Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
first they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone—you know how far
away it is—they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of
his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of
each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they
hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him
laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and,
indeed, they have all of them said that it was not any man at all.
After that they hear a great door shut.
“Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the
priest. They said to him:
“‘Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men,
Anders Bjornsen and Hans Thorbjorn.’
“You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went
to the wood—my grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all
like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white
fear. He said when they came to him:
“‘I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I
cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again.’
“So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the
wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all
the time he was pushing with his hands—pushing something away from him
which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and
took him to the house at Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but
he went on pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was there; but
he was dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was
once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh
of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My
grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which
they brought, and they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked
before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they
could. So, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell
down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and the others looked
back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of
Anders Bjornsen were looking up, because there was nothing to close
over them. And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest laid the
cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that
place.”
The next day Mr Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon
after his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. He
noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the
pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be
left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a
second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be
more of interest among them than could be digested at first. The
building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments,
mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
were dignified if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were
copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three
copper sarcophagi, covered with finely-engraved ornament. Two of them
had, as is commonly the case in Denmark and Sweden, a large metal
crucifix on the lid. The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared,
had, instead of that, a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round
the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various
scenes. One was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled
towns, and troops of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third,
among trees, was a man running at full speed, with flying hair and
outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form; it would be hard
to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to
give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as
monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the
drawing was done, Mr Wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea.
The figure was unduly short, and was for the most part muffled in a
hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which
projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. Mr
Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues: “On
seeing this, I said to myself, ‘This, then, which is evidently an
allegorical representation of some kind—a fiend pursuing a hunted
soul—may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his mysterious
companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will
be a demon blowing his horn.”’ But, as it turned out, there was no such
sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock,
who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest
which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude.
Mr Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in
number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was
detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the
deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward
to the manor-house.
“It is curious,” he notes, “how, on retracing a familiar path, one’s
thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects.
Tonight, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I
was going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the
epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and
found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I
believe, singing or chanting some such words as, ‘Are you awake, Count
Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?’ and then something more which I
have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been
behaving in this nonsensical way for some time.”
He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and
copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the
light began to fail him.
“I must have been wrong,” he writes, “in saying that one of the
padlocks of my Count’s sarcophagus was unfastened; I see tonight that
two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the
window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining
one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot
guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost
afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It
is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear,
somewhat ferocious and grim old noble.”
The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr Wraxall’s stay
at Råbäck. He received letters connected with certain investments which
made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the
papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided,
therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his
notes, and be off.
These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time
than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to
dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half past six
before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step
of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he
trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And
when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for
many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and
distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned
to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count
Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but
twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It
was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and,
as usual, talking to himself aloud. “You may have been a bit of a
rascal in your time, Magnus,” he was saying, “but for all that I should
like to see you, or, rather—”
“Just at that instant,” he says, “I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily
enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash.
It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the
sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I
am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a
sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting
upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life
stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time
than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and
what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I
sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty
minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I
cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something
more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or
sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?”
Poor Mr Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day,
as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I
gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man.
One of several small note-books that have come to me with his papers
gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of
his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six
painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The
entries are of this kind:
24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat.
25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black
cloak, brown hat.
26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned.
This entry is lined out, and a note added: “Perhaps identical with No.
13. Have not yet seen his face.” On referring to No. 13, I find that he
is a Roman priest in a cassock.
The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people
appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak
and broad hat, and another a “short figure in dark cloak and hood”. On
the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers
appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and
the short figure is certainly absent.
On reaching England, it appears that Mr Wraxall landed at Harwich, and
that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person
or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to
regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed
fly—not trusting the railway and drove across country to the village of
Belchamp St Paul. It was about nine o’clock on a moonlight August night
when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of
the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be
seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner
two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the
taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their
faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the
horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr Wraxall sank back
into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before.
Arrived at Belchamp St Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent
furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived,
comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this
day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full,
but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from
his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is “What has