Chapter VII: Appendix: To No. -- Hackham Terrace, Swindon

At Jarvis’s request, I related to him the story of “The Screaming Woman of Tehiddy,” taken from a collection of remarkable narratives on the certainty of supernatural visitations from the dead to the living, impartially compiled from the works of Baxter, Wesley, Simpson, &c.

I chose this tale as the least hackneyed and best authenticated of the many accounts I had heard of similar occult phenomena. It is given in the original text, the extracts being taken from the letter of one “S. W.” to his friend “Charles.”

“I had occasion one day,” he writes, “to visit the hamlet of Barnley, some miles distant from Tehiddy, where I was staying with some relations. My stay was unexpectedly prolonged till a late hour, and having promised to be at home before night, I was compelled to set out on my return much after the period at which it ought to have been commenced. Part of my road lay through a thick and lonely forest, and I confess that the task of traversing it would have been more agreeable at an earlier opportunity.

“My spirits were affected from some indefinable cause, and the chill, dark journey I was preparing to take did not tend to raise them. I swallowed a hasty cup of coffee with my friend, shook him cordially by the hand, and mounting my horse, was soon at a considerable distance from his house.

“I was approaching the verge of the forest, and had just entered a narrow outlet from it, when I heard the roll of distant thunder and felt the wet and heavy droppings of a copious rain. Having scarcely a league farther to travel before I reached home, I determined to urge my horse to the utmost, and escape, if possible, by his speed, from the impending storm. He broke at once into a gallop, when I struck him with the spur, but had scarcely gone a hundred paces before I was thrown from the saddle by his abrupt stopping, and pitched with the greatest violence to the ground. I lay stunned for a few moments by the fall; the first thing that brought me to a sense of my situation was a _hoarse scream_, uttered by some person who breathed close to my ear. The rein, which I had continued to grasp in falling, was at that moment torn violently out of my hand--I heard the noise of my courser’s hoofs as he started back--the scream was repeated, and something rushed past me that clanked as it went like a horseman’s heavy iron-cased sabre. I sprang up from the earth and threw out my arms to ascertain if any individual were actually passing; but the avenue was so narrow that I touched the hedges on each side of it, and felt instantly convinced that nothing human could have gone by. A recollection now flashed upon me that there was a tale of extreme horror connected with this part of the forest, and in spite of the principles which I summoned to my aid, it was in a mood of mingled desperation and amazement that I reflected on the circumstances with which my memory supplied me.

“The infirmary of Tehiddy, about twenty years ago, contained a female patient who was known by the name of Martha, and had been admitted to that asylum at the instance of a stranger. He stated himself to be her husband, and assured the director of the institution, with the appearance of the deepest sorrow, that she laboured under a lunacy of the most stubborn sort, which nothing but the most severe discipline attributed to his house was likely to abate.

“He advanced a large sum for the maintenance of this unhappy creature, saw her lodged in one of the strongest cells of the establishment, and, having recommended an unsparing use of the scourge, thought proper to depart. His meaning was not misunderstood. The shrieks of poor Martha were heard day and night in the vicinity of her dungeon, and suspicions soon prevailed that she was being sacrificed to the cruelty of her merciless keepers. An investigation of the case was proposed by some humane and spirited people, but a calamity of the most awful kind put a stop to their endeavours. Martha was found dead on the borders of the forest, at the very spot I have described to you, a piece of ragged iron being clenched in her grasp, with which she had torn and gashed her throat in a dreadful manner. The escape of this wretched being was never well explained, and hints were dropped that she had not left the prison alive. Her bloody and mangled remains excited a strong sensation among those who inspected them. Marks of the chain and the whip were conspicuous on every part of her body, and long tufts of her thin grey hair were glued together by the stream that had issued from a deep fracture in her head. The tokens of suicide, however, were undeniable, and the remains of the poor maniac were in consequence buried near the place where they were found.

“This occurrence had scarcely ceased to be the subject of conversation, when the whole town of Tehiddy was agitated by events of a yet more appalling character. _Hoarse screams_ were heard in the still dark hours of night, and a pale bloodless face was seen pressing against several of the chamber windows. Fraud or delusion were naturally suspected in a business of this nature, and the most scrutinising inquiries were made into the evidence on which it rested. No detection took place, and the screams soon became so frequent that not a person continued to question their existence.

“It was midnight when I reached home, exhausted by anxiety and fatigue, and, being provided with a key to my apartments, the people of the house had not waited up to receive me. I drew off my boots and upper coat as a preliminary to the act of undressing, and seated myself in a large antique chair, from which, when divested of my clothes, I usually stepped into bed. Here I fell asleep owing to excessive weariness, and may the next slumber that is likely to end in so horrible a way be never broken.

“A dream was upon me full of blood and death; the shrieking maniac flitted through my brain in a thousand forms, and seemed, at one time, to stand over me brandishing a sword of fire.

“The next moment, I lay benumbed, as it were, in my seat, while the maniac advanced from a dark corner of the room, bearing in her right hand a human skull replete with some poisonous sort of drink. This horrible potion was lifted to my lips, which seemed to shut in vain against it, the long, bony fingers of the phantom being thrust into my mouth, so as to force a passage for her accursed mixture. It trickled down to my very heart in slow, cold drops, and when lodged there seemed, by a sudden transition, to burn and glow like flames of Etna; spellbound as I was, such extreme agony passed my powers of endurance. I uttered a frantic cry and sprang up from the chair, darting towards the hag by whom my torment was inflicted. The glare of her red eyes grew stronger as I advanced, and a lean, sallow arm was put out to repel me. Fearing the detested touch, I hastily drew back; some article of furniture intercepted me; I fell, and was plunged from the fall into a chasm, which opened through the floor. The shock of this awoke me, and the first proof I obtained of my actual perception was the sound of that _hoarse scream_ which a few hours before had been uttered in the forest. This scream was repeated--it seemed to issue from the windows. I heard the casement flap, as if a strong wind were shaking it; and though my sinews shrank and withered at the noise, yet I staggered to this window as fast as my feet would carry me. A ray of light flashed in as I reached it, and there, pressed close against the glass, I saw the same pale, bloodless visage that has been already figured to you.

“Maddened by the sight, I clenched my hand and drove it fiercely at the apparition.

“Its lips quivered--the _scream_ rang again through the apartment. I was found next day without sense or motion, my hand dreadfully cut, and the window shivered to pieces.”

PARK HOUSE, WESTMINSTER

THE CAVALIER’S GHOST

Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead

Source of authenticity: Miscellaneous collection of Ghost Stories
by Baxter, Wesley and Simpson

Cause of haunting: Murder

(The following story is told _ad verbum_ in the language of the
eye-witness, the quaintness of his style being accounted for
by the period in which he lived.)

“I was always a very strong-minded man, and, until the time about which I am going to speak, always ridiculed the idea of ghosts.

“You must know that about two years ago[7] I went to lodge at an ancient house in Westminster, where nothing remarkable happened to me for about three months; and then, on a night in November (too well do I remember it), I saw such an appalling sight as I never before beheld.

[7] (Probably 1780.--ED.)

“Even were I starving to-morrow, I would not again enter that room--no, not for a thousand pounds! I had been to the theatre, and on my way home had drunk a single pint of porter, so that no doubt of my sobriety can exist for a moment.

“My room was on the second storey of a house that, I should suppose, had weathered well-nigh four hundred years, and was in former days an isolated habitation.

“The room, surrounded by a wainscoting of oak to the height of five feet, was very lofty, and even in the lightest days, owing to the narrowness of the windows, was extremely gloomy. As I said before, I returned from the theatre, and the snuff of the candle, which I had extinguished on getting into bed, had not ceased to emit its disagreeable effluvia when I beheld--my blood freezes when I think of it--a young man, dressed in the habit of days gone by, gliding through the wainscoting on the opposite side of the apartment to where I lay.

“I was completely paralysed--trembled violently in every limb--and the perspiration fell in torrents from my brows.

“I felt for some time as if every nerve was cut asunder and every sense benumbed.

“I exerted myself to speak, but in vain; my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was obliged to remain a horror-stricken and inactive spectator of the scene before me.

“The apparition remained for nearly ten minutes, which was ample time for me to convince myself that it was no idle chimera of a diseased imagination that stood before me. Yet although it remained so long a time, I could not command sufficient resolution to challenge it or summon any one to my aid--for I felt as though deprived of all energy, and, in fact, I was so during the whole time of its visit, though my sense of perception and consciousness were painfully acute.

“The expression of the countenance was peculiarly mild, and the rich dark locks falling about the forehead and shoulders, and the mustachios of the same hue, showed in horrid relief against the ashy, chilling, and livid hue of the face.

“He wore a doublet of a kind of chocolate colour, richly embroidered with gold lace, full loose breeches of a yellow leather, ornamented uniformly with the doublet, and from each was suspended a bunch of ribbon, adorned with a metal tag, reaching down nearly to the broad and drooping tops of his light russet boots.

“A large travelling-cloak of dark blue cloth reached from the shoulders down to the heels, hanging in full folds over the left arm, which was extended towards the fireplace of my apartment.

“While I was gazing on him in stupid astonishment and terror, he raised his right hand, and lifting from his head his broad, sable-feathered hat, discovered to my agonising sight a deep and bloody wound in the centre of the forehead.

“This action he then followed up with sighs and gesticulations which, although I could not clearly understand, were apparently intended to warn me of some impending danger.

“Harrowing as the sight was to my feelings, it was a mere nothing to what I suffered when I beheld him advance, slowly and almost imperceptibly, towards the spot where I lay, and fixing his dark, piercing gaze upon me for nearly a minute, hold me in a more painful and horrid inactivity than that in which the basilisk is said to hold its victim.

“Although I knew from the expression in his eyes he wished me to speak, and much as I desired to hear from him some of the mysteries attached to the superphysical world, I could not articulate a sound (a phenomenon which I have since learned invariably happens to psychists at the crucial moment).

“At length he retired towards the wainscot, and raising both his hands in the attitude of prayer, remained apparently wrapped in deep contemplation for nearly three minutes, and then suddenly disappeared--sinking into the floor at the bottom of the wainscotting. As you may well suppose, I did not close my eyes again that night, but as soon as it was light I proceeded to my landlord’s room, roused him, and demanded to settle my account, for I determined in my own mind never to re-enter the house which was visited in so superhuman a manner.

“With astonishment in his countenance, he received the amount of my rent, at the same time inquiring what had caused this sudden aversion to my apartment.

“I answered evasively, and as I left him I thought I observed a kind of lurking consciousness of something wrong in his countenance, which led me to surmise he was fully aware of the mysterious visits of the apparition; and so it proved in the end, for, happening to meet him one day in the park, I inveigled him into confessing that it was reported in the neighbourhood that the house, and particularly the room in which I slept, was haunted by the troubled spirit of a young cavalier of King Charles the Second’s days, said to have been murdered there. ‘And,’ he added, ‘during the time he had kept the house, no less than nine people had left the apartment on account of the disturbances. He had concealed this from me,’ he concluded, ‘fearing I might add one more to the list of lodgers scared away by the supernatural vision.’”

GLOSSARY

ELEMENTAL. Otherwise known as Poltergeist. There are too many species
of this genus of spirit for me to attempt a classification in this
work. Broadly defined, an Elemental is a phantasm that has never
inhabited any kind of earthly body whether animal or vegetable. It
may be sub-human, as in the case of the Clock-ghost of Mulready;
sub-animal, as in the case of the Guilsborough apparition; or
sub-vegetable, as in the case of the ACTINOMYCES phenomenon near
Bath.

It is generally, but not always inimically disposed towards man.
One type of it, viz., the gnome, pixie, &c., avoid humanity as
much as possible; other types are merely mischievous, delighting
to frighten children by visiting their nurseries or pouncing out
upon them when at play in some deserted building or lonely by-road;
whilst other species are wholly evil, generating bacilli of foul
diseases or urging man to the commission of vicious acts and crime.
Their origin I reserve for another volume.

GHOST. The general name for phantasms, &c.

HALLUCINATION. Any supposed sensory perception that has no objective
counterpart within field of vision, hearing, &c.

CLAIRVOYANCE. The faculty or art of perceiving some distant scene
as though an actual eye-witness. A clairvoyant is often able to
describe (unconsciously) what he is witnessing.

DELUSION. Fancy. When one imagines one sees or hears something and
it exists ONLY in imagination. Hallucinations are either delusive,
when there is nothing to which they correspond in the objective
world, or veridical, when they correspond with events taking place
somewhere.

ILLUSION. Misinterpretation of some object actually present to the
sight, as, for example, when a cloak hanging on a peg is mistaken
for a man, or a ringing in the ears for sounds of bells.

METETHERICAL WORLD. The world beyond the ether, synonyms--spiritual,
superphysical.

PHANTASM. A ghost. Any occult phenomenon that is either visual or
auditory as distinct from a phantom which is only visual: or,
indeed, any superphysical presence that conveys the impression of
touch, smell, &c.

SUGGESTION. Process of impressing upon a person’s intelligence or
mind the thoughts and wishes of another intelligence or mind;
or ideas engendered by the appearance of certain localities,
furniture, &c., or simply by the atmosphere.

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Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London

Transcriber’s note

Text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_, and text in small capitals was changed to all capitals. Footnotes were placed after the paragraph they refer to.

Small errors in punctuation were corrected without note. Also the following changes were made, on page

32 “or” changed to “for” (Nor was I mistaken, for, on putting)
34 “momentory” changed to “momentary” (in momentary terror of some
fresh phenomenon)
47 “stifly” changed to “stiffly” (he said, bowing stiffly)
89 “nighfall” changed to “nightfall” (a very wide berth after
nightfall)
94 “give” changed to “gave” (parents who gave him a liberal
education)
117 ? changed to ! (they improvised an oven in the earth and ate it!)
146 “stool” changed to “stood” (lane in which the haunted elm stood)
149 “suprising” changed to “surprising” (it is not surprising that
they are now).

Otherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, etc.