The Golden Leg

by Dale Jarvis

  The ghost appeared to make good progress, even over rough ground. It moved with a peculiar gliding motion. The strange movement could be explained perhaps by the fact that the phantom was completely legless. It was headless as well. Or perhaps more properly, it could be described as partially headless, for its head hung down its back between the shoulders, its eyes staring out behind. From its head sprouted one long pigtail, tarred black, a pigtail so long that it trailed along on the ground.

  In its arms, the figure carried a long bundle wrapped up in some sort of fabric. It seemed to be the ghost of a sailor, as it was dressed in a dark-blue uniform which was the fashion among seagoing men in those days. Around its waist it wore a broad leather belt with a large brass buckle and a pistol thrust into it, all a-twinkle in the moonlight.

  After several people were frightened close to death by this horrible spectre, one man, more brave, or perhaps more foolish, than the rest, decided that he would follow the creature. He waited one night for the ghost to appear, and when it did, the man followed it with quaking steps.

  Although its head was upside down and looking the other direction, the ghost still seemed to know precisely where it was going. The man followed along behind, and tried to stay out of sight of those awful, staring eyes. He crept along as the ghost glided down the path until it came to an old well.

  There it stopped, balanced the long bundle in its arms, and then dropped it, short end first, down into the well. The phantom sailor then hovered aimlessly around the circumference of the well for some time. It then sat on the edge of the well, paused for a moment, and fell backward, vanishing after the mysterious bundle down into the well.

  The next day, the man shared his story with his family and friends. He was laughed at by many who heard the story. But the man insisted he was telling the truth, and that he had indeed followed the ghost as he had described. Eventually, it was decided the only way to get to the bottom of the case was to get to the bottom of the well.

  The townspeople gathered around the mouth of the well, armed with ladders and rope. A volunteer was found to make the journey down into the dark depths, and a loop was tied in a long length of rope. The young man climbed into the loop, and then was slowly lowered down into the blackness, a small lantern providing him a bit of light.

  Down went the young man, twenty feet, then thirty, then forty. He could see nothing that might explain the haunting, so he hollered up the shaft to be brought back up. As the men above started to haul him upward, a fragment of blue cloth snagged on a projecting brick caught his eye.

  Once he reached the surface, the piece of fabric was passed around, and it was agreed that the young man should be sent back down into the well. So he was, armed with a long stick, and when he reached the bottom, he began to probe the inky blackness of the water at the very bottom of the well.

  Anxious moments followed, the curious spectators at the top of the well not knowing what was transpiring below.

  “I can feel something soft at the bottom,” came the young man’s voice out of the gloom, echoing in strange tones up the dank well-shaft.

  A long iron hook was quickly tied to an old clothesline, and lowered down to the lad. After a while, he succeeded in hooking into something under the water, and shouted to be lifted out. The men set to work again, hauling up the young man. Once he was out, they hauled up the clothesline, hand over hand.

  At the end of the clothesline was the old iron hook, and at the end of the hook was a waterlogged sack, firmly tied shut with twine. The twine was cut, the mouth of the sack was opened, and the bag was then upended.

  The contents came tumbling out onto the ground, and the assembled crowd drew back, as the items turned out to be the two legs of a man, hacked off roughly midway up the thighs.

  At this, the searchers were more convinced than ever that the solution to the mystery could be found at the bottom of the well. The boy, however, got such a fright at the sight of the mutilated legs that he refused to go back down. A second volunteer, after he was given a drink to bolster his courage, agreed to make the journey.

  Like the boy before him, the man was lowered down into the well with the iron hook. When he reached the bottom, he set to work, dipping the hook down into the black water in search of answers. Those who gathered around the edge of the well could see him probing the depths of the well, but without any success.

  At last, just as they were about to give up hope, the man shouted out that he had found something, but that it was quite heavy. He tried to jerk it up with the hook, but as he did so, his lantern slipped from his grasp, leaving him in absolute darkness. Determined not to lose what he had found, the man thrust his arms down into the cold wetness, grabbed hold of the object, and yelled to be brought up.

  The villagers hauled at the ropes, and before too long, the man appeared, bearing in his arms a large mass of what looked like wet clothing. Once free of the well, the man dumped his burden onto the ground and turned it over.

  Much to the shock of the crowd, the sodden mass was revealed to be the decomposing body of a stranger. The man’s head sported a long, dark pigtail, but the head itself was only attached to the body by a thin strip of skin at the back of the neck.

  The figure’s legs had been removed. What was left of the body was wearing a wide leather belt with a large brass buckle, and in the belt was thrust a flintlock pistol. It was dressed in the torn blue outfit of a sailor, and in all regards was identical to the spectral form described by the man who had followed the ghost the night before.

  A few weeks later, evidence was found that the sailor had been murdered in a barn nearby. A large patch of blood was found, and a matching pistol was discovered hidden in the hay. Three gold pieces were found trampled into the earth, and it was supposed the sailor had been attacked and murdered for his money. In order to make the corpse easier to carry, the murderers had hacked off his legs, and then had dumped them, and the body, down into the well.

  The murderers were never found, nor brought to justice. The ghost of the unfortunate sailor, forever in search of his unpunished murderers, can still be seen gliding through the night from time to time. He still cradles in his arms the sack containing his legs, with his head rolled back and resting between his shoulder blades, and his horrible, staring eyes gazing out behind for eternity.

  Along time ago, two hundred years at least, there lived a rich squire. The squire lived in great comfort in a large country manor named Harnage Grange with his wife and his family. The squire had several children, but the one he loved dearest was his eldest daughter, Margaret.

  Margaret’s beauty was famed throughout that part of England. Her skin was as pale as milk, and her hair was as red as flame. Margaret had many suitors, but only one of them captured her heart. She consented to be his wife, and a day for the wedding was set.

  The young couple were due to marry at nearby Langley Chapel. On the day of the wedding, the squire of Harnage Grange had his best horses harnessed to his finest carriage. He held out his hand to his daughter, and helped her up into the carriage, gathering up her long white train and arranging it carefully.

  Off they set, the driver keeping the spirited horses at a steady pace. As they approached the bridge at Harnage Ford, something spooked the horses, and they bolted, swerving and galloping off the road and down the hill toward the rushing river. The wedding carriage shuddered and bounced, and as the horses neared the water, they tried to pull away.

  The sudden movement was too much for the carriage. One of the great wheels struck a rock and splintered at the sudden impact. The carriage rolled over, throwing the squire and Margaret clear, but it landed on top of one of the horses, knocking it into the river. The beast neighed in terror, and thrashed about, but unable to get clear of the wreckage, it drowned in the swift running water.

  The bride’s father pulled himself up to his knees and crawled to where his daughter lay senseless on the riverbank, her long white dress spattered with muddy earth and stained with blood. H
e lifted Margaret up in his arms, and carried her back to Harnage Grange, her long white train trailing in the earth behind them. The squire survived to tell the tale, but Margaret, sadly, died of her injuries a short time later.

  Langley Chapel fell into disrepair in the early 1800s, but the story of the terrible tragedy that occurred nearby refused to die. The tale of Margaret who perished on her wedding day was told over and over, and Harnage Ford soon acquired a rather eerie reputation.

  Two hundred years later, the spirits of both Margaret and the horse that drowned in the river are still said to haunt Harnage Ford. Even today, horses insist on stopping every time they reach the ford, and are often reluctant to cross the bridge. It is said by some that those horses can see what we humans cannot—the ghostly remains of Margaret with her milk-white skin, her long white dress, and hair as red as flame, standing beside a stately phantom horse on the banks of the rushing river.

  Everything about Joseph’s day had been grey. The sky was like worn flannel, and the ocean that rolled underneath it was much the same. Even Joseph’s mood was grey; all day long his nets had come up empty.

  Joseph placed the oars in their oarlocks, and started to row to where his next net was set. There was a slight swell on the water, and as he rowed along, he thought of his wife, and their six children. He thought of the roof that needed patching, and he thought of his poor luck that day.

  “Well,” he said to himself, “it can’t get much worse.”

  With that, he grasped at the next net, and for a moment, felt a surge of optimism. The net was heavy. He shifted his weight in the boat, leaning back, legs braced instinctively. Hand over hand he hauled the net into the boat.

  As he did, he started to mutter under his breath. This net was empty as well, but heavy, as if something had snagged in it. Joseph looked down into the slate-grey waters, and could see a dark mass. He hauled it in closer, and felt a great lump form in his throat.

  Twisted into the netting was the body of a man. The skin was bluish-grey, with long bare arms. The hands were rough and callused, the fingernails short and broken, a working man’s hands, like his own. The body still wore dark navy pants, though the boots had been lost and the toes had been nibbled by the fish.

  Joseph was something of a hard man. He had seen a lot in his day, had gutted more fish than there were stars in the sky, had seen friends lost to the sea and family lost to wasting sickness. But nothing had prepared him for what he hauled up in the net that day. For the man in his net was missing its head, the edges of the neck ragged and torn.

  For a moment he sat there, the only motion the rise and fall of the water, the headless corpse half in, half out of his boat and still tangled in the web of his nets. Finding a body like that, waterlogged, fish-nibbled, headless . . . that was not something any man would want in his boat. But at the same time, it was not something you could exactly ignore, either.

  Joseph freed the corpse from the nets, and tied a line under the man’s arms, around his chest, securing the other end of the line to the boat. He set his nets again, carefully. Then trying as best he could not to gaze upon that frightful stump of a neck, he pushed the body of the man back into the water. He fitted his oars into place, and started to row for home.

  The line played out behind him, towing the body along. As he rowed, Joseph’s eyes kept darting back along the line, to where the headless man could be seen, bobbing along. Joseph shivered, unable to shake the impression that the corpse was swimming after him.

  By the time he reached the shore, Joseph was ready to be rid of his unusual catch. He hove the boat up onto the beach, and reeling in the line, cast the headless body up onto the shore. He looked down at it, uncertain what to do next.

  “I can’t leave him there,” thought Joseph. He reached down, picked up the body, and slung it over his shoulder. Up the beach he went, the man’s cold, wet arms dangling down Joseph’s back. He carried the body up to a large, flat rock, near a place known as the Spring Well. He laid the body down on the rock, and then went to find help.

  Joseph’s feet flew over the rocks as he ran into the town, shouting out for help. A few men gathered at the sound of his voice, and Joseph told them all what he had hauled up out of the ocean’s deep. The men agreed to go back to the Spring Well with him, and together they would bury the body in the churchyard.

  When the men returned to the Spring Well with Joseph, they all stopped and were silent. All eyes looked at the rock, and then questioningly turned back to Joseph. The rock was empty, and the headless body had vanished completely.

  This happened a long time ago. But there are those, to this day, who say that the body can sometimes be seen on cold windy nights. It is said to return to the spot known as the Spring Well, forever searching for its missing head.

  There was an elderly gentleman whose business often took him between cities, and it was his regular habit to take the train. One night, he took a late-night express train to the city of Bayswater, a trip he had taken many times before.

  At that time of night there were few passengers, and the man found himself alone in one of the train cars.

  “Good evening, sir,” said the conductor with a smile as he came to collect the man’s ticket. “Cold night tonight.”

  “Indeed it is,” said the man. He handed over his ticket. The conductor punched it, handed it back, and continued on to the next car.

  The rhythmic motion of the train as it rolled along had a soothing effect. The man leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and dozed off for a short while.

  When he opened his eyes, the elderly gentleman was no longer alone in the train car. Sitting across from him was a slender young girl wearing a small straw hat decorated with velvet flowers, and with an old-fashioned shawl draped about her shoulders. She was a lovely girl, about sixteen years of age. She had large blue eyes and long blonde hair which was pulled back off her face.

  “Does this train go to Bayswater?” the girl asked in a soft, sweet voice.

  “Yes,” the man answered, checking his watch. “We should arrive in three hours.”

  “Will the train stop many times before we get there?” asked the girl, in a worried tone.

  “Not once,” said the man. “This is the direct route, with no stops at all.”

  “Oh, good,” sighed the girl in the hat, as if in great relief. She settled back in her seat, staring out the window at the passing countryside.

  “Are you meeting family in Bayswater?” the gentleman asked.

  “Oh no,” the girl answered, “I am going to school there.”

  “It will be late when we arrive,” he said. “Will you need any assistance when we get there?”

  “Only a taxi,” she replied, “and from there I will be fine.”

  The express train thundered on with a steady roar and a constant clatter from its iron wheels. Suddenly the train whistle screeched out a mournful cry, and the train started to slow down. The wheels slowly ground to a halt, and looking out the window, the two passengers could see that they had stopped at a small station in the middle of the forest.

  “Is this Bayswater?” questioned the girl.

  “No it is not,” said the man. “I can’t imagine why we’ve stopped here.”

  “Does this train stop at every station?” she asked, in a trembling voice.

  “Usually never,” said the man. “They must have gotten a special signal.”

  At this the girl drew her shawl closer about her thin frame, and shivered.

  “You are cold,” said the man in a grandfatherly tone, concerned.

  “Yes,” said the girl. “I am very cold.”

  After only a moment, the train started moving again, and the conductor entered the car. It was a different conductor from the one who had collected the man’s ticket. The gentleman stopped the conductor and asked why the journey had been interrupted.

  “We had to pick up a man,” said the second conductor, “a detective. There was a murder, and he is on the lookout fo
r a suspect.”

  “Not on this train, surely!” exclaimed the man.

  “Yes, sir,” said the conductor, passing on into the next car.

  “Did you hear what he said?” the gentleman asked the girl.

  “A murder,” she said. “How horrible.” She looked very pale.

  The man told her not to worry, and that he would look out for her until they arrived in Bayswater. The girl gave a sweet, sad smile, and turned back toward the window. She looked very much alone as she sat there, fiddling with her hands and their long, white fingers.

  The train continued for some time, and as they drew toward their final destination, the girl seemed to grow more upset. As they entered the town, the train ran over a bridge which spanned a wide river. Suddenly the girl rose, and ran quickly to the nearest doorway. Before the man could stop her, she wrenched the door open and threw herself from the train. Horrified, the man watched her fall from the bridge and land with a splash in the river below.

  The old man was so shocked by this that he fainted dead away.

  When he regained consciousness, he found that he was back in his seat, alone in the car. The train was still rumbling along, and he saw that they had not yet arrived at the outskirts of Bayswater. Shaking his head, the man wondered if what he had seen had only been a dream. Before long, the conductor came back through the car. It was the first conductor, the one who had collected his ticket.

  Fully expecting to be laughed at, the gentleman stopped the conductor, and told him of his strange experience. Instead of laughing, the conductor was very curious.

  “That was no ordinary dream,” said the conductor, when the man had finished his description. “What you saw took place on this train twenty years ago on this very night. A girl like you described had committed a terrible murder in the town we’ve just come from. She tried to escape on the train, but was followed by a detective. She jumped into the river just outside of Bayswater to avoid being arrested, but drowned.”