Byways of Ghost-Land Part 6

Pixies, nymphs, sylphs, and other similar kinds of fairies are all harmless and benevolent elementals, and I believe they were all fond of visiting this earth, but that they seldom visit it now, only appearing at rare intervals to a highly favoured few.

_The Wandering Jew_

No story fascinated me more when I was a boy than that of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew. How vividly I saw him--in my mental vision--with his hooked nose, and wild, dark eyes, gleaming with hatred, cruelty, and terror, spit out his curses at Christ and frantically bid him begone!

And Christ! How plainly I saw Him, too, bathed in the sweat of agony, stumbling, staggering, reeling, and tottering beneath the cross he had to carry! And then the climax--the calm, biting, d.a.m.ning climax. "Tarry thou till I come!" How distinctly I heard Christ utter those words, and with what relief I watched the pallor of sickly fear and superst.i.tion steal into the Jew's eyes and overspread his cheeks! And he is said to be living now! Periodically he turns up in some portion or other of the globe, causing a great sensation. And many are the people who claim to have met him--the man whom no prison can detain, no fetters hold; who can reel off the history of the last nineteen hundred odd years with the most minute fluency, and with an intimate knowledge of men and things long since dead and forgotten. Ahasuerus, still, always, ever Ahasuerus--no matter whether we call him Joseph, Cartaphilus, or Salathiel, his fine name and guilty life stick to him--he can get rid of neither. For all time he is, and must be, Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew--the Jew Christ d.a.m.ned.

_Attendant Spirits_

I believe that, from the moment of our birth, most, if not all of us, have our attendant spirits, namely, a spirit sent by the higher occult powers that are in favour of man's spiritual progress, whose function it is to guide us in the path of virtue and guard us from physical danger, and a spirit sent by the higher occult powers that are antagonistic to man's spiritual progress, whose function it is to lead us into all sorts of mental, moral, and spiritual evil, and also to bring about our path some bodily harm. The former is a benevolent elemental, well known to the many, and termed by them "Our Guardian Angel"; the latter is a vice elemental, equally well known perhaps, to the many, and termed by them "Our Evil Genie." The benevolent creative powers and the evil creative powers (in whose service respectively our attendant spirits are employed) are for ever contending for man's superphysical body, and it is, perhaps, only in the proportion of our response to the influences of these attendant spirits, that we either evolve to a higher spiritual plane, or remain earth-bound. I, myself, having been through many vicissitudes, feel that I owe both my moral and physical preservation from danger entirely to the vigilance of my guardian attendant spirit. I was once travelling in the United States at the time of a great railway strike. The strikers held up my train at Crown Point, a few miles outside Chicago; and as I was forced to take to flight, and leave my baggage (which unfortunately contained all my ready money), I arrived in Chicago late at night without a cent on me. Beyond the clothes I had on, I had nothing; consequently, on my presenting myself at a hotel with the request for a night's lodging, I was curtly refused. One hotel after another, one house after another, I tried, but always with the same result; having no luggage, and being unable to pay a deposit, no one would take me. The night advanced; the streets became rougher and rougher, for Chicago just then was teeming with the sc.u.m of the earth, ruffians of every description, who would cheerfully have cut any man's throat simply for the sake of his clothes. All around me was a sea of swarthy faces with insolent, sinister eyes that flashed and glittered in the gaslight. I was pushed, jostled, and cursed, and the bare thought of having to spend a whole night amid such a foul, cut-throat horde filled me with dismay. Yet what could I do? Clearly nothing, until the morning, when I should be able to explain my position to the British Consul. The knowledge that in all the crises through which I had hitherto pa.s.sed, my guardian spirit had never deserted me, gave me hope, and I prayed devoutly that it would now come to my a.s.sistance and help me to get to some place of shelter.

Time pa.s.sed, and as my prayers were not answered, I repeated them with increased vigour. Then, quite suddenly, a man stepped out from the dark entrance to a by-street, and, touching me lightly on the arm, said, "Is there anything amiss? I have been looking at you for some time, and a feeling has come over me that you need a.s.sistance. What is the matter?"

I regarded the speaker earnestly, and, convinced that he was honest, told him my story, whereupon to my delight he at once said, "I think I can help you, for a friend of mine runs a small but thoroughly respectable hotel close to here, and, if you like to trust yourself to my guidance, I will take you there and explain your penniless condition." I accepted his offer; what he said proved to be correct; the hotel-keeper believed my story, and I pa.s.sed the night in decency and comfort. In the morning the proprietor lent me the requisite amount of money for a cablegram to Europe. My bank in England cabled to a bank in Chicago, and the hotel-keeper generously made himself responsible for my ident.i.ty; the draft was cashed, and I was once again able to proceed on my journey. But what caused the man in the street to notice me? What prompted him to lend me his aid? Surely my guardian spirit. Again, when in Denver, in the Denver of old times, before it had grown into anything like the city it is now, I was seized with a severe attack of dysentery, and the owner of the hotel in which I was staying, believing it to be cholera, turned me, weak and faint as I was, into the street. I tried everywhere to get shelter; the ghastly pallor and emaciation of my countenance went against me--no one, not even by dint of bribing, for I was then well off, would take me in. At last, completely overcome by exhaustion, I sank down in the street, where, in all probability, I should have remained all night, had not a negro suddenly come up to me, and, with a sympathetic expression in his face, asked if he could help me. "I pa.s.sed you some time ago," he said, "and noticed how ill you looked, but I did not like to speak to you for fear you might resent it, but I had not got far before I felt compelled to turn back. I tried to resist this impulse, but it was no good. What ails you?" I told him. For a moment or so he was silent, and then, his face brightening up, he exclaimed, "I think I can help you. Come along with me," and, helping me gently to my feet, he conducted me to his own house, not a very grand one, it is true, but scrupulously clean and well conducted, and I remained there until I was thoroughly sound and fit. The negro is not as a rule a creature of impulse, and here again I felt that I owed my preservation to the kindly interference of my guardian spirit.

Thrice I have been nearly drowned, and on both occasions saved as by a miracle, or, in other words, by my attendant guardian spirit. Once, when I was bathing alone in a Scotch loch and had swum out some considerable distance, I suddenly became exhausted, and realised with terror that it was quite impossible for me to regain the sh.o.r.e. I was making a last futile effort to strike out, when something came bobbing up against me.

It was an oar! Whence it had come Heaven alone knew, for Heaven alone could have sent it. Leaning my chin lightly on it and propelling myself gently with my limbs, I had no difficulty in keeping afloat, and eventually reached the land in safety. The scene of my next miraculous rescue from drowning was a river. In diving into the water off a boat, I got my legs entangled in a thick undergrowth of weeds. Frantically struggling to get free and realising only too acutely the seriousness of my position, for my lungs were on the verge of bursting, I fervently solicited the succour of my guardian spirit, and had no sooner done so, than I fancied I felt soft hands press against my flesh, and the next moment my body had risen to the surface. No living person was within sight, so that my rescuer could only have been--as usual--my guardian spirit.

Several times I fancy I have seen her, white, luminous, and shadowy, but for all that suggestive of great beauty. Once, too, in the wilder moments of my youth, when I contemplated rash deeds, I heard her sigh, and the sigh, sinking down into the furthermost recesses of my soul, drowned all my thoughts of rash deeds in a thousand reverberating echoes. I have been invariably warned by strangers against taking a false step that would unquestionably have led to the direst misfortune.

I meet a stranger, and without the slightest hint from me, he touches upon the very matter uppermost in my mind, and, in a few earnest and never-to-be-forgotten words of admonition, deters me from my scheme.

Whence come these strangers, to all appearance of flesh and blood like myself? Were they my guardian spirit in temporary material guise, or were they human beings that, like the hotel proprietor's friend in Chicago, and the negro, have been impelled by my guardian spirit to converse with me and by their friendly a.s.sistance save me? Many of the faces we see around us every day are, I believe, attendant spirits, and phantasms of every species, that have adopted physical form for some specific purpose.

_Banshees_

It has been suggested that banshees are guardian spirits and evil genii; but I do not think so, for whereas one or other of the two latter phantasms (sometimes both) are in constant attendance on man, banshees only visit certain families before a catastrophe about to happen in those families, or before the death of a member of those families. As to their origin, little can be said, for little is at present known.

Some say their attachment to a family is due to some crime perpetrated by a member of that family in the far dim past, whilst others attribute it to the fact that certain cla.s.ses and races in bygone times dabbled in sorcery, thus attracting the elementals, which have haunted them ever since. Others, again, claim that banshees are mere thought materialisations handed down from one generation to another. But although no one knows the origin and nature of a banshee, the statements of those who have actually experienced these hauntings should surely carry far more weight and command more attention than the statements of those who only speak from hearsay; for it is, after all, only the sensation of actual experience that can guide us in the study of this subject; and, perhaps, through our "sensations" alone, the key to it will one day be found. A phantasm produces an effect on us totally unlike any that can be produced by physical agency--at least such is my experience--hence, for those who have never come in contact with the unknown to p.r.o.nounce any verdict on it, is to my mind both futile and absurd. Of one thing, at least, I am sure, namely, that banshees are no more thought materialisations than they are cats--neither are they in any way traceable to telepathy or suggestion; they are entirely due to objective spirit forms. I do not base this a.s.sertion on a knowledge gained from other people's experiences--and surely the information thus gained cannot properly be termed knowledge--but from the sensations I myself, as a member of an old Irish clan, have experienced from the hauntings of the banshee--the banshee that down through the long links of my Celtic ancestry, through all vicissitudes, through all changes of fortune, has followed us, and will follow us, to the end of time.

Because it is customary to speak of an Irish family ghost by its generic t.i.tle, the banshee, it must not be supposed that every Irish family possessing a ghost is haunted by the same phantasm--the same banshee.

In Ireland, as in other countries, family ghosts are varied and distinct, and consequently there are many and varying forms of the banshee. To a member of our clan, a single wail signifies the advent of the banshee, which, when materialised, is not beautiful to look upon.

The banshee does not necessarily signify its advent by one wail--that of a clan allied to us wails three times. Another banshee does not wail at all, but moans, and yet another heralds its approach with music. When materialised, to quote only a few instances, one banshee is in the form of a beautiful girl, another is in the form of a hideous prehistoric hag, and another in the form of a head--only a head with rough matted hair and malevolent, b.e.s.t.i.a.l eyes.

_Scottish Ghosts_

When it is remembered that the ancestors of the Highlanders, _i.e._, the Picts and Scots, originally came from Ireland and are of Formosian and Milesian descent, it will be readily understood that their proud old clans--and rightly proud, for who but a grovelling money grubber would not sooner be descended from a warrior, elected chief, on account of his all-round prowess, than from some measly hireling whose instincts were all mercenary?--possess ghosts that are nearly allied to the banshee.

The Airlie family, whose headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is haunted by the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of one of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories as to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying, inquisitive public, but it is extremely doubtful if any of them approach the truth. Other families have pipers that pipe a dismal dirge, and skaters that are seen skating even when there is no ice, and always before a death or great calamity.

_English Family Ghosts_

There are a few old English families, too, families who, in all probability, can point to Celtic blood at some distant period in their history, that possess family ghosts. I have, for example, stayed in one house where, prior to a death, a boat is seen gliding noiselessly along a stream that flows through the grounds. The rower is invariably the person doomed to die. A friend of mine, who was very sceptical in such matters, was fis.h.i.+ng in this stream late one evening when he suddenly saw a boat shoot round the bend. Much astonished--for he knew it could be no one from the house--he threw down his rod and watched. Nearer and nearer it came, but not a sound; the oars stirred and splashed the rippling, foaming water in absolute silence. Convinced now that what he beheld was nothing physical, my friend was greatly frightened, and, as the boat shot past him, he perceived in the rower his host's youngest son, who was then fighting in South Africa. He did not mention the incident to his friends, but he was scarcely surprised when, in the course of the next few days, a cablegram was received with the tidings that the material counterpart of his vision had been killed in action.

A white dove is the harbinger of death to the Arundels of Wardour; a white hare to an equally well-known family in Cornwall. Corby Castle in c.u.mberland has its "Radiant Boy"; whilst Mrs E. M. Ward has stated, in her reminiscences, that a certain room at Knebworth was once haunted by the phantasm of a boy with long yellow hair, called "The Yellow Boy,"

who never appeared to anyone in it, unless they were to die a violent death, the manner of which death he indicated by a series of ghastly pantomimics.

Other families, I am told, lay claim to phantom coaches, clocks, beds, ladies in white, and a variety of ghostly phenomena whose manifestations are always a sinister omen.

_Welsh Ghosts_

In addition to corpse-candles and blue lights, the Welsh, according to Mr Wirt Sykes, in his work, _British Goblins_, pp. 212-216, possess a species of ill-omened ghost that is not, however, restricted to any one family, but which visits promiscuously any house or village prior to a death. Sometimes it flaps its leathern wings against the window of the room containing the sick person, and in a broken, howling tone calls upon the latter to give up his life; whilst, at other times, according to Mr Dyer in his _Ghost World_, it actually materialises and appears in the form of an old crone with streaming hair and a coat of blue, when it is called the "Ellyllon," and, like the banshee, presages death with a scream.

Again, when it is called the "Cyhyraeth," and is never seen, it foretells the death of the insane, or those who have for a long time been ill, by moaning, groaning, and rattling shutters in the immediate vicinity of the doomed person.

CHAPTER IX

"SUPERSt.i.tIONS AND FORTUNES"

_Thirteen at Table_

There is no doubt that there have been many occasions upon which thirteen people have sat down to dinner, all of which people at the end of a year have been alive and well; there is no doubt also that there have been many occasions upon which thirteen have sat down to dine, and the first of them to rise has died within twelve months. Therefore, I prefer not to take the risk, and to sit down to dinner in any number but thirteen.

A curious story is told in connection with this superst.i.tion. A lady was present at a dinner party given by the Count D---- in Buda-Pesth, when it was discovered that the company about to sit down numbered thirteen.

Immediately there was a loud protest, and the poor Count was at his wits' end to know how to get out of the difficulty, when a servant hurriedly entered and whispered something in his ear. Instantly the Count's face lighted up. "How very fortunate!" he exclaimed, addressing his guests. "A very old friend of mine, who, to tell the truth, I had thought to be dead, has just turned up. We may, therefore, sit down in peace, for we shall now be fourteen." A wave of relief swept through the party, and, in the midst of their congratulations, in walked the opportune guest, a tall, heavily bearded young man, with a strangely set expression in his eyes and mouth, and not a vestige of colour in his cheeks. It was noticed that after replying to the Count's salutations in remarkably hollow tones that made those nearest him s.h.i.+ver, he took no part in the conversation, and partook of nothing beyond a gla.s.s of wine and some fruit. The evening pa.s.sed in the usual manner; the guests, with the exception of the stranger, went, and, eventually, the Count found himself alone with the friend of his boyhood, the friend whom he had not seen for years, and whom he had believed to be dead.

Wondering at the unusual reticence of his old chum, but attributing it to shyness, the Count, seeing that he now had an opportunity for a chat, and, anxious to hear what his friend had been doing in the long interval since they had last met, sat down beside him on the couch, and thus began: "How very odd that you should have turned up to-night! If you hadn't come just when you did, I don't know what would have happened!"

"But I do!" was the quiet reply. "You would have been the first to rise from the table, and, consequently, you would have died within the year.

That is why I came."

At this the Count burst out laughing. "Come, come, Max!" he cried. "You always were a bit of a wag, and I see you haven't improved. But be serious now, I beg you, and tell me what made you come to-night and what you have been doing all these years? Why, it must be sixteen years, if a day, since last I saw you!"

Max leaned back in his seat, and, regarding the Count earnestly with his dark, penetrating eyes, said, "I have already told you why I came here to-night, and you don't believe me, but WAIT! Now, as to what has happened to me since we parted. Can I expect you to believe that?

Hardly! Anyhow, I will put you to the test. When we parted, if you remember rightly, I had just pa.s.sed my final, and having been elected junior house surgeon at my hospital, St Christopher's, at Brunn, had taken up my abode there. I remained at St Christopher's for two years, just long enough to earn distinction in the operating theatre, when I received a more lucrative appointment in Cracow. There I soon had a private practice of my own and was on the high road to fame and fortune, when I was unlucky enough to fall in love."

"Unlucky!" laughed the Count. "Pray what was the matter with her? Had she no dowry, or was she an heiress with an ogre of a father, or was she already married?"

"Married," Max responded, "married to a regular martinet who, whilst treating her in the same austere manner he treated his soldiers--he was colonel of a line regiment--was jealous to the verge of insanity. It was when I was attending him for a slight ailment of the throat that I met her, and we fell in love with each other at first sight."

"How romantic!" sighed the Count. "How very romantic! Another gla.s.s of Moselle?"

"For some time," Max continued, not noticing the interruption, "all went smoothly. We met clandestinely and spent many an hour together, unknown to the invalid. We tried to keep him in bed as long as we could, but his const.i.tution, which was that of an ox, was against us, and his recovery was astonis.h.i.+ngly rapid. An indiscreet observation on the part of one of the household first led him to suspect, and, watching his wife like a cat does a mouse, he caught her one evening in the act of holding out her hand for me to kiss. With a yell of fury he rushed upon us, and in the scuffle that followed----"

"You killed him," said the Count. "Well! I forgive you! We all forgive you! By the love of Heaven! you had some excuse."

"You are mistaken!" Max went on, still in the same cold, unmoved accents, "it was I who was killed!" He looked at the Count, and the Count's blood turned to ice as he suddenly realised he was, indeed, gazing at a corpse.

For some seconds the Count and the corpse sat facing one another in absolute silence, and then the latter, rising solemnly from the chair, mounted the window-sill, and, with an expressive wave of farewell, disappeared in the absorbing darkness without. Now, as Max was never seen again, and it was ascertained without any difficulty that he had actually perished in the manner he had described, there is surely every reason to believe that a _bona fide_ danger had threatened the Count, and that the spirit of Max in his earthly guise had, in very deed, turned up at the dinner party with the sole object of saving his friend.

_Spilling Salt_

Everyone knows that to avoid bad luck from spilling salt, it is only necessary to throw some of it over the left shoulder; but no one knows why such an act is a deterrent to misfortune, any more than why misfortune, if not then averted, should accrue from the spilling.