CHAPTER XXISEA PHANTOMS

Who sits upon the heath forlorn,With robe so free and tresses worn?Anon she pours a harrowing strain,And then she sits all mute again!Now peals the wild funereal cry,And now—it sinks into a sigh.

Oftentimes she is not seen but only heard, yet she is supposed to be always clearly discernible to the person upon whom she specially waits. Respecting the history of the Banshee, popular tradition in many instances accounts for its presence as the spirit of some mortal woman whose destinies have become linked by some accident with those of the family she follows. It is related how the Banshee of the family of the O’Briens of Thomond is related to have been originally a woman who had been seduced by one of the chiefs of that race—an act of indiscretion which ultimately brought upon her misfortune and death.

‘Sometimes the song of the Banshee is heard,’writes Mr. McAnally,[241]‘at the beginning of a course of conduct, a line of action, that has ended fatally.’ A story is told in Kerry of a young girl who engaged herself to a youth, but at the moment the promise of marriage was given, the low sad wail was heard by both above their heads. The young man deserted her, she died of a broken heart, and, on the night before her death, the Banshee’s ominous song was heard outside her mother’s cottage window. On another occasion, we are told by the same authority, one of the Flahertys of Galway marched out of his castle with his men on a foray, and, as his troops filed through the gateway, the Banshee was heard high above the towers of the fortress. The next night she sang again, and was heard no more for a month, when he heard the wail under his window, and on the following day his followers brought back his corpse. One of the O’Neils of Shane Castle, Antrim, heard the Banshee as he started on a journey, but while on the same journey he was accidentally killed. According to Lady Wilde, ‘at Lord O’Neil’s residence, Shane’s Castle, there is a room appropriated to theuse of the Banshee, and she often appears there, sometimes shrouded and in a dark, mist-like cloak. At other times she is seen as a beautiful young girl, with long red-gold hair, and wearing a green kirtle and scarlet mantle, covered with gold, after the Irish fashion.’ She adds that there is no harm or fear of evil in her mere presence, unless she is seen in the act of crying. But this is a fatal sign, and the mournful wail is a sure and certain prophecy that the angel of death is waiting for one of the family.[242]

Mr. Crofton Croker, in his ‘Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland,’ has given several entertaining stories of the Banshee; but adds, that since these spirits have become amenable to vulgar laws they have lost much of their romantic character. The introduction of the Banshee in the following stanza of a ‘keening’—an Irish term for a wild song of lamentation poured forth over a dead body by certain mourners employed for the purpose—indicates the popular feeling on the subject. It was composed on a young man named Ryan, whose mother speaks—

’Twas the Banshee’s lonely wailing,Well I knew the voice of death,On the night wind slowly sailingO’er the bleak and gloomy heath.

If a member of an Irish family dies abroad, the Banshee notifies his misfortune at home. When the Duke of Wellington died, the Banshee was heard wailing round the house of his ancestors, and during the Napoleonic campaigns she often announced at home the death of Irish officers and soldiers—an occurrence which happened on the night preceding the Battle of the Boyne. ‘Indeed,’ says Mr. McAnally, ‘the Banshee has given notice at the family seat in Ireland of deaths in battle fought in every part of the world; from every point to which Irish regiments have followed the roll of the British drums, news of the prospective shedding of Irish blood has been brought home.’

‘The Welsh have also their Banshee, which generally makes its appearance,’ writes Mr. Wirt Sikes,[243]‘in the most curdling form,’ and is regarded as an omen of death. It is supposed to come after dusk, and to flap its leathern wings against thewindow where the sick person happens to be. Nor is this all, for in a broken, howling tone, it calls on the one who is to quit mortality by his or her name several times. There is an old legend of the ‘Ellyllon,’ a prototype of the Scotch and Irish Banshee, which usually appears as an old crone with streaming hair and a coat of blue, making its presence manifest by its ominous scream of death. The Welsh have a further form of the Banshee in the ‘Cyhyraeth,’ which is never seen, although the noise it makes is such as to inspire terror in those who chance to hear it. Thus, in some of the Welsh villages it is heard passing through the empty streets and lanes by night groaning dismally, and rattling the window-shutters as it goes along. According to the local belief it is only heard ‘before the death of such as are of strayed mind, or who have been long ill; but it always comes when an epidemic is about to visit the neighbourhood.’ As an instance of how superstitions are remitted from one country to another, it is told that in America there are tales of the Banshee imported from Ireland along with the sons of that soil.

Theromance of the sea has always attracted interest, and, as Buckle once remarked, ‘the credulity of sailors is notorious, and every literature contains evidence of the multiplicity of their superstitions, and of the tenacity with which they cling to them.’ This is not surprising, for many of the weird old fancies with which the legendary lore of the sea abounds originated in certain atmospherical phenomena which were once a mystery to our seafaring community. In a ‘New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors’ (1761) the writer says: ‘I look upon sailors to care as little of what becomes of themselves as any people under the sun; yet no people are so much terrified at the thoughts of an apparition. Their sea-songs are full of them; they firmly believe in their existence, and honest JackTar shall be more frightened at the glimmering of the moon upon the tackling of a ship, than he would be if a Frenchman were to place a blunderbus at his head.’ The occasional reflections of mountains, cities, and ships in mirage gave rise to many strange stories of spectral lands. Early instances of this popular fancy occur, and Mrs. Jameson, in her ‘Sacred and Legendary Art,’ quotes an old Venetian legend of 1339, relating to the ring with which the Adriatic was first wedded. During a storm a fisherman was required to row three men, whom he afterwards learns were St. Mark, St. George, and St. Nicholas, first to certain churches, and then over to the entrance of the port. But there a huge Saracen galley was seen with frightful demons on board, which spectral craft the three men caused to sink, thus saving the city. On leaving the boat, the boatman is presented with a ring. In the Venetian academy is a painting by Giorgione of this phantom ship, with a demon crew, who, terrified at the presence of the three holy men, jump overboard, or cling to the rigging, while the masts flame with fire, and cast a lurid glare on the water. Collin de Plancy, in his‘Sacred Legends of the Middle Ages,’ tells us how at Boulogne, in 663, while the people were at prayers, a strange ship—without guide or pilot—was observed approaching the shore, with the Virgin on board, who indicated to the people a site for her chapel—delusions which may be classed in the same category as the ‘phantom ship.’ Novelists and poets have made graphic use of such well-known apparitions, variations of which occur in every maritime country. But the author accounts for this philosophically, adding that ‘a great deal may be said in favour of men troubled with the scurvy, the concomitants of which disorder are, generally, faintings and the hip, and horrors without any ground for them.’

There were few ships in days gone by that ‘doubled the Cape’ but owned among the crew some who had seen the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ a phantom to which Sir Walter Scott alludes as the harbinger of woe. This ship was distinguished from earthly vessels by bearing a press of sail when all others were unable to show an inch of canvas.

The story goes that ‘Falkenburg was a noble-manwho murdered his brother and his bride in a fit of passion, and was condemned to wander towards the north. On arriving at the sea-shore, he found awaiting him a boat, with a man in it, who said, “Expectamus te.” He entered the boat, attended by his good and his evil spirit, and went on board a spectral bark in the harbour. There he still lingers, while these spirits play dice for his soul. For six hundred years the ship has wandered the seas, and mariners still see her in the German Ocean, sailing northwards, without helm or helmsman. She is painted grey, has coloured sails, a pale flag, and no crew. Flames issue from the masthead at night.’[244]There are numerous versions of this popular legend, and O’Reilly, in his ‘Songs of Southern Seas,’ says—

Heaven help the ship near which the demon sailor steers!The doom of those is sealed to whom the phantom ship appears,They’ll never reach their destin’d port, they’ll see their homes no more,They who see the Flying Dutchman never, never reach the shore.

Captain Marryat made this legend the basis ofhis ‘Phantom Ship,’ and Longfellow, in his ‘Tales of a Wayside Inn,’ powerfully tells of—

A ship of the dead that sails the sea,And is called the Carmilhan,A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew.In tempests she appears,And before the gale, or against the gale,She sails, without a rag of sail,Without a helmsman steers.And ill-betide the luckless shipThat meets the Carmilhan!Over her decks the seas will leap,She must go down into the deep,And perish, mouse and man.

And ill-betide the luckless shipThat meets the Carmilhan!Over her decks the seas will leap,She must go down into the deep,And perish, mouse and man.

There are, also, a host of stories of spectral ships, some of which are still credited by sailors. The Germans have their phantom ships, to meet which is regarded as an omen of disaster. In one instance, the crew is said to consist of ghosts of condemned sinners, who serve one hundred years in each grade, until each has a short tour as captain. This mysterious vessel is described by Oscar L. B. Wolff in ‘The Phantom Ship’:

For the ship was black, her masts were black,And her sails coal-black as death;And the Evil-One steered at the helm, and laughed,And mocked at their failing breath.

Swedish sailors have a vessel of this kind. She is so large that it takes three weeks to go from poop to prow, and hence orders are transmitted on horseback. Danish folk-lore has its spectral ship, and a Schleswick-Holstein tradition relates how a maiden was carried off by her lover in a spectral ship, as one day she sat on the shore bewailing his absence. In ‘Mélusine’ for September 1884,[245]it is stated that, ‘in many localities in Lower Brittany, stories are current of a huge ship manned by giant human forms and dogs. The men are reprobates guilty of horrible crimes; the dogs, demons set to guard them and inflict on them a thousand tortures. Such a vessel wanders ceaselessly from sea to sea, without entering port or casting anchor, and will do so to the end of the world. No vessel should allow it to fall aboard, for its crew would suddenly disappear. The orders, in this strange craft, are given through huge conch-shells, and, the noise being heard several miles off, it is easy to avoid her. Besides, there is nothing to fear, if the “Ave Maria” is repeated, and the Saints appealed to, especially St. Anne d’Auray.’

Stories of phantom ships are found, more or less, all over the world, and are associated with many a romantic and tragic tale. Bret Harte[246]relates how some children go on board a hulk to play, but it breaks away from its moorings, drifts out to sea, and is lost. Yet at times there are heard:

The voices of children, still at play,In a phantom hulk that drifts awayThrough channels whose waters never fail.

And Whittier[247]tells how the young captain of a schooner visits the Labrador coast where, in a certain secluded bay, two beautiful sisters live with their mother. Both fall in love with him, and, just as the younger is about to meet her lover and fly with him, she is imprisoned in her room by her mother, whereupon her elder sister goes in her stead, and is carried to sea in the vessel. The disappointed lover, on learning the deception, returns only to find his loved one dead. But the schooner, adds Whittier, never returned home and:

Even yet, at Seven Isle Bay,Is told the ghastly taleOf a weird unspoken sail.She flits before no earthly blast,With the red sign fluttering from her mast,The ghost of the Schooner Breeze.

In Dana’s ‘Buccaneer,’ the pirate carries a lady to sea, who jumps overboard, and on the anniversary of her death:

A ship! and all on fire! hull, yards, and mast,Her sails are sheets of flame; she’s nearing fast!

Occasionally a spectre ship is seen at Cap d’Espoir, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is commonly reported to be the ghost of the flagship of a fleet sent to reduce the French forts by Queen Anne, and which was wrecked here, and all hands. On this phantom ship, which is crowded with soldiers, lights are seen, and on the bowsprit stands an officer, pointing to the shore with one hand, while a woman is on the other side. The lights suddenly go out, a scream is heard, and the ill-fated vessel sinks. Under one form or another, the phantom ship has long been a world-wide piece of folk-lore, and even in an Ojibway tale, when a maiden is on the eve of being sacrificed to the spiritof the falls, a spectral canoe, with a fairy in it, takes her place as a sacrifice.

Dennys, in his ‘Folk-lore of China,’ gives a novel variety of the phantom ship. The story goes that a horned serpent was found in a tiger’s cage near Foochow by a party of tiger-hunters. They tried to ship it to Canton, but during the voyage the serpent escaped, through a flash of lightning striking the cage and splitting it. Thereupon the captain offered a thousand dollars to anyone who would destroy the monster, but its noxious breath killed two sailors who attempted the task. Eventually the junk was abandoned, and is still believed to cruise about the coast, and cautious natives will not board a derelict junk.

One of the chief features of many of these phantom-ship stories is the idea of retribution for evil deeds, as in the following, told by Irving in the ‘Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost.’ A certain Ramnout van Dam had ‘danced and drank until midnight—Saturday—when he entered his boat to return home. He was warned that he was on the verge of Sunday morning, but he pulled off, swearing that he would not land until he reached Spiting Devil,if it took him a month of Sundays. He was never seen afterwards, but may be heard plying his oars, being the Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea, doomed to ply between Kakiot and Spiting Devil until the day of judgment.’ Moore in his account of the phantom ship seen in the description of Deadman’s Island, where wrecks were once common, writes:

To Deadman’s Isle, on the eve of the blast,To Deadman’s Isle, she speeds her fast,By skeleton shapes, her sails are furled,And the hand that steers is not of this world.

Turning to our own country, similar phantom vessels have long been supposed to haunt the coast, and Mr. Hunt[248]describes one that visited the Cornish shores on the occasion of a storm, and to rescue which delusive bark help was despatched: ‘Away they pulled, and the boat which had been first launched still kept ahead by dint of mechanical power and skill. At length the helmsman cried, “Stand by to board her.” The vessel came so close to the boat that they could see the men, and the bow oarsman made a grasp at the bulwarks. Hishand found nothing solid and he fell. Ship and light then disappeared. The next day the “Neptune” of London was wrecked, and all perished. The captain’s body was picked up after a few days, and that of his son also.’ Among other Cornish stories may also be mentioned those known as the ‘Pirate-wrecker and the Death Ship;’ and the ‘Spectre Ship of Porthcurno.’ Occasionally off the Lizard a phantom lugger is seen, and Bottrell[249]tells how, at times, not only spectral ships, but the noise of falling spars, &c., are heard during an incoming fog.

Scotch sailors have their stories of phantom ships. Thus a spectral vessel—the ghostly bark of a bridal party maliciously wrecked—is said to appear in the Solway, always hovering near a ship that is doomed to be wrecked; and Cunningham[250]has given a graphic account of two phantom pirate ships. The story goes that, for a time, two Danish pirates were permitted to perform wicked deeds on the deep, but were at last condemned to perish by wreck for the evil they had caused. On a certain night they were seen approaching the shore—theone crowded with people, and the other carrying on its deck a spectral shape. Then four young men put off in a boat that had been sent from one ship, to join her, but, on reaching the ship, both vessels sank where they were. On the anniversary of their wreck, and before a gale, these two vessels are supposed to approach the shore, and to be distinctly visible. A Highland legend records how a large ship—the ‘Rotterdam’—which went down with all on board, is seen at times with her ghostly crew, a sure indication of disaster. But perhaps this superstition has been most firmly riveted in the popular mind by Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner,’ wherein an ominous sign is seen afar off prefiguring the death of himself and his comrades. It is a spectre ship in which Death and Life-in-Death play at dice for the possession of the crew—the latter winning the mariner.

Her lips were red, her looks were free,Her locks were yellow as gold;Her skin was white as leprosy,The night-mare Life-in-Death was she,Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

Stories of ghosts having appeared at sea have been told from early days, and have everywherebeen a fruitful source of terror to sailors. But this is not surprising for, as Scot says,[251]‘innumerable are the reports of accidents unto such as frequent the seas, as fishermen and sailors, who discourse of noises, flashes, shadows, echoes, and other things, nightly seen or heard upon the waters.’ Brand,[252]for instance, narrates an amusing tale of a sea ghost. The ship’s cook, who had one of his legs shorter than the other, died on a homeward passage and was buried at sea. A few nights afterwards his ghost was seen walking before the ship, and the crew were in a panic. It was found however that the cause of this alarm was part of a maintop, the remains of some wreck floating before them that simulated the dead man’s walk. On another occasion a ship’s crew fancied they had not only seen but ‘smelled’ a ghost—a piece of folly which so enraged the captain that he ordered the boatswain’s mate to give some of the sailors a dozen lashes, which entirely cleared the ship of the ghost during the remainder of the voyage. It was afterwards ascertained that the smell proceeded from a dead ratbehind some beer-barrels. In the same way, many a ghost story might be explained which, proceeding from natural causes, has been the source of superstitious dread among the seafaring community. Cheever, in his ‘Sea and Sailor,’ referring to the credulity of sailors, says: ‘The sailor is a profound believer in ghosts. One of these nocturnal visitants was supposed to visit our ship. It was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could be made to turn in at night. You might have seen the most athletic, stout-hearted sailor on board, when called to take his night-watch aloft, glancing at the yards and tackling of the ship for the phantom. It was a long time, in the opinion of the crew, before the phantom left the ship.’ It may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott[253]relates how the captain of an English ship was assured by the crew that the ghost of a murdered sailor, every night, visited the ship. So convinced were the sailors of the appearance of this phantom that they refused to sail, but the mystery was cleared up by the discovery of a somnambulist.

Occasionally, the ghost of a former captain issupposed to visit a vessel and to warn the crew of an approaching storm. Symondson in his ‘Two Years abaft the Mast’ records the appearance of such an apparition, at one time ‘to prescribe a change of course, at another, in wet and calm weather, quietly seated in his usual place on the poop deck.’[254]Sometimes similar warnings have come from other sources. Thus a curious occurrence is told by Mary Howitt, which happened in 1664 to Captain Rogers, R.N., who was in command of the ‘Society,’ a vessel bound from England to Virginia. The story goes that ‘he was heading in for the capes, and was, as he reckoned, after heaving the lead, three hundred miles from them. A vision appeared to him in the night, telling him to turn out, and look about. He did so, found all alert, and retired again. The vision appeared again, and told him to heave the lead. He arose, caused the lead to be cast, and found but seven fathoms. Greatly frightened, he tacked ship, and the daylight showed him to be under the capes, instead of two hundred miles at sea.’[255]With thisstory may be compared a mysterious story told in the ‘Chicago Times’ of March, 1885.

It appears that, as two men had fallen from the topmast head of a lake-vessel, the rumour spread that the ship was an unlucky one. Accordingly, writes one of the crew, ‘on its arrival at Buffalo, the men went on shore as soon as they were paid off. They said the ship had lost her luck. While we were discharging at the elevator, the story got round, and some of the grain-trimmers refused to work on her. Even the mate was affected by it. At last we got ready to sail for Cleveland, where we were to load coal. The captain managed to get a crew by going to a crimp, who ran them in, fresh from salt water. They came on board two-thirds drunk, and the mate was steering them into the forecastle, when one of them stopped and said, pointing aloft, “What have you got a figurehead on the mast for?” The mate looked up and then turned pale. “It’s Bill,” he said, and with that the whole lot jumped on to the dock. I didn’t see anything, but the mate told the captain to look for another officer. The captain was so much affected that he put me on another schooner, and thenshipped a new crew, and sailed for Cleveland. He never got there. He was sunk by a steamer off Dunkirk.’

Another curious phantom warning to sailors seen in years gone by was the ‘Hooper,’ or the ‘Hooter,’ of Sennen Cove, Cornwall. This was supposed to be a spirit which took the form of a band of misty vapour, stretching across the bay, so opaque that nothing could be seen through it. According to Mr. Hunt,[256]‘it was regarded as a kindly interposition of some ministering spirit, to warn the fisherman against venturing to sea. This appearance was always followed, and often suddenly, by a severe storm. It is seldom or never now seen. One profane old fisherman would not be warned by the bank of fog, and, as the weather was fine on the shore, he persuaded some young men to join him. They manned a boat, and the aged leader, having with him a threshing-flail, declared that he would drive the spirit away, and he vigorously beat the fog with the “threshel,” as the flail is called. The boat passed through the fog, and went to sea, but a severe storm arose, and no one ever saw the boator the men again, since which time the “Hooper” has been rarely seen.’ Similarly a mist over the river Cymal, in Wales, is thought to be the spirit of a traitoress, who lost her life in the lake close by. Tradition says she had conspired with pirates to rob her lord of his domain, and was defeated by an enchanter.[257]

But sailors’ yarns are so proverbially remarkable that the reader must estimate their value for himself, not forgetting how large a factor in their production is the imagination, worked upon by nervous credulity and superstitious fear, a striking instance of which is recorded by a correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine:’ ‘My friend, Captain Mott, R.N., used frequently to repeat an anecdote of a seaman under his command. This individual, who was a good sailor and a brave man, suffered much trouble and anxiety from his superstitious fears. When on the night watch, he would see sights and hear noises in the rigging and the deep, which kept him in a perpetual fever of alarm. One day the poor fellow reported upon deck that the devil, whom he knew by his horns and cloven foot, stood by theside of his hammock the preceding night, and told him that he had only three days to live. His messmates endeavoured to remove his despondency by ridicule, but without effect; and the next morning he told the tale to Captain Mott, with this addition, that the fiend had paid him a second nocturnal visit, announcing a repetition of the melancholy tidings. The captain in vain expostulated with him on the folly of indulging such groundless apprehensions; and the morning of the fatal day being exceedingly stormy, the man, with many others, was ordered to the topmast to perform some duty among the rigging. Before he ascended he bade his messmates farewell, telling them that he had received a third warning from the devil, and that he was confident he should be dead before night. He went aloft with the foreboding of evil on his mind, and in less than five minutes he lost his hold, fell upon the deck, and was killed on the spot.’

Accordingto a popular ghost doctrine, the spirits of the departed ‘generally come in their habits as they lived,’ and as George Cruikshank once remarked,[258]‘there is no difference in this respect between the beggar and the king.’ For they come—

Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in silken gowns.

And he adds that all narrators agree that ‘the spirits appear in similar or the same dresses which they were accustomed to wear during their lifetime, so exactly alike that the ghost-seer could not possibly be mistaken as to the identity of the individual.’ Horatio, describing the ghost to Hamlet, says—

A figure like your father,Armed at all points, exactly cap-à-pé.

And it is further stated that the ghost was armed ‘from top to toe,’ ‘from head to foot,’ that ‘he wore his beaver up;’ and when Hamlet sees his father’s spirit he exclaims—

What may this mean,That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon?

It is the familiar dress worn in lifetime that is, in most cases, one of the distinguishing features of the ghost, and when Sir George Villiers wanted to give a warning to his son, the Duke of Buckingham, his spirit appeared to one of the duke’s servants ‘in the very clothes he used to wear.’ Mrs. Crowe,[259]some years ago, gave an account of an apparition which appeared at a house in Sarratt, Hertfordshire. It was that of a well-dressed gentleman, in a blue coat and bright gilt buttons, but without a head. It seems that this was reported to be the ghost of a poor man of that neighbourhood who had been murdered, and whose head had been cut off. He could, therefore, only be recognised by his ‘blue coat and bright gilt buttons.’ Indeed, manyghosts have been nicknamed from the kinds of dress in which they have been in the habit of appearing. Thus the ghost at Allanbank was known as ‘Pearlin Jean,’ from a species of lace made of thread which she wore; and the ‘White Lady’ at Ashley Hall—like other ghosts who have borne the same name—from the white drapery in which she presented herself. Some lady ghosts have been styled ‘Silky,’ from the rustling of their silken costume, in the wearing of which they have maintained the phantom grandeur of their earthly life. There was the ‘Silky’ at Black Heddon who used to appear in silken attire, oftentimes ‘rattling in her silks’; and the spirit of Denton Hall—also termed ‘Silky’—walks about in a white silk dress of antique fashion. This last ‘Silky’ ‘was thought to be the ghost of a lady who was mistress to the profligate Duke of Argyll in the reign of WilliamIII., and died suddenly, not without suspicion of murder, at Chirton, near Shields—one of his residences. The “Banshee of Loch Nigdal,” too, was arrayed in a silk dress, green in colour. These traditions date from a period when silk was not in common use, and thereforeattracted notice in country places.’[260]Some years ago a ghost appeared at Hampton Court,[261]habited in a black satin dress with white kid gloves. The ‘White Lady of Skipsea’ makes her midnight serenades clothed in long white drapery. Lady Bothwell, who haunted the mansion of Woodhouselee, always appeared in white; and the apparition of the mansion of Houndwood, in Berwickshire—bearing the name of ‘Chappie’—is clad in silk attire.

One of the ghosts seen at the celebrated Willington Mill was that of a female in greyish garments. Sometimes she was said to be wrapped in a sort of mantle, with her head depressed and her hands crossed on her lap. Walton Abbey had its headless lady who used to haunt a certain wainscotted chamber, dressed in blood-stained garments, with her infant in her arms; and, in short, most of the ghosts that have tenanted our country-houses have been noted for their distinctive dress.

Daniel de Foe, in his ‘Essay on the Historyand Reality of Apparitions,’ has given many minute details as to the dress of a ghost. He tells a laughable and highly amusing story of some robbers who broke into a mansion in the country, and, whilst ransacking one of the rooms, they saw, in a chair, ‘a grave, ancient man, with a long full-bottomed wig, and a rich brocaded gown,’ &c. One of the robbers threatened to tear off his ‘rich brocaded gown’; another hit at him with a firelock, and was alarmed at seeing it pass through the air; and then the old man ‘changed into the most horrible monster that ever was seen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red hot.’ The same apparition encountered them in different rooms, and at last the servants, who were at the top of the house, throwing some ‘hand grenades’ down the chimneys of these rooms, the thieves were dispersed. Without adding further stories of this kind, which may be taken for what they are worth, it is a generally received belief in ghost lore that spirits are accustomed to appear in the dresses which they wore in their lifetime—a notion credited from the days of Pliny the Younger to the present day.

But the fact of ghosts appearing in earthlyraiment has excited the ridicule of many philosophers, who, even admitting the possibility of a spiritual manifestation, deny that there can be the ghost of a suit of clothes. George Cruikshank, too, who was no believer in ghosts, sums up the matter thus: ‘As it is clearly impossible for spirits to wear dresses made of the materials of the earth, we should like to know if there are spiritual outfitting shops for the clothing of ghosts who pay visits on earth.’ Whatever the objections may be to the appearance of ghosts in human attire, they have not hitherto overthrown the belief in their being seen thus clothed, and Byron, describing the ‘Black Friar’ who haunted the cloisters and other parts of Newstead Abbey, tells us that he was always

arrayedIn cowl, and beads, and dusky garb.

Indeed, as Dr. Tylor remarks,[262]‘it is an habitual feature of the ghost stories of the civilised, as of the savage, world, that the ghost comes dressed, and even dressed in well-known clothing worn in life.’ And he adds that the doctrine of object-soulsis held by the Algonquin tribes, the islanders of the Fijian group, and the Karens of Burmah—it being supposed that not only men and beasts have souls, but inorganic things. Thus, Mariner describing the Fijian belief, writes: ‘If a stone or any other substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men, and hogs, and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the service of the gods. The Fijians can further show you a sort of natural well, or deep hole in the ground, at one of their islands, across the bottom of which runs a stream of water, in which you may clearly see the souls of men and women, beasts and plants, stocks and stones, canoes and horses, and of all the broken utensils of this frail world, swimming, or rather tumbling along, one over the other, pell-mell, into the regions of immortality.’[263]As it has been observed, animistic conceptions of this kind are no more irrational than the popular idea prevalent in civilised communities as to spirits appearing in all kinds of garments.

A jolly place, said he, in days of old,But something ails it now: the spot is curst.Wordsworth.

A varietyof strange causes, such as secret murder, acts of treachery, unatoned crime, buried treasures, and such-like incidents belonging to the seamy side of family history, have originated, at one time or another, the ghostly stories connected with so many a house throughout the country. Robert Browning has graphically described the mysteries of a haunted house:

At night, when doors are shut,And the wood-worm picks,And the death-watch ticks,And the bar has a flag of smut,And a cat’s in the water-butt—And the socket floats and flares,And the house-beams groan,And a foot unknownIs surmised on the garret stairs,And the locks slip unawares.

At night, when doors are shut,And the wood-worm picks,And the death-watch ticks,And the bar has a flag of smut,And a cat’s in the water-butt—

And the socket floats and flares,And the house-beams groan,And a foot unknownIs surmised on the garret stairs,And the locks slip unawares.

Although in some cases centuries have elapsed since a certain house became haunted, and several generations have come and passed away, still, with ceaseless persistency, the restless spirit hovers about in all kinds of uncanny ways, reminding us of Hood’s romance of ‘The Haunted House.’

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,The place is haunted!

Corby Castle, Cumberland, was famous for its ‘Radiant Boy;’ Peel Castle had its ‘Mauthe Doog;’ and Dobb Park Lodge was noted for ‘the Talking Dog.’ Cortachy Castle, the seat of the Earl of Airlie, is noted for its ‘Drummer;’ and a noted Westmoreland ghost was that of the ‘bad Lord Lonsdale,’ locally known as Jemmy Lowther, which created much alarm at Lowther Hall; but of recent years this miscreant spirit has been silent, having, it is said,been laid for ever under a large rock called Wallow Crag. Strange experiences were associated with Hinton Ampner Manor House, Hampshire,[264]and when, in 1797, it was pulled down, ‘under the floor of the lobby was found a box containing bones, and what was said to be the skull of a monkey. No regular inquiry was made into the matter, and no professional opinion was ever sought as to the real character of the relic.’ Wyecoller Hall, near Colne, is visited once a year by a spectre horseman; and some years ago Hackwood House, an old mansion near Basingstoke, purchased from Lord Bolton by Lord Westbury, was said to have its haunted room, the phantom assuming the appearance of a woman clothed in grey. Ramhurst Manor House, Kent, was disturbed by weird and mysterious noises, and at Barton Hall, Bath, in 1868, a phantom is said to have appeared, displaying a human countenance, but devoid of eyes.

Allanbank, a seat of the Stuarts—a family of Scotch baronets, has long been haunted by ‘Pearlin Jean,’ one of the most remarkable ghosts in Scotland. On one occasion, seven ministers were calledin to lay this restless spirit, but to no purpose. Creslow Manor House, Buckinghamshire, has its ghost, and Glamis Castle has its famous ‘Haunted Room,’ which, it is said, was walled up. At Hilton Castle there was the time-honoured ‘Cold Lad,’ which Surtees would lead us to suppose was one of the household spirits known as ‘Brownies.’ But, according to one local legend, in years gone by a servant-boy was ill-treated and kept shut up in a cupboard, and is supposed to have received the name of ‘Cold Lad’ from his condition when discovered. Sundry apparitions seem to have been connected with Newstead Abbey, one being that of ‘Sir John Byron the Little, with the Great Beard,’ who was wont to promenade the state apartments at night. But the most dreaded spectre was the ‘Goblin Friar,’ previously alluded to, who—

appeared,Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard.

This strange, weird spectre has been thought to forebode evil to the member of the family to whom it appears, and its uncanny movements have been thus pictured by the poet:

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