Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Volume Ii Part 10

_S_. I did notice that it looked very wet: but it was foul weather outside.

_L.C.J._ Did you feel of it, mistress?

_S._ No, my lord, I did not like to touch it.

_L.C.J._ Not like? Why that? Are you so nice that you scruple to feel of a wet dress?

_S._ Indeed, my lord, I cannot very well tell why: only it had a nasty ugly look about it.

_L.C.J._ Well, go on.

_S_. Then I called again to Thomas Snell, and bid him come to me and catch anyone that come out when I should open the cupboard door, 'for,'

says I, 'there is someone hiding within, and I would know what she wants.' And with that Squire Martin gave a sort of a cry or a shout and ran out of the house into the dark, and I felt the cupboard door pushed out against me while I held it, and Thomas Snell helped me: but for all we pressed to keep it shut as hard as we could, it was forced out against us, and we had to fall back.

_L.C.J._ And pray what came out--a mouse?

_S._ No, my lord, it was greater than a mouse, but I could not see what it was: it fleeted very swift over the floor and out at the door.

_L.C.J._ But come; what did it look like? Was it a person?

_S._ My lord, I cannot tell what it was, but it ran very low, and it was of a dark colour. We were both daunted by it, Thomas Snell and I, but we made all the haste we could after it to the door that stood open. And we looked out, but it was dark and we could see nothing.

_L.C.J._ Was there no tracks of it on the floor? What floor have you there?

_S._ It is a flagged floor and sanded, my lord, and there was an appearance of a wet track on the floor, but we could make nothing of it, neither Thomas Snell nor me, and besides, as I said, it was a foul night.

_L.C.J._ Well, for my part, I see not--though to be sure it is an odd tale she tells--what you would do with this evidence.

_Att._ My lord, we bring it to show the suspicious carriage of the prisoner immediately after the disappearance of the murdered person: and we ask the jury's consideration of that; and also to the matter of the voice heard without the house.

Then the prisoner asked some questions not very material, and Thomas Snell was next called, who gave evidence to the same effect as Mrs Arscott, and added the following:

_Att._ Did anything pa.s.s between you and the prisoner during the time Mrs Arscott was out of the room?

_Th._ I had a piece of twist in my pocket.

_Att._ Twist of what?

_Th._ Twist of tobacco, sir, and I felt a disposition to take a pipe of tobacco. So I found a pipe on the chimney-piece, and being it was twist, and in regard of me having by an oversight left my knife at my house, and me not having over many teeth to pluck at it, as your lordship or anyone else may have a view by their own eyesight--

_L.C.J._ What is the man talking about? Come to the matter, fellow! Do you think we sit here to look at your teeth?

_Th._ No, my lord, nor I would not you should do, G.o.d forbid! I know your honours have better employment, and better teeth, I would not wonder.

_L.C.J._ Good G.o.d, what a man is this! Yes, I _have_ better teeth, and that you shall find if you keep not to the purpose.

_Th._ I humbly ask pardon, my lord, but so it was. And I took upon me, thinking no harm, to ask Squire Martin to lend me his knife to cut my tobacco. And he felt first of one pocket and then of another and it was not there at all. And says I, 'What! have you lost your knife, Squire?'

And up he gets and feels again and he sat down, and such a groan as he gave. 'Good G.o.d!' he says, 'I must have left it there.' 'But,' says I, 'Squire, by all appearance it is _not_ there. Did you set a value on it,'

says I, 'you might have it cried.' But he sat there and put his head between his hands and seemed to take no notice to what I said. And then it was Mistress Arscott come tracking back out of the kitchen place.

Asked if he heard the voice singing outside the house, he said 'No,' but the door into the kitchen was shut, and there was a high wind: but says that no one could mistake Ann Clark's voice.

Then a boy, William Reddaway, about thirteen years of age, was called, and by the usual questions, put by the Lord Chief Justice, it was ascertained that he knew the nature of an oath. And so he was sworn. His evidence referred to a time about a week later.

_Att._ Now, child, don't be frighted: there is no one here will hurt you if you speak the truth.

_L.C.J._ Ay, if he speak the truth. But remember, child, thou art in the presence of the great G.o.d of heaven and earth, that hath the keys of h.e.l.l, and of us that are the king's officers, and have the keys of Newgate; and remember, too, there is a man's life in question; and if thou tellest a lie, and by that means he comes to an ill end, thou art no better than his murderer; and so speak the truth.

_Att._ Tell the jury what you know, and speak out. Where were you on the evening of the 23rd of May last?

_L.C.J._ Why, what does such a boy as this know of days. Can you mark the day, boy?

_W._ Yes, my lord, it was the day before our feast, and I was to spend sixpence there, and that falls a month before Midsummer Day.

_One of the Jury._ My lord, we cannot hear what he says.

_L.C.J._ He says he remembers the day because it was the day before the feast they had there, and he had sixpence to lay out. Set him up on the table there. Well, child, and where wast thou then?

_W._ Keeping cows on the moor, my lord.

But, the boy using the country speech, my lord could not well apprehend him, and so asked if there was anyone that could interpret him, and it was answered the parson of the parish was there, and he was accordingly sworn and so the evidence given. The boy said:

'I was on the moor about six o'clock, and sitting behind a bush of furze near a pond of water: and the prisoner came very cautiously and looking about him, having something like a long pole in his hand, and stopped a good while as if he would be listening, and then began to feel in the water with the pole: and I being very near the water--not above five yards--heard as if the pole struck up against something that made a wallowing sound, and the prisoner dropped the pole and threw himself on the ground, and rolled himself about very strangely with his hands to his ears, and so after a while got up and went creeping away.'

Asked if he had had any communication with the prisoner, 'Yes, a day or two before, the prisoner, hearing I was used to be on the moor, he asked me if I had seen a knife laying about, and said he would give sixpence to find it. And I said I had not seen any such thing, but I would ask about.

Then he said he would give me sixpence to say nothing, and so he did.'

_L.C.J._ And was that the sixpence you were to lay out at the feast?

_W._ Yes, if you please, my lord.

Asked if he had observed anything particular as to the pond of water, he said, 'No, except that it begun to have a very ill smell and the cows would not drink of it for some days before.'

Asked if he had ever seen the prisoner and Ann Clark in company together, he began to cry very much, and it was a long time before they could get him to speak intelligibly. At last the parson of the parish, Mr Matthews, got him to be quiet, and the question being put to him again, he said he had seen Ann Clark waiting on the moor for the prisoner at some way off, several times since last Christmas.

_Att._ Did you see her close, so as to be sure it was she?

_W._ Yes, quite sure.

_L.C.J._ How quite sure, child?

_W._ Because she would stand and jump up and down and clap her arms like a goose [which he called by some country name: but the parson explained it to be a goose]. And then she was of such a shape that it could not be no one else.

_Att._ What was the last time that you so saw her?

Then the witness began to cry again and clung very much to Mr Matthews, who bid him not be frightened.

And so at last he told his story: that on the day before their feast (being the same evening that he had before spoken of) after the prisoner had gone away, it being then twilight and he very desirous to get home, but afraid for the present to stir from where he was lest the prisoner should see him, remained some few minutes behind the bush, looking on the pond, and saw something dark come up out of the water at the edge of the pond farthest away from him, and so up the bank. And when it got to the top where he could see it plain against the sky, it stood up and flapped the arms up and down, and then run off very swiftly in the same direction the prisoner had taken: and being asked very strictly who he took it to be, he said upon his oath that it could be n.o.body but Ann Clark.