The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Sabine Baring-Gould

by Sabine Baring-Gould

  5

  The 30th of January, 1649. A raw sea-fog curling over the ramparts of Hurst Castle; the heights of the Isle of Wight lost in the vapour, even the rushing tide obscured. The sentinel could see the mist driving through the battlements in streaks; the moisture stood on his pike, and trickled over his fingers, his steel cap was beaded with wet, his foot plashed as he trod the platform. The fog entered within as well; the windows were dulled with breath, fires seemed cheerlessly to smoulder without a blaze. Damp settled on woodwork, and the cement of the walls showed dark and spotty. The waves tumbled at the castle base with a roar, and retreated with a sob.

  Dykes, for the nonce an inmate of the castle, sat over the embers warming a jug of beer, and looking occasionally towards the window in the hope of seeing some break in the clouds.

  “I wonder,” pondered he; “what they can be about in London town today? so they say that the king—God bless His Majesty!―is going to be tried for high treason. I know what that means; the Commons think to intimidate him into abdication of his Crown.”

  “What is that, Dykes?” asked a musketeer who was leaning against the fireplace; “try the king! I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “There is no doubt but that Parliament is doing so now,” answered Dykes; “but what Parliament intends doing with him after his trial, is another matter. God save the King! say I; and I care not who hears me.”

  “Did you ever hear what happened at Stretton Manor, when Master Hill (I knew him well, he was parson of that parish, and I was born there) was drinking at the king’s health a few months ago?”

  “I never heard.”

  “Well, the old man was quaffing cider in the bay-window; after filling his cup, he bared his head and rose, saying, ‘God bless our Gracious Sovereign!’ Just as he was going to put the mug to his lips, a swallow flew in at the window, and pitching on the brim of the little earthenware cup, sipped, and so flew out again.”

  “Is that really true?” asked Dykes.

  Before the soldier could reply, there rang a shrill bugle shriek in the air, above the castle. Dykes started to his feet, and, followed by the musketeer, ran out of the room, and hurried up the steps to know the origin of the sound. When they reached the landing outside the room which had been the king’s, they found a maid standing, pale and trembling, against the wall.

  “Oh, mercy on us!” she gasped; “I’ve been in there, and there’s the most awful sight!”

  Dykes pushed the door open, and entered with the soldier.

  It might have been four o’clock in the afternoon, and there was only twilight in the chamber, darkened at the best of times by its crimson hangings. A pale grey film lit the floor, which was clear of furniture.

  The two men held their breath, and clutched the door. A figure in long black stole was visible in the further shadows, standing with its face towards the window, a trumpet in its left hand, dangling and touching the floor. The features were calm and majestic, but perfectly white, white as driven snow; over them hung a jet-black cowl.

  The men could not stir, their eyes were riveted to the spectre.

  Its lips were moving, the right hand was lifted and making signs.

  “Hurt not the axe that may hurt me!” the voice said.

  Dykes’ heart stood still. The words seemed to sound from some vast distance, they were low, thrilling, yet perfectly distinct. The face turned towards the door, the men cowered before it, but the eyes did not rest on the intruders, they appeared absorbed, like those of a sleep-walker. The trumpet fell from the fingers, but did not ring on the floor as it dropped.

  Again the voice in a deep whisper:

  “I shall say but short prayers, and then thrust out my hands for a signal.”

  There could be no doubt but that the being was re-enacting some fearful tragedy.

  Then it knelt down in the gloaming. “Does my hair trouble you?”

  The figure began to feel at the hood, draw it back, and arranged the locks, sweeping them from the neck.

  A few moments, seeming hours, of stillness. The hands of the kneeling figure were folded over the face, as though it were wrapt in prayer, every stroke of the clock in the hall below sounded distinctly in that room, and the pulses of the two witnesses beat with the throb of the clock. The moan and swash of the sea, over the shingle beach and about the castle base, were audible, every wave as it tumbled roared in that chamber. A draught creeping through the diamond-paned windows just stirred the folds of the drapery on the walls.

  Those were awful moments, whilst the spirit was in prayer. Dykes tried to move, tried to escape, fear oppressed him insupportably; he could not stir a muscle, the sound of his own breath alarmed him.

  Slowly the apparition removed its hands; the face did at that moment look strangely like the king’s, as it was bowed forward: the two hands were then extended, not rapidly, but very, very slowly. A flash, a heavy fall; and all had vanished.

  It was not till the news reached Hurst of what had taken place that day at Whitehall, that Dykes and the musketeer knew what had been signified by that ghastly pageant.

  6

  The night is cold and frosty: stand in the courtyard of Windsor, and look up into that solemn sapphire sky, set with God’s jewellery; Charles’s Wain is moving on its march; Jupiter is burning as a lamp, the nebulous belt of the Milky-way binds the sky with a bow of tender light, and through the haze of splendour sparkle the Pleiades; a shooting star passes over head, and goes out over Eton woods. Faith is dull and black, and all heaven so set with brilliants, that the more we look, the mightier the store appears; and yet we see, perhaps, but the outermost sprinkled verge of the treasure, the diamond dust from the imperishable crowns there laid up. How ochreous and impure seems that flare through the windows of St. George’s Hall! We know whence it comes—from the flambeaux round about the coffin of the king. Look up, the corruptible crown has been exchanged for the incorruptible! Lift up your heads; see the beautiful treasure place, where neither moth corrupts nor thief breaks through and steals!

  No banner flaps now from Caesar’s Tower, but the low wind sings a requiem through the fretwork on the chapel roof. A feeble murmur rises from the village. Hark! someone is singing:

  Dulce domum resonemus, Dulce, dulce, dulce domum.

  The boy Mildmay has come home from Winchester for his holidays, and from very joy of heart sings about sweet home. Well, well! there is another Home besides that under the father’s roof-tree, or on the mother’s breast; may it be sweet to us all!

  The tramp of feet. We must come back from our reverie. Look! there is a file of soldiers posted by the chapel door, and their arquebuses rattle on the flagstones, then turn your face towards the hall, and see the funeral cortege.

  First went Herbert, the king’s faithful friend and companion, his head bowed on his breast; immediately behind him the coffin, covered with a black velvet pall. Then walked the sad train of nobles, consisting of four only, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Southampton, the youthful Earl of Lindsay, and Seymour Marquis of Hertford; the rear brought up by Col. Whitchcott, the governor, and some of the officers of the castle.

  With slow tread they advanced. On leaving the hall the sky had been clear, but before the court was crossed, a shower of snow began to fall.

  To some, there seemed to move a strange mourner in white, now before, then alongside, anon behind the coffin; and yet others thought it only a whirl of snow tossed in an eddy of wind. ‘There accompanied it also an unwonted wail it might have been the cry of the gale in the parapets, but the Marquis of Hertford fancied once that he caught a glimpse of a figure in snowy drapery stalking at his side, with a trumpet to its lips, he seemed then to see it glide forward, lay a wreath of thorns woven into a crown, upon the pall, and then trail its mantle over the bier, heaping on snow, tossing it on the thorn-spines till they blossomed as May, spreading it over the black velvet, shaking it into the folds, hanging it in festoons at the side, studding it on the fringes, and finally vanishi
ng in the torch flare at the door of St. George’s Chapel.

  “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” began Juxon, Bishop of London, meeting the procession at the gate.

  “Hold!” exclaimed Whitchcott, thrusting himself forward. “You have no licence to say anything from the Book of Common Prayer; the Directory is now alone lawful.”

  So without the prayers of his Church, King Charles was laid at rest.

  When the bier was placed by the tomb, the pall was covered with snow; and “so,” as Herbert says, “went the White King to his grave,” reminding him of the time when, at his coronation, white satin, instead of the usual purple, had been his robes; also how the sermon then preached had been on the text, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” And all present took it as a sign from heaven, testifying as to the martyr’s innocence.

  As Juxon said, “Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow,” something went by him, and appeared to drop into the vault. Probably it was only the snow shelving from the pall into the tomb; yet, when the body had been lowered, the bishop stooped, and looking down, thought he saw a white figure kneeling at the head; but his eyes were aged and dim with tears, so he rose, believing himself mistaken.

  Heavily the slab fell into its place again.

  Through the unglazed eastern window the wind blew, and the torches guttered in the draught.

  The Marquis of Hertford and the Earl of Lindsay remained whilst the tomb was being secured; all others went forth; and a single candle sent its orange gleam on the slab. The Sexton finished his work at last, and then blew out the light.

  As the two noblemen lingered by the grave, the marquis said, “Lindsay, do you hear nothing?”

  The earl listened: he could distinguish the playing of a trumpet, but it seemed to him very distant, and yet below.

  “1 could almost fancy that it proceeded from the tomb,” observed the marquis with hesitation.

  Lord Lindsay listened again; “No, it cannot be,” he said; “someone is playing a lullaby in a distant tower. Come, my Lord, shall we go?”

  That was the last ever heard of the trumpeter.

  Jean Bouchon

  (A tale from A Book of Ghosts)

  I was in Orléans a good many years ago. At the time it was my purpose to write a life of Joan of Arc, and I considered it advisable to visit the scenes of her exploits, so as to be able to give to my narrative some local colour.

  But I did not find Orléans answer to my expectations. It is a dull town, very modern in appearance, but with that measly and decrepit look which is so general in French towns. There was a Place Jeanne d’Arc, with an equestrian statue of her in the midst, flourishing a banner. There was the house that the maid had occupied after the taking of the city, but, with the exception of the walls and rafters, it had undergone so much alteration and modernisation as to have lost its interest. A museum of memorials of la Pucelle had been formed, but possessed no genuine relics, only arms and tapestries of a later date.

  The city walls she had besieged, the gate through which she had burst, had been levelled, and their places taken by boulevards. The very cathedral in which she had knelt to return thanks for her victory was not the same. That had been blown up by the Huguenots, and the cathedral that now stands was erected on its ruins in 1601.

  There was an ormolu figure of Jeanne on the clock—never wound up—upon the mantelshelf in my room at the hotel, and there were chocolate figures of her in the confectioners’ shop-windows for children to suck. When I sat down at 7 p. m. to table d’hôte, at my inn, I was out of heart. The result of my exploration of sites had been unsatisfactory; but I trusted on the morrow to be able to find material to serve my purpose in the municipal archives of the town library.

  My dinner ended, I sauntered to a café.

  That I selected opened on to the Place, but there was a back entrance near to my hotel, leading through a long, stone-paved passage at the back of the houses in the street, and by ascending three or four stone steps one entered the long, well-lighted café. I came into it from the back by this means, and not from the front.

  I took my place and called for a café-cognac. Then I picked up a French paper and proceeded to read it—all but the feuilleton. In my experience I have never yet come across anyone who reads the feuilletons in a French paper; and my impression is that these snippets of novel are printed solely for the purpose of filling up space and disguising the lack of news at the disposal of the editors. The French papers borrow their information relative to foreign affairs largely from the English journals, so that they are a day behind ours in the foreign news that they publish.

  Whilst I was engaged in reading, something caused me to look up, and I noticed standing by the white marble-topped table, on which was my coffee, a waiter, with a pale face and black whiskers, in an expectant attitude.

  I was a little nettled at his precipitancy in applying for payment, but I put it down to my being a total stranger there; and without a word I set down half a franc and a ten centimes coin, the latter as his pourboire. Then I proceeded with my reading.

  I think a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when I rose to depart, and then, to my surprise, I noticed the half-franc still on the table, but the sous piece was gone.

  I beckoned to a waiter, and said: “One of you came to me a little while ago demanding payment. I think he was somewhat hasty in pressing for it; however, I set the money down, and the fellow has taken the tip, and has neglected the charge for the coffee.”

  “Sapristi!” exclaimed the garçon; “Jean Bouchon has been at his tricks again.” I said nothing further; asked no questions. The matter did not concern me, or indeed interest me in the smallest degree; and I left.

  Next day I worked hard in the town library. I cannot say that I lighted on any unpublished documents that might serve my purpose.

  I had to go through the controversial literature relative to whether Jeanne d’Arc was burnt or not, for it has been maintained that a person of the same name, and also of Arques, died a natural death some time later, and who postured as the original warrior-maid. I read a good many monographs on the Pucelle, of various values; some real contributions to history, others mere second-hand cookings-up of well-known and often-used material. The sauce in these latter was all that was new.

  In the evening, after dinner, I went back to the same café and called for black coffee with a nip of brandy. I drank it leisurely, and then retreated to the desk where I could write some letters.

  I had finished one, and was folding it, when I saw the same pale-visaged waiter standing by with his hand extended for payment. I put my hand into my pocket, pulled out a fifty centimes piece and a coin of two sous, and placed both beside me, near the man, and proceeded to put my letter in an envelope, which I then directed.

  Next I wrote a second letter, and that concluded, I rose to go to one of the tables and to call for stamps, when I noticed that again the silver coin had been left untouched, but the copper piece had been taken away.

  I tapped for a waiter.

  “Tiens,” said I, “that fellow of yours has been bungling again.

  He has taken the tip and has left the half-franc.”

  “Ah! Jean Bouchon once more!”

  “But who is Jean Bouchon?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders, and, instead of answering my query, said: “I should recommend monsieur to refuse to pay Jean Bouchon again—that is, supposing monsieur intends revisiting this café.”

  “I most assuredly will not pay such a noodle,” I said; “and it passes my comprehension how you can keep such a fellow on your staff.”

  I revisited the library next day, and then walked by the Loire, that rolls in winter such a full and turbid stream, and in summer, with a reduced flood, exposes gravel and sand-banks. I wandered around the town, and endeavoured vainly to picture it, enclosed by walls and drums of towers, when on April 29th, 1429, Jeanne threw hersel
f into the town and forced the English to retire, discomfited and perplexed.

  In the evening I revisited the café and made my wants known as before. Then I looked at my notes, and began to arrange them.

  Whilst thus engaged I observed the waiter, named Jean Bouchon, standing near the table in an expectant attitude as before. I now looked him full in the face and observed his countenance. He had puffy white cheeks, small black eyes, thick dark mutton-chop whiskers, and a broken nose. He was decidedly an ugly man, but not a man with a repulsive expression of face.

  “No,” said I, “I will give you nothing. I will not pay you. Send another garçon to me.”

  As I looked at him to see how he took this refusal, he seemed to fall back out of my range, or, to be more exact, the lines of his form and features became confused. It was much as though I had been gazing on a reflection in still water; that something had ruffled the surface, and all was broken up and obliterated. I could see him no more. I was puzzled and a bit startled, and I rapped my coffee-cup with the spoon to call the attention of a waiter. One sprang to me immediately.

  “See!” said I, “Jean Bouchon has been here again; I told him that I would not pay him one sou, and he has vanished in a most perplexing manner. I do not see him in the room.”