Part 6

“Well, you will see there that the night before Castelar was to be beheaded kind Queen Mary sent one of her Maries, the one who loved Castelar, at her own special request to the Castle with her ring to offer him a pardon if he left this country for ever. This Marie did see Castelar, showed him the Queen’s ring, and pleaded with him to comply, but he refused—he preferred death to banishment from his beloved Queen’s Court, and the fair messenger left him _obstinate_ in his dungeon. This faithful Marie paced up and down all that night before the Castle; then at dawn came the sound of a gun or culverin, a wreath of smoke floated out to sea, and Castelar was gone. Whyte Melville says she did not start, she did not shriek, nor faint, nor quiver, but she threw her hood back and looked wildly upward, gasping for air. Then as the rising sun shone on her bare head, Marie’s raven hair was all streaked and patched with grey. When Mary Stuart fled to England, this faithful Marie, now no more needed, became a nun in St Andrews. Look at page 371 of Whyte Melville’s book,” she said. So I read—“It was an early harvest that year in Scotland, but e’er the barley was white, Marie had done with nuns and nunneries, vows and ceremonies, withered hopes and mortal sorrows, and had gone to that place where the weary heart can alone find the rest it had so longed for at last.”

The pathetic and the comic often go together. Just at this interesting point a cat sprang suddenly up and upset a cup of tea in the lap of my genial hostess. This created a diversion. Old ladies are apt to wander, which is annoying. She got clean away from her subject for a bit. She asked me if I knew Captain Robert Marshall, who wrote plays and “The Haunted Mayor.” I said I knew Bob well, and that he was an old Madras College boy.

She then wanted to know if I knew how to pronounce the name of Mr Travis’s American putter, and if Mr Low or I had ever tried it. She also wanted to know if I knew anything of the new patent clock worked on gramophone principles which shouted the hours instead of striking them.

Having answered all these queries to her satisfaction, and taken another cup of senna—I mean tea—I got her back to the White Lady.

“Oh, yes, my dear,” she said, “I saw her, I and some friends. _A lot of us_ had been out at Kinkell Braes one afternoon and stayed there long past the time allowed us. It was almost dark, and we scuttled up the brae from the Harbour rather frightened. Just near the turret light we saw the lady gliding along the top of the old Abbey wall. She was robed in a grey white dress with a veil over her head. She had raven black hair, and a string of beads hanging from her waist. We all huddled together, with our eyes and mouths wide open, and watched the figure. ‘It’s a girl sleep-walking,’ I murmured. ‘It’s a bride,’ whispered another. ‘Oh! she’ll fall,’ said a little boy, grasping my arm. But she did not. She went inside the parapet wall at the Haunted Tower and vanished completely. ‘It’s a ghost; it’s the White Lady,’ we all shrieked, and ran off trembling home. My sister also saw her on one of the turrets in the Abbey wall, where she was seen by several people. Some months after, as I was doing my hair before my looking-glass, the same face looked over my shoulder, and I fainted. I have always felt an _eerie_ feeling about a looking-glass ever since, even now, old woman as I am. Her lovely face is one never, never to be forgotten, having once seen it, but your new fashioned lamps have altered everything.”

“And what do you think about it now?” I asked her.

“I have told you all I know. The Lady used to be seen oftenest between the Castle and that old turret. Perhaps she came to look at the last resting-place of her much loved and wayward minstrel, Castelar. Maybe she came to revisit the favourite haunts of her beloved girl Queen—truly called the Queen of the Roses; but to my dying day I shall never forget that face, that lovely, pathetic face I saw years ago, and which may still be seen by some. What! must you really go now; won’t you have another cup of tea? Very well, good bye.”

As I wended my way Clubwards I could not but think of the strange tale I had just heard and of Castelar’s sad end, and I could not help wondering if I should ever be favoured with a sight of this beautiful White Lady.

A Spiritualistic Seance.

The M’Whiskers, whom I met at Oban, were very jolly old people. Papa M’Whisker had made a big fortune teaplanting in Ceylon, and had bought, and added to Dramdotty Castle in the far, far north. They were perfectly full of ghosts and spiritualism, and at Dramdotty they seemed to have a ghost for every day in the week. On Monday there was the “Spotted Nun,” on Tuesday the “Floating Infant,” on Wednesday the “Headless Dwarf,” on Thursday the “Vanishing Nigger,” on Friday the “Burnt Lady,” and on Saturday the “Human Balloon,” and on Sunday the whole lot attended on them, and, I daresay, went to the kirk with them.

M’Whisker himself was a jovial soul, fond of his toddy, and very much resembled the Dougal Cratur in “Rob Roy.” My friend, John Clyde, should have seen him. He had a furious red head of hair and beard of the same colour, and the street boys used to call after him the song, “The folks all call me, Carroty, What, what, what, oh! Carroty,” etc. Mrs M’Whisker was a stout lady with eyes like small tomatoes and a gimlet nose. They had a son, a boy of ten, called Fernando M’Whisker, because he was born in Spain. When they came to St Andrews they had purchased a number of my “Ghost Books.” (These ghosts at present chiefly haunt the _Citizen_ Warehouse, booksellers’ shops, and the railway bookstall.) That is the reason perhaps that the M’Whiskers invited me to a spiritualistic seance at their house in South Street. They generally came to St Andrews for the winter, partly to get away from the cold of their northern home, and partly because they thought the history and atmosphere of St Andrews lent itself to an all-pervading presence of ghosts, spooks, and spirits. I had only been to two such shows before—one at Helensburgh and one at Cambridge—and was, and still am, very doubtful of the genuineness of spiritualism. On the day appointed I went to the M’Whiskers’ house in South Street, and was shown in by a Highlander in the M’Whisker tartan. It was early in the afternoon, but I found the shutters in the large room all shut, and a few dim lights only were burning. On a sideboard in the corner stood plenty of refreshments and everything else to comfort the inner man. In the centre of the room there was a round table covered with a M’Whisker tartan tablecloth, which touched the floor all round: this in itself was suspicious to my mind. I was introduced to the chief medium, one Mr Peter Fancourt, who looked as if he had been buried and dug up again. He was in tight, sleek black clothes, and resembled in every way “Uriah Heep” in “David Copperfield.” The other medium was a Mrs Flyflap Corncockle. They were supposed not to know each other, but I am as certain that they were accomplices as that the Bell Rock is near St Andrews Bay. A number of chairs encircled the table. We had all to seat ourselves on these chairs, with our thumbs and little fingers touching round the edge of the table. The first thing that happened was a kind of “squish,” and then a huge bouquet of flowers descended on the table from somewhere. It was a clever trick, but the flowers were of the commonest sort, and what I had seen in all the greengrocers’ shops that morning. The lights were now turned very low, and a spirit arm and hand appeared floating about, which shone a good deal. It hovered about from the ceiling to above our heads, and when I got a chance I jumped on a chair and seized it with both hands. It seemed to shrink up, and was torn through my hands very forcibly, and in such a material manner that I was forced to let go. I don’t know where the hand and arm went to, but it was simply a juggling trick. After this “Mr Heep” (I beg his pardon, Mr Fancourt) said that there was an unbeliever present, and as I was that unbeliever I was relegated to an armchair by the fireplace with one of M’Whisker’s muckle cigars. From that point of vantage I watched the whole affair, and they assured me they would tell me all that was going on. The next very curious thing was that they suddenly all took their hands off the table, and their eyes slowly followed something ceilingwards. It was funny to see them all lying back staring up at the roof. Then very slowly their heads and eyes resumed their normal position. “Did you see that?” said the M’Whisker triumphantly. “I saw nothing whatever,” I remarked. “What! did you not see the table float up to the ceiling? It remained there quite half a second, and then came down as lightly as a feather.” “I was watching the table the whole time,” I said, “and it never moved an inch from its place.” “Oh! you are an unbeliever,” said Mrs M’Whisker sadly, “but later on when it is darker you will see Mr Fancourt float out of one of the windows and come in at the other.” I fervently hoped if he did anything of the kind he would come a cropper on the pavement below and break some of his ribs. The table then started to dance about and move along, but this, I am certain, was simply engineered by those two mediums.

After some tomfoolery of this kind they all agreed that “Ouija” should be brought out. A large oblong yellow board was then produced and laid on the table. On it were the letters of the alphabet and a number of figures, also the sun, moon, and stars, and some other fantastic symbols. On this board was placed a small table with a round body and round head, it had three hind legs and a front, which was the pointer. These legs had little red velvet boots on. The two mediums then placed their hands on each side of this curious table, which immediately began to run about to the letters and figures, spelling out things and fixing dates in answer to questions asked. It was not the least like a planchette, which is on wheels. The first thing they informed me it had said was that a spirit called Clarissa was present, and for many years she had lain a-dying in that room. She maintained that she was some distant relation of the White Lady of the Haunted Tower. It then rushed into poetry. Its first effort was the “Legend of Purple James and his Girl,” a comic thing which reminded me of the “Bab Ballads.” They afterwards gave me a copy of this poem, which I still possess. Next the spirit gave us a Scotch poem about a haggis, and then one called “Edward and the Hard-Boiled Egg.” It then devoted its attention to me, whom it characterised as the “Unbeliever.” It stated that if the Antiquarian Society would dig a pit four feet square by six feet deep between the two dungeons in the Kitchen Tower of the Castle, and if the rock were cut through, a cave would be found full of casks of good red wine. On no condition whatever would I, on such evidence, recommend the Society to strike a pick in there. The next spirit that turned up was one Jaspar Codlever. He alluded to me as “the Cambridge man in the chair with the cigar.” He said that if excavations were made between the two last trees in Lawpark Wood a stone cist would be found full of Pictish ornaments. Again he told us that within a cave on the cliffs there was a chalice of great value placed there by Isabella the Nun, who still guarded it by night and day, and was very dangerous to approach. This spirit then went away, and his place was taken by a monk named Rudolph, who informed us that the entrance to the Crypt or sub-Chapel was between two of the pillars in the Priory. As there are a lot of pillars there, it is impossible to know which he meant. He said this entrance was near Roger’s tomb. Who Roger may be I know not. He then told us about this Crypt. He said there was something so horrible in it that it turned him sick. Curiously enough, some thought-reading people told us the same story in the Town Hall some years ago, but they said the underground Chapel was at the east end of the Cathedral. The monk then went on to tell us of this place in the Priory. He said it had Purbeck marble pillars, a well of clear water, and three small costly altars, and a number of books of the Vincentian Canons. There was a short interval now, and the lights were turned up. I was anxious to get away, but they implored me to stay and see the cabinet and the spirits therein. I told them in my most dramatic fashion that I was late already, and I had a meeting on. M’Whisker then begged me, if I would not stay to see the spirits, to taste some, and he mixed me an excellent whisky-and-soda, which he called a “Blairgowrie.” I then made my adieu, and was very glad to get once more into the street and also into a world of sense. The M’Whiskers informed me some days afterwards that they were very sorry at my leaving, as, after I had gone, Fancourt had floated out of the window, and numerous wonderful spirits had appeared in the cabinet. I am glad I went when I did, as I should certainly have taken a poker to that cabinet.

The Apparition of Sir Rodger de Wanklyn.

I am very fond indeed of Christmas time. There has been little snow this season. I think it has forgotten how to snow in these days. Still, I always feel Christmassy. I think of the good old coaching days, when there was really snow, of Washington, Irving, and good old Dickens and Scott, of the yule log and the family gatherings and re-unions, of the wassail bowl, of frumenty and plum porridge, and mince pies, plum puddings, and holly and mistletoe and big dances in the servants’ hall, of good old ancestral ghosts and hearty good cheer.

I am sitting to-day in a cosy armchair (of the old school, no modern fake) talking to my old friend, Theophilus Greenbracket. Filus, as I call him, is a clever man of many parts; he is a great traveller and sportsman, and takes a deep interest in every mortal thing. There is nothing of the kill joy or fossil about Greenbracket; he is up-to-date and true blue.

He is sitting opposite me smoking a gigantic cigar and imbibing rum punch, and talking hard; he always talks hard, but is never a bore, and never palls on one in the slightest degree. He has an enormous dog at his feet, with a fierce, vindictive expression, which belies its real nature, as it is gentle with everything and everybody, except cats and rats. Greenbracket is, among many other things, a great spiritualist and visionary, and possesses all kinds of mediumistic appliances, such as pythos, planchettes and ouijas, which he works with his old butler, Amos Bradleigh, who is another spirit hunter.

“By the bye,” said Greenbracket, “I am at present taking lessons in music with Mr Easeboy.” He says this so suddenly that he makes me jump, as we were talking about sea serpents and the probability of their existence.

“Are you indeed, old chap,” I said.

“Yes, thorough bass, and consecutive fifths and harmony and all that sort of thing, you know. He has a pupil, Macbeth Churchtimber, who has just written a thundering pretty waltz called ‘Eleanor Wynne.’”

“I thought Churchtimber,” I mildly suggested, “only played severe classical stuff.”

“Oh, yes,” replied my friend, “but he occasionally touches on a lighter theme, and has even written a comic song, called, ‘I lay beside a milestone with a sunflower on my brow.’”

“I must try it someday,” I said, “but how about your ghosts? Have you seen any lately?”

“There was one here a few minutes ago,” said Greenbracket, “a tall man in armour sitting in that corner over there.”

“What rubbish,” I said, quite crossly, “you dream things, or drink, or eat too much.”

“No I don’t,” said Greenbracket, “do you really mean to tell that you felt no sensation just now, no pricking or tingling feeling, or a chilly sensation down your back?”

“Certainly not, nothing of the kind,” I replied.

“Well, that is queer,” he said, “I know you don’t see these things, but I fancied you would have felt a strange presence in some way. I don’t know who the man in armour was. I have not seen him before, but my butler has, at all events. It was not Sir Roger de Wanklyn.”

“Who the ⸺ is he?” I queried.

“Oh,” said my host, “he is the earth-bound spirit of an architect who lived in St Andrews at the time that James the Fifth married Mary of Lorraine in the Cathedral; he says he was present at the ceremony and can describe it all. A gay pageant it was and much revelry.”

“If you can get all this sort of curious information, which I don’t exactly credit, why on earth can’t you find out something practical and useful, for instance, where the secret underground hiding place is, and where all the tons of valuable ornaments, papers, and vestments are concealed?”

“My dear friend,” said Greenbracket solemnly, “these people won’t be pumped; they only tell you what they choose to, or are permitted to reveal.”

“If they really do turn up and talk to you as you say they do, why on earth can’t you get them to talk some useful sense?”

“I really can’t force their confidence,” said Greenbracket, “all they do tell me voluntarily is most interesting and absorbing. This Sir Rodger planned numerous very important structural alterations in the Cathedral and elsewhere.”

“It is all very odd to me,” I said, “one meets people with strange ideas. I met a man years ago at Aberystwith who was a firm believer in the transmigration of souls. He said he quite remembered being a cab horse in Glasgow, and was certain when he left this planet he would become a parrot in Mars.”

“I don’t understand that sort of thing a bit,” said my extraordinary friend, Greenbracket, “but Sir Rodger de Wanklyn has sometimes to visit the Valley of Fire and Frost, where there are mighty furnaces on one side of him and ice and snow on the other and it is very painful.”

“I had that sort of experience the other day,” I remarked, “at a meeting. On one side was a furnace of a fire and on the other a window wide open with a biting frost wind blowing in.”

“Tuts,” said Greenbracket “that’s here; I am talking of the spirit world.”

“Hang! your spirit stuff. Has your butler, Amos Bradleigh, seen any spookey things lately?”

“Yes, he is much annoyed by the spirit of an evil old housekeeper here who lost her life by falling downstairs, and she is continually pushing him down my cellar stairs. He is furious.”

“Is this butler of yours any connection of Jeremiah Anklebone?” I asked.

“Yes, he is a cousin,” said Greenbracket; “all that family have second sight, and see and dream strange things.”

“And who,” I asked, “may this housekeeper be who pitched your butler down stairs?”

“Oh,” said Greenbracket, “she’s a badly constituted wraith, and her name is Annibal Strongthorn. She was housekeeper ages ago to this Sir Roger de Wanklyn in this very old house we are in.”

“What happened to this Sir Roger? Has he told you?”

“Oh! yes he fell over the cliffs.”

“Bless me, and did this old housekeeper woman push him over. Was she a murderess?”

“Oh, how can I tell,” said Greenbracket peevishly, “he has told me nothing of the kind.”

“Well, old fellow,” I said, “you really do not get much interesting information out of your ghostly friends, but what I like about you is that all your numerous ghosts come straight to you, straight to head-quarters at once—you don’t go fooling about with chairs and tables and sideboards and other pieces of timber in an idiotic way. If, as some people say, they can get chairs and tables and other articles of furniture to follow them about, why don’t they go in for cheap furniture removals at night when the streets are empty?”

“Don’t make a joke of everything,” said Greenbracket, “I do see and converse with departed spirits. I do not ask them to come; they come to me, and half of them I have never heard of before or thought of either.”

“May I ask, my good friend Greenbracket, what sort of clothes they wear when they pay you these visits; for instance, what does your latest apparition, Sir Rodger, clothe himself in?”

“Bless me!” said Theophilus, “why in the dress of his times, of course—a jerken, doublet, and hose, a rapier, and all that sort of thing; sometimes he wears a sort of coarse fustian cassock with a double breast.”

“I can’t make out,” I said to my spiritualistic friend, “where these clothes come from. Have they got a sort of theatrical wardrobe wherever they are existing? If so, why can’t the ghosts of old world clothes come alone? In such a case you might see a modern suit of evening togs, or armour, or boots and spurs, or military dress walk into your room without anything inside them; or you might, with a stretch of imagination, see a suit of pyjamas, or a pair of slippers going about the place.”

“Shut up talking like that,” said Theophilus, “you don’t possess the sense—I mean the extra sense to see these beings; but read this document I have written out. Surely it will convince you that I really do get valuable inspirations from other worlds, but, mind, keep it a strict secret at present.”

“All right, I promise you,” I murmured placidly. Then I perused carefully the more than extraordinary document he had handed me.

“It is very curious,” I said, “if it be one bit true; and if genuine, might be extremely useful. Mind my lips are sealed. But from whom did you obtain this remarkable story?”

“From Sir Rodger de Wanklyn, the Cathedral architect,” he replied, and off I went quite full of my queer friend, Greenbracket, and of Annabel Strongthorn, Amos Bradleigh, and his cousin Anklebone, and particularly Rodger de Wanklyn.

The Bewitched Ermentrude.

Very many years ago now I was sauntering down historic old South Street one November afternoon, my object being to lunch in one of the quaint houses with my old time friend, Harold Slitherwick. Lunch was not, however, the main object of my visit, but to meet a man called Reginald Sædeger, an ex-Indian judge, who had _actually_ seen a genuine spirit or ghost.

It is a sad, nay, a melancholy fact (for I have been told this by the very best authorities) that _I am not Psychic_, despite the fact that I have spent days and nights in gloomy, grimly-haunted chambers and ruins, and even a lonesome Hallowe’en night on the summit of St Rule’s ancient Tower (my only companions being sandwiches, matches, some cigars, and the necessary and indispensable flask), yet, alas! I have _never_ heard or seen anything the least abnormal, or felt the necessary, or much-talked-of mystic presence.

Arrived at the old mansion, I was duly ushered in by Slitherwick’s butler, one Joe Bingworthy, a man with the manner and appearance of an archbishop, and from whom one always seemed to expect a sort of pontifical blessing.

There were several fellows there, and I was speedily made known to Sædeger, a very cheery, pleasant little person, with dark hair and big eyebrows.

There was a very heated discussion going on when I entered as to what was really a properly constituted Cathedral. Darkwood was shouting, “No Bishop’s Chair, _no_ Cathedral.” “If,” he said, “a Bishop had his chair in a tiny chapel, it was a Cathedral, but if a religious building was as big as the Crystal Palace, and there was no Bishop’s Chair there, it was not one bit a Cathedral.”

I stopped this discussion suddenly by asking Sædeger about his ghost, and was told I would hear the whole story after lunch.

Before we adjourned to the smoke room Sædeger was telling us he felt a bit knocked up with his long journey. He had a thirty-six hours’ journey after he left good old Tony-Pandy. Visions of “Tony Lumpkin,” and “Tony Faust,” in “My Sweetheart,” flitted through my brain, then I suddenly remembered, luckily, that “Tony-pandy” was a town in Wales.

Once comfortably seated in the smoke-room with pipes, cigars, and whisky, Reginald Sædeger became at once the centre of all the interest.