The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Sabine Baring-Gould

by Sabine Baring-Gould

  No rice could be thrown. The bell-ringers, prepared to give a joyous peal, were constrained to depart.

  The reception at Miss Flemming’s was postponed. No one thought of attending. The cakes, the ices, were consumed in the kitchen.

  The bridegroom, bewildered, almost frantic, ran hither and thither, not knowing what to do, what to say.

  Julia lay as a stone for fully two hours; and when she came to herself could not speak. When conscious, she raised her left hand, looked on the leaden ring, and sank back again into senselessness.

  Not till late in the evening was she sufficiently recovered to speak, and then she begged her aunt, who had remained by her bed without stirring, to dismiss the attendants. She desired to speak with her alone. When no one was in the room with her, save Miss Flemming, she said in a whisper: “Oh, Aunt Elizabeth! Oh, auntie! such an awful thing has happened. I can never marry Mr. Lawlor, never. I have married James Hattersley; I am a dead man’s wife. At the time that James Lawlor was making the responses, I heard a piping voice in my ear, an unearthly voice, saying the same words. When I said: ‘I, Julia, take you, James, to my wedded husband’—you know Mr. Hattersley is James as well as Mr. Lawlor—then the words applied to him as much or as well as to the other. And then, when it came to the giving of the ring, there was the explosion in my ear, as before—and the leaden ring was forced on to my finger, and not James Lawlor’s golden ring. It is of no use my resisting any more. I am a dead man’s wife, and I cannot marry James Lawlor.”

  Some years have elapsed since that disastrous day and that incomplete marriage.

  Miss Demant is Miss Demant still, and she has never been able to remove the leaden ring from the third finger of her left hand. Whenever the attempt has been made, either to disengage it by drawing it off or by cutting through it, there has ensued that terrifying discharge as of a gun into her ear, causing insensibility. The prostration that has followed, the terror it has inspired, have so affected her nerves, that she has desisted from every attempt to rid herself of the ring.

  She invariably wears a glove on her left hand, and it is bulged over the third finger, where lies that leaden ring.

  She is not a happy woman, although her aunt is dead and has left her a handsome estate. She has not got many acquaintances. She has no friends; for her temper is unamiable, and her tongue is bitter. She supposes that the world, as far as she knows it, is in league against her.

  Towards the memory of James Hattersley she entertains a deadly hate. If an incantation could lay his spirit, if prayer could give him repose, she would have recourse to none of these expedients, even though they might relieve her, so bitter is her resentment. And she harbours a silent wrath against Providence for allowing the dead to walk and to molest the living.

  The Dead Trumpeter of Hurst Castle

  In the year of our Lord God 1648, certain workmen were engaged in arranging a room in Hurst Castle, which had for a long time been unoccupied. Dark red tapestry was being suspended to the walls, whilst tables and other furniture were moved into the chambers. The quarry-glazed window was dulling, and admitted but a feeble grey light, as the day closed.

  “Dykes!” quoth one of the hangers, “we shall never get the room ready in time, if the last man comes tomorrow.”

  “I shan’t go till it is done,” said Dykes; “the curtains cannot be left dragging on the hooks, we must e’en have ’em hung all round tonight, or they’ll tear with their own weight, before morning.”

  “At what o’clock does he come?”

  “Who come?—the king?”

  “The—, you’d better not call him that again; faix I won’t suffer it; whom I mean, is your Agag, Saul. Why it sets me against my work to think I’m preparing a room for such as he. May he have a bloody death!”

  Dykes sighed, but did not answer.

  “’T’aint many more kings and crowns, and bishops, we shall see in Old England,” continued Faggins. “We shall root them out, branch and twig; I only wish we had made shorter work, and treated the malignants, as Israel dealt with Amalek of old.”

  “Here, you lass, bring a light!” called Dykes to a servant who was passing.

  “I’m not going to work here much longer,” observed Carpenter, a third workman. “It’s not such a pleasantly reported room, that I should care to wait in it after nightfall.”

  “Ah! I should like to know how Charles Stuart will bear the Trumpeter!” exclaimed Faggins. “Have you ever heard his horn, Carpenter?”

  “Never, but I have not worked in the castle before.”

  “I have not heard it either,” said Dykes; “but I have only been in the castle by day, and never into this room before.”

  “They say,” quoth Faggins, “that there was a trumpeter who got together a fortune by some means or other, and that he built it into the wall of this chamber whereabouts I do not know. He was a bad enough man in his lifetime, and, I reckon, this money did not come lawfully into his hands. He never told where it was hidden, but he haunts the place, and warns folks from his treasure with a blast on his trumpet. I am a bit surprised that we haven’t heard it already.”

  “It is I who have heard that trumpet, sure,” spoke the servant, setting a candle on the table, “as I’ve a-been passing the door by night, it has sounded one long winding note enough to send the blood curdled to the heart.”

  “Did you ever see the spirit?” asked Faggins.

  “No,” replied the woman, “but there’s th’ old father Gumpthorn has; he seed ’um from the water, looking out of this window, and nodded his awful head towards him.”

  “I don’t particularly like working here now,” said Carpenter; “Here, Dykes! am I to hang the damask over this door? I don’t know whether it leads into a room or cupboard.”

  “Where’s the key?” asked Dykes. “You had better look afore covering it with the tapestry.”

  “Help me to open it,” said Carpenter. “Maybe it’s the closet where the Trumpeter’s money is hid.”

  “Let us have a look, then,” exclaimed Faggins, running up. “It is nailed—your pincers, Dykes!”

  “I’ve heard a-said that the spirit got a store of gold together in its lifetime,” said the servant. “Crown-dues, I’ve been told, which he embezzled in some mysterious way; that is what he watches now so restlessly.”

  “Pull, Dykes, pull!” shouted Faggins, as the three tugged at the door, or worked their chisels into the openings.

  “That is no good,” said Carpenter, after a lug at the handle; “Just send your hammer at my punch, and I’ll have this nail in two, which fastens up the door.”

  The hammer fell with a bang the timber cracked, and slowly the valve swung open. Within was dark—one short, furious trumpet blast snarled in the ears of the three men: back they staggered, Faggins falling over Carpenter to the ground. A face emerged from the gloom; and then, a tall figure wrapt in flowing crimson drapery, one hand lifted to hold a trumpet, stole out of the door, moved past the terrified workmen its sulphurous eyes glaring at them. Once it paused at the window and nodded, then stalked across the room, put the trumpet to its lips, the fearful ringing blast re-echoing from ceiling, door, and wall, and gradually the outlines of the figure mingled with those of the dark tapestry, and were lost.

  2

  The times of which I write were sad indeed. There can be no doubt that the king was greatly to be blamed, and that Iris obstinacy, and want of veracity, had done much to injure his cause. When adversity weighed heavily upon him, however, though he could not repair what was done, he sorrowed with deep contrition for it, and his character began to shine forth with true beauty and sanctity. It seems cruel to deal with him harshly for his early faults; we must remember that such as David and the Apostle Peter fell more grievously than ever did Royal Charles; and yet the one was raised from his miserere mei, and the other cheered after having gone out and wept bitterly.

  But it is not my purpose to justify the luckless monarch; such as he was, his adherents clung to
him enthusiastically; and we, in after ages, look back upon him with something of veneration and love, inclined to treat tenderly the memory of one whom God so sharply chastened. And let those whose consciences are clear from having ever given way under strong temptation, and whose tongues are free from all deceit, let them, I say, cast at him the first stone.

  Hurst Castle was a gloomy prison, its walls lapped by the tide, and rank with weeds and lichen. Now on a December night, the first of his imprisonment in the place, he sat at the table, a light burning before him; his mild yet furrowed brow resting on his hand, and his long hair, now white with sorrow, flowing over the fingers.

  We can be but poor judges of the thoughts which filled the monarch’s mind in the solitude of the night: the insults of foes, the coldness of false friends, were felt over again in his loneliness, with renewed pang and bitterness. The moral sickness of hope deferred, the bowing of the heart under his innumerable troubles; his griefs, as the rising tide, chill about his soul, overflowing his heart, swelling ever higher, one sorrow rousing another, one deep calling another, and all their waves and storms going heavily over him.

  Perhaps it were as well not to intrude on such thoughts; sufficient for us to see that calm, pale face, that hand trembling, those goodly locks while through affliction.

  All is hushed in the room. Herbert is asleep in an adjoining chamber. Charles sings to himself and to God the seventy-first Psalm: —

  In Thee, O Lord, have I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion: but rid me, and deliver me in Thy righteousness: incline Thine ear unto me, and save me.

  Be Thou my stronghold, whereunto I may always resort: Thou hast promised to help me, for Thou art my house of defence, and my castle.

  Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the ungodly, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

  For Thou, O Lord God, art the thing that I long for: Thou art my hope, even from my youth—

  Softly and full tenderly a horn wound the tone, as if from some distance upon the sea; rising and falling with the melody, as the king chanted. It was so faint that the monarch did not notice it, wrapped, so entirely as he was, in the utterance of his own bruised soul.

  Cast me not away in the time of age: forsake me not when my strength faileth me.

  For mine enemies speak against me, and they that lay wait for my soul take their counsel together, saying: God hath forsaken him; persecute him, and take him, for there is none to deliver him.

  Strangely the trumpet note swelled and broke into high, sweet tenor—sometimes ringing near, sometimes very distant. The king rose in some surprise from his seat, and walked to the window—all was dark without, save that Orion was setting sideways over the downs of the Isle of Wight, and Cassiopeia in her golden chair flashed down upon the troubled sea. The rising tide shivered and plashed below, and a sea-breeze sighed against the casement.

  Charles looked long out upon the waters, and his lips again took up the Psalm: —

  Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now: therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works.

  Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed—

  Involuntarily his hand swept his white hair from his brow, which leaned against the window-panes, and still more sadly did he murmur:

  O what great troubles and adversities hast thou showed me! and yet—

  He broke off, for the trumpet sang so close to him tenderly, very tenderly and tremulously—that he turned abruptly round. At his side knelt a figure in a flowing grey robe, the dark head bowed towards him, and the instrument which had accompanied the Psalm drooping through the white fingers.

  “Who art thou?” asked the king somewhat astonished.

  The figure raised its colourless face a strange, livid countenance, seamed by fearful passions; but now all absorbed in awe. The eyes were closed.

  King Charles shuddered; something supernatural in the kneeling figure impressed him.

  Scarcely knowing why he did it, he extended his hand: the being lifted its own, bowed again, and kissed the royal hand. At the touch of the lips, a pang shot to Charles’ heart, as though his fingers had been pressed by red-hot iron.

  Noiselessly the apparition rose, the grey mantle falling and enveloping all but the head and right hand: then it dropped back into the deep shadows, and the only evidence of its presence was the winding of the trumpet, beginning with a faint trill, but increasing in volume, clearer, louder, more triumphant; wave and eddy of sound beating, pealing from every nook, and reverberating from every angle, till the window rattled and the walls rang.

  3

  Faggins was tolerably convinced that the Trumpeter’s treasure was hoarded in the wall cupboard of the royal chamber, and was intent upon possessing himself of it during the daytime, when the spectre was not likely to appear.

  On the plea that the tapestry required something additional to be done to it, he, Dykes and Carpenter were suffered to work in the haunted apartment during the hour the royal captive was allowed to take air.

  The two men cautiously lifted the arras, and unhasped the door. In the recess all was hushed, and the light penetrated to its furthest corners.

  The workmen examined the floor and walls minutely. “Carpenter,” said Faggins in a low voice; “I believe that this is the spot: —look here!” and he pointed to a stone in the wall, which had undoubtedly been notched by a tool.

  “Let us chisel it away,” whispered Carpenter, at the same time looking cautiously about. A few strokes of the hammer on the implement made the block start from its place. Faggins pulled it out, and laid it on the floor. Both peered into the hollow, and compressed their lips. A metal box was just discernible, but so encased with mortar as to render it difficult to dislodge. After a few efforts, they succeeded in forcing in part of the plate which formed the exposed side, and a few pieces of gold fell out.

  “Hark!” said Carpenter, suddenly desisting; “there is Dykes’ signal!”

  A low whistle at the room door warned them to make haste; and they had barely time to scramble the gold into their pockets, heave the stone into its place again, and emerge from the closet, when the King and his faithful companion Herbert entered the Chamber.

  “On what grounds are you here?” asked Charles of the men.

  “We are at work upon the tapestry,” answered Carpenter; “but we have done now, and shall be off.”

  Faggins, bent on showing his effrontery and contempt for Royalty, began to whistle and put his hat on; but instantly, a furious trumpet blast brayed into his ears, and an invisible hand dashed the hat from his head.

  The king had turned with contempt at the petty insult, like the aged lion of the fable; but at the sound he stopped abruptly and looked back.

  Faggins, startled but not daunted, picked up his hat, growling forth: “So thou art in league with foul spirits too, accursed Agag;—”

  A violent blow from some smooth metal instrument fell upon his mouth, and sent him reeling across the apartment. He staggered from the door, and, as he descended the stair with Carpenter and Dykes, who had been left to watch outside the room, his lips cracked and bled as though they had been touched by fire.

  “I’m not going there again, for all the gold in the world,” said Faggins, when he got beyond the castle walls, and had washed the blood from his mouth.

  “I cannot understand,” observed Carpenter, “how it is that the spectre should have suffered us to take his treasure, or part of it, without a sign of displeasure: and, faith, I reckon we should have got off pretty clear, if you had not begun to insult the king.”

  Faggins growled forth a curse. “We have some of the gold at any rate;—the last time I shall go there for any more.”

  “We might have gone any number of times, it is my belief,” Carpenter said, “had you not angered the spirit.”

  “How was I to know that what I did would vex it?” asked Faggins angrily.

  Carpenter shrugged his shoulders. “I reckon that the spiri
t has left off watching his hoard, altogether, and has taken to guarding the king,” he remarked.

  “I should not wonder if it were so,” observed Dykes; “for Royal blood is a higher treasure than any pelf; and the spectre might well forget its gold in the presence of such a priceless jewel as a Monarch. I suppose that, next to the Sacraments of the Church, there is nothing the world contains so hallowed as the life and majesty of a king. That, at least, is my opinion.”

  4

  Of a night Charles would be lulled to sleep by the sweet rise and fall of a horn, winding flute-like and faint; and at times, when he awoke during the watches, he could see, seated at his bedside, a tall, grey-mantled form; the night-lamp feebly irradiating its placid, though furrowed, countenance. Should the eyes meet his, there was somewhat in their tranquil light which lulled him back into a sleep no fears could trouble, nor misgivings spoil.

  Once the Monarch was roused by a pang in his hand, which hung over the bedside; and on opening his eyes, he saw the same figure kneeling and pressing its lips to his fingers.

  The gloom of Hurst Castle had, at first, somewhat impressed the royal prisoner with the notion that it was intended he should be there assassinated, but the presence of his spectral guard reassured him. By night and by day, he was aware of its proximity, either by some chime on the unseen instrument, or by a flash as of red light, and a bugle-snarl, should any insult be offered him. The king was at length removed from Hurst, by order of Parliament, and conveyed by Major Harrison to Windsor, there to wait his trial.

  By the shadow which stole after him, and by the sight of his mysterious guard at night, Charles knew that he was not left unprotected.

  That strange face had been undergoing a slow change. It might have been likened to some bleak, torrent-rent Alpine ridge, dark and horror-inspiring; but lightly falls the snow, and some harsh outlines become smooth, dusky crags are polished as Carrara marble, and tumbled boulders lie veiled beneath drifts of whimpled silver. Yet the whiteness drops still out of heaven; and the sun, at last, comes forth on bays of tranquil light running in to the rifts, powdering the topmost icy spires with sulphur, and lying in primrose flakes on sweeps, or bending curves undinted by the foot; the rough places are made plain, and crooked paths straight tracks on frosted meadows. As yet more descends, the shoulders of the mountains are bowed in snow, sending the gleam of their purity far away to distant plains, where the poplars whiten and twinkle back grey-green in the breeze, which blows cool from that chain robed in angelic vesture. And so, somewhat thus, had an utterable calm fallen on those terrible features.