Dark Encounters: Ghost Stories

by William Croft Dickinson

  Fortunately, I had already borrowed from General Donaldson’s library all his local histories and all works containing drawings and plans of Dundrennan. I had soon located the north grange, and, between it and the Abbey, ‘the wood’. Taking my stick, I at once set forth. I had left the town and was on my way to the Abbey a little before noon.

  The ‘wood’ had disappeared — though I could mark its site — and the north grange, when I had found it, was little more than the foundations of one wall. The ground was thick-grown with nettles, and, at some early period, an attempt had been made to enclose the ruins of the grange with a ring of large standing stones. One of these attracted me. Rubbing off the lichen with my hand, I saw what had caught my eye. On one of its sides the stone bore a roughly-incised cross! Did the other stones bear a like sign? Breaking down the nettles with my stick, I moved quickly from stone to stone. On three stones out of every four I found the same incised cross, sometimes distinct, sometimes almost undecipherable through the weathering of the stone. Clearly at one time all the stones had been so incised; and on all the stones the crosses were on the side away from the ruins. Was there here some concept of a sacred ring that would enclose the Evil One and imprison him? Had this encircling ring, marked with the cross, and doubtless fortified in other ways, been raised after the destruction of the grange and the death of the lay-brother who had perished here and whose end was not unconnected with the visit of some evil spirit?

  Whether I was influenced by my discovery, and these thoughts that followed it, I cannot say. But I now noticed that whenever I was within the area bounded by the stones, I felt a strange feeling of oppression, much like that which one feels on a sultry summer afternoon just before the breaking of a thunderstorm. Also, though again it was probably only some absurd fancy, I had the impression that as I moved about, sometimes within the ring of stones, sometimes outwith the ring, not only did the atmosphere change, but even the light also. Whenever I was within the ring the day seemed to grow darker; outwith the ring, the day grew lighter again.

  I believe I spoke aloud, damning myself for a fool. And then I noticed the stranger! He was dressed in a dark suit of surcoat, and he was standing in the place where I had located the site of the ‘wood’. To say that I was unaffected by his appearance would be untrue. Certainly I felt my heart beating more quickly and a strange sudden breathlessness come over me. I put my hand on to one of the incised stones to steady myself from falling. Then, recovering, I rubbed my eyes. The stranger had gone! Again damning myself for an imaginative fool, I left the ruins of the grange and began to make my way back here to the inn. Passing the site of the ‘wood’ I noticed nothing unusual, and I sensed nothing unusual. An hour later I was back in this room.

  For perhaps half-an-hour after my return I debated with myself whether I really had seen a ‘stranger of dark habit’, and whether I really had sensed a different atmosphere within that enclosing ring of incised stones. Had I not imagined it all from my deciphering of those expunged entries in the Chronicle? And if there had been a ‘stranger’, was it not likely that he was some local farmer curious to know why I was examining the ruined grange?

  But within that half-hour I had made up my mind.

  At half-past five by the clock I began to write this full account of my discovery in the Chronicle of Dundrennan and of my visit to the north grange in the broad daylight of a summer’s afternoon. I have made it as detailed as I could. I have now finished it, and I shall seal it and leave it on the mantel-shelf of my room where it will be found in case anything untoward should happen to me. For I am determined to find out whether or not I was guilty this afternoon of a foolish fancy. I have determined to find out whether or not, after the lapse of nearly six hundred years, the ‘dark stranger’ will still accost and accompany one who walks to the north grange by the way that traverses the wood. On the eve of St Botulph I shall take that walk myself.

  ALEXANDER HUTTON

  16th June, 1825

  Mair and I looked at one another.

  ‘And that’s that,’ I said non-committally.

  ‘But he can’t have returned,’ put in Mair. ‘If he had returned, he would have written another account to take the place of this one. And why did no one open it? Unless it’s all a hoax?’

  ‘No, it’s not a hoax,’ I answered slowly. ‘It rings too true for that. As you say, he can’t have returned. What then happened to him? Does the date help?’

  Again we looked at the document.

  ‘The 16th of June 1825,’ murmured Mair. ‘I wonder if . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupted. ‘We could try what newspapers there were. There may be something.’

  Mair went off at once to collect all the local newspapers which the library possessed for the year 1825, and impatiently I awaited his return. At last he came. Nor did he return empty-handed. The riches of the library were revealed. Mair was accompanied by a boy pushing a trolley with some ten or twelve bound volumes of early newspapers.

  Together we tackled the volumes, and it was not long before I heard Mair give an exclamation. I went over to join him. It was the Wigtown Advertiser for i8th June 1825; and, there Mair had spotted:

  GENERAL DONALDSON

  We regret to inform our readers of the death of General Donaldson, a gallant soldier and a noted antiquary. The General died very suddenly at his house about midday yesterday, the 17th. He had been in indifferent health for some time and was known to have been much affected by the strange accident in which his friend and fellow antiquary, Dr Alexander Hutton, lost his life. We are informed that the General had only just returned from a visit to the inn in Kirkcudbright where Dr Hutton had been staying, and that he had made his way to his library on an upper floor in the house, when he was heard to fall. The servant who rushed into the room found the General lying on the floor, but, on lifting him up, realized that his master was dead.

  Thereafter followed details of the General’s career, both national and local — but those details were not for us.

  ‘Strange accident in which his friend and fellow antiquary, Dr Alexander Hutton, lost his life,’ repeated Mair.

  ‘Yes, we’re getting hot,’ I answered. ‘And, if General Donaldson carried Alexander Hutton’s document home — and the people at the inn would be more than likely to give it to him, as Hutton’s friend; and, remember, it bore a mighty strange superscription that would certainly make them look askance at it — would not the General take it to his library to open it and read it? Assuming it fell out of his hand when he collapsed, it is just possible that the servant picked it up from the floor and placed it, without looking at it, among other papers on the library table, where, perhaps, it became mixed up with them and eventually, unnoticed and unknown, found its way here to the University Library with all the rest of the old man’s papers. Just possible. At any rate, that would be one explanation why it has remained unopened until today. But let’s see if we can discover what the “strange accident” was.’

  But apparently the Wigtown Advertiser was too concerned with General Donaldson, or knew too little of the way in which Alexander Hutton had lost his life. The Wigtown, Advertiser yielded nothing more.

  Once more we tackled the bound volumes on the trolley and this time it fell to me to find the report for which we looked. The Stewartry Record filled the gap:

  STRANGE FIRE IN KIRKCUDBRIGHT

  During the night of the 16th June a strange fire occurred in one of the rooms of the ‘Douglas Arms’ in Kirkcudbright, resulting in the death of its occupant, a visitor, Dr Alexander Hutton.

  Dr Hutton had been out for a walk in the evening and had returned to the inn, apparently in some haste, and somewhat perturbed, about 11 o’clock. He went straight to his room — when, shortly afterwards, sounds were heard as though he were in great agony. The door was lock-fast, but, being broken open, one corner of the room was found to be burning furiously and, in the middle of the flames, lay the prostrate body of Dr Hutton. The fire was extinguished with som
e difficulty — though those who fought the flames were unable to understand what could be burning so furiously in the one part of the room where there was only a desk and a chair. It was also noticed that the rest of the room, including that part where the fireplace was, but without a fire, was wholly untouched by the blaze.

  Dr Hutton was found to be dead, though again it was difficult to account for his death as his body, despite the fact that it had seemed to be in the very centre of the flames, bore no marks of burning. The desk and chair, however, were completely burned; and it is thought that the fire may have started on the desk, among the papers accumulated there. It was also noticed that Dr Hutton had not turned up his lamp, which was lit, burning only on a low wick, and which was standing in that part of the room untouched by the fire. Here another strange aspect of the affair was noted, namely that, although the lamp was lit, Dr Hutton must have been using a candle at his desk — for a melted portion of a candle, wholly unlike the ones in use at the inn, was found near the burned-out desk.

  It is thought possible that the lighted candle may have been insecurely placed on the desk, and, falling over, may have been the cause of the fire.

  * * * * *

  Since this was written we learn that a valuable manuscript which Dr Hutton had borrowed from General Donaldson is missing. This manuscript was probably on the burned-out desk, and, if so, must have been completely destroyed.

  We also learn of a strange story that Dr Hutton was not alone in his room. Mr James Kennedy, who had been at the house of his daughter (she having just given birth to a son), was returning to his own house about 11 o’clock when he saw a man, whom he believes to have been Dr Hutton, making his way towards the ‘Douglas Arms’. His attention was particularly drawn to this man, not merely because he was running towards the inn, but also because of the way he seemed to stagger as he ran and occasionally even to stumble, much as though he had run a great distance and was completely exhausted. But Mr Kennedy, when watching the running man, was convinced that he saw a second man, dressed in dark clothes, following closely behind Dr Hutton (if it was he), but following so easily and quietly that at first Mr Kennedy wondered whether he was not being deceived by some odd trick of the light, and whether the ‘second man’ was not simply a strange shadow. This sense of a shadow, more than of a second man, was emphasised when Mr Kennedy saw the dark shadow, or man, follow Dr Hutton through the door of the inn. When the door was opened by Dr Hutton, the two figures seemed to pass into the inn at one and the same time.

  Unfortunately, Mr Kennedy’s story is without confirmation. Although the people of the inn heard Dr Hutton rush upstairs to his room, stumbling more than once on his way, no one was heard to follow him. And, shortly afterwards, when Dr Hutton’s cries were heard, and when the door of his room was broken open, he alone was found in the room, lying in the midst of the flames, as already described.

  I saw Mair’s shoulders give a sudden jerk, as though he were trying to rid himself of an unwelcome burden.

  ‘Horrible,’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘And Satan answered and said: “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”’

  CAN THESE STONES SPEAK?

  WE HAD GATHERED ROUND THE FIRE in the Smoking Room of the University Club. Outside it was a raw wet day with a laggard fog, and there was every inducement to linger in the enjoyment of an easy-chair, a cheerful fire, and the pleasure of good company. Moreover, the talk had turned to the interesting subject of coincidence.

  ‘In my own case,’ said Robertson, taking up the talk, ‘the queerest coincidence I can remember came with a telephone call. I had left the Mathematical Institute fairly early, intending to come here to read the papers before lunch. By pure chance I had turned eastwards in Chambers Street, so that my way took me by the more roundabout route over the North Bridge and along Princes Street, and there, again by pure chance, I suddenly decided to drop into Purves’s to buy myself a new pipe.

  ‘Almost as soon as I had entered the shop, however, one of the assistants came up to me to say that I was wanted on the telephone. Now that, you’ll admit, was strange; for no one knew of my sudden impulse to buy a pipe. How then could I be wanted on the telephone?

  ‘Well, to be brief, I went to the telephone at the back of the shop, only to find that the call was for me and (and here is the queerest part of it all) the call had come through to Purves’s, instead of to the Mathematical Institute, by some strange failure in the working of the automatic exchange.’

  Robertson paused impressively. ‘And I should say,’ he continued, even more impressively, ‘that in Edinburgh the mathematical chances of being given a wrong number by an automatic exchange, and a particular wrong number, just at the time when a particular individual is present to answer the call at that particular wrong number, must be, let me see . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ put in several of us at once, for Robertson’s informal lectures on the theory of probability were well known. ‘An extraordinary coincidence! The chances against it happening must be enormous.’

  ‘And yet,’ came the quiet voice of Henderson, our mediæval historian, ‘I can tell you of an even stranger coincidence — if that is the right word — and one also connected with a call on the telephone, but one which I think even Robertson will admit is beyond all reckoning.’

  As you know, began Henderson, the University Court of one of our sister universities has long made a practice of purchasing old and historic houses within the town which, after careful restoration and the sympathetic addition of modern conveniences, it makes available as residences for the members of its staff. Thus the University, in addition to acting as an energetic Ancient Monuments Board for the town, also exercises a maternal care for its supposts and provides them with lovely and interesting houses at rents within the reach of an academic purse. And in one of those lovely old houses (called The Monal — and the name was later to prove significant) lived my good friend, Alexander Lindsay, the University Librarian.

  At the time the Lindsays moved into their new, or perhaps I should say their old, house I had been making regular visits to the University Library in order to transcribe one of its manuscripts; and I well remember the excitement with which I was shown over The Monal and asked to admire its fine ceilings and fire-places, the thickness of its outer walls, the sweep of the staircase, and (at the special prompting of Mrs Lindsay) the splendid way in which the domestic quarters had been rearranged, and a bathroom and a cloakroom installed.

  ‘And isn’t it haunted?’ I asked, playfully.

  ‘Well, if it is, we haven’t noticed it yet,’ was Lindsay’s laughing reply.

  The manuscript upon which I had been working (and this is not wholly unconnected with my tale) was a local account of local affairs at the time of the Reformation. It was an excellent account and, to my mind, almost as valuable as the well-known Diurnal of Occurrents. It contained, for example, a detailed description of the skirmishing between the army of the Congregation and the French forces of the Queen Regent; and it had a graphic relation of a visit, and a sermon, by John Knox, followed by the ‘purging’ of the local ‘monuments of idolatry’. But, as it happened, the Lindsays had moved into The Monal just about the time when my transcript was coming to an end, and, because of that, I was out of touch with them for about a year.

  Then came Lindsay’s letter — reproaching me for not having visited them, reporting an interesting manuscript discovery, and making a strangely guarded offer of hospitality for any weekend I might choose. Lindsay, it appeared, had been making a new catalogue of the manuscripts in the University Library, and had discovered several folios of a Burgh Court record which fell within the period of my own particular manuscript but which, having been bound up with a lawyer’s collection of styles and statutes, had hitherto escaped notice. ‘There are one or two entries which will interest you almost as much as they interested us,’ ran his letter; and then came a sentence like this: ‘We will gladly put you up for any weekend n
ext month, though I should warn you that we can offer only the “pillared room”, and this house, it appears, is not without its ghost, and a ghost, moreover, that can now be identified!

  Naturally I replied at once, accepting their kind invitation (with some light remarks about the ghost), and a fortnight later — on a Friday night in June — I was making my way towards The Monal through the cobbled streets and narrow wynds of the town.

  The Lindsays were delighted I had been able to come and, after the usual greetings, Lindsay himself escorted me to my room. I looked round it with interest but, to my casual glance, the ‘pillared room’ revealed nothing unusual apart from two massive stone piers complete with their capitals, which had been built into one of the walls and which were clearly of much earlier date than the house itself.

  ‘So this is the haunted room?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll tell you about it later. There’s a meal waiting for you downstairs, so don’t spend too much time knocking on the walls or looking for secret passages. The bathroom is just across the landing.’ And with that he was gone.

  During dinner neither the room nor the ghost was mentioned and, after coffee, Lindsay at once invited me into his study to look at the newly discovered burgh records.

  ‘Here’s the manuscript,’ he said, handing to me a heavy quarto. ‘I’ll confess I’ve broken every library rule by bringing it here, but you’ll find the burgh records at the very end — the last ten folios.’

  I took the volume eagerly and, turning to the end, found there a number of folios in a typical clerk’s hand of the second half of the sixteenth century and with the usual rubrics of a burgh court: