Chapter III: Horses and the Unknown (1)

As in my chapters on cats and dogs, I will preface this chapter on horses with instances of alleged haunted localities.

I take my first case from Mr. W.T. Stead's _Real Ghost Stories_, published in 1891. It is called "A Weird Story from the Indian Hills," and Mr. Stead preludes it thus: The "tale is told by General Barter, C.B., of Careystown, Whitegate, Co. Cork. At the time he witnessed the spectral cavalcade he was living on the hills in India, and when one evening he was returning home he caught sight of a rider and attendants coming towards him. The rest of the story, given in the General's own words, is as follows:--

"At this time the two dogs came, and, crouching at my side, gave low, frightened whimpers. The moon was at the full--a tropical moon--so bright that you could see to read a newspaper by its light, and--I saw the party before me advance as plainly as it were noon day. They were above me some eight or ten feet on the bridle-road, the earth thrown down from which sloped to within a pace or two of my feet. On the party came, until almost in front of me, and now I had better describe them. The rider was in full dinner dress, with white waistcoat, and wearing a tall chimney-pot hat, and he sat a powerful hill pony (dark brown, with mane and tail) in a listless sort of way, the reins hanging loosely from both hands. A Syce led the pony on each side, but their faces I could not see, the one next to me having his back to me and the one farthest off being hidden by the pony's head. Each held the bridle close by the bit, the man next me with his right and the other with his left hand, and the hands were on the thighs of the rider, as if to steady him in his seat. As they approached, I knowing they could not get to any place other than my own, called out in Hindustani, 'Quon hai?' (Who is it?). There was no answer, and on they came until right in front of me, when I said, in English, 'Hullo, what the d----l do you want here?' Instantly the group came to a halt, the rider gathering the bridle reins up in both hands, turned his face, which had hitherto been looking away from me, towards me, and looked down upon me. The group was still as in a tableau, with the bright moon shining upon it, and I at once recognized the rider as Lieutenant B., whom I had formerly known. The face, however, was different from what it used to be; in the place of being clean-shaven, as when I used to know it, it was now surrounded by a fringe (what used to be known as a Newgate fringe), and it was the face of a dead man, the ghastly waxen pallor of it brought out more distinctly in the moonlight by the dark fringe of hair by which it was encircled; the body, too, was much stouter than when I had known it in life.

"I marked this in a moment; and then resolved to lay hold of the thing, whatever it might be. I dashed up the bank, and the earth which had been thrown on the side giving under my feet, I fell forward up the bank on my hands, recovering myself instantly. I gained the road, and stood in the exact spot where the group had been, but which was now vacant, there was not the trace of anything; it was impossible for them to go on, the road stopped at a precipice about twenty yards further on, and it was impossible to turn and go back in a second. All this flashed through my mind, and I then ran along the road for about 100 yards, along which they had come, until I had to stop for want of breath, but there was no trace of anything, and not a sound to be heard. I then returned home, where I found my dogs, who, on all other occasions my most faithful companions, had not come with me along the road.

"Next morning I went up to D., who belonged to the same regiment as B., and gradually induced him to talk of him. I said, 'How very stout he had become lately, and what possessed him to allow his beard to grow with that horrid fringe?' D. replied, 'Yes, he became very bloated before his death. You know he led a very fast life, and while on the sick list he allowed the fringe to grow, in spite of all that we could say to him, and I believe he was buried with it.' I asked him where he got the pony I had seen, describing it minutely. 'Why,' said D., 'how do you know anything about all this? You hadn't seen B. for two or three years, and the pony you never saw. He bought him at Peshawur, and killed him one day riding in his reckless fashion down the hill to Trete.' I then told him what I had seen the night before.

"Once, when the galloping sound was very distinct, I rushed to the door of my house. There I found my Hindoo bearer, standing with a tattie in his hand. I asked him what he was there for. He said that there came a sound of riding down the hill, and 'passed him like a typhoon,' and went round the corner of the house, and he was determined to waylay it, whatever it was."

In commenting on the case, Mr. Stead remarks, "That such a story as this, gravely told by a British General in the present day, helps us to understand how our ancestors came to believe in the wonderful story of Herne the Hunter." I do not know about Herne the Hunter, but it is at all events good testimony that horses as well as men have spirits, for one of the ghosts the General saw was, undoubtedly, that of the pony murdered by B. Why it was still ridden by the phantom of its former master is another question.

The next case I narrate is also taken from Mr. Stead's same work. It was sent him by one of the leading townsmen of Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, and runs thus:--

"On a fine evening in April, 1859, the writer was riding with a friend on a country road. Twilight was closing down on us, when, after a silence of some minutes, my friend suddenly exclaimed:

"'No man knows me better than you do, J. Do you think I am a nervous, easily frightened sort of man?'

"'Far from it,' said I, 'among all the men I know in the wild country I have lived and worked in, I know none more fearless or of more unhesitating nerve.'

"'Well,' said he, 'I think I am that, too, and though I have travelled these roads all sorts of hours, summer and winter, for twenty years, I never met anything to startle me, or that I could not account for, until last Monday evening. About this time it was. Riding old Fan' (a chestnut mare) 'here on this cross-' (a four-way cross) 'road, on my near side was a man on a grey horse, coming from this left-hand road. I had to pull my off-rein to give myself room to pass ahead of him; he was coming at a right angle to me. As I passed the head of the horse I called out "Good night." Hearing no reply, I turned in my saddle to the off-side, to see whether he appeared to be asleep as he rode, but to my surprise I saw neither man nor horse. So sure was I that I had seen such, that I wheeled old Fan round, and rode back to the middle of the cross, and on neither of the four roads could I see a man or horse, though there was light enough to see two hundred or three hundred yards, as we can now. Well, I then rode over that gate' (a gate at one corner opening into a grass field), 'thinking he might have gone that way; looking down by each hedge, I could see nothing of my man and horse; and then--and not until then--I felt myself thrill and start with a shuddering sense that I had seen something uncanny, and, Jove! I put the mare down this hill we are on now at her very best pace. But the strangest part of my story is to come,' said he, continuing.

"'After I had done my business at the farmhouse here, at foot of this hill, I told the old farmer and his wife what I had seen, as I have now told you. The old man said:

"'"For many years I have known thee, M----, on this road, and have you never seen the like before on that cross?"

"'"Seen what before?" I said.

"'"Why, a man in light-coloured clothes on a grey horse," said he.

"'"No, never," said I, "but I swear I have this evening."

"'The farmer asked, "Had I never heard of what happened to the Miller of L---- Mills about forty years ago?"

"'"No, never a word," I told him.

"'"Well," he said, "about forty years ago this miller, returning from market, was waylaid and murdered on that cross-road, pockets rifled of money and watch. The horse ran home, about a mile away. Two serving-men set out with lanterns and found their master dead. He was dressed, as millers often do in this part of the country, in light-coloured clothes, and the horse was a grey horse. The murderers were never found. These are facts," continued the farmer. "I took this farm soon after it all happened, and, though I have known all this, and have passed over that cross several thousands of times, I never knew anything unusual there myself, but there have been a number of people who tell the same story you have told mother and me, M----, and describe the appearance as you have done to us to-night."'"

Mr. Stead goes on to add: "Four evenings after all this occurred my friend related it to me as we were riding along the same road. He continued to pass there many times every year for ten years, but never a day saw anything of that sort."

My next case, a reproduction of a letter in the _Occult Review_ of September, 1906, reads thus:--

"_A Phantom Horse and Rider--Mrs. Gaskin Anderston's Story_

"The following story is, I think, very remarkable, and I give it exactly as it was told to me, and written down at the time.

"A number of members of a gentleman's club were talking and discussing, amongst other subjects, the possibility of there being a future state for animals. One of the members said:

"'I firmly believe there is. In my early youth I had a practice as a medical man in one of the Midland Counties. One of my patients was a very wealthy man, who owned large tracts of land and had a stud composed entirely of bay horses with black points--this was a hobby of his, and he would never have any others. One day a messenger came summoning me to Mr. L----, as he had just met with a very bad accident, and was on the point of death. I mounted my horse and started off without delay. As I was riding through the front gates to the house, I heard a shot, and to my amazement the very man I was going to visit rode past at a furious pace, riding a wretched-looking chestnut with one white forefoot and a white star on its forehead. Arrived at the house the butler said:

"'"He has gone, sir; they had to shoot the horse--you would hear the shot--and at the same moment my master died."

"'He had had this horse sent on approval; whilst riding it, it backed over a precipice, injuring Mr. L---- fatally, and on being taken to the stables it was found necessary to shoot it.'--Alpha."

The next case I append (I published it in a weekly journal some years ago) was related to me by a Captain Beauclerk.

_The White Horse of Eastover_

When I came down to breakfast one morning I found amongst several letters awaiting me one from Colonel Onslow, the Commanding Officer of my regiment when I first joined. He had always been rather partial to me, and the friendship between us continued after his retirement. I heard from him regularly at more or less prolonged intervals, and either at Christmas or Easter invariably received an invitation to spend a few days with him. On this occasion he was most anxious that I should accept.

"Do come to us for Easter," he wrote. "I am sure this place will interest you--it is haunted."

The cunning fellow! He knew I was very keen on Psychical Research work, and would go almost anywhere on the bare chance of seeing a ghost.

At that time I was quite open-minded, I had arrived at no definite conclusion as to the existence or non-existence of ghosts. But to tell the truth, I doubted very much if the Colonel's word, in these circumstances, could be relied upon. I had grave suspicions that this "haunting" was but an invention for the purpose of getting me to Eastover. However, as it was just possible that I might be mistaken--that there really was a ghost, and as I had not seen Colonel Onslow for a long time, and indulged in feelings of the warmest regard both for him and his wife, I resolved to go.

Accordingly I set out early in the afternoon of the Good Friday. The weather, which had been muggy in London, grew colder and colder the further we advanced along the line, and by the time we reached Eastover there was every prospect of a storm.

As I expected, a closed carriage had been sent to meet me; for the Colonel, carrying conservatism--with more conservatism than sense, perhaps--to a fine point, cherished a deep-rooted aversion to innovations of any sort, and consequently abhorred motors. His house, Eastover Hall, is three miles from the station, and lies at the foot of a steep spine of the Chilterns.

The grounds of Eastover Hall were extensive; but, in the ordinary sense, far from beautiful. To me, however, they were more than beautiful; there was a grandeur in them--a grandeur that appealed to me far more than mere beauty--the grandeur of desolation, the grandeur of the Unknown. As we passed through the massive iron gates of the lodge, I looked upon countless acres of withered, undulating grass; upon a few rank sedges; upon a score or so of decayed trees; upon a house--huge, bare, grey and massive; upon bleak walls; upon vacant, eye-like windows; upon crude, scenic inhospitality, the very magnitude of which overpowered me. I have said it was cold; but there hung over the estate of Eastover an iciness that brought with it a quickening, a sickening of the heart, and a dreariness that, whilst being depressing in the extreme, was, withal, sublime. Sublime and mysterious; mysterious and insoluble. A thousand fancies swarmed through my mind; yet I could grapple with none; and I was loth to acknowledge that, although there are combinations of very simple material objects which might have had the power of affecting me thus, yet any attempt to analyse that power was beyond--far beyond--my mental capability.

The house, though old--and its black oak panellings, silent staircases, dark corridors, and general air of gloom were certainly suggestive of ghosts--did not affect me in the same degree. The fear it inspired was the ordinary fear inspired by the ordinary superphysical, but the fear I felt in the grounds was a fear created by something out of the way--something far more bizarre than a mere phantom of the dead.

The Colonel asked me if I had experienced any unusual sensations the moment I entered the house, and I told him, "Yes."

"Nearly everyone does," he replied, "and yet, so far as I know, no one has ever seen anything. The noises we hear all round the house have lately been more frequent. I won't describe them; I want to learn your unbiassed opinion of them first."

We then had tea, and whilst the rest--there was a large house-party--indulged in music and cards, the Colonel and I had a delightful chat about old times. I went to bed in the firm resolution of keeping awake till at least two; but I was very tired, and the excessive cold had made me extremely sleepy; consequently, despite my heroic efforts, I gradually dozed off, and knew no more till it was broad daylight and the butler entered my room with a cup of tea. When I came down to breakfast I found everyone in the best of spirits. The Onslows are "great hands" at original entertainments, and the announcement that there would be a masked ball that evening was received with tremendous enthusiasm.

"To-night we dance, to-morrow we feed on Easter eggs and fancy cakes," one of the guests laughingly whispered. "What a nicely ordered programme! I hear, too, we are to have a real old-fashioned Easter Day--heaving and lifting, and stool-ball. Egad! The Colonel deserves knighthood!"

Soon after breakfast there was a general stampede to Seeton and Dinstable to buy gifts; for in that respect again the Onslows stuck to old customs, and there was a general interchange of presents on Easter morning. My purchases made, I joined one or two of the house-party at lunch in Seeton, cycled back alone to Eastover in time for tea; and, at five o'clock, commenced my first explorations of the grounds. The sky having become clouded my progress was somewhat slow. I did the Park first, and I had not gone very far before I detected the same presence I had so acutely felt the previous afternoon. Like the scent of a wild beast, it had a certain defined track which I followed astutely, eventually coming to a full stop in front of a wall of rock. I then perceived by the aid of a few fitful rays of suppressed light, which at intervals struggled successfully through a black bank of clouds, the yawning mouth of a big cavern, from the roof of which hung innumerable stalactites. I now suddenly realized that I was in a very lonely, isolated spot, and became immeasurably perturbed. The Unknown Something in the atmosphere which had inspired me with so much fear was here conglomerated--it was no longer the mere essence--it was the whole Thing. The whole Thing, but what was that Thing? A hideous fascination made me keep my gaze riveted on the gaping hole opposite me. At first I could make out nothing--nothing but jagged walls and roof, and empty darkness; then there suddenly appeared in the very innermost recesses of the cave a faint glow of crimson light which grew and grew, until with startling abruptness it resolved itself into two huge eyes, red and menacing. The sight was so unexpected, and, by reason of its intense malignity, so appalling, that I was simply dumbfounded. I could do nothing but stare at the Thing--paralysed and speechless. I made a desperate effort to get back my self-possession; I strove with all my might to reason with myself, to assure myself that this was the supreme moment of my life, the moment I had so long and earnestly desired. But it was in vain; I was terrified--helplessly, hopelessly terrified. The eyes moved, they drew nearer and nearer to me, and as they did so they became more and more hostile. I opened my mouth to shout for help, I could feel my lungs bursting under the tension; not a sound came; and then--then, as the eyes closed on me, and I could feel the cold, clammy weight pressing me down, there rang out, loud and clear, in the keen and cutting air of the spring evening, a whole choir of voices--the village choral society.

I am not particularly fond of music--certainly not of village music, however well trained it may be; but I can honestly affirm that, at that moment, no sounds could have been more welcome to me than those old folk-songs piped by the rustics, for the instant they commenced the spell that so closely held me prisoner was broken, my faculties returned, and reeling back out of the clutches of the hateful Thing, I joyfully turned and fled.

I related my adventure to the Colonel, and he told me that the cave was generally deemed to be the most haunted spot in the grounds, that no one cared to venture there alone after dark.

"I have myself many times visited the cave at night--in the company of others," he said, "and we have invariably experienced sensations of the utmost horror and repulsion, though we have seen nothing. It must be a devil."

I thought so, too, and exclaimed with some vehemence that the proper course for him to pursue was to have the cave filled in or blasted. That night I awoke at about one o'clock with the feeling very strong on me that something was prowling about under my window. For some time I fought against the impulse to get out of bed and look, but at last I yielded. It was bright moonlight--every obstacle in the grounds stood out with wonderful clearness--and directly beneath the window, peering up at me, were the eyes--red, lurid, satanical. A dog barked, and they vanished. I did not sleep again that night, not until the daylight broke, when I had barely shut my eyes before I was aroused by decidedly material bangings on the doors and hyper-boisterous Easter greetings.

After breakfast a few of the party went to church, a few into the nursery to romp with the children, whilst the rest dispersed in different directions. At luncheon all met again, and there was much merry-making over the tansy cakes--very foolish, no doubt, but to me at least very delightful, and perhaps a wise practice, at times, even for the most prosaic. In the afternoon the Colonel took me for a drive to a charmingly picturesque village in the Chilterns, whence we did not set out on our way back till it was twilight.

The Colonel was a good whip, and the horse, though young and rather high-spirited, was, he said, very dependable on the whole, and had never caused him any trouble. We spun along at a brisk trot--the last village separating us from the Hall was past, and we were on a high eminence, almost within sight of home, when a startling change in the atmosphere suddenly became apparent--it turned icy cold. I made some sort of comment to the Colonel, and as I did so the horse shied.

"Hulloa!" I exclaimed. "Does she often do this?"

"No, not often, only when we are on this road about this time," was the grim rejoinder. "Keep your eyes open and sit tight."

We were now amid scenery of the same desolate type that had so impressed me the day of my arrival. Gaunt, barren hills, wild, uncultivated levels, sombre valleys, inhabited only by grotesque enigmatical shadows that came from Heaven knows where, and hemmed us in on all sides.

A large quarry, half full of water and partly overgrown with brambles, riveted my attention, and as I gazed fixedly at it I saw, or fancied I saw, the shape of something large and white--vividly white--rise from the bottom.

The glimpse I caught of it was, however, only momentary, for we were moving along at a great pace, and I had hardly seen the last of it before the quarry was left behind and we were descending a long and gradual declivity. There was but little wind, but the cold was benumbing; neither of us spoke, and the silence was unbroken save by the monotonous patter, patter of the horse's hoofs on the hard road.

We were, I should say, about half-way down the hill, when away in our rear, from the direction of the quarry, came a loud protracted neigh. I at once looked round, and saw standing on the crest of the eminence we had just quitted, and most vividly outlined against the enveloping darkness, a gigantic horse, white and luminous.

At that moment our own mare took fright; we were abruptly swung forward, and, had I not--mindful of the Colonel's warning--been "sitting tight," I should undoubtedly have been thrown out. We dashed downhill at a terrific rate, our mare mad with terror, and on peering over my shoulder I saw, to my horror, the white steed tearing along not fifty yards behind us. I was now able to get a vivid impression of the monstrous beast. Although the night was dark, a strong, lurid glow, which seemed to emanate from all over it, enabled me to see distinctly its broad, muscular breast; its panting, steaming flanks; its long, graceful legs with their hairy fetlocks and shoeless, shining hoofs; its powerful but arched back; its lofty, colossal head with waving forelock and broad, massive forehead; its snorting nostrils; its distended, foaming jaws; its huge, glistening teeth; and its lips, wreathed in a savage grin. On and on it raced, its strides prodigious, its mighty mane rising and falling, and blowing all around it in unrestrained confusion.

A slip--a single slip, and we should be entirely at its mercy.

Our own horse was now out of control. A series of violent plunges, which nearly succeeded in unseating me, had enabled her to get the check of the bit between her teeth so as to render it utterly useless; and she had then started off at a speed I can only liken to flying. Fortunately we were now on a more or less level ground, and the road, every inch of which our horse knew, was smooth and broad.

I glanced at the Colonel convulsively clutching the reins; he was clinging to his seat for dear life, his hat gone. I wanted to speak, but I knew it was useless--the shrieking of the air as it roared past us deadened all sounds. Once or twice I glanced over the side of the trap. The rapidity with which we were moving caused a hideous delusion--the ground appeared to be gliding from beneath us; and I experienced the sensation of resting on nothing. Despite our danger, however, from natural causes--a danger which, I knew, could not have been more acute--my fears were wholly of the superphysical. It was not the horror of being dashed to pieces I dreaded--it was the horror of the phantom horse--of its sinister, hostile appearance--of its unknown powers. What would it do if it overtook us? With each successive breath I drew I felt sure the fateful event--the long-anticipated crisis--had come.

At last my expectations were realized. The teeth of the gigantic steed closed down on me, its nostrils hissed resistance out of me--I swerved, tottered, fell; and as I sank on the ground my senses left me.

On coming to I found myself in a propped-up position on the floor of a tiny room with someone pouring brandy down my throat. Happily, beyond a severe shock, I had sustained no injury--a sufficiently miraculous circumstance, as the trap had come to grief in failing to clear the lodge gates, the horse had skinned its knees, and the Colonel had fractured his shoulder. Of the phantom horse not a glimpse had been seen. Even the Colonel, strange to relate, though he had managed to peep round, had not seen it. He had heard and felt a Presence, that was all; and after listening to my experience, he owned he was truly thankful he was only clair-audient.

"A gift like yours," he said, with more candour than kindness, "is a curse, not a blessing. And now I have your corroboration, I might as well tell you that we have long suspected the ghost to be a horse, and have attributed its hauntings to the fact that, some time ago, when exploring in the cave, several prehistoric remains of horses were found, one of which we kept, whilst we presented the others to a neighbouring museum. I dare say there are heaps more."

"Undoubtedly there are," I said, "but take my advice and leave them alone--re-inter the remains you have already unearthed--and thus put a stop to the hauntings. If you go on excavating and keep the bones you find, the disturbances will, in all probability, increase, and the hauntings will become not only many but multiform."

Needless to say the Colonel carried out my injunctions to the letter. Far from continuing his work of excavation he lost no time in restoring the bones he had kept to their original resting-place; after which, as I predicted, the hauntings ceased.

This case, to me, is very satisfactory, as it testifies to what was unquestionably an actual phantasm of the dead--of a dead horse--albeit that horse was prehistoric; and such horses are all the more likely to be earth-bound on account of their wild, untamed natures.

Here is another account of a phantom horse taken from Mr. Stead's _Real Ghost Stories_. It is written by an Afrikander who, in a letter to Mr. Stead, says:

"I am not a believer in ghosts, nor never was; but seeing you wanted a census of them, I can't help giving you a remarkable experience of mine. It was some three summers back, and I was out with a party of Boer hunters. We had crossed the Northern boundary of the Transvaal, and were camped on the ridges of the Sembombo. I had been out from sunrise, and was returning about dusk with the skin of a fine black ostrich thrown across the saddle in front of me, in the best of spirits at my good luck. Making straight for the camp, I had hardly entered a thick bush when I thought that I heard somebody behind me. Looking behind, I saw a man mounted on a white horse. You can imagine my surprise, for my horse was the only one in camp, and we were the only party in the country. Without considering I quickened my pace into a canter, and on doing so my follower appeared to do the same. At this I lost all confidence, and made a run for it, with my follower in hot pursuit, as it appeared to my imagination; and I did race for it (the skin went flying in about two minutes, and my rifle would have done the same had it not been strapped over my shoulders). This I kept up until I rode into camp right among the pals cooking the evening meal. The Boers about the camp were quick in their enquiries as to my distressed condition, and regaining confidence, I was putting them off as best I could, when the old boss (an old Boer of some sixty-eight or seventy years), looking up from the fire, said:

"'The white horse! The Englishman has seen the white horse.'

"This I denied, but to no purpose. And that night round the camp fire I took the trouble to make enquiries as to the antecedents of the white horse. And the old Boer, after he had commanded silence, began. He said:

"'The English are not brave, but foolish. We beat them at Majuba, some twenty-five seasons back. There was an Englishman here like you; he had brought a horse with him, against our advice, to be killed with the fly, the same as yours will be in a day or two. And he, like you, would go where he was told not to go; and one day he went into a bush (that very bush you rode through to-night), and he shot seven elephants, and the next day he went in to fetch the ivory, and about night his horse came into camp riderless, and was dead from the fly before the sun went down. The Englishman is in that bush now; anyway, he never came back. And now anybody who ventures into that bush is chased by the white horse. I wouldn't go into that bush for all the ivory in the land. The English are not brave, but foolish; we beat them at Majuba.'

"Here he ran into a torrent of abuse of all Englishmen in general, and in particular. And I took the opportunity of rolling myself up in my blankets for the night, sleeping all the better for my adventure.

"Now, Mr. Stead, I don't believe in ghosts, but I was firmly convinced during that run of mine, and can vouch for the accuracy of it, not having heard a word of the Englishman or his white horse before my headlong return to the camp that night. I shortly hope to be near that bush again, but, like the old Boer, I can say I wouldn't go into that bush again for all the ivory in the land.

"P.S.--A few days after we dropped across a troop of elephants without entering the fatal bush, and managed to bag seven, photographs of which I took, and shall be pleased to send for your inspection, if desired."

There can be very little doubt that the phantom the Afrikander saw was the actual spirit of a dead horse.

Another experience of haunting by the same animal was told me by a Chelsea artist who assured me it was absolutely true. I append it as nearly as possible in his own words.

_Heralds of Death_

"It is many years ago," he began, "since I came into my property, Heatherleigh Hall, near Carlisle, Cumberland. It was left me by my great-uncle, General Wimpole, whom I had never seen, but who had made me his heir in preference to his other nephews, owing to my reputed likeness to an aunt, to whom he was greatly attached. Of course I was much envied, and I dare say a good many unkind things were said about me, but I did not care--Heatherleigh Hall was mine, and I had as much right to it as anyone else. I came there all alone--my two brothers, Dick and Hal, the one a soldier and the other a sailor, were both away on foreign service, whilst Beryl, my one and only sister, was staying with her fiancé's family in Bath. Never shall I forget my first impressions. Depict the day--an October afternoon. The air mellow, the leaves yellow, and the sun a golden red. Not a trace of clouds or wind anywhere. Everything serene and still. A broad highway; a wood; a lodge in the midst of the wood; large iron gates; a broad carriage drive, planted on either side with lofty pines and elms, whose gnarled and forked branches threw grotesque and not altogether pleasing shadows on the pale gravel.

"At the end of the avenue, at least a quarter of a mile long, wide expanses of soft, velvety grass, interspersed at regular intervals with plots of flowers--dahlias, michaelmas daisies--no longer in their first bloom--chrysanthemums, etc. Beyond the lawn, the house, and beyond that again, and on either side, big, old-fashioned gardens full of fruit--fruit of all kinds, some, such as grapes and peaches, in monster green-houses, and others--luscious pears, blenheim oranges, golden pippins, etc.--in rich profusion in the open, the whole encompassed by a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass. The house, which was built, or, rather, faced with split flints, and edged and buttressed with cut grey stone, had a majestic but gloomy appearance. Its front, lofty and handsome, was somewhat castellated in style, two semicircular bows, or half-moons, placed at a suitable distance from each other, rising from the base to the summit of the edifice; these were pierced, at every floor, with rows of stone-mullioned windows, rising to the height of four or five stories. The flat wall between had larger windows, lighting the great hall, gallery, and upper apartments. These windows were abundantly ornamented with stained glass, representing the arms, honours, and alms-deeds of the Wimpole family.

"The towers, half included in the building, were completely circular within, and contained the winding stair of the mansion; and whoso ascended them, when the winter wind was blowing, seemed rising by a tornado to the clouds. Midway between the towers was a heavy stone porch, with a Gothic gateway, surmounted by a battlemented parapet, made gable fashion, the apex of which was garnished by a pair of dolphins, rampant and antagonistic, whose corkscrew tails seemed contorted by the last agonies of rage convulsed.

"The porch doors thrown open to receive me, led into a hall, wide, vaulted and lofty, and decorated here and there with remnants of tapestry and grim portraits of the Wimpoles. One picture in particular riveted my attention. Hung in an obscure corner, where the light rarely penetrated, it represented the head and shoulders of a young man with a strikingly beautiful face--the features small and regular like those of a woman--the hair yellow and curly. It was the eyes that struck me most--they followed me everywhere I went with a persistency that was positively alarming. There was something in them I had never seen in canvas eyes before, something deeper and infinitely more intricate than could be produced by mere paint--something human and yet not human, friendly and yet not friendly; something baffling, enigmatical, haunting. I enquired of my deceased relative's aged housekeeper, Mrs. Grimstone--whom I had retained--whose portrait it was, and she replied with a scared look, 'Horace, youngest son of Sir Algernon Wimpole, who died here in 1745.'

"'The face fascinates me,' I said. 'Is there any history attached to it?'

"'Why, yes, sir!' she responded, her eyes fixed on the floor, 'but the late master never liked referring to it.'

"'Is it as bad as that?' I said, laughing. 'Tell me!'

"'Well, sir,' she began, 'they do say as how Sir Algernon, who was a thorough country squire--very fond of hunting and shooting and all sorts of manly exercises--never liked Mr. Horace, who was delicate and dandified--what the folk in those days used to style a macaroni. The climax came when Mr. Horace took up with the Jacobites. Sir Algernon would have nothing more to do with him then and turned him adrift. One day there was a great commotion in the neighbourhood, the Government troops were hunting the place in search of rebels, and who should come galloping up the avenue with a couple of troopers in hot pursuit but Mr. Horace. The noise brought out Sir Algernon, and he was so infuriated to think that his son was the cause of the disturbance, a "disgraceful young cub," he called him, that despite Mr. Horace's entreaties for protection, he ran him through with his sword. It was a dreadful thing for a father to do, and Sir Algernon bitterly repented it. His wife, who had been devoted to Mr. Horace, left him, and at last, in a fit of despondency, he hanged himself--out there, on one of the elms lining the avenue. It is still standing. Ever since then they do say that the wood is haunted, and that before the death of any member of the family Mr. Horace is seen galloping along the old carriage drive.'

"'Pleasant,' I grunted. 'And how about the house--is it haunted too?'

"'I daresn't say,' she murmured. 'Some will tell you it is, and some will tell you it isn't.'

"'In which category are you included?' I asked.

"'Well!' she said 'I have lived here happy and comfortable forty-five years the day after to-morrow, and that speaks for itself, don't it?' And with that she hobbled off and showed me the way to the dining-room.

"What a house it was! From the hall proceeded doorways and passages, more than the ordinary memory could retain. Of these portals, one at each end conducted to the tower stairs, others, to the reception-rooms and domestic offices. In the right wing, besides bedrooms galore, was a lofty and spacious picture gallery; in the left--a chapel; for the Wimpoles were, formerly, Roman Catholics. The general fittings and furniture, both of the hall and house in general, were substantial, venerable and strongly corroborative of what Mrs. Grimstone hinted at--they suggested ghosts.

"The walls, lined with black oak panels, or dark hangings that fluttered mysteriously each time the wind blew, were funereal indeed; and so high and narrow were the windows, that little was to be discerned through them but cross-barred portions of the sky. One spot in particular appealed to my nerves--and that, a long, vaulted stone passage leading from a morning room to the foot of the back staircase. Here the voice and even the footsteps echoed with a hollow, low response, and often when I have been hurrying along it--I never dared walk slowly--I have fancied--and maybe it was more than fancy--I have been pursued.

"Time passed, and from being merely used to my new environments, I grew to take a pride in them, to love them. I made the acquaintance of several of my neighbours, those I deemed the most desirable, and on returning from wintering abroad, brought home a bride, a young Polish girl, who added lustre to the surroundings, and in no small degree helped to dissipate the gloom. Indeed, had it not been for the picture in the hall, and for the twilight shadows and twilight footsteps in the stone passage, I should soon have ceased to think of ghosts. Ghosts, forsooth! When all around me vibrated with the sounds of girlish laughter, and the summer sunshine, sparkling on the golden curls of my child-wife, saw itself reflected a millionfold in the alluring depths of her azure eyes. In halcyon days like these who thinks of ghosts and death?

"And yet! It is in just such times as these that hell is nearest. There came a night in August when the air was so hot and sultry that I could scarcely breathe, and unable to bear the atmosphere of the house and gardens any longer, I sought the coolness of the wood. Olga--my wife--did not accompany me, as she was suffering from a slight--thank God, it was only slight--sunstroke. It was close on midnight, and there was a dead stillness abroad that seemed as if it must be universal--as if it enveloped the whole of nature. I tried to realize London--to depict the Strand and Piccadilly, aglow with artificial light and reverberating with the roll of countless traffic and the tread of millions of feet.

"I failed. The incongruity of such imaginings here--here amidst omnipotent silence--rendered such thoughts impossible. A leaf rustled, and its rustling sounded to my ears like the gentle closing of some giant door. A twig fell, and I turned sharply round, convinced I should see a pile of broken debris. I love all trees, but I love them best by day--to me it seems that night utterly metamorphizes them--brings out in them a subtler, darker side one would little suspect. Here, in this oak, for instance, was an example. In the morning one sees in it nought but quiet dignity, venerable old age, benevolence, and, by reason of the ample protection its branches afford from the sun, charity and philanthropy. Its leaves are bright, dainty, pretty; its trunk suggests nothing but a cosy and soothing retreat for students and lovers. But now--see how different! These great spreading, gnarled branches are hands, claws--monstrous and menacing; those leaves no longer bright remind me of a hearse's plumes; their rustling--of the rustling and switching of a pall or winding-sheet. The trunk, black, sinuous, towering, is assuredly no piece of timber, but something pulpy, something intangible, something antagonistic, mystic, devilish. I turn from it and shudder. Then my mind reverts to the elm--the elm on which Sir Algernon hanged himself. I remember it is not more than twenty yards from where I stand. I stare down at the soil, at the clumps of crested dog's-tail and stray blades of succulent darnel; I force my attention on a toadstool, whose soft and lowly head gleams sickly white in the moonbeams. I glance from it to a sleeping close-capped dandelion, from it to a thistle, from it again to a late bush vetch, and then, willy-nilly, to the accursed elm. My God! What a change. It wasn't like that when I passed it at noon. It was just an ordinary tree then, but now, now--and what is that--that sinister bundle--suspended from one of its curling branches? A cold sweat bursts out on me, my knees tremble, my hair begins to rise on end. Swinging round, I am about to rush away--blindly rush away--hither, thither, anywhere--anywhere out of sight of that tree and of all the hideous possibilities it promises to materialize for me. I have not taken five strides, however, before I am pulled sharply up by the sounds of horse's hoofs--of hoofs on the hard gravel, away in the distance. They speedily grow nearer. A horse is galloping, galloping towards me along the broad carriage drive. Nearer, nearer and nearer it comes! Who is it? WHAT is it? A deadly nausea seizes me, I swerve, totter, reel, and am only prevented from falling by the timely interference of a pine. The concussion with its leviathan trunk clears my senses. All my faculties become wonderfully and painfully alert. I would give my very soul if it were not so--if I could but fall asleep or faint. The sound of the hoofs is very much nearer now, so near indeed that I may see the man--Heaven grant it may be only a man after all--any moment. Ah! my heart gives a great sickly jerk. Something has shot into view. There, not fifty yards from me, where the road curves, and the break in the foliage overhead admits a great flood of moonlight. I recognize the "thing" at once; it's not a man, it's nothing human, it's the picture I know so well and dread so much, the portrait of Horace Wimpole, that hangs in the main hall--and it's mounted on a coal-black horse with wildly flying mane and foaming mouth. On and on they come, thud, thud, thud! The man is not dressed as a rider, but is wearing the costume in the picture--i.e. that of a macaroni! A nut! More fit for a lady's seminary than a fine, old English mansion.

"Something beside me rustles--rustles angrily, and I know, I can feel, it is the bundle on the branch--the ghastly, groaning, creaking, croaking caricature of Sir Algernon. The horseman comes up to me--our eyes meet--I am looking in those of a dead--of a long since dead man--my blood freezes.

"He flashes past me--thud, thud, thud! A bend in the road, and he vanishes from sight. But I can still hear him, still hear the mad patter of his horse's hoofs as they bear him onward, lifeless, fleshless, weightless, to his ancient home. God pity the souls that know no rest.

"How I got back to the house I hardly know. I believe it was with my eyes shut, and I am certain I ran all the way.

"About four o'clock the following afternoon I received a cablegram from Malta. Intuition warned me to prepare for the worst. Its contents were unpleasantly short and pithy--'Hal drowned at two o'clock this morning.--Dick.'

"Two years passed--again an August night, hot and oppressive as before, and again--though surely against my will, my better judgment, if you like--I visited the wood. Horse's hoofs just the same as before. The same galloping, the same figure, the same EYES! the same mad, panic-stricken flight home, and, early in the succeeding afternoon, a similar cablegram--this time from Sicily. 'Dick died at midnight. Dysentery.--Andrews.'

"Jack Andrews was Dick's pal--his bosom friend. So once again the phantom rider had brought its grisly message--played its ghoulish rôle. My brothers were both dead now, and only Beryl remained. Another year sped by and the last night in October--a Monday--saw me, impelled by a fascination I could not resist, once again in the wood. Up to a point everything happened as before. As the monotonous church clock struck twelve, from afar came the sound of hoofs. Nearer, nearer, nearer, and then with startling abruptness the rider shot into view. And now, mixed with the awful, indescribable terror the figure always conveyed with it, came a feeling of intense rage and indignation. Should Beryl--Beryl whom I loved next best to my wife--be torn from me even as Dick and Hal had been? No! Ten thousand times no! Sooner than that I would risk anything. A sudden inspiration, coming maybe from the whispering leaves, or from the elm, or from the mysterious flickering moonbeams, flashed through me. Could I not intercept the figures, drive them back? By doing so something told me Beryl might be saved. A terrible struggle at once took place within me, and it was only after the most desperate efforts that I at length succeeded in fighting back my terror and flung myself out into the middle of the drive. No words of mine can describe all I went through as I stood there anticipating the arrival of the phantoms. At length they came, right up to me; and as, with frantic resolution, I screwed up courage to plant myself directly in their path, and stared up into the rider's eyes, the huge steed halted, gave one shrill neigh, and turning round, galloped back again, disappearing whither it had emerged.

"Two days afterwards I received a letter from my brother-in-law.

"'I have been having an awful time,' he wrote. 'My darling Beryl has been frightfully ill. On Monday night we gave up all hope of her recovery, but at twelve o'clock, when the doctor bid us prepare for the end, the most extraordinary thing happened. Turning over in bed, she distinctly called out your name, and rallied. And now, thank God, she is completely out of danger. The doctor says it is the most astonishing recovery he has ever known.'

* * * * *

"That is twenty years ago, and I've not seen the phantom rider since. Nor do I fancy he will appear again, for when I look into the eyes of the picture in the hall, they are no longer wandering, but at rest."

* * * * *

Perhaps, one of the most interesting accounts of the phantasm of a horse in my possession is that recorded by C.E. G----, a friend of my boyhood. Writing to me from the United States some months ago, he says: