{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56411/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56411","id":"gutenberg_56411","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56411","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Ghost stories","St. Andrews (Scotland) -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: St. Andrews Ghost Stories\n\nBy W. T. Linskill]\n\n\n\n\n                               St Andrews\n                              Ghost Stories\n\n                                   BY\n                             W. T. LINSKILL\n                            (Dean of Guild).\n\n                            _FOURTH EDITION._\n\n                There are ghosts and phantoms round us,\n                  On the mountains, on the sea;\n                Some are cold and some are clammy,\n                  Some are hot as hot can be.\n                They can creep, and crawl, and hover,\n                  And can howl, and shriek, and wail,\n                And those who want to hear of them\n                  Must read this little tale.\n\n                                               W. T. L.\n\n               J. & G. INNES, _St Andrews Citizen_ Office.\n                                  1921.\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATED TO MY OLD FRIENDS, JOHN L. LOW AND CHARLES BLAIR MACDONALD.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                       PAGE.\n\n    THE BECKONING MONK,                                   1\n\n    THE HAUNTINGS AND MYSTERIES OF LAUSDREE CASTLE,       7\n\n    A HAUNTED MANOR HOUSE AND THE DUEL AT ST ANDREWS,    15\n\n    THE APPARITION OF THE PRIOR OF PITTENWEEM,           21\n\n    A TRUE TALE OF THE PHANTOM COACH,                    27\n\n    THE VEILED NUN OF ST LEONARDS,                       31\n\n    THE MONK OF ST RULE\u2019S TOWER,                         35\n\n    RELATED BY CAPTAIN CHESTER,                          39\n\n    THE SCREAMING SKULL OF GREYFRIARS,                   44\n\n    THE SPECTRE OF THE CASTLE,                           49\n\n    THE SMOTHERED PIPER OF THE WEST CLIFFS,              55\n\n    THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE LADY OF THE HAUNTED TOWER,       59\n\n    CONCERNING MORE APPEARANCES OF THE WHITE LADY,       62\n\n    A SPIRITUALISTIC SEANCE,                             66\n\n    THE APPARITION OF SIR RODGER DE WANKLYN,             70\n\n    THE BEWITCHED ERMENTRUDE,                            75\n\n    A VERY PECULIAR HOUSE.                               80\n\n\n\n\nThe Beckoning Monk.\n\n\nMany years ago, about the time of the Tay Bridge gale, I was staying at\nEdinburgh with a friend of mine, an actor manager. I had just come down\nfrom the paint-room of the theatre, and was emerging from the stage-door,\nwhen I encountered Miss Elsie H\u2e3a, a then well-known actress.\n\n\u201cYou are just the very person I wanted to meet,\u201d she said. \u201cAllow me to\nintroduce you to my friend, Mr Spencer Ashton. He\u2019s not an actor, he\u2019s an\nartist, and he\u2019s got such a queer, queer story about ghosts and things\nnear your beloved St Andrews.\u201d\n\nI bowed to Mr Ashton, who was a quiet-looking man, pale and thin, rather\nlike a benevolent animated hairpin. He reminded me somehow of Fred Vokes.\nWe shook hands warmly.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cmy story sounds like fiction, but it is a fact, as I can\nprove. It is rather long, but it may possibly interest you. Where could\nwe foregather?\u201d\n\n\u201cCome and dine with me at the Edinburgh Hotel to-night at eight. I\u2019ll get\na private room,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cRight oh!\u201d said he, and we parted.\n\nThat evening at eight o\u2019clock we met at the old Edinburgh Hotel (now no\nlonger in existence), and after dinner he told me his very remarkable\ntale.\n\n\u201cSome years ago,\u201d he said, \u201cI was staying in a small coast town in Fife,\nnot very far from St Andrews. I was painting some quaint houses and\nthings of the sort that tickled my fancy at the time, and I was very much\namused and excited by some of the bogie tales told me by the fisher folk.\nOne story particularly interested me.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what was that?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cWell, it was about a strange, dwarfish, old man, who, they swore, was\nconstantly wandering about among the rocks at nightfall; a queer, uncanny\ncreature, they said, who was \u2018aye beckoning to them,\u2019 and who was never\nseen or known in the daylight. I heard so much at various times and from\nvarious people about this old man that I resolved to look for him and see\nwhat his game really was. I went down to the beach times without number,\nbut saw nothing worse than myself, and I was almost giving the job up as\nhopeless, when one night \u2018I struck oil,\u2019 as the Yankees would say.\u201d\n\n\u201cGood,\u201d I said, \u201clet me hear.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was after dusk,\u201d he proceeded, \u201cvery rough and windy, but with a\nfeeble moon peeping out at times between the racing clouds. I was alone\non the beach. Next moment I was _not_ alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot alone,\u201d I remarked. \u201cWho was there?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not alone,\u201d said Ashton. \u201cAbout three yards from me stood a\nquaint, short, shrivelled, old creature. At that time the comic opera\nof \u2018Pinafore\u2019 was new to the stage-loving world, and this strange being\nresembled the character of \u2018Dick Deadeye\u2019 in that piece. But this old man\nwas much uglier and more repulsive. He wore a tattered monk\u2019s robe, had a\nfringe of black hair, heavy black eyebrows, very protruding teeth, and a\npale, pointed, unshaven chin. Moreover, he possessed only one eye, which\nwas large and telescopic looking.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a horrid brute,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cOh! he wasn\u2019t half so bad after all,\u201d said Ashton, \u201cthough his\nappearance was certainly against him. He kept beckoning to me with a\npale, withered hand, continually muttering, \u2018Come.\u2019 I felt compelled to\nfollow him, and follow him I did.\u201d\n\nI lit up another pipe and listened intently.\n\n\u201cHe took me,\u201d resumed Ashton, \u201cinto a natural cave, a cleft in the rocks,\nand we went stumbling over the rocks and stones, and splashing into\npools. At least I did. He seemed to get along all right. At the far end\nof this clammy cave, a very narrow staircase, cut out of solid rock,\nascended abruptly about twenty or thirty steps, then turned a corner and\ndescended again into a large passage. Then a mighty queer thing happened.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat might that be?\u201d I enquired.\n\n\u201cWell, my guide somehow or other suddenly became possessed of a huge\ngreat candlestick with a lighted candle in it, about three feet high,\nwhich lit up the vaulted passage.\n\n\u201c\u2018We now stand in the monk\u2019s sub-way,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u201c\u2018Indeed, and who may you be? Are you a man or a ghost?\u2019\n\n\u201cThe queer figure turned. \u2018I am human,\u2019 he said, \u2018do not fear me. I\n_was_ a monk years ago, now I am reincarnate\u2014time and space are nothing\nwhatever to me. I only arrived a short while ago from Naples to meet you\nhere.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cGood heavens, Ashton,\u201d I said, \u201cis this all true?\u201d\n\n\u201cAbsolutely true, my dear fellow,\u201d said Ashton. \u201cI was in my sound\nsenses, not hypnotised or anything of that sort, I assure you. On and\non we went, the little man with his big candle leading the way, and I\nfollowing. Two or three times the sub-way narrowed, and we had a tight\nsqueeze to get through, I can tell you.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a rum place,\u201d I interjected.\n\n\u201cYes, it was that,\u201d said Ashton, \u201cbut it got still rummer as we went\nup and down more stairs, and then popped through a hole into a lower\ngallery, and I noticed side passages branching off in several different\ndirections.\n\n\u201c\u2018Walk carefully and look where you tread,\u2019 said my monkish guide. \u2018There\nare pitfalls here; be very wary.\u2019\n\n\u201cThen I noticed at my feet a deep, rock-hewn pit about two feet wide\nright across the passage. \u2018What is that for?\u2019 I asked. \u2018To trap intruders\nand enemies,\u2019 said the little monk. \u2018_Look down._\u2019 I did so, and I saw at\nthe bottom, in a pool of water, a whitened skull and a number of bones.\nWe passed four or five such shafts in our progress.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Pon my word, this beats me altogether,\u201d I interpolated.\n\n\u201cIt would have beaten me altogether if I had fallen into one of those\ntraps,\u201d said Ashton. \u201cSuddenly the close, damp, fungus sort of air\nchanged and I smelt a sweet fragrant odour. \u2018I smell incense,\u2019 I said to\nthe monk.\n\n\u201c\u2018It is the wraith, or ghost, of a smell,\u2019 he said. \u2018There has been no\nincense hereaway since 1546. There are ghosts of sounds and smells,\njust as there are ghosts of people. We are here surrounded by spirits,\nbut they are transparent, and you cannot see them unless they are\nmaterialised, but you can feel them.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Hush, hark!\u2019 said the monk, and then I heard a muffled sound of most\nbeautiful chiming bells, the like I never heard before.\n\n\u201c\u2018What is that?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018The old bells of St Andrews Cathedral. That is the ghost of sounds long\nago ceased,\u2019 and the monk muttered some Latin. Then all of a sudden I\nheard very beautiful chanting for a moment or more, then it died away.\n\n\u201c\u2018That is the long dead choir of monks chanting vespers,\u2019 remarked my\nguide, sadly.\n\n\u201cAt this period the monk and I entered a large, rock-hewn chamber, wide\nand lofty. In it there were numerous huge old iron clamped chests of\ndifferent sizes and shapes.\n\n\u201c\u2018These,\u2019 said the monk, \u2018are packed full of treasures, jewels, and\nvestments. They will be needed again some day. Above us _now_ there are\nploughed fields, but long ago right over our heads there existed a church\nand monastery to which these things belonged.\u2019 He pointed with a skinny\nclaw of a hand to one corner of the chamber. \u2018There,\u2019 he said, \u2018is the\nstaircase that once led to the church above.\u2019\u201d\n\nAshton stopped and lit a cigar, then resumed.\n\n\u201cWell, on we went again, turning, twisting, going up steps, round\ncorners, through more holes, and stepping over pitfall shafts. It was a\nloathsome and gruesome place.\n\n\u201cOut of a side passage I saw a female figure glide quickly along. She was\ndressed as a bride for a wedding; then she disappeared.\n\n\u201c\u2018Fear not,\u2019 said the monk, \u2018that is Mirren of Hepburn\u2019s Tower, the White\nLady, she can materialise herself and appear when she chooses, but she is\nnot reincarnate as I am.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, after we had gone on it seemed for hours, as I have described, the\nmonk paused.\n\n\u201c\u2018I fear I must leave you,\u2019 he said, suddenly. \u2018I am wanted. Before I go,\ntake this,\u2019 and he placed in my hand a tiny gold cup delicately chased;\n\u2018it is a talisman and will bring you good luck always,\u2019 he said. \u2018Keep\nit safe, I may never see you again here, but do not forget.\u2019\n\n\u201cThen I was alone in black darkness. He and his candle had vanished in a\nsecond. Quite alone in that awful prison, heaven only knows how far below\nthe ground, I could never have gone back, and I feared to go forward. I\nwas entombed in a worse place than the Roman Catacombs, with no hope of\nrescue, as it was unknown and forgotten by all.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a fearful position to be in,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cI should think it was,\u201d said Ashton. \u201cThe awful horror of it I can\nnever forget as long as I live. I was absolutely powerless and helpless.\nI had lost my nerve, and I screamed aloud in an agony of mind. I had\nsome matches, and these I used at rare intervals, crawling carefully and\nfeeling my way along the slimy floor of the passage. I had a terrible\nfeeling, too, that something intangible, but horrible, was crawling along\nafter me and stopping when I stopped. I heard it breathing. I struck a\nmatch, and it was lucky, for I just missed another of those pitfalls. By\nthe light of the match I saw a small shrine in an alcove which had once\nbeen handsomely ornamented. My progress forward was suddenly stopped by\na gruesome procession of skeleton monks all in white. They crossed the\nmain sub-way from one side passage and entered another. Their heads were\nall grinning skulls, and in their long bony fingers they bore enormous\ncandles, which illuminated the passage with a feeble blue glare.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s awful,\u201d I remarked.\n\n\u201cOn, and on, I slowly went. It seemed hours and hours. I was exhausted\nand hungry and thirsty. After a time I passed through open oak\nnail-studded doors that were rotting on their hinges, and then\u2014_then_, I\nsaw a _sight so horrible_ that I would never mention it to anyone. I dare\nnot, I may know its meaning some day\u2014I hope so\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat on earth was it?\u201d I inquired eagerly.\n\n\u201cFor heaven\u2019s sake let me go on and do not ask about it,\u201d said Ashton,\nturning ghastly pale. \u201cThe horror of the whole thing so upset me that\nmy foot slipped, and I fell down what seemed to be a steep stairway.\nAs I struck the bottom I felt my left wrist snap, and I fainted. When\nI regained my senses for a brief moment, I found that the White Lady,\nbearing a taper, was bending kindly over me. She had a lovely face, but\nas pale as white marble. She laid an icy cold hand on my hot brow, and\nthen all was darkness again.\n\n\u201cNow listen! Next time I came to myself and opened my eyes I was out of\nthe accursed passage. I saw the sky and the stars, and I felt a fresh\nbreeze blowing. Oh! joy, I was back on the earth again, that I knew. I\nstaggered feebly to my feet, and where on earth do you think I found I\nhad been lying?\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot guess,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cJust inside the archway of the old Pends gateway at St Andrews,\u201d said\nAshton.\n\n\u201cHow on earth did you get there?\u201d\n\n\u201cHeaven knows,\u201d said Ashton, \u201cI expect the White Lady helped me somehow.\nIt all seemed like a fearful nightmare, but I had the gold cup in my\npocket and my broken wrist to bear testimony to what I had gone through.\nTo make a long story short, I went home to my people, where I lay for six\nlong weeks suffering from brain fever and shock. I always carry the cup\nwith me. I am not superstitious; but it brings me good luck _always_.\u201d\n\nAshton showed me the monk\u2019s gold cup. It was a beautiful little relic.\n\n\u201cDid you ever examine the place where you entered the passage?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cOh, yes,\u201d he replied, \u201cI went there some years afterwards and found the\ncave, but it has all fallen in now.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy Jove! It\u2019s very late, thanks for the dinner, I must be off. Good\nnight.\u201d\n\nI lit a pipe and pondered over that curious story. The entrance to the\npassage in the cave has fallen in; the exit from it in St Andrews is\nunknown to Ashton\u2014only the White Lady knows.\n\nOn the whole, the story is wrapped in mystery, and does not help one much\nto unravel the wonders that lie in underground St Andrews. We may know\nsome day or never.\n\n\n\n\nThe Hauntings and Mysteries of Lausdree Castle.\n\n\nIt is many years ago since I was on a walking tour in the Highlands,\nfar to the north of Bonnie Glenshee; and when on the moorlands I was\novertaken, for my sins, by a regular American snowstorm\u2014a genuine\nblissard of the most pronounced type. I struggled along as well as I\ncould for some considerable time, and then I became aware that someone\nwas beside me. It was a young Highland lassie with a plaid over her head.\nI was pleased to learn from her that her name was \u201cJean,\u201d that she was\nthe niece of a neighbouring innkeeper, and that she would speedily convey\nme to his haven of rest. We trudged along in the blinding snow without\na word, and I was more than thankful to the lassie when I at last found\nmyself out of the snow in a nice little sanded parlour with a glorious\nfire of peat and logs blazing on the hospitable hearth. A glass of\nsomething hot, brought by mine host, was most welcome.\n\nI found there was one other storm-stayed traveller in the wee house, an\nold family butler, whose name I discovered was Jeremiah Anklebone. He had\nbeen on a visit to relations in the North, and had been caught in the\nsnow like myself. We were both thankful to find such a warm, cosy shanty\non such an inclement evening, and, to use a Scots term, we foregathered\nat the ingle inside.\n\nHe asked me if I knew much about spirits, to which I replied that I had\njust had a glass, but he at once explained that although not averse to\ntoddy, he alluded to spirits of another nature, viz., ghosts, banshees,\nboggards, and the like.\n\nI told him I had frequently been in so-called haunted places in various\ncountries, but had never seen or heard anything except owls, bats, rats,\nor mice.\n\nHe ventured the remark I had often heard before, that I could not be\nreceptive, and I told him I was thankful that I was not.\n\nHe was a fine old fellow, an ideal family butler, and doubtless the\nrecipient of many family secrets. He had big mutton-chop whiskers and a\nbald head, and looked as if he had served turtle soup all his life; but\nit was _not_ soup he was soaked with\u2014he seemed fairly saturated with\nspook lore. He informed me, quite calmly, that he was gifted with the\nremarkable faculty of seeing apparitions, demons, etc.\n\nI could not help remarking that it seemed a very unpleasant faculty to\npossess, but he quite differed with me, and got as warm as his toddy\non the subject. I shall not in a hurry forget that wild evening in the\nHighland inn before that blazing fire, or the wonderful narrations I\nheard from Butler Anklebone. Space precludes me from putting down here\n_all_ the marvels he revealed to me.\n\nIt seemed all his life\u2014he was 62\u2014he had been gasping like a fish on a\nriver\u2019s bank to get into a really well-haunted house, but had utterly\nfailed till he took the post of head butler at Lausdree Castle, which he\ninformed me was but a short distance from St Andrews. He gave me a most\ntremendous description of the old castle, and from his account it seemed\nto be the asylum and gathering place of _all_ the bogies in Britain\nand elsewhere. Congregated together there were the Ice Maid, the Brown\nLady, a headless man, a cauld lad, a black maiden, the Flaming Ghost,\nthe Wandering Monk, a ghost called Silky, auld Martha, a radiant bay, an\niron knight, a creeping ghost, jumping Jock, old No-legs, Great Eyes,\na talking dog, the Corbie Craw, a floating head, a dead hand, bleeding\nfootprints, and many other curious creatures far too numerous to mention.\n\nThe Castle, he said, was full of uncouth and most peculiar sights and\nsounds, including rappings, hammerings, shrieks, groans, crashings,\nwailings, and the like.\n\n\u201cWhat a remarkable place,\u201d I said to Mr Butler Anklebone, \u201cand how do you\naccount for so many spectres in so limited an area?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! there is no time or space for them,\u201d he said, \u201cthey are earth-bound\nspirits, and can go from one part of the globe to another in a second;\nbut they have their favourite haunts and meeting places just as we folks\nhave, and Lausdree seems to appeal to their varied tastes.\u201d\n\nHe then went on to tell me some details of the Haunted Castle. \u201cThere are\nsupposed to be,\u201d he said, \u201cbeneath the Castle splendid old apartments,\ndungeons, winding passages, and cellars; but history states that any\nof those persons who tried to investigate these mysteries _returned no\nmore_, so the entrances were walled up and are now completely lost sight\nof.\n\n\u201cThere is a built-up chamber, but no one durst open it, the penalty being\ntotal blindness or death, and such cases are on record. There is also a\ncoffin room shaped exactly like its name; but one of the queerest places\nat Lausdree is a small apartment with a weird light of its own. At night\nthis room can be seen from the old garden, showing a pale, uncanny,\nphosphorescent glow.\n\n\u201cMr Snaggers\u2014that\u2019s the footman\u2014and I unlocked the door and examined the\nplace carefully. There is a table, a sofa, and a few old chairs therein,\nand an all-pervading sickly light equally diffused. The furniture throws\nno shadows whatever. The room seemed very chilly, and there was a feeling\nas if all one\u2019s vitality was being sucked out of one\u2019s body, and drawing\none\u2019s breath caused pain. Snaggers felt the same. No one could live long\nin that eerie apartment. I know we were glad to lock it up again.\n\n\u201cThen there is a spiral stair, called \u2018Meg\u2019s Leg.\u2019 I don\u2019t know the\nlegend, but almost every night one hears her leg stumping up these steps.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a creepy place it must be, to be sure,\u201d I murmured, gravely.\n\n\u201cYes!\u201d said Anklebone, \u201cand I tell you sir, Snaggers and I generally\narranged to go up to bed together; one always felt there was something\ncoming up the stairs behind one. When a person stopped, it stopped also,\nand one could hear it breathing and panting, but nothing was to be seen.\nSnaggers said one night when the candle went out he saw monstrous red\neyes, but I saw nothing then. The creeping creature I only saw twice,\nit was like an enormous toad on spider\u2019s legs. They say it has a human\nhead and face, but I only saw its back. Some folks say it is alive and\nnot a ghost, and that it hides somewhere in the cellars, but we never\ncould get a trace of it. One night I was going down to the service room\nwhen my way was barred by a ghastly, tall figure, with great holes where\neyes should have been, so I just shut my eyes and rushed through it\ndownstairs. When I got down, I found all my clothes were covered with a\nvile, sickly-smelling sticky sort of oil, and I had to destroy them all.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo on, please,\u201d I said, \u201cyou astonish me vastly.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he said slowly, \u201cit\u2019s all very queer. Lausdree is haunted and\nno mistake. Snaggers and I shared the same room. One night a great\nblood-stained hand and arm came round the corner of the bed curtain and\ntried to grab me. It was dead ice-cold too. Then a thing, an invisible\nthing, used to patter into the room, puffing and groaning, and get under\nthe bed and heave it up, but we looked and there was never anything\nthere, and the door locked too. We saw a great black corkscrew thing one\nnight fall from the ceiling on to the floor and disappear, and then there\nwas a mighty rush along the passage. Outside the door a great crash,\na yell, and a groan dying away far below. There was a humorous spirit\nalso, the Iron Knight. We called him \u2018Uncle.\u2019 He was up to tricks. We\ndidn\u2019t mind him. When the fat cook was sitting down to a meal, he\u2019d pull\nback her chair, and down she would come with a rare crash. If any of the\nmaids upset a tray of tea-things, or fell downstairs with the kettle, or\nknocked over the great urn, they used to say\u2014\u2018Oh! That\u2019s Uncle again!\u2019\u201d\n\nI told him (Mr Anklebone) that I was delighted there was a touch of\ncomedy in such a gruesome place, as I preferred comedians to ghosts any\nday. One thing I learnt from his story, and that was, that if he was\nhead butler at Lausdree Castle, the head ghost was Sir Guy Ravelstocke,\nwhose portrait still hung in the old picture gallery. The Castle dated\nback to Norman times, but about 1457 it fell into the hands of this\nSir Guy Ravelstocke, who had been educated at the \u201cStadium Generale,\u201d\nor University of Saint Andrews. He and his two friends, Geoffrey De\nBeaumanoir and Roger Le Courville, held high revel and carnival in the\nold halls of Lausdree, and were the terror of the whole countryside.\nSir Guy was a dissolute fellow, a gambler, and everything else bad. The\nneighbours alleged that he had sold himself to Old Nick. He would spill\nblood as if it was water, and he and his white steed, \u201cNogo,\u201d were well\nknown all over Fife and the Lothians. He was held to be a free-booter, a\nwizard and a warlock, a highwayman, a pirate, and a general desperado. He\nhad slain many men in mortal combat, and was found invulnerable.\n\n\u201cHe must have been a sort of Michael Scott of Balwearie,\u201d I remarked.\n\n\u201cHe must have been a holy terror,\u201d said the butler. \u201cI\u2019ve seen him often,\nexactly like his portrait in the picture gallery. I\u2019ve seen him in his\nold-world dress with his sword hanging at his side, sometimes on his\nwhite horse and sometimes on foot.\n\n\u201cThere were always terrible knockings, shrieks, and crashes before he\nappeared, and all our dogs showed the greatest terror. I slept in an old\nfour-poster bed, and he used to draw aside the curtain and glare at me\nconstantly. He nearly always was accompanied by the spectre of a negro\ncarrying his head under his arm. Sir Guy was a great traveller in foreign\nlands, and, I have been told, used to bring back all sorts of curious\nanimals and insects with him. Perhaps that great toad thing I saw was one\nof the creatures. I\u2019ve heard toads live for ages.\u201d\n\nI said I believed that was quite true.\n\n\u201cI found a queer place one day,\u201d said Anklebone. \u201cI was going up the\nturret staircase, and found some of the steps moved back. I got Mr\nSnaggers and Darkgood, the gardener, and we tugged them out. We called\nthe master, and then we found narrow steps going down to a locked door.\nWe forced it open, and got into a stone chamber. There were skulls and\nbones all over the place. Most of them belonged to animals, but there was\na horrible thing on the floor, a sort of mummified vampire bat, with huge\nteeth and enormous outstretched wings, like thick parchment, and four\nlegs. Perhaps it was a regular vampire. They fanned folks to sleep with\ntheir great wings, and then sucked their blood dry. We cleared out the\nroom, and buried all the things in a wood.\n\n\u201cNow,\u201d said Anklebone, \u201cI will tell you the end of Sir Guy Ravelstocke.\nHe brought back with him from them foreign parts a nigger servant, and\nthey called him the \u2018Apostle.\u2019 Well, one night,\u201d continued Anklebone, \u201che\nand his chums were dining, and full of wine, and the \u2018A\u2014Postal\u2019 offended\nthem somehow, and Sir Guy stabbed him. Then they chained his hands and\nfeet together, took him to the dungeon, and filled his mouth, nose, and\nears full of clay and left him. That is the nigger ghost I saw always\nwith Sir Guy\u2014the murdered negro.\n\n\u201cAbout two years after, Sir Guy and his friends were in the same room\ndrinking when there came a great hammering at the Castle door. Sir Guy\ndrew his sword, flung open the door, and plunged out into the darkness. A\nfew moments passed then his friends rushed out on hearing wild unearthly\nshrieks, but there was no Sir Guy to be seen, he had totally disappeared,\nand was never heard of or seen in life again. We found his remains three\nyears ago, but I will tell you of that directly. One day Snaggers and I\nhad gone to St Andrews to buy things. We were just at the end of South\nStreet when a horseman dashed past us at full gallop. \u2018Heavens,\u2019 said\nSnaggers, \u2018it\u2019s Sir Guy as I live.\u2019 He went bang into the big iron gates\nat the Cathedral. When we came up the great gates were locked, and there\nwas Sir Guy leaning up against the west gable scowling at us, but the\nwhite horse had gone, and he melted away as we looked. I saw him again\nwith the negro at Magus Muir, and alone one dark night in North Street.\n\n\u201cI was alone one evening in the room below the banquet hall at Lausdree\nand heard a pattering on the table. On looking up I saw a stain in the\nceiling, and drops of blood were dropping down on the table and the\nfloor. The room above was the very place where the negro was stabbed.\nNext morning we went into the room where I saw the blood drip, and there\nwas the mark of a bloody hand on the table, but no stain on the roof.\n\n\u201cNow for the discovery. I had often dreamed about an old overgrown well\nthere was in the gardens, and felt very suspicious of what might be\ntherein. Then the gardener and the woodman told me they had frequently\nseen the awful spectre of Sir Guy and the \u2018Apostle\u2019 hovering round about\nthe thicket that enclosed what was known as the haunted well, and then\nvanish in the brushwood without disturbing it. I felt sure that there lay\nthe mystery of Sir Guy Ravelstocke. This idea was soon after confirmed\nby a curious occurrence. One morning Snaggers was dusting an old oil\npainting over the huge mantelpiece, and above the weeping stone in the\ngreat hall, when somehow or other he contrived to touch a secret spring\nand the painting flew back, open in its frame, and revealed a chamber\nbeyond.\n\n\u201cWe sent for master, and got down by some steps into the room. Such a\nqueer place! It was octagonal in shape, and there had been either a great\nfire or an explosion there. The vaulted stone roof and floor were all\nblackened and cracked, and the fireplace and wood-panelling were all\nburnt and charred.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps the chapel,\u201d I remarked.\n\n\u201cThat is what master said,\u201d replied the butler, \u201cand there were remains\nof burnt tapestry, charred wood, and documents all over the stone floor.\nMaster got one piece of burnt paper with faded writing on it in some\nforeign tongue. The odd thing was the big picture. The eyes were sort of\nconvex-like, and two holes were bored in the pupil of each of its eyes,\nso that anyone standing up on top of the stone stairs could see all that\ntook place in the great hall below, and hear also.\n\n\u201cMaster took the piece of parchment and managed to make out a few words.\nThey were\u2014\u2018I am sure that Ravelstocke lies in the old Prior\u2019s Well,\nwith the dead nigger servant we placed there. I would not go near that\nspot for my life. Heaven grant it may not come for me, I must leave the\nplace.\u2019 That was all he could decipher on the burnt paper.\n\n\u201c\u2018We must explore that Prior\u2019s Well (evidently that is its name)\nto-morrow morning,\u2019 said our master. We were all up at dawn, and got all\nthe men available to cut down the shrubs, bushes, and the undergrowth\nround the well, the growth of ages. When the well was exposed it looked\nvery like the holy well at St Andrews, only it had been very finely\ncarved and ornamented at one time. The entrance was a Norman archway,\nand the remains of an oak door still hung there. We found a shallow bath\nshaped pool of muddy water inside, and a lot of broken stones and bits\nof old statues and glass. At the far end was a large square opening a\nfew feet above the pool of water. We, of course, made for this, and\nfound there was a cell beyond. The whole well on one side was riven and\nrent, either by lightning or the effects of an earthquake shock. If that\nancient well could have spoken it would have told us as queer tales as\nSt Rule\u2019s Tower at St Andrews. There was a most curious, overpowering,\nsickening odour inside the place, like a vault or charnel house.\u201d\n\nI remarked that I knew no smells worse than acetylene gas or the awful\nsmell I unearthed when digging, long ago, opposite the St Andrews\nCathedral.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Anklebone, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine a worse odour than there was\nbeside that Prior\u2019s Well. It turned us all so faint. We had to get some\nbrandy. We got into the far cell, and there were two skeleton bodies on\nthe flagged floor. One was a blanched skeleton as far as the neck, but\nthe skull was well preserved, and matted black hair still clung on it and\nround the jaws. All the teeth were in their place. Some rings had fallen\nfrom the bony fingers, and a sword, all eaten away by rust, lay beside\nthe skeleton. The other was like a mummified ape, of a dark oak colour,\nthe nails on the fingers and toes being quite perfect. Chains, also\nalmost worn away, hung round the feet and hands.\n\n\u201c\u2018Good Heavens,\u2019 said master, \u2018it is Sir Guy Ravelstocke and the murdered\nApostle!\u2019 There was no doubt of that whatever. We had them removed and\nburied at once. The mystery was solved after all these long years.\n\n\u201cThe nigger had been placed there, but the mystery of Sir Guy was\ninexplicable. _Who came for him_ that night when he rushed out of the\ndoor of Lausdree Castle, centuries ago, with his sword, and who carried\nhim to his doom in the Friar\u2019s Well? No one can answer that terrible\nquestion now. Oh! that the old well could speak and reveal its secret.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nA Haunted Manor House and the Duel at St Andrews; OR, The Old Brown Witch.\n\n\nThis can hardly be termed a St Andrews ghost story, but it is so\nremarkably strange and weird that I have been specially requested to add\nit to the series, and there is an allusion to St Andrews in it after all.\n\nSeveral years ago we had in the Golf Club at Cambridge a Russian Prince\nwho took up golf, and the questions of spirits, bogies, witches,\nbanshees, death warnings, and the like, equally strongly. He was a firm\ndisbeliever in all of them, and belonged to a Phantasmalogical Research\nSociety to inquire into and expose all such things. I frequently have\nlong letters from him from all sorts of remote parts of the world where\nhe is investigating tales of haunted houses, churchyards, and so on;\nbut from this, his last letter, he seems to have contrived to meet a\n_genuine_ and very unpleasant sort of spectre. Of course I suppress all\nnames.\n\n                                                              \u201cX\u2e3ax Manor,\n                                                            Feb. \u2e3a, 1905.\n\nDear W. T. L.,\u2014Well, here I am, actually in a really haunted manor house\nat last, and I have had a most horribly, weird, and uncanny experience\nof a most loathsome appearance. I have been here a fortnight now\u2014such a\nqueer, great old house, all turrets and towers, and damp wings covered\nwith ivy and creepers, and such small, narrow windows. It is on a slight\nelevation, and has in bygone days had a moat around it. It is surrounded\nby dense woods, and there is a black-looking lake at the back. The\nstaircases are all stone and very narrow, and there is an old chapel and\na coffin room in the house. In the garden, in a yew avenue, is a vault\nand a tombstone, and thereby hangs my curious tale.\n\nIt seems that centuries ago a very unpleasant old widow lady, and a very\nunpleasant son, had the old house. She was a very ugly and eccentric\ncreature, and a miser, and was nicknamed by the village folk \u201cThe\nBrown Witch.\u201d The tales about her ongoings told to this day are most\nremarkable. It seems her son, who, according to all accounts, was a\nshocking bad lot, was killed in a duel, and the old lady died shortly\nafterwards a _raving maniac_.\n\nShe seems to have left a very curious will. I deal with only two\ndetails in it. One was that the chamber in which she lived and died\nwas for ever to be left _untouched_ and _undisturbed_, but _unlocked_,\nor the disturber would be cursed with instant blindness and ultimately\ndeath. The second was that she was to be buried in the vault in the yew\navenue that she had specially made for her remains; that she was to be\ndressed in her usual clothes and bonnet, and that she must be placed in\na tightly-sealed _glass coffin_, so as to be visible to any intruder.\nMy host told me the chamber or the vault in the grounds had never been\ninterfered with, but that her appearances had been very frequent to most\ncredible witnesses, and that such appearances all portended some dire\ncalamity to some one.\n\nShe had appeared and terrified many visitors, both in the house and in\nthe grounds. She had also been seen by the village pastor and by the\nservants. He had never seen her himself, but he had taken every measure\nhe could think of to unravel the mystery, but in vain. The outdoor\nservants were terrified, and would never remain, and one lady visitor had\nbeen nearly driven mad by seeing her peering in at the window at dusk.\n\nOf course, I laughed the tale to scorn, and also the story of the alarm\nbell which tolled at intervals without any apparent or human agency. Not\neven the bravest would dare to walk down the yew avenue after nightfall.\n\nWell, I had been ten days in the house before anything happened. I must\nsay, the wind and the rats, and owls and bats, and the tapping noise\nof the ivy on the old windows at night were rather creepy, but nothing\nreally out of the common happened till the other night.\n\nMy room was in a long, narrow, old gallery. After cards and billiards,\nand at about 12.30, I was going off to my well-earned rest, and was\ngetting near my door in the gallery, when I saw a faint light coming\ntowards me round a corner. I went into my room and waited to see who\nwas wandering about so late at night. Then a figure stopped at my door,\nevidently carrying a lighted old lantern. I raised my candle to have an\ninspection, and then, oh! horror!\u2014I staggered back for a moment, for\nbefore me clearly stood the horrible figure of the old \u201cBrown Witch.\u201d A\ncold sweat broke out all over me.\n\nFar, far worse than the description. I saw her brown robe and the poke\nbonnet, the horrible face, the huge black sockets of the eyes without\neyeballs, the nose gone, and, worst of all, that fearful grin, the cruel\ngrin of a maniac, a wicked, terrible face.\n\nI opened my drawer and seized my always loaded revolver. I shouted\nloudly, and fired _once_, _twice_, _thrice_. She never moved; only the\nhorrible mocking smile grew wider and more devilish. I rushed forward,\nslammed my door to shut out the awful sight, and then collapsed back into\na chair.\n\nI must have hit it each time for certain. An offensive charnel house\nsmell pervaded the air. Then the door flew open, and my host and several\nmen and servants rushed into the room, anxiously asking what was the\nmatter, and why I fired? I told them everything. We found the three\nbullet shots in the wall opposite my door. They _must_ have passed\nthrough that abominable horror.\n\nNeed I say I spent a wretched night? In fact, I sat up and never went\nto bed at all. I resolved to leave next day early, but before doing\nthat I determined at all hazards, to go into that vault and see what\nit contained, and also to carefully investigate the \u201cBrown Witch\u2019s\u201d\nchamber without disturbing anything in it. I told my host next day at\nbreakfast what I proposed doing, and he offered no objection whatever,\nbut declined absolutely to go near the vault or chamber himself, or to\nlet any of his household do so.\n\n\u201cOh! by-the-by, did you ring the alarm bell in the tower last night?\u201d\nhe asked me. \u201cIt was the sound of your shots and the great bell ringing\nimmediately afterwards that brought me along so quickly to your room. We\nall heard it.\u201d\n\nI told him I knew nothing of it and never even heard the bell.\n\n\u201cI thought that,\u201d he said, \u201cfor you were nearly off in a faint when we\nall came in, and hardly knew us for a bit.\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t make out the bell,\u201d said my host, \u201cor what on earth can make it\nring so. It has no rope, and it cannot possibly be the wind. I must have\nit removed. Last time it rung loudly like that, my old housekeeper was\nfound dead in her bed in the morning.\u201d\n\nTo make a long story short, the next thing I did was to get a couple of\nlabourers to shovel away the earth and find the lid of the old vault in\nthe yew avenue. This was soon done, and we quickly descended into the\nplace with lights. We found ourselves in a large-built, clammy chamber,\nand on the floor lay a tattered and broken old lantern. At first we\nthought the chamber was empty, but all of a sudden we noticed a niche at\none end and at once went forward to it. In this singular alcove was a\nlarge glass box, or coffin, standing on its end, and in it and standing\nupright was the horrible eyeless mummy (still arrayed in the brown robe\nand poke bonnet) of the terrible creature I had seen in the gallery, and\nwith the same mocking, grinning mouth and the huge ugly teeth. The same\nsmell I have told you of before pervaded the whole place.\n\nShe was hermetically sealed up in this ghastly glass coffin and\npreserved. We were all very glad to leave that charnel-house and cover\nit up out of sight, but not out of memory. That would be perfectly\nimpossible to any of us. I can\u2019t get that smell out of my nose yet. It\nwould sicken you.\n\nNext, I went to the chamber with a friend and my bicycle lantern to\ninvestigate. It was up a long, narrow stone stair. The old oak door (it\nwas unlocked, as I said before) soon yielded to our combined efforts\nand creaked open, and we stood in a room of the middle ages. The old\nshutters were tightly closed. The ceiling, which had once been handsomely\npainted, was rapidly falling away, and the tapestry was rotting off the\nwalls. It had evidently once been a splendid apartment, but now it was\ngiven up to rats and moths and spiders and damp. It chilled one to the\nvery marrow, and it had that same horrible smell. There was a four-poster\nbed in one corner with rags and shreds of curtains, probably where the\nold creature had died. The tables and chairs were covered with the dust\nof ages. There was no carpet of any kind. An old spinet stood against the\nwall; and papers were lying all over the place inches deep in dust. A few\ncharred logs of wood lay in the gaping old fireplace with its old-time\nchimney corners, and there seemed to be bits of valuable old china and\nbric-a-brac about the place. Many pictures had fallen off the walls,\nbut a few faded pencil drawings were still in their places. Just guess\nmy surprise and astonishment when I found they were Scottish views\u2014one\nof Edinburgh, one of Crail Church, and three of St Andrews, including\nthe old College and Chapel, the Castle, and St Leonards College, with\ndate 1676. Here was another most curious thing I determined to ask about\nbefore I left. However, I touched nothing in the room, as I had promised\nmy host, and besides\u2014you will laugh\u2014I had no wish to be stricken with the\n\u201cBrown Witch\u2019s\u201d promised curse of blindness and ultimate death to any\nintruder who touched her things. I dreaded her far too much since I had\nseen her in the gallery and in her tomb, and heard of her bewitched alarm\nbell, which portended death to some one.\n\nBefore I left, I mentioned the Scottish drawings in the witch\u2019s room to\nmy host, and asked him if he could throw any light on how they came there.\n\nBriefly, it seems that she (the witch) sent her son far away in those old\ndays to a Scottish University, and St Andrews was her choice. It seems\nhe was very quarrelsome in his cups, and frequently fought duels, and\ngenerally proved the victor. One of the last he fought at Sauchope Stone,\nnear Crail, with a nephew of the Laird of Balcomie Castle, and they\nfought with broadsword and buckler, and again the \u201cWitch\u2019s\u201d son killed\nhis man. His last duel was fought on St Andrews sands with rapiers, and\nhe was run through the heart\u2014a good job.\n\nNow I must conclude. I am determined to investigate further the whole\nmost mysterious affair. If you ever visit this place, my host, Mr \u2e3a, says\nhe will let you explore the vault in the yew avenue, and see the coffin\nand the old witch, and you may also go and look at the chamber. If you\never do, take the advice of an old friend and do not _dare_ to touch\nanything therein.\n\n                                                  YOUR FRIEND TO COMMAND.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Apparition of the Prior of Pittenweem.\n\n\nIt was in September 1875 that I first met dear old Captain Chester (now\ngone to his rest); and it was very many years before that date that he\nrented his fearsomely haunted old house in St Andrews.\n\nI was a Cambridge boy when I met him\u2014how the undergraduates scorn that\nterm \u201cboy.\u201d He told me the following queer tales in the Poppledorf Avenue\nat Bonn when I was on holiday.\n\nThe house he rented at St Andrews, from his accounts, must have been a\nmost unpleasant and eerie dwelling. Rappings and hammerings were heard\nall over the house after nightfall, trembling of the walls, quiverings.\nHeavy falls and ear-piercing shrieks were also part of the nightly\nprogramme.\n\nI suggested bats, rats, owls, and smugglers as the cause, which made\nthe old man perfectly wild with rage, and caused him to use most\nunparliamentary language.\n\nI pointed out that such language would probably have scared away any\nrespectable ghost. However, let me tell the story in his own peculiar way.\n\n\u201cMy brother and I took the house, sir,\u201d he said, \u201cand we had a nephew and\nsome nieces with us. There were also three middle-aged English servants\nat the time; and, gadsooth, sir, they had strange names. The cook\npossessed the extraordinary name of Maria Trombone, the housemaid was\ncalled Jemima Podge, and the other old cat was called Teresa Shadbolt.\n\n\u201cOne evening I was sitting smoking in my study, when the door flew open\nwith a bang and Maria rushed in.\n\n\u201c\u2018Zounds! Mrs Trombone,\u2019 I said, \u2018how dare you come into my room like\nthis?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, sir,\u2019 she said, \u2018there are _hawful_ things going on to-night.\nI\u2019m _frighted_ to death. I was washing hup, please sir, when something\nrushed passed me with a rustle, and I got a great smack on the cheek with\na damp, cold hand, and then the place shook, and all the things clattered\nlike anything.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Nonsense, Trombone,\u2019 I said, \u2018you were asleep, or have you been\ndrinking, eh?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Lor\u2019 bless you, sir, no! never a drop; but last night, sir, Teresa\nShadbolt had all the bedclothes pulled off her bed twice, sir, and Jane\nsaid a tall old man in a queer dressing-gown came into her room and\nbrushed his white beard over her face, and, lor\u2019, sir, didn\u2019t you hear\nher a-screamin\u2019?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No, I\u2019m hanged if I did. You must all be stark, staring mad, you know.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Not a bit of us, master,\u2019 continued Mrs Trombone. \u2018There is something\nwrong about this blessed house\u2014locked doors and windows fly wide open,\nand the bells keep ringin\u2019 at all hours of the night, and we hear steps\non the stairs when everyone is in bed, and knocks, and crashes, and\nscreams. Then the tables and things go moving about. No Christian could\nput up with it, please sir. _We must all leave_.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, I got all those women up, and they told me deuced queer things,\nbut I squared them up at last.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cI doubled their wages, sir, and I told them they might all sleep in\none room upstairs together, and I promised them a real good blow-out at\nChristmas, and so on.\n\n\u201cNext my nephew and little nieces saw the old man with the long white\nbeard at various times in the passages and on the stairs. Oddly enough,\nmy little nieces got quite accustomed to see the aged man with the grey\nbeard, and were not a bit timid. They said he was just like the pictures\nof old Father Christmas, and he looked kind.\n\n\u201cI never saw him,\u201d continued Chester, \u201ctill one All Hallows Night, or\nHallowe\u2019en as they termed it in St Andrews; but I will speak of that\nlater on.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo on,\u201d I said, \u201cit is very interesting indeed to me.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe servants all saw him at times, and that old arch fiend, Trombone,\nwas constantly getting frightened, and breaking things and fainting. I\nwas myself annoyed by strange unearthly sounds when sitting smoking at\nnight late. There were curious rollings and rumblings under the house,\nlike enormous stone balls being bowled along, then a heavy thud followed\nby intolerable silence. Then there was a curious sound like muffled\nblinds being quickly drawn up and down; that and a sort of flapping and\nrustling seemed to pervade the air.\n\n\u201cThis perplexed me, and I got in a detective; but he found out nothing at\nall. After much trouble and research I learned of the legend of the Prior\nof Pittenweem and his connection with the old house.\n\n\u201cIt seems when Moray and his gang of plunderers shut up St Monance Church\nand the old Priory of Pittenweem, the last Prior (not Forman or Rowles),\na very old man, was cut adrift, and for some months lay hidden at Newark\nCastle, food being brought him by some former monks. Newark Castle was\nburned, and this old Prior fled to Balcomie Castle. From there he went to\nKinkell Cave near St Andrews.\n\n\u201cI know all those places well,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cAfter some weeks, and when winter came, he took refuge in the very old\nhouse in which I lived. He seems to have been among both friends and foes\nthere, and brawls were quite common things within those walls.\n\n\u201cOne night those long dead and forgotten old-world inhabitants were\nstartled from their slumbers by shots, the clashing of arms, and wild\nyells. To make a long tale short, that old Prior of Pittenweem was never\nseen by human eyes after that fearful night.\n\n\u201cMany suspected foul play, but in those times it was deemed best to\nkeep one\u2019s mouth shut tight, and what mattered it if an old Prior\ndisappeared?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey were awful times those,\u201d I said. \u201cGlad we live in these days.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, now,\u201d said the Captain, \u201cI must come to the night of All Hallows\nE\u2019en, or Holy Even, when the spirits of the night are said to wander\nabroad. We dined early in those days, and after dinner I walked down to\nan old Clubhouse in Golf Place, of which I was an hon. member, to play\ncards. It was a perfect night, and a few flakes of snow had begun to\nfall, and the wind was keen and sharp. When I left the Club later the\nground was well covered with snow, but the storm had ceased, and the moon\nand stars were shining bright in a clear sky. By Jove, sir, it was like\nfairyland, and all the church towers and house tops were glittering in\nthe moonbeams.\n\n\u201cI wandered about the old place for fully an hour. It was lovely. I\nwas reluctant to go indoors. Gad, sir, I got quite sad and poetical. I\nthought of my poor sister who died long ago and is buried in Stefano\nRodundo at Rome, and lots of other things. Then I thought of St Andrews\nas it is and what it might have been. I thought of all its holy temples,\nerected by our pious forefathers, and its altars and statues lying\ndesolate, ruined and profaned.\n\n\u201cAt last I arrived at my own door, and entered\u2014in a thoughtful mood. I\nwent to my study and put on my slippers and dressing gown. I had just sat\ndown and commenced reading when there came a most tremendous shivering\ncrash. I involuntarily cowered down. I thought the roof had fallen\u2014at\nleast, gad, sir, I was flabbergasted. It woke everyone. The crash was\nfollowed by a roaring sound.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt must have been an earthquake, Captain Chester,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cZounds, sir, I don\u2019t know what it was. I thought I was killed. Then my\nnephew and I got a lamp and examined the house.\n\n\u201cEverything was right\u2014nothing to account for the fearful noise. Finally,\nwe went downstairs to the vaulted kitchens. Zounds, sir, all of a sudden\nmy nephew gripped my arm, and with a cry of abject terror pointed to the\nopen kitchen door. \u2018Oh, look there, look there!\u2019 he almost screamed.\n\n\u201cI looked, and, gad, I got a queer turn. There facing us in the open\ndoorway was a very tall, shaven-headed old man with a long grey beard. He\nhad a white robe or cassock on, a linen rocket, and, above all, an almuce\nor cloak of black hue lined with ermine--_The Augustinian Habit_. In one\nhand he held a very large rosary, and he lent on a stout cudgel.\n\n\u201cAs I advanced he retreated backwards, always beckoning to me\u2014and I\nfollowed lamp in hand. I _had_ to follow\u2014could not help myself. Do you\nknow the way a serpent can fascinate or hypnotise its prey before it\ndevours them?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said, \u201cI have seen the snakes at the Zoo do that trick.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, sir, I was hypnotised like that\u2014precisely like that. He beckoned\nand I followed.\n\n\u201cSuddenly I saw a little door in the corner of the kitchen standing\nopen\u2014a door I had never noticed before. The shadowy vision backed towards\nit. Still I followed. Then he entered its portals. As I advanced he grew\nmore and more transparent, and finally melted away, and the heavy door\nshut upon him with a tremendous crash and rattle. The lamp fell from my\ntrembling hand and was shattered to fragments on the stone floor. I was\nin pitch darkness\u2014silence reigned\u2014I don\u2019t remember how I got out to the\nlight again.\n\n\u201cNext morning early I got in some workmen and took them down to the\nkitchen, direct to the corner where the door was through which the\napparition vanished the previous night.\n\n\u201cZounds, sir, there was _no door there_\u2014only the white plastered wall. I\nwas dumbfoundered. \u2018Mrs Trombone,\u2019 I said to the cook, \u2018where the devil\nis that door gone?\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018The door, sir,\u2019 said the cook, \u2018there ain\u2019t no door there that I ever\nsaw.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Trombone,\u2019 I replied, \u2018don\u2019t tell falsehoods\u2014you\u2019re a fool.\u2019\n\n\u201cI made the men set to work and tear down the plaster and stuff, and,\negad, sir, in an hour we found the door\u2014a thick oak, nail studded, iron\nclamped old door. It took some time to force it open, and then down three\nsteps we found ourselves in a chamber with mighty thick walls and with a\nflagged floor, about six feet square, lit by a small slit of a window.\n\n\u201c\u2018Tear up the flags,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u201cThey did so, and there was only earth below.\n\n\u201c\u2018Dig down,\u2019 I said, \u2018dig like thunder,\u2019\n\n\u201cIn about an hour we came to a huge flag with a ring in it. Up it came,\nand below it was a dryly-built bottle-shaped well.\n\n\u201cWe went down with lights. What do you think we found at the bottom of\nit?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps water,\u201d I suggested.\n\n\u201cWater be d\u2e3a,\u201d said Captain Chester, \u201cwe found the mouldering skeleton\nof a very tall man in a sitting posture. Beside him lay a large rosary\nand a stout oak cudgel\u2014the rosary and cudgel I had seen in the phantom\u2019s\nhands the previous night. My friend, I _had solved the problem_\u2014that was\nthe skeleton of the old Prior of Pittenweem who vanished in that house\nhundreds of years ago.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe True Tale of the Phantom Coach.\n\n\nThe great curtain had fallen after the pantomime, and I was standing\nchatting on the stage of the theatre at Cambridge when one of the stage\nmen came to tell me I was wanted at the stage door and I must hurry up at\nonce. Thither I proceeded, and found a lot of golfing boys, hunting boys,\ndramatic boys, and all sorts of other merry \u2019Varsity boys, who shouted\nout \u201cCome along quick to the Blue Pig\u201d (the \u201cBlue Pig\u201d is a Cambridge\nname for the Blue Boar Hotel), \u201cwe want you to meet a fellow called\nWillie Carson, and there is to be supper, and he has something to tell\nus. The \u2018Bogie Man\u2019 has gone on there now, so come right away.\u201d\n\nWell, off we went to the Blue Boar Hotel, and we found Carson sitting\nover a blazing fire, with a capital supper set in his nice old-fashioned\nroom, lit up with candles only, the picture of comfort\u2014outside it was\nsnowing hard and bitterly cold.\n\nAfter a talk over the merits of the pantomime, we did full justice to a\nmost excellent supper, and then crowded round the blazing hearth to hear\na story our host wanted to tell us.\n\n\u201cDid you ever hear of the Phantom Coach at St Andrews?\u201d he asked, turning\nto me suddenly and removing his cigar.\n\n\u201cOften,\u201d I replied, \u201cI have heard most extraordinary yarns about it from\nlots of people; but why do you ask?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause _I\u2019ve seen it_,\u201d he replied, softly and thoughtfully. \u201cSome\nfive years ago, it was very, very strange, not to be forgotten and quite\nunexplainable; that is why I asked you here to-night. I wanted to talk to\nyou about it.\u201d He stooped over the fire and was silent for a few minutes.\n\n\u201cTell us all about it,\u201d we all shouted at once, \u201cwe won\u2019t make fun of\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is nothing to make fun of; indeed, it\u2019s a true, solemn fact,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cListen, and I will try to tell you what I saw, but I can\u2019t half\npicture it properly. Five years ago I had just come home from America.\nI went to stay at St Andrews for some golf. I think it was the latter\nend of August, and I must have been in the town about a week at least,\nwhen one night\u2014it was hot and stuffy, and about midnight\u2014I determined to\ntake a good long country walk, and struck out right along the road to\nStrathkinness.\n\n\u201cIt was a hot, dark, and stormy night, not wet; fitful black clouds\nfloated now and again at a rapid pace over the moon, which now and then\nshone out brightly; in the distance the sea made a perpetual moan, and at\nintervals the dark eastern sky was lit up by flashes of summer wildfire\nlightning over the distant Cathedral towers.\n\n\u201cNow and again I could hear the mutter of far-away thunder, and there\nwere incessant gusts of wind. I must have been about two miles along the\nroad, when I could discern some very large object approaching me rapidly.\nAs it came nearer I noticed it resembled a coach, dark, heavy, primitive;\nit seemed to have four large black horses, and the driver was a muffled,\nshapeless figure. It approached with a low humming or buzzing sound,\nwhich was most peculiar and unpleasant to hear. The horses made a hollow\nkind of ticking sound with their feet, otherwise it was noiseless.\n\n\u201cNo earthly coach of the kind could go without any ordinary sound. It\nwas weird and eerie in the extreme. As it passed me the moon shone out\nbrightly, and I saw for a second a ghastly white face at the coach\nwindow; but I saw those four strange, silent black horses, the more\nextraordinary, tall, swaddled-up shapeless driver, and the quaint black,\ngloomy old coach, with a coffin-shaped box on the roof, only far, far too\nwell. One most remarkable thing was that it _threw no shadow_ of any kind.\n\n\u201cJust as it passed me there was a terrific roar of thunder, and a blaze\nof lightning that nearly blinded me, and in the distance I saw that\nhorrible ghastly receding coach; then clouds came over the moon and all\nwas black\u2014a darkness one could feel, a darkness of a shut-up smothering\nvault. I felt sick and dazed for a minute or two. I could not make out\nif I had been struck by the lightning or was paralysed. However, after a\nbit it passed off; it was a horrible deathly feeling while it lasted. I\nnever experienced a similar sensation before or since, and hope I never\nmay again. Another very curious thing was the behaviour of my favourite\ncollie dog, usually frightened at nothing, on the approach of the phantom\n(for phantom it was). He crouched down, shivering and whining, and as\nit drew nearer fled with a bark like a screech, and cowered down in the\nditch at the roadside and gave forth low growls.\n\n\u201cI tell you, boys, it\u2019s all right in this room to talk about it, but none\nof you would have liked to be in my place that queer, uncanny night on\nthat lonely road. That it was supernatural, I am convinced; it is a very\nthin veil between us and the unseen world of spirits.\n\n\u201cThey say I possess a seventh sense, namely, second sight, and I know I\nshall never forget that night\u2019s experience.\n\n\u201cBut listen\u2014the story is not ended yet. Next morning a telegram arrived\nfrom my brother in Kent, \u2018Are you all right?\u2019 I wondered much, and wired\nback that I was very well.\n\n\u201cThe following day a letter came from my brother giving me a curious\nexplanation.\n\n\u201cThe following afternoon of the day I saw the coach, my brother was\nlooking out of the old manor house windows in Kent, when he and several\nothers noticed a large bird, having most peculiar plumage, seated on\nthe garden wall. No one had ever seen a bird of the kind before. He was\nrushing off for a gun to shoot it, when our father, who looked very white\nand scared, stopped him. \u2018Do not shoot,\u2019 he said, \u2018it would be of no use.\nThat is the bird of ill omen to all our race, it only appears before a\ndeath. I have only once seen it before\u2014that week your dear mother died.\u2019\n\n\u201cMy brother was so alarmed at this that he sent the wire I have mentioned\nto me at St Andrews. By the next mail from Australia we learned that our\neldest brother had died there the very day I saw the coach at St Andrews\nand my brother saw the bird at our old home in Kent. Very odd, is it not;\nbut what do you know about that coach?\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly tales,\u201d I said. \u201cMany people swear they have heard it, or seen it,\non stormy nights. I know a girl who swears to it, and also a doctor who\npassed it on the road, and it nearly frightened his horse to death and\nhim too.\n\n\u201cThe tale of the two tramps is funny. They were trudging into St Andrews\none wild stormy night when this uncanny coach overtook them. It stopped;\nthe door opened, and a white hand beckoned towards them. One tramp rushed\nup and got in, then suddenly the door noiselessly shut and the coach\nmoved off, leaving the other tramp alone in the pitiless wind and rain.\n\u2018I never saw my old mate again,\u2019 said the tramp, when he told the tale,\n\u2018and I never shall\u2014that there old coach was nothing of this here world of\nours, it took my old mate off to Davy Jones\u2019s locker mighty smart, poor\nfellow.\u2019\n\n\u201cThey say his body was found in the sea some months afterwards, and the\ntale goes that the phantom coach finishes its nocturnal journey in the\nwaves of St Andrews Bay.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhose coach is it?\u201d asked all that were in the room.\n\n\u201cI cannot say; some say Bethune, others Sharpe, and others Hackston; I\ndo not know who is supposed to be the figure inside, unless it is his\nSatanic Majesty himself. At all events, it seems a certain fact that\na phantom coach has been seen from time to time on the roads round St\nAndrews. I have never seen any of these things myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Carson, \u201cthat awful coach _does appear_; it appeared to\nme, and, doubtless, in the course of time will appear to many others.\nIt bodes no one any good, and I pity with all my heart anyone who meets\nit. Beware of those roads late at night, or, like me, you may some day\nto your injury meet that ghastly, uncanny, old phantom coach. If so, you\nwill remember it to your dying day.\u201d\n\n\u201cCurious thing that about seeing the coach and the bird at the same time,\nand in two places so far apart,\u201d murmured the golfing Johnny, \u201cand then\nCarson\u2019s brother dying too.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d sooner see the bird than the coach,\u201d said one.\n\n\u201cGuess I\u2019d rather not see either of them,\u201d said an American present,\n\u201cglad we have no phantom coaches in Yankeeland.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nThe Veiled Nun of St Leonards.\n\n\nCuriously enough, although I have been in many old haunted castles and\nchurches (at the exactly correct hour, viz., midnight) in Scotland,\nEngland, Wales, and the Rhine country, yet I have never been able to\neither see or hear a ghost of any sort. The only thing of the kind I ever\nsaw was an accidental meeting with the far-famed \u201cSpring-heeled Jack\u201d\nin a dark lane at Helensburgh. It was many years ago, and as I was then\nvery small and he was of immense proportions, the meeting was distinctly\nunpleasant for me.\n\nNow, from legends we learn that St Andrews is possessed of a prodigious\nnumber of supernatural appearances of different kinds, sizes, and\nshapes\u2014most of them of an awe-inspiring and blood curdling type. In fact,\nso numerous are they\u201480 in number they seem to be\u2014that there is really\nno room for any modern aspirants who may want a quiet place to appear\nand turn people\u2019s hair white. It might be well to mention a few of them\nbefore telling the tale of \u201cThe Veiled Nun of St Leonards Church Avenue.\u201d\n\nWe will put aside ordinary banshees and things that can only be heard.\nWell, there is the celebrated Phantom Coach that Willie Carson told us\nof. It has been heard and seen by many. There is also a white lady that\nused to haunt the Abbey Road, the ghost of St Rule\u2019s Tower, the Haunted\nTower ghost, the Blackfriars ghost, the wraith of Hackston of Rathillet,\nthe spectre of the old Castle, the Dancing Skeletons, the smothered Piper\nLad, the Phantom Bloodhound, the Priory Ghost, and many, many more.\nThe Nun of St Leonards is as curious and interesting as any of them,\nthough a bit weird and gruesome. In the time of charming Mary Stuart,\nour white Queen, there lived in the old South Street a very lovely lady\nbelonging to a very old Scottish family, and her beauty and wit brought\nmany admirers to claim her hand, but with little or no success. She waved\nthem all away. At last she became affianced to a fine and brave young\nfellow who came from the East Lothian country, and for some months all\nwent merrily as a marriage bell, but at last clouds overspread the rosy\nhorizon. She resolved that she would never become an earthly bride, but\nwould take the veil and become a bride of Holy Church\u2014a nun, in point of\nfact. When her lover heard that she had left home and entered a house\nof Holy Sisters, he at once announced his intention of hastening to St\nAndrews, seizing her, and marrying her at once. In this project it would\nseem the young lady\u2019s parents were in perfect agreement with the devoted\nyouth. He did hasten to St Andrews almost immediately, and there received\na terrible shock. On meeting this once lovely and loved maiden, he\ndiscovered that she had actually done what she had written and threatened\nto do. Sooner than be an earthly bride she had mutilated her face by\nslitting her nostrils; she had cut off her eyelids and both her top and\nbottom lips, and had branded her fair cheeks with cruel hot irons.\n\nThe poor youth, on seeing her famous beauty thus destroyed, fled to\nEdinburgh, where he committed suicide, and she, after becoming a nun,\ndied from grief and remorse. That all happened nearly 400 years ago; but\nher spirit with the terribly marred and mutilated face still wanders o\u2019\nnights in the peaceful little avenue to old St Leonards iron kirk gate\ndown the Pends Road. She is all dressed in black, with a long black veil\nover the once lovely face, and carries a lantern in her hand. Should any\nbold visitor to that avenue meet her, she slowly sweeps her face veil\naside, raises the lantern to her scarred face, and discloses those awful\nfeatures to his horrified gaze. Here is a curious thing that I know\nhappened there a few years ago.\n\nI knew a young fellow here who was reading up theology and Church canon\nlaw. I also knew a great friend of his, an old Cambridge man. The former\nI will call Wilson, and the latter Talbot, as I do not want to give\nthe exact names. Well, Wilson had invited Talbot up to St Andrews for\na month of golf, and he arrived here on a Christmas day. He came to my\nrooms for about ten minutes, and I never saw any one merrier and brighter\nand full of old days at Cambridge. Then he hurried off to see the Links\nand the Club. Late that evening Wilson rushed in. \u201cCome along quick and\nsee Talbot; he\u2019s awfully ill, and I don\u2019t know what\u2019s up a bit.\u201d I went\noff and found Talbot in his lodgings with a doctor in attendance, and he\ncertainly looked dangerously ill, and seemed perfectly dazed. Wilson told\nme that he had to go to see some people on business that evening down by\nthe harbour, and that he took Talbot with him down the Pends Road. It\nwas a fine night, and Talbot said he would walk about the road and enjoy\na cigar till his friend\u2019s return. In about half-an-hour Wilson returned\nup the Pends Road, but could see Talbot nowhere in sight. After hunting\nabout for a long time, he found him leaning against the third or fourth\ntree up the little avenue to St Leonards kirk gate.\n\nHe went up to him, when Talbot turned a horrified face towards him,\nsaying, \u201cOh, my God, have you come to me again?\u201d and fell down in a\nfit or a swoon. He got some passers-by to help to take poor Talbot to\nhis rooms. Then he came round for me. We sat up with him in wonder and\namazement; and, briefly, this is what he told us. After walking up and\ndown the Pends Road, he thought he would take a survey of the little\navenue, when at the end he saw a light approaching him, and he turned\nback to meet it. Thinking it was a policeman, he wished him \u201cGood\nevening,\u201d but got no reply. On approaching nearer he saw it to be a\nveiled female with a lantern. Getting quite close, she stopped in front\nof him, drew aside her long veil, and held up the lantern towards him.\n\u201cMy God,\u201d said Talbot, \u201cI can never forget or describe that terrible,\nfearful face. I felt choked, and I fell like a log at her feet. I\nremember no more till I found myself in these rooms, and you two fellows\nsitting beside me. I leave this place to-morrow\u201d\u2014and he did by the first\ntrain. His state of panic was terrible to see. Neither Wilson nor Talbot\nhad ever heard the tale of the awful apparition of the St Leonards nun,\nand I had almost forgotten the existence of the strange story till so\ncuriously reminded of it. I never saw Talbot again, but I had a letter\nfrom him a year after written from Rhienfells, telling me that on\nChristmas day he had had another vision, dream, or whatever it was, of\nthe same awful spectre. About a year later I read in a paper that poor\nold Talbot had died on Christmas night at Rosario of heart failure. I\noften wonder if the dear old chap had had another visit from the terrible\nVeiled Nun of St Leonards Avenue.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Monk of St Rule\u2019s Tower.\n\n\nSome years ago I was perfectly surrounded with crowds of bonny children\nin the St Albans Holborn district of London. I fancy they belonged to\nsome guild or other, and they enacted the part of imps, fairies, statues,\n&c., in various pantomimes in neighbouring theatres.\n\nI had been invited there to amuse the kiddies with songs and imitations,\nand now they were all shrieking and yelling at the top of their voices\nfor a ghost story. \u201cIt\u2019s getting near Christmas,\u201d they all shouted, \u201cand\nwe all want to hear about ghosts, real creepy ghosts.\u201d I pointed out the\nfact that most ghost stories were bunkum, and that such tales were very\napt to keep wee laddies and lassies awake at night; but, bless you, they\nwouldn\u2019t listen to that one bit. They wanted ghosts, and ghosts they\nwould have.\n\nWell, in about an hour I had yarned off most of my best bogey stories. I\nhad used up most of my tales regarding Scottish, English, and Continental\nCastles, and the banshees, water kelpies, wraiths, &c., connected\ntherewith; but still those children, like Oliver Twist, demanded more.\nI really was fairly stumped, when, all of a sudden, my mind flew back\nto 1875, when a strange story was told me by Captain Chester in the\nCoursal grounds at beautiful Baden-Baden. I first fell in with this dear\nold warrior in Rome, and we became firm friends, and travelled together\nfor many cheery weeks. He told me his queer tale in the very strongest\nof military language, which I must omit. The language would be suitable\nto use in bunkers, but not on paper. It was a sultry day. So were his\nremarks.\n\nIt would seem that many years before, he had visited Scotland and\nEngland to try and see a ghost or two. He had been to Cumnor Hurst in\norder to investigate the appearances of ill-fated Amy Robsart. He went\nto Rainham Hall to interview the famous Brown Lady, and he journeyed\nto Hampton Court to hear the Shrieking Ghost, and also went to Church\nStrelton to see if he could fix the ghost at the Copper Hole. In Scotland\nhe followed the scent of various ghosts, and finally landed in St Andrews.\n\n\u201cBy Jove, sir,\u201d he said, \u201cthat\u2019s the place for ghosts. Every blessed\ncorner is full of them\u2014bang full. Look at those fellows in the Castle\ndungeons, and Beaton and Sharpe and the men that got hanged and burned,\nand the old dev\u2e3a I mean witches. _I saw my ghost there._ Years and years\nago I took an old house in St Andrews, which was a small place then. Very\nlittle golf was played, and there was very little to do. But, gad, sir,\nthe ghosts were thick, and the quaint old bodies in the town were full\nof them. They could spin yarns for hours about phantom coaches, death\nknells, corpse candles, people going about in winding sheets, phantom\nhearses, and Lord knows what else. I loved it, it took me quite back to\nthe middle ages.\u201d\n\nSo I told these children Captain Chester\u2019s tale, as nearly as possible\nin his own words, minus the forcible epithets. I managed to hit off his\nvoice and manner, and this in particular seemed to amuse the bairns.\n\u201cEgad, sir,\u201d he said, \u201cit was a curious time. Of all the tales I heard,\nthe one that pleased and fascinated me most was the legend of the monk\nthat looks over St Regulus\u2019s Tower on moonlight nights. I went thither\nevery night, and constantly fancied I saw a figure peering over the edge,\nbut was not certain. Then I got hold of a very old man, who related to\nme the old legend. It seems that years ago there was a good Prior of St\nAndrews named Robert de Montrose. He ruled well, gently, and wisely,\nbut among the monks there was one who was always in hot water, and whom\nPrior Robert had often to haul over the coals. He played practical jokes,\noften absented himself from the daily and nightly offices of Holy Kirk,\nand otherwise upset the rules and discipline. Finally, when Earl Douglas\nand his retinue came to St Andrews to present to the Cathedral a costly\nstatue, long known as the Douglas Lady, this monk made desperate love to\none of the waiting women of Lady Douglas. For this he was imprisoned in\nthe Priory Dungeon for some days. It was the custom of Robert de Montrose\nalmost every fine night to ascend the tower of St Rule and admire the\nview. The summit was reached in those days by means of ladders and wooden\nlandings\u2014not, as it is now, by a stair. In those days, too, the apse and\npart of the nave were still standing, and the summit of the solemn old\ntower was crowned by a small spire. One evening just before Yuletide,\nwhen the Prior, as usual, was on the top of the tower, the contumacious\nmonk slyly followed him up the ladders, stabbed him in the back with a\nsmall dagger, and flung him over the north side of the old tower.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought, Captain Chester,\u201d I said, \u201cthat the murder took place on the\nDormitory stairs.\u201d\n\n\u201cGad, Zooks, and Oddbodkins, sir, I am telling you what I was told, and\nwhat I can prove, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll right,\u201d I replied, \u201cplease fire away.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d continued Chester, \u201cthey told me the Prior had often been seen\nsince peeping over the tower, and at times he was seen to fall, as he\ndid years ago, from the summit. By the bye, his assassin was starved to\ndeath and buried in some old midden. One moonlight night as my brother\nand I were standing on the Kirkhill, to our horror and amazement we saw a\nfigure appear suddenly on the top of the tower, leap on to the parapet,\nand deliberately jump over. Zounds, sir, my blood ran cold.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe did not hesitate long, but jumped the low wall of the Cathedral. It\nwas easily done in those days, and we were young and active, and hurried\nto the grim old tower. Just as we neared it, a monk passed us in the\nAugustinian habit, his cowl was thrown back, and for just one second\nwe had a view of his pallid, handsome face and keen penetrating eyes.\nThen he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. We were alone in the\nmoonlight, nothing stirring.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is very odd,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cZooks! sir, I have odder things still to tell you. We went home to the\nold house, had supper, and retired to bed thoughtfully. I woke about 2\na.m. The blinds were up and it was as clear as day with the moonlight.\nImagine my blank astonishment when I clearly perceived, leaning up\nagainst the mantelpiece, the pallid monk I had seen a few hours before\nnear the Square Tower. He leaned on his elbow and was gazing intently at\nme, while in his hand he held some object that had a blue glitter in the\nmoonbeams.\n\n\u201cHe smiled. \u2018Fear not, brother,\u2019 he said, \u2018I am Prior Robert of Montrose\nwho quitted this earth many years syne, and of whom you have been talking\nand thinking so much of late days. I saw you to-night in our cruelly\nruined Abbey Kirk. Alas! alas! but I come from ayont the distant hills\nand have far to go to-night.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018What do you want, Holy Father?\u2019 I said, \u2018and what of your murder?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018That is forgiven and forgotten long syne,\u2019 he said, \u2018and I love to\nrevisit, _at times_, my old haunts, and so does he. You have in your\nregiment, methinks, one named Montrose, a scion of our family.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018I know Bob Montrose well.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018See you this dagger I hold,\u2019 said Prior Robert, \u2018it was with this I\nlost my life on this earth many years syne on the tower of blessed St\nRule. They buried it with me in my stone kist; I will leave it here with\nyou to give to my kinsman, for it will prove of use to him e\u2019er he pass\nhence\u2014mark my words.\u2019\n\n\u201cHe raised his hand as in act of blessing, and melted away. I fell back\nin a sleep or in a faint. When I woke the morning sun was streaming\ninto my bedroom. At first I thought I had eaten too much supper and\nhad a nightmare, but there on the table by my bed lay an old dagger of\ncurious workmanship\u2014the dagger that slew the Prior years and years ago. I\nfaithfully fulfilled my vow, and my friend, Major Bob Montrose, has now\ngot his monkish ancestor\u2019s dagger.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s all Captain Chester told me, dear children. Goodbye, don\u2019t forget\nme, and do not forget old St Andrews Ghosts, the Tower of St Rule, and\nthe Spectre of Prior Robert of Montrose.\u201d\n\nThen a modern hansom whirled me away to King\u2019s Cross.\n\n\n\n\nRelated by Captain Chester.\n\n\nIn my travels I have met many very extraordinary and remarkable people\nwith hobbies and fads of various kinds, but I never met a man of such\ncurious personality as this old friend of mine, Captain Chester. All his\nmethods and ideas were purely original. Everyone has some hobby; his\nhobby was ghost and spook-hunting.\n\nWe were sitting one lovely September evening in the gardens of one of the\nhotels at Bonn, which stretched down to the river Rhine, listening to the\nband and watching the great rafts coming down the river from the Black\nForest.\n\n\u201cBy Jove, sir,\u201d said the old man, \u201cI have shot big game in the Rockies,\nand hunted tigers and all that sort of thing; but, zooks! sir, I\nprefer hunting ghosts any day. That Robert de Montrose was the first\nI saw. There are shoals of these shades about, a perfect army of them\neverywhere, especially in St Andrews. Gad, sir, you should hear the\nbanshees shrieking at night in the Irish bogs. I don\u2019t believe in your\ninfernal sea serpents, but I\u2019ve seen water kelpies in the Scottish and\nAmerican lakes.\u201d\n\nI told him I had never heard a banshee or seen a water kelpie.\n\n\u201cVery likely, sir, very probable. Everyone can\u2019t see and hear these\nthings. _I can._\u201d\n\nI told him I had never seen a disembodied spirit, and didn\u2019t want to.\n\n\u201cGad, zooks! sir, I consider disinspirited bodies far worse. They are\nquite common. I allude to human bodies that have lost their spirits or\nsouls, and yet go about among us. Zounds! sir, my cousin is one of them.\n\n\u201cAh,\u201d he continued, \u201cdetached personality is a curious thing. I can\ndetach my personality, can you?\u201d\n\n\u201cMost certainly not,\u201d I said, \u201cwhat the deuce do you mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cMean,\u201d he said, \u201cI mean my spirit can float out of my body at will. My\nspirit becomes a sort of mental balloon. I can then defy destiny.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow in thunder do you manage to do it anyway?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy practice, sir, of course. When my spirit floats out of my body, I\ncan see my own old body sitting in my armchair and an ugly old wreck of\na body it is. It is bad for one, I admit; it is very weakening. Another\nthing may happen; another wandering spirit may suddenly take possession\nof one\u2019s body, and then one\u2019s own spirit can\u2019t get back again, and it\nbecomes a wandering spirit, and is always trying to force itself into\nother people\u2019s bodies. Then one\u2019s spirit gets into a mental bunker, you\nsee.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t see a bit. It is most unpleasant. Tell me about ghosts you have\nseen, and about that dagger you gave Major Montrose.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! so then you are not interested in eliminated personality?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a bit,\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what it is. Tell me about that dagger\nfor a change.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! ah! Well, the dagger Robert of Montrose gave me proved of great use\nto my old friend, Bob Montrose, on _many_ occasions. It had a wonderful\npower of its own. Once he got into a broil with a lot of Spanish fellows\none night, and as he was unarmed at the time he was in a remarkably tight\ncorner. Suddenly something slipped into his hand, and, by Jove, sir, it\nwas the dagger, and that dagger saved his life. Another time he found\nhimself in an American train with a raving lunatic, and if it had not\nbeen for the protecting dagger he\u2019d have been torn limb from limb. After\nthat he took it everywhere with him.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere is it now?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, there\u2019s an odd thing if you like. Bob died in the Isle of France,\nwhere Paul and Virginia used to be. He was killed by a fall, and is\nburied there. He left the dagger to me in his will, but no human eyes\nhave ever seen that dagger since his death. It may have been stolen, or\nit may have gone back to where it came from into Robert of Montrose\u2019s\nstone kist in the old Chapter-House at St Andrews Cathedral. Probably\nits usefulness was at an end, and it was needed no more. Bob told me one\nqueer thing about that dagger. _Once a year_ near Christmastide (the\ndagger hung on the wall of his bedroom) it used to exude a thick reddish\nfluid like blood, which used to cover the blade in large drops, and it\nremained so for several hours\u2014and, again, sometimes at night it used to\nshine with a bright light of its own.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is indeed wonderful,\u201d I said, lighting another cheroot, \u201cbut tell\nme more about the St Andrews bogles. Astral bodies, dual personality, and\nthings of that kind depress me a bit.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, that is odd,\u201d said old Chester, \u201cI love them. When I was in St\nAndrews I rented a fine old house, with huge thick walls, big fireplaces,\nfunny corkscrew stairs, such rum holes and corners, and big vaulted\nkitchens. It\u2019s all pulled down now, I believe, and a bran new house\nbuilt; but I hear the vaulted rooms below are left exactly as they were.\nPeople didn\u2019t take to the old house; they heard noises and rappings, and\nsaw things in the night, and so on. _We all saw things._ My brother met\nthe ghost of a horrible looking old witch, quite in the orthodox dress,\non the Witch Hill above the Witch Lake. It upset him terribly at the\ntime\u2014made him quite ill\u2014nerves went all to pot\u2014would not sleep in a room\nby himself after that. He made me devilish angry, sir, I can tell you.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps it was Mother Alison Craik, a well-known witch, who was burnt\nthere.\u201d\n\n\u201cLikely enough, sir, it may have been the old cat you mention, an old\nhag. Then my nephew and I saw that phantom coach in the Abbey Walk one\nwindy moonlight night. It passed us very quickly, but made a deuced row,\nlike a lifeboat carriage.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was it like?\u201d\n\n\u201cLike a huge black box with windows in it, and a queer light inside. It\nreminded me of a great coffin. Ugly looking affair; very uncanny thing to\nmeet at that time of night and in such a lonely spot. It was soon gone,\nbut we heard its rumbling noise for a long time.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat were the horses like, eh?\u201d\n\n\u201cShadowy looking black things, like great black beetles with long thin\nlegs.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what was the driver like?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cHe was a tall thin, black object also, like a big, black, lank lobster,\nwith a cocked hat on the top. That\u2019s all I could see. On the top of the\ncoach was an object that looked like a gigantic tarantula spider, with\na head like a moving gargoyle. I can\u2019t get at the real history of that\nmysterious old coach yet. I don\u2019t believe it has anything whatever to do\nwith the murdered prelates, Beaton or Sharpe. However, the coach does go\nabout. Another wraith I saw at the Castle of St Andrews was that of James\nHepburn, Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. He lies\nburied in the crypt of Faarveile Church, close to the cattegut. Before\nhis death he was a prisoner at Malmo; then he was sent to Denmark, and\ndied in the dungeon of the State prison at Drachsholm.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am awfully interested,\u201d I said, \u201cabout those times, and in Bothwell\nand Mary in particular.\u201d\n\n\u201cOdd\u2019s fish, sir,\u201d said Chester, \u201cso am I. I went to Faarveile to see\nBothwell\u2019s well-preserved body. The verger took me down a trap-door near\nthe altar, and there it lies in a lidless box, a very fine face, with a\ncynical and mocking mouth. He murdered Darnley, and he was treated and\nburied as a murderer in those bygone days. At Malmo folks say he was\ntormented by the ghosts of his mad wife, Jane Huntly, and by Darnley. He\nended his days in misery, and serve him devilish well right, say I. I\nlove and revere lovely Mary Stuart. Damn it, sir, he deserted her when\nshe was in a fix at Carberry Hill, the curmudgeon.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what of the appearances of the Earl you saw?\u201d\n\n\u201cMet him twice at the Castle\u2014no mistaking him\u2014a big, knightly, handsome\nfellow. Spirits can easily at times assume their earthly form and dress.\nI recognised him at once\u2014the sneering lips and all, just like his\npictures, too. When he glided past me his teeth were chattering like a\ndice-box, and the wind was whistling through his neck bones. I addressed\nhim boldly by name, but he melted away. One sees these apparitions with\none\u2019s mental eyes. I saw him again leaning against the door that leads to\nthat oubliette in the Sea Tower of the Castle. Egad, sir, he _exactly_\nresembled the body I saw in the old crypt at Faarveile. He often appears\nthere, and at Hermitage Castle also. No mistake, sir, that was Hepburn,\nthe Earl of Bothwell. I must tell you _some other time_\u2014(it\u2019s getting\nvery late now)\u2014of the ghosts I saw in my house at St Andrews, and of\nthe Prior or Monk of Pittenweem. I must turn into bed now. I go to the\nservice at the Cathedral here early to-morrow.\u201d\n\nThen the tall figure of Captain Chester strode away and left me alone to\nmy meditations.\n\nWell! I suppose if _I had been_ Captain Chester, left alone there in\nthose gardens, I\u2019d have seen a ghost or two with my mental eyes; but,\ninstead, I saw a fat waiter approaching, who told me my supper awaited me.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Screaming Skull of Greyfriars.\n\n\nI never met a better fellow in the world than my old friend, Allan\nBeauchamp. He had been educated at Eton, and Magdalen at Oxford, after\nwhich he joined a crack regiment, and later on took it into his head\nto turn doctor. He was a great traveller and a magnificent athlete.\nThere was no game in which he did not excel. Curiously enough, he hated\nmusic; he had no ear for it, and he did not know the difference between\nthe airs of \u201cTommy, make room for your uncle\u201d and \u201cThe Lost Chord.\u201d He\nwas tremendously proud of his pedigree; he had descended from the de\nBeauchamps, and one of his ancestors, he gravely informed people, had\nhelped Noah to get the wasps and elephants into the Ark. Another of them\nseems to have been not very far away in the Garden of Eden. In fact,\nthey seem to have been quite prehistoric. He was quite cracked on the\nsubject of brain transference, telepathy, spiritualism, ghosts, warnings,\nand the like, and on these points he was most uncanny and fearsome. The\nliterature he had about them was blood curdling. He believed in dual\npersonality, and in visions, horoscopes, and dreams. He showed me a\npamphlet he had written, entitled \u201cThe Toad-faced Demon of Lone Devil\u2019s\nDyke.\u201d He was always flitting about Britain exploring haunted houses and\ncastles, and sleeping in haunted rooms when it was possible. Some years\nago Beauchamp and myself, accompanied by his faithful valet, rejoicing in\nthe name of Pellingham Truffles, went to the Highlands for a bit of quiet\nand rest, and it was there I heard his curious story of the skull.\n\nWe were sitting over a cosy fire after dinner. It was snowing hard\noutside, and very cold. Our pipes were alight and our grog on the table,\nwhen Allan Beauchamp suddenly remarked\u2014\u201cIt\u2019s a deuced curious thing for a\nman to be always followed about the place by a confounded grinning skull.\u201d\n\n\u201cEh, what,\u201d I said, \u201cwho the deuce is being followed about by a skull?\nIt\u2019s rubbish, and quite impossible.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a bit,\u201d said my friend, \u201cI\u2019ve had a skull after me more or less for\nseveral years.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt sounds like a remark a lunatic would make,\u201d I rejoined rather\ncrossly. \u201cDo not talk bunkum. You\u2019ll go dotty if you believe such\ninfernal rot.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is not bunkum or rot a bit,\u201d said Allan, \u201cIt\u2019s gospel truth. Ask\nTruffles, ask Jack Weston, or Jimmy Darkgood, or any of my south country\npals.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know Jack Weston or Jimmy Darkgood,\u201d I said, \u201cbut tell me the\nwhole story, and some day, _if it\u2019s good_, I\u2019ll put it in the _St Andrews\nCitizen_.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s mostly about St Andrews,\u201d said Beauchamp, \u201cso here goes, but shove\non some coals first.\u201d\n\nI did so, and then requested him to fire away.\n\n\u201cIt was long, long ago, I think about the year 1513, that one of my\nancestors, a man called Neville de Beauchamp, resided in Scotland. It\nseems he was an uncommonly wild dog, went in for racing and cards, and\ncould take his wine and ale with any of them even in those hard-drinking\ndays. He was known as Flash Neville. Later on he married a pretty girl,\nthe daughter of a silk mercer in Perth, who, it seems, died (they said\nof a broken heart) two years after. Neville de Beauchamp was seized with\nawful remorse, and became shortly after a monk in Greyfriars Monastery at\nSt Andrews. After Neville\u2019s wife\u2019s death, her relations seem to have been\non the hunt after him, burning for revenge, and the girl\u2019s brother, a\nrough, wild dog in those stormy days, at last managed to track his quarry\ndown in the monastery at St Andrews.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery interesting,\u201d I said, \u201cthat monastery stood very nearly on the site\nof the present infant school, and we found the well in 1880. Well, what\ndid this brother do, eh?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt seems that one afternoon after vespers he forced his way into the\nMonastery Chapel, sought out Neville de Beauchamp, and slashed off\nhis head with a sword in the aisle of the Kirk. Now a queer thing\nhappened\u2014his body fell on the floor, but the severed head, with a wild\nscream, flew up to the chapel ceiling and vanished through its roof.\u201d\n\n\u201cMighty queer that,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cThe body was reverently buried,\u201d went on Allan, \u201cbut the head never was\nrecovered, and, whirling through the air over the monastery, screaming\nand groaning most pitifully, it used to cause great terror to the monks\nand others o\u2019 nights. It was a well-known story, and few cared to venture\nin that locality after nightfall. The head soon became a skull, and since\nthat time has always haunted some member of the house of Beauchamp. Now\ncomes a strange thing. I went a few years ago and lived in rooms at\nSt Andrews for a change, and while there I heard of my uncle\u2019s death\nsomewhere abroad. I had never seen him, but I had frequently heard that\nhe was very much perplexed and worried by the tender attentions paid him\nby the skull of Neville de Beauchamp, which was always turning up at odd\ntimes and in unexpected places.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is a grand tale,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cNow I come on the job,\u201d said Allan, ruefully. \u201cThat uncle was the very\nlast of our family, and I wondered if that skull would come my way. I\nfelt very ill and nervous after I got the news of my uncle\u2019s death. A\nstrange sense of depression and oppression overcame me, and I got very\nrestless. One stormy evening I felt impelled by some strange influence to\ngo out. I wandered about the place for several hours and got drenched. I\nfelt as if I was walking in my sleep, or as if I had taken some drug or\nother. Then I had a sort of vision\u2014I had just rounded the corner of North\nBell Street.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow called Greyfriars Garden,\u201d I remarked.\n\n\u201cYes! Well, when I got around that corner I saw a large, strange building\nbefore me. I opened a wicket gate and entered what I found to be the\nchapel; service was over, the lights were being extinguished, and the air\nwas laden with incense. As I knelt in a corner of the chapel I saw the\nwhole scene, the tragedy of which I had heard, enacted all over again. I\nsaw that monk in the aisle, I saw a man rush in and cut off his head.\nI saw the body fall and the head fly up with a shriek to the roof. When\nI came to myself I found I was sitting on the low wall of the school. I\nwas very cold and wet, and I got up to go home. As I rose I saw lying on\nthe pavement at my feet what appeared to be a small football. I gave it a\nvicious kick, when to my horror it turned over and I saw it was a skull.\nIt was gnashing its teeth and moaning. Then with a shriek it flew up in\nthe air and vanished. A horrible thing. Then I knew the worst. The skull\nof the monk Neville de Beauchamp had attached itself to me for life, I\nbeing the last of the race. Since then it is almost always with me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere is it now?\u201d I said, shuddering.\n\n\u201cNot very far away, you bet,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a most unpleasant tale,\u201d I said. \u201cGood night, I\u2019m off to bed after\nthat.\u201d\n\nI was in my first sleep about an hour afterwards, when a knock came at my\ndoor, and the valet came in.\n\n\u201cSorry to disturb you, sir,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the skull has _just come\nback_. It\u2019s in the next room. Would you like to see it?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not,\u201d I roared. \u201cGet away and let me go to sleep.\u201d\n\nThen and there I firmly resolved to leave next morning. I hated skulls,\nand I fancied that probably it might take a fancy to me, and I had no\ndesire to be followed about the country by a skull as if it was a fox\nterrier.\n\nNext morning I went in to breakfast. \u201cWhere is that beastly skull?\u201d I\nsaid to Allan.\n\n\u201cOh, it\u2019s off again somewhere. Heaven knows where; but I have had another\nvision, a waking vision.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was it?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Allan, \u201cI saw the skull and a white hand which seemed to\nbeckon to me beside it. Then they slowly receded and in their place was\nwhat looked like a big sheet of paper. On it in large letters were the\nwords\u2014_Your friend, Jack Weston, is dead_. This morning I got this wire\ntelling me of his sudden death. Read it.\u201d\n\nThat afternoon I left the Highlands and Allan Beauchamp.\n\nSince then I have constant letters from him from his home in England. He\nhas tried every means possible to get rid of that monk\u2019s skull; but they\nare of no avail, it always returns. So he has made the best he can of it,\nand keeps it in a locked casket in an empty room at the end of a wing of\nthe old house. He says it keeps fairly quiet, but on stormy nights wails\nand gruesome shrieks are heard from the casket in that closed apartment.\n\nI heard from him last week. He said:\u2014\n\n\u201cDEAR W. T. L.,\u2014I don\u2019t think I mentioned that twice a year the skull of\nNeville de Beauchamp vanishes from its casket for a period of about two\ndays. It is never away longer.\n\n\u201cI wonder if it still haunts its old monastery at St Andrews where its\nowner was slain. Do write and tell me if anyone now in that vicinity\nhears or sees the screaming skull of my ancestor, Neville de Beauchamp.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Spectre of the Castle.\n\n\nSeveral years had elapsed since I met the butler of Lausdree Castle\nin the Highland Inn. I had just come up from the south of England for\nsome golf and fresh air, and was looking over my letters one morning at\nbreakfast when I opened the following missive:\u2014\n\n                                                    Lausdree Castle,\n                                                             ......\n\n    SIR,\u2014Yours to command. Sir, I have not forgot our pleasant talk\n    on that snowy night up in the far north, when you were pleased\n    to be interested in my experiences of Lausdree. Could you very\n    kindly meet me any day and time you choose to fix at Leuchars?\n    And oblige,\n\n                         Your obedient servant,\n\n                                                JEREMIAH ANKLEBONE.\n\n    _P.S._\u2014I have something to divulge to you connected with St\n    Andrews that may absorb your mind.\n\nAccordingly, I fixed up arrangements and met Mr Anklebone at Leuchars,\nwhere we went to the nearest hostelry and ordered the best lunch they had\nthere. Jeremiah looked thinner, older, and whiter than when I last saw\nhim, doubtless owing to his frequent communing with spirits.\n\n\u201cHow is Lausdree getting on?\u201d I meekly inquired, \u201cand what of the ghosts?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is getting on fine, sir. I have had a number of new experiences since\nI had the pleasure of seeing you last. You must understand, sir, that my\nfamily for generations have been favoured with occult powers. My father\nwas a great seer, and my great-grandfather, Mr Concrikketty Anklebone, of\nthe Isle of Skye, was a wonderful visionary.\u201d\n\nNow, Anklebone was an interesting old fellow, but he had a tiresome habit\nof wandering away from his theme, and, as it were, getting off the main\nroad into a labyrinth of bye-ways, and one had, metaphorically, to push\nhim out of these side lanes and place him on his feet again in the main\nroad.\n\n\u201cBefore I come to St Andrews Castle,\u201d he said, \u201cI must tell you about a\nqueer episode of an astral body at Lausdree, a disentangled personality,\nas it were.\u201d\n\n\u201cPush along,\u201d I said, \u201cand tell me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, one afternoon after luncheon the master and I were in the dining\nhall, when we saw a gentleman crossing the lawn towards the castle. He\nwas a tall man in a riding dress, with curly hair and a large flowing\nmoustache. He came up to the window and looked in earnestly at us, and\nthen walked along the gravel-walk round to the castle door. \u2018Hullo!\u2019 said\nthe master, \u2018that is my old friend, Jack Herbert, to whom I have let\nLausdree for this summer. What on earth can bring him here? I\u2019ll go to\nthe door myself and let him in. He never said he was coming.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn a minute or two the master came back looking bewildered. \u2018Anklebone,\u2019\nhe said, \u2018that\u2019s a _very_ queer thing; there is nobody there!\u2019 \u2018Perhaps,\u2019\nI suggested, \u2018the gentleman has gone round to the stables\u2019; so we both\nhurried off to look, but not a sign of anyone could be seen, and we\nstared blankly at each other. We could not make it out. Two days after,\nthe master got a letter from Mr Jack Herbert telling him he had had a bad\nfall off his horse, had injured his spine, and was confined to bed.\n\n\u201cMr Herbert went on to say that two days before, while he was asleep, he\ndreamt vividly that he was at Lausdree; that he crossed the lawn to the\nwindow of the dining hall, and, looking in, saw my master and the butler\n(that\u2019s me) in the room. He was going round to the front door when he\nawoke. Now that was his _astral body_ that Master and I saw. He loved\nLausdree, and during sleep he came and paid us that visit. Queer, isn\u2019t\nit? Ten days after, he died. He wanted to see the old castle before he\ndied, and his force of will power brought his double self, or astral\nbody, to visit us. _It is not so uncommon_ as people think.\n\n\u201cNumbers of people are seen in two places at once far apart. Look at\nArchbishop Sharpe of St Andrews. He was in Edinburgh, at Holyrood I\nthink, and sent his servant over post haste to St Andrews to bring back\nsome papers he had forgotten there. When his trusty servant went up\nto his study in the Novum Hospitium to get the papers from the desk,\nlo! there was the Archbishop sitting in his usual chair and scowling\nat him. He told the Archbishop this when he returned with the papers\nto Edinburgh, but his Grace sternly bade him be silent and mention the\nmatter to no one on pain of death.\n\n\u201cNow, sir, it seems that my master is able to see astral bodies, for\nhe saw Mr Jack Herbert, but I doubt if he could see a _real spirit_.\nPerhaps, sir,\u201d suggested Anklebone, politely, \u201cyou might be able to see\nastral bodies?\u201d\n\n\u201cThank you very much indeed,\u201d I replied, \u201cbut I\u2019m \u2e3a if I want to see\nanything of the sort; but I have heard a tale of an eminent man in London\nwho took a nap in his armchair every afternoon, and while asleep appeared\nto his friends in different parts of the country, but I doubt the fact\nvery much.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said the butler, very solemnly, \u201conly about one in a thousand has\nthe power of visualising real spirits. Many ordinary persons have _long_\nsight, and some have _short_ sight, but most people are short-sighted\nwhen ghosts are visible. The ghosts are really there all the time. Some\npeople cannot see them, but can feel their presence or touch only. Most\nanimals can see spirits; sometimes they are killed with terror when they\nsee the spirits.\u201d\n\nI pulled the bell rope and ordered some spirits for the butler. \u201cI don\u2019t\nthink that will kill you with terror,\u201d I said when it arrived.\n\nHe looked grateful, and remarked that talking was dry work, however\ninteresting the subject might be.\n\n\u201cNow, look here, Mr Anklebone,\u201d I said, \u201cyou know, I daresay, the stories\nabout the Cathedral, the Haunted Tower, and all that. Please tell me what\nyour experiences have been there.\u201d\n\nAnklebone\u2019s whole appearance suddenly changed; he gripped my arm\nviolently, shivered and shuddered, and turned ghastly pale. I thought he\nwas going to have a fit.\n\n\u201cFor pity\u2019s sake, sir,\u201d he said, trembling, \u201cask me nothing about that.\nThere is something _too terrible_ there, but I dare not reveal what I\nknow and have seen to anyone. Do not allude to it again or it will drive\nme mad.\u201d\n\nHe lay back in his chair for a few moments with his eyes closed and\nshaking all over, but he gradually recovered his usual appearance.\n\n\u201cI wish to tell you about the Castle Spectre,\u201d he said, weakly.\n\nI must confess that I felt nonplussed and disappointed at the turn the\nconversation had taken, as whatever my private opinion was regarding the\nworthy Jeremiah\u2019s curious statements, still I felt anxious to find out\nhis experiences at the Cathedral particularly. However, I swallowed my\ndisappointment like a Trojan, and begged him to proceed.\n\nHe gulped down his spirits and informed me he felt better again, but he\ndid not seem quite himself for some time.\n\n\u201cWell, sir,\u201d he said, \u201cI often used to climb over the Castle wall after\ndusk, and smoke my pipe and meditate on all the grand folk that must have\nbeen there in bygone days before the smash-up. I thought of lovely young\nQueen Mary, of Mary Hamilton, and her other Maries, of Lord Darnley, of\nthe poet Castelar, of Lord Arran, and the Duke of Rothesay, and all the\nStuart Kings that used to be there. Then I thought of Prior Hepburn and\npoor murdered Cardinal Beaton, and of monks, knights, and lovely wenches\nthat used to frequent the old place. I loved it, for I have read history\na lot. One could not help thinking of the feasting, revelry, and pageants\nof those interesting old times, and the grand services in the churches,\nand what fine dresses everybody wore.\u201d\n\nI saw he was going bang off the subject again, and when he began to tell\nme there were lots of Anklebones in Norman times about Fifeshire, I had\nto pull him back with a jerk to his ghost at the Castle.\n\n\u201cVery well, sir, I was in the Castle one evening, and I was sitting\non the parapet of the old wall when I saw a head appearing up the old\nbroken steps on the east side of the Castle that once led down to the\ngreat dining hall. I knew no one could _now_ come up that way without a\nladder from the sea beach, and when the figure got to the level ground\nit came right through the iron railing just as if no obstruction were\nthere. I stared hard and watched the advancing figure. It looked like a\nwoman. I had heard of the Cardinal\u2019s ghost, and wondered if it could be\nhis Eminence himself. Nearer and nearer it came, and although it was a\ngusty evening, I noticed the flowing garments of the approaching figure\nwere quite still and unruffled by the wind. It was like a moving statue.\nAs it passed me slowly a few yards away, I saw they were not the robes of\na Cardinal, but those of an Archbishop. I am a Churchman, and know the\ngarments quite well. I saw all his vestments clearly, and I shall never\nforget the pale, ashen set face, and the thin determined mouth. Then I\nnoticed one _very very_ strange thing\u2014the statuesque tall figure had a\nthick rope round the neck, and the end of the rope was trailing along the\ngrass behind it, but there was no sound whatever. On it went and began to\nclimb the stairs to the upper apartments. I tried to follow, but could\nnot move for a bit. I felt as if I was mesmerised or paralysed. I was all\nin a cold sweat, too, and I was glad to get away from the Castle at last\nand hurry home. I haven\u2019t gone so fast for many years. When I went next\nday to Lausdree I made a clean breast of the whole affair to Master.\n\n\u201c\u2018Would you know him again?\u2019 he asked me.\n\n\u201c\u2018Aye,\u2019 I replied, \u2018I would know that face and figure among a thousand.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Come to the study,\u2019 said the master, \u2018and I will show you some\npictures.\u2019\n\n\u201cWe went, and I looked over a number of them. At last I came to one that\nfairly transfixed me. There was no mistaking the face. Before me was the\npicture of the spectre I had seen the previous night in the ruined Castle\nof Saint Andrews.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, Anklebone,\u2019 said the master, \u2018this is _really wonderful_, and you\nactually saw the rope round the neck?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I did,\u2019 I said, \u2018as I am a living man, but who is it? It is not the\nCardinal?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No,\u2019 said the master very gravely, \u2018_this man_ was publicly hanged by\nhis enemies on a gibbet at the Market Cross of Stirling on April 1st,\n1571.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But who was he?\u2019 I asked, imploringly.\n\n\u201c\u2018The man, or ghost, you saw,\u2019 said master, \u2018was Archbishop John Hamilton\nof St Andrews\u2014in his own Castle grounds where he once reigned supreme.\u2019\u201d\n\nI said farewell to Mr Anklebone, and as I thought over his extraordinary\nstory journeying home in the train, I could not help repeating over and\nover again to myself that very curious name that seemed to rhyme with the\nmotion of the train\u2014Concrikketty Anklebone.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Smothered Piper of the West Cliffs.\n\n\n\u201c_Hush! hush! hush! Here comes the Bogie Man._\u201d\n\nThis was shouted out to me very loudly by a cheery golfing \u201cJohnny,\u201d as I\nentered the merry smoking-room of the old \u2019Varsity Golf Club at Coldham\nCommon, Cambridge, some years ago. \u201cDraw in your armchair, light a cigar\nor a pipe, and tell us all [many celebrated actors were present] some\nof those wonderful bogie stories about dear St Andrews. It is the bogie\ntime of the year, and you must remember I played the \u2018Bogie Man\u2019 for you\nin one of your big burlesques at St Andrews and Cupar some years ago, so\nfire away with the bogies, please, and be quick.\u201d\n\nThen I reeled off a big lot of yarns: of the ghost, Thomas Plater, who\nmurdered Prior Robert of Montrose on the dormitory staircase before\nvespers; of the nigger in a Fifeshire house, who is invisible himself,\nbut maps out his bare footmarks on the floor of the painted gallery; of\nSharpe\u2019s coach, which, being heard, betokens a death; of haunted old\nBalcomie ruined castle; of the murdered pedlar in our own South Street,\nwho sweeps down with a chilly hand the cheeks of invaders to his haunted\ncellar; of the ghost that appeared in the house of Archbishop Ross,\nmentioned in Lyon\u2019s History; and of the terrible ghost in the Novum\nHospitium, which so alarmed people that its dwelling had to be pulled\ndown, and only a fragment of the building now remains. But they wanted to\nhear the tale of the \u201cGhostly Piper of the West Cliffs\u201d; so I told them\nthe legend as I had heard it years ago.\n\nIt seems that in the old days no houses existed on the Cliffs from the\nold Castle of Hamilton to the modern monument near the Witch Hill. It was\nall meadow land, much used for the grazing of cattle and sheep, and also\nmuch frequented as a playground for bygone children. On and over the face\nof the cliffs, slightly to the westward of Butts Wynd, existed then the\nentrance to a fearsome cave, or old ecclesiastical passage, which was a\nterror to many, and most people shunned it. It had many names, among them\nthe \u201cJingling Cove,\u201d \u201cThe Jingling Man\u2019s Hole,\u201d \u201cJohn\u2019s Coal Hole,\u201d and\nlater \u201cThe Piper\u2019s Cave, or Grave.\u201d A few of the oldest inhabitants still\nremember it. A few knew a portion of it; none dared venture beyond this\nwell-known portion. Like the interior of an old ice-house, it was dark,\nchilly, and clammy; its walls ran with cold sweat. It was partly natural,\nbut mostly artificial\u2014a most dark, creepy, and fearsome place.\n\nIn a description which I got of it many years ago, and which appeared\nin the _St Andrews Citizen_, I learn that \u201cthe opening of this cliff\npassage was small and triangular; it was situated on a projecting ledge\nof rock, and it was high enough, after entering, to enable a full-sized\nman to stand upright. From the opening it was a steep incline down for\na distance of 49 feet, thereafter it proceeded in a level direction\nfor over 70 feet, when it descended into a chamber. At the further end\nof this chamber were two, if not more, passages branching off from it.\nBetween the passages was cut out in the rock a Latin cross.\u201d This would\nseem to point to an ecclesiastical connection, and had nothing whatever\nto do with the more modern smugglers\u2019 cave near the ladies\u2019 bathing place.\n\nBut enough of description. In bygone days, in a small cottage, little\nbetter than a hovel, situated in Argyle, lived an old dame named Goodman.\nShe occupied one room, and her son and his young wife tenanted the other\nlittle chamber. He was a merry, dare-devil, happy-go-lucky lad, and he\nwas famed as one of the best players on the bagpipes in all Fife; he\nwould have pleased even Maggie Lauder. Of nights at all hours he would\nmake the old grass-grown streets lively with his music. \u201cJock the Piper,\u201d\nwas a favourite among both young and old. He was much interested in the\ntale of the old West Cliff cave, and took a bet on with some cronies\nthat on a New Year\u2019s night he would investigate the mysteries of the\nplace, and play his pipes up it as far as he could go. His old mother,\nhis wife, and many of his friends tried hard to dissuade him from doing\nso foolish and so foolhardy a thing; but he remained obdurate, and firmly\nstuck to his bet. On a dark New Year\u2019s night he started up the mysterious\ncavern with his pipes playing merrily; and they were heard, it is said,\npassing beneath Market Street, then they died away. They suddenly ceased,\nand were never more heard. He and his well-known pipes were never seen\nagain.\n\nSomewhere beneath St Andrews lies the whitened bones of that bygone piper\nlad, with his famous pipes beside him. Attempts were made to find him,\nbut without avail; no one, not even the bravest, dared to venture into\nthat passage full of damp foul air. His mother and wife were distracted,\nand the young wife used to sit for hours at the mouth of that death-trap\ncave. Finally, her mind gave way, and she used to wander at all hours\ndown to the mouth of the cave where her husband had vanished. The\nfollowing New Year\u2019s night she left the little cottage in Argyle, and\nputting a shawl over her wasted shoulders, turned to the old woman and\nsaid, \u201cI\u2019m going to my Jock.\u201d Morning came, but she never returned home.\nShe had, indeed, gone to her lost \u201cJock.\u201d For years after, the small\ncrouching figure of a woman could be seen on moonlight nights perched on\nthe rock balcony of the fatal cave, dim, shadowy, and transparent. Wild\nshrieks and sounds of weird pipe music were constantly heard coming from\nout of that entrance.\n\nIn after years, when the houses were built, the mouth of this place was\neither built or covered up, and its memory only remains to us.\n\nBut what of \u201cPiper Jock?\u201d He, it is said, still walks the edge of the old\ncliffs; and his presence is heralded by an icy breath of cold air, and\nill be it for anyone who meets or sees his phantom form or hears his pipe\nmusic. He seems to have the same effect as the ghost of \u201cNell Cook\u201d in\nthe dark entry at Canterbury, mentioned in the \u201cIngoldsby Legends,\u201d from\nwhich I must quote a few verses\u2014\n\n    \u201cAnd tho\u2019 two hundred years have flown,\n        Nell Cook doth still pursue\n    Her weary walk, and they who cross her path\n        The deed may rue.\n\n    Her fatal breath is fell as death!\n        The simoon\u2019s blast is not\n    More dire (a wind in Africa\n        That blows uncommon hot).\n\n    But all unlike the simoon\u2019s blast,\n        Her breath is deadly cold,\n    Delivering quivering, shivering shocks\n        Upon both young and old.\n\n    And whoso in the entry dark\n        Doth feel that fatal breath,\n    He ever dies within the year\n        Some dire untimely death.\u201d\n\nSo it is with him who meets \u201cPiper Jock.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy Jove,\u201d interrupted the golfing \u201cJohnny,\u201d \u201chas anyone seen him lately?\u201d\n\n\u201cI only know of one man,\u201d I said, \u201cwho told me that one awful night in a\nheavy thunderstorm he had heard wild pipe music, and seen the figure of\na curiously dressed piper walking along the cliff edge, _where no mortal\ncould walk_, at a furious speed.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you think of it all?\u201d asked my golfing friend.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019m sure; I am not receptive and don\u2019t see ghosts, but if\nI could only find _now_ the mouth of that place, I bet another \u2018Jock\u2019 and\nI would get along it and find out the whereabouts of \u2018Jock the Piper\u2019 and\nhis poor little wife. Here is my hansom. Good night, don\u2019t forget the\nPiper.\u201d\n\nAnd they haven\u2019t.\n\n\n\n\nThe Beautiful White Lady of the Haunted Tower.\n\n\n\u201cHow very, very lovely she was to be sure!\u201d\n\n\u201cOf whom are you speaking?\u201d I asked. \u201cOf some of the Orchid or Veronique\npeople, or of some of your own company? I did not know you were hard\nhit old chap.\u201d I was sitting in the smoking-room of the Great Northern\nHotel, King\u2019s Cross, talking to an old friend, an Oxford man, but now\nthe manager of a big theatrical company, when he suddenly made the above\nremark.\n\n\u201cNo, no! Of none of those people,\u201d he replied; \u201cbut our talking of St\nAndrews reminded me of a ghost, a phantom, or a spectre\u2014call it what you\nchoose\u2014I saw in that ancient city several years ago\u2014no horrid bogie, but\na very lovely girl, indeed.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy Jove,\u201d I said, \u201ctell me about it; I want a new ghost tale very badly\nindeed. I know a lot of them, but perhaps this is something new and\nspicy.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am sure I do not know if it be new,\u201d he replied. \u201cI have never seen\nanything spectral before or since, but I saw that lovely woman three\ndifferent times. It must be fully ten years ago. I saw her twice on the\nScores and once in an old house.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I must really hear all about it,\u201d I said. \u201cPlease fire away.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll right, all right!\u201d he said. \u201cNow for her _first_ appearance. I was\nliving in St Andrews at the time. It must have been the end of January\nor beginning of February, and I was strolling along to the Kirkhill\nafter dinner and enjoying the fine evening and the keen sea breeze, and\nthinking about the old, old days of the Castle and Cathedral, of Beaton\u2019s\nghost, and many other queer tales, when a female figure glided past me.\nShe was in a long, flowing white dress, and had her beautiful dark hair\nhanging down past her waist. I was very much astonished to see a girl\ndressed in such a manner wandering about alone at such an hour, and I\nfollowed her along for several yards, when lo! just after she had passed\nthe turret light she completely vanished near the square tower, which I\nwas afterwards informed was known as the \u2018Haunted Tower.\u2019 I hunted all\nround the place carefully, but saw nothing more that night. Queer, wasn\u2019t\nit?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly it was,\u201d I remarked; \u201cbut I know dozens of weird stories\nconnected with that old tower. But what more have you to tell me?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he continued, \u201cas you may imagine, the whole affair worried and\npuzzled me considerably, but it was gradually vanishing from my mind\nwhen near the same place I saw her again. I had my sister with me this\ntime, and we both can swear to it. It was a lovely night with a faint\nmoon, and as the white lady swept past quite silently we saw the soft\ntrailing dress and the long, black wavy hair. There was something like a\nrosary hanging from her waist, and a cross or a locket hanging round her\nthroat. As she passed she turned her head towards us, and we both noticed\nher beautiful features, especially her brilliant eyes. She vanished, as\nbefore, near that old tower. My sister was so awfully frightened that I\nhad to hurry her off home. We were both absolutely convinced we had seen\na being not of this world\u2014a face never to be forgotten.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow strange,\u201d I said. \u201cYou know, several people saw a girl in that\nbuilt-up old turret lying in her coffin. A former priest of the Episcopal\nChurch here saw some masons repairing the wall of that tower, and their\nchisel fell into the turret through a chink. On removing a stone, they\ncame upon a chamber within, and they saw a girl dressed in white, with\nlong hair, lying in a coffin, wanting the lid. The hole was built up\nagain at once. I know, and have often talked to persons who saw her\nthere. One of them was a mason employed at the work. The doorway of the\ntower is opened up now, and a grill put in, but there is no sign of the\ngirl. Queer stories arose. Some said it was the remains of Princess\nMuren, daughter of Constantine. Others said it was the embalmed body of\nsome sweet girl Saint concealed there in times of trouble, and so on; but\nfinish your story.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have little more to tell,\u201d he answered. \u201cSome months afterwards I was\na guest in an old house in Fifeshire, and was given the turret room. On\nthe second night I went to bed early, as I had been at golf all day and\nfelt awfully dead beat. I must have fallen asleep suddenly, as I left\nmy candle burning on the table. All of a sudden I woke up with a start\nto find the now familiar figure of the \u2018White Lady\u2019 at the foot of my\nbed. She was gazing at me intently. When I sat up she glided away behind\nthe screen at the door. I jumped up, put on my dressing-gown, seized\nthe candle, and made for the door. The lady was gone, and the door was\nas I left it when I went to bed\u2014_locked_. I unlocked it, flung it open,\nand looked into the passage. There she was, I saw the white dress, the\nsplendid hair, the rosary, and the gold locket quite plainly. She turned\nher lovely face to me and smiled a sweet, pathetic smile; gently raised\nher hand, and floated away towards the picture gallery. Now for the end.\nNext day my kind hostess took me through the old gallery. I saw pictures\nof all ages, sorts, and sizes; but imagine my amazement when I saw \u2018_The\nWhite Lady_\u2019\u2014the same white dress, the lovely sweet face and splendid\neyes, the rosary, and a locket, which I now saw had on it the arms of\nQueen Mary and Lord Darnley. \u2018Who on earth is that?\u2019 I asked.\n\n\u201c\u2018You seem interested in that painting,\u2019 said Mrs \u2e3a. \u2018Well, that is a\nportrait of one of the lovely Mary Stuart\u2019s Maries. She was madly in\nlove with Castelar, the French minstrel, and after he was beheaded at St\nAndrews she became a nun, and it is said died of grief in her nunnery.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat is all, old boy,\u201d he said, \u201cand it is late. I think it seems right;\n_that_ girl I and my sister saw _must_ have been the spirit of Marie \u2e3a;\nand perhaps it was she who was the occupant of that haunted tower\u2014who\nknows? but I shall never, never see such a divinely beautiful face on\nthis earth again.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nConcerning More Appearances of the White Lady.\n\n\nI had been invited, and was sitting at tea with a very dear old lady\nfriend of mine not long ago. It may seem strange, but tea is, I consider,\nan extra and an unnecessary meal. It does not appeal to me in the least,\nand only spoils one\u2019s dinner and digestion. The reason I went to tea was\nbecause in her note to me the lady mentioned that she had read my book\nof ghost tales, and that she was interested in ghosts in general and St\nAndrews ghosts in particular, and that she knew lots of such stories in\nthe days of her girlhood in St Andrews, now about 85 years ago. That is\nwhy I went to eat cakes with sugar, hot buttered toast, and drink tea as\nblack as senna or a black draught. She had also informed me in the note\nthat she could tell me a lot about the Haunted Tower and the Beautiful\nWhite Lady.\n\nIt took some time to get her to that point. She would talk about\nArchbishop Sharpe and his haunted house in the Pends Road, of the ghost\nseen by Archbishop Ross, of my friend the Veiled Nun, of the Cathedral\nand Mr John Knox, of Hungus, King of the Picts, of Constantine, Thomas\nPlater, and various others. She told me a long tale of the Rainham Ghost\nin Norfolk, known as \u201cThe Brown Lady of Rainham,\u201d whom her father and\nCaptain Marryat both saw, and so on.\n\nAt last we got near the subject I wished information on.\n\n\u201cIn my young days,\u201d she said, \u201cSt Andrews was quite a wee bit place with\ngrass-grown streets, red-tiled houses, outside stairs, queer narrow\nwynds, not over clean, only a few lights at night\u2014here and there, an\nold bowet or oil lamp hanging at street corners. Every one believed in\nSharpe\u2019s Phantom Coach in those good old days.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you ever see it?\u201d I queried.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I have heard it rumble past, and I know those who\nhave seen it, and many other things too.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut tell me about the White Lady, please,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cI will. Few people in those days cared to pass that haunted tower after\nnightfall. If they did they ran past it and also the Castle. Those\nnew-fangled incandescent gas lamps have spoiled it all now. The White\nLady was one of the _Maries_, one of the maids of honour to poor martyred\nMary of Scotland, they said then. She was madly in love with the French\npoet and minstrel, \u2018Castelar,\u2019 and he was hopelessly in love, like many\nothers, with Marie\u2019s lovely mistress, \u2018the Queen of Scots.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWas she supposed to be the girl seen in the built-up haunted tower?\u201d I\nasked.\n\n\u201cThat I really can\u2019t say,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a story often told in\nthe old days that a beautiful embalmed girl in white lay in that tower,\nand it was there and near the Castle that she used to appear to the\npeople. You know poor Castelar, the handsome minstrel, said and did some\nstupid things, and was beheaded at the Castle, and was probably buried\nnear there. Get me from that shelf Whyte Melville\u2019s novel, \u2018The Queen\u2019s\nMaries.\u2019\u201d\n\nI did as she bade me.\n\n\u201cWell, you will see there that the night before Castelar was to be\nbeheaded kind Queen Mary sent one of her Maries, the one who loved\nCastelar, at her own special request to the Castle with her ring to\noffer him a pardon if he left this country for ever. This Marie did see\nCastelar, showed him the Queen\u2019s ring, and pleaded with him to comply,\nbut he refused\u2014he preferred death to banishment from his beloved Queen\u2019s\nCourt, and the fair messenger left him _obstinate_ in his dungeon. This\nfaithful Marie paced up and down all that night before the Castle; then\nat dawn came the sound of a gun or culverin, a wreath of smoke floated\nout to sea, and Castelar was gone. Whyte Melville says she did not\nstart, she did not shriek, nor faint, nor quiver, but she threw her hood\nback and looked wildly upward, gasping for air. Then as the rising sun\nshone on her bare head, Marie\u2019s raven hair was all streaked and patched\nwith grey. When Mary Stuart fled to England, this faithful Marie, now\nno more needed, became a nun in St Andrews. Look at page 371 of Whyte\nMelville\u2019s book,\u201d she said. So I read\u2014\u201cIt was an early harvest that year\nin Scotland, but e\u2019er the barley was white, Marie had done with nuns and\nnunneries, vows and ceremonies, withered hopes and mortal sorrows, and\nhad gone to that place where the weary heart can alone find the rest it\nhad so longed for at last.\u201d\n\nThe pathetic and the comic often go together. Just at this interesting\npoint a cat sprang suddenly up and upset a cup of tea in the lap of my\ngenial hostess. This created a diversion. Old ladies are apt to wander,\nwhich is annoying. She got clean away from her subject for a bit. She\nasked me if I knew Captain Robert Marshall, who wrote plays and \u201cThe\nHaunted Mayor.\u201d I said I knew Bob well, and that he was an old Madras\nCollege boy.\n\nShe then wanted to know if I knew how to pronounce the name of Mr\nTravis\u2019s American putter, and if Mr Low or I had ever tried it. She also\nwanted to know if I knew anything of the new patent clock worked on\ngramophone principles which shouted the hours instead of striking them.\n\nHaving answered all these queries to her satisfaction, and taken another\ncup of senna\u2014I mean tea\u2014I got her back to the White Lady.\n\n\u201cOh, yes, my dear,\u201d she said, \u201cI saw her, I and some friends. _A lot of\nus_ had been out at Kinkell Braes one afternoon and stayed there long\npast the time allowed us. It was almost dark, and we scuttled up the brae\nfrom the Harbour rather frightened. Just near the turret light we saw\nthe lady gliding along the top of the old Abbey wall. She was robed in\na grey white dress with a veil over her head. She had raven black hair,\nand a string of beads hanging from her waist. We all huddled together,\nwith our eyes and mouths wide open, and watched the figure. \u2018It\u2019s a\ngirl sleep-walking,\u2019 I murmured. \u2018It\u2019s a bride,\u2019 whispered another.\n\u2018Oh! she\u2019ll fall,\u2019 said a little boy, grasping my arm. But she did not.\nShe went inside the parapet wall at the Haunted Tower and vanished\ncompletely. \u2018It\u2019s a ghost; it\u2019s the White Lady,\u2019 we all shrieked, and\nran off trembling home. My sister also saw her on one of the turrets in\nthe Abbey wall, where she was seen by several people. Some months after,\nas I was doing my hair before my looking-glass, the same face looked over\nmy shoulder, and I fainted. I have always felt an _eerie_ feeling about\na looking-glass ever since, even now, old woman as I am. Her lovely face\nis one never, never to be forgotten, having once seen it, but your new\nfashioned lamps have altered everything.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what do you think about it now?\u201d I asked her.\n\n\u201cI have told you all I know. The Lady used to be seen oftenest between\nthe Castle and that old turret. Perhaps she came to look at the last\nresting-place of her much loved and wayward minstrel, Castelar. Maybe\nshe came to revisit the favourite haunts of her beloved girl Queen\u2014truly\ncalled the Queen of the Roses; but to my dying day I shall never forget\nthat face, that lovely, pathetic face I saw years ago, and which may\nstill be seen by some. What! must you really go now; won\u2019t you have\nanother cup of tea? Very well, good bye.\u201d\n\nAs I wended my way Clubwards I could not but think of the strange tale I\nhad just heard and of Castelar\u2019s sad end, and I could not help wondering\nif I should ever be favoured with a sight of this beautiful White Lady.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nA Spiritualistic Seance.\n\n\nThe M\u2019Whiskers, whom I met at Oban, were very jolly old people. Papa\nM\u2019Whisker had made a big fortune teaplanting in Ceylon, and had bought,\nand added to Dramdotty Castle in the far, far north. They were perfectly\nfull of ghosts and spiritualism, and at Dramdotty they seemed to have a\nghost for every day in the week. On Monday there was the \u201cSpotted Nun,\u201d\non Tuesday the \u201cFloating Infant,\u201d on Wednesday the \u201cHeadless Dwarf,\u201d\non Thursday the \u201cVanishing Nigger,\u201d on Friday the \u201cBurnt Lady,\u201d and on\nSaturday the \u201cHuman Balloon,\u201d and on Sunday the whole lot attended on\nthem, and, I daresay, went to the kirk with them.\n\nM\u2019Whisker himself was a jovial soul, fond of his toddy, and very much\nresembled the Dougal Cratur in \u201cRob Roy.\u201d My friend, John Clyde, should\nhave seen him. He had a furious red head of hair and beard of the same\ncolour, and the street boys used to call after him the song, \u201cThe folks\nall call me, Carroty, What, what, what, oh! Carroty,\u201d etc. Mrs M\u2019Whisker\nwas a stout lady with eyes like small tomatoes and a gimlet nose. They\nhad a son, a boy of ten, called Fernando M\u2019Whisker, because he was born\nin Spain. When they came to St Andrews they had purchased a number of\nmy \u201cGhost Books.\u201d (These ghosts at present chiefly haunt the _Citizen_\nWarehouse, booksellers\u2019 shops, and the railway bookstall.) That is the\nreason perhaps that the M\u2019Whiskers invited me to a spiritualistic seance\nat their house in South Street. They generally came to St Andrews for\nthe winter, partly to get away from the cold of their northern home, and\npartly because they thought the history and atmosphere of St Andrews\nlent itself to an all-pervading presence of ghosts, spooks, and spirits.\nI had only been to two such shows before\u2014one at Helensburgh and one at\nCambridge\u2014and was, and still am, very doubtful of the genuineness of\nspiritualism. On the day appointed I went to the M\u2019Whiskers\u2019 house in\nSouth Street, and was shown in by a Highlander in the M\u2019Whisker tartan.\nIt was early in the afternoon, but I found the shutters in the large\nroom all shut, and a few dim lights only were burning. On a sideboard in\nthe corner stood plenty of refreshments and everything else to comfort\nthe inner man. In the centre of the room there was a round table covered\nwith a M\u2019Whisker tartan tablecloth, which touched the floor all round:\nthis in itself was suspicious to my mind. I was introduced to the chief\nmedium, one Mr Peter Fancourt, who looked as if he had been buried and\ndug up again. He was in tight, sleek black clothes, and resembled in\nevery way \u201cUriah Heep\u201d in \u201cDavid Copperfield.\u201d The other medium was a\nMrs Flyflap Corncockle. They were supposed not to know each other, but\nI am as certain that they were accomplices as that the Bell Rock is\nnear St Andrews Bay. A number of chairs encircled the table. We had all\nto seat ourselves on these chairs, with our thumbs and little fingers\ntouching round the edge of the table. The first thing that happened was\na kind of \u201csquish,\u201d and then a huge bouquet of flowers descended on the\ntable from somewhere. It was a clever trick, but the flowers were of the\ncommonest sort, and what I had seen in all the greengrocers\u2019 shops that\nmorning. The lights were now turned very low, and a spirit arm and hand\nappeared floating about, which shone a good deal. It hovered about from\nthe ceiling to above our heads, and when I got a chance I jumped on a\nchair and seized it with both hands. It seemed to shrink up, and was torn\nthrough my hands very forcibly, and in such a material manner that I was\nforced to let go. I don\u2019t know where the hand and arm went to, but it\nwas simply a juggling trick. After this \u201cMr Heep\u201d (I beg his pardon, Mr\nFancourt) said that there was an unbeliever present, and as I was that\nunbeliever I was relegated to an armchair by the fireplace with one of\nM\u2019Whisker\u2019s muckle cigars. From that point of vantage I watched the whole\naffair, and they assured me they would tell me all that was going on. The\nnext very curious thing was that they suddenly all took their hands off\nthe table, and their eyes slowly followed something ceilingwards. It was\nfunny to see them all lying back staring up at the roof. Then very slowly\ntheir heads and eyes resumed their normal position. \u201cDid you see that?\u201d\nsaid the M\u2019Whisker triumphantly. \u201cI saw nothing whatever,\u201d I remarked.\n\u201cWhat! did you not see the table float up to the ceiling? It remained\nthere quite half a second, and then came down as lightly as a feather.\u201d\n\u201cI was watching the table the whole time,\u201d I said, \u201cand it never moved\nan inch from its place.\u201d \u201cOh! you are an unbeliever,\u201d said Mrs M\u2019Whisker\nsadly, \u201cbut later on when it is darker you will see Mr Fancourt float out\nof one of the windows and come in at the other.\u201d I fervently hoped if he\ndid anything of the kind he would come a cropper on the pavement below\nand break some of his ribs. The table then started to dance about and\nmove along, but this, I am certain, was simply engineered by those two\nmediums.\n\nAfter some tomfoolery of this kind they all agreed that \u201cOuija\u201d should\nbe brought out. A large oblong yellow board was then produced and laid\non the table. On it were the letters of the alphabet and a number of\nfigures, also the sun, moon, and stars, and some other fantastic symbols.\nOn this board was placed a small table with a round body and round head,\nit had three hind legs and a front, which was the pointer. These legs had\nlittle red velvet boots on. The two mediums then placed their hands on\neach side of this curious table, which immediately began to run about to\nthe letters and figures, spelling out things and fixing dates in answer\nto questions asked. It was not the least like a planchette, which is on\nwheels. The first thing they informed me it had said was that a spirit\ncalled Clarissa was present, and for many years she had lain a-dying\nin that room. She maintained that she was some distant relation of the\nWhite Lady of the Haunted Tower. It then rushed into poetry. Its first\neffort was the \u201cLegend of Purple James and his Girl,\u201d a comic thing which\nreminded me of the \u201cBab Ballads.\u201d They afterwards gave me a copy of this\npoem, which I still possess. Next the spirit gave us a Scotch poem about\na haggis, and then one called \u201cEdward and the Hard-Boiled Egg.\u201d It then\ndevoted its attention to me, whom it characterised as the \u201cUnbeliever.\u201d\nIt stated that if the Antiquarian Society would dig a pit four feet\nsquare by six feet deep between the two dungeons in the Kitchen Tower\nof the Castle, and if the rock were cut through, a cave would be found\nfull of casks of good red wine. On no condition whatever would I, on\nsuch evidence, recommend the Society to strike a pick in there. The next\nspirit that turned up was one Jaspar Codlever. He alluded to me as \u201cthe\nCambridge man in the chair with the cigar.\u201d He said that if excavations\nwere made between the two last trees in Lawpark Wood a stone cist would\nbe found full of Pictish ornaments. Again he told us that within a cave\non the cliffs there was a chalice of great value placed there by Isabella\nthe Nun, who still guarded it by night and day, and was very dangerous\nto approach. This spirit then went away, and his place was taken by a\nmonk named Rudolph, who informed us that the entrance to the Crypt or\nsub-Chapel was between two of the pillars in the Priory. As there are a\nlot of pillars there, it is impossible to know which he meant. He said\nthis entrance was near Roger\u2019s tomb. Who Roger may be I know not. He then\ntold us about this Crypt. He said there was something so horrible in it\nthat it turned him sick. Curiously enough, some thought-reading people\ntold us the same story in the Town Hall some years ago, but they said the\nunderground Chapel was at the east end of the Cathedral. The monk then\nwent on to tell us of this place in the Priory. He said it had Purbeck\nmarble pillars, a well of clear water, and three small costly altars, and\na number of books of the Vincentian Canons. There was a short interval\nnow, and the lights were turned up. I was anxious to get away, but they\nimplored me to stay and see the cabinet and the spirits therein. I told\nthem in my most dramatic fashion that I was late already, and I had a\nmeeting on. M\u2019Whisker then begged me, if I would not stay to see the\nspirits, to taste some, and he mixed me an excellent whisky-and-soda,\nwhich he called a \u201cBlairgowrie.\u201d I then made my adieu, and was very glad\nto get once more into the street and also into a world of sense. The\nM\u2019Whiskers informed me some days afterwards that they were very sorry\nat my leaving, as, after I had gone, Fancourt had floated out of the\nwindow, and numerous wonderful spirits had appeared in the cabinet. I am\nglad I went when I did, as I should certainly have taken a poker to that\ncabinet.\n\n\n\n\nThe Apparition of Sir Rodger de Wanklyn.\n\n\nI am very fond indeed of Christmas time. There has been little snow\nthis season. I think it has forgotten how to snow in these days. Still,\nI always feel Christmassy. I think of the good old coaching days, when\nthere was really snow, of Washington, Irving, and good old Dickens and\nScott, of the yule log and the family gatherings and re-unions, of\nthe wassail bowl, of frumenty and plum porridge, and mince pies, plum\npuddings, and holly and mistletoe and big dances in the servants\u2019 hall,\nof good old ancestral ghosts and hearty good cheer.\n\nI am sitting to-day in a cosy armchair (of the old school, no modern\nfake) talking to my old friend, Theophilus Greenbracket. Filus, as I\ncall him, is a clever man of many parts; he is a great traveller and\nsportsman, and takes a deep interest in every mortal thing. There is\nnothing of the kill joy or fossil about Greenbracket; he is up-to-date\nand true blue.\n\nHe is sitting opposite me smoking a gigantic cigar and imbibing rum\npunch, and talking hard; he always talks hard, but is never a bore, and\nnever palls on one in the slightest degree. He has an enormous dog at\nhis feet, with a fierce, vindictive expression, which belies its real\nnature, as it is gentle with everything and everybody, except cats and\nrats. Greenbracket is, among many other things, a great spiritualist and\nvisionary, and possesses all kinds of mediumistic appliances, such as\npythos, planchettes and ouijas, which he works with his old butler, Amos\nBradleigh, who is another spirit hunter.\n\n\u201cBy the bye,\u201d said Greenbracket, \u201cI am at present taking lessons in music\nwith Mr Easeboy.\u201d He says this so suddenly that he makes me jump, as we\nwere talking about sea serpents and the probability of their existence.\n\n\u201cAre you indeed, old chap,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cYes, thorough bass, and consecutive fifths and harmony and all that sort\nof thing, you know. He has a pupil, Macbeth Churchtimber, who has just\nwritten a thundering pretty waltz called \u2018Eleanor Wynne.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought Churchtimber,\u201d I mildly suggested, \u201conly played severe\nclassical stuff.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes,\u201d replied my friend, \u201cbut he occasionally touches on a lighter\ntheme, and has even written a comic song, called, \u2018I lay beside a\nmilestone with a sunflower on my brow.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cI must try it someday,\u201d I said, \u201cbut how about your ghosts? Have you\nseen any lately?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere was one here a few minutes ago,\u201d said Greenbracket, \u201ca tall man in\narmour sitting in that corner over there.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat rubbish,\u201d I said, quite crossly, \u201cyou dream things, or drink, or\neat too much.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo I don\u2019t,\u201d said Greenbracket, \u201cdo you really mean to tell that you\nfelt no sensation just now, no pricking or tingling feeling, or a chilly\nsensation down your back?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not, nothing of the kind,\u201d I replied.\n\n\u201cWell, that is queer,\u201d he said, \u201cI know you don\u2019t see these things, but I\nfancied you would have felt a strange presence in some way. I don\u2019t know\nwho the man in armour was. I have not seen him before, but my butler has,\nat all events. It was not Sir Roger de Wanklyn.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho the \u2e3a is he?\u201d I queried.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said my host, \u201che is the earth-bound spirit of an architect who\nlived in St Andrews at the time that James the Fifth married Mary of\nLorraine in the Cathedral; he says he was present at the ceremony and can\ndescribe it all. A gay pageant it was and much revelry.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you can get all this sort of curious information, which I don\u2019t\nexactly credit, why on earth can\u2019t you find out something practical and\nuseful, for instance, where the secret underground hiding place is, and\nwhere all the tons of valuable ornaments, papers, and vestments are\nconcealed?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear friend,\u201d said Greenbracket solemnly, \u201cthese people won\u2019t be\npumped; they only tell you what they choose to, or are permitted to\nreveal.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf they really do turn up and talk to you as you say they do, why on\nearth can\u2019t you get them to talk some useful sense?\u201d\n\n\u201cI really can\u2019t force their confidence,\u201d said Greenbracket, \u201call they do\ntell me voluntarily is most interesting and absorbing. This Sir Rodger\nplanned numerous very important structural alterations in the Cathedral\nand elsewhere.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is all very odd to me,\u201d I said, \u201cone meets people with strange ideas.\nI met a man years ago at Aberystwith who was a firm believer in the\ntransmigration of souls. He said he quite remembered being a cab horse\nin Glasgow, and was certain when he left this planet he would become a\nparrot in Mars.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand that sort of thing a bit,\u201d said my extraordinary\nfriend, Greenbracket, \u201cbut Sir Rodger de Wanklyn has sometimes to visit\nthe Valley of Fire and Frost, where there are mighty furnaces on one side\nof him and ice and snow on the other and it is very painful.\u201d\n\n\u201cI had that sort of experience the other day,\u201d I remarked, \u201cat a meeting.\nOn one side was a furnace of a fire and on the other a window wide open\nwith a biting frost wind blowing in.\u201d\n\n\u201cTuts,\u201d said Greenbracket \u201cthat\u2019s here; I am talking of the spirit world.\u201d\n\n\u201cHang! your spirit stuff. Has your butler, Amos Bradleigh, seen any\nspookey things lately?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, he is much annoyed by the spirit of an evil old housekeeper here\nwho lost her life by falling downstairs, and she is continually pushing\nhim down my cellar stairs. He is furious.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs this butler of yours any connection of Jeremiah Anklebone?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cYes, he is a cousin,\u201d said Greenbracket; \u201call that family have second\nsight, and see and dream strange things.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd who,\u201d I asked, \u201cmay this housekeeper be who pitched your butler down\nstairs?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said Greenbracket, \u201cshe\u2019s a badly constituted wraith, and her name\nis Annibal Strongthorn. She was housekeeper ages ago to this Sir Roger de\nWanklyn in this very old house we are in.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat happened to this Sir Roger? Has he told you?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! yes he fell over the cliffs.\u201d\n\n\u201cBless me, and did this old housekeeper woman push him over. Was she a\nmurderess?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, how can I tell,\u201d said Greenbracket peevishly, \u201che has told me\nnothing of the kind.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, old fellow,\u201d I said, \u201cyou really do not get much interesting\ninformation out of your ghostly friends, but what I like about you\nis that all your numerous ghosts come straight to you, straight to\nhead-quarters at once\u2014you don\u2019t go fooling about with chairs and tables\nand sideboards and other pieces of timber in an idiotic way. If, as\nsome people say, they can get chairs and tables and other articles of\nfurniture to follow them about, why don\u2019t they go in for cheap furniture\nremovals at night when the streets are empty?\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t make a joke of everything,\u201d said Greenbracket, \u201cI do see and\nconverse with departed spirits. I do not ask them to come; they come to\nme, and half of them I have never heard of before or thought of either.\u201d\n\n\u201cMay I ask, my good friend Greenbracket, what sort of clothes they wear\nwhen they pay you these visits; for instance, what does your latest\napparition, Sir Rodger, clothe himself in?\u201d\n\n\u201cBless me!\u201d said Theophilus, \u201cwhy in the dress of his times, of course\u2014a\njerken, doublet, and hose, a rapier, and all that sort of thing;\nsometimes he wears a sort of coarse fustian cassock with a double breast.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t make out,\u201d I said to my spiritualistic friend, \u201cwhere these\nclothes come from. Have they got a sort of theatrical wardrobe wherever\nthey are existing? If so, why can\u2019t the ghosts of old world clothes come\nalone? In such a case you might see a modern suit of evening togs, or\narmour, or boots and spurs, or military dress walk into your room without\nanything inside them; or you might, with a stretch of imagination, see a\nsuit of pyjamas, or a pair of slippers going about the place.\u201d\n\n\u201cShut up talking like that,\u201d said Theophilus, \u201cyou don\u2019t possess the\nsense\u2014I mean the extra sense to see these beings; but read this document\nI have written out. Surely it will convince you that I really do get\nvaluable inspirations from other worlds, but, mind, keep it a strict\nsecret at present.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll right, I promise you,\u201d I murmured placidly. Then I perused carefully\nthe more than extraordinary document he had handed me.\n\n\u201cIt is very curious,\u201d I said, \u201cif it be one bit true; and if genuine,\nmight be extremely useful. Mind my lips are sealed. But from whom did you\nobtain this remarkable story?\u201d\n\n\u201cFrom Sir Rodger de Wanklyn, the Cathedral architect,\u201d he replied, and\noff I went quite full of my queer friend, Greenbracket, and of Annabel\nStrongthorn, Amos Bradleigh, and his cousin Anklebone, and particularly\nRodger de Wanklyn.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Bewitched Ermentrude.\n\n\nVery many years ago now I was sauntering down historic old South Street\none November afternoon, my object being to lunch in one of the quaint\nhouses with my old time friend, Harold Slitherwick. Lunch was not,\nhowever, the main object of my visit, but to meet a man called Reginald\nS\u00e6deger, an ex-Indian judge, who had _actually_ seen a genuine spirit or\nghost.\n\nIt is a sad, nay, a melancholy fact (for I have been told this by the\nvery best authorities) that _I am not Psychic_, despite the fact that\nI have spent days and nights in gloomy, grimly-haunted chambers and\nruins, and even a lonesome Hallowe\u2019en night on the summit of St Rule\u2019s\nancient Tower (my only companions being sandwiches, matches, some cigars,\nand the necessary and indispensable flask), yet, alas! I have _never_\nheard or seen anything the least abnormal, or felt the necessary, or\nmuch-talked-of mystic presence.\n\nArrived at the old mansion, I was duly ushered in by Slitherwick\u2019s\nbutler, one Joe Bingworthy, a man with the manner and appearance of\nan archbishop, and from whom one always seemed to expect a sort of\npontifical blessing.\n\nThere were several fellows there, and I was speedily made known to\nS\u00e6deger, a very cheery, pleasant little person, with dark hair and big\neyebrows.\n\nThere was a very heated discussion going on when I entered as to what\nwas really a properly constituted Cathedral. Darkwood was shouting, \u201cNo\nBishop\u2019s Chair, _no_ Cathedral.\u201d \u201cIf,\u201d he said, \u201ca Bishop had his chair\nin a tiny chapel, it was a Cathedral, but if a religious building was as\nbig as the Crystal Palace, and there was no Bishop\u2019s Chair there, it was\nnot one bit a Cathedral.\u201d\n\nI stopped this discussion suddenly by asking S\u00e6deger about his ghost,\nand was told I would hear the whole story after lunch.\n\nBefore we adjourned to the smoke room S\u00e6deger was telling us he felt a\nbit knocked up with his long journey. He had a thirty-six hours\u2019 journey\nafter he left good old Tony-Pandy. Visions of \u201cTony Lumpkin,\u201d and \u201cTony\nFaust,\u201d in \u201cMy Sweetheart,\u201d flitted through my brain, then I suddenly\nremembered, luckily, that \u201cTony-pandy\u201d was a town in Wales.\n\nOnce comfortably seated in the smoke-room with pipes, cigars, and whisky,\nReginald S\u00e6deger became at once the centre of all the interest.\n\n\u201cLots of years ago,\u201d he said, in a quiet legal voice, \u201cI came to visit\nsome friends in St Andrews, and I had a most unaccountable experience.\nI will tell you all about it. I never saw anything supernatural before,\nand have never seen anything the least remarkable since; but one night,\nmy first night in that house, I undoubtedly saw the wraith of the \u2018Blue\nGirl.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat had you for supper that evening?\u201d I mildly asked.\n\n\u201cOnly chicken and salad,\u201d was the reply. \u201cI was not thinking of anything\nghostly. If you fix your mind _intently_ on one thing, some folk can, you\ncan self-hypnotise yourself. I had no idea but golf in my mind when I\nwent off to roost.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, drive ahead,\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cI had a charming, comfortable, big old-world room given me, nice fire,\nand all that sort of thing,\u201d continued S\u00e6deger, \u201cand as I was deuced\ntired I soon went to bed and to sleep.\n\n\u201cI woke suddenly, later, with the firm conviction that a pair of eyes\nwere fixed on me. I suppose everyone knows that if you stare fixedly\nat any sleeping person, they will soon awake. I got a start when I\nhalf-opened my eyes, for leaning on the mantelpiece staring hard at me\nin the mirror was a most beautiful girl in a light blue gauzy dress,\nher back, of course, was to the bed, and I saw she had masses of wavy,\ngolden-brown hair hanging down long past her waist.\n\n\u201cI was utterly astonished, and watched the movements of this beautiful\ncreature with my eyes almost closed. I felt sure it was someone in the\nhouse having a lark at my expense, so pretended to be asleep. As I\nwatched, the girl turned round and faced me, and I marvelled at the\nextraordinary loveliness of her figure and features. I wondered if she\nwas a guest in the house, and what she was doing wandering about at\nthat time of night, and if she was sleep-walking? She then glided\u2014it\ncertainly _was not walking_\u2014to a corner of the room, and then I noticed\nthat her feet were bare. She seemed to move along above the carpet\u2014not\non it\u2014a curious motion. She drifted, and stood beneath a big picture,\ntook out a key and opened a small aumbrey, or cupboard, in the wall quite\nnoiselessly. And from this receptacle she took out some small things that\nglittered in her pretty fingers, long taper fingers.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow on earth did you contrive to see all that in a dark bedroom?\u201d I\nsarcastically inquired.\n\n\u201cThe room wasn\u2019t dark,\u201d said S\u00e6deger. \u201cI always keep the light burning in\na strange house and in a strange room.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, I see,\u201d I replied. \u201cGo on.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d continued Reginald S\u00e6deger, \u201cshe then turned and came towards\nthe bed, and I got a more distinct view of her. I had never seen anyone\na bit like her before; it was an utterly unforgettable face. I have\ncertainly never before, or since, seen anyone as pretty as she was\u2014yet it\nwas a strange, _unearthly_ beauty, and her huge forget-me-not blue eyes\nwere a perfection of pathos. Nearer, and yet nearer, she came, and when\nquite close to the bed, she bent over me and raised her hand with the\nglittering thing in it high over my head. Then I made a tremendous spring\nout of bed, crying loudly, \u2018Now I\u2019ll see who is trying to frighten me.\u2019\nI flung out my arms to grasp her, but they closed on nothing, and to my\nutter astonishment I saw her standing smiling at me on the opposite side\nof the room.\n\n\u201cThat was odd and uncanny enough, but then she gradually began to\ndisappear, dissolving into a thin blue-grey mist, until nothing whatever\nremained\u2014I was absolutely alone in the room and dumfoundered.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat next?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cWell! what could I do or think?\u201d said S\u00e6deger. \u201cI was fairly\nflabbergasted at the unexpected turn of events. I admit I felt shaky, so\nI took a stiff whisky and soda, smoked a pipe, and went back to bed to\nreflect on the matter, and fell asleep. I was wakened in the morning by\nmy host, Harold Slitherwick, walking into the room carrying a pony brandy\nfor me.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, old blighter, how have you slept?\u2019 he asked.\n\n\u201cThen I told him about the blue girl.\n\n\u201c\u2018Bless my heart! Have you seen her too? Lots of people, my wife among\nthe number, declare they have seen her; but as you have seen her now, I\nreally begin to believe there is some truth in the tale.\u2019\n\n\u201cI then told my host there was no dubiety about the matter, and pointed\nout the place under the picture where there was a cupboard. We both went\nand looked. There was no cupboard to be seen.\n\n\u201c\u2018Very rum thing,\u2019 said my host; \u2018there was a murder once took place in\nthis room ages ago. Perhaps the blue lady had something to do with it;\nbut let us hunt for your cupboard.\u2019\n\n\u201cOn rapping with our knuckles on the wall we found a hollow spot, scraped\noff the paper, and there sure enough was the little door I had seen. We\nsoon forced it open, and discovered a receptacle, about a foot square,\ngoing very deep into the thick stone wall. There were a lot of things\nin that place, scissors, a thimble, a dagger, a work-box, and a lot of\nold musty, dusty papers. And then we found a long tress of ruddy-gold\nhair in an envelope and a beautiful miniature magnificently painted on\nivory of the blue girl I had seen\u2014every detail, the face, the dress,\nthe hair, and the bare feet, were perfectly exact. On both the envelope\nand the miniature were written the names \u2018Ermentrude Ermengarde Annibal\nBeaurepaire,\u2019 with the date 1559.\n\n\u201cWe then examined the old documents which gave us some clue to the\nmystery. It was a very long story that we had to read over, but I will\ntell it to you briefly. Long ages ago this ancient house was the property\nof a Frenchman, Monsieur Louis Beaurepaire. He had an only and lovely\ndaughter of twenty, named Ermentrude Ermengarde Annibal Beaurepaire, who\nwas intended to be a bride of the Church, otherwise a nun. This idea,\napparently, did not appeal to her views. She passionately loved a young\nstudent, and was equally beloved by him, whose name was Eugene Malvoisine.\n\n\u201cAll went well it seems, for two years, and they were to be married in\nthe Cathedral at Easter. All the arrangements were complete for the\nnuptials; but fortune is a fickle jade, and willed it otherwise. A rival\nturned up on the scene in the person of Marie de Mailross, a cousin\nof the Beaurepaires, and a frequent guest at their house. Ermentrude\nfound that her beloved Eugene had proved faithless, and transferred his\nyouthful affections to the lovely Marie, and that a speedy elopement was\npending.\n\n\u201cErmentrude went and consulted a wise woman, otherwise a witch, who\nresided in Argyll, outwith the Shoegate Port. This witch, by name\n\u2018Alistoun Brathwaite,\u2019 used her evil powers on the fair Ermentrude, and\nenraged her jealousy to fury and a desire for revenge, and presented her\nwith a potion, and a cunning, well-wrought dagger.\n\n\u201cThe witch threw a spell over Ermentrude, and took all the good within\nher away, and implanted evil passions within her breast. It seems that\nMarie of Mailross slept in this old room, and one night Ermentrude,\nwilled by the witch, went to Marie\u2019s bedside, and planted the dagger in\nher heart, and she died. It seems Ermentrude disappeared, and was never\nseen or heard of again, and was supposed to have drowned herself at the\nMaiden Rock\u2014hence the name it bears.\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d said S\u00e6deger, \u201cis my quaint tale. The room I slept in was the\nvery room in which in ages past, Marie was done to death by Ermentrude,\nand it seems to have been my lot to see Ermentrude and discover the\nsecret that lay in that old cupboard.\u201d\n\nWe all thanked S\u00e6deger, and after thoughtfully consuming a few more\nwhiskies and sodas, and a few more cigars, went off to the Links\npondering deeply.\n\n\n\n\nA Very Peculiar House.\n\n\nLast time I visited Cambridge I was invited by a friend to meet a party\nof merry undergraduates. They had all nicknames, and what their real\nnames were I cannot remember. There was Mike, and Whiffle, Toddie,\nBulger, the Infant, Eddie Smith from Ramsgate, and the Coal Scuttle.\nWe had a most sumptuous repast, as only can be supplied by first-class\nCambridge kitchens, and to which we did ample justice. We were smoking\nafter lunch when they informed me that they had taken the liberty of\nmaking an engagement for me to go to tea with such a dear old lady called\nSister Elfreda at a house in Bridge Street, opposite St Clement\u2019s Church,\non the following day at 4.30, as she wished to tell me some ghostly\nexperiences she had had at St Andrews. Of course I said I would very\ngladly go. They asked me before I went if I could take them behind the\nscenes that night at the Cambridge Theatre. This I had to flatly refuse,\nas no undergraduates are allowed within the sacred precincts of the stage\ndoor. Next day was a damp, raw, typical Cambridge day. I wended my way\nto Bridge Street, and easily found the house I was going to, as I had\nonce lodged there. The rooms were kept by two old women who might be\ncalled decayed gentlewomen. Their name was Monkswood, and they had been\nnicknamed \u201cThe Cruets,\u201d namely, \u201cPepper\u201d and \u201cVinegar.\u201d Very different\nfrom them was their niece, a lovely young actress, who was known on the\nstage as Patricia Glencluse, who was quite the rage in musical comedy,\nand who, it was rumoured abroad, would soon become a Duchess. The door\nwas opened by Patricia herself, who said, \u201cOh, I thought it might be you.\nSister Elfreda told me you were coming to tea. You will like her, she\nis such a darling\u2014just like the \u201cBelle of New York,\u201d only grown older.\nIf you write anything about what she tells you, mind you send it to\nme, to the Whittington Company, \u2e3a Theatre, Birmingham.\u201d \u201cOf course I\nwill,\u201d I said, \u201cand I will put you in it.\u201d \u201cNow come along upstairs and\nI will introduce you to her,\u201d she said. She tapped at a door and then\nopened it, and ushered me into the presence of the Sister. \u201cLook here,\nSister,\u201d said Patricia, \u201cI have brought the ghost man from St Andrews to\nsee you. Here he is.\u201d \u201cVery good of you,\u201d said the Sister as she shook\nhands with me warmly. \u201cYou know,\u201d she said, \u201cI have read all your ghost\ntales.\u201d She then told Patricia to run downstairs and send the servant\nup with tea. Then we seated ourselves down to tea and muffins, and the\nold lady related her story. She said:\u2014\u201cI wanted very much to tell you\nof a little experience I had some months ago. I was asked to come up\nfor a short time to look after an invalid lady who lived at St Andrews.\nWell, I arrived safely there, and went from the station to the house in\na \u2019bus. It was an old house, and when I entered I felt a queer sort of\ncreepy sensation come over me such as I had never experienced before.\nI was ushered into the presence of my host and hostess and the invalid\nlady. He was a splendid example of an old British soldier, and his wife\nwas a pretty, fragile-looking old piece of china. The invalid lady I\nfound only suffered from nerves, and very little wonder, I thought, in\nsuch a peculiar house. I had always a fancy that some other human being\nresided in the house; but if so, it only remained a feeling. The name of\nthe cook was Timbletoss, the butler was Corncockle, and oddly enough they\nboth came from Cambridge.\u201d \u201cWhat curious names there are here,\u201d I said to\nthe Sister; \u201cwhen I first went to Cambridge I thought the names over the\nshops must be some gigantic joke\u2014a man once suggested to me that someone\nmust have been specially engaged to come to Cambridge and invent those\nwonderful names.\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d continued the Sister, \u201cit really was a most\nextraordinary house. I had never seen anything out of the common before,\nand I have never seen anything like that house since. The servants told\nme most remarkable tales\u2014how the bedclothes were twitched off the bed in\nthe night by unseen hands, and how the tables and chairs rattled about\nover the floor, and the knives and forks flew off the table. Curious\nlittle coloured flames known there as \u201cBurbilangs\u201d used to float about\nin the air at night, and Corncockle, the butler, said the beer taps in\nthe cellar were constantly turned on and the gas turned off. The servants\nhad to have their wages considerably raised to keep them in the house. At\nluncheon on several occasions the lady used to jump up and run out of the\nroom in great haste, and did not reappear till dinner, when she looked\nvery white and shaky. On two occasions I was ordered to go at once to\nmy room and lock the door and remain there until the old Squire sounded\nthe hall gong. They seemed very much perturbed when I got down again.\nI will only mention one or two curious things I saw. One was a quaint\ncreature called the \u2018Mutilated Football,\u2019 which stotted downstairs in\nfront of me, and when it reached the lobby a head and a pair of arms and\nlegs appeared, and it pattered off down the cellar stairs at a breakneck\nspeed. The story goes that this creature was once a great athlete and\nfootball player, and when he got old and fat would insist on still\nplaying, though warned not to do so. He got such a severe kick that his\nribs were broken, and he died on the field. I never heard the true story\nof the \u2018Animated Hairpin,\u2019 but I saw it once seated in an armchair in the\ndining-room. It looked as if it had on black tights and close-fitting\nblack jersey. It had a very long white face, with great round eyes like\nan owl\u2019s and black hair standing on end to a great height. When it saw\nme it got up quickly from the chair, bowed very low till its head nearly\ntouched the ground, and then walked in a most stately manner out of\nthe room. Then I saw \u2018The Green Lady\u2019\u2014a tall, beautiful girl with very\nlong hair and a rustling green brocaded dress. She glided along as if\non wheels. That this was no imagination of mine may be drawn from the\nfact that one day when I had a little girl to tea she suddenly clutched\nmy arm and asked me who that beautiful lady in green with the long hair\nwas, who had gone past the door on roller skates. I will not enlarge now\non the bangings, crashes, thumpings, and tappings that resounded through\nthe rooms at all times of day and night, sometimes on the ceilings,\nsometimes on the walls, and sometimes on the floors. The doors and\nwindows, too, had a nasty habit of suddenly opening without any visible\ncause; and another very curious thing was that one might be sitting by\na very bright fire when, without any apparent cause, it would suddenly\ngo out, and leave nothing but inky blackness. The first night I slept\nin my room in this peculiar house I examined it most thoroughly, but\nthere was nothing out of the common to be seen. My door, which I most\ncarefully locked, flew open with a bang, though the bolt still remained\nout. I again closed and re-locked the door, and put a chair against it,\nbut to my astonishment the door once more flew open and hurled the chair\nacross the room. After that I decided to leave the door wide open and\nsee what would happen next. I got quite accustomed to the \u2018Burbilangs\u2019\nor flying lights\u2014they were like pretty fireworks. Nothing more happened\nto me for several days, till one morning I awoke about two o\u2019clock to\nfind a youngish-looking monk seated in an armchair. \u2018Fear not,\u2019 he said,\n\u2018Sister Elfreda, I left this earth many years ago. In life my name was\nWalter Desmond, but when I became a monk at St Anthony I was known as\nBrother Stanilaus. As a rule I am invisible, but can assume my bodily\nshape if necessary. In life I was at St Andrews, Durham, and Cambridge.\u2019\n\u2018When in Cambridge,\u2019 I asked, \u2018did you know the writer of St Andrews\nghost stories?\u2019 \u2018No, I only knew him by sight. I was very young then, and\nwas somewhat afraid of him, as I heard when getting on the Links he used\nto become very violent if he missed a putt, topped a drive, foozled an\niron shot, or got into any of the numerous ditches which intersect the\nCambridge links. But I came specially to see you to-night to tell you how\nto rid this house of the evil influence there is over it. I have here a\nmanuscript regarding it which I took from a foreign library, and which\nI wish you to read and act upon, and so purify this house and render it\nhabitable, but I must impose the strictest secrecy on you in regard to\nwhat you read; reveal it to no one.\u2019 \u2018But how will you get that paper\nback?\u2019 I asked the brother. \u2018Oh, time and space are nothing to us\u2014I got\nthis paper from that distant library only a few seconds ago, and when you\nhave digested it, it will be immediately replaced from whence it came;\nonly follow all the directions carefully, or my visit will have been of\nno avail.\u2019 We read the paper over together most carefully, but of that I\nmay say no more. \u2018Having told you what to do,\u2019 said the monk, \u2018I fear I\nmust hie hence. I have much to do to-night after replacing the paper.\u2019\n\u2018I will fulfill all that you have asked me brother,\u2019 I said, \u2018and hope\nthat it will make this house less fearsome. But before you go, brother,\u2019\nI said, \u2018as you are a Cambridge man, why do you not pay a visit to the\nauthor of St Andrews Ghost Stories?\u2019 \u2018He would not see me because I would\nnot materialise myself there, I could only appear as a puff of smoke,\nor, as it were, a light fog.\u2019 (\u2018Thanks, Sister,\u2019 I said, \u2018do not ask\nany nasty damp fogs to come and call on me.\u2019 She laughed.) The monk, in\nvanishing, said, \u2018Remember, Sister, no bolts, locks, or bars can keep us\nfrom going where we choose.\u2019\u201d\n\nI got up and thanked her, and proceeded to put on a greatcoat. \u201cI never\nwear greatcoats,\u201d I said, \u201cin Scotland, but I am afraid of the Cambridge\ndamp, so I borrowed this topcoat from Colonel Churchtimber.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have dropped something out of the pocket,\u201d said the Sister.\n\n\u201cHullo,\u201d I said, \u201cthis is a piece of classical music which must belong\nto Macbeth Churchtimber, the Colonel\u2019s son. Now, good-night, and many\nthanks, Sister Elfreda.\u201d\n\nI descended the stairs and said good-night to the Cruets and Patricia.\nAs I wandered down the street to the theatre in the damp foggy evening\nI pondered over what Sister Elfreda had told me, and as I lit my pipe I\nkept thinking of those people\u2014\u201cThe Mutilated Football,\u201d \u201cThe Animated\nHairpin,\u201d and the \u201cMonk Brother Stanilaus,\u201d to whom locks, bolts and bars\nwere as nothing, and who had the nasty habit of appearing to his friends\nas a damp cloud\u2014a habit, I think, not to be encouraged.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSister Elfreda now informs me that the peculiar house is now quite\n\u201cnormal,\u201d and that all the \u201cbogies\u201d have vanished into thin air.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: St Andrews\u2014_the home of Golf!_\n\nCharles Donaldson\u2019s\u2014_the home of correct_ Golf Clothes!\n\n_Economy_} _Quality_} _Hand-in-Hand_ _Service_}\n\nGOLF SUITS, JACKETS, KNICKERS Correct in Style, Looks, and Price\n\nGOLF HOSE AND GARTERS Largest Selection either in or out of St Andrews\n\nGOLF GLOVES Selected Chamois Skins\n\nGOLF UMBRELLAS Made for Real Service.\n\nBurberry Weather Wear Tress Hats Aertex Cellular Wear\n\n_Everything that Gentlemen and Boys Wear is ready at_ Charles Donaldson\u2019s\n\n_A. McDonald Peddie, Proprietor_\n\n_GOLF AND GENERAL OUTFITTING_\n\n_Phone No. 112.\u2014Established 1886_\n\n_TWENTY-ONE BELL STREET_\n\n_ST ANDREWS FIFE_]","title":"St. Andrews Ghost Stories: Fourth Edition","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":29738}