Tales of terror
much longer and dangerous route by the sea cliffs, even in the wildest
weather.
I have dwelt thus long on the ‘Haunted Mill’ because it bulks largely
in my story, as will presently be seen, and I came in time to regard it
with scarcely less awe than the rustics did.
It was during the second year of my residence in Brinton that a young
man named Charles Royce came home after having been absent at sea
for three years. Royce’s people occupied Gorse Hill Farm, about two
miles to the south of Brinton. Young Charley, a fine, handsome, but
rather wild youngster, had, it appears, fallen desperately in love
with Hannah Trowzell, who was a domestic in the employ of the Rector
of the parish. But Charley’s people did not approve of his choice,
and, thinking to cure him, packed him off to sea, and after an absence
of three years and a month the young fellow, bronzed, hearty, more
rollicking and handsome than ever, returned to his native village. I
had known nothing of Charles Royce or his history up to the day of his
return; but it chanced on that very day I had to pay a professional
visit to the Rectory, and the Rector pressed me to lunch with him.
Greatly interested in all his parishioners, and knowing something of
the private history of most of the families in his district, the rev.
gentleman very naturally fell to talking about young Royce, and he told
me the story, adding, ‘Hannah is a good girl, and I think it’s rather a
pity Charley’s people objected to his courting her. I believe she would
have made him a capital wife.’
‘Has she given him up entirely?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes, and is engaged to Silas Hartrop, whose father owns the
fishing smack the “North Sea Beauty.” I’ve never had a very high
opinion of Silas. I’m afraid he is a little too fond of skittles and
beer. However, Hannah seems determined to have him in spite of anything
I can say, so she must take her course. But I hope she will be able
to reform him, and that the marriage will be a happy one. I really
shouldn’t be a bit surprised, however, if the girl took up with her old
lover again, for I have reason to know she was much attached to him,
and I fancy Charley, if he were so minded, could easily influence her
to throw Silas overboard.’
This little story of love and disappointment naturally interested me,
for in a country town the affairs of one’s neighbours are matter of
greater moment than is the case in a big city.
So it came to pass that a few weeks after Charley’s return it was
pretty generally known that, even as the Rector had suggested it might
be, young Royce and pretty Hannah Trowzell were spooning again, and
Silas had virtually been told to go about his business. It was further
known that Silas had taken his dismissal so much to heart that he had
been seeking consolation in the beer-pot. Of course, folk talked a
good deal, and most of them sympathised with Silas, and blamed Hannah.
Very soon it began to be bruited about that Royce’s people no longer
opposed any objections to the wooing, and that in consequence Hannah
and Charley were to become husband and wife at Christmas, that was
in about seven weeks’ time. A month of the time had passed, and the
‘askings’ were up in the parish church, when one day there went forth
a rumour that Charles Royce was missing. Rumour took a more definite
shape a few hours later when it was positively stated that two nights
previously Charles had left his father’s house in high spirits and the
best of health to visit Hannah, and walk with her, as she was going
into the town to make some purchases. On his way he called at the ‘Two
Waggoners,’ a wayside inn, where he had a pint of beer and purchased
an ounce of tobacco. From the time he left the inn, all trace of him
was lost, and he was seen no more. Hannah waited his coming until long
past the appointed hour, and when he failed to put in an appearance,
she became angry and went off to the town by herself. Next day her
anger gave place to anxiety when she learnt that he had left his home
to visit her, and had not since returned; and anxiety became alarm
when two and three days slipped by without bringing any tidings of
the truant. On the night that he left his home, the weather was very
tempestuous, and it had been wild and stormy since. It was therefore
suggested that on leaving the ‘Two Waggoners’ he might have got
confused when he reached the common, which he had to cross to get to
the Rectory; and as there were several pools and treacherous hollows on
the common, it was thought he had come to grief, but the most diligent
search failed to justify the surmise.
Such an event as this was well calculated to cause a sensation, not
only in Brinton and its neighbourhood, but throughout the county.
Indeed, for many days it was a common topic of conversation, and at
the Brinton weekly market the farmers and the rustics dwelt upon it to
the exclusion of other things; and, of course, everybody, or nearly
everybody, had some wonderful theory of his or her own to account for
the missing man’s disappearance. One old lady, who every week for
twenty years had trudged in from a village five miles off with poultry
and eggs for the Brinton market, declared her belief that young Royce
had been spirited away, and she recommended an appeal to a wondrous
wise woman, locally known as ‘Cracked Moll,’ but whose reputation for
solving mysteries and discovering lost persons and things was very
great. Ultimately Royce’s people did call in the services of this
ancient fraud, but without any result. And despite wide publicity
and every effort on the part of the rural and county police, to say
nothing of a hundred and one amateur detectives, the mystery remained
unsolved. Charles Royce had apparently disappeared from off the face of
the earth, leaving not a trace behind.
In the process of time the nine days’ wonder gave place to something
else, and excepting by those directly interested in him, Charles Royce
was forgotten. Hannah took the matter very seriously to heart, and for
a while lay dangerously ill. Silas Hartrop, who was much affected by
his disappointment with regard to Hannah, went to the dogs, as the
saying is, and drank so heavily that it ended in an attack of delirium
tremens. I was called in to attend him, and had hard work to pull him
through. On his recovery his father sent him to an uncle at Yarmouth,
who was in the fishing trade, and soon afterwards news came that young
Hartrop had been drowned at sea. He was out in the North Sea in his
uncle’s fishing smack, and, though nobody saw him go, it was supposed
that he fell overboard in the night. This set the local tongues wagging
again for a time, but even the affairs of Brinton could not stand still
because the ne’er-do-weel Silas Hartrop was drowned. So sympathy was
expressed with his people, and then the affair was dismissed.
About two years later I received an urgent message late one afternoon
to hasten with all speed to High Lea, to attend to the Squire there,
who had been taken suddenly and, as report said, seriously ill. I had
had rather a heavy day of it, as there had been a good deal of sickness
about for some time past, and it had taken me several hours to get
through my list of patients. I had just refreshed myself with a cup of
tea and was about to enjoy a cigar when the messenger came. Telling him
to ride back as quickly as possible and say that I was coming, I busied
myself with a few important matters which had to be attended to, as I
might be absent for some hours, and then I ordered my favourite mare,
Princess, to be saddled.
I set off from Brinton soon after seven. It was a November night,
bitterly cold, dark as Erebus, while every now and then violent squalls
swept the land from seaward. Princess knew the road well, so I gave
the mare her head, and she went splendidly until we reached the ruined
mill, when suddenly she wheeled round with such abruptness that, though
I was a good horseman, I was nearly pitched from the saddle. At the
same moment I was struck in the face by something that seemed cold and
clammy. I thought at first it was a bat, but remembered that bats do
not fly in November; an owl, but an owl would not have felt cold and
clammy. However, I had little time for thought, as my attention had to
be given to the mare. She seemed disposed to bolt, and was trembling
with fear. Then, to my intense astonishment, I noticed what seemed to
be a large luminous body lying on the roadway. It had the appearance
of a corpse illuminated in some wonderful and mysterious manner. Had
it not been for the fright of my mare I should have thought I was the
victim of some optical delusion; but Princess evidently saw the weird
object, and refused to pass it. So impressed was I with the idea that
a real and substantial body was lying on the road, notwithstanding the
strange unearthly light, that I slipped from the saddle, intending to
investigate the matter, when suddenly it disappeared, and the cold and
clammy _something_ again struck me in the face.
I confess that for the first time in my life I felt a strange, nervous,
unaccountable fear. I say ‘unaccountable’ because it would have been
difficult for me to have given any explanation of my fear. Why and of
what was I afraid? Now, whatever the phenomenon was, there was the
hard, stern fact to face that my horse had seen what I had seen, and
was terrified. There was something strangely uncanny about the whole
business, and when a terrific squall, bringing with it sleet and rain,
came howling from the sea, it seemed to emphasise the uncanniness,
and the ruined mill, looming gaunt and grim in the darkness, caused
me to shake with an involuntary shudder. The next moment I was trying
to laugh myself out of my nervousness. ‘Princess and I,’ I mentally
argued, ‘have been the victims of some atmospheric delusion.’ That was
all very well, but the _something_ cold and clammy that struck me in
the face, and which _may_ have struck the mare in the face also, was
no atmospheric delusion. With an alacrity I did not often display, I
sprang into the saddle, spoke some encouraging words to the mare, for
she was still trembling, and when she bounded forward, and the haunted
mill was behind me, I experienced a positive sense of relief.
I found my patient at High Lea in a very bad way. He was suffering from
an attack of apoplexy, and though I used all my skill on his behalf
he passed away towards midnight. His wife very kindly offered me a bed
for the night, but as I had important matters to attend to early in the
morning I declined the hospitality, though I was thankful for a glass
or two of generous port wine and some sandwiches. It was half-past
twelve when I left the house on my return journey. The incident by the
haunted mill had been put out of my head by the case I had been called
upon to attend, but as I mounted my mare the groom, who had brought her
round from the stable, said, ‘It be a bad night, doctor, for riding;
the kind o’ night when dead things come out o’ their graves.’
I laughed, and replied:
‘Tom, lad, I am surprised to hear you talk such rubbish. I thought you
had more sense than that.’
‘Well, I tell ’ee what, doctor; if I had to ride to Brinton to-night
I’d go by the cliffs and chance being drowned, rather than pass yon old
mill.’
These words for the moment unnerved me, and I honestly confess that I
resolved to go by the cliffs, dangerous as the road was in the dark.
Nevertheless, I laughed at Tom’s fears, and ridiculed him, though
when I left the squire’s grounds I turned the mare’s head towards the
cliffs. In a few minutes I was ridiculing myself.
‘John Patmore Lindsay,’ I mentally exclaimed, ‘you are a fool. All your
life you have been ridiculing stories of the supernatural, and now, at