THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories

by Amelia B. Edwards

  Thus ended the Count of R.’s story, after which he led his eager listener to the place where these precious articles were kept, and showed them to her.

  Appendix II

  A Legend of Boisguilbert

  BESIDE this tarn, in ages gone,

  As antique legends darkly tell,

  A false, false Abbot and forty monks

  Did once in sinful plenty dwell.

  Accursed of Christ and all the saints,

  They robb’d the rich; they robb’d the poor;

  They quaff’d the best of Malvoisie;

  They turn’d the hungry from their door.

  And though the nations groan’d aloud,

  And famine stalk’d across the land—

  And though the noblest Christian blood

  Redden’d the thirsty Eastern sand—

  These monks kept up their ancient state,

  Nor cared how long the troubles lasted;

  But fed their deer, and stock’d their pond,

  And feasted when they should have fasted.

  And so it fell one Christmas Eve,

  When it was dark, and cold, and late,

  A pious knight from Palestine

  Came knocking at the convent gate.

  He rode a steed of Arab blood;

  His helm was up; his mien was bold;

  And roundabout his neck he wore

  A chain of Saracenic gold.

  ‘What ho! good monks of Boisguilbert,

  Your guest am I tonight!’ quoth he.

  ‘Have you a stable for my steed?

  A supper, and a cell for me?’

  The Abbot laugh’d; the friars scoff’d;

  They fell upon that knight renown’d,

  And bore him down, and tied his hands,

  And threw him captive on the ground.

  ‘Sir guest!’ they cried, ‘your steed shall be

  Into our convent stable led;

  And, since we have no cell to spare,

  Yourself must sleep among the dead!’

  He mark’d them with a steadfast eye;

  He heard them with a dauntless face;

  He was too brave to fear to die;

  He was too proud to sue for grace.

  They tore the chain from round his neck,

  The trophy of a gallant fight,

  Whilst o’er the black and silent tarn

  Their torches flash’d a sullen light.

  And the great pike that dwelt therein,

  All startled by the sudden glare,

  Dived down among the water-weeds,

  And darted blindly here and there.

  And one white owl that made her nest

  Up in the belfry tow’r hard by,

  Flew round and round on swirling wings

  And vanish’d with a ghostly cry.

  The Abbot stood upon the brink;

  He laugh’d aloud in wicked glee;

  He waved his torch: ‘Quick! fling him in—

  Our fish shall feast tonight!’ said he.

  They flung him in. ‘Farewell!’ they cried,

  And crowded round the reedy shore.

  He gasping rose—‘Till Christmas next!’

  He said—then sank to rise no more.

  ‘Till Christmas next!’ They stood and stared

  Into each other’s guilty eyes;

  Then fled within the convent gates,

  Lest they should see their victim rise.

  The fragile bubbles rose and broke;

  The wid’ning circles died away;

  The white owl shriek’d again; the pike

  Were left to silence and their prey.

  * * * * *

  A year went by. The stealthy fogs

  Crept up the hill, all dense and slow,

  And all the woods of Boisguilbert

  Lay hush’d and heavy in the snow.

  The sullen sun was red by day;

  The nights were black; the winds were keen;

  And all across the frozen tarn

  The footprints of the wolf were seen.

  And vague foreshadowings of woe

  Beset the monks with mortal fear—

  Strange shadows through the cloister pac’d—

  Strange whispers threaten’d every ear—

  Strange writings started forth at dusk

  In fiery lines along the walls;

  Strange spectres round the chapel sat,

  At midnight, in the sculptur’d stalls.

  ‘Oh, father Abbot!’ cried the monks,

  ‘We must repent! Our sins are great!

  Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve—

  Tomorrow night may be too late!

  ‘And should the drownèd dead arise’. . . .

  The Abbot laugh’d with might and main.

  ‘The ice,’ said he, ‘is three feet deep.

  He’d find it hard to rise again!

  ‘But when tomorrow night is come,

  We’ll say a mass to rest his soul!’

  Tomorrow came, and all day long

  The chapel bell was heard to toll.

  At eve they met to read the mass.

  Bent low was ev’ry shaven crown;

  One trembling monk the tapers lit;

  One held his missal upside down;

  And when their quav’ring voices in

  The Dies Irae all united,

  Even the Abbot told his beads

  And fragments of the Creed recited.

  And when . . . but hark! what sounds are those?

  Is it the splitting of the ice?

  Is it a steel-clad hand that smites

  Against the outer portal thrice?

  Is that the tread of an armèd heel?

  The frighten’d monks forget to pray;

  The Abbot drops the holy book;

  The Dies Irae dies away;

  And in the shadow of the door

  They see their year-gone victim stand!

  His rusty mail drips on the floor;

  He beckons with uplifted hand!

  The Abbot rose. He could not choose;

  He had no voice or strength to pray;

  For when the mighty dead command,

  The living must perforce obey.

  The spectre-knight then gazed around

  With stony eye, and hand uprear’d.

  ‘Farewell,’ said he, ‘till Christmas next!’—

  Then knight and Abbot disappear’d.

  * * * * *

  And thus it is the place is cursed,

  And long since fallen to decay;

  For ev’ry Christmas Eve the knight

  Came back, and took a monk away.

  Came back, while yet a blood-stain’d wretch

  The holy convent-garb profaned;

  Came back while yet a guilty soul

  Of all those forty monks remain’d;

  And still comes back to earth—if we

  The peasants’ story may believe—

  And rises from the murky tarn

  At midnight every Christmas Eve!

  Appendix III

  My Home Life

  IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED to me that an article descriptive of my ways and doings at home might be acceptable to readers of this journal; and it has furthermore been proposed that I should write the said article myself. There is a straightforward simplicity of purpose about this proposition which commends it to me. Also, it has the recommendation of being quite novel.

  As a rule, the person whose home life is to be made the subject of an article is ‘interviewed’ by a gentleman of the press, who cross-examines the victim like an Old Bailey counsel, and proceeds to take an inventory of his furniture, like a bailiff.

  Now, it seems to me that the conditions under which such a visit is paid and received are radically unsatisfactory. The person interviewed must be more or less uncomfortably self-conscious, and one cannot help doubting whether the interviewer ever succeeds in seeing his subject and his subject’s surroundings in exactly their normal dis
habille. It would ask more than Roman virtue not to make the best of one’s self and one’s house when both were sitting for a portrait; and difficult as it is to look natural and feel natural in front of a photographer’s camera, it is ten times more trying vis-à-vis of a reporter’s note-book. As for the temptation to ‘pose’, whether consciously or unconsciously, it must be well-nigh irresistible. For my own part, I am but too certain that, instead of receiving such a visitor in my ordinary working costume, and in a room littered with letters and papers, I should have inevitably put on a more becoming gown, and have ‘tidied up’ the library, when the appointed day and hour arrived. Not, however, being put to this test, I will do my best to present myself literally ‘At Home’, and in my habit as I live.

  Westbury-on-Trym is a village in Gloucestershire separated from Clifton by about a mile and a half of open down, and distant about four miles from Bristol terminus. It lies in a hollow at the foot of two steep hills, one of which is crowned with the woods of Blaise Castle, and the other with a group of buildings consisting of the parish church, a charming little Gothic structure known as ‘The Hall’, and the national schoolhouse. The church is a fine perpendicular edifice of considerable antiquity, with a square tower surmounted, in true West of England style, by a small turret, having a tiny Gothic spire at one corner. The parishioners are proud of their church, and with justice. It contains some good stained-glass windows, two interesting mediaeval monuments, and an exceptionally fine organ. ‘The Hall’ is quite modern, having been built and endowed, in 1867, by a generous parishioner. The large room seats three hundred people, and is fitted up with an organ as large and beautiful as that in the church close by. Village concerts, penny readings, Lent lectures, charity bazaars, and the like are held here. The building also contains a reading-room and a small library for the use of the working classes. My own first attempts at public reading were made on this village platform, twenty years ago.

  A little river flows through the valley, and is crossed by a single bridge in the lower part of the village. This is the Trym—an untidy Trym enough, nowadays—opaque, muddy, and little better than a ditch. Yet it was a navigable river some centuries ago, and, according to tradition, was not unknown to trout. On leaving the village, it takes a southwesterly course through a pleasant bottom of meadow lands, and thence between wooded slopes and a romantic ‘Coombe’, much beloved of artists, till it finally empties itself into the Avon, not far from the mouth of that tidal river.

  There are still some remains of a building at the foot of Westbury Hill, which in olden times was second only in age and importance to the church—namely, ‘The College’. This ‘College’ was a religious house, founded as far back as A.D. 798, and probably rebuilt some five centuries later by that famous merchant and public benefactor, William Canynge, of Bristol, who died there as Dean of the College, and was buried in the church. Twenty-five years ago, when I first made its acquaintance, this ‘College’ (a large modernised building with corner turrets) still presented a stately front to the road. At the back was a square bell-tower covered from top to bottom with ivy, and a spacious garden shut in by high walls. It was then a boy’s school, and the big garden used to echo with shouts and laughter on summer evenings. The bell-tower is the most ancient part of the building, and according to local tradition, a subterranean passage leads from the cellarage in the basement to the church on the hillside above. The story is likely enough to be correct; for a passage of some kind there certainly is, and it leads apparently in the direction of the church. A working-man who, with some three or four others, had once tried to explore it, told me several years ago that, beyond the first few yards, the tunnel was completely blocked, and the air so foul that it put the lights out. Whether any subsequent attempt has been made to force a passage, I do not know; but the whole place is sadly changed since the time when I used to cast longing glances at the old green tower from the lane that skirted the garden wall, wishing that I might someday get permission to sit in a corner under a shady tree on the other side of that wall, and sketch the tower. The school has long since broken up for good, and boys and masters have gone their ways. The old house, after standing vacant for years, was bought at last by a little local builder, who ran up a row of smart shops in front of the old turreted façade; let off the house itself in lodgings to poor families; and re-sold the old bell-tower to the village blacksmith. The garden wall being pulled down on that side, the tower now stands at the end of a row of new cottages, forlorn and solitary in the midst of alien surroundings, a forge and anvil in the basement.

  As regards the ‘great houses’ of the place, Westbury-on-Trym enjoys a curious monopoly of handsome private mansions. These mansions—spacious, finely built, each standing in its own park-like grounds—were built for the most part by wealthy Bristol merchants during the two last centuries—men of wealth, who needed to reside within an easy drive of the city, and who were content to amass great fortunes without also desiring to become land-owners. The Bristol merchants of the present day no longer care to live so near their business. Railways and steamers enable them to go farther afield; and so the fine old houses of Westbury, Henbury, Redland, Shirehampton, Brislington, and other parishes round about the great commercial centre, have gradually passed into the possession of a class of moneyed gentry who, having neither trade nor land, are attracted by the fine climate and beautiful scenery of this part of England. Some few of these old mansions are renowned for the valuable collections of paintings and other works of art which they contain; as, for instance, at Blaise Castle, there is a fine series of specimens of the old masters purchased at the close of the great war during the first quarter of the present century by Mr Harford, grandfather of the present owner; a series which comprises a fine Guido, several specimens of the Caracci, Salvator Rosa, etc. At Kings-Weston Park, we find the family portraits of the de Cliffords purchased, together with the very fine old house built by Vanbrugh in the time of Charles II, by the late owner, Philip Miles, Esq. At Leigh Court, the gallery, with its famous Leonardo, is known throughout Europe, while many other art treasures are to be found in the possession of private owners round about the neighbourhood.

  It is not to be supposed that the writer and subject of this present paper resides in semi-royal state in one of these magnificent old houses. On the contrary, she lives, and has lived for more than a quarter of a century, with a very dear friend, in a small, irregularly built house, which together they have from time to time enlarged and improved, according to their pleasure. That friend—now in her eighty-seventh year—used, in days long gone by, to gather round her table many of the wits and celebrities of fifty years ago; but for her, as for myself, our little country home has been as dear for its seclusion as for the charm of its neighbourhood.

  The Larches stands, with some few other houses of like dimensions, on a space of high-level ground to the eastward of the village. It is approached by a narrow lane, beyond which lie fields and open country. Having at first been quite a small cottage, it has been added to by successive owners, and is, consequently, quite destitute of external or internal uniformity. My own library, and the bedrooms above it, are, for the present, the latest additions to the structure, though I hope some day to build on a little room which I shall not venture to call a museum, but which shall contain my Egyptian antiquities and other collections.