True Ghost Stories

by Hereward Carrington

  “That year Lady Beresford died. On her deathbed, Lady Riverson unbound the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford had described it—every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk....”

  Dead Or Alive

  In the following case the ghost kept its promise to appear—doing so, to all appearances, in spite of great obstacles. The incident is reported in Mr. W. T. Stead’s Real Ghost Stories, pp. 205-8:

  “The following incident occurred to me some years ago, and all the details can be substantiated. The date was August 26, 1867, at midnight. I was then residing in the neighborhood of Hull, and held an appointment under the crown which necessitated my repairing thither every day for a few hours duty. My berth was almost a sinecure; and I had for some time been engaged to a young north country heiress, it being understood that on our marriage I should take her name and ‘stand for the county’ or rather for one of its divisions.

  “For her sake I had to break off a love affair, not of the most reputable order, with a girl in Hull. I will call her Louise. She was young, beautiful, and devoted to me. On the night of the 26th of August we took our last walk together, and a few minutes before midnight paused on a wooden bridge running across a kind of canal, locally termed a ‘drain.’ We paused on the bridge, listening to the swirling of the current against the wooden piles, and waiting for the stroke of midnight to part forever. In the few minutes interval she repeated sotto voce, Longfellow’s ‘Bridge,’ the words of which, ‘I stood on the bridge at midnight,’ seemed terribly appropriate. After nearly twenty-five years I can never hear that piece recited without feeling a deadly chill, and the whole scene of two souls in agony again rising before me. Well! Midnight struck and we parted; but Louise said: ‘Grant me one favor, the only one that I shall ever ask you on this earth; promise to meet me here twelve months from to-night at this same hour.’ I demurred at first, thinking it would be bad for both of us, and only re-open partially-healed wounds. At last, however, I consented, saying, ‘Well, I will come if I am alive.’ But she said, ‘Say alive or dead.’ I said, ‘Very well, then, we will meet, dead or alive.’

  “The next year I was on the spot a few minutes before the time; and, punctual to the stroke of midnight, Louise arrived. By this time I had begun to regret the arrangement I had made; but it was of too solemn a nature to put aside. I therefore kept the appointment; but said that I did not care to renew the compact. Louise, however, persuaded me to renew it for one more year; and I consented, much against my will; and we again left each other, repeating the same formula, ‘Dead or Alive.’

  “The next year after passed rapidly until the first week in July, when I was shot dangerously in the thigh by a fisherman named Thomas Piles, of Hull, a reputed smuggler. A party of four of us had hired his ten-ton yawl to go yachting round the Yorkshire coast, and amuse ourselves by shooting sea-birds amongst the millions of them at Flamborough Head. The third or fourth day out I was shot in the right thigh by the skipper Piles; and the day after, one and a quarter ounce of number 2 shot were cut out therefrom by the coastguard surgeon at Bridlington Quay (whose name I forget for the moment), assisted by Dr. Alexander Mackey, at the Black Lion hotel. The affair was in all the papers at the time, about a column of it appearing in the Eastern Morning News, of Hull.

  “As soon as I was able to be removed (two or three weeks) I was taken home, where Dr. Melburne King, of Hull, attended me. The day—and the night—(the 26th of August) came. I was then unable to walk without crutches, and that for only a short distance, so had to be wheeled about in a Bath chair. The distance to the trysting place being rather long, and the time and the circumstances being very peculiar, I did not avail myself of the services of my usual attendant, but specially retained an old servant of the family, who frequently did confidential commissions for me, and who knew Miss Louise well. We set forth ‘without beat of drum’ and arrived at the bridge about a few minutes to midnight. I remember that it was a brilliant starlight night, but I do not think that there was any moon—at all events, at that hour. ‘Old Bob,’ as he was always affectionately called, wheeled me to the bridge, helped me out of the Bath chair, and gave me my crutch. I walked on to the bridge, and leaned my back against the white painted rail top, then lighted my briar-root, and had a comfortable smoke.

  “I was very much annoyed that I had allowed myself to be persuaded to come a second time, and determined to tell Louise positively that this should be our last meeting. Besides, now, I did not consider it fair to Miss K., with whom I was again ‘negotiating.’ So, if anything, it was in rather a sulky frame of mind that I awaited Louise. Just as the quarters before the hour began to chime I distinctly heard the ‘clink, clink’ of the little brass heels, which she always wore, sounding on the long flagged causeway, leading for 200 yards up to the bridge. As she got nearer, I could see her pass lamp after lamp in rapid succession, while the strokes of the large clock at Hull resounded through the stilly night.

  “At last the patter, patter of the tiny feet sounded on the woodwork of the bridge, and I saw her distinctly pass under the lamp at my side. When she got close to me I saw that she had neither hat nor cape on, and concluded that she had taken a cab at the further end of the flagged causeway, and (it being a very warm night) had left her wraps in the cab, and, for purposes of effect, had come the short distance in evening dress.

  “‘Clink, clink,’ went the brass heels, and she seemed about passing me, when I suddenly, urged by an impulse of affection, stretched out my arms to receive her. She passed through them, intangible, impalpable, and as she looked at me I distinctly saw her lips move, and form the words ‘Dead or Alive.’ I even heard the words, but not with my outward ears, with something else, some other sense—what, I know not. I felt startled, surprised, but not afraid, until a moment afterwards, when I felt, but could not see, some other presence following her. I could feel, though I could not hear, the heavy, clumsy thud of feet following her; and my blood seemed turned to ice. Recovering myself with an effort, I shouted out to Old Bob, who was safely ensconsed with the Bath chair in a nook out of sight round the corner: ‘Bob, who passed you just now?’ In an instant the old Yorkshire-man was by my side. ‘Ne’er a one passed me, sir.’ ‘Nonsense, Bob,’ I replied, ‘I told you that I was coming to meet Miss Louise, and she just passed me on the bridge, and must have passed you, because there is no where else she could go. You don’t mean to tell me you didn’t see her?’ The old man replied solemnly: ‘Maister Rob, there’s something uncanny about it. I heered her come on the bridge, and off it, and I knaw them clickety heels onywhere! but I’m domned, sir, if she passed me! I’m thinking we’d better gang.’ And ‘gang’ we did; and it was the small hours of the morning (getting daylight) before we left off talking over the affair, and went to bed.

  “The next day I made inquiries from Louise’s family about her, and ascertained that she had died in Liverpool three months previously, being apparently delirious for a few hours before her death, and, our parting compact evidently weighing on her mind, as she kept repeating, ‘Dead or Alive—shall I be there?’—to the utter bewilderment of her friends, who could not divine her meaning—being, of course, entirely unaware of our agreement.”

  This completes the examples of the so-called “Pact” cases. In the following example, the phantasmal form conveyed a piece of information to the percipient which he could not well have known by any normal means.

  The Scratch On the Cheek

  The case appeared in the Proceedings of the Amer. S. P. R., and the high character of the witnesses was vouched for by Dr. Hodgson and Prof. Royce. It is to the following effect:

  “January 11, 1888.

  “Sir: Replying to your recently published request for actual occurrences of psychical phenomena, I respectively submit the following remarkable occurrence to the consideration of your distinguished Society, with the assurance that the event made a more powerful impression upon my mind than the combined incidents of my whole life.... I was never in bette
r health or possessed a clearer head and mind than at the time the incident occurred.

  “In 1867, my only sister, a young lady of eighteen years, died suddenly of cholera, in St. Louis, Mo. My attachment for her was very strong, and the blow a severe one to me. A year or so after her death, I became a commercial traveller, and it was in 1876, while on one of my Western trips that the event occurred.

  “I had ‘drummed’ the city of St. Joseph, Mo., and had gone to my room at the Pacific House to send in my orders, which were unusually large ones, so that I was in a very happy frame of mind indeed. My thoughts, of course, were about these orders, knowing how pleased my house would be at my success. I had not been thinking of my late sister, or in any manner reflecting on the past. The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully into my room. While busy smoking a cigar, and writing out my orders, I suddenly became conscious that some one was sitting on my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for a brief second or two looked her squarely in the face; and so sure was I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight, calling her by name, and, as I did so, the apparition instantly vanished. Naturally I was startled and dumbfounded, almost doubting my senses; but the cigar in my mouth, and pen in hand, with the ink still moist on my letter, I satisfied myself I had not been dreaming and was still awake. I was near enough to touch her, had it been a physical possibility, and noted her features, expression, and details of dress, etc. She appeared as if alive. Her eyes looked kindly and perfectly naturally into mine. Her skin was so perfectly life-like that I could see the glow or moisture in the surface, and, on the whole there was no change in her appearance, otherwise than when alive.

  “Now comes the most remarkable confirmation of my statement, which cannot be doubted by those who know what I state actually occurred. This visitation, or whatever you may call it, so impressed me that I took the next train home, and in the presence of my parents and others I related what had occurred. My father, a man of rare good sense and very practical, was inclined to ridicule me, as he saw how earnestly I believed what I stated; but he, too, was amazed when later on I told them of a bright red line or scratch on the right-hand side of my sister’s face, which I distinctly had seen. When I mentioned this my mother rose trembling to her feet and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she had sufficiently recovered her self-possession, with tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no living mortal but herself was aware of that scratch, which she had actually made while doing some little act of kindness after my sister’s death. She said she well remembered how pained she was to think she should have, unintentionally, marred the features of her dead daughter, and that, unknown to all, she had carefully obliterated all traces of the slight scratch with the aid of powder, etc., and that she had never mentioned it to a human being, from that day to this.... Yet I saw the scratch as bright as if just made....”

  [Confirmatory statements were obtained from the narrator’s father and brother; his mother having died in the interval.]

  A Ghost In Hampton Court

  Miss X. (Mrs. Hans Spoer) relates the following interesting case, as occurring to herself, on a visit to the well-known Hampton Court. (Essays in Psychical Research, pp. 31-34):

  “I recently found myself the guest of a lady occupying a pleasant suite of rooms in Hampton Court Palace. For obvious reasons I cannot specify the name of my hostess, the exact date of my visit, or the precise whereabouts of her apartment.

  “Of course I was familiar with the Hampton Court ghost legend.... I examined the scene of the occurrences, and was allowed to ask questions at will. The ghost, I was told, visited habitually in a dozen different rooms—not, however, in the bright, dainty drawing room in which we were chatting, and where it was difficult to believe that we were discussing recent history.

  “As a matter of fact, it was very recent, indeed. But a few nights earlier, in a certain small but cheerful bedroom, a little girl had been awakened out of her sleep by a visitant so dramatic that I wondered whether the child had possibly gone to sleep again, after her original fright, and dreamed the later and more sensational part of the story.

  “My room was quaintly pretty, but somewhat peculiar in arrangement, and lighted only from the roof. I have seen ‘ghosts’ before, have slept for months together in haunted houses; and, though I find such visitants somewhat exciting, I cannot say that my prospects for the night filled me with any degree of apprehension.

  “At dinner and during the evening ghostly topics were avoided; there were other guests, and music and chat occupied us till 11 o’clock, when my hostess accompanied me to my room. I asked various questions as to my neighbours above and below, and the exact position of other members of the household, with a view to knowing how to interpret any sounds which might occur. About a third of the ceiling of my room was skylight; the servant’s bedroom being situated over the remainder. Two sides of the room were bounded by a corridor, into which it opened; a third of the wall by the state apartments, while the fourth opened by folding doors upon a room for the time unoccupied (except by a cat, asleep upon a chair) out of which there opened a door, leading by a secret passage to the bank of the river.

  “I ascertained that the folding doors were locked; moreover, a heavy table stood against them on the outer side, and a wardrobe on the inner. The bedstead was a small one, without curtains; indeed, the room contained no hangings whatever. The door into the room opened so nearly to the head of my bed that there was space only for a small table, upon which I took care to place two long candles, and a plentiful supply of matches, being somewhat addicted to late and early reading.

  “I was tired, but a sense of duty demanded that I should not sleep through the ‘witching hours,’ so I sat up in bed, and gave my best attention to Lord Farrer’s problem, ‘Shall We Degrade our Standard of Value?’ in the current number of the National Review, and, on the principle of always trying to see both sides of a question, thought of several reasons why we should not, with the author, come to a negative conclusion. The matter did not, however, excite me to the pitch of wakefulness; and when I finished the article, as the clock struck half-past one, I considered myself absolved from further responsibility, put out my lights, and was asleep before the next quarter sounded.

  “Nearly three hours later I was suddenly awakened from dreamless slumber by the sound of the opening of a door against which some piece of furniture was standing, in, as it seemed, the empty room to my right. I remembered the cat, and tried to conceive by what kind of ‘rampaging’ she could contrive to be so noisy. A minute later there followed a thud apparently on this side of the folding doors, and too heavy for even the prize animals of my home circle, not to speak of a mongrel stray, newly adopted and not yet doing credit to her keep! ‘A dress fallen in the wardrobe,’ was my next thought, and I stretched out my hand for the match-box, as a preliminary to enquiry.

  “I did not reach the matches. It seemed to me that a restraining hand was laid upon mine; I withdrew it quickly, and gazed around me in the darkness. Some minutes passed in blackness and silence. I had the sensation of a presence in the room, and finally, mindful of the tradition that a ghost should be spoken to, I said gently: ‘Is anyone there? Can I do anything for you?’ I remembered that the last person who entertained the ghost had said: ‘Go away, I don’t want you!’ and I hoped that my visitor would admire my better manners and be responsive. However, there was no answer—no sound of any kind; and returning to my theory of the cat and the fallen dress, though nevertheless so far influenced by the recollection of those detaining fingers as not to attempt to strike a light, I rose and walked round my bed, keeping the right hand on the edge of the bedstead, while, with my left arm extended, I swept the surrounding space. As the room is small, I thus fairly well satisfied myself that it contained nothing unusual.

  “I was, though somewhat perplexed, about to grant myself license to go to sle
ep again, when in the darkness before me there began to glow a soft light. I watched it increase in brightness and in extent. It seemed to radiate from a central point, which gradually took form and became a tall, slight woman, moving slowly across the room from the folding doors on my right. As she passed the foot of my bed I felt a slight vibration of the spring mattress. At the further corner she stopped, so that I had time to observe her profile and general appearance. Her face was insipidly pretty; that of a woman from thirty to thirty-five years of age, her figure slight, her dress of a soft dark material, having a full skirt and broad sash or soft waist-band tied high up, almost under her arms, a crossed or draped ‘kerchief over the shoulders, sleeves which I noticed fitted very tight below the elbow, and hair which was dressed so as not to lie flat to the head, either in curls or bows, I could not tell which. As she appeared to stand between me and the light, I cannot speak with any certainty as to the color, but the dress, though dark, was, I think, not black. In spite of all this definiteness, I was, of course, conscious that the figure was unsubstantial, and I felt guilty of absurdity in asking once more: ‘Will you let me help you? Can I be of use to you?’

  “My voice sounded preternaturally loud, but I felt no surprise at noticing that it produced no effect upon my visitor. She stood still for perhaps two minutes—though it is very difficult to estimate time on such occasions. She then raised her hands, which were long and white, and held them before her as she sank upon her knees and slowly buried the face in her palms, in the attitude of prayer—when, quite suddenly, the light went out, and I was alone in the darkness.

  “I felt that the scene was ended, the curtain down, and had no hesitation in lighting the candle at my side.

  “I tried to examine the impression the vision conveyed. I felt that it was definitely that of reproach, yet of gentle resignation. There was no force, no passion; I had seen a meek, sad woman who had succumbed. I began to turn over in my mind the illustrious names of former occupants of the chamber. I fixed on one—a bad man of the worst kind, a mad fool of that time of wickedness and folly, the Regency—I thought of the secret passage in the next room, and began to weave an elaborate romance.