Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said,
but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver
crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part
of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in
hideous pain.
Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,
saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed
out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him
that night, and his two friends were at St Bertrand by nine o’clock
next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost
himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though
not until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.
Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretence, and
had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the
landlady. He showed no surprise.
“It is he—it is he! I have seen him myself,” was his only comment; and
to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: “Deux fois je l’ai
vu; mille fois je l’ai senti.” He would tell them nothing of the
provenance of the book, nor any details of his experiences. “I shall
soon sleep, and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?” he
said.[2]
[2] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St
Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father’s
“obsession”.
We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauléon suffered. At
the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may
be supposed to throw light on the situation:
Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.
Albericus de Mauléone delineavit.
V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.
Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo.
Primum uidi nocte 12(mi) Dec. 1694: uidebo mox ultimum. Peccaui et
passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. Dec. 29, 1701.[3]
[3] _i.e._, The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by
Alberic de Mauléon. _Versicle_. O Lord, make haste to help me.
_Psalm_. Whoso dwelleth xci.
Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most
unhappy. I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall
see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more
to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701.
The “Gallia Christiana” gives the date of the Canon’s death as
December 31, 1701, “in bed, of a sudden seizure”. Details of this
kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun’s view of the events
I have narrated. He quoted to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus: “Some
spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay
on sore strokes.” On another occasion he said: “Isaiah was a very
sensible man; doesn’t he say something about night monsters living in
the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present.”
Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with
it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic’s tomb.
It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large
wig and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw
Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St Bertrand’s, and
as we drove away he said to me: “I hope it isn’t wrong: you know I am a
Presbyterian—but I—I believe there will be ‘saying of Mass and singing
of dirges’ for Alberic de Mauléon’s rest.” Then he added, with a touch
of the Northern British in his tone, “I had no notion they came so
dear.”
The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was
photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left
Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.
LOST HEARTS
It was, as far as I can ascertain, in September of the year 1811 that a
post-chaise drew up before the door of Aswarby Hall, in the heart of
Lincolnshire. The little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise,
and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the
keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the
ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door. He saw a tall,
square, red-brick house, built in the reign of Anne; a stone-pillared
porch had been added in the purer classical style of 1790; the windows
of the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick
white woodwork. A pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the
front. There were wings to right and left, connected by curious glazed
galleries, supported by colonnades, with the central block. These wings
plainly contained the stables and offices of the house. Each was
surmounted by an ornamental cupola with a gilded vane.
An evening light shone on the building, making the window-panes glow
like so many fires. Away from the Hall in front stretched a flat park
studded with oaks and fringed with firs, which stood out against the
sky. The clock in the church-tower, buried in trees on the edge of the
park, only its golden weather-cock catching the light, was striking
six, and the sound came gently beating down the wind. It was altogether
a pleasant impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy
appropriate to an evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the
mind of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting for the door to
open to him.
The post-chaise had brought him from Warwickshire, where, some six
months before, he had been left an orphan. Now, owing to the generous
offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come to live at Aswarby.
The offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney
looked upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going
household the advent of a small boy would import a new and, it seemed,
incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr
Abney’s pursuits or temper. The Professor of Greek at Cambridge had
been heard to say that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the
later pagans than did the owner of Aswarby. Certainly his library
contained all the then available books bearing on the Mysteries, the
Orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and the Neo-Platonists. In the
marble-paved hall stood a fine group of Mithras slaying a bull, which
had been imported from the Levant at great expense by the owner. He had
contributed a description of it to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and he
had written a remarkable series of articles in the _Critical Museum_ on
the superstitions of the Romans of the Lower Empire. He was looked
upon, in fine, as a man wrapped up in his books, and it was a matter of
great surprise among his neighbours that he should ever have heard of
his orphan cousin, Stephen Elliott, much more that he should have
volunteered to make him an inmate of Aswarby Hall.
Whatever may have been expected by his neighbours, it is certain that
Mr Abney—the tall, the thin, the austere—seemed inclined to give his
young cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front-door was opened
he darted out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight.
“How are you, my boy?—how are you? How old are you?” said he—“that is,
you are not too much tired, I hope, by your journey to eat your
supper?”
“No, thank you, sir,” said Master Elliott; “I am pretty well.”
“That’s a good lad,” said Mr Abney. “And how old are you, my boy?”
It seemed a little odd that he should have asked the question twice in
the first two minutes of their acquaintance.
“I’m twelve years old next birthday, sir,” said Stephen.
“And when is your birthday, my dear boy? Eleventh of September, eh?
That’s well—that’s very well. Nearly a year hence, isn’t it? I like—ha,
ha!—I like to get these things down in my book. Sure it’s twelve?
Certain?”
“Yes, quite sure, sir.”
“Well, well! Take him to Mrs Bunch’s room, Parkes, and let him have his
tea—supper—whatever it is.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the staid Mr Parkes; and conducted Stephen to the
lower regions.
Mrs Bunch was the most comfortable and human person whom Stephen had as
yet met in Aswarby. She made him completely at home; they were great
friends in a quarter of an hour: and great friends they remained. Mrs
Bunch had been born in the neighbourhood some fifty-five years before
the date of Stephen’s arrival, and her residence at the Hall was of
twenty years’ standing. Consequently, if anyone knew the ins and outs
of the house and the district, Mrs Bunch knew them; and she was by no
means disinclined to communicate her information.
Certainly there were plenty of things about the Hall and the Hall
gardens which Stephen, who was of an adventurous and inquiring turn,
was anxious to have explained to him. “Who built the temple at the end
of the laurel walk? Who was the old man whose picture hung on the
staircase, sitting at a table, with a skull under his hand?” These and
many similar points were cleared up by the resources of Mrs Bunch’s
powerful intellect. There were others, however, of which the
explanations furnished were less satisfactory.
One November evening Stephen was sitting by the fire in the
housekeeper’s room reflecting on his surroundings.
“Is Mr Abney a good man, and will he go to heaven?” he suddenly asked,
with the peculiar confidence which children possess in the ability of
their elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is
believed to be reserved for other tribunals.
“Good?—bless the child!” said Mrs Bunch. “Master’s as kind a soul as
ever I see! Didn’t I never tell you of the little boy as he took in out
of the street, as you may say, this seven years back? and the little
girl, two years after I first come here?”
“No. Do tell me all about them, Mrs Bunch—now, this minute!”
“Well,” said Mrs Bunch, “the little girl I don’t seem to recollect so
much about. I know master brought her back with him from his walk one
day, and give orders to Mrs Ellis, as was housekeeper then, as she
should be took every care with. And the pore child hadn’t no one
belonging to her—she telled me so her own self—and here she lived with
us a matter of three weeks it might be; and then, whether she were
somethink of a gipsy in her blood or what not, but one morning she out
of her bed afore any of us had opened a eye, and neither track nor yet
trace of her have I set eyes on since. Master was wonderful put about,
and had all the ponds dragged; but it’s my belief she was had away by
them gipsies, for there was singing round the house for as much as an
hour the night she went, and Parkes, he declare as he heard them
a-calling in the woods all that afternoon. Dear, dear! a hodd child she
was, so silent in her ways and all, but I was wonderful taken up with
her, so domesticated she was—surprising.”
“And what about the little boy?” said Stephen.
“Ah, that pore boy!” sighed Mrs Bunch. “He were a foreigner—Jevanny he
called hisself—and he come a-tweaking his ’urdy-gurdy round and about
the drive one winter day, and master ’ad him in that minute, and ast
all about where he came from, and how old he was, and how he made his
way, and where was his relatives, and all as kind as heart could wish.
But it went the same way with him. They’re a hunruly lot, them foreign
nations, I do suppose, and he was off one fine morning just the same as
the girl. Why he went and what he done was our question for as much as
a year after; for he never took his ’urdy-gurdy, and there it lays on
the shelf.”
The remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous
cross-examination of Mrs Bunch and in efforts to extract a tune from
the hurdy-gurdy.
That night he had a curious dream. At the end of the passage at the top
of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old