The Haunters & The Haunted Part 30

XLIX

THE HAND OF GLORY

HENDERSON'S "Folk Lore"

One evening, between the years 1790 and 1800, a traveller, dressed in woman's clothes, arrived at the Old Spital Inn, the place where the mail coach changed horses, in High Spital, on Bowes Moor. The traveller begged to stay all night, but had to go away so early in the morning that if a mouthful of food were set ready for breakfast there was no need the family should be disturbed by her departure. The people of the house, however, arranged that a servant maid should sit up till the stranger was out of the premises, and then went to bed themselves. The girl lay down for a nap on the longsettle by the fire, but before she shut her eyes she took a good look at the traveller, who was sitting on the opposite side of the hearth, and espied a pair of man's trousers peeping out from under the gown. All inclination for sleep was now gone; however, with great self-command, she feigned it, closed her eyes, and even began to snore. On this the traveller got up, pulled out of his pocket a dead man's hand, fitted a candle to it, lighted the candle, and pa.s.sed hand and candle several times before the servant girl's face, saying as he did so: "Let those who are asleep be asleep, and let those who are awake be awake." This done, he placed the light on the table, opened the outer door, went down two or three of the steps which led from the house to the road, and began to whistle for his companions. The girl (who had hitherto had presence of mind enough to remain perfectly quiet) now jumped up, rushed behind the ruffian, and pushed him down the steps. She then shut the door, locked it, and ran upstairs to try and wake the family, but without success: calling, shouting, and shaking were alike in vain. The poor girl was in despair, for she heard the traveller and his comrades outside the house. So she ran down again, seized a bowl of blue (_i.e._ skimmed milk), and threw it over the hand and candle; after which she went upstairs again, and awoke the sleepers without any difficulty. The landlord's son went to the window, and asked the men outside what they wanted. They answered that if the dead man's hand were but given them, they would go away quietly, and do no harm to anyone. This he refused, and fired among them, and the shot must have taken effect, for in the morning stains of blood were traced to a considerable distance.

These circ.u.mstances were related to my informant, Mr Charles Wastell, in the spring of 1861, by an old woman named Bella Parkin, who resided close to High Spital, and was actually the daughter of the courageous servant-girl.

It is interesting to compare them with the following narrations, communicated to me by the Rev. S. Baring Gould:--"Two magicians having come to lodge in a public-house with a view to robbing it, asked permission to pa.s.s the night by the fire, and obtained it. When the house was quiet, the servant-girl, suspecting mischief, crept downstairs and looked through the keyhole. She saw the men open a sack, and take out a dry, withered hand. They anointed the fingers with some unguent, and lighted them. Each finger flamed, but the thumb they could not light; that was because one of the household was not asleep. The girl hastened to her master, but found it impossible to arouse him. She tried every other sleeper, but could not break the charmed sleep. At last, stealing down into the kitchen, while the thieves were busy over her master's strong box, she secured the hand, blew out the flames, and at once the whole household was aroused."[14]

But the next story bears a closer resemblance to the Stainmore narrative. One dark night, when all was shut up, there came a tap at the door of a lone inn in the middle of a barren moor. The door was opened, and there stood without, shivering and shaking, a poor beggar, his rags soaked with rain, and his hands white with cold. He asked piteously for a lodging, and it was cheerfully granted him; there was not a spare bed in the house, but he could lie on the mat before the kitchen fire, and welcome.

So this was settled, and everyone in the house went to bed except the cook, who from the back kitchen could see into the large room through a pane of gla.s.s let into the door. She watched the beggar, and saw him, as soon as he was left alone, draw himself up from the floor, seat himself at the table, extract from his pocket a brown withered human hand, and set it upright in the candlestick. He then anointed the fingers, and applying a match to them, they began to flame. Filled with horror, the cook rushed up the back stairs, and endeavoured to arouse her master and the men of the house. But all was in vain--they slept a charmed sleep; so in despair she hastened down again, and placed herself at her post of observation.

She saw the fingers of the hand flaming, but the thumb remained unlighted, because one inmate of the house was awake. The beggar was busy collecting the valuables around him into a large sack, and having taken all he cared for in the large room, he entered another. On this the woman ran in, and, seizing the light, tried to extinguish the flames. But this was not so easy. She blew at them, but they burnt on as before. She poured the dregs of a beer-jug over them, but they blazed up the brighter. As a last resource, she caught up a jug of milk, and dashed it over the four lambent flames, and they died out at once.

Uttering a loud cry, she rushed to the door of the apartment the beggar had entered, and locked it. The whole family was aroused, and the thief easily secured and hanged. This tale is told in Northumberland.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: Delrio. See also Thorpe's _Mythology_, vol. iii. p. 274.]

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THE b.l.o.o.d.y FOOTSTEP

Local Records

On the threshold of one of the doors of Smithills Hall there is a b.l.o.o.d.y footstep impressed into the door-step, and ruddy as if the b.l.o.o.d.y foot had just trodden there; and it is averred that, on a certain night of the year, and at a certain hour of the night, if you go and look at the door-step you will see the mark wet with fresh blood. Some have pretended to say that this appearance of blood was but dew; but can dew redden a cambric handkerchief? Will it crimson the finger-tips when you touch it? And that is what the b.l.o.o.d.y footstep will surely do when the appointed night and hour come round....

It is needless to tell you all the strange stories that have survived to this day about the old Hall, and how it is believed that the master of it, owing to his ancient science, has still a sort of residence there and control of the place, and how in one of the chambers there is still his antique table, and his chair, and some rude old instruments and machinery, and a book, and everything in readiness, just as if he might still come back to finish some experiment.... One of the chief things to which the old lord applied himself was to discover the means of prolonging his own life, so that its duration should be indefinite, if not infinite; and such was his science that he was believed to have attained this magnificent and awful purpose....

The object of the Lord of Smithills Hall was to take a life from the course of Nature, and Nature did not choose to be defrauded; so that, great as was the power of this scientific man over her, she would not consent that he should escape the necessity of dying at his proper time, except upon condition of sacrificing some other life for his; and this was to be done once for every thirty years that he chose to live, thirty years being the account of a generation of man; and if in any way, in that time, this lord could be the death of a human being, that satisfied the requisition, and he might live on....

There was but one human being whom he cared for--that was a beautiful kinswoman, an orphan, whom his father had brought up, and dying, left to his care.... He saw that she, if anyone, was to be the person whom the sacrifice demanded, and that he might kill twenty others without effect, but if he took the life of this one it would make the charm strong and good.... He did slay this pure young girl; he took her into the wood near the house, an old wood that is standing yet, with some of its magnificent oaks, and there he plunged a dagger into her heart....

He buried her in the wood, and returned to the house; and, as it happened, he had set his right foot in her blood, and his shoe was wet in it, and by some miraculous fate it left a track all along the wood-path, and into the house, and on the stone steps of the threshold, and up into his chamber. The servants saw it the next day, and wondered, and whispered, and missed the fair young girl, and looked askance at their lord's right foot, and turned pale, all of them....

Next, the legend says, that Sir Forrester was struck with horror at what he had done ... and fled from his old Hall, and was gone full many a day. But all the while he was gone there was the mark of a b.l.o.o.d.y footstep impressed upon the stone door-step of the Hall.... The legend says that wherever Sir Forrester went, in his wanderings about the world, he left a b.l.o.o.d.y track behind him.... Once he went to the King's Court, and, there being a track up to the very throne, the King frowned upon him, so that he never came there any more. n.o.body could tell how it happened; his foot was not seen to bleed, only there was the b.l.o.o.d.y track behind him....

At last this unfortunate lord deemed it best to go back to his own Hall, where, living among faithful old servants born in the family, he could hush the matter up better than elsewhere.... So home he came, and there he saw the b.l.o.o.d.y track on the door-step, and dolefully went into the Hall, and up the stairs, an old servant ushering him into his chamber, and half a dozen others following him behind, gazing, shuddering, pointing with quivering fingers, looking horror-stricken in one another's pale faces....

By and by he vanished from the old Hall, but not by death; for, from generation to generation, they say that a b.l.o.o.d.y track is seen around that house, and sometimes it is traced up into the chambers, so fresh that you see he must have pa.s.sed a short time before.

This is the legend of the b.l.o.o.d.y Footstep, which I myself have seen at the Hall door.

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THE GHOSTLY WARRIORS OF WORMS

"The Phantom World"

The abbot of Ursperg, in his Chronicle, year 1123, says that in the territory of Worms they saw during many days a mult.i.tude of armed men, on foot and on horseback, going and coming with great noise, like people who are going to a solemn a.s.sembly. Every day they marched, towards the hour of noon, to a mountain, which appeared to be their place of rendezvous. Someone in the neighbourhood, bolder than the rest, having guarded himself with the sign of the cross, approached one of these armed men, conjuring him in the name of G.o.d, to declare the meaning of this army, and their design. The soldier or phantom replied, "We are not what you imagine; we are neither vain phantoms nor true soldiers, we are the spirits of those who were killed on this spot a long time ago. The arms and horses which you behold are the instruments of our punishment, as they were of our sins. We are all on fire, though you can see nothing about us which appears inflamed." It is said that they remarked in this company the Count Emico, who had been killed a few years before, and who declared that he might be extricated from that state by alms and prayers.

LII

THE WANDERING JEW IN ENGLAND

"Notes and Queries"

When on the weary way to Golgotha, Christ fainting, and overcome under the burden of the cross, asked Salathiel, as he was standing at his door, for a cup of water to cool His parched throat, he spurned the supplication, and bade Him on the faster.

"I go," said the Saviour, "but thou shalt thirst and tarry till I come."

And ever since then, by day and night, through the long centuries he has been doomed to wander about the earth, ever craving for water, and ever expecting the day of judgment which shall end his toils:

"Mais toujours le soleil se leve, Toujours, toujours Tourne la terre ou moi je cours, Toujours, toujours, toujours, toujours!"

Sometimes, during the cold winter nights, the lonely cottager will be awoke by a plaintive demand for "Water, good Christian! water for the love of G.o.d!" And if he looks out into the moonlight, he will see a venerable old man in antique raiment, with grey flowing beard, and a tall staff, who beseeches his charity with the most earnest gesture. Woe to the churl who refuses him water or shelter. My old nurse, who was a Warwickshire woman, and, as Sir Walter said of his grandmother, "a most _awfu' le'er_," knew a man who boldly cried out, "All very fine, Mr Ferguson, but you can't lodge here." And it was decidedly the worst thing he ever did in his life, for his best mare fell dead lame, and corn went down, I am afraid to say how much per quarter. If, on the contrary, you treat him well, and refrain from indelicate inquiries respecting his age--on which point he is very touchy--his visit is sure to bring good luck. Perhaps years afterwards, when you are on your death-bed, he may happen to be pa.s.sing; and if he _should_, you are safe; for three knocks with his staff will make you hale, and he never forgets any kindnesses. Many stories are current of his wonderful cures; but there is one to be found in Peck's _History of Stamford_ which possesses the rare merit of being written by the patient himself. Upon Whitsunday, in the year of our Lord 1658, "about six of the clock, just after evensong," one Samuel Wallis, of Stamford, who had been long wasted with a lingering consumption, was sitting by the fire, reading in that delectable book called _Abraham's Suit for Sodom_. He heard a knock at the door; and, as his nurse was absent, he crawled to open it himself. What he saw there, Samuel shall say in his own style:--"I beheld a proper, tall, grave old man. Thus he said: 'Friend, I pray thee, give an old pilgrim a cup of small beere!' And I said, 'Sir, I pray you, come in and welcome.' And he said, 'I am no Sir, therefore call me not Sir; but come in I must, for I cannot pa.s.s by thy doore.'"

After finishing the beer: "Friend," he said, "thou art not well." "I said, 'No, truly Sir, I have not been well this many yeares.' He said, 'What is thy disease?' I said, 'A deep consumption, Sir; our doctors say, past cure: for, truly, I am a very poor man, and not able to follow doctors' councell.' 'Then,' said he, 'I will tell thee what thou shalt do; and, by the help and power of Almighty G.o.d above, thou shalt be well. To-morrow, when thou risest up, go into thy garden, and get there two leaves of red sage, and one of bloodworte, and put them into a cup of thy small beere. Drink as often as need require, and when the cup is empty fill it again, and put in fresh leaves every fourth day, and thou shalt see, through our Lord's great goodness and mercy, before twelve dayes shall be past, thy disease shall be cured and thy body altered.'"

After this simple prescription, Wallis pressed him to eat: "But he said, 'No, friend, I will not eat; the Lord Jesus is sufficient for me. Very seldom doe I drinke any beere neither, but that which comes from the rocke. So, friend, the Lord G.o.d be with thee.'"

So saying, he departed, and was never more heard of; but the patient got well within the given time, and for many a long day there was war hot and fierce among the divines of Stamford, as to whether the stranger was an angel or a devil. His dress has been minutely described by honest Sam. His coat was purple, and b.u.t.toned down to the waist; "his britches of the same couler, all new to see to"; his stockings were very white, but whether linen or jersey, deponent knoweth not; his beard and head were white, and he had a white stick in his hand. The day was rainy from morning to night, "but he had not one spot of dirt upon his cloathes."

Aubrey gives an almost exactly similar relation, the scene of which he places in the Staffordshire Moorlands. The Jew there appears in a "purple s.h.a.g gown," and prescribes balm-leaves.

LIII