Chapter III: Part 3

Anklebone’s whole appearance suddenly changed; he gripped my arm violently, shivered and shuddered, and turned ghastly pale. I thought he was going to have a fit.

“For pity’s sake, sir,” he said, trembling, “ask me nothing about that. There is something _too terrible_ there, but I dare not reveal what I know and have seen to anyone. Do not allude to it again or it will drive me mad.”

He lay back in his chair for a few moments with his eyes closed and shaking all over, but he gradually recovered his usual appearance.

“I wish to tell you about the Castle Spectre,” he said, weakly.

I must confess that I felt nonplussed and disappointed at the turn the conversation had taken, as whatever my private opinion was regarding the worthy Jeremiah’s curious statements, still I felt anxious to find out his experiences at the Cathedral particularly. However, I swallowed my disappointment like a Trojan, and begged him to proceed.

He gulped down his spirits and informed me he felt better again, but he did not seem quite himself for some time.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I often used to climb over the Castle wall after dusk, and smoke my pipe and meditate on all the grand folk that must have been there in bygone days before the smash-up. I thought of lovely young Queen Mary, of Mary Hamilton, and her other Maries, of Lord Darnley, of the poet Castelar, of Lord Arran, and the Duke of Rothesay, and all the Stuart Kings that used to be there. Then I thought of Prior Hepburn and poor murdered Cardinal Beaton, and of monks, knights, and lovely wenches that used to frequent the old place. I loved it, for I have read history a lot. One could not help thinking of the feasting, revelry, and pageants of those interesting old times, and the grand services in the churches, and what fine dresses everybody wore.”

I saw he was going bang off the subject again, and when he began to tell me there were lots of Anklebones in Norman times about Fifeshire, I had to pull him back with a jerk to his ghost at the Castle.

“Very well, sir, I was in the Castle one evening, and I was sitting on the parapet of the old wall when I saw a head appearing up the old broken steps on the east side of the Castle that once led down to the great dining hall. I knew no one could _now_ come up that way without a ladder from the sea beach, and when the figure got to the level ground it came right through the iron railing just as if no obstruction were there. I stared hard and watched the advancing figure. It looked like a woman. I had heard of the Cardinal’s ghost, and wondered if it could be his Eminence himself. Nearer and nearer it came, and although it was a gusty evening, I noticed the flowing garments of the approaching figure were quite still and unruffled by the wind. It was like a moving statue. As it passed me slowly a few yards away, I saw they were not the robes of a Cardinal, but those of an Archbishop. I am a Churchman, and know the garments quite well. I saw all his vestments clearly, and I shall never forget the pale, ashen set face, and the thin determined mouth. Then I noticed one _very very_ strange thing—the statuesque tall figure had a thick rope round the neck, and the end of the rope was trailing along the grass behind it, but there was no sound whatever. On it went and began to climb the stairs to the upper apartments. I tried to follow, but could not move for a bit. I felt as if I was mesmerised or paralysed. I was all in a cold sweat, too, and I was glad to get away from the Castle at last and hurry home. I haven’t gone so fast for many years. When I went next day to Lausdree I made a clean breast of the whole affair to Master.

“‘Would you know him again?’ he asked me.

“‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘I would know that face and figure among a thousand.’

“‘Come to the study,’ said the master, ‘and I will show you some pictures.’

“We went, and I looked over a number of them. At last I came to one that fairly transfixed me. There was no mistaking the face. Before me was the picture of the spectre I had seen the previous night in the ruined Castle of Saint Andrews.

“‘Well, Anklebone,’ said the master, ‘this is _really wonderful_, and you actually saw the rope round the neck?’

“‘I did,’ I said, ‘as I am a living man, but who is it? It is not the Cardinal?’

“‘No,’ said the master very gravely, ‘_this man_ was publicly hanged by his enemies on a gibbet at the Market Cross of Stirling on April 1st, 1571.’

“‘But who was he?’ I asked, imploringly.

“‘The man, or ghost, you saw,’ said master, ‘was Archbishop John Hamilton of St Andrews—in his own Castle grounds where he once reigned supreme.’”

I said farewell to Mr Anklebone, and as I thought over his extraordinary story journeying home in the train, I could not help repeating over and over again to myself that very curious name that seemed to rhyme with the motion of the train—Concrikketty Anklebone.

The Smothered Piper of the West Cliffs.

“_Hush! hush! hush! Here comes the Bogie Man._”

This was shouted out to me very loudly by a cheery golfing “Johnny,” as I entered the merry smoking-room of the old ’Varsity Golf Club at Coldham Common, Cambridge, some years ago. “Draw in your armchair, light a cigar or a pipe, and tell us all [many celebrated actors were present] some of those wonderful bogie stories about dear St Andrews. It is the bogie time of the year, and you must remember I played the ‘Bogie Man’ for you in one of your big burlesques at St Andrews and Cupar some years ago, so fire away with the bogies, please, and be quick.”

Then I reeled off a big lot of yarns: of the ghost, Thomas Plater, who murdered Prior Robert of Montrose on the dormitory staircase before vespers; of the nigger in a Fifeshire house, who is invisible himself, but maps out his bare footmarks on the floor of the painted gallery; of Sharpe’s coach, which, being heard, betokens a death; of haunted old Balcomie ruined castle; of the murdered pedlar in our own South Street, who sweeps down with a chilly hand the cheeks of invaders to his haunted cellar; of the ghost that appeared in the house of Archbishop Ross, mentioned in Lyon’s History; and of the terrible ghost in the Novum Hospitium, which so alarmed people that its dwelling had to be pulled down, and only a fragment of the building now remains. But they wanted to hear the tale of the “Ghostly Piper of the West Cliffs”; so I told them the legend as I had heard it years ago.

It seems that in the old days no houses existed on the Cliffs from the old Castle of Hamilton to the modern monument near the Witch Hill. It was all meadow land, much used for the grazing of cattle and sheep, and also much frequented as a playground for bygone children. On and over the face of the cliffs, slightly to the westward of Butts Wynd, existed then the entrance to a fearsome cave, or old ecclesiastical passage, which was a terror to many, and most people shunned it. It had many names, among them the “Jingling Cove,” “The Jingling Man’s Hole,” “John’s Coal Hole,” and later “The Piper’s Cave, or Grave.” A few of the oldest inhabitants still remember it. A few knew a portion of it; none dared venture beyond this well-known portion. Like the interior of an old ice-house, it was dark, chilly, and clammy; its walls ran with cold sweat. It was partly natural, but mostly artificial—a most dark, creepy, and fearsome place.

In a description which I got of it many years ago, and which appeared in the _St Andrews Citizen_, I learn that “the opening of this cliff passage was small and triangular; it was situated on a projecting ledge of rock, and it was high enough, after entering, to enable a full-sized man to stand upright. From the opening it was a steep incline down for a distance of 49 feet, thereafter it proceeded in a level direction for over 70 feet, when it descended into a chamber. At the further end of this chamber were two, if not more, passages branching off from it. Between the passages was cut out in the rock a Latin cross.” This would seem to point to an ecclesiastical connection, and had nothing whatever to do with the more modern smugglers’ cave near the ladies’ bathing place.

But enough of description. In bygone days, in a small cottage, little better than a hovel, situated in Argyle, lived an old dame named Goodman. She occupied one room, and her son and his young wife tenanted the other little chamber. He was a merry, dare-devil, happy-go-lucky lad, and he was famed as one of the best players on the bagpipes in all Fife; he would have pleased even Maggie Lauder. Of nights at all hours he would make the old grass-grown streets lively with his music. “Jock the Piper,” was a favourite among both young and old. He was much interested in the tale of the old West Cliff cave, and took a bet on with some cronies that on a New Year’s night he would investigate the mysteries of the place, and play his pipes up it as far as he could go. His old mother, his wife, and many of his friends tried hard to dissuade him from doing so foolish and so foolhardy a thing; but he remained obdurate, and firmly stuck to his bet. On a dark New Year’s night he started up the mysterious cavern with his pipes playing merrily; and they were heard, it is said, passing beneath Market Street, then they died away. They suddenly ceased, and were never more heard. He and his well-known pipes were never seen again.

Somewhere beneath St Andrews lies the whitened bones of that bygone piper lad, with his famous pipes beside him. Attempts were made to find him, but without avail; no one, not even the bravest, dared to venture into that passage full of damp foul air. His mother and wife were distracted, and the young wife used to sit for hours at the mouth of that death-trap cave. Finally, her mind gave way, and she used to wander at all hours down to the mouth of the cave where her husband had vanished. The following New Year’s night she left the little cottage in Argyle, and putting a shawl over her wasted shoulders, turned to the old woman and said, “I’m going to my Jock.” Morning came, but she never returned home. She had, indeed, gone to her lost “Jock.” For years after, the small crouching figure of a woman could be seen on moonlight nights perched on the rock balcony of the fatal cave, dim, shadowy, and transparent. Wild shrieks and sounds of weird pipe music were constantly heard coming from out of that entrance.

In after years, when the houses were built, the mouth of this place was either built or covered up, and its memory only remains to us.

But what of “Piper Jock?” He, it is said, still walks the edge of the old cliffs; and his presence is heralded by an icy breath of cold air, and ill be it for anyone who meets or sees his phantom form or hears his pipe music. He seems to have the same effect as the ghost of “Nell Cook” in the dark entry at Canterbury, mentioned in the “Ingoldsby Legends,” from which I must quote a few verses—

“And tho’ two hundred years have flown,
Nell Cook doth still pursue
Her weary walk, and they who cross her path
The deed may rue.

Her fatal breath is fell as death!
The simoon’s blast is not
More dire (a wind in Africa
That blows uncommon hot).

But all unlike the simoon’s blast,
Her breath is deadly cold,
Delivering quivering, shivering shocks
Upon both young and old.

And whoso in the entry dark
Doth feel that fatal breath,
He ever dies within the year
Some dire untimely death.”

So it is with him who meets “Piper Jock.”

“By Jove,” interrupted the golfing “Johnny,” “has anyone seen him lately?”

“I only know of one man,” I said, “who told me that one awful night in a heavy thunderstorm he had heard wild pipe music, and seen the figure of a curiously dressed piper walking along the cliff edge, _where no mortal could walk_, at a furious speed.”

“What do you think of it all?” asked my golfing friend.

“I don’t know, I’m sure; I am not receptive and don’t see ghosts, but if I could only find _now_ the mouth of that place, I bet another ‘Jock’ and I would get along it and find out the whereabouts of ‘Jock the Piper’ and his poor little wife. Here is my hansom. Good night, don’t forget the Piper.”

And they haven’t.

The Beautiful White Lady of the Haunted Tower.

“How very, very lovely she was to be sure!”

“Of whom are you speaking?” I asked. “Of some of the Orchid or Veronique people, or of some of your own company? I did not know you were hard hit old chap.” I was sitting in the smoking-room of the Great Northern Hotel, King’s Cross, talking to an old friend, an Oxford man, but now the manager of a big theatrical company, when he suddenly made the above remark.

“No, no! Of none of those people,” he replied; “but our talking of St Andrews reminded me of a ghost, a phantom, or a spectre—call it what you choose—I saw in that ancient city several years ago—no horrid bogie, but a very lovely girl, indeed.”

“By Jove,” I said, “tell me about it; I want a new ghost tale very badly indeed. I know a lot of them, but perhaps this is something new and spicy.”

“I am sure I do not know if it be new,” he replied. “I have never seen anything spectral before or since, but I saw that lovely woman three different times. It must be fully ten years ago. I saw her twice on the Scores and once in an old house.”

“Well, I must really hear all about it,” I said. “Please fire away.”

“All right, all right!” he said. “Now for her _first_ appearance. I was living in St Andrews at the time. It must have been the end of January or beginning of February, and I was strolling along to the Kirkhill after dinner and enjoying the fine evening and the keen sea breeze, and thinking about the old, old days of the Castle and Cathedral, of Beaton’s ghost, and many other queer tales, when a female figure glided past me. She was in a long, flowing white dress, and had her beautiful dark hair hanging down past her waist. I was very much astonished to see a girl dressed in such a manner wandering about alone at such an hour, and I followed her along for several yards, when lo! just after she had passed the turret light she completely vanished near the square tower, which I was afterwards informed was known as the ‘Haunted Tower.’ I hunted all round the place carefully, but saw nothing more that night. Queer, wasn’t it?”

“Certainly it was,” I remarked; “but I know dozens of weird stories connected with that old tower. But what more have you to tell me?”

“Well,” he continued, “as you may imagine, the whole affair worried and puzzled me considerably, but it was gradually vanishing from my mind when near the same place I saw her again. I had my sister with me this time, and we both can swear to it. It was a lovely night with a faint moon, and as the white lady swept past quite silently we saw the soft trailing dress and the long, black wavy hair. There was something like a rosary hanging from her waist, and a cross or a locket hanging round her throat. As she passed she turned her head towards us, and we both noticed her beautiful features, especially her brilliant eyes. She vanished, as before, near that old tower. My sister was so awfully frightened that I had to hurry her off home. We were both absolutely convinced we had seen a being not of this world—a face never to be forgotten.”

“How strange,” I said. “You know, several people saw a girl in that built-up old turret lying in her coffin. A former priest of the Episcopal Church here saw some masons repairing the wall of that tower, and their chisel fell into the turret through a chink. On removing a stone, they came upon a chamber within, and they saw a girl dressed in white, with long hair, lying in a coffin, wanting the lid. The hole was built up again at once. I know, and have often talked to persons who saw her there. One of them was a mason employed at the work. The doorway of the tower is opened up now, and a grill put in, but there is no sign of the girl. Queer stories arose. Some said it was the remains of Princess Muren, daughter of Constantine. Others said it was the embalmed body of some sweet girl Saint concealed there in times of trouble, and so on; but finish your story.”

“I have little more to tell,” he answered. “Some months afterwards I was a guest in an old house in Fifeshire, and was given the turret room. On the second night I went to bed early, as I had been at golf all day and felt awfully dead beat. I must have fallen asleep suddenly, as I left my candle burning on the table. All of a sudden I woke up with a start to find the now familiar figure of the ‘White Lady’ at the foot of my bed. She was gazing at me intently. When I sat up she glided away behind the screen at the door. I jumped up, put on my dressing-gown, seized the candle, and made for the door. The lady was gone, and the door was as I left it when I went to bed—_locked_. I unlocked it, flung it open, and looked into the passage. There she was, I saw the white dress, the splendid hair, the rosary, and the gold locket quite plainly. She turned her lovely face to me and smiled a sweet, pathetic smile; gently raised her hand, and floated away towards the picture gallery. Now for the end. Next day my kind hostess took me through the old gallery. I saw pictures of all ages, sorts, and sizes; but imagine my amazement when I saw ‘_The White Lady_’—the same white dress, the lovely sweet face and splendid eyes, the rosary, and a locket, which I now saw had on it the arms of Queen Mary and Lord Darnley. ‘Who on earth is that?’ I asked.

“‘You seem interested in that painting,’ said Mrs ⸺. ‘Well, that is a portrait of one of the lovely Mary Stuart’s Maries. She was madly in love with Castelar, the French minstrel, and after he was beheaded at St Andrews she became a nun, and it is said died of grief in her nunnery.’

“That is all, old boy,” he said, “and it is late. I think it seems right; _that_ girl I and my sister saw _must_ have been the spirit of Marie ⸺; and perhaps it was she who was the occupant of that haunted tower—who knows? but I shall never, never see such a divinely beautiful face on this earth again.”

Concerning More Appearances of the White Lady.

I had been invited, and was sitting at tea with a very dear old lady friend of mine not long ago. It may seem strange, but tea is, I consider, an extra and an unnecessary meal. It does not appeal to me in the least, and only spoils one’s dinner and digestion. The reason I went to tea was because in her note to me the lady mentioned that she had read my book of ghost tales, and that she was interested in ghosts in general and St Andrews ghosts in particular, and that she knew lots of such stories in the days of her girlhood in St Andrews, now about 85 years ago. That is why I went to eat cakes with sugar, hot buttered toast, and drink tea as black as senna or a black draught. She had also informed me in the note that she could tell me a lot about the Haunted Tower and the Beautiful White Lady.

It took some time to get her to that point. She would talk about Archbishop Sharpe and his haunted house in the Pends Road, of the ghost seen by Archbishop Ross, of my friend the Veiled Nun, of the Cathedral and Mr John Knox, of Hungus, King of the Picts, of Constantine, Thomas Plater, and various others. She told me a long tale of the Rainham Ghost in Norfolk, known as “The Brown Lady of Rainham,” whom her father and Captain Marryat both saw, and so on.

At last we got near the subject I wished information on.

“In my young days,” she said, “St Andrews was quite a wee bit place with grass-grown streets, red-tiled houses, outside stairs, queer narrow wynds, not over clean, only a few lights at night—here and there, an old bowet or oil lamp hanging at street corners. Every one believed in Sharpe’s Phantom Coach in those good old days.”

“Did you ever see it?” I queried.

“No,” she said, “but I have heard it rumble past, and I know those who have seen it, and many other things too.”

“But tell me about the White Lady, please,” I said.

“I will. Few people in those days cared to pass that haunted tower after nightfall. If they did they ran past it and also the Castle. Those new-fangled incandescent gas lamps have spoiled it all now. The White Lady was one of the _Maries_, one of the maids of honour to poor martyred Mary of Scotland, they said then. She was madly in love with the French poet and minstrel, ‘Castelar,’ and he was hopelessly in love, like many others, with Marie’s lovely mistress, ‘the Queen of Scots.’”

“Was she supposed to be the girl seen in the built-up haunted tower?” I asked.

“That I really can’t say,” she said. “There was a story often told in the old days that a beautiful embalmed girl in white lay in that tower, and it was there and near the Castle that she used to appear to the people. You know poor Castelar, the handsome minstrel, said and did some stupid things, and was beheaded at the Castle, and was probably buried near there. Get me from that shelf Whyte Melville’s novel, ‘The Queen’s Maries.’”

I did as she bade me.

“Well, you will see there that the night before Castelar was to be beheaded kind Queen Mary sent one of her Maries, the one who loved Castelar, at her own special request to the Castle with her ring to offer him a pardon if he left this country for ever. This Marie did see Castelar, showed him the Queen’s ring, and pleaded with him to comply, but he refused—he preferred death to banishment from his beloved Queen’s Court, and the fair messenger left him _obstinate_ in his dungeon. This faithful Marie paced up and down all that night before the Castle; then at dawn came the sound of a gun or culverin, a wreath of smoke floated out to sea, and Castelar was gone. Whyte Melville says she did not start, she did not shriek, nor faint, nor quiver, but she threw her hood back and looked wildly upward, gasping for air. Then as the rising sun shone on her bare head, Marie’s raven hair was all streaked and patched with grey. When Mary Stuart fled to England, this faithful Marie, now no more needed, became a nun in St Andrews. Look at page 371 of Whyte Melville’s book,” she said. So I read—“It was an early harvest that year in Scotland, but e’er the barley was white, Marie had done with nuns and nunneries, vows and ceremonies, withered hopes and mortal sorrows, and had gone to that place where the weary heart can alone find the rest it had so longed for at last.”

The pathetic and the comic often go together. Just at this interesting point a cat sprang suddenly up and upset a cup of tea in the lap of my genial hostess. This created a diversion. Old ladies are apt to wander, which is annoying. She got clean away from her subject for a bit. She asked me if I knew Captain Robert Marshall, who wrote plays and “The Haunted Mayor.” I said I knew Bob well, and that he was an old Madras College boy.

She then wanted to know if I knew how to pronounce the name of Mr Travis’s American putter, and if Mr Low or I had ever tried it. She also wanted to know if I knew anything of the new patent clock worked on gramophone principles which shouted the hours instead of striking them.

Having answered all these queries to her satisfaction, and taken another cup of senna—I mean tea—I got her back to the White Lady.

“Oh, yes, my dear,” she said, “I saw her, I and some friends. _A lot of us_ had been out at Kinkell Braes one afternoon and stayed there long past the time allowed us. It was almost dark, and we scuttled up the brae from the Harbour rather frightened. Just near the turret light we saw the lady gliding along the top of the old Abbey wall. She was robed in a grey white dress with a veil over her head. She had raven black hair, and a string of beads hanging from her waist. We all huddled together, with our eyes and mouths wide open, and watched the figure. ‘It’s a girl sleep-walking,’ I murmured. ‘It’s a bride,’ whispered another. ‘Oh! she’ll fall,’ said a little boy, grasping my arm. But she did not. She went inside the parapet wall at the Haunted Tower and vanished completely. ‘It’s a ghost; it’s the White Lady,’ we all shrieked, and ran off trembling home. My sister also saw her on one of the turrets in the Abbey wall, where she was seen by several people. Some months after, as I was doing my hair before my looking-glass, the same face looked over my shoulder, and I fainted. I have always felt an _eerie_ feeling about a looking-glass ever since, even now, old woman as I am. Her lovely face is one never, never to be forgotten, having once seen it, but your new fashioned lamps have altered everything.”

“And what do you think about it now?” I asked her.

“I have told you all I know. The Lady used to be seen oftenest between the Castle and that old turret. Perhaps she came to look at the last resting-place of her much loved and wayward minstrel, Castelar. Maybe she came to revisit the favourite haunts of her beloved girl Queen—truly called the Queen of the Roses; but to my dying day I shall never forget that face, that lovely, pathetic face I saw years ago, and which may still be seen by some. What! must you really go now; won’t you have another cup of tea? Very well, good bye.”

As I wended my way Clubwards I could not but think of the strange tale I had just heard and of Castelar’s sad end, and I could not help wondering if I should ever be favoured with a sight of this beautiful White Lady.

A Spiritualistic Seance.

The M’Whiskers, whom I met at Oban, were very jolly old people. Papa M’Whisker had made a big fortune teaplanting in Ceylon, and had bought, and added to Dramdotty Castle in the far, far north. They were perfectly full of ghosts and spiritualism, and at Dramdotty they seemed to have a ghost for every day in the week. On Monday there was the “Spotted Nun,” on Tuesday the “Floating Infant,” on Wednesday the “Headless Dwarf,” on Thursday the “Vanishing Nigger,” on Friday the “Burnt Lady,” and on Saturday the “Human Balloon,” and on Sunday the whole lot attended on them, and, I daresay, went to the kirk with them.

M’Whisker himself was a jovial soul, fond of his toddy, and very much resembled the Dougal Cratur in “Rob Roy.” My friend, John Clyde, should have seen him. He had a furious red head of hair and beard of the same colour, and the street boys used to call after him the song, “The folks all call me, Carroty, What, what, what, oh! Carroty,” etc. Mrs M’Whisker was a stout lady with eyes like small tomatoes and a gimlet nose. They had a son, a boy of ten, called Fernando M’Whisker, because he was born in Spain. When they came to St Andrews they had purchased a number of my “Ghost Books.” (These ghosts at present chiefly haunt the _Citizen_ Warehouse, booksellers’ shops, and the railway bookstall.) That is the reason perhaps that the M’Whiskers invited me to a spiritualistic seance at their house in South Street. They generally came to St Andrews for the winter, partly to get away from the cold of their northern home, and partly because they thought the history and atmosphere of St Andrews lent itself to an all-pervading presence of ghosts, spooks, and spirits. I had only been to two such shows before—one at Helensburgh and one at Cambridge—and was, and still am, very doubtful of the genuineness of spiritualism. On the day appointed I went to the M’Whiskers’ house in South Street, and was shown in by a Highlander in the M’Whisker tartan. It was early in the afternoon, but I found the shutters in the large room all shut, and a few dim lights only were burning. On a sideboard in the corner stood plenty of refreshments and everything else to comfort the inner man. In the centre of the room there was a round table covered with a M’Whisker tartan tablecloth, which touched the floor all round: this in itself was suspicious to my mind. I was introduced to the chief medium, one Mr Peter Fancourt, who looked as if he had been buried and dug up again. He was in tight, sleek black clothes, and resembled in every way “Uriah Heep” in “David Copperfield.” The other medium was a Mrs Flyflap Corncockle. They were supposed not to know each other, but I am as certain that they were accomplices as that the Bell Rock is near St Andrews Bay. A number of chairs encircled the table. We had all to seat ourselves on these chairs, with our thumbs and little fingers touching round the edge of the table. The first thing that happened was a kind of “squish,” and then a huge bouquet of flowers descended on the table from somewhere. It was a clever trick, but the flowers were of the commonest sort, and what I had seen in all the greengrocers’ shops that morning. The lights were now turned very low, and a spirit arm and hand appeared floating about, which shone a good deal. It hovered about from the ceiling to above our heads, and when I got a chance I jumped on a chair and seized it with both hands. It seemed to shrink up, and was torn through my hands very forcibly, and in such a material manner that I was forced to let go. I don’t know where the hand and arm went to, but it was simply a juggling trick. After this “Mr Heep” (I beg his pardon, Mr Fancourt) said that there was an unbeliever present, and as I was that unbeliever I was relegated to an armchair by the fireplace with one of M’Whisker’s muckle cigars. From that point of vantage I watched the whole affair, and they assured me they would tell me all that was going on. The next very curious thing was that they suddenly all took their hands off the table, and their eyes slowly followed something ceilingwards. It was funny to see them all lying back staring up at the roof. Then very slowly their heads and eyes resumed their normal position. “Did you see that?” said the M’Whisker triumphantly. “I saw nothing whatever,” I remarked. “What! did you not see the table float up to the ceiling? It remained there quite half a second, and then came down as lightly as a feather.” “I was watching the table the whole time,” I said, “and it never moved an inch from its place.” “Oh! you are an unbeliever,” said Mrs M’Whisker sadly, “but later on when it is darker you will see Mr Fancourt float out of one of the windows and come in at the other.” I fervently hoped if he did anything of the kind he would come a cropper on the pavement below and break some of his ribs. The table then started to dance about and move along, but this, I am certain, was simply engineered by those two mediums.

After some tomfoolery of this kind they all agreed that “Ouija” should be brought out. A large oblong yellow board was then produced and laid on the table. On it were the letters of the alphabet and a number of figures, also the sun, moon, and stars, and some other fantastic symbols. On this board was placed a small table with a round body and round head, it had three hind legs and a front, which was the pointer. These legs had little red velvet boots on. The two mediums then placed their hands on each side of this curious table, which immediately began to run about to the letters and figures, spelling out things and fixing dates in answer to questions asked. It was not the least like a planchette, which is on wheels. The first thing they informed me it had said was that a spirit called Clarissa was present, and for many years she had lain a-dying in that room. She maintained that she was some distant relation of the White Lady of the Haunted Tower. It then rushed into poetry. Its first effort was the “Legend of Purple James and his Girl,” a comic thing which reminded me of the “Bab Ballads.” They afterwards gave me a copy of this poem, which I still possess. Next the spirit gave us a Scotch poem about a haggis, and then one called “Edward and the Hard-Boiled Egg.” It then devoted its attention to me, whom it characterised as the “Unbeliever.” It stated that if the Antiquarian Society would dig a pit four feet square by six feet deep between the two dungeons in the Kitchen Tower of the Castle, and if the rock were cut through, a cave would be found full of casks of good red wine. On no condition whatever would I, on such evidence, recommend the Society to strike a pick in there. The next spirit that turned up was one Jaspar Codlever. He alluded to me as “the Cambridge man in the chair with the cigar.” He said that if excavations were made between the two last trees in Lawpark Wood a stone cist would be found full of Pictish ornaments. Again he told us that within a cave on the cliffs there was a chalice of great value placed there by Isabella the Nun, who still guarded it by night and day, and was very dangerous to approach. This spirit then went away, and his place was taken by a monk named Rudolph, who informed us that the entrance to the Crypt or sub-Chapel was between two of the pillars in the Priory. As there are a lot of pillars there, it is impossible to know which he meant. He said this entrance was near Roger’s tomb. Who Roger may be I know not. He then told us about this Crypt. He said there was something so horrible in it that it turned him sick. Curiously enough, some thought-reading people told us the same story in the Town Hall some years ago, but they said the underground Chapel was at the east end of the Cathedral. The monk then went on to tell us of this place in the Priory. He said it had Purbeck marble pillars, a well of clear water, and three small costly altars, and a number of books of the Vincentian Canons. There was a short interval now, and the lights were turned up. I was anxious to get away, but they implored me to stay and see the cabinet and the spirits therein. I told them in my most dramatic fashion that I was late already, and I had a meeting on. M’Whisker then begged me, if I would not stay to see the spirits, to taste some, and he mixed me an excellent whisky-and-soda, which he called a “Blairgowrie.” I then made my adieu, and was very glad to get once more into the street and also into a world of sense. The M’Whiskers informed me some days afterwards that they were very sorry at my leaving, as, after I had gone, Fancourt had floated out of the window, and numerous wonderful spirits had appeared in the cabinet. I am glad I went when I did, as I should certainly have taken a poker to that cabinet.

The Apparition of Sir Rodger de Wanklyn.

I am very fond indeed of Christmas time. There has been little snow this season. I think it has forgotten how to snow in these days. Still, I always feel Christmassy. I think of the good old coaching days, when there was really snow, of Washington, Irving, and good old Dickens and Scott, of the yule log and the family gatherings and re-unions, of the wassail bowl, of frumenty and plum porridge, and mince pies, plum puddings, and holly and mistletoe and big dances in the servants’ hall, of good old ancestral ghosts and hearty good cheer.

I am sitting to-day in a cosy armchair (of the old school, no modern fake) talking to my old friend, Theophilus Greenbracket. Filus, as I call him, is a clever man of many parts; he is a great traveller and sportsman, and takes a deep interest in every mortal thing. There is nothing of the kill joy or fossil about Greenbracket; he is up-to-date and true blue.

He is sitting opposite me smoking a gigantic cigar and imbibing rum punch, and talking hard; he always talks hard, but is never a bore, and never palls on one in the slightest degree. He has an enormous dog at his feet, with a fierce, vindictive expression, which belies its real nature, as it is gentle with everything and everybody, except cats and rats. Greenbracket is, among many other things, a great spiritualist and visionary, and possesses all kinds of mediumistic appliances, such as pythos, planchettes and ouijas, which he works with his old butler, Amos Bradleigh, who is another spirit hunter.

“By the bye,” said Greenbracket, “I am at present taking lessons in music with Mr Easeboy.” He says this so suddenly that he makes me jump, as we were talking about sea serpents and the probability of their existence.

“Are you indeed, old chap,” I said.

“Yes, thorough bass, and consecutive fifths and harmony and all that sort of thing, you know. He has a pupil, Macbeth Churchtimber, who has just written a thundering pretty waltz called ‘Eleanor Wynne.’”

“I thought Churchtimber,” I mildly suggested, “only played severe classical stuff.”

“Oh, yes,” replied my friend, “but he occasionally touches on a lighter theme, and has even written a comic song, called, ‘I lay beside a milestone with a sunflower on my brow.’”

“I must try it someday,” I said, “but how about your ghosts? Have you seen any lately?”

“There was one here a few minutes ago,” said Greenbracket, “a tall man in armour sitting in that corner over there.”

“What rubbish,” I said, quite crossly, “you dream things, or drink, or eat too much.”

“No I don’t,” said Greenbracket, “do you really mean to tell that you felt no sensation just now, no pricking or tingling feeling, or a chilly sensation down your back?”

“Certainly not, nothing of the kind,” I replied.

“Well, that is queer,” he said, “I know you don’t see these things, but I fancied you would have felt a strange presence in some way. I don’t know who the man in armour was. I have not seen him before, but my butler has, at all events. It was not Sir Roger de Wanklyn.”

“Who the ⸺ is he?” I queried.

“Oh,” said my host, “he is the earth-bound spirit of an architect who lived in St Andrews at the time that James the Fifth married Mary of Lorraine in the Cathedral; he says he was present at the ceremony and can describe it all. A gay pageant it was and much revelry.”

“If you can get all this sort of curious information, which I don’t exactly credit, why on earth can’t you find out something practical and useful, for instance, where the secret underground hiding place is, and where all the tons of valuable ornaments, papers, and vestments are concealed?”

“My dear friend,” said Greenbracket solemnly, “these people won’t be pumped; they only tell you what they choose to, or are permitted to reveal.”

“If they really do turn up and talk to you as you say they do, why on earth can’t you get them to talk some useful sense?”

“I really can’t force their confidence,” said Greenbracket, “all they do tell me voluntarily is most interesting and absorbing. This Sir Rodger planned numerous very important structural alterations in the Cathedral and elsewhere.”

“It is all very odd to me,” I said, “one meets people with strange ideas. I met a man years ago at Aberystwith who was a firm believer in the transmigration of souls. He said he quite remembered being a cab horse in Glasgow, and was certain when he left this planet he would become a parrot in Mars.”

“I don’t understand that sort of thing a bit,” said my extraordinary friend, Greenbracket, “but Sir Rodger de Wanklyn has sometimes to visit the Valley of Fire and Frost, where there are mighty furnaces on one side of him and ice and snow on the other and it is very painful.”

“I had that sort of experience the other day,” I remarked, “at a meeting. On one side was a furnace of a fire and on the other a window wide open with a biting frost wind blowing in.”

“Tuts,” said Greenbracket “that’s here; I am talking of the spirit world.”

“Hang! your spirit stuff. Has your butler, Amos Bradleigh, seen any spookey things lately?”

“Yes, he is much annoyed by the spirit of an evil old housekeeper here who lost her life by falling downstairs, and she is continually pushing him down my cellar stairs. He is furious.”

“Is this butler of yours any connection of Jeremiah Anklebone?” I asked.

“Yes, he is a cousin,” said Greenbracket; “all that family have second sight, and see and dream strange things.”

“And who,” I asked, “may this housekeeper be who pitched your butler down stairs?”

“Oh,” said Greenbracket, “she’s a badly constituted wraith, and her name is Annibal Strongthorn. She was housekeeper ages ago to this Sir Roger de Wanklyn in this very old house we are in.”

“What happened to this Sir Roger? Has he told you?”

“Oh! yes he fell over the cliffs.”

“Bless me, and did this old housekeeper woman push him over. Was she a murderess?”

“Oh, how can I tell,” said Greenbracket peevishly, “he has told me nothing of the kind.”

“Well, old fellow,” I said, “you really do not get much interesting information out of your ghostly friends, but what I like about you is that all your numerous ghosts come straight to you, straight to head-quarters at once—you don’t go fooling about with chairs and tables and sideboards and other pieces of timber in an idiotic way. If, as some people say, they can get chairs and tables and other articles of furniture to follow them about, why don’t they go in for cheap furniture removals at night when the streets are empty?”

“Don’t make a joke of everything,” said Greenbracket, “I do see and converse with departed spirits. I do not ask them to come; they come to me, and half of them I have never heard of before or thought of either.”

“May I ask, my good friend Greenbracket, what sort of clothes they wear when they pay you these visits; for instance, what does your latest apparition, Sir Rodger, clothe himself in?”

“Bless me!” said Theophilus, “why in the dress of his times, of course—a jerken, doublet, and hose, a rapier, and all that sort of thing; sometimes he wears a sort of coarse fustian cassock with a double breast.”

“I can’t make out,” I said to my spiritualistic friend, “where these clothes come from. Have they got a sort of theatrical wardrobe wherever they are existing? If so, why can’t the ghosts of old world clothes come alone? In such a case you might see a modern suit of evening togs, or armour, or boots and spurs, or military dress walk into your room without anything inside them; or you might, with a stretch of imagination, see a suit of pyjamas, or a pair of slippers going about the place.”

“Shut up talking like that,” said Theophilus, “you don’t possess the sense—I mean the extra sense to see these beings; but read this document I have written out. Surely it will convince you that I really do get valuable inspirations from other worlds, but, mind, keep it a strict secret at present.”

“All right, I promise you,” I murmured placidly. Then I perused carefully the more than extraordinary document he had handed me.

“It is very curious,” I said, “if it be one bit true; and if genuine, might be extremely useful. Mind my lips are sealed. But from whom did you obtain this remarkable story?”

“From Sir Rodger de Wanklyn, the Cathedral architect,” he replied, and off I went quite full of my queer friend, Greenbracket, and of Annabel Strongthorn, Amos Bradleigh, and his cousin Anklebone, and particularly Rodger de Wanklyn.

The Bewitched Ermentrude.

Very many years ago now I was sauntering down historic old South Street one November afternoon, my object being to lunch in one of the quaint houses with my old time friend, Harold Slitherwick. Lunch was not, however, the main object of my visit, but to meet a man called Reginald Sædeger, an ex-Indian judge, who had _actually_ seen a genuine spirit or ghost.

It is a sad, nay, a melancholy fact (for I have been told this by the very best authorities) that _I am not Psychic_, despite the fact that I have spent days and nights in gloomy, grimly-haunted chambers and ruins, and even a lonesome Hallowe’en night on the summit of St Rule’s ancient Tower (my only companions being sandwiches, matches, some cigars, and the necessary and indispensable flask), yet, alas! I have _never_ heard or seen anything the least abnormal, or felt the necessary, or much-talked-of mystic presence.

Arrived at the old mansion, I was duly ushered in by Slitherwick’s butler, one Joe Bingworthy, a man with the manner and appearance of an archbishop, and from whom one always seemed to expect a sort of pontifical blessing.

There were several fellows there, and I was speedily made known to Sædeger, a very cheery, pleasant little person, with dark hair and big eyebrows.

There was a very heated discussion going on when I entered as to what was really a properly constituted Cathedral. Darkwood was shouting, “No Bishop’s Chair, _no_ Cathedral.” “If,” he said, “a Bishop had his chair in a tiny chapel, it was a Cathedral, but if a religious building was as big as the Crystal Palace, and there was no Bishop’s Chair there, it was not one bit a Cathedral.”

I stopped this discussion suddenly by asking Sædeger about his ghost, and was told I would hear the whole story after lunch.

Before we adjourned to the smoke room Sædeger was telling us he felt a bit knocked up with his long journey. He had a thirty-six hours’ journey after he left good old Tony-Pandy. Visions of “Tony Lumpkin,” and “Tony Faust,” in “My Sweetheart,” flitted through my brain, then I suddenly remembered, luckily, that “Tony-pandy” was a town in Wales.

Once comfortably seated in the smoke-room with pipes, cigars, and whisky, Reginald Sædeger became at once the centre of all the interest.

“Lots of years ago,” he said, in a quiet legal voice, “I came to visit some friends in St Andrews, and I had a most unaccountable experience. I will tell you all about it. I never saw anything supernatural before, and have never seen anything the least remarkable since; but one night, my first night in that house, I undoubtedly saw the wraith of the ‘Blue Girl.’”

“What had you for supper that evening?” I mildly asked.

“Only chicken and salad,” was the reply. “I was not thinking of anything ghostly. If you fix your mind _intently_ on one thing, some folk can, you can self-hypnotise yourself. I had no idea but golf in my mind when I went off to roost.”

“Well, drive ahead,” said I.

“I had a charming, comfortable, big old-world room given me, nice fire, and all that sort of thing,” continued Sædeger, “and as I was deuced tired I soon went to bed and to sleep.

“I woke suddenly, later, with the firm conviction that a pair of eyes were fixed on me. I suppose everyone knows that if you stare fixedly at any sleeping person, they will soon awake. I got a start when I half-opened my eyes, for leaning on the mantelpiece staring hard at me in the mirror was a most beautiful girl in a light blue gauzy dress, her back, of course, was to the bed, and I saw she had masses of wavy, golden-brown hair hanging down long past her waist.

“I was utterly astonished, and watched the movements of this beautiful creature with my eyes almost closed. I felt sure it was someone in the house having a lark at my expense, so pretended to be asleep. As I watched, the girl turned round and faced me, and I marvelled at the extraordinary loveliness of her figure and features. I wondered if she was a guest in the house, and what she was doing wandering about at that time of night, and if she was sleep-walking? She then glided—it certainly _was not walking_—to a corner of the room, and then I noticed that her feet were bare. She seemed to move along above the carpet—not on it—a curious motion. She drifted, and stood beneath a big picture, took out a key and opened a small aumbrey, or cupboard, in the wall quite noiselessly. And from this receptacle she took out some small things that glittered in her pretty fingers, long taper fingers.”

“How on earth did you contrive to see all that in a dark bedroom?” I sarcastically inquired.

“The room wasn’t dark,” said Sædeger. “I always keep the light burning in a strange house and in a strange room.”

“Oh, I see,” I replied. “Go on.”

“Well,” continued Reginald Sædeger, “she then turned and came towards the bed, and I got a more distinct view of her. I had never seen anyone a bit like her before; it was an utterly unforgettable face. I have certainly never before, or since, seen anyone as pretty as she was—yet it was a strange, _unearthly_ beauty, and her huge forget-me-not blue eyes were a perfection of pathos. Nearer, and yet nearer, she came, and when quite close to the bed, she bent over me and raised her hand with the glittering thing in it high over my head. Then I made a tremendous spring out of bed, crying loudly, ‘Now I’ll see who is trying to frighten me.’ I flung out my arms to grasp her, but they closed on nothing, and to my utter astonishment I saw her standing smiling at me on the opposite side of the room.

“That was odd and uncanny enough, but then she gradually began to disappear, dissolving into a thin blue-grey mist, until nothing whatever remained—I was absolutely alone in the room and dumfoundered.”

“What next?” I asked.

“Well! what could I do or think?” said Sædeger. “I was fairly flabbergasted at the unexpected turn of events. I admit I felt shaky, so I took a stiff whisky and soda, smoked a pipe, and went back to bed to reflect on the matter, and fell asleep. I was wakened in the morning by my host, Harold Slitherwick, walking into the room carrying a pony brandy for me.”