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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30440 ***
+
+BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND
+
+
+
+
+                      BYWAYS OF
+                     GHOST-LAND
+
+                         BY
+
+                  ELLIOTT O'DONNELL
+
+                      AUTHOR OF
+
+      "SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES,"
+    "HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON," "GHOSTLY PHENOMENA,"
+  "DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS," "SCOTTISH GHOST TALES,"
+             "TRUE GHOST TALES," ETC., ETC.
+
+             WILLIAM RIDER AND SON, LIMITED
+            164 Aldersgate St., London, E.C.
+                         1911
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                  PAGE
+
+    1. THE UNKNOWN BRAIN                                    1
+
+    2. THE OCCULT IN SHADOWS                               21
+
+    3. OBSESSION, POSSESSION                               28
+
+    4. OCCULT HOOLIGANS                                    47
+
+    5. SYLVAN HORRORS                                      56
+
+    6. COMPLEX HAUNTINGS AND OCCULT BESTIALITIES           80
+
+    7. VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC.             110
+
+    8. DEATH-WARNINGS AND FAMILY GHOSTS                   132
+
+    9. SUPERSTITIONS AND FORTUNES                         153
+
+   10. THE HAND OF GLORY; THE BLOODY HAND OF ULSTER;
+         THE SEVENTH SON; BIRTH-MARKS; NATURE'S
+         DEVIL SIGNALS; PRE-EXISTENCE; THE FUTURE;
+         PROJECTION; TELEPATHY; ETC.                      176
+
+   11. OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS           198
+
+   12. BUDDHAS AND BOGGLE CHAIRS                          210
+
+       INDEX                                              244
+
+
+
+
+BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE UNKNOWN BRAIN
+
+
+Whether all that constitutes man's spiritual nature, that is to say, ALL
+his mind, is inseparably amalgamated with the whitish mass of soft
+matter enclosed in his cranium and called his brain, is a question that
+must, one supposes, be ever open to debate.
+
+One knows that this whitish substance is the centre of the nervous
+system and the seat of consciousness and volition, and, from the
+constant study of character by type or by phrenology, one may even go on
+to deduce with reason that in this protoplasmic substance--in each of
+the numerous cells into which it is divided and subdivided--are located
+the human faculties. Hence, it would seem that one may rationally
+conclude, that all man's vital force, all that comprises his
+mind--_i.e._ the power in him that conceives, remembers, reasons,
+wills--is so wrapped up in the actual matter of his cerebrum as to be
+incapable of existing apart from it; and that as a natural sequence
+thereto, on the dissolution of the brain, the mind and everything
+pertaining to the mind dies with it--there is no future life because
+there is nothing left to survive.
+
+Such a condition, if complete annihilation can be so named, is the one
+and only conclusion to the doctrine that mind--crude, undiagnosed
+mind--is dependent on matter, a doctrine confirmed by the apparent facts
+that injury to the cranium is accompanied by unconsciousness and
+protracted loss of memory, and that the sanity of the individual is
+entirely contingent upon the state of his cerebral matter--a clot of
+blood in one of the cerebral veins, or the unhealthy condition of a
+cell, being in itself sufficient to bring about a complete mental
+metamorphose, and, in common parlance, to produce madness.
+
+In the deepest of sleeps, too, when there is less blood in the cerebral
+veins, and the muscles are generally relaxed, and the pulse is slower,
+and the respiratory movements are fewer in number, consciousness
+departs, and man apparently lapses into a state of absolute nothingness
+which materialists, not unreasonably, presume must be akin to death. It
+would appear, then, that our mental faculties are entirely regulated by,
+and consequently, entirely dependent on, the material within our brain
+cells, and that, granted certain conditions of that material, we have
+consciousness, and that, without those conditions, we have no
+consciousness--in other words, "our minds cease to exist." Hence, there
+is no such thing as separate spiritual existence; mind is merely an
+eventuality of matter, and, when the latter perishes, the former
+perishes too. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can exist
+apart from the physical.
+
+This is an assertion--unquestionably dogmatic--that exponents of
+materialism hold to be logically unassailable. To disprove it may not be
+an easy task at present; but I am, nevertheless, convinced there is a
+world apart from matter--a superphysical plane with which part of us, at
+least, is in some way connected, and I discredit the materialist's
+dogma, partly because something in my nature compels me to an opposite
+conclusion, and partly because certain phenomena I have experienced,
+cannot, I am certain, have been produced by any physical agency.
+
+In support of my theory that we are not solely material, but partly
+physical and partly superphysical, I maintain that consciousness is
+never wholly lost; that even in swoons and dreams, when all sensations
+would seem to be swallowed up in the blackness of darkness, there is
+SOME consciousness left--the consciousness of existence, of impression.
+We recover from a faint, or awake from the most profound of slumbers,
+and remember not that we have dreamed. Yet, if we think with sufficient
+concentration, our memory suddenly returns to us, and we recollect that,
+during the swoon or sleep, ALL thought was not obliterated, but, that we
+were conscious of being somewhere and of experiencing SOMETHING.
+
+It is only in our lighter sleeps, when the spirit traverses
+superphysical planes more closely connected with the material, that we
+remember ALL that occurred. Most of us will agree that there are two
+distinct forms of mental existence--the one in which we are conscious
+of the purely superphysical, and the one wherein we are only cognisant
+of the physical. In the first-named of these two mental existences--
+_i.e._ in swoons, sleep, and even death, consciousness is never entirely
+lost; we still think--we think with our spiritual or unknown brain; and
+when in the last-named state, _i.e._ in our physical wakefulness and
+life, we think with our material or known brain.
+
+Unknown brains exist on all sides of us. Many of them are the
+earth-bound spirits of those whose spiritual or unknown brains, when on
+the earth, were starved to feed their material or known brains; or, in
+other words, the earth-bound spirits of those whose cravings, when in
+carnal form, were entirely animal. It is they, together with a variety
+of elementary forms of superphysical life (_i.e._ phantasms that have
+never inhabited any kind of earthly body), that constantly surround us,
+and, with their occult brains, suggest to our known brains every kind of
+base and impure thought.
+
+Something, it is difficult to say what, usually warns me of the presence
+of these occult brains, and at certain times (and in certain places) I
+can feel, with my superphysical mind, their subtle hypnotic influences.
+
+It is the unknown brain that produces those manifestations usually
+attributed to ghosts, and it is, more often than not, the possessors of
+the unknown brain in constant activity, _i.e._ the denizens of the
+superphysical world, who convey to our organs of hearing, either by
+suggestion or actual presentation, the sensations of uncanny knocks,
+crashes, shrieks, etc.; and to our organs of sight, all kinds of
+uncanny, visual phenomena.
+
+All the phenomena we see are not objective; but the agents who "will"
+that we should see them are objective--they are the unknown brains. It
+is a mistake to think that these unknown brains can only exert their
+influence on a few of us. We are all subject to them, though we do not
+all see their manifestations. Were it not for the lower order of spirit
+brains, there would be comparatively few drunkards, gamblers,
+adulterers, fornicators, murderers, and suicides. It is they who excite
+man's animal senses, by conjuring up alluring pictures of drink, and
+gold, and sexual happiness. By the aid of the higher type of spirit
+brains (who, contending for ever with the lower forms of spirit brains,
+are indeed our "guardian angels") I have been enabled to perceive the
+atmosphere surrounding drinking-dens and brothels full of all kinds of
+bestial influences, from elementals, who allure men by presenting to
+their minds all kinds of attractive tableaux, to the earth-bound spirits
+of drunkards and libertines, transformed into horrors of the sub-human,
+sub-animal order of phantasms--things with bloated, nude bodies and
+pigs' faces, shaggy bears with fulsome, watery eyes; mangy dogs, etc. I
+have watched these things that still possess--and possess in a far
+greater degree--all the passions of their life incarnate, sniffing the
+foul and vitiated atmosphere of the public-houses and brothels, and
+chafing in the most hideous manner at their inability to gratify their
+lustful cravings in a more substantial way. A man advances along the
+road at a swinging pace, with no thought, as yet, of deviating from his
+course and entering a public-house. He comes within the radius of the
+sinister influences, which I can see and feel hanging around the saloon.
+Their shadowy, silent brain power at once comes into play and gains
+ascendancy over his weaker will. He halts because he is "willed" to do
+so. A tempting tableau of drink rises before him and he at once imagines
+he is thirsty. Soft and fascinating elemental hands close over his and
+draw him gently aside. A look of beastly satisfaction suffuses his eyes.
+He smacks his lips, hastens his steps, the bar-room door closes behind
+him, and, for the remaining hours of the day, he wallows in drink.
+
+But the unknown brain does not confine itself to the neighbourhood of a
+public-house--it may be anywhere. I have, intuitively, felt its presence
+on the deserted moors of Cornwall, between St Ives and the Land's End;
+in the grey Cornish churches and chapels (very much in the latter);
+around the cold and dismal mouths of disused mine-shafts; all along the
+rocky North Cornish coast; on the sea; at various spots on different
+railway lines, both in the United Kingdom and abroad; and, of course, in
+multitudinous places in London.
+
+A year or so ago, I called on Mrs de B----, a well-known society lady,
+at that time residing in Cadogan Gardens. The moment I entered her
+drawing-room, I became aware of an occult presence that seemed to be
+hovering around her. Wherever she moved, it moved with her, and I FELT
+that its strange, fathomless, enigmatical eyes were fixed on her,
+noting and guiding her innermost thoughts and her every action with
+inexorable persistence.
+
+Some six months later, I met Lady D----, a friend in common, and in
+answer to my inquiries concerning Mrs de B----, was informed that she
+had just been divorced. "Dorothy" (_i.e._ Mrs de B----), Lady D---- went
+on to explain, "had been all right till she took up spiritualism, but
+directly she began to attend séances everything seemed to go wrong with
+her. At last she quarrelled with her husband, the climax being reached
+when she became violently infatuated with an officer in the Guards. The
+result was a decree _nisi_ with heavy costs." I exhibited, perhaps, more
+surprise than I felt. But the fact of Mrs de B---- having attended
+séances explained everything. She was obviously a woman with a naturally
+weak will, and had fallen under the influence of one of the lowest, and
+most dangerous types of earth-bound spirits, the type that so often
+attends séances. This occult brain had attached itself to her, and,
+accompanying her home, had deliberately wrecked her domestic happiness.
+It would doubtless remain with her now _ad infinitum_. Indeed, it is
+next to impossible to shake off these superphysical cerebrums. They
+cling to one with such leech-like tenacity, and can rarely be made to
+depart till they have accomplished their purposes.
+
+Burial-grounds appear to have great attractions for this class of
+spirit. A man, whom I once met at Boulogne, told me a remarkable story,
+the veracity of which I have no reason to doubt.
+
+"I have," he began, "undergone an experience which, though,
+unfortunately, by no means unique, is one that is rarer nowadays than
+formerly. I was once all but buried alive. It happened at a little
+village, a most charming spot, near Maestel in the valley of the Rhone.
+I had been stopping at the only inn the place possessed, and, cycling
+out one morning, met with an accident--my machine skidded violently as I
+was descending a steep hill, with the result that I was pitched head
+first against a brick wall. The latter being considerably harder than my
+skull, concussion followed. Some villagers picked me up insensible, I
+was taken to the inn, and the nearest doctor--an uncertificated
+wretch--was summoned. He knew little of trepanning; besides, I was a
+foreigner, a German, and it did not matter. He bled me, it is true, and
+performed other of the ordinary means of relief; but these producing no
+apparent effect, he pronounced me dead, and preparations were at once
+made for my burial. As strangers kept coming to the inn and the
+accommodation was strictly limited, the landlord was considerably
+incensed at having to waste a room on a corpse. Accordingly, he had me
+screwed down in my coffin without delay, and placed in the cemetery
+among the tombs, till the public gravedigger could conveniently spare a
+few minutes to inter me. The shaking I received during my transit (for
+the yokels were exceedingly rough and clumsy), together with the cold
+night air which, luckily for me, found an easy means of access through
+the innumerable chinks and cracks in the ill-fitting coffin-lid, acting
+like a restorative tonic, I gradually revived, and the horror I felt in
+realising my position is better, perhaps, imagined than described. When
+consciousness first began to reassert itself, I simply fancied I was
+awakening from a particularly deep sleep. I then struggled hard to
+remember where I was and what had taken place. At first nothing came
+back to me, all was blank and void; but as I continued to persevere,
+gradually, very gradually, a recollection of my accident and of the
+subsequent events returned to me. I remembered with the utmost
+distinctness striking my head against the wall, and of SEEING myself
+carried, head first, by two rustics--the one with a shock head of red
+hair, the other swarthy as a Dago--to the inn. I recollected seeing the
+almost humorous look of horror in the chambermaid's face, as she rushed
+to inform the landlord, and the consternation of one and all during the
+discussion as to what ought to be done. The landlady suggested one
+thing, her husband another, the chambermaid another; and they all united
+in ransacking my pockets--much to my dismay--to see if they could
+discover a card-case or letter that might give them a clue as to my home
+address. I saw them do all this; and it seemed as if I were standing
+beside by own body, looking down at it, and that on all sides of me, and
+apparently invisible to the rest of the company, were strange,
+inscrutable pale eyes, set in the midst of grey, shapeless, shadowy
+substances.
+
+"Then the doctor--a little slim, narrow-chested man, with a pointed
+beard and big ears--came and held a mirror to my mouth, and opened one
+of my veins, and talked a great deal of gibberish, whilst he made
+countless covert sheep's eyes at the pretty chambermaid, who had taken
+advantage of his arrival to overhaul my knapsack and help herself from
+my purse. I distinctly heard the arrangements made for my funeral, and
+the voice of the landlord saying: 'Yes, of course, doctor, that is only
+fair; you have taken no end of trouble with him. I will keep his watch'
+(the watch was of solid gold, and cost me £25) 'and clothes to defray
+the expenses of the funeral and pay for his recent board' (I had only
+settled my account with him that morning). And the shrill voice of the
+landlady echoed: 'Yes, that is only fair, only right!' Then they all
+left the room, and I remained alone with my body. What followed was more
+or less blurred. The innumerable and ever-watchful grey eyes impressed
+me most. I recollected, however, the advent of the men--the same two who
+had brought me to the inn--to take me away in my coffin, and I had vivid
+recollections of tramping along the dark and silent road beside them,
+and wishing I could liberate my body. Then we halted at the iron gate
+leading into the cemetery, the coffin was dropped on the ground with a
+bang, and--the rest was a blank. Nothing, nothing came back to me. At
+first I was inclined to attribute my memory to a dream. 'Absurd!' I said
+to myself. 'Such things cannot have occurred. I am in bed; I know I am!'
+Then I endeavoured to move my arms to feel the counterpane; I could not;
+my arms were bound, tightly bound to my side. A cold sweat burst out all
+over me. Good God! was it true? I tried again; and the same thing
+happened--I could not stir. Again and again I tried, straining and
+tugging at my sides till the muscles on my arms were on the verge of
+bursting, and I had to desist through utter exhaustion. I lay still and
+listened to the beating of my heart. Then, I clenched my toes and tried
+to kick. I could not; my feet were ruthlessly fastened together.
+
+"Death garments! A winding-sheet! I could feel it clinging to me all
+over. It compressed the air in my lungs, it retarded the circulation,
+and gave me the most excruciating cramp, and pins and needles. My
+sufferings were so acute that I groaned, and, on attempting to stretch
+my jaws, found that they were encased in tight, clammy bandages. By
+prodigious efforts I eventually managed to gain a certain amount of
+liberty for my head, and this gave me the consolation that if I could do
+nothing else I could at least howl--howl! How utterly futile, for who,
+in God's name, would hear me? The thought of all there was above me, of
+all the piles of earth and grass--for the idea that I was not actually
+buried never entered my mind--filled me with the most abject sorrow and
+despair. The utter helplessness of my position came home to me with
+damning force. Rescue was absolutely out of the question, because the
+only persons, who knew where I was, believed me dead. To my friends and
+relations, my fate would ever remain a mystery. The knowledge that they
+would, at once, have come to my assistance, had I only been able to
+communicate with them, was cruel in the extreme; and tears of
+mortification poured down my cheeks when I realised how blissfully
+unconscious they were of my fate. The most vivid and alluring visions of
+home, of my parents, and brothers, and sisters, flitted tantalisingly
+before me. I saw them all sitting on their accustomary seats, in the
+parlour, my father smoking his meerschaum, my mother knitting, my eldest
+sister describing an opera she had been to that afternoon, my youngest
+sister listening to her with mouth half open and absorbing interest in
+her blue eyes, my brother examining the works of a clockwork engine
+which he had just taken to pieces; whilst from the room overhead,
+inhabited by a Count, a veteran who had won distinction in the campaigns
+of '64 and '66, came strains of 'The Watch on the Rhine.' Every now and
+then my mother would lean back in her chair and close her eyes, and I
+knew intuitively she was thinking of me. Mein Gott! If she had only
+known the truth. These tableaux faded away, and the gruesome awfulness
+of my surroundings thrust themselves upon me. A damp, foetid smell,
+suggestive of the rottenness of decay, assailed my nostrils and made me
+sneeze. I choked; the saliva streamed in torrents down my chin and
+throat! My recumbent position and ligaments made it difficult for me to
+recover my breath; I grew black in the face; I imagined I was dying. I
+abruptly, miraculously recovered, and all was silent as before. Silent!
+Good heavens! There is no silence compared with that of the grave.
+
+"I longed for a sound, for any sound, the creaking of a board, the
+snapping of a twig, the ticking of an insect--there was none--the
+silence was the silence of stone. I thought of worms; I imagined
+countless legions of them making their way to me from the surrounding
+mouldering coffins. Every now and then I uttered a shriek as something
+cold and slimy touched my skin, and my stomach heaved within me as a
+whiff of something particularly offensive fanned my face.
+
+"Suddenly I saw eyes--the same grey, inscrutable eyes that I had seen
+before--immediately above my own. I tried to fathom them, to discover
+some trace of expression. I could not--they were insoluble. I
+instinctively felt there was a subtle brain behind them, a brain that
+was stealthily analysing me, and I tried to assure myself its intentions
+were not hostile. Above, and on either side of the eyes, I saw the
+shadow of something white, soft, and spongy, in which I fancied I could
+detect a distinct likeness to a human brain, only on a large scale.
+There were the cerebral lobes, or largest part of the forebrain,
+enormously developed and overhanging the cerebellum, or great lobe of
+the hindbrain, and completely covering the lobes of the midbrain. On the
+cerebrum I even thought I could detect--for I have a smattering of
+anatomy--the usual convolutions, and the grooves dividing the cerebrum
+into two hemispheres. But there was something I had never seen before,
+and which I could not account for--two things like antennæ, one on
+either side of the cerebrum. As I gazed at them, they lengthened and
+shortened in such quick succession that I grew giddy and had to remove
+my eyes. What they were I cannot think; but then, of course the brain,
+being occult, doubtless possessed properties of a nature wholly
+unsuspected by me. The moment I averted my glance, I experienced--this
+time on my forehead--the same cold, slimy sensation I had felt before,
+and I at once associated it with the cerebral tentacles. Soon after this
+I was touched in a similar manner on my right thigh, then on my left,
+and simultaneously on both legs; then in a half a dozen places at the
+same time. I looked out of the corner of my eyes, first on one side of
+me and then the other, and encountered the shadowy semblance to brains
+in each direction. I was therefore forced to conclude that the
+atmosphere in the coffin was literally impregnated with psychic
+cerebrums, and that every internal organ I possessed was being subjected
+to the most minute inspection. My mind rapidly became filled with every
+vile and lustful desire, and I cried aloud to be permitted five minutes'
+freedom to put into operation the basest and filthiest of actions. My
+thoughts were thus occupied when, to my amazement, I suddenly heard the
+sound of voices--human voices. At first I listened with incredulity,
+thinking that it must be merely a trick of my imagination or some
+further ingenious, devilish device, on the part of the ghostly brains,
+to torture me. But the voices continued, and drew nearer and nearer,
+until I could at length distinguish what they were saying. The speakers
+were two men, François and Jacques, and they were discussing the task
+that brought them thither--the task of burying me. Burying me! So, then,
+I was not yet under the earth! The revulsion of my feelings on
+discovering that there was still a spark of hope is indescribable; the
+blood surged through my veins in waves of fire, my eyes danced, my heart
+thumped, and--I laughed! Laughed! There was no stopping me--peal
+followed peal, louder and louder, until cobblestones and tombstones
+reverberated and thundered back the sound.
+
+"The effect on François and Jacques was the reverse of what I wished.
+When first they heard me, they became suddenly and deathly silent. Then
+their pent-up feelings of horror could stand it no longer, and with the
+wildest of yells they dropped their pick and shovel, and fled. My
+laughter ceased, and, half drowned in tears of anguish, I listened to
+their sabots pounding along the gravel walk and on to the hard highroad,
+till the noises ceased and there was, once again, universal and
+awe-inspiring silence. Again the eyes and tentacles, again the yearnings
+for base and shameful deeds, and again--oh, blissful interruption! the
+sound of human voices--François and Jacques returning with a crowd of
+people, all greatly excited, all talking at once.
+
+"'I call God as my witness I heard it, and Jacques too. Isn't that so,
+Jacques?' a voice, which I identified as that of François, shrieked. And
+Jacques, doubtless as eager to be heard--for it was not once in a
+lifetime anyone in his position had such an opportunity for
+notoriety--as he was to come to his companion's rescue, bawled out; 'Ay!
+There was no mistaking the sounds. May I never live to eat my supper
+again if it was not laughter. Listen!' And everyone, at once, grew
+quiet.
+
+"Now was my opportunity--my only opportunity. A single sound, however
+slight, however trivial, and I should be saved! A cry rose in my throat;
+another instant and it would have escaped my lips, when a dozen
+tentacles shot forward and I was silent. Despair, such as no soul
+experienced more acutely, even when on the threshold of hell, now seized
+me, and bid me make my last, convulsive effort. Collecting, nay, even
+dragging together every atom of will-power that still remained within my
+enfeebled frame, I swelled my lungs to their utmost. A kind of rusty,
+vibratory movement ran through my parched tongue; my jaws creaked,
+creaked and strained on their hinges, my lips puffed and assumed the
+dimensions of bladders and--that was all. No sound came. A weight, soft,
+sticky, pungent, and overwhelming, cloaked my brain, and spreading
+weed-like, with numbing coldness, stifled the cry ere it left the
+precincts of my larynx. Hope died within me--I was irretrievably lost. A
+babel of voices now arose together. François, Jacques, the village curé,
+gendarme, doctor, chambermaid, mine host and hostess, and others, whose
+tones I did not recognise, clamoured to be heard. Some, foremost amongst
+whom were François, Jacques, and a boy, were in favour of the coffin
+being opened; whilst others, notably the doctor and chambermaid (who
+pertly declared she had seen quite enough of my ugly face), ridiculed
+the notion and said the sooner I was buried the better it would be. The
+weather had been more than usually hot that day, and the corpse, which
+was very much swollen--for, like all gourmands, I had had chronic
+disease of the liver--had, in their opinion, already become insanitary.
+The boy then burst out crying. It had always been the height of his
+ambition, he said, to see someone dead, and he thought it a dastardly
+shame on the part of the doctor and chambermaid to wish to deny him this
+opportunity.
+
+"The gendarme thinking, no doubt, he ought to have a say in the matter,
+muttered something to the effect that children were a great deal too
+forward nowadays, and that it would be time enough for the boy to see a
+corpse when he broke his mother's heart--which, following the precedence
+of all spoilt boys, he was certain to do sooner or later; and this
+opinion found ready endorsement. The boy suppressed, my case began to
+look hopeless, and the poignancy of my suspense became such that I
+thought I should have gone mad. François was already persuaded into
+setting to work with his pick, and, I should most certainly have been
+speedily interred, had it not been for the timely arrival of a village
+wag, who, planking himself unobserved behind a tombstone close to my
+coffin, burst out laughing in the most sepulchral fashion. The effect on
+the company was electrical; the majority, including the women, fled
+precipitately, and the rest, overcoming the feeble protests of the
+doctor, wrenched off the lid of the coffin. The spell, cast over me by
+the occult brains, was now by a merciful Providence broken, and I was
+able to explain my condition to the flabbergasted faces around me.
+
+"I need only say, in conclusion, that the discomfiture of the doctor was
+complete, and that I took good care to express my opinion of him
+everywhere I went. Doubtless, many poor wretches have been less
+fortunate than I, and, being pronounced dead by unskilled physicians,
+have been prematurely interred. Apart from all the agony consequent to
+asphyxiation, they must have suffered hellish tortures through the
+agency of spirit brains."
+
+This is the anecdote as related to me, and it serves as an illustration
+of my theory that the unknown brain is objective, and that it can, under
+given circumstances--_i.e._ when physical life is, so to speak, in
+abeyance--be both seen and felt by the known brain. At birth, and more
+particularly at death, the presence of the unknown brain is most marked.
+And here it may not be inappropriate to remark that, in my experience at
+least, the hour of midnight is by no means the time most favourable to
+occult phenomena. I have seen far more manifestations at twilight, and
+between two and four a.m., than at any other period of the day--times, I
+think, according with those when human vitality is at its lowest and
+death most frequently takes place. It is, doubtless, the ebb of human
+vitality and the possibility of death that attracts the earth-bound
+brains and other varying types of elemental harpies. They scent death
+with ten times the acuteness of sharks and vultures, and hie with all
+haste to the spot, so as to be there in good time to get their final
+suck, vampire fashion, at the spiritual brain of the dying; substituting
+in the place of what they extract, substance--in the shape of foul and
+lustful thoughts--for the material or known brain to feed upon. The food
+they have stolen, these vampires vainly imagine will enable them to rise
+to a higher spiritual plane.
+
+In connection with this subject of the two brains, the question arises:
+What forms the connecting link between the material or known brain, and
+the spiritual or unknown brain? If the unknown brain has a separate
+existence, and can detach itself at times (as in "projection"), why must
+it wait for death to set it entirely free? My answer to that question
+is: That the connecting link consists of a magnetic force, at present
+indefinable, the scope, or pale, of which varies according to the
+relative dimensions of the two brains. In a case, for example, where the
+physical or known brain is far more developed than the spiritual or
+unknown brain, the radius of attraction would be limited and the
+connecting link strong; on the other hand, in a case where the spiritual
+or unknown brain is more developed than the physical or known brain, the
+magnetic pale is proportionately wide, and the connecting link would be
+weak.
+
+Thus, in the swoon or profound sleep of a person possessing a greater
+preponderance of physical than spiritual brain, the conscious self would
+still be concerned with purely material matters, such as eating and
+drinking, petty disputes, money, sexual desires, etc., though, owing to
+the lack of concentration, which is a marked feature of those who
+possess the grossly material brain, little or nothing of this conscious
+self would be remembered. But in the swoon, or deep sleep of a person
+possessing the spiritual brain in excess, the unknown brain is partially
+freed from the known brain, and the conscious self is consequently far
+away from the material body, on the confines of an entirely spiritual
+plane. Of course, the experiences of this conscious self may or may not
+be remembered, but there is, in its case, always the possibility, owing
+to the capacity for concentration which is invariably the property of
+all who have developed their spiritual or unknown brain, of subsequent
+recollection.
+
+At death, and at death only, the magnetic link is actually broken. The
+unknown brain is then entirely freed from the known brain, and the
+latter, together with the rest of the material body, perishes from
+natural decay; whilst the former, no longer restricted within the limits
+of its earthly pale, is at liberty to soar _ad infinitum_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE OCCULT IN SHADOWS
+
+
+Many of the shadows, I have seen, have not had material counterparts.
+They have invariably proved themselves to be superphysical danger
+signals, the sure indicators of the presence of those grey, inscrutable,
+inhuman cerebrums to which I have alluded; of phantasms of the dead and
+of elementals of all kinds. There is an indescribable something about
+them, that at once distinguishes them from ordinary shadows, and puts me
+on my guard. I have seen them in houses that to all appearances are the
+least likely to be haunted--houses full of sunshine and the gladness of
+human voices. In the midst of merriment, they have darkened the wall
+opposite me like the mystic writing in Nebuchadnezzar's palace. They
+have suddenly appeared by my side, as I have been standing on rich, new
+carpeting or sun-kissed swards. They have floated into my presence with
+both sunbeams and moonbeams, through windows, doors, and curtains, and
+their advent has invariably been followed by some form or other of
+occult demonstration. I spent some weeks this summer at Worthing, and,
+walking one afternoon to the Downs, selected a bright and secluded spot
+for a comfortable snooze. I revel in snatching naps in the open
+sunshine, and this was a place that struck me as being perfectly ideal
+for that purpose. It was on the brow of a diminutive hillock covered
+with fresh, lovely grass of a particularly vivid green. In the rear and
+on either side of it, the ground rose and fell in pleasing alternation
+for an almost interminable distance, whilst in front of it there was a
+gentle declivity (up which I had clambered) terminating in the broad,
+level road leading to Worthing. Here, on this broad expanse of the
+Downs, was a fairyland of soft sea air, sunshine and rest--rest from
+mankind, from the shrill, unmusical voices of the crude and rude product
+of the County Council schools.
+
+I sat down; I never for one moment thought of phantasms; I fell asleep.
+I awoke; the hot floodgates of the cloudless heaven were still open, the
+air translucent over and around me, when straight in front of me, on a
+gloriously gilded patch of grass, there fell a shadow--a shadow from no
+apparent substance, for both air and ground were void of obstacles, and,
+apart from myself, there was no living object in the near landscape. Yet
+it was a shadow; a shadow that I could not diagnose; a waving,
+fluctuating shadow, unpleasantly suggestive of something subtle and
+horrid. It was, I instinctively knew, the shadow of the occult; a few
+moments more, and a development would, in all probability, take place.
+The blue sky, the golden sea, the tiny trails of smoke creeping up
+lazily from the myriads of chimney-pots, the white house-tops, the red
+house-tops, the church spire, the railway line, the puffing, humming,
+shuffling goods-train, the glistening white roads, the breathing, busy
+figures, and the bright and smiling mile upon mile of emerald turf rose
+in rebellion against the likelihood of ghosts--yet, there was the
+shadow. I looked away from it, and, as I did so, an icy touch fell on my
+shoulder. I dared not turn; I sat motionless, petrified, frozen. The
+touch passed to my forehead and from thence to my chin, my head swung
+round forcibly, and I saw--nothing--only the shadow; but how different,
+for out of the chaotic blotches there now appeared a well--a remarkably
+well--defined outline, the outline of a head and hand, the head of a
+fantastic beast, a repulsive beast, and the hand of a man. A flock of
+swallows swirled overhead, a grasshopper chirped, a linnet sang, and,
+with this sudden awakening of nature, the touch and shadow vanished
+simultaneously. But the hillock had lost its attractions for me, and,
+rising hastily, I dashed down the decline and hurried homewards. I
+discovered no reason other than solitude, and the possible burial-place
+of prehistoric man, for the presence of the occult; but the next time I
+visited the spot, the same thing happened. I have been there twice
+since, and the same, always the same thing--first the shadow, then the
+touch, then the shadow, then the arrival of some form or other of joyous
+animal life, and the abrupt disappearance of the Unknown.
+
+I was once practising bowls on the lawn of a very old house, the other
+inhabitants of which were all occupied indoors. I had taken up a bowl,
+and was in the act of throwing it, when, suddenly, on the empty space in
+front of me I saw a shadow, a nodding, waving, impenetrable,
+undecipherable shadow. I looked around, but there was nothing visible
+that could in any way account for it. I threw down the bowl and turned
+to go indoors. As I did so, something touched me lightly in the face. I
+threw out my hand and touched a cold, clammy substance strangely
+suggestive of the leafy branch of a tree. Yet nothing was to be seen. I
+felt again, and my fingers wandered to a broader expanse of something
+gnarled and uneven. I kept on exploring, and my grasp closed over
+something painfully prickly. I drew my hand smartly back, and, as I did
+so, distinctly heard the loud and angry rustling of leaves. Just then
+one of my friends called out to me from a window. I veered round to
+reply, and the shadow had vanished. I never saw it again, though I often
+had the curious sensation that it was there. I did not mention my
+experience to my friends, as they were pronounced disbelievers in the
+superphysical, but tactful inquiry led to my gleaning the information
+that on the identical spot, where I had felt the phenomena, had once
+stood a horse-chestnut tree, which had been cut down owing to the strong
+aversion the family had taken to it, partly on account of a strange
+growth on the trunk, unpleasantly suggestive of cancer, and partly
+because a tramp had hanged himself on one of the branches.
+
+All sorts of extraordinary shadows have come to me in the Parks, the
+Twopenny Tube, and along the Thames Embankment. At ten o'clock, on the
+morning of 1st April 1899, I entered Hyde Park by one of the side gates
+of the Marble Arch, and crossing to the island, sat down on an empty
+bench. The sky was grey, the weather ominous, and occasional heavy drops
+of rain made me rejoice in the possession of an umbrella. On such a day,
+the park does not appear at its best. The Arch exhibited a dull, dirty,
+yellowish-grey exterior; every seat was bespattered with mud; whilst, to
+render the general aspect still more unprepossessing, the trees had not
+yet donned their mantles of green, but stood dejectedly drooping their
+leafless branches as if overcome with embarrassment at their nakedness.
+On the benches around me sat, or lay, London's homeless--wretched-looking
+men in long, tattered overcoats, baggy, buttonless trousers, cracked and
+laceless boots, and shapeless bowlers, too weak from want of food and
+rest even to think of work, almost incapable, indeed, of thought at
+all--breathing corpses, nothing more, with premature signs of
+decomposition in their filthy smell. And the women--the women were, if
+possible, ranker--feebly pulsating, feebly throbbing, foully stinking,
+rotten, living deaths. No amount of soap, food, or warmth could reclaim
+them now. Nature's implacable law--the survival of the fittest, the
+weakest to the wall--was here exhibited in all its brutal force, and, as
+I gazed at the weakest, my heart turned sick within me.
+
+Time advanced; one by one the army of tatterdemalions crawled away, God
+alone knew how, God alone knew where. In all probability God did not
+care. Why should He? He created Nature and Nature's laws.
+
+A different type of humanity replaced this garbage: neat and dapper
+girls on their way to business; black-bowlered, spotless-leathered,
+a-guinea-a-week clerks, casting longing glances at the pale grass and
+countless trees (their only reminiscence of the country), as they
+hastened their pace, lest they should be a minute late for their hateful
+servitude; a policeman with the characteristic stride and swinging arms;
+a brisk and short-stepped postman; an apoplectic-looking,
+second-hand-clothes-man; an emaciated widow; a typical charwoman; two
+mechanics; the usual brutal-faced labourer; one of the idle rich in
+shiny hat, high collar, cutaway coat, prancing past on a coal-black
+horse; and a bevy of nursemaids.
+
+To show my mind was not centred on the occult,--bootlaces, collar-studs,
+the two buttons on the back of ladies' coats, dyed hair, servants' feet,
+and a dozen and one other subjects, quite other than the superphysical,
+successively occupied my thoughts. Imagine, then, my surprise and the
+shock I received, when, on glancing at the gravel in front of me, I saw
+two shadows--two enigmatical shadows. A dog came shambling along the
+path, showed its teeth, snarled, sprang on one side, and, with bristling
+hair, fled for its life. I examined the plot of ground behind me; there
+was nothing that could in any way account for the shadows, nothing like
+them. Something rubbed against my leg. I involuntarily put down my hand;
+it was a foot--a clammy lump of ice, but, unmistakably, a foot. Yet of
+what? I saw nothing, only the shadows. I did not want to discover more;
+my very soul shrank within me at the bare idea of what there might be,
+what there was. But, as is always the case, the superphysical gave me no
+choice; my hand, moving involuntarily forward, rested on something flat,
+round, grotesque, horrid, something I took for a face, but a face which
+I knew could not be human. Then I understood the shadows. Uniting, they
+formed the outline of something lithe and tall, the outline of a
+monstrosity with a growth even as I had felt it--flat, round, grotesque,
+and horrid. Was it the phantasm of one of those poor waifs and strays,
+having all their bestialities and diseases magnified; or was it the
+spirit of a tree of some unusually noxious nature?
+
+I could not divine, and so I came away unsatisfied. But I believe the
+shadow is still there, for I saw it only the last time I was in the
+Park.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OBSESSION, POSSESSION
+
+
+_Clocks, Chests and Mummies_
+
+As I have already remarked, spirit or unknown brains are frequently
+present at births. The brains of infants are very susceptible to
+impressions, and, in them, the thought-germs of the occult brains find
+snug billets. As time goes on, these germs develop and become generally
+known as "tastes," "cranks," and "manias."
+
+It is an error to think that men of genius are especially prone to
+manias. On the contrary, the occult brains have the greatest difficulty
+in selecting thought-germs sufficiently subtle to lodge in the
+brain-cells of a child of genius. Practically, any germ of carnal
+thought will be sure of reception in the protoplasmic brain-cells of a
+child, who is destined to become a doctor, solicitor, soldier,
+shopkeeper, labourer, or worker in any ordinary occupation; but the
+thought-germ that will find entrance to the brain-cells of a future
+painter, writer, actor, or musician, must represent some propensity of a
+more or less extraordinary nature.
+
+We all harbour these occult missiles, we are all to a certain extent
+mad: the proud mamma who puts her only son into the Church or makes a
+lawyer of him, and placidly watches him develop a scarlet face, double
+chin, and prodigious paunch, would flounce out a hundred and one
+indignant denials if anyone suggested he had a mania, but it would be
+true; gluttony would be his mania, and one every whit as prohibitive to
+his chances of reaching the spiritual plane, as drink, or sexual
+passion. Love of eating is, indeed, quite the commonest form of
+obsession, and one that develops soonest. Nine out of ten
+children--particularly present-day children, whose doting parents
+encourage their every desire--are fonder of cramming their bellies than
+of playing cricket or skipping; games soon weary them, but buns and
+chocolates never. The truth is, buns and chocolate have obsessed them.
+They think of them all day, and dream of them all night. It is buns and
+chocolates! wherever and whenever they turn or look--buns and
+chocolates! This greed soon develops, as the occult brain intended it
+should; enforced physical labour, or athletics, or even sedentary work
+may dwarf its growth for a time, but at middle and old age it comes on
+again, and the buns and chocolates are become so many coursed luncheons
+and dinners. Their world is one of menus, nothing but menus; their only
+mental exertion the study of menus, and I have no doubt that "tuck"
+shops and restaurants are besieged by the ever-hungry spirit of the
+earth-bound glutton. Though the drink-germ is usually developed later
+(and its later growth is invariably accelerated with seas of alcohol),
+it not infrequently feeds its initial growth with copious streams of
+ginger beer and lemon kali.
+
+Manual labourers--_i.e._ navvies, coal-heavers, miners, etc.--are
+naturally more or less brutal. Their brain-cells at birth offered so
+little resistance to the evil occult influences that they received, in
+full, all the lower germs of thought inoculated by the occult brains.
+Drink, gluttony, cruelty, all came to their infant cerebrums
+cotemporaneously. The cruelty germ develops first, and cats, dogs,
+donkeys, smaller brothers, and even babies are made to feel the superior
+physical strength of the early wearer of hobnails. He is obsessed with a
+mania for hurting something, and with his strongly innate instinct of
+self-preservation, invariably chooses something that cannot harm him.
+Daily he looks around for fresh victims, and finally decides that the
+weedy offspring of the hated superior classes are the easiest prey. In
+company with others of his species, he annihilates the boy in Etons on
+his way to and from school, and the after recollections of the
+weakling's bloody nose and teardrops are as nectar to him. The cruelty
+germ develops apace. The bloody noses of the well-dressed classes are
+his mania now. He sees them at every turn and even dreams of them. He
+grows to manhood, and either digs in the road or plies the pick and
+shovel underground. The mechanical, monotonous exercise and the
+sordidness of his home surroundings foster the germ, and his leisure
+moments are occupied with the memory of those glorious times when he was
+hitting out at someone, and he feels he would give anything just to
+have one more blow. Curse the police! If it were not for them he could
+indulge his hobby to the utmost. But the stalwart, officious man in blue
+is ever on the scene, and the thrashing of a puny cleric or sawbones is
+scarcely compensation for a month's hard labour. Yet his mania must be
+satisfied somehow--it worries him to pieces. He must either smash
+someone's nose or go mad; there is no alternative, and he chooses the
+former. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals prevents
+him skinning a cat; the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Children will be down on him at once if he strikes a child, and so he
+has no other resource left but his wife--he can knock out all her teeth,
+bash in her ribs, and jump on her head to his heart's content. She will
+never dare prosecute him, and, if she does, some Humanitarian Society
+will be sure to see that he is not legally punished. He thus finds safe
+scope for the indulgence of his crank, and when there is nothing left of
+his own wife, he turns his unattractive and pusillanimous attentions to
+someone else's.
+
+But occult thought-germs of this elementary type only thrive where the
+infant's spiritual or unknown brain is wholly undeveloped. Where the
+spiritual or unknown brain of an infant is partially developed, the
+germ-thought to be lodged in it (especially if it be a germ-thought of
+cruelty) must be of a more subtle and refined nature.
+
+I have traced the growth of cruelty obsession in children one would not
+suspect of any great tendency to animalism. A refined love of making
+others suffer has led them to vent inquisitionary tortures on insects,
+and the mania for pulling off the legs of flies and roasting beetles
+under spyglasses has been gradually extended to drowning mice in cages
+and seeing pigs killed. Time develops the germ; the cruel boy becomes
+the callous doctor or "sharp-practising" attorney, and the cruel girl
+becomes the cruel mother and often the frail divorcée. Drink and cards
+are an obsession with some; cruelty is just as much a matter of
+obsession with others. But the ingenuity of the occult brain rises to
+higher things; it rises to the subtlest form of invention when dealing
+with the artistic and literary temperament. I have been intimately
+acquainted with authors--well-known in the popular sense of the
+word--who have been obsessed in the oddest and often most painful ways.
+
+The constant going back to turn door-handles, the sitting in grotesque
+and untoward positions, the fondness for fingering any smooth and shiny
+objects, such as mother-of-pearl, develop into manias for change--change
+of scenery, of occupation, of affections, of people--change that
+inevitably necessitates misery; for breaking--breaking promises,
+contracts, family ties, furniture--but breaking, always breaking; for
+sensuality--sensuality sometimes venial, but often of the most gross and
+unpardonable nature.
+
+I knew a musician who was obsessed in a peculiarly loathsome manner. Few
+knew of his misfortune, and none abominated it more than himself. He
+sang divinely, had the most charming personality, was all that could be
+desired as a husband and father, and yet was, in secret, a monomaniac of
+the most degrading and unusual order. In the daytime, when all was
+bright and cheerful, his mania was forgotten; but the moment twilight
+came, and he saw the shadows of night stealing stealthily towards him,
+his craze returned, and, if alone, he would steal surreptitiously out of
+the house and, with the utmost perseverance, seek an opportunity of
+carrying into effect his bestial practices. I have known him tie himself
+to the table, surround himself with Bibles, and resort to every
+imaginable device to divert his mind from his passion, but all to no
+purpose; the knowledge that outside all was darkness and shadows proved
+irresistible. With a beating heart he put on his coat and hat, and,
+furtively opening the door, slunk out to gratify his hateful lust.
+Heaven knows! he went through hell.
+
+I once watched a woman obsessed with an unnatural and wholly monstrous
+mania for her dog. She took it with her wherever she went, to the
+theatre, the shops, church, in railway carriages, on board ship. She
+dressed it in the richest silks and furs, decorated it with bangles,
+presented it with a watch, hugged, kissed, and fondled it, took it to
+bed with her, dreamed of it. When it died, she went into heavy mourning
+for it, and in an incredibly short space of time pined away. I saw her a
+few days before her death, and I was shocked; her gestures, mannerisms,
+and expression had become absolutely canine, and when she smiled--smiled
+in a forced and unnatural manner--I could have sworn I saw Launcelot,
+her pet!
+
+There was also a man, a brilliant writer, who from a boy had been
+obsessed with a craze for all sorts of glossy things, more especially
+buttons. The mania grew; he spent all his time running after girls who
+were manicured, or who wore shining buttons, and, when he married, he
+besought his wife to sew buttons on every article of her apparel. In the
+end, he is said to have swallowed a button, merely to enjoy the
+sensation of its smooth surface on the coats of his stomach.
+
+This somewhat exaggerated instance of obsession serves to show that, no
+matter how extraordinary the thought-germ, it may enter one's mind and
+finally become a passion.
+
+That the majority of people are obsessed, though in a varying degree, is
+a generally accepted fact; but that furniture can be possessed by occult
+brains, though not a generally accepted fact, is, I believe, equally
+true.
+
+In a former work, entitled _Some Haunted Houses of England and Wales_,
+published by Mr Eveleigh Nash, I described how a bog-oak grandfather's
+clock was possessed by a peculiar type of elemental, which I
+subsequently classified as a vagrarian, or kind of grotesque spirit that
+inhabits wild and lonely places, and, not infrequently, spots where
+there are the remains of prehistoric (and even latter-day) man and
+beast. In another volume called _The Haunted Houses of London_, I
+narrated the haunting of a house in Portman Square by a grandfather's
+clock, the spirit in possession causing it to foretell death by
+striking certain times; and I have since heard of hauntings by phenomena
+of a more or less similar nature.
+
+The following is an example. A very dear friend of mine was taken ill
+shortly before Christmas. No one at the time suspected there was
+anything serious the matter with her, although her health of late had
+been far from good. I happened to be staying in the house just then, and
+found, that for some reason or other, I could not sleep. I do not often
+suffer from insomnia, so that the occurrence struck me as somewhat
+extraordinary. My bedroom opened on to a large, dark landing. In one
+corner of it stood a very old grandfather's clock, the ticking of which
+I could distinctly hear when the house was quiet. For the first two or
+three nights of my visit the clock was as usual, but, the night before
+my friend was taken ill, its ticking became strangely irregular. At one
+moment it sounded faint, at the next moment, the reverse; now it was
+slow, now quick; until at length, in a paroxysm of curiosity and fear, I
+cautiously opened my door and peeped out. It was a light night, and the
+glass face of the clock flashed back the moonbeams with startling
+brilliancy. A grim and subdued hush hung over the staircases and
+landings. The ticking was now low; but as I listened intently, it
+gradually grew louder and louder, until, to my horror, the colossal
+frame swayed violently backwards and forwards. Unable to stand the sight
+of it any longer, and fearful of what I might see next, I retreated into
+my room, and, carefully locking the door, lit the gas, and got into
+bed. At three o'clock the ticking once again became normal. The
+following night the same thing occurred, and I discovered that certain
+other members of the household had also heard it. My friend rapidly grew
+worse, and the irregularities of the clock became more and more
+pronounced, more and more disturbing. Then there came a morning, when,
+between two and three o'clock, unable to lie in bed and listen to the
+ticking any longer, I got up. An irresistible attraction dragged me to
+the door. I peeped out, and there, with the moonlight concentrated on
+its face as before, swayed the clock, backwards and forwards, backwards
+and forwards, slowly and solemnly; and with each movement there issued
+from within it a hollow, agonised voice, the counterpart of that of my
+sick friend, exclaiming, "Oh dear! Oh dear! It is coming! It is coming!"
+
+I was so fascinated, so frightened, that I could not remove my gaze, but
+was constrained to stand still and stare at it; and all the while there
+was a dull, mechanical repetition of the words: "Oh dear! Oh dear! It is
+coming, it is coming!" Half an hour passed in this manner, and the hands
+indicated five minutes to three, when a creak on the staircase made me
+look round. My heart turned to ice--there, half-way down the stairs, was
+a tall, black figure, its polished ebony skin shining in the moonbeams.
+I saw only its body at first, for I was far too surprised even to glance
+at its face. As it glided noiselessly towards me, however, obeying an
+uncontrollable impulse, I looked. There was no face at all, only two
+eyes--two long, oblique, half-open eyes--grey and sinister,
+inexpressibly, hellishly sinister--and, as they met my gaze, they smiled
+gleefully. They passed on, the door of the clock swung open, and the
+figure stepped inside and vanished! I was now able to move, and
+re-entering my room, I locked myself in, turned on the gas, and buried
+myself under the bedclothes.
+
+I left the house next day, and shortly afterwards received the
+melancholy tidings of the death of my dear friend. For the time being,
+at least, the clock had been possessed by an elemental spirit of death.
+
+I know an instance, too, in which a long, protracted whine, like the
+whine of a dog, proceeded from a grandfather's clock, prior to any
+catastrophe in a certain family; another instance, in which loud thumps
+were heard in a grandfather's clock before a death; and still another
+instance in which a hooded face used occasionally to be seen in lieu of
+the clock's face.
+
+In all these cases, the clocks were undoubtedly temporarily possessed by
+the same type of spirit--the type I have classified "Clanogrian" or
+Family Ghost--occult phenomena that, having attached themselves in
+bygone ages to certain families, sometimes cling to furniture (often not
+inappropriately to clocks) that belonged to those families; and, still
+clinging, in its various removals, to the piece they have "possessed,"
+continue to perform their original grizzly function of foretelling
+death.
+
+Of course, these charnel prophets are not the only phantasms that
+"possess" furniture. For example, I once heard of a case of
+"possession" by a non-prophetic phantasm in connection with a chest--an
+antique oak chest which, I believe, claimed to be a native of Limerick.
+After experiencing many vicissitudes in its career, the chest fell into
+the hands of a Mrs MacNeill, who bought it at a rather exorbitant price
+from a second-hand dealer in Cork.
+
+The chest, placed in the dining-room of its new home, was the recipient
+of much premature adulation. The awakening came one afternoon soon after
+its arrival, when Mrs MacNeill was alone in the dining-room at twilight.
+She had spent a very tiring morning shopping in Tralee, her nearest
+market-town, and consequently fell asleep in an arm-chair in front of
+the fire, directly after luncheon. She awoke with a sensation of extreme
+chilliness, and thinking the window could not have been shut properly,
+she got up to close it, when her attention was attracted by something
+white protruding from under the lid of the chest. She went up to inspect
+it, but she recoiled in horror. It was a long finger, with a very
+protuberant knuckle-bone, but no sign of a nail. She was so shocked that
+for some seconds she could only stand staring at it, mute and helpless;
+but the sound of approaching carriage-wheels breaking the spell, she
+rushed to the fireplace and pulled the bell vigorously. As she did so,
+there came a loud chuckle from the chest, and all the walls of the room
+seemed to shake with laughter.
+
+Of course everyone laughed when Mrs MacNeill related what had happened.
+The chest was minutely examined, and as it was found to contain nothing
+but some mats that had been stored away in it the previous day, the
+finger was forthwith declared to have been an optical illusion, and Mrs
+MacNeill was, for the time being, ridiculed into believing it was so
+herself. For the next two or three days nothing occurred; nothing, in
+fact, until one night when Mrs MacNeill and her daughters heard the
+queerest of noises downstairs, proceeding apparently from the
+dining-room--heavy, flopping footsteps, bumps as if a body was being
+dragged backwards and forwards across the floor, crashes as if all the
+crockery in the house had been piled in a mass on the floor, loud peals
+of malevolent laughter, and then--silence.
+
+The following night, the disturbances being repeated, Mrs MacNeill
+summoned up courage to go downstairs and peep into the room. The noises
+were still going on when she arrived at the door, but, the moment she
+opened it, they ceased and there was nothing to be seen. A day or two
+afterwards, when she was again alone in the dining-room and the evening
+shadows were beginning to make their appearance, she glanced anxiously
+at the chest, and--there was the finger. Losing her self-possession at
+once, and yielding to a paroxysm of the wildest, the most ungovernable
+terror, she opened her mouth to shriek. Not a sound came; the cry that
+had been generated in her lungs died away ere it reached her larynx, and
+she relapsed into a kind of cataleptic condition, in which all her
+faculties were acutely alert but her limbs and organs of speech palsied.
+
+She expected every instant that the chest-lid would fly open and that
+the baleful thing lurking within would spring upon her. The torture she
+suffered from such anticipations was little short of hell, and was
+rendered all the more maddening by occasional quiverings of the lid,
+which brought all her expectations to a climax. Now, now at any rate,
+she assured herself, the moment had come when the acme of horrordom
+would be bounced upon her and she would either die or go mad. But no;
+her agonies were again and again borne anew, and her prognostications
+unfulfilled. At last the creakings abruptly ceased--nothing was to be
+heard save the shaking of the trees, the distant yelping of a dog, and
+the far-away footfall of one of the servants. Having somewhat recovered
+from the shock, Mrs MacNeill was busy speculating as to the appearance
+of the hidden horror, when she heard a breathing, the subtle, stealthy
+breathing of the secreted pouncer. Again she was spellbound. The evening
+advanced, and from every nook and cranny of the room, from behind
+chairs, sofa, sideboard, and table, from window-sill and curtains, stole
+the shadows, all sorts of curious shadows, that brought with them an
+atmosphere of the barren, wind-swept cliffs and dark, deserted
+mountains, an atmosphere that added fresh terrors to Mrs MacNeill's
+already more than distraught mind.
+
+The room was now full of occult possibilities, drawn from all quarters,
+and doubtless attracted thither by the chest, which acted as a physical
+magnet. It grew late; still no one came to her rescue; and still more
+shadows, and more, and more, and more, until the room was full of them.
+She actually saw them gliding towards the house, in shoals, across the
+moon-kissed lawn and carriage-drive. Shadows of all sorts--some,
+unmistakable phantasms of the dead, with skinless faces and glassy eyes,
+their bodies either wrapped in shrouds covered with the black slime of
+bogs or dripping with water; some, whole and lank and bony; some with an
+arm or leg missing; some with no limbs or body, only heads--shrunken,
+bloodless heads with wide-open, staring eyes--yellow, ichorous
+eyes--gleaming, devilish eyes. Elementals of all sorts--some, tall and
+thin, with rotund heads and meaningless features; some, with
+rectangular, fleshy heads; some, with animal heads. On they came in
+countless legions, on, on, and on, one after another, each vying with
+the other in ghastly horridness.
+
+The series of terrific shocks Mrs MacNeill experienced during the
+advance of this long and seemingly interminable procession of every
+conceivable ghoulish abortion, at length wore her out. The pulsations of
+her naturally strong heart temporarily failed, and, as her pent-up
+feelings found vent in one gasping scream for help, she fell insensible
+to the ground.
+
+That very night the chest was ruthlessly cremated, and Mrs MacNeill's
+dining-room ceased to be a meeting-place for spooks.
+
+Whenever I see an old chest now, I always view it with
+suspicion--especially if it should happen to be a bog-oak chest. The
+fact is, the latter is more likely than not to be "possessed" by
+elementals, which need scarcely be a matter of surprise when one
+remembers that bogs--particularly Irish bogs--have been haunted, from
+time immemorial, by the most uncouth and fantastic type of spirits.
+
+But mummies, mummies even more often than clocks and chests, are
+"possessed" by denizens of the occult world. Of course, everyone has
+heard of the "unlucky" mummy, the painted case of which, only, is in the
+Oriental department of the British Museum, and the story connected with
+it is so well known that it would be superfluous to expatiate on it
+here. I will therefore pass on to instances of other mummies "possessed"
+in a more or less similar manner.
+
+During one of my sojourns in Paris, I met a Frenchman who, he informed
+me, had just returned from the East. I asked him if he had brought back
+any curios, such as vases, funeral urns, weapons, or amulets. "Yes,
+lots," he replied, "two cases full. But no mummies! Mon Dieu! No
+mummies! You ask me why? Ah! Therein hangs a tale. If you will have
+patience, I will tell it you."
+
+The following is the gist of his narrative:--
+
+"Some seasons ago I travelled up the Nile as far as Assiut, and when
+there, managed to pay a brief visit to the grand ruins of Thebes. Among
+the various treasures I brought away with me, of no great archæological
+value, was a mummy. I found it lying in an enormous lidless sarcophagus,
+close to a mutilated statue of Anubis. On my return to Assiut, I had the
+mummy placed in my tent, and thought no more of it till something awoke
+me with a startling suddenness in the night. Then, obeying a peculiar
+impulse, I turned over on my side and looked in the direction of my
+treasure.
+
+"The nights in the Soudan at this time of year are brilliant; one can
+even see to read, and every object in the desert is almost as clearly
+visible as by day. But I was quite startled by the whiteness of the glow
+that rested on the mummy, the face of which was immediately opposite
+mine. The remains--those of Met-Om-Karema, lady of the College of the
+god Amen-ra--were swathed in bandages, some of which had worn away in
+parts or become loose; and the figure, plainly discernible, was that of
+a shapely woman with elegant bust, well-formed limbs, rounded arms and
+small hands. The thumbs were slender, and the fingers, each of which
+were separately bandaged, long and tapering. The neck was full, the
+cranium rather long, the nose aquiline, the chin firm. Imitation eyes,
+brows, and lips were painted on the wrappings, and the effect thus
+produced, and in the phosphorescent glare of the moonbeams, was very
+weird. I was quite alone in the tent, the only other European, who had
+accompanied me to Assiut, having stayed in the town by preference, and
+my servants being encamped at some hundred or so yards from me on the
+ground.
+
+"Sound travels far in the desert, but the silence now was absolute, and
+although I listened attentively, I could not detect the slightest
+noise--man, beast, and insect were abnormally still. There was something
+in the air, too, that struck me as unusual; an odd, clammy coldness that
+reminded me at once of the catacombs in Paris. I had hardly, however,
+conceived the resemblance, when a sob--low, gentle, but very
+distinct--sent a thrill of terror through me. It was ridiculous, absurd!
+It could not be, and I fought against the idea as to whence the sound
+had proceeded, as something too utterly fantastic, too utterly
+impossible! I tried to occupy my mind with other thoughts--the
+frivolities of Cairo, the casinos of Nice; but all to no purpose; and
+soon on my eager, throbbing ear there again fell that sound, that low
+and gentle sob. My hair stood on end; this time there was no doubt, no
+possible manner of doubt--the mummy lived! I looked at it aghast. I
+strained my vision to detect any movement in its limbs, but none was
+perceptible. Yet the noise had come from it, it had breathed--breathed--
+and even as I hissed the word unconsciously through my clenched lips,
+the bosom of the mummy rose and fell.
+
+"A frightful terror seized me. I tried to shriek to my servants; I could
+not ejaculate a syllable. I tried to close my eyelids, but they were
+held open as in a vice. Again there came a sob that was immediately
+succeeded by a sigh; and a tremor ran through the figure from head to
+foot. One of its hands then began to move, the fingers clutched the air
+convulsively, then grew rigid, then curled slowly into the palms, then
+suddenly straightened. The bandages concealing them from view then fell
+off, and to my agonised sight were disclosed objects that struck me as
+strangely familiar. There is something about fingers, a marked
+individuality, I never forget. No two persons' hands are alike. And in
+these fingers, in their excessive whiteness, round knuckles, and blue
+veins, in their tapering formation and perfect filbert nails, I read a
+likeness whose prototype, struggle how I would, I could not recall.
+Gradually the hand moved upwards, and, reaching the throat, the fingers
+set to work, at once, to remove the wrappings. My terror was now
+sublime! I dare not imagine, I dare not for one instant think, what I
+should see! And there was no getting away from it; I could not stir an
+inch, not the fraction of an inch, and the ghastly revelation would take
+place within a yard of my face.
+
+"One by one the bandages came off. A glimmer of skin, pallid as marble;
+the beginning of the nose, the whole nose; the upper lip, exquisitely,
+delicately cut; the teeth, white and even on the whole, but here and
+there a shining gold filling; the under-lip, soft and gentle; a mouth I
+knew, but--God!--where? In my dreams, in the wild fantasies that had
+oft-times visited my pillow at night--in delirium, in reality, where?
+Mon Dieu! WHERE?
+
+"The uncasing continued. The chin came next, a chin that was purely
+feminine, purely classical; then the upper part of the head--the hair
+long, black, luxuriant--the forehead low and white--the brows black,
+finely pencilled; and, last of all, the eyes!--and as they met my
+frenzied gaze and smiled, smiled right down into the depths of my livid
+soul, I recognised them--they were the eyes of my mother, my mother who
+had died in my boyhood! Seized with a madness that knew no bounds, I
+sprang to my feet. The figure rose and confronted me. I flung open my
+arms to embrace her, the woman of all women in the world I loved best,
+the only woman I had loved. Shrinking from my touch, she cowered against
+the side of the tent. I fell on my knees before her and kissed--what?
+Not the feet of my mother, but that of the long unburied dead. Sick with
+repulsion and fear I looked up, and there, bending over and peering into
+my eyes was the face, the fleshless, mouldering face of a foul and
+barely recognisable corpse! With a shriek of horror I rolled backwards,
+and, springing to my feet, prepared to fly. I glanced at the mummy. It
+was lying on the ground, stiff and still, every bandage in its place;
+whilst standing over it, a look of fiendish glee in its light, doglike
+eyes, was the figure of Anubis, lurid and menacing.
+
+"The voices of my servants, assuring me they were coming, broke the
+silence, and in an instant the apparition vanished.
+
+"I had had enough of the tent, however, at least for that night, and,
+seeking refuge in the town, I whiled away the hours till morning with a
+fragrant cigar and novel. Directly I had breakfasted, I took the mummy
+back to Thebes and left it there. No, thank you, Mr O'Donnell, I collect
+many kinds of curios, but--no more mummies!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+OCCULT HOOLIGANS
+
+
+Deducing from my own and other people's experiences, there exists a
+distinct type of occult phenomenon whose sole occupation is in
+boisterous orgies and in making manifestations purely for the sake of
+causing annoyance. To this phantasm the Germans have given the name
+POLTERGEIST, whilst in former of my works I have classified it as a
+Vagrarian Order of ELEMENTAL. It is this form of the superphysical,
+perhaps, that up to the present time has gained the greatest
+credence--it has been known in all ages and in all countries. Who, for
+example, has not heard of the famous Stockwell ghost that caused such a
+sensation in 1772, and of which Mrs Crowe gives a detailed account in
+her _Night Side of Nature_; or again, of "The Black Lion Lane, Bayswater
+Ghost," referred to many years ago in _The Morning Post_; or, of the
+"Epworth Ghost," that so unceasingly tormented the Wesley family; or, of
+the "Demon of Tedworth" that gave John Mompesson and his family no
+peace, and of countless other well-authenticated and recorded instances
+of this same type of occult phenomenon? The poltergeists in the
+above-mentioned cases were never seen, only felt and heard; but in what
+a disagreeable and often painful manner! The Demon of Tedworth, for
+example, awoke everyone at night by thumping on doors and imitating the
+beatings of a drum. It rattled bedsteads, scratched on the floor and
+wall as if possessing iron talons, groaned, and uttered loud cries of "A
+witch! A witch!" Nor was it content with these auditory demonstrations,
+for it resorted to far more energetic methods of physical violence.
+Furniture was moved out of its place and upset; the children's shoes
+were taken off their feet and thrown over their heads; their hair was
+tweaked and their clothes pulled; one little boy was even hit on a sore
+place on his heel; the servants were lifted bodily out of their beds and
+let fall; whilst several members of the household were stripped of all
+they had on, forcibly held down, and pelted with shoes. Nor were the
+proceedings at Stockwell, Black Lion Lane, and Epworth, though rather
+more bizarre, any less violent.
+
+To quote another instance of this kind of haunting, Professor Schuppart
+at Gressen, in Upper Hesse, was for six years persecuted by a
+poltergeist in the most unpleasant manner; stones were sent whizzing
+through closed rooms in all directions, breaking windows but hurting no
+one; his books were torn to pieces; the lamp by which he was reading was
+removed to a distant corner of the room, and his cheeks were slapped,
+and slapped so incessantly that he could get no sleep.
+
+According to Mrs Crowe, there was a case of a similar nature at Mr
+Chave's, in Devonshire, in 1910, where affidavits were made before the
+magistrate attesting the facts, and large rewards offered for discovery;
+but in vain, the phenomena continued, and the spiritual agent was
+frequently seen in the form of some strange animal.
+
+There seems to be little limit, short of grievous bodily injury--and
+even that limit has occasionally been overstepped--to poltergeist
+hooliganism. Last summer the Rev. Henry Hacon, M.A., of Searly Vicarage,
+North Kelsey Moor, very kindly sent me an original manuscript dealing
+with poltergeist disturbances of a very peculiar nature, at the old
+Syderstone Parsonage near Fakenham. I published the account _ad verbum_
+in a work of mine that appeared the ensuing autumn, entitled _Ghostly
+Phenomena_, and the interest it created encourages me to refer to other
+cases dealing with the same kind of phenomena.
+
+There is a parsonage in the South of England where not only noises have
+been heard, but articles have been mysteriously whisked away and not
+returned. A lady assures me that when a gentleman, with whom she was
+intimately acquainted, was alone in one of the reception rooms one day,
+he placed some coins to the value, I believe, of fifteen shillings, on
+the table beside him, and chancing to have his attention directed to the
+fire, which had burned low, was surprised on looking again to discover
+the coins had gone; nor did he ever recover them. Other things, too, for
+the most part trivial, were also taken in the same incomprehensible
+manner, and apparently by the same mischievous unseen agency. It is true
+that one of the former inhabitants of the house had, during the latter
+portion of his life, been heavily in debt, and that his borrowing
+propensities may have accompanied him to the occult world; but though
+such an explanation is quite feasible, I am rather inclined to attribute
+the disappearances to the pranks of some mischievous vagrarian.
+
+I have myself over and over again experienced a similar kind of thing.
+For example, in a certain house in Norwood, I remember losing in rapid
+succession two stylograph pens, a knife, and a sash. I remembered, in
+each case, laying the article on a table, then having my attention
+called away by some rather unusual sound in a far corner of the room,
+and then, on returning to the table, finding the article had vanished.
+There was no one else in the house, so that ordinary theft was out of
+the question. Yet where did these articles go, and of what use would
+they be to a poltergeist? On one occasion, only, I caught a glimpse of
+the miscreant. It was about eight o'clock on a warm evening in June, and
+I was sitting reading in my study. The room is slightly below the level
+of the road, and in summer, the trees outside, whilst acting as an
+effective screen against the sun's rays, cast their shadows somewhat too
+thickly on the floor and walls, burying the angles in heavy gloom. In
+the daytime one rather welcomes this darkness; but in the afternoon it
+becomes a trifle oppressive, and at twilight one sometimes wishes it was
+not there. It is at twilight that the nature of the shadows usually
+undergoes a change, and there amalgamates, with them, that Something,
+that peculiar, indefinable Something that I can only associate with the
+superphysical. Here, in my library, I often watch it creep in with the
+fading of the sunlight, or, postponing its advent till later--steal in
+through the window with the moonbeams, and I feel its presence just as
+assuredly and instinctively as I can feel and detect the presence of
+hostility in an audience or individual. I cannot describe how; I can
+only say I do, and that my discernment is seldom misleading. On the
+evening in question I was alone in the house. I had noticed, amid the
+shadows that lay in clusters on the floor and walls, this enigmatical
+Something. It was there most markedly; but I did not associate it with
+anything particularly terrifying or antagonistic. Perhaps that was
+because the book I was reading interested me most profoundly--it was a
+translation from Heine, and I am devoted to Heine. Let me quote an
+extract. It is from _Florentine Nights_, and runs: "But is it not folly
+to wish to sound the inner meaning of any phenomenon outside us, when we
+cannot even solve the enigma of our own souls? We hardly know even
+whether outside phenomena really exist! We are often unable to
+distinguish reality from mere dream-faces. Was it a shape of my fancy,
+or was it horrible reality that I heard and saw on that night? I know
+not. I only remember that, as the wildest thoughts were flowing through
+my heart, a singular sound came to my ear." I had got so far,
+absorbingly, spiritually interested, when I heard a laugh, a long, low
+chuckle, that seemed to come from the darkest and most remote corner of
+the room. A cold paroxysm froze my body, the book slid from my hands,
+and I sat upright in my chair, every faculty within me acutely alert and
+active. The laugh was repeated, this time from behind a writing-table in
+quite another part of the room. Something which sounded like a shower of
+tintacks then fell into the grate; after which there was a long pause,
+and then a terrific bump, as if some heavy body had fallen from a great
+height on to the floor immediately in front of me. I even heard the
+hissing and whizzing the body made in its descent as it cut its passage
+through the air. Again there came an interval of tranquillity broken
+only by the sounds of people in the road, the hurrying footsteps of a
+girl, the clattering of a man in hobnails, the quick, sharp tread of the
+lamplighter, and the scampering patter of a bevy of children. Then there
+came a series of knockings on the ceiling, and then the sound of
+something falling into a gaping abyss which I intuitively felt had
+surreptitiously opened at my feet.
+
+For many seconds I listened to the reverberations of the object as it
+dashed against the sides of the unknown chasm; at length there was a
+splash, succeeded by hollow echoes. Shaking in every limb, I shrank back
+as far as I possibly could in my chair and clutched the arms. A draught,
+cold and dank, as if coming from an almost interminable distance, blew
+upwards and fanned my nostrils. Then there came the most appalling, the
+most blood-curdling chuckle, and I saw a hand--a lurid grey hand with
+long, knotted fingers and black, curved nails--feeling its way towards
+me, through the subtle darkness, like some enormous, unsavoury insect.
+Nearer, nearer, and nearer it drew, its fingers waving in the air,
+antennæ fashion. For a moment it paused, and then, with lightning
+rapidity, snatched the book from my knees and disappeared. Directly
+afterwards I heard the sound of a latchkey inserted in the front door,
+whilst the voice of my wife inquiring why the house was in darkness
+broke the superphysical spell. Obeying her summons, I ascended the
+staircase, and the first object that greeted my vision in the hall was
+the volume of Heine that had been so unceremoniously taken from me!
+Assuredly this was the doings of a poltergeist! A poltergeist that up to
+the present had confined its attentions to me, no one else in the house
+having either heard or seen it.
+
+In my study there is a deep recess concealed in the winter-time by heavy
+curtains drawn across it; and often when I am writing something makes me
+look up, and a cold horror falls upon me as I perceive the curtains
+rustle, rustle as though they were laughing, laughing in conjunction
+with some hidden occult monstrosity; some grey--the bulk of the
+phantasms that come to me are grey--and glittering monstrosity who was
+enjoying a rich jest at my expense. Occasionally, to emphasise its
+presence, this poltergeist has scratched the wall, or thumped, or thrown
+an invisible missile over my head, or sighed, or groaned, or gurgled,
+and I have been frightened, horribly, ghastly frightened. Then something
+has happened--my wife has called out, or someone has rung a bell, or the
+postman has given one of his whole-hearted smashes with the knocker,
+and the poltergeist has "cleared off," and I have not been disturbed by
+it again for the remainder of the evening.
+
+I am not the only person whom poltergeists visit. Judging from my
+correspondence and the accounts I see in the letters of various
+psychical research magazines, they patronise many people. Their _modus
+operandi_, covering a wide range, is always boisterous. Undoubtedly they
+have been badly brought up--their home influence and their educational
+training must have been sadly lacking in discipline. Or is it the
+reverse? Are their crude devices and mad, tomboyish pranks merely
+reactionary, and the only means they have of finding vent for their
+naturally high spirits? If so, I devoutly wish they would choose some
+locality other than my study for their playground. Yet they interest me,
+and although I quake horribly when they are present, I derive endless
+amusement at other times, in speculating on their _raison d'être_, and
+curious--perhaps complex--constitutions. I do not believe they have ever
+inhabited any earthly body, either human or animal. I think it likely
+that they may be survivals of early experiments in animal and vegetable
+life in this planet, prior to the selection of any definite types;
+spirits that have never been anything else but spirits, and which have,
+no doubt, often envied man his carnal body and the possibilities that
+have been permitted him of eventually reaching a higher spiritual plane.
+It is envy, perhaps, that has made them mischievous, and generated in
+them an insatiable thirst to torment and frighten man. Another probable
+explanation of them is, that they may be inhabitants of one of the other
+planets that have the power granted, under certain conditions at present
+unknown to us, of making themselves seen and heard by certain dwellers
+on the earth; and it is, of course, possible that they are but one of
+many types of spirits inhabiting a superphysical sphere that encloses or
+infringes on our own. They may be only another form of life, a form that
+is neither carnal nor immortal, but which has to depend for its
+existence on a superphysical food. They may be born in a fashion that,
+apart from its peculiarity and extravagance, bears some resemblance to
+the generation of physical animal life; and they may die, too, as man
+dies, and their death may be but the passing from one stage to another,
+or it may be for eternity.
+
+But enough of possibilities, of probable and improbable theories. For
+the present not only poltergeists but all other phantoms are seen as
+through a glass darkly, and, pending the discovery of some definite
+data, we do but flounder in a sea of wide, limitless, and infinite
+speculation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SYLVAN HORRORS
+
+
+I believe trees have spirits; I believe everything that grows has a
+spirit, and that such spirits never die, but passing into another state,
+a state of film and shadow, live on for ever. The phantasms of vegetable
+life are everywhere, though discernible only to the few of us. Often as
+I ramble through thoroughfares, crowded with pedestrians and vehicles,
+and impregnated with steam and smoke and all the impurities arising from
+over-congested humanity, I have suddenly smelt a different atmosphere,
+the cold atmosphere of superphysical forest land. I have come to a halt,
+and leaning in some doorway, gazed in awestruck wonder at the nodding
+foliage of a leviathan lepidodendron, the phantasm of one of those
+mammoth lycopods that flourished in the Carboniferous period. I have
+watched it swaying its shadowy arms backwards and forwards as if keeping
+time to some ghostly music, and the breeze it has thus created has
+rustled through my hair, while the sweet scent of its resin has
+pleasantly tickled my nostrils. I have seen, too, suddenly open before
+me, dark, gloomy aisles, lined with stupendous pines and carpeted with
+long, luxuriant grass, gigantic ferns, and other monstrous primeval
+flora, of a nomenclature wholly unknown to me; I have watched in chilled
+fascination the black trunks twist and bend and contort, as if under the
+influence of an uncontrollable fit of laughter, or at the bidding of
+some psychic cyclone. I have at times stayed my steps when in the throes
+of the city-pavements; shops and people have been obliterated, and their
+places taken by occult foliage; immense fungi have blocked out the sun's
+rays, and under the shelter of their slimy, glistening heads, I have
+been thrilled to see the wriggling, gliding forms of countless smaller
+saprophytes. I have felt the cold touch of loathsome toadstools and
+sniffed the hot, dry dust of the full, ripe puff-ball. On the Thames
+Embankment, up Chelsea way, I have at twilight beheld wonderful
+metamorphoses. In company with the shadows of natural objects of the
+landscape, have silently sprung up giant reeds and bullrushes. I have
+felt their icy coldness as, blowing hither and thither in the delirium
+of their free, untrammelled existence, they have swished across my face.
+Visions, truly visions, the exquisite fantasies of a vivid imagination.
+So says the sage. I do not think so; I dispute him _in toto_. These
+objects I have seen have not been illusions; else, why have I not
+imagined other things; why, for example, have I not seen rocks walking
+about and tables coming in at my door? If these phantasms were but
+tricks of the imagination, then imagination would stop at nothing. But
+they are not imagination, neither are they the idle fancies of an
+over-active brain. They are objective--just as much objective as are the
+smells of recognised physical objects, that those, with keenly sensitive
+olfactory organs, can detect, and those, with a less sensitive sense of
+smell, cannot detect; those, with acute hearing, can hear, and those
+with less acute hearing cannot hear. And yet, people are slow to believe
+that the seeing of the occult is as much a faculty as is the scenting of
+smells or the hearing of noises.
+
+I have heard it said that, deep down in coal mines, certain of the
+workers have seen wondrous sights; that when they have been alone in a
+drift, they have heard the blowing of the wind and the rustling of
+leaves, and suddenly found themselves penned in on all sides by the
+naked trunks of enormous primitive trees, lepidodendrons, sigillarias,
+ferns, and other plants, that have shone out with phosphorescent
+grandeur amid the inky blackness of the subterranean ether. Around the
+feet of the spellbound watchers have sprung up rank blades of
+Brobdingnagian grass and creepers, out of which have crept, with lurid
+eyes, prodigious millipedes, cockroaches, white ants, myriapods and
+scorpions, whilst added to the moaning and sighing of the trees has been
+the humming of stone-flies, dragon-flies, and locusts. Galleries and
+shafts have echoed and re-echoed with these noises of the old world,
+which yet lives, and will continue to live, maybe, to the end of time.
+
+But are the physical trees, the trees that we can all see budding and
+sprouting in our gardens to-day--are they ever cognisant of the presence
+of the occult? Can they, like certain--not all--dogs and horses and
+other animals, detect the proximity of the unknown? Do they tremble and
+shake with fear at the sight of some psychic vegetation, or are they
+utterly devoid of any such faculty? Can they see, hear, or smell? Have
+they any senses at all? And, if they have one sense, have they not
+others? Aye, there is food for reflection.
+
+Personally, I believe trees have senses--not, of course, in such a high
+state of development as those of animal life; but, nevertheless, senses.
+Consequently, I think it quite possible that certain of them, like
+certain animals, feel the presence of the superphysical. I often stroll
+in woods. I do not love solitude; I love the trees, and I do not think
+there is anything in nature, apart from man, I love much more. The oak,
+the ash, the elm, the poplar, the willow, to me are more than mere
+names; they are friends, the friends of my boyhood and manhood;
+companions in my lonely rambles and voluntary banishments; guardians of
+my siestas; comforters of my tribulations. The gentle fanning of their
+branches has eased my pain-racked brow and given me much-needed sleep,
+whilst the chlorophyll of their leaves has acted like balm to my
+eyelids, inflamed after long hours of study. I have leaned my head
+against their trunks, and heard, or fancied I have heard, the fantastic
+murmurings of their peaceful minds. This is what happens in the daytime,
+when the hot summer sun has turned the meadow-grass a golden brown. But
+with the twilight comes the change. Phantom-land awakes, and mingled
+with the shadows of the trees and bushes that lazily unroll themselves
+from trunk and branches are the darkest of shades, that impart to the
+forest an atmosphere of dreary coldness. Usually I hie away with haste
+at sunset, but there are occasions when I have dallied longer than I
+have intended, and only realised my error when it has been too late. I
+have then, controlled by the irresistible fascination of the woods,
+waited and watched. I well recollect, for example, being caught in this
+way in a Hampshire spinney, at that time one of my most frequented
+haunts. The day had been unusually close and stifling, and the heat, in
+conjunction with a hard morning's work--for I had written, God only
+knows how long, without ceasing,--made me frightfully sleepy, and on
+arriving at my favourite spot beneath a lofty pine, I had slept till,
+for very shame, my eyelids could keep closed no longer. It was then nine
+o'clock, and the metamorphosis of sunset had commenced in solemn
+earnest. The evening was charming, ideal of the heart of summer; the air
+soft, sweetly scented; the sky unspotted blue. A peaceful hush, broken
+only by the chiming of some distant church bells, and the faint, the
+very faint barking of dogs, enveloped everything and instilled in me a
+false sensation of security. Facing me was a diminutive glade padded
+with downy grass, transformed into a pale yellow by the lustrous rays of
+the now encrimsoned sun. Fainter and fainter grew the ruddy glow, until
+there was nought of it left but a pale pink streak, whose delicate
+marginal lines still separated the blue of the sky from the quickly
+superseding grey. A barely perceptible mist gradually cloaked the grass,
+whilst the gloom amid the foliage on the opposite side of the glade
+intensified. There was now no sound of bells, no barking of dogs; and
+silence, a silence tinged with the sadness so characteristic of summer
+evenings, was everywhere paramount. A sudden rush of icy air made my
+teeth chatter. I made an effort to stir, to escape ere the grotesque and
+intangible horrors of the wood could catch me. I ignominiously failed;
+the soles of my feet froze to the ground. Then I felt the slender,
+graceful body of the pine against which I leaned my back, shake and
+quiver, and my hand--the hand that rested on its bark--grew damp and
+sticky.
+
+I endeavoured to avert my eyes from the open space confronting them. I
+failed; and as I gazed, filled with the anticipations of the damned,
+there suddenly burst into view, with all the frightful vividness
+associated only with the occult, a tall form--armless, legless--fashioned
+like the gnarled trunk of a tree--white, startlingly white in places
+where the bark had worn away, but on the whole a bright, a luridly
+bright, yellow and black. At first I successfully resisted a powerful
+impulse to raise my eyes to its face; but as I only too well knew would
+be the case, I was obliged to look at last, and, as I anticipated, I
+underwent a most violent shock. In lieu of a face I saw a raw and
+shining polyp, a mass of waving, tossing, pulpy radicles from whose
+centre shone two long, obliquely set, pale eyes, ablaze with devilry and
+malice. The thing, after the nature of all terrifying phantasms, was
+endowed with hypnotic properties, and directly its eyes rested on me I
+became numb; my muscles slept while my faculties remained awake,
+acutely awake.
+
+Inch by inch the thing approached me; its stealthy, gliding motion
+reminding me of a tiger subtly and relentlessly stalking its prey. It
+came up to me, and the catalepsy which had held me rigidly upright
+departed. I fell on the ground for protection, and, as the great unknown
+curved its ghastly figure over me and touched my throat and forehead
+with its fulsome tentacles, I was overcome with nervous tremors; a
+deadly pain griped my entrails, and, convulsed with agony, I rolled over
+on my face, furiously clawing the bracken. In this condition I continued
+for probably one or even two minutes, though to me it seemed very much
+longer. My sufferings terminated with the loud report of firearms, and
+slowly picking myself up, I found that the apparition had vanished, and
+that standing some twenty or so paces from me was a boy with a gun. I
+recognised him at once as the son of my neighbour, the village
+schoolmaster; but not wishing to tarry there any longer, I hurriedly
+wished him good night, and leaving the copse a great deal more quickly
+than I had entered it, I hastened home.
+
+What had I seen? A phantasm of some dead tree? some peculiar species of
+spirit (I have elsewhere termed a vagrarian), attracted thither by the
+loneliness of the locality? some vicious, evil phantasm? or a
+vice-elemental, whose presence there would be due to some particularly
+wicked crime or series of crimes perpetrated on or near the spot? I
+cannot say. It might well have been either one of them, or something
+quite different. I am quite sure, however, that most woods are haunted,
+and that he who sees spirit phenomena can be pretty certain of seeing
+them there. Again and again, as I have been passing after nightfall,
+through tree-girt glen, forest, or avenue, I have seen all sorts of
+curious forms and shapes move noiselessly from tree to tree. Hooded
+figures, with death's-heads, have glided surreptitiously through
+moon-kissed spaces; icy hands have touched me on the shoulders; whilst,
+pacing alongside me, I have oft-times heard footsteps, light and heavy,
+though I have seen nothing.
+
+Miss Frances Sinclair tells me that, once, when walking along a country
+lane, she espied some odd-looking object lying on the ground at the foot
+of a tree. She approached it, and found to her horror it was a human
+finger swimming in a pool of blood. She turned round to attract the
+attention of her friends, and when she looked again the finger had
+vanished. On this very spot, she was subsequently informed, the murder
+of a child had taken place.
+
+Trees are, I believe, frequently haunted by spirits that suggest crime.
+I have no doubt that numbers of people have hanged themselves on the
+same tree in just the same way as countless people have committed
+suicide by jumping over certain bridges. Why? For the very simple reason
+that hovering about these bridges are influences antagonistic to the
+human race, spirits whose chief and fiendish delight is to breathe
+thoughts of self-destruction into the brains of passers-by. I once heard
+of a man, medically pronounced sane, who frequently complained that he
+was tormented by a voice whispering in his ear, "Shoot yourself! Shoot
+yourself!"--advice which he eventually found himself bound to follow.
+And of a man, likewise stated to be sane, who journeyed a considerable
+distance to jump over a notorious bridge because he was for ever being
+haunted by the phantasm of a weirdly beautiful woman who told him to do
+so. If bridges have their attendant sinister spirits, so undoubtedly
+have trees--spirits ever anxious to entice within the magnetic circle of
+their baleful influence anyone of the human race.
+
+Many tales of trees being haunted in this way have come to me from India
+and the East. I quoted one in my _Ghostly Phenomena_, and the following
+was told me by a lady whom I met recently, when on a visit to my wife's
+relations in the Midlands.
+
+"I was riding with my husband along a very lonely mountain road in
+Assam," my informant began, "when I suddenly discovered I had lost my
+silk scarf, which happened to be a rather costly one. I had a pretty
+shrewd idea whereabouts I might have dropped it, and, on mentioning the
+fact to my husband, he at once turned and rode back to look for it.
+Being armed, I did not feel at all nervous at being left alone,
+especially as there had been no cases, for many years, of assault on a
+European in our district; but, seeing a big mango tree standing quite by
+itself a few yards from the road, I turned my horse's head with the
+intention of riding up to it and picking some of its fruit. To my great
+annoyance, however, the beast refused to go; moreover, although at all
+times most docile, it now reared, and kicked, and showed unmistakable
+signs of fright.
+
+"I speedily came to the conclusion that my horse was aware of the
+presence of something--probably a wild beast--I could not see myself,
+and I at once dismounted, and tethering the shivering animal to a
+boulder, advanced cautiously, revolver in hand, to the tree. At every
+step I took, I expected the spring of a panther or some other beast of
+prey; but, being afraid of nothing but a tiger--and there were none,
+thank God! in that immediate neighbourhood--I went boldly on. On nearing
+the tree, I noticed that the soil under the branches was singularly
+dark, as if scorched and blackened by a fire, and that the atmosphere
+around it had suddenly grown very cold and dreary. To my disappointment
+there was no fruit, and I was coming away in disgust, when I caught
+sight of a queer-looking thing just over my head and half-hidden by the
+foliage. I parted the leaves asunder with my whip and looked up at it.
+My blood froze.
+
+"The thing was nothing human. It had a long, grey, nude body, shaped
+like that of a man, only with abnormally long arms and legs, and very
+long and crooked fingers. Its head was flat and rectangular, without any
+features saving a pair of long and heavy lidded, light eyes, that were
+fixed on mine with an expression of hellish glee. For some seconds I was
+too appalled even to think, and then the most mad desire to kill myself
+surged through me. I raised my revolver, and was in the act of placing
+it to my forehead, when a loud shout from behind startled me. It was my
+husband. He had found my scarf, and, hurrying back, had arrived just in
+time to see me raise the revolver--strange to relate--at him! In a few
+words I explained to him what had happened, and we examined the tree
+together. But there were no signs of the terrifying phenomenon--it had
+completely vanished. Though my husband declared that I must have been
+dreaming, I noticed he looked singularly grave, and, on our return home,
+he begged me never to go near the tree again. I asked him if he had had
+any idea it was haunted, and he said: 'No! but I know there are such
+trees. Ask Dingan.' Dingan was one of our native servants--the one we
+respected most, as he had been with my husband for nearly twelve
+years--ever since, in fact, he had settled in Assam. 'The mango tree,
+mem-sahib!' Dingan exclaimed, when I approached him on the subject, 'the
+mango tree on the Yuka Road, just before you get to the bridge over the
+river? I know it well. We call it "the devil tree," mem-sahib. No other
+tree will grow near it. There is a spirit peculiar to certain trees that
+lives in its branches, and persuades anyone who ventures within a few
+feet of it, either to kill themselves, or to kill other people. I have
+seen three men from this village alone, hanging to its accursed
+branches; they were left there till the ropes rotted and the jackals
+bore them off to the jungles. Three suicides have I seen, and three
+murders--two were women, strangers in these parts, and they were both
+lying within the shadow of the mango's trunk, with the backs of their
+heads broken in like eggs! It is a thrice-accursed tree, mem-sahib.'
+Needless to say, I agreed with Dingan, and in future gave the mango a
+wide berth."
+
+Vagrarians, tree devils (a type of vice elemental), and phantasms of
+dead trees are some of the occult horrors that haunt woods, and, in
+fact, the whole country-side! Added to these, there are the fauns and
+satyrs, those queer creatures, undoubtedly vagrarians, half-man and
+half-goat, that are accredited by the ancients with much merry-making,
+and grievous to add, much lasciviousness. Of these spirits there is
+mention in Scripture, namely, Isaiah xiii. 21, where we read: "And their
+houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there,
+and satyrs shall dance there"; and in Baddeley's _Historical
+Meditations_, published about the beginning of the seventeenth century,
+there is a description by Plutarch, of a satyr captured by Sulla, when
+the latter was on his way from Dyrrachium to Brundisium. The creature,
+which appears to have been very material, was found asleep in a park
+near Apollonia. On being led into the presence of Sulla, it commenced
+speaking in a harsh voice that was an odd mixture of the neighing of a
+horse and the crying of a goat. As neither Sulla nor any of his
+followers could understand in the slightest degree what the monstrosity
+meant, they let it go, nor is there any further reference to it.
+
+Now, granted that this account is not "faked," and that such a beast
+actually did exist, it would naturally suggest to one that vagrarians,
+pixies, and other grotesque forms of phantasms are, after all, only the
+spirits of similar types of material life, and that, in all
+probability, the earth, contemporary with prehistoric, and even
+later-day man, fairly swarmed with such creatures. However, this, like
+everything else connected with these early times, is merely a matter of
+speculation. Another explanatory theory is, that possibly superphysical
+phenomena were much more common formerly than now, and that the various
+types of sub-human and sub-animal apparitions (which were then
+constantly seen by the many, but which are now only visible to the few)
+have been handed down to us in the likeness of satyrs and fauns. Anyhow,
+I think they may be rightly classified in the category of vagrarians.
+The association of spirits with trees is pretty nearly universal. In the
+fairy tales of youth we have frequent allusions to them. In the
+Caucasus, where the population is not of Slavonic origin, we have
+innumerable stories of sacred trees, and in each of these stones the
+main idea is the same--namely, that a human life is dependent on the
+existence of a tree. In Slavonic mythology, plants as well as trees are
+magnets for spirits, and in the sweet-scented pinewoods, in the dark,
+lonely pinewoods, dwell "psipolnitza," or female goblins, who plague the
+harvesters; and "lieshi," or forest male demons, closely allied to
+satyrs. In Iceland there was a pretty superstition to the effect that,
+when an innocent person was put to death, a sorb or mountain ash would
+spring over their grave. In Teutonic mythology the sorb is supposed to
+take the form of a lily or white rose, and, on the chairs of those about
+to die, one or other of these flowers is placed by unseen hands. White
+lilies, too, are emblematic of innocence, and have a knack of
+mysteriously shooting up on the graves of those who have been unjustly
+executed. Surely this would be the work of a spirit, as, also, would be
+the action of the Eglantine, which is so charmingly illustrated in the
+touching story of Tristram and Yseult. Tradition says that from the
+grave of Tristram there sprang an eglantine which twined about the
+statue of the lovely Yseult, and, despite the fact of its being thrice
+cut down, grew again, ever embracing the same fair image. Among the
+North American Indians there was, and maybe still is, a general belief
+that the spirits of those who died, naturally reverted to trees--to the
+great pines of the mountain forests--where they dwelt for ever amid the
+branches. The Indians believed also that the spirits of certain trees
+walked at night in the guise of beautiful women. Lucky Indians! Would
+that my experience of the forest phantasms had been half so entrancing.
+The modern Greeks, Australian bushmen, and natives of the East Indies,
+like myself, only see the ugly side of the superphysical, for the
+spirits that haunt their vegetation are irredeemably ugly, horribly
+terrifying, and fiendishly vindictive.
+
+The idea that the dead often passed into trees is well illustrated in
+the classics. For example, Æneas, in his wanderings, strikes a tree, and
+is half-frightened out of his wits by a great spurt of blood. A hollow
+voice, typical of phantasms and apparently proceeding from somewhere
+within the trunk, then begs him to desist, going on to explain that the
+tree is not an ordinary tree but the metamorphosed soul of an unlucky
+wight called Polydorus, (he must have been unlucky, if only to have had
+such a name). Needless to say, Æneas, who was strictly a gentleman in
+spite of his aristocratic pretensions, at once dropped his axe and
+showed his sympathy for the poor tree-bound spirit in an abundant flow
+of tears, which must have satisfied, even, Polydorus. There is a very
+similar story in Swedish folk-lore. A voice in a tree addressed a man,
+who was about to cut it down, with these words, "Friend, hew me not!"
+But the man on this occasion was not a gentleman, and, instead of
+complying with the modest request, only plied his axe the more heartily.
+To his horror--a just punishment for his barbarity--there was a most
+frightful groan of agony, and out from the hole he had made in the
+trunk, rushed a fountain of blood, real human blood. What happened then
+I cannot say, but I imagine that the woodcutter, stricken with remorse,
+whipped up his bandana from the ground, and did all that lay in his
+power--though he had not had the advantages of lessons in first aid--to
+stop the bleeding. One cannot help being amused at these marvellous
+stories, but, after all, they are not very much more wonderful than many
+of one's own ghostly experiences. At any rate, they serve to illustrate
+how widespread and venerable is the belief that trees--trees, perhaps,
+in particular--are closely associated with the occult.
+
+Pixies! What are pixies? That they are not the dear, delightful, quaint
+little people Shakespeare so inimitably portrays in the _Midsummer
+Night's Dream_, is, I fear, only too readily acknowledged. I am told
+that they may be seen even now, and I know those who say that they have
+seen them, but that they are the mere shadows of those dainty creatures
+that used to gambol in the moonshine and help the poor and weary in
+their household work. The present-day pixies, whom I am loath to imagine
+are the descendants of the old-world pixies--though, of course, on the
+other hand, they may be merely degenerates, a much more pleasant
+alternative--are I think still to be occasionally encountered in lonely,
+isolated districts; such, for instance, as the mountains in the West of
+Ireland, the Hebrides, and other more or less desolate islands, and on
+one or two of the Cornish hills and moors.
+
+Like most phantasms, the modern pixies are silent and elusive. They
+appear and disappear with equal abruptness, contenting themselves with
+merely gliding along noiselessly from rock to rock, or from bush to
+bush. Dainty they are not, pretty they are not, and in stature only do
+they resemble the pixie of fairy tales; otherwise they are true
+vagrarians, grotesque and often harrowing.
+
+In my _Ghostly Phenomena_ I have given one or two accounts of their
+appearance in the West of England, but the nearest approach to pixies
+that I have myself seen, were phantasms that appeared to me, in 1903, on
+the Wicklow Hills, near Bray. I was out for a walk on the afternoon of
+Thursday, May 18; the weather was oppressive, and the grey, lowering sky
+threatened rain, a fact which accounted for the paucity of pedestrians.
+Leaving my temporary headquarters, at Bray, at half-past one, I arrived
+at a pretty village close to the foot of the hills and immediately began
+the ascent. Selecting a deviating path that wound its way up gradually,
+I, at length, reached the summit of the ridge.
+
+On and on I strolled, careless of time and distance, until a sudden
+dryness in my throat reminded me it must be about the hour at which I
+generally took tea. I turned round and began to retrace my steps
+homeward. The place was absolutely deserted; not a sign of a human being
+or animal anywhere, and the deepest silence. I had come to the brink of
+a slight elevation when, to my astonishment, I saw in the tiny plateau
+beneath, three extraordinary shapes. Standing not more than two feet
+from the ground, they had the most perfectly proportioned bodies of
+human beings, but monstrous heads; their faces had a leadish blue hue,
+like that of corpses; their eyes were wide open and glassy. They glided
+along slowly and solemnly in Indian file, their grey, straggling hair
+and loose white clothes rustling in the breeze; and on arriving at a
+slight depression in the ground, they sank and sank, until they entirely
+disappeared from view. I then descended from my perch, and made a
+thorough examination of the spot where they had vanished. It was firm,
+hard, caked soil, without hole or cover, or anything in which they could
+possibly have hidden. I was somewhat shocked, as indeed I always am
+after an encounter with the superphysical, but not so much shocked as I
+should have been had the phantasms been bigger. I visited the same spot
+subsequently, but did not see another manifestation.
+
+To revert to trees--fascinating, haunting trees. Much credulity was at
+one time attached to the tradition that the tree on which Jesus Christ
+was crucified was an aspen, and that, thenceforth, all aspens were
+afflicted with a peculiar shivering. Botanists, scientists, and
+matter-of-fact people of all sorts pooh-pooh this legend, as, indeed,
+many people nowadays pooh-pooh the very existence of Christ. But
+something--you may call it intuition--I prefer to call it my Guardian
+Spirit--bids me believe both; and I do believe as much in the tradition
+of the aspen as in the existence of Christ. Moreover, this intuition or
+influence--the work of my Guardian Spirit--whether dealing with things
+psychical, psychological, or physical has never yet failed me. If it
+warns me of the presence of a phantasm, I subsequently experience some
+kind or other of spiritual phenomenon; if it bids me beware of a person,
+I am invariably brought to discover later on that that person's
+intentions have been antagonistic to me; and if it causes me to deter
+from travelling by a certain route, or on a certain day, I always
+discover afterwards that it was a very fortunate thing for me that I
+abided by its warning. That is why I attach great importance to the
+voice of my Guardian Spirit; and that is why, when it tells me that,
+despite the many obvious discrepancies and absurdities in the
+Scriptures, despite the character of the Old Testament God--who repels
+rather than attracts me--despite all this, there was a Jesus Christ who
+actually was a great and benevolent Spirit, temporarily incarnate, and
+who really did suffer on the Cross in the manner described in
+subsequent MSS.,--I believe it all implicitly. I back the still, small
+voice of my Guardian Spirit against all the arguments scepticism can
+produce.
+
+Very good, then. I believe in the existence and spirituality of Jesus
+Christ because of the biddings of my Guardian Spirit, and, for the very
+same reason, I attach credence to the tradition of the quivering of the
+aspen. The sceptic accounts for the shaking of this tree by showing that
+it is due to a peculiar formation in the structure of the aspen's
+foliage. This may be so, but that peculiarity of structure was created
+immediately after Christ's crucifixion, and was created as a memento,
+for all time, of one of the most unpardonable murders on record.
+
+There is something especially weird, too, in the ash; something that
+suggests to my mind that it is particularly susceptible to superphysical
+influences. I have often sat and listened to its groaning, and more than
+once, at twilight, perceived the filmy outline of some fantastic figure
+writhed around its slender trunk.
+
+John Timbs, F.S.A., in his book of _Popular Errors_, published by
+Crosby, Lockwood & Co. in 1880, quotes from a letter, dated 7th July
+1606, thus: "It is stated that at Brampton, near Gainsborough, in
+Lincolnshire, 'an ash tree shaketh in body and boughs thereof, sighing
+and groaning like a man troubled in his sleep, as if it felt some
+sensible torment. Many have climbed to the top of it, who heard the
+groans more easily than they could below. But one among the rest, being
+on the top thereof, spake to the tree; but presently came down much
+aghast, and lay grovelling on the earth, three hours speechless. In the
+end reviving, he said: "Brampton, Brampton, thou art much bound to
+pray!"' The Earl of Lincoln caused one of the arms of the ash to be
+lopped off and a hole bored through the body, and then was the sound, or
+hollow voice, heard more audibly than before, but in a kind of speech
+which they could not comprehend. This is the second wonderful ash
+produced by past ages in this district--according to tradition,
+Ethelreda's budding staff having shot out into the first." So says the
+letter, and from my own experience of the ash, I am quite ready to
+accredit it with special psychic properties, though I cannot state I
+have ever heard it speak.
+
+I believe it attracts phantasms in just the same way as do certain
+people, myself included, and certain kinds of furniture. Its groanings
+at night have constantly attracted, startled, and terrified me; they
+have been quite different to the sounds I have heard it make in the
+daytime; and often I could have sworn that, when I listened to its
+groanings, I was listening to the groanings of some dying person, and,
+what is more harrowing still, to some person I knew.
+
+I have heard it said, too, that the most ghastly screams and gurgles
+have been heard proceeding from the ash trees planted in or near the
+site of murders or suicides, and as I sit here writing, a scene opens
+before me, and I can see a plain with one solitary tree--an
+ash--standing by a pool of water, on the margin of which are three
+clusters of reeds. Dark clouds scud across the sky, and the moon only
+shows itself at intervals. It is an intensely wild and lonely spot, and
+the cold, dank air blowing across the barren wastes renders it all the
+more inhospitable. No one, no living thing, no object is visible save
+the ash. Suddenly it moves its livid trunk, sways violently,
+unnaturally, backwards and forwards--once, twice, thrice; and there
+comes from it a cry, a most piercing, agonising cry, half human, half
+animal, that dies away in a wail and imparts to the atmosphere a
+sensation of ice. I can hear the cry as I sit here writing; my memory
+rehearses it; it was one of the most frightful, blood-curdling, hellish
+sounds I ever endured; and the scene was on the Wicklow hills in
+Ireland.
+
+The narcotic plant, the mandrake, is also credited with groaning, though
+I cannot say I have ever heard it. Though there is nothing particularly
+psychic about the witch-hazel, in the hands of certain people who are
+mediumistic, it will indicate the exact spot where water lies under the
+ground. The people who possess this faculty of discovering the locality
+of water by means of the hazel, are named dowsers, and my only wonder is
+that their undeniably useful faculty is not more cultivated and
+developed.
+
+To my mind, there is no limit to the possibilities suggested by this
+faculty; for surely, if one species of tree possesses attraction for a
+certain object in nature, there can be no reason why other species of
+trees should not possess a similar attraction for other objects in
+nature. And if they possess this attraction for the physical, why not
+for the superphysical--why, indeed, should not "ghosts" come within the
+radius of their magnetism?
+
+The palm and sycamore trees have invariably been associated with the
+spiritual, and made use of symbolically, as the tree of life. An
+illustration, on a stele in the Berlin Museum, depicts a palm tree from
+the stem of which proceeds two arms, one administering to a figure,
+kneeling below, the fruit or bread of life; the other, pouring from a
+vase the water of life.
+
+On another, a later Egyptian stele, the tree of life is the sycamore.
+There is no doubt that the Egyptians and Assyrians regarded these two
+trees as susceptible only to good psychic influences, they figure so
+frequently in illustrations of the benevolent deities. Nor were the Jews
+and Christians behind in their recognition of the extraordinary
+properties of these two trees, especially the palm. We find it
+symbolically introduced in the decoration of Solomon's Temple--on the
+walls, furniture, and vessels; whilst in Christian mosaics it figures as
+the tree of life in Paradise (_vide_ Rev. xxii. 1, 2, and in the apsis
+of S. Giovanni Laterans). It is even regarded as synonymous with Jesus
+Christ, as may be seen in the illuminated frontispiece to an
+_Evangelium_ in the library of the British Museum, where the symbols of
+the four Evangelists, placed over corresponding columns of lessons from
+their gospels, are portrayed looking up to a palm tree, rising from the
+earth, on the summit of which is a cross, with the symbolical letters
+alpha and omega suspended from its arms.
+
+I am, of course, only speaking from my own experience, but this much I
+can vouch for, that I have never heard of a palm tree being haunted by
+an evil spirit, whereas I have heard of several cases in which palm
+leaves or crosses cut from palms have been used, and apparently with
+effect, as preventives of injuries caused by malevolent occult
+demonstrations; and were I forced to spend a night in some lonely
+forest, I think I should prefer, viewing the situation entirely from the
+standpoint of psychical possibilities, that that forest should be
+composed partly or wholly of palms.
+
+Before concluding this chapter, I must make a brief allusion to another
+type of spirit--the BARROWVIAN--that resembles the vagrarian and pixie,
+inasmuch as it delights in lonely places. Whenever I see a barrow,
+tumulus or druidical, circle, I scent the probability of
+phantasms--phantasms of a peculiar sort. Most ancient burial-places are
+haunted, and haunted by two species of the same genus: the one, the
+spirits of whatever prehistoric forms of animal life lie buried there;
+and the other, grotesque phantasms, often very similar to vagrarians in
+appearance, but with distinct ghoulish propensities and an inveterate
+hatred to living human beings. In my _Ghostly Phenomena_ I have referred
+to the haunting of a druidical circle in the North of England, and also
+to the haunting of a house I once rented in Cornwall, near Castle on
+Dinas, by barrowvians; I have heard, too, of many cases of a like
+nature. I have, of course, often watched all night, near barrows or
+cromlechs, without any manifestations taking place; sometimes, even,
+without feeling the presence of the Unknown, though these occasions have
+been rare. At about two o'clock one morning, when I was keeping my vigil
+beside a barrow in the South of England, I saw a phenomenon in the shape
+of a hand--only a hand, a big, misty, luminous blue hand, with long
+crooked fingers. I could, of course, only speculate as to the owner of
+the hand, and I must confess that I postponed that speculation till I
+was safe and sound, and bathed in sunshine, within the doors of my own
+domicile.
+
+Hauntings of this type generally occur where excavations have been made,
+a barrow broken into, or a dolmen removed; the manifestations generally
+taking the form of phantasms of the dead, the prehistoric dead. But
+phenomena that are seen there are, more often than not, things that bear
+little or no resemblance to human beings; abnormally tall, thin things
+with small, bizarre heads, round, rectangular, or cone-shaped, sometimes
+semi- or wholly animal, and always expressive of the utmost malignity.
+Occasionally, in fact I might say often, the phenomena are entirely
+bestial--such, for example, as huge, blue, or spotted dogs, shaggy
+bears, and monstrous horses. Houses, built on or near the site of such
+burial-places, are not infrequently disturbed by strange noises, and the
+manifestations, when materialised, usually take one or other of these
+forms. In cases of this kind I have found that exorcism has little or no
+effect; or, if any, it is that the phenomena become even more emphatic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPLEX HAUNTINGS AND OCCULT BESTIALITIES
+
+
+What are occult bestialities? Are they the spirits of human beings who,
+when inhabiting material bodies, led thoroughly criminal lives; are they
+the phantasms of dead beasts--cats and dogs, etc.; or are they things
+that were never carnate? I think they may be either one or the
+other--that any one of these alternatives is admissible. There is a
+house, for example, in a London square, haunted by the apparition of a
+nude woman with long, yellow, curly hair and a pig's face. There is no
+mistaking the resemblance--eyes, snout, mouth, jaw, jowls, all are
+piggish, and the appearance of the thing is hideously suggestive of all
+that is bestial. What, then, is it? From the fact that in all
+probability a very sensuous, animal-minded woman once lived in the
+house, I am led to suppose that this may be her phantasm--or--one only
+of her many phantasms. And in this latter supposition lies much food for
+reflection. The physical brain, as we know, consists of multitudinous
+cells which we may reasonably take to be the homes of our respective
+faculties. Now, as each material cell has its representative immaterial
+inhabitant, so each immaterial inhabitant has its representative
+phantasm. Thus each representative phantasm, on the dissolution of the
+material brain, would be either earth-bound or promoted to the higher
+spiritual plane. Hence, one human being may be represented by a score of
+phantasms, and it is quite possible for a house to be haunted by many
+totally different phenomena of the same person. I know, for instance, of
+a house being subjected to the hauntings of a dog, a sensual-looking
+priest, the bloated shape of an indescribable something, and a
+ferocious-visaged sailor. It had had, prior to my investigation, only
+one tenant, a notorious rake and glutton; no priest or sailor had ever
+been known to enter the house; and so I concluded the many apparitions
+were but phantasms of the same person--phantasms of his several,
+separate, and distinct personalities. He had brutal tendencies,
+sacerdotal (not spiritual) tendencies, gluttonous, and nautical
+tendencies, and his whole character being dominated by carnal cravings,
+on the dissolution of his material body each separate tendency would
+remain earth-bound, represented by the phantasm most closely resembling
+it. I believe this theory may explain many dual hauntings, and it holds
+good with regard to the case I have quoted, the case of the apparition
+with the pig's head. The ghost need not necessarily have been the spirit
+of a dead woman _in toto_, but merely the phantasm of one of her grosser
+personalities; her more spiritual personalities, represented by other
+phantasms, having migrated to the higher plane. Let me take, as another
+example, the case which I personally investigated, and which interested
+me deeply. The house was then haunted (and, as far as I know to the
+contrary, is still haunted) by a blurred figure, suggestive of something
+hardly human and extremely nasty, that bounded up the stairs two steps
+at a time; by a big, malignant eye--only an eye--that appeared in one of
+the top rooms; and by a phantasm resembling a lady in distinctly modern
+costume. The house is old, and as, according to tradition, some crime
+was committed within its walls many years ago, the case may really be an
+instance of separate hauntings--the bounding figure and the eye (the
+latter either belonging to the figure or to another phantasm) being the
+phantasms of the principal, or principals, in the ancient tragedy; the
+lady, either the phantasm of someone who died there comparatively
+recently, or of someone still alive, who consciously, or unconsciously,
+projects her superphysical ego to that spot. On the other hand, the
+three different phenomena might be three different phantasms of one
+person, that person being either alive or dead--for one can
+unquestionably, at times, project phantasms of one's various
+personalities before physical dissolution. The question of occult
+phenomena, one may thus see, is far more complex than it would appear to
+be at first sight, and naturally so,--the whole of nature being complex
+from start to finish. Just as minerals are not composed of one atom but
+of countless atoms, so the human brain is not constituted of one cell
+but of many; and as with the material cerebrum, so with the
+immaterial--hence the complexity. With regard to the phenomena of
+superphysical bestialities such as dogs, bears, etc., it is almost
+impossible to say whether the phantasm would be that of a dead person,
+or rather that representing one of some dead person's several
+personalities--the phantasm of a genuine animal, of a vagrarian, or of
+some other type of elemental.
+
+One can only surmise the identity of such phantasms, after becoming
+acquainted with the history of the locality in which such manifestations
+appear. The case to which I referred in my previous works, _Some Haunted
+Houses of England and Wales_, and _Ghostly Phenomena_, namely, that of
+the apparition of a nude man being seen outside an unused burial-ground
+in Guilsborough, Northamptonshire, furnishes a good example of
+alternatives. Near to the spot, at least within two or three hundred
+yards of it, was a barrow, close to which a sacrificial stone had been
+unearthed; consequently the phantasm may have been a barrowvian; and
+again, as the locality is much wooded and but thinly populated, it may
+have been a vagrarian; and again, the burial-ground being in such close
+proximity, the apparition may well have been the phantasm of one of the
+various personalities of a human being interred there.
+
+One night, as I was sitting reading alone in an isolated cottage on the
+Wicklow hills, I was half-startled out of my senses by hearing a loud,
+menacing cry, half-human and half-animal, and apparently in mid-air,
+directly over my head. I looked up, and to my horror saw suspended, a
+few feet above me, the face of a Dalmatian dog--of a long since dead
+Dalmatian dog, with glassy, expressionless eyes, and yellow, gaping
+jaws. The phenomenon did not last more than half a minute, and with its
+abrupt disappearance came a repetition of the cry. What was it? I
+questioned the owner of the cottage, and she informed me she had always
+had the sensation something uncanny walked the place at night, but had
+never seen anything. "One of my children did, though," she added;
+"Mike--he was drowned at sea twelve months ago. Before he became a
+sailor he lived with me here, and often used to see a dog--a big,
+spotted cratur, like what we called a plum-pudding dog. It was a nasty,
+unwholesome-looking thing, he used to tell me, and would run round and
+round his room--the room where you sleep--at night. Though a bold enough
+lad as a rule, the thing always scared him; and he used to come and tell
+me about it, with a face as white as linen--'Mother!' he would say, 'I
+saw the spotted cratur again in the night, and I couldn't get as much as
+a wink of sleep.' He would sometimes throw a boot at it, and always with
+the same result--the boot would go right through it." She then told me
+that a former tenant of the house, who had borne an evil reputation in
+the village--the peasants unanimously declaring she was a witch--had
+died, so it was said, in my room. "But, of course," she added, "it
+wasn't her ghost that Mike saw." Here I disagreed with her. However, if
+she could not come to any conclusion, neither could I; for though, of
+course, the dog may have been the earth-bound spirit of some
+particularly carnal-minded occupant of the cottage--or, in other words,
+a phantasm representing one of that carnal-minded person's several
+personalities,--it may have been the phantasm of a vagrarian, of a
+barrowvian, or, of some other kind of elemental, attracted to the spot
+by its extreme loneliness, and the presence there, unsuspected by man,
+of some ancient remains, either human or animal. Occult dogs are very
+often of a luminous, semi-transparent bluish-grey--a bluish-grey that is
+common to many other kinds of superphysical phenomena, but which I have
+never seen in the physical world.
+
+I have heard of several houses in Westmoreland and Devon, always in the
+vicinity of ancient burial-places, being haunted by blue dogs, and
+sometimes by blue dogs without heads. Indeed, headless apparitions of
+all sorts are by no means uncommon. A lady, who is well known to me, had
+a very unpleasant experience in a house in Norfolk, where she was
+awakened one night by a scratching on her window-pane, which was some
+distance from the ground, and, on getting out of bed to see what was
+there, perceived the huge form of a shaggy dog, without a head, pressed
+against the glass.
+
+Fortunately for my informant, the manifestation was brief. The height of
+the window from the ground quite precluded the possibility of the
+apparition being any natural dog, and my friend was subsequently
+informed that what she had seen was one of the many headless phantasms
+that haunted the house. Of course, it does not follow that because one
+does not actually see a head, a head is not objectively there--it may be
+very much there, only not materialised. A story of one of these
+seemingly headless apparitions was once told me by a Mrs Forbes du Barry
+whom I met at Lady D.'s house in Eaton Square. I remember the at-home to
+which I refer, particularly well, as the entertainment on that occasion
+was entirely entrusted to Miss Lilian North, who as a reciter and
+raconteur is, in my opinion, as far superior to any other reciter and
+raconteur as the stars are superior to the earth. Those who have not
+heard her stories, have not listened to her eloquent voice--that appeals
+not merely to the heart, but to the soul--are to be pitied. But there--I
+am digressing. Let me proceed. It was, I repeat, on the soul-inspiring
+occasion above mentioned that I was introduced to Mrs Forbes du Barry,
+who must be held responsible for the following story.
+
+"I was reading one of your books the other day, Mr O'Donnell," she
+began, "and some of your experiences remind me of one of my own--one
+that occurred to me many years ago, when I was living in Worthing, in
+the old part of the town, not far from where the Public Library now
+stands. Directly after we had taken the house, my husband was ordered to
+India. However, he did not expect to be away for long, so, as I was not
+in very good health just then, I did not go with him, but remained with
+my little boy, Philip, in Worthing. Besides Philip and myself, my
+household only consisted of a nursery-governess, cook, housemaid, and
+kitchen-maid. The hauntings began before we had been in our new quarters
+many days. We all heard strange noises, scratchings, and whinings, and
+the servants complained that often, when they were at meals, something
+they could not see, but which they could swear was a dog, came sniffing
+round them, jumping up and placing its invisible paws on their lap.
+Often, too, when they were in bed the same thing entered their room,
+they said, and jumped on the top of them. They were all very much
+frightened, and declared that if the hauntings continued they would not
+be able to stay in the house. Of course, I endeavoured to laugh away
+their fears, but the latter were far too deeply rooted, and I myself,
+apart from the noises I had heard, could not help feeling that there was
+some strangely unpleasant influence in the house. The climax was brought
+about by Philip. One afternoon, hearing him cry very loudly in the
+nursery, I ran upstairs to see what was the matter. On the landing
+outside the nursery I narrowly avoided a collision with the governess,
+who came tearing out of the room, her eyes half out of her head with
+terror, and her cheeks white as a sheet. She said nothing--and indeed
+her silence was far more impressive than words--but, rushing past me,
+flung herself downstairs, half a dozen steps at a time, and ran into the
+garden. In an agony of fear--for I dreaded to think what had happened--I
+burst into the nursery, and found Philip standing on the bed,
+frantically beating the air with his hands. 'Take it away--oh, take it
+away!' he cried; 'it is a horrid dog; it has no head!' Then, seeing me,
+he sprang down and, racing up to me, leaped into my open arms. As he did
+so, something darted past and disappeared through the open doorway. It
+was a huge greyhound without a head! I left the house the next day--I
+was fortunately able to sublet it--and went to Bournemouth. But, do you
+know, Mr O'Donnell, that dog followed us! Wherever we went it went too,
+nor did it ever leave Philip till his death, which took place in Egypt
+on his twenty-first birthday. Now, what do you think of that?"
+
+"I think," I replied, "that the phantasm was very probably that of a
+real dog, and that it became genuinely attached to your son. I do not
+think it was headless, but that, for some reason unknown for the
+present, its head never materialised. What was the history of the
+house?"
+
+"It had no history as far as I could gather," Mrs Forbes du Barry said.
+"A lady once lived there who was devoted to dogs, but no one thinks she
+ever had a greyhound."
+
+"Then," I replied thoughtfully, "it is just possible that the headless
+dog was the phantasm of the lady herself, or, at least, of one of her
+personalities!"
+
+Mrs du Barry appeared somewhat shocked, and I adroitly changed the
+conversation. However, I should not be at all surprised if this were the
+case.
+
+The improbability of any ancient remains being interred under or near
+the house, precludes the idea of barrowvians, whilst the thickly
+populated nature of the neighbourhood and the entire absence of
+loneliness, renders the possibility of vagrarians equally unlikely. That
+being so, one only has to consider the possibility of its being a vice
+elemental attracted to the house by the vicious lives and thoughts of
+some former occupant, and I am, after all, inclined to favour the theory
+that the phantasm was the phantasm of the old dog-loving lady herself,
+attaching itself in true canine fashion to the child Philip.
+
+The most popular animal form amongst spirits--the form assumed by them
+more often than any other--is undoubtedly the dog. I hear of the occult
+dog more often than of any other occult beast, and in many places there
+is yet a firm belief that the souls of the wicked are chained to this
+earth in the shape of monstrous dogs. According to Mr Dyer, in his
+_Ghost World_, a man who hanged himself at Broomfield, near Salisbury,
+manifested himself in the guise of a huge black dog; whilst the Lady
+Howard of James I.'s reign, for her many misdeeds, not the least of
+which was getting rid of her husbands, was, on her death, transformed
+into a hound and compelled to run every night, between midnight and
+cock-crow, from the gateway of Fitzford, her former residence, to
+Oakhampton Park, and bring back to the place, from whence she started, a
+blade of grass in her mouth; and this penance she is doomed to continue
+till every blade of grass is removed from the park, which feat she will
+not be able to effect till the end of the world. Mr Dyer also goes on to
+say that in the hamlet of Dean Combe, Devon, there once lived a weaver
+of great fame and skill, who the day after his death was seen sitting
+working away at the loom as usual. A parson was promptly fetched, and
+the following conversation took place.
+
+"Knowles!" the parson commanded (not without, I shrewdly suspect, some
+fear), "come down! This is no place for thee!" "I will!" said the
+weaver, "as soon as I have worked out my quill." "Nay," said the vicar,
+"thou hast been long enough at thy work; come down at once." The spirit
+then descended, and, on being pelted with earth and thrown on the ground
+by the parson, was converted into a black hound, which apparently was
+its ultimate shape.
+
+Some years ago, Mr Dyer says, there was an accident in a Cornish mine
+whereby several men lost their lives, and, rather than that their
+relatives should be shocked at the sight of their mangled remains, some
+bystander, with all the best intentions in the world, threw the bodies
+into a fire, with the result that the mine has ever since been haunted
+by a troop of little black dogs.
+
+According to the _Book of Days_, ii. p. 433, there is a widespread
+belief in most parts of England in a spectral dog, "large, shaggy, and
+black," but not confined to any one particular species. This phantasm is
+believed to haunt localities that have witnessed crimes, and also to
+foretell catastrophes. The Lancashire people, according to Harland and
+Wilkinson in their _Lancashire Folk-lore_, call it the "stuker" and
+"trash": the latter name being given it on account of its heavy,
+slopping walk; and the former appellation from its curious screech,
+which is a sure indication of some approaching death or calamity. To the
+peasantry of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire it is known as "the shuck," an
+apparition that haunts churchyards and other lonely places. In the Isle
+of Man a similar kind of phantasm, called "the Mauthe dog," was said to
+walk Peel Castle; whilst many of the Welsh lanes--particularly that
+leading from Mowsiad to Lisworney Crossways--are, according to Wirt
+Sikes' _British Goblins_, haunted by the gwyllgi, a big black dog of the
+most terrifying aspect.
+
+Cases of hauntings by packs of spectral hounds have from time to time
+been reported from all parts of the United Kingdom; but mostly from
+Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, Wales, Devon, and
+Cornwall. In the northern districts they are designated "Gabriel's
+hounds"; in Devon, "the Wisk, Yesk, or Heath hounds"; in Wales, "the Cwn
+Annwn or Cwn y Wybr" (see Dyer's _Ghost World_); and in Cornwall, "the
+devil and his dandy dogs." My own experiences fully coincide with the
+traditional belief that the dog is a very common form of spirit
+phenomena; but I can only repeat (the same remark applying to other
+animal manifestations), that it is impossible to decide with any degree
+of certainty to what category of phantasms, in addition to the general
+order of occult bestialities, the dog belongs. It seems quite
+permissible to think that the spirits of ladies, with an absorbing mania
+for canine pets, should be eventually earth-bound in the form of dogs--a
+fate which many of the fair sex have assured me would be "absolutely
+divine," and far preferable to the orthodox heaven.
+
+I cannot see why the shape of a dog should be appropriated by the less
+desirable denizens of the occult world. But, that it is so, there is no
+room to doubt, as the following illustration shows. As soon as the trial
+of the infamous slaughterer X---- was over, and the verdict of death
+generally known, a deep sigh of relief was heaved by the whole of
+civilisation--saving, of course, those pseudo-humanitarians who always
+pity murderers and women-beaters, and who, if the law was at all
+sensible and just, should be hanged with their bestial _protégés_. From
+all classes of men, I repeat, with the exception of those pernicious
+cranks, were heard the ejaculations: "Well! he's settled. What a good
+thing! I am glad! The world will be well rid of him!"
+
+Then I smiled. The world well rid of him! Would it be rid of him? Not if
+I knew anything about occult phenomena. Indeed, the career on earth for
+such an epicure in murder as X---- had only just begun; in fact, it
+could hardly be said to begin till physical dissolution. The last
+drop--that six feet or so plunge between grim scaffolding--might in the
+case of some criminals, mere tyros at the trade, terminate for good
+their connection with this material plane; but not, decidedly not, in
+the case of this bosom comrade of vice elementals.
+
+From both a psychological and superphysical point of view the case had
+interested me from the first. I had been anxious to see the man, for I
+felt sure, even if he did not display any of the ordinary physiognomical
+danger signals observable in many bestial criminals, there would
+nevertheless be a something about or around him, that would immediately
+warn as keen a student of the occult as myself of his close association
+with the lowest order of phantasms. I was not, however, permitted an
+interview, and so had to base my deductions upon the descriptions of him
+given me, first hand, by two experts in psychology, and upon
+photographs. In the latter I recognised--though not with the readiness
+I should have done in the photo's living prototype--the presence of the
+unknown brain, the grey, silent, stealthy, ever-watchful, ever-lurking
+occult brain. As I gazed at his picture, as in a crystal, it faded away,
+and I saw the material man sitting alone in his study before a glowing
+fire. From out of him there crept a shadow, the shadow of something big,
+bloated, and crawling. I could distinguish nothing further. On reaching
+the door it paused, and I felt it was eyeing him--or rather his material
+body--anxiously. Perhaps it feared lest some other shadow, equally
+baleful, equally sly and subtle, would usurp its home. Its hesitation
+was, however, but momentary, and, passing through the door, it glided
+across the dimly lighted hall and out into the freedom of the open air.
+Picture succeeding picture with great rapidity, I followed it as it
+curled and fawned over the tombstones in more than one churchyard; moved
+with a peculiar waddling motion through foul alleys, halting wherever
+the garbage lay thickest, rubbed itself caressingly on the gory floors
+of slaughter-houses, and finally entered a dark, empty house in a road
+that, if not the Euston Road, was a road in every way resembling it.
+
+The atmosphere of the place was so suggestive of murder that my soul
+sickened within me; and so much so, in fact, that when I saw several
+grisly forms gliding down the gloomy staircases and along the sombre,
+narrow passages, where X----'s immaterial personality was halting,
+apparently to greet it, I could look no longer, but shut my eyes. For
+some seconds I kept them closed, and, on re-opening them, found the
+tableau had changed--the material body before the fire was re-animated,
+and in the depths of the bleared, protruding eyes I saw the creeping,
+crawling, waddling, enigmatical shadow vibrating with murder. Again the
+scene changed, and I saw the physical man standing in the middle of a
+bedroom, listening--listening with blanched face and slightly open
+mouth, a steely glimmer of the superphysical, of the malignant, devilish
+superphysical, in his dilated pupils. What he is anticipating I cannot
+say, I dare not think--unless--unless the repetition of a scream; and it
+comes--I cannot hear it, but I can feel it, feel the reverberation
+through the crime-kissed walls and vicious, tainted atmosphere.
+
+Something is at the door--it presses against it; I can catch a glimpse
+of its head, its face; my blood freezes--it is horrible. It enters the
+room, grey and silent--it lays one hand on the man's sleeve and drags
+him forward. He ascends to the room above, and, with all the brutality
+of those accustomed to the dead and dying, drags the---- But I will not
+go on. The grey unknown, the occult something, sternly issues its
+directions, and the merely physical obeys them. It is all over; the plot
+of the vice elementals has triumphed, and as they gleefully step away,
+one by one, patting their material comrade on the shoulder, the
+darkness, the hellish darkness of that infamous night lightens, and in
+through the windows steal the cold grey beams of early morning. I am
+assured; I have had enough; I pitch the photograph into the grate. The
+evening comes--the evening after the execution. A feeling of the
+greatest, the most unenviable curiosity urges me to go, to see if what I
+surmise, will actually happen. I leave Gipsy Hill by an early afternoon
+train, I spend a few hours at a literary club, I dine at a quiet--an
+eminently quiet--restaurant in Oxford Street, and at eleven o'clock I am
+standing near a spot which I believe--I have no positive proof--I merely
+believe, was frequented by X----. It is more than twelve hours since he
+was executed; will anything--will the shape, the personality, I
+anticipate--come? The night air grows colder; I shrink deeper and deeper
+into the folds of my overcoat, and wish--devoutly wish--myself back
+again by my fireside.
+
+The minutes glide by slowly. The streets are very silent now. With the
+exception of an occasional toot-toot from a taxi and the shrill whistle
+of a goods train, no other sounds are to be heard. It is the hour when
+nearly all material London sleeps and the streets are monopolised by
+shadows, interspersed with something rather more substantial--namely,
+policemen. A few yards away from me there slips by a man in a blue serge
+suit; and then, tip-toeing surreptitiously behind him, with one hand in
+his trousers-pocket and the other carrying a suspicious-looking black
+bag, comes a white-faced young man, dressed in shabby imitation of a
+West End swell; an ill-fitting frock-coat, which, even in the uncertain
+flicker of the gas-lamps, pronounces itself to be ready made, and the
+typical shopwalker's silk hat worn slightly on one side. Whether this
+night bird goes through life on tiptoe, as many people do, or whether
+he only adopts that fashion on this particular occasion, is a conundrum,
+not without interest to students of character to whom a man's walk
+denotes much.
+
+For a long time the street is deserted, and then a bedraggled figure in
+a shawl, with a big paper parcel under her arm, shuffles noiselessly by
+and disappears down an adjacent turning. Then there is another long
+interval, interrupted by a pretentious clock sonorously sounding two. A
+feeling of drowsiness creeps over me; my eyelids droop. I begin to lose
+cognisance of my surroundings and to imagine myself in some far-away
+place, when I am recalled sharply to myself by an intensely cold current
+of air. Intuitively I recognise the superphysical; it is the same
+species of cold which invariably heralds its approach. I have been right
+in my surmises after all; this spot is destined to be haunted. My eyes
+are wide enough open now, and every nerve in my body tingles with the
+keenest expectation. Something is coming, and, if that something is not
+the phantasm of him whom I believe is earthbound, whose phantasm is it?
+There is a slight noise of scratching from somewhere close beside me. It
+might have been the wind rustling the leaves against the masonry, or it
+might have been--I look round and see nothing. The sound is repeated and
+with the same result--NOTHING! A third time I heard it, and then from
+the dark road on one side of me there waddles--I recognise the waddling
+at once--a shadow that, gradually becoming a little more distinct,
+develops into the rather blurry form of a dog--a gaunt, hungry-looking
+mongrel. In a few seconds it stops short and looks at me with big
+swollen eyes that glitter with a something that is not actually bestial
+or savage, something strange yet not altogether strange, something
+enigmatic yet not entirely enigmatic. I am nonplussed; it was, and yet
+it was not, what I expected. With restless, ambling steps it slinks past
+me, disappearing through the closed gate by my side. Then satisfied, yet
+vaguely puzzled, I come away, wondering, wondering--wondering why on
+earth dogs should thus be desecrated.
+
+Contrary to what one would imagine to be the case from the close
+association of cats with witches and magic, phantasms in a feline form
+are comparatively rare, and their appearance is seldom, if ever, as
+repulsive as that of the occult dog. I have seen phantasm cats several
+times, but, though they have been abnormally large and alarming, only
+once--and I am anxious to forget that time--were they anything like as
+offensive as many of the ghostly dogs that have manifested themselves to
+me. In my _Haunted Houses of England and Wales_ I have given an instance
+of dual haunting, in which one of the phenomena was a big black cat with
+a fiendish expression in its eyes, but otherwise normal; and, _à propos_
+of cats, there now comes back to me a story I was once told in the Far
+West--the Golden State of California. I was on my way back to England,
+after a short but somewhat bitter absence, and I was staying for the
+night at a small hotel in San Francisco. The man who related the
+anecdote was an Australian, born and bred, on his way home to his
+native land after many years' sojourn in Texas. I was sitting on the
+sofa in the smoke-room reading, when he threw himself down in a chair
+opposite me and we gradually got into conversation. It was late when we
+began talking, and the other visitors, one by one, yawned, rose, and
+withdrew to their bedrooms, until we found ourselves alone--absolutely
+alone. The night was unusually dark and silent.
+
+Leaning over the little tile-covered table at which we sat, the stranger
+suddenly said: "Do you see anything by me? Look hard." Much surprised at
+his request, for I confess that up to then I had taken him for a very
+ordinary kind of person, I looked, and, to my infinite astonishment and
+awe, saw, floating in mid-air, about two yards from him, and on a level
+with his chair, the shadowy outlines of what looked like an enormous
+cat--a cat with very little hair and unpleasant eyes--decidedly
+unpleasant eyes. My flesh crawled!
+
+"Well?" said the stranger--who, by-the-by, had called himself
+Gallaher,--in very anxious tones, "Well--you don't seem in a hurry, nor
+yet particularly pleased--what is it?"
+
+"A cat!" I gasped. "A cat--and a cat in mid-air!"
+
+The stranger swore. "D---- it!" he cried, dashing his fist on the table
+with such force that the match-box flew a dozen or so feet up the
+room--"Cuss! the infernal thing! I guessed it was near me, I could feel
+its icy breath!" He glanced sharply round as he spoke, and hurled his
+tobacco pouch at the shape. It passed right through it and fell with a
+soft squash on the ground. Gallaher picked it up with an oath. "I will
+tell you the history of that cat," he went on, as he resumed his seat,
+"and a d----d queer history it is."
+
+Pouring himself out a bumper of whisky and refilling his pipe, he
+cleared his throat and began: "As a boy I always hated cats--God knows
+why--but the sight of a cat made me sick. I could not stand their soft,
+sleek fur; nor their silly, senseless faces; nor their smell--the smell
+of their skins, which most people don't seem able to detect. I could,
+however; I could recognise that d----d scent a mile off, and could
+always tell, without seeing it, when there was a cat in the house. If
+any of the boys at school wanted to play me a trick they let loose half
+a dozen mangy tabbies in our yard, or sent me a hideous 'Tom' trussed up
+like a fowl in a hamper, or made cats' noises in the dead of night under
+my window. Everyone in the village, from the baker to the bone-setter,
+knew of my hatred of cats, and, consequently, I had many
+enemies--chiefly amongst the old ladies. I must tell you, however, much
+as I loathed and abominated cats, I never killed one. I threw stones and
+sticks at them; I emptied jugs, and cans, and many pails of water on
+them; I pelted them with turnips; I hurled cushions, bolsters, pillows,
+anything I could first lay my hands on, at them; and"--here he cast a
+furtive look at the shadow--"I have pinched and trodden on their tails;
+but I have never killed one. When I grew up, my attitude towards them
+remained the same, and wherever I went I won the reputation for being
+the inveterate, the most poignantly inveterate, enemy of cats.
+
+"When I was about twenty-five, I settled in a part of Texas where there
+were no cats. It was on a ranch in the upper valley of the Colorado. I
+was cattle ranching, and having had a pretty shrewd knowledge of the
+business before I left home, I soon made headway, and--between
+ourselves, mate, for there are mighty 'tough uns' in these town
+hotels--a good pile of dollars. I never had any of the adventures that
+befall most men out West, never but once, and I am coming to that right
+away.
+
+"I had been selling some hundred head of cattle and about the same
+number of hogs, at a town some twenty or so miles from my ranch, and
+feeling I would like a bit of excitement, after so many months of
+monotony--the monotony of the desert life--I turned into the theatre--a
+wooden shanty--where a company of touring players, mostly Yankees, were
+performing. Sitting next to me was a fellow who speedily got into
+conversation with me and assured me he was an Australian. I did not
+believe him, for he had not the cut of an Australian,--until he
+mentioned one or two of the streets I knew in Adelaide, and that settled
+me. We drank to each other's health straight away, and he invited me to
+supper at his hotel. I accepted; and as soon as the performance was
+over, and we had exchanged greetings with some half-dozen of the
+performers, in whisky, he slipped his arm through mine and we strolled
+off together. Of course it was very foolish of me, seeing that I had a
+belt full of money; but then I had not had an outing for a long time,
+and I thirsted for adventure as I thirsted for whisky, and God alone
+knows how much of THAT I had already drunk. We arrived at the hotel. It
+was a poor-looking place in a sinister neighbourhood, abounding with
+evil-eyed Dagos and cut-throats of all kinds. Still I was young and
+strong, and well armed, for I never left home in those days without a
+six-shooter. My companion escorted me into a low room in the rear of the
+premises, smelling villainously of foul tobacco and equally foul
+alcohol. Some half-cooked slices of bacon and suspicious-looking fried
+eggs were placed before us, which, with huge hunks of bread and a bottle
+of very much belabelled--too much belabelled--Highland whisky, completed
+the repast. But it was too unsavoury even for my companion, whose hungry
+eyes and lantern jaws proclaimed he had a ravenous appetite. However, he
+ate the bacon and I the bread; the eggs we emptied into a flower-pot.
+The supper--the supper of which he had led me to think so much--over, we
+filled our glasses, or at least he poured out for both, for his hands
+were steadier--even in my condition of semi-intoxication I noticed they
+were steadier--than mine. Then he brought me a cigar and took me to his
+bedroom, a bare, grimy apartment overhead. There was no furniture,
+saving a bed showing unmistakable signs that someone had been lying on
+it in dirty boots, a small rectangular deal table, and one chair.
+
+"In a stupefied condition I was hesitating which of the alternatives to
+choose--the chair or the table, for, oddly enough, I never thought of
+the bed, when my host settled the question by leading me forcibly
+forward and flinging me down on the mattress. He then took a wooden
+wedge out of his pocket, and, going to the door, thrust it in the crack,
+giving the handle a violent tug to see whether the door stood the test.
+'There now, mate,' he said with a grin--a grin that seemed to suggest
+something my tipsy brain could not grasp, 'I have just shut us in snug
+and secure so that we can chat away without fear of interruption. Let us
+drink to a comfortable night's sleep. You will sleep sound enough here,
+I can tell you!' He handed me a glass as he spoke. 'Drink!' he said with
+a leer. 'You are not half an Australian if you cannot hold that! See!'
+and pouring himself out a tumbler of spirits and water he was about to
+gulp it down, when I uttered an ejaculation of horror. The light from
+the single gas jet over his head, falling on his face as he lifted it up
+to drink the whisky, revealed in his wide open, protruding pupils, the
+reflection of a cat--I can swear it was a cat. Instantly my intoxication
+evaporated and I scented danger. How was it I had not noticed before
+that the man was a typical ruffian--a regular street-corner loiterer,
+waiting, hawklike, to pounce upon and fleece the first well-to-do
+looking stranger he saw. Of course I saw it all now like a flash of
+lightning: he had seen me about the town during the earlier part of the
+day, had found out I was there on business, that I was an Australian,
+and one or two other things--it is surprising how soon one's affairs get
+mooted in a small town,--and guessing I had the receipts of my sales on
+my person, had decided to rob me. Accordingly, with this end in view, he
+had followed me into the theatre, and, securing the seat next me, had
+broken the ice by pretending he was an Australian. He had then plied me
+with drink and brought me, already more than half drunk, to this
+cut-throat den. And I owed the discovery to a cat! My first thought was
+to feel for my revolver. I did, and found it was--gone. My hopes sank to
+zero; for though I might have been more than a match for the wiry framed
+stranger had we both been unarmed, I had not the slightest chance with
+him were he armed, as he undoubtedly was, with my revolver as well as
+his own. Though it takes some time to explain this, it all passed
+through my mind in a few seconds--before he had finished drinking. 'Now,
+mate!' he said, putting down his glass, the first WHOLE glass even of
+whisky and water he had taken that night, 'that's my share, now for
+yours.'
+
+"'Wait a bit!' I stammered, pretending to hiccough, 'wait a bit. I don't
+feel that I can drink any more just yet! Maybe I will in a few minutes.'
+We sat down, and I saw protruding from his hip pocket the butt end of a
+revolver. If only I could get it! Determined to try, I edged slightly
+towards him. He immediately drew away, a curious, furtive, bestial smile
+lurking in the corner of his lips. I casually repeated the manoeuvre,
+and he just as casually repeated his. Then I glanced at the window--the
+door I knew was hopeless,--and it was iron barred. I gazed again at the
+man, and his eyes grinned evilly as they met mine. Without a doubt he
+meant to murder me. The ghastliness of my position stunned me. Even if I
+shrieked for help, who would hear me save desperadoes, in all
+probability every whit as ready as my companion to kill me.
+
+"A hideous stupor now began to assert itself, and as I strained to keep
+my lids from closing, I watched with a thrill of terror a fiendish look
+of expectancy creep into the white, gleaming face of the stranger. I
+realised, only too acutely, that he was waiting for me to fall asleep so
+as the more conveniently to rob and murder me. The man was a murderer by
+instinct--his whole air suggested it--his very breath was impregnated
+with the sickly desire to kill. Physically, he was the ideal assassin.
+It was strange that I had not observed it before; but in this light,
+this yellow, piercing glare, all the criminality of his features was
+revealed with damning clearness: the high cheek-bones, the light,
+protruding eyes, the abnormally developed forehead and temporal regions,
+the small, weak chin, the grossly irregular teeth, the poisonous breath,
+the club-shaped finger-tips and thick palms. Where could one find a
+greater combination of typically criminal characteristics? The man was
+made for destroying his fellow creatures. When would he begin his job
+and how?
+
+"I am not narrow minded, I can recognise merit even in my enemies; and
+though I was so soon to be his victim, I could not but admire the
+thoroughly professional manner, indicative of past mastership, with
+which he set about his business. So far all his plans, generated with
+meteor-like quickness, had been successful; he was now showing how
+devoted he was to his vocation, and how richly he appreciated the
+situation, by abandoning himself to a short period of greedy, voluptuous
+anticipation, fully expressed in his staring eyes and thinly lipped
+mouth, before experiencing the delicious sensation of slitting my
+windpipe and dismembering me. My drowsiness, which I verily believe was
+in a great measure due to the peculiar fascination he had for me,
+steadily increased, and it was only with the most desperate efforts,
+egged on by the knowledge that my very existence depended on it, that I
+could keep my eyelids from actually coming together and sticking fast.
+At last they closed so nearly as to deceive my companion, who, rising
+stealthily to his feet, showed his teeth in a broad grin of
+satisfaction, and whipping from his coat pocket a glittering,
+horn-handled knife, ran his dirty, spatulate thumb over the blade to see
+if it was sharp. Grinning still more, he now tiptoed to the window,
+pulled the blind as far down as it would go, and, after placing his ear
+against the panel of the door to make sure no one was about, gaily spat
+on his palms, and, with a soft, sardonic chuckle, crept slowly towards
+me. Had he advanced with a war-whoop it would have made little or no
+difference--the man and his atmosphere paralysed me--I was held in the
+chair by iron bonds that swathed themselves round hands, and feet, and
+tongue. I could neither stir nor utter a sound,--only look, look with
+all the pent-up agonies of my soul through my burning, quivering
+eye-lashes. A yard, a foot, an inch, and the perspiring fingers of his
+left hand dexterously loosened the gaudy coloured scarf that hid my
+throat. A second later and I felt them smartly transferred to my long,
+curly hair. They tightened, and my neck was on the very verge of being
+jerked back, when between my quivering eyelids I saw on the sheeny
+surface of his bulging eye-balls,--the cat--the damnable, hated cat. The
+effect was magical. A wave of the most terrific, the most ungovernable
+fury surged through me. I struck out blindly, and one of my fists
+alighting on the would-be murderer's face made him stagger back and drop
+the knife. In an instant the weapon was mine, and ere he could draw his
+six-shooter--for the suddenness of the encounter and my blow had
+considerably dazed him--I had hurled myself upon him, and brought him to
+the ground.
+
+"The force with which I had thrown him, together with my blow, had
+stunned him, and I would have left him in that condition had it not been
+for the cat--the accursed cat--that, peeping up at me from every
+particle of his prostrate body, egged me on to kill him. My intense
+admiration for his genius now manifested itself in the way in which I
+imitated all his movements, from the visit to the door and window, to
+the spitting on his palms; and with a grin--the nearest counterpart that
+I could get, after prodigious efforts, to the one that so fascinated
+me--I approached his recumbent figure, and, bending over it, removed his
+neckerchief. I sat and admired the gently throbbing whiteness of his
+throat for some seconds, and then, with a volley of execrations at the
+cat, commenced my novel and by no means uninteresting work. I am afraid
+I bungled it sadly, for I was disturbed when in the midst of it, by the
+sound of scratching, the violent and frantic scratching, of some animal
+on the upper panels of the door. The sound flustered me, and, my hand
+shaking in consequence, I did not make such a neat job of it as I should
+have liked. However, I did my best, and at all events I killed him; and
+I enjoyed the supreme satisfaction of knowing that I had killed
+him--killed the cat. But my joy was of short duration, and I now
+bitterly regret my rash deed. Wherever I go in the daytime, the shadowy
+figure of the cat accompanies me, and at night, crouching on my
+bedclothes, it watches--watches me with the expression in its eyes and
+mouth of my would-be murderer on that memorable night."
+
+As he concluded, for an instant, only for an instant, the shadow by his
+side grew clearer, and I saw the cat, saw it watching him with murder,
+ghastly murder lurking in its eyes. I struck a match, and, as I had
+anticipated, the phenomenon vanished.
+
+"It will return," the Australian said gloomily; "it always does. I shall
+never get rid of it!" And as I fully concurred with this statement, and
+had no suggestions to offer, I thanked him for his story, and wished him
+good night. But I did not leave him alone. He still had his cat. I saw
+it return to him as I passed through the doorway. Of course, I had no
+means of verifying his story; it might have been true, or it might not.
+But there was the cat!--thoroughly objective and as perfect a specimen
+of a feline, occult bestiality as I have ever seen or wish to see again.
+
+That a spirit should appear in the form of a pig need not seem
+remarkable when we remember that those who live foul lives, _i.e._ the
+sensual and greedy, must, after death, assume the shape that is most
+appropriate to them; indeed, in these circumstances, one might rather be
+surprised that a phantasm in the shape of a hog is not a more frequent
+occurrence.
+
+There are numerous instances of hauntings by phenomena of this kind, in
+some cases the phantasms being wholly animal, and in other cases
+semi-animal.
+
+What I have said with regard to the phantasms of dogs--namely, the
+difficulty, practically the impossibility, of deciding whether the
+manifestation is due to an elemental or to a spirit of the dead--holds
+good in the case of "pig" as well as every other kind of bestial
+phenomenon.
+
+The phantasm in the shape of a horse I am inclined to attribute to the
+once actually material horse and not to elementals.
+
+With regard to phantom birds--and there are innumerable cases of occult
+bird phenomena--I fancy it is otherwise, and that the majority of bird
+hauntings are caused either by the spirits of dead people, or by vicious
+forms of elementals.
+
+Though one hears of few cases of occult bestialities in the shape of
+tigers, lions, or any other wild animal--saving bears and wolves,
+phantasms of which appear to be common--I nevertheless believe, from
+hearsay evidence, that they are to be met with in certain of the jungles
+and deserts in the East, and that for the most part they are the
+phantasms of the dead animals themselves, still hankering to be
+cruel--still hankering to kill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC.
+
+
+_Vampires_
+
+According to a work by Jos. Ennemoser, entitled _The Phantom World_,
+Hungary was at one time full of vampires. Between the river Theiss and
+Transylvania, were (and still are, I believe) a people called Heyducs,
+who were much pestered with this particularly noxious kind of phantasm.
+About 1732, a Heyduc called Arnauld Paul was crushed to death by a
+waggon. Thirty days after his burial a great number of people began to
+die, and it was then remembered that Paul had said he was tormented by a
+vampire. A consultation was held and it was decided to exhume him. On
+digging up his body, it was found to be red all over and literally
+bursting with blood, some of which had forced a passage out and wetted
+his winding sheet. Moreover, his hair, nails, and beard had grown
+considerably. These being sure signs that the corpse was possessed by a
+vampire, the local bailie was fetched and the usual proceedings for the
+expulsion of the undesirable phantasm began. A stake, sharply pointed at
+one end, was handed to the bailie, who, raising it above his head,
+drove it with all his might into the heart of the corpse. There then
+issued from the body the most fearful screams, whereupon it was at once
+thrown into a fire that had been specially prepared for it, and burned
+to ashes. But, though this was the end of that particular vampire, it
+was by no means the end of the hauntings; for the deaths, far from
+decreasing in number, continued in rapid succession, and no less than
+seventeen people in the village died within a period of three months.
+The question now arose as to which of the other bodies in the cemetery
+were "possessed," it being very evident that more than one vampire lay
+buried there. Whilst the matter was at the height of discussion, the
+solution to the problem was brought about thus. A girl, of the name of
+Stanoska, awoke in the middle of the night, uttering the most
+heartrending screams, and declaring that the son of a man called Millo
+(who had been dead nine weeks) had nearly strangled her. A rush was at
+once made to the cemetery, and a general disinterment taking place,
+seventeen out of the forty corpses (including that of the son of Millo)
+showed unmistakable signs of vampirism. They were all treated according
+to the mode described, and their ashes cast into the adjacent river. A
+committee of inquiry concluded that the spread of vampirism had been due
+to the eating of certain cattle, of which Paul had been the first to
+partake. The disturbances ceased with the death of the girl and the
+destruction of her body, and the full account of the hauntings, attested
+to by officers of the local garrison, the chief surgeons, and most
+influential of the inhabitants of the district, was sent to the
+Imperial Council of War at Venice, which caused a strict inquiry to be
+made into the matter, and were subsequently, according to Ennemoser,
+satisfied that all was _bona fide_.
+
+In another work, _A History of Magic_, Ennemoser also refers to a case
+in the village of Kisilova, in Hungary, where the body of an old man,
+three days after his death, appeared to his son on two consecutive
+nights, demanding something to eat, and, being given some meat, ate it
+ravenously. The third night the son died, and the succeeding day
+witnessed the deaths of some five or six others. The matter was reported
+to the Tribunal of Belgrade, which promptly sent two officers to inquire
+into the case. On their arrival the old man's grave was opened, and his
+body found to be full of blood and natural respiration. A stake was then
+driven through its heart, and the hauntings ceased.
+
+Though far fewer in number than they were, and more than ever confined
+to certain localities, I am quite sure that vampires are by no means
+extinct. Their modes and habits--they are no longer gregarious--have
+changed with the modes and habits of their victims, but they are none
+the less vampires. Have I seen them? No! but my not having been thus
+fortunate, or rather unfortunate, does not make me so discourteous as to
+disbelieve those who tell me that they have seen a vampire--that
+peculiar, indefinably peculiar shape that, wriggling along the ground
+from one tombstone to another, crawls up and over the churchyard wall,
+and making for the nearest house, disappears through one of its upper
+windows. Indeed, I have no doubt that had I watched that house some few
+days afterwards, I should have seen a pale, anæmic looking creature,
+with projecting teeth and a thoroughly imbecile expression, come out of
+it. I believe a large percentage of idiots and imbecile epileptics owe
+their pitiable plight to vampires which, in their infancy, they had the
+misfortune to attract. I do not think that, as of old, the vampires come
+to their prey installed in stolen bodies, but that they visit people
+wholly in spirit form, and, with their superphysical mouths, suck the
+brain cells dry of intellect. The baby, who is thus the victim of a
+vampire, grows up into something on a far lower scale of intelligence
+than dumb animals, more bestial than monkeys, and more dangerous (far
+more dangerous, if the public only realised it) than tigers; for,
+whereas the tiger is content with one square meal a day, the hunger of
+vampirism is never satisfied, and the half-starved, mal-shaped brain
+cells, the prey of vampirism, are in a constant state of suction, ever
+trying to draw in mental sustenance from the healthy brain cells around
+them. Idiots and epileptics are the cephalopoda of the land--only, if
+anything, fouler, more voracious, and more insatiable than their aquatic
+prototypes. They never ought to be at large. If not destroyed in their
+early infancy (which one cannot help thinking would be the most merciful
+plan both for the idiot and the community in general), those polyp
+brains ought to be kept in some isolated place where they would have
+only each other to feed upon. When I see an idiot walking in the
+streets, I always take very good care to give him a wide berth, as I
+have no desire that the vampire buried in his withered brain cells
+should derive any nutrition at my expense. From the fact that some towns
+which are close to cromlechs, ancient burial-grounds, woods, or moors
+are full of idiots, leads me to suppose that vampires often frequent the
+same spots as barrowvians, vagrarians and other types of elementals.
+Whilst, on the other hand, since many densely crowded centres have fully
+their share of idiots, I am led to believe that vampires are equally
+attracted by populous districts, and that, in short, unlike barrowvians
+and vagrarians, they can be met with pretty nearly everywhere. And now
+for examples.
+
+A man I know, who spends most of his time in Germany, once had a strange
+experience when staying in the neighbourhood of the Hartz mountains. One
+sultry evening in August he was walking in the country, and noticed a
+perambulator with a white figure, which he took to be that of a
+remarkably tall nursemaid, bending over it. As he drew nearer, however,
+he found that he had been mistaken. The figure was nothing human; it had
+no limbs; it was cylindrical. A faint, sickly sound of sucking caused my
+friend to start forward with an exclamation of horror, and as he did so,
+the phantasm glided away from the perambulator and disappeared among the
+trees. The baby, my friend assured me, was a mere bag of bones, with a
+ghastly, grinning anæmic face. Again, when touring in Hungary, he had a
+similar experience. He was walking down a back street in a large,
+thickly populated town, when he beheld a baby lying on the hot and
+sticky pavement with a queer-looking object stooping over it. Wondering
+what on earth the thing was, he advanced rapidly, and saw, to his
+unmitigated horror, that it was a phantasm with a limbless, cylindrical
+body, a huge flat, pulpy head, and protruding, luminous lips, which were
+tightly glued to the infant's ears; and again my friend heard a faint,
+sickly sound of sucking, and a sound more hideously nauseating, he
+informed me, could not be imagined. He was too dumbfounded to act; he
+could only stare; and the phantasm, after continuing its loathsome
+occupation for some seconds, leisurely arose, and moving away with a
+gliding motion, vanished in the yard of an adjacent house. The child did
+not appear to be human, but a concoction of half a dozen diminutive
+bestialities, and as my friend gazed at it, too fascinated for the
+moment to tear himself away, it smiled up at him with the hungry,
+leering smile of vampirism and idiocy.
+
+So much for vampires in the country and in crowded cities, but, as I
+have already remarked, they are ubiquitous. As an illustration, there is
+said to be a maritime town in a remote part of England, which, besides
+being full of quaintness (of a kind not invariably pleasant) and of foul
+smells, is also full of more than half-savage fishermen and idiots;
+idiots that often come out at dusk, and greatly alarm strangers by
+running after them.
+
+Some years ago, one of these idiots went into a stranger's house, took a
+noisy baby out of its cot, and after tubbing it well (which I think
+showed that the idiot possessed certain powers of observation), cut off
+its head, throwing the offending member into the fire. The parents were
+naturally indignant, and so were some of the inhabitants; but the affair
+was speedily forgotten, and although the murderer was confined to a
+lunatic asylum, nothing was done to rid the town of other idiots who
+were, collectively, doing mischief of a nature far more serious than
+that of the recently perpetrated murder.
+
+The wild and rugged coast upon which the town is situated was formerly
+the hunting-ground of wreckers, and I fear the present breed of
+fishermen, in spite of their hypocritical pretensions to religion, prove
+only too plainly by their abominable cruelty to birds and inhospitable
+treatment of strangers, that they are in reality no better than their
+forbears. This inherited strain of cruelty in the fishermen would alone
+account for the presence of vampires and every other kind of vicious
+elemental; but the town has still another attraction--namely, a
+prehistoric burial-ground, on a wide expanse of thinly populated
+moorland--in its rear.
+
+_À propos_ of vampires, my friend Mrs South writes to me as follows (I
+quote her letter _ad verbum_): "The other night, I was dining with a
+very old friend of mine whom I had not seen for years, and, during a
+pause in the conversation, he suddenly said, 'Do you believe in
+vampires?' I wondered for a moment if he had gone mad, and I think, in
+my matter-of-fact way, I blurted out something of the sort; but I saw in
+a moment, from the expression in his eyes, that he had something to
+tell me, and that he was not at all in the mood to be laughed at or
+misunderstood, 'Tell me,' I said, 'I am listening.' 'Well,' he replied,
+'I had an extraordinary experience a few months ago, and not a word of
+it have I breathed to any living soul. But sometimes the horror of it so
+overpowers me that I feel I must share my secret with someone; and
+you--well, you and I have always been such pals.' I answered nothing,
+but gently pressed his hand.
+
+"After lighting a cigarette, he commenced his story, which I will give
+you as nearly as possible in his own words:--
+
+"'It is about six months ago since I returned from my travels. Up to
+that time I had been away from England for nearly three years, as you
+know. About a couple of nights after my return, I was dining at my Club,
+when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round, I saw my old
+friend S----.
+
+"'As I had no idea he was in London, you may imagine my delight. He
+joined me at dinner and we went over old times together. He asked me if
+I had heard anything of our mutual friend G----, to whom we were both
+very much attached. I said I had had a few lines from him about six
+months previously, announcing his marriage, but that I had never heard
+from him nor seen him since. He had settled, I believe, in the heart of
+the country. S---- then told me that he had not seen G---- since his
+engagement, neither had he heard from him; in fact he had written to him
+once or twice, but his letters had received no answer. There were
+whispered rumours that he was looking ill and unhappy. Hearing this, I
+got G----'s address from S----, and made up my mind I would run down and
+see him as soon as I could get away from town.
+
+"'About a week afterwards I found myself, after driving an interminable
+distance, so it seemed to me, through Devonshire lanes, stopping outside
+a beautiful house which appeared to be entirely isolated from any other
+dwelling.
+
+"'A few more minutes and I was standing before a blazing log fire in a
+fine old hall, eagerly awaiting the welcome I knew my old friend would
+give me. I did not anticipate long; in less time than it takes to tell
+G---- appeared, and with slow, painfully slow steps, crossed the hall to
+greet me. He was wasted to a shadow, and I felt a lump rise in my throat
+as I thought of the splendid, athletic boy I used to know. He made no
+excuse for his wife, who did not accompany him; and though I was
+naturally anxious to see her, I was glad that Jack and I were alone. We
+chatted together utterly regardless of the time, and it was not until
+the first gong had sounded that I thought of dressing for dinner. After
+performing a somewhat hurried toilette, I was hastening downstairs, when
+I suddenly became conscious that I was being watched. I looked all round
+and could see no one. I then heard a low, musical laugh just above my
+head, and looking up, I saw a figure leaning over the banisters. The
+beauty of the face dazzled me for a moment, and the loveliness of the
+eyes, which looked into mine and seemed to shine a red gold, held me
+spellbound. Presently a voice, every whit as lovely as the face, said:
+"So you are Jack's chum?" The most beautiful woman I have ever seen then
+came slowly down the stairs, and slipping her arm through mine, led me
+to the dining-room. As her hand rested on my coat-sleeve, I remember
+noticing that the fingers were long, and thin, and pointed, and the
+nails so polished that they almost shone red. Indeed, I could not help
+feeling somewhat puzzled by the fact that everything about her shone red
+with the exception of her skin, which, with an equal brilliancy, shone
+white. At dinner she was lively, but she ate and drank very sparingly,
+and as though food was loathsome to her.
+
+"'Soon after dinner I felt so exceedingly tired and sleepy, a most
+unusual thing for me, that I found it absolutely impossible to keep
+awake, and consequently asked my host and hostess to excuse me. I woke
+next morning feeling languid and giddy, and, while shaving, I noticed a
+curious red mark at the base of my neck. I imagined I must have cut
+myself shaving hurriedly the evening before, and thought nothing more
+about it.
+
+"'The following night, after dinner, I experienced the same sensation of
+sleepiness, and felt almost as if I had been drugged. It was impossible
+for me to keep awake, so I again asked to be excused! On this occasion,
+after I had retired, a curious thing happened. I dreamed--or at least I
+suppose I dreamed--that I saw my door slowly open, and the figure of a
+woman carrying a candle in one hand, and with the other carefully
+shading the flame, glide noiselessly into my room. She was clad in a
+loose red gown, and a great rope of hair hung over one shoulder. Again
+those red-gold eyes looked into mine; again I heard that low musical
+laugh; and this time I felt powerless either to speak or to move. She
+leaned down, nearer and nearer to me; her eyes gradually assumed a
+fiendish and terrible expression; and with a sucking noise, which was
+horrible to hear, she fastened her crimson lips to the little wound in
+my neck. I remembered nothing more until the morning. The place on my
+neck, I thought, looked more inflamed, and as I looked at it, my dream
+came vividly back to me and I began to wonder if after all it was only a
+dream. I felt frightfully rotten, so rotten that I decided to return to
+town that day; and yet I yielded to some strange fascination, and
+determined, after all, to stay another night. At dinner I drank
+sparingly; and, making the same excuse as on the previous nights, I
+retired to bed at an early hour. I lay awake until midnight, waiting for
+I know not what; and was just thinking what a mad fool I was, when
+suddenly the door gently opened and again I saw Jack's wife. Slowly she
+came towards me, gliding as stealthily and noiselessly as a snake. I
+waited until she leaned over me, until I felt her breath on my cheek,
+and then--then flung my arms round her. I had just time to see the mad
+terror in her eyes as she realised I was awake, and the next instant,
+like an eel, she had slipped from my grasp, and was gone. I never saw
+her again. I left early the next morning, and I shall never forget dear
+old Jack's face when I said good-bye to him. It is only a few days since
+I heard of his death.'"
+
+
+_Were-wolves_
+
+Closely allied to the vampire is the were-wolf, which, however, instead
+of devouring the intellect of human beings, feeds only on their flesh.
+Like the vampire, the were-wolf belongs to the order of elementals; but,
+unlike the vampire, it is confined to a very limited sphere--the wilds
+of Norway, Sweden, and Russia, and only appears in two guises, that of a
+human being in the daytime and a wolf at night. I have closely
+questioned many people who have travelled in those regions, but very few
+of them--one or two at the most--have actually come in contact with
+those to whom the existence of the were-wolf is not a fable but a fact.
+One of these travellers, a mere acquaintance whom I met in an hotel in
+the Latin Quarter of Paris, assured me that the authenticity of a story
+he would tell me, relating to the were-wolf, was, in the neighbourhood
+through which he travelled, never for a single moment doubted.
+
+My informant, a highly cultured Russian, spoke English, French, German,
+and Italian with as great fluency as I spoke my native tongue, and I
+believed him to be perfectly genuine. The incident he told me, to which
+unanimous belief was accredited, happened to two young men (whom I will
+call Hans and Carl), who were travelling to Nijni Novgorod, a city in
+the province of Tobolsk. The route they took was off the beaten track,
+and led them through a singularly wild and desolate tract of country.
+One evening, when they were trotting mechanically along, their horses
+suddenly came to a standstill and appeared to be very much frightened.
+They inquired of the driver the reason of such strange behaviour, and he
+pointed with his whip to a spot on the ice--they were then crossing a
+frozen lake--a few feet ahead of them. They got out of the sleigh, and,
+approaching the spot indicated, found the body of a peasant lying on his
+back, his throat gnawed away and all his entrails gone. "A wolf without
+a doubt," they said, and getting back into the sleigh, they drove on,
+taking good care to see that their rifles were ready for instant action.
+They had barely gone a mile when the horses again halted, and a second
+corpse was discovered, the corpse of a child with its face and thighs
+entirely eaten away. Again they drove on, and had progressed a few more
+miles when the horses stopped so abruptly that the driver was pitched
+bodily out; and before Carl and Hans could dismount, the brutes started
+off at a wild gallop. They were eventually got under control, but it was
+with the greatest difficulty that they were forced to turn round and go
+back, in order to pick up the unfortunate driver. The farther they went,
+the more restless they became, and when, at length, they approached the
+place where the driver had been thrown, they came to a sudden and
+resolute standstill. As no amount of whipping would now make them go on,
+Hans got out, and advancing a few steps, espied something lying across
+the track some little distance ahead of them. Gun in hand, he advanced
+a few more steps, when he suddenly stopped. To his utter amazement he
+saw, bending over a body, which he at once identified as that of their
+driver, the figure of a woman. She started as he approached, and,
+hastily springing up, turned towards him. The strange beauty of her
+face, her long, lithe limbs (she stood fully six feet high) and slender
+body,--the beauty of the latter enhanced by the white woollen costume in
+which she was clad,--had an extraordinary effect upon Hans. Her shining
+masses of golden hair, that curled in thick clusters over her forehead
+and about her ears; the perfect regularity of her features, and the
+lustrous blue of her eyes, enraptured him; whilst the expression both in
+her face and figure--in her sparkling eyes and firmly modelled mouth; in
+her red lips, and even in her pearly teeth, repulsed and almost
+frightened him. He gazed steadily at her, and, as he did so, the hold on
+his rifle involuntarily tightened. He then glanced from her face to her
+hands, and noticed with a spasm of horror that the tips of her long and
+beautifully shaped nails were dripping with blood, and that there was
+blood, too, on her knees and feet, blood all over her. He then looked at
+the driver and saw the wretched man's clothes had been partially
+stripped off, and that there were great gory holes in his throat and
+abdomen.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you have come!" the woman cried, addressing him in a
+strangely peculiar voice, that thrilled him to the marrow of his bones.
+"It is the wolves. Do come and see what they have done. I saw them, from
+a distance, attack this poor man, and leaving my sleigh, for my horses
+came to a dead halt, and nothing I could do would induce them to move, I
+ran to his assistance. But, alas! I was too late!" Then, looking at her
+dress, from which Hans could scarcely remove his eyes, she cried out:
+"Ugh! How disgusting--blood! My hands and clothes are covered with it. I
+tried to stop the bleeding, but it was no use"; and she proceeded to
+wipe her fingers on the snow.
+
+"But why did you venture here alone?" Hans inquired, "and why unarmed?
+How foolhardy! The wolves would have made short work of you had you
+encountered them!"
+
+"Then you cannot have heard the report of my gun!" the woman cried, in
+well-feigned astonishment. "How strange! I fired at the wolves from over
+there"; and she pointed with one of her slender, milky-white fingers to
+a spot on the ice some fifty yards away. "Fortunately, they all made
+off," she continued, "and I hastened hither, dropping my gun that I
+might run the faster."
+
+"I can see no gun," Hans exclaimed, shading his eyes with his hand and
+staring hard.
+
+The woman laughed. "What a disbelieving Jew it is!" she said. "The gun
+is there; I can see it plainly. You must be short-sighted." And then,
+straining her eyes on the far distance, she shrieked: "Great Heavens! My
+sleigh has gone! Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?"
+
+Giving way to every gesture of despair, she looked so forlorn and
+beautiful that Hans would have been full of pity for her, had not
+certain vague suspicions, which he could neither account for nor
+overcome, entered his heart. Sorely perplexed, he did not know what to
+do, and stood looking at her in critical silence.
+
+"Won't you come with me?" she said, clasping her hands beseechingly.
+"Come with me to look for it. The horses may only have strayed a short
+distance, and we might overtake them without much difficulty."
+
+As she spoke thus, her piercing, earnest gaze thrilled him to the very
+soul, and his heart rose in rebellion against his reason. He had seen
+many fair women, but assuredly none as fair as this one. What eyes! What
+hair! What a complexion! What limbs! It seemed to him that she was not
+like ordinary women, that she was not of the same flesh and blood as any
+of the women he had ever met, and that she was in reality something far
+superior; something generated by the primitive glamour of the starry
+night, of the great, sparkling, ice-covered lake, and the lone,
+snow-capped peaks beyond. And all the while he was thinking thus, and
+unconsciously coming under the spell of her weird beauty, the woman
+continued to gaze entreatingly at him from under the long lashes which
+swept her cheeks. At last he could refuse her no longer--he would have
+gone to hell with her had she asked it--and shouting to Carl to remain
+where he was, he bade her lead the way. Setting off with long, quick
+strides that made Hans wonder anew, she soon put a considerable distance
+between herself and companion, and Carl. Hans now perceived a change;
+the sky grew dark, the clouds heavy, and the farther they went, the more
+perceptible this change became. The brightness and sense of joy in the
+air vanished, and, with its dissipation, came a chill and melancholy
+wind that rose from the bosom of the lake and swept all around them,
+moaning and sighing like a legion of lost souls.
+
+But Hans, who came of a military stock, feared little, and, with his
+beautiful guide beside him, would cheerfully have faced a thousand
+devils. He had no eyes for anything save her, no thought of anything but
+her, and when she sidled up to him, playfully fingering his gun, he
+allowed her to take it from him and do what she liked with it. Indeed,
+he was so absorbed in the contemplation of her marvellous beauty, that
+he did not perceive her deftly unload his rifle and throw it from her on
+the ice; nor did he take any other notice than to think it a very
+pretty, playful trick when she laughingly caught his two hands, and
+bound them securely together behind his back. He was still drinking in
+the wondrous beauty of her eyes, when she suddenly slipped one of her
+pretty, shapely feet between his, and with a quick, subtle movement,
+tripped him and threw him to the ground. There was a dull crash, and,
+amid the hundred and one sounds that echoed and re-echoed through his
+head as it came in contact with the ice, he seemed to hear the far-off
+patter of horses' hoofs. Then something deliciously soft and cool
+touched his throat, and opening his eyes, he found his beautiful
+companion bending over him and undoing the folds of his woollen
+neckerchief with her shapely fingers. For such an experience he would
+fall and faint till further orders. He sought her eyes, and all but
+fainted again--the expression in them appalled him. They were no longer
+those of a woman but a devil, a horrible, sordid devil that hungered not
+merely for his soul, but for his flesh and blood. Then, in a second, he
+understood it all--she was a were-wolf, one of those ghastly creatures
+he had hitherto scoffingly attributed to the idle superstitions of the
+peasants. It was she who had mutilated the bodies they had passed on the
+road; it was she who had killed and half-eaten their driver; it was
+she--but he could think no more, it was all too horrible, and the
+revulsion of his feelings towards her clogged his brain. He longed to
+grapple with her, strangle her, and he could do nothing. The bare touch
+of those fingers--those cool, white, tapering fingers, with their long,
+shining filbert nails, all ready and eager to tear and rend his flesh to
+pieces--had taken all the life from his limbs, and he could only gaze
+feebly at her and damn her from the very bottom of his soul. One by one,
+more swiftly now, she unfastened the buttons of his coat and vest and
+then, baring her cruel teeth with a soft gurgle of excitement, and a
+smack of her red glistening lips, she prepared to eat him. Strangely
+enough, he experienced no pain as her nails sank into the flesh of his
+throat and chest and clawed it asunder. He was numb, numb with the
+numbness produced by hypnotism or paralysis--only some of his faculties
+were awake, vividly, startlingly awake. He was abruptly roused from this
+state by the dull crack of a rifle, and an agonising, blood-curdling
+scream, after which he knew no more till he found himself sitting
+upright on the ice, gulping down brandy, his throat a mass of bandages,
+and Carl kneeling beside him.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked, and Carl pointed to an object on the ice. It
+was the body of a huge white wolf, with half its head blown away.
+
+"An explosive bullet," Carl said grimly. "I thought I would make certain
+of the beast, even at the risk of hurting you; and, mein Gott! it was a
+near shave! You have lost some of your hair, but nothing more. When I
+saw you go away with the woman, I guessed something was up. I did not
+like the look of her at all; she was a giantess, taller than any woman I
+have ever seen; and the way she had you in tow made me decidedly
+uncomfortable. Consequently, I followed you at a distance, and when I
+saw her trip you, I lashed up our horses and came to your rescue as fast
+as I could. Unfortunately, I had to dismount when I was still some
+distance off, as no amount of lashing would induce the horses to
+approach you nearer, and after arriving within range, it took me some
+seconds to get my rifle ready and select the best position for a shot.
+But, thank God! I was just in time, and, beyond a few scratches, you are
+all right. Shall we leave the beast here or take it with us?"
+
+"We will do neither," Hans said, with a shudder, whilst a new and sad
+expression stole into his eyes. "I cannot forget it was once a woman!
+and, my God! what a woman! We will bury her here in the ice."
+
+The story here terminated, and from the fact that I have heard other
+stories of a similar nature, I am led to believe that there is in this
+one some substratum of truth. Were-wolves are not, of course, always
+prepossessing; they vary considerably. Moreover, they are not restricted
+to one sex, but are just as likely to be met with in the guise of boys
+and men as of girls and women.
+
+
+_Fox-women_
+
+Very different from this were-wolf, though also belonging to the great
+family of elementals, are the fox-women of Japan and China, about which
+much has been written, but about which, apparently, very little is
+known.
+
+In China the fox was (and in remote parts still is) believed to attain
+the age of eight hundred or a thousand years. At fifty it can assume the
+form of a woman, and at one hundred that of a young and lovely girl,
+called Kao-Sai, or "Our Lady." On reaching the thousand years' limit, it
+goes to Paradise without physical dissolution. I have questioned many
+Chinese concerning these fox-women, but have never been able to get any
+very definite information. One Chinaman, however, assured me that his
+brother had actually seen the transmigration from fox to woman take
+place. The man's name I have forgotten, but I will call him Ching Kang.
+Well, Ching Kang was one day threading his way through a lovely valley
+of the Tapa-ling mountains, when he came upon a silver (_i.e._ white)
+fox crouching on the bank of a stream in such a peculiar attitude that
+Ching Kang's attention was at once arrested. Thinking that the animal
+was ill, and delighted at the prospect of lending it aid, for silver
+foxes are regarded as of good omen in China, Ching Kang approached it,
+and was about to examine it carefully, when to his astonishment he found
+he could not move--he was hypnotised. But although his limbs were
+paralysed, his faculties were wonderfully active, and his heart almost
+ceased beating when he saw the fox slowly begin to get bigger and
+bigger, until at last its head was on a level with his own. There was
+then a loud crash, its skin burst asunder, and there stepped out of it
+the form of a girl of such entrancing beauty that Ching Kang thought he
+must be in Heaven. She was fairer than most Chinese women; her eyes were
+blue instead of brown, and her shapely hands and feet were of milky
+whiteness. She was gaily dressed in blue silk, with earrings and
+bracelets of blue stone, and carried in one of her hands a blue fan.
+With a wave of her slender palms she released Ching Kang from his spell,
+and, bidding him follow her, plunged into a thick clump of bushes. Madly
+infatuated, Ching Kang needed no second bidding, but, keeping close to
+her heels, stolidly pushed his way through barricades of brambles that,
+whilst yielding to her touch, closed on him and beat him on the face and
+body so unmercifully that in a very short time he was barely
+recognisable, being literally bathed in blood. However, despite his
+wounds increasing and multiplying with every step he took, and naturally
+causing him the most excruciating agony, Ching Kang never, for one
+instant, thought of turning back; he always kept within touching
+distance of the blue form in front of him. But at last human nature
+could stand it no longer; his strength gave way, and as with a mad
+shriek of despair he implored her to stop, his senses left him and he
+fell in a heap to the ground. When he recovered he was lying alone,
+quite alone in the middle of the road, exactly opposite the spot where
+he had first seen the fox, and by his side was a fan, a blue fan.
+Picking it up sadly, he placed it near his heart (where it remained to
+the very day of his death), and with one last lingering look at the bank
+of the stream, he continued his solitary journey.
+
+This was Ching Kang's story. His brother did not think he ever met the
+fox-woman again. He believed Ching Kang was still searching for her when
+he died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DEATH WARNINGS AND FAMILY GHOSTS
+
+
+Candles are very subject to psychic influences. Many years ago, when I
+was a boy, I was sitting in a room with some very dear friends of mine,
+when one of them, suddenly turning livid, pointed at the candle, and
+with eyes starting out of their sockets, screamed, "A winding-sheet! A
+winding-sheet! See! it is pointing at me!" We were all so frightened by
+the suddenness of her action, that for some seconds no one spoke, but
+all sat transfixed with horror, gaping at the candle. "It must be my
+brother Tom," she continued, "or Jack. Can't you see it?" Then, one
+after another, we all examined the candle and discovered that what she
+said was quite true--there was an unmistakable winding-sheet in the wax,
+and it emphatically pointed in her direction. Nor were her surmisings in
+vain, for the next morning she received a telegram to say her brother
+Tom had died suddenly. I am sceptical with regard to some
+manifestations, but I certainly do believe in this one, and I often
+regard my candle anxiously, fearing that I may see a winding-sheet in
+it.
+
+To have three candles lighted at the same time is also an omen of
+death, and as I have known it to be fulfilled in several cases within my
+own experience, I cannot help regarding it as one of the most certain.
+
+I am sometimes informed of the advent of the occult in a very startling
+manner--my candle burns blue. It has done this when I have been sitting
+alone in my study, at night, writing. I have been busily engaged penning
+descriptions of the ghosts I and others have seen, when I have been
+startled by the fact that my paper, originally white, has suddenly
+become the colour of the sky, and on looking hastily up to discover a
+reason, have been in no small measure shocked to see my candle burning a
+bright blue. An occult manifestation of sorts has invariably followed. I
+am often warned of the near advent of the occult in this same manner
+when I am investigating in a haunted house--the flame of the candle
+burns blue before the appearance of the ghost. It is, by the way, an
+error to think that different types of phantasms can only appear in
+certain colours--colours that are peculiar to them. I have seen the same
+phenomenon manifest itself in half a dozen different colours, and blue
+is as often adopted by the higher types of spirits as by the lower, and
+is, in fact, common to both. I have little patience with occultists who
+draw hard and fast lines, and, ignoring everybody else's experiences,
+presume to diagnose within the narrow limits of their own. No one can as
+yet say anything for certain with regard to the superphysical, and the
+statements of the most humble psychic investigator, provided he has had
+actual experience, and is genuine, are just as worthy of attention as
+those of the most eminent exponents of theosophy or spiritualism, or of
+any learned member of the Psychical Research Societies. The occult does
+not reveal itself to the rich in preference to the poor, and, for
+manifestation, is not more partial to the Professor of Physics and Law
+than to the Professor of Nothing--other than keen interest and common
+sense.
+
+
+_Corpse-candles_
+
+In Wales there are corpse-candles. According to the account of the Rev.
+Mr Davis in a work by T. Charley entitled _The Invisible World_,
+corpse-candles are so called because their light resembles a material
+candle-light, and might be mistaken for the same, saving that when
+anyone approaches them they vanish, and presently reappear. If the
+corpse-candle be small, pale, or bluish, it denotes the death of an
+infant; if it be big, the death of an adult is foretold; and if there
+are two, three, or more candle-lights, varying in size, then the deaths
+are predicted of a corresponding number of infants and adults. "Of
+late," the Rev. Mr Davis goes on to say (I quote him _ad verbum_), "my
+sexton's wife, an aged, understanding woman, saw from her bed a little
+bluish candle upon her table: within two or three days after comes a
+fellow in, inquiring for her husband, and, taking something from under
+his cloak, clapt it down directly upon the table end where she had seen
+the candle; and what was it but a dead-born child? Another time, the
+same woman saw such another candle upon the other end of the same
+table: within a few days later, a weak child, by myself newly
+christened, was brought into the sexton's house, where presently he
+died; and when the sexton's wife, who was then abroad, came home, she
+found the women shrouding the child on that other end of the table where
+she had seen the candle. On a time, myself and a huntsman coming from
+our school in England, and being three or four hours benighted ere we
+could reach home, saw such a light, which, coming from a house we well
+knew, held its course (but not directly) in the highway to church:
+shortly after, the eldest son in that house died, and steered the same
+course.... About thirty-four or thirty-five years since, one Jane Wyatt,
+my wife's sister, being nurse to Baronet Rud's three eldest children,
+and (the lady being deceased) the lady of the house going late into a
+chamber where the maid-servants lay, saw there no less than five of
+these lights together. It happened awhile after, the chamber being newly
+plastered, and a great grate of coal-fire therein kindled to hasten the
+drying up of the plastering, that five of the maid-servants went there
+to bed as they were wont; but in the morning they were all dead, being
+suffocated in their sleep with the steam of the newly tempered lime and
+coal. This was at Llangathen in Carmarthen."
+
+So wrote the Rev. Mr Davis, and in an old number of _Frazer's Journal_ I
+came across the following account of death-tokens, which, although not
+exactly corpse-candles, might certainly be classed in the same category.
+It ran thus:
+
+"In a wild and retired district in North Wales, the following
+occurrence took place, to the great astonishment of the mountaineers. We
+can vouch for the truth of the statement, as many of our own teutu, or
+clan, were witnesses of the facts. On a dark evening a few weeks ago,
+some persons, with whom we are well acquainted, were returning to
+Barmouth on the south or opposite side of the river. As they approached
+the ferry house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they
+observed a light near the house, which they conjectured to be produced
+by a bonfire, and greatly puzzled they were to discover the reason why
+it should have been lighted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished;
+and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they were surprised
+to learn that not only had the people there displayed no light, but they
+had not even seen one; nor could they perceive any signs of it on the
+sands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was mentioned, and the
+fact corroborated by some of the people there, who had also plainly and
+distinctly seen the light. It was settled, therefore, by some of the old
+fishermen that this was a death-token; and, sure enough, the man who
+kept the ferry at that time was drowned at high water a few nights
+afterwards, on the very spot where the light was seen. He was landing
+from the boat, when he fell into the water, and so perished. The same
+winter the Barmouth people, as well as the inhabitants of the opposite
+bank, were struck by the appearance of a number of small lights, which
+were seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn, about half a
+mile from the town. A great number of people came out to see these
+lights; and after awhile they all but one disappeared, and this one
+proceeded slowly towards the water's edge to a little bay where some
+boats were moored. The men in a sloop which was anchored near the spot
+saw the light advancing, they saw it also hover for a few seconds over
+one particular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or three days
+afterwards, the man to whom that particular boat belonged was drowned in
+the river, while he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in that very
+boat."
+
+As the corpse-candle is obviously a phantasm whose invariable custom is
+to foretell death, it must, I think, be classified with that species of
+elementals which I have named--for want of a more appropriate
+title--CLANOGRIAN. CLANOGRIANS embrace every kind of national and family
+ghost, such as The White Owl of the Arundels, the Drummer of the
+Airlies, and the Banshee of the O'Neills and O'Donnells.
+
+With regard to the origin of corpse-candles, as of all other
+clanogrians, one can only speculate. The powers that govern the
+superphysical world have much in their close keeping that they
+absolutely refuse to disclose to mortal man. Presuming, however, that
+corpse-candles and all sorts of family ghosts are analogous, I should
+say that the former are spirits which have attached themselves to
+certain localities, either owing to some great crime or crimes having
+been committed there in the past, or because at some still more remote
+period the inhabitants of those parts--the Milesians and Nemedhians, the
+early ancestors of the Irish, dabbled in sorcery.
+
+
+_Fire-coffins_
+
+Who has not seen all manner of pictures in the fire? Who has not seen,
+or fancied he has seen, a fire-coffin? A fire-coffin is a bit of red-hot
+coal that pops mysteriously out of the grate in the rude shape of a
+coffin, and is prophetic of death, not necessarily the death of the
+beholder, but of someone known to him.
+
+
+_The Death-watch_
+
+Though this omen in a room is undoubtedly due to the presence in the
+woodwork of the wall of a minute beetle of the timber-boring genus
+ANOBIUM, it is a strange fact that its ticking should only be heard
+before the death of someone, who, if not living in the house, is
+connected with someone who does live in it. From this fact, one is led
+to suppose that this minute beetle has an intuitive knowledge of
+impending death, as is the case with certain people and also certain
+animals.
+
+The noise is said to be produced by the beetle raising itself upon its
+hind legs (see _Popular Errors explained_, by John Timbs), with the body
+somewhat inclined, and beating its head with great force and agility
+upon the plane of position; and its strokes are so powerful as to be
+heard from some little distance. It usually taps from six to twelve
+times in succession, then pauses, and then recommences. It is an error
+to suppose it only ticks in the spring, for I know those who have heard
+its ticking at other, and indeed, at all times in the year.
+
+
+_Owls_
+
+Owls have always been deemed psychic, and they figure ominously in the
+folk-lore of many countries. I myself can testify to the fact that they
+are often the harbinger of death, as I have on several occasions been
+present when the screeching of an owl, just outside the window, has
+occurred almost coincident with the death of someone, nearly related
+either to myself or to one of my companions. That owls have the faculty
+of "scenting the approach of death" is to my mind no mere idle
+superstition, for we constantly read about them hovering around gibbets,
+and they have not infrequently been known to consummate Heaven's wrath
+by plucking out the eyes of the still living murderers and feeding on
+their brains. That they also have tastes in common with the least
+desirable of the occult world may be gathered from the fact that they
+show a distinct preference for the haunts of vagrarians, barrowvians,
+and other kinds of elementals; and even the worthy Isaiah goes so far as
+to couple them with satyrs.
+
+Occasionally, too, as in the case of the Arundels of Wardour, where a
+white owl is seen before the death of one of the family, they perform
+the function of clanogrians.
+
+
+_Ravens_
+
+A close rival of the owl in psychic significance is the raven, the
+subtle, cunning, ghostly raven that taps on window-panes and croaks
+dismally before a death or illness. I love ravens--they have the
+greatest fascination for me. Years ago I had a raven, but, alas! only
+for a time, a very short time. It came to me one gloomy night, when the
+wind was blowing and the rain falling in cataracts. I was at the
+time--and as usual--writing ghost tales. Thought I to myself, this raven
+is just what I want; I will make a great friend of it, it shall sit at
+my table while I write and inspire me with its eyes--its esoteric eyes
+and mystic voice. I let it in, gave it food and shelter, and we settled
+down together, the raven and I, both revellers in the occult, both
+lovers of solitude. But it proved to be a worthless bird, a shallow,
+empty-minded, shameless bird, and all I gleaned from it was--idleness.
+It made me listless and restless; it filled me with cravings, not for
+work, but for nature, for the dark open air of night-time, for the vast
+loneliness of mountains, the deep secluded valleys, the rushing, foaming
+flow of streams, and for woods--ah! how I love the woods!--woods full of
+stalwart oaks and silvery beeches, full of silent, moon-kissed glades,
+nymphs, sirens, and pixies. Ah! how I longed for all these, and more
+besides--for anything and everything that appertained neither to man nor
+his works. Then I said good-bye to the raven, and, taking it with me to
+the top of a high hill, let it go. Croaking, croaking, croaking it flew
+away, without giving me as much as one farewell glance.
+
+
+_Mermaids_
+
+Who would not, if they could, believe in mermaids? Surely all save those
+who have no sense of the beautiful--of poetry, flowers, painting, music,
+romance; all save those who have never built fairy castles in the air
+nor seen fairy palaces in the fire; all save those whose minds, steeped
+in money-making, are both sordid and stunted. That mermaids did exist,
+and more or less in legendary form, I think quite probable, for I feel
+sure there was a time in the earth's history when man was in much closer
+touch with the superphysical than he is at present. They may, I think,
+be classified with pixies, nymphs, and sylphs, and other pleasant types
+of elementals that ceased to fraternise with man when he became more
+plentiful and forsook the simple mode of living for the artificial.
+
+Pixies, nymphs, sylphs, and other similar kinds of fairies are all
+harmless and benevolent elementals, and I believe they were all fond of
+visiting this earth, but that they seldom visit it now, only appearing
+at rare intervals to a highly favoured few.
+
+
+_The Wandering Jew_
+
+No story fascinated me more when I was a boy than that of Ahasuerus, the
+Wandering Jew. How vividly I saw him--in my mental vision--with his
+hooked nose, and wild, dark eyes, gleaming with hatred, cruelty, and
+terror, spit out his curses at Christ and frantically bid him begone!
+And Christ! How plainly I saw Him, too, bathed in the sweat of agony,
+stumbling, staggering, reeling, and tottering beneath the cross he had
+to carry! And then the climax--the calm, biting, damning climax. "Tarry
+thou till I come!" How distinctly I heard Christ utter those words, and
+with what relief I watched the pallor of sickly fear and superstition
+steal into the Jew's eyes and overspread his cheeks! And he is said to
+be living now! Periodically he turns up in some portion or other of the
+globe, causing a great sensation. And many are the people who claim to
+have met him--the man whom no prison can detain, no fetters hold; who
+can reel off the history of the last nineteen hundred odd years with the
+most minute fluency, and with an intimate knowledge of men and things
+long since dead and forgotten. Ahasuerus, still, always, ever
+Ahasuerus--no matter whether we call him Joseph, Cartaphilus, or
+Salathiel, his fine name and guilty life stick to him--he can get rid of
+neither. For all time he is, and must be, Ahasuerus, the Wandering
+Jew--the Jew Christ damned.
+
+
+_Attendant Spirits_
+
+I believe that, from the moment of our birth, most, if not all of us,
+have our attendant spirits, namely, a spirit sent by the higher occult
+powers that are in favour of man's spiritual progress, whose function it
+is to guide us in the path of virtue and guard us from physical danger,
+and a spirit sent by the higher occult powers that are antagonistic to
+man's spiritual progress, whose function it is to lead us into all sorts
+of mental, moral, and spiritual evil, and also to bring about our path
+some bodily harm. The former is a benevolent elemental, well known to
+the many, and termed by them "Our Guardian Angel"; the latter is a vice
+elemental, equally well known perhaps, to the many, and termed by them
+"Our Evil Genie." The benevolent creative powers and the evil creative
+powers (in whose service respectively our attendant spirits are
+employed) are for ever contending for man's superphysical body, and it
+is, perhaps, only in the proportion of our response to the influences of
+these attendant spirits, that we either evolve to a higher spiritual
+plane, or remain earth-bound. I, myself, having been through many
+vicissitudes, feel that I owe both my moral and physical preservation
+from danger entirely to the vigilance of my guardian attendant spirit. I
+was once travelling in the United States at the time of a great railway
+strike. The strikers held up my train at Crown Point, a few miles
+outside Chicago; and as I was forced to take to flight, and leave my
+baggage (which unfortunately contained all my ready money), I arrived in
+Chicago late at night without a cent on me. Beyond the clothes I had on,
+I had nothing; consequently, on my presenting myself at a hotel with the
+request for a night's lodging, I was curtly refused. One hotel after
+another, one house after another, I tried, but always with the same
+result; having no luggage, and being unable to pay a deposit, no one
+would take me. The night advanced; the streets became rougher and
+rougher, for Chicago just then was teeming with the scum of the earth,
+ruffians of every description, who would cheerfully have cut any man's
+throat simply for the sake of his clothes. All around me was a sea of
+swarthy faces with insolent, sinister eyes that flashed and glittered in
+the gaslight. I was pushed, jostled, and cursed, and the bare thought of
+having to spend a whole night amid such a foul, cut-throat horde filled
+me with dismay. Yet what could I do? Clearly nothing, until the morning,
+when I should be able to explain my position to the British Consul. The
+knowledge that in all the crises through which I had hitherto passed, my
+guardian spirit had never deserted me, gave me hope, and I prayed
+devoutly that it would now come to my assistance and help me to get to
+some place of shelter.
+
+Time passed, and as my prayers were not answered, I repeated them with
+increased vigour. Then, quite suddenly, a man stepped out from the dark
+entrance to a by-street, and, touching me lightly on the arm, said, "Is
+there anything amiss? I have been looking at you for some time, and a
+feeling has come over me that you need assistance. What is the matter?"
+I regarded the speaker earnestly, and, convinced that he was honest,
+told him my story, whereupon to my delight he at once said, "I think I
+can help you, for a friend of mine runs a small but thoroughly
+respectable hotel close to here, and, if you like to trust yourself to
+my guidance, I will take you there and explain your penniless
+condition." I accepted his offer; what he said proved to be correct; the
+hotel-keeper believed my story, and I passed the night in decency and
+comfort. In the morning the proprietor lent me the requisite amount of
+money for a cablegram to Europe. My bank in England cabled to a bank in
+Chicago, and the hotel-keeper generously made himself responsible for my
+identity; the draft was cashed, and I was once again able to proceed on
+my journey. But what caused the man in the street to notice me? What
+prompted him to lend me his aid? Surely my guardian spirit. Again, when
+in Denver, in the Denver of old times, before it had grown into anything
+like the city it is now, I was seized with a severe attack of dysentery,
+and the owner of the hotel in which I was staying, believing it to be
+cholera, turned me, weak and faint as I was, into the street. I tried
+everywhere to get shelter; the ghastly pallor and emaciation of my
+countenance went against me--no one, not even by dint of bribing, for I
+was then well off, would take me in. At last, completely overcome by
+exhaustion, I sank down in the street, where, in all probability, I
+should have remained all night, had not a negro suddenly come up to me,
+and, with a sympathetic expression in his face, asked if he could help
+me. "I passed you some time ago," he said, "and noticed how ill you
+looked, but I did not like to speak to you for fear you might resent it,
+but I had not got far before I felt compelled to turn back. I tried to
+resist this impulse, but it was no good. What ails you?" I told him. For
+a moment or so he was silent, and then, his face brightening up, he
+exclaimed, "I think I can help you. Come along with me," and, helping me
+gently to my feet, he conducted me to his own house, not a very grand
+one, it is true, but scrupulously clean and well conducted, and I
+remained there until I was thoroughly sound and fit. The negro is not as
+a rule a creature of impulse, and here again I felt that I owed my
+preservation to the kindly interference of my guardian spirit.
+
+Thrice I have been nearly drowned, and on both occasions saved as by a
+miracle, or, in other words, by my attendant guardian spirit. Once, when
+I was bathing alone in a Scotch loch and had swum out some considerable
+distance, I suddenly became exhausted, and realised with terror that it
+was quite impossible for me to regain the shore. I was making a last
+futile effort to strike out, when something came bobbing up against me.
+It was an oar! Whence it had come Heaven alone knew, for Heaven alone
+could have sent it. Leaning my chin lightly on it and propelling myself
+gently with my limbs, I had no difficulty in keeping afloat, and
+eventually reached the land in safety. The scene of my next miraculous
+rescue from drowning was a river. In diving into the water off a boat, I
+got my legs entangled in a thick undergrowth of weeds. Frantically
+struggling to get free and realising only too acutely the seriousness of
+my position, for my lungs were on the verge of bursting, I fervently
+solicited the succour of my guardian spirit, and had no sooner done so,
+than I fancied I felt soft hands press against my flesh, and the next
+moment my body had risen to the surface. No living person was within
+sight, so that my rescuer could only have been--as usual--my guardian
+spirit.
+
+Several times I fancy I have seen her, white, luminous, and shadowy,
+but for all that suggestive of great beauty. Once, too, in the wilder
+moments of my youth, when I contemplated rash deeds, I heard her sigh,
+and the sigh, sinking down into the furthermost recesses of my soul,
+drowned all my thoughts of rash deeds in a thousand reverberating
+echoes. I have been invariably warned by strangers against taking a
+false step that would unquestionably have led to the direst misfortune.
+I meet a stranger, and without the slightest hint from me, he touches
+upon the very matter uppermost in my mind, and, in a few earnest and
+never-to-be-forgotten words of admonition, deters me from my scheme.
+Whence come these strangers, to all appearance of flesh and blood like
+myself? Were they my guardian spirit in temporary material guise, or
+were they human beings that, like the hotel proprietor's friend in
+Chicago, and the negro, have been impelled by my guardian spirit to
+converse with me and by their friendly assistance save me? Many of the
+faces we see around us every day are, I believe, attendant spirits, and
+phantasms of every species, that have adopted physical form for some
+specific purpose.
+
+
+_Banshees_
+
+It has been suggested that banshees are guardian spirits and evil genii;
+but I do not think so, for whereas one or other of the two latter
+phantasms (sometimes both) are in constant attendance on man, banshees
+only visit certain families before a catastrophe about to happen in
+those families, or before the death of a member of those families. As
+to their origin, little can be said, for little is at present known.
+Some say their attachment to a family is due to some crime perpetrated
+by a member of that family in the far dim past, whilst others attribute
+it to the fact that certain classes and races in bygone times dabbled in
+sorcery, thus attracting the elementals, which have haunted them ever
+since. Others, again, claim that banshees are mere thought
+materialisations handed down from one generation to another. But
+although no one knows the origin and nature of a banshee, the statements
+of those who have actually experienced these hauntings should surely
+carry far more weight and command more attention than the statements of
+those who only speak from hearsay; for it is, after all, only the
+sensation of actual experience that can guide us in the study of this
+subject; and, perhaps, through our "sensations" alone, the key to it
+will one day be found. A phantasm produces an effect on us totally
+unlike any that can be produced by physical agency--at least such is my
+experience--hence, for those who have never come in contact with the
+unknown to pronounce any verdict on it, is to my mind both futile and
+absurd. Of one thing, at least, I am sure, namely, that banshees are no
+more thought materialisations than they are cats--neither are they in
+any way traceable to telepathy or suggestion; they are entirely due to
+objective spirit forms. I do not base this assertion on a knowledge
+gained from other people's experiences--and surely the information thus
+gained cannot properly be termed knowledge--but from the sensations I
+myself, as a member of an old Irish clan, have experienced from the
+hauntings of the banshee--the banshee that down through the long links
+of my Celtic ancestry, through all vicissitudes, through all changes of
+fortune, has followed us, and will follow us, to the end of time.
+Because it is customary to speak of an Irish family ghost by its generic
+title, the banshee, it must not be supposed that every Irish family
+possessing a ghost is haunted by the same phantasm--the same banshee.
+
+In Ireland, as in other countries, family ghosts are varied and
+distinct, and consequently there are many and varying forms of the
+banshee. To a member of our clan, a single wail signifies the advent of
+the banshee, which, when materialised, is not beautiful to look upon.
+The banshee does not necessarily signify its advent by one wail--that of
+a clan allied to us wails three times. Another banshee does not wail at
+all, but moans, and yet another heralds its approach with music. When
+materialised, to quote only a few instances, one banshee is in the form
+of a beautiful girl, another is in the form of a hideous prehistoric
+hag, and another in the form of a head--only a head with rough matted
+hair and malevolent, bestial eyes.
+
+
+_Scottish Ghosts_
+
+When it is remembered that the ancestors of the Highlanders, _i.e._, the
+Picts and Scots, originally came from Ireland and are of Formosian and
+Milesian descent, it will be readily understood that their proud old
+clans--and rightly proud, for who but a grovelling money grubber would
+not sooner be descended from a warrior, elected chief, on account of his
+all-round prowess, than from some measly hireling whose instincts were
+all mercenary?--possess ghosts that are nearly allied to the banshee.
+
+The Airlie family, whose headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is haunted
+by the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of one
+of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness
+of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories
+as to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying,
+inquisitive public, but it is extremely doubtful if any of them approach
+the truth. Other families have pipers that pipe a dismal dirge, and
+skaters that are seen skating even when there is no ice, and always
+before a death or great calamity.
+
+
+_English Family Ghosts_
+
+There are a few old English families, too, families who, in all
+probability, can point to Celtic blood at some distant period in their
+history, that possess family ghosts. I have, for example, stayed in one
+house where, prior to a death, a boat is seen gliding noiselessly along
+a stream that flows through the grounds. The rower is invariably the
+person doomed to die. A friend of mine, who was very sceptical in such
+matters, was fishing in this stream late one evening when he suddenly
+saw a boat shoot round the bend. Much astonished--for he knew it could
+be no one from the house--he threw down his rod and watched. Nearer and
+nearer it came, but not a sound; the oars stirred and splashed the
+rippling, foaming water in absolute silence. Convinced now that what he
+beheld was nothing physical, my friend was greatly frightened, and, as
+the boat shot past him, he perceived in the rower his host's youngest
+son, who was then fighting in South Africa. He did not mention the
+incident to his friends, but he was scarcely surprised when, in the
+course of the next few days, a cablegram was received with the tidings
+that the material counterpart of his vision had been killed in action.
+
+A white dove is the harbinger of death to the Arundels of Wardour; a
+white hare to an equally well-known family in Cornwall. Corby Castle in
+Cumberland has its "Radiant Boy"; whilst Mrs E. M. Ward has stated, in
+her reminiscences, that a certain room at Knebworth was once haunted by
+the phantasm of a boy with long yellow hair, called "The Yellow Boy,"
+who never appeared to anyone in it, unless they were to die a violent
+death, the manner of which death he indicated by a series of ghastly
+pantomimics.
+
+Other families, I am told, lay claim to phantom coaches, clocks, beds,
+ladies in white, and a variety of ghostly phenomena whose manifestations
+are always a sinister omen.
+
+
+_Welsh Ghosts_
+
+In addition to corpse-candles and blue lights, the Welsh, according to
+Mr Wirt Sykes, in his work, _British Goblins_, pp. 212-216, possess a
+species of ill-omened ghost that is not, however, restricted to any one
+family, but which visits promiscuously any house or village prior to a
+death. Sometimes it flaps its leathern wings against the window of the
+room containing the sick person, and in a broken, howling tone calls
+upon the latter to give up his life; whilst, at other times, according
+to Mr Dyer in his _Ghost World_, it actually materialises and appears in
+the form of an old crone with streaming hair and a coat of blue, when it
+is called the "Ellyllon," and, like the banshee, presages death with a
+scream.
+
+Again, when it is called the "Cyhyraeth," and is never seen, it
+foretells the death of the insane, or those who have for a long time
+been ill, by moaning, groaning, and rattling shutters in the immediate
+vicinity of the doomed person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"SUPERSTITIONS AND FORTUNES"
+
+
+_Thirteen at Table_
+
+There is no doubt that there have been many occasions upon which
+thirteen people have sat down to dinner, all of which people at the end
+of a year have been alive and well; there is no doubt also that there
+have been many occasions upon which thirteen have sat down to dine, and
+the first of them to rise has died within twelve months. Therefore, I
+prefer not to take the risk, and to sit down to dinner in any number but
+thirteen.
+
+A curious story is told in connection with this superstition. A lady was
+present at a dinner party given by the Count D---- in Buda-Pesth, when
+it was discovered that the company about to sit down numbered thirteen.
+Immediately there was a loud protest, and the poor Count was at his
+wits' end to know how to get out of the difficulty, when a servant
+hurriedly entered and whispered something in his ear. Instantly the
+Count's face lighted up. "How very fortunate!" he exclaimed, addressing
+his guests. "A very old friend of mine, who, to tell the truth, I had
+thought to be dead, has just turned up. We may, therefore, sit down in
+peace, for we shall now be fourteen." A wave of relief swept through
+the party, and, in the midst of their congratulations, in walked the
+opportune guest, a tall, heavily bearded young man, with a strangely set
+expression in his eyes and mouth, and not a vestige of colour in his
+cheeks. It was noticed that after replying to the Count's salutations in
+remarkably hollow tones that made those nearest him shiver, he took no
+part in the conversation, and partook of nothing beyond a glass of wine
+and some fruit. The evening passed in the usual manner; the guests, with
+the exception of the stranger, went, and, eventually, the Count found
+himself alone with the friend of his boyhood, the friend whom he had not
+seen for years, and whom he had believed to be dead.
+
+Wondering at the unusual reticence of his old chum, but attributing it
+to shyness, the Count, seeing that he now had an opportunity for a chat,
+and, anxious to hear what his friend had been doing in the long interval
+since they had last met, sat down beside him on the couch, and thus
+began: "How very odd that you should have turned up to-night! If you
+hadn't come just when you did, I don't know what would have happened!"
+
+"But I do!" was the quiet reply. "You would have been the first to rise
+from the table, and, consequently, you would have died within the year.
+That is why I came."
+
+At this the Count burst out laughing. "Come, come, Max!" he cried. "You
+always were a bit of a wag, and I see you haven't improved. But be
+serious now, I beg you, and tell me what made you come to-night and what
+you have been doing all these years? Why, it must be sixteen years, if a
+day, since last I saw you!"
+
+Max leaned back in his seat, and, regarding the Count earnestly with his
+dark, penetrating eyes, said, "I have already told you why I came here
+to-night, and you don't believe me, but WAIT! Now, as to what has
+happened to me since we parted. Can I expect you to believe that?
+Hardly! Anyhow, I will put you to the test. When we parted, if you
+remember rightly, I had just passed my final, and having been elected
+junior house surgeon at my hospital, St Christopher's, at Brunn, had
+taken up my abode there. I remained at St Christopher's for two years,
+just long enough to earn distinction in the operating theatre, when I
+received a more lucrative appointment in Cracow. There I soon had a
+private practice of my own and was on the high road to fame and fortune,
+when I was unlucky enough to fall in love."
+
+"Unlucky!" laughed the Count. "Pray what was the matter with her? Had
+she no dowry, or was she an heiress with an ogre of a father, or was she
+already married?"
+
+"Married," Max responded, "married to a regular martinet who, whilst
+treating her in the same austere manner he treated his soldiers--he was
+colonel of a line regiment--was jealous to the verge of insanity. It was
+when I was attending him for a slight ailment of the throat that I met
+her, and we fell in love with each other at first sight."
+
+"How romantic!" sighed the Count. "How very romantic! Another glass of
+Moselle?"
+
+"For some time," Max continued, not noticing the interruption, "all went
+smoothly. We met clandestinely and spent many an hour together, unknown
+to the invalid. We tried to keep him in bed as long as we could, but his
+constitution, which was that of an ox, was against us, and his recovery
+was astonishingly rapid. An indiscreet observation on the part of one of
+the household first led him to suspect, and, watching his wife like a
+cat does a mouse, he caught her one evening in the act of holding out
+her hand for me to kiss. With a yell of fury he rushed upon us, and in
+the scuffle that followed----"
+
+"You killed him," said the Count. "Well! I forgive you! We all forgive
+you! By the love of Heaven! you had some excuse."
+
+"You are mistaken!" Max went on, still in the same cold, unmoved
+accents, "it was I who was killed!" He looked at the Count, and the
+Count's blood turned to ice as he suddenly realised he was, indeed,
+gazing at a corpse.
+
+For some seconds the Count and the corpse sat facing one another in
+absolute silence, and then the latter, rising solemnly from the chair,
+mounted the window-sill, and, with an expressive wave of farewell,
+disappeared in the absorbing darkness without. Now, as Max was never
+seen again, and it was ascertained without any difficulty that he had
+actually perished in the manner he had described, there is surely every
+reason to believe that a _bona fide_ danger had threatened the Count,
+and that the spirit of Max in his earthly guise had, in very deed,
+turned up at the dinner party with the sole object of saving his friend.
+
+
+_Spilling Salt_
+
+Everyone knows that to avoid bad luck from spilling salt, it is only
+necessary to throw some of it over the left shoulder; but no one knows
+why such an act is a deterrent to misfortune, any more than why
+misfortune, if not then averted, should accrue from the spilling.
+
+That the superstition originated in a tradition that Judas Iscariot
+overturned a salt-cellar is ridiculous, for there is but little doubt it
+was in vogue long before the advent of Christ, and is certainly current
+to-day among tribes and races that have never heard of the "Last
+Supper."
+
+In all probability the superstition is derived from the fact that salt,
+from its usage in ancient sacrificial rites, was once regarded as
+sacred. Hence to spill any carelessly was looked upon as sacrilegious
+and an offence to the gods, to appease whom the device of throwing it
+over the left, the more psychic shoulder, was instituted.
+
+
+_Looking-glasses_
+
+The breaking of a looking-glass is said to be an ill omen, and I have
+certainly known many cases in which one misfortune after another has
+occurred to the person who has had the misfortune to break a
+looking-glass. Some think that because looking-glasses were once used in
+sorcery, they possess certain psychic properties, and that by reason of
+their psychic properties any injury done to a mirror must be fraught
+with danger to the doer of that injury, but whether this is so or not is
+a matter of conjecture.
+
+
+_Psychic Days_
+
+"Friday's child is full of woe." Of all days Friday is universally
+regarded as the most unlucky. According to Soames in his work, _The
+Anglo-Saxon Church_, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday
+and died on a Friday. And since Jesus Christ was crucified on a Friday,
+it is naturally of small wonder that Friday is accursed.
+
+To travel on Friday is generally deemed to be courting accident; to be
+married on Friday, courting divorce or death. Few sailors care to embark
+on Friday; few theatrical managers to produce a new play on Friday. In
+Livonia most of the inhabitants are so prejudiced against Friday, that
+they never settle any important business, or conclude a bargain on that
+day; in some places they do not even dress their children.
+
+For my part, I so far believe in this superstition that I never set out
+for a journey, or commence any new work on Friday, if I have the option
+of any other day. Thursday has always been an unlucky day for me. Most
+of my accidents, disappointments, illnesses have happened on Thursdays.
+Wednesday has been my luckiest day. Monday, Thursday, Friday, and
+Saturday the days when I have mostly experienced occult phenomena. On
+All-Hallows E'en the spirits of the dead are supposed to walk. I
+remember when a child hearing from the lips of a relative how in her
+girlhood she had screwed up the courage to shut herself in a dark room
+on All-Hallows E'en and had eaten an apple in front of the mirror; and
+that instead of seeing the face of her future husband peering over her
+shoulder, she had seen a quantity of earth falling. She was informed
+that this was a prognostication of death, and, surely enough, within the
+year her father died. I have heard, too, of a girl who, on All-Hallows
+E'en, walked down a gloomy garden path scattering hempseed for her
+future lover to pick up, and on hearing someone tiptoeing behind her,
+and fancying it was a practical joker, turned sharply round, to confront
+a skeleton dressed exactly similar to herself. She died before the year
+was out from the result of an accident on the ice.
+
+I have often poured boiling lead into water on All-Hallows E'en and it
+has assumed strange shapes, once--a boot, once--a coffin, once--a ship;
+and I have placed all the letters of the alphabet cut out of pasteboard
+by my bedside, and on one occasion (my door was locked, by the way, and
+I fully satisfied myself no one was in hiding) found, on awakening in
+the morning, the following word spelt out of them--"Merivale." It was
+not until some days afterwards that I remembered associations with this
+word, and then it all came back to me in a trice--it was the name of a
+man who had once wanted me to join him in an enterprise in British West
+Africa.
+
+On New Year's Eve a certain family, with whom I am very intimately
+acquainted, frequently see ghosts of the future, as well as phantasms of
+the dead, and, when I stay with them, which I often do at Christmas, I
+am always glad when this night is over. On one occasion, one of them saw
+a lady come up the garden path and vanish on the front doorsteps. She
+saw the lady's face distinctly; every feature in it, together with the
+clothes she was wearing, stood out with startling perspicuity.
+
+Some six months later, she was introduced to the material counterpart of
+the phantasm, who was destined to play a most important part in her
+life. On another New Year's Eve she saw the phantasm of a dog, to which
+she had been deeply attached, enter her bedroom and jump on her bed,
+just as it had done during its lifetime. Not in the least frightened,
+she put down her hand to stroke it, when it vanished. I have given
+several other instances of this kind in my _Haunted Houses of London_
+and _Ghostly Phenomena_--they all, I think, tend to prove a future
+existence for dumb animals.
+
+The 28th of December, Childermass Day, or the Feast of the Holy
+Innocents, the day on which King Herod slaughtered so many infants (if
+they were no better mannered than the bulk of the County Council
+children of to-day, one can hardly blame him), is held to be
+unpropitious for the commencement of any new undertaking by those of
+tender years.
+
+The fishermen who dwell on the Baltic seldom use their nets between All
+Saints and St Martin's Day, or on St Blaise's Day; if they did, they
+believe they would not take any fish for a whole year. On Ash Wednesday
+the women in those parts neither sew nor knit for fear of bringing
+misfortune upon their cattle, whilst they do not use fire on St
+Lawrence's Day, in order to secure themselves against fire for the rest
+of the year.
+
+In Moravia the peasants used not to hunt on St Mark's or St Catherine's
+Day, for fear they should be unlucky all the rest of the year. In
+Yorkshire it was once customary to watch for the dead on St Mark's
+(April 24) and Midsummer Eve. On both those nights (so says Mr Timbs in
+his _Mysteries of Life and Futurity_) persons would sit and watch in the
+church porch from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. In
+the third year (for it must be done thrice), the watchers were said to
+see the spectres of all those who were to die the next year pass into
+the church.
+
+I am quite sure there is much truth in this, for I have heard of
+sceptics putting it to the test, and of "singing to quite a different
+tune" when the phantasms of those they knew quite well suddenly shot up
+from the ground, and, gliding past them, vanished at the threshold of
+the church. Occasionally, too, I have been informed of cases where the
+watchers have seen themselves in the ghastly procession and have died
+shortly afterwards.
+
+
+_Fortune-telling_
+
+Before ridiculing the possibility of telling fortunes by cards, it would
+be just as well for sceptics to inquire into the history of cards, and
+the reason of their being designated the Devil's pasteboards. Their
+origin may be traced to the days when man was undoubtedly in close touch
+with the occult, and each card, _i.e._ of the original design, has a
+psychic meaning. Hence the telling of fortunes by certain people--those
+who have had actual experience with occult phenomena--deserves to be
+taken seriously; and I am convinced many of the fortunes thus told come
+true.
+
+
+_Palmistry_
+
+That there is much truth in palmistry--the palmistry of those who have
+made a thorough study of the subject--should by this time, I think, be
+an established fact. I can honestly say I have had my hand told with
+absolute accuracy, and in such a manner as utterly precludes the
+possibility of coincidence or chance. Many of the events, and
+out-of-the-way events, of my life have been read in my lines with
+perfect veracity, my character has been delineated with equal fidelity,
+and the future portrayed exactly in the manner it has come about--and
+all by a stranger, one who had never seen or heard of me before he "told
+my hand."
+
+To attempt to negative the positive is the height of folly, but fools
+will deny anything and everything save their own wit. It does not follow
+that because one palmist has been at fault, all palmists are at fault. I
+believe in palmistry, because I have seen it verified in a hundred and
+one instances.
+
+Apart from the lines, however, there is a wealth of character in hands:
+I am never tired of studying them. To me the most beautiful and
+interesting hands are the pure psychic and the dramatic--the former with
+its thin, narrow palm, slender, tapering fingers and filbert nails; the
+latter a model of symmetry and grace, with conical finger-tips and
+filbert nails--indeed, filbert nails are more or less confined to these
+two types; one seldom sees them in other hands.
+
+Then there are the literary and artistic hands, with their mixed types
+of fingers, some conical and some square-tipped, but always with some
+redeeming feature of refinement and elegance in them; and the musical
+hand, sometimes a modified edition of the psychic, and sometimes quite
+different, with short, supple fingers and square tips. And yet
+again--would that it did not exist!--the business hand, far more common
+in England, where the bulk of the people have commercial minds, than
+elsewhere. It has no redeeming feature, but is short, and square, and
+fat, with stumpy fingers and hideous, spatulate nails, the very sight of
+which makes me shudder. Indeed, I have heard it said abroad, and not
+without some reason, that, apart from other little peculiarities, such
+as projecting teeth and big feet, the English have two sets of toes!
+When I look at English children's fingers, and see how universal is the
+custom of biting the nails, I feel quite sure the day will come when
+there will be no nails left to bite--that the day, in fact, is not far
+distant, when nails, rather than teeth, will become extinct.
+
+The Irish, French, Italians, Spanish, and Danes, being far more dramatic
+and psychic than the English, have far nicer hands, and for one set of
+filbert nails in London, we may count a dozen in Paris or Madrid.
+
+Murderers' hands are often noticeable for their knotted knuckles and
+club-shaped finger-tips; suicides--for the slenderness of the thumbs
+and strong inclination of the index to the second finger; thieves--for
+the pointedness of the finger-tips, and the length and suppleness of the
+fingers. Dominating, coarse-minded people, and people who exert undue
+influence over others, generally have broad, flat thumbs. The hands of
+soldiers and sailors are usually broad, with short, thick, square-tipped
+fingers; the hands of clergy are also more often broad and coarse than
+slender and conical, which may be accounted for by the fact that so many
+of them enter the Church with other than spiritual motives. The really
+spiritual hand is the counterpart of the psychical, and rarely seen in
+England. Doctors, doctors with a genuine love of their profession, in
+other words, "born" doctors, have broad but slender palms, with long,
+supple fingers and moderately square tips. This type of hand is typical,
+also, of the hospital nurse.
+
+It is, of course, a gross error to think that birth has everything to do
+with the shape of the hand; for the latter is entirely dependent on
+temperament; but it is also a mistake to say that as many
+beautiful-shaped hands are to be found among the lower as among the
+upper classes in England. It is a mistake, because the psychic and
+dramatic temperaments (and the psychic and dramatic type of hand is
+unquestionably the most beautiful) are rarely to be found in the middle
+and lower classes in England--they are almost entirely confined to the
+upper classes.
+
+
+_Pyromancy_
+
+Predicting the future by fire is one of the oldest methods of
+fortune-telling, and has been practised from time immemorial. I have
+often had my fortune told in the fire, but I cannot say it has ever
+proved to be very correct; only once a prognostication came true,--a
+sudden death occurred in a family very nearly connected with me, after a
+very fanciful churchyard had been pointed out to me amid the glowing
+embers.
+
+
+_Hydromancy_
+
+There are many ways of telling the fortune by means of water. One of the
+most usual methods is to float some object on the water's surface,
+predicting the future in accordance with the course that object takes;
+but I believe future events are just as often foretold by means of the
+water only.
+
+Many people believe that especially successful results in
+fortune-telling may be obtained by means of water only, on All-Hallows
+E'en or New Year's Eve.
+
+On the former night, the method of divining the future is as
+follows:--Place a bowl of clear spring water on your lap at midnight,
+and gaze into it. If you are to be married, you will see the face of
+your future husband (or bride) reflected in the water; if you are to
+remain single all your life, you will see nothing; and if you are to die
+within the year, the water will become muddy. On New Year's Eve a
+tumbler of water should be placed at midnight before the looking-glass,
+when any person, or persons, destined to play a very important rôle in
+your life within the coming year, will suddenly appear and sip the
+water. Should you be doomed to die within that period, the tumbler will
+be thrown on the ground and dashed to pieces.
+
+The conditions during the trial of both these methods are that you
+should be alone in the room, with only one candle burning.
+
+
+_The Crystal_
+
+I often practise crystal-gazing, and the results are strangely
+inconsistent. I see with startling vividness events that actually come
+to pass, and sometimes with equal perspicuity events that, as far as I
+know, are never fulfilled. And this I feel sure must be the case with
+all crystal-gazers, if they would but admit it. My method is very
+simple. As I cannot concentrate unless I have absolute quiet, I wait
+till the house is very still, and I then sit alone in my room with my
+back to the light, in such a position that the light pours over my
+shoulders on to the crystal, which I have set on the table before me.
+Sometimes I sit for a long time before I see anything, and sometimes,
+after a lengthy sitting, I see nothing at all; but when a tableau does
+come, it is always with the most startling vividness. When I want to be
+initiated into what is happening to certain of my friends, I concentrate
+my whole mind on those friends--I think of nothing but them--their
+faces, forms, mannerisms, and surroundings--and then, suddenly, I see
+them in the crystal! Visions are sometimes of the future, sometimes of
+the present, sometimes of the past, and sometimes of neither, but of
+what never actually transpires--and there is the strange inconsistency.
+I do not know what methods other people adopt, I daresay some of them
+differ from mine, but I feel quite sure that, look at the crystal how
+they will, it will invariably lie to them at times.
+
+A day or so before the death of Lafayette, when I was concentrating my
+whole mind on forthcoming events, I distinctly saw, in the crystal, a
+stage with a man standing before the footlights, either speaking or
+singing. In the midst of his performance, a black curtain suddenly fell,
+and I intuitively realised the theatre was on fire. The picture then
+faded away and was replaced by something of a totally different
+character. Again, just before the great thunder-storm at the end of May,
+when Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, was struck, I saw, in the crystal,
+a black sky, vivid flashes of lightning, a road rushing with brown
+water, and a church spire with an enormous crack in it.
+
+Of course, it is very easy to say these visions might have been mere
+coincidences; but if they were only coincidences, they were surpassingly
+uncommon ones.
+
+
+_Talismans and Amulets_
+
+Amulets, though now practically confined to the East, were once very
+much in vogue throughout Europe.
+
+Count Daniel O'Donnell, brigadier-general in the Irish Brigade of Louis
+XIV., never went into battle without carrying with him an amulet in the
+shape of the jewelled casket "Cathach of Columbcille," containing a
+Latin psalter said to have been written by St Columba. It has quite
+recently been lent to the Royal Irish Academy (where it is now) by my
+kinsman, the late Sir Richard O'Donnell, Bart. Count O'Donnell used to
+say that so long as he had this talisman with him, he would never be
+wounded, and it is a fact that though he led his regiment in the thick
+of the fight at Borgoforte, Nago, Arco, Vercelli, Ivrea, Verrua,
+Chivasso, Cassano, and other battles in the Italian Campaign of 1701-7,
+and at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Arleux, Denain, Douai, Bouchain, and
+Fuesnoy, in the Netherlands, he always came through scathless. Hence,
+like him, I am inclined to attribute his escapes to the psychic
+properties of the talisman.
+
+The great family of Lyons were in possession of a talisman in the form
+of a "lion-cup," the original of Scott's "Blessed Bear of Bradwardine,"
+which always brought them good luck till they went to Glamis, and after
+that they experienced centuries of misfortune.
+
+Another famous talisman is the "Luck of Edenhall," in the possession of
+Sir Richard Musgrave of Edenhall, in Cumberland; and many other ancient
+families still retain their amulets.
+
+
+_"The Evil Eye"_
+
+I was recently speaking to an Italian lady who informed me that belief
+in "the evil eye" is still very prevalent in many parts of Italy. "I
+myself believe in it," she said, "and whenever I pass a person whom I
+think possesses it, I make a sign with my fingers"--and she held up two
+of her fingers as she spoke. I certainly have observed that people with
+a peculiar and undefinable "something" in their eyes are particularly
+unlucky and invariably bring misfortune on those with whom they are in
+any degree intimate. These people, I have no doubt, possess "the evil
+eye," though it would not be discernible except to the extremely
+psychic, and there is no doubt that the Irish and Italians are both far
+more psychic than the English.
+
+People are of opinion that the eye is not a particularly safe indicator
+of true character, but I beg to differ. To me the eye tells everything,
+and I have never yet looked directly into a person's eyes without being
+able to satisfy myself as to their disposition. Cruelty, vanity, deceit,
+temper, sensuality, and all the other vices display themselves at once;
+and so with vulgarity--the glitter of the vulgar, of the ignorant,
+petty, mean, sordid mind, the mind that estimates all things and all
+people by money and clothes, cannot be hidden; "vulgarity" will out, and
+in no way more effectually than through the eyes. No matter how "smart"
+the _parvenu_ dresses, no matter how perfect his "style," the glitter of
+the eye tells me what manner of man he is, and when I see that strange
+anomaly, "nature's gentleman," in the service of such a man, I do not
+say to myself "Jack is as good"--I say, "Jack is better than his
+master."
+
+But to me "the evil eye," no less than the vulgar eye, manifests
+itself. I was at an "at home" one afternoon several seasons ago, when an
+old friend of mine suddenly whispered:
+
+"You see that lady in black, over there? I must tell you about her. She
+has just lost her husband, and he committed suicide under rather
+extraordinary circumstances in Sicily. He was not only very unlucky
+himself, but he invariably brought misfortune on those to whom he took a
+liking--even his dogs. His mother died from the effects of a railway
+accident; his favourite brother was drowned; the girl to whom he was
+first engaged went into rapid consumption; and no sooner had he married
+the lady you see, than she indirectly experienced misfortune through the
+heavy monetary losses of her father. At last he became convinced that he
+must be labouring under the influence of a curse, and, filled with a
+curious desire to see if he had 'the evil eye,'--people of course said
+he was mad--he went to Sicily. Arriving there, he had no sooner shown
+himself among the superstitious peasants, than they made a sign with
+their fingers to ward off evil, and in every possible way shunned him.
+Convinced then that what he had suspected was true, namely, that he was
+genuinely accursed, he went into a wood and shot himself."
+
+This, I daresay, is only one of many suicides in similar circumstances,
+and not a few of the suicides we attribute, with such obvious
+inconsistency (thinking thereby to cover our ignorance), to "temporary
+insanity," may be traceable to the influence of "the evil eye."
+
+
+_Witches_
+
+Though witches no longer wear conical hats and red cloaks and fly
+through the air on broomsticks, and though their _modus operandi_ has
+changed with their change of attire, I believe there are just as many
+witches in the world to-day, perhaps even more, than in days gone by.
+All women are witches who exert baleful influence over others--who wreck
+the happiness of families by setting husbands against wives (or, what is
+even more common, wives against husbands), parents against children, and
+brothers against sisters; and, who steal whole fortunes by inveigling
+into love, silly, weak-minded old men, or by captivating equally silly
+and weak-willed women. Indeed, the latter is far from rare, and there
+are instances of women having filled other women with the blindest
+infatuation for them--an infatuation surpassing that of the most doting
+lovers, and, without doubt, generated by undue influence, or, in other
+words, by witchcraft. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that the orthodox
+witch of the past was harmless compared with her present-day
+representative. There is, however, one thing we may be thankful for, and
+that is--that in the majority of cases the modern witch, despite her
+disregard of the former properties of her calling, cannot hide her
+danger signals. Her manners are soft and insinuating, but her eyes are
+hard--hard with the steely hardness, which, granted certain conditions,
+would not hesitate at murder. Her hands, too, are coarse--an
+exaggeration of the business type of hand--the fingers short and
+club-shaped, the thumbs broad and flat, the nails hideous; they are the
+antipodes of the psychic or dramatic type of hands: a type that,
+needless to say, witches have never been known to possess. Once the
+invocation of the dead was one of the practices of ancient witchcraft:
+one might, perhaps, not inappropriately apply the term witch to the
+modern spiritualist.
+
+If we credit the Scriptures with any degree of truth, then witches most
+certainly had the power of calling up the dead in Biblical days, for at
+Endor the feat--rare even in those times--was accomplished of invoking
+in material form the phantasms of the good as well as the evil. Though I
+am of the opinion that no amount of invocation will bring back a
+phantasm from the higher spiritual planes to-day, unless that invocation
+be made in very exceptional circumstances, with a specific purpose, I am
+quite sure that _bona fide_ spirits of the earth-bound do occasionally
+materialise in answer to the summons of the spiritualist. I do not base
+this statement on any experience I have ever had, for it is a rather
+singular fact that, although I have seen many spontaneous phenomena in
+haunted houses, I have never seen anything resembling, in the slightest
+degree, a genuine spirit form, at a séance. Therefore, I repeat, I do
+not base my statement, as to the occasional materialisation of _bona
+fide_ earth-bound spirits, on any of my experiences, but on those of
+"sitters" with whom I am intimately acquainted. What benefit can be
+derived from getting into close touch with earth-bound spirits, _i.e._
+with vice and impersonating elementals and the phantasms of dead idiots,
+lunatics, murderers, suicides, rakes, drunkards, immoral women and silly
+people of all sorts, is, I think, difficult to say; for my own part, I
+am only too content to steer clear of them, and confine my attentions to
+trying to be of service to those apparitions that are, obviously, for
+some reason, made to appear by the higher occult powers. Thus, what is
+popularly known as spiritualism is, from my point of view, a mischievous
+and often very dangerous form of witchcraft.
+
+A Frenchman to whom I was recently introduced at a house in Maida Vale,
+told me the following case, which he assured me actually happened in the
+middle of the eighteenth century, and was attested to by judicial
+documents. A French nobleman, whom I will designate the Vicomte
+Davergny, whilst on a visit to some friends near Toulouse, on hearing
+that a miller in the neighbourhood was in the habit of holding Sabbats,
+was seized with a burning desire to attend one. Consequently, in
+opposition to the advice of his friends, he saw the miller, and, by dint
+of prodigious bribing, finally persuaded the latter to permit him to
+attend one of the orgies. But the miller made one stipulation--the
+Vicomte was on no account to carry firearms; and to this the latter
+readily agreed. When, however, the eventful night arrived, the Vicomte,
+becoming convinced that it would be the height of folly to go to a
+notoriously lonely spot, in the dark, and unarmed, concealed a brace of
+pistols under his clothes. On reaching the place of assignation, he
+found the miller already there, and on the latter enveloping him in a
+heavy cloak, the Vicomte felt himself lifted bodily from the ground and
+whirled through the air. This sensation continued for several moments,
+when he was suddenly set down on the earth again and the cloak taken off
+him. At first he could scarcely make out anything owing to a blaze of
+light, but as soon as his eyes grew accustomed to the illumination, he
+perceived that he was standing near a huge faggot fire, around which
+squatted a score or so of the most hideous hags he had ever conceived
+even in his wildest imagination. After going through a number of strange
+incantations, which were more or less Greek to the Vicomte, there was a
+most impressive lull, that was abruptly broken by the appearance of an
+extraordinary and alarming-looking individual in the midst of the
+flames. All the witches at once uttered piercing shrieks and prostrated
+themselves, and the Vicomte then realised that the remarkable being who
+had caused the commotion was none other than the devil. Yielding to an
+irresistible impulse, but without really knowing what he was doing, the
+Vicomte whipped out a pistol, and, pointing at Mephistopheles, fired. In
+an instant, fire and witches vanished, and all was darkness and silence.
+
+Terrified out of his wits, the Count sank on the ground, where he
+remained till daylight, when he received another shock, on discovering,
+stretched close to him, the body of the miller with a bullet wound in
+his forehead. Flying from the spot, he wandered on and on, until he
+came to a cottage, at which he inquired his way home. And here another
+surprise awaited him. For the cottagers, in answer to his inquiries,
+informed him that the nearest town was not Toulouse but Bordeaux, and if
+he went on walking in such and such a direction, he would speedily come
+to it. Arriving at Bordeaux, as the peasant had directed, the Vicomte
+rested a short time, and then set out for Toulouse, which city he at
+length reached after a few days' journeying. But he had not been back
+long before he was arrested for the murder of the miller, it being
+deposed that he had been seen near Bordeaux, in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the tragedy, directly after its enaction. However, as
+it was obviously impossible that the Vicomte could have taken less than
+a few days to travel from Toulouse to a spot near Bordeaux, where the
+murder had taken place, a distance of several hundreds of miles, on the
+evidence of his friends, who declared that he had been with them till
+within a few hours of the time when it was presumed the crime was
+committed, the charge was withdrawn, and the Vicomte was fully
+acquitted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+  THE HAND OF GLORY; THE BLOODY HAND OF
+    ULSTER; THE SEVENTH SON; BIRTHMARKS;
+    NATURE'S DEVIL SIGNALS; PRE-EXISTENCE; THE
+    FUTURE; PROJECTION; TELEPATHY, ETC.
+
+
+_The Hand of Glory_
+
+Belief in the power of the Hand of Glory still, I believe, exists in
+certain parts of European and Asiatic Russia. Once it was prevalent
+everywhere. The Hand of Glory was a hand cut off from the body of a
+robber and murderer who had expiated his crimes on the gallows. To endow
+it with the properties of a talisman, the blood was first of all
+extracted; it was then given a thorough soaking in saltpetre and pepper,
+and hung out in the sun. When perfectly dry, it was used as a
+candlestick for a candle made of white wax, sesame seed, and fat from
+the corpse of the criminal. Prepared thus, the Hand of Glory was deemed
+to have the power of aiding and protecting the robbers in their
+nefarious work by sending to sleep their intended victims. Hence no
+robber ever visited a house without having such a talisman with him.
+
+
+_The Bloody Hand of Ulster_
+
+The Red Right Hand of Ulster is the badge of the O'Neills, and according
+to tradition it originated thus:--On the approach of an ancient
+expedition to Ulster, the leader declared that whoever first touched the
+shore should possess the land in the immediate vicinity. An ancestor of
+the O'Neills, anxious to obtain the reward, at once cut off his right
+hand and threw it on the coast, which henceforth became his territory.
+
+Since then the O'Neills have always claimed the Red Right Hand of Ulster
+as their badge, and it figured only the other day on the banner which,
+for the first time since the days of Shane the Proud, was flown from the
+battlements of their ancient stronghold, Ardglass Castle, now in the
+possession of Mr F. J. Bigger.
+
+A very similar story to that of the O'Neill is told of an O'Donnell,
+who, with a similar motive, namely, to acquire territory, on arriving
+within sight of Spain, cut off his hand and hurled it on the shore, and,
+like the O'Neills, the O'Donnells from that time have adopted the hand
+as their badge.
+
+
+_The Seventh Son_
+
+It was formerly believed that a seventh son could cure diseases, and
+that a seventh son of a seventh son, with no female born in between,
+could cure the king's evil. Indeed, seven was universally regarded as a
+psychic number, and according to astrologers the greatest events in a
+person's life, and his nearest approach to death without actually
+incurring it, would be every seven years. The grand climacterics are
+sixty-three and eighty-four, and the most critical periods of a
+person's life occur when they are sixty-three and eighty-four years of
+age.
+
+
+_Birthmarks_
+
+Some families have a heritage of peculiar markings on the skin. The only
+birthmark of this description which I am acquainted with is "The
+Historic Baldearg," or red spot that has periodically appeared on the
+skins of members of the O'Donnell clan. Its origin is dubious, but I
+imagine it must go back pretty nearly to the time of the great Niall. In
+the days when Ireland was in a chronic state of rebellion, it was said
+that it would never shake off the yoke of its cruel English oppressors
+till its forces united under the leadership of an O'Donnell with the
+Baldearg. An O'Donnell with the Baldearg turned up in 1690, in the
+person of Hugh Baldearg O'Donnell, son of John O'Donnell, an officer in
+the Spanish Army, and descendant of the Calvagh O'Donnell of Tyrconnell,
+who had been created Earl of Wexford by Queen Elizabeth. But the Irish,
+as has ever been the case, would not unite, and despite the aid given
+him by Talbot (who had succeeded the O'Donnells in the Earldom of
+Tyrconnell), he met with but little success, and returning to Spain,
+died there with the rank of Major-General in 1704.
+
+References to the Baldearg may be seen in various of the Memoirs of the
+O'Donnells in the libraries of the British Museum, Madrid, Dublin, and
+elsewhere.
+
+
+_Nature's Devil Signals_
+
+I have already alluded to the fingers typical of murderers; I will now
+refer in brief to a form of Nature's other danger signals. The feet of
+murderers are, as a rule, very short and broad, the toes flat and
+square-tipped. As a rule, too, they either have very receding chins, as
+in the case of Mapleton Lefroy, or very massive, prominent chins, as in
+the case of Gotfried.
+
+In many instances the ears of murderers are set very far back and low
+down on their heads, and the outer rims are very much crumpled; also
+they have very high and prominent cheek-bones, whilst one side of the
+face is different from the other. The backs of many murderers' heads are
+nearly perpendicular, or, if anything, rather inclined to recede than
+otherwise--they seldom project--whilst the forehead is unusually
+prominent.
+
+It is a noteworthy fact that a large percentage of modern murderers have
+had rather prominent light, steely blue eyes--rarely grey or brown.
+
+Their voices--and there is another key to the character--are either
+hollow and metallic, or suggestive of the sounds made by certain
+animals.
+
+Many of these characteristics are to be found in criminal lunatics.
+
+
+_Pre-existence and the Future_
+
+To talk of a former life as if it were an established fact is, of
+course, an absurdity; to dogmatise at all on such a question, with
+regard to which one man's opinion is just as speculative as another's,
+is, perhaps, equally ridiculous. Granted, then, the equal value of the
+varying opinions of sane men on this subject, it is clear that no one
+can be considered an authority; my opinion, no less than other people's,
+is, as I have said, merely speculation. That I had a former life is, I
+think, extremely likely, and that I misconducted myself in that former
+life, more than likely, since it is only by supposing a previous
+existence in which I misbehaved, that I can see the shadow of a
+justification for all the apparently unmerited misfortunes I have
+suffered in my present existence.
+
+I do not, however, see any specific reason why my former existence
+should have been here; on the contrary, I think it far more probable
+that I was once in some other sphere--perhaps one of the planets--where
+my misdeeds led to my banishment and my subsequent appearance in this
+world. With regard to a future life, eternal punishment, and its
+converse, everlasting bliss, I fear I never had any orthodox views, or,
+if I had, my orthodoxy exploded as soon as my common sense began to
+grow.
+
+Hell, the hell hurled at my head from the pulpit, only excited my
+indignation--it was so unjust--nor did the God of the Old Testament fill
+me with aught save indignation and disgust. Lost in a quagmire of doubts
+and perplexities, I inquired of my preceptors as to the authorship of
+the book that held up for adoration a being so stern, relentless, and
+unjust as God; and in answer to my inquiries was told that I was very
+wicked to talk in such a way about the Bible; that it was God's own
+book--divinely inspired--in fact, written by God Himself. Then I
+inquired if the original manuscript in God's handwriting was still in
+existence; and was told I was very wicked and must hold my tongue. Yet I
+had no idea of being in any way irreverent or blasphemous; I was merely
+perplexed, and longed to have my difficulties settled. Failing this,
+they grew, and I began to question whether the terms "merciful" and
+"almighty" were terms that could be applied with any degree of
+consistency to the scriptural one and only Creator. Would that God, if
+He were almighty, have permitted the existence of such an enemy (or
+indeed an enemy at all) as the Devil? And if He were merciful, would He,
+for the one disobedient act of one human being, have condemned to the
+most ghastly and diabolical sufferings, millions of human beings, and
+not only human beings, but animals? Ah! that's where the rub comes in,
+for though there may be some sense, if not justice, in causing men and
+women, who have sinned--to suffer, there is surely neither reason nor
+justice in making animals, who have not sinned--to suffer.
+
+And yet, for man's one act of disobedience, both man and beast have
+suffered thousands of years of untold agonies. Could anyone save the
+blindest and most fanatical of biblical bigots call the ordainer of such
+a punishment merciful? How often have I asked myself who created the
+laws and principles of Nature! They are certainly more suggestive of a
+fiendish than a benevolent author. It is ridiculous to say man owes
+disease to his own acts--such an argument--if argument at all--would
+not deceive an infant. Are the insects, the trees, the fish responsible
+for the diseases with which they are inflicted? No, Nature, or rather
+the creator of Nature, is alone responsible. But, granted we have lived
+before, there may be grounds for the suffering both of man and beast.
+The story of the Fall may be but a contortion of something that has
+happened to man in a former existence, in another sphere, possibly, in
+another planet; and its description based on nothing more substantial
+than memory, vague and fleeting as a dream. Anyhow, I am inclined to
+think that incarnation here might be traced to something of
+more--infinitely more--importance than an apple; possibly, to some cause
+of which we have not, at the present, even the remotest conception.
+People, who do not believe in the former existence, attempt to justify
+the ills of man here, by assuming that a state of perfect happiness
+cannot be attained by man, except he has suffered a certain amount of
+pain; so that, in order to attain to perfect happiness, man must of
+necessity experience suffering--a theory founded on the much
+misunderstood axiom, that nothing can exist save by contrast. But
+supposing, for the sake of argument, that this axiom, according to its
+everyday interpretation, is an axiom, _i.e._ a true saying, then God,
+the Creator of all things, must have created evil--evil that good may
+exist, and good that evil may exist. This deduction, however, is
+obviously at variance with the theory that God is all goodness, since if
+nothing can exist save by contrast, goodness must of necessity
+presuppose badness, and we are thus led to the conclusion that God is
+at the same time both good and bad, a conclusion which is undoubtedly a
+_reductio ad absurdum_.
+
+Seeing, then, that a God all good cannot have created evil, surely we
+should be more rational, if less scriptural, were we to suppose a
+plurality of gods. In any case I cannot see how pain, if God is indeed
+all mighty and all good, can be the inevitable corollary of pleasure.
+Nor can I see the necessity for man to suffer here, in order to enjoy
+absolute happiness in the hereafter. No, I think if there is any
+justification for the suffering of mankind on this earth, it is to be
+found, not in the theory of "contrast," but in a former existence, and
+in an existence in some other sphere or plane. Vague recollections of
+such an existence arise and perplex many of us; but they are so elusive,
+the moment we attempt to grapple with them, they fade away.
+
+The frequent and vivid dreams I have, of visiting a region that is
+peopled with beings that have nothing at all in common with mankind, and
+who welcome me as effusively as if I had been long acquainted with them,
+makes me wonder if I have actually dwelt amongst them in a previous
+life.
+
+I cannot get rid of the idea that in everything I see (in these
+dreams)--in the appearance, mannerisms, and expressions of my queer
+companions, in the scenery, in the atmosphere--I do but recall the
+actual experience of long ago--the actual experience of a previous
+existence. Nor is this identical dreamland confined to me; and the fact
+that others whom I have met, have dreamed of a land, corresponding in
+every detail to my dreamland, proves, to my mind, the possibility that
+both they and I have lived a former life, and in that former life
+inhabited the same sphere.
+
+
+_Projection_
+
+I have, as I have previously stated in my work, _The Haunted Houses of
+London_, succeeded, on one occasion, in separating at will, my
+immaterial from my material body. I was walking alone along a very
+quiet, country lane, at 4 P.M., and concentrating with all my mind, on
+being at home. I kept repeating to myself, "I WILL be there." Suddenly a
+vivid picture of the exterior of the house rose before me, and, the next
+instant, I found myself, in the most natural manner possible, walking
+down some steps and across the side garden leading to the conservatory.
+I entered the house, and found all my possessions--books, papers, shoes,
+etc.--just as I had left them some hours previously. With the intention
+of showing myself to my wife, in order that she might be a witness to my
+appearance, I hastened to the room, where I thought it most likely I
+should find her, and was about to turn the handle of the door, when, for
+the fraction of a second, I saw nothing. Immediately afterwards there
+came a blank, and I was once again on the lonely moorland road, toiling
+along, fishing rod in hand, a couple of miles, at least, away from home.
+When I did arrive home, my wife met me in the hall, eager to tell me
+that at four o'clock both she and the girls had distinctly heard me come
+down the steps and through the conservatory into the house. "You
+actually came," my wife continued, "to the door of the room in which I
+was sitting. I called out to you to come in, but, receiving no reply, I
+got up and opened the door, and found, to my utter amazement, no one
+there. I searched for you everywhere, and should much like to know why
+you have behaved in this very extraordinary manner."
+
+Much excited in my turn, I hastened to explain to her that I had been
+practising projection, and had actually succeeded in separating my
+material from my immaterial body, for a brief space of time, just about
+four o'clock. The footsteps she had heard were indeed my own
+footsteps--and upon this point she was even more positive than I--the
+footsteps of my immaterial self.
+
+I have made my presence felt, though I have never "appeared," on several
+other occasions. In my sleep, I believe, I am often separated from my
+physical body, as my dreams are so intensely real and vivid. They are so
+real that I am frequently able to remember, almost _verbatim_, long
+conversations I have had in them, and I awake repeating broken-off
+sentences. Often, after I have taken active exercise, such as running,
+or done manual labour, such as digging or lifting heavy weights in the
+land of my dreams, my muscles have ached all the following day.
+
+With regard to the projections of other people, I have often seen
+phantasms of the living, and an account of one appearing to me, when in
+the company of three other persons, all of whom saw it, may be read in
+the Psychical Research Society's Magazine for October 1899. I have
+referred to it as well as to other of my similar experiences in
+_Ghostly Phenomena_ and _Haunted Houses of London_.
+
+_Doubles_, _i.e._ people who are more or less the exact counterpart of
+other people, may easily be taken for projections by those who have but
+little acquaintance with the occult. I, myself, have seen many doubles,
+but though they be as like as the proverbial two peas, I can tell at a
+glance whether they be the material or immaterial likeness of those they
+so exactly resemble. I think there is no doubt that, in a good many
+instances, doubles have been mistaken for projections, and, of course,
+_vice versâ_.
+
+
+_Telepathy and Suggestion_
+
+Though telepathy between two very wakeful minds is an established fact,
+I do not think it is generally known that it can also take place between
+two minds when asleep, or between one person awake and another asleep,
+and yet I have proved this to be the case. My wife and I continually
+dream of the same thing at the same time, and if I lie down in the
+afternoon and fall asleep alone, she often thinks of precisely what I am
+dreaming about. Though telepathy and suggestion may possibly account for
+hauntings when the phenomenon is only experienced individually, I cannot
+see how it can do so when the manifestations are witnessed by numbers,
+_i.e._ collectively. I am quite sure that neither telepathy nor
+suggestion are in any degree responsible for the phenomena I have
+experienced, and that the latter hail only from one quarter--the
+objective and genuine occult world.
+
+
+_The Psychic Faculty and Second Sight_
+
+Whereas some people seem fated to experience occult phenomena and others
+not, there is this inconsistency: the person with the supposed psychic
+faculty does not always witness the phenomena when they appear. By way
+of illustration: I have been present on one occasion in a haunted room
+when all present have seen the ghost with the exception of myself;
+whilst on other occasions, either I have been the only one who has seen
+it, or some or all of us have seen it. It would thus seem that the
+psychic faculty does not ensure one's seeing a ghost, whenever a ghost
+is to be seen.
+
+I think, as a matter of fact, that apparitions can, whilst manifesting
+themselves to some, remain invisible to others, and that they themselves
+determine to whom they will appear. Some types of phantasms apparently
+prefer manifesting themselves to the spiritual or psychic-minded person,
+whilst other types do not discriminate, but appear to the spiritual and
+carnal-minded alike. There is just as much variety in the tastes and
+habits of phantasms as in the tastes and habits of human beings, and in
+the behaviour of both phantasm and human being, I regret to say, there
+is an equal and predominant amount of inconsistency.
+
+
+_Intuition_
+
+I do not think it can be doubted that psychic people have the faculty of
+intuition far more highly developed than is the case with the more
+material-minded.
+
+"Second sight" is but another name for the psychic faculty, and it is
+generally acknowledged to be far more common among the Celts than the
+Anglo-Saxons. That this is so need not be wondered at, since the Irish
+and the Highlanders of Scotland (originally the same race) are far more
+spiritual-minded than the English (in whom commerciality and worldliness
+are innate), and consequently have, on the whole, a far greater
+attraction for spirits who would naturally prefer to reveal themselves
+to those in whom they would be the more likely to find something in
+common.
+
+There is still a belief in certain parts of the Hebrides that second
+sight was once obtained there through a practice called "The Taigheirm."
+This rite, which is said to have been last performed about the middle of
+the seventeenth century, consisted in roasting on a spit, before a slow
+fire, a number of black cats. As soon as one was dead another took its
+place, and the sacrifice was continued until the screeches of the
+tortured animals summoned from the occult world an enormous black cat,
+that promised to bestow as a perpetual heritage on the sacrificer and
+his family, the faculty of second sight, if he would desist from any
+further slaughter.
+
+The sacrificer joyfully closed with the bargain, and the ceremony
+concluded with much feasting and merriment, in which, however, it is
+highly improbable that the phantasms of the poor roasted "toms" took
+part.
+
+
+_Clairvoyance_
+
+Clairvoyance is a branch of occultism in which I have had little
+experience, and can, therefore, only refer to in brief. When I was the
+Principal of a Preparatory School, I once had on my staff a Frenchman of
+the name of Deslys. On recommencing school after the Christmas vacation,
+M. Deslys surprised me very much by suddenly observing: "Mr O'Donnell,
+did you not stay during the holidays at No. ... The Crescent, Bath?"
+
+"Yes," I replied; "but how on earth do you know?" I had only been there
+two days, and had certainly never mentioned my visit either to him or to
+anyone acquainted with him.
+
+"Well!" he said, "I'll tell you how I came to know. Hearing from my
+friends that Mme. Leprès, a well-known clairvoyante, had just come to
+Paris, I went to see her. It is just a week ago to-day. After she had
+described, with wonderful accuracy, several houses and scenes with which
+I was familiar, and given me several pieces of information about my
+friends, which I subsequently found to be correct, I asked her to tell
+me where you were and what you were doing. For some moments she was
+silent, and then she said very slowly: 'He is staying with a friend at
+No. ... The Crescent, Bath. I can see him (it was then three o'clock in
+the afternoon) sitting by the bedside of his friend, who has his head
+tied up in bandages. Mr O'Donnell is telling him a very droll story
+about Lady B----, to whom he has been lately introduced.' She then
+stopped, made a futile effort to go on, and after a protracted pause
+exclaimed: 'I can see no more--something has happened.' That was all I
+found out about you."
+
+"And enough, too, M. Deslys," I responded, "for what she told you was
+absolutely true. A week ago to-day I was staying at No. ... The
+Crescent, Bath, and at three o'clock in the afternoon I was sitting at
+the bedside of my friend, who had injured his head in a fall, and had it
+tied up in bandages; and amongst other bits of gossip, I narrated to him
+a very amusing anecdote concerning Lady B----, whom I have only just
+met, for the first time, in London."
+
+Now M. Deslys could not possibly have known, excepting through psychical
+agency, where I had been staying a week before that time, or what I had
+been doing at three o'clock on that identical afternoon.
+
+
+_Automatic Writing_
+
+I have frequently experimented in automatic writing. Who that is
+interested in the occult has not! But I cannot say I have ever had any
+astonishing results. However, though my own experiences are not worth
+recording, I have heard of many extraordinary results obtained by
+others--results from automatic messages that one can not help believing
+could only be due to superphysical agency.
+
+
+_Table-turning_
+
+I do not think there is anything superphysical in merely turning the
+table, or making it move across the room, or causing it to fall over on
+to the ground, and to get up again. I am of the opinion that all this is
+due to animal magnetism, and to the unconscious efforts of the audience,
+who are ever anxious for the ghost to come and something startling to
+happen. The ladies, in particular, I would point out, press a little
+hard with their dainty but determined hands, or with their self-willed
+knees resort to a few sly pushes. When this does not happen, I think it
+is quite possible that an elemental or some other equally undesirable
+type of phantasm does actually attend the séance, and, emphasising its
+arrival by sundry noises, is responsible for many, if not all the
+phenomena. On the other hand, I certainly think that ninety per cent. of
+the rappings and the manifestations of musical enthusiasts is due to
+trickery on the part of the medium, or, if there be no professional
+medium present, to an over-zealous sitter.
+
+But since ghosts can and do show themselves spontaneously in haunted
+houses, why the necessity of musical instruments, professional medium,
+and sitting round a table with fingers linked? Surely, when one comes to
+think of it, the _modus operandi_ of the séance, besides being extremely
+undignified, is somewhat superfluous. Tin trumpets, twopenny
+tambourines, and concertinas are all very well in their way, but, try
+how I will, I cannot associate them with ghosts. What phantasm of any
+standing at all would be attracted by such baubles? Surely only the
+phantasms of the very silliest of servant girls, of incurable idiots,
+and of advanced imbeciles. But even they, I think, might be "above it,"
+in which case the musical instruments, tin trumpets, tambourines, and
+concertinas, disdained by the immaterial, must be manipulated by the
+material! And this rule with regard to table-turning, the manipulation
+of musical instruments, etc., equally applies to materialisation. I have
+no doubt that genuine phantasms of the earth-bound or elementals do
+occasionally show themselves, but I am quite sure in nine cases out of
+ten the manifestations are manifestations of living flesh and blood.
+
+
+_Charms and Checks against Ghosts_
+
+"When I feel the approach of the superphysical, I always cross myself,"
+an old lady once remarked to me; and this is what many people do;
+indeed, the sign of the cross is the most common mode of warding off
+evil. Whether it is really efficacious is doubtful. I, for my part, make
+use of the sign, involuntarily rather than otherwise, because the custom
+is innate in me, and is, perhaps, with various other customs, the
+heritage of all my race from ages past; but I cannot say it always or
+even often answers, for ghosts frequently manifest themselves to me in
+spite of it. Then there is the magic circle which is described
+differently by divers writers. According to Mr Dyer, in his _Ghost
+World_, pp. 167-168, the circle was prepared thus: "A piece of ground
+was usually chosen, nine feet square, at the full extent of which
+parallel lines were drawn, one within the other, having sundry crosses
+and triangles described between them, close to which was formed the
+first or outer circle; then about half a foot within the same, a second
+circle was described, and within that another square corresponding to
+the first, the centre of which was the spot where the master and
+associate were to be placed. The vacancies formed by the various lines
+and angles of the figure were filled up by the holy names of God, having
+crosses and triangles described between them.... The reason assigned for
+the use of the circles was, that so much ground being blessed and
+consecrated by such holy words and ceremonies as they made use of in
+forming it, had a secret force to expel all evil spirits from the bounds
+thereof, and, being sprinkled with pure sanctified water, the ground was
+purified from all uncleanliness; besides, the holy names of God being
+written over every part of it, its forces became so powerful that no
+evil spirits had ability to break through it, or to get at the magician
+and his companion, by reason of the antipathy in nature they bore to
+these sacred names. And the reason given for the triangles was, that if
+the spirits were not easily brought to speak the truth, they might by
+the exorcist be conjured to enter the same, where, by virtue of the
+names of the essence and divinity of God, they could speak nothing but
+what was true and right."
+
+Again according to Mr Dyer, when a spot was haunted by the spirit of a
+murderer or suicide who lay buried there, a magic circle was made just
+over the grave, and he who was daring enough to venture there, at
+midnight, preferably when the elements were at their worst, would
+conjure the ghost to appear and give its reason for haunting the spot.
+In answer to the summons there was generally a long, unnatural silence,
+which was succeeded by a tremendous crash, when the phantasm would
+appear, and, in ghastly, hollow tones answer all the questions put to
+it. Never once would it encroach on the circle, and on its interrogator
+promising to carry out its wishes, it would suddenly vanish and never
+again walk abroad. If the hauntings were in a house, the investigator
+entered the haunted room at midnight with a candle, and compass, and a
+crucifix or Bible. After carefully shutting the door, and describing a
+circle on the floor, in which he drew a cross, he placed within it a
+chair, and table, and on the latter, put the crucifix, a Bible, and a
+lighted candle. He then sat down on the chair and awaited the advent of
+the apparition, which either entered noiselessly or with a terrific
+crash. On the promise that its wishes would be fulfilled, the ghost
+withdrew, and there were no more disturbances. Sometimes the
+investigator, if he were a priest, would sprinkle the phantasm with holy
+water and sometimes make passes over it with the crucifix, but the
+results were always the same; it responded to all the questions that
+were put to it and never troubled the house again.
+
+How different from what happens in reality! Though I have seen and
+interrogated many ghosts, I have never had a reply, or anything in the
+shape of a reply, nor perceived any alteration in their expression that
+would in any way lead me to suppose they had understood me; and as to
+exorcism--well, I know of innumerable cases where it has been tried,
+and tried by the most pious of clergy--clergy of all denominations--and
+singularly failed. It is true I have never experimented with a magic
+circle, but, somehow, I have not much faith in it.
+
+In China the method of expelling ghosts from haunted houses has been
+described as follows:--An altar containing tapers and incense sticks is
+erected in the spot where the manifestations are most frequent. A Taoist
+priest is then summoned, and enters the house dressed in a red robe,
+with blue stockings and a black cap. He has with him a sword, made of
+the wood of the peach or date tree, the hilt and guard of which are
+covered with red cloth. Written in ink on the blade of the sword is a
+charm against ghosts. Advancing to the altar, the priest deposits his
+sword on it. He then prepares a mystic scroll, which he burns,
+collecting and emptying the ashes into a cup of spring water. Next, he
+takes the sword in his right hand and the cup in his left, and, after
+taking seven paces to the left and eight to the right, he says: "Gods of
+heaven and earth, invest me with the heavy seal, in order that I may
+eject from this dwelling-house all kinds of evil spirits. Should any
+disobey me, give me power to deliver them for safe custody to rulers of
+such demons." Then, addressing the ghost in a loud voice, he says: "As
+quick as lightning depart from this house." This done, he takes a bunch
+of willow, dips it in the cup, and sprinkles it in the east, west,
+north, and south corners of the house, and, laying it down, picks up his
+sword and cup, and, going to the east corner of the building, calls
+out: "I have the authority, Tai-Shaong-Loo-Kivan." He then fills his
+mouth with water from the cup, and spits it out on the wall, exclaiming:
+"Kill the green evil spirits which come from unlucky stars, or let them
+be driven away." This ceremony he repeats at the south, west, and north
+corners respectively, substituting, in turn, red, white, and yellow in
+the place of green. The attendants then beat gongs, drums, and tom-toms,
+and the exorcist cries out: "Evil spirits from the east, I send back to
+the east; evil spirits from the south, I send back to the south," and so
+on. Finally, he goes to the door of the house, and, after making some
+mystical signs in the air, manoeuvres with his sword, congratulates the
+owner of the establishment on the expulsion of the ghosts, and demands
+his fee.
+
+In China the sword is generally deemed to have psychic properties, and
+is often to be seen suspended over a bed to scare away ghosts. Sometimes
+a horse's tail--a horse being also considered extremely psychic--or a
+rag dipped in the blood from a criminal's head, are used for the same
+purpose. But no matter how many, or how varied, the precautions we take,
+ghosts will come, and nothing will drive them away. The only protection
+I have ever found to be of any practical value in preventing them from
+materialising is a powerful light. As a rule they cannot stand _that_,
+and whenever I have turned a pocket flashlight on them, they have at
+once dematerialised; often, however, materialising again immediately the
+light has been turned off.
+
+The cock was, at one time, (and still is in some parts of the world)
+regarded as a psychic bird; it being thought that phantasms invariably
+took their departure as soon as it began to crow. This, however, is a
+fallacy. As ghosts appear at all hours of the day and night, in season
+and out of season, I fear it is only too obvious that their
+manifestations cannot be restricted within the limits of any particular
+time, and that their coming and going, far from being subject to the
+crowing of a cock, however vociferous, depend entirely on themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS
+
+
+_Phantom Ships_
+
+From time to time, one still hears of a phantom ship being seen, in
+various parts of the world. Sometimes it is in the Straits of Magellan,
+vainly trying to weather the Horn; sometimes in the frozen latitudes of
+the north, steering its way in miraculous fashion past monster icebergs;
+sometimes in the Pacific, sometimes in the Atlantic, and only the other
+day I heard of its being seen off Cornwall. The night was dark and
+stormy, and lights being suddenly seen out at sea as of a vessel in
+distress, the lifeboat was launched. On approaching the lights, it was
+discovered that they proceeded from a vessel that mysteriously vanished
+as soon as the would-be rescuers were within hailing. Much puzzled, the
+lifeboat men were about to return, when they saw the lights suddenly
+reappear to leeward. On drawing near to them, they again disappeared,
+and were once more seen right out to sea. Utterly nonplussed, and
+feeling certain that the elusive bark must be the notorious phantom
+ship, the lifeboat men abandoned the pursuit, and returned home.
+
+A fisherman of the same town--the town to which the lifeboat that had
+gone to the rescue of the phantom ship belonged--told me, when I was out
+with him one evening in his boat, that one of the oldest inhabitants of
+the place had on one occasion, when the phantom ship visited the bay,
+actually got his hands on her gunwales before she melted away, and he
+narrowly escaped pitching headlong into the sea. Though the weather was
+then still and warm, the yards of the ship, which were coated with ice,
+flapped violently to and fro, as if under the influence of some mighty
+wind. The appearance of the phenomenon was followed, as usual, by a
+catastrophe to one of the local boats.
+
+I very often sound sailors as to whether they have ever come across this
+ominous vessel, and sometimes hear very enthralling accounts of it. An
+old sea captain whom I met on the pier at Southampton, in reply to my
+inquiry, said: "Yes! I have seen the phantom ship, or at any rate a
+phantom ship, once--but only once. It was one night in the fifties, and
+we were becalmed in the South Pacific about three hundred miles due west
+of Callao. It had been terrifically hot all day, and, only too thankful
+that it was now a little cooler, I was lolling over the bulwarks to get
+a few mouthfuls of fresh air before turning into my berth, when one of
+the crew touched me on the shoulder, and ejaculating, 'For God's
+sake----' abruptly left off. Following the direction of his glaring
+eyes, I saw to my amazement a large black brig bearing directly down on
+us. She was about a mile off, and, despite the intense calmness of the
+sea, was pitching and tossing as if in the roughest water. As she drew
+nearer I was able to make her out better, and from her build--she
+carried two masts and was square-rigged forward and schooner-rigged
+aft--as well as from her tawdry gilt figurehead, concluded she was a
+hermaphrodite brig of, very possibly, Dutch nationality. She had
+evidently seen a great deal of rough weather, for her foretopmast and
+part of her starboard bulwarks were gone, and what added to my
+astonishment and filled me with fears and doubts was, that in spite of
+the pace at which she was approaching us and the dead calmness of the
+air, she had no other sails than her foresail and mainsail, and
+flying-jib.
+
+"By this time all of our crew were on deck, and the skipper and the
+second mate took up their positions one on either side of me, the man
+who had first called my attention to the strange ship, joining some
+other seamen near the forecastle. No one spoke, but, from the expression
+in their eyes and ghastly pallor of their cheeks, it was very easy to
+see that one and all were dominated by the same feelings of terror and
+suspicion. Nearer and nearer drew the brig, until she was at last so
+close that we could perceive her crew--all of whom, save the helmsman,
+were leaning over the bulwarks--grinning at us. Never shall I forget the
+horror of those grins. They were hideous, meaningless, hellish grins,
+the grins of corpses in the last stage of putrefaction. And that is just
+what they were--all of them--corpses, but corpses possessed by spirits
+of the most devilish sort, for as we stared, too petrified with fear to
+remove our gaze, they nodded their ulcerated heads and gesticulated
+vehemently. The brig then gave a sudden yaw, and with that motion there
+was wafted a stink--a stink too damnably foul and rotten to originate
+from anywhere, save from some cesspool in hell. Choking, retching, and
+all but fainting, I buried my face in the skipper's coat, and did not
+venture to raise it, till the far-away sounds of plunging and tossing
+assured me the cursed ship had passed. I then looked up, and was just in
+time to catch a final glimpse of the brig, a few hundred yards to
+leeward, (she had passed close under our stern) before her lofty stern
+rose out of the water, and, bows foremost, she plunged into the stilly
+depths and we saw her no more. There was no need for the skipper to tell
+us that she was the phantom ship, nor did she belie her sinister
+reputation, for within a week of seeing her, yellow fever broke out on
+board, and when we arrived at port, there were only three of us left."
+
+
+_The Sargasso Sea_
+
+Of all the seas in the world, none bear a greater reputation for being
+haunted than the Sargasso. Within this impenetrable waste of rank,
+stinking seaweed, in places many feet deep, are collected wreckages of
+all ages and all climes, grim and permanent records of the world's
+maritime history, unsinkable and undestroyable. It has ever been my
+ambition to explore the margins of this unsightly yet fascinating marine
+wilderness, but, so far, I have been unable to extend my peregrinations
+further south than the thirty-fifth degree of latitude.
+
+Among the many stories I have heard in connection with this sea, the
+following will, I think, bear repeating:--
+
+"A brig with twelve hands aboard, bound from Boston to the Cape Verde
+Islands, was caught in a storm, and, being blown out of her course,
+drifted on to the northern extremities of the Sargasso. The wind then
+sinking, and an absolute calm taking its place, there seemed every
+prospect that the brig would remain where it was for an indefinite
+period. A most horrible fate now stared the crew in the face, for
+although they had food enough to last them for many weeks, they only had
+a very limited supply of water, and the intense heat and terrific stench
+from the weeds made them abnormally thirsty.
+
+"After a long and earnest consultation, in which the skipper acted as
+chairman, it was decided that on the consumption of the last drop of
+water they should all commit suicide, anything rather than to perish of
+thirst, and it would be far less harrowing to die in a body and face the
+awful possibilities of the next world in company than alone.
+
+"As there was only one firearm on board, and the idea of throat-cutting
+was disapproved of by several of the more timid, rat poison, of which
+there was just enough to go all round, was chosen. Meanwhile, in
+consideration of the short time left to them on earth, the crew insisted
+that they should be allowed to enjoy themselves to the utmost. To this
+the captain, knowing only too well what that would mean, reluctantly
+gave his consent. A general pandemonium at once ensued, one of the men
+producing a mouth accordion and another a concertina, whilst the rest,
+selecting partners with much mock gallantry, danced to the air of a
+popular Vaudeville song till they could dance no longer.
+
+"The next item on the programme was dinner. The best of everything on
+board was served up, and they all ate and drank till they could hold no
+more. They were then so sleepy that they tumbled off their seats, and,
+lying on the floor, soon snored like hogs. The cool of the evening
+restoring them, they played pitch and toss, and poker, till tea-time,
+and then fooled away the remainder of the evening in more cards and more
+drink. In this manner the best part of a week was beguiled. Then the
+skipper announced the fact that the last drop of liquor on board had
+gone, and that, according to the compact, the hour had arrived to commit
+suicide. Had a bombshell fallen in their midst, it could not have caused
+a greater consternation than this announcement. The men had, by this
+time, become so enamoured with their easy and irresponsible mode of
+living, that the idea of quitting it in so abrupt a manner was by no
+means to their liking, and they evinced their displeasure in the
+roughest and most forcible of language. 'The skipper could d----d well
+put an end to himself if he had a mind to, but they would see themselves
+somewhere else before they did any such thing--it would be time enough
+to talk of dying when the victuals were all eaten up.' Then they
+thoroughly overhauled the ship, and on discovering half a dozen bottles
+of rum and a small cask of water stowed away in the skipper's cabin,
+they threw him overboard and pelted him with empty bottles till he sank;
+after which they cleared the deck and danced till sunset.
+
+"Two nights later, when they were all lying on the deck near the
+companion way, licking their parched lips and commiserating with
+themselves on the prospect of their gradually approaching end--for they
+had abandoned all idea of the rat poison--they suddenly saw a hideous,
+seaweedy object rise up over the bulwarks on the leeward side of the
+ship. In breathless expectation they all sat up and watched. Inch by
+inch it rose, until they saw before them a tall form enveloped from head
+to foot in green slime, and horribly suggestive of the well-known figure
+of the murdered captain. Gliding noiselessly over the deck, it shook its
+hands menacingly at each of the sailors, until it came to the
+cabin-boy--the only one among them who had not participated in the
+skipper's death--when it touched him gently on the forehead, and,
+stooping down, appeared to whisper something in his ears. It then
+recrossed the deck, and, mounting the bulwarks, leaped into the sea.
+
+"For some seconds no one stirred; and then, as if under the influence of
+some hypnotic spell, one by one, each of the crew, with the exception of
+the cabin-boy, got up, and, marching in Indian file to the spot where
+the apparition had vanished, flung themselves overboard. The last of the
+procession had barely disappeared from view, when the cabin-boy, whose
+agony of mind during this infernal tragedy cannot be described, fell
+into a heavy stupor, from which he did not awake till morning. In the
+meanwhile the brig, owing to a stiff breeze that had arisen in the
+night, was freed from its environment, and was drifting away from the
+seaweed. It went on and on, day after day, and day after day, till it
+was eventually sighted by a steamer and taken in tow. The cabin-boy, by
+this time barely alive, was nursed with the tenderest care, and, owing
+to the assiduous attention bestowed on him, he completely recovered."
+
+I think this story, though naturally ridiculed and discredited by some,
+may be unreservedly accepted by those whose knowledge and experience of
+the occult warrant their belief in it.
+
+Along the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so than
+the "Bay of the Departed," where, in the dead of night, wails and cries,
+presumably uttered by the phantasms of drowned sailors, are distinctly
+heard by the terrified peasantry on shore. I can the more readily
+believe this, because I myself have heard similar sounds off the Irish,
+Scottish, and Cornish coasts, where shrieks, and wails, and groans as of
+the drowning have been borne to me from the inky blackness of the
+foaming and tossing sea. According to Mr Hunt in his _Romances of the
+West of England_, the sands of Porth Towan were haunted, a fisherman
+declaring that one night when he was walking on them alone, he suddenly
+heard a voice from the sea cry out, "The hour is come, but not the man."
+This was repeated three times, when a black figure, like that of a man,
+appeared on the crest of an adjacent hill, and, dashing down the steep
+side, rushed over the sands and vanished in the waves.
+
+In other parts of England, as well as in Brittany and Spain, a voice
+from the sea is always said to be heard prior to a storm and loss of
+life. In the Bermudas, I have heard that before a wreck a huge white
+fish is often seen; whilst in the Cape Verde Islands maritime disasters
+are similarly presaged by flocks of peculiarly marked gulls.
+
+On no more reliable authority than hearsay evidence, I understand that
+off the coast of Finland a whirlpool suddenly appears close beside a
+vessel that is doomed to be wrecked, and that a like calamity is
+foretold off the coast of Peru by the phantasm of a sailor who, in
+eighteenth-century costume, swarms up the side of the doomed ship,
+enters the captain's cabin, and, touching him on the shoulder, points
+solemnly at the porthole and vanishes.
+
+
+_River Ghosts_
+
+In China there is a strong belief that spots in rivers, creeks, and
+ponds where people have been drowned are haunted by devils that,
+concealing themselves either in the water itself or on the banks, spring
+out upon the unwary and drown them. To warn people against these
+dangerous elementals, a stone or pillar called "The Fat-pee," on which
+the name of the future Buddha or Pam-mo-o-mee-to-foo is inscribed, is
+set up near the place where they are supposed to lurk, and when the
+hauntings become very frequent the evil spirit is exorcised. The
+ceremony of exorcism consists in the decapitation of a white horse by a
+specially selected executioner, on the site of the hauntings. The head
+of the slaughtered animal is placed in an earthenware jar, and buried in
+the exact spot where it was killed, which place is then carefully marked
+by the erection of a stone tablet with the words "O-me-o-to-fat"
+transcribed on it. The performance concludes with the cutting up and
+selling of the horse's body for food. Amongst the numerous other creeks
+that have witnessed this practice in recent years are those adjoining
+the villages of Tsze-tow (near Whampoa) and Gna-zew (near Canton).
+
+Various of the lakes, particularly the crater lakes of America, were
+once thought to be haunted by spirits or devils of a fiery red who
+raised storms and upset canoes.
+
+
+_Sirens_
+
+But by far the most fascinating of all the phantasms of the water are
+the sirens that haunted (and still occasionally haunt) rivers and
+waterfalls, particularly those of Germany and Austria. Not so very long
+ago on my travels I came across an aged Hungarian who declared that he
+had once seen a siren. I append the story he told me, as nearly as
+possible in his own words.
+
+"My brother Hans and I were wandering, early one morning, along the
+banks of a tributary of the Drave, in search of birds' eggs. The shores
+on either side the river were thickly wooded, and so rough and uneven in
+places that we had to exercise the greatest care to avoid getting hurt.
+Few people visited the neighbourhood, save in the warmest and brightest
+time of the day, and, with the exception of a woodcutter, we had met no
+one. Much, then, to our astonishment, on arriving at an open space on
+the bank, we heard the sound of singing and music. 'Whoever can it be?'
+we asked ourselves, and then, advancing close to the water's edge, we
+strained our heads, and saw, perched high on a rock in midstream a few
+feet to our left, a girl with long yellow hair and a face of the most
+exquisite beauty. Though I was too young then to trouble my head about
+girls, I could not help being struck with this one, whilst Hans, who was
+several years older than I, was simply spellbound. 'My God! how lovely!'
+he cried out, 'and what a voice--how exquisite! Isn't she divine? She is
+altogether too beautiful for a human being; she must be an angel,' and
+he fell on his knees and extended his hands towards her, as if in the
+act of worship. Never having seen Hans behave in such a queer way
+before, I touched him on the shoulder, and said: 'Get up! If you go on
+like this the lady will think you mad. Besides, it is getting late, we
+ought to be going on!' But Hans did not heed me. He still continued to
+exclaim aloud, expressing his admiration in the most extravagant
+phrases; and then the girl ceased singing, and, looking at Hans with her
+large blue eyes, smiled and beckoned him to approach. I caught hold of
+him, and begged and implored him to do nothing so foolish, but he
+wrenched himself free, and, striking me savagely on the chest, leaped
+into the water and swam towards the rock.
+
+"With what eagerness I counted his strokes and watched the dreaded
+distance diminish! On and on he swam, till at length he was close to the
+rock, and the lady, bending down, was holding out her lily hands to him.
+Hans clutched at them, and they were, I thought, already in his fevered
+grasp, when she coyly snatched them away and struck him playfully on the
+head. The cruel, hungry waters then surged over him. I saw him sink
+down, down, down: I saw him no more. When I raised my agonised eyes to
+the rocks, all was silent and desolate: the lady had vanished."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BUDDHAS AND BOGGLE CHAIRS
+
+
+It was in Paris, at the Hotel Mandeville, that I met the Baroness Paoli,
+an almost solitary survivor of the famous Corsican family. I was
+introduced to her by John Heroncourt, a friend in common, and the
+introduction was typical of his characteristic unorthodoxy.
+
+"Mr Elliott O'Donnell, the Baroness Paoli. Mr Elliott O'Donnell is a
+writer on the superphysical. He is unlike the majority of psychical
+researchers, inasmuch as he has not based his knowledge on hearsay, but
+has actually seen, heard, and felt occult phenomena, both collectively
+and individually."
+
+The Baroness smiled.
+
+"Then I am delighted to meet Mr O'Donnell, for I, too, have had
+experience with the superphysical."
+
+She extended her hand; the introduction was over.
+
+A man in my line of life has to work hard. My motto is promptness. I
+have no time to waste on superfluity of any kind. I come to the point at
+once. Consequently, my first remark to the Baroness was direct from the
+shoulder:
+
+"Your experiences. Please tell them--they will be both interesting and
+useful."
+
+The Baroness gently clasped her hands--truly psychic hands, with slender
+fingers and long shapely nails--and, looking at me fixedly, said:
+
+"If you write about it, promise that you will not mention names."
+
+"They shall at all events be unrecognisable," I said. "Please begin."
+
+And without further delay the Baroness commenced her story.
+
+"You must know," she said, "that in my family, as in most historical
+families--particularly Corsican--there have been many tragedies. In some
+cases merely orthodox tragedies--a smile, a blow, a groan; in other
+cases peculiar tragedies--peculiar even in that country and in the
+grimness of the mediæval age.
+
+"Since 1316 the headquarters of my branch of the Paolis has been at
+Sartoris, once the strongest fortified castle in Corsica, but now, alas!
+almost past repair, in fact little better than a heap of crumbling
+ruins. As you know, Mr O'Donnell, it takes a vast fortune to keep such a
+place merely habitable.
+
+"I lived there with my mother until my marriage two years ago, and
+neither she nor I had ever seen or heard any superphysical
+manifestations. From time to time some of the servants complained of odd
+noises, and there was one room which none of them would pass alone even
+in daylight; but we laughed at their fears, merely attributing them to
+the superstition which is so common among the Corsican peasants.
+
+"The year after my marriage, my husband, a Mr Vercoe, who was a great
+friend of ours, and I, accepted my mother's invitation to spend
+Christmas with her, and we all three travelled together to Sartoris.
+
+"It was an ideal season, and the snow--an exceptional sight in my native
+town--lay thick in the Castle grounds.
+
+"But to get on with my story--for I see I must not try your patience
+with unnecessary detail--I must give you a brief description of the
+bedroom in which my husband and I slept. Like all the rooms in the
+Castle, it was oak panelled throughout. Floor, ceiling, and walls, all
+were of oak, and the bed, also of oak, and certainly of no later date
+than the fourteenth century, was superbly carved, and had been recently
+valued at £30,000.
+
+"There were two entrances, the one leading into a passage, and the other
+into a large reception room, formerly a chapel, at the furthest
+extremity of which was a huge barred and bolted door that had not been
+opened for more than a hundred years. This door led down a flight of
+stone steps to a series of ancient dungeons that occupied the space
+underneath our bedroom and the reception room.
+
+"On Christmas Eve we retired to rest somewhat earlier than usual, and,
+being tired after a long day's motoring, speedily fell into a deep
+sleep. We awoke simultaneously, both querying the time and agreeing that
+it must be about five o'clock.
+
+"Whilst we were talking, we suddenly heard, to our utter astonishment,
+the sound of footsteps--heavy footsteps--accompanied by a curious
+clanging sound, immediately beneath us; and, as if by mutual consent, we
+both held our breath and listened.
+
+"The footsteps moved on, and we presently heard them begin to ascend the
+stone steps leading to the adjoining room. Up, up, up, they came, until,
+having reached the summit, they paused. Then we heard the huge, heavy
+bolts of the fast-closed door shoot back with a sonorous clash. So far I
+had been rather more puzzled than frightened, and the idea of ghosts had
+not entered my mind, but when I heard the door--the door which I knew to
+be so securely fastened from the inside--thus opened, a great fear swept
+over me, and I prayed Heaven to save us from what might ensue.
+
+"Several people, talking rapidly in gruff voices, now entered the room,
+and we distinctly heard the jingling of spurs and the rattling of sword
+scabbards coming to us distinctly through the cracks of the door.
+
+"I was so paralysed with fear that I could do nothing. I could neither
+speak nor move, and my very soul was concentrated in one great, sickly
+dread, one awful anticipation that the intruders would burst into our
+room, and, before our very eyes, perform unthinkable horrors.
+
+"To my immeasurable relief, however, this did not happen. The footsteps,
+as far as I could judge, advanced into the middle of the room--there was
+a ghastly suggestion of a scuffle, of a smothered cry, a gurgle; and the
+mailed feet then retired whence they had come, dragging with them some
+heavy load which bumped, bumped, bumped down the stairs and into the
+cellar. Then a brief silence followed, abruptly broken by the sound of a
+girlish voice, which, though beautifully tintinnabulous, was unearthly,
+and full of suggestions so sinister and blood-curdling, that the fetters
+which had hitherto held me tongue-tied snapped asunder, and I was able
+to give vent to my terror in words. The instant I did so the singing
+ceased, all was still, and not another sound disturbed us till morning.
+
+"We got up as soon as we dared and found the door at the head of the
+dungeon steps barred and bolted as usual, while the heavy and antique
+furniture in the apartment showed no sign of having been disturbed.
+
+"On the following night my husband sat up in the room adjoining our
+bedroom, to see if there would be a repetition of what had taken place
+the night before, but nothing occurred, and we never heard the noises
+again.
+
+"That is one experience. The other, though not our own, was almost
+coincidental, and happened to our engineer friend, Mr Vercoe. When we
+told him about the noises we had heard, he roared with laughter.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'I always understood you Corsicans were superstitious,
+but this beats everything. The regulation stereotype ghost in armour and
+clanking chains, eh! Do you know what the sounds were, Baroness? Rats!'
+and he smiled odiously.
+
+"Then a sudden idea flashed across me. 'Look here, Mr Vercoe,' I
+exclaimed, 'there is one room in our Castle I defy even you--sceptic as
+you are--to sleep in. It is the Barceleri Chamber, called after my
+ancestor, Barceleri Paoli. He visited China in the fifteenth century,
+bringing back with him a number of Chinese curiosities, and a Buddha
+which I shrewdly suspect he had stolen from a Canton temple. The room is
+much the same as when my ancestor occupied it, for no one has slept in
+it since. Moreover, the servants declare that the noises they so
+frequently hear come from it. But, of course, you won't mind spending a
+night in it?'
+
+"Mr Vercoe laughed. 'He, he, he! Only too delighted. Give me a bottle of
+your most excellent vintage, and I defy any ghost that was ever
+created!'
+
+"He was as good as his word, Mr O'Donnell, and though he had advised the
+contrary, we--that is to say, my mother, my husband, our two old
+servants and I--sat up in one of the rooms close at hand.
+
+"Eleven, twelve, one, two, and three o'clock struck, and we were
+beginning to wish we had taken his advice and gone to bed, when we heard
+the most appalling, agonising, soul-rending screams for help. We rushed
+out, and, as we did so, the door of Mr Vercoe's room flew open and
+something--something white and glistening--bounded into the
+candle-light.
+
+"We were so shocked, so absolutely petrified with terror, that it was a
+second or so before we realised that it was Mr Vercoe--not the Mr Vercoe
+we knew, but an entirely different Mr Vercoe--a Mr Vercoe without a
+stitch of clothing, and with a face metamorphosed into a lurid, solid
+block of horror, overspreading which was a suspicion of
+something--something too dreadful to name, but which we could have sworn
+was utterly at variance with his nature. Close at his heels was the
+blurred outline of something small and unquestionably horrid. I cannot
+define it. I dare not attempt to diagnose the sensations it produced.
+Apart from a deadly, nauseating fear, they were mercifully novel.
+
+"Dashing past us, Mr Vercoe literally hurled himself along the corridor,
+and with almost superhuman strides, disappeared downstairs. A moment
+later, and the clashing of the hall door told us he was in the open air.
+A breathless silence fell on us, and for some seconds we were all too
+frightened to move. My husband was the first to pull himself together.
+
+"'Come along!' he cried, gripping one of the trembling servants by the
+arm. 'Come along instantly! We must keep him in sight at all costs,'
+and, bidding me remain where I was, he raced downstairs.
+
+"After a long search he eventually discovered Mr Vercoe lying at full
+length on the grass--insensible.
+
+"For some weeks our friend's condition was critical--on the top of a
+violent shock to the system, sufficient in itself to endanger life, he
+had taken a severe chill, which resulted in double pneumonia. However,
+thanks to a bull-dog constitution, typically English, he recovered, and
+we then begged him to give us an account of all that had happened.
+
+"'I cannot!' he said. 'My one desire is to forget everything that
+happened on that awful night.'
+
+"He was obdurate, and our curiosity was, therefore, doomed to remain
+unsatisfied. Both my husband and I, however, felt quite sure that the
+image of Buddha was at the bottom of the mischief, and, as there chanced
+just then to be an English doctor staying at a neighbouring chateau, who
+was on his way to China, we entrusted the image to him, on the
+understanding that he would place it in a Buddhist temple. He deceived
+us, and, returning almost immediately to England, took the image with
+him. We subsequently learned that within three months this man was
+divorced, that he murdered a woman in Clapham Rise, and, in order to
+escape arrest, poisoned himself.
+
+"The image then found its way to a pawnbroker's establishment in
+Houndsditch, which shortly afterwards was burned to the ground. Where it
+is now, I cannot definitely say, but I have been told that an image of
+Buddha is the sole occupant of an empty house in the Shepherd's Bush
+Road--a house that is now deemed haunted. These are the experiences I
+wanted to tell you, Mr O'Donnell. What do you think of them?"
+
+"I think," I said, "they are of absorbing interest. Can you see any
+association in the two hauntings--any possible connection between what
+you heard and what Mr Vercoe saw?"
+
+A look of perplexity crossed the Baroness's face. "I hardly know," she
+said. "What is your opinion on that point?"
+
+"That they are distinct--absolutely distinct. The phenomena you heard
+are periodical re-enactions, (either by the earth-bound spirits of the
+actual victim and perpetrators, or by impersonating phantoms), of a
+crime once committed within the Castle walls. A girl was obviously
+murdered in the chapel and her coffin dragged into the dungeons, where,
+no doubt, her remains are to be found. I presume it was her spirit you
+heard tintinnabulating. Very possibly, if her skeleton were unearthed
+and re-interred in an orthodox fashion, the hauntings would cease.
+
+"Now, with regard to your friend's experience. The blurred figure you
+saw pursuing the engineer was not the image of Buddha--it was one of Mr
+Vercoe's many personalities, extracted from him by the image of Buddha.
+We are all, as you are aware, complex creatures, all composed of diverse
+selves, each self possessing a specific shape and individuality. The
+more animal of these separate selves, the higher spiritual forces
+attaching themselves to certain localities and symbols have the power of
+drawing out of us, and eventually destroying. The higher spiritual
+forces, however, do not associate themselves with all crucifixes and
+Buddhas, but only with those moulded by true believers. For instance, a
+Buddha fashioned for mere gain, and by a person who was not a genuine
+follower of the prophet, would have no power of attraction.
+
+"I have proved all this, experimentally, times without number.
+
+"Mr Vercoe must have had--as indeed many of us have--vices, in all
+probability, little suspected. The close proximity of the Buddha acted
+on them, and they began to leave his body and form a shape of their own.
+Had he allowed them to do so, all might have gone well; they would have
+been effectually overcome by the higher spiritual forces attached to the
+Buddha. But as soon as he saw a figure beginning to form--and no doubt
+it was very dreadful--he lost his head. His shrieks interrupted the
+work, the power of the Buddha was, _pro tempus_, at an end, and the
+extracted personality commenced at once to re-enter Vercoe. Rushing at
+him with that end in view, it so terrified him that he fled from the
+room, and it was at that stage that you appeared upon the scene. What
+followed is, of course, pure conjecture on my part, but I fear, I
+greatly fear, that by the time Mr Vercoe became unconscious the mischief
+was done, and the latter's evil personality had once again united with
+his other personalities."
+
+"And what would be the after-effect, Mr O'Donnell?" the Baroness
+inquired anxiously.
+
+"I fear a serious one," I replied evasively. "In the case of the doctor
+you mentioned, who committed murder, an evil ego had doubtless been
+expelled, and, receiving a rebuff, had reunited, for after a reunion the
+evil personality usually receives a new impetus and grows with amazing
+rapidity. Have you heard from Mr Vercoe lately?"
+
+The Baroness shook her head. "Not for several months."
+
+"You will let me know when you do?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+A week later she wrote to me from Rome.
+
+"Isn't it terrible?" she began, "Mr Vercoe committed suicide on
+Wednesday--the Birmingham papers--he was a Birmingham man--are full of
+it!"
+
+
+_The Barrowvian_
+
+The description of an adventure Mr Trobas, a friend of mine, had with a
+barrowvian in Brittany (and which I omitted to relate when referring to
+barrowvians), I now append as nearly as possible in his own words:--
+
+"Night! A sky partially concealed from view by dark, fantastically
+shaped clouds, that, crawling along with a slow, stealthy motion,
+periodically obscure the moon. The crest of a hill covered with
+short-clipped grass, much worn away in places, and in the centre a
+Druidical circle broken and incomplete; a few of the stones are erect,
+the rest either lie at full length on the sward, close to the mystic
+ring, or at some considerable distance from it. Here and there are
+distinct evidences of recent digging, and at the base of one of the
+horizontal stones is an excavation of no little depth.
+
+"A sudden, but only temporary clearance of the sky reveals the
+surrounding landscape; the rugged mountain side, flecked with gleaming
+granite boulders and bordered with sturdy hedges (a mixture of mud and
+bracken), and beyond them the meadows, traversed by sinuous streams
+whose scintillating surfaces sparkle like diamonds in the silvery
+moonlight. At rare intervals the scene is variegated, and nature
+interrupted, by a mill or a cottage,--toy-like when viewed from such an
+altitude,--and then the sweep of meadowland continues, undulating gently
+till it finds repose at the foot of some distant ridge of cone-shaped
+mountains. Over everything there is a hush, awe-inspiring in its
+intensity. Not the cry of a bird, not the howl of a dog, not the rustle
+of a leaf; there is nothing, nothing but the silence of the most
+profound sleep. In these remote rural districts man retires to rest
+early, the physical world accompanying him; and all nature dreams
+simultaneously.
+
+"It was shortly after the commencement of this period of universal
+slumber, one night in April, that I toiled laboriously to the summit of
+the hill in question, and, spreading a rug on one of the fallen stones,
+converted it into a seat. Naturally I had not climbed this steep ascent
+without a purpose. The reason was this--at eight-thirty that morning I
+received a telegram from a friend at Armennes, near Carnac, which ran
+thus: 'Am in great difficulty--Ghosts--Come.--KRANTZ.'
+
+"Of course Krantz is not the real name of my friend, but it is one that
+answers the purpose admirably in telegrams and on post-cards; and of
+course he well knew what he was about when he said 'Come.' Not only I
+but everyone has confidence in Krantz, and I was absolutely certain that
+when he demanded my presence, the money I should spend on the journey
+would not be spent in vain.
+
+"Apart from psychical investigation, I study every phase of human
+nature, and am at present, among other things, engaged on a work of
+criminology based on impressions derived from face-to-face communication
+with notorious criminals.
+
+"The morning I received Krantz's summons was the morning I had set aside
+for a special study of S---- M----, whose case has recently commanded so
+much public attention; but the moment I read the wire, I changed my
+plans, without either hesitation or compunction. Krantz was Krantz, and
+his dictum could not be disobeyed.
+
+"Tearing down la rue Saint Denis, and narrowly avoiding collision with a
+lady who lives in la rue Saint François, and will persist in wearing
+hats and heels that outrage alike every sense of decency and good form,
+I hustled into the station, and, rushing down the steps, just succeeded
+in catching the Carnac train. After a journey which, for slowness, most
+assuredly holds the record, I arrived, boiling over with indignation, at
+Armennes, where Krantz met me. After luncheon he led the way to his
+study, and, as soon as the servant who handed us coffee had left the
+room, began his explanation of the telegram.
+
+"'As you know, Trobas,' he observed, 'it's not all bliss to be a
+landlord. Up to the present I have been singularly fortunate, inasmuch
+as I have never experienced any difficulty in getting tenants for my
+houses. Now, however, there has been a sudden and most alarming change,
+and I have just received no less than a dozen notices from tenants
+desirous of giving up their habitations at once. Here they are!' And he
+handed me a bundle of letters, for the most part written in the
+scrawling hand of the illiterate. 'If you look,' he went on, 'you will
+see that none of them give any reason for leaving. It is merely--"We
+CANNOT POSSIBLY stay here any longer," or "We MUST give up possession
+IMMEDIATELY," which they have done, and in every instance before the
+quarter was up. Being naturally greatly astonished and perturbed, I made
+careful inquiries, and, at length--for the North Country rustic is most
+reticent and difficult to "draw"--succeeded in extracting from three of
+them the reason for the general exodus. The houses are all HAUNTED!
+There was nothing amiss with them, they informed me, till about three
+weeks ago, when they all heard all sorts of alarming noises--crashes as
+if every atom of crockery they possessed was being broken; bangs on the
+panels of doors; hideous groans; diabolical laughs; and blood-curdling
+screams. Nor was that all; some of them vowed they had seen
+things--horrible hairy hands, with claw-like nails and knotted joints,
+that came out of dark corners and grabbed at them; naked feet with
+enormous filthy toes; and faces--HORRIBLE faces that peeped at them over
+the banisters or through the windows; and sooner than stand any more of
+it--sooner than have their wives and bairns frightened out of their
+senses, they would sacrifice a quarter's rent and go. "We are sorry, Mr
+Krantz," they said in conclusion, "for you have been a most considerate
+landlord, but stay we cannot."' Here my friend paused.
+
+"'And have you no explanation of these hauntings?' I asked.
+
+"Krantz shook his head. 'No!' he said, 'the whole thing is a most
+profound mystery to me. At first I attributed it to practical jokers,
+people dressed up; but a couple of nights' vigil in the haunted district
+soon dissipated that theory.'
+
+"'You say district,' I remarked. 'Are the houses close together--in the
+same road or valley?'
+
+"'In a valley,' Krantz responded--'the Valley of Dolmen. It is ten miles
+from here.'
+
+"'Dolmen!' I murmured, 'why Dolmen?'
+
+"'Because,' Krantz explained, 'in the centre of the valley is a hill, on
+the top of which is a Druids' circle.'
+
+"'How far are the houses off the hill?' I queried.
+
+"'Various distances,' Krantz replied; 'one or two very close to the base
+of it, and others further away.'
+
+"'But within a radius of a few miles?'
+
+"Krantz nodded. 'Oh yes,' he answered. 'The valley itself is small. I
+intend taking you there to-night. I thought we would watch outside one
+of the houses.'
+
+"'If you don't mind,' I said, 'I would rather not. Anyway not to-night.
+Tell me how to get there and I will go alone.'
+
+"Krantz smiled. 'You are a strange creature, Trobas,' he said, 'the
+strangest in the world. I sometimes wonder if you are an elemental. At
+all events, you occupy a category all to yourself. Of course go alone,
+if you would rather. I shall be far happier here, and if you can find a
+satisfactory solution to the mystery and put an end to the hauntings, I
+shall be eternally grateful. When will you start, and what will you
+take with you?'
+
+"'If that clock of yours is right, Krantz,' I exclaimed, pointing to a
+gun-metal timepiece on the mantelshelf, 'in half an hour. As the night
+promises to be cold, let me have some strong brandy-and-water, a dozen
+oatmeal biscuits, a thick rug, and a lantern. Nothing else!'
+
+"Krantz carried out my instructions to the letter. His motor took me to
+Dolmen Valley, and at eight o'clock I began the ascent of the hill. On
+reaching the summit, I uttered an exclamation. 'Someone has been
+excavating, and quite recently!'
+
+"It was precisely what I had anticipated. Some weeks previously, a
+member of the Lyons literary club, to which I belong, had informed me
+that a party of geologist friends of his had been visiting the cromlechs
+of Brittany, and had committed the most barbarous depredations there.
+Hence, the moment Krantz mentioned the 'Druidical circle,' I associated
+the spot with the visit of the geologists; and knowing only too well
+that disturbances of ancient burial grounds almost always lead to occult
+manifestations, I decided to view the place at once.
+
+"That I had not erred in my associations was now only too apparent.
+Abominable depredations HAD been committed,--doubtless, by the people to
+whom I have alluded--and, unless I was grossly mistaken, herein lay the
+clue to the hauntings.
+
+"The air being icy, I had to wrap both my rug and my overcoat tightly
+round me to prevent myself from freezing, and every now and then I got
+up and stamped my feet violently on the hard ground to restore the
+circulation.
+
+"So far there had been nothing in the atmosphere to warn me of the
+presence of the superphysical, but, precisely at eleven o'clock, I
+detected the sudden amalgamation, with the ether, of that enigmatical,
+indefinable SOMETHING, to which I have so frequently alluded in my past
+adventures. And now began that period of suspense which 'takes it out of
+me' even more than the encounter with the phenomenon itself. Over and
+over again I asked myself the hackneyed, but none the less thrilling
+question, 'What form will it take? Will it be simply a phantasm of a
+dead Celt, or some peculiarly grotesque and awful elemental[1] attracted
+to the spot by human remains?'
+
+[1] Either a barrowvian or vagrarian. Vide _Haunted Houses of London_
+(published by Eveleigh Nash) and _Ghostly Phenomena_ (published by
+Werner Laurie).
+
+"Minute after minute passed, and nothing happened. It is curious, how at
+night, especially when the moon is visible, the landscape seems to
+undergo a complete metamorphosis. Objects not merely increase in size,
+but vary in shape, and become possessed of an animation suggestive of
+all sorts of lurking, secretive possibilities. It was so now. The
+boulders in front and around me, presented the appearance of grotesque
+beasts, whose hidden eyes I could feel following my every movement with
+sly interest. The one solitary fir adorning the plateau was a tree no
+longer but an ogre, _pro tempus_, concealing the grim terrors of its
+spectral body beneath its tightly folded limbs. The stones of the
+circle opposite were ghoulish, hump-backed things that crouched and
+squatted in all kinds of fantastic attitudes and tried to read my
+thoughts. The shadows, too, that, swarming from the silent tarns and
+meadows, ascended with noiseless footsteps the rugged sides of the hill,
+and, taking cover of even the smallest obstacles, stalked me with
+unremitting persistency, were no mere common shadows, but intangible,
+pulpy things that breathed the spirit of the Great Unknown. Yet nothing
+specified came to frighten me. The stillness was so emphatic that each
+time I moved, the creaking of my clothes and limbs created echoes. I
+yawned, and from on all sides of me came a dozen other yawns. I sighed,
+and the very earth beneath me swayed with exaggerated sympathy.
+
+"The silence irritated me. I grew angry; I coughed, laughed, whistled;
+and from afar off, from the distant lees, and streams, and spinneys,
+came a repetition of the noises.
+
+"Then the blackest of clouds creeping slowly over the moor crushed the
+sheen out of the valley and smothered everything in sable darkness. The
+silence of death supervened, and my anger turned to fear. Around me
+there was now--NOTHING--only a void. Black ether and space! Space! a
+sanctuary from fear, and yet composed of fear itself. It was the space,
+the nameless, bottomless SOMETHING spreading limitless all around me,
+that, filling me with vague apprehensions, confused me with its terrors.
+What was it? Whence came it? I threw out my arms and Something,
+Something which I intuitively knew to be there, but which I cannot
+explain, receded. I drew them in again, and the same SOMETHING instantly
+oppressed me with its close--its very close proximity.
+
+"I gasped for breath and tried to move my arms again--I could not. A
+sudden rigor held me spellbound, and fixed my eyes on the darkness
+directly ahead of me. Then, from somewhere in my rear, came a
+laugh--hoarse, malignant, and bestial, and I was conscious that the
+SOMETHING had materialised and was creeping stealthily towards me.
+Nearer, nearer and nearer it came, and all the time I wondered what,
+WHAT in the name of God it was like! My anticipations became unbearable,
+the pulsations of my heart and the feverish throbbing of my temples
+warning me that, if the climax were postponed much longer, I should
+either die where I sat, or go mad. That I did neither, was due to a
+divine inspiration which made me suddenly think of a device that I had
+once seen on a Druidical stone in Brittany--the sun, a hand with the
+index and little fingers pointing downwards, and a sprig of mistletoe.
+The instant I saw them in my mind's eye, the cords that held me
+paralytic slackened.
+
+"I sprang up, and there, within a yard of where I had sat, was a
+figure--the luminous nude figure of a creature, half man and half ape.
+Standing some six feet high, it had a clumsy, thick-set body, covered in
+places with coarse, bristly hair, arms of abnormal length and girth,
+legs swelling with huge muscles and much bowed, and a very large and
+long dark head. The face was DREADFUL!--it was the face of something
+long since dead; and out of the mass of peeling, yellow skin and
+mouldering tissues gleamed two lurid and wholly malevolent eyes. Our
+glances met, and, as they did so, a smile of hellish glee suffused its
+countenance. Then, crouching down in cat-like fashion on its disgusting
+hands, it made ready to spring. Again the device of the sun and
+mistletoe arose before me. My fingers instinctively closed on my pocket
+flashlight. I pressed the button and, as the brilliant, white ray shot
+forth, the satanical object before me VANISHED. Then I turned tail, and
+never ceased running till I had arrived at the spot on the high-road
+where Krantz's motor awaited me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"After breakfast next morning, Krantz listened to my account of the
+midnight adventure in respectful silence.
+
+"'Then!' he said, when I had finished, 'you attribute the hauntings in
+the valley to the excavations of the geologist Leblanc and his party, at
+the cromlech six weeks ago?'
+
+"'Entirely,' I replied.
+
+"'And you think, if Leblanc and Cie were persuaded to restore and
+re-inter the remains they found and carted away, that the disturbances
+would cease?'
+
+"'I am sure of it!' I said.
+
+"'Then,' Krantz exclaimed, banging his clenched fist on the table, 'I
+will approach them on the subject at once!'
+
+"He did so, and, after much correspondence, eventually received per
+goods train, a Tate's sugar cube-box, containing a number of bones of
+the missing link pattern, which he at once had taken to the Druids'
+circle. As soon as they were buried and the marks of the recent
+excavations obliterated, the hauntings in the houses ceased."
+
+
+_Boggle Chairs_
+
+"Killington Grange," near Northampton, was once haunted, so my friend Mr
+Pope informs me, by a chair, and the following is Mr Pope's own
+experience of the hauntings, as nearly as possible as he related it to
+me:--
+
+"Some years ago, shortly before Christmas, I received an invitation from
+my old friend, William Achrow.
+
+"'Killington Grange,
+'Northampton.
+
+"'DEAR POPE' (he wrote)--'My wife and I are entertaining a few guests
+here this Christmas, and are most anxious to include you among them.
+
+"'When I tell you that Sir Charles and Lady Kirlby are coming, and that
+we can offer you something startling in the way of a ghost, you will, I
+know, need no further inducement to join our party.--Yours, etc.,
+
+"'W. ACHROW.'
+
+"Achrow was a cunning fellow; he knew I would go a thousand miles to
+meet the Kirlbys, who had been my greatest friends in Ireland, and that
+ghosts invariably drew me like magnets. At that time I was a bachelor; I
+had no one to think about but myself, and as I felt pretty sure of a
+fresh theatrical engagement in the early spring, I was happily careless
+with regard to expenditure--and to people of limited incomes like
+myself, staying in country houses means expenditure, a great deal more
+expenditure than a week or so at an ordinary hotel.
+
+"However, as I have observed, I felt pretty secure just then; I could
+afford a couple of 'fivers,' and would gladly get rid of them to see
+once more my dear old friends, Sir Charles and Lady K----. Accordingly,
+I accepted Achrow's invitation, and the afternoon of December 23rd saw
+me snugly ensconced in a first-class compartment _en route_ for Castle
+Street, Northampton. Now, although I am, not unnaturally, perhaps,
+prejudiced in favour of Ireland and everything that is Irish, I must say
+I do not think the Emerald Isle shows her best in winter, when the banks
+of fair Killarney are shorn of their vivid colouring, and the whole
+country from north to south, and east to west, is carpeted with mud. No,
+the palm of wintry beauty must assuredly be given to the English
+Midlands--the Midlands with their stolid and richly variegated
+woodlands, and their pretty undulating meadows, clad in fleecy garments
+of the purest, softest, and most glittering snow. It was a typical
+Midland Christmas when I got to Northampton and took my place in the
+luxurious closed carriage Achrow had sent to meet me.
+
+"Killington Grange lies at the extremity of the village. It stands in
+its own grounds of some hundred or so acres, and is approached by a long
+avenue that winds its way from the lodge gates through endless rows of
+giant oaks and elms, and slender, silver birches. On either side, to
+the rear of the trees, lay broad stretches of undulating pasture land,
+that in one place terminated in the banks of a large lake, now
+glittering with ice and wrapped in the silence of death.
+
+"The crunching of the carriage wheels on gravel, the termination of the
+trees, and a great blaze of light announced the close proximity of the
+house, and in a few seconds I was standing on the threshold of an
+imposing entrance.
+
+"A footman took my valise, and before I had crossed the spacious hall, I
+was met by my host and kind old friends, whose combined and hearty
+greetings were a happy forecast of what was to come. Indeed, at a
+merrier dinner party I have never sat down, though in God's truth I have
+dined in all kinds of places, and with all sorts of people: with
+Princesses of the Royal blood, aflame with all the hauteur of their
+race; with earls and counts; with blood-thirsty anarchists; with bishops
+and Salvationists, miners and policemen, Dagos and Indians (Red and
+Brown); with Japs, Russians, and Poles; and, in short, with the _élite_
+and the rag-tag and bobtail of all climes. But, as I have already said,
+I had seldom if ever enjoyed a dinner as I enjoyed this one.
+
+"Possibly the reason was not far to find--there was little or no
+formality; we were all old friends; we had one cause in common--love of
+Ireland; we hadn't met for years, and we knew not if we should ever meet
+again, for our paths in life were not likely to converge.
+
+"But Christmas is no season for prigs and dullards, and, possibly, this
+rare enjoyment was, in no small measure, due to the delightful snugness
+and, at the same time, artistic nature of our surroundings, and to the
+excellence, the surpassing excellence of the vintage, which made our
+hearts mellow and our tongues loose.
+
+"Long did our host, Sir Charles, and I sit over the dessert table, after
+the ladies had left us, filling and refilling our glasses; and it was
+close on ten before we repaired to the drawing-room.
+
+"'Lady Kirlby,' I said, seating myself next her on a divan, 'I want to
+hear about the ghost. Up to the present I confess I have been so taken
+up with more material and, may I add'--casting a well-measured glance of
+admiration at her beautifully moulded features and lovely eyes--lovely,
+in spite of the cruel hand of time which had streaked her chestnut hair
+with grey--'infinitely more pleasing subjects, that I have not even
+thought about the superphysical. William, however, informs me that there
+is a ghost here--he has, of course, told you.'
+
+"But at this very psychological moment Mrs Achrow interrupted: 'Now, no
+secrets, you two,' she said laughingly, leaning over the back of the
+divan and tapping Lady Kirlby playfully on the arm. 'There must be no
+mention of ghosts till it is close on bedtime, and the lights are low.'
+
+"Lady Kirlby gave me a pitying look, but it was of no avail; the word of
+our hostess was paramount, and I did not learn what was in store for me
+until it was too late to retreat. At half-past eleven William Achrow
+turned out the gas, and when we were all seated round the fire, he
+suggested we should each relate in turn, the most thrilling ghost tale
+we had ever heard. The idea, being approved of generally, was carried
+out, and when we had been thrilled, as assuredly we had never been
+thrilled before, William coolly proclaimed that he had put me in the
+haunted room.
+
+"'I am sure,' he said, amid a roar of the most unfeeling laughter, in
+which all but the tender-hearted Lady Kirlby joined, 'that your nerves
+are now in the most suitable state for psychical investigation, and that
+it won't be your fault if you don't see the ghost. And a very horrible
+one it is, at least so I am told, though I cannot say I have ever seen
+it myself. No! I won't tell you anything about it now--I want to hear
+your version of it first.'
+
+"With a few more delicate insinuations, made, as he candidly confessed,
+in the fervent hope of frightening me still more, on the stroke of
+midnight my friend conducted me to my quarters. 'You will have it all to
+yourself,' he said, as we traversed a tremendously long and gloomy
+corridor that connected the two wings of the house, 'for all the rooms
+on this side are at present unoccupied, and those immediately next to
+yours haven't been slept in for years--there is something about them
+that doesn't appeal to my guests. What it is I can't say--I leave that
+to you. Here we are!' and, as he spoke, he threw open a door. A current
+of icy cold air slammed it to and blew out my light, and as I groped for
+the door-handle, I heard my host's footsteps retreating hurriedly down
+the corridor, whilst he wished me a rather nervous good-night.
+
+"Relighting my candle and shutting the window--Achrow is one of those
+open-air fiends who never had a bronchial cold in his life, and expects
+everyone else to be equally immune--I found myself in a room that was
+well calculated to strike even the most hardened ghost-hunter with awe.
+
+"It was coffin-shaped, large, narrow, and lofty; and floor, panelling,
+and furniture were of the blackest oak.
+
+"The bedstead, a four-poster of the most funereal type, stood near the
+fireplace, from which a couple of thick pine logs sent out a ruddy
+glare; and directly opposite the foot of the bed, with its back to the
+wall, stood an ebony chair, which, although in a position that should
+have necessitated its receiving a generous share of the fire's rays, was
+nevertheless shrouded in such darkness that I could only discern its
+front legs--a phenomenon that did not strike me as being peculiar till
+afterwards.
+
+"Between the chair and the ingle, was a bay window overlooking one angle
+of the lawn, a side path connecting the back premises of the house with
+the drive, and a dense growth of evergreens, poplars, limes, and copper
+beeches, the branches of which were now weighed down beneath layer upon
+layer of snow.
+
+"The room, as I have stated, was long, but I did not realise how long
+until I was in the act of getting into bed, when my eyes struggled in
+vain to reach the remote corners of the chamber and the recesses of the
+vaulted and fretted ceiling, which were fast presenting the startling
+appearance of being overhung with an impenetrable pall, such a pall as
+forms the gloomy coverlet of a hearse; the similarity being increased by
+waving plume-like shadows that suddenly appeared--from God knows
+where!--on the floor and wall.
+
+"That the room was genuinely haunted I had not now the slightest doubt,
+for the atmosphere was charged to the very utmost with superphysical
+impressions--the impressions of a monstrous hearse, with all the sickly
+paraphernalia of black flowing drapery and scented pine wood.
+
+"I was annoyed with William Achrow. I had wanted to see him; I had
+wanted to meet the Kirlbys; but a ghost--no! Honestly, candidly--no! I
+had not slept well for nights, and after the good things I had eaten at
+dinner and that excellent vintage, I had been looking forward to a
+sound, an unusually sound sleep. Now, however, my hopes were dashed on
+the head--the room was haunted--haunted by something gloomily, damnably
+evil, evil with an evilness that could only have originated in hell.
+Such were my impressions when I got into bed. Contrary to my
+expectations, I soon fell asleep. I was awakened by a creak, the loud
+but unmistakable creak of a chair. Now, the creaking of furniture is no
+uncommon thing. There are few of us who have not at some time or other
+heard an empty chair creak, and attributed that creaking either to
+expansion of the wood through heat, or to some other equally physical
+cause. But are we always right? May not that creaking be sometimes due
+to an invisible presence in the chair? Why not? The laws that govern
+the superphysical are not known to us at present. We only know from our
+own experiences and from the compiled testimony of various reputable
+Research Societies that there is a superphysical, and that the
+superphysical is a fact which is acknowledged by several of the greatest
+scientists of the day.
+
+"But to continue. The creaking of a chair roused me from my sleep. I sat
+up in bed, and as my eyes wandered involuntarily to the ebony chair to
+which I have already alluded, I again heard the creaking.
+
+"My sense of hearing now became painfully acute, and, impelled by a
+fascination I could not resist, I held my breath and listened. As I did
+so, I distinctly heard the sound of stealthy respiration. Either the
+chair or something in it was breathing, breathing with a subtle
+gentleness.
+
+"The fire had now burned low; only a glimmer, the very faintest
+perceptible glimmer, came from the logs; hence I had to depend for my
+vision on the soft white glow that stole in through the trellised
+window-panes.
+
+"The chair creaked again, and at the back of it, and at a distance of
+about four feet from the ground, I encountered the steady glare of two
+long, pale, and wholly evil eyes, that regarded me with a malevolency
+that held me spellbound; my terror being augmented by my failure to
+detect any other features saving the eyes, and only a vague Something
+which I took for a body.
+
+"I remained in a sitting posture for many minutes without being able to
+remove my gaze, and when I did look away, I instinctively felt that the
+eyes were still regarding me, and that the Something, of which the eyes
+were a part, was waiting for an opportunity to creep from its
+hiding-place and pounce upon me.
+
+"This is, I think, what would have happened had it not been for the very
+opportune arrival of the Killington Waits, who, bursting out with a
+terrific and discordant version of 'The Mistletoe Bough,' which, by the
+way, is somewhat inexplicably regarded as appropriate to the festive
+season, effectually broke the superphysical spell, and when I looked
+again at the chair, the eyes had gone.
+
+"Feeling quite secure now, I lay down, and, in spite of the many
+interruptions, managed to secure a tolerably good night's sleep.
+
+"At breakfast everyone was most anxious to know if I had seen the ghost,
+but I held my tongue. The spirit of adventure had been rekindled in me,
+my sporting instinct had returned, and I was ready and eager to see the
+phenomena again; but until I had done so, and had put it to one or two
+tests, I decided to say nothing about it.
+
+"The day passed pleasantly--how could it be otherwise in William
+Achrow's admirably appointed household?--and the night found me once
+again alone in my sepulchral bed-chamber.
+
+"This time I did not get into bed, but took my seat in an easy-chair by
+the fire (which I took care was well replenished with fuel), my face
+turned in the direction of the spot where the eyes had appeared. The
+weather was inclined to be boisterous, and frequent gusts of wind,
+rumbling and moaning through the long and gloomy aisle of the avenue,
+plundered the trees of the loose-hanging snow and hurled it in fleecy
+clouds against the walls and windows.
+
+"I had been sitting there about an hour when I suddenly felt I was no
+longer alone; a peculiarly cold tremor, that was not, I feel sure, due
+to any actual fall in the temperature of the room, ran through me, and
+my teeth chattered. As on the previous occasion, however, my senses were
+abnormally alive, and as I watched--instinct guiding my eyes to the
+ebony chair--I heard a creak, and the sound of Something breathing. The
+antagonistic Presence was once again there. I essayed to speak, to
+repeat the form of address I had constantly rehearsed, to say and do
+something that would tempt the unknown into some form of communication.
+I could do nothing. I was lip-bound, powerless to move; and then from
+out of the superphysical darkness there gleamed the eyes, lidless,
+lurid, bestial. A shape was there, too: a shape which, although still
+vague, dreadfully so, was nevertheless more pronounced than on the
+former occasion, and I felt that it only needed time, time and an
+enforced, an involuntary amount of scrutiny on my part, to see that
+shape materialise into something satanical and definite.
+
+"I waited--I was obliged to wait--when, even as before--Heaven be
+praised!--the arrival of the gallant waits, (I say, gallant, for the
+night had fast become a white inferno) loosened my fetters, and as I
+sprang towards the chair, the eyes vanished.
+
+"I then got into bed and slept heavily till the morning.
+
+"To their great disappointment, the clamorous breakfasters learned
+nothing--I kept the adventure rigidly to myself, and that night,
+Christmas night, found me, for the third time, listening for the sounds
+from the mysterious, the hideously, hellishly mysterious, high-backed,
+ebony chair.
+
+"There had been a severe storm during the day, and the wind had howled
+with cyclonic force around the house; but there was silence now, an
+almost preternatural silence; and the lawn, lavishly bestrewn with huge
+heaps of driven snow, and broken, twisted branches, presented the
+appearance of a titanic battlefield. In marked contrast to the disturbed
+condition of the ground, the sky was singularly serene, and broad beams
+of phosphorescent light poured in through the diamond window-panes on to
+the bed, in which I was sitting, bolt upright.
+
+"One o'clock struck, and ere the hollow-sounding vibrations had ceased,
+the vague form once again appeared behind the chair, and the malignant,
+evil eyes met mine in a diabolical stare; whilst, as before, on trying
+to speak or move, I found myself tongue-tied and paralysed. As the
+moments slowly glided away, the shape of the Thing became more and more
+distinct; a dark and sexless face appeared, surmounted with a straggling
+mass of black hair, the ends of which melted away into mist. I saw no
+trunk, but I descried two long and bony arms, ebony as the chair, with
+crooked, spidery, misty fingers. As I watched its development with
+increasing horror, hoping and praying for the arrival of the
+never-again-to-be-despised waits, I suddenly realised with a fresh grip
+of terror that the chair had moved out of the corner, and that the Thing
+behind it was slowly creeping towards me.
+
+"As it approached, the outlines of its face and limbs became clearer. I
+knew that it was something repulsively, diabolically grotesque, but
+whether the phantasm of man, or woman, or hellish elemental, I couldn't
+for the life of me say; and this uncertainty, making my fear all the
+more poignant, added to my already sublime sufferings, those of the
+damned.
+
+"It passed the chair on which my dress-shirt flashed whiter than the
+snow in the moonlight; it passed the tomb-like structure constituting
+the foot-board of the bed; and as in my frantic madness I strained and
+strained at the cruel cords that held me paralytic, it crept on to the
+counterpane and wriggled noiselessly towards me.
+
+"Even then, though its long, pale eyes were close to mine, and the ends
+of its tangled hair curled around me, and its icy corpse-tainted breath
+scoured my cheeks, even then--I could not see its body nor give it a
+name.
+
+"Clawing at my throat with its sable fingers, it thrust me backwards,
+and I sank gasping, retching, choking on to the pillow, where I
+underwent all the excruciating torments of strangulation; strangulation
+by something tangible, yet intangible, something that could create
+sensation without being itself sensitive; something detestably,
+abominably wicked and wholly hostile, madly hostile in its attitude
+towards mankind.
+
+"What I suffered is indescribable, and it was to me interminable. Days,
+months, years, seemed to pass, and I was still being suffocated, still
+feeling the inexorable crunch of those fingers, still peering into the
+livid depths of those gloating, fiendish eyes. And then--then, as I was
+on the eve of abandoning all hope, a thousand and one tumultuous noises
+buzzed in my ears, my eyes swam blood, and I lost consciousness. When I
+recovered, the dawn was breaking and all evidences of the superphysical
+had disappeared.
+
+"I did not tell Achrow what I had experienced, but expressed, instead,
+the greatest astonishment that anyone should have thought the room was
+haunted. 'Haunted indeed!' I said. 'Nonsense! If anything haunts it, it
+is the ghost of some philanthropist, for I never slept sounder in my
+life. I am, as you know, William, extremely sensitive to the
+superphysical, but in this instance, I can assure you, I was
+disappointed, greatly disappointed, so much so that I am going home at
+once; it would be mere waste of my valuable time to stay any longer in
+the vain hope of investigating, when there is NOTHING to investigate.
+How came you to get hold of such a crazy idea?'
+
+"'Well,' William replied, a puzzled expression on his face, 'you noticed
+an ebony chair in the room?'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'I bought it in Bruges, and there are two stories current in connection
+with it. The one is to the effect that a very wicked monk, named
+Gaboni, died in it (and, indeed, the man who sold me the chair was
+actually afraid to keep it any longer in his house, as he assured me
+Gaboni's spirit had amalgamated with the wood); and the other story,
+which I learned from a different source, namely, from someone who, on
+finding out where I bought the chair, told me he knew the whole history
+of it, is to the effect that it was of comparatively modern make, and
+had been designed by W----, the famous nineteenth-century Belgian
+painter, who specialised, as you may know, in the most weird and
+fantastic subjects. W---- kept the chair in his studio, and my informant
+half laughingly, half seriously remarked that no doubt the chair was
+thoroughly saturated with the wave-thoughts from W----'s luridly fertile
+brain. Of course, I do not know which story is true, or if, indeed,
+either story is true, but the fact remains that, up to now, everyone who
+has slept in the room with that chair has complained of having had the
+most unpleasant sensations. I own that after all that was told me, I was
+afraid to experiment with it myself, but after your experience, or
+rather lack of experience, I shall not hesitate to have it in my own
+bedroom. Both my wife and I have always admired it--it is such a
+uniquely beautiful piece of furniture.'
+
+"Of course I agreed with my friend, and, after congratulating him most
+effusively on his good luck in having been able to secure so unique a
+treasure, I again thanked him for his hospitality and bade him
+good-bye."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Adventure in Chicago, 143-145.
+  of Hans and Carl with a were-wolf, 121-129.
+  with pixies near Bray, 71.
+
+Æneas, story of, 69-70.
+
+All-Hallows E'en, 158-159.
+
+_Anglo-Saxon Church, The_, 158.
+
+Arundels, White Owl of the, 137, 139, 151.
+
+Ash trees, 74-75.
+
+Aspens, 73.
+
+Assam, haunted tree in, 64-67.
+
+Assiut, 42.
+
+Attendant spirits, 142-145.
+
+Automatic writing, 190.
+
+
+Baldearg, the, 178.
+
+Banshee, the, 137, 147-149.
+
+Barrowvians, 78, 220-230.
+
+Bay of the Departed, 205.
+
+Bears, phantasms of, 79.
+
+Birthmarks, 178.
+
+Bloody Hand of Ulster, 176.
+
+Blue hand, phantasm of a, 79.
+
+Boggle chairs, 230-243.
+
+_Book of Days_, 90.
+
+Brampton, haunted ash tree of, 74.
+
+_British Goblins_, Book of, 91, 151.
+
+Buddhas, 210-220.
+
+
+Candles, warnings by, 132.
+
+Castle on Dinas, 78.
+
+Cats, phantasms of, 97-108.
+
+Charley, T., 134.
+
+Charms and checks against ghosts, 192-197.
+
+Childermass Day, 160.
+
+Ching Kang and the Fox-woman, story of, 129-131.
+
+Clairvoyance, 189.
+
+Clanogrians, 37, 137.
+
+Complex hauntings and occult bestialities, 80.
+
+Complex hauntings by phantasms of one person, 81.
+
+Corpse-candles, 134-137.
+
+Count Daniel O'Donnell, 167.
+
+Crystal-gazing, 166-167.
+
+
+D., Lady, 7.
+
+Dalmatian dog, phantasm of, 83.
+
+Davis, Rev. Mr, 135.
+
+De B., Mrs, 6.
+
+Dean Combe Ghost, 89.
+
+Death warnings, 132-140.
+
+Death-Watch, 138.
+
+Demon of Stockwell, 48.
+  of Tedworth, 48.
+
+Dogs, spirits of, 79, 81, 83-91.
+
+Dowsers, 76.
+
+Drummer of the Airlies, 137-150.
+
+Dyer's _Ghost World_, 89.
+
+
+Earl of Lincoln and the ash tree, 75.
+
+Elementals, 5.
+
+Ellyllon, the, 151.
+
+English family ghosts, 150.
+
+Ennemoser, works by Jos., 110.
+
+Epworth, hauntings at, 48.
+
+Evil eye, the, 168-170.
+
+Exorcism, 195-196.
+
+Eye, phantasm of, 82.
+
+
+Fire-coffins, 138.
+
+Forbes du Barry, Mrs, 86.
+
+Fortune-telling, 161.
+
+Fox-women, 119-131.
+
+_Frazer's Journal_, 135.
+
+
+Gabriel's hounds, 91.
+
+Ghost of Black Lion Lane, 48.
+
+Gluttony, 29.
+
+Grandfather clocks, hauntings by, 35.
+
+Gwyllgi, the, 91.
+
+
+Hacon, Rev. Henry, 42.
+
+Hand of Glory, 176.
+
+Hands, 162-164.
+
+Hartz mountains, vampirism in the, 114-115.
+
+Haunted trees, 60-70.
+    in Caucasus, 68.
+    in Slavonic mythology, 68.
+  seas, 198-206.
+
+Hauntings on Wicklow nets, 83-85.
+
+Headless dogs, 85, 87-88.
+
+History of magic, 112.
+
+Horses, phantasms of, 79, 108.
+
+Howard, phantasm of Lady, 89.
+
+Hunt, works of Mr, 205-206.
+
+Hydromancy, 165.
+
+
+Idiots and vampirism, 113-114.
+
+Intuition, 187-188.
+
+
+Land's End, 6.
+
+Looking-glasses, 157.
+
+Luck of Edenhall, 168.
+
+Lyons family, 168.
+
+
+Mandrake, the, 76.
+
+Manias, 28-34.
+  for buttons, 38.
+  of manual workers, 30.
+  of women for dogs, 33.
+
+Mauthe dog, the, 90.
+
+Mermaids, 141.
+
+Midsummer eve, 161.
+
+Mines, hauntings of, 58.
+
+Monomaniac musician, 33.
+
+Mummy of Met-Om-Karema, haunted, 42-46.
+
+
+Nature's devil signals, 179.
+
+New year's eve, 160, 166.
+
+_News from the Invisible World_, 134.
+
+North, recitations of Miss Lilian, 86.
+
+Numbers, climacteric, 177.
+
+
+Oak chests, haunted, 38.
+
+Obsession and possession, 28.
+
+Occult hooligans, 47-55.
+
+Occult in shadows, 21.
+
+Owls, 139.
+
+
+Palm tree, 77.
+
+Palmistry, 162.
+
+Paul, vampirism of Arnauld, 110.
+
+Phantasms of living, 184-186.
+  of pigs, 108.
+  of sailors, 81.
+  of wild animals, 108.
+
+Phantom rowers, 150.
+  ships, 198-201.
+  white hares, 151.
+  world, 110.
+
+Pixies, 70.
+
+Plutarch's account of satyrs, 67.
+
+Poltergeists, 47-50.
+  and Professor Schuppart, 48-50.
+  in Norwood, 50.
+
+Polydorus, story of, 70.
+
+Poor in Hyde Park, 25.
+
+Pre-existence, 179-184.
+
+Premature burial, 2-18.
+
+Primitive trees, visions of, 56-57.
+
+Projection, 184-186.
+
+Psychic days, 158.
+  faculty, 186.
+
+Pyromancy, 165.
+
+
+"Radiant Boy of Corby," the, 151.
+
+Ravens, 140.
+
+River ghosts, 206-207.
+
+Romances of West of England, 205-206.
+
+
+St Blaise's Day, 160.
+
+St Catherine's Day, 161.
+
+St Lawrence's Day, 161.
+
+St Mark's Day, 161.
+
+St Martin's Day, 160.
+
+Sargasso Sea, 201-205.
+
+Satyrs and fawns, 67.
+
+Scottish ghosts, 149-150.
+
+Séances, 191-192.
+
+Second sight, 187.
+
+Seventh son, the, 177.
+
+Shadow on the Downs, the, 22-23.
+  in Hyde Park, 26.
+  of a tree, 24.
+
+Shuck, the, 90.
+
+Sinclair, Miss, 63.
+
+Sirens, 207-209.
+
+Soames, work of Mr, 158.
+
+South's tale of a vampire, Mrs, 116-121.
+
+Spells, 159-161.
+
+Spilling salt, 157.
+
+Stuker, the, 90.
+
+Suggestion, 186.
+
+Superstitions and fortunes, 153.
+
+Sycamore, the, 77.
+
+Sylvan horrors, 56-79.
+
+
+Table-turning, 191-192.
+
+Talismans and amulets, 167.
+
+Telepathy, 186.
+
+Thirteen at table, 153-157.
+
+Timbs, John, 74, 138, 161.
+
+"Trash," 90.
+
+Tree of life, the, 77.
+
+Trees, haunted, 60-70.
+
+Tristam and Yseult, legend of, 69.
+
+
+"Unknown depths," the, 20.
+
+
+Vampires, 110-121.
+
+
+Wandering Jew, the, 141-142.
+
+Welsh ghosts, 151.
+
+Were-wolves, 121-129.
+
+Wirt Sikes, work by, 91, 151.
+
+Witches, 171-175.
+
+Worthing, 22, 86-88.
+
+
+X., phantasm of murderer, 91-97.
+
+
+"Yellow Boy," the, 151.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+The following corrections were made:
+
+p. 23: extra comma removed (after "time" in "but the next time I visited
+the spot")
+
+p. 32: sensualty to sensuality (sensuality sometimes venial)
+
+p. 34: thought germ to thought-germ to match other instances (how
+extraordinary the thought-germ)
+
+p. 34: later-day to latter-day (even latter-day)
+
+p. 67: extra comma removed (after "degree" in "in the slightest degree
+what the monstrosity meant")
+
+p. 88: Du to du to match other instances (Mrs du Barry)
+
+p. 90: Haviland to Harland (Harland and Wilkinson)
+
+p. 91: Wyhr to Wybr (Cwn y Wybr), to match cited source
+
+p. 110: missing period added (Jos. Ennemoser)
+
+pp. 110, 112, and 244 (Index): Ennemoses to Ennemoser
+
+p. 116: pretentions to pretensions (hypocritical pretensions)
+
+p. 129: Thanking to Thinking (Thinking that the animal was ill)
+
+p. 140: syrens to sirens (nymphs, sirens, and pixies)
+
+p. 154: ont he to on the (on the couch)
+
+p. 176: he to the (badge of the O'Neills)
+
+p. 222: added missing single close quote (Here they are!')
+
+p. 224: double close quote to single close quote (one of the houses.')
+
+p. 225: had to has ('Someone has been excavating, and quite recently!')
+
+p. 245: missing periods added after several Index entries (Gluttony,
+29.; Haunted Trees ... in Caucasus, 68.)
+
+On page 110, the author refers to Jos. Ennemoser as the author of _The
+Phantom World_. In fact, the cited passage comes from a work by
+Augustine Calmet, which was translated into English by William Howitt as
+_The Phantom World_; Ennemoser quotes from it in his book _The History
+of Magic_. This error has not been corrected.
+
+Irregularities in hyphenation and capitalization have not been
+corrected. Antiquated or misspelled place names have been left as in the
+original.
+
+For the plain text version, oe ligatures have been changed to oe.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Byways of Ghost-Land, by Elliott O'Donnell
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30440 ***