For Mrs. J —— the first shock of the sad news had been borne nearly a month before, on the night succeeding Esther’s death, but her grief was no less deep than that of the rest of the family.
At the end of six weeks Horace T —— returned to Massachusetts and came to Reading. Hlis manner was quiet and subdued, but the early agony of his grief was over. He had brought very little with him — a lock of hair, a small bunch of keys, a little watch, and a locket. There was also a small sketch which had been made by a miner of artistic tastes, representing Horace’s little log cabin, with Horace himself and his bride standing in the foreground. It was a rough little cabin, standing in a rugged place, but it had a bright new-looking door knocker, an import from outer civilisation, and without doubt a matter of housewifely pride. All these relics Mrs. J —— knew well, except the sketch, and there was nothing unfamiliar in that, for she had seen the quaint little cabin before in her dreams.
THE POLTERGEIST OF LEIGNITZ CASTLE
A NUMBER of cases are upon record of a strange kind of prankish haunting, and that here set down is one of the best authenticated among them. Other cases rest upon solid foundations of evidence, notably the case occurring in the Wesley family, that of what was called the “Stockwell ghost,” and the Ringcroft case, but few have been so carefully examined — although, indeed, little in the way of explanation has been brought out by the process. These phenomena, so suggestive of the mischief making of some waggish goblin, are said by the German inquirers into the subject to be the work of the Poltergeist.
Signed declarations have been made of the accuracy of the facts as here given.
There lived in the earlier part of the present century, at Ingelfingen, in Germany, one Augustus Hahn, a man of education and some philosophical learning. Johann Gottlieb Fichte had been his tutor, and he had read deeply the writings of the great Kant, becoming, as a result, a strongly-biased materialist. As Councillor Hahn, he entered the service of the Prince of Hohenlohe, and took an active part, in a civil capacity, in the great war between Prussia and France, which ended with the treaty of Tilsit in 1810. In the course of the war after the campaign of 1806, it became necessary for him to stay some time at the Castle of Leignitz, in Silesia. Here he was glad to welcome his old friend and schoolfellow, Charles Kern, who, having been taken prisoner by the French, was allowed to stay at Leignitz upon parole, pending his exchange.
The two friends occupied one room on the first floor of the castle. It was in an angle of the building, with windows looking from each outer wall, north and east, and communicated with only one other room, by a glass door, this room communicating with no others. About these two rooms, thus en suite, there were no openings or other means by which strangers might enter unobserved or which would admit of the mischievous perpetration by human means of any of the remarkable tricks which afterward disturbed the tenants. Prince Hohenlohe’s two coachmen and Hahn’s own valet were the only other regular occupants of the main building. Hahn and Kern themselves were, it will be easily understood, very unlikely persons to give themselves up to ghostly fancies, and less likely still to allow such fancies to frighten them.
Some few days passed quietly, and the evenings were occupied by chess and reading, until at about half past nine one evening, as they were sitting at the table in the middle of the room, the castle being perfectly quiet, several pieces of plaster struck them about, the head, having apparently fallen or been thrown from above. They examined the ceiling, but it was perfectly smooth and unbroken, the pieces of plaster, on the other hand, being quite cold, as though from out of doors, although the windows were shut. The occurrence was rather singular, but failing to find anything to account for it, they went to bed, forgetting it. On awaking in the morning quite a quantity of lime was upon the floor, although neither walls nor ceiling showed signs of damage.
The next evening more lime was thrown, some of it striking Hahn about the head, and singular sounds, as of drumming and banging, made themselves heard from walls and ceiling. This kept them awake for some time after they were in bed. Each believed a practical joke by the other to be in perpetration, and they were only convinced, by getting out of bed and standing together in the middle of the room, that the noises were caused by some unknown agency. Then a sound as of a distant drum was heard.
These circumstances seemed sufficiently strange to warrant an examination of the adjoining rooms. Accordingly, the keys were procured, and the two friends carefully inspected every part of the apartments — mostly empty and always kept locked — above, below, and about their own room. But the most minute scrutiny failed to detect anything which might account for the noises, and no means were visible by which any unauthorised person could have gained access to the rooms. Mystified, but, upon the whole rather enjoying the joke, and exchanging badinage in regard to the responsibility for the mystery, Hahn and Kern locked the doors and returned to their own quarters.
That night they were for a long while kept from sleep by a sound as of a slippered man walking to and fro in their room, with a heavy stick.
The next evening saw fresh surprises. A pair of slippers belonging to Kern lay on the floor near the fire. Suddenly, without any visible agency, they were flung clean over the table, across the room, and even while the friends were marvelling at this astounding phenomenon, a knife and a pair of snuffers, lying a foot or eighteen inches apart on a shelf, were gathered together, as if by an unseen hand, and flung at Hahn, very narrowly missing his head.
This had scarcely happened when the whole room went into utter confusion — every object apparently acting as a thing of life. Boots, brushes, books, pieces of lime, tin pannikins, and candlesticks with candles in them flew in every direction. The servants, the castle guard, and everybody else in the place were called to witness this manifestation, which lasted for more than an hour, and, of course, no one could offer the slightest explanation.
These events were only the beginning of a long series of the most extraordinary manifestations, extending over nearly three months. For two or three nights the tossing about of articles continued, and then ceased, giving Hahn and Kern three or four nights’ rest. Then the disturbances were renewed with redoubled violence and continued incessantly for three weeks, so thoroughly depriving the two friends of all rest that they removed their beds to the room above.
But in this room stranger things happened. The noises continued, and they had scarcely settled comfortably into the room when a heavy padlock, which both knew to have been left in the room below, flew through the air and fell at Hahn’s feet. Then other articles were thrown. But the occupants of the room were worn out with want of rest, and determined not to be driven away from this second room.
“Sleep I must and will have,” said Hahn, “whatever happens.”
Kern began to undress, walking about the room as he did so. Suddenly he stopped, as though petrified, gazing earnestly into the looking-glass which stood upon a table in a corner of the room. He stood so making scarcely a movement, for quite a minute and a half, and then turned towards Hahn with a white face and in a state of trembling agitation.
Hahn took this for an attack of ague or something similar, and hastened to cover his friend with a heavy cloak. But very shortly Kern recovered his nerve and told Hahn what had caused its temporary loss. In passing along the room he had casually glanced at the glass, and had been rooted to the spot by the sight of a white figure looking out of it at him. He was not an easily frightened man, and stood gazing at it for some little time, expecting to detect an illusion. It was a female figure, very old in appearance of feature, all the head excepting the face being wrapped in linen cerements. It seemed to be in front of his own image, which he could see in the glass behind. While he gazed, the figure moved and the eyes turned full on him, and it was then, convinced of the reality of what he saw, that Kern’s nerves failed him.
Hahn determined to see this vision for himself, if possible, and with that view stood before the glass for nearly twenty minut
es, calling at intervals upon the spectre to show itself. But nothing whatever appeared.
It was now early morning, and anything like sleep was out of the question, so it was decided to take to the lower room again. They went downstairs therefore, and knocked up the three servants. These men they sent to bring down the beds. Presently they returned.
“You have locked the door, Herr Councillor, and we cannot get into the top room.”
“Blitzen, but I haven’t locked the door!” replied Hahn. “You are not properly awake yet. Go back and try again.”
They did so, but returned with the same report. They had set their whole united weight against the door, which refused to budge in the least. It was not as though the door were bolted or locked, in which case the force would have caused it to spring a little in the parts farthest from the fastenings, but the entire door was simply immovable, as though it were a part of the wall.
Then Hahn went up himself; and in the presence of Kern and the servants opened it straightway without the smallest difficulty.
The beds were set back in the lower room, and the annoyance from noises and flinging about of movables went on just as before.
The story of these extraordinary phenomena got abroad, and friends and acquaintances of Hahn and Kern made small jokes about them. Among others, Captain Cornet and Lieutenant Magerle, of the Minuci Regiment of Bavarian Dragoons, expressed a wish to see the thing for themselves, and they were invited to do so. Lieutenant Magerle went into the room alone and shut the door. He had scarcely done so when a handful of lime struck him, and a boojack, a pair of snuffers, and a candlestick came flying in his direction. He looked carefully about him, but could see nobody and could find no possible means of accounting for the incident. Then other missiles came from all sorts of unexpected directions, and Magerle, who was a man of violent temper, flew into a passion, and, whipping out his sabre, slashed about him so madly as to bring his friends in a hurry to find the cause of the disturbance.
Cornet and Magerle stayed during the evening and became convinced. They watched Hahn and Kern narrowly to detect any possible hoax, but without success. Articles were thrown, and table napkins rose, seemingly of their own accord, to the ceiling, then opened out, and fluttered slowly down again.
Two evenings after this Hahn expressed to his friend his intention of shaving. Immediately all the shaving implements — razor, soap, brush, and tin basin — which were kept together on a shelf, flew toward him and fell at his feet. He filled the basin with hot water, and was about to commence to lather his chin, when lo! the basin was quite empty, though still warm.
A man named Dorfel, who acted as a sort of steward to the castle, was himself more than once a victim. His hat was once missing from the place where he had put it on entering the room, and while he was looking for it in other places it returned to its original position.
Hahn made a private resolve to investigate the secret for himself, choosing times when Kern was absent; but all without effect. At this time another feature was added to the manifestations. Hahn was frequently awakened by the feeling of water sprinkled over his face, but could find no moisture there upon feeling with his hand.
Some time toward Christmas Hahn’s business took him to Breslau for a few days, and in his absence his servant stayed with Kern in the room. Now occurred, perhaps, the strangest incident of all. One evening Kern lay in his bed chatting with Hahn’s man, Johann, who stood near the door. On the table near the centre of the room stood a jug of beer and a glass. There had been no noises and no other disturbance for some time, but suddenly the jug of beer was slowly raised in the air, by no visible means, tilted, and the beer poured into the glass until the latter was more than half full. Then the jug sank back to the table as though carefully set down again. After which the glass was actually lifted, tilted, and emptied, as though by an invisible drinker, and not the smallest quantity of beer was afterward found upon the floor or table.
“Gott in Himmel!” cried Johann, “see, see, it swallows!”
For some time after this the disturbances went on, and it was only at last, when dangerously struck by a flying fork, that Hahn consented to shift his quarters. Kern would have gone long before, but Hahn was anxious to make a discovery, and so stayed. They took to a room in another part of the castle, from which they could frequently hear noises from their old quarters, although they themselves experienced no further annoyance. After a time these noises stopped altogether.
Nothing to reasonably account for these things was ever forthcoming, but some years afterward the castle was struck by lightning and destroyed, when, on pulling down the partly ruined walls of the room which Hahn and Kern had occupied, there was found the coffinless skeleton of a man with the skull split and a sword by its side.
THE BINSTEAD MYSTERY
FIVE miles from Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward Island, Canada, stands a large house called Binstead. This house was built before the year 1840 by an Englishman of wealth, who, however, very shortly grew tired of remote colonial life, sold the house, and returned to England. The purchaser was one Reggett, a farmer, a man who bore so bad a name in the island that no respectable citizen would hold any communication with him; his manners were coarse, and his habits were dissipated and immoral. But he understood his business as a farmer, and speedily produced good results from the two hundred acres of land which surrounded the house. He also added a number of rooms at the back for the accommodation of certain resident labourers. These rooms, it should be particularly noted, were erected against the wall of the house, but no doors were cut in the wall, except on the ground floor, and no direct communication whatever existed between the house and the added apartments on the upper floor, where the men’s sleeping rooms stood on a level with those in the main building. The only approach was on the ground floor, through the inner kitchen.
Reggett did well, so far as his farming operations went, and in every other way about as badly as possible. No vice was too base, no habit too brutal or too degraded for him. Binstead was shunned by every one with a reputation to lose whom imperative business did not call there. Among the servants attached to the place were two girls — sisters — named Newbury. They were Irish, and their parents lived in a wretched hut about two miles from Charlottetown. Before Reggett had been established at Binstead much more than a year, each of these girls gave birth to a child, of which Reggett was the father. Both children were boys.
Eighteen months or more passed. Then there was a double disappearance at Binstead. One of the sisters was seen no more, and with her vanished one of the children. It was said that on the night of the last day upon which the girl was seen, terrible screams were heard from the direction of the house, as though from some person running round from the back to the front, near the wall. But nightly noises of all kinds, including similar shrieks, were so common at Binstead, where Reggett’s drunken license was equalled by his cruelty and brutality to the domestics, that no especial notice was taken of the incident at the time.
The curiosity of some of the residents in the district was aroused as to what had become of the missing girl, but their few and guarded inquiries (for they were very loth to meddle with any matter of Reggett’s) met with no definite reply. The girl’s own sister, with gloomy stolidity, could not, or would not give any information. Soon what little interest had been felt subsided, and things went on as usual, the ordinary noises, as well as occasional screams, of the sort which had been heard before, going on at Binstead without provoking special comment.
Not very long after this Reggett sold the house and farm, and cleared out of the country. The girl Newbury returned to her parents, taking with her the remaining child. This child, she was careful to explain, was not hers but her sister’s, and her own child was dead. Having left it in charge of the old people, she left suddenly and unexpectedly for the United States, her father and mother having been unable to ascertain anything from her before her departure, except that her sister and her own child, as sh
e had said before, were both dead.
The farm was bought by a Mr. Fellowes, an Englishman. Very soon after his occupancy rumours began to circulate that uncanny things were heard and seen at night time at Binstead. The recurrence of the remembered shrieks was talked of, and hints went about of sights added to the sounds. These things, however, diminished in frequency, or were said to do so, during Mr. Fellowes’s term of occupation, which was not a very long one, he, before long, letting the place upon agreement.
In 1856, Mr. Pennée, a gentleman of French Canadian descent, entered into possession of Binstead as tenant to Mr. Fellowes, with the intention of eventually purchasing the place. Soon after his arrival there began a series of manifestations which were carefully observed and recorded, principally by Mrs. Pennée. This lady was of English birth, and she was the daughter of the late Mr. William Ward, a member of Parliament.
Soon after taking up his residence, Mr. Pennée engaged as a farm servant one Harry Newbury, a quiet, steady lad, living with his grandfather some three miles away. He was an orphan.
It was about the tenth day after the Pennée family and their servants had been completely installed in their new home that singular noises were heard. This occurred almost every evening, and at times during the day, for several weeks. The sound principally consisted of a heavy rumbling which made the very house shake, and the chief peculiarity of all the noises was that to every person who heard them — and they were generally heard in many parts of the house at the same time — they seemed to be close at hand, and never resounded from a distant part of the house.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 152