The Ghost World

Scotch sailors have their stories of phantom ships. Thus a spectral vessel – the ghostly bark of a bridal party maliciously wrecked – is said to appear in the Solway, always hovering near a ship that is doomed to be wrecked; and Cunningham250 has given a graphic account of two phantom pirate ships. The story goes that, for a time, two Danish pirates were permitted to perform wicked deeds on the deep, but were at last condemned to perish by wreck for the evil they had caused. On a certain night they were seen approaching the shore – the one crowded with people, and the other carrying on its deck a spectral shape. Then four young men put off in a boat that had been sent from one ship, to join her, but, on reaching the ship, both vessels sank where they were. On the anniversary of their wreck, and before a gale, these two vessels are supposed to approach the shore, and to be distinctly visible. A Highland legend records how a large ship – the ‘Rotterdam’ – which went down with all on board, is seen at times with her ghostly crew, a sure indication of disaster. But perhaps this superstition has been most firmly riveted in the popular mind by Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner,’ wherein an ominous sign is seen afar off prefiguring the death of himself and his comrades. It is a spectre ship in which Death and Life-in-Death play at dice for the possession of the crew – the latter winning the mariner.

Her lips were red, her looks were free,Her locks were yellow as gold;Her skin was white as leprosy,The night-mare Life-in-Death was she,Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

Stories of ghosts having appeared at sea have been told from early days, and have everywhere been a fruitful source of terror to sailors. But this is not surprising for, as Scot says,251 ‘innumerable are the reports of accidents unto such as frequent the seas, as fishermen and sailors, who discourse of noises, flashes, shadows, echoes, and other things, nightly seen or heard upon the waters.’ Brand,252 for instance, narrates an amusing tale of a sea ghost. The ship’s cook, who had one of his legs shorter than the other, died on a homeward passage and was buried at sea. A few nights afterwards his ghost was seen walking before the ship, and the crew were in a panic. It was found however that the cause of this alarm was part of a maintop, the remains of some wreck floating before them that simulated the dead man’s walk. On another occasion a ship’s crew fancied they had not only seen but ‘smelled’ a ghost – a piece of folly which so enraged the captain that he ordered the boatswain’s mate to give some of the sailors a dozen lashes, which entirely cleared the ship of the ghost during the remainder of the voyage. It was afterwards ascertained that the smell proceeded from a dead rat behind some beer-barrels. In the same way, many a ghost story might be explained which, proceeding from natural causes, has been the source of superstitious dread among the seafaring community. Cheever, in his ‘Sea and Sailor,’ referring to the credulity of sailors, says: ‘The sailor is a profound believer in ghosts. One of these nocturnal visitants was supposed to visit our ship. It was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could be made to turn in at night. You might have seen the most athletic, stout-hearted sailor on board, when called to take his night-watch aloft, glancing at the yards and tackling of the ship for the phantom. It was a long time, in the opinion of the crew, before the phantom left the ship.’ It may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott253 relates how the captain of an English ship was assured by the crew that the ghost of a murdered sailor, every night, visited the ship. So convinced were the sailors of the appearance of this phantom that they refused to sail, but the mystery was cleared up by the discovery of a somnambulist.

Occasionally, the ghost of a former captain is supposed to visit a vessel and to warn the crew of an approaching storm. Symondson in his ‘Two Years abaft the Mast’ records the appearance of such an apparition, at one time ‘to prescribe a change of course, at another, in wet and calm weather, quietly seated in his usual place on the poop deck.’254 Sometimes similar warnings have come from other sources. Thus a curious occurrence is told by Mary Howitt, which happened in 1664 to Captain Rogers, R.N., who was in command of the ‘Society,’ a vessel bound from England to Virginia. The story goes that ‘he was heading in for the capes, and was, as he reckoned, after heaving the lead, three hundred miles from them. A vision appeared to him in the night, telling him to turn out, and look about. He did so, found all alert, and retired again. The vision appeared again, and told him to heave the lead. He arose, caused the lead to be cast, and found but seven fathoms. Greatly frightened, he tacked ship, and the daylight showed him to be under the capes, instead of two hundred miles at sea.’255 With this story may be compared a mysterious story told in the ‘Chicago Times’ of March, 1885.

It appears that, as two men had fallen from the topmast head of a lake-vessel, the rumour spread that the ship was an unlucky one. Accordingly, writes one of the crew, ‘on its arrival at Buffalo, the men went on shore as soon as they were paid off. They said the ship had lost her luck. While we were discharging at the elevator, the story got round, and some of the grain-trimmers refused to work on her. Even the mate was affected by it. At last we got ready to sail for Cleveland, where we were to load coal. The captain managed to get a crew by going to a crimp, who ran them in, fresh from salt water. They came on board two-thirds drunk, and the mate was steering them into the forecastle, when one of them stopped and said, pointing aloft, “What have you got a figurehead on the mast for?” The mate looked up and then turned pale. “It’s Bill,” he said, and with that the whole lot jumped on to the dock. I didn’t see anything, but the mate told the captain to look for another officer. The captain was so much affected that he put me on another schooner, and then shipped a new crew, and sailed for Cleveland. He never got there. He was sunk by a steamer off Dunkirk.’

Another curious phantom warning to sailors seen in years gone by was the ‘Hooper,’ or the ‘Hooter,’ of Sennen Cove, Cornwall. This was supposed to be a spirit which took the form of a band of misty vapour, stretching across the bay, so opaque that nothing could be seen through it. According to Mr. Hunt,256 ‘it was regarded as a kindly interposition of some ministering spirit, to warn the fisherman against venturing to sea. This appearance was always followed, and often suddenly, by a severe storm. It is seldom or never now seen. One profane old fisherman would not be warned by the bank of fog, and, as the weather was fine on the shore, he persuaded some young men to join him. They manned a boat, and the aged leader, having with him a threshing-flail, declared that he would drive the spirit away, and he vigorously beat the fog with the “threshel,” as the flail is called. The boat passed through the fog, and went to sea, but a severe storm arose, and no one ever saw the boat or the men again, since which time the “Hooper” has been rarely seen.’ Similarly a mist over the river Cymal, in Wales, is thought to be the spirit of a traitoress, who lost her life in the lake close by. Tradition says she had conspired with pirates to rob her lord of his domain, and was defeated by an enchanter.257

But sailors’ yarns are so proverbially remarkable that the reader must estimate their value for himself, not forgetting how large a factor in their production is the imagination, worked upon by nervous credulity and superstitious fear, a striking instance of which is recorded by a correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine:’ ‘My friend, Captain Mott, R.N., used frequently to repeat an anecdote of a seaman under his command. This individual, who was a good sailor and a brave man, suffered much trouble and anxiety from his superstitious fears. When on the night watch, he would see sights and hear noises in the rigging and the deep, which kept him in a perpetual fever of alarm. One day the poor fellow reported upon deck that the devil, whom he knew by his horns and cloven foot, stood by the side of his hammock the preceding night, and told him that he had only three days to live. His messmates endeavoured to remove his despondency by ridicule, but without effect; and the next morning he told the tale to Captain Mott, with this addition, that the fiend had paid him a second nocturnal visit, announcing a repetition of the melancholy tidings. The captain in vain expostulated with him on the folly of indulging such groundless apprehensions; and the morning of the fatal day being exceedingly stormy, the man, with many others, was ordered to the topmast to perform some duty among the rigging. Before he ascended he bade his messmates farewell, telling them that he had received a third warning from the devil, and that he was confident he should be dead before night. He went aloft with the foreboding of evil on his mind, and in less than five minutes he lost his hold, fell upon the deck, and was killed on the spot.’

CHAPTER XXII

PHANTOM DRESS

According to a popular ghost doctrine, the spirits of the departed ‘generally come in their habits as they lived,’ and as George Cruikshank once remarked,258 ‘there is no difference in this respect between the beggar and the king.’ For they come —

Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in silken gowns.

And he adds that all narrators agree that ‘the spirits appear in similar or the same dresses which they were accustomed to wear during their lifetime, so exactly alike that the ghost-seer could not possibly be mistaken as to the identity of the individual.’ Horatio, describing the ghost to Hamlet, says —

A figure like your father,Armed at all points, exactly cap-à-pé.

And it is further stated that the ghost was armed ‘from top to toe,’ ‘from head to foot,’ that ‘he wore his beaver up;’ and when Hamlet sees his father’s spirit he exclaims —

What may this mean,That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon?

It is the familiar dress worn in lifetime that is, in most cases, one of the distinguishing features of the ghost, and when Sir George Villiers wanted to give a warning to his son, the Duke of Buckingham, his spirit appeared to one of the duke’s servants ‘in the very clothes he used to wear.’ Mrs. Crowe,259 some years ago, gave an account of an apparition which appeared at a house in Sarratt, Hertfordshire. It was that of a well-dressed gentleman, in a blue coat and bright gilt buttons, but without a head. It seems that this was reported to be the ghost of a poor man of that neighbourhood who had been murdered, and whose head had been cut off. He could, therefore, only be recognised by his ‘blue coat and bright gilt buttons.’ Indeed, many ghosts have been nicknamed from the kinds of dress in which they have been in the habit of appearing. Thus the ghost at Allanbank was known as ‘Pearlin Jean,’ from a species of lace made of thread which she wore; and the ‘White Lady’ at Ashley Hall – like other ghosts who have borne the same name – from the white drapery in which she presented herself. Some lady ghosts have been styled ‘Silky,’ from the rustling of their silken costume, in the wearing of which they have maintained the phantom grandeur of their earthly life. There was the ‘Silky’ at Black Heddon who used to appear in silken attire, oftentimes ‘rattling in her silks’; and the spirit of Denton Hall – also termed ‘Silky’ – walks about in a white silk dress of antique fashion. This last ‘Silky’ ‘was thought to be the ghost of a lady who was mistress to the profligate Duke of Argyll in the reign of William III., and died suddenly, not without suspicion of murder, at Chirton, near Shields – one of his residences. The “Banshee of Loch Nigdal,” too, was arrayed in a silk dress, green in colour. These traditions date from a period when silk was not in common use, and therefore attracted notice in country places.’260 Some years ago a ghost appeared at Hampton Court,261 habited in a black satin dress with white kid gloves. The ‘White Lady of Skipsea’ makes her midnight serenades clothed in long white drapery. Lady Bothwell, who haunted the mansion of Woodhouselee, always appeared in white; and the apparition of the mansion of Houndwood, in Berwickshire – bearing the name of ‘Chappie’ – is clad in silk attire.

One of the ghosts seen at the celebrated Willington Mill was that of a female in greyish garments. Sometimes she was said to be wrapped in a sort of mantle, with her head depressed and her hands crossed on her lap. Walton Abbey had its headless lady who used to haunt a certain wainscotted chamber, dressed in blood-stained garments, with her infant in her arms; and, in short, most of the ghosts that have tenanted our country-houses have been noted for their distinctive dress.

Daniel de Foe, in his ‘Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions,’ has given many minute details as to the dress of a ghost. He tells a laughable and highly amusing story of some robbers who broke into a mansion in the country, and, whilst ransacking one of the rooms, they saw, in a chair, ‘a grave, ancient man, with a long full-bottomed wig, and a rich brocaded gown,’ &c. One of the robbers threatened to tear off his ‘rich brocaded gown’; another hit at him with a firelock, and was alarmed at seeing it pass through the air; and then the old man ‘changed into the most horrible monster that ever was seen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red hot.’ The same apparition encountered them in different rooms, and at last the servants, who were at the top of the house, throwing some ‘hand grenades’ down the chimneys of these rooms, the thieves were dispersed. Without adding further stories of this kind, which may be taken for what they are worth, it is a generally received belief in ghost lore that spirits are accustomed to appear in the dresses which they wore in their lifetime – a notion credited from the days of Pliny the Younger to the present day.

But the fact of ghosts appearing in earthly raiment has excited the ridicule of many philosophers, who, even admitting the possibility of a spiritual manifestation, deny that there can be the ghost of a suit of clothes. George Cruikshank, too, who was no believer in ghosts, sums up the matter thus: ‘As it is clearly impossible for spirits to wear dresses made of the materials of the earth, we should like to know if there are spiritual outfitting shops for the clothing of ghosts who pay visits on earth.’ Whatever the objections may be to the appearance of ghosts in human attire, they have not hitherto overthrown the belief in their being seen thus clothed, and Byron, describing the ‘Black Friar’ who haunted the cloisters and other parts of Newstead Abbey, tells us that he was always

arrayedIn cowl, and beads, and dusky garb.

Indeed, as Dr. Tylor remarks,262 ‘it is an habitual feature of the ghost stories of the civilised, as of the savage, world, that the ghost comes dressed, and even dressed in well-known clothing worn in life.’ And he adds that the doctrine of object-souls is held by the Algonquin tribes, the islanders of the Fijian group, and the Karens of Burmah – it being supposed that not only men and beasts have souls, but inorganic things. Thus, Mariner describing the Fijian belief, writes: ‘If a stone or any other substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men, and hogs, and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the service of the gods. The Fijians can further show you a sort of natural well, or deep hole in the ground, at one of their islands, across the bottom of which runs a stream of water, in which you may clearly see the souls of men and women, beasts and plants, stocks and stones, canoes and horses, and of all the broken utensils of this frail world, swimming, or rather tumbling along, one over the other, pell-mell, into the regions of immortality.’263 As it has been observed, animistic conceptions of this kind are no more irrational than the popular idea prevalent in civilised communities as to spirits appearing in all kinds of garments.

CHAPTER XXIII

HAUNTED HOUSES

A jolly place, said he, in days of old,But something ails it now: the spot is curst.Wordsworth.

A variety of strange causes, such as secret murder, acts of treachery, unatoned crime, buried treasures, and such-like incidents belonging to the seamy side of family history, have originated, at one time or another, the ghostly stories connected with so many a house throughout the country. Robert Browning has graphically described the mysteries of a haunted house:

At night, when doors are shut,And the wood-worm picks,And the death-watch ticks,And the bar has a flag of smut,And a cat’s in the water-butt —And the socket floats and flares,And the house-beams groan,And a foot unknownIs surmised on the garret stairs,And the locks slip unawares.

Although in some cases centuries have elapsed since a certain house became haunted, and several generations have come and passed away, still, with ceaseless persistency, the restless spirit hovers about in all kinds of uncanny ways, reminding us of Hood’s romance of ‘The Haunted House.’

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,The place is haunted!

Corby Castle, Cumberland, was famous for its ‘Radiant Boy;’ Peel Castle had its ‘Mauthe Doog;’ and Dobb Park Lodge was noted for ‘the Talking Dog.’ Cortachy Castle, the seat of the Earl of Airlie, is noted for its ‘Drummer;’ and a noted Westmoreland ghost was that of the ‘bad Lord Lonsdale,’ locally known as Jemmy Lowther, which created much alarm at Lowther Hall; but of recent years this miscreant spirit has been silent, having, it is said, been laid for ever under a large rock called Wallow Crag. Strange experiences were associated with Hinton Ampner Manor House, Hampshire,264 and when, in 1797, it was pulled down, ‘under the floor of the lobby was found a box containing bones, and what was said to be the skull of a monkey. No regular inquiry was made into the matter, and no professional opinion was ever sought as to the real character of the relic.’ Wyecoller Hall, near Colne, is visited once a year by a spectre horseman; and some years ago Hackwood House, an old mansion near Basingstoke, purchased from Lord Bolton by Lord Westbury, was said to have its haunted room, the phantom assuming the appearance of a woman clothed in grey. Ramhurst Manor House, Kent, was disturbed by weird and mysterious noises, and at Barton Hall, Bath, in 1868, a phantom is said to have appeared, displaying a human countenance, but devoid of eyes.

Allanbank, a seat of the Stuarts – a family of Scotch baronets, has long been haunted by ‘Pearlin Jean,’ one of the most remarkable ghosts in Scotland. On one occasion, seven ministers were called in to lay this restless spirit, but to no purpose. Creslow Manor House, Buckinghamshire, has its ghost, and Glamis Castle has its famous ‘Haunted Room,’ which, it is said, was walled up. At Hilton Castle there was the time-honoured ‘Cold Lad,’ which Surtees would lead us to suppose was one of the household spirits known as ‘Brownies.’ But, according to one local legend, in years gone by a servant-boy was ill-treated and kept shut up in a cupboard, and is supposed to have received the name of ‘Cold Lad’ from his condition when discovered. Sundry apparitions seem to have been connected with Newstead Abbey, one being that of ‘Sir John Byron the Little, with the Great Beard,’ who was wont to promenade the state apartments at night. But the most dreaded spectre was the ‘Goblin Friar,’ previously alluded to, who —

appeared,Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard.

This strange, weird spectre has been thought to forebode evil to the member of the family to whom it appears, and its uncanny movements have been thus pictured by the poet:

By the marriage-bed of their lords, ’tis said,He flits on the bridal eve;And ’tis held as faith, to their bed of deathHe comes – but not to grieve.When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn,And when aught is to befallThat ancient line, in the pale moonshineHe walks from hall to hall.His form you may trace, but not his face,’Tis shadowed by his cowl;But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,And they seem of a parted soul.

Holland House has had the reputation of being haunted by the spirit of the first Lord Holland; and, in 1860, there was published in ‘Notes and Queries,’ by the late Edmund Lenthal Swifte, Keeper of the Crown Jewels, the account of a spectral illusion witnessed by himself in the Tower. He says that in October, 1817, he was at supper with his wife, her sister, and his little boy, in the sitting-room of the jewel-house. To quote his own words: ‘I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife, when, on putting it to her lips, she exclaimed, “Good God! what is that?” I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and the table; its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure. This lasted about two minutes, when it began to move before my sister-in-law; then, following the oblong side of the table, before my son and myself, passing behind my wife, it paused for a moment over her right shoulder. Instantly crouching down, and with both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, “O Christ! it has seized me!” It was ascertained,’ adds Mr. Swifte, ‘that no optical action from the outside could have produced any manifestation within, and hence the mystery has remained unsolved.’ Speaking of the Tower, we learn from the same source how ‘one of the night sentries at the jewel-office was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from underneath the jewel-room door. He thrust at it with his bayonet which stuck in the door. He dropped in a fit and was carried senseless to the guardroom… In another day or two the brave and steady soldier died at the presence of a shadow.’ Windsor Castle, as report goes, was haunted by the ghost of Sir George Villiers, who appeared to an officer in the king’s wardrobe and warned him of the approaching fate of the Duke of Buckingham.265

According to Johnson, the ‘Old Hummums’ was the scene of the ‘best accredited ghost story’ that he had ever heard, the spirit of a Mr. Ford, said to have been the riotous parson of Hogarth’s ‘Midnight Conversation,’ having appeared to a waiter; and Boswell, alluding to a conversation which took place at Mr. Thrale’s house, Streatham, between himself and Dr. Johnson, thus writes: ‘A waiter at the Hummums, in which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, he met him; going down again, he met him a second time. When he came up he asked some of the people of the house what Ford could be doing there. They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a fever, and when he recovered he said he had a message from Ford to deliver to some women, but he was not to tell what, or to whom. He walked out, he was followed, but somewhere about St. Paul’s they lost him. He came back, and said he had delivered the message, and the women exclaimed, “Then we are all undone.”’ There is the so-called ‘Mystery of Berkeley Square,’ No. 50 having been reputed to be haunted. But a long correspondence on the subject in the pages of ‘Notes and Queries’ proved this to be a fallacy, the rumour, it would seem, having arisen from ‘its neglected condition when empty, and the habits of the melancholy and solitary hypochondriac when occupied by him.’ Lord Lyttelton, however, wrote in ‘Notes and Queries’ of November 16, 1872, thus: ‘It is quite true that there is a house in Berkeley Square (No. 50) said to be haunted, and long unoccupied on that account. There are strange stories about it, into which this deponent cannot enter.’ What these strange stories were may be gathered from ‘Mayfair’ of May 10, 1879 – an interesting illustration of how rapidly legendary stories spring up on little or no basis. ‘The house in Berkeley Square contains at least one room of which the atmosphere is supernaturally fatal to body and mind. A girl saw, heard, and felt such horror in it that she went mad, and never recovered sanity enough to tell how or why. A gentleman, a disbeliever in ghosts, dared to sleep in it, and was found a corpse in the middle of the floor, after practically ringing for help in vain. Rumour suggests other cases of the same kind, all ending in death, madness, or both, as the result of sleeping, or trying to sleep, in that room. The very party walls of the house, when touched, are found saturated with electric horror. It is uninhabited, save by an elderly man and woman who act as caretakers; but even these have no access to the room. That is kept locked, the key being in the hands of a mysterious and seemingly nameless person, who comes to the house once every six months, locks up the elderly couple in the basement, and then unlocks the room and occupies himself in it for hours.’