BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND

 BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND

 BY

 ELLIOTT O'DONNELL

 AUTHOR OF

 "SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES, " "HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON, " "GHOSTLY PHENOMENA, " "DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS, " "SCOTTISH GHOST TALES, " "TRUE GHOST TALES, " ETC. , ETC. 

 WILLIAM RIDER AND SON, LIMITED 164 Aldersgate St. , London, E. C. 1911

CONTENTS

 CHAP. PAGE

 1. THE UNKNOWN BRAIN 1

 2. THE OCCULT IN SHADOWS 21

 3. OBSESSION, POSSESSION 28

 4. OCCULT HOOLIGANS 47

 5. SYLVAN HORRORS 56

 6. COMPLEX HAUNTINGS AND OCCULT BESTIALITIES 80

 7. VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC. 110

 8. DEATH-WARNINGS AND FAMILY GHOSTS 132

 9. SUPERSTITIONS AND FORTUNES 153

 10. THE HAND OF GLORY; THE BLOODY HAND OF ULSTER; THE SEVENTH SON; BIRTH-MARKS; NATURE'S DEVIL SIGNALS; PRE-EXISTENCE; THE FUTURE; PROJECTION; TELEPATHY; ETC. 176

 11. OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS 198

 12. BUDDHAS AND BOGGLE CHAIRS 210

 INDEX 244

BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND

CHAPTER I

THE UNKNOWN BRAIN

Whether all that constitutes man's spiritual nature, that is to say, ALLhis mind, is inseparably amalgamated with the whitish mass of softmatter enclosed in his cranium and called his brain, is a question thatmust, one supposes, be ever open to debate. 

One knows that this whitish substance is the centre of the nervoussystem and the seat of consciousness and volition, and, from theconstant study of character by type or by phrenology, one may even go onto deduce with reason that in this protoplasmic substance--in each ofthe numerous cells into which it is divided and subdivided--are locatedthe human faculties. Hence, it would seem that one may rationallyconclude, that all man's vital force, all that comprises hismind--_i. E. _ the power in him that conceives, remembers, reasons, wills--is so wrapped up in the actual matter of his cerebrum as to beincapable of existing apart from it; and that as a natural sequencethereto, on the dissolution of the brain, the mind and everythingpertaining to the mind dies with it--there is no future life becausethere is nothing left to survive. 

Such a condition, if complete annihilation can be so named, is the oneand only conclusion to the doctrine that mind--crude, undiagnosedmind--is dependent on matter, a doctrine confirmed by the apparent factsthat injury to the cranium is accompanied by unconsciousness andprotracted loss of memory, and that the sanity of the individual isentirely contingent upon the state of his cerebral matter--a clot ofblood in one of the cerebral veins, or the unhealthy condition of acell, being in itself sufficient to bring about a complete mentalmetamorphose, and, in common parlance, to produce madness. 

In the deepest of sleeps, too, when there is less blood in the cerebralveins, and the muscles are generally relaxed, and the pulse is slower, and the respiratory movements are fewer in number, consciousnessdeparts, and man apparently lapses into a state of absolute nothingnesswhich materialists, not unreasonably, presume must be akin to death. Itwould appear, then, that our mental faculties are entirely regulated by, and consequently, entirely dependent on, the material within our braincells, and that, granted certain conditions of that material, we haveconsciousness, and that, without those conditions, we have noconsciousness--in other words, "our minds cease to exist. " Hence, thereis no such thing as separate spiritual existence; mind is merely aneventuality of matter, and, when the latter perishes, the formerperishes too. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can existapart from the physical. 

This is an assertion--unquestionably dogmatic--that exponents ofmaterialism hold to be logically unassailable. To disprove it may not bean easy task at present; but I am, nevertheless, convinced there is aworld apart from matter--a superphysical plane with which part of us, atleast, is in some way connected, and I discredit the materialist'sdogma, partly because something in my nature compels me to an oppositeconclusion, and partly because certain phenomena I have experienced, cannot, I am certain, have been produced by any physical agency. 

In support of my theory that we are not solely material, but partlyphysical and partly superphysical, I maintain that consciousness isnever wholly lost; that even in swoons and dreams, when all sensationswould seem to be swallowed up in the blackness of darkness, there isSOME consciousness left--the consciousness of existence, of impression. We recover from a faint, or awake from the most profound of slumbers, and remember not that we have dreamed. Yet, if we think with sufficientconcentration, our memory suddenly returns to us, and we recollect that, during the swoon or sleep, ALL thought was not obliterated, but, that wewere conscious of being somewhere and of experiencing SOMETHING. 

It is only in our lighter sleeps, when the spirit traversessuperphysical planes more closely connected with the material, that weremember ALL that occurred. Most of us will agree that there are twodistinct forms of mental existence--the one in which we are consciousof the purely superphysical, and the one wherein we are only cognisantof the physical. In the first-named of these two mental existences--_i. E. _ in swoons, sleep, and even death, consciousness is never entirelylost; we still think--we think with our spiritual or unknown brain; andwhen in the last-named state, _i. E. _ in our physical wakefulness andlife, we think with our material or known brain. 

Unknown brains exist on all sides of us. Many of them are theearth-bound spirits of those whose spiritual or unknown brains, when onthe earth, were starved to feed their material or known brains; or, inother words, the earth-bound spirits of those whose cravings, when incarnal form, were entirely animal. It is they, together with a varietyof elementary forms of superphysical life (_i. E. _ phantasms that havenever inhabited any kind of earthly body), that constantly surround us, and, with their occult brains, suggest to our known brains every kind ofbase and impure thought. 

Something, it is difficult to say what, usually warns me of the presenceof these occult brains, and at certain times (and in certain places) Ican feel, with my superphysical mind, their subtle hypnotic influences. 

It is the unknown brain that produces those manifestations usuallyattributed to ghosts, and it is, more often than not, the possessors ofthe unknown brain in constant activity, _i. E. _ the denizens of thesuperphysical world, who convey to our organs of hearing, either bysuggestion or actual presentation, the sensations of uncanny knocks, crashes, shrieks, etc. ; and to our organs of sight, all kinds ofuncanny, visual phenomena. 

All the phenomena we see are not objective; but the agents who "will"that we should see them are objective--they are the unknown brains. Itis a mistake to think that these unknown brains can only exert theirinfluence on a few of us. We are all subject to them, though we do notall see their manifestations. Were it not for the lower order of spiritbrains, there would be comparatively few drunkards, gamblers, adulterers, fornicators, murderers, and suicides. It is they who exciteman's animal senses, by conjuring up alluring pictures of drink, andgold, and sexual happiness. By the aid of the higher type of spiritbrains (who, contending for ever with the lower forms of spirit brains, are indeed our "guardian angels") I have been enabled to perceive theatmosphere surrounding drinking-dens and brothels full of all kinds ofbestial influences, from elementals, who allure men by presenting totheir minds all kinds of attractive tableaux, to the earth-bound spiritsof drunkards and libertines, transformed into horrors of the sub-human, sub-animal order of phantasms--things with bloated, nude bodies andpigs' faces, shaggy bears with fulsome, watery eyes; mangy dogs, etc. Ihave watched these things that still possess--and possess in a fargreater degree--all the passions of their life incarnate, sniffing thefoul and vitiated atmosphere of the public-houses and brothels, andchafing in the most hideous manner at their inability to gratify theirlustful cravings in a more substantial way. A man advances along theroad at a swinging pace, with no thought, as yet, of deviating from hiscourse and entering a public-house. He comes within the radius of thesinister influences, which I can see and feel hanging around the saloon. Their shadowy, silent brain power at once comes into play and gainsascendancy over his weaker will. He halts because he is "willed" to doso. A tempting tableau of drink rises before him and he at once imagineshe is thirsty. Soft and fascinating elemental hands close over his anddraw him gently aside. A look of beastly satisfaction suffuses his eyes. He smacks his lips, hastens his steps, the bar-room door closes behindhim, and, for the remaining hours of the day, he wallows in drink. 

But the unknown brain does not confine itself to the neighbourhood of apublic-house--it may be anywhere. I have, intuitively, felt its presenceon the deserted moors of Cornwall, between St Ives and the Land's End;in the grey Cornish churches and chapels (very much in the latter);around the cold and dismal mouths of disused mine-shafts; all along therocky North Cornish coast; on the sea; at various spots on differentrailway lines, both in the United Kingdom and abroad; and, of course, inmultitudinous places in London. 

A year or so ago, I called on Mrs de B----, a well-known society lady, at that time residing in Cadogan Gardens. The moment I entered herdrawing-room, I became aware of an occult presence that seemed to behovering around her. Wherever she moved, it moved with her, and I FELTthat its strange, fathomless, enigmatical eyes were fixed on her, noting and guiding her innermost thoughts and her every action withinexorable persistence. 

Some six months later, I met Lady D----, a friend in common, and inanswer to my inquiries concerning Mrs de B----, was informed that shehad just been divorced. "Dorothy" (_i. E. _ Mrs de B----), Lady D---- wenton to explain, "had been all right till she took up spiritualism, butdirectly she began to attend séances everything seemed to go wrong withher. At last she quarrelled with her husband, the climax being reachedwhen she became violently infatuated with an officer in the Guards. Theresult was a decree _nisi_ with heavy costs. " I exhibited, perhaps, moresurprise than I felt. But the fact of Mrs de B---- having attendedséances explained everything. She was obviously a woman with a naturallyweak will, and had fallen under the influence of one of the lowest, andmost dangerous types of earth-bound spirits, the type that so oftenattends séances. This occult brain had attached itself to her, and, accompanying her home, had deliberately wrecked her domestic happiness. It would doubtless remain with her now _ad infinitum_. Indeed, it isnext to impossible to shake off these superphysical cerebrums. Theycling to one with such leech-like tenacity, and can rarely be made todepart till they have accomplished their purposes. 

Burial-grounds appear to have great attractions for this class ofspirit. A man, whom I once met at Boulogne, told me a remarkable story, the veracity of which I have no reason to doubt. 

"I have, " he began, "undergone an experience which, though, unfortunately, by no means unique, is one that is rarer nowadays thanformerly. I was once all but buried alive. It happened at a littlevillage, a most charming spot, near Maestel in the valley of the Rhone. I had been stopping at the only inn the place possessed, and, cyclingout one morning, met with an accident--my machine skidded violently as Iwas descending a steep hill, with the result that I was pitched headfirst against a brick wall. The latter being considerably harder than myskull, concussion followed. Some villagers picked me up insensible, Iwas taken to the inn, and the nearest doctor--an uncertificatedwretch--was summoned. He knew little of trepanning; besides, I was aforeigner, a German, and it did not matter. He bled me, it is true, andperformed other of the ordinary means of relief; but these producing noapparent effect, he pronounced me dead, and preparations were at oncemade for my burial. As strangers kept coming to the inn and theaccommodation was strictly limited, the landlord was considerablyincensed at having to waste a room on a corpse. Accordingly, he had mescrewed down in my coffin without delay, and placed in the cemeteryamong the tombs, till the public gravedigger could conveniently spare afew minutes to inter me. The shaking I received during my transit (forthe yokels were exceedingly rough and clumsy), together with the coldnight air which, luckily for me, found an easy means of access throughthe innumerable chinks and cracks in the ill-fitting coffin-lid, actinglike a restorative tonic, I gradually revived, and the horror I felt inrealising my position is better, perhaps, imagined than described. Whenconsciousness first began to reassert itself, I simply fancied I wasawakening from a particularly deep sleep. I then struggled hard toremember where I was and what had taken place. At first nothing cameback to me, all was blank and void; but as I continued to persevere, gradually, very gradually, a recollection of my accident and of thesubsequent events returned to me. I remembered with the utmostdistinctness striking my head against the wall, and of SEEING myselfcarried, head first, by two rustics--the one with a shock head of redhair, the other swarthy as a Dago--to the inn. I recollected seeing thealmost humorous look of horror in the chambermaid's face, as she rushedto inform the landlord, and the consternation of one and all during thediscussion as to what ought to be done. The landlady suggested onething, her husband another, the chambermaid another; and they all unitedin ransacking my pockets--much to my dismay--to see if they coulddiscover a card-case or letter that might give them a clue as to my homeaddress. I saw them do all this; and it seemed as if I were standingbeside by own body, looking down at it, and that on all sides of me, andapparently invisible to the rest of the company, were strange, inscrutable pale eyes, set in the midst of grey, shapeless, shadowysubstances. 

"Then the doctor--a little slim, narrow-chested man, with a pointedbeard and big ears--came and held a mirror to my mouth, and opened oneof my veins, and talked a great deal of gibberish, whilst he madecountless covert sheep's eyes at the pretty chambermaid, who had takenadvantage of his arrival to overhaul my knapsack and help herself frommy purse. I distinctly heard the arrangements made for my funeral, andthe voice of the landlord saying: 'Yes, of course, doctor, that is onlyfair; you have taken no end of trouble with him. I will keep his watch'(the watch was of solid gold, and cost me £25) 'and clothes to defraythe expenses of the funeral and pay for his recent board' (I had onlysettled my account with him that morning). And the shrill voice of thelandlady echoed: 'Yes, that is only fair, only right!' Then they allleft the room, and I remained alone with my body. What followed was moreor less blurred. The innumerable and ever-watchful grey eyes impressedme most. I recollected, however, the advent of the men--the same two whohad brought me to the inn--to take me away in my coffin, and I had vividrecollections of tramping along the dark and silent road beside them, and wishing I could liberate my body. Then we halted at the iron gateleading into the cemetery, the coffin was dropped on the ground with abang, and--the rest was a blank. Nothing, nothing came back to me. Atfirst I was inclined to attribute my memory to a dream. 'Absurd!' I saidto myself. 'Such things cannot have occurred. I am in bed; I know I am!'Then I endeavoured to move my arms to feel the counterpane; I could not;my arms were bound, tightly bound to my side. A cold sweat burst out allover me. Good God! was it true? I tried again; and the same thinghappened--I could not stir. Again and again I tried, straining andtugging at my sides till the muscles on my arms were on the verge ofbursting, and I had to desist through utter exhaustion. I lay still andlistened to the beating of my heart. Then, I clenched my toes and triedto kick. I could not; my feet were ruthlessly fastened together. 

"Death garments! A winding-sheet! I could feel it clinging to me allover. It compressed the air in my lungs, it retarded the circulation, and gave me the most excruciating cramp, and pins and needles. Mysufferings were so acute that I groaned, and, on attempting to stretchmy jaws, found that they were encased in tight, clammy bandages. Byprodigious efforts I eventually managed to gain a certain amount ofliberty for my head, and this gave me the consolation that if I could donothing else I could at least howl--howl! How utterly futile, for who, in God's name, would hear me? The thought of all there was above me, ofall the piles of earth and grass--for the idea that I was not actuallyburied never entered my mind--filled me with the most abject sorrow anddespair. The utter helplessness of my position came home to me withdamning force. Rescue was absolutely out of the question, because theonly persons, who knew where I was, believed me dead. To my friends andrelations, my fate would ever remain a mystery. The knowledge that theywould, at once, have come to my assistance, had I only been able tocommunicate with them, was cruel in the extreme; and tears ofmortification poured down my cheeks when I realised how blissfullyunconscious they were of my fate. The most vivid and alluring visions ofhome, of my parents, and brothers, and sisters, flitted tantalisinglybefore me. I saw them all sitting on their accustomary seats, in theparlour, my father smoking his meerschaum, my mother knitting, my eldestsister describing an opera she had been to that afternoon, my youngestsister listening to her with mouth half open and absorbing interest inher blue eyes, my brother examining the works of a clockwork enginewhich he had just taken to pieces; whilst from the room overhead, inhabited by a Count, a veteran who had won distinction in the campaignsof '64 and '66, came strains of 'The Watch on the Rhine. ' Every now andthen my mother would lean back in her chair and close her eyes, and Iknew intuitively she was thinking of me. Mein Gott! If she had onlyknown the truth. These tableaux faded away, and the gruesome awfulnessof my surroundings thrust themselves upon me. A damp, foetid smell, suggestive of the rottenness of decay, assailed my nostrils and made mesneeze. I choked; the saliva streamed in torrents down my chin andthroat! My recumbent position and ligaments made it difficult for me torecover my breath; I grew black in the face; I imagined I was dying. Iabruptly, miraculously recovered, and all was silent as before. Silent!Good heavens! There is no silence compared with that of the grave. 

"I longed for a sound, for any sound, the creaking of a board, thesnapping of a twig, the ticking of an insect--there was none--thesilence was the silence of stone. I thought of worms; I imaginedcountless legions of them making their way to me from the surroundingmouldering coffins. Every now and then I uttered a shriek as somethingcold and slimy touched my skin, and my stomach heaved within me as awhiff of something particularly offensive fanned my face. 

"Suddenly I saw eyes--the same grey, inscrutable eyes that I had seenbefore--immediately above my own. I tried to fathom them, to discoversome trace of expression. I could not--they were insoluble. Iinstinctively felt there was a subtle brain behind them, a brain thatwas stealthily analysing me, and I tried to assure myself its intentionswere not hostile. Above, and on either side of the eyes, I saw theshadow of something white, soft, and spongy, in which I fancied I coulddetect a distinct likeness to a human brain, only on a large scale. There were the cerebral lobes, or largest part of the forebrain, enormously developed and overhanging the cerebellum, or great lobe ofthe hindbrain, and completely covering the lobes of the midbrain. On thecerebrum I even thought I could detect--for I have a smattering ofanatomy--the usual convolutions, and the grooves dividing the cerebruminto two hemispheres. But there was something I had never seen before, and which I could not account for--two things like antennæ, one oneither side of the cerebrum. As I gazed at them, they lengthened andshortened in such quick succession that I grew giddy and had to removemy eyes. What they were I cannot think; but then, of course the brain, being occult, doubtless possessed properties of a nature whollyunsuspected by me. The moment I averted my glance, I experienced--thistime on my forehead--the same cold, slimy sensation I had felt before, and I at once associated it with the cerebral tentacles. Soon after thisI was touched in a similar manner on my right thigh, then on my left, and simultaneously on both legs; then in a half a dozen places at thesame time. I looked out of the corner of my eyes, first on one side ofme and then the other, and encountered the shadowy semblance to brainsin each direction. I was therefore forced to conclude that theatmosphere in the coffin was literally impregnated with psychiccerebrums, and that every internal organ I possessed was being subjectedto the most minute inspection. My mind rapidly became filled with everyvile and lustful desire, and I cried aloud to be permitted five minutes'freedom to put into operation the basest and filthiest of actions. Mythoughts were thus occupied when, to my amazement, I suddenly heard thesound of voices--human voices. At first I listened with incredulity, thinking that it must be merely a trick of my imagination or somefurther ingenious, devilish device, on the part of the ghostly brains, to torture me. But the voices continued, and drew nearer and nearer, until I could at length distinguish what they were saying. The speakerswere two men, François and Jacques, and they were discussing the taskthat brought them thither--the task of burying me. Burying me! So, then, I was not yet under the earth! The revulsion of my feelings ondiscovering that there was still a spark of hope is indescribable; theblood surged through my veins in waves of fire, my eyes danced, my heartthumped, and--I laughed! Laughed! There was no stopping me--pealfollowed peal, louder and louder, until cobblestones and tombstonesreverberated and thundered back the sound. 

"The effect on François and Jacques was the reverse of what I wished. When first they heard me, they became suddenly and deathly silent. Thentheir pent-up feelings of horror could stand it no longer, and with thewildest of yells they dropped their pick and shovel, and fled. Mylaughter ceased, and, half drowned in tears of anguish, I listened totheir sabots pounding along the gravel walk and on to the hard highroad, till the noises ceased and there was, once again, universal andawe-inspiring silence. Again the eyes and tentacles, again the yearningsfor base and shameful deeds, and again--oh, blissful interruption! thesound of human voices--François and Jacques returning with a crowd ofpeople, all greatly excited, all talking at once. 

"'I call God as my witness I heard it, and Jacques too. Isn't that so, Jacques?' a voice, which I identified as that of François, shrieked. AndJacques, doubtless as eager to be heard--for it was not once in alifetime anyone in his position had such an opportunity fornotoriety--as he was to come to his companion's rescue, bawled out; 'Ay!There was no mistaking the sounds. May I never live to eat my supperagain if it was not laughter. Listen!' And everyone, at once, grewquiet. 

"Now was my opportunity--my only opportunity. A single sound, howeverslight, however trivial, and I should be saved! A cry rose in my throat;another instant and it would have escaped my lips, when a dozententacles shot forward and I was silent. Despair, such as no soulexperienced more acutely, even when on the threshold of hell, now seizedme, and bid me make my last, convulsive effort. Collecting, nay, evendragging together every atom of will-power that still remained within myenfeebled frame, I swelled my lungs to their utmost. A kind of rusty, vibratory movement ran through my parched tongue; my jaws creaked, creaked and strained on their hinges, my lips puffed and assumed thedimensions of bladders and--that was all. No sound came. A weight, soft, sticky, pungent, and overwhelming, cloaked my brain, and spreadingweed-like, with numbing coldness, stifled the cry ere it left theprecincts of my larynx. Hope died within me--I was irretrievably lost. Ababel of voices now arose together. François, Jacques, the village curé, gendarme, doctor, chambermaid, mine host and hostess, and others, whosetones I did not recognise, clamoured to be heard. Some, foremost amongstwhom were François, Jacques, and a boy, were in favour of the coffinbeing opened; whilst others, notably the doctor and chambermaid (whopertly declared she had seen quite enough of my ugly face), ridiculedthe notion and said the sooner I was buried the better it would be. Theweather had been more than usually hot that day, and the corpse, whichwas very much swollen--for, like all gourmands, I had had chronicdisease of the liver--had, in their opinion, already become insanitary. The boy then burst out crying. It had always been the height of hisambition, he said, to see someone dead, and he thought it a dastardlyshame on the part of the doctor and chambermaid to wish to deny him thisopportunity. 

"The gendarme thinking, no doubt, he ought to have a say in the matter, muttered something to the effect that children were a great deal tooforward nowadays, and that it would be time enough for the boy to see acorpse when he broke his mother's heart--which, following the precedenceof all spoilt boys, he was certain to do sooner or later; and thisopinion found ready endorsement. The boy suppressed, my case began tolook hopeless, and the poignancy of my suspense became such that Ithought I should have gone mad. François was already persuaded intosetting to work with his pick, and, I should most certainly have beenspeedily interred, had it not been for the timely arrival of a villagewag, who, planking himself unobserved behind a tombstone close to mycoffin, burst out laughing in the most sepulchral fashion. The effect onthe company was electrical; the majority, including the women, fledprecipitately, and the rest, overcoming the feeble protests of thedoctor, wrenched off the lid of the coffin. The spell, cast over me bythe occult brains, was now by a merciful Providence broken, and I wasable to explain my condition to the flabbergasted faces around me. 

"I need only say, in conclusion, that the discomfiture of the doctor wascomplete, and that I took good care to express my opinion of himeverywhere I went. Doubtless, many poor wretches have been lessfortunate than I, and, being pronounced dead by unskilled physicians, have been prematurely interred. Apart from all the agony consequent toasphyxiation, they must have suffered hellish tortures through theagency of spirit brains. "

This is the anecdote as related to me, and it serves as an illustrationof my theory that the unknown brain is objective, and that it can, undergiven circumstances--_i. E. _ when physical life is, so to speak, inabeyance--be both seen and felt by the known brain. At birth, and moreparticularly at death, the presence of the unknown brain is most marked. And here it may not be inappropriate to remark that, in my experience atleast, the hour of midnight is by no means the time most favourable tooccult phenomena. I have seen far more manifestations at twilight, andbetween two and four a. M. , than at any other period of the day--times, Ithink, according with those when human vitality is at its lowest anddeath most frequently takes place. It is, doubtless, the ebb of humanvitality and the possibility of death that attracts the earth-boundbrains and other varying types of elemental harpies. They scent deathwith ten times the acuteness of sharks and vultures, and hie with allhaste to the spot, so as to be there in good time to get their finalsuck, vampire fashion, at the spiritual brain of the dying; substitutingin the place of what they extract, substance--in the shape of foul andlustful thoughts--for the material or known brain to feed upon. The foodthey have stolen, these vampires vainly imagine will enable them to riseto a higher spiritual plane. 

In connection with this subject of the two brains, the question arises:What forms the connecting link between the material or known brain, andthe spiritual or unknown brain? If the unknown brain has a separateexistence, and can detach itself at times (as in "projection"), why mustit wait for death to set it entirely free? My answer to that questionis: That the connecting link consists of a magnetic force, at presentindefinable, the scope, or pale, of which varies according to therelative dimensions of the two brains. In a case, for example, where thephysical or known brain is far more developed than the spiritual orunknown brain, the radius of attraction would be limited and theconnecting link strong; on the other hand, in a case where the spiritualor unknown brain is more developed than the physical or known brain, themagnetic pale is proportionately wide, and the connecting link would beweak. 

Thus, in the swoon or profound sleep of a person possessing a greaterpreponderance of physical than spiritual brain, the conscious self wouldstill be concerned with purely material matters, such as eating anddrinking, petty disputes, money, sexual desires, etc. , though, owing tothe lack of concentration, which is a marked feature of those whopossess the grossly material brain, little or nothing of this consciousself would be remembered. But in the swoon, or deep sleep of a personpossessing the spiritual brain in excess, the unknown brain is partiallyfreed from the known brain, and the conscious self is consequently faraway from the material body, on the confines of an entirely spiritualplane. Of course, the experiences of this conscious self may or may notbe remembered, but there is, in its case, always the possibility, owingto the capacity for concentration which is invariably the property ofall who have developed their spiritual or unknown brain, of subsequentrecollection. 

At death, and at death only, the magnetic link is actually broken. Theunknown brain is then entirely freed from the known brain, and thelatter, together with the rest of the material body, perishes fromnatural decay; whilst the former, no longer restricted within the limitsof its earthly pale, is at liberty to soar _ad infinitum_. 

CHAPTER II

THE OCCULT IN SHADOWS

Many of the shadows, I have seen, have not had material counterparts. They have invariably proved themselves to be superphysical dangersignals, the sure indicators of the presence of those grey, inscrutable, inhuman cerebrums to which I have alluded; of phantasms of the dead andof elementals of all kinds. There is an indescribable something aboutthem, that at once distinguishes them from ordinary shadows, and puts meon my guard. I have seen them in houses that to all appearances are theleast likely to be haunted--houses full of sunshine and the gladness ofhuman voices. In the midst of merriment, they have darkened the wallopposite me like the mystic writing in Nebuchadnezzar's palace. Theyhave suddenly appeared by my side, as I have been standing on rich, newcarpeting or sun-kissed swards. They have floated into my presence withboth sunbeams and moonbeams, through windows, doors, and curtains, andtheir advent has invariably been followed by some form or other ofoccult demonstration. I spent some weeks this summer at Worthing, and, walking one afternoon to the Downs, selected a bright and secluded spotfor a comfortable snooze. I revel in snatching naps in the opensunshine, and this was a place that struck me as being perfectly idealfor that purpose. It was on the brow of a diminutive hillock coveredwith fresh, lovely grass of a particularly vivid green. In the rear andon either side of it, the ground rose and fell in pleasing alternationfor an almost interminable distance, whilst in front of it there was agentle declivity (up which I had clambered) terminating in the broad, level road leading to Worthing. Here, on this broad expanse of theDowns, was a fairyland of soft sea air, sunshine and rest--rest frommankind, from the shrill, unmusical voices of the crude and rude productof the County Council schools. 

I sat down; I never for one moment thought of phantasms; I fell asleep. I awoke; the hot floodgates of the cloudless heaven were still open, theair translucent over and around me, when straight in front of me, on agloriously gilded patch of grass, there fell a shadow--a shadow from noapparent substance, for both air and ground were void of obstacles, and, apart from myself, there was no living object in the near landscape. Yetit was a shadow; a shadow that I could not diagnose; a waving, fluctuating shadow, unpleasantly suggestive of something subtle andhorrid. It was, I instinctively knew, the shadow of the occult; a fewmoments more, and a development would, in all probability, take place. The blue sky, the golden sea, the tiny trails of smoke creeping uplazily from the myriads of chimney-pots, the white house-tops, the redhouse-tops, the church spire, the railway line, the puffing, humming, shuffling goods-train, the glistening white roads, the breathing, busyfigures, and the bright and smiling mile upon mile of emerald turf rosein rebellion against the likelihood of ghosts--yet, there was theshadow. I looked away from it, and, as I did so, an icy touch fell on myshoulder. I dared not turn; I sat motionless, petrified, frozen. Thetouch passed to my forehead and from thence to my chin, my head swunground forcibly, and I saw--nothing--only the shadow; but how different, for out of the chaotic blotches there now appeared a well--a remarkablywell--defined outline, the outline of a head and hand, the head of afantastic beast, a repulsive beast, and the hand of a man. A flock ofswallows swirled overhead, a grasshopper chirped, a linnet sang, and, with this sudden awakening of nature, the touch and shadow vanishedsimultaneously. But the hillock had lost its attractions for me, and, rising hastily, I dashed down the decline and hurried homewards. Idiscovered no reason other than solitude, and the possible burial-placeof prehistoric man, for the presence of the occult; but the next time Ivisited the spot, the same thing happened. I have been there twicesince, and the same, always the same thing--first the shadow, then thetouch, then the shadow, then the arrival of some form or other of joyousanimal life, and the abrupt disappearance of the Unknown. 

I was once practising bowls on the lawn of a very old house, the otherinhabitants of which were all occupied indoors. I had taken up a bowl, and was in the act of throwing it, when, suddenly, on the empty space infront of me I saw a shadow, a nodding, waving, impenetrable, undecipherable shadow. I looked around, but there was nothing visiblethat could in any way account for it. I threw down the bowl and turnedto go indoors. As I did so, something touched me lightly in the face. Ithrew out my hand and touched a cold, clammy substance strangelysuggestive of the leafy branch of a tree. Yet nothing was to be seen. Ifelt again, and my fingers wandered to a broader expanse of somethinggnarled and uneven. I kept on exploring, and my grasp closed oversomething painfully prickly. I drew my hand smartly back, and, as I didso, distinctly heard the loud and angry rustling of leaves. Just thenone of my friends called out to me from a window. I veered round toreply, and the shadow had vanished. I never saw it again, though I oftenhad the curious sensation that it was there. I did not mention myexperience to my friends, as they were pronounced disbelievers in thesuperphysical, but tactful inquiry led to my gleaning the informationthat on the identical spot, where I had felt the phenomena, had oncestood a horse-chestnut tree, which had been cut down owing to the strongaversion the family had taken to it, partly on account of a strangegrowth on the trunk, unpleasantly suggestive of cancer, and partlybecause a tramp had hanged himself on one of the branches. 

All sorts of extraordinary shadows have come to me in the Parks, theTwopenny Tube, and along the Thames Embankment. At ten o'clock, on themorning of 1st April 1899, I entered Hyde Park by one of the side gatesof the Marble Arch, and crossing to the island, sat down on an emptybench. The sky was grey, the weather ominous, and occasional heavy dropsof rain made me rejoice in the possession of an umbrella. On such a day, the park does not appear at its best. The Arch exhibited a dull, dirty, yellowish-grey exterior; every seat was bespattered with mud; whilst, torender the general aspect still more unprepossessing, the trees had notyet donned their mantles of green, but stood dejectedly drooping theirleafless branches as if overcome with embarrassment at their nakedness. On the benches around me sat, or lay, London's homeless--wretched-lookingmen in long, tattered overcoats, baggy, buttonless trousers, cracked andlaceless boots, and shapeless bowlers, too weak from want of food andrest even to think of work, almost incapable, indeed, of thought atall--breathing corpses, nothing more, with premature signs ofdecomposition in their filthy smell. And the women--the women were, ifpossible, ranker--feebly pulsating, feebly throbbing, foully stinking, rotten, living deaths. No amount of soap, food, or warmth could reclaimthem now. Nature's implacable law--the survival of the fittest, theweakest to the wall--was here exhibited in all its brutal force, and, asI gazed at the weakest, my heart turned sick within me. 

Time advanced; one by one the army of tatterdemalions crawled away, Godalone knew how, God alone knew where. In all probability God did notcare. Why should He? He created Nature and Nature's laws. 

A different type of humanity replaced this garbage: neat and dappergirls on their way to business; black-bowlered, spotless-leathered, a-guinea-a-week clerks, casting longing glances at the pale grass andcountless trees (their only reminiscence of the country), as theyhastened their pace, lest they should be a minute late for their hatefulservitude; a policeman with the characteristic stride and swinging arms;a brisk and short-stepped postman; an apoplectic-looking, second-hand-clothes-man; an emaciated widow; a typical charwoman; twomechanics; the usual brutal-faced labourer; one of the idle rich inshiny hat, high collar, cutaway coat, prancing past on a coal-blackhorse; and a bevy of nursemaids. 

To show my mind was not centred on the occult, --bootlaces, collar-studs, the two buttons on the back of ladies' coats, dyed hair, servants' feet, and a dozen and one other subjects, quite other than the superphysical, successively occupied my thoughts. Imagine, then, my surprise and theshock I received, when, on glancing at the gravel in front of me, I sawtwo shadows--two enigmatical shadows. A dog came shambling along thepath, showed its teeth, snarled, sprang on one side, and, with bristlinghair, fled for its life. I examined the plot of ground behind me; therewas nothing that could in any way account for the shadows, nothing likethem. Something rubbed against my leg. I involuntarily put down my hand;it was a foot--a clammy lump of ice, but, unmistakably, a foot. Yet ofwhat? I saw nothing, only the shadows. I did not want to discover more;my very soul shrank within me at the bare idea of what there might be, what there was. But, as is always the case, the superphysical gave me nochoice; my hand, moving involuntarily forward, rested on something flat, round, grotesque, horrid, something I took for a face, but a face whichI knew could not be human. Then I understood the shadows. Uniting, theyformed the outline of something lithe and tall, the outline of amonstrosity with a growth even as I had felt it--flat, round, grotesque, and horrid. Was it the phantasm of one of those poor waifs and strays, having all their bestialities and diseases magnified; or was it thespirit of a tree of some unusually noxious nature?

I could not divine, and so I came away unsatisfied. But I believe theshadow is still there, for I saw it only the last time I was in thePark. 

CHAPTER III

OBSESSION, POSSESSION

_Clocks, Chests and Mummies_

As I have already remarked, spirit or unknown brains are frequentlypresent at births. The brains of infants are very susceptible toimpressions, and, in them, the thought-germs of the occult brains findsnug billets. As time goes on, these germs develop and become generallyknown as "tastes, " "cranks, " and "manias. "

It is an error to think that men of genius are especially prone tomanias. On the contrary, the occult brains have the greatest difficultyin selecting thought-germs sufficiently subtle to lodge in thebrain-cells of a child of genius. Practically, any germ of carnalthought will be sure of reception in the protoplasmic brain-cells of achild, who is destined to become a doctor, solicitor, soldier, shopkeeper, labourer, or worker in any ordinary occupation; but thethought-germ that will find entrance to the brain-cells of a futurepainter, writer, actor, or musician, must represent some propensity of amore or less extraordinary nature. 

We all harbour these occult missiles, we are all to a certain extentmad: the proud mamma who puts her only son into the Church or makes alawyer of him, and placidly watches him develop a scarlet face, doublechin, and prodigious paunch, would flounce out a hundred and oneindignant denials if anyone suggested he had a mania, but it would betrue; gluttony would be his mania, and one every whit as prohibitive tohis chances of reaching the spiritual plane, as drink, or sexualpassion. Love of eating is, indeed, quite the commonest form ofobsession, and one that develops soonest. Nine out of tenchildren--particularly present-day children, whose doting parentsencourage their every desire--are fonder of cramming their bellies thanof playing cricket or skipping; games soon weary them, but buns andchocolates never. The truth is, buns and chocolate have obsessed them. They think of them all day, and dream of them all night. It is buns andchocolates! wherever and whenever they turn or look--buns andchocolates! This greed soon develops, as the occult brain intended itshould; enforced physical labour, or athletics, or even sedentary workmay dwarf its growth for a time, but at middle and old age it comes onagain, and the buns and chocolates are become so many coursed luncheonsand dinners. Their world is one of menus, nothing but menus; their onlymental exertion the study of menus, and I have no doubt that "tuck"shops and restaurants are besieged by the ever-hungry spirit of theearth-bound glutton. Though the drink-germ is usually developed later(and its later growth is invariably accelerated with seas of alcohol), it not infrequently feeds its initial growth with copious streams ofginger beer and lemon kali. 

Manual labourers--_i. E. _ navvies, coal-heavers, miners, etc. --arenaturally more or less brutal. Their brain-cells at birth offered solittle resistance to the evil occult influences that they received, infull, all the lower germs of thought inoculated by the occult brains. Drink, gluttony, cruelty, all came to their infant cerebrumscotemporaneously. The cruelty germ develops first, and cats, dogs, donkeys, smaller brothers, and even babies are made to feel the superiorphysical strength of the early wearer of hobnails. He is obsessed with amania for hurting something, and with his strongly innate instinct ofself-preservation, invariably chooses something that cannot harm him. Daily he looks around for fresh victims, and finally decides that theweedy offspring of the hated superior classes are the easiest prey. Incompany with others of his species, he annihilates the boy in Etons onhis way to and from school, and the after recollections of theweakling's bloody nose and teardrops are as nectar to him. The crueltygerm develops apace. The bloody noses of the well-dressed classes arehis mania now. He sees them at every turn and even dreams of them. Hegrows to manhood, and either digs in the road or plies the pick andshovel underground. The mechanical, monotonous exercise and thesordidness of his home surroundings foster the germ, and his leisuremoments are occupied with the memory of those glorious times when he washitting out at someone, and he feels he would give anything just tohave one more blow. Curse the police! If it were not for them he couldindulge his hobby to the utmost. But the stalwart, officious man in blueis ever on the scene, and the thrashing of a puny cleric or sawbones isscarcely compensation for a month's hard labour. Yet his mania must besatisfied somehow--it worries him to pieces. He must either smashsomeone's nose or go mad; there is no alternative, and he chooses theformer. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals preventshim skinning a cat; the National Society for the Prevention of Crueltyto Children will be down on him at once if he strikes a child, and so hehas no other resource left but his wife--he can knock out all her teeth, bash in her ribs, and jump on her head to his heart's content. She willnever dare prosecute him, and, if she does, some Humanitarian Societywill be sure to see that he is not legally punished. He thus finds safescope for the indulgence of his crank, and when there is nothing left ofhis own wife, he turns his unattractive and pusillanimous attentions tosomeone else's. 

But occult thought-germs of this elementary type only thrive where theinfant's spiritual or unknown brain is wholly undeveloped. Where thespiritual or unknown brain of an infant is partially developed, thegerm-thought to be lodged in it (especially if it be a germ-thought ofcruelty) must be of a more subtle and refined nature. 

I have traced the growth of cruelty obsession in children one would notsuspect of any great tendency to animalism. A refined love of makingothers suffer has led them to vent inquisitionary tortures on insects, and the mania for pulling off the legs of flies and roasting beetlesunder spyglasses has been gradually extended to drowning mice in cagesand seeing pigs killed. Time develops the germ; the cruel boy becomesthe callous doctor or "sharp-practising" attorney, and the cruel girlbecomes the cruel mother and often the frail divorcée. Drink and cardsare an obsession with some; cruelty is just as much a matter ofobsession with others. But the ingenuity of the occult brain rises tohigher things; it rises to the subtlest form of invention when dealingwith the artistic and literary temperament. I have been intimatelyacquainted with authors--well-known in the popular sense of theword--who have been obsessed in the oddest and often most painful ways. 

The constant going back to turn door-handles, the sitting in grotesqueand untoward positions, the fondness for fingering any smooth and shinyobjects, such as mother-of-pearl, develop into manias for change--changeof scenery, of occupation, of affections, of people--change thatinevitably necessitates misery; for breaking--breaking promises, contracts, family ties, furniture--but breaking, always breaking; forsensuality--sensuality sometimes venial, but often of the most gross andunpardonable nature. 

I knew a musician who was obsessed in a peculiarly loathsome manner. Fewknew of his misfortune, and none abominated it more than himself. Hesang divinely, had the most charming personality, was all that could bedesired as a husband and father, and yet was, in secret, a monomaniac ofthe most degrading and unusual order. In the daytime, when all wasbright and cheerful, his mania was forgotten; but the moment twilightcame, and he saw the shadows of night stealing stealthily towards him, his craze returned, and, if alone, he would steal surreptitiously out ofthe house and, with the utmost perseverance, seek an opportunity ofcarrying into effect his bestial practices. I have known him tie himselfto the table, surround himself with Bibles, and resort to everyimaginable device to divert his mind from his passion, but all to nopurpose; the knowledge that outside all was darkness and shadows provedirresistible. With a beating heart he put on his coat and hat, and, furtively opening the door, slunk out to gratify his hateful lust. Heaven knows! he went through hell. 

I once watched a woman obsessed with an unnatural and wholly monstrousmania for her dog. She took it with her wherever she went, to thetheatre, the shops, church, in railway carriages, on board ship. Shedressed it in the richest silks and furs, decorated it with bangles, presented it with a watch, hugged, kissed, and fondled it, took it tobed with her, dreamed of it. When it died, she went into heavy mourningfor it, and in an incredibly short space of time pined away. I saw her afew days before her death, and I was shocked; her gestures, mannerisms, and expression had become absolutely canine, and when she smiled--smiledin a forced and unnatural manner--I could have sworn I saw Launcelot, her pet!

There was also a man, a brilliant writer, who from a boy had beenobsessed with a craze for all sorts of glossy things, more especiallybuttons. The mania grew; he spent all his time running after girls whowere manicured, or who wore shining buttons, and, when he married, hebesought his wife to sew buttons on every article of her apparel. In theend, he is said to have swallowed a button, merely to enjoy thesensation of its smooth surface on the coats of his stomach. 

This somewhat exaggerated instance of obsession serves to show that, nomatter how extraordinary the thought-germ, it may enter one's mind andfinally become a passion. 

That the majority of people are obsessed, though in a varying degree, isa generally accepted fact; but that furniture can be possessed by occultbrains, though not a generally accepted fact, is, I believe, equallytrue. 

In a former work, entitled _Some Haunted Houses of England and Wales_, published by Mr Eveleigh Nash, I described how a bog-oak grandfather'sclock was possessed by a peculiar type of elemental, which Isubsequently classified as a vagrarian, or kind of grotesque spirit thatinhabits wild and lonely places, and, not infrequently, spots wherethere are the remains of prehistoric (and even latter-day) man andbeast. In another volume called _The Haunted Houses of London_, Inarrated the haunting of a house in Portman Square by a grandfather'sclock, the spirit in possession causing it to foretell death bystriking certain times; and I have since heard of hauntings by phenomenaof a more or less similar nature. 

The following is an example. A very dear friend of mine was taken illshortly before Christmas. No one at the time suspected there wasanything serious the matter with her, although her health of late hadbeen far from good. I happened to be staying in the house just then, andfound, that for some reason or other, I could not sleep. I do not oftensuffer from insomnia, so that the occurrence struck me as somewhatextraordinary. My bedroom opened on to a large, dark landing. In onecorner of it stood a very old grandfather's clock, the ticking of whichI could distinctly hear when the house was quiet. For the first two orthree nights of my visit the clock was as usual, but, the night beforemy friend was taken ill, its ticking became strangely irregular. At onemoment it sounded faint, at the next moment, the reverse; now it wasslow, now quick; until at length, in a paroxysm of curiosity and fear, Icautiously opened my door and peeped out. It was a light night, and theglass face of the clock flashed back the moonbeams with startlingbrilliancy. A grim and subdued hush hung over the staircases andlandings. The ticking was now low; but as I listened intently, itgradually grew louder and louder, until, to my horror, the colossalframe swayed violently backwards and forwards. Unable to stand the sightof it any longer, and fearful of what I might see next, I retreated intomy room, and, carefully locking the door, lit the gas, and got intobed. At three o'clock the ticking once again became normal. Thefollowing night the same thing occurred, and I discovered that certainother members of the household had also heard it. My friend rapidly grewworse, and the irregularities of the clock became more and morepronounced, more and more disturbing. Then there came a morning, when, between two and three o'clock, unable to lie in bed and listen to theticking any longer, I got up. An irresistible attraction dragged me tothe door. I peeped out, and there, with the moonlight concentrated onits face as before, swayed the clock, backwards and forwards, backwardsand forwards, slowly and solemnly; and with each movement there issuedfrom within it a hollow, agonised voice, the counterpart of that of mysick friend, exclaiming, "Oh dear! Oh dear! It is coming! It is coming!"

I was so fascinated, so frightened, that I could not remove my gaze, butwas constrained to stand still and stare at it; and all the while therewas a dull, mechanical repetition of the words: "Oh dear! Oh dear! It iscoming, it is coming!" Half an hour passed in this manner, and the handsindicated five minutes to three, when a creak on the staircase made melook round. My heart turned to ice--there, half-way down the stairs, wasa tall, black figure, its polished ebony skin shining in the moonbeams. I saw only its body at first, for I was far too surprised even to glanceat its face. As it glided noiselessly towards me, however, obeying anuncontrollable impulse, I looked. There was no face at all, only twoeyes--two long, oblique, half-open eyes--grey and sinister, inexpressibly, hellishly sinister--and, as they met my gaze, they smiledgleefully. They passed on, the door of the clock swung open, and thefigure stepped inside and vanished! I was now able to move, andre-entering my room, I locked myself in, turned on the gas, and buriedmyself under the bedclothes. 

I left the house next day, and shortly afterwards received themelancholy tidings of the death of my dear friend. For the time being, at least, the clock had been possessed by an elemental spirit of death. 

I know an instance, too, in which a long, protracted whine, like thewhine of a dog, proceeded from a grandfather's clock, prior to anycatastrophe in a certain family; another instance, in which loud thumpswere heard in a grandfather's clock before a death; and still anotherinstance in which a hooded face used occasionally to be seen in lieu ofthe clock's face. 

In all these cases, the clocks were undoubtedly temporarily possessed bythe same type of spirit--the type I have classified "Clanogrian" orFamily Ghost--occult phenomena that, having attached themselves inbygone ages to certain families, sometimes cling to furniture (often notinappropriately to clocks) that belonged to those families; and, stillclinging, in its various removals, to the piece they have "possessed, "continue to perform their original grizzly function of foretellingdeath. 

Of course, these charnel prophets are not the only phantasms that"possess" furniture. For example, I once heard of a case of"possession" by a non-prophetic phantasm in connection with a chest--anantique oak chest which, I believe, claimed to be a native of Limerick. After experiencing many vicissitudes in its career, the chest fell intothe hands of a Mrs MacNeill, who bought it at a rather exorbitant pricefrom a second-hand dealer in Cork. 

The chest, placed in the dining-room of its new home, was the recipientof much premature adulation. The awakening came one afternoon soon afterits arrival, when Mrs MacNeill was alone in the dining-room at twilight. She had spent a very tiring morning shopping in Tralee, her nearestmarket-town, and consequently fell asleep in an arm-chair in front ofthe fire, directly after luncheon. She awoke with a sensation of extremechilliness, and thinking the window could not have been shut properly, she got up to close it, when her attention was attracted by somethingwhite protruding from under the lid of the chest. She went up to inspectit, but she recoiled in horror. It was a long finger, with a veryprotuberant knuckle-bone, but no sign of a nail. She was so shocked thatfor some seconds she could only stand staring at it, mute and helpless;but the sound of approaching carriage-wheels breaking the spell, sherushed to the fireplace and pulled the bell vigorously. As she did so, there came a loud chuckle from the chest, and all the walls of the roomseemed to shake with laughter. 

Of course everyone laughed when Mrs MacNeill related what had happened. The chest was minutely examined, and as it was found to contain nothingbut some mats that had been stored away in it the previous day, thefinger was forthwith declared to have been an optical illusion, and MrsMacNeill was, for the time being, ridiculed into believing it was soherself. For the next two or three days nothing occurred; nothing, infact, until one night when Mrs MacNeill and her daughters heard thequeerest of noises downstairs, proceeding apparently from thedining-room--heavy, flopping footsteps, bumps as if a body was beingdragged backwards and forwards across the floor, crashes as if all thecrockery in the house had been piled in a mass on the floor, loud pealsof malevolent laughter, and then--silence. 

The following night, the disturbances being repeated, Mrs MacNeillsummoned up courage to go downstairs and peep into the room. The noiseswere still going on when she arrived at the door, but, the moment sheopened it, they ceased and there was nothing to be seen. A day or twoafterwards, when she was again alone in the dining-room and the eveningshadows were beginning to make their appearance, she glanced anxiouslyat the chest, and--there was the finger. Losing her self-possession atonce, and yielding to a paroxysm of the wildest, the most ungovernableterror, she opened her mouth to shriek. Not a sound came; the cry thathad been generated in her lungs died away ere it reached her larynx, andshe relapsed into a kind of cataleptic condition, in which all herfaculties were acutely alert but her limbs and organs of speech palsied. 

She expected every instant that the chest-lid would fly open and thatthe baleful thing lurking within would spring upon her. The torture shesuffered from such anticipations was little short of hell, and wasrendered all the more maddening by occasional quiverings of the lid, which brought all her expectations to a climax. Now, now at any rate, she assured herself, the moment had come when the acme of horrordomwould be bounced upon her and she would either die or go mad. But no;her agonies were again and again borne anew, and her prognosticationsunfulfilled. At last the creakings abruptly ceased--nothing was to beheard save the shaking of the trees, the distant yelping of a dog, andthe far-away footfall of one of the servants. Having somewhat recoveredfrom the shock, Mrs MacNeill was busy speculating as to the appearanceof the hidden horror, when she heard a breathing, the subtle, stealthybreathing of the secreted pouncer. Again she was spellbound. The eveningadvanced, and from every nook and cranny of the room, from behindchairs, sofa, sideboard, and table, from window-sill and curtains, stolethe shadows, all sorts of curious shadows, that brought with them anatmosphere of the barren, wind-swept cliffs and dark, desertedmountains, an atmosphere that added fresh terrors to Mrs MacNeill'salready more than distraught mind. 

The room was now full of occult possibilities, drawn from all quarters, and doubtless attracted thither by the chest, which acted as a physicalmagnet. It grew late; still no one came to her rescue; and still moreshadows, and more, and more, and more, until the room was full of them. She actually saw them gliding towards the house, in shoals, across themoon-kissed lawn and carriage-drive. Shadows of all sorts--some, unmistakable phantasms of the dead, with skinless faces and glassy eyes, their bodies either wrapped in shrouds covered with the black slime ofbogs or dripping with water; some, whole and lank and bony; some with anarm or leg missing; some with no limbs or body, only heads--shrunken, bloodless heads with wide-open, staring eyes--yellow, ichorouseyes--gleaming, devilish eyes. Elementals of all sorts--some, tall andthin, with rotund heads and meaningless features; some, withrectangular, fleshy heads; some, with animal heads. On they came incountless legions, on, on, and on, one after another, each vying withthe other in ghastly horridness. 

The series of terrific shocks Mrs MacNeill experienced during theadvance of this long and seemingly interminable procession of everyconceivable ghoulish abortion, at length wore her out. The pulsations ofher naturally strong heart temporarily failed, and, as her pent-upfeelings found vent in one gasping scream for help, she fell insensibleto the ground. 

That very night the chest was ruthlessly cremated, and Mrs MacNeill'sdining-room ceased to be a meeting-place for spooks. 

Whenever I see an old chest now, I always view it withsuspicion--especially if it should happen to be a bog-oak chest. Thefact is, the latter is more likely than not to be "possessed" byelementals, which need scarcely be a matter of surprise when oneremembers that bogs--particularly Irish bogs--have been haunted, fromtime immemorial, by the most uncouth and fantastic type of spirits. 

But mummies, mummies even more often than clocks and chests, are"possessed" by denizens of the occult world. Of course, everyone hasheard of the "unlucky" mummy, the painted case of which, only, is in theOriental department of the British Museum, and the story connected withit is so well known that it would be superfluous to expatiate on ithere. I will therefore pass on to instances of other mummies "possessed"in a more or less similar manner. 

During one of my sojourns in Paris, I met a Frenchman who, he informedme, had just returned from the East. I asked him if he had brought backany curios, such as vases, funeral urns, weapons, or amulets. "Yes, lots, " he replied, "two cases full. But no mummies! Mon Dieu! Nomummies! You ask me why? Ah! Therein hangs a tale. If you will havepatience, I will tell it you. "

The following is the gist of his narrative:--

"Some seasons ago I travelled up the Nile as far as Assiut, and whenthere, managed to pay a brief visit to the grand ruins of Thebes. Amongthe various treasures I brought away with me, of no great archæologicalvalue, was a mummy. I found it lying in an enormous lidless sarcophagus, close to a mutilated statue of Anubis. On my return to Assiut, I had themummy placed in my tent, and thought no more of it till something awokeme with a startling suddenness in the night. Then, obeying a peculiarimpulse, I turned over on my side and looked in the direction of mytreasure. 

"The nights in the Soudan at this time of year are brilliant; one caneven see to read, and every object in the desert is almost as clearlyvisible as by day. But I was quite startled by the whiteness of the glowthat rested on the mummy, the face of which was immediately oppositemine. The remains--those of Met-Om-Karema, lady of the College of thegod Amen-ra--were swathed in bandages, some of which had worn away inparts or become loose; and the figure, plainly discernible, was that ofa shapely woman with elegant bust, well-formed limbs, rounded arms andsmall hands. The thumbs were slender, and the fingers, each of whichwere separately bandaged, long and tapering. The neck was full, thecranium rather long, the nose aquiline, the chin firm. Imitation eyes, brows, and lips were painted on the wrappings, and the effect thusproduced, and in the phosphorescent glare of the moonbeams, was veryweird. I was quite alone in the tent, the only other European, who hadaccompanied me to Assiut, having stayed in the town by preference, andmy servants being encamped at some hundred or so yards from me on theground. 

"Sound travels far in the desert, but the silence now was absolute, andalthough I listened attentively, I could not detect the slightestnoise--man, beast, and insect were abnormally still. There was somethingin the air, too, that struck me as unusual; an odd, clammy coldness thatreminded me at once of the catacombs in Paris. I had hardly, however, conceived the resemblance, when a sob--low, gentle, but verydistinct--sent a thrill of terror through me. It was ridiculous, absurd!It could not be, and I fought against the idea as to whence the soundhad proceeded, as something too utterly fantastic, too utterlyimpossible! I tried to occupy my mind with other thoughts--thefrivolities of Cairo, the casinos of Nice; but all to no purpose; andsoon on my eager, throbbing ear there again fell that sound, that lowand gentle sob. My hair stood on end; this time there was no doubt, nopossible manner of doubt--the mummy lived! I looked at it aghast. Istrained my vision to detect any movement in its limbs, but none wasperceptible. Yet the noise had come from it, it had breathed--breathed--and even as I hissed the word unconsciously through my clenched lips, the bosom of the mummy rose and fell. 

"A frightful terror seized me. I tried to shriek to my servants; I couldnot ejaculate a syllable. I tried to close my eyelids, but they wereheld open as in a vice. Again there came a sob that was immediatelysucceeded by a sigh; and a tremor ran through the figure from head tofoot. One of its hands then began to move, the fingers clutched the airconvulsively, then grew rigid, then curled slowly into the palms, thensuddenly straightened. The bandages concealing them from view then felloff, and to my agonised sight were disclosed objects that struck me asstrangely familiar. There is something about fingers, a markedindividuality, I never forget. No two persons' hands are alike. And inthese fingers, in their excessive whiteness, round knuckles, and blueveins, in their tapering formation and perfect filbert nails, I read alikeness whose prototype, struggle how I would, I could not recall. Gradually the hand moved upwards, and, reaching the throat, the fingersset to work, at once, to remove the wrappings. My terror was nowsublime! I dare not imagine, I dare not for one instant think, what Ishould see! And there was no getting away from it; I could not stir aninch, not the fraction of an inch, and the ghastly revelation would takeplace within a yard of my face. 

"One by one the bandages came off. A glimmer of skin, pallid as marble;the beginning of the nose, the whole nose; the upper lip, exquisitely, delicately cut; the teeth, white and even on the whole, but here andthere a shining gold filling; the under-lip, soft and gentle; a mouth Iknew, but--God!--where? In my dreams, in the wild fantasies that hadoft-times visited my pillow at night--in delirium, in reality, where?Mon Dieu! WHERE?

"The uncasing continued. The chin came next, a chin that was purelyfeminine, purely classical; then the upper part of the head--the hairlong, black, luxuriant--the forehead low and white--the brows black, finely pencilled; and, last of all, the eyes!--and as they met myfrenzied gaze and smiled, smiled right down into the depths of my lividsoul, I recognised them--they were the eyes of my mother, my mother whohad died in my boyhood! Seized with a madness that knew no bounds, Isprang to my feet. The figure rose and confronted me. I flung open myarms to embrace her, the woman of all women in the world I loved best, the only woman I had loved. Shrinking from my touch, she cowered againstthe side of the tent. I fell on my knees before her and kissed--what?Not the feet of my mother, but that of the long unburied dead. Sick withrepulsion and fear I looked up, and there, bending over and peering intomy eyes was the face, the fleshless, mouldering face of a foul andbarely recognisable corpse! With a shriek of horror I rolled backwards, and, springing to my feet, prepared to fly. I glanced at the mummy. Itwas lying on the ground, stiff and still, every bandage in its place;whilst standing over it, a look of fiendish glee in its light, doglikeeyes, was the figure of Anubis, lurid and menacing. 

"The voices of my servants, assuring me they were coming, broke thesilence, and in an instant the apparition vanished. 

"I had had enough of the tent, however, at least for that night, and, seeking refuge in the town, I whiled away the hours till morning with afragrant cigar and novel. Directly I had breakfasted, I took the mummyback to Thebes and left it there. No, thank you, Mr O'Donnell, I collectmany kinds of curios, but--no more mummies!"

CHAPTER IV

OCCULT HOOLIGANS

Deducing from my own and other people's experiences, there exists adistinct type of occult phenomenon whose sole occupation is inboisterous orgies and in making manifestations purely for the sake ofcausing annoyance. To this phantasm the Germans have given the namePOLTERGEIST, whilst in former of my works I have classified it as aVagrarian Order of ELEMENTAL. It is this form of the superphysical, perhaps, that up to the present time has gained the greatestcredence--it has been known in all ages and in all countries. Who, forexample, has not heard of the famous Stockwell ghost that caused such asensation in 1772, and of which Mrs Crowe gives a detailed account inher _Night Side of Nature_; or again, of "The Black Lion Lane, BayswaterGhost, " referred to many years ago in _The Morning Post_; or, of the"Epworth Ghost, " that so unceasingly tormented the Wesley family; or, ofthe "Demon of Tedworth" that gave John Mompesson and his family nopeace, and of countless other well-authenticated and recorded instancesof this same type of occult phenomenon? The poltergeists in theabove-mentioned cases were never seen, only felt and heard; but in whata disagreeable and often painful manner! The Demon of Tedworth, forexample, awoke everyone at night by thumping on doors and imitating thebeatings of a drum. It rattled bedsteads, scratched on the floor andwall as if possessing iron talons, groaned, and uttered loud cries of "Awitch! A witch!" Nor was it content with these auditory demonstrations, for it resorted to far more energetic methods of physical violence. Furniture was moved out of its place and upset; the children's shoeswere taken off their feet and thrown over their heads; their hair wastweaked and their clothes pulled; one little boy was even hit on a soreplace on his heel; the servants were lifted bodily out of their beds andlet fall; whilst several members of the household were stripped of allthey had on, forcibly held down, and pelted with shoes. Nor were theproceedings at Stockwell, Black Lion Lane, and Epworth, though rathermore bizarre, any less violent. 

To quote another instance of this kind of haunting, Professor Schuppartat Gressen, in Upper Hesse, was for six years persecuted by apoltergeist in the most unpleasant manner; stones were sent whizzingthrough closed rooms in all directions, breaking windows but hurting noone; his books were torn to pieces; the lamp by which he was reading wasremoved to a distant corner of the room, and his cheeks were slapped, and slapped so incessantly that he could get no sleep. 

According to Mrs Crowe, there was a case of a similar nature at MrChave's, in Devonshire, in 1910, where affidavits were made before themagistrate attesting the facts, and large rewards offered for discovery;but in vain, the phenomena continued, and the spiritual agent wasfrequently seen in the form of some strange animal. 

There seems to be little limit, short of grievous bodily injury--andeven that limit has occasionally been overstepped--to poltergeisthooliganism. Last summer the Rev. Henry Hacon, M. A. , of Searly Vicarage, North Kelsey Moor, very kindly sent me an original manuscript dealingwith poltergeist disturbances of a very peculiar nature, at the oldSyderstone Parsonage near Fakenham. I published the account _ad verbum_in a work of mine that appeared the ensuing autumn, entitled _GhostlyPhenomena_, and the interest it created encourages me to refer to othercases dealing with the same kind of phenomena. 

There is a parsonage in the South of England where not only noises havebeen heard, but articles have been mysteriously whisked away and notreturned. A lady assures me that when a gentleman, with whom she wasintimately acquainted, was alone in one of the reception rooms one day, he placed some coins to the value, I believe, of fifteen shillings, onthe table beside him, and chancing to have his attention directed to thefire, which had burned low, was surprised on looking again to discoverthe coins had gone; nor did he ever recover them. Other things, too, forthe most part trivial, were also taken in the same incomprehensiblemanner, and apparently by the same mischievous unseen agency. It is truethat one of the former inhabitants of the house had, during the latterportion of his life, been heavily in debt, and that his borrowingpropensities may have accompanied him to the occult world; but thoughsuch an explanation is quite feasible, I am rather inclined to attributethe disappearances to the pranks of some mischievous vagrarian. 

I have myself over and over again experienced a similar kind of thing. For example, in a certain house in Norwood, I remember losing in rapidsuccession two stylograph pens, a knife, and a sash. I remembered, ineach case, laying the article on a table, then having my attentioncalled away by some rather unusual sound in a far corner of the room, and then, on returning to the table, finding the article had vanished. There was no one else in the house, so that ordinary theft was out ofthe question. Yet where did these articles go, and of what use wouldthey be to a poltergeist? On one occasion, only, I caught a glimpse ofthe miscreant. It was about eight o'clock on a warm evening in June, andI was sitting reading in my study. The room is slightly below the levelof the road, and in summer, the trees outside, whilst acting as aneffective screen against the sun's rays, cast their shadows somewhat toothickly on the floor and walls, burying the angles in heavy gloom. Inthe daytime one rather welcomes this darkness; but in the afternoon itbecomes a trifle oppressive, and at twilight one sometimes wishes it wasnot there. It is at twilight that the nature of the shadows usuallyundergoes a change, and there amalgamates, with them, that Something, that peculiar, indefinable Something that I can only associate with thesuperphysical. Here, in my library, I often watch it creep in with thefading of the sunlight, or, postponing its advent till later--steal inthrough the window with the moonbeams, and I feel its presence just asassuredly and instinctively as I can feel and detect the presence ofhostility in an audience or individual. I cannot describe how; I canonly say I do, and that my discernment is seldom misleading. On theevening in question I was alone in the house. I had noticed, amid theshadows that lay in clusters on the floor and walls, this enigmaticalSomething. It was there most markedly; but I did not associate it withanything particularly terrifying or antagonistic. Perhaps that wasbecause the book I was reading interested me most profoundly--it was atranslation from Heine, and I am devoted to Heine. Let me quote anextract. It is from _Florentine Nights_, and runs: "But is it not follyto wish to sound the inner meaning of any phenomenon outside us, when wecannot even solve the enigma of our own souls? We hardly know evenwhether outside phenomena really exist! We are often unable todistinguish reality from mere dream-faces. Was it a shape of my fancy, or was it horrible reality that I heard and saw on that night? I knownot. I only remember that, as the wildest thoughts were flowing throughmy heart, a singular sound came to my ear. " I had got so far, absorbingly, spiritually interested, when I heard a laugh, a long, lowchuckle, that seemed to come from the darkest and most remote corner ofthe room. A cold paroxysm froze my body, the book slid from my hands, and I sat upright in my chair, every faculty within me acutely alert andactive. The laugh was repeated, this time from behind a writing-table inquite another part of the room. Something which sounded like a shower oftintacks then fell into the grate; after which there was a long pause, and then a terrific bump, as if some heavy body had fallen from a greatheight on to the floor immediately in front of me. I even heard thehissing and whizzing the body made in its descent as it cut its passagethrough the air. Again there came an interval of tranquillity brokenonly by the sounds of people in the road, the hurrying footsteps of agirl, the clattering of a man in hobnails, the quick, sharp tread of thelamplighter, and the scampering patter of a bevy of children. Then therecame a series of knockings on the ceiling, and then the sound ofsomething falling into a gaping abyss which I intuitively felt hadsurreptitiously opened at my feet. 

For many seconds I listened to the reverberations of the object as itdashed against the sides of the unknown chasm; at length there was asplash, succeeded by hollow echoes. Shaking in every limb, I shrank backas far as I possibly could in my chair and clutched the arms. A draught, cold and dank, as if coming from an almost interminable distance, blewupwards and fanned my nostrils. Then there came the most appalling, themost blood-curdling chuckle, and I saw a hand--a lurid grey hand withlong, knotted fingers and black, curved nails--feeling its way towardsme, through the subtle darkness, like some enormous, unsavoury insect. Nearer, nearer, and nearer it drew, its fingers waving in the air, antennæ fashion. For a moment it paused, and then, with lightningrapidity, snatched the book from my knees and disappeared. Directlyafterwards I heard the sound of a latchkey inserted in the front door, whilst the voice of my wife inquiring why the house was in darknessbroke the superphysical spell. Obeying her summons, I ascended thestaircase, and the first object that greeted my vision in the hall wasthe volume of Heine that had been so unceremoniously taken from me!Assuredly this was the doings of a poltergeist! A poltergeist that up tothe present had confined its attentions to me, no one else in the househaving either heard or seen it. 

In my study there is a deep recess concealed in the winter-time by heavycurtains drawn across it; and often when I am writing something makes melook up, and a cold horror falls upon me as I perceive the curtainsrustle, rustle as though they were laughing, laughing in conjunctionwith some hidden occult monstrosity; some grey--the bulk of thephantasms that come to me are grey--and glittering monstrosity who wasenjoying a rich jest at my expense. Occasionally, to emphasise itspresence, this poltergeist has scratched the wall, or thumped, or thrownan invisible missile over my head, or sighed, or groaned, or gurgled, and I have been frightened, horribly, ghastly frightened. Then somethinghas happened--my wife has called out, or someone has rung a bell, or thepostman has given one of his whole-hearted smashes with the knocker, and the poltergeist has "cleared off, " and I have not been disturbed byit again for the remainder of the evening. 

I am not the only person whom poltergeists visit. Judging from mycorrespondence and the accounts I see in the letters of variouspsychical research magazines, they patronise many people. Their _modusoperandi_, covering a wide range, is always boisterous. Undoubtedly theyhave been badly brought up--their home influence and their educationaltraining must have been sadly lacking in discipline. Or is it thereverse? Are their crude devices and mad, tomboyish pranks merelyreactionary, and the only means they have of finding vent for theirnaturally high spirits? If so, I devoutly wish they would choose somelocality other than my study for their playground. Yet they interest me, and although I quake horribly when they are present, I derive endlessamusement at other times, in speculating on their _raison d'être_, andcurious--perhaps complex--constitutions. I do not believe they have everinhabited any earthly body, either human or animal. I think it likelythat they may be survivals of early experiments in animal and vegetablelife in this planet, prior to the selection of any definite types;spirits that have never been anything else but spirits, and which have, no doubt, often envied man his carnal body and the possibilities thathave been permitted him of eventually reaching a higher spiritual plane. It is envy, perhaps, that has made them mischievous, and generated inthem an insatiable thirst to torment and frighten man. Another probableexplanation of them is, that they may be inhabitants of one of the otherplanets that have the power granted, under certain conditions at presentunknown to us, of making themselves seen and heard by certain dwellerson the earth; and it is, of course, possible that they are but one ofmany types of spirits inhabiting a superphysical sphere that encloses orinfringes on our own. They may be only another form of life, a form thatis neither carnal nor immortal, but which has to depend for itsexistence on a superphysical food. They may be born in a fashion that, apart from its peculiarity and extravagance, bears some resemblance tothe generation of physical animal life; and they may die, too, as mandies, and their death may be but the passing from one stage to another, or it may be for eternity. 

But enough of possibilities, of probable and improbable theories. Forthe present not only poltergeists but all other phantoms are seen asthrough a glass darkly, and, pending the discovery of some definitedata, we do but flounder in a sea of wide, limitless, and infinitespeculation. 

CHAPTER V

SYLVAN HORRORS

I believe trees have spirits; I believe everything that grows has aspirit, and that such spirits never die, but passing into another state, a state of film and shadow, live on for ever. The phantasms of vegetablelife are everywhere, though discernible only to the few of us. Often asI ramble through thoroughfares, crowded with pedestrians and vehicles, and impregnated with steam and smoke and all the impurities arising fromover-congested humanity, I have suddenly smelt a different atmosphere, the cold atmosphere of superphysical forest land. I have come to a halt, and leaning in some doorway, gazed in awestruck wonder at the noddingfoliage of a leviathan lepidodendron, the phantasm of one of thosemammoth lycopods that flourished in the Carboniferous period. I havewatched it swaying its shadowy arms backwards and forwards as if keepingtime to some ghostly music, and the breeze it has thus created hasrustled through my hair, while the sweet scent of its resin haspleasantly tickled my nostrils. I have seen, too, suddenly open beforeme, dark, gloomy aisles, lined with stupendous pines and carpeted withlong, luxuriant grass, gigantic ferns, and other monstrous primevalflora, of a nomenclature wholly unknown to me; I have watched in chilledfascination the black trunks twist and bend and contort, as if under theinfluence of an uncontrollable fit of laughter, or at the bidding ofsome psychic cyclone. I have at times stayed my steps when in the throesof the city-pavements; shops and people have been obliterated, and theirplaces taken by occult foliage; immense fungi have blocked out the sun'srays, and under the shelter of their slimy, glistening heads, I havebeen thrilled to see the wriggling, gliding forms of countless smallersaprophytes. I have felt the cold touch of loathsome toadstools andsniffed the hot, dry dust of the full, ripe puff-ball. On the ThamesEmbankment, up Chelsea way, I have at twilight beheld wonderfulmetamorphoses. In company with the shadows of natural objects of thelandscape, have silently sprung up giant reeds and bullrushes. I havefelt their icy coldness as, blowing hither and thither in the deliriumof their free, untrammelled existence, they have swished across my face. Visions, truly visions, the exquisite fantasies of a vivid imagination. So says the sage. I do not think so; I dispute him _in toto_. Theseobjects I have seen have not been illusions; else, why have I notimagined other things; why, for example, have I not seen rocks walkingabout and tables coming in at my door? If these phantasms were buttricks of the imagination, then imagination would stop at nothing. Butthey are not imagination, neither are they the idle fancies of anover-active brain. They are objective--just as much objective as are thesmells of recognised physical objects, that those, with keenly sensitiveolfactory organs, can detect, and those, with a less sensitive sense ofsmell, cannot detect; those, with acute hearing, can hear, and thosewith less acute hearing cannot hear. And yet, people are slow to believethat the seeing of the occult is as much a faculty as is the scenting ofsmells or the hearing of noises. 

I have heard it said that, deep down in coal mines, certain of theworkers have seen wondrous sights; that when they have been alone in adrift, they have heard the blowing of the wind and the rustling ofleaves, and suddenly found themselves penned in on all sides by thenaked trunks of enormous primitive trees, lepidodendrons, sigillarias, ferns, and other plants, that have shone out with phosphorescentgrandeur amid the inky blackness of the subterranean ether. Around thefeet of the spellbound watchers have sprung up rank blades ofBrobdingnagian grass and creepers, out of which have crept, with lurideyes, prodigious millipedes, cockroaches, white ants, myriapods andscorpions, whilst added to the moaning and sighing of the trees has beenthe humming of stone-flies, dragon-flies, and locusts. Galleries andshafts have echoed and re-echoed with these noises of the old world, which yet lives, and will continue to live, maybe, to the end of time. 

But are the physical trees, the trees that we can all see budding andsprouting in our gardens to-day--are they ever cognisant of the presenceof the occult? Can they, like certain--not all--dogs and horses andother animals, detect the proximity of the unknown? Do they tremble andshake with fear at the sight of some psychic vegetation, or are theyutterly devoid of any such faculty? Can they see, hear, or smell? Havethey any senses at all? And, if they have one sense, have they notothers? Aye, there is food for reflection. 

Personally, I believe trees have senses--not, of course, in such a highstate of development as those of animal life; but, nevertheless, senses. Consequently, I think it quite possible that certain of them, likecertain animals, feel the presence of the superphysical. I often strollin woods. I do not love solitude; I love the trees, and I do not thinkthere is anything in nature, apart from man, I love much more. The oak, the ash, the elm, the poplar, the willow, to me are more than merenames; they are friends, the friends of my boyhood and manhood;companions in my lonely rambles and voluntary banishments; guardians ofmy siestas; comforters of my tribulations. The gentle fanning of theirbranches has eased my pain-racked brow and given me much-needed sleep, whilst the chlorophyll of their leaves has acted like balm to myeyelids, inflamed after long hours of study. I have leaned my headagainst their trunks, and heard, or fancied I have heard, the fantasticmurmurings of their peaceful minds. This is what happens in the daytime, when the hot summer sun has turned the meadow-grass a golden brown. Butwith the twilight comes the change. Phantom-land awakes, and mingledwith the shadows of the trees and bushes that lazily unroll themselvesfrom trunk and branches are the darkest of shades, that impart to theforest an atmosphere of dreary coldness. Usually I hie away with hasteat sunset, but there are occasions when I have dallied longer than Ihave intended, and only realised my error when it has been too late. Ihave then, controlled by the irresistible fascination of the woods, waited and watched. I well recollect, for example, being caught in thisway in a Hampshire spinney, at that time one of my most frequentedhaunts. The day had been unusually close and stifling, and the heat, inconjunction with a hard morning's work--for I had written, God onlyknows how long, without ceasing, --made me frightfully sleepy, and onarriving at my favourite spot beneath a lofty pine, I had slept till, for very shame, my eyelids could keep closed no longer. It was then nineo'clock, and the metamorphosis of sunset had commenced in solemnearnest. The evening was charming, ideal of the heart of summer; the airsoft, sweetly scented; the sky unspotted blue. A peaceful hush, brokenonly by the chiming of some distant church bells, and the faint, thevery faint barking of dogs, enveloped everything and instilled in me afalse sensation of security. Facing me was a diminutive glade paddedwith downy grass, transformed into a pale yellow by the lustrous rays ofthe now encrimsoned sun. Fainter and fainter grew the ruddy glow, untilthere was nought of it left but a pale pink streak, whose delicatemarginal lines still separated the blue of the sky from the quicklysuperseding grey. A barely perceptible mist gradually cloaked the grass, whilst the gloom amid the foliage on the opposite side of the gladeintensified. There was now no sound of bells, no barking of dogs; andsilence, a silence tinged with the sadness so characteristic of summerevenings, was everywhere paramount. A sudden rush of icy air made myteeth chatter. I made an effort to stir, to escape ere the grotesque andintangible horrors of the wood could catch me. I ignominiously failed;the soles of my feet froze to the ground. Then I felt the slender, graceful body of the pine against which I leaned my back, shake andquiver, and my hand--the hand that rested on its bark--grew damp andsticky. 

I endeavoured to avert my eyes from the open space confronting them. Ifailed; and as I gazed, filled with the anticipations of the damned, there suddenly burst into view, with all the frightful vividnessassociated only with the occult, a tall form--armless, legless--fashionedlike the gnarled trunk of a tree--white, startlingly white in placeswhere the bark had worn away, but on the whole a bright, a luridlybright, yellow and black. At first I successfully resisted a powerfulimpulse to raise my eyes to its face; but as I only too well knew wouldbe the case, I was obliged to look at last, and, as I anticipated, Iunderwent a most violent shock. In lieu of a face I saw a raw andshining polyp, a mass of waving, tossing, pulpy radicles from whosecentre shone two long, obliquely set, pale eyes, ablaze with devilry andmalice. The thing, after the nature of all terrifying phantasms, wasendowed with hypnotic properties, and directly its eyes rested on me Ibecame numb; my muscles slept while my faculties remained awake, acutely awake. 

Inch by inch the thing approached me; its stealthy, gliding motionreminding me of a tiger subtly and relentlessly stalking its prey. Itcame up to me, and the catalepsy which had held me rigidly uprightdeparted. I fell on the ground for protection, and, as the great unknowncurved its ghastly figure over me and touched my throat and foreheadwith its fulsome tentacles, I was overcome with nervous tremors; adeadly pain griped my entrails, and, convulsed with agony, I rolled overon my face, furiously clawing the bracken. In this condition I continuedfor probably one or even two minutes, though to me it seemed very muchlonger. My sufferings terminated with the loud report of firearms, andslowly picking myself up, I found that the apparition had vanished, andthat standing some twenty or so paces from me was a boy with a gun. Irecognised him at once as the son of my neighbour, the villageschoolmaster; but not wishing to tarry there any longer, I hurriedlywished him good night, and leaving the copse a great deal more quicklythan I had entered it, I hastened home. 

What had I seen? A phantasm of some dead tree? some peculiar species ofspirit (I have elsewhere termed a vagrarian), attracted thither by theloneliness of the locality? some vicious, evil phantasm? or avice-elemental, whose presence there would be due to some particularlywicked crime or series of crimes perpetrated on or near the spot? Icannot say. It might well have been either one of them, or somethingquite different. I am quite sure, however, that most woods are haunted, and that he who sees spirit phenomena can be pretty certain of seeingthem there. Again and again, as I have been passing after nightfall, through tree-girt glen, forest, or avenue, I have seen all sorts ofcurious forms and shapes move noiselessly from tree to tree. Hoodedfigures, with death's-heads, have glided surreptitiously throughmoon-kissed spaces; icy hands have touched me on the shoulders; whilst, pacing alongside me, I have oft-times heard footsteps, light and heavy, though I have seen nothing. 

Miss Frances Sinclair tells me that, once, when walking along a countrylane, she espied some odd-looking object lying on the ground at the footof a tree. She approached it, and found to her horror it was a humanfinger swimming in a pool of blood. She turned round to attract theattention of her friends, and when she looked again the finger hadvanished. On this very spot, she was subsequently informed, the murderof a child had taken place. 

Trees are, I believe, frequently haunted by spirits that suggest crime. I have no doubt that numbers of people have hanged themselves on thesame tree in just the same way as countless people have committedsuicide by jumping over certain bridges. Why? For the very simple reasonthat hovering about these bridges are influences antagonistic to thehuman race, spirits whose chief and fiendish delight is to breathethoughts of self-destruction into the brains of passers-by. I once heardof a man, medically pronounced sane, who frequently complained that hewas tormented by a voice whispering in his ear, "Shoot yourself! Shootyourself!"--advice which he eventually found himself bound to follow. And of a man, likewise stated to be sane, who journeyed a considerabledistance to jump over a notorious bridge because he was for ever beinghaunted by the phantasm of a weirdly beautiful woman who told him to doso. If bridges have their attendant sinister spirits, so undoubtedlyhave trees--spirits ever anxious to entice within the magnetic circle oftheir baleful influence anyone of the human race. 

Many tales of trees being haunted in this way have come to me from Indiaand the East. I quoted one in my _Ghostly Phenomena_, and the followingwas told me by a lady whom I met recently, when on a visit to my wife'srelations in the Midlands. 

"I was riding with my husband along a very lonely mountain road inAssam, " my informant began, "when I suddenly discovered I had lost mysilk scarf, which happened to be a rather costly one. I had a prettyshrewd idea whereabouts I might have dropped it, and, on mentioning thefact to my husband, he at once turned and rode back to look for it. Being armed, I did not feel at all nervous at being left alone, especially as there had been no cases, for many years, of assault on aEuropean in our district; but, seeing a big mango tree standing quite byitself a few yards from the road, I turned my horse's head with theintention of riding up to it and picking some of its fruit. To my greatannoyance, however, the beast refused to go; moreover, although at alltimes most docile, it now reared, and kicked, and showed unmistakablesigns of fright. 

"I speedily came to the conclusion that my horse was aware of thepresence of something--probably a wild beast--I could not see myself, and I at once dismounted, and tethering the shivering animal to aboulder, advanced cautiously, revolver in hand, to the tree. At everystep I took, I expected the spring of a panther or some other beast ofprey; but, being afraid of nothing but a tiger--and there were none, thank God! in that immediate neighbourhood--I went boldly on. On nearingthe tree, I noticed that the soil under the branches was singularlydark, as if scorched and blackened by a fire, and that the atmospherearound it had suddenly grown very cold and dreary. To my disappointmentthere was no fruit, and I was coming away in disgust, when I caughtsight of a queer-looking thing just over my head and half-hidden by thefoliage. I parted the leaves asunder with my whip and looked up at it. My blood froze. 

"The thing was nothing human. It had a long, grey, nude body, shapedlike that of a man, only with abnormally long arms and legs, and verylong and crooked fingers. Its head was flat and rectangular, without anyfeatures saving a pair of long and heavy lidded, light eyes, that werefixed on mine with an expression of hellish glee. For some seconds I wastoo appalled even to think, and then the most mad desire to kill myselfsurged through me. I raised my revolver, and was in the act of placingit to my forehead, when a loud shout from behind startled me. It was myhusband. He had found my scarf, and, hurrying back, had arrived just intime to see me raise the revolver--strange to relate--at him! In a fewwords I explained to him what had happened, and we examined the treetogether. But there were no signs of the terrifying phenomenon--it hadcompletely vanished. Though my husband declared that I must have beendreaming, I noticed he looked singularly grave, and, on our return home, he begged me never to go near the tree again. I asked him if he had hadany idea it was haunted, and he said: 'No! but I know there are suchtrees. Ask Dingan. ' Dingan was one of our native servants--the one werespected most, as he had been with my husband for nearly twelveyears--ever since, in fact, he had settled in Assam. 'The mango tree, mem-sahib!' Dingan exclaimed, when I approached him on the subject, 'themango tree on the Yuka Road, just before you get to the bridge over theriver? I know it well. We call it "the devil tree, " mem-sahib. No othertree will grow near it. There is a spirit peculiar to certain trees thatlives in its branches, and persuades anyone who ventures within a fewfeet of it, either to kill themselves, or to kill other people. I haveseen three men from this village alone, hanging to its accursedbranches; they were left there till the ropes rotted and the jackalsbore them off to the jungles. Three suicides have I seen, and threemurders--two were women, strangers in these parts, and they were bothlying within the shadow of the mango's trunk, with the backs of theirheads broken in like eggs! It is a thrice-accursed tree, mem-sahib. 'Needless to say, I agreed with Dingan, and in future gave the mango awide berth. "

Vagrarians, tree devils (a type of vice elemental), and phantasms ofdead trees are some of the occult horrors that haunt woods, and, infact, the whole country-side! Added to these, there are the fauns andsatyrs, those queer creatures, undoubtedly vagrarians, half-man andhalf-goat, that are accredited by the ancients with much merry-making, and grievous to add, much lasciviousness. Of these spirits there ismention in Scripture, namely, Isaiah xiii. 21, where we read: "And theirhouses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there"; and in Baddeley's _HistoricalMeditations_, published about the beginning of the seventeenth century, there is a description by Plutarch, of a satyr captured by Sulla, whenthe latter was on his way from Dyrrachium to Brundisium. The creature, which appears to have been very material, was found asleep in a parknear Apollonia. On being led into the presence of Sulla, it commencedspeaking in a harsh voice that was an odd mixture of the neighing of ahorse and the crying of a goat. As neither Sulla nor any of hisfollowers could understand in the slightest degree what the monstrositymeant, they let it go, nor is there any further reference to it. 

Now, granted that this account is not "faked, " and that such a beastactually did exist, it would naturally suggest to one that vagrarians, pixies, and other grotesque forms of phantasms are, after all, only thespirits of similar types of material life, and that, in allprobability, the earth, contemporary with prehistoric, and evenlater-day man, fairly swarmed with such creatures. However, this, likeeverything else connected with these early times, is merely a matter ofspeculation. Another explanatory theory is, that possibly superphysicalphenomena were much more common formerly than now, and that the varioustypes of sub-human and sub-animal apparitions (which were thenconstantly seen by the many, but which are now only visible to the few)have been handed down to us in the likeness of satyrs and fauns. Anyhow, I think they may be rightly classified in the category of vagrarians. The association of spirits with trees is pretty nearly universal. In thefairy tales of youth we have frequent allusions to them. In theCaucasus, where the population is not of Slavonic origin, we haveinnumerable stories of sacred trees, and in each of these stones themain idea is the same--namely, that a human life is dependent on theexistence of a tree. In Slavonic mythology, plants as well as trees aremagnets for spirits, and in the sweet-scented pinewoods, in the dark, lonely pinewoods, dwell "psipolnitza, " or female goblins, who plague theharvesters; and "lieshi, " or forest male demons, closely allied tosatyrs. In Iceland there was a pretty superstition to the effect that, when an innocent person was put to death, a sorb or mountain ash wouldspring over their grave. In Teutonic mythology the sorb is supposed totake the form of a lily or white rose, and, on the chairs of those aboutto die, one or other of these flowers is placed by unseen hands. Whitelilies, too, are emblematic of innocence, and have a knack ofmysteriously shooting up on the graves of those who have been unjustlyexecuted. Surely this would be the work of a spirit, as, also, would bethe action of the Eglantine, which is so charmingly illustrated in thetouching story of Tristram and Yseult. Tradition says that from thegrave of Tristram there sprang an eglantine which twined about thestatue of the lovely Yseult, and, despite the fact of its being thricecut down, grew again, ever embracing the same fair image. Among theNorth American Indians there was, and maybe still is, a general beliefthat the spirits of those who died, naturally reverted to trees--to thegreat pines of the mountain forests--where they dwelt for ever amid thebranches. The Indians believed also that the spirits of certain treeswalked at night in the guise of beautiful women. Lucky Indians! Wouldthat my experience of the forest phantasms had been half so entrancing. The modern Greeks, Australian bushmen, and natives of the East Indies, like myself, only see the ugly side of the superphysical, for thespirits that haunt their vegetation are irredeemably ugly, horriblyterrifying, and fiendishly vindictive. 

The idea that the dead often passed into trees is well illustrated inthe classics. For example, Æneas, in his wanderings, strikes a tree, andis half-frightened out of his wits by a great spurt of blood. A hollowvoice, typical of phantasms and apparently proceeding from somewherewithin the trunk, then begs him to desist, going on to explain that thetree is not an ordinary tree but the metamorphosed soul of an unluckywight called Polydorus, (he must have been unlucky, if only to have hadsuch a name). Needless to say, Æneas, who was strictly a gentleman inspite of his aristocratic pretensions, at once dropped his axe andshowed his sympathy for the poor tree-bound spirit in an abundant flowof tears, which must have satisfied, even, Polydorus. There is a verysimilar story in Swedish folk-lore. A voice in a tree addressed a man, who was about to cut it down, with these words, "Friend, hew me not!"But the man on this occasion was not a gentleman, and, instead ofcomplying with the modest request, only plied his axe the more heartily. To his horror--a just punishment for his barbarity--there was a mostfrightful groan of agony, and out from the hole he had made in thetrunk, rushed a fountain of blood, real human blood. What happened thenI cannot say, but I imagine that the woodcutter, stricken with remorse, whipped up his bandana from the ground, and did all that lay in hispower--though he had not had the advantages of lessons in first aid--tostop the bleeding. One cannot help being amused at these marvellousstories, but, after all, they are not very much more wonderful than manyof one's own ghostly experiences. At any rate, they serve to illustratehow widespread and venerable is the belief that trees--trees, perhaps, in particular--are closely associated with the occult. 

Pixies! What are pixies? That they are not the dear, delightful, quaintlittle people Shakespeare so inimitably portrays in the _MidsummerNight's Dream_, is, I fear, only too readily acknowledged. I am toldthat they may be seen even now, and I know those who say that they haveseen them, but that they are the mere shadows of those dainty creaturesthat used to gambol in the moonshine and help the poor and weary intheir household work. The present-day pixies, whom I am loath to imagineare the descendants of the old-world pixies--though, of course, on theother hand, they may be merely degenerates, a much more pleasantalternative--are I think still to be occasionally encountered in lonely, isolated districts; such, for instance, as the mountains in the West ofIreland, the Hebrides, and other more or less desolate islands, and onone or two of the Cornish hills and moors. 

Like most phantasms, the modern pixies are silent and elusive. Theyappear and disappear with equal abruptness, contenting themselves withmerely gliding along noiselessly from rock to rock, or from bush tobush. Dainty they are not, pretty they are not, and in stature only dothey resemble the pixie of fairy tales; otherwise they are truevagrarians, grotesque and often harrowing. 

In my _Ghostly Phenomena_ I have given one or two accounts of theirappearance in the West of England, but the nearest approach to pixiesthat I have myself seen, were phantasms that appeared to me, in 1903, onthe Wicklow Hills, near Bray. I was out for a walk on the afternoon ofThursday, May 18; the weather was oppressive, and the grey, lowering skythreatened rain, a fact which accounted for the paucity of pedestrians. Leaving my temporary headquarters, at Bray, at half-past one, I arrivedat a pretty village close to the foot of the hills and immediately beganthe ascent. Selecting a deviating path that wound its way up gradually, I, at length, reached the summit of the ridge. 

On and on I strolled, careless of time and distance, until a suddendryness in my throat reminded me it must be about the hour at which Igenerally took tea. I turned round and began to retrace my stepshomeward. The place was absolutely deserted; not a sign of a human beingor animal anywhere, and the deepest silence. I had come to the brink ofa slight elevation when, to my astonishment, I saw in the tiny plateaubeneath, three extraordinary shapes. Standing not more than two feetfrom the ground, they had the most perfectly proportioned bodies ofhuman beings, but monstrous heads; their faces had a leadish blue hue, like that of corpses; their eyes were wide open and glassy. They glidedalong slowly and solemnly in Indian file, their grey, straggling hairand loose white clothes rustling in the breeze; and on arriving at aslight depression in the ground, they sank and sank, until they entirelydisappeared from view. I then descended from my perch, and made athorough examination of the spot where they had vanished. It was firm, hard, caked soil, without hole or cover, or anything in which they couldpossibly have hidden. I was somewhat shocked, as indeed I always amafter an encounter with the superphysical, but not so much shocked as Ishould have been had the phantasms been bigger. I visited the same spotsubsequently, but did not see another manifestation. 

To revert to trees--fascinating, haunting trees. Much credulity was atone time attached to the tradition that the tree on which Jesus Christwas crucified was an aspen, and that, thenceforth, all aspens wereafflicted with a peculiar shivering. Botanists, scientists, andmatter-of-fact people of all sorts pooh-pooh this legend, as, indeed, many people nowadays pooh-pooh the very existence of Christ. Butsomething--you may call it intuition--I prefer to call it my GuardianSpirit--bids me believe both; and I do believe as much in the traditionof the aspen as in the existence of Christ. Moreover, this intuition orinfluence--the work of my Guardian Spirit--whether dealing with thingspsychical, psychological, or physical has never yet failed me. If itwarns me of the presence of a phantasm, I subsequently experience somekind or other of spiritual phenomenon; if it bids me beware of a person, I am invariably brought to discover later on that that person'sintentions have been antagonistic to me; and if it causes me to deterfrom travelling by a certain route, or on a certain day, I alwaysdiscover afterwards that it was a very fortunate thing for me that Iabided by its warning. That is why I attach great importance to thevoice of my Guardian Spirit; and that is why, when it tells me that, despite the many obvious discrepancies and absurdities in theScriptures, despite the character of the Old Testament God--who repelsrather than attracts me--despite all this, there was a Jesus Christ whoactually was a great and benevolent Spirit, temporarily incarnate, andwho really did suffer on the Cross in the manner described insubsequent MSS. , --I believe it all implicitly. I back the still, smallvoice of my Guardian Spirit against all the arguments scepticism canproduce. 

Very good, then. I believe in the existence and spirituality of JesusChrist because of the biddings of my Guardian Spirit, and, for the verysame reason, I attach credence to the tradition of the quivering of theaspen. The sceptic accounts for the shaking of this tree by showing thatit is due to a peculiar formation in the structure of the aspen'sfoliage. This may be so, but that peculiarity of structure was createdimmediately after Christ's crucifixion, and was created as a memento, for all time, of one of the most unpardonable murders on record. 

There is something especially weird, too, in the ash; something thatsuggests to my mind that it is particularly susceptible to superphysicalinfluences. I have often sat and listened to its groaning, and more thanonce, at twilight, perceived the filmy outline of some fantastic figurewrithed around its slender trunk. 

John Timbs, F. S. A. , in his book of _Popular Errors_, published byCrosby, Lockwood & Co. In 1880, quotes from a letter, dated 7th July1606, thus: "It is stated that at Brampton, near Gainsborough, inLincolnshire, 'an ash tree shaketh in body and boughs thereof, sighingand groaning like a man troubled in his sleep, as if it felt somesensible torment. Many have climbed to the top of it, who heard thegroans more easily than they could below. But one among the rest, beingon the top thereof, spake to the tree; but presently came down muchaghast, and lay grovelling on the earth, three hours speechless. In theend reviving, he said: "Brampton, Brampton, thou art much bound topray!"' The Earl of Lincoln caused one of the arms of the ash to belopped off and a hole bored through the body, and then was the sound, orhollow voice, heard more audibly than before, but in a kind of speechwhich they could not comprehend. This is the second wonderful ashproduced by past ages in this district--according to tradition, Ethelreda's budding staff having shot out into the first. " So says theletter, and from my own experience of the ash, I am quite ready toaccredit it with special psychic properties, though I cannot state Ihave ever heard it speak. 

I believe it attracts phantasms in just the same way as do certainpeople, myself included, and certain kinds of furniture. Its groaningsat night have constantly attracted, startled, and terrified me; theyhave been quite different to the sounds I have heard it make in thedaytime; and often I could have sworn that, when I listened to itsgroanings, I was listening to the groanings of some dying person, and, what is more harrowing still, to some person I knew. 

I have heard it said, too, that the most ghastly screams and gurgleshave been heard proceeding from the ash trees planted in or near thesite of murders or suicides, and as I sit here writing, a scene opensbefore me, and I can see a plain with one solitary tree--anash--standing by a pool of water, on the margin of which are threeclusters of reeds. Dark clouds scud across the sky, and the moon onlyshows itself at intervals. It is an intensely wild and lonely spot, andthe cold, dank air blowing across the barren wastes renders it all themore inhospitable. No one, no living thing, no object is visible savethe ash. Suddenly it moves its livid trunk, sways violently, unnaturally, backwards and forwards--once, twice, thrice; and therecomes from it a cry, a most piercing, agonising cry, half human, halfanimal, that dies away in a wail and imparts to the atmosphere asensation of ice. I can hear the cry as I sit here writing; my memoryrehearses it; it was one of the most frightful, blood-curdling, hellishsounds I ever endured; and the scene was on the Wicklow hills inIreland. 

The narcotic plant, the mandrake, is also credited with groaning, thoughI cannot say I have ever heard it. Though there is nothing particularlypsychic about the witch-hazel, in the hands of certain people who aremediumistic, it will indicate the exact spot where water lies under theground. The people who possess this faculty of discovering the localityof water by means of the hazel, are named dowsers, and my only wonder isthat their undeniably useful faculty is not more cultivated anddeveloped. 

To my mind, there is no limit to the possibilities suggested by thisfaculty; for surely, if one species of tree possesses attraction for acertain object in nature, there can be no reason why other species oftrees should not possess a similar attraction for other objects innature. And if they possess this attraction for the physical, why notfor the superphysical--why, indeed, should not "ghosts" come within theradius of their magnetism?

The palm and sycamore trees have invariably been associated with thespiritual, and made use of symbolically, as the tree of life. Anillustration, on a stele in the Berlin Museum, depicts a palm tree fromthe stem of which proceeds two arms, one administering to a figure, kneeling below, the fruit or bread of life; the other, pouring from avase the water of life. 

On another, a later Egyptian stele, the tree of life is the sycamore. There is no doubt that the Egyptians and Assyrians regarded these twotrees as susceptible only to good psychic influences, they figure sofrequently in illustrations of the benevolent deities. Nor were the Jewsand Christians behind in their recognition of the extraordinaryproperties of these two trees, especially the palm. We find itsymbolically introduced in the decoration of Solomon's Temple--on thewalls, furniture, and vessels; whilst in Christian mosaics it figures asthe tree of life in Paradise (_vide_ Rev. Xxii. 1, 2, and in the apsisof S. Giovanni Laterans). It is even regarded as synonymous with JesusChrist, as may be seen in the illuminated frontispiece to an_Evangelium_ in the library of the British Museum, where the symbols ofthe four Evangelists, placed over corresponding columns of lessons fromtheir gospels, are portrayed looking up to a palm tree, rising from theearth, on the summit of which is a cross, with the symbolical lettersalpha and omega suspended from its arms. 

I am, of course, only speaking from my own experience, but this much Ican vouch for, that I have never heard of a palm tree being haunted byan evil spirit, whereas I have heard of several cases in which palmleaves or crosses cut from palms have been used, and apparently witheffect, as preventives of injuries caused by malevolent occultdemonstrations; and were I forced to spend a night in some lonelyforest, I think I should prefer, viewing the situation entirely from thestandpoint of psychical possibilities, that that forest should becomposed partly or wholly of palms. 

Before concluding this chapter, I must make a brief allusion to anothertype of spirit--the BARROWVIAN--that resembles the vagrarian and pixie, inasmuch as it delights in lonely places. Whenever I see a barrow, tumulus or druidical, circle, I scent the probability ofphantasms--phantasms of a peculiar sort. Most ancient burial-places arehaunted, and haunted by two species of the same genus: the one, thespirits of whatever prehistoric forms of animal life lie buried there;and the other, grotesque phantasms, often very similar to vagrarians inappearance, but with distinct ghoulish propensities and an inveteratehatred to living human beings. In my _Ghostly Phenomena_ I have referredto the haunting of a druidical circle in the North of England, and alsoto the haunting of a house I once rented in Cornwall, near Castle onDinas, by barrowvians; I have heard, too, of many cases of a likenature. I have, of course, often watched all night, near barrows orcromlechs, without any manifestations taking place; sometimes, even, without feeling the presence of the Unknown, though these occasions havebeen rare. At about two o'clock one morning, when I was keeping my vigilbeside a barrow in the South of England, I saw a phenomenon in the shapeof a hand--only a hand, a big, misty, luminous blue hand, with longcrooked fingers. I could, of course, only speculate as to the owner ofthe hand, and I must confess that I postponed that speculation till Iwas safe and sound, and bathed in sunshine, within the doors of my owndomicile. 

Hauntings of this type generally occur where excavations have been made, a barrow broken into, or a dolmen removed; the manifestations generallytaking the form of phantasms of the dead, the prehistoric dead. Butphenomena that are seen there are, more often than not, things that bearlittle or no resemblance to human beings; abnormally tall, thin thingswith small, bizarre heads, round, rectangular, or cone-shaped, sometimessemi- or wholly animal, and always expressive of the utmost malignity. Occasionally, in fact I might say often, the phenomena are entirelybestial--such, for example, as huge, blue, or spotted dogs, shaggybears, and monstrous horses. Houses, built on or near the site of suchburial-places, are not infrequently disturbed by strange noises, and themanifestations, when materialised, usually take one or other of theseforms. In cases of this kind I have found that exorcism has little or noeffect; or, if any, it is that the phenomena become even more emphatic. 

CHAPTER VI

COMPLEX HAUNTINGS AND OCCULT BESTIALITIES

What are occult bestialities? Are they the spirits of human beings who, when inhabiting material bodies, led thoroughly criminal lives; are theythe phantasms of dead beasts--cats and dogs, etc. ; or are they thingsthat were never carnate? I think they may be either one or theother--that any one of these alternatives is admissible. There is ahouse, for example, in a London square, haunted by the apparition of anude woman with long, yellow, curly hair and a pig's face. There is nomistaking the resemblance--eyes, snout, mouth, jaw, jowls, all arepiggish, and the appearance of the thing is hideously suggestive of allthat is bestial. What, then, is it? From the fact that in allprobability a very sensuous, animal-minded woman once lived in thehouse, I am led to suppose that this may be her phantasm--or--one onlyof her many phantasms. And in this latter supposition lies much food forreflection. The physical brain, as we know, consists of multitudinouscells which we may reasonably take to be the homes of our respectivefaculties. Now, as each material cell has its representative immaterialinhabitant, so each immaterial inhabitant has its representativephantasm. Thus each representative phantasm, on the dissolution of thematerial brain, would be either earth-bound or promoted to the higherspiritual plane. Hence, one human being may be represented by a score ofphantasms, and it is quite possible for a house to be haunted by manytotally different phenomena of the same person. I know, for instance, ofa house being subjected to the hauntings of a dog, a sensual-lookingpriest, the bloated shape of an indescribable something, and aferocious-visaged sailor. It had had, prior to my investigation, onlyone tenant, a notorious rake and glutton; no priest or sailor had everbeen known to enter the house; and so I concluded the many apparitionswere but phantasms of the same person--phantasms of his several, separate, and distinct personalities. He had brutal tendencies, sacerdotal (not spiritual) tendencies, gluttonous, and nauticaltendencies, and his whole character being dominated by carnal cravings, on the dissolution of his material body each separate tendency wouldremain earth-bound, represented by the phantasm most closely resemblingit. I believe this theory may explain many dual hauntings, and it holdsgood with regard to the case I have quoted, the case of the apparitionwith the pig's head. The ghost need not necessarily have been the spiritof a dead woman _in toto_, but merely the phantasm of one of her grosserpersonalities; her more spiritual personalities, represented by otherphantasms, having migrated to the higher plane. Let me take, as anotherexample, the case which I personally investigated, and which interestedme deeply. The house was then haunted (and, as far as I know to thecontrary, is still haunted) by a blurred figure, suggestive of somethinghardly human and extremely nasty, that bounded up the stairs two stepsat a time; by a big, malignant eye--only an eye--that appeared in one ofthe top rooms; and by a phantasm resembling a lady in distinctly moderncostume. The house is old, and as, according to tradition, some crimewas committed within its walls many years ago, the case may really be aninstance of separate hauntings--the bounding figure and the eye (thelatter either belonging to the figure or to another phantasm) being thephantasms of the principal, or principals, in the ancient tragedy; thelady, either the phantasm of someone who died there comparativelyrecently, or of someone still alive, who consciously, or unconsciously, projects her superphysical ego to that spot. On the other hand, thethree different phenomena might be three different phantasms of oneperson, that person being either alive or dead--for one canunquestionably, at times, project phantasms of one's variouspersonalities before physical dissolution. The question of occultphenomena, one may thus see, is far more complex than it would appear tobe at first sight, and naturally so, --the whole of nature being complexfrom start to finish. Just as minerals are not composed of one atom butof countless atoms, so the human brain is not constituted of one cellbut of many; and as with the material cerebrum, so with theimmaterial--hence the complexity. With regard to the phenomena ofsuperphysical bestialities such as dogs, bears, etc. , it is almostimpossible to say whether the phantasm would be that of a dead person, or rather that representing one of some dead person's severalpersonalities--the phantasm of a genuine animal, of a vagrarian, or ofsome other type of elemental. 

One can only surmise the identity of such phantasms, after becomingacquainted with the history of the locality in which such manifestationsappear. The case to which I referred in my previous works, _Some HauntedHouses of England and Wales_, and _Ghostly Phenomena_, namely, that ofthe apparition of a nude man being seen outside an unused burial-groundin Guilsborough, Northamptonshire, furnishes a good example ofalternatives. Near to the spot, at least within two or three hundredyards of it, was a barrow, close to which a sacrificial stone had beenunearthed; consequently the phantasm may have been a barrowvian; andagain, as the locality is much wooded and but thinly populated, it mayhave been a vagrarian; and again, the burial-ground being in such closeproximity, the apparition may well have been the phantasm of one of thevarious personalities of a human being interred there. 

One night, as I was sitting reading alone in an isolated cottage on theWicklow hills, I was half-startled out of my senses by hearing a loud, menacing cry, half-human and half-animal, and apparently in mid-air, directly over my head. I looked up, and to my horror saw suspended, afew feet above me, the face of a Dalmatian dog--of a long since deadDalmatian dog, with glassy, expressionless eyes, and yellow, gapingjaws. The phenomenon did not last more than half a minute, and with itsabrupt disappearance came a repetition of the cry. What was it? Iquestioned the owner of the cottage, and she informed me she had alwayshad the sensation something uncanny walked the place at night, but hadnever seen anything. "One of my children did, though, " she added;"Mike--he was drowned at sea twelve months ago. Before he became asailor he lived with me here, and often used to see a dog--a big, spotted cratur, like what we called a plum-pudding dog. It was a nasty, unwholesome-looking thing, he used to tell me, and would run round andround his room--the room where you sleep--at night. Though a bold enoughlad as a rule, the thing always scared him; and he used to come and tellme about it, with a face as white as linen--'Mother!' he would say, 'Isaw the spotted cratur again in the night, and I couldn't get as much asa wink of sleep. ' He would sometimes throw a boot at it, and always withthe same result--the boot would go right through it. " She then told methat a former tenant of the house, who had borne an evil reputation inthe village--the peasants unanimously declaring she was a witch--haddied, so it was said, in my room. "But, of course, " she added, "itwasn't her ghost that Mike saw. " Here I disagreed with her. However, ifshe could not come to any conclusion, neither could I; for though, ofcourse, the dog may have been the earth-bound spirit of someparticularly carnal-minded occupant of the cottage--or, in other words, a phantasm representing one of that carnal-minded person's severalpersonalities, --it may have been the phantasm of a vagrarian, of abarrowvian, or, of some other kind of elemental, attracted to the spotby its extreme loneliness, and the presence there, unsuspected by man, of some ancient remains, either human or animal. Occult dogs are veryoften of a luminous, semi-transparent bluish-grey--a bluish-grey that iscommon to many other kinds of superphysical phenomena, but which I havenever seen in the physical world. 

I have heard of several houses in Westmoreland and Devon, always in thevicinity of ancient burial-places, being haunted by blue dogs, andsometimes by blue dogs without heads. Indeed, headless apparitions ofall sorts are by no means uncommon. A lady, who is well known to me, hada very unpleasant experience in a house in Norfolk, where she wasawakened one night by a scratching on her window-pane, which was somedistance from the ground, and, on getting out of bed to see what wasthere, perceived the huge form of a shaggy dog, without a head, pressedagainst the glass. 

Fortunately for my informant, the manifestation was brief. The height ofthe window from the ground quite precluded the possibility of theapparition being any natural dog, and my friend was subsequentlyinformed that what she had seen was one of the many headless phantasmsthat haunted the house. Of course, it does not follow that because onedoes not actually see a head, a head is not objectively there--it may bevery much there, only not materialised. A story of one of theseseemingly headless apparitions was once told me by a Mrs Forbes du Barrywhom I met at Lady D. 's house in Eaton Square. I remember the at-home towhich I refer, particularly well, as the entertainment on that occasionwas entirely entrusted to Miss Lilian North, who as a reciter andraconteur is, in my opinion, as far superior to any other reciter andraconteur as the stars are superior to the earth. Those who have notheard her stories, have not listened to her eloquent voice--that appealsnot merely to the heart, but to the soul--are to be pitied. But there--Iam digressing. Let me proceed. It was, I repeat, on the soul-inspiringoccasion above mentioned that I was introduced to Mrs Forbes du Barry, who must be held responsible for the following story. 

"I was reading one of your books the other day, Mr O'Donnell, " shebegan, "and some of your experiences remind me of one of my own--onethat occurred to me many years ago, when I was living in Worthing, inthe old part of the town, not far from where the Public Library nowstands. Directly after we had taken the house, my husband was ordered toIndia. However, he did not expect to be away for long, so, as I was notin very good health just then, I did not go with him, but remained withmy little boy, Philip, in Worthing. Besides Philip and myself, myhousehold only consisted of a nursery-governess, cook, housemaid, andkitchen-maid. The hauntings began before we had been in our new quartersmany days. We all heard strange noises, scratchings, and whinings, andthe servants complained that often, when they were at meals, somethingthey could not see, but which they could swear was a dog, came sniffinground them, jumping up and placing its invisible paws on their lap. Often, too, when they were in bed the same thing entered their room, they said, and jumped on the top of them. They were all very muchfrightened, and declared that if the hauntings continued they would notbe able to stay in the house. Of course, I endeavoured to laugh awaytheir fears, but the latter were far too deeply rooted, and I myself, apart from the noises I had heard, could not help feeling that there wassome strangely unpleasant influence in the house. The climax was broughtabout by Philip. One afternoon, hearing him cry very loudly in thenursery, I ran upstairs to see what was the matter. On the landingoutside the nursery I narrowly avoided a collision with the governess, who came tearing out of the room, her eyes half out of her head withterror, and her cheeks white as a sheet. She said nothing--and indeedher silence was far more impressive than words--but, rushing past me, flung herself downstairs, half a dozen steps at a time, and ran into thegarden. In an agony of fear--for I dreaded to think what had happened--Iburst into the nursery, and found Philip standing on the bed, frantically beating the air with his hands. 'Take it away--oh, take itaway!' he cried; 'it is a horrid dog; it has no head!' Then, seeing me, he sprang down and, racing up to me, leaped into my open arms. As he didso, something darted past and disappeared through the open doorway. Itwas a huge greyhound without a head! I left the house the next day--Iwas fortunately able to sublet it--and went to Bournemouth. But, do youknow, Mr O'Donnell, that dog followed us! Wherever we went it went too, nor did it ever leave Philip till his death, which took place in Egypton his twenty-first birthday. Now, what do you think of that?"

"I think, " I replied, "that the phantasm was very probably that of areal dog, and that it became genuinely attached to your son. I do notthink it was headless, but that, for some reason unknown for thepresent, its head never materialised. What was the history of thehouse?"

"It had no history as far as I could gather, " Mrs Forbes du Barry said. "A lady once lived there who was devoted to dogs, but no one thinks sheever had a greyhound. "

"Then, " I replied thoughtfully, "it is just possible that the headlessdog was the phantasm of the lady herself, or, at least, of one of herpersonalities!"

Mrs du Barry appeared somewhat shocked, and I adroitly changed theconversation. However, I should not be at all surprised if this were thecase. 

The improbability of any ancient remains being interred under or nearthe house, precludes the idea of barrowvians, whilst the thicklypopulated nature of the neighbourhood and the entire absence ofloneliness, renders the possibility of vagrarians equally unlikely. Thatbeing so, one only has to consider the possibility of its being a viceelemental attracted to the house by the vicious lives and thoughts ofsome former occupant, and I am, after all, inclined to favour the theorythat the phantasm was the phantasm of the old dog-loving lady herself, attaching itself in true canine fashion to the child Philip. 

The most popular animal form amongst spirits--the form assumed by themmore often than any other--is undoubtedly the dog. I hear of the occultdog more often than of any other occult beast, and in many places thereis yet a firm belief that the souls of the wicked are chained to thisearth in the shape of monstrous dogs. According to Mr Dyer, in his_Ghost World_, a man who hanged himself at Broomfield, near Salisbury, manifested himself in the guise of a huge black dog; whilst the LadyHoward of James I. 's reign, for her many misdeeds, not the least ofwhich was getting rid of her husbands, was, on her death, transformedinto a hound and compelled to run every night, between midnight andcock-crow, from the gateway of Fitzford, her former residence, toOakhampton Park, and bring back to the place, from whence she started, ablade of grass in her mouth; and this penance she is doomed to continuetill every blade of grass is removed from the park, which feat she willnot be able to effect till the end of the world. Mr Dyer also goes on tosay that in the hamlet of Dean Combe, Devon, there once lived a weaverof great fame and skill, who the day after his death was seen sittingworking away at the loom as usual. A parson was promptly fetched, andthe following conversation took place. 

"Knowles!" the parson commanded (not without, I shrewdly suspect, somefear), "come down! This is no place for thee!" "I will!" said theweaver, "as soon as I have worked out my quill. " "Nay, " said the vicar, "thou hast been long enough at thy work; come down at once. " The spiritthen descended, and, on being pelted with earth and thrown on the groundby the parson, was converted into a black hound, which apparently wasits ultimate shape. 

Some years ago, Mr Dyer says, there was an accident in a Cornish minewhereby several men lost their lives, and, rather than that theirrelatives should be shocked at the sight of their mangled remains, somebystander, with all the best intentions in the world, threw the bodiesinto a fire, with the result that the mine has ever since been hauntedby a troop of little black dogs. 

According to the _Book of Days_, ii. P. 433, there is a widespreadbelief in most parts of England in a spectral dog, "large, shaggy, andblack, " but not confined to any one particular species. This phantasm isbelieved to haunt localities that have witnessed crimes, and also toforetell catastrophes. The Lancashire people, according to Harland andWilkinson in their _Lancashire Folk-lore_, call it the "stuker" and"trash": the latter name being given it on account of its heavy, slopping walk; and the former appellation from its curious screech, which is a sure indication of some approaching death or calamity. To thepeasantry of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire it is known as "the shuck, " anapparition that haunts churchyards and other lonely places. In the Isleof Man a similar kind of phantasm, called "the Mauthe dog, " was said towalk Peel Castle; whilst many of the Welsh lanes--particularly thatleading from Mowsiad to Lisworney Crossways--are, according to WirtSikes' _British Goblins_, haunted by the gwyllgi, a big black dog of themost terrifying aspect. 

Cases of hauntings by packs of spectral hounds have from time to timebeen reported from all parts of the United Kingdom; but mostly fromNorthumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, Wales, Devon, andCornwall. In the northern districts they are designated "Gabriel'shounds"; in Devon, "the Wisk, Yesk, or Heath hounds"; in Wales, "the CwnAnnwn or Cwn y Wybr" (see Dyer's _Ghost World_); and in Cornwall, "thedevil and his dandy dogs. " My own experiences fully coincide with thetraditional belief that the dog is a very common form of spiritphenomena; but I can only repeat (the same remark applying to otheranimal manifestations), that it is impossible to decide with any degreeof certainty to what category of phantasms, in addition to the generalorder of occult bestialities, the dog belongs. It seems quitepermissible to think that the spirits of ladies, with an absorbing maniafor canine pets, should be eventually earth-bound in the form of dogs--afate which many of the fair sex have assured me would be "absolutelydivine, " and far preferable to the orthodox heaven. 

I cannot see why the shape of a dog should be appropriated by the lessdesirable denizens of the occult world. But, that it is so, there is noroom to doubt, as the following illustration shows. As soon as the trialof the infamous slaughterer X---- was over, and the verdict of deathgenerally known, a deep sigh of relief was heaved by the whole ofcivilisation--saving, of course, those pseudo-humanitarians who alwayspity murderers and women-beaters, and who, if the law was at allsensible and just, should be hanged with their bestial _protégés_. Fromall classes of men, I repeat, with the exception of those perniciouscranks, were heard the ejaculations: "Well! he's settled. What a goodthing! I am glad! The world will be well rid of him!"

Then I smiled. The world well rid of him! Would it be rid of him? Not ifI knew anything about occult phenomena. Indeed, the career on earth forsuch an epicure in murder as X---- had only just begun; in fact, itcould hardly be said to begin till physical dissolution. The lastdrop--that six feet or so plunge between grim scaffolding--might in thecase of some criminals, mere tyros at the trade, terminate for goodtheir connection with this material plane; but not, decidedly not, inthe case of this bosom comrade of vice elementals. 

From both a psychological and superphysical point of view the case hadinterested me from the first. I had been anxious to see the man, for Ifelt sure, even if he did not display any of the ordinary physiognomicaldanger signals observable in many bestial criminals, there wouldnevertheless be a something about or around him, that would immediatelywarn as keen a student of the occult as myself of his close associationwith the lowest order of phantasms. I was not, however, permitted aninterview, and so had to base my deductions upon the descriptions of himgiven me, first hand, by two experts in psychology, and uponphotographs. In the latter I recognised--though not with the readinessI should have done in the photo's living prototype--the presence of theunknown brain, the grey, silent, stealthy, ever-watchful, ever-lurkingoccult brain. As I gazed at his picture, as in a crystal, it faded away, and I saw the material man sitting alone in his study before a glowingfire. From out of him there crept a shadow, the shadow of something big, bloated, and crawling. I could distinguish nothing further. On reachingthe door it paused, and I felt it was eyeing him--or rather his materialbody--anxiously. Perhaps it feared lest some other shadow, equallybaleful, equally sly and subtle, would usurp its home. Its hesitationwas, however, but momentary, and, passing through the door, it glidedacross the dimly lighted hall and out into the freedom of the open air. Picture succeeding picture with great rapidity, I followed it as itcurled and fawned over the tombstones in more than one churchyard; movedwith a peculiar waddling motion through foul alleys, halting whereverthe garbage lay thickest, rubbed itself caressingly on the gory floorsof slaughter-houses, and finally entered a dark, empty house in a roadthat, if not the Euston Road, was a road in every way resembling it. 

The atmosphere of the place was so suggestive of murder that my soulsickened within me; and so much so, in fact, that when I saw severalgrisly forms gliding down the gloomy staircases and along the sombre, narrow passages, where X----'s immaterial personality was halting, apparently to greet it, I could look no longer, but shut my eyes. Forsome seconds I kept them closed, and, on re-opening them, found thetableau had changed--the material body before the fire was re-animated, and in the depths of the bleared, protruding eyes I saw the creeping, crawling, waddling, enigmatical shadow vibrating with murder. Again thescene changed, and I saw the physical man standing in the middle of abedroom, listening--listening with blanched face and slightly openmouth, a steely glimmer of the superphysical, of the malignant, devilishsuperphysical, in his dilated pupils. What he is anticipating I cannotsay, I dare not think--unless--unless the repetition of a scream; and itcomes--I cannot hear it, but I can feel it, feel the reverberationthrough the crime-kissed walls and vicious, tainted atmosphere. 

Something is at the door--it presses against it; I can catch a glimpseof its head, its face; my blood freezes--it is horrible. It enters theroom, grey and silent--it lays one hand on the man's sleeve and dragshim forward. He ascends to the room above, and, with all the brutalityof those accustomed to the dead and dying, drags the---- But I will notgo on. The grey unknown, the occult something, sternly issues itsdirections, and the merely physical obeys them. It is all over; the plotof the vice elementals has triumphed, and as they gleefully step away, one by one, patting their material comrade on the shoulder, thedarkness, the hellish darkness of that infamous night lightens, and inthrough the windows steal the cold grey beams of early morning. I amassured; I have had enough; I pitch the photograph into the grate. Theevening comes--the evening after the execution. A feeling of thegreatest, the most unenviable curiosity urges me to go, to see if what Isurmise, will actually happen. I leave Gipsy Hill by an early afternoontrain, I spend a few hours at a literary club, I dine at a quiet--aneminently quiet--restaurant in Oxford Street, and at eleven o'clock I amstanding near a spot which I believe--I have no positive proof--I merelybelieve, was frequented by X----. It is more than twelve hours since hewas executed; will anything--will the shape, the personality, Ianticipate--come? The night air grows colder; I shrink deeper and deeperinto the folds of my overcoat, and wish--devoutly wish--myself backagain by my fireside. 

The minutes glide by slowly. The streets are very silent now. With theexception of an occasional toot-toot from a taxi and the shrill whistleof a goods train, no other sounds are to be heard. It is the hour whennearly all material London sleeps and the streets are monopolised byshadows, interspersed with something rather more substantial--namely, policemen. A few yards away from me there slips by a man in a blue sergesuit; and then, tip-toeing surreptitiously behind him, with one hand inhis trousers-pocket and the other carrying a suspicious-looking blackbag, comes a white-faced young man, dressed in shabby imitation of aWest End swell; an ill-fitting frock-coat, which, even in the uncertainflicker of the gas-lamps, pronounces itself to be ready made, and thetypical shopwalker's silk hat worn slightly on one side. Whether thisnight bird goes through life on tiptoe, as many people do, or whetherhe only adopts that fashion on this particular occasion, is a conundrum, not without interest to students of character to whom a man's walkdenotes much. 

For a long time the street is deserted, and then a bedraggled figure ina shawl, with a big paper parcel under her arm, shuffles noiselessly byand disappears down an adjacent turning. Then there is another longinterval, interrupted by a pretentious clock sonorously sounding two. Afeeling of drowsiness creeps over me; my eyelids droop. I begin to losecognisance of my surroundings and to imagine myself in some far-awayplace, when I am recalled sharply to myself by an intensely cold currentof air. Intuitively I recognise the superphysical; it is the samespecies of cold which invariably heralds its approach. I have been rightin my surmises after all; this spot is destined to be haunted. My eyesare wide enough open now, and every nerve in my body tingles with thekeenest expectation. Something is coming, and, if that something is notthe phantasm of him whom I believe is earthbound, whose phantasm is it?There is a slight noise of scratching from somewhere close beside me. Itmight have been the wind rustling the leaves against the masonry, or itmight have been--I look round and see nothing. The sound is repeated andwith the same result--NOTHING! A third time I heard it, and then fromthe dark road on one side of me there waddles--I recognise the waddlingat once--a shadow that, gradually becoming a little more distinct, develops into the rather blurry form of a dog--a gaunt, hungry-lookingmongrel. In a few seconds it stops short and looks at me with bigswollen eyes that glitter with a something that is not actually bestialor savage, something strange yet not altogether strange, somethingenigmatic yet not entirely enigmatic. I am nonplussed; it was, and yetit was not, what I expected. With restless, ambling steps it slinks pastme, disappearing through the closed gate by my side. Then satisfied, yetvaguely puzzled, I come away, wondering, wondering--wondering why onearth dogs should thus be desecrated. 

Contrary to what one would imagine to be the case from the closeassociation of cats with witches and magic, phantasms in a feline formare comparatively rare, and their appearance is seldom, if ever, asrepulsive as that of the occult dog. I have seen phantasm cats severaltimes, but, though they have been abnormally large and alarming, onlyonce--and I am anxious to forget that time--were they anything like asoffensive as many of the ghostly dogs that have manifested themselves tome. In my _Haunted Houses of England and Wales_ I have given an instanceof dual haunting, in which one of the phenomena was a big black cat witha fiendish expression in its eyes, but otherwise normal; and, _à propos_of cats, there now comes back to me a story I was once told in the FarWest--the Golden State of California. I was on my way back to England, after a short but somewhat bitter absence, and I was staying for thenight at a small hotel in San Francisco. The man who related theanecdote was an Australian, born and bred, on his way home to hisnative land after many years' sojourn in Texas. I was sitting on thesofa in the smoke-room reading, when he threw himself down in a chairopposite me and we gradually got into conversation. It was late when webegan talking, and the other visitors, one by one, yawned, rose, andwithdrew to their bedrooms, until we found ourselves alone--absolutelyalone. The night was unusually dark and silent. 

Leaning over the little tile-covered table at which we sat, the strangersuddenly said: "Do you see anything by me? Look hard. " Much surprised athis request, for I confess that up to then I had taken him for a veryordinary kind of person, I looked, and, to my infinite astonishment andawe, saw, floating in mid-air, about two yards from him, and on a levelwith his chair, the shadowy outlines of what looked like an enormouscat--a cat with very little hair and unpleasant eyes--decidedlyunpleasant eyes. My flesh crawled!

"Well?" said the stranger--who, by-the-by, had called himselfGallaher, --in very anxious tones, "Well--you don't seem in a hurry, noryet particularly pleased--what is it?"

"A cat!" I gasped. "A cat--and a cat in mid-air!"

The stranger swore. "D---- it!" he cried, dashing his fist on the tablewith such force that the match-box flew a dozen or so feet up theroom--"Cuss! the infernal thing! I guessed it was near me, I could feelits icy breath!" He glanced sharply round as he spoke, and hurled histobacco pouch at the shape. It passed right through it and fell with asoft squash on the ground. Gallaher picked it up with an oath. "I willtell you the history of that cat, " he went on, as he resumed his seat, "and a d----d queer history it is. "

Pouring himself out a bumper of whisky and refilling his pipe, hecleared his throat and began: "As a boy I always hated cats--God knowswhy--but the sight of a cat made me sick. I could not stand their soft, sleek fur; nor their silly, senseless faces; nor their smell--the smellof their skins, which most people don't seem able to detect. I could, however; I could recognise that d----d scent a mile off, and couldalways tell, without seeing it, when there was a cat in the house. Ifany of the boys at school wanted to play me a trick they let loose halfa dozen mangy tabbies in our yard, or sent me a hideous 'Tom' trussed uplike a fowl in a hamper, or made cats' noises in the dead of night undermy window. Everyone in the village, from the baker to the bone-setter, knew of my hatred of cats, and, consequently, I had manyenemies--chiefly amongst the old ladies. I must tell you, however, muchas I loathed and abominated cats, I never killed one. I threw stones andsticks at them; I emptied jugs, and cans, and many pails of water onthem; I pelted them with turnips; I hurled cushions, bolsters, pillows, anything I could first lay my hands on, at them; and"--here he cast afurtive look at the shadow--"I have pinched and trodden on their tails;but I have never killed one. When I grew up, my attitude towards themremained the same, and wherever I went I won the reputation for beingthe inveterate, the most poignantly inveterate, enemy of cats. 

"When I was about twenty-five, I settled in a part of Texas where therewere no cats. It was on a ranch in the upper valley of the Colorado. Iwas cattle ranching, and having had a pretty shrewd knowledge of thebusiness before I left home, I soon made headway, and--betweenourselves, mate, for there are mighty 'tough uns' in these townhotels--a good pile of dollars. I never had any of the adventures thatbefall most men out West, never but once, and I am coming to that rightaway. 

"I had been selling some hundred head of cattle and about the samenumber of hogs, at a town some twenty or so miles from my ranch, andfeeling I would like a bit of excitement, after so many months ofmonotony--the monotony of the desert life--I turned into the theatre--awooden shanty--where a company of touring players, mostly Yankees, wereperforming. Sitting next to me was a fellow who speedily got intoconversation with me and assured me he was an Australian. I did notbelieve him, for he had not the cut of an Australian, --until hementioned one or two of the streets I knew in Adelaide, and that settledme. We drank to each other's health straight away, and he invited me tosupper at his hotel. I accepted; and as soon as the performance wasover, and we had exchanged greetings with some half-dozen of theperformers, in whisky, he slipped his arm through mine and we strolledoff together. Of course it was very foolish of me, seeing that I had abelt full of money; but then I had not had an outing for a long time, and I thirsted for adventure as I thirsted for whisky, and God aloneknows how much of THAT I had already drunk. We arrived at the hotel. Itwas a poor-looking place in a sinister neighbourhood, abounding withevil-eyed Dagos and cut-throats of all kinds. Still I was young andstrong, and well armed, for I never left home in those days without asix-shooter. My companion escorted me into a low room in the rear of thepremises, smelling villainously of foul tobacco and equally foulalcohol. Some half-cooked slices of bacon and suspicious-looking friedeggs were placed before us, which, with huge hunks of bread and a bottleof very much belabelled--too much belabelled--Highland whisky, completedthe repast. But it was too unsavoury even for my companion, whose hungryeyes and lantern jaws proclaimed he had a ravenous appetite. However, heate the bacon and I the bread; the eggs we emptied into a flower-pot. The supper--the supper of which he had led me to think so much--over, wefilled our glasses, or at least he poured out for both, for his handswere steadier--even in my condition of semi-intoxication I noticed theywere steadier--than mine. Then he brought me a cigar and took me to hisbedroom, a bare, grimy apartment overhead. There was no furniture, saving a bed showing unmistakable signs that someone had been lying onit in dirty boots, a small rectangular deal table, and one chair. 

"In a stupefied condition I was hesitating which of the alternatives tochoose--the chair or the table, for, oddly enough, I never thought ofthe bed, when my host settled the question by leading me forciblyforward and flinging me down on the mattress. He then took a woodenwedge out of his pocket, and, going to the door, thrust it in the crack, giving the handle a violent tug to see whether the door stood the test. 'There now, mate, ' he said with a grin--a grin that seemed to suggestsomething my tipsy brain could not grasp, 'I have just shut us in snugand secure so that we can chat away without fear of interruption. Let usdrink to a comfortable night's sleep. You will sleep sound enough here, I can tell you!' He handed me a glass as he spoke. 'Drink!' he said witha leer. 'You are not half an Australian if you cannot hold that! See!'and pouring himself out a tumbler of spirits and water he was about togulp it down, when I uttered an ejaculation of horror. The light fromthe single gas jet over his head, falling on his face as he lifted it upto drink the whisky, revealed in his wide open, protruding pupils, thereflection of a cat--I can swear it was a cat. Instantly my intoxicationevaporated and I scented danger. How was it I had not noticed beforethat the man was a typical ruffian--a regular street-corner loiterer, waiting, hawklike, to pounce upon and fleece the first well-to-dolooking stranger he saw. Of course I saw it all now like a flash oflightning: he had seen me about the town during the earlier part of theday, had found out I was there on business, that I was an Australian, and one or two other things--it is surprising how soon one's affairs getmooted in a small town, --and guessing I had the receipts of my sales onmy person, had decided to rob me. Accordingly, with this end in view, hehad followed me into the theatre, and, securing the seat next me, hadbroken the ice by pretending he was an Australian. He had then plied mewith drink and brought me, already more than half drunk, to thiscut-throat den. And I owed the discovery to a cat! My first thought wasto feel for my revolver. I did, and found it was--gone. My hopes sank tozero; for though I might have been more than a match for the wiry framedstranger had we both been unarmed, I had not the slightest chance withhim were he armed, as he undoubtedly was, with my revolver as well ashis own. Though it takes some time to explain this, it all passedthrough my mind in a few seconds--before he had finished drinking. 'Now, mate!' he said, putting down his glass, the first WHOLE glass even ofwhisky and water he had taken that night, 'that's my share, now foryours. '

"'Wait a bit!' I stammered, pretending to hiccough, 'wait a bit. I don'tfeel that I can drink any more just yet! Maybe I will in a few minutes. 'We sat down, and I saw protruding from his hip pocket the butt end of arevolver. If only I could get it! Determined to try, I edged slightlytowards him. He immediately drew away, a curious, furtive, bestial smilelurking in the corner of his lips. I casually repeated the manoeuvre, and he just as casually repeated his. Then I glanced at the window--thedoor I knew was hopeless, --and it was iron barred. I gazed again at theman, and his eyes grinned evilly as they met mine. Without a doubt hemeant to murder me. The ghastliness of my position stunned me. Even if Ishrieked for help, who would hear me save desperadoes, in allprobability every whit as ready as my companion to kill me. 

"A hideous stupor now began to assert itself, and as I strained to keepmy lids from closing, I watched with a thrill of terror a fiendish lookof expectancy creep into the white, gleaming face of the stranger. Irealised, only too acutely, that he was waiting for me to fall asleep soas the more conveniently to rob and murder me. The man was a murderer byinstinct--his whole air suggested it--his very breath was impregnatedwith the sickly desire to kill. Physically, he was the ideal assassin. It was strange that I had not observed it before; but in this light, this yellow, piercing glare, all the criminality of his features wasrevealed with damning clearness: the high cheek-bones, the light, protruding eyes, the abnormally developed forehead and temporal regions, the small, weak chin, the grossly irregular teeth, the poisonous breath, the club-shaped finger-tips and thick palms. Where could one find agreater combination of typically criminal characteristics? The man wasmade for destroying his fellow creatures. When would he begin his joband how?

"I am not narrow minded, I can recognise merit even in my enemies; andthough I was so soon to be his victim, I could not but admire thethoroughly professional manner, indicative of past mastership, withwhich he set about his business. So far all his plans, generated withmeteor-like quickness, had been successful; he was now showing howdevoted he was to his vocation, and how richly he appreciated thesituation, by abandoning himself to a short period of greedy, voluptuousanticipation, fully expressed in his staring eyes and thinly lippedmouth, before experiencing the delicious sensation of slitting mywindpipe and dismembering me. My drowsiness, which I verily believe wasin a great measure due to the peculiar fascination he had for me, steadily increased, and it was only with the most desperate efforts, egged on by the knowledge that my very existence depended on it, that Icould keep my eyelids from actually coming together and sticking fast. At last they closed so nearly as to deceive my companion, who, risingstealthily to his feet, showed his teeth in a broad grin ofsatisfaction, and whipping from his coat pocket a glittering, horn-handled knife, ran his dirty, spatulate thumb over the blade to seeif it was sharp. Grinning still more, he now tiptoed to the window, pulled the blind as far down as it would go, and, after placing his earagainst the panel of the door to make sure no one was about, gaily spaton his palms, and, with a soft, sardonic chuckle, crept slowly towardsme. Had he advanced with a war-whoop it would have made little or nodifference--the man and his atmosphere paralysed me--I was held in thechair by iron bonds that swathed themselves round hands, and feet, andtongue. I could neither stir nor utter a sound, --only look, look withall the pent-up agonies of my soul through my burning, quiveringeye-lashes. A yard, a foot, an inch, and the perspiring fingers of hisleft hand dexterously loosened the gaudy coloured scarf that hid mythroat. A second later and I felt them smartly transferred to my long, curly hair. They tightened, and my neck was on the very verge of beingjerked back, when between my quivering eyelids I saw on the sheenysurface of his bulging eye-balls, --the cat--the damnable, hated cat. Theeffect was magical. A wave of the most terrific, the most ungovernablefury surged through me. I struck out blindly, and one of my fistsalighting on the would-be murderer's face made him stagger back and dropthe knife. In an instant the weapon was mine, and ere he could draw hissix-shooter--for the suddenness of the encounter and my blow hadconsiderably dazed him--I had hurled myself upon him, and brought him tothe ground. 

"The force with which I had thrown him, together with my blow, hadstunned him, and I would have left him in that condition had it not beenfor the cat--the accursed cat--that, peeping up at me from everyparticle of his prostrate body, egged me on to kill him. My intenseadmiration for his genius now manifested itself in the way in which Iimitated all his movements, from the visit to the door and window, tothe spitting on his palms; and with a grin--the nearest counterpart thatI could get, after prodigious efforts, to the one that so fascinatedme--I approached his recumbent figure, and, bending over it, removed hisneckerchief. I sat and admired the gently throbbing whiteness of histhroat for some seconds, and then, with a volley of execrations at thecat, commenced my novel and by no means uninteresting work. I am afraidI bungled it sadly, for I was disturbed when in the midst of it, by thesound of scratching, the violent and frantic scratching, of some animalon the upper panels of the door. The sound flustered me, and, my handshaking in consequence, I did not make such a neat job of it as I shouldhave liked. However, I did my best, and at all events I killed him; andI enjoyed the supreme satisfaction of knowing that I had killedhim--killed the cat. But my joy was of short duration, and I nowbitterly regret my rash deed. Wherever I go in the daytime, the shadowyfigure of the cat accompanies me, and at night, crouching on mybedclothes, it watches--watches me with the expression in its eyes andmouth of my would-be murderer on that memorable night. "

As he concluded, for an instant, only for an instant, the shadow by hisside grew clearer, and I saw the cat, saw it watching him with murder, ghastly murder lurking in its eyes. I struck a match, and, as I hadanticipated, the phenomenon vanished. 

"It will return, " the Australian said gloomily; "it always does. I shallnever get rid of it!" And as I fully concurred with this statement, andhad no suggestions to offer, I thanked him for his story, and wished himgood night. But I did not leave him alone. He still had his cat. I sawit return to him as I passed through the doorway. Of course, I had nomeans of verifying his story; it might have been true, or it might not. But there was the cat!--thoroughly objective and as perfect a specimenof a feline, occult bestiality as I have ever seen or wish to see again. 

That a spirit should appear in the form of a pig need not seemremarkable when we remember that those who live foul lives, _i. E. _ thesensual and greedy, must, after death, assume the shape that is mostappropriate to them; indeed, in these circumstances, one might rather besurprised that a phantasm in the shape of a hog is not a more frequentoccurrence. 

There are numerous instances of hauntings by phenomena of this kind, insome cases the phantasms being wholly animal, and in other casessemi-animal. 

What I have said with regard to the phantasms of dogs--namely, thedifficulty, practically the impossibility, of deciding whether themanifestation is due to an elemental or to a spirit of the dead--holdsgood in the case of "pig" as well as every other kind of bestialphenomenon. 

The phantasm in the shape of a horse I am inclined to attribute to theonce actually material horse and not to elementals. 

With regard to phantom birds--and there are innumerable cases of occultbird phenomena--I fancy it is otherwise, and that the majority of birdhauntings are caused either by the spirits of dead people, or by viciousforms of elementals. 

Though one hears of few cases of occult bestialities in the shape oftigers, lions, or any other wild animal--saving bears and wolves, phantasms of which appear to be common--I nevertheless believe, fromhearsay evidence, that they are to be met with in certain of the junglesand deserts in the East, and that for the most part they are thephantasms of the dead animals themselves, still hankering to becruel--still hankering to kill. 

CHAPTER VII

VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC. 

_Vampires_

According to a work by Jos. Ennemoser, entitled _The Phantom World_, Hungary was at one time full of vampires. Between the river Theiss andTransylvania, were (and still are, I believe) a people called Heyducs, who were much pestered with this particularly noxious kind of phantasm. About 1732, a Heyduc called Arnauld Paul was crushed to death by awaggon. Thirty days after his burial a great number of people began todie, and it was then remembered that Paul had said he was tormented by avampire. A consultation was held and it was decided to exhume him. Ondigging up his body, it was found to be red all over and literallybursting with blood, some of which had forced a passage out and wettedhis winding sheet. Moreover, his hair, nails, and beard had grownconsiderably. These being sure signs that the corpse was possessed by avampire, the local bailie was fetched and the usual proceedings for theexpulsion of the undesirable phantasm began. A stake, sharply pointed atone end, was handed to the bailie, who, raising it above his head, drove it with all his might into the heart of the corpse. There thenissued from the body the most fearful screams, whereupon it was at oncethrown into a fire that had been specially prepared for it, and burnedto ashes. But, though this was the end of that particular vampire, itwas by no means the end of the hauntings; for the deaths, far fromdecreasing in number, continued in rapid succession, and no less thanseventeen people in the village died within a period of three months. The question now arose as to which of the other bodies in the cemeterywere "possessed, " it being very evident that more than one vampire layburied there. Whilst the matter was at the height of discussion, thesolution to the problem was brought about thus. A girl, of the name ofStanoska, awoke in the middle of the night, uttering the mostheartrending screams, and declaring that the son of a man called Millo(who had been dead nine weeks) had nearly strangled her. A rush was atonce made to the cemetery, and a general disinterment taking place, seventeen out of the forty corpses (including that of the son of Millo)showed unmistakable signs of vampirism. They were all treated accordingto the mode described, and their ashes cast into the adjacent river. Acommittee of inquiry concluded that the spread of vampirism had been dueto the eating of certain cattle, of which Paul had been the first topartake. The disturbances ceased with the death of the girl and thedestruction of her body, and the full account of the hauntings, attestedto by officers of the local garrison, the chief surgeons, and mostinfluential of the inhabitants of the district, was sent to theImperial Council of War at Venice, which caused a strict inquiry to bemade into the matter, and were subsequently, according to Ennemoser, satisfied that all was _bona fide_. 

In another work, _A History of Magic_, Ennemoser also refers to a casein the village of Kisilova, in Hungary, where the body of an old man, three days after his death, appeared to his son on two consecutivenights, demanding something to eat, and, being given some meat, ate itravenously. The third night the son died, and the succeeding daywitnessed the deaths of some five or six others. The matter was reportedto the Tribunal of Belgrade, which promptly sent two officers to inquireinto the case. On their arrival the old man's grave was opened, and hisbody found to be full of blood and natural respiration. A stake was thendriven through its heart, and the hauntings ceased. 

Though far fewer in number than they were, and more than ever confinedto certain localities, I am quite sure that vampires are by no meansextinct. Their modes and habits--they are no longer gregarious--havechanged with the modes and habits of their victims, but they are nonethe less vampires. Have I seen them? No! but my not having been thusfortunate, or rather unfortunate, does not make me so discourteous as todisbelieve those who tell me that they have seen a vampire--thatpeculiar, indefinably peculiar shape that, wriggling along the groundfrom one tombstone to another, crawls up and over the churchyard wall, and making for the nearest house, disappears through one of its upperwindows. Indeed, I have no doubt that had I watched that house some fewdays afterwards, I should have seen a pale, anæmic looking creature, with projecting teeth and a thoroughly imbecile expression, come out ofit. I believe a large percentage of idiots and imbecile epileptics owetheir pitiable plight to vampires which, in their infancy, they had themisfortune to attract. I do not think that, as of old, the vampires cometo their prey installed in stolen bodies, but that they visit peoplewholly in spirit form, and, with their superphysical mouths, suck thebrain cells dry of intellect. The baby, who is thus the victim of avampire, grows up into something on a far lower scale of intelligencethan dumb animals, more bestial than monkeys, and more dangerous (farmore dangerous, if the public only realised it) than tigers; for, whereas the tiger is content with one square meal a day, the hunger ofvampirism is never satisfied, and the half-starved, mal-shaped braincells, the prey of vampirism, are in a constant state of suction, evertrying to draw in mental sustenance from the healthy brain cells aroundthem. Idiots and epileptics are the cephalopoda of the land--only, ifanything, fouler, more voracious, and more insatiable than their aquaticprototypes. They never ought to be at large. If not destroyed in theirearly infancy (which one cannot help thinking would be the most mercifulplan both for the idiot and the community in general), those polypbrains ought to be kept in some isolated place where they would haveonly each other to feed upon. When I see an idiot walking in thestreets, I always take very good care to give him a wide berth, as Ihave no desire that the vampire buried in his withered brain cellsshould derive any nutrition at my expense. From the fact that some townswhich are close to cromlechs, ancient burial-grounds, woods, or moorsare full of idiots, leads me to suppose that vampires often frequent thesame spots as barrowvians, vagrarians and other types of elementals. Whilst, on the other hand, since many densely crowded centres have fullytheir share of idiots, I am led to believe that vampires are equallyattracted by populous districts, and that, in short, unlike barrowviansand vagrarians, they can be met with pretty nearly everywhere. And nowfor examples. 

A man I know, who spends most of his time in Germany, once had a strangeexperience when staying in the neighbourhood of the Hartz mountains. Onesultry evening in August he was walking in the country, and noticed aperambulator with a white figure, which he took to be that of aremarkably tall nursemaid, bending over it. As he drew nearer, however, he found that he had been mistaken. The figure was nothing human; it hadno limbs; it was cylindrical. A faint, sickly sound of sucking caused myfriend to start forward with an exclamation of horror, and as he did so, the phantasm glided away from the perambulator and disappeared among thetrees. The baby, my friend assured me, was a mere bag of bones, with aghastly, grinning anæmic face. Again, when touring in Hungary, he had asimilar experience. He was walking down a back street in a large, thickly populated town, when he beheld a baby lying on the hot andsticky pavement with a queer-looking object stooping over it. Wonderingwhat on earth the thing was, he advanced rapidly, and saw, to hisunmitigated horror, that it was a phantasm with a limbless, cylindricalbody, a huge flat, pulpy head, and protruding, luminous lips, which weretightly glued to the infant's ears; and again my friend heard a faint, sickly sound of sucking, and a sound more hideously nauseating, heinformed me, could not be imagined. He was too dumbfounded to act; hecould only stare; and the phantasm, after continuing its loathsomeoccupation for some seconds, leisurely arose, and moving away with agliding motion, vanished in the yard of an adjacent house. The child didnot appear to be human, but a concoction of half a dozen diminutivebestialities, and as my friend gazed at it, too fascinated for themoment to tear himself away, it smiled up at him with the hungry, leering smile of vampirism and idiocy. 

So much for vampires in the country and in crowded cities, but, as Ihave already remarked, they are ubiquitous. As an illustration, there issaid to be a maritime town in a remote part of England, which, besidesbeing full of quaintness (of a kind not invariably pleasant) and of foulsmells, is also full of more than half-savage fishermen and idiots;idiots that often come out at dusk, and greatly alarm strangers byrunning after them. 

Some years ago, one of these idiots went into a stranger's house, took anoisy baby out of its cot, and after tubbing it well (which I thinkshowed that the idiot possessed certain powers of observation), cut offits head, throwing the offending member into the fire. The parents werenaturally indignant, and so were some of the inhabitants; but the affairwas speedily forgotten, and although the murderer was confined to alunatic asylum, nothing was done to rid the town of other idiots whowere, collectively, doing mischief of a nature far more serious thanthat of the recently perpetrated murder. 

The wild and rugged coast upon which the town is situated was formerlythe hunting-ground of wreckers, and I fear the present breed offishermen, in spite of their hypocritical pretensions to religion, proveonly too plainly by their abominable cruelty to birds and inhospitabletreatment of strangers, that they are in reality no better than theirforbears. This inherited strain of cruelty in the fishermen would aloneaccount for the presence of vampires and every other kind of viciouselemental; but the town has still another attraction--namely, aprehistoric burial-ground, on a wide expanse of thinly populatedmoorland--in its rear. 

_À propos_ of vampires, my friend Mrs South writes to me as follows (Iquote her letter _ad verbum_): "The other night, I was dining with avery old friend of mine whom I had not seen for years, and, during apause in the conversation, he suddenly said, 'Do you believe invampires?' I wondered for a moment if he had gone mad, and I think, inmy matter-of-fact way, I blurted out something of the sort; but I saw ina moment, from the expression in his eyes, that he had something totell me, and that he was not at all in the mood to be laughed at ormisunderstood, 'Tell me, ' I said, 'I am listening. ' 'Well, ' he replied, 'I had an extraordinary experience a few months ago, and not a word ofit have I breathed to any living soul. But sometimes the horror of it sooverpowers me that I feel I must share my secret with someone; andyou--well, you and I have always been such pals. ' I answered nothing, but gently pressed his hand. 

"After lighting a cigarette, he commenced his story, which I will giveyou as nearly as possible in his own words:--

"'It is about six months ago since I returned from my travels. Up tothat time I had been away from England for nearly three years, as youknow. About a couple of nights after my return, I was dining at my Club, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round, I saw my oldfriend S----. 

"'As I had no idea he was in London, you may imagine my delight. Hejoined me at dinner and we went over old times together. He asked me ifI had heard anything of our mutual friend G----, to whom we were bothvery much attached. I said I had had a few lines from him about sixmonths previously, announcing his marriage, but that I had never heardfrom him nor seen him since. He had settled, I believe, in the heart ofthe country. S---- then told me that he had not seen G---- since hisengagement, neither had he heard from him; in fact he had written to himonce or twice, but his letters had received no answer. There werewhispered rumours that he was looking ill and unhappy. Hearing this, Igot G----'s address from S----, and made up my mind I would run down andsee him as soon as I could get away from town. 

"'About a week afterwards I found myself, after driving an interminabledistance, so it seemed to me, through Devonshire lanes, stopping outsidea beautiful house which appeared to be entirely isolated from any otherdwelling. 

"'A few more minutes and I was standing before a blazing log fire in afine old hall, eagerly awaiting the welcome I knew my old friend wouldgive me. I did not anticipate long; in less time than it takes to tellG---- appeared, and with slow, painfully slow steps, crossed the hall togreet me. He was wasted to a shadow, and I felt a lump rise in my throatas I thought of the splendid, athletic boy I used to know. He made noexcuse for his wife, who did not accompany him; and though I wasnaturally anxious to see her, I was glad that Jack and I were alone. Wechatted together utterly regardless of the time, and it was not untilthe first gong had sounded that I thought of dressing for dinner. Afterperforming a somewhat hurried toilette, I was hastening downstairs, whenI suddenly became conscious that I was being watched. I looked all roundand could see no one. I then heard a low, musical laugh just above myhead, and looking up, I saw a figure leaning over the banisters. Thebeauty of the face dazzled me for a moment, and the loveliness of theeyes, which looked into mine and seemed to shine a red gold, held mespellbound. Presently a voice, every whit as lovely as the face, said:"So you are Jack's chum?" The most beautiful woman I have ever seen thencame slowly down the stairs, and slipping her arm through mine, led meto the dining-room. As her hand rested on my coat-sleeve, I remembernoticing that the fingers were long, and thin, and pointed, and thenails so polished that they almost shone red. Indeed, I could not helpfeeling somewhat puzzled by the fact that everything about her shone redwith the exception of her skin, which, with an equal brilliancy, shonewhite. At dinner she was lively, but she ate and drank very sparingly, and as though food was loathsome to her. 

"'Soon after dinner I felt so exceedingly tired and sleepy, a mostunusual thing for me, that I found it absolutely impossible to keepawake, and consequently asked my host and hostess to excuse me. I wokenext morning feeling languid and giddy, and, while shaving, I noticed acurious red mark at the base of my neck. I imagined I must have cutmyself shaving hurriedly the evening before, and thought nothing moreabout it. 

"'The following night, after dinner, I experienced the same sensation ofsleepiness, and felt almost as if I had been drugged. It was impossiblefor me to keep awake, so I again asked to be excused! On this occasion, after I had retired, a curious thing happened. I dreamed--or at least Isuppose I dreamed--that I saw my door slowly open, and the figure of awoman carrying a candle in one hand, and with the other carefullyshading the flame, glide noiselessly into my room. She was clad in aloose red gown, and a great rope of hair hung over one shoulder. Againthose red-gold eyes looked into mine; again I heard that low musicallaugh; and this time I felt powerless either to speak or to move. Sheleaned down, nearer and nearer to me; her eyes gradually assumed afiendish and terrible expression; and with a sucking noise, which washorrible to hear, she fastened her crimson lips to the little wound inmy neck. I remembered nothing more until the morning. The place on myneck, I thought, looked more inflamed, and as I looked at it, my dreamcame vividly back to me and I began to wonder if after all it was only adream. I felt frightfully rotten, so rotten that I decided to return totown that day; and yet I yielded to some strange fascination, anddetermined, after all, to stay another night. At dinner I dranksparingly; and, making the same excuse as on the previous nights, Iretired to bed at an early hour. I lay awake until midnight, waiting forI know not what; and was just thinking what a mad fool I was, whensuddenly the door gently opened and again I saw Jack's wife. Slowly shecame towards me, gliding as stealthily and noiselessly as a snake. Iwaited until she leaned over me, until I felt her breath on my cheek, and then--then flung my arms round her. I had just time to see the madterror in her eyes as she realised I was awake, and the next instant, like an eel, she had slipped from my grasp, and was gone. I never sawher again. I left early the next morning, and I shall never forget dearold Jack's face when I said good-bye to him. It is only a few days sinceI heard of his death. '"

_Were-wolves_

Closely allied to the vampire is the were-wolf, which, however, insteadof devouring the intellect of human beings, feeds only on their flesh. Like the vampire, the were-wolf belongs to the order of elementals; but, unlike the vampire, it is confined to a very limited sphere--the wildsof Norway, Sweden, and Russia, and only appears in two guises, that of ahuman being in the daytime and a wolf at night. I have closelyquestioned many people who have travelled in those regions, but very fewof them--one or two at the most--have actually come in contact withthose to whom the existence of the were-wolf is not a fable but a fact. One of these travellers, a mere acquaintance whom I met in an hotel inthe Latin Quarter of Paris, assured me that the authenticity of a storyhe would tell me, relating to the were-wolf, was, in the neighbourhoodthrough which he travelled, never for a single moment doubted. 

My informant, a highly cultured Russian, spoke English, French, German, and Italian with as great fluency as I spoke my native tongue, and Ibelieved him to be perfectly genuine. The incident he told me, to whichunanimous belief was accredited, happened to two young men (whom I willcall Hans and Carl), who were travelling to Nijni Novgorod, a city inthe province of Tobolsk. The route they took was off the beaten track, and led them through a singularly wild and desolate tract of country. One evening, when they were trotting mechanically along, their horsessuddenly came to a standstill and appeared to be very much frightened. They inquired of the driver the reason of such strange behaviour, and hepointed with his whip to a spot on the ice--they were then crossing afrozen lake--a few feet ahead of them. They got out of the sleigh, and, approaching the spot indicated, found the body of a peasant lying on hisback, his throat gnawed away and all his entrails gone. "A wolf withouta doubt, " they said, and getting back into the sleigh, they drove on, taking good care to see that their rifles were ready for instant action. They had barely gone a mile when the horses again halted, and a secondcorpse was discovered, the corpse of a child with its face and thighsentirely eaten away. Again they drove on, and had progressed a few moremiles when the horses stopped so abruptly that the driver was pitchedbodily out; and before Carl and Hans could dismount, the brutes startedoff at a wild gallop. They were eventually got under control, but it waswith the greatest difficulty that they were forced to turn round and goback, in order to pick up the unfortunate driver. The farther they went, the more restless they became, and when, at length, they approached theplace where the driver had been thrown, they came to a sudden andresolute standstill. As no amount of whipping would now make them go on, Hans got out, and advancing a few steps, espied something lying acrossthe track some little distance ahead of them. Gun in hand, he advanceda few more steps, when he suddenly stopped. To his utter amazement hesaw, bending over a body, which he at once identified as that of theirdriver, the figure of a woman. She started as he approached, and, hastily springing up, turned towards him. The strange beauty of herface, her long, lithe limbs (she stood fully six feet high) and slenderbody, --the beauty of the latter enhanced by the white woollen costume inwhich she was clad, --had an extraordinary effect upon Hans. Her shiningmasses of golden hair, that curled in thick clusters over her foreheadand about her ears; the perfect regularity of her features, and thelustrous blue of her eyes, enraptured him; whilst the expression both inher face and figure--in her sparkling eyes and firmly modelled mouth; inher red lips, and even in her pearly teeth, repulsed and almostfrightened him. He gazed steadily at her, and, as he did so, the hold onhis rifle involuntarily tightened. He then glanced from her face to herhands, and noticed with a spasm of horror that the tips of her long andbeautifully shaped nails were dripping with blood, and that there wasblood, too, on her knees and feet, blood all over her. He then looked atthe driver and saw the wretched man's clothes had been partiallystripped off, and that there were great gory holes in his throat andabdomen. 

"Oh, I am so glad you have come!" the woman cried, addressing him in astrangely peculiar voice, that thrilled him to the marrow of his bones. "It is the wolves. Do come and see what they have done. I saw them, froma distance, attack this poor man, and leaving my sleigh, for my horsescame to a dead halt, and nothing I could do would induce them to move, Iran to his assistance. But, alas! I was too late!" Then, looking at herdress, from which Hans could scarcely remove his eyes, she cried out:"Ugh! How disgusting--blood! My hands and clothes are covered with it. Itried to stop the bleeding, but it was no use"; and she proceeded towipe her fingers on the snow. 

"But why did you venture here alone?" Hans inquired, "and why unarmed?How foolhardy! The wolves would have made short work of you had youencountered them!"

"Then you cannot have heard the report of my gun!" the woman cried, inwell-feigned astonishment. "How strange! I fired at the wolves from overthere"; and she pointed with one of her slender, milky-white fingers toa spot on the ice some fifty yards away. "Fortunately, they all madeoff, " she continued, "and I hastened hither, dropping my gun that Imight run the faster. "

"I can see no gun, " Hans exclaimed, shading his eyes with his hand andstaring hard. 

The woman laughed. "What a disbelieving Jew it is!" she said. "The gunis there; I can see it plainly. You must be short-sighted. " And then, straining her eyes on the far distance, she shrieked: "Great Heavens! Mysleigh has gone! Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?"

Giving way to every gesture of despair, she looked so forlorn andbeautiful that Hans would have been full of pity for her, had notcertain vague suspicions, which he could neither account for norovercome, entered his heart. Sorely perplexed, he did not know what todo, and stood looking at her in critical silence. 

"Won't you come with me?" she said, clasping her hands beseechingly. "Come with me to look for it. The horses may only have strayed a shortdistance, and we might overtake them without much difficulty. "

As she spoke thus, her piercing, earnest gaze thrilled him to the verysoul, and his heart rose in rebellion against his reason. He had seenmany fair women, but assuredly none as fair as this one. What eyes! Whathair! What a complexion! What limbs! It seemed to him that she was notlike ordinary women, that she was not of the same flesh and blood as anyof the women he had ever met, and that she was in reality something farsuperior; something generated by the primitive glamour of the starrynight, of the great, sparkling, ice-covered lake, and the lone, snow-capped peaks beyond. And all the while he was thinking thus, andunconsciously coming under the spell of her weird beauty, the womancontinued to gaze entreatingly at him from under the long lashes whichswept her cheeks. At last he could refuse her no longer--he would havegone to hell with her had she asked it--and shouting to Carl to remainwhere he was, he bade her lead the way. Setting off with long, quickstrides that made Hans wonder anew, she soon put a considerable distancebetween herself and companion, and Carl. Hans now perceived a change;the sky grew dark, the clouds heavy, and the farther they went, the moreperceptible this change became. The brightness and sense of joy in theair vanished, and, with its dissipation, came a chill and melancholywind that rose from the bosom of the lake and swept all around them, moaning and sighing like a legion of lost souls. 

But Hans, who came of a military stock, feared little, and, with hisbeautiful guide beside him, would cheerfully have faced a thousanddevils. He had no eyes for anything save her, no thought of anything buther, and when she sidled up to him, playfully fingering his gun, heallowed her to take it from him and do what she liked with it. Indeed, he was so absorbed in the contemplation of her marvellous beauty, thathe did not perceive her deftly unload his rifle and throw it from her onthe ice; nor did he take any other notice than to think it a verypretty, playful trick when she laughingly caught his two hands, andbound them securely together behind his back. He was still drinking inthe wondrous beauty of her eyes, when she suddenly slipped one of herpretty, shapely feet between his, and with a quick, subtle movement, tripped him and threw him to the ground. There was a dull crash, and, amid the hundred and one sounds that echoed and re-echoed through hishead as it came in contact with the ice, he seemed to hear the far-offpatter of horses' hoofs. Then something deliciously soft and cooltouched his throat, and opening his eyes, he found his beautifulcompanion bending over him and undoing the folds of his woollenneckerchief with her shapely fingers. For such an experience he wouldfall and faint till further orders. He sought her eyes, and all butfainted again--the expression in them appalled him. They were no longerthose of a woman but a devil, a horrible, sordid devil that hungered notmerely for his soul, but for his flesh and blood. Then, in a second, heunderstood it all--she was a were-wolf, one of those ghastly creatureshe had hitherto scoffingly attributed to the idle superstitions of thepeasants. It was she who had mutilated the bodies they had passed on theroad; it was she who had killed and half-eaten their driver; it wasshe--but he could think no more, it was all too horrible, and therevulsion of his feelings towards her clogged his brain. He longed tograpple with her, strangle her, and he could do nothing. The bare touchof those fingers--those cool, white, tapering fingers, with their long, shining filbert nails, all ready and eager to tear and rend his flesh topieces--had taken all the life from his limbs, and he could only gazefeebly at her and damn her from the very bottom of his soul. One by one, more swiftly now, she unfastened the buttons of his coat and vest andthen, baring her cruel teeth with a soft gurgle of excitement, and asmack of her red glistening lips, she prepared to eat him. Strangelyenough, he experienced no pain as her nails sank into the flesh of histhroat and chest and clawed it asunder. He was numb, numb with thenumbness produced by hypnotism or paralysis--only some of his facultieswere awake, vividly, startlingly awake. He was abruptly roused from thisstate by the dull crack of a rifle, and an agonising, blood-curdlingscream, after which he knew no more till he found himself sittingupright on the ice, gulping down brandy, his throat a mass of bandages, and Carl kneeling beside him. 

"Where is she?" he asked, and Carl pointed to an object on the ice. Itwas the body of a huge white wolf, with half its head blown away. 

"An explosive bullet, " Carl said grimly. "I thought I would make certainof the beast, even at the risk of hurting you; and, mein Gott! it was anear shave! You have lost some of your hair, but nothing more. When Isaw you go away with the woman, I guessed something was up. I did notlike the look of her at all; she was a giantess, taller than any woman Ihave ever seen; and the way she had you in tow made me decidedlyuncomfortable. Consequently, I followed you at a distance, and when Isaw her trip you, I lashed up our horses and came to your rescue as fastas I could. Unfortunately, I had to dismount when I was still somedistance off, as no amount of lashing would induce the horses toapproach you nearer, and after arriving within range, it took me someseconds to get my rifle ready and select the best position for a shot. But, thank God! I was just in time, and, beyond a few scratches, you areall right. Shall we leave the beast here or take it with us?"

"We will do neither, " Hans said, with a shudder, whilst a new and sadexpression stole into his eyes. "I cannot forget it was once a woman!and, my God! what a woman! We will bury her here in the ice. "

The story here terminated, and from the fact that I have heard otherstories of a similar nature, I am led to believe that there is in thisone some substratum of truth. Were-wolves are not, of course, alwaysprepossessing; they vary considerably. Moreover, they are not restrictedto one sex, but are just as likely to be met with in the guise of boysand men as of girls and women. 

_Fox-women_

Very different from this were-wolf, though also belonging to the greatfamily of elementals, are the fox-women of Japan and China, about whichmuch has been written, but about which, apparently, very little isknown. 

In China the fox was (and in remote parts still is) believed to attainthe age of eight hundred or a thousand years. At fifty it can assume theform of a woman, and at one hundred that of a young and lovely girl, called Kao-Sai, or "Our Lady. " On reaching the thousand years' limit, itgoes to Paradise without physical dissolution. I have questioned manyChinese concerning these fox-women, but have never been able to get anyvery definite information. One Chinaman, however, assured me that hisbrother had actually seen the transmigration from fox to woman takeplace. The man's name I have forgotten, but I will call him Ching Kang. Well, Ching Kang was one day threading his way through a lovely valleyof the Tapa-ling mountains, when he came upon a silver (_i. E. _ white)fox crouching on the bank of a stream in such a peculiar attitude thatChing Kang's attention was at once arrested. Thinking that the animalwas ill, and delighted at the prospect of lending it aid, for silverfoxes are regarded as of good omen in China, Ching Kang approached it, and was about to examine it carefully, when to his astonishment he foundhe could not move--he was hypnotised. But although his limbs wereparalysed, his faculties were wonderfully active, and his heart almostceased beating when he saw the fox slowly begin to get bigger andbigger, until at last its head was on a level with his own. There wasthen a loud crash, its skin burst asunder, and there stepped out of itthe form of a girl of such entrancing beauty that Ching Kang thought hemust be in Heaven. She was fairer than most Chinese women; her eyes wereblue instead of brown, and her shapely hands and feet were of milkywhiteness. She was gaily dressed in blue silk, with earrings andbracelets of blue stone, and carried in one of her hands a blue fan. With a wave of her slender palms she released Ching Kang from his spell, and, bidding him follow her, plunged into a thick clump of bushes. Madlyinfatuated, Ching Kang needed no second bidding, but, keeping close toher heels, stolidly pushed his way through barricades of brambles that, whilst yielding to her touch, closed on him and beat him on the face andbody so unmercifully that in a very short time he was barelyrecognisable, being literally bathed in blood. However, despite hiswounds increasing and multiplying with every step he took, and naturallycausing him the most excruciating agony, Ching Kang never, for oneinstant, thought of turning back; he always kept within touchingdistance of the blue form in front of him. But at last human naturecould stand it no longer; his strength gave way, and as with a madshriek of despair he implored her to stop, his senses left him and hefell in a heap to the ground. When he recovered he was lying alone, quite alone in the middle of the road, exactly opposite the spot wherehe had first seen the fox, and by his side was a fan, a blue fan. Picking it up sadly, he placed it near his heart (where it remained tothe very day of his death), and with one last lingering look at the bankof the stream, he continued his solitary journey. 

This was Ching Kang's story. His brother did not think he ever met thefox-woman again. He believed Ching Kang was still searching for her whenhe died. 

CHAPTER VIII

DEATH WARNINGS AND FAMILY GHOSTS

Candles are very subject to psychic influences. Many years ago, when Iwas a boy, I was sitting in a room with some very dear friends of mine, when one of them, suddenly turning livid, pointed at the candle, andwith eyes starting out of their sockets, screamed, "A winding-sheet! Awinding-sheet! See! it is pointing at me!" We were all so frightened bythe suddenness of her action, that for some seconds no one spoke, butall sat transfixed with horror, gaping at the candle. "It must be mybrother Tom, " she continued, "or Jack. Can't you see it?" Then, oneafter another, we all examined the candle and discovered that what shesaid was quite true--there was an unmistakable winding-sheet in the wax, and it emphatically pointed in her direction. Nor were her surmisings invain, for the next morning she received a telegram to say her brotherTom had died suddenly. I am sceptical with regard to somemanifestations, but I certainly do believe in this one, and I oftenregard my candle anxiously, fearing that I may see a winding-sheet init. 

To have three candles lighted at the same time is also an omen ofdeath, and as I have known it to be fulfilled in several cases within myown experience, I cannot help regarding it as one of the most certain. 

I am sometimes informed of the advent of the occult in a very startlingmanner--my candle burns blue. It has done this when I have been sittingalone in my study, at night, writing. I have been busily engaged penningdescriptions of the ghosts I and others have seen, when I have beenstartled by the fact that my paper, originally white, has suddenlybecome the colour of the sky, and on looking hastily up to discover areason, have been in no small measure shocked to see my candle burning abright blue. An occult manifestation of sorts has invariably followed. Iam often warned of the near advent of the occult in this same mannerwhen I am investigating in a haunted house--the flame of the candleburns blue before the appearance of the ghost. It is, by the way, anerror to think that different types of phantasms can only appear incertain colours--colours that are peculiar to them. I have seen the samephenomenon manifest itself in half a dozen different colours, and blueis as often adopted by the higher types of spirits as by the lower, andis, in fact, common to both. I have little patience with occultists whodraw hard and fast lines, and, ignoring everybody else's experiences, presume to diagnose within the narrow limits of their own. No one can asyet say anything for certain with regard to the superphysical, and thestatements of the most humble psychic investigator, provided he has hadactual experience, and is genuine, are just as worthy of attention asthose of the most eminent exponents of theosophy or spiritualism, or ofany learned member of the Psychical Research Societies. The occult doesnot reveal itself to the rich in preference to the poor, and, formanifestation, is not more partial to the Professor of Physics and Lawthan to the Professor of Nothing--other than keen interest and commonsense. 

_Corpse-candles_

In Wales there are corpse-candles. According to the account of the Rev. Mr Davis in a work by T. Charley entitled _The Invisible World_, corpse-candles are so called because their light resembles a materialcandle-light, and might be mistaken for the same, saving that whenanyone approaches them they vanish, and presently reappear. If thecorpse-candle be small, pale, or bluish, it denotes the death of aninfant; if it be big, the death of an adult is foretold; and if thereare two, three, or more candle-lights, varying in size, then the deathsare predicted of a corresponding number of infants and adults. "Oflate, " the Rev. Mr Davis goes on to say (I quote him _ad verbum_), "mysexton's wife, an aged, understanding woman, saw from her bed a littlebluish candle upon her table: within two or three days after comes afellow in, inquiring for her husband, and, taking something from underhis cloak, clapt it down directly upon the table end where she had seenthe candle; and what was it but a dead-born child? Another time, thesame woman saw such another candle upon the other end of the sametable: within a few days later, a weak child, by myself newlychristened, was brought into the sexton's house, where presently hedied; and when the sexton's wife, who was then abroad, came home, shefound the women shrouding the child on that other end of the table whereshe had seen the candle. On a time, myself and a huntsman coming fromour school in England, and being three or four hours benighted ere wecould reach home, saw such a light, which, coming from a house we wellknew, held its course (but not directly) in the highway to church:shortly after, the eldest son in that house died, and steered the samecourse. .. . About thirty-four or thirty-five years since, one Jane Wyatt, my wife's sister, being nurse to Baronet Rud's three eldest children, and (the lady being deceased) the lady of the house going late into achamber where the maid-servants lay, saw there no less than five ofthese lights together. It happened awhile after, the chamber being newlyplastered, and a great grate of coal-fire therein kindled to hasten thedrying up of the plastering, that five of the maid-servants went thereto bed as they were wont; but in the morning they were all dead, beingsuffocated in their sleep with the steam of the newly tempered lime andcoal. This was at Llangathen in Carmarthen. "

So wrote the Rev. Mr Davis, and in an old number of _Frazer's Journal_ Icame across the following account of death-tokens, which, although notexactly corpse-candles, might certainly be classed in the same category. It ran thus:

"In a wild and retired district in North Wales, the followingoccurrence took place, to the great astonishment of the mountaineers. Wecan vouch for the truth of the statement, as many of our own teutu, orclan, were witnesses of the facts. On a dark evening a few weeks ago, some persons, with whom we are well acquainted, were returning toBarmouth on the south or opposite side of the river. As they approachedthe ferry house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, theyobserved a light near the house, which they conjectured to be producedby a bonfire, and greatly puzzled they were to discover the reason whyit should have been lighted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished;and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they were surprisedto learn that not only had the people there displayed no light, but theyhad not even seen one; nor could they perceive any signs of it on thesands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was mentioned, and thefact corroborated by some of the people there, who had also plainly anddistinctly seen the light. It was settled, therefore, by some of the oldfishermen that this was a death-token; and, sure enough, the man whokept the ferry at that time was drowned at high water a few nightsafterwards, on the very spot where the light was seen. He was landingfrom the boat, when he fell into the water, and so perished. The samewinter the Barmouth people, as well as the inhabitants of the oppositebank, were struck by the appearance of a number of small lights, whichwere seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn, about half amile from the town. A great number of people came out to see theselights; and after awhile they all but one disappeared, and this oneproceeded slowly towards the water's edge to a little bay where someboats were moored. The men in a sloop which was anchored near the spotsaw the light advancing, they saw it also hover for a few seconds overone particular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or three daysafterwards, the man to whom that particular boat belonged was drowned inthe river, while he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in that veryboat. "

As the corpse-candle is obviously a phantasm whose invariable custom isto foretell death, it must, I think, be classified with that species ofelementals which I have named--for want of a more appropriatetitle--CLANOGRIAN. CLANOGRIANS embrace every kind of national and familyghost, such as The White Owl of the Arundels, the Drummer of theAirlies, and the Banshee of the O'Neills and O'Donnells. 

With regard to the origin of corpse-candles, as of all otherclanogrians, one can only speculate. The powers that govern thesuperphysical world have much in their close keeping that theyabsolutely refuse to disclose to mortal man. Presuming, however, thatcorpse-candles and all sorts of family ghosts are analogous, I shouldsay that the former are spirits which have attached themselves tocertain localities, either owing to some great crime or crimes havingbeen committed there in the past, or because at some still more remoteperiod the inhabitants of those parts--the Milesians and Nemedhians, theearly ancestors of the Irish, dabbled in sorcery. 

_Fire-coffins_

Who has not seen all manner of pictures in the fire? Who has not seen, or fancied he has seen, a fire-coffin? A fire-coffin is a bit of red-hotcoal that pops mysteriously out of the grate in the rude shape of acoffin, and is prophetic of death, not necessarily the death of thebeholder, but of someone known to him. 

_The Death-watch_

Though this omen in a room is undoubtedly due to the presence in thewoodwork of the wall of a minute beetle of the timber-boring genusANOBIUM, it is a strange fact that its ticking should only be heardbefore the death of someone, who, if not living in the house, isconnected with someone who does live in it. From this fact, one is ledto suppose that this minute beetle has an intuitive knowledge ofimpending death, as is the case with certain people and also certainanimals. 

The noise is said to be produced by the beetle raising itself upon itshind legs (see _Popular Errors explained_, by John Timbs), with the bodysomewhat inclined, and beating its head with great force and agilityupon the plane of position; and its strokes are so powerful as to beheard from some little distance. It usually taps from six to twelvetimes in succession, then pauses, and then recommences. It is an errorto suppose it only ticks in the spring, for I know those who have heardits ticking at other, and indeed, at all times in the year. 

_Owls_

Owls have always been deemed psychic, and they figure ominously in thefolk-lore of many countries. I myself can testify to the fact that theyare often the harbinger of death, as I have on several occasions beenpresent when the screeching of an owl, just outside the window, hasoccurred almost coincident with the death of someone, nearly relatedeither to myself or to one of my companions. That owls have the facultyof "scenting the approach of death" is to my mind no mere idlesuperstition, for we constantly read about them hovering around gibbets, and they have not infrequently been known to consummate Heaven's wrathby plucking out the eyes of the still living murderers and feeding ontheir brains. That they also have tastes in common with the leastdesirable of the occult world may be gathered from the fact that theyshow a distinct preference for the haunts of vagrarians, barrowvians, and other kinds of elementals; and even the worthy Isaiah goes so far asto couple them with satyrs. 

Occasionally, too, as in the case of the Arundels of Wardour, where awhite owl is seen before the death of one of the family, they performthe function of clanogrians. 

_Ravens_

A close rival of the owl in psychic significance is the raven, thesubtle, cunning, ghostly raven that taps on window-panes and croaksdismally before a death or illness. I love ravens--they have thegreatest fascination for me. Years ago I had a raven, but, alas! onlyfor a time, a very short time. It came to me one gloomy night, when thewind was blowing and the rain falling in cataracts. I was at thetime--and as usual--writing ghost tales. Thought I to myself, this ravenis just what I want; I will make a great friend of it, it shall sit atmy table while I write and inspire me with its eyes--its esoteric eyesand mystic voice. I let it in, gave it food and shelter, and we settleddown together, the raven and I, both revellers in the occult, bothlovers of solitude. But it proved to be a worthless bird, a shallow, empty-minded, shameless bird, and all I gleaned from it was--idleness. It made me listless and restless; it filled me with cravings, not forwork, but for nature, for the dark open air of night-time, for the vastloneliness of mountains, the deep secluded valleys, the rushing, foamingflow of streams, and for woods--ah! how I love the woods!--woods full ofstalwart oaks and silvery beeches, full of silent, moon-kissed glades, nymphs, sirens, and pixies. Ah! how I longed for all these, and morebesides--for anything and everything that appertained neither to man norhis works. Then I said good-bye to the raven, and, taking it with me tothe top of a high hill, let it go. Croaking, croaking, croaking it flewaway, without giving me as much as one farewell glance. 

_Mermaids_

Who would not, if they could, believe in mermaids? Surely all save thosewho have no sense of the beautiful--of poetry, flowers, painting, music, romance; all save those who have never built fairy castles in the airnor seen fairy palaces in the fire; all save those whose minds, steepedin money-making, are both sordid and stunted. That mermaids did exist, and more or less in legendary form, I think quite probable, for I feelsure there was a time in the earth's history when man was in much closertouch with the superphysical than he is at present. They may, I think, be classified with pixies, nymphs, and sylphs, and other pleasant typesof elementals that ceased to fraternise with man when he became moreplentiful and forsook the simple mode of living for the artificial. 

Pixies, nymphs, sylphs, and other similar kinds of fairies are allharmless and benevolent elementals, and I believe they were all fond ofvisiting this earth, but that they seldom visit it now, only appearingat rare intervals to a highly favoured few. 

_The Wandering Jew_

No story fascinated me more when I was a boy than that of Ahasuerus, theWandering Jew. How vividly I saw him--in my mental vision--with hishooked nose, and wild, dark eyes, gleaming with hatred, cruelty, andterror, spit out his curses at Christ and frantically bid him begone!And Christ! How plainly I saw Him, too, bathed in the sweat of agony, stumbling, staggering, reeling, and tottering beneath the cross he hadto carry! And then the climax--the calm, biting, damning climax. "Tarrythou till I come!" How distinctly I heard Christ utter those words, andwith what relief I watched the pallor of sickly fear and superstitionsteal into the Jew's eyes and overspread his cheeks! And he is said tobe living now! Periodically he turns up in some portion or other of theglobe, causing a great sensation. And many are the people who claim tohave met him--the man whom no prison can detain, no fetters hold; whocan reel off the history of the last nineteen hundred odd years with themost minute fluency, and with an intimate knowledge of men and thingslong since dead and forgotten. Ahasuerus, still, always, everAhasuerus--no matter whether we call him Joseph, Cartaphilus, orSalathiel, his fine name and guilty life stick to him--he can get rid ofneither. For all time he is, and must be, Ahasuerus, the WanderingJew--the Jew Christ damned. 

_Attendant Spirits_

I believe that, from the moment of our birth, most, if not all of us, have our attendant spirits, namely, a spirit sent by the higher occultpowers that are in favour of man's spiritual progress, whose function itis to guide us in the path of virtue and guard us from physical danger, and a spirit sent by the higher occult powers that are antagonistic toman's spiritual progress, whose function it is to lead us into all sortsof mental, moral, and spiritual evil, and also to bring about our pathsome bodily harm. The former is a benevolent elemental, well known tothe many, and termed by them "Our Guardian Angel"; the latter is a viceelemental, equally well known perhaps, to the many, and termed by them"Our Evil Genie. " The benevolent creative powers and the evil creativepowers (in whose service respectively our attendant spirits areemployed) are for ever contending for man's superphysical body, and itis, perhaps, only in the proportion of our response to the influences ofthese attendant spirits, that we either evolve to a higher spiritualplane, or remain earth-bound. I, myself, having been through manyvicissitudes, feel that I owe both my moral and physical preservationfrom danger entirely to the vigilance of my guardian attendant spirit. Iwas once travelling in the United States at the time of a great railwaystrike. The strikers held up my train at Crown Point, a few milesoutside Chicago; and as I was forced to take to flight, and leave mybaggage (which unfortunately contained all my ready money), I arrived inChicago late at night without a cent on me. Beyond the clothes I had on, I had nothing; consequently, on my presenting myself at a hotel with therequest for a night's lodging, I was curtly refused. One hotel afteranother, one house after another, I tried, but always with the sameresult; having no luggage, and being unable to pay a deposit, no onewould take me. The night advanced; the streets became rougher androugher, for Chicago just then was teeming with the scum of the earth, ruffians of every description, who would cheerfully have cut any man'sthroat simply for the sake of his clothes. All around me was a sea ofswarthy faces with insolent, sinister eyes that flashed and glittered inthe gaslight. I was pushed, jostled, and cursed, and the bare thought ofhaving to spend a whole night amid such a foul, cut-throat horde filledme with dismay. Yet what could I do? Clearly nothing, until the morning, when I should be able to explain my position to the British Consul. Theknowledge that in all the crises through which I had hitherto passed, myguardian spirit had never deserted me, gave me hope, and I prayeddevoutly that it would now come to my assistance and help me to get tosome place of shelter. 

Time passed, and as my prayers were not answered, I repeated them withincreased vigour. Then, quite suddenly, a man stepped out from the darkentrance to a by-street, and, touching me lightly on the arm, said, "Isthere anything amiss? I have been looking at you for some time, and afeeling has come over me that you need assistance. What is the matter?"I regarded the speaker earnestly, and, convinced that he was honest, told him my story, whereupon to my delight he at once said, "I think Ican help you, for a friend of mine runs a small but thoroughlyrespectable hotel close to here, and, if you like to trust yourself tomy guidance, I will take you there and explain your pennilesscondition. " I accepted his offer; what he said proved to be correct; thehotel-keeper believed my story, and I passed the night in decency andcomfort. In the morning the proprietor lent me the requisite amount ofmoney for a cablegram to Europe. My bank in England cabled to a bank inChicago, and the hotel-keeper generously made himself responsible for myidentity; the draft was cashed, and I was once again able to proceed onmy journey. But what caused the man in the street to notice me? Whatprompted him to lend me his aid? Surely my guardian spirit. Again, whenin Denver, in the Denver of old times, before it had grown into anythinglike the city it is now, I was seized with a severe attack of dysentery, and the owner of the hotel in which I was staying, believing it to becholera, turned me, weak and faint as I was, into the street. I triedeverywhere to get shelter; the ghastly pallor and emaciation of mycountenance went against me--no one, not even by dint of bribing, for Iwas then well off, would take me in. At last, completely overcome byexhaustion, I sank down in the street, where, in all probability, Ishould have remained all night, had not a negro suddenly come up to me, and, with a sympathetic expression in his face, asked if he could helpme. "I passed you some time ago, " he said, "and noticed how ill youlooked, but I did not like to speak to you for fear you might resent it, but I had not got far before I felt compelled to turn back. I tried toresist this impulse, but it was no good. What ails you?" I told him. Fora moment or so he was silent, and then, his face brightening up, heexclaimed, "I think I can help you. Come along with me, " and, helping megently to my feet, he conducted me to his own house, not a very grandone, it is true, but scrupulously clean and well conducted, and Iremained there until I was thoroughly sound and fit. The negro is not asa rule a creature of impulse, and here again I felt that I owed mypreservation to the kindly interference of my guardian spirit. 

Thrice I have been nearly drowned, and on both occasions saved as by amiracle, or, in other words, by my attendant guardian spirit. Once, whenI was bathing alone in a Scotch loch and had swum out some considerabledistance, I suddenly became exhausted, and realised with terror that itwas quite impossible for me to regain the shore. I was making a lastfutile effort to strike out, when something came bobbing up against me. It was an oar! Whence it had come Heaven alone knew, for Heaven alonecould have sent it. Leaning my chin lightly on it and propelling myselfgently with my limbs, I had no difficulty in keeping afloat, andeventually reached the land in safety. The scene of my next miraculousrescue from drowning was a river. In diving into the water off a boat, Igot my legs entangled in a thick undergrowth of weeds. Franticallystruggling to get free and realising only too acutely the seriousness ofmy position, for my lungs were on the verge of bursting, I ferventlysolicited the succour of my guardian spirit, and had no sooner done so, than I fancied I felt soft hands press against my flesh, and the nextmoment my body had risen to the surface. No living person was withinsight, so that my rescuer could only have been--as usual--my guardianspirit. 

Several times I fancy I have seen her, white, luminous, and shadowy, but for all that suggestive of great beauty. Once, too, in the wildermoments of my youth, when I contemplated rash deeds, I heard her sigh, and the sigh, sinking down into the furthermost recesses of my soul, drowned all my thoughts of rash deeds in a thousand reverberatingechoes. I have been invariably warned by strangers against taking afalse step that would unquestionably have led to the direst misfortune. I meet a stranger, and without the slightest hint from me, he touchesupon the very matter uppermost in my mind, and, in a few earnest andnever-to-be-forgotten words of admonition, deters me from my scheme. Whence come these strangers, to all appearance of flesh and blood likemyself? Were they my guardian spirit in temporary material guise, orwere they human beings that, like the hotel proprietor's friend inChicago, and the negro, have been impelled by my guardian spirit toconverse with me and by their friendly assistance save me? Many of thefaces we see around us every day are, I believe, attendant spirits, andphantasms of every species, that have adopted physical form for somespecific purpose. 

_Banshees_

It has been suggested that banshees are guardian spirits and evil genii;but I do not think so, for whereas one or other of the two latterphantasms (sometimes both) are in constant attendance on man, bansheesonly visit certain families before a catastrophe about to happen inthose families, or before the death of a member of those families. Asto their origin, little can be said, for little is at present known. Some say their attachment to a family is due to some crime perpetratedby a member of that family in the far dim past, whilst others attributeit to the fact that certain classes and races in bygone times dabbled insorcery, thus attracting the elementals, which have haunted them eversince. Others, again, claim that banshees are mere thoughtmaterialisations handed down from one generation to another. Butalthough no one knows the origin and nature of a banshee, the statementsof those who have actually experienced these hauntings should surelycarry far more weight and command more attention than the statements ofthose who only speak from hearsay; for it is, after all, only thesensation of actual experience that can guide us in the study of thissubject; and, perhaps, through our "sensations" alone, the key to itwill one day be found. A phantasm produces an effect on us totallyunlike any that can be produced by physical agency--at least such is myexperience--hence, for those who have never come in contact with theunknown to pronounce any verdict on it, is to my mind both futile andabsurd. Of one thing, at least, I am sure, namely, that banshees are nomore thought materialisations than they are cats--neither are they inany way traceable to telepathy or suggestion; they are entirely due toobjective spirit forms. I do not base this assertion on a knowledgegained from other people's experiences--and surely the information thusgained cannot properly be termed knowledge--but from the sensations Imyself, as a member of an old Irish clan, have experienced from thehauntings of the banshee--the banshee that down through the long linksof my Celtic ancestry, through all vicissitudes, through all changes offortune, has followed us, and will follow us, to the end of time. Because it is customary to speak of an Irish family ghost by its generictitle, the banshee, it must not be supposed that every Irish familypossessing a ghost is haunted by the same phantasm--the same banshee. 

In Ireland, as in other countries, family ghosts are varied anddistinct, and consequently there are many and varying forms of thebanshee. To a member of our clan, a single wail signifies the advent ofthe banshee, which, when materialised, is not beautiful to look upon. The banshee does not necessarily signify its advent by one wail--that ofa clan allied to us wails three times. Another banshee does not wail atall, but moans, and yet another heralds its approach with music. Whenmaterialised, to quote only a few instances, one banshee is in the formof a beautiful girl, another is in the form of a hideous prehistorichag, and another in the form of a head--only a head with rough mattedhair and malevolent, bestial eyes. 

_Scottish Ghosts_

When it is remembered that the ancestors of the Highlanders, _i. E. _, thePicts and Scots, originally came from Ireland and are of Formosian andMilesian descent, it will be readily understood that their proud oldclans--and rightly proud, for who but a grovelling money grubber wouldnot sooner be descended from a warrior, elected chief, on account of hisall-round prowess, than from some measly hireling whose instincts wereall mercenary?--possess ghosts that are nearly allied to the banshee. 

The Airlie family, whose headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is hauntedby the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of oneof the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuinenessof this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theoriesas to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying, inquisitive public, but it is extremely doubtful if any of them approachthe truth. Other families have pipers that pipe a dismal dirge, andskaters that are seen skating even when there is no ice, and alwaysbefore a death or great calamity. 

_English Family Ghosts_

There are a few old English families, too, families who, in allprobability, can point to Celtic blood at some distant period in theirhistory, that possess family ghosts. I have, for example, stayed in onehouse where, prior to a death, a boat is seen gliding noiselessly alonga stream that flows through the grounds. The rower is invariably theperson doomed to die. A friend of mine, who was very sceptical in suchmatters, was fishing in this stream late one evening when he suddenlysaw a boat shoot round the bend. Much astonished--for he knew it couldbe no one from the house--he threw down his rod and watched. Nearer andnearer it came, but not a sound; the oars stirred and splashed therippling, foaming water in absolute silence. Convinced now that what hebeheld was nothing physical, my friend was greatly frightened, and, asthe boat shot past him, he perceived in the rower his host's youngestson, who was then fighting in South Africa. He did not mention theincident to his friends, but he was scarcely surprised when, in thecourse of the next few days, a cablegram was received with the tidingsthat the material counterpart of his vision had been killed in action. 

A white dove is the harbinger of death to the Arundels of Wardour; awhite hare to an equally well-known family in Cornwall. Corby Castle inCumberland has its "Radiant Boy"; whilst Mrs E. M. Ward has stated, inher reminiscences, that a certain room at Knebworth was once haunted bythe phantasm of a boy with long yellow hair, called "The Yellow Boy, "who never appeared to anyone in it, unless they were to die a violentdeath, the manner of which death he indicated by a series of ghastlypantomimics. 

Other families, I am told, lay claim to phantom coaches, clocks, beds, ladies in white, and a variety of ghostly phenomena whose manifestationsare always a sinister omen. 

_Welsh Ghosts_

In addition to corpse-candles and blue lights, the Welsh, according toMr Wirt Sykes, in his work, _British Goblins_, pp. 212-216, possess aspecies of ill-omened ghost that is not, however, restricted to any onefamily, but which visits promiscuously any house or village prior to adeath. Sometimes it flaps its leathern wings against the window of theroom containing the sick person, and in a broken, howling tone callsupon the latter to give up his life; whilst, at other times, accordingto Mr Dyer in his _Ghost World_, it actually materialises and appears inthe form of an old crone with streaming hair and a coat of blue, when itis called the "Ellyllon, " and, like the banshee, presages death with ascream. 

Again, when it is called the "Cyhyraeth, " and is never seen, itforetells the death of the insane, or those who have for a long timebeen ill, by moaning, groaning, and rattling shutters in the immediatevicinity of the doomed person. 

CHAPTER IX

"SUPERSTITIONS AND FORTUNES"

_Thirteen at Table_

There is no doubt that there have been many occasions upon whichthirteen people have sat down to dinner, all of which people at the endof a year have been alive and well; there is no doubt also that therehave been many occasions upon which thirteen have sat down to dine, andthe first of them to rise has died within twelve months. Therefore, Iprefer not to take the risk, and to sit down to dinner in any number butthirteen. 

A curious story is told in connection with this superstition. A lady waspresent at a dinner party given by the Count D---- in Buda-Pesth, whenit was discovered that the company about to sit down numbered thirteen. Immediately there was a loud protest, and the poor Count was at hiswits' end to know how to get out of the difficulty, when a servanthurriedly entered and whispered something in his ear. Instantly theCount's face lighted up. "How very fortunate!" he exclaimed, addressinghis guests. "A very old friend of mine, who, to tell the truth, I hadthought to be dead, has just turned up. We may, therefore, sit down inpeace, for we shall now be fourteen. " A wave of relief swept throughthe party, and, in the midst of their congratulations, in walked theopportune guest, a tall, heavily bearded young man, with a strangely setexpression in his eyes and mouth, and not a vestige of colour in hischeeks. It was noticed that after replying to the Count's salutations inremarkably hollow tones that made those nearest him shiver, he took nopart in the conversation, and partook of nothing beyond a glass of wineand some fruit. The evening passed in the usual manner; the guests, withthe exception of the stranger, went, and, eventually, the Count foundhimself alone with the friend of his boyhood, the friend whom he had notseen for years, and whom he had believed to be dead. 

Wondering at the unusual reticence of his old chum, but attributing itto shyness, the Count, seeing that he now had an opportunity for a chat, and, anxious to hear what his friend had been doing in the long intervalsince they had last met, sat down beside him on the couch, and thusbegan: "How very odd that you should have turned up to-night! If youhadn't come just when you did, I don't know what would have happened!"

"But I do!" was the quiet reply. "You would have been the first to risefrom the table, and, consequently, you would have died within the year. That is why I came. "

At this the Count burst out laughing. "Come, come, Max!" he cried. "Youalways were a bit of a wag, and I see you haven't improved. But beserious now, I beg you, and tell me what made you come to-night and whatyou have been doing all these years? Why, it must be sixteen years, if aday, since last I saw you!"

Max leaned back in his seat, and, regarding the Count earnestly with hisdark, penetrating eyes, said, "I have already told you why I came hereto-night, and you don't believe me, but WAIT! Now, as to what hashappened to me since we parted. Can I expect you to believe that?Hardly! Anyhow, I will put you to the test. When we parted, if youremember rightly, I had just passed my final, and having been electedjunior house surgeon at my hospital, St Christopher's, at Brunn, hadtaken up my abode there. I remained at St Christopher's for two years, just long enough to earn distinction in the operating theatre, when Ireceived a more lucrative appointment in Cracow. There I soon had aprivate practice of my own and was on the high road to fame and fortune, when I was unlucky enough to fall in love. "

"Unlucky!" laughed the Count. "Pray what was the matter with her? Hadshe no dowry, or was she an heiress with an ogre of a father, or was shealready married?"

"Married, " Max responded, "married to a regular martinet who, whilsttreating her in the same austere manner he treated his soldiers--he wascolonel of a line regiment--was jealous to the verge of insanity. It waswhen I was attending him for a slight ailment of the throat that I mether, and we fell in love with each other at first sight. "

"How romantic!" sighed the Count. "How very romantic! Another glass ofMoselle?"

"For some time, " Max continued, not noticing the interruption, "all wentsmoothly. We met clandestinely and spent many an hour together, unknownto the invalid. We tried to keep him in bed as long as we could, but hisconstitution, which was that of an ox, was against us, and his recoverywas astonishingly rapid. An indiscreet observation on the part of one ofthe household first led him to suspect, and, watching his wife like acat does a mouse, he caught her one evening in the act of holding outher hand for me to kiss. With a yell of fury he rushed upon us, and inthe scuffle that followed----"

"You killed him, " said the Count. "Well! I forgive you! We all forgiveyou! By the love of Heaven! you had some excuse. "

"You are mistaken!" Max went on, still in the same cold, unmovedaccents, "it was I who was killed!" He looked at the Count, and theCount's blood turned to ice as he suddenly realised he was, indeed, gazing at a corpse. 

For some seconds the Count and the corpse sat facing one another inabsolute silence, and then the latter, rising solemnly from the chair, mounted the window-sill, and, with an expressive wave of farewell, disappeared in the absorbing darkness without. Now, as Max was neverseen again, and it was ascertained without any difficulty that he hadactually perished in the manner he had described, there is surely everyreason to believe that a _bona fide_ danger had threatened the Count, and that the spirit of Max in his earthly guise had, in very deed, turned up at the dinner party with the sole object of saving his friend. 

_Spilling Salt_

Everyone knows that to avoid bad luck from spilling salt, it is onlynecessary to throw some of it over the left shoulder; but no one knowswhy such an act is a deterrent to misfortune, any more than whymisfortune, if not then averted, should accrue from the spilling. 

That the superstition originated in a tradition that Judas Iscariotoverturned a salt-cellar is ridiculous, for there is but little doubt itwas in vogue long before the advent of Christ, and is certainly currentto-day among tribes and races that have never heard of the "LastSupper. "

In all probability the superstition is derived from the fact that salt, from its usage in ancient sacrificial rites, was once regarded assacred. Hence to spill any carelessly was looked upon as sacrilegiousand an offence to the gods, to appease whom the device of throwing itover the left, the more psychic shoulder, was instituted. 

_Looking-glasses_

The breaking of a looking-glass is said to be an ill omen, and I havecertainly known many cases in which one misfortune after another hasoccurred to the person who has had the misfortune to break alooking-glass. Some think that because looking-glasses were once used insorcery, they possess certain psychic properties, and that by reason oftheir psychic properties any injury done to a mirror must be fraughtwith danger to the doer of that injury, but whether this is so or not isa matter of conjecture. 

_Psychic Days_

"Friday's child is full of woe. " Of all days Friday is universallyregarded as the most unlucky. According to Soames in his work, _TheAnglo-Saxon Church_, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Fridayand died on a Friday. And since Jesus Christ was crucified on a Friday, it is naturally of small wonder that Friday is accursed. 

To travel on Friday is generally deemed to be courting accident; to bemarried on Friday, courting divorce or death. Few sailors care to embarkon Friday; few theatrical managers to produce a new play on Friday. InLivonia most of the inhabitants are so prejudiced against Friday, thatthey never settle any important business, or conclude a bargain on thatday; in some places they do not even dress their children. 

For my part, I so far believe in this superstition that I never set outfor a journey, or commence any new work on Friday, if I have the optionof any other day. Thursday has always been an unlucky day for me. Mostof my accidents, disappointments, illnesses have happened on Thursdays. Wednesday has been my luckiest day. Monday, Thursday, Friday, andSaturday the days when I have mostly experienced occult phenomena. OnAll-Hallows E'en the spirits of the dead are supposed to walk. Iremember when a child hearing from the lips of a relative how in hergirlhood she had screwed up the courage to shut herself in a dark roomon All-Hallows E'en and had eaten an apple in front of the mirror; andthat instead of seeing the face of her future husband peering over hershoulder, she had seen a quantity of earth falling. She was informedthat this was a prognostication of death, and, surely enough, within theyear her father died. I have heard, too, of a girl who, on All-HallowsE'en, walked down a gloomy garden path scattering hempseed for herfuture lover to pick up, and on hearing someone tiptoeing behind her, and fancying it was a practical joker, turned sharply round, to confronta skeleton dressed exactly similar to herself. She died before the yearwas out from the result of an accident on the ice. 

I have often poured boiling lead into water on All-Hallows E'en and ithas assumed strange shapes, once--a boot, once--a coffin, once--a ship;and I have placed all the letters of the alphabet cut out of pasteboardby my bedside, and on one occasion (my door was locked, by the way, andI fully satisfied myself no one was in hiding) found, on awakening inthe morning, the following word spelt out of them--"Merivale. " It wasnot until some days afterwards that I remembered associations with thisword, and then it all came back to me in a trice--it was the name of aman who had once wanted me to join him in an enterprise in British WestAfrica. 

On New Year's Eve a certain family, with whom I am very intimatelyacquainted, frequently see ghosts of the future, as well as phantasms ofthe dead, and, when I stay with them, which I often do at Christmas, Iam always glad when this night is over. On one occasion, one of them sawa lady come up the garden path and vanish on the front doorsteps. Shesaw the lady's face distinctly; every feature in it, together with theclothes she was wearing, stood out with startling perspicuity. 

Some six months later, she was introduced to the material counterpart ofthe phantasm, who was destined to play a most important part in herlife. On another New Year's Eve she saw the phantasm of a dog, to whichshe had been deeply attached, enter her bedroom and jump on her bed, just as it had done during its lifetime. Not in the least frightened, she put down her hand to stroke it, when it vanished. I have givenseveral other instances of this kind in my _Haunted Houses of London_and _Ghostly Phenomena_--they all, I think, tend to prove a futureexistence for dumb animals. 

The 28th of December, Childermass Day, or the Feast of the HolyInnocents, the day on which King Herod slaughtered so many infants (ifthey were no better mannered than the bulk of the County Councilchildren of to-day, one can hardly blame him), is held to beunpropitious for the commencement of any new undertaking by those oftender years. 

The fishermen who dwell on the Baltic seldom use their nets between AllSaints and St Martin's Day, or on St Blaise's Day; if they did, theybelieve they would not take any fish for a whole year. On Ash Wednesdaythe women in those parts neither sew nor knit for fear of bringingmisfortune upon their cattle, whilst they do not use fire on StLawrence's Day, in order to secure themselves against fire for the restof the year. 

In Moravia the peasants used not to hunt on St Mark's or St Catherine'sDay, for fear they should be unlucky all the rest of the year. InYorkshire it was once customary to watch for the dead on St Mark's(April 24) and Midsummer Eve. On both those nights (so says Mr Timbs inhis _Mysteries of Life and Futurity_) persons would sit and watch in thechurch porch from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. Inthe third year (for it must be done thrice), the watchers were said tosee the spectres of all those who were to die the next year pass intothe church. 

I am quite sure there is much truth in this, for I have heard ofsceptics putting it to the test, and of "singing to quite a differenttune" when the phantasms of those they knew quite well suddenly shot upfrom the ground, and, gliding past them, vanished at the threshold ofthe church. Occasionally, too, I have been informed of cases where thewatchers have seen themselves in the ghastly procession and have diedshortly afterwards. 

_Fortune-telling_

Before ridiculing the possibility of telling fortunes by cards, it wouldbe just as well for sceptics to inquire into the history of cards, andthe reason of their being designated the Devil's pasteboards. Theirorigin may be traced to the days when man was undoubtedly in close touchwith the occult, and each card, _i. E. _ of the original design, has apsychic meaning. Hence the telling of fortunes by certain people--thosewho have had actual experience with occult phenomena--deserves to betaken seriously; and I am convinced many of the fortunes thus told cometrue. 

_Palmistry_

That there is much truth in palmistry--the palmistry of those who havemade a thorough study of the subject--should by this time, I think, bean established fact. I can honestly say I have had my hand told withabsolute accuracy, and in such a manner as utterly precludes thepossibility of coincidence or chance. Many of the events, andout-of-the-way events, of my life have been read in my lines withperfect veracity, my character has been delineated with equal fidelity, and the future portrayed exactly in the manner it has come about--andall by a stranger, one who had never seen or heard of me before he "toldmy hand. "

To attempt to negative the positive is the height of folly, but foolswill deny anything and everything save their own wit. It does not followthat because one palmist has been at fault, all palmists are at fault. Ibelieve in palmistry, because I have seen it verified in a hundred andone instances. 

Apart from the lines, however, there is a wealth of character in hands:I am never tired of studying them. To me the most beautiful andinteresting hands are the pure psychic and the dramatic--the former withits thin, narrow palm, slender, tapering fingers and filbert nails; thelatter a model of symmetry and grace, with conical finger-tips andfilbert nails--indeed, filbert nails are more or less confined to thesetwo types; one seldom sees them in other hands. 

Then there are the literary and artistic hands, with their mixed typesof fingers, some conical and some square-tipped, but always with someredeeming feature of refinement and elegance in them; and the musicalhand, sometimes a modified edition of the psychic, and sometimes quitedifferent, with short, supple fingers and square tips. And yetagain--would that it did not exist!--the business hand, far more commonin England, where the bulk of the people have commercial minds, thanelsewhere. It has no redeeming feature, but is short, and square, andfat, with stumpy fingers and hideous, spatulate nails, the very sight ofwhich makes me shudder. Indeed, I have heard it said abroad, and notwithout some reason, that, apart from other little peculiarities, suchas projecting teeth and big feet, the English have two sets of toes!When I look at English children's fingers, and see how universal is thecustom of biting the nails, I feel quite sure the day will come whenthere will be no nails left to bite--that the day, in fact, is not fardistant, when nails, rather than teeth, will become extinct. 

The Irish, French, Italians, Spanish, and Danes, being far more dramaticand psychic than the English, have far nicer hands, and for one set offilbert nails in London, we may count a dozen in Paris or Madrid. 

Murderers' hands are often noticeable for their knotted knuckles andclub-shaped finger-tips; suicides--for the slenderness of the thumbsand strong inclination of the index to the second finger; thieves--forthe pointedness of the finger-tips, and the length and suppleness of thefingers. Dominating, coarse-minded people, and people who exert undueinfluence over others, generally have broad, flat thumbs. The hands ofsoldiers and sailors are usually broad, with short, thick, square-tippedfingers; the hands of clergy are also more often broad and coarse thanslender and conical, which may be accounted for by the fact that so manyof them enter the Church with other than spiritual motives. The reallyspiritual hand is the counterpart of the psychical, and rarely seen inEngland. Doctors, doctors with a genuine love of their profession, inother words, "born" doctors, have broad but slender palms, with long, supple fingers and moderately square tips. This type of hand is typical, also, of the hospital nurse. 

It is, of course, a gross error to think that birth has everything to dowith the shape of the hand; for the latter is entirely dependent ontemperament; but it is also a mistake to say that as manybeautiful-shaped hands are to be found among the lower as among theupper classes in England. It is a mistake, because the psychic anddramatic temperaments (and the psychic and dramatic type of hand isunquestionably the most beautiful) are rarely to be found in the middleand lower classes in England--they are almost entirely confined to theupper classes. 

_Pyromancy_

Predicting the future by fire is one of the oldest methods offortune-telling, and has been practised from time immemorial. I haveoften had my fortune told in the fire, but I cannot say it has everproved to be very correct; only once a prognostication came true, --asudden death occurred in a family very nearly connected with me, after avery fanciful churchyard had been pointed out to me amid the glowingembers. 

_Hydromancy_

There are many ways of telling the fortune by means of water. One of themost usual methods is to float some object on the water's surface, predicting the future in accordance with the course that object takes;but I believe future events are just as often foretold by means of thewater only. 

Many people believe that especially successful results infortune-telling may be obtained by means of water only, on All-HallowsE'en or New Year's Eve. 

On the former night, the method of divining the future is asfollows:--Place a bowl of clear spring water on your lap at midnight, and gaze into it. If you are to be married, you will see the face ofyour future husband (or bride) reflected in the water; if you are toremain single all your life, you will see nothing; and if you are to diewithin the year, the water will become muddy. On New Year's Eve atumbler of water should be placed at midnight before the looking-glass, when any person, or persons, destined to play a very important rôle inyour life within the coming year, will suddenly appear and sip thewater. Should you be doomed to die within that period, the tumbler willbe thrown on the ground and dashed to pieces. 

The conditions during the trial of both these methods are that youshould be alone in the room, with only one candle burning. 

_The Crystal_

I often practise crystal-gazing, and the results are strangelyinconsistent. I see with startling vividness events that actually cometo pass, and sometimes with equal perspicuity events that, as far as Iknow, are never fulfilled. And this I feel sure must be the case withall crystal-gazers, if they would but admit it. My method is verysimple. As I cannot concentrate unless I have absolute quiet, I waittill the house is very still, and I then sit alone in my room with myback to the light, in such a position that the light pours over myshoulders on to the crystal, which I have set on the table before me. Sometimes I sit for a long time before I see anything, and sometimes, after a lengthy sitting, I see nothing at all; but when a tableau doescome, it is always with the most startling vividness. When I want to beinitiated into what is happening to certain of my friends, I concentratemy whole mind on those friends--I think of nothing but them--theirfaces, forms, mannerisms, and surroundings--and then, suddenly, I seethem in the crystal! Visions are sometimes of the future, sometimes ofthe present, sometimes of the past, and sometimes of neither, but ofwhat never actually transpires--and there is the strange inconsistency. I do not know what methods other people adopt, I daresay some of themdiffer from mine, but I feel quite sure that, look at the crystal howthey will, it will invariably lie to them at times. 

A day or so before the death of Lafayette, when I was concentrating mywhole mind on forthcoming events, I distinctly saw, in the crystal, astage with a man standing before the footlights, either speaking orsinging. In the midst of his performance, a black curtain suddenly fell, and I intuitively realised the theatre was on fire. The picture thenfaded away and was replaced by something of a totally differentcharacter. Again, just before the great thunder-storm at the end of May, when Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, was struck, I saw, in the crystal, a black sky, vivid flashes of lightning, a road rushing with brownwater, and a church spire with an enormous crack in it. 

Of course, it is very easy to say these visions might have been merecoincidences; but if they were only coincidences, they were surpassinglyuncommon ones. 

_Talismans and Amulets_

Amulets, though now practically confined to the East, were once verymuch in vogue throughout Europe. 

Count Daniel O'Donnell, brigadier-general in the Irish Brigade of LouisXIV. , never went into battle without carrying with him an amulet in theshape of the jewelled casket "Cathach of Columbcille, " containing aLatin psalter said to have been written by St Columba. It has quiterecently been lent to the Royal Irish Academy (where it is now) by mykinsman, the late Sir Richard O'Donnell, Bart. Count O'Donnell used tosay that so long as he had this talisman with him, he would never bewounded, and it is a fact that though he led his regiment in the thickof the fight at Borgoforte, Nago, Arco, Vercelli, Ivrea, Verrua, Chivasso, Cassano, and other battles in the Italian Campaign of 1701-7, and at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Arleux, Denain, Douai, Bouchain, andFuesnoy, in the Netherlands, he always came through scathless. Hence, like him, I am inclined to attribute his escapes to the psychicproperties of the talisman. 

The great family of Lyons were in possession of a talisman in the formof a "lion-cup, " the original of Scott's "Blessed Bear of Bradwardine, "which always brought them good luck till they went to Glamis, and afterthat they experienced centuries of misfortune. 

Another famous talisman is the "Luck of Edenhall, " in the possession ofSir Richard Musgrave of Edenhall, in Cumberland; and many other ancientfamilies still retain their amulets. 

_"The Evil Eye"_

I was recently speaking to an Italian lady who informed me that beliefin "the evil eye" is still very prevalent in many parts of Italy. "Imyself believe in it, " she said, "and whenever I pass a person whom Ithink possesses it, I make a sign with my fingers"--and she held up twoof her fingers as she spoke. I certainly have observed that people witha peculiar and undefinable "something" in their eyes are particularlyunlucky and invariably bring misfortune on those with whom they are inany degree intimate. These people, I have no doubt, possess "the evileye, " though it would not be discernible except to the extremelypsychic, and there is no doubt that the Irish and Italians are both farmore psychic than the English. 

People are of opinion that the eye is not a particularly safe indicatorof true character, but I beg to differ. To me the eye tells everything, and I have never yet looked directly into a person's eyes without beingable to satisfy myself as to their disposition. Cruelty, vanity, deceit, temper, sensuality, and all the other vices display themselves at once;and so with vulgarity--the glitter of the vulgar, of the ignorant, petty, mean, sordid mind, the mind that estimates all things and allpeople by money and clothes, cannot be hidden; "vulgarity" will out, andin no way more effectually than through the eyes. No matter how "smart"the _parvenu_ dresses, no matter how perfect his "style, " the glitter ofthe eye tells me what manner of man he is, and when I see that strangeanomaly, "nature's gentleman, " in the service of such a man, I do notsay to myself "Jack is as good"--I say, "Jack is better than hismaster. "

But to me "the evil eye, " no less than the vulgar eye, manifestsitself. I was at an "at home" one afternoon several seasons ago, when anold friend of mine suddenly whispered:

"You see that lady in black, over there? I must tell you about her. Shehas just lost her husband, and he committed suicide under ratherextraordinary circumstances in Sicily. He was not only very unluckyhimself, but he invariably brought misfortune on those to whom he took aliking--even his dogs. His mother died from the effects of a railwayaccident; his favourite brother was drowned; the girl to whom he wasfirst engaged went into rapid consumption; and no sooner had he marriedthe lady you see, than she indirectly experienced misfortune through theheavy monetary losses of her father. At last he became convinced that hemust be labouring under the influence of a curse, and, filled with acurious desire to see if he had 'the evil eye, '--people of course saidhe was mad--he went to Sicily. Arriving there, he had no sooner shownhimself among the superstitious peasants, than they made a sign withtheir fingers to ward off evil, and in every possible way shunned him. Convinced then that what he had suspected was true, namely, that he wasgenuinely accursed, he went into a wood and shot himself. "

This, I daresay, is only one of many suicides in similar circumstances, and not a few of the suicides we attribute, with such obviousinconsistency (thinking thereby to cover our ignorance), to "temporaryinsanity, " may be traceable to the influence of "the evil eye. "

_Witches_

Though witches no longer wear conical hats and red cloaks and flythrough the air on broomsticks, and though their _modus operandi_ haschanged with their change of attire, I believe there are just as manywitches in the world to-day, perhaps even more, than in days gone by. All women are witches who exert baleful influence over others--who wreckthe happiness of families by setting husbands against wives (or, what iseven more common, wives against husbands), parents against children, andbrothers against sisters; and, who steal whole fortunes by inveiglinginto love, silly, weak-minded old men, or by captivating equally sillyand weak-willed women. Indeed, the latter is far from rare, and thereare instances of women having filled other women with the blindestinfatuation for them--an infatuation surpassing that of the most dotinglovers, and, without doubt, generated by undue influence, or, in otherwords, by witchcraft. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that the orthodoxwitch of the past was harmless compared with her present-dayrepresentative. There is, however, one thing we may be thankful for, andthat is--that in the majority of cases the modern witch, despite herdisregard of the former properties of her calling, cannot hide herdanger signals. Her manners are soft and insinuating, but her eyes arehard--hard with the steely hardness, which, granted certain conditions, would not hesitate at murder. Her hands, too, are coarse--anexaggeration of the business type of hand--the fingers short andclub-shaped, the thumbs broad and flat, the nails hideous; they are theantipodes of the psychic or dramatic type of hands: a type that, needless to say, witches have never been known to possess. Once theinvocation of the dead was one of the practices of ancient witchcraft:one might, perhaps, not inappropriately apply the term witch to themodern spiritualist. 

If we credit the Scriptures with any degree of truth, then witches mostcertainly had the power of calling up the dead in Biblical days, for atEndor the feat--rare even in those times--was accomplished of invokingin material form the phantasms of the good as well as the evil. Though Iam of the opinion that no amount of invocation will bring back aphantasm from the higher spiritual planes to-day, unless that invocationbe made in very exceptional circumstances, with a specific purpose, I amquite sure that _bona fide_ spirits of the earth-bound do occasionallymaterialise in answer to the summons of the spiritualist. I do not basethis statement on any experience I have ever had, for it is a rathersingular fact that, although I have seen many spontaneous phenomena inhaunted houses, I have never seen anything resembling, in the slightestdegree, a genuine spirit form, at a séance. Therefore, I repeat, I donot base my statement, as to the occasional materialisation of _bonafide_ earth-bound spirits, on any of my experiences, but on those of"sitters" with whom I am intimately acquainted. What benefit can bederived from getting into close touch with earth-bound spirits, _i. E. _with vice and impersonating elementals and the phantasms of dead idiots, lunatics, murderers, suicides, rakes, drunkards, immoral women and sillypeople of all sorts, is, I think, difficult to say; for my own part, Iam only too content to steer clear of them, and confine my attentions totrying to be of service to those apparitions that are, obviously, forsome reason, made to appear by the higher occult powers. Thus, what ispopularly known as spiritualism is, from my point of view, a mischievousand often very dangerous form of witchcraft. 

A Frenchman to whom I was recently introduced at a house in Maida Vale, told me the following case, which he assured me actually happened in themiddle of the eighteenth century, and was attested to by judicialdocuments. A French nobleman, whom I will designate the VicomteDavergny, whilst on a visit to some friends near Toulouse, on hearingthat a miller in the neighbourhood was in the habit of holding Sabbats, was seized with a burning desire to attend one. Consequently, inopposition to the advice of his friends, he saw the miller, and, by dintof prodigious bribing, finally persuaded the latter to permit him toattend one of the orgies. But the miller made one stipulation--theVicomte was on no account to carry firearms; and to this the latterreadily agreed. When, however, the eventful night arrived, the Vicomte, becoming convinced that it would be the height of folly to go to anotoriously lonely spot, in the dark, and unarmed, concealed a brace ofpistols under his clothes. On reaching the place of assignation, hefound the miller already there, and on the latter enveloping him in aheavy cloak, the Vicomte felt himself lifted bodily from the ground andwhirled through the air. This sensation continued for several moments, when he was suddenly set down on the earth again and the cloak taken offhim. At first he could scarcely make out anything owing to a blaze oflight, but as soon as his eyes grew accustomed to the illumination, heperceived that he was standing near a huge faggot fire, around whichsquatted a score or so of the most hideous hags he had ever conceivedeven in his wildest imagination. After going through a number of strangeincantations, which were more or less Greek to the Vicomte, there was amost impressive lull, that was abruptly broken by the appearance of anextraordinary and alarming-looking individual in the midst of theflames. All the witches at once uttered piercing shrieks and prostratedthemselves, and the Vicomte then realised that the remarkable being whohad caused the commotion was none other than the devil. Yielding to anirresistible impulse, but without really knowing what he was doing, theVicomte whipped out a pistol, and, pointing at Mephistopheles, fired. Inan instant, fire and witches vanished, and all was darkness and silence. 

Terrified out of his wits, the Count sank on the ground, where heremained till daylight, when he received another shock, on discovering, stretched close to him, the body of the miller with a bullet wound inhis forehead. Flying from the spot, he wandered on and on, until hecame to a cottage, at which he inquired his way home. And here anothersurprise awaited him. For the cottagers, in answer to his inquiries, informed him that the nearest town was not Toulouse but Bordeaux, and ifhe went on walking in such and such a direction, he would speedily cometo it. Arriving at Bordeaux, as the peasant had directed, the Vicomterested a short time, and then set out for Toulouse, which city he atlength reached after a few days' journeying. But he had not been backlong before he was arrested for the murder of the miller, it beingdeposed that he had been seen near Bordeaux, in the immediateneighbourhood of the tragedy, directly after its enaction. However, asit was obviously impossible that the Vicomte could have taken less thana few days to travel from Toulouse to a spot near Bordeaux, where themurder had taken place, a distance of several hundreds of miles, on theevidence of his friends, who declared that he had been with them tillwithin a few hours of the time when it was presumed the crime wascommitted, the charge was withdrawn, and the Vicomte was fullyacquitted. 

CHAPTER X

 THE HAND OF GLORY; THE BLOODY HAND OF ULSTER; THE SEVENTH SON; BIRTHMARKS; NATURE'S DEVIL SIGNALS; PRE-EXISTENCE; THE FUTURE; PROJECTION; TELEPATHY, ETC. 

_The Hand of Glory_

Belief in the power of the Hand of Glory still, I believe, exists incertain parts of European and Asiatic Russia. Once it was prevalenteverywhere. The Hand of Glory was a hand cut off from the body of arobber and murderer who had expiated his crimes on the gallows. To endowit with the properties of a talisman, the blood was first of allextracted; it was then given a thorough soaking in saltpetre and pepper, and hung out in the sun. When perfectly dry, it was used as acandlestick for a candle made of white wax, sesame seed, and fat fromthe corpse of the criminal. Prepared thus, the Hand of Glory was deemedto have the power of aiding and protecting the robbers in theirnefarious work by sending to sleep their intended victims. Hence norobber ever visited a house without having such a talisman with him. 

_The Bloody Hand of Ulster_

The Red Right Hand of Ulster is the badge of the O'Neills, and accordingto tradition it originated thus:--On the approach of an ancientexpedition to Ulster, the leader declared that whoever first touched theshore should possess the land in the immediate vicinity. An ancestor ofthe O'Neills, anxious to obtain the reward, at once cut off his righthand and threw it on the coast, which henceforth became his territory. 

Since then the O'Neills have always claimed the Red Right Hand of Ulsteras their badge, and it figured only the other day on the banner which, for the first time since the days of Shane the Proud, was flown from thebattlements of their ancient stronghold, Ardglass Castle, now in thepossession of Mr F. J. Bigger. 

A very similar story to that of the O'Neill is told of an O'Donnell, who, with a similar motive, namely, to acquire territory, on arrivingwithin sight of Spain, cut off his hand and hurled it on the shore, and, like the O'Neills, the O'Donnells from that time have adopted the handas their badge. 

_The Seventh Son_

It was formerly believed that a seventh son could cure diseases, andthat a seventh son of a seventh son, with no female born in between, could cure the king's evil. Indeed, seven was universally regarded as apsychic number, and according to astrologers the greatest events in aperson's life, and his nearest approach to death without actuallyincurring it, would be every seven years. The grand climacterics aresixty-three and eighty-four, and the most critical periods of aperson's life occur when they are sixty-three and eighty-four years ofage. 

_Birthmarks_

Some families have a heritage of peculiar markings on the skin. The onlybirthmark of this description which I am acquainted with is "TheHistoric Baldearg, " or red spot that has periodically appeared on theskins of members of the O'Donnell clan. Its origin is dubious, but Iimagine it must go back pretty nearly to the time of the great Niall. Inthe days when Ireland was in a chronic state of rebellion, it was saidthat it would never shake off the yoke of its cruel English oppressorstill its forces united under the leadership of an O'Donnell with theBaldearg. An O'Donnell with the Baldearg turned up in 1690, in theperson of Hugh Baldearg O'Donnell, son of John O'Donnell, an officer inthe Spanish Army, and descendant of the Calvagh O'Donnell of Tyrconnell, who had been created Earl of Wexford by Queen Elizabeth. But the Irish, as has ever been the case, would not unite, and despite the aid givenhim by Talbot (who had succeeded the O'Donnells in the Earldom ofTyrconnell), he met with but little success, and returning to Spain, died there with the rank of Major-General in 1704. 

References to the Baldearg may be seen in various of the Memoirs of theO'Donnells in the libraries of the British Museum, Madrid, Dublin, andelsewhere. 

_Nature's Devil Signals_

I have already alluded to the fingers typical of murderers; I will nowrefer in brief to a form of Nature's other danger signals. The feet ofmurderers are, as a rule, very short and broad, the toes flat andsquare-tipped. As a rule, too, they either have very receding chins, asin the case of Mapleton Lefroy, or very massive, prominent chins, as inthe case of Gotfried. 

In many instances the ears of murderers are set very far back and lowdown on their heads, and the outer rims are very much crumpled; alsothey have very high and prominent cheek-bones, whilst one side of theface is different from the other. The backs of many murderers' heads arenearly perpendicular, or, if anything, rather inclined to recede thanotherwise--they seldom project--whilst the forehead is unusuallyprominent. 

It is a noteworthy fact that a large percentage of modern murderers havehad rather prominent light, steely blue eyes--rarely grey or brown. 

Their voices--and there is another key to the character--are eitherhollow and metallic, or suggestive of the sounds made by certainanimals. 

Many of these characteristics are to be found in criminal lunatics. 

_Pre-existence and the Future_

To talk of a former life as if it were an established fact is, ofcourse, an absurdity; to dogmatise at all on such a question, withregard to which one man's opinion is just as speculative as another's, is, perhaps, equally ridiculous. Granted, then, the equal value of thevarying opinions of sane men on this subject, it is clear that no onecan be considered an authority; my opinion, no less than other people's, is, as I have said, merely speculation. That I had a former life is, Ithink, extremely likely, and that I misconducted myself in that formerlife, more than likely, since it is only by supposing a previousexistence in which I misbehaved, that I can see the shadow of ajustification for all the apparently unmerited misfortunes I havesuffered in my present existence. 

I do not, however, see any specific reason why my former existenceshould have been here; on the contrary, I think it far more probablethat I was once in some other sphere--perhaps one of the planets--wheremy misdeeds led to my banishment and my subsequent appearance in thisworld. With regard to a future life, eternal punishment, and itsconverse, everlasting bliss, I fear I never had any orthodox views, or, if I had, my orthodoxy exploded as soon as my common sense began togrow. 

Hell, the hell hurled at my head from the pulpit, only excited myindignation--it was so unjust--nor did the God of the Old Testament fillme with aught save indignation and disgust. Lost in a quagmire of doubtsand perplexities, I inquired of my preceptors as to the authorship ofthe book that held up for adoration a being so stern, relentless, andunjust as God; and in answer to my inquiries was told that I was verywicked to talk in such a way about the Bible; that it was God's ownbook--divinely inspired--in fact, written by God Himself. Then Iinquired if the original manuscript in God's handwriting was still inexistence; and was told I was very wicked and must hold my tongue. Yet Ihad no idea of being in any way irreverent or blasphemous; I was merelyperplexed, and longed to have my difficulties settled. Failing this, they grew, and I began to question whether the terms "merciful" and"almighty" were terms that could be applied with any degree ofconsistency to the scriptural one and only Creator. Would that God, ifHe were almighty, have permitted the existence of such an enemy (orindeed an enemy at all) as the Devil? And if He were merciful, would He, for the one disobedient act of one human being, have condemned to themost ghastly and diabolical sufferings, millions of human beings, andnot only human beings, but animals? Ah! that's where the rub comes in, for though there may be some sense, if not justice, in causing men andwomen, who have sinned--to suffer, there is surely neither reason norjustice in making animals, who have not sinned--to suffer. 

And yet, for man's one act of disobedience, both man and beast havesuffered thousands of years of untold agonies. Could anyone save theblindest and most fanatical of biblical bigots call the ordainer of sucha punishment merciful? How often have I asked myself who created thelaws and principles of Nature! They are certainly more suggestive of afiendish than a benevolent author. It is ridiculous to say man owesdisease to his own acts--such an argument--if argument at all--wouldnot deceive an infant. Are the insects, the trees, the fish responsiblefor the diseases with which they are inflicted? No, Nature, or ratherthe creator of Nature, is alone responsible. But, granted we have livedbefore, there may be grounds for the suffering both of man and beast. The story of the Fall may be but a contortion of something that hashappened to man in a former existence, in another sphere, possibly, inanother planet; and its description based on nothing more substantialthan memory, vague and fleeting as a dream. Anyhow, I am inclined tothink that incarnation here might be traced to something ofmore--infinitely more--importance than an apple; possibly, to some causeof which we have not, at the present, even the remotest conception. People, who do not believe in the former existence, attempt to justifythe ills of man here, by assuming that a state of perfect happinesscannot be attained by man, except he has suffered a certain amount ofpain; so that, in order to attain to perfect happiness, man must ofnecessity experience suffering--a theory founded on the muchmisunderstood axiom, that nothing can exist save by contrast. Butsupposing, for the sake of argument, that this axiom, according to itseveryday interpretation, is an axiom, _i. E. _ a true saying, then God, the Creator of all things, must have created evil--evil that good mayexist, and good that evil may exist. This deduction, however, isobviously at variance with the theory that God is all goodness, since ifnothing can exist save by contrast, goodness must of necessitypresuppose badness, and we are thus led to the conclusion that God isat the same time both good and bad, a conclusion which is undoubtedly a_reductio ad absurdum_. 

Seeing, then, that a God all good cannot have created evil, surely weshould be more rational, if less scriptural, were we to suppose aplurality of gods. In any case I cannot see how pain, if God is indeedall mighty and all good, can be the inevitable corollary of pleasure. Nor can I see the necessity for man to suffer here, in order to enjoyabsolute happiness in the hereafter. No, I think if there is anyjustification for the suffering of mankind on this earth, it is to befound, not in the theory of "contrast, " but in a former existence, andin an existence in some other sphere or plane. Vague recollections ofsuch an existence arise and perplex many of us; but they are so elusive, the moment we attempt to grapple with them, they fade away. 

The frequent and vivid dreams I have, of visiting a region that ispeopled with beings that have nothing at all in common with mankind, andwho welcome me as effusively as if I had been long acquainted with them, makes me wonder if I have actually dwelt amongst them in a previouslife. 

I cannot get rid of the idea that in everything I see (in thesedreams)--in the appearance, mannerisms, and expressions of my queercompanions, in the scenery, in the atmosphere--I do but recall theactual experience of long ago--the actual experience of a previousexistence. Nor is this identical dreamland confined to me; and the factthat others whom I have met, have dreamed of a land, corresponding inevery detail to my dreamland, proves, to my mind, the possibility thatboth they and I have lived a former life, and in that former lifeinhabited the same sphere. 

_Projection_

I have, as I have previously stated in my work, _The Haunted Houses ofLondon_, succeeded, on one occasion, in separating at will, myimmaterial from my material body. I was walking alone along a veryquiet, country lane, at 4 P. M. , and concentrating with all my mind, onbeing at home. I kept repeating to myself, "I WILL be there. " Suddenly avivid picture of the exterior of the house rose before me, and, the nextinstant, I found myself, in the most natural manner possible, walkingdown some steps and across the side garden leading to the conservatory. I entered the house, and found all my possessions--books, papers, shoes, etc. --just as I had left them some hours previously. With the intentionof showing myself to my wife, in order that she might be a witness to myappearance, I hastened to the room, where I thought it most likely Ishould find her, and was about to turn the handle of the door, when, forthe fraction of a second, I saw nothing. Immediately afterwards therecame a blank, and I was once again on the lonely moorland road, toilingalong, fishing rod in hand, a couple of miles, at least, away from home. When I did arrive home, my wife met me in the hall, eager to tell methat at four o'clock both she and the girls had distinctly heard me comedown the steps and through the conservatory into the house. "Youactually came, " my wife continued, "to the door of the room in which Iwas sitting. I called out to you to come in, but, receiving no reply, Igot up and opened the door, and found, to my utter amazement, no onethere. I searched for you everywhere, and should much like to know whyyou have behaved in this very extraordinary manner. "

Much excited in my turn, I hastened to explain to her that I had beenpractising projection, and had actually succeeded in separating mymaterial from my immaterial body, for a brief space of time, just aboutfour o'clock. The footsteps she had heard were indeed my ownfootsteps--and upon this point she was even more positive than I--thefootsteps of my immaterial self. 

I have made my presence felt, though I have never "appeared, " on severalother occasions. In my sleep, I believe, I am often separated from myphysical body, as my dreams are so intensely real and vivid. They are soreal that I am frequently able to remember, almost _verbatim_, longconversations I have had in them, and I awake repeating broken-offsentences. Often, after I have taken active exercise, such as running, or done manual labour, such as digging or lifting heavy weights in theland of my dreams, my muscles have ached all the following day. 

With regard to the projections of other people, I have often seenphantasms of the living, and an account of one appearing to me, when inthe company of three other persons, all of whom saw it, may be read inthe Psychical Research Society's Magazine for October 1899. I havereferred to it as well as to other of my similar experiences in_Ghostly Phenomena_ and _Haunted Houses of London_. 

_Doubles_, _i. E. _ people who are more or less the exact counterpart ofother people, may easily be taken for projections by those who have butlittle acquaintance with the occult. I, myself, have seen many doubles, but though they be as like as the proverbial two peas, I can tell at aglance whether they be the material or immaterial likeness of those theyso exactly resemble. I think there is no doubt that, in a good manyinstances, doubles have been mistaken for projections, and, of course, _vice versâ_. 

_Telepathy and Suggestion_

Though telepathy between two very wakeful minds is an established fact, I do not think it is generally known that it can also take place betweentwo minds when asleep, or between one person awake and another asleep, and yet I have proved this to be the case. My wife and I continuallydream of the same thing at the same time, and if I lie down in theafternoon and fall asleep alone, she often thinks of precisely what I amdreaming about. Though telepathy and suggestion may possibly account forhauntings when the phenomenon is only experienced individually, I cannotsee how it can do so when the manifestations are witnessed by numbers, _i. E. _ collectively. I am quite sure that neither telepathy norsuggestion are in any degree responsible for the phenomena I haveexperienced, and that the latter hail only from one quarter--theobjective and genuine occult world. 

_The Psychic Faculty and Second Sight_

Whereas some people seem fated to experience occult phenomena and othersnot, there is this inconsistency: the person with the supposed psychicfaculty does not always witness the phenomena when they appear. By wayof illustration: I have been present on one occasion in a haunted roomwhen all present have seen the ghost with the exception of myself;whilst on other occasions, either I have been the only one who has seenit, or some or all of us have seen it. It would thus seem that thepsychic faculty does not ensure one's seeing a ghost, whenever a ghostis to be seen. 

I think, as a matter of fact, that apparitions can, whilst manifestingthemselves to some, remain invisible to others, and that they themselvesdetermine to whom they will appear. Some types of phantasms apparentlyprefer manifesting themselves to the spiritual or psychic-minded person, whilst other types do not discriminate, but appear to the spiritual andcarnal-minded alike. There is just as much variety in the tastes andhabits of phantasms as in the tastes and habits of human beings, and inthe behaviour of both phantasm and human being, I regret to say, thereis an equal and predominant amount of inconsistency. 

_Intuition_

I do not think it can be doubted that psychic people have the faculty ofintuition far more highly developed than is the case with the morematerial-minded. 

"Second sight" is but another name for the psychic faculty, and it isgenerally acknowledged to be far more common among the Celts than theAnglo-Saxons. That this is so need not be wondered at, since the Irishand the Highlanders of Scotland (originally the same race) are far morespiritual-minded than the English (in whom commerciality and worldlinessare innate), and consequently have, on the whole, a far greaterattraction for spirits who would naturally prefer to reveal themselvesto those in whom they would be the more likely to find something incommon. 

There is still a belief in certain parts of the Hebrides that secondsight was once obtained there through a practice called "The Taigheirm. "This rite, which is said to have been last performed about the middle ofthe seventeenth century, consisted in roasting on a spit, before a slowfire, a number of black cats. As soon as one was dead another took itsplace, and the sacrifice was continued until the screeches of thetortured animals summoned from the occult world an enormous black cat, that promised to bestow as a perpetual heritage on the sacrificer andhis family, the faculty of second sight, if he would desist from anyfurther slaughter. 

The sacrificer joyfully closed with the bargain, and the ceremonyconcluded with much feasting and merriment, in which, however, it ishighly improbable that the phantasms of the poor roasted "toms" tookpart. 

_Clairvoyance_

Clairvoyance is a branch of occultism in which I have had littleexperience, and can, therefore, only refer to in brief. When I was thePrincipal of a Preparatory School, I once had on my staff a Frenchman ofthe name of Deslys. On recommencing school after the Christmas vacation, M. Deslys surprised me very much by suddenly observing: "Mr O'Donnell, did you not stay during the holidays at No. . .. The Crescent, Bath?"

"Yes, " I replied; "but how on earth do you know?" I had only been theretwo days, and had certainly never mentioned my visit either to him or toanyone acquainted with him. 

"Well!" he said, "I'll tell you how I came to know. Hearing from myfriends that Mme. Leprès, a well-known clairvoyante, had just come toParis, I went to see her. It is just a week ago to-day. After she haddescribed, with wonderful accuracy, several houses and scenes with whichI was familiar, and given me several pieces of information about myfriends, which I subsequently found to be correct, I asked her to tellme where you were and what you were doing. For some moments she wassilent, and then she said very slowly: 'He is staying with a friend atNo. . .. The Crescent, Bath. I can see him (it was then three o'clock inthe afternoon) sitting by the bedside of his friend, who has his headtied up in bandages. Mr O'Donnell is telling him a very droll storyabout Lady B----, to whom he has been lately introduced. ' She thenstopped, made a futile effort to go on, and after a protracted pauseexclaimed: 'I can see no more--something has happened. ' That was all Ifound out about you. "

"And enough, too, M. Deslys, " I responded, "for what she told you wasabsolutely true. A week ago to-day I was staying at No. . .. TheCrescent, Bath, and at three o'clock in the afternoon I was sitting atthe bedside of my friend, who had injured his head in a fall, and had ittied up in bandages; and amongst other bits of gossip, I narrated to hima very amusing anecdote concerning Lady B----, whom I have only justmet, for the first time, in London. "

Now M. Deslys could not possibly have known, excepting through psychicalagency, where I had been staying a week before that time, or what I hadbeen doing at three o'clock on that identical afternoon. 

_Automatic Writing_

I have frequently experimented in automatic writing. Who that isinterested in the occult has not! But I cannot say I have ever had anyastonishing results. However, though my own experiences are not worthrecording, I have heard of many extraordinary results obtained byothers--results from automatic messages that one can not help believingcould only be due to superphysical agency. 

_Table-turning_

I do not think there is anything superphysical in merely turning thetable, or making it move across the room, or causing it to fall over onto the ground, and to get up again. I am of the opinion that all this isdue to animal magnetism, and to the unconscious efforts of the audience, who are ever anxious for the ghost to come and something startling tohappen. The ladies, in particular, I would point out, press a littlehard with their dainty but determined hands, or with their self-willedknees resort to a few sly pushes. When this does not happen, I think itis quite possible that an elemental or some other equally undesirabletype of phantasm does actually attend the séance, and, emphasising itsarrival by sundry noises, is responsible for many, if not all thephenomena. On the other hand, I certainly think that ninety per cent. Ofthe rappings and the manifestations of musical enthusiasts is due totrickery on the part of the medium, or, if there be no professionalmedium present, to an over-zealous sitter. 

But since ghosts can and do show themselves spontaneously in hauntedhouses, why the necessity of musical instruments, professional medium, and sitting round a table with fingers linked? Surely, when one comes tothink of it, the _modus operandi_ of the séance, besides being extremelyundignified, is somewhat superfluous. Tin trumpets, twopennytambourines, and concertinas are all very well in their way, but, tryhow I will, I cannot associate them with ghosts. What phantasm of anystanding at all would be attracted by such baubles? Surely only thephantasms of the very silliest of servant girls, of incurable idiots, and of advanced imbeciles. But even they, I think, might be "above it, "in which case the musical instruments, tin trumpets, tambourines, andconcertinas, disdained by the immaterial, must be manipulated by thematerial! And this rule with regard to table-turning, the manipulationof musical instruments, etc. , equally applies to materialisation. I haveno doubt that genuine phantasms of the earth-bound or elementals dooccasionally show themselves, but I am quite sure in nine cases out often the manifestations are manifestations of living flesh and blood. 

_Charms and Checks against Ghosts_

"When I feel the approach of the superphysical, I always cross myself, "an old lady once remarked to me; and this is what many people do;indeed, the sign of the cross is the most common mode of warding offevil. Whether it is really efficacious is doubtful. I, for my part, makeuse of the sign, involuntarily rather than otherwise, because the customis innate in me, and is, perhaps, with various other customs, theheritage of all my race from ages past; but I cannot say it always oreven often answers, for ghosts frequently manifest themselves to me inspite of it. Then there is the magic circle which is describeddifferently by divers writers. According to Mr Dyer, in his _GhostWorld_, pp. 167-168, the circle was prepared thus: "A piece of groundwas usually chosen, nine feet square, at the full extent of whichparallel lines were drawn, one within the other, having sundry crossesand triangles described between them, close to which was formed thefirst or outer circle; then about half a foot within the same, a secondcircle was described, and within that another square corresponding tothe first, the centre of which was the spot where the master andassociate were to be placed. The vacancies formed by the various linesand angles of the figure were filled up by the holy names of God, havingcrosses and triangles described between them. .. . The reason assigned forthe use of the circles was, that so much ground being blessed andconsecrated by such holy words and ceremonies as they made use of informing it, had a secret force to expel all evil spirits from the boundsthereof, and, being sprinkled with pure sanctified water, the ground waspurified from all uncleanliness; besides, the holy names of God beingwritten over every part of it, its forces became so powerful that noevil spirits had ability to break through it, or to get at the magicianand his companion, by reason of the antipathy in nature they bore tothese sacred names. And the reason given for the triangles was, that ifthe spirits were not easily brought to speak the truth, they might bythe exorcist be conjured to enter the same, where, by virtue of thenames of the essence and divinity of God, they could speak nothing butwhat was true and right. "

Again according to Mr Dyer, when a spot was haunted by the spirit of amurderer or suicide who lay buried there, a magic circle was made justover the grave, and he who was daring enough to venture there, atmidnight, preferably when the elements were at their worst, wouldconjure the ghost to appear and give its reason for haunting the spot. In answer to the summons there was generally a long, unnatural silence, which was succeeded by a tremendous crash, when the phantasm wouldappear, and, in ghastly, hollow tones answer all the questions put toit. Never once would it encroach on the circle, and on its interrogatorpromising to carry out its wishes, it would suddenly vanish and neveragain walk abroad. If the hauntings were in a house, the investigatorentered the haunted room at midnight with a candle, and compass, and acrucifix or Bible. After carefully shutting the door, and describing acircle on the floor, in which he drew a cross, he placed within it achair, and table, and on the latter, put the crucifix, a Bible, and alighted candle. He then sat down on the chair and awaited the advent ofthe apparition, which either entered noiselessly or with a terrificcrash. On the promise that its wishes would be fulfilled, the ghostwithdrew, and there were no more disturbances. Sometimes theinvestigator, if he were a priest, would sprinkle the phantasm with holywater and sometimes make passes over it with the crucifix, but theresults were always the same; it responded to all the questions thatwere put to it and never troubled the house again. 

How different from what happens in reality! Though I have seen andinterrogated many ghosts, I have never had a reply, or anything in theshape of a reply, nor perceived any alteration in their expression thatwould in any way lead me to suppose they had understood me; and as toexorcism--well, I know of innumerable cases where it has been tried, and tried by the most pious of clergy--clergy of all denominations--andsingularly failed. It is true I have never experimented with a magiccircle, but, somehow, I have not much faith in it. 

In China the method of expelling ghosts from haunted houses has beendescribed as follows:--An altar containing tapers and incense sticks iserected in the spot where the manifestations are most frequent. A Taoistpriest is then summoned, and enters the house dressed in a red robe, with blue stockings and a black cap. He has with him a sword, made ofthe wood of the peach or date tree, the hilt and guard of which arecovered with red cloth. Written in ink on the blade of the sword is acharm against ghosts. Advancing to the altar, the priest deposits hissword on it. He then prepares a mystic scroll, which he burns, collecting and emptying the ashes into a cup of spring water. Next, hetakes the sword in his right hand and the cup in his left, and, aftertaking seven paces to the left and eight to the right, he says: "Gods ofheaven and earth, invest me with the heavy seal, in order that I mayeject from this dwelling-house all kinds of evil spirits. Should anydisobey me, give me power to deliver them for safe custody to rulers ofsuch demons. " Then, addressing the ghost in a loud voice, he says: "Asquick as lightning depart from this house. " This done, he takes a bunchof willow, dips it in the cup, and sprinkles it in the east, west, north, and south corners of the house, and, laying it down, picks up hissword and cup, and, going to the east corner of the building, callsout: "I have the authority, Tai-Shaong-Loo-Kivan. " He then fills hismouth with water from the cup, and spits it out on the wall, exclaiming:"Kill the green evil spirits which come from unlucky stars, or let thembe driven away. " This ceremony he repeats at the south, west, and northcorners respectively, substituting, in turn, red, white, and yellow inthe place of green. The attendants then beat gongs, drums, and tom-toms, and the exorcist cries out: "Evil spirits from the east, I send back tothe east; evil spirits from the south, I send back to the south, " and soon. Finally, he goes to the door of the house, and, after making somemystical signs in the air, manoeuvres with his sword, congratulates theowner of the establishment on the expulsion of the ghosts, and demandshis fee. 

In China the sword is generally deemed to have psychic properties, andis often to be seen suspended over a bed to scare away ghosts. Sometimesa horse's tail--a horse being also considered extremely psychic--or arag dipped in the blood from a criminal's head, are used for the samepurpose. But no matter how many, or how varied, the precautions we take, ghosts will come, and nothing will drive them away. The only protectionI have ever found to be of any practical value in preventing them frommaterialising is a powerful light. As a rule they cannot stand _that_, and whenever I have turned a pocket flashlight on them, they have atonce dematerialised; often, however, materialising again immediately thelight has been turned off. 

The cock was, at one time, (and still is in some parts of the world)regarded as a psychic bird; it being thought that phantasms invariablytook their departure as soon as it began to crow. This, however, is afallacy. As ghosts appear at all hours of the day and night, in seasonand out of season, I fear it is only too obvious that theirmanifestations cannot be restricted within the limits of any particulartime, and that their coming and going, far from being subject to thecrowing of a cock, however vociferous, depend entirely on themselves. 

CHAPTER XI

OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS

_Phantom Ships_

From time to time, one still hears of a phantom ship being seen, invarious parts of the world. Sometimes it is in the Straits of Magellan, vainly trying to weather the Horn; sometimes in the frozen latitudes ofthe north, steering its way in miraculous fashion past monster icebergs;sometimes in the Pacific, sometimes in the Atlantic, and only the otherday I heard of its being seen off Cornwall. The night was dark andstormy, and lights being suddenly seen out at sea as of a vessel indistress, the lifeboat was launched. On approaching the lights, it wasdiscovered that they proceeded from a vessel that mysteriously vanishedas soon as the would-be rescuers were within hailing. Much puzzled, thelifeboat men were about to return, when they saw the lights suddenlyreappear to leeward. On drawing near to them, they again disappeared, and were once more seen right out to sea. Utterly nonplussed, andfeeling certain that the elusive bark must be the notorious phantomship, the lifeboat men abandoned the pursuit, and returned home. 

A fisherman of the same town--the town to which the lifeboat that hadgone to the rescue of the phantom ship belonged--told me, when I was outwith him one evening in his boat, that one of the oldest inhabitants ofthe place had on one occasion, when the phantom ship visited the bay, actually got his hands on her gunwales before she melted away, and henarrowly escaped pitching headlong into the sea. Though the weather wasthen still and warm, the yards of the ship, which were coated with ice, flapped violently to and fro, as if under the influence of some mightywind. The appearance of the phenomenon was followed, as usual, by acatastrophe to one of the local boats. 

I very often sound sailors as to whether they have ever come across thisominous vessel, and sometimes hear very enthralling accounts of it. Anold sea captain whom I met on the pier at Southampton, in reply to myinquiry, said: "Yes! I have seen the phantom ship, or at any rate aphantom ship, once--but only once. It was one night in the fifties, andwe were becalmed in the South Pacific about three hundred miles due westof Callao. It had been terrifically hot all day, and, only too thankfulthat it was now a little cooler, I was lolling over the bulwarks to geta few mouthfuls of fresh air before turning into my berth, when one ofthe crew touched me on the shoulder, and ejaculating, 'For God'ssake----' abruptly left off. Following the direction of his glaringeyes, I saw to my amazement a large black brig bearing directly down onus. She was about a mile off, and, despite the intense calmness of thesea, was pitching and tossing as if in the roughest water. As she drewnearer I was able to make her out better, and from her build--shecarried two masts and was square-rigged forward and schooner-riggedaft--as well as from her tawdry gilt figurehead, concluded she was ahermaphrodite brig of, very possibly, Dutch nationality. She hadevidently seen a great deal of rough weather, for her foretopmast andpart of her starboard bulwarks were gone, and what added to myastonishment and filled me with fears and doubts was, that in spite ofthe pace at which she was approaching us and the dead calmness of theair, she had no other sails than her foresail and mainsail, andflying-jib. 

"By this time all of our crew were on deck, and the skipper and thesecond mate took up their positions one on either side of me, the manwho had first called my attention to the strange ship, joining someother seamen near the forecastle. No one spoke, but, from the expressionin their eyes and ghastly pallor of their cheeks, it was very easy tosee that one and all were dominated by the same feelings of terror andsuspicion. Nearer and nearer drew the brig, until she was at last soclose that we could perceive her crew--all of whom, save the helmsman, were leaning over the bulwarks--grinning at us. Never shall I forget thehorror of those grins. They were hideous, meaningless, hellish grins, the grins of corpses in the last stage of putrefaction. And that is justwhat they were--all of them--corpses, but corpses possessed by spiritsof the most devilish sort, for as we stared, too petrified with fear toremove our gaze, they nodded their ulcerated heads and gesticulatedvehemently. The brig then gave a sudden yaw, and with that motion therewas wafted a stink--a stink too damnably foul and rotten to originatefrom anywhere, save from some cesspool in hell. Choking, retching, andall but fainting, I buried my face in the skipper's coat, and did notventure to raise it, till the far-away sounds of plunging and tossingassured me the cursed ship had passed. I then looked up, and was just intime to catch a final glimpse of the brig, a few hundred yards toleeward, (she had passed close under our stern) before her lofty sternrose out of the water, and, bows foremost, she plunged into the stillydepths and we saw her no more. There was no need for the skipper to tellus that she was the phantom ship, nor did she belie her sinisterreputation, for within a week of seeing her, yellow fever broke out onboard, and when we arrived at port, there were only three of us left. "

_The Sargasso Sea_

Of all the seas in the world, none bear a greater reputation for beinghaunted than the Sargasso. Within this impenetrable waste of rank, stinking seaweed, in places many feet deep, are collected wreckages ofall ages and all climes, grim and permanent records of the world'smaritime history, unsinkable and undestroyable. It has ever been myambition to explore the margins of this unsightly yet fascinating marinewilderness, but, so far, I have been unable to extend my peregrinationsfurther south than the thirty-fifth degree of latitude. 

Among the many stories I have heard in connection with this sea, thefollowing will, I think, bear repeating:--

"A brig with twelve hands aboard, bound from Boston to the Cape VerdeIslands, was caught in a storm, and, being blown out of her course, drifted on to the northern extremities of the Sargasso. The wind thensinking, and an absolute calm taking its place, there seemed everyprospect that the brig would remain where it was for an indefiniteperiod. A most horrible fate now stared the crew in the face, foralthough they had food enough to last them for many weeks, they only hada very limited supply of water, and the intense heat and terrific stenchfrom the weeds made them abnormally thirsty. 

"After a long and earnest consultation, in which the skipper acted aschairman, it was decided that on the consumption of the last drop ofwater they should all commit suicide, anything rather than to perish ofthirst, and it would be far less harrowing to die in a body and face theawful possibilities of the next world in company than alone. 

"As there was only one firearm on board, and the idea of throat-cuttingwas disapproved of by several of the more timid, rat poison, of whichthere was just enough to go all round, was chosen. Meanwhile, inconsideration of the short time left to them on earth, the crew insistedthat they should be allowed to enjoy themselves to the utmost. To thisthe captain, knowing only too well what that would mean, reluctantlygave his consent. A general pandemonium at once ensued, one of the menproducing a mouth accordion and another a concertina, whilst the rest, selecting partners with much mock gallantry, danced to the air of apopular Vaudeville song till they could dance no longer. 

"The next item on the programme was dinner. The best of everything onboard was served up, and they all ate and drank till they could hold nomore. They were then so sleepy that they tumbled off their seats, and, lying on the floor, soon snored like hogs. The cool of the eveningrestoring them, they played pitch and toss, and poker, till tea-time, and then fooled away the remainder of the evening in more cards and moredrink. In this manner the best part of a week was beguiled. Then theskipper announced the fact that the last drop of liquor on board hadgone, and that, according to the compact, the hour had arrived to commitsuicide. Had a bombshell fallen in their midst, it could not have causeda greater consternation than this announcement. The men had, by thistime, become so enamoured with their easy and irresponsible mode ofliving, that the idea of quitting it in so abrupt a manner was by nomeans to their liking, and they evinced their displeasure in theroughest and most forcible of language. 'The skipper could d----d wellput an end to himself if he had a mind to, but they would see themselvessomewhere else before they did any such thing--it would be time enoughto talk of dying when the victuals were all eaten up. ' Then theythoroughly overhauled the ship, and on discovering half a dozen bottlesof rum and a small cask of water stowed away in the skipper's cabin, they threw him overboard and pelted him with empty bottles till he sank;after which they cleared the deck and danced till sunset. 

"Two nights later, when they were all lying on the deck near thecompanion way, licking their parched lips and commiserating withthemselves on the prospect of their gradually approaching end--for theyhad abandoned all idea of the rat poison--they suddenly saw a hideous, seaweedy object rise up over the bulwarks on the leeward side of theship. In breathless expectation they all sat up and watched. Inch byinch it rose, until they saw before them a tall form enveloped from headto foot in green slime, and horribly suggestive of the well-known figureof the murdered captain. Gliding noiselessly over the deck, it shook itshands menacingly at each of the sailors, until it came to thecabin-boy--the only one among them who had not participated in theskipper's death--when it touched him gently on the forehead, and, stooping down, appeared to whisper something in his ears. It thenrecrossed the deck, and, mounting the bulwarks, leaped into the sea. 

"For some seconds no one stirred; and then, as if under the influence ofsome hypnotic spell, one by one, each of the crew, with the exception ofthe cabin-boy, got up, and, marching in Indian file to the spot wherethe apparition had vanished, flung themselves overboard. The last of theprocession had barely disappeared from view, when the cabin-boy, whoseagony of mind during this infernal tragedy cannot be described, fellinto a heavy stupor, from which he did not awake till morning. In themeanwhile the brig, owing to a stiff breeze that had arisen in thenight, was freed from its environment, and was drifting away from theseaweed. It went on and on, day after day, and day after day, till itwas eventually sighted by a steamer and taken in tow. The cabin-boy, bythis time barely alive, was nursed with the tenderest care, and, owingto the assiduous attention bestowed on him, he completely recovered. "

I think this story, though naturally ridiculed and discredited by some, may be unreservedly accepted by those whose knowledge and experience ofthe occult warrant their belief in it. 

Along the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so thanthe "Bay of the Departed, " where, in the dead of night, wails and cries, presumably uttered by the phantasms of drowned sailors, are distinctlyheard by the terrified peasantry on shore. I can the more readilybelieve this, because I myself have heard similar sounds off the Irish, Scottish, and Cornish coasts, where shrieks, and wails, and groans as ofthe drowning have been borne to me from the inky blackness of thefoaming and tossing sea. According to Mr Hunt in his _Romances of theWest of England_, the sands of Porth Towan were haunted, a fishermandeclaring that one night when he was walking on them alone, he suddenlyheard a voice from the sea cry out, "The hour is come, but not the man. "This was repeated three times, when a black figure, like that of a man, appeared on the crest of an adjacent hill, and, dashing down the steepside, rushed over the sands and vanished in the waves. 

In other parts of England, as well as in Brittany and Spain, a voicefrom the sea is always said to be heard prior to a storm and loss oflife. In the Bermudas, I have heard that before a wreck a huge whitefish is often seen; whilst in the Cape Verde Islands maritime disastersare similarly presaged by flocks of peculiarly marked gulls. 

On no more reliable authority than hearsay evidence, I understand thatoff the coast of Finland a whirlpool suddenly appears close beside avessel that is doomed to be wrecked, and that a like calamity isforetold off the coast of Peru by the phantasm of a sailor who, ineighteenth-century costume, swarms up the side of the doomed ship, enters the captain's cabin, and, touching him on the shoulder, pointssolemnly at the porthole and vanishes. 

_River Ghosts_

In China there is a strong belief that spots in rivers, creeks, andponds where people have been drowned are haunted by devils that, concealing themselves either in the water itself or on the banks, springout upon the unwary and drown them. To warn people against thesedangerous elementals, a stone or pillar called "The Fat-pee, " on whichthe name of the future Buddha or Pam-mo-o-mee-to-foo is inscribed, isset up near the place where they are supposed to lurk, and when thehauntings become very frequent the evil spirit is exorcised. Theceremony of exorcism consists in the decapitation of a white horse by aspecially selected executioner, on the site of the hauntings. The headof the slaughtered animal is placed in an earthenware jar, and buried inthe exact spot where it was killed, which place is then carefully markedby the erection of a stone tablet with the words "O-me-o-to-fat"transcribed on it. The performance concludes with the cutting up andselling of the horse's body for food. Amongst the numerous other creeksthat have witnessed this practice in recent years are those adjoiningthe villages of Tsze-tow (near Whampoa) and Gna-zew (near Canton). 

Various of the lakes, particularly the crater lakes of America, wereonce thought to be haunted by spirits or devils of a fiery red whoraised storms and upset canoes. 

_Sirens_

But by far the most fascinating of all the phantasms of the water arethe sirens that haunted (and still occasionally haunt) rivers andwaterfalls, particularly those of Germany and Austria. Not so very longago on my travels I came across an aged Hungarian who declared that hehad once seen a siren. I append the story he told me, as nearly aspossible in his own words. 

"My brother Hans and I were wandering, early one morning, along thebanks of a tributary of the Drave, in search of birds' eggs. The shoreson either side the river were thickly wooded, and so rough and uneven inplaces that we had to exercise the greatest care to avoid getting hurt. Few people visited the neighbourhood, save in the warmest and brightesttime of the day, and, with the exception of a woodcutter, we had met noone. Much, then, to our astonishment, on arriving at an open space onthe bank, we heard the sound of singing and music. 'Whoever can it be?'we asked ourselves, and then, advancing close to the water's edge, westrained our heads, and saw, perched high on a rock in midstream a fewfeet to our left, a girl with long yellow hair and a face of the mostexquisite beauty. Though I was too young then to trouble my head aboutgirls, I could not help being struck with this one, whilst Hans, who wasseveral years older than I, was simply spellbound. 'My God! how lovely!'he cried out, 'and what a voice--how exquisite! Isn't she divine? She isaltogether too beautiful for a human being; she must be an angel, ' andhe fell on his knees and extended his hands towards her, as if in theact of worship. Never having seen Hans behave in such a queer waybefore, I touched him on the shoulder, and said: 'Get up! If you go onlike this the lady will think you mad. Besides, it is getting late, weought to be going on!' But Hans did not heed me. He still continued toexclaim aloud, expressing his admiration in the most extravagantphrases; and then the girl ceased singing, and, looking at Hans with herlarge blue eyes, smiled and beckoned him to approach. I caught hold ofhim, and begged and implored him to do nothing so foolish, but hewrenched himself free, and, striking me savagely on the chest, leapedinto the water and swam towards the rock. 

"With what eagerness I counted his strokes and watched the dreadeddistance diminish! On and on he swam, till at length he was close to therock, and the lady, bending down, was holding out her lily hands to him. Hans clutched at them, and they were, I thought, already in his feveredgrasp, when she coyly snatched them away and struck him playfully on thehead. The cruel, hungry waters then surged over him. I saw him sinkdown, down, down: I saw him no more. When I raised my agonised eyes tothe rocks, all was silent and desolate: the lady had vanished. "

CHAPTER XII

BUDDHAS AND BOGGLE CHAIRS

It was in Paris, at the Hotel Mandeville, that I met the Baroness Paoli, an almost solitary survivor of the famous Corsican family. I wasintroduced to her by John Heroncourt, a friend in common, and theintroduction was typical of his characteristic unorthodoxy. 

"Mr Elliott O'Donnell, the Baroness Paoli. Mr Elliott O'Donnell is awriter on the superphysical. He is unlike the majority of psychicalresearchers, inasmuch as he has not based his knowledge on hearsay, buthas actually seen, heard, and felt occult phenomena, both collectivelyand individually. "

The Baroness smiled. 

"Then I am delighted to meet Mr O'Donnell, for I, too, have hadexperience with the superphysical. "

She extended her hand; the introduction was over. 

A man in my line of life has to work hard. My motto is promptness. Ihave no time to waste on superfluity of any kind. I come to the point atonce. Consequently, my first remark to the Baroness was direct from theshoulder:

"Your experiences. Please tell them--they will be both interesting anduseful. "

The Baroness gently clasped her hands--truly psychic hands, with slenderfingers and long shapely nails--and, looking at me fixedly, said:

"If you write about it, promise that you will not mention names. "

"They shall at all events be unrecognisable, " I said. "Please begin. "

And without further delay the Baroness commenced her story. 

"You must know, " she said, "that in my family, as in most historicalfamilies--particularly Corsican--there have been many tragedies. In somecases merely orthodox tragedies--a smile, a blow, a groan; in othercases peculiar tragedies--peculiar even in that country and in thegrimness of the mediæval age. 

"Since 1316 the headquarters of my branch of the Paolis has been atSartoris, once the strongest fortified castle in Corsica, but now, alas!almost past repair, in fact little better than a heap of crumblingruins. As you know, Mr O'Donnell, it takes a vast fortune to keep such aplace merely habitable. 

"I lived there with my mother until my marriage two years ago, andneither she nor I had ever seen or heard any superphysicalmanifestations. From time to time some of the servants complained of oddnoises, and there was one room which none of them would pass alone evenin daylight; but we laughed at their fears, merely attributing them tothe superstition which is so common among the Corsican peasants. 

"The year after my marriage, my husband, a Mr Vercoe, who was a greatfriend of ours, and I, accepted my mother's invitation to spendChristmas with her, and we all three travelled together to Sartoris. 

"It was an ideal season, and the snow--an exceptional sight in my nativetown--lay thick in the Castle grounds. 

"But to get on with my story--for I see I must not try your patiencewith unnecessary detail--I must give you a brief description of thebedroom in which my husband and I slept. Like all the rooms in theCastle, it was oak panelled throughout. Floor, ceiling, and walls, allwere of oak, and the bed, also of oak, and certainly of no later datethan the fourteenth century, was superbly carved, and had been recentlyvalued at £30, 000. 

"There were two entrances, the one leading into a passage, and the otherinto a large reception room, formerly a chapel, at the furthestextremity of which was a huge barred and bolted door that had not beenopened for more than a hundred years. This door led down a flight ofstone steps to a series of ancient dungeons that occupied the spaceunderneath our bedroom and the reception room. 

"On Christmas Eve we retired to rest somewhat earlier than usual, and, being tired after a long day's motoring, speedily fell into a deepsleep. We awoke simultaneously, both querying the time and agreeing thatit must be about five o'clock. 

"Whilst we were talking, we suddenly heard, to our utter astonishment, the sound of footsteps--heavy footsteps--accompanied by a curiousclanging sound, immediately beneath us; and, as if by mutual consent, weboth held our breath and listened. 

"The footsteps moved on, and we presently heard them begin to ascend thestone steps leading to the adjoining room. Up, up, up, they came, until, having reached the summit, they paused. Then we heard the huge, heavybolts of the fast-closed door shoot back with a sonorous clash. So far Ihad been rather more puzzled than frightened, and the idea of ghosts hadnot entered my mind, but when I heard the door--the door which I knew tobe so securely fastened from the inside--thus opened, a great fear sweptover me, and I prayed Heaven to save us from what might ensue. 

"Several people, talking rapidly in gruff voices, now entered the room, and we distinctly heard the jingling of spurs and the rattling of swordscabbards coming to us distinctly through the cracks of the door. 

"I was so paralysed with fear that I could do nothing. I could neitherspeak nor move, and my very soul was concentrated in one great, sicklydread, one awful anticipation that the intruders would burst into ourroom, and, before our very eyes, perform unthinkable horrors. 

"To my immeasurable relief, however, this did not happen. The footsteps, as far as I could judge, advanced into the middle of the room--there wasa ghastly suggestion of a scuffle, of a smothered cry, a gurgle; and themailed feet then retired whence they had come, dragging with them someheavy load which bumped, bumped, bumped down the stairs and into thecellar. Then a brief silence followed, abruptly broken by the sound of agirlish voice, which, though beautifully tintinnabulous, was unearthly, and full of suggestions so sinister and blood-curdling, that the fetterswhich had hitherto held me tongue-tied snapped asunder, and I was ableto give vent to my terror in words. The instant I did so the singingceased, all was still, and not another sound disturbed us till morning. 

"We got up as soon as we dared and found the door at the head of thedungeon steps barred and bolted as usual, while the heavy and antiquefurniture in the apartment showed no sign of having been disturbed. 

"On the following night my husband sat up in the room adjoining ourbedroom, to see if there would be a repetition of what had taken placethe night before, but nothing occurred, and we never heard the noisesagain. 

"That is one experience. The other, though not our own, was almostcoincidental, and happened to our engineer friend, Mr Vercoe. When wetold him about the noises we had heard, he roared with laughter. 

"'Well, ' he said, 'I always understood you Corsicans were superstitious, but this beats everything. The regulation stereotype ghost in armour andclanking chains, eh! Do you know what the sounds were, Baroness? Rats!'and he smiled odiously. 

"Then a sudden idea flashed across me. 'Look here, Mr Vercoe, ' Iexclaimed, 'there is one room in our Castle I defy even you--sceptic asyou are--to sleep in. It is the Barceleri Chamber, called after myancestor, Barceleri Paoli. He visited China in the fifteenth century, bringing back with him a number of Chinese curiosities, and a Buddhawhich I shrewdly suspect he had stolen from a Canton temple. The room ismuch the same as when my ancestor occupied it, for no one has slept init since. Moreover, the servants declare that the noises they sofrequently hear come from it. But, of course, you won't mind spending anight in it?'

"Mr Vercoe laughed. 'He, he, he! Only too delighted. Give me a bottle ofyour most excellent vintage, and I defy any ghost that was evercreated!'

"He was as good as his word, Mr O'Donnell, and though he had advised thecontrary, we--that is to say, my mother, my husband, our two oldservants and I--sat up in one of the rooms close at hand. 

"Eleven, twelve, one, two, and three o'clock struck, and we werebeginning to wish we had taken his advice and gone to bed, when we heardthe most appalling, agonising, soul-rending screams for help. We rushedout, and, as we did so, the door of Mr Vercoe's room flew open andsomething--something white and glistening--bounded into thecandle-light. 

"We were so shocked, so absolutely petrified with terror, that it was asecond or so before we realised that it was Mr Vercoe--not the Mr Vercoewe knew, but an entirely different Mr Vercoe--a Mr Vercoe without astitch of clothing, and with a face metamorphosed into a lurid, solidblock of horror, overspreading which was a suspicion ofsomething--something too dreadful to name, but which we could have swornwas utterly at variance with his nature. Close at his heels was theblurred outline of something small and unquestionably horrid. I cannotdefine it. I dare not attempt to diagnose the sensations it produced. Apart from a deadly, nauseating fear, they were mercifully novel. 

"Dashing past us, Mr Vercoe literally hurled himself along the corridor, and with almost superhuman strides, disappeared downstairs. A momentlater, and the clashing of the hall door told us he was in the open air. A breathless silence fell on us, and for some seconds we were all toofrightened to move. My husband was the first to pull himself together. 

"'Come along!' he cried, gripping one of the trembling servants by thearm. 'Come along instantly! We must keep him in sight at all costs, 'and, bidding me remain where I was, he raced downstairs. 

"After a long search he eventually discovered Mr Vercoe lying at fulllength on the grass--insensible. 

"For some weeks our friend's condition was critical--on the top of aviolent shock to the system, sufficient in itself to endanger life, hehad taken a severe chill, which resulted in double pneumonia. However, thanks to a bull-dog constitution, typically English, he recovered, andwe then begged him to give us an account of all that had happened. 

"'I cannot!' he said. 'My one desire is to forget everything thathappened on that awful night. '

"He was obdurate, and our curiosity was, therefore, doomed to remainunsatisfied. Both my husband and I, however, felt quite sure that theimage of Buddha was at the bottom of the mischief, and, as there chancedjust then to be an English doctor staying at a neighbouring chateau, whowas on his way to China, we entrusted the image to him, on theunderstanding that he would place it in a Buddhist temple. He deceivedus, and, returning almost immediately to England, took the image withhim. We subsequently learned that within three months this man wasdivorced, that he murdered a woman in Clapham Rise, and, in order toescape arrest, poisoned himself. 

"The image then found its way to a pawnbroker's establishment inHoundsditch, which shortly afterwards was burned to the ground. Where itis now, I cannot definitely say, but I have been told that an image ofBuddha is the sole occupant of an empty house in the Shepherd's BushRoad--a house that is now deemed haunted. These are the experiences Iwanted to tell you, Mr O'Donnell. What do you think of them?"

"I think, " I said, "they are of absorbing interest. Can you see anyassociation in the two hauntings--any possible connection between whatyou heard and what Mr Vercoe saw?"

A look of perplexity crossed the Baroness's face. "I hardly know, " shesaid. "What is your opinion on that point?"

"That they are distinct--absolutely distinct. The phenomena you heardare periodical re-enactions, (either by the earth-bound spirits of theactual victim and perpetrators, or by impersonating phantoms), of acrime once committed within the Castle walls. A girl was obviouslymurdered in the chapel and her coffin dragged into the dungeons, where, no doubt, her remains are to be found. I presume it was her spirit youheard tintinnabulating. Very possibly, if her skeleton were unearthedand re-interred in an orthodox fashion, the hauntings would cease. 

"Now, with regard to your friend's experience. The blurred figure yousaw pursuing the engineer was not the image of Buddha--it was one of MrVercoe's many personalities, extracted from him by the image of Buddha. We are all, as you are aware, complex creatures, all composed of diverseselves, each self possessing a specific shape and individuality. Themore animal of these separate selves, the higher spiritual forcesattaching themselves to certain localities and symbols have the power ofdrawing out of us, and eventually destroying. The higher spiritualforces, however, do not associate themselves with all crucifixes andBuddhas, but only with those moulded by true believers. For instance, aBuddha fashioned for mere gain, and by a person who was not a genuinefollower of the prophet, would have no power of attraction. 

"I have proved all this, experimentally, times without number. 

"Mr Vercoe must have had--as indeed many of us have--vices, in allprobability, little suspected. The close proximity of the Buddha actedon them, and they began to leave his body and form a shape of their own. Had he allowed them to do so, all might have gone well; they would havebeen effectually overcome by the higher spiritual forces attached to theBuddha. But as soon as he saw a figure beginning to form--and no doubtit was very dreadful--he lost his head. His shrieks interrupted thework, the power of the Buddha was, _pro tempus_, at an end, and theextracted personality commenced at once to re-enter Vercoe. Rushing athim with that end in view, it so terrified him that he fled from theroom, and it was at that stage that you appeared upon the scene. Whatfollowed is, of course, pure conjecture on my part, but I fear, Igreatly fear, that by the time Mr Vercoe became unconscious the mischiefwas done, and the latter's evil personality had once again united withhis other personalities. "

"And what would be the after-effect, Mr O'Donnell?" the Baronessinquired anxiously. 

"I fear a serious one, " I replied evasively. "In the case of the doctoryou mentioned, who committed murder, an evil ego had doubtless beenexpelled, and, receiving a rebuff, had reunited, for after a reunion theevil personality usually receives a new impetus and grows with amazingrapidity. Have you heard from Mr Vercoe lately?"

The Baroness shook her head. "Not for several months. "

"You will let me know when you do?"

She nodded. 

A week later she wrote to me from Rome. 

"Isn't it terrible?" she began, "Mr Vercoe committed suicide onWednesday--the Birmingham papers--he was a Birmingham man--are full ofit!"

_The Barrowvian_

The description of an adventure Mr Trobas, a friend of mine, had with abarrowvian in Brittany (and which I omitted to relate when referring tobarrowvians), I now append as nearly as possible in his own words:--

"Night! A sky partially concealed from view by dark, fantasticallyshaped clouds, that, crawling along with a slow, stealthy motion, periodically obscure the moon. The crest of a hill covered withshort-clipped grass, much worn away in places, and in the centre aDruidical circle broken and incomplete; a few of the stones are erect, the rest either lie at full length on the sward, close to the mysticring, or at some considerable distance from it. Here and there aredistinct evidences of recent digging, and at the base of one of thehorizontal stones is an excavation of no little depth. 

"A sudden, but only temporary clearance of the sky reveals thesurrounding landscape; the rugged mountain side, flecked with gleaminggranite boulders and bordered with sturdy hedges (a mixture of mud andbracken), and beyond them the meadows, traversed by sinuous streamswhose scintillating surfaces sparkle like diamonds in the silverymoonlight. At rare intervals the scene is variegated, and natureinterrupted, by a mill or a cottage, --toy-like when viewed from such analtitude, --and then the sweep of meadowland continues, undulating gentlytill it finds repose at the foot of some distant ridge of cone-shapedmountains. Over everything there is a hush, awe-inspiring in itsintensity. Not the cry of a bird, not the howl of a dog, not the rustleof a leaf; there is nothing, nothing but the silence of the mostprofound sleep. In these remote rural districts man retires to restearly, the physical world accompanying him; and all nature dreamssimultaneously. 

"It was shortly after the commencement of this period of universalslumber, one night in April, that I toiled laboriously to the summit ofthe hill in question, and, spreading a rug on one of the fallen stones, converted it into a seat. Naturally I had not climbed this steep ascentwithout a purpose. The reason was this--at eight-thirty that morning Ireceived a telegram from a friend at Armennes, near Carnac, which ranthus: 'Am in great difficulty--Ghosts--Come. --KRANTZ. '

"Of course Krantz is not the real name of my friend, but it is one thatanswers the purpose admirably in telegrams and on post-cards; and ofcourse he well knew what he was about when he said 'Come. ' Not only Ibut everyone has confidence in Krantz, and I was absolutely certain thatwhen he demanded my presence, the money I should spend on the journeywould not be spent in vain. 

"Apart from psychical investigation, I study every phase of humannature, and am at present, among other things, engaged on a work ofcriminology based on impressions derived from face-to-face communicationwith notorious criminals. 

"The morning I received Krantz's summons was the morning I had set asidefor a special study of S---- M----, whose case has recently commanded somuch public attention; but the moment I read the wire, I changed myplans, without either hesitation or compunction. Krantz was Krantz, andhis dictum could not be disobeyed. 

"Tearing down la rue Saint Denis, and narrowly avoiding collision with alady who lives in la rue Saint François, and will persist in wearinghats and heels that outrage alike every sense of decency and good form, I hustled into the station, and, rushing down the steps, just succeededin catching the Carnac train. After a journey which, for slowness, mostassuredly holds the record, I arrived, boiling over with indignation, atArmennes, where Krantz met me. After luncheon he led the way to hisstudy, and, as soon as the servant who handed us coffee had left theroom, began his explanation of the telegram. 

"'As you know, Trobas, ' he observed, 'it's not all bliss to be alandlord. Up to the present I have been singularly fortunate, inasmuchas I have never experienced any difficulty in getting tenants for myhouses. Now, however, there has been a sudden and most alarming change, and I have just received no less than a dozen notices from tenantsdesirous of giving up their habitations at once. Here they are!' And hehanded me a bundle of letters, for the most part written in thescrawling hand of the illiterate. 'If you look, ' he went on, 'you willsee that none of them give any reason for leaving. It is merely--"WeCANNOT POSSIBLY stay here any longer, " or "We MUST give up possessionIMMEDIATELY, " which they have done, and in every instance before thequarter was up. Being naturally greatly astonished and perturbed, I madecareful inquiries, and, at length--for the North Country rustic is mostreticent and difficult to "draw"--succeeded in extracting from three ofthem the reason for the general exodus. The houses are all HAUNTED!There was nothing amiss with them, they informed me, till about threeweeks ago, when they all heard all sorts of alarming noises--crashes asif every atom of crockery they possessed was being broken; bangs on thepanels of doors; hideous groans; diabolical laughs; and blood-curdlingscreams. Nor was that all; some of them vowed they had seenthings--horrible hairy hands, with claw-like nails and knotted joints, that came out of dark corners and grabbed at them; naked feet withenormous filthy toes; and faces--HORRIBLE faces that peeped at them overthe banisters or through the windows; and sooner than stand any more ofit--sooner than have their wives and bairns frightened out of theirsenses, they would sacrifice a quarter's rent and go. "We are sorry, MrKrantz, " they said in conclusion, "for you have been a most consideratelandlord, but stay we cannot. "' Here my friend paused. 

"'And have you no explanation of these hauntings?' I asked. 

"Krantz shook his head. 'No!' he said, 'the whole thing is a mostprofound mystery to me. At first I attributed it to practical jokers, people dressed up; but a couple of nights' vigil in the haunted districtsoon dissipated that theory. '

"'You say district, ' I remarked. 'Are the houses close together--in thesame road or valley?'

"'In a valley, ' Krantz responded--'the Valley of Dolmen. It is ten milesfrom here. '

"'Dolmen!' I murmured, 'why Dolmen?'

"'Because, ' Krantz explained, 'in the centre of the valley is a hill, onthe top of which is a Druids' circle. '

"'How far are the houses off the hill?' I queried. 

"'Various distances, ' Krantz replied; 'one or two very close to the baseof it, and others further away. '

"'But within a radius of a few miles?'

"Krantz nodded. 'Oh yes, ' he answered. 'The valley itself is small. Iintend taking you there to-night. I thought we would watch outside oneof the houses. '

"'If you don't mind, ' I said, 'I would rather not. Anyway not to-night. Tell me how to get there and I will go alone. '

"Krantz smiled. 'You are a strange creature, Trobas, ' he said, 'thestrangest in the world. I sometimes wonder if you are an elemental. Atall events, you occupy a category all to yourself. Of course go alone, if you would rather. I shall be far happier here, and if you can find asatisfactory solution to the mystery and put an end to the hauntings, Ishall be eternally grateful. When will you start, and what will youtake with you?'

"'If that clock of yours is right, Krantz, ' I exclaimed, pointing to agun-metal timepiece on the mantelshelf, 'in half an hour. As the nightpromises to be cold, let me have some strong brandy-and-water, a dozenoatmeal biscuits, a thick rug, and a lantern. Nothing else!'

"Krantz carried out my instructions to the letter. His motor took me toDolmen Valley, and at eight o'clock I began the ascent of the hill. Onreaching the summit, I uttered an exclamation. 'Someone has beenexcavating, and quite recently!'

"It was precisely what I had anticipated. Some weeks previously, amember of the Lyons literary club, to which I belong, had informed methat a party of geologist friends of his had been visiting the cromlechsof Brittany, and had committed the most barbarous depredations there. Hence, the moment Krantz mentioned the 'Druidical circle, ' I associatedthe spot with the visit of the geologists; and knowing only too wellthat disturbances of ancient burial grounds almost always lead to occultmanifestations, I decided to view the place at once. 

"That I had not erred in my associations was now only too apparent. Abominable depredations HAD been committed, --doubtless, by the people towhom I have alluded--and, unless I was grossly mistaken, herein lay theclue to the hauntings. 

"The air being icy, I had to wrap both my rug and my overcoat tightlyround me to prevent myself from freezing, and every now and then I gotup and stamped my feet violently on the hard ground to restore thecirculation. 

"So far there had been nothing in the atmosphere to warn me of thepresence of the superphysical, but, precisely at eleven o'clock, Idetected the sudden amalgamation, with the ether, of that enigmatical, indefinable SOMETHING, to which I have so frequently alluded in my pastadventures. And now began that period of suspense which 'takes it out ofme' even more than the encounter with the phenomenon itself. Over andover again I asked myself the hackneyed, but none the less thrillingquestion, 'What form will it take? Will it be simply a phantasm of adead Celt, or some peculiarly grotesque and awful elemental[1] attractedto the spot by human remains?'

[1] Either a barrowvian or vagrarian. Vide _Haunted Houses of London_(published by Eveleigh Nash) and _Ghostly Phenomena_ (published byWerner Laurie). 

"Minute after minute passed, and nothing happened. It is curious, how atnight, especially when the moon is visible, the landscape seems toundergo a complete metamorphosis. Objects not merely increase in size, but vary in shape, and become possessed of an animation suggestive ofall sorts of lurking, secretive possibilities. It was so now. Theboulders in front and around me, presented the appearance of grotesquebeasts, whose hidden eyes I could feel following my every movement withsly interest. The one solitary fir adorning the plateau was a tree nolonger but an ogre, _pro tempus_, concealing the grim terrors of itsspectral body beneath its tightly folded limbs. The stones of thecircle opposite were ghoulish, hump-backed things that crouched andsquatted in all kinds of fantastic attitudes and tried to read mythoughts. The shadows, too, that, swarming from the silent tarns andmeadows, ascended with noiseless footsteps the rugged sides of the hill, and, taking cover of even the smallest obstacles, stalked me withunremitting persistency, were no mere common shadows, but intangible, pulpy things that breathed the spirit of the Great Unknown. Yet nothingspecified came to frighten me. The stillness was so emphatic that eachtime I moved, the creaking of my clothes and limbs created echoes. Iyawned, and from on all sides of me came a dozen other yawns. I sighed, and the very earth beneath me swayed with exaggerated sympathy. 

"The silence irritated me. I grew angry; I coughed, laughed, whistled;and from afar off, from the distant lees, and streams, and spinneys, came a repetition of the noises. 

"Then the blackest of clouds creeping slowly over the moor crushed thesheen out of the valley and smothered everything in sable darkness. Thesilence of death supervened, and my anger turned to fear. Around methere was now--NOTHING--only a void. Black ether and space! Space! asanctuary from fear, and yet composed of fear itself. It was the space, the nameless, bottomless SOMETHING spreading limitless all around me, that, filling me with vague apprehensions, confused me with its terrors. What was it? Whence came it? I threw out my arms and Something, Something which I intuitively knew to be there, but which I cannotexplain, receded. I drew them in again, and the same SOMETHING instantlyoppressed me with its close--its very close proximity. 

"I gasped for breath and tried to move my arms again--I could not. Asudden rigor held me spellbound, and fixed my eyes on the darknessdirectly ahead of me. Then, from somewhere in my rear, came alaugh--hoarse, malignant, and bestial, and I was conscious that theSOMETHING had materialised and was creeping stealthily towards me. Nearer, nearer and nearer it came, and all the time I wondered what, WHAT in the name of God it was like! My anticipations became unbearable, the pulsations of my heart and the feverish throbbing of my templeswarning me that, if the climax were postponed much longer, I shouldeither die where I sat, or go mad. That I did neither, was due to adivine inspiration which made me suddenly think of a device that I hadonce seen on a Druidical stone in Brittany--the sun, a hand with theindex and little fingers pointing downwards, and a sprig of mistletoe. The instant I saw them in my mind's eye, the cords that held meparalytic slackened. 

"I sprang up, and there, within a yard of where I had sat, was afigure--the luminous nude figure of a creature, half man and half ape. Standing some six feet high, it had a clumsy, thick-set body, covered inplaces with coarse, bristly hair, arms of abnormal length and girth, legs swelling with huge muscles and much bowed, and a very large andlong dark head. The face was DREADFUL!--it was the face of somethinglong since dead; and out of the mass of peeling, yellow skin andmouldering tissues gleamed two lurid and wholly malevolent eyes. Ourglances met, and, as they did so, a smile of hellish glee suffused itscountenance. Then, crouching down in cat-like fashion on its disgustinghands, it made ready to spring. Again the device of the sun andmistletoe arose before me. My fingers instinctively closed on my pocketflashlight. I pressed the button and, as the brilliant, white ray shotforth, the satanical object before me VANISHED. Then I turned tail, andnever ceased running till I had arrived at the spot on the high-roadwhere Krantz's motor awaited me. 

 * * * * *

"After breakfast next morning, Krantz listened to my account of themidnight adventure in respectful silence. 

"'Then!' he said, when I had finished, 'you attribute the hauntings inthe valley to the excavations of the geologist Leblanc and his party, atthe cromlech six weeks ago?'

"'Entirely, ' I replied. 

"'And you think, if Leblanc and Cie were persuaded to restore andre-inter the remains they found and carted away, that the disturbanceswould cease?'

"'I am sure of it!' I said. 

"'Then, ' Krantz exclaimed, banging his clenched fist on the table, 'Iwill approach them on the subject at once!'

"He did so, and, after much correspondence, eventually received pergoods train, a Tate's sugar cube-box, containing a number of bones ofthe missing link pattern, which he at once had taken to the Druids'circle. As soon as they were buried and the marks of the recentexcavations obliterated, the hauntings in the houses ceased. "

_Boggle Chairs_

"Killington Grange, " near Northampton, was once haunted, so my friend MrPope informs me, by a chair, and the following is Mr Pope's ownexperience of the hauntings, as nearly as possible as he related it tome:--

"Some years ago, shortly before Christmas, I received an invitation frommy old friend, William Achrow. 

"'Killington Grange, 'Northampton. 

"'DEAR POPE' (he wrote)--'My wife and I are entertaining a few guestshere this Christmas, and are most anxious to include you among them. 

"'When I tell you that Sir Charles and Lady Kirlby are coming, and thatwe can offer you something startling in the way of a ghost, you will, Iknow, need no further inducement to join our party. --Yours, etc. , "'W. ACHROW. '

"Achrow was a cunning fellow; he knew I would go a thousand miles tomeet the Kirlbys, who had been my greatest friends in Ireland, and thatghosts invariably drew me like magnets. At that time I was a bachelor; Ihad no one to think about but myself, and as I felt pretty sure of afresh theatrical engagement in the early spring, I was happily carelesswith regard to expenditure--and to people of limited incomes likemyself, staying in country houses means expenditure, a great deal moreexpenditure than a week or so at an ordinary hotel. 

"However, as I have observed, I felt pretty secure just then; I couldafford a couple of 'fivers, ' and would gladly get rid of them to seeonce more my dear old friends, Sir Charles and Lady K----. Accordingly, I accepted Achrow's invitation, and the afternoon of December 23rd sawme snugly ensconced in a first-class compartment _en route_ for CastleStreet, Northampton. Now, although I am, not unnaturally, perhaps, prejudiced in favour of Ireland and everything that is Irish, I must sayI do not think the Emerald Isle shows her best in winter, when the banksof fair Killarney are shorn of their vivid colouring, and the wholecountry from north to south, and east to west, is carpeted with mud. No, the palm of wintry beauty must assuredly be given to the EnglishMidlands--the Midlands with their stolid and richly variegatedwoodlands, and their pretty undulating meadows, clad in fleecy garmentsof the purest, softest, and most glittering snow. It was a typicalMidland Christmas when I got to Northampton and took my place in theluxurious closed carriage Achrow had sent to meet me. 

"Killington Grange lies at the extremity of the village. It stands inits own grounds of some hundred or so acres, and is approached by a longavenue that winds its way from the lodge gates through endless rows ofgiant oaks and elms, and slender, silver birches. On either side, tothe rear of the trees, lay broad stretches of undulating pasture land, that in one place terminated in the banks of a large lake, nowglittering with ice and wrapped in the silence of death. 

"The crunching of the carriage wheels on gravel, the termination of thetrees, and a great blaze of light announced the close proximity of thehouse, and in a few seconds I was standing on the threshold of animposing entrance. 

"A footman took my valise, and before I had crossed the spacious hall, Iwas met by my host and kind old friends, whose combined and heartygreetings were a happy forecast of what was to come. Indeed, at amerrier dinner party I have never sat down, though in God's truth I havedined in all kinds of places, and with all sorts of people: withPrincesses of the Royal blood, aflame with all the hauteur of theirrace; with earls and counts; with blood-thirsty anarchists; with bishopsand Salvationists, miners and policemen, Dagos and Indians (Red andBrown); with Japs, Russians, and Poles; and, in short, with the _élite_and the rag-tag and bobtail of all climes. But, as I have already said, I had seldom if ever enjoyed a dinner as I enjoyed this one. 

"Possibly the reason was not far to find--there was little or noformality; we were all old friends; we had one cause in common--love ofIreland; we hadn't met for years, and we knew not if we should ever meetagain, for our paths in life were not likely to converge. 

"But Christmas is no season for prigs and dullards, and, possibly, thisrare enjoyment was, in no small measure, due to the delightful snugnessand, at the same time, artistic nature of our surroundings, and to theexcellence, the surpassing excellence of the vintage, which made ourhearts mellow and our tongues loose. 

"Long did our host, Sir Charles, and I sit over the dessert table, afterthe ladies had left us, filling and refilling our glasses; and it wasclose on ten before we repaired to the drawing-room. 

"'Lady Kirlby, ' I said, seating myself next her on a divan, 'I want tohear about the ghost. Up to the present I confess I have been so takenup with more material and, may I add'--casting a well-measured glance ofadmiration at her beautifully moulded features and lovely eyes--lovely, in spite of the cruel hand of time which had streaked her chestnut hairwith grey--'infinitely more pleasing subjects, that I have not eventhought about the superphysical. William, however, informs me that thereis a ghost here--he has, of course, told you. '

"But at this very psychological moment Mrs Achrow interrupted: 'Now, nosecrets, you two, ' she said laughingly, leaning over the back of thedivan and tapping Lady Kirlby playfully on the arm. 'There must be nomention of ghosts till it is close on bedtime, and the lights are low. '

"Lady Kirlby gave me a pitying look, but it was of no avail; the word ofour hostess was paramount, and I did not learn what was in store for meuntil it was too late to retreat. At half-past eleven William Achrowturned out the gas, and when we were all seated round the fire, hesuggested we should each relate in turn, the most thrilling ghost talewe had ever heard. The idea, being approved of generally, was carriedout, and when we had been thrilled, as assuredly we had never beenthrilled before, William coolly proclaimed that he had put me in thehaunted room. 

"'I am sure, ' he said, amid a roar of the most unfeeling laughter, inwhich all but the tender-hearted Lady Kirlby joined, 'that your nervesare now in the most suitable state for psychical investigation, and thatit won't be your fault if you don't see the ghost. And a very horribleone it is, at least so I am told, though I cannot say I have ever seenit myself. No! I won't tell you anything about it now--I want to hearyour version of it first. '

"With a few more delicate insinuations, made, as he candidly confessed, in the fervent hope of frightening me still more, on the stroke ofmidnight my friend conducted me to my quarters. 'You will have it all toyourself, ' he said, as we traversed a tremendously long and gloomycorridor that connected the two wings of the house, 'for all the roomson this side are at present unoccupied, and those immediately next toyours haven't been slept in for years--there is something about themthat doesn't appeal to my guests. What it is I can't say--I leave thatto you. Here we are!' and, as he spoke, he threw open a door. A currentof icy cold air slammed it to and blew out my light, and as I groped forthe door-handle, I heard my host's footsteps retreating hurriedly downthe corridor, whilst he wished me a rather nervous good-night. 

"Relighting my candle and shutting the window--Achrow is one of thoseopen-air fiends who never had a bronchial cold in his life, and expectseveryone else to be equally immune--I found myself in a room that waswell calculated to strike even the most hardened ghost-hunter with awe. 

"It was coffin-shaped, large, narrow, and lofty; and floor, panelling, and furniture were of the blackest oak. 

"The bedstead, a four-poster of the most funereal type, stood near thefireplace, from which a couple of thick pine logs sent out a ruddyglare; and directly opposite the foot of the bed, with its back to thewall, stood an ebony chair, which, although in a position that shouldhave necessitated its receiving a generous share of the fire's rays, wasnevertheless shrouded in such darkness that I could only discern itsfront legs--a phenomenon that did not strike me as being peculiar tillafterwards. 

"Between the chair and the ingle, was a bay window overlooking one angleof the lawn, a side path connecting the back premises of the house withthe drive, and a dense growth of evergreens, poplars, limes, and copperbeeches, the branches of which were now weighed down beneath layer uponlayer of snow. 

"The room, as I have stated, was long, but I did not realise how longuntil I was in the act of getting into bed, when my eyes struggled invain to reach the remote corners of the chamber and the recesses of thevaulted and fretted ceiling, which were fast presenting the startlingappearance of being overhung with an impenetrable pall, such a pall asforms the gloomy coverlet of a hearse; the similarity being increased bywaving plume-like shadows that suddenly appeared--from God knowswhere!--on the floor and wall. 

"That the room was genuinely haunted I had not now the slightest doubt, for the atmosphere was charged to the very utmost with superphysicalimpressions--the impressions of a monstrous hearse, with all the sicklyparaphernalia of black flowing drapery and scented pine wood. 

"I was annoyed with William Achrow. I had wanted to see him; I hadwanted to meet the Kirlbys; but a ghost--no! Honestly, candidly--no! Ihad not slept well for nights, and after the good things I had eaten atdinner and that excellent vintage, I had been looking forward to asound, an unusually sound sleep. Now, however, my hopes were dashed onthe head--the room was haunted--haunted by something gloomily, damnablyevil, evil with an evilness that could only have originated in hell. Such were my impressions when I got into bed. Contrary to myexpectations, I soon fell asleep. I was awakened by a creak, the loudbut unmistakable creak of a chair. Now, the creaking of furniture is nouncommon thing. There are few of us who have not at some time or otherheard an empty chair creak, and attributed that creaking either toexpansion of the wood through heat, or to some other equally physicalcause. But are we always right? May not that creaking be sometimes dueto an invisible presence in the chair? Why not? The laws that governthe superphysical are not known to us at present. We only know from ourown experiences and from the compiled testimony of various reputableResearch Societies that there is a superphysical, and that thesuperphysical is a fact which is acknowledged by several of the greatestscientists of the day. 

"But to continue. The creaking of a chair roused me from my sleep. I satup in bed, and as my eyes wandered involuntarily to the ebony chair towhich I have already alluded, I again heard the creaking. 

"My sense of hearing now became painfully acute, and, impelled by afascination I could not resist, I held my breath and listened. As I didso, I distinctly heard the sound of stealthy respiration. Either thechair or something in it was breathing, breathing with a subtlegentleness. 

"The fire had now burned low; only a glimmer, the very faintestperceptible glimmer, came from the logs; hence I had to depend for myvision on the soft white glow that stole in through the trellisedwindow-panes. 

"The chair creaked again, and at the back of it, and at a distance ofabout four feet from the ground, I encountered the steady glare of twolong, pale, and wholly evil eyes, that regarded me with a malevolencythat held me spellbound; my terror being augmented by my failure todetect any other features saving the eyes, and only a vague Somethingwhich I took for a body. 

"I remained in a sitting posture for many minutes without being able toremove my gaze, and when I did look away, I instinctively felt that theeyes were still regarding me, and that the Something, of which the eyeswere a part, was waiting for an opportunity to creep from itshiding-place and pounce upon me. 

"This is, I think, what would have happened had it not been for the veryopportune arrival of the Killington Waits, who, bursting out with aterrific and discordant version of 'The Mistletoe Bough, ' which, by theway, is somewhat inexplicably regarded as appropriate to the festiveseason, effectually broke the superphysical spell, and when I lookedagain at the chair, the eyes had gone. 

"Feeling quite secure now, I lay down, and, in spite of the manyinterruptions, managed to secure a tolerably good night's sleep. 

"At breakfast everyone was most anxious to know if I had seen the ghost, but I held my tongue. The spirit of adventure had been rekindled in me, my sporting instinct had returned, and I was ready and eager to see thephenomena again; but until I had done so, and had put it to one or twotests, I decided to say nothing about it. 

"The day passed pleasantly--how could it be otherwise in WilliamAchrow's admirably appointed household?--and the night found me onceagain alone in my sepulchral bed-chamber. 

"This time I did not get into bed, but took my seat in an easy-chair bythe fire (which I took care was well replenished with fuel), my faceturned in the direction of the spot where the eyes had appeared. Theweather was inclined to be boisterous, and frequent gusts of wind, rumbling and moaning through the long and gloomy aisle of the avenue, plundered the trees of the loose-hanging snow and hurled it in fleecyclouds against the walls and windows. 

"I had been sitting there about an hour when I suddenly felt I was nolonger alone; a peculiarly cold tremor, that was not, I feel sure, dueto any actual fall in the temperature of the room, ran through me, andmy teeth chattered. As on the previous occasion, however, my senses wereabnormally alive, and as I watched--instinct guiding my eyes to theebony chair--I heard a creak, and the sound of Something breathing. Theantagonistic Presence was once again there. I essayed to speak, torepeat the form of address I had constantly rehearsed, to say and dosomething that would tempt the unknown into some form of communication. I could do nothing. I was lip-bound, powerless to move; and then fromout of the superphysical darkness there gleamed the eyes, lidless, lurid, bestial. A shape was there, too: a shape which, although stillvague, dreadfully so, was nevertheless more pronounced than on theformer occasion, and I felt that it only needed time, time and anenforced, an involuntary amount of scrutiny on my part, to see thatshape materialise into something satanical and definite. 

"I waited--I was obliged to wait--when, even as before--Heaven bepraised!--the arrival of the gallant waits, (I say, gallant, for thenight had fast become a white inferno) loosened my fetters, and as Isprang towards the chair, the eyes vanished. 

"I then got into bed and slept heavily till the morning. 

"To their great disappointment, the clamorous breakfasters learnednothing--I kept the adventure rigidly to myself, and that night, Christmas night, found me, for the third time, listening for the soundsfrom the mysterious, the hideously, hellishly mysterious, high-backed, ebony chair. 

"There had been a severe storm during the day, and the wind had howledwith cyclonic force around the house; but there was silence now, analmost preternatural silence; and the lawn, lavishly bestrewn with hugeheaps of driven snow, and broken, twisted branches, presented theappearance of a titanic battlefield. In marked contrast to the disturbedcondition of the ground, the sky was singularly serene, and broad beamsof phosphorescent light poured in through the diamond window-panes on tothe bed, in which I was sitting, bolt upright. 

"One o'clock struck, and ere the hollow-sounding vibrations had ceased, the vague form once again appeared behind the chair, and the malignant, evil eyes met mine in a diabolical stare; whilst, as before, on tryingto speak or move, I found myself tongue-tied and paralysed. As themoments slowly glided away, the shape of the Thing became more and moredistinct; a dark and sexless face appeared, surmounted with a stragglingmass of black hair, the ends of which melted away into mist. I saw notrunk, but I descried two long and bony arms, ebony as the chair, withcrooked, spidery, misty fingers. As I watched its development withincreasing horror, hoping and praying for the arrival of thenever-again-to-be-despised waits, I suddenly realised with a fresh gripof terror that the chair had moved out of the corner, and that the Thingbehind it was slowly creeping towards me. 

"As it approached, the outlines of its face and limbs became clearer. Iknew that it was something repulsively, diabolically grotesque, butwhether the phantasm of man, or woman, or hellish elemental, I couldn'tfor the life of me say; and this uncertainty, making my fear all themore poignant, added to my already sublime sufferings, those of thedamned. 

"It passed the chair on which my dress-shirt flashed whiter than thesnow in the moonlight; it passed the tomb-like structure constitutingthe foot-board of the bed; and as in my frantic madness I strained andstrained at the cruel cords that held me paralytic, it crept on to thecounterpane and wriggled noiselessly towards me. 

"Even then, though its long, pale eyes were close to mine, and the endsof its tangled hair curled around me, and its icy corpse-tainted breathscoured my cheeks, even then--I could not see its body nor give it aname. 

"Clawing at my throat with its sable fingers, it thrust me backwards, and I sank gasping, retching, choking on to the pillow, where Iunderwent all the excruciating torments of strangulation; strangulationby something tangible, yet intangible, something that could createsensation without being itself sensitive; something detestably, abominably wicked and wholly hostile, madly hostile in its attitudetowards mankind. 

"What I suffered is indescribable, and it was to me interminable. Days, months, years, seemed to pass, and I was still being suffocated, stillfeeling the inexorable crunch of those fingers, still peering into thelivid depths of those gloating, fiendish eyes. And then--then, as I wason the eve of abandoning all hope, a thousand and one tumultuous noisesbuzzed in my ears, my eyes swam blood, and I lost consciousness. When Irecovered, the dawn was breaking and all evidences of the superphysicalhad disappeared. 

"I did not tell Achrow what I had experienced, but expressed, instead, the greatest astonishment that anyone should have thought the room washaunted. 'Haunted indeed!' I said. 'Nonsense! If anything haunts it, itis the ghost of some philanthropist, for I never slept sounder in mylife. I am, as you know, William, extremely sensitive to thesuperphysical, but in this instance, I can assure you, I wasdisappointed, greatly disappointed, so much so that I am going home atonce; it would be mere waste of my valuable time to stay any longer inthe vain hope of investigating, when there is NOTHING to investigate. How came you to get hold of such a crazy idea?'

"'Well, ' William replied, a puzzled expression on his face, 'you noticedan ebony chair in the room?'

"I nodded. 

"'I bought it in Bruges, and there are two stories current in connectionwith it. The one is to the effect that a very wicked monk, namedGaboni, died in it (and, indeed, the man who sold me the chair wasactually afraid to keep it any longer in his house, as he assured meGaboni's spirit had amalgamated with the wood); and the other story, which I learned from a different source, namely, from someone who, onfinding out where I bought the chair, told me he knew the whole historyof it, is to the effect that it was of comparatively modern make, andhad been designed by W----, the famous nineteenth-century Belgianpainter, who specialised, as you may know, in the most weird andfantastic subjects. W---- kept the chair in his studio, and my informanthalf laughingly, half seriously remarked that no doubt the chair wasthoroughly saturated with the wave-thoughts from W----'s luridly fertilebrain. Of course, I do not know which story is true, or if, indeed, either story is true, but the fact remains that, up to now, everyone whohas slept in the room with that chair has complained of having had themost unpleasant sensations. I own that after all that was told me, I wasafraid to experiment with it myself, but after your experience, orrather lack of experience, I shall not hesitate to have it in my ownbedroom. Both my wife and I have always admired it--it is such auniquely beautiful piece of furniture. '

"Of course I agreed with my friend, and, after congratulating him mosteffusively on his good luck in having been able to secure so unique atreasure, I again thanked him for his hospitality and bade himgood-bye. "

INDEX

Adventure in Chicago, 143-145. Of Hans and Carl with a were-wolf, 121-129. With pixies near Bray, 71. 

Æneas, story of, 69-70. 

All-Hallows E'en, 158-159. 

_Anglo-Saxon Church, The_, 158. 

Arundels, White Owl of the, 137, 139, 151. 

Ash trees, 74-75. 

Aspens, 73. 

Assam, haunted tree in, 64-67. 

Assiut, 42. 

Attendant spirits, 142-145. 

Automatic writing, 190. 

Baldearg, the, 178. 

Banshee, the, 137, 147-149. 

Barrowvians, 78, 220-230. 

Bay of the Departed, 205. 

Bears, phantasms of, 79. 

Birthmarks, 178. 

Bloody Hand of Ulster, 176. 

Blue hand, phantasm of a, 79. 

Boggle chairs, 230-243. 

_Book of Days_, 90. 

Brampton, haunted ash tree of, 74. 

_British Goblins_, Book of, 91, 151. 

Buddhas, 210-220. 

Candles, warnings by, 132. 

Castle on Dinas, 78. 

Cats, phantasms of, 97-108. 

Charley, T. , 134. 

Charms and checks against ghosts, 192-197. 

Childermass Day, 160. 

Ching Kang and the Fox-woman, story of, 129-131. 

Clairvoyance, 189. 

Clanogrians, 37, 137. 

Complex hauntings and occult bestialities, 80. 

Complex hauntings by phantasms of one person, 81. 

Corpse-candles, 134-137. 

Count Daniel O'Donnell, 167. 

Crystal-gazing, 166-167. 

D. , Lady, 7. 

Dalmatian dog, phantasm of, 83. 

Davis, Rev. Mr, 135. 

De B. , Mrs, 6. 

Dean Combe Ghost, 89. 

Death warnings, 132-140. 

Death-Watch, 138. 

Demon of Stockwell, 48. Of Tedworth, 48. 

Dogs, spirits of, 79, 81, 83-91. 

Dowsers, 76. 

Drummer of the Airlies, 137-150. 

Dyer's _Ghost World_, 89. 

Earl of Lincoln and the ash tree, 75. 

Elementals, 5. 

Ellyllon, the, 151. 

English family ghosts, 150. 

Ennemoser, works by Jos. , 110. 

Epworth, hauntings at, 48. 

Evil eye, the, 168-170. 

Exorcism, 195-196. 

Eye, phantasm of, 82. 

Fire-coffins, 138. 

Forbes du Barry, Mrs, 86. 

Fortune-telling, 161. 

Fox-women, 119-131. 

_Frazer's Journal_, 135. 

Gabriel's hounds, 91. 

Ghost of Black Lion Lane, 48. 

Gluttony, 29. 

Grandfather clocks, hauntings by, 35. 

Gwyllgi, the, 91. 

Hacon, Rev. Henry, 42. 

Hand of Glory, 176. 

Hands, 162-164. 

Hartz mountains, vampirism in the, 114-115. 

Haunted trees, 60-70. In Caucasus, 68. In Slavonic mythology, 68. Seas, 198-206. 

Hauntings on Wicklow nets, 83-85. 

Headless dogs, 85, 87-88. 

History of magic, 112. 

Horses, phantasms of, 79, 108. 

Howard, phantasm of Lady, 89. 

Hunt, works of Mr, 205-206. 

Hydromancy, 165. 

Idiots and vampirism, 113-114. 

Intuition, 187-188. 

Land's End, 6. 

Looking-glasses, 157. 

Luck of Edenhall, 168. 

Lyons family, 168. 

Mandrake, the, 76. 

Manias, 28-34. For buttons, 38. Of manual workers, 30. Of women for dogs, 33. 

Mauthe dog, the, 90. 

Mermaids, 141. 

Midsummer eve, 161. 

Mines, hauntings of, 58. 

Monomaniac musician, 33. 

Mummy of Met-Om-Karema, haunted, 42-46. 

Nature's devil signals, 179. 

New year's eve, 160, 166. 

_News from the Invisible World_, 134. 

North, recitations of Miss Lilian, 86. 

Numbers, climacteric, 177. 

Oak chests, haunted, 38. 

Obsession and possession, 28. 

Occult hooligans, 47-55. 

Occult in shadows, 21. 

Owls, 139. 

Palm tree, 77. 

Palmistry, 162. 

Paul, vampirism of Arnauld, 110. 

Phantasms of living, 184-186. Of pigs, 108. Of sailors, 81. Of wild animals, 108. 

Phantom rowers, 150. Ships, 198-201. White hares, 151. World, 110. 

Pixies, 70. 

Plutarch's account of satyrs, 67. 

Poltergeists, 47-50. And Professor Schuppart, 48-50. In Norwood, 50. 

Polydorus, story of, 70. 

Poor in Hyde Park, 25. 

Pre-existence, 179-184. 

Premature burial, 2-18. 

Primitive trees, visions of, 56-57. 

Projection, 184-186. 

Psychic days, 158. Faculty, 186. 

Pyromancy, 165. 

"Radiant Boy of Corby, " the, 151. 

Ravens, 140. 

River ghosts, 206-207. 

Romances of West of England, 205-206. 

St Blaise's Day, 160. 

St Catherine's Day, 161. 

St Lawrence's Day, 161. 

St Mark's Day, 161. 

St Martin's Day, 160. 

Sargasso Sea, 201-205. 

Satyrs and fawns, 67. 

Scottish ghosts, 149-150. 

Séances, 191-192. 

Second sight, 187. 

Seventh son, the, 177. 

Shadow on the Downs, the, 22-23. In Hyde Park, 26. Of a tree, 24. 

Shuck, the, 90. 

Sinclair, Miss, 63. 

Sirens, 207-209. 

Soames, work of Mr, 158. 

South's tale of a vampire, Mrs, 116-121. 

Spells, 159-161. 

Spilling salt, 157. 

Stuker, the, 90. 

Suggestion, 186. 

Superstitions and fortunes, 153. 

Sycamore, the, 77. 

Sylvan horrors, 56-79. 

Table-turning, 191-192. 

Talismans and amulets, 167. 

Telepathy, 186. 

Thirteen at table, 153-157. 

Timbs, John, 74, 138, 161. 

"Trash, " 90. 

Tree of life, the, 77. 

Trees, haunted, 60-70. 

Tristam and Yseult, legend of, 69. 

"Unknown depths, " the, 20. 

Vampires, 110-121. 

Wandering Jew, the, 141-142. 

Welsh ghosts, 151. 

Were-wolves, 121-129. 

Wirt Sikes, work by, 91, 151. 

Witches, 171-175. 

Worthing, 22, 86-88. 

X. , phantasm of murderer, 91-97. 

"Yellow Boy, " the, 151. 

[Transcriber's Note:

The following corrections were made:

p. 23: extra comma removed (after "time" in "but the next time I visitedthe spot")

p. 32: sensualty to sensuality (sensuality sometimes venial)

p. 34: thought germ to thought-germ to match other instances (howextraordinary the thought-germ)

p. 34: later-day to latter-day (even latter-day)

p. 67: extra comma removed (after "degree" in "in the slightest degreewhat the monstrosity meant")

p. 88: Du to du to match other instances (Mrs du Barry)

p. 90: Haviland to Harland (Harland and Wilkinson)

p. 91: Wyhr to Wybr (Cwn y Wybr), to match cited source

p. 110: missing period added (Jos. Ennemoser)

pp. 110, 112, and 244 (Index): Ennemoses to Ennemoser

p. 116: pretentions to pretensions (hypocritical pretensions)

p. 129: Thanking to Thinking (Thinking that the animal was ill)

p. 140: syrens to sirens (nymphs, sirens, and pixies)

p. 154: ont he to on the (on the couch)

p. 176: he to the (badge of the O'Neills)

p. 222: added missing single close quote (Here they are!')

p. 224: double close quote to single close quote (one of the houses. ')

p. 225: had to has ('Someone has been excavating, and quite recently!')

p. 245: missing periods added after several Index entries (Gluttony, 29. ; Haunted Trees . .. In Caucasus, 68. )

On page 110, the author refers to Jos. Ennemoser as the author of _ThePhantom World_. In fact, the cited passage comes from a work byAugustine Calmet, which was translated into English by William Howitt as_The Phantom World_; Ennemoser quotes from it in his book _The Historyof Magic_. This error has not been corrected. 

Irregularities in hyphenation and capitalization have not beencorrected. Antiquated or misspelled place names have been left as in theoriginal. 

For the plain text version, oe ligatures have been changed to oe. ]