Seen and Unseen Part 26

_I have no power that is not communicated to me in the same way that this machine receives its power: through celestial radiation from the Soul of Matter, the Mind force of the Creator, whose instrument I am. I know who is leading me and making all things work together for good._

CHAPTER XI

A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND

In the year 1898 I was spending a few days in Castle Rush, which has been described by Mr W. T. Stead as the most haunted castle in Ireland.

It is one of the few old Irish castles still inhabited, and is naturally haunted by the ghosts of the past in every meaning of the word.

At the time of my stay I was recovering from a severe illness, and, in fact, was sent off to bed immediately upon arrival by my kind hostess, who, with true hospitality, thought more of her guest's comfort than the conventionalities of life, and would not hear of my lingering, even to make acquaintance with my host, on the dark autumnal evening of my arrival.

This had taken place after driving many miles and waiting for a dreary long time in the little inn of a small Irish township. My doctor would not hear of any railway travelling just then, so the whole forty miles from my last stopping-place had to be negotiated between the carriages of my past and present hospitable hosts.

As a matter of fact, I believe I slept in one of the haunted rooms, but it looked cheerful enough when I entered from the gloom and darkness outside; and a dainty little dinner sent up by my kind friends below, and eaten when snugly tucked in between the sheets and resting on soft downy pillows, was enough to drive all thoughts of ghostly visitors from my head.

I am thankful to say that I neither heard nor saw anything during my short visit, and should not even have known that my room had had any evil reputation but for the visit of an eccentric and clever old lady, who had been specially asked to the castle to meet me.

After luncheon we adjourned to my bedroom, at her suggestion, and she said casually:

"Ah, you have this room, I see. It was terribly haunted once, but I held a sort of little service here some time ago, and cleared them all out."

I must explain that this good lady took a very optimistic view of her own capacities and powers in general, and spoke--from the psychic point of view--with the honest pride that a flesh and blood charwoman might display on going over premises that she had thoroughly scrubbed and "cleaned out"!

One morning after breakfast, my hostess, Mrs Kent, called to me to come quickly and see a curious sight. It was a pouring wet day--one of those days when the heavens open and the rain descends in buckets! I could see nothing more remarkable than the damp, autumnal leaves, the bare trees swaying in the wind-washed s.p.a.ces, and the pouring, ceaseless rain.

"Don't you see that girl over there?"

I looked again, and did see a girl just emerging from a clump of beeches, and carrying a small trunk upon her head.

"What an extraordinary day to choose for travelling," I said drily.

"Ah, that is Irish superst.i.tion!" rejoined my hostess. "That is my last kitchen-maid you see--she is walking seven miles, with that trunk on her head, sooner than wait a few hours, when I could have sent her to the station."

"Is she mad?" was my natural comment.

"Oh no! only desperately frightened. She has not been here a week yet, and she is much too terrified to be coherent. All I can make out is that nothing on earth would induce her to spend another night at Rush. I could have sent her over to Marley easily to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, but she would not hear of it. And whether she has really seen anything, or only been frightened by the stories of the other servants, I don't know. Anyway, she has certainly the courage of her opinions, and is prepared to suffer for them! I would rather meet half-a-dozen ghosts than carry that trunk on my head seven miles in this pouring rain." Then turning round carelessly, she remarked: "I suppose _you_ have not seen or heard anything, Miss Bates, since you came? I hope not, for I am sure you are not strong enough for mundane visitors yet, let alone the other kind."

We were pa.s.sing through the handsome circular hall at the time, and I said eagerly: "Oh no! Thank goodness, I've seen and heard nothing. I don't think I should be allowed to see anything whilst I am so weak and poorly."

Almost at the moment of saying these words something impelled me to place my hand upon a particular spot in the great stone wall by my side.

"But there is something _here_ I don't like," I said, tapping it--"something uncanny--but I don't know what it is."

Mrs Kent made no remark; and I thought no more of the circ.u.mstance until the following year, when I was told by Mr Stead that Mrs Kent was over in England, and had been lunching with him and asking for me.

"She was giving me a most graphic account of the way you 'spotted' those skeletons at Rush Castle," he said.

I was completely puzzled by this remark. I had never spotted a single skeleton to my knowledge, either at Rush or elsewhere, and I told him so; but he persisted in saying that Mrs Kent had told him a very different story, and that most certainly she had mentioned me as the percipient.

"She must have mixed me up with somebody else," was my final comment.

"No doubt many people have queer experiences there, and she might naturally make such a mistake."

"Well, I gave her your address, and she is writing to ask you to have tea with her at the club, so you and she can fight it out there," he said; and the conversation drifted into other channels.

Next afternoon I met Mrs Kent at her club, and before leaving, fortunately remembered the curious mistake about the skeletons I had "spotted."

"But you _did_ 'spot' them," she said, laughing. "Don't you remember my asking you if you had noticed anything curious, or heard or seen anything, during your visit? At first you said 'Thank goodness, no!' But immediately afterwards you put your hand on a particular part of the circular hall, and said: 'There is something uncanny just here--something I don't like.'"

"Yes; I remember all that. But what of it? You never told me anything about skeletons."

"Of course not--you were not in a condition of health to discuss such eerie questions just then. All the same, you had located the exact spot where only a week before your visit, my husband's agent told him that two skeletons had been found bricked up!"

She then explained that the agent had been on the estate for many years, even before the death of the late owner of Rush--her father-in-law.

Having some business with her husband the week before my arrival, this agent had casually mentioned that he and the former owner had found these skeletons in the very spot indicated by me, about forty years previously, and, strange to relate, had bricked them up again instead of burying them. This last fact may account in part at least for the spooky reputation of Castle Rush.

All good psychics know that nothing disturbs a spirit so much as any informality about his funeral arrangements!

To return to my visit to Castle Rush.

Some years previously I had met, on an Orient steamer sailing from Ceylon to Naples, a brother of the owner of Rush. He was a sailor, and as hard-headed and practical a man as it has ever been my lot to meet.

It was in no way through meeting him that my visit to Rush came about, but owing to my acquaintance with Mrs Kent and _her_ family.

I had been greatly taken by the genial common-sense of this Captain Kent, and was much grieved to hear of his death when I stayed with his sister-in-law. It had occurred shortly before my visit, and under sad circ.u.mstances.

On the surface he was certainly more lacking in sentiment than anyone I ever met, but must have been capable of very deep affection. When I met him he had only been married for a few months. His wife died within two years of their marriage, and going for a short holiday to Castle Rush soon afterwards, he said to his sister-in-law:

"_I shall not live a year after her, I know!_" He was the last kind of man to make such a speech, as both Mrs Kent and I observed when she mentioned it to me.

"But he was quite right, all the same," she added. "_He died just three days within the year from the time of his wife's death._" Yet he was an exceptionally strong, st.u.r.dy, and wiry man at the time of his great sorrow.

From Castle Rush I was going to the south of Ireland to visit relations at Cork.

On the morning of my departure I was down in the drawing-room, rather wondering _why_ I had been brought to this old Irish castle. No special object seemed to have been achieved by my visit. I did not even know then that I had discovered two skeletons! In those days I found so often some train of circ.u.mstances--a borrowed book, a stranger coming across my path, some unexpected visit paid, which were later found to have been factors in a special experience--that I was rather surprised to realise that I was leaving the "most haunted castle in Ireland" and that nothing had happened.

But in the very moment of saying this to myself a curiously insistent impression came to me quite suddenly, and "out of the blue."

The impression was that the brother of my host, Captain Kent, was wishing very urgently to communicate something through me. I did not feel equal to taking any message at the time--I have already explained that I was only just recovering from a severe illness. Lunch and a long drive to the station and a weary railway journey lay before me, so I determined to do nothing until I was safely established with my cousins near Cork.

After a long, cold, and wet journey I arrived in pouring rain, my train being more than a hour late. The kind General who came to meet me was still patiently standing on the platform, but one of the two "cars" he had engaged for me and my baggage had taken itself off! As the rain was descending in water-spouts, I need scarcely say it was the "covered car"

which had driven away!

This meant a thorough wetting for my cousin and me. How all the luggage (including a large bicycle, and two people, in addition to the driver) was ever piled up on that small "outside Irish car" I have never been able to understand. Suffice it to say the miracle was performed, and we drove up a hill at an angle of about forty-five degrees into the bargain!

Clearly these were not ideal conditions for receiving automatic messages!