A FAMILY ghost is a possession almost as respectable as a patent of nobility, and happy is the house reputed, on satisfactory evidence, to be haunted by one. There are still a few hereditary ghosts left, and a few leasehold and freehold ghosts; but these last are often the property of retired manufacturers and American millionaires who have bought house and lands, pedigrees, portraits, and family ghosts all together as they stood. In this article it is my intention to be the biographer of a few ancient and well-born ghosts only, as space will not permit me to condescend to mere one-generation ghosts, pedigreeless spirits. A. was an Airlie who killed a poor drummer, whose spirit plays a drum at Cortachy Castle, Kirriemuir, Scotland, whenever any member of the Ogilvy family is going to die. The origin of this tradition is that the drummer, for some reason or other, in his lifetime so enraged a former Lord Airlie that he had him thrust into his own drum and flung from the window of a tower of Cortachy Castle, though the drummer threatened to haunt the family ever after if his life were taken. He has seemingly kept his word, for in 1849, before the decease of a Lord Airlie, and again in 1884, before the death of a Lady Airlie, the beat of the drum was on each occasion distinctly heard by different guests of the family. One of these guests was a lady staying in the castle, who was so ignorant of the tradition that, having heard the beating of a drum while dressing for dinner, she innocently asked her host—Lord Airlie—at the table who his drummer was. The question made the peer turn quite white, for the sound had preceded the loss of his first wife, and it was only a few months after this ominous dinner party that the second wife died. The Combermere family have two ghosts in their record. In Combermere Abbey there is an old room, once a nursery, and here has been seen the spirit-figure of a little girl fourteen years old, dressed in a very quaint frock with an odd little ruff round its neck. It appeared to a niece of the late Lord Cotton as she was dressing for a very late dinner one evening in this former nursery, now used as a bedroom. She had just risen from her toilet-glass to get some article of dress when she saw the child standing near her bed—a little iron one which stood out in the room away from the wall—and presently the figure began running round the bed in a wild, distressed way, with a look of suffering in its little face, which the lady could see quite plainly as the full light of her candles fell upon it. On mentioning this apparition, her widowed aunt, Lady Cotton, called to remembrance that the late Lord Cotton had told her of the sudden death years ago of a favourite little sister of his, with whom he had been playing, he being also a child then, by running round and round the bed with her, just the night before—indeed, only a few hours before, her decease. A stranger story still, and one that has not yet, I believe, appeared in print, is that where quite recently a lady took an amateur photograph of the drawing-room of a house once inhabited by the late Lord Combermere—at Brighton I think it was. The lady in question saw, to her horror and astonishment, visible on the plate, the ghost of the old peer—a tall man with rather stout face and a moustache—reproduced sitting in one of the easy chairs of this drawing-room, though not apparent to the naked eye. The Drake ghost—the spirit of Sir Francis Drake—might be termed a sporting spirit, as it has been frequently seen in different parts of Devonshire and Cornwall—notably Plymouth—driving a hearse drawn by headless horses and followed by a pack of headless hounds. Two Gordon ghosts live at Fyvie Castle in Scotland. One is a lady dressed in a magnificent costume of green brocade, who is seen, candle in hand, passing through a tapestried room of the old castle when any important event is going to happen to the family. The other spirit is by profession a trumpeter, who tradition affirms haunts the castle in revenge for having during his lifetime been seized by the press-gang at the instigation of the then Gordon of Fyvie Castle, who wished to get rid of a rival in the affections of a pretty daughter of his factor or bailiff. The girl, however, remained faithful to the trumpeter, the separation from him making her die of a broken heart; and now, like the drum of Cortachy Castle, a trumpet is heard whenever misfortune is in store for the unlucky Gordons. Ill-fated they certainly are, as beside being the hereditary owners of unlucky ghosts, they are also under a hereditary curse—the curse of a "Thomas the Rhymester"—who, when the gates of the castle long years ago were churlishly closed against him in the days of wandering minstrelsy, declared that the property should never descend in a direct line till three "weeping" stones were found; but up to twenty years ago, when a relative of the writer was staying at the castle, only one weeping stone had been discovered. In Fyvie Castle there is also a sealed room, which is always kept religiously closed; for the saying is, should the door be ever opened, the master would die and his wife go blind. Faith and fear have prevented the saying being proved, as the room has never been opened; but as regards the curse of "Thomas the Rhymester," it is certainly a fact that the There is a perfect spirit vault of ghosts at Glamis Castle, the ancestral residence of another old and celebrated Scotch family, the Lyons, the head being the Earl of Strathmore. They also possess a secret chamber, which is supposed to be connected with some terrible mystery known only to each owner, the next heir, and the house-bailiff, of the time being. Even the exact locality of the room is never revealed to others than those three, and though more than one heir-apparent has promised to tell the secret to his bosom friends as soon as the attainment of his twenty-first year entitled him to learn it; yet after he has known it, a solemn silence on the subject has been maintained, and beyond the fact that a stonemason is supposed to be secretly employed to close the approach to this chamber after each visit, nothing more definite is known. The strangest part of it all is the evident necessity that each successive house steward should be made acquainted with this mystery, which looks as if to him was intrusted the duty of providing food for some person or thing imprisoned in those walls of fifteen feet thickness. Whether the mystery is in any way connected with the apparition of a bearded man, who flits about the castle at night, and hovers over the couches of children, is not known; perhaps it has something to do with a figure which appeared at a window to a guest staying at Glamis Castle, and sitting up late one moonlight night. The owner of the pale face, lit up with great sorrowful eyes, seemed to wish to attract attention, but it was suddenly pulled away as if by some superior power. Presently, horrible shrieks rent the night air, and an hour or so later, the guest, gazing horror-stricken from the window of the room, saw a dark huddled figure, like that of an old decrepit woman, carrying a bundle, pass across the waning moonlight outside, and vanish. Perhaps the most interesting legend attached to this magnificent old castle is the historical tradition that in one of its rooms Duncan was murdered by Macbeth, "Thane A more peaceable spirit is the Townshend ghost of Rainham, in Norfolk, commonly known as the "Brown Lady." She is described as tall and stately, dressed in a rich brown brocade, with a sort of coif on her head. The features are clearly defined, but where the eyes should be are nothing but hollows. She is seen walking about the old mansion every now and then, though no reason can be discovered to account for her restlessness. Lord Charles Townshend, on being asked by a lady if he also believed in the apparition, replied, "I cannot but believe, for she ushered me into my room last night." The Lonsdale spirit seems to have been as rowdy in death as it was during life when it inhabited the body of Jemmy Lowther, well known as the "bad Lord Lonsdale." For years after his decease the inhabitants of Lowther Hall and the neighbourhood were kept in a constant state of excitement by continual disturbances in the house, noises in the stables, and the galloping across country of Lord Lonsdale's phantom "coach and six." The Powys Castle ghost was a much more amiable spirit, and of quite a superior character to the devil-may-care spirit of Jemmy Lowther. His object was benevolent, and his manners were well-bred and gracious when he appeared. His last visit was to a poor pious workwoman, who, in the absence of the Herberts from Powys Castle, was purposely put by the servants in the haunted bedroom, a handsomely furnished apartment with a boarded floor, a big bedstead in one corner, and two sash windows. A good fire was made up in the room, and a chair and a table with a large lighted candle on it was placed in front of the fire. She had just sat down in the chair to read her Bible, when to her astonishment in walked a gentleman. He wore a gold-laced hat and waistcoat, with coat and the rest of his attire to correspond. He went over to one of the sash windows, and putting an elbow on the sill, rested his It lifted its finger and said— "Take up the candle and follow me, and I will tell you." She did as she was bid, and followed him into a very small room, where, tearing up a board, he pointed to an iron box underneath, and then to a crevice in the wall where lay hidden a key. These he commanded were to be sent to the Earl of Powys, then in London. This was done, though history does not relate what the box contained; but it was known that this poor Welsh spinning woman was provided for liberally by the Powys family till she died about the beginning of this century. Though one does not associate ghosts with such a city of excitement, life, and renovation as London, yet it does possess several haunted houses. One belonging to a present-day peer, and situated in Park Lane, is said to be haunted by fashionable spirits having a dance. Some people can only hear the buzz of their voices and the swish of dresses and the tap of feet, while others can see the figures themselves talking and dancing. Yes, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. |
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