunted Buoy
The Man in Boiling Lead
The Creeping Hand of Maida Vale
The Man on the Landing
The Legend of Cooke's Folly
The Mauthe Doog
The Phantom Drummer of Cortachy
The Ghosts of the Beeches
The Phantom Clock of Portman Square
Horror in Skye
Ghosts and Murder
A Haunted Hampstead House
The Haunted Quarry
The Spectres of the Gables
Pearlin
Jean of Allanbank
The Haunting of Allum Court
The Ghosts of The White Garter
The Nun of Digby Court
The Phantom Lady of Berry Pomeroy
The Haunting of St. Giles
The Phantom Drummer of Fyvie
The Phantom Rider
My Night in Old Whittlebury Forest
The Fourth Tree in the Avenue
Page
9
12
19
24
27
36
40
42
49
52
55
58
65
69
72
75
80
85
92
94
103
106
109
112
116
121
131
134
139
141
145
147
151
CONTENTS
A Night Vigil at Christchurch
The Haunted Stream
The Castle Terrors
The House in Berkeley Square
Will-o'-the-wisp and Corpse Candles
153
157
160
165
169
INTRODUCTION
Elliott
O'Donnell as a boy was afraid of being alone in the
dark
horribly and painfully afraid. The ghost stories told
him by his sister and the family's sewing-maid made his fear
all the stronger. Yet the dark fascinated the parson's son and
he longed to explore it though he dared not.
It was not until he had ranched in the Far West of the
U.S.A., where he rode cattle, sat at the camp fires and listened
to Indians and backwoodsmen talking about eerie lights they
had seen on Wizard Island in Crater Lake, and stories of
haunted trees no horse would go near, and ghost dances; not
until he had freelanced as a writer in San Francisco and New
York, trained for the stage in England, acted on tour and in
London, and then settled in St. Ives, Cornwall, that he first
seriously thought of becoming a ghost-hunter. This was at the
turn of the century.
Since then Elliott O'Donnell, who was born in Bristol in
1872, has been novelist and ghost story writer, lecturer and
broadcaster, radio playwright and criminologist. But it is in
the realm of the supernatural that his most exhaustive work
has been done.
He has written more books on ghostly phenomena than any-
one. He has investigated countless cases of reputed hauntings,
alone and with many notable people including the late Duke
of Newcastle, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Sir C. A. Smith, and
Sir Ernest Bennett. He has documented many authentic ac-
counts of supernatural appearances and seen much phenomena
himself.
The true stories he now tells, together with some compelling
legends, are among the most enthralling gathered in more
than half a century of ghost-hunting. Only in some of the true
tales, for various reasons, have names of people involved been
changed.
H.L.
VI vu
THE VEILED GHOST OF HIGHGATE
MR. AND MRS. COOK
in appreciation of their
kindness to me
There was standing when I was young in the vicinity of
Highgate, north London, a quaint, rambling red-brick
house with a moss-grown courtyard in front. Inside were
large gloomy rooms and dark staircases and passages.
The owner of the house resided abroad. No one lived in it
for long and the following traditional story was associated
with it.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century there were living
in the house a Mr. Bruce, his wife and daughters. Charles, the
only son of Mr. Bruce and a wild and reckless youth, had been
living in Paris for two years when he suddenly returned
home, so ill that he had to be put to bed and Miss Black, a
nurse, engaged to attend him.
On her arrival Miss Black was shown into the invalid's
room. The furniture was of the handsome, heavy kind
characteristic of those times. The panelling on the walls was
black with age, the fireplace supported by massive buttresses.
The large curtained bed in which Charles lay stood in the
centre of the floor, and an oil lamp glimmered on a table.
Miss Black replenished the fire, which was low, and sitting
down at the table started to read the Bible. She had been
instructed to keep very quiet. Now and again blasts of wind
shook the leafless branches of the great trees in the garden,
while snow spluttered on the embers as it was wafted down
the wide chimney.
Curious to see her patient, Miss Black gently pulled aside
the curtain round his bed. Contrary to her expectation he was
not asleep but lay motionless on his back, his bright blue eyes
glaringly fixed on her face, his underlip fallen, mouth apart,
cheeks a perfect hollow, his long white teeth projecting fear-
fully from the shrunken lips, whilst a bony hand, covered with
wiry
sinews, was stretched on the bedclothes. He was not a
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
pleasant sight. Miss Black quickly returned to the table, leav-
ing the curtain still drawn aside.
About midnight the patient began to breathe heavily and
seemed to be very restless. Turning to look at him, Miss Black
was greatly surprised to see a closely veiled woman seated in
a chair near the head of the bed. Miss Black was about to move
when the woman motioned to her to keep her seat.
Miss Black could not see the woman's face, owing to the
veil, but she got the impression that she was young and good-
looking. She was slender and rather tall, and wore a light
green dress. She had gold earrings, a large gold locket and
chain and a massive gold, bejewelled bracelet of curious work-
manship, all of which sparkled in the lamplight. Miss Black
concluded that the woman was a relative.
Charles Bruce, who had become more than ever restless,
heaved and sighed and seemed in great distress. Miss Black
was rising to go to him when the woman again motioned to
her to remain seated. The heat from the fire made Miss Black
drowsy and she dozed for a few minutes. When she awoke, the
woman had gone.
At the same hour the next night the same thing happened.
Miss Black was reading at the table when, on looking at the
bed, she saw the veiled woman seated beside the patient. She
got up and, undeterred by the repellant action of the woman,
approached the bed, whereupon the woman rose and moved
slowly and noislessly towards the door.
The face of her patient terrified Miss Black. Deep drops of
sweat were on his brow and his lips quivered as if in agony.
His glaring eyes followed the receding figure of the woman,
who mysteriously vanished just before she reached the door.
The strain she had undergone watching the sick man and
the strange woman was so great that Miss Black told the
Bruces she could not stay another night in the house. It was
only after the doctor implored her to remain that she very
reluctantly yielded.
The next night was Christmas Eve. It was bitterly cold but
dry. The wind moaned and sighed and rattled the ill-secured
10
THE VEILED GHOST OF HIGHGATE
shutters, generating dismal echoes in the gloomy passages of
the old building.
At the same hour as on the previous nights the veiled woman
suddenly appeared by the bed of the invalid. His gasping and
heaving made Miss Black's heart sicken and when, in spite
of the warning hand of the strange woman, she approached
the bed, the corpse-like features of Charles became horribly
convulsed, his eyes starting from their sockets. Miss Black spoke
but there was no reply. She touched him very gently. He was
cold with terror and unconscious of any object but the mys-
terious woman.
Thinking her patient was going to expire, Miss Black was
about to go for assistance when the woman bent over Charles,
who made a feeble effort to keep her away. Miss Black ran at
once to the woman, whose clothes were very wet although the
weather was dry, and, obeying a sudden impulse, raised her
veil. There was no face under it, only a blank.
The shock Miss Black received was so great that she fainted.
She was found in the morning lying on the floor only half
conscious.
Charles Bruce lay stiff and lifeless, one hand across his eyes
as if to shade them from some object he feared to look on; the
other hand gripped the coverlet.
That same morning, it was later discovered, the body of a
foreign woman, young and beautiful, in a green dress, with
gold earrings, a gold locket and chain and a massive bejewelled
gold bracelet of curious workmanship was washed ashore on
the Kent coast. She had been in the water three or four days.
Her identity, if known to certain people in England, was never
divulged.
The Bruces left the house soon after the death of Charles
and never returned. It was shortly after their departure that
the house was rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of a young
man,
supposedly Charles Bruce, who was seen and heard
wandering disconsolately in the dead of night from room to
room, along passages and up and down staircases, ever seeking
companionship and sympathy, and finding none.
ii
THE SCREAMING SKULLS OF CALGARTH HALL
In the vicinity of Lake Windermere there stood in the early
seventeenth century a small farm occupied by Kraster Cook
and his wife Dorothy. They were a hard-working, thrifty
couple, who loved their cottage and their few acres, which
had been handed down to them through many generations.
The land all around their holding was owned by Myles
Phillipson, the head of a rich and influential family, and who,
though not titled, was that type of English country squire who
had long met the nobility on terms of equality. Myles Phillip-
son had an attractive young wife and they planned to build
a new manor house upon their estate. Of all the many acres
that were theirs, none seemed so desirable to the Phillipsons
as the little farm of their humbler neighbours.
But Kraster Cook would not sell. Time after time Phillipson
went to him, offering inducement after inducement, but all
to no purpose. He could not shake the stubborn farmer's
decision.
One day Myles Phillipson returned from the Cooks' cottage
with a brow as black as thunder, vowing he would have the
land if not by fair means then by foul.
There is a story in the Old Testament of King Ahab, how
he coveted the vineyard of his subject Naboth, and how his
wife, Queen Jezebel, counselled him wickedly as to how he
might secure it. Whether Myles Phillipson's wife had gotten
her inspiration from this story cannot, of course, be known,
but as wickedly as Jezebel counselled King Ahab, so did
Mistress Phillipson counsel her husband.
Next morning Phillipson rode over to the cottage. Smiling,
he offered his hand, telling Kraster Cook that he had given up
all idea of buying his land and that he had decided to build
the new house upon his own acres. He hoped that bygones
12
THE SCREAMING SKULLS OF CALGARTH HALL
would be bygones, and that all the harsh words he had
spoken would be forgotten. And further to show his changed
spirit, he asked the farmer and his wife to be his guests at the
manor house on Christmas Day, which was then a little more
than a week away.
The Cooks were relieved and glad that their powerful neigh-
bour had changed his mind about their farm. They hesitated
about accepting the invitation, however, for they knew that
at the great house the event would be a gay one, and that to
it would come the gentry of the county and their wives, all
in silks and satins, and furs and flashing jewels. They felt
that they would be out of place and uncomfortableyet Myles
Phillipson had asked them, and they did not feel that they
should refuse and thus seem to turn aside from the hand of
friendship he had offered.
So when Christmas Day came around, Kraster Cook and
his wife mingled with the Phillipsons' other guests, looking
in their homespun clothes like a pair of timid country mice.
Their host and hostess tried to put them at their ease, but
when they sat down at the long table for dinner they were
bewildered and silent, and during the greater part of the
meal they sat stiff and uncomfortable, hardly venturing to
glance away from their plates.
Opposite Kraster Cook was a small bowl of pure gold and
its glitter attracted his attention; he seemed to find relief
from his embarrassment in staring steadily at it. There came
a lull in the conversation around the table which was broken
by the clear voice of Phillipson's wife saying:
'I see that you greatly admire that bowl, neighbour Cook.
Well, it is worth any man's admiration.'
Naturally this attracted the attention of all at the table
both to the farmer and the bowl. Cook reddened under the
scrutiny
and stammered some reply. Other guests commented
upon the treasure and the incident ended. Ended for the
time
but the fact that Cook had paid unusual attention to
the
article was fixed in the mind of those present. With dinner
over,
the farmer and his wife waited about for as long as they
13
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
thought was etiquette, then, thanking their host and hostess,
they hastened home.
The next day soldiers came to the home of the Cooks. They
carried man and wife away to the jail, and there they separated
the couple, thrust them into cells, and refused to tell either
the reason for their arrest.
A week later the Cooks were taken out of their cells and
brought up for trial. It was only when they were in the dock
that they found that they were accused of stealing a gold bowl,
the property of Mistress Phillipson, their neighbour.
Mistress Phillipson stepped daintily into the witness box
and sat and told her story. It was to the effect that the bowl
in question had been on her table during the Christmas feast.
It had been close to the prisoner, she said, and she was so
struck by the manner in which he had insistently gazed upon
it that she had spoken to him about it. She narrated the
conversation that had taken place, which was confirmed by
the testimony of several of those who had been her guests.
Two servants then came forward and swore to having seen
both the prisoners in the great banquet hall while the other
guests were dancing. Finally the bowl itself was produced and
two soldiers swore that on searching the cottage of the Cooks
they had found it hidden away in one of the bedrooms.
In the face of all this, the amazed and frightened denials
of the farmer and his wife were useless. They could do little
but shake their heads feebly and stammer incoherently when
the judge asked them if they had anything to say.
So, according to the cruel laws of the time, sentence of death
by hanging was passed upon them. It was not until the
sentence had been delivered that Dorothy Cook found her
tongue. Leaning forward with wild, dark eyes, and in a voice
that rang through the room, she pointed at Myles Phillipson
and his wife and said:
'As there is a just God, you and your wife, Myles Phillipson,
have damned yourself forever for our landl Neither you nor
your breed will ever prosper. Whatever cause that you support
shall lose. Your friendship shall be fatal, and all those that
14
THE SCREAMING SKULLS OF CALGARTH HALL
you
and your breed shall love will die in pain and sorrow. You
shall
have no happiness in old house or new, for my husband
and I will be with you night and day. You and all your breed
and
all your household shall be tormented by us. Never, as
long
as life lasts, shall you be rid of us I
'
The soldiers silenced her and dragged her back to prison.
A few days later she and her husband were hanged by the
neck
until dead.
While the bodies of the two were still swinging in chains
at the crossroads, the Phillipsons seized the old farmstead, had
the house pulled down and began the building of Calgarth
Hall in its place. By the time next Christmas rolled around
it was built and they were in it.
Again the gentry and their wives came in their silks and
satins, furs and jewels. Merriment ran high, the Cooks and
Mistress Dorothy's curse forgotten.
In the midst of the dinner Mistress Phillipson slipped away
from the table to go to her room to bring back a jewel she
wished to show. There was no gas in those days and the great
hall was dimly lighted by sconced candles. The wide stairs
were filled with shadows, but Mistress Phillipson, candle in
hand, paid no heed to them. She turned a curve. Ice seemed
suddenly to run through her veins. She stood frozen with
terror.
For there, perched upon the balustrade, so close to her that
she could have reached out her hand and touched them, were
two grinning skulls. One was a woman'slong, dark hair
hung from it. The other was as clearly that of a man. And in
the flickering light of the candles the two skulls grinned and
seemed about to open their ghastly mouths to speak to her.
Mistress Phillipson shrieked and fled to the dining room
where, white and trembling, she poured forth her story to her
husband and guests. The whole party, armed with rapiers
and
candles, followed up the stairs.
The skulls had not vanished. They were just as she had
described
themonly now instead of being perched on the
balustrade they were resting on the top step of the bend.
15
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
The boldest of the party approached the objects and thrust
at them with his sword. They were no phantomsthey were
very real skulls indeed, and the blade clanged against their
bones.
'It's a tricka jest by some scurvy knave!' someone
exclaimed. Suspicion fell upon a certain page, and he was
taken and tied to a pillar in one of the cellars, and left there
in the darkness to force confession. The skulls were ignomi-
niously hurled into the courtyard. In due course the whole
household retired.
But it was not the trembling page, imprisoned below, who
was guiltythe Phillipsons soon had evidence of that.
It was about two o'clock in the morning that the household
was brought out of bed by a succession of high-pitched,
agonized screams. Instantly all was confusion at Calgarth Hall.
Doors opened, and women with frightened faces peered out
and half-dressed men came pouring into the halls. They
followed the screaming. It led them to the staircase and there,
to their unbounded astonishment and terror, perched again
the two grinning skulls.
An instant before the searchers had turned the corner and
laid eyes upon the grim objects, the screaming had abrupdy
ceased. But not one among those who stood there had any
doubt that the sounds had emanated from or been caused by
the skulls.
There was little sleeping done the rest of the night. The
things remained where they were. But in the morning Myles
Phillipson himself took them out and threw them into the
pond.
Now the curse of Mistress Dorothy Cook was remembered,
indeed. Silendy the guests left Calgarth Hall, and all that
day when Myles Phillipson and his wife looked at each other
it was with white faces.
That night they heard from behind tightly-barred doors
the weird screams once more echo throughout the manor.
And next morning there again were the two skulls perched
upon the staircase.
16
THE SCREAMING SKULLS OF CALGARTH HALL
Now began for the guilty pair an intolerable existence. No
servants
would stay overnight and, indeed, few servants would
stay
at all. Guests became fewer and fewer, and only the oldest,
most
courageous friends dared to visit the Phillipsons or to
invite them to their own houses, for everyone recalled that
part of the curse promising friends sorrow and misfortune.
Yet the Phillipsons had courage, too, for they would not
abandon the house. They stayed there, defying their implac-
able visitants.
It was the reality of the skulls that added the most complete
touch of horror to the manifestations. If they had been ghosdy,
mere wraiths, it would not have been so bad. But they were
sinisterly real, and back in the mind of each of the Phillipsons
was the thought that some night they would awaken to find
the grinning teeth at their throats.
In the meantime misfortune followed close behind Myles
Phillipson. His business dwindled; every venture into which
he went met with loss. At last, shunned by practically all, the
two died, leaving little except Calgarth to their son.
When the new heir took over the house the skulls screamed
menacingly all that night. But it would seem that with the
deaths of the man and woman who had sent the Cooks to
the gallows their fury was lessened. At any rate, from the
reports that exist, it is indicated that their manifestations
took place only on Christmas Day, the anniversary of the fatal
dinner, and also upon the anniversary of the day the Cooks
were executed.
Apparently, however, there were two other restrictions
which they imposed. Any attempt to remove them from the
house was sure to be followed by a long period of unrest when
the
screams rang out night after night. Nor could young
Phillipson
give any dinners at the nearby Manor House.
There is record that he tried this oncebut only once.
His
guests, so the story runs, were at the table when the
screams
rang out close to the great doors; then the doors swung
open
and the skulls rolled in and leaped upon the cloth. The
whole
company sprang to their feet and fled out into the night.
I
17
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
Sorrow was the constant lot of the heir. When he died he
was poorer than his father had been when he passed away.
And so it went through the succeeding generations until the
Calgarth estate passed out of the hands of the family
altogether, and the last Phillipson of the line died literally
by the wayside, an outcast and a beggar.
Thus the curse was fulfilled in its entirety.
18
THE FIFTH STAIR
One
morning early in the 1900s Guy Vance, a free-lance
journalist,
enquired at the office of Baine, Pell & Co., Ken-
sington, if they knew of any small house in the S.W. district
of
London that was to be let unfurnished at a moderate rental.
'There is one in Ricket Road,' Mr. Pell told him. 'It is a
two-storey house, and the rent is only fifty pounds a year.'
'That is certainly moderate,' Vance said. 'Why is the rent
so low? Is anything wrong with itdrainage, dampness, cracks
in the walls due to settlement?'
Mr. Pell shook his head. 'No, sir, there's nothing wrong
with it. The last tenants remained in it for the full term of
their seven years' lease.'
'When can I view it?' Vance asked.
'Any time you like,' Mr. Pell replied.
Accompanied by one of the estate agent's clerks, Vance
went to number thirteen Ricket Road, Kensington, the next
day and liked the house so much that he took it for three
years, with the option of remaining in it for another three
years at the same rental.
He engaged Mrs. Camp, a middle-aged woman, as his house-
keeper, and Emma Larkin, a younger woman, as a general
servant. They slept in the house. Jane Bolt, a girl of about
twenty years of age, was a daily. The household was completed
by Pop, a bull-terrier, and Eve, a grey cat.
It was not until Vance had been in the house several weeks
that things began to happen. He was in his sitting-room
writing one evening when Pop growled and ran to the door,
his hair bristling. Puzzled at the dog's odd behaviour Vance
opened the door, and saw a strange woman in black emerge
from a cupboard under the stairs, cross the little hall and
enter the kitchen. He could only get a side view of the woman,
and
what he saw of her face startled him, it was so white.
19
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
Wondering who she was he went to the kitchen. Only Mrs.
Camp was there. She was getting his supper, as it was Emma
Larkin's night out. Mrs. Camp stared in astonishment when
Vance asked where the strange woman had gone.
'What strange woman?' she queried.
'Why, the one who entered the kitchen just now,' Vance
replied.
'You must be dreaming, Mr. Vance,' Mrs. Camp said. 'No
one has been here.'
It was Vance's turn to stare at her. 'I most distinctly saw
a woman in black with a very white face come out of the
staircase cupboard and come in here,' he said.
He told Mrs. Camp about Pop. They were both mystified.
But that was only the beginning of the disturbing happenings.
The following day Mrs. Camp, going upstairs, had reached
the fifth stair, which was directly above the cupboard, when
she was suddenly overcome with the utmost horror. She felt
there was something very dreadful underneath her. She was
a strong-minded, practical woman, very sceptical regarding the
supernatural, but it was only with the greatest effort that she
pulled herself together and went on upstairs. She did not say
anything about it to Vance, and tried to persuade herself that
her spell of horror had been due to imagination.
Pop showed a strong aversion to going up the staircase, and
it was noticed that Eve confined herself apparently to the
ground floor.
Some days passed, then one morning Emma Larkin ran
screaming into the kitchen, sank into a chair and had hysterics.
When she had recovered sufficiently she said that when she
was going up the staircase to make the beds, something heavy
whizzed through the air past her and fell with a thud in the
hall. She did not see anything but she felt most acutely that
it was very ghastly and horrible.
Mrs. Camp did her best to calm and assure her that it was
just her fancy, but Emma declared she could not stay in the
house an hour longer, and left.
That evening about nine o'clock Vance was in the sitting-
20
THE FIFTH STAIR
room
reading by the fire. Mrs. Camp was out, and he was
alone in the house. Everywhere was still except for the ticking
of
the clock in the hall and the pattering of heavy raindrops
on
the window-panes.
Suddenly the hush was broken by a scream, so piercing and
full of terror that Vance was appalled. It was followed by a
heavy
thud. Vance nerved himself to open the door, but
nothing was to be seen, nothing to account for the sounds.
He shut the door and returned to his seat by the fire, and was
glad when Mrs. Camp returned.
He decided that the house was badly haunted, especially
the staircase. He had already made a note of the ghostly
happenings and now added to this list the cry that he had
just heard.
The next day a new general servant, Mary Pring, took the
place of Emma Larkin, and for a time all was quiet. Then,
one day about a week after Emma had left, Jane Bolt came
to Mrs. Camp and said : 'One of the rods on the staircase is
out, and every time I try to put it back my fingers go numb
I can't manage it.*
Mrs. Camp went to the staircase. As her instinct had led her
to expect, the stubborn rod was on the fifth stair, the very stair
on which she had experienced the sudden wave of horror. She
tried to put it back but her fingers, too, became numb. Just
then Vance, who heard her talking to Jane Bolt, opened the
drawing-room door and asked if there was anything the matter.
The moment he spoke Mrs. Camp's fingers ceased being numb,
and she replaced the rod in its socket without any difficulty.
Again there was a lull of several days, and Vance and Mrs.
Camp were hoping that there would be no more disturbing
happenings when Mary Pring, looking very pale and scared,
came to Mrs. Camp one morning and asked the name of the
strange lady in black.
'What strange lady?' Mrs. Camp enquired, not knowing
what else to say.
'Why, when I was about to go up the staircase just now,'
Mary
said, 'I got a bad start. I suddenly saw a rather tall
21
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
woman with a very white face and forbidding expression
coming down it. She was in a black dress. She passed by me,
and when I looked to see where she went, she had vanished.
I don't want to see her again.'
Mrs. Camp guessed that the woman who had startled Mary
was the mysterious person in black that Vance declared he
had seen cross the hall one evening and enter the kitchen. The
housekeeper was not at all curious to see that woman.
But she did. One evening about a fortnight after Mary
Pring's experience, Vance was talking to Mrs. Camp and Mary
in the sitting-room, the door of which was wide open, when
he heard someone coming down the staircase. As there was
no one in the house except the three of themthe daily had
left they stared at one another, wondering who it could be.
They then looked and saw crossing the hall the woman in
black.
She was clutching by its long grey hair with one hand a
human head that appeared to have been just decapitated.
Dangling from its ears were gleaming gold drop-earrings. A
weird light surrounded the woman and the head. The woman
went to the cupboard under the stairs, turned slowly round,
revealing a face that was the incarnation of everything bad,
stepped into the cupboard and abruptly vanished.
The shock of what they had witnessed had been so great that
it took Vance and the two women some moments before they
could even partially recover. Mrs, Camp was the first to com-
pose herself. Both she and Mary declared their inability to
remain in the house any longer, and left the next day. Vance,
not caring to stay in the house alone lest he should see the
woman with the head again, or something even worse, put
up at an hotel until he could find another house.
Before he left the neighbourhood he made many enquiries,
and eventually learned that about sixty years before he went
to number thirteen Ricket Road a dreadful murder had been
committed there. A woman named Kate Murphy had mur-
dered her mistress, Miss Delia Brown, an elderly spinster, in
a manner too awful to describe, and after dismembering her
22
THE FIFTH STAIR
body
on the flat roof of the house had distributed her remains
in
various parts of the district. Miss Brown's head was the
only
part of her body that was never found.
The owner of thirteen Ricket Road, after listening to
Vance's account of the ghostly occurrences that he had ex-
perienced there, had the floor of the staircase cupboard exca-
vated. Under it was a skull with long, matted grey hair. The
doctor who examined it was of the opinion that it had been
there for many years; so that although there was no actual
clue regarding its identity, it seemed not unlikely that it was
the missing head of poor murdered Miss Delia Brown.
23
THE FATAL PHANTOM OF ERINGLE TRUAGH
One of the most interesting cases of hauntings in the annals
of ghost-lore is that of the old churchyard of Eringle Truagh,
in County Monaghan, Ireland. According to a traditional story
many centuries old the churchyard was haunted during the
whole time people were buried there by a spirit fatally attrac-
tive to young men and girls. It only appeared in the church-
yard after the funeral of a native of Eringle Truagh.
To girls it assumed the form of a very handsome young
man, and to young men that of a very beautiful golden-haired
maiden comparable with the Elle Maids of Scandinavia and
the Lorelei of the Rhine. The manner in which the phantom
contacted its victims was this:
A young man who had been present at the burial of some-
one very dear to him, in spite of the priest's warning lingered
in the churchyard alone after everyone else had left. He was
bewailing the death of the dear one when he suddenly saw
approaching him a provocatively lovely girl. Her face full of
sympathy, she bade him mourn no more for the loved one he
had lost and assured him that she was far happier now than
she would have been had she lived. Comforted by the girl's
words the youth entered into conversation with her. They
sat close beside one another on the low wall of the church-
yard and the young man became more and more enthralled
by her wondrous beauty. Never in his life had he beheld either
in actuality, or in dreams, anyone so beautiful. So enchanted
was he that he never thought of questioning her identity or
whence she came.
He made desperate love to her. She reciprocated his senti-
ment, and bade him promise to meet her in the churchyard
four weeks from that day and seal his promise with a kiss.
This he did. Directly their lips met in a kiss she vanished;
and then", and not till then, did he recollect the traditional
THE FATAL PHANTOM OF ERINGLE TRUAGH
story
of the haunting of the churchyard and realize that she
whom
he had embraced so fervently was the much dreaded
phantom.
Overcome with horror he rushed home and implored his
relatives
and the parish priest to save him. But prayers proved
to be of no avail. The shock he had sustained resulted in a fatal
illness,
and in exactly four weeks he was, on the very date he
had
pledged to meet the phantom, brought to the churchyard
in his coffin.
The phantom did not invariably appear in the churchyard,
there are instances of it being present at dances and weddings,
where it never failed to secure a victim. The fatal kiss and
promise were always given, and the final meeting with the
phantom was always in the churchyard on the pledged day.
William Carleton, the Irish novelist (1798 to 1869), was so
intrigued by the traditional haunting of the old churchyard
that he visited the place. Writing about it afterwards he said:
'I have been shown the grave of a young person about eighteen
years of age, who was said about four months before to have
fallen a victim to the phantom, and it is not more than ten
weeks since a man in the same parish declared that he gave a
promise and fatal kiss to the ghost and consequently looked
upon himself as lost. He took a fever and was buried on the
day appointed for the meeting, which was exactly a month
from the time of his contact with the spirit.
Incredulous as it may seem the friends of these two persons
declared, at least those of the young man did, to myself that
particulars of the meetings with the phantom were detailed
repeatedly by the two persons without the slightest variation.
There are several other cases of the same kind mentioned, but
the two alluded to are the only ones that came within my
personal knowledge.'
I was so interested in the haunting that in 1926 I wrote to
the
postmaster of Monaghan about it and asked if he could
tell
me where I could get photographs of the old churchyard.
In his reply he mentioned Carleton's ballad and said the
church
of Eringle Truagh had been dismantled many years
25
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
previously and only two ivy-covered gables remained of it.
But, he said, belief in the story of the Phantom of Death
still lingered.
I later obtained several photographs of the old churchyard
in which are to be seen the graves of the alleged victims of
the much dreaded phantom.
26
THE GREY HORROR
In the summer of 1894, when on my way out West in the
U.S.A., I stayed for a week at an hotel in Denver. There I
met
William Smith, an elderly minister who was well versed
in the traditional ghost stories and legends of some of the
American States. One evening when we were alone he told
me about the dreadful grey ghost that had formerly haunted
Grenburg Valley, on the eastern shore of the River Hudson.
This is his story.
One afternoon in the seventies of the last century two
young men, Herbert Hall and Walter Wren, arrived at a little
village near the eastern shore of the Hudson, the inhabitants
of which were mostly of Dutch extraction. After they had had
a meal at the village inn they asked the landlord to tell them
the way to Grenburg, a small port on the Hudson where they
intended to stay the night.
'There are two ways,' the landlord said, 'the one a good deal
longer than the other but preferable when it is getting dusk.'
'What difference does that make?' Wren asked. Is the road
very rough?'
'It is very rutty and rocky in places,' the landlord said, 'but
that is not what I had in mind.'
'What did you have in mind?' Hall queried, eyeing him
keenly.
The landlord hesitated, 'There is a valley a mile from
Grenburg which has a bad reputation.'
'Robbers?'
The landlord shook his head.
'What then?' Wren asked impatiently.
'Well,' the landlord said, 'the folk around here say it is
haunted.'
The young men burst out laughing.
'You don't mean to say you believe in ghosts
1'
Hall said.
27
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
'I have long wanted to see a ghost. What is the story associated
with the valley? I'll be bound there is onea murder?'
The landlord shrugged. 'There are all sorts of stories but
you would only ridicule them.' He proceeded to give them
directions as to both ways of getting to Grenburg.
Thanking him and declaring their intention of bearding
the lion, or rather ghost, in its den, they selected the road
through the valley, and with their knapsacks once again
strapped to their backs they set off at a brisk pace.
At last the travellers reached the summit of a hill and, deep
down beneath them, they saw, spread out for some consider-
able distance, a thickly wooded valley, all dark and mysterious
in the uncertain twilight. As they descended into it they
became aware of the funereal-like silence that greeted them
on all sides.
The dale was in fact so deeply situated that even the wind,
which for the last half hour or so had been blowing with great
force along the surface of the hill, was scarcely to be felt there.
Occasionally a fitful blast could be heard among the lofty
trees, when the pale Fall leaves gave out a curious husky
crackling. Otherwise all was absolutely, wonderfully still.
The two men were so impressed that neither spoke until they
had arrived at the bottom of the decline, and were standing
in almost Stygian darkness amidst the shadows of the foliage
on either side of them. Hall was the first to break the silence.
'This must be the haunted glen/ he said. 'Pretty cheerful,
isn't it?'
'It is that,' Wren replied, looking around him trying to
pierce the gloom, 'but come on. I vote we get out of it as soon
as possible.'
Further on they came to a wide open spot where there were
crossroads. Here the shadows lay very thickso thick, indeed,
that they had to curb their pace and proceed very slowly lest
they should take the wrong route.
It was while they were thus engaged, straining their eyes
and peeping around them apprehensively, that they became
impressed with the certainty of some object moving slowly
28
THE GREY HORROR
ahead of them through the gloom. At such an hour, for it was
now
getting late, and in such a dreary place, this was calculated
to
challenge attention, and Wren and Hall found themselves
gazing at the object with an intensity that had in it something
not very far removed from fear. By and by they were able
to see it a little more clearly, and they perceived it was a very
tall figure, apparently a man walking at an even pace, but with
immensely long strides.
He was going in the same direction as they were and was
only a few feet in front of them, but to their astonishment they
found that although they accelerated their pace with the idea
of overtaking him, they did not approach the least degree
nearer; without seeming to increase his speed, he yet main-
tained invariably the same distance away from them.
They had now struck off along a road they believed to be
the right one and were walking tolerably fast. The figure
preceding them, however, was seemingly in no way aware of
their proximity, for without once turning its head towards
them, with the same measured stride, it steadily advanced.
At length Hall, more perhaps to relieve his feelings than
anything else, called out:
'Hullo there! Who are you?*
There was no response. The figure did not show by any
gesture the slightest consciousness that it had heard, but con-
tinued pacing on at the same rate and at the same distance.
The two friends now suddenly realized that their sense of
hearing, which the strangely emphasized silence of the place
had rendered abnormally acute, had not caught any sound of
footsteps coming from the figure. They could readily decipher
the echoes of their own, but the figure seemingly trod with
absolute noiselessness.
This came as an unpleasant surprise, and soon they became
poignantly aware of the advent of novel and distinctly un-
comfortable feelings. Pride prevented them admitting this
and they were striving to rally their faculties and, at all events,
to
simulate unconcern, when the unexpected happened. The
figure
abruptly swerved off the road and, making for a large
29
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
wooden gate leading on to a gravel drive, came directly into
the moonlight.
Both Wren and Hall at once emitted an involuntary cry.
Instead of being clothed, the figure was nude I It gleamed a
horrible, sinister grey. It had very long arms and legs and a
peculiarly small and rotund head, and when it suddenly
turned and looked at the two travellers it revealed a strange
and startling countenance.
The features were more or less human, but the expression
in the big, deep sunken, light-green eyes was not. So frightful
was it, so indescribably exultant and devilish, that Wren and
Hall shrank back appalled, too petrified with fear to utter a
sound.
Fortunately, however, the figure showed no inclination to
dally. Moving onward, still with the same peculiar lengthy
and measured stride, it advanced up the drive, eventually
disappearing from view round a rather abrupt curve. A few
seconds later there was a faint sound in the direction it had
taken, resembling a human cry, and a moment or so later,
still from the same direction, there was a repetition of
the noise, but much more prolonged and bearing with it a
tone of suffering quite beyond the ability of words to des-
cribe.
There was another pause, and then, apparently nearer, a
yell of the most piercing intensity, the animal element in it
seeming to strive for mastery with the human; and its final
echoes had scarcely died away before the whole valley became
alive with appalling sounds, with moanings, plaintive and
yet horribly menacing, and with whoopings, interspersed
with harsh, discordant cries and queer, hollow-sounding, long-
reverberating laughter.
This went on for about a minute. It then quite suddenly
ceased and was followed by a silence unbroken save for the
gentle rustling of the fast-dying foliage and the melancholy
sighing and soughing of the night breeze.
Wren and Hall waited for a few minutes, until they could
sufficiently pull themselves together, and then continued their
30
THE GREY HORROR
tramp, eventually reaching their destination without further
mishap.
(William Smith stopped here and said that was enough for
one night. The following night he went on with his story).
An Irishman named Patrick O'Rourke, hearing about the
ghostly experience of Hall and Wren, went to the village inn
where the two men had stopped on their way to Grenburg
and prevailed upon the landlord to tell him anything he knew
about the grey ghost and haunted valley. And this was
what the landlord said:
'Four years ago last April I was going through the valley
in the early hours of the morning. The dawn had only just
broken and the track in places was still dark. Well, when I
was pretty nearly opposite the large wooden gate leading into
the White Grange, as we call it, my horse (I was riding a
brown cob that I had not had in my possession very long)
suddenly shied, and I saw sitting by the wayside, up against
the trunk of an elm, a tall figure. In the uncertain light I
thought it was a man, some tramp who was either having a
nap or was ill. I called out to him and, as he did not reply,
I called again and was considering dismounting to see what
was the matter with him, when he suddenly and with amazing
agility sprang to his feet. I then got a fearful shock.
'It was no man at all, but a grim and ghastly caricature
of one!
'It was gigantic, ten or twelve feet in height it seemed. It
was nude, its skin being seemingly a glistening, uniform grey,
and its face like that of a death's head; a death's head, how-
ever, with something frightfully lurid and evil in its big, round
eye-sockets. I had not time to observe more because my horse
bolted, but when I eventually reined it in and looked around
I saw the thing, whatever it was, cross the road with enormous
bounds and disappear through the gateway leading to the
White Grange.'
Here the old man paused for a moment, then, clearing his
throat, he went on again
:
3*
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
'There were two travellers that the great grey ghost actually
touchedor at least, one of them. They were walking through
the woods when they heard footsteps behind them. They
turned and saw following them a great grey shape, whose un-
earthly long arms trailed along the ground. It was of unearthly
height, too. Its head seemed to tower up into the trees, and
that head was a grinning skull.
'The men began to run, but the thing covered at one stride
ten times the ground they could. Closer and closer it came
the gigantic grey shape that pursued the fleeing travellers.
And suddenly a soft, incredibly repugnant something like a
cloudy hand half turned to flesh covered like a mask the face
of one of them.
'He shrieked once and fell. The other, crying with horror,
ran on. The thing did not pursue him. Next morning a search-
ing party from the village sought the other traveller. They
found him wandering in the woods half insane. He never
quite recovered his mind.*
Here the old man paused again.
'And there is no accounting for the haunting?' O'Rourke
asked.
'There are theories,' the old man said.
O'Rourke then enquired of him the name of the present
owner of the White Grange, and having obtained it he went
on his way. A week later and he was back again in the same
neighbourhood. In the interval he had written to the owner
of the property and, somewhat to the owner's astonishment,
had obtained leave to stay a night there.
The night chosen for the expedition proved to be excep-
tionally wild and stormy. O'Rourke had invited three friends
of his living in the county to go with him to the Grange, He
had chosen them because they were very stolid, matter-of-fact
athletes, not in the least degree likely to give way to nerves.
Having first assured themselves no one was hiding anywhere
in the house, they looked for a spot to commence their vigil
and finally selected the room O'Rourke believed, from the
description given to him, was the haunted chamber. It was
32
r
THE GREY HORROR
situated at one end of the corridor and possessed two doors,
the one leading into the corridor and the other into what in
earlier days was styled a powder closet. It was an oddly con-
structed apartment, for across the middle of it were two pillars,
and on the wall between them hung a grotesque looking piece
of tapestry.
The four friends sat on the floor in a row right across the
room, O'Rourke facing the corridor, Moor and Ross facing
the tapestry, and Ventry facing the entrance to the powder
closet. At first, every now and then, they fancied they heard
soft footsteps tip-toeing up and down the corridoronce they
seemed actually to be in the roombut after a time these
sounds all died away and there was nothing but silence, un-
broken save for the occasional rattling of doors and windows
and the beating of rain against the panes of glass.
One by one the quartet fell asleep to be awakened by hear-
ing the church clock sonorously boom out three. Moor at once
rose to his feet.
'Look here,' he said, 'it's morning. Nothing will happen
now and I have to be at' Then he suddenly changed his
tone and with a wild cry of 'Oh, my God, there it is! " he
staggered back against the wall.
The other three looked and in the dim light of dawn that
struggled to get in through the crevices of the shutters, they
saw, standing erect between the pillars, a luminous some-
thing. Nothing more at first. By and by, however, while all
were gazing at it in open-mouthed wonder and excitement,
it suddenly became hideously and alarmingly vivid, and they
saw an immense form, streaked, so it seemed to them, a lurid
black and grey.
Moor and Ross glanced at its face, and they said afterwards
it was like the face of a corpse, only a corpse that was nearly
in the skeleton stage, the skin being drawn tightly over the
bones, and the mouth devoid of flesh and grinning. The
impression it gave them was that it was intensely hostile.
O'Rourke and Ventry contented themselves with peering at
the
body only, they did not dare raise their eyes to the head.
c
33
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
They stared at it for some moments, until in fact it began
to approach them, when Moor gave way to panic and shrieked
out : 'Strike a light, one of you I
'
O'Rourke then lit a candle, and the thing at once vanished.
The four men did not stay to talk the matter over. They made
for the corridor immediately and hurriedly left the house.
A week or so later came a kind of sequel. O'Rourke was
again in the neighbourhood. Indeed, the spot so fascinated
him that he paid a flying visit to it. When he was in the valley
looking around him, a stranger suddenly came in sight and
accosted him. He said that on the very night O'Rourke and
his friends were in the big house looking for the ghost he had
seen it.
'It crossed from there,' he said, pointing to a tall isolated
tree on one side of the road, close to a pit with a wide, dark,
gaping mouth. 'Watch that pit closely tomorrow night be-
tween twelve and three o'clock. It is the pit that causes the
White Grange and the valley to be haunted. It goes right
down into the bowels of the earth. There are holes like it in
Peru and Brazil. They attract and harbour a foul and danger-
ous species of elemental spirits.'
Precisely at the time he mentioned O'Rourke went to the
haunted valley. The night was fine, but dark scurrying clouds
suggested the possibility of rain. The pit made his flesh creep.
There was something so eerie and menacing about it.
He approached it cautiously and was gazing at it appre-
hensively when he got a terrific start. Rising out of its reputed
fathomless depths was a luminous ghastly grey head. The only
live thing about it was a lurid, baleful light in the depths of
its fleshless eye-sockets. It was the same horrible phantom
that O'Rourke and his friends had seen in the White
Grange.
O'Rourke stared at it aghast, and when grisly shoulders
gradually appeared he did not wait to see any more, but took
to his heels.
He was quite satisfied that what the stranger had told him
about the pit was true. He never went to the valley again.
34
THE GREY HORROR
Some years later the supposed fathomless pit was filled in,
and
when that was done Grenburg Valley ceased to be
haunted.
Thus ended the strange story that William Smith so kindly
told me in Denver City more than seventy years ago.
35
THE GHOST OF FRED ARCHER
THE GHOST OF FRED ARCHER
In the early summer of 1927 a considerable sensation was
caused in Newmarket by a report of the appearance of a ghost
in the Hamilton Stud Lane, Two local people, a mother and
daughter, declared that they saw a phantom horseman emerge
from a copse, gallop noiselessly towards them and when near,
mysteriously vanish.
The older woman had a vivid recollection of Fred Archer
at the time he was a familiar personality in Newmarket, and
she was certain the apparition she had seen was he. The horse
of the phantom rider was grey, and that had been the colour
of Archer's favourite steed. There had long been a rumour in
Newmarket that the Stud Lane was from time to time haunted
by Archer's ghost.
Fred Archer, the second son of William Archer, a well-
known jockey, was born at Cheltenham in 1857. Between
1870 and 1884 he won more than 2,000 races and achieved
world-wide fame. His was a household name. Archer suffered
a terrible blow by the death of his wife, to whom he was
devoted, in 1884, within a year of their marriage. For a time
he abandoned riding. The attraction that it had for him
proving too great he again appeared on the racecourse and
was as successful as ever.
In 1886, worried about his increase in weight, he tried to
reduce by taking less food. He would sometimes hardly eat
anything for three or four days, his only diet being a few water
biscuits and a small glass of champagne. Never very robust,
this treatment told on him, and when he had an attack of
typhoid fever he had little strength to cope with it. During
the absence of his nurse from the sick room one day he shot
himself. He was only twenty-nine years old.
Archer was buried in the cemetery at Newmarket in the
same grave as his beloved wife.
36
r
On June 3rd, 1927, at the request of the northern news-
paper for which I was working at the time, I went to New-
market with the express purpose of spending a night in the
Hamilton Stud Lane on the chance of seeing the alleged
ghost. I visited Archer's grave and made numerous enquiries
relative to the haunting. On the heath I entered into conver-
sation with an old man seated on the ground beside a wheel-
barrow.
'Have I ever seen or heard anything about Archer's ghost?'
he said in answer to my interrogation. "Well, yes, I have often
seen what I thought might be his ghost when I was a youngster.
On one such occasion I had been to Six Miles Bottom, and was
returning home along the road leading past the Green Man
and what is known about here as The Two Captains. It was
between one and two o'clock in the morning, the moon was
high overhead, no one was about, and all was so still that you
could catch the slightest sound.
'Well, I had just passed the junction of the London and
Cambridge roads, and had almost got to the cleft in the Devil's
Ditch, through which the main road runs, when all of a sudden
I saw on the white roadway alongside me what resembled the
black shadow of a horse and rider. Wondering where the
material counterpart of the shadow could be, I at once looked
around but there was nothing to be seen, only bare space on
either side of me, nothing, I thought, that could in any way
account for the shadow. Yet it was still there, and it continued
to move along by my side for some little way, when it suddenly
vanished.
'The rider, judging by the shadow, seemed to be of a fair
height and to be wearing a kind of hat, which might have been
what we used to call a deer-stalker or it might have been a
jockey's cap; at any rate it seemed to have a sort of peak. My
impression was that it was Fred Archer's ghost, which I had
been told was sometimes to be seen on the heath, but when I
J
spoke
about it to an old friend of my father, a man who had
hved
in these parts close on eighty years, he said that it was
37
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
far more likely it was the ghost of one of the highwaymen that
used to rob and murder people on the heath.
'I still believed, however, that what I had seen was the ghost
of poor Archer. But there, it might have been just my fancy.'
I made my way back to town, and later returned with the
intention of spending some time in Hamilton Stud Lane.
Passing once again by the cemetery I turned down a seemingly
interminable straight road, flanked on either side by neatly
trimmed hedgerows, having in their background fields and,
here and there, solitary trees. On at last reaching the end of
this stretch I came to a slight dip with a building on either
side of it, and just beyond, three buildings and gates, also on
either side of the road a collection of trees forming a kind of
miniature spinney.
Feeling somewhat tired after what was to me an unusual
amount of walking I looked around for somewhere to rest,
and at last spotted a suitable spot up against the hedgerows
and under the shadow of the trees. Making for myself as
comfortable a seat as the nature of the ground allowed I sat
down and began reading a little book on Cambridgeshire that
I had bought in the Charing Cross Road the previous day.
The waning daylight, however, soon put a stop to my read-
ing. I dozed, and awaking with a start got up and was stretching
myself when I suddenly became conscious of a sensation of
eeriness. A moment or two later I sensed something large
flash past me. The spot became so uncanny that I left it.
I was trudging along the road with no particular goal in
view when I encountered a cyclist, and asked him if he could
tell me whereabouts in the lane it was that Archer's ghost
was alleged to have been seen.
'Why, yes,' he said, with a smile, 'in this lane.' And he
thereupon described to me the spot where I had had the eerie
sensation.
Without realizing it, I had been in the haunted Hamilton
Stud Lane. I returned to the spot, and after being there for
some time I again experienced the odd sensation and heard
sounds like those made by a horse rapidly approach me. I saw
38
THE GHOST OF FRED ARCHER
nothing. When the sounds were close to me they stopped
abruptly, receded and gradually died away in the distance.
Nothing further happened. Whether what I experienced
was due to poor Fred Archer's ghost I cannot definitely say.
As to why his spirit should have haunted the lane and neigh-
bourhood, that must be left entirely to speculation. None of
us is sufficiently acquainted with the laws and ways of the
unknown to decree. We can only surmise.
39
THE HAUNTING OF THE GORY HOTEL
I was having a discussion one day in my London dub with
Sir Roland Melville, Bart., about ghostly phenomena, and he
told me the following experience which he had had some years
previously.
He was travelling one day from Paddington to Penzance in
an express. On the way the train was held up when the line
was blocked through the collapse of a bridge, and he was
obliged to seek a room for the night in Plymouth. After much
hunting he at last found one in an hotel not far from the Hoe.
The room was a back one on the first floor. It smelt fusty.
The bed was in the middle of the floor and on one side of it
was a large cupboard. There was a gas fire in the room and
Sir Roland sat by it to warm himself, for it was a very cold
night. Tired with his journey and made drowsy by the heat
of the fire he went to bed and dozed fitfully, being awakened
by a laugh, loud and mocking. He sat up indignantly and saw
an eerie spherical light on the door of the cupboard.
As he stared wonderingly at the door it began to open very
slowly. Little by little the aperture increased and an object
appeared. It was a luminous head, the head of a negro. The
mouth was bared in a ferocious grin, and the dark glittering
eyes suffused with diabolical hatred.
The aperture kept widening until a whole body appeared.
In one hand it held a carving knife. Stealing stealthily out of
the cupboard the negro, crouching down, crept towards the
bed. Petrified, Sir Roland watched him as he drew nearer
and nearer. After what seemed to him years, the negro reached
the bed and, bending over it, raised the knife. As it was about
to descend the spell which had chained Sir Roland ended and,
tumbling out of bed, he made for the door. He stayed on the
landing till he could not stand the cold any longer.
Ashamed of his fear he then went back into the room. It
was in darkness. There was no sign of the phantom negro.
He slept till morning.
40
THE HAUNTING OF THE GORY HOTEL
The line not being quite cleared Sir Roland had to spend
another night in the hotel. As on the previous night he sat
for a time by the fire in his room, and then got into bed. He
fell asleep, and woke with a start to feel a cold, clammy, bare
body lying by his side.
He sat up and made to spring out of bed but found he could
not. He was again limb and tongue tied, and again an eerie
light appeared on the cupboard. As before the phantom negro
emerged from the cupboard and crept to the bed. His eyes,
glowing with malicious joy, were fixed not on Sir Roland but
on the man by his side, as he raised his gleaming knife. The
chain which had held Sir Roland spellbound broke as before,
and springing out of bed he got to the landing. This time he
did not return to his bedroom but sat in the coffee room till
morning.
He angrily related his experiences to the landlord of the
hotel, who was full of apologies for putting him in the room,
which he admitted was haunted. According to the tale he told
Sir Roland, about a hundred years previously the hotel had
been a private house owned by Mr. Jasper Stevens, a widower,
who had made a fortune in the West Indies. His only com-
panion in the house was his negro servant Tom, whom he
had brought from Jamaica. Tempted by the money Mr.
Stevens foolishly kept in the house, Tom murdered him, and
disappeared. The police failed to trace him.
Sir Roland suggested that the cupboard out of which the
negro ghost emerged should be examined. This was done. At
the back of it was a spring which, being opened, revealed a
secret chamber. Crouching on the floor of the chamber, a
bloodstained knife by his side, and a heap of gold coins in
front of him, was the skeleton. Apparently the negro, discover-
ing the spring, had got into the cupboard but been unable
to get out of it, so starving to death.
Hence the haunting by his ghost. Efforts to exorcise it
proved futile, and the haunting continued until the hotel was
demolisheda year after Sir Roland Melville stayed in it.
41
THE LONDON VILLA OF GHOSTLY DREAD
In a by-road not far from the old Crystal Palace there was
standing prior to 1914 a small villa known locally as the
Mystery House. It was often to be let, as no one ever stayed
there for long.
After it had stood empty for a considerable time, a family
named Trent took it. Mrs. Trent thought there was something
strange about the house almost the moment that she crossed
the threshold. However, nothing unpleasant happened till
they had been in it a fortnight.
On entering her bedroom in haste one morning Mrs. Trent
drew up sharply on seeing the bedstead shake and one of the
pillows move. Wondering if some pet animal was in the bed
she went to it and very cautiously raised the pillow. There
was nothing under it. She removed the bedclothes, but there
was nothing under them. She peered under the bed; there
was nothing there.
Mystified but thinking it was probably just her imagina-
tion, or maybe some kind of an illusion or hallucination, she
thought no more of it.
The following night Mr. Trent was awakened by a spine-
chilling scream coming from his wife's room, which was next
to his. In a terrible fright he jumped out of bed and dashed to
her.
In the moonlight, which flooded the room, he saw his wife
trying to push away a pillow which was over her face. Some-
thing seemed to be pressing it down. He seized the pillow and
found himself struggling with an invisible thing that smelt
horribly. The struggle seemed to him to last interminably
but more likely it was only for a few seconds. To his relief,
whatever it was desisted, and the pillow fell on to the floor.
His wife had been too exhausted to help him, and it was
not until she had fully recovered that she was able to talk.
42
THE LONDON VILLA OF GHOSTLY DREAD
She said that all she knew was when she awoke from a nasty
dream, the pillow had been removed from under her head
and was over her face, and she felt that someone was trying to
smother her.
Mr. Trent persuaded her to change rooms with him. She
did, and nothing further took place for a week, Mr. Trent
was then alone in the house, his wife, children and the maid
having gone for the afternoon to Hampstead.
Fancying he heard a noise in the basement he went down
to inspect the place but found nothing to account for it.
Having satisfied himself that the doors and windows were all
securely fastened he was mounting the kitchen staircase when
he heard footsteps following him. He looked round but there
was no one there.
Thinking it must have been his imagination he went on
again, but he had not mounted more than a couple more steps
when he again heard the footfalls behind him. He abruptly
swung round, and for a moment the sight of his own shadow,
which stood out very black on the cream coloured wall beneath
him, made his heart beat with unusual fierceness, but there
was still no one to be seen. He stamped his feet and mounted a
couple more steps, but everything was quite still, and he had
gained the hall and was halfway up the flight of stairs leading
to the first landing when the same mysterious footfalls were
again audible.
In spite of his scepticism for ghosts and the like he now felt
a ghastly fear stealing fast upon him, and with these uncom-
fortable sensations he continued his ascent. There was no
repetition of the steps now until he had arrived on the top
landing, when they came running up behind him, very fast,
as if someone was making frantic efforts to overtake him.
This time it was with an effort he turned round, but as on
the former occasions, there was no one to be seen. The un-
accountable nature of the occurrence filled him with vague
and almost horrible sensations, and yielding to the excitement
he felt gaining control over him he leaned over the banisters
and shouted sternly, 'Who is there?'
43
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
The sound of his own voice, thus exerted in the utter soli-
tude of the house, and followed by the most death-like silence,
had in it something so unpleasantly thrilling that he now
experienced a degree of nervousness which he had never felt
before.
A week later and the place was once more to let. Then an
ex-actress of the name of Cattling took it. She arrived with a
whole retinue of dogspoms and dachshunds. The first week
of her tenancy passed uneventfully enough. The dogs were
very restless at night, growling and whining and keeping very
close to one another, but she attributed that to their being in
new surroundings and never for one moment gave it serious
heed.
Then one evening one of the poms suddenly cried out as
if it had been hurt. She ran upstairs to her bedroom where
she had left it, and found it lying on the floor. At first she
thought it was asleep, but on examining it more closely she
discovered it was dead.
She was puzzling this over when something attracted her
attention to the bed, and to her surprise she saw one of the
pillows was standing on end. She approached it, and then came
to a sudden halt. The pillow had assumed the most extra-
ordinary and wholly unaccountable shape. It was like a face,
the face of some very bizarre animal with a monstrously long
nose and two deep-set eyes that gleamed horribly, and with
apparent devilish merriment.
It so fascinated her that for some minutes she simply stood
staring at it, and then, yielding to a sudden paroxysm of fury,
she rushed at it, and catching hold of it, straightened it out and
flung it on the ground.
'You killed the dog,' she shrieked, 'and want to harm me.
You won't I You won't!
'
There now followed a fairly long spell of comparative quiet.
Then one night the unexpected happened. Mrs. Cattling, as
per habit, went for a walk accompanied by her pets, and did
not return home till late. The house was in pitch darkness
and she was in the hall, groping about for matches for the gas,
44
THE LONDON VILLA OF GHOSTLY DREAD
when a box was quietly slipped into her outstretched hand. As
might be expected she was terribly taken back, and for some
seconds she stood stock still, not knowing what to think or do.
If it was a burglar, she tried to argue, why had he not struck
her? And yet, if it was not a burglar, who could it possibly be?
The suspense at length became so unbearable that, resolving
to learn the worst and see whatever it was face to face, she
struck a light, and then very cautiously peered around.
There was no one, nothing to be seen. Mystified, she now
went upstairs to bed, and having locked and barricaded the
door after her, she speedily undressed and crept in between
the sheets.
She slept till morning, and was in the act of dressing and
laughing at her fears during the night, when close to her elbow
she heard a long protracted sigh. She immediately turned
round, but there was no one there, nothing to account for it,
A week or so after this she had some friends round to spend
the evening with her. They played cards and were in the
middle of an exciting hand of bridge when one of them, who
was merely a spectator, uttered a loud exclamation and pointed
to the wall.
'Look at that picture,' she said. 'What is making it behave
like that?'
They all glanced in the direction she indicated and were
greatly astonished at seeing an old coloured engraving in a
frame swaying violently to and fro, without any apparent
cause.
They all sat quite still and strained their ears, but there
was absolute silence, not the remotest sound of any kind, either
from within or without. One of them then went to the window
which, though open at the top, was closed at the bottom, and
peered out.
'The night seems very calm and still,' she said. 'It would
take a good deal of wind to make that picture move.'
Then, suddenly it was still, and absolutely motionless, like
all the other pictures in the room, and everyone present felt
a curious sensation of relief. Nothing of further moment
45
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
occurred during the rest of Mrs, Cattling's short tenancy, and
after she had left the premises they stood empty for another
long period.
It was during this interlude that an adventure in connection
with the house is said to have befallen two people living in the
neighbourhood. They were a young man and girl, sweethearts,
who, strolling out together one evening, chanced to pass the
'mystery house*.
'Strange that house never lets, isn't it?* the young man re-
marked as they paused in front of it and gazed up at the win-
dows. 'I wonder what's wrong with it.'
'Why, they do say as how it's haunted,* the girl replied, 'but
ghosts is all nonsense, ain't they, Reg?'
'I reckon so,' Reg laughed. Then, fired with a sudden in-
spiration, 1 say, supposing we sit for a while in the back
garden. It will be nice and quiet there.'
From the garden the couple commanded a complete view of
the back of the house, and they were commenting on the
appearance of it, how peculiarly neglected and deserted it
looked, when they simultaneously gave vent to a deep 'Ohl
'
Exactly opposite them on the first floor was a window, and
up to the present it had been bathed in gloom.
Now, however, quite suddenly it became illuminated with
a dull, glimmering light of an unhealthy bluish colour which
appeared to originate from within the building.
They fled precipitately and on future occasions took very
good care to give the 'mystery house' a distinctly wide berth.
The next recorded happenings at the house occurred quite
late in its life. A Mrs. Eveley took it for six months, and her
household consisted of herself, grown-up daughter Barbara,
and two servants, Matilda and Phyllis. The disturbances began
the very first night of their tenancy. Going to bed somewhat
early, as she was very tired, Barbara awoke with a violent start
to see in the white moonlight a very tall form in black bending
over her, and the next moment the bedclothes were snatched
violently off her. The bed was then shaken vigorously to and
fro.
46
THE LONDON VILLA OF GHOSTLY DREAD
This went on for some seconds when at last, to her infinite
relief, the figure left the bedside, and she heard the door give
a loud slam.
Barbara's terror was so great that for some minutes she dared
not stir. As soon, however, as her faculties had somewhat re-
covered from the shock, she sprang out of bed and rushed into
her mother's room. Mrs. Eveley was a very strong-minded
woman, not in the least degree afraid of burglars, and rousing
the servants she bade them search the house with her.
They did so, going into every room and examining the
cellar and cupboards, but they found no one, and could dis-
cover nothing which would explain in any way the remarkable
occurrence.
About a week later the whole household was aroused in the
middle of the night by the sound of hammering, coming ap-
parently from the basement of the house. As the servants
refused point blank to accompany Mrs. Eveley downstairs to
see what it was, she lit her candle and went alone.
When she arrived in the basement she found the kitchen
door wide open, while on the table, in the centre of the floor,
she saw what appeared to be an enormous black coffin. The
shock at encountering such a ghasdy spectacle was so terrific
that she at once fainted.
Hearing her fall Barbara and the maids hastened to her
assistance, and on reaching the basement all three saw the
shadowy outlines of something they could only describe as
infinitely alarming and grotesque come out of the kitchen,
run past them and ascend the staircase with gigantic bounds.
This came as the climax, and within a week the house once
again stood empty.
The house had been standing empty for some long time
when the landlord, happening to visit it one day, fancied he
could detect a smell of gas. He sent for a plumber, and prior
to the man's arrival waited in one of the rooms. After a while,
hearing, as he thought, a noise on the top landing he ran up-
stairs to ascertain the cause of it, and not discovering anything
to account for it came down again, and was surprised to find
47
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
the plumber had arrived and was already engaged at his job,
'How on earth did you get in?' he said to the man. 1 made
sure I had shut all the doors.* The man made no reply, how-
ever, and the landlord, concluding he must be deaf, watched
him in silence for some minutes, and then hearing a knock at
the front door went to see who was there.
Rather to his astonishment it was another plumber.
'Why, how is this?' he said. 'One of your men is already here.
Surely there is no need for two.'
'It can't be one of our men, sir,' the plumber responded, 'for
I am the only man available. He must have come from some-
where else.'
'You are from Smith's, are you not?' the landlord asked.
'Yes, sir,' was the reply.
'Well, the other man must have come from them too,' the
landlord answered, 'for that is the only firm I sent to. You had
better come inside and see.'
Bidding the man follow him he went to the room where he
had left the workman, but there was no sign of him. Remark-
ing that it was very odd he called out, but there was no res-
ponse. He then searched the premises, but there were no traces
of the workman anywhere. And when Smith's man examined
the gas pipes he quickly found the leakage. There were no
evidences whatever of any attempt having been made at a
repair.
The landlord, of course, knew the reputation the 'mystery
house' had acquired, and he could only conclude that what
he had witnessed was another of its already long list of ghosts.
The original owner of the house, who had committed
suicide, had been a man of very bad reputation, and it was
thought that the hauntings might either be due to his earth-
bound evil spirit, or to something that occurred on the site of
the house before it was built.
48
AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
Not far from St. Shepherd's Grove, Dublin, there is an isolated
house dating back to the days of Dutch William. For years
it stood empty, no one caring to stay in it for long, and Mrs.
Valentine, the owner, was despairing of letting it when
Colonel Ward took it furnished for a year.
His wife and children moved in shortly before Christmas, he
being unable to join them as yet. The first few days passed
uneventfully. It was not until Mrs. Ward had been there a
week that anything disturbing happened.
She was in the sitting-room reading when there was a rap
on the door; it sounded as if it was made with bare knuckles.
Wondering who it could possibly be as the servants had gone
out, Mrs. Ward went to the door. Confronting her was an old
woman in a mob-cap and old-fashioned dress. She was very
ugly. Raising a skinny hand she shook it menacingly at Mrs.
Ward, leered, and turning sharply round she ran across the
hall and up the stairs, remarkably nimble for one of her age.
Considerably startled Mrs. Ward tried to persuade herself
that the old woman was a friend of the maids. She resumed
her seat by the fire, and had barely sat down, when, much to
her relief the maids returned.
The next day Colonel Ward came. That night he sat up late.
It was close on one o'clock when, candle in handthere was
no gas in the househe went into the hall. The fluctuating
light from the candle was not enough to dissipate the gloom.
Fancying he heard a noise he turned, and found himself face
to face with the old hag his wife had seen. An odd light enve-
loped her and illumined her pale eyes, which glowed
maliciously as they met the Colonel's startled gaze.
'Who are you?' he stammered.
She did not reply but, leering at him, she ran across the
hall and ascended the staircase. When near a bend she paused
49
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
and, looking down, shook her fist. Then, turning, she vanished
quickly out of sight.
At breakfast that morning Colonel Ward said, 'My dear, I
have seen your old woman. I do not wonder that you were
scared. I was too. She is not pretty.'
In the afternoon Jack Deane, Mrs. Ward's brother, who had
just left Sandhurst and was waiting for a commission, came to
spend Christmas with them.
He was in the boot-room when he saw a woman standing in
the doorway.
'Here, mother,' he exclaimed, 'take this boot to be cleaned.'
Picking up one of his boots he threw it across, and to his
surprise it passed right through her. Thinking that it must
be his fancy, he threw the other boot, and the same thing
happened. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not dream-
ing. The woman was still there, and for the first time he saw
her face illumined in the gloom. It was that of a very ugly old
woman.
He took a step towards her, and she disappeared.
Much concerned now Deane sought his sister and told her
that he must have been working too hard, and, as a result, was
having hallucinations.
'It was no hallucination,' Mrs. Ward said. 'What you saw
was a ghost. Paul (her husband) and I have both seen the old
woman.'
The three of them, Colonel and Mrs. Ward and Jack Deane
were standing in the hall talking that evening, when they
heard the clinking of glass and rattling of china. The sounds
came from the dining-room where the table was loaded with
glass and china ready for the party they were having the next
day, Christmas Eve.
They at once went to the room. The moment they opened
the door there was a tremendous crash, and all the glass and
china fell upon the floor.
Lying on the floor was the bleeding body of a boy of about
twelve years of age. Bending over him, a look of fiendish glee
on her beautiful face, was a young woman dressed in a costume
50
AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
of a bygone age, her white arms and breast gleaming with gold
and jewels.
By the side of her crouched the old hag, who leered at the
intruders, an expression of devilish malice on her puckered
up face. A weird light enveloped the three figures.
As the appalled intruders stared at the scene before them
the room darkened, and there was an eerie silence.
The Wards left the house the next day.
5
1
THE HAUNTED BUOY
Paget Hickman was one of my father's old friends. Like my
father and myself he was greatly interested in the supernatural.
He was at a resort in Kent one summer when he had an
extraordinary experience. He was on the beach on very hot
day, and was looking for a resting spot when he saw an old
buoy high and dry ashore. He went to it, sat down, and rested
his back against it.
Overcome with the heat and tired with walking about, he
presently dozed. How long he was in that state he did not
know. When he came out of it he found himself standing in
front of a garden gate on which was a nameplate : Dr. Horace
Crawley. He opened the gate, walked up the path, and
knocked at the door. A young and very attractive woman
opened it.
'Oh, I am so glad that you have come, Ralph,' she exclaimed.
'You are very prompt. He is dead.'
Hickman found himself smiling, and said, 'When did he
die?'
'Two or three minutes before I rang you,' the woman re-
plied. 'I want you with me when the doctor comes.'
She took him to a back room on the first floor, where a grey-
haired man, who looked many years older than the woman
was in bed. Hickman was looking at the man when the woman
backed out of the room, turned the key, and locked him in.
'You are cooked,' she cried, 'really caught! You poisoned
him with that drug you got in Brazil. There is some of it in
your clothes in your wardrobe. I put it there. Now for the
police."
It was all so sudden that for some moments Hickman stood
as one stunned; then, realizing his danger, he tiptoed softly to
the window and looked out of it. It was a deep drop to the
back garden below. Raising the window with as little noise as
52
THE HAUNTED BUOY
possible, he swung over the sill, and, trusting to luck, dropped.
The woman cried, 'Eustace, Eustace, he's getting away
always they were the same distance apart. Ahead of him the
K
H5
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
ground sloped, and the speed of both riders increased. Martin
tried to rein his horse in but could not, it was as if the other
horse magnetized it.
They were tearing now, the wind whirring in his ears, when
ahead of them he saw to his horror a gaping pit. The woman
rode straight for it. On reaching it she looked round, and for
the first time he saw her facewhite and lovely. She smiled
at him, waved, and, signalling him to follow, leaped on horse-
back into the yawning chasm.
With a frantic effort he tore himself free of the saddle and
crashed to the ground as his horse, never pausing, plunged
madly forward over the brink, into the depths below. Dazed,
Martin picked himself upa few more feet and he would
have been over the edge. He peered down but could see noth-
ingonly blackness. He hurried away, and after some hours
finally got to his destination, more dead than alive.
His story awoke interest, and he learned an explanation of
what he had experienced. The locality of the pit was tradi-
tionally reputed to be haunted.
In the seventeenth century, living in the vicinity of the
Dingborough Hunt were the Leeches, a new rich family. They
had only very recently come to that part of the country. They
had one child, Emily, a dark haired beauty, and among her
many admirers was Robert Hunt, the only son of a widow.
Robert, an unsophisticated youth of twenty, first saw Emily at
a meet of the Dingborough, and fell violently in love with her.
She encouraged his affections; his country manners and raw-
ness amused her. But he was just her plaything, someone with
whom to pass the idle moments till Lord Hartley, the man she
wished to marry, returned from abroad. When he did, she
gave the cold shoulder to Robert, and laughed in his face when
he stammered that he loved her.
Bitterly grieved, Robert threw himself into the pit and was
fatally injured. Before he died he cursed Emily, and declared
that she would haunt the locality of the pit till Doomsday.
It was her ghost that Harry Martin must have seen; an
apparition as beautiful as she was evil.
146
MY NIGHT IN OLD WHITTLEBURY FOREST
When about to begin one of my nocturnal investigations I am
not infrequently asked if I am feeling psychicif I feel that
I may see or hear something supernatural, or sense something
hypernormal in the atmosphere of the place. Well, on the
Thursday night of my arrival at Black House, some thirty
miles from Northampton, I neither felt or sensed anything
untoward.
The weather conditions, however, struck me as being dis-
tinctly favourable for a psychic manifestation of some kind.
In my experiences in a variety of climates I have found that
it is on nights when the weather is disturbed, as for example,
when there is a thunderstorm, or it is very windy and raining
hard, or at the other extreme when it is exceptionally fine and
still, and the moon is full, that ghostly phenomena are most
likely to occur. Also, I believe ghostly manifestations are
largely dependent on the time of year, the late summer and
early autumn being rather more conducive to them than any
other period. Hence the conditions on that September night
at Black House, when a strong wind moaned and whistled
through the tree tops and set all the windows and doors jarring,
were certainly in favour of my visit.
I had been told that the phantom of a man had been seen
in various parts of the house, sometimes smoking a phantom
pipe, when the smell of tobacco was distinctly noticeable, but
beyond that I had heard little or nothing; consequently no
stories about the place were running in my mind and I could
rule out all possibility of suggestion.
Soon after my arrival at the house, while my two hostesses
stood talking with my companions from the local newspaper,
I got my first impressions. I suddenly sensed very strongly the
presence of oak trees and stags. I mentioned this and learned
for the first time that the house stood on ground that had once
147
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
formed part of old Whittlebury Forest, which had abounded
in oak trees and harboured many stags.
As the night was well advanced we began our sitting.
None of us being orthodox spiritualists we did not form a
circle but individually found the first convenient seat. We
sat in darkness and in silence. The outdoor conditions kept
favourable; every now and then gusts of wind howled like a
host of lost souls round and round the house.
Suddenly I was conscious of a curious change in the atmos-
phere of the room. A new element seemed to have entered it
and intermingled with it, one that was very eerie. I was trying
to diagnose this change when I felt a strong psychic current
sweep past me in the direction of the door leading into the
garden, close to which one of our hostesses, Miss H, was sitting.
The change in the atmosphere at once became clearer; there
was with us some elemental presence, something of the semi-
human, semi-animal species that is associated with trees and
forests.
At my request, one of our party had brought a dog with
him, as dogs, in my opinion, are sure psychic barometers, in-
variably making some kind of demonstration when anything
supernatural is at hand. My companion's dog now started to
bark aggressively, as if there was something near at hand that
it very strongly resented.
Through the window overlooking the front garden facing
me I saw a leadenish blue light, or rather glow. It lasted a few
seconds then gradually faded away. Other members of the
party also saw luminary phenomena, but through a glass door
that led to another part of the house. Some of these lights were
in the form of a crescent and others a triangle.
During the whole time that these phenomena were mani-
festing intense excitement prevailed, a general thrill shared
not only by my friend's dog but by several dogs belonging to
the house, and located in various parts of it, for one and all
began to bark savagely. When the lights eventually dis-
appeared and the dogs became silent we relit the lamps.
We then related our respective experiences. Some of us
148
MY NIGHT IN OLD WHITTLEBURY FOREST
had heard ghostly footsteps moving about the premises, others
had heard uncanny whistling; while there were those who had
seen and heard nothing. I asked Miss H if she had been cons-
cious of the psychic current that had swept past me, and she
said she had. She had felt something very unusual and un-
pleasant suddenly approach her. She was quite sure that it
was not the spirit of the smoker; she had seen him in the room
directly afterwards but he was friendly. She thought that the
phenomenon must be one of the numerous psychic entities
that sometimes haunted the immediate vicinity of the house
but which rarely entered it.
One of the other sitters told me afterwards that she was hold-
ing one of Miss H's hands at the time and could feel Miss H
trembling violently.
After a short interval we sat in the darkness again. This time
I, too, heard the uncanny whistling; it was just as if someone
was standing by the window whistling to an animal and it was
followed by the sound of faraway horse's hooves. The sounds
drew rapidly nearer and seemed to pass through the room,
dying gradually away in the distance. Directly afterwards I
heard mutterings and whisperings. Then silence.
After a time Miss H relit the lamp and asked if anyone had
heard the sounds of a horse in the room. I and several others
told her that we had. She then informed us that she and Miss
D had often heard the sounds of a horse tearing through the
room, always at the same hour, namely two o'clock in the morn-
ing, the very time I had heard the sounds.
The sitting, which ended as dawn broke, had been successful
in that it corroborated the statement of the two women, Miss H
and Miss D, that Black House was really haunted. I afterwards
looked up the history and traditions relative to Whittlebury
Forest and found that the locality has throughout long cen-
turies borne the reputation of being haunted.
One of the apparitions is that of a headless horseman, whose
appearance is regarded as a portent of misfortune, even death.
Happily no one saw the horseman that night. It is said to be
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THE SCREAMING SKULLS
more often seen in the lanes and fields in the neighbourhood
of Black House.
A phantom lady is also said to haunt the site of old Whittle-
bury Forest as a punishment for her cruel treatment of one
of her lovers. She is nocturnally hunted by a phantom hunts-
man and a pack of spectral hounds. It is this particular haunt-
ing that is said to have suggested to Dryden his poem of
Theodore and Honoria.
150
THE FOURTH TREE IN THE AVENUE
One autumn evening four men sat in a room in a house in
the Midlands. They were all members of a psychical research
society, and among them was my friend Dr. Leonard Smyth.
All they knew about the house was that it was rumoured to
be badly haunted; they knew nothing specific.
It was eleven o'clock when they began the sitting, and it
was not until nearly one o'clock that anything occurred.
Smyth's dog Prince growled, and drew close to his master. A
board in the room creaked and quivered, and there was a
swelling on the floor.
The swelling grew and presently an aperture appeared. The
four men gazed at it in fearful anticipation as something dark
showed in the hole. It rose very slowly out of the floora head,
the head of a woman with long, dishevelled dark hair, big,
glossy dark eyes, and a corpse-like face, grey and drawn. The
face of the long dead.
The four men gazed at it in horror, but more was to follow.
Little by little the body of the woman rose to view, holding in
her arms a dead baby. Rising completely out of the hole, the
woman, carrying her ghastly child, glided noiselessly out of the
room. From the distance came the banging of a doorthen
silence.
The four shaken men rose, took a sip of brandy, and left the
house, feeling that they had had enough of ghostly horrors for
one night.
They breathed freer in the open air. Outside the house a
carriage drive led to an avenue of magnificent old trees. The
four men entered the avenue and stopped at the fourth tree.
Something made them halt there, a compelling sense, and
they all experienced a wave of evil well from the tree. Al-
though it was a calm night with no wind, the branches of
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THE SCREAMING SKULLS
the tree were moving restlessly to and fro, and a vague shadow
dangled momentarily from one of the branches.
When it was gone, the spell that had glued the men to the
spot in front of the tree released them, and they went on to
their respective destinations, satisfied that there was decided
truth in the rumour that the house and grounds were haunted.
The traditional story of the haunting they ferreted out after-
wards.
They learned that in the eighteenth century, Squire Arnold
had lived in the house. He engaged a housekeeper, Mary Anne
Giles, young and attractive, and had no difficulty in seducing
her. She then had a child. Tiring of her, the squire murdered
both mother and child and buried the bodies under the floor
of the room where the four men had sat.
The disappearance of the woman gradually became known,
and a party of people set out to search the house. Arnold
learned of their coming and, full of terror and remorse, hanged
himself from the fourth tree in the avenue.
r
5
2
A NIGHT VIGIL AT CHRISTCHURCH
Many people will remember the sensation caused in the neigh-
bourhood of Bournemouth by the murder of Mr. Rattenbury,
and the subsequent suicide of his clever and beautiful widow
in a pool of the River Avon.
It was the hearing of rumours of ghostly happenings, sup-
posedly arising from the widow's death, that led to my hold-
ing a vigil on a night in October, 1935, at the scene of her un-
happy ending.
The morning of the day I selected for the vigil was very wet,
but the weather improved later in the day. I arrived at Christ-
church about noon and at once made inquiries concerning
the rumours. The evening was well advanced when I eventu-
ally set out on my errand, armed with nothing more formid-
able than a thick stick and a torch. The spot where Mrs.
Rattenbury had destroyed herself the previous June was a
kind of backwater of the Avon, in a lonely meadow about 300
yards from a lane and close to some railway arches.
One of the stories I had heard was that a woman cycling
along the lane one evening a few weeks before had heard a
series of cries coming from the direction, so she thought, of
the arches. There was something so unearthly and altogether
unusual about the cries that she got off her bicycle at once and
stood by a wooden gate leading into a meadow skirting the
lane and facing the distant river.
By the railway embankment and arches was a shed, and as
the woman stood listening she saw a blue light suddenly ap-
pear over this shed and then come towards her. As it drew
nearer it took the form of a very tall person, wearing a shroud.
No face was visible, but there was something so awesome about
the figure, especially in the long strides it took, that the woman
became terrified and, jumping on her cycle, pedalled fran-
tically away.
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THE SCREAMING SKULLS
Another story was said to have originated with a railway
employee, who, when walking along the embankment one
night, saw something very bright on the river bank. He
climbed down to get a closer look, and to his surprise saw that
it was a knife. On his approaching, the knife vanished, and
he then noticed a commotion in the water. In one spot the
water was whirling round and round, like a miniature whirl-
pool. Then, suddenly, it grew still, and out of it rose a hand.
It was a very white hand with rather long, slender fingers, on
one of which flashed and sparkled a ring. For some seconds
the fingers clutched the air convulsively, and then the hand
sank out of sight. The railwayman, who had all this time stood
rooted to the ground with shock, now took to his heels, con-
vinced that it was no human being he had seen in the whirl-
pool.
These were not altogether nice stories to remember when
I was padding the lane alone, but they would keep coming
back to me; and I remembered also a third, the story of a
cyclist who, when riding along the lane one night, soon after
the Rattenbury tragedy, had, on getting near the embank-
ment, seen a woman, young and smartly dressed, walking
alongside him. Although he increased his speed, it made no
difference; she still kept abreast of him, apparently without
increasing her pace, and this continued for some little dis-
tance, when suddenly she quite inexplicably vanished. Three
nights following he had the same experience, and always in
that particular part of the road; but on none of these occasions
could he ever see the woman's face with any degree of clear-
ness. It always seemed to be hidden by a mist, though the rest
of her, her arms, legs and body, stood out with startling dis-
tinctiveness. After the third night he is said never to have seen
her again. I thought of this story whenever a cyclist came
along.
As the night lengthened and the traffic grew less and less,
till it practically ceased, a feeling of intense eeriness came over
me. Later, as I came to a halt by a gate, which I imagined
was the gate from which the woman had seen the shrouded
154
A NIGHT VIGIL AT CHRISTCHURCH
figure. I was conscious of a feeling of intense sadness. It came
upon me quite suddenly, a terrible sadness that seemed due
not to anything hitherto associated with me in any way, but
to the surroundingsto something connected with what I
saw; the long, lone railway embankment, with three gaping
arches, the solitary hut, the great stretch of unkempt grass,
flecked with stunted and oddly fashioned trees and the dikes
of water, whose surface gleamed in the starlight.
I suddenly felt that something was coming along the lane.
I say felt, because I saw and heard nothing, yet I was certain, as
certain as I have been about anything in my life, that something
had entered into the darkness of the night and was drawing
near me. Nearer and nearer it drew, a nameless presence, one
that brought with it increasing sadness. It came right up to me.
I was conscious of it standing by my side looking at me, trying
to read my innermost thoughts. I sensed beauty appertaining
to it, beauty and youth, but not happiness or goodness; yet I
felt it was not wholly evil. It passed on and left me, and with
its departure I was no longer sad,
I left the gate and walked towards Rotten Row, but I had
not gone far before I stoppedI felt I had to. I was near an
isolated tree growing close to the laneside. A black mist rose
out of the ground near a treeI have never seen anything so
unpleasantly black. I had not felt afraid when I had the ex-
perience near the gate, but I felt uneasy now.
The mist crept slowly towards me, indescribably sinister.
I felt impelled to go back to the gate. When I got there a feel-
came over me that I must drown myself. The river had sud-
denly become a magnet. No longer dark and cold, it seemed
now to give out light, a light that was most alluring and seduc-
tive; the light drew me on and I had to fight desperately to
keep where I was and prevent myself succumbing to its fatal
influence, which I instinctively associated with the mist. Then
suddenly all desire to drown myself ceased.
Feeling that nothing further would occur, I now came away,
to learn later that others had experienced some of the strange
things I experienced there, in particular that terrible desire
155
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
to drown oneself in the spot where Mrs. Rattenbury ended her
life.
Is her spirit at rest? Some think not. I keep asking myself,
was that sad presence hers? Did something draw her to the
riverside as something tried to draw me, and was it that sinister
black mist?
You must form your own conclusions on these strange hap-
penings which are described exactly as they occurred.
156
THE HAUNTED STREAM
In Warwickshire there is a stream, deep in places, which in
former days supplied a mill long disused with water.
In the nineties of the last century there was a family named
Burton living in a house about half a mile from the stream;
Mrs. Burton, an elderly widow, and two girls, Rose and
Phoebe. Mrs. Burton, who had married late in life, was attrac-
tive at fifty and both the girls were very pretty, Rose being
dark and Phoebe fair.
Rose was secretary to a rich man, and Phoebe a manicurist
in a beauty salon. They were very fond of dancing and went
on Saturday evenings to a dancehall in Birmingham about
ten miles from Camly, where they lived. They went by train,
as there were no motor vehicles in those days.
It was at the dancehall that they met a young man named
Renton, the son of a brewer. He was tall, handsome and
wealthy. The girls fell in love with him, and became rivals.
Renton preferred Phoebe, and they were engaged, but a
dreadful tragedy prevented them marrying. Phoebe was
drowned in the stream. How she got in the stream was a
mystery; it was supposed that she fell in when returning from
the dancehallpossibly she had drunk a little too freely.
It was two years after the tragedy that my friend Brian
Richards went to live in Camly.
Mrs. Burton was dead. Rose had married Renton, sold the
house, which her mother left her, and gone to live in France
after divorcing her husband. The Waverley, the house where
the Burtons had lived, had become a boarding house. Brian
stayed there. It was kept by Mrs. Wills, a widow, and there
were three servants who slept in the house: Mabel, the cook,
and Emma and Lucy, the maids. Lucy Hart came daily, and
a youth named Percy to clean shoes and do various outdoor
157
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
jobs. It was a very well run house. Everything had to be done
as Mrs. Wills wished, in strict order, no idling.
All went smoothly with Brian the first week he was in the
house. It was on the following Monday that something strange
happened. He was on the landing of the first floor when, think-
ing that someone was calling him, he leaned over the balus-
trade and looked down. A girl in a pink dress was in the hall,
a very pretty girl with flaxen hair and blue eyes. She was
carrying a bunch of flowers, and he noticed a gold ring on one
of her fingers, Her cheeks were very pale. Crossing the hall
she entered the sitting-room.
Brian, who was strongly attracted by the girl, entered the
room immediately after her, but she was not there, the room
was empty. Yet there was only the one door and the lofty
window was open only at the top.
Much puzzled he asked Mrs. Wills who the girl was. She
did not know; there was no such person in her house, she said.
The next day about the same time Brian and Mr. Taylor, a
fellow boarder, both saw the girl in pink cross the hall and enter
the sitting-room. They told Mrs. Wills and she then confessed
that the house was haunted. She begged them not to mention
the ghost to the servants, or they would all leave. The two men
had little choice but to promise not to say a word to anyone.
That evening Brian was brushing his hair at the dressing-
table in his room when he saw reflected in the mirror a girl
open the door and peer into the rooma girl with dark hair
and eyes, who would have been very good looking but for her
pallor and expression, which was clouded with hate. The
reflection only lasted a few moments and he then saw only
himself again. But the look of hatred in the girl's eyes haunted
him, it was so diabolical.
Nothing further happened for some days. Then, one even-
ing after dinner, he had another strange experience. He was
walking along a lonely lane leading to the river, a distance of
nearly half a mile from the house, when someone went by him.
It was the girl in pink. This time, however, she wore a green
dress, and as she walked ahead of him he noticed something
158
THE HAUNTED STREAM
filmy and unreal about her that he had not observed before.
She kept ahead of him to the stream. Close to the bank of it
was a bush. She had just reached the bush when an invisible
someone jumped out of it on to her. There was a cry of sur-
prise and terror, followed by sounds of a desperate struggle
between visible and invisible; a splash and the girl in green
was in the water. As she sank, a white hand wearing a gold
ring appeared above the surface of the stream clutching the
air.
Throughout the swiftly enacted incident Brian felt as if
he was witnessing something in a dream, yet his senses told
him that it had actually happenedthat he had been present
at a battle of hate which had ended in murder.
What happened to Rose Burton, in France, was never
known in Camly. The stream by the bush is still haunted.
159
THE CASTLE TERRORS
Ireland is traditionally and primarily the land of the O's and
Mc's, and most of the reputed haunted castles have belonged
to one or other of those clans.
The picturesque ruins of Dunluce Castle, on a cliff in Ire-
land, are said to be haunted by the spirit of the original owner,
who for his crimes was doomed to remain earthbound. Dun-
severick Castle in Antrim is similarly haunted.
The old O'Neills of Tyrone, one of whose descendants is
the Count O'Neill of Portugal, have, like my line of the
O'Donnells, a banshee, which used to appear at Shane Castle.
She was very lovely, and confined her advents to one room.
Should she be seen merely pacing silently to and fro, her
appearance boded no ill, but if she was seen wringing her
hands or heard singing, her presence was a portent of some
grievous catastrophe to a member of the clan. One of the
O'Neills heard her voice prior to setting out on a long journey.
A few days later he was killed.
The ancient Shane Castle was destroyed by fire in or about
1816.
An O'Flaherty of Galway was marching out of his castle one
night on a foraging expedition, when he heard his traditional
banshee singing sadly on one of the castle turrets. The fol-
lowing night his wife heard the banshee, and a few days later
her husband's followers brought back his body; he had been
killed by a member of a clan with which he had a feud.
On another occasion more than one banshee was heard sing-
ing at the castle of the O'Flahertys prior to the death of the
wife of the clan chief.
The ruins of Ross Castle, Killamey, are rumoured to be
haunted by the ghost of the O'Donohoe. Every few years in
the dead of night he emerges from Ross Castle on his famous
white horse, accompanied by his male and female followers,
1 60
THE CASTLE TERRORS
and rides three times round the lake of Killarney. That done,
he returns with his retinue to the castle, and is seen no more
for another decade.
Moving to Wales, in Brecknockshire are the ruins of Builth
Castle. According to a traditional story, Llywelyn II of
Gruffydd, the last actual Prince of Wales, came to Builth as a
last resource, supposing it to be held by his friends. He rode
there in the snow, having taken the precaution to have his
horse shod backwards, so as to mislead any of his enemies who
might be on his track. But he was refused admittance to the
castle, and the blacksmith who shod his horse gave information
to the English.
As Llywelyn returned, dejected and sore at heart, he was
set upon and killed by Adam Francton, who was ignorant of his
rank. Learning whom he had slain, Francton obtained per-
mission to cut off the prince's head, and it was sent to Edward
I at Rhuddlan, to be afterwards carried through the streets
of London, while the body was buried at crossroads near the
spot, which still bears the name of Cefynn-y-Bedd Llywelyn
'The ridge of Llywelyn's grave*.
The ruins of Builth Castle and the crossroads are both
rumoured to be haunted, from time to time, by some of the
spectres and unearthly sounds peculiar to Wales.
No counties in England or Wales are more haunted than
Glamorganshire and Pembrokeshire. St. Donat's Castle in Pem-
brokeshire is reputed to have been haunted for many years by
a phantom in white, believed to be the ghost of a Lady Strad-
ling. And Gideon Shaddoe wrote in the last century about a
castle in Glamorganshire that numbered among its several
ghosts the phantom of a mail-clad hand and arm, which he
saw one day thrust out of a window far beyond the ivy-clad
wall of the ancient building. The bell of a church near the
castle had been heard to toll 'of itself on Hallowe'en.
Many wrecks have taken place off the rocky coast of
Glamorganshire; after one of them, in which an evil local
landowner was drowned, a black coach with four spectral
horses was seen to drive from the seashore to his mansion. The
161
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
coach was believed to contain the spirit of the drowned man,
who for his many crimes was doomed to haunt the mansion
and neighbouring countryside till the Day of Judgment.
A weird story is told of Linlithgow Palace in Scotland. One
night in 1539 King James V cried out for torches, and on
his attendants rushing into his chamber, he told them he had
seen the ghost of the Laird of Balvearie, 'He came to me/
James said, 'and addressed me thus: "Oh, woe to the day that
ever I knew thee or thy service; for serving of thee against God,
against his servants, and against justice 1 am adjudged to end-
less torture."
'
The laird died that night in his home, and the people who
were with him affirmed that he had said those very words as
the king had heard them in Linlithgow.
Dumbarton Castle has a much later ghost. During the
seventies of the last century the two daughters of a captain,
who was for years in command of the staff division stationed
at the fort, were standing one moonlight night at the window
commanding a view of the terrace, above which the sentry
on duty had to walk. Suddenly one of the girls exclaimed:
'See, the sentry out there is pacing to and fro but he has no
head!' The other sister looked out and saw a tall, headless
man in an old-world uniform.
The next day, on the girls mentioning to friends what they
had seen, they were told that the headless sentry at Dumbarton
Castle had been a known fact in the county for hundreds of
years.
The Castle of Duntulm was at one time reputed to be
haunted by the ghost of Donald Gorm, who used to terrify
the inmates by slamming doors, tramping up and down stair-
cases, and making unearthly groans and cries. The disturbances
did not cease until a young man sat up alone in the castle one
night and, when the ghost of Donald Gorm appeared, arrayed
in the tartan of his clan, the Macdonalds, spoke to it and
learned the reason for it haunting the castle.
Dunstaffnage Castle, long in ruins, is said to have been
haunted by a glaistig that, before the death of a member of
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THE CASTLE TERRORS
the clan owning the place, used to wail in the building and
tread along the passages and rooms, pulling the clothes from
the beds of some of the sleepers, with dismal moans and
cries.
Unlike the banshees of Ireland, the glaistigs of Scotland
not only attach themselves to certain families but also to caves
and streams and beaches. They vary in appearance, as do the
Irish banshees. Some of them are old and withered, others
very lovely, with long, golden hair and blue eyes. Sleat Castle,
Breacacha Castle, the ruins of Mearnaig Castle and several
other castles are all reputed to have been haunted at times by
glaistigs.
A weird true story is told of a castle in the Hebrides. It is
situated on a cliff and close to a mansion. Both buildings
belong to a branch of the M s. The castle is in ruins. One
Christmas in the seventies of the last century the M s gave
a ball, and among the dancers were a Miss Ross and young
M., the second son of the laird, who was in the Royal Navy.
When the dawn had broken Miss Ross and young M., who
had been dancing together, walked to the castle ruins. Miss
Ross was suddenly startled on seeing a girl, whom she took at
first to be one of the other guests, gazing at her through what
appeared to be an inaccessible window.
'Do look at that silly Maud Grey,' she said, 'she will be
killed if she does not take care,' and she ran towards her,
pulling her companion with her.
When she got close to the girl she saw she was not Maud
Grey, but a young girl dressed entirely in white, with long
fair hair falling over her shoulders, and having on her right
arm a broad silver bracelet of curious design. The girl regarded
Miss Ross fixedly for a moment, and then disappeared,
'Good heavens!' Miss Ross cried. 'She has fallen over the
rocks.'
She ran to the window and looked out, but no traces of the
girl were visible : indeed, no human being could have scaled
the steep, precipitous crags on that side of the ruins. Miss
Ross looked at her companion; he was very pale and silent.
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THE SCREAMING SKULLS
On their way back to the house they met Maud Grey. She
had never been near the ruins.
'Who could the girl have been?' Miss Ross asked young M.
"Don't mention her to any of the family,' M. replied. 'I will
tell you who I think she was, but first let me ask if you noticed
the bracelet on the girl's arm.'
'I did,' Miss Ross exclaimed, and described it to him.
M. became even paler and said; 'You have seen our evil
family ghost. Her history is this : one of my ancestors and the
heir of the M's fell deeply in love with a beautiful peasant
girl. They became engaged and were about to be married,
when the girl suddenly disappeared and was never heard of
again. It was supposed she had been murdered by one of his
relations, who was furious at the thought of him marrying a
girl of such humble birth. For very many years there were
preserved in our family two silver bracelets, such as you des-
cribe, with which our chiefs betrothed their brides. One of
them had shortly before disappeared, and it was believed that
the infatuated youth had given it to the poor girl whom he
intended to marry.
'Ever since, we M s have always been warned of an ap-
proaching death by a fair-haired girl with this bracelet on her
arm.'
Young M. died soon after Miss Ross had seen the ghost.
164
THE HOUSE IN BERKELEY SQUARE
Probably no case of haunting in England has ever attracted
more attention than that which was alleged to take place at
No. Berkeley Square. Berkeley Square lies in the very
heart of Mayfair, and consequently, when it was rumoured
that a house in such a fashionable and highly aristocratic sur-
roundings had a ghost and a very terrible one too, all society
at once become interested.
Lord Lyttelton wrote in 'Notes and Queries' for November
16, 1872: 'It is quite true that there is a house in Berkeley
Square (No.
)
said to be haunted, and long unoccupied
on that account. There are strange stories about it, into which
this deponent cannot enter.'
And seven years later 'Mayfair' magazine stated: 'The
house in Berkeley Square contains at least one room of which
the atmosphere is supernaturally fatal to body and mind.'
For years the house continued to stand empty because of
the dreadful, uncanny things said to occur there. Few people
dared to pass it alone late at night.
Among the stories told me about the haunting is the follow-
ing:
One bitterly cold night in December two sailors, named
Stephens and Carey, who had come from Southampton to
London on a week's furlough, having squandered all their
money found themselves penniless with nothing to eat and
nowhere to sleep.
After rambling forlornly along street after street, seeking
in vain an archway or alcove where they could rest and find
shelter from the icy wind, they came at length to Berkeley
Square, silent and deserted.
They were leaning against the railings of the Square garden
when Stephens suddenly said: 'Do you see that house over
165
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
yonder, matey? It's to let. Why shouldn't we get in and do
a night on the boards?'
Carey at once agreed. He was desperately tired, and the
prospect of being able to lie down in the quiet somewhere,
even if it was only in a coalhole, appealed to him.
Biding their opportunity, when no one was about the two
seamen cautiously approached the house and slipped back the
latch of one of the windows, which to their joy and surprise
was not barred, and climbed into the house. Groping their
way along a dank, dark passage they bumped against banisters
and after a brief pause decided to venture aloft.
On reaching the second floor they decided to spend the night
in one of the back rooms. It was a trifle more dismal and
seemed in rather a worse condition than the other rooms they
had seen, but on the outside wall near the window there was
a pipe which could easily be got at should they be disturbed.
Feeling that a fire would be comforting they stole downstairs,
careful lest their footsteps might be heard next door. Not
finding any stray wood anywhere they broke up two or three
fixed drawers in the kitchen dresser and, returning to the
room they had chosen for the night, they soon had a fire. The
heat from it gradually made them drowsy and presently they
fell asleep.
They were abruptly roused by sounds in the lower part of
the house. As they sat up and listened, the sounds likened to
footsteps and began to ascend the stairs.
The footsteps might have been made with bare, fat feet,
there was a curious shuffling stealthiness about them. They
crossed the first floor landing and began to climb the stairs
to the second floor.
A great terror gripped the sailors. The steps at length came
on to the landing, approached the room and halted at the
door, the handle of which began slowly to turn. After a period
of agonizing suspense the two men saw the door slowly open
and something of indescribable horror, neither human nor
animal, appear on the threshold. As it moved stealthily to-
wards the men the spell that had held them broke.
1 66
THE HOUSE IN BERKELEY SQUARE
Stephens made a dash to the window, but so great was his
terror that in grabbing at the water-pipe to climb down it he
missed and crashed to the ground. The injuries he received
were so severe that he died, but not before he was able to ex-
plain what had happened. Carey was found by a policeman
early in the morning, roaming round and round the Square
quite insane.
There is another story of the haunting of No. Berkeley
Square.
A family whom I will call Jarvice, on coming to London
one autumn took up residence in the house. After they had
been in it for some weeks one of the maids, happening to go
into the room in which the two sailors had suffered their har-
rowing experience, was shortly afterwards heard screaming for
help. Fearing she was ill, Mrs. Jarvice ran to the room and
found the girl lying on the floor in a fit.
The maid never properly recovered, but from her rambling
statements it was inferred that her lamentable condition was
solely due to something very dreadful that she had seen in the
room. After this the room was kept locked, and no one ever
ventured within its precincts, till a friend of the Jarvices, a
Captain Raymond, who was engaged to one of the daughters,
hearing what had happened, begged to be allowed to sleep
there. He was so persistent that Mr. and Mrs. Jarvice finally
gave in to him, on condition, however, that some arrangement
was made by which he could summon aid if needed.
To this Raymond agreed, and it was decided that, in order
to let the family know that all was going well with him, he
should ring the bell by his bedside once every hour between
midnight and dawn; if, on the contrary, something amiss
should happen, and he should suddenly need help, he gave
his most solemn assurance he would ring the bell twice.
The chosen night arrived, and as the captain retired to the
room, the rest of the family, unknown to him, assembled to-
gether in the hall, no one daring to go to bed.
Very slowly the minutes passed away until midnight drew
near. Then from afar off came the slow and measured chimes
167
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
of the church clock. Simultaneous with the third stroke a
bell gave a single, solitary tinkle, and everyone expressed them-
selves immeasurably relieved.
Again there came a wait, and the minutes crept tediously
by with the family's nerves full stretched. Reassurance came
from one of the Jarvice boys, who disclosed that the captain
had in his possession a big service six-shooter; he had asked
that no one be told about this in case they should be scared and
fancy he might shoot someone with it.
Then suddenly all heard the bell. This time a clang, as if
it had been pulled violently, then a slight pause, a very faint
tinkle, and the loud crack of a revolver, after which silence.
Amid frenzied cries from the women a wild rush was made
for the stairs, Mr. Jarvice leading the way, candle in one hand
and poker in the other, to be joined en route by the servants,
who came running down from their quarters on the top land-
ing, with white and terrified faces.
On bursting into the room the family found Captain Ray-
mond shot dead by his own revolver.
What terrible thing had forced his hand?
'
1 68
WILL-O'-THE-WISP AND CORPSE CANDLES
One of the most familiar of 'ghosts' to us all, perhaps, is Will-
o'-the-wisp or Jack-a-Lantern.
Descriptions of this phenomenon vary. It is usually des-
cribed as resembling the light of a lantern, varying in colour;
sometimes leadenish blue, greenish or reddish, sometimes of
no distinct colour at all. It is said sometimes to hover about,
keeping close to the ground, while at other times it flits and
bounces about in the air, occasionally following people at a
distance.
According to one theory, Will-o'-the-wisp's 'haunting* is
confined to marshy places, but this cannot be true. I have
spent nights on marshy ground on Exmoor and Dartmoor and
have never seen it; nor have I met any people in those localities
who have seen it, so that the idea of it being just a marsh gas
is erroneous.
Will-o'-the-wisp has also been said to be similar to the Welsh
Canhywllau CyrchCorpse Candles but this is incorrect.
The corpse candles are invariably a portent of death, whereas
Will-o-the-wisp is of no specific significance.
Will-o'-the-wisp has also been likened to Ph3, phosphores-
cent hydrogen, a gas exuding from decaying vegetable and
carnal matter, said to be seen at times in cemeteries, to which
it is apparently chiefly confined. This gas is seemingly some-
times the colour of Will-o'-the-wisp, but that is about the only
peculiarity that the two have in common.
All gases have some heat and a characteristic smell but,
according to accounts of Will-o'-the-wisp, it is entirely with-
out heat or odour. In short, it is a baffling mystery, a pheno-
menon that has up to the present time never been satisfactorily
explained.
Turning to the traditional corpse candles of Wales, when
in various parts of Wales I have questioned people about these
169
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
phenomena but have never met anyone who has seen them,
though some have known people who have testified to seeing
them. Belief in the candles is still strong in certain localities.
The following account of them by the Rev. Mr. Davis is taken
from 'News from the Invisible World' by T. Charley, pub-
lished during the last century.
'We call them (the Canhywllau) candles because that light
doth resemble a material candle-light; saving that when one
comes near them they vanish; but presently appear again. If
it be a little candle, pale or bluish, then follows the corpse
either of an abortive, or some infant; if a big one, then the
corpse either of someone come of age; if there be seen two or
three or more, some big, some small, together, then so many
such corpses together. If two candles come from divers places,
and be seen to meet, the corpses will do the like; if any of these
candles be seen to turn, sometimes a little out of that leads to
the church, the following corpse will be found to turn in that
very place.
'When I was about fifteen years of age, living at Llanylar,
late at night, some neighbours saw one of these corpse candles
hovering up and down along the bank of the river until they
were weary in beholding; at last they left it so, and went to
bed. A few weeks after a damsel from Montgomeryshire came
to see her friends who lived on the other side of the Istwyth,
and thought to ford it at the place where the light was
seen; but being dissuaded by some lookers on (by reason of a
flood) she walked up and down along the bank, where the
aforesaid candle did, waiting for the falling of the waters,
which at last she took and was drowned.'
In a wild and retired district in North Wales the following
occurrence took place, to the great astonishment of the moun-
taineers (reported in 'Frazer's Magazine').
'We can vouch for the truth of the statement as many mem-
bers of our own Teutu, or clan, were witnesses of the fact. On
a dark evening, a few years ago, some persons with whom we
are well acquainted were returning to Barmouth on the south
or opposite side of the river. As they approached the ferry-
170
<
WILL-O'-THE-WISP AND CORPSE CANDLES
house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they
observed a light near the house, which they conjectured to be
produced by a bonfire, and greatly puzzled they were the
reason why it should have been lighted. As they came nearer,
however, it vanished and when they inquired at the house
respecting it, they were surprised to learn that not only the
people there displayed no light, but they had not even seen
one; nor could they perceive any sign of it on the sands.
'On reaching Barmouth the circumstance was mentioned,
and the fact corroborated by some of the people there, who had
also plainly and distinctly seen the lights.
'It was settled therefore by some of the old fishermen that
this was a "death-token"; and sure enough, the man who kept
the ferry at that time was drowned at high water a few nights
afterwards on the very spot where the light was seen. He was
landing from the boat when he fell into the water, and so
perished.
'The same winter the Barmouth people, as well as the in-
habitants of the opposite banks, were struck by the appearance
of a number of small lights, which were seen dancing in the
air at a place called Borthwyn, about a mile from the town. A
great number of people came out to see these lights and after
a while they all but one disappeared, and this one proceeded
slowly towards the water's edge, to a little bay where some
boats were moored. The men in a sloop, which was anchored
near the spot, saw the light advancingthey also saw it hover
for a few seconds over one particular boat and then totally
disappear. Two or three days afterwards, the man to whom
that particular boat belonged was drowned in the river, while
he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in that very boat. We
have narrated these facts just as they occurred.'
I have several other accounts of these phenomena, all of
them asserted to be authentic. Those who have seen them are
convinced they are prophetically supernatural, omens of com-
ing ill, only experienced by people of genuine old Welsh
extraction.
Then there is the phenomenon of the churchyard ghost.
171
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
Herbert Mayo, M.D., in his book 'Popular Superstitions' pub-
lished more than a hundred years ago quotes several cases of
phenomenal lights appearing in churchyards and other places
where people have been buried.
Here is one of the instances taken from 'Archives', a reliable
German book by P. Kieffer. The story was sent to Kieffer by
Herr Ehrman, who was told it by Herr Pfeffel, his father-in-
law.
A youth named Billing, who was a candidate for Orders,
had experienced sensorial illusions and was particularly sen-
sitive to the presence of human remains, which made him
tremble and shudder in all his limbs. Pfeffel, who was partly
or wholly blind, was in the habit of holding the arm of Billing
when taking a daily walk in his garden near Colmar.
At one spot in the garden Pfeffel felt Billing give a sudden
start, as if he had received an electric shock. He asked Billing
if anything was the matter. 'No, nothing,' Billing replied. But
on their going over the same spot again the same thing hap-
pened. Billing, now being pressed to explain the cause of it,
said that it arose from a peculiar sensation which he always
experienced when in the vicinity of human remains; that it
was his impression a human body must be interred there, but
that if Pfeffel would return with him at night he would be
able to speak with greater confidence.
Accordingly, they went together to the garden when it was
dark, and as they approached the spot Billing said he could see
a faint light over it. At ten paces from it he stopped and would
go no further, saying that he saw hovering over it, as if self-
supported in the air, its feet only a few inches from the ground,
a luminous female figure nearly five feet high, with the right
arm folded on her breast, the left hanging by her side. When
Pfeffel stepped forward and placed himself about where the
figure appeared to be, Billing declared it was now on his right
hand, now on his left, now behind, now before him. When
Pfeffel cut the air with his stick, it seemed as if it went through
and divided a light flame, which then united again. The ex-
periment was repeated the next night, in company with some
172
WILL-O -THE-WISP AND CORPSE CANDLES
of Pfeffel's relatives, and gave the same result. Only Billing
was conscious of the apparition, the others did not see any-
thing.
Pfeffel then, unknown to Billing, had the ground dug up,
when was found at some depth, beneath a layer of quick-lime,
a human body in progress of decomposition. The remains were
removed and the earth carefully replaced. Three days after-
wards Billing, from whom this whole proceeding had been
concealed, was again led to the spot by Pfeffel. He walked over
it without experiencing any unusual impression whatever.
Mayo, who was partly if not entirely a materialist, was seem-
ingly in accordance with Prof. Von Reichenbach, a German
scientist, who believed in what Mayo termed the Od force;
that is, a gas which is said to make itself visible as a dim light
or warning flame to highly sensitive subjects. Such persons,
according to Mayo and Reichenbach, see flames issuing from
the poles of magnets and crystal, one of the causes which
excites the evolution of the gas being chemical decomposition
:
in other words, decaying bodies of human beings.
Von Reichenbach experimented with a Miss Reichel in a
cemetery near Vienna. Wherever Miss Reichel looked she saw
masses of flame, which manifested mostly about recent graves.
She described the appearance of the lights as resembling less
bright flames than fiery vapour, something between fog and
flames, the lights rising to four feet above the ground. Miss
Reichel did not apparently feel any heat exuding from the
flames when she put her hand in them.
Von Reichenbach, who had learned about Pfeffel's experi-
ments with Billing, concluded that the luminant phenomena
Billing declared he had seen in Pfeffel's garden were due to
the same cause as those Miss Reichel said she saw in the
cemetery near Vienna. Pfeffel and Von Reichenbach appa-
rently believed that all ghosts said to be seen in churchyards
were due to this natural gas.
But were they? Are they? If due to a natural gas, how is it
more people have not seen them? It is more credible to believe
that these alleged luminary phenomena in cemeteries may be
173
THE SCREAMING SKULLS
due to the supernatural. I have seen no satisfactory explana-
tion yet stated as to why these ghostly lights should be ap-
parently restricted to places where dead humans are buried.
Why not dead animals? What hosts of these mysterious lights
would appear if they too were included I
Another luminant phenomenon is St. Elmo's Fire, a light
said to be seen at sea, especially in southern climates, often
during thunderstorms. Of a light resembling a kind of star,
it has appeared at the top of masts of ships, spires, other pointed
objects, on the tops of trees, on the manes of horses, even occa-
sionally on human heads.
Scientists, who of course believe all luminant phenomena
are due to a natural cause, believe that St. Elmo's Fire finds an
explanation in a rapid production of electricity. If this is so,
surely expert electricians could produce a St. Elmo's Fire on
any of the aforesaid objects. But have they ever done so?
I do not doubt that such lights have been seen, there is
ample evidence to prove that; but the theory that electricity
is the sole explanation of the phenomena does not seem to me
to be wholly satisfactory.
Like in the other true tales and legends we have seen, science
has so much to explain before we can even begin to enter the
province of the unknown.
174
also natl
m
GHOSTS
Authentic
Ghost Stories
of the World
Edited by
ELLIOTT
O'DONNELL
Whether or not you ac-
tually believe in ghosts you
will assuredly be astonished,
certainly amazed and per-
haps awestruck by the incred-
ible ghost stories in this book.
The supernatural fasci-
nates all who experience it
or read of its manifestations
and phenomena. It is per-
haps fair to say that most
countries of the world have
their superstitions and their
racial ghost stories and men
and women everywhere will
feel a sense of awe and a
little fear when reading or
listening to one of the ghost
stories of the remote past.
16s.
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