1 Apel’s story first appeared in German in 1805 and was reprinted in his anthology Cicaden (1810). It was subsequently included (without crediting Apel) in Fantasmagoriana; ou Recueil d’Histoires, d’Apparitions, de Spectres, Revenans, Fantomes, etc., traduit de l’allemand, par un amateur (1812), translated into French anonymously by Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès (1767–1846). The book was subsequently translated into English by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson and published in 1813 as Tales of the Dead (note that we have used Utterson’s translation, in which she adds an opening quote from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale not found in the original).
Mary Shelley, her husband Percy Shelley, her half-sister Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron, and his companion John Polidori spent several evenings in the summer of 1816 reading aloud tales (it is unknown whether they read them in French or English) from Fantasmagoriana, with the result that Byron challenged them all to write their own ghost stories. In the introduction to the 1831 revised edition of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein (the seed of which was sown in that storytelling contest), she recounted her recollection of the book: “There was the tale of the sinful founder of his race, whose miserable doom it was to bestow the kiss of death on all the younger sons of his fated house, just when they reached the age of promise. His gigantic, shadowy form, clothed like the ghost in Hamlet, in complete armour, but with the beaver up, was seen at midnight, by the moon’s fitful beams, to advance slowly along the gloomy avenue. The shape was lost beneath the shadow of the castle walls; but soon a gate swung back, a step was heard, the door of the chamber opened, and he advanced to the couch of the blooming youths, cradled in healthy sleep. Eternal sorrow sat upon his face as he bent down and kissed the forehead of the boys, who from that hour withered like flowers snapt upon the stalk. I have not seen these stories since then; but their incidents are as fresh in my mind as if I had read them yesterday.” Note that her summary makes no mention of the “family portraits”!
2 The person who rides the front left-hand horse of a pair or more drawing a carriage.
3 Renowned British ghost hunter Peter Underwood (1923–2014) created a taxonomy of ghosts (it originally included eight types, although he later expanded it to ten), one of which is the haunted object. Haunted objects can include portraits, skulls, weapons, parts of structures, or—particularly in America—dolls.
4 The “kiss of death” is a common theme in ghost stories (see, for example, the ballad “Sweet William’s Ghost”), and may derive from the condemning kiss Judas gave to Christ.
5 The author seems to have confused Otho, who was a Roman emperor whose reign lasted for three months in 69 A.D., with Otto I and II, who reigned over the Holy Roman Empire for most of the tenth century.
6 Tutilon—or, as he is more commonly known, Tutilo—was a real monk in the tenth century who was an accomplished painter, sculptor, and composer. He was canonized and is now known as Saint Tutilo (or Saint Tuotilo), and his feast day in the Catholic calendar is celebrated on March 28.
7 Ghost stories surrounding priests and monks were numerous in the Middle Ages. The eleventh-century bishop Thietmar of Merseburg recorded many, including one in which dead spirits gathered in a reconstructed church and burned the local priest on the altar, so this monk has good reason to be seized with fear.
The Tapestried Chamber, or The Lady in the Square
by SIR WALTER SCOTT
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) is best remembered today for his classic Scottish/English novels, Waverly (1814), hailed as the first historical novel, Rob Roy (1817), The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), and Ivanhoe (1820). His first great successes were his epic poems The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and Marmion (1808). He was a prolific poet, essayist, dramatist, and novelist, with more than twenty novels to his credit. Scott was an early champion of Frankenstein, reviewing it when it first appeared in 1818, though he—like many others—assumed that its anonymous author was Percy Shelley. The following story is one of three that first appeared in The Keepsake for 1829, published in December 1828. Though many of his longer works reference folklore and legends of ghosts, this is Scott’s only pure ghost story, and many scholars consider it to be the first important short ghost story.
About the end of the American war, when the officers of Lord Cornwallis’s army which surrendered at Yorktown, and others, who had been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated controversy1 were returning to their own country, to relate their adventures and repose themselves after their fatigues, there was amongst them a general officer, to whom Miss S. gave the name of Browne, but merely, as I understood, to save the inconvenience of introducing a nameless agent in the narrative. He was an officer of merit, as well as a gentleman of high consideration for family and attainments.
Some business had carried General Browne upon a tour through the western counties,2 when, in the conclusion of a morning stage, he found himself in the vicinity of a small country town, which presented a scene of uncommon beauty and of a character peculiarly English.
The little town, with its stately old church whose tower bore testimony to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pasture and corn-fields of small extent, but bounded and divided with hedgerow timber of great age and size. There were few marks of modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated neither the solitude of decay, nor the bustle of novelty; the houses were old, but in good repair; and the beautiful little river murmured freely on its way to the left of the town, neither restrained by a dam, nor bordered by a towing-path.
Upon a gentle eminence, nearly a mile to the southward of the town, were seen amongst many venerable oaks and tangled thickets the turrets of a castle, as old as the wars of York and Lancaster,3 but which seemed to have received important alterations during the age of Elizabeth and her successors. It had not been a place of great size; but whatever accommodation it formerly afforded, was, it must be supposed, still to be obtained within its walls; at least, such was the inference which General Browne drew from observing the smoke arise merrily from several of the ancient wreathed and carved chimney-stalks.
The wall of the park ran alongside of the highway for two or three hundred yards, and, through the different points by which the eye found glimpses into the woodland scenery, it seemed to be well stocked. Other points of view opened in succession; now a full one, of the front of the old castle, and now a side glimpse at its particular towers; the former rich in all the bizarrerie of the Elizabethan school, while the simple and solid strength of other parts of the building seemed to show that they had been raised more for defence than ostentation.
Delighted with the partial glimpses which he obtained of the castle through the woods and glades by which this ancient feudal fortress was surrounded, our military traveller was determined to inquire whether it might not deserve a nearer view, and whether it contained family pictures or other objects of curiosity worthy of a stranger’s visit, when, leaving the vicinity of the park, he rolled through a clean and well-paved street, and stopped at the door of a well-frequented inn.
Before ordering horses to proceed on his journey, General Browne made inquiries concerning the proprietor of the château which had so attracted his admiration, and was equally surprised and pleased at hearing in reply a nobleman named whom we shall call Lord Woodville. How fortunate! Much of Browne’s early recollections, both at school and at college, had been connected with young Woodville, whom, by a few questions, he now ascertained to be the same with the owner of this fair domain. He had been raised to the peerage by the decease of his father a few months before, and, as the General learned from the landlord, the term of mourning being ended, was now taking possession of his paternal estate in the jovial season of merry autumn, accompanied by a select party of friends to enjoy the sports of a country famous for game.
This was delightful news to our traveller. Frank Woodville had been Richard Browne’s fag at Eton,4 and his chosen intimate at Christ Church; their pleasures and their tasks had been the same; and the honest
soldier’s heart warmed to find his early friend in possession of so delightful a residence, and of an estate, as the landlord assured him with a nod and a wink, fully adequate to maintain and add to his dignity. Nothing was more natural than that the traveller should suspend a journey, which there was nothing to render hurried, to pay a visit to an old friend under such agreeable circumstances.
The fresh horses, therefore, had only the brief task of conveying the General’s travelling-carriage to Woodville Castle. A porter admitted them at a modern Gothic lodge, built in that style to correspond with the castle itself, and at the same time rang a bell to give warning of the approach of visitors. Apparently the sound of the bell had suspended the separation of the company, bent on the various amusements of the morning; for, on entering the court of the château, several young men were lounging about in their sporting-dresses, looking at, and criticizing, the dogs which the keepers held in readiness to attend their pastime.
As General Browne alighted, the young lord came to the gate of the hall, and for an instant gazed, as at a stranger, upon the countenance of his friend, on which war, with its fatigues and its wounds, had made a great alteration. But the uncertainty lasted no longer than till the visitor had spoken, and the hearty greeting which followed was such as can only be exchanged betwixt those who have passed together merry days of careless boyhood or early youth.
“If I could have formed a wish, my dear Browne,” said Lord Woodville, “it would have been to have you here, of all men, upon this occasion, which my friends are good enough to hold as a sort of holiday. Do not think you have been unwatched during the years you have been absent from us. I have traced you through your dangers, your triumphs, your misfortunes, and was delighted to see that, whether in victory or defeat, the name of my old friend was always distinguished with applause.”
The General made a suitable reply, and congratulated his friend on his new dignities, and the possession of a place and domain so beautiful.
“Nay, you have seen nothing of it as yet,” said Lord Woodville, “and I trust you do not mean to leave us till you are better acquainted with it. It is true, I confess, that my present party is pretty large, and the old house, like other places of the kind, does not possess so much accommodation as the extent of the outward walls appears to promise. But we can give you a comfortable old-fashioned room, and I venture to suppose that your campaigns have taught you to be glad of worse quarters.”
The General shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. “I presume,” he said, “the worst apartment in your château is considerably superior to the old tobacco-cask,5 in which I was fain to take up my night’s lodging when I was in the Bush, as the Virginians call it, with the light corps. There I lay, like Diogenes himself, 6 so delighted with my covering from the elements, that I made a vain attempt to have it rolled on to my next quarters; but my commander for the time would give way to no such luxurious provision, and I took farewell of my beloved cask with tears in my eyes.”
“Well, then, since you do not fear your quarters,” said Lord Woodville “you will stay with me a week at least. Of guns, dogs, fishing-rods, flies, and means of sport by sea and land, we have enough and to spare: you cannot pitch on an amusement, but we will pitch on the means of pursuing it. But if you prefer the gun and pointers,7 I will go with you myself, and see whether you have mended your shooting since you have been amongst the Indians of the back settlements.”
The General gladly accepted his friendly host’s proposal in all its points. After a morning of manly exercise, the company met at dinner, where it was the delight of Lord Woodville to conduce to the display of the high properties of his recovered friend, so as to recommend him to his guests, most of whom were persons of distinction. He led General Browne to speak of the scenes he had witnessed; and as every word marked alike the brave officer and the sensible man, who retained possession of his cool judgement under the most imminent dangers, the company looked upon the soldier with general respect, as on one who had proved himself possessed of an uncommon portion of personal courage—that attribute, of all others, of which everybody desires to be thought possessed.
The day at Woodville Castle ended as usual in such mansions. The hospitality stopped within the limits of good order; music, in which the young lord was a proficient, succeeded to the circulation of the bottle; cards and billiards, for those who preferred such amusements, were in readiness; but the exercise of the morning required early hours, and not long after eleven o’clock the guests began to retire to their several apartments.
The young lord himself conducted his friend, General Browne, to the chamber destined for him, which answered the description he had given of it, being comfortable, but old-fashioned. The bed was of the massive form used in the end of the seventeenth century, and the curtains of faded silk, heavily trimmed with tarnished gold. But then the sheets, pillows, and blankets looked delightful to the campaigner, when he thought of his “mansion, the cask.”
There was an air of gloom in the tapestry hangings which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the walls of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal breeze found its way through the ancient latticewindow, which pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet too, with its mirror, turbaned, after the manner of the beginning of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-coloured8 silk, and its hundred strangeshaped boxes, providing for arrangements which had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles; or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming bickering fagots in the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth through the snug apartment; which, notwithstanding the general antiquity of its appearance, was not wanting in the least convenience that modern habits rendered either necessary or desirable.
“This is an old-fashioned sleeping apartment, General,” said the young lord; “but I hope you will find nothing that makes you envy your old tobacco-cask.”
“I am not particular respecting my lodgings,” replied the General; “yet were I to make any choice, I would prefer this chamber by many degrees, to the gayer and more modern rooms of your family mansion. Believe me that when I unite its modern air of comfort with its venerable antiquity, and recollect that it is your lordship’s property, I shall feel in better quarters here, than if I were in the best hotel London could afford.”
“I trust—I have no doubt—that you will find yourself as comfortable as I wish you, my dear General,” said the young nobleman; and once more bidding his guest good night, he shook him by the hand and withdrew.
The General once more looked round him, and internally congratulating himself on his return to peaceful life, the comforts of which were endeared by the recollection of the hardships and dangers he had lately sustained, undressed himself, and prepared himself for a luxurious night’s rest.
Here, contrary to the custom of this species of tale, we leave the General in possession of his apartment until the next morning.
The company assembled for breakfast at an early hour, but without the appearance of General Browne, who seemed the guest that Lord Woodville was desirous of honouring above all whom his hospitality had assembled around him. He more than once expressed surprise at the General’s absence, and at length sent a servant to make inquiry after him. The man brought back information that General Browne had been walking abroad since an early hour of the morning, in defiance of the weather, which was misty and ungenial.
“The custom of a soldier,” said the young nobleman to his friends: “many of them acquire habitual vigilance, and cannot sleep after the early hour at which their duty usually commands them to be alert.”
Yet the explanation which Lord Woodville thus offered to the company seemed hardly satisfactory to his own mind, and it was in a fit of silence and abstraction that he awaited the return of the General. It took place near an hour after the breakfast-bell had rung. He looked fatigued and feverish
. His hair, the powdering and arrangement of which was at this time one of the most important occupations of a man’s whole day, and marked his fashion as much as, in the present time, the tying of a cravat or the want of one, was dishevelled, uncurled, void of powder, and dank with dew. His clothes were huddled on with a careless negligence, remarkable in a military man, whose real or supposed duties are usually held to include some attention to the toilet; and his looks were haggard and ghastly in a peculiar degree.
“So you have stolen a march upon us this morning, my dear General,” said Lord Woodville; “or you have not found your bed so much to your mind as I had hoped and you seemed to expect. How did you rest last night?”
“Oh, excellently well—remarkably well—never better in my life!” said General Browne rapidly, and yet with an air of embarrassment which was obvious to his friend. He then hastily swallowed a cup of tea, and, neglecting or refusing whatever else was offered, seemed to fall into a fit of abstraction.
“You will take the gun to-day, General?” said his friend and host, but had to repeat the question twice ere he received the abrupt answer, “No, my Lord; I am sorry I cannot have the honour of spending another day with your lordship; my post horses are ordered, and will be here directly.”
All who were present showed surprise, and Lord Woodville immediately replied, “Post horses, my good friend! What can you possibly want with them, when you promised to stay with me quietly for at least a week?”
Ghost Stories Page 6