Part 15

An Unwelcome Travelling Companion

A MOST weird experience I once had made me less cynical about ghosts. I travelled regularly by the 8:30 a.m. train to the town where I worked, and the train was usually crowded with business people. I soon began to notice that one compartment was always empty, but for no apparent reason. One morning, arriving at the last minute, I climbed into the deserted carriage as the whistle sounded. I settled down to a book and gave no thought to my solitude. The train had been travelling some minutes when I was disturbed by a slight noise which sounded like subdued sobbing. It was not a corridor train, so I could only explore beneath the seats, but found nothing there. I eventually put it down to the noise of the engine, but, as the train gathered speed, the noise became distinct from any other sound and seemed to get louder and more plaintive. The thought of the coming tunnel made my heart beat quickly. The sobbing stopped before we reached the tunnel, however, but, as the overpowering darkness engulfed the carriage, I had a ghastly sensation of being choked. This lasted for at least two minutes. I tried to cry out, but, perhaps from sheer fright, no sound came from my throat. As we steamed out of the tunnel, the sobbing re-started, but, after a while, panted itself into silence, which seemed to my now hysterical nerves more terrible than the wailing noise itself. I practically tottered out of that train on reaching my destination, and was not surprised to learn afterwards that there had been a suicide in that compartment which accounted for the passengers avoiding it.

The Black Dog of the Cotswolds

WEST-COUNTRYMEN are very sensitive to ridicule. That is why a stranger might inquire from Bath to Bredon without obtaining a single admission concerning the Black Dog of the Cotswolds. But let him live amongst us; let him gain our confidence, and he may interview witnesses by the dozen. Few, indeed, have met the creature face to face, though many claim a distant glimpse, and it would be hard to find a shepherd past middle-age who had not come upon the foot-prints of the phantom, starting from nowhere and leading nowhere, in the early morning snow. Always in the snow he comes and always by moonlight. It is now some three years since old Dick Slingbraces passed to rest, leaving the following story to perpetuate his memory.

“Dogs or foxes had been making havoc with the early lambs,” said he; “and one February night I took my gun to watch for the varmints in the lee of the sheeppens, there being mebbe an inch of snow on the land. The east wind was like a knife from the grindstone, with clouds racing past the moon well on in her second quarter. I might have closed my eyes for a second or two with the cold, and when I opened them, sir, there he stood not thirty yards away—a coal-black hound bigger than a prize ram, and of no breed on earth. I knew him in an instant—the Black Dog of the Wolds. Now you don’t shoot a dog until he takes a lamb if you want the law on your side, but, fearing for my life, I pointed my gun at him—and he vanished to nowhere. I dropped the muzzle and, all of a shake, I peeped over my shoulder, only to see him behind me, the moonlight striking into his eyes like blue flames. With a choking, dizzy feeling I screwed my old gums together and up with my gun again—and again he vanished. Ay, and again he was behind me. How long he played with me in this fashion I don’t recollect, but, in the end, the gun went off of itself, and the next thing my grandson George, was helping me up and asking me if I felt better. And being three-score and ten, the following week I put by my crook and took to my old age pension. They say,” added the old shepherd, “he mostly comes as a warning that ‘tis time to retire; but I will mention that morning showed the snow trampled like a fold-yard, but never a print beyond the boundary wall.”

It Happened in Ireland

MANY years ago, I used to visit a brother and sister-in-law living in a rambling old house in Ireland. Nightly, the household would gather in the dining-room for prayers, after which we retired to our rooms—the maids to their quarters at the far end of the house—my brother and sister-in-law would leave me at my door and then pass down the corridor to their own room.

I am usually a sound sleeper. Nevertheless, midnight would find me awake listening to the ructions in the dining-room below—the click, click of glasses and decanters, excited voices, doors opening, banging—after a little while, silence. On the first occasion I asked my brother why he made so much unnecessary noise at midnight. He looked troubled and simply remarked that he had not gone downstairs again. I tackled my sister-in-law, but all to no purpose. Deciding that they were indulging in drinking bouts on the sly, I said no more.

One night, however, feeling very tired and unable to sleep because of the noise, I was furious and decided to see for myself what my relations were up to. I slipped on my dressing-gown and slippers and made for my door; but not before the handle was turned violently and, although in total darkness, I could feel a current of air from the open door (I always locked it before retiring). Then a tremendous “Force” seemed to be pushing me backwards towards the bed, where, conscious of another “presence” in the room, I fell back exhausted.

My brother and sister-in-law listened attentively to the recital of the previous night’s happenings, expressed their regret for so disturbed a night, and advised me to forget all about it.

Not a little chagrined at their reticence, I resolved to return home at once.

On the way to the station, I met the clergyman—a very intellectual man—who happened to be a frequent visitor at the house. I related the midnight happenings, my surmise, and, lastly, the unaccountable experience of the previous night. I quite expected him to pooh-pooh the whole thing. Instead, he looked very grave, said that in olden times the surrounding hills were infested by a band of particularly murderous brigands who made that house their occasional headquarters. Men were decoyed, robbed and disposed of within its gates. “And,” he ended, “we can but pray and hope that the poor, unquiet spirits may be granted a final resting-place. Do not, my child, make it a subject of idle gossip.”

A School Teacher's Story

SOME years ago, I, along with a sister ten years older than myself, was teaching in a Midland town. We had the greatest difficulty in obtaining rooms, no one seemed to want lady teachers. At last we succeeded, but not to our liking, as the house was old and gloomy and the landlady of a very saturnine countenance. We found she and her daughter were the only other occupants of the house.

As it was winter time, we asked if she had an attic where we could store our bikes. We were told that there was no attic.

We were nightly disturbed by strange sounds as of someone going up and down stairs and raking the fire—this, after the landlady and her daughter had retired hours before. When questioned, the landlady only replied that the house was old and creaky.

I was eighteen and full of ghosts, but my sister was of the cool unimaginative kind and not in the least nervy. She was constantly reassuring me that everything was all right, but I knew she thought different, as she never left me alone, and we always went up stairs together, even in the day time.

Our bedroom looked out on to the river, and the Midland railway ran between.

A chest of drawers stood in one corner, and one of the drawers was full of papers, which the landlady informed us were left by a previous boarder who had occupied our rooms, and promised to return for them. Several were legal-looking documents, and the rest a mass of old correspondence.

One day, as I was leaving the bath-room, a gleam of winter sunshine revealed an opening in the panelling opposite. On looking I saw a stair and a tray at the bottom with the remains of a meal. I immediately brought my sister. To say we were amazed is putting it mildly, after our landlady’s denial of an attic. We felt this had been the repast of our nightly disturber, but did not mention it to the landlady.

A few nights after, there was a singular happening. I awoke in the early hours to find my sister sitting up in bed. I drowsily asked her if she was ill, but she answered rather abruptly and told me to go to sleep. I was roused by her manner and sat up trying to peer into her face. After much questioning, she said: “There has been a man in this room.” Although I was terrified, I tried to laugh and say “That is impossible as our door is locked and bolted.”

My thoughts had gone to the occupant of the attic. She said: “This was no human visitor; he went over to the chest and examined the papers, and then came and leaned over the bed in a grief-stricken attitude.” She was so calm whilst telling it and described the man as very tall and slightly bent, with a sad face and iron-grey hair.

Needless to add, we prayed for daylight and got to school as early as possible, where our ghost caused great excitement, the other teachers giving credence to the story, coming from my sister and not my imaginative self.

On returning to our rooms for lunch, the landlady came in with a newspaper and pointed out a paragraph giving an account of a man being cut to pieces on the railway just at the back of the house. She said, “He had your rooms Miss, and those were his papers.” My sister said he was a tall man and went on to give the landlady a description of our midnight visitor. She said: “Why, Miss, did you know him,” and then my sister told her the story. She said it was an exact likeness of the man who had always promised to return for the papers. That explains our ghostly visitor. We made a hasty exit that same day.

Weeks after, we heard of the police raiding the house and capturing an escaped prisoner. It was the landlady’s husband, and she had had him in hiding all those weeks. That explained the tread on the stairs and the raking of the fire when the prisoner escaped from his attic hiding.

OTHER STORIES OF HAUNTED HOUSES

A MAGISTRATE’S STORY

THIS comes from a Justice of the Peace in the Western Counties: