The letters which I now publish were sent to me recently by a person
who knows me to be interested in ghost stories. There is no doubt about
their authenticity. The paper on which they are written, the ink, and
the whole external aspect put their date beyond the reach of question.
The only point which they do not make clear is the identity of the
writer. He signs with initials only, and as none of the envelopes of
the letters are preserved, the surname of his correspondent—obviously
a married brother—is as obscure as his own. No further preliminary
explanation is needed, I think. Luckily the first letter supplies all
that could be expected.
LETTER I
GREAT CHRISHALL,
Dec. 22, 1837.
MY DEAR ROBERT,
—It is with great regret for the enjoyment I am
losing, and for a reason which you will deplore equally with myself,
that I write to inform you that I am unable to join your circle for
this Christmas: but you will agree with me that it is unavoidable when
I say that I have within these few hours received a letter from Mrs.
Hunt at B——, to the effect that our Uncle Henry has suddenly and
mysteriously disappeared, and begging me to go down there immediately
and join the search that is being made for him. Little as I, or you
either, I think, have ever seen of Uncle, I naturally feel that this is
not a request that can be regarded lightly, and accordingly I propose
to go to B——by this afternoon's mail, reaching it late in the
evening. I shall not go to the Rectory, but put up at the King's Head,
and to which you may address letters. I enclose a small draft, which
you will please make use of for the benefit of the young people. I
shall write you daily (supposing me to be detained more than a single
day) what goes on, and you may be sure, should the business be cleared
up in time to permit of my coming to the Manor after all, I shall
present myself. I have but a few minutes at disposal. With cordial
greetings to you all, and many regrets, believe me, your affectionate
Bro.,
W. R.
LETTER II
KING'S HEAD,
Dec. 23, '37.
MY DEAR ROBERT,
—In the first place, there is as yet no news of
Uncle H., and I think you may finally dismiss any idea—I won't say
hope—that I might after all ‘turn up’ for Xmas. However, my thoughts
will be with you, and you have my best wishes for a really festive day.
Mind that none of my nephews or nieces expend any fraction of their
guineas on presents for me.
Since I got here I have been blaming myself for taking this affair
of Uncle H. too easily. From what people here say, I gather that there
is very little hope that he can still be alive; but whether it is
accident or design that carried him off I cannot judge. The facts are
these. On Friday the 19th, he went as usual shortly before five o'clock
to read evening prayers at the Church; and when they were over the
clerk brought him a message, in response to which he set off to pay a
visit to a sick person at an outlying cottage the better part of two
miles away. He paid the visit, and started on his return journey at
about half-past six. This is the last that is known of him. The people
here are very much grieved at his loss; he had been here many years, as
you know, and though, as you also know, he was not the most genial of
men, and had more than a little of the martinet in his
composition, he seems to have been active in good works, and unsparing
of trouble to himself.
Poor Mrs. Hunt, who has been his housekeeper ever since she left
Woodley, is quite overcome: it seems like the end of the world to her.
I am glad that I did not entertain the idea of taking quarters at the
Rectory; and I have declined several kindly offers of hospitality from
people in the place, preferring as I do to be independent, and finding
myself very comfortable here.
You will, of course, wish to know what has been done in the way of
inquiry and search. First, nothing was to be expected from
investigation at the Rectory; and to be brief, nothing has transpired.
I asked Mrs. Hunt—as others had done before—whether there was either
any unfavourable symptom in her master such as might portend a sudden
stroke, or attack of illness, or whether he had ever had reason to
apprehend any such thing: but both she, and also his medical man, were
clear that this was not the case. He was quite in his usual health. In
the second place, naturally, ponds and streams have been dragged, and
fields in the neighbourhood which he is known to have visited last,
have been searched—without result. I have myself talked to the parish
clerk and—more important—have been to the house where he paid his
visit.
There can be no question of any foul play on these people's part.
The one man in the house is ill in bed and very weak: the wife and the
children of course could do nothing themselves, nor is there the shadow
of a probability that they or any of them should have agreed to decoy
poor Uncle H. out in order that he might be attacked on the way back.
They had told what they knew to several other inquirers already, but
the woman repeated it to me. The Rector was looking just as usual: he
wasn't very long with the sick man—‘He ain't,’ she said, ‘like some
what has a gift in prayer; but there, if we was all that way, 'owever
would the chapel people get their living?’ He left some money when he
went away, and one of the children saw him cross the stile into the
next field. He was dressed as he always was: wore his bands—I gather
he is nearly the last man remaining who does so—at any rate in this
district.
You see I am putting down everything. The fact is that I have
nothing else to do, having brought no business papers with me; and,
moreover, it serves to clear my own mind, and may suggest points which
have been overlooked. So I shall continue to write all that passes,
even to conversations if need be—you may read or not as you please,
but pray keep the letters. I have another reason for writing so fully,
but it is not a very tangible one.
You may ask if I have myself made any search in the fields near the
cottage. Something—a good deal—has been done by others, as I
mentioned; but I hope to go over the ground to-morrow. Bow Street has
now been informed, and will send down by to-night's coach, but I do not
think they will make much of the job. There is no snow, which might
have helped us. The fields are all grass. Of course I was on the qui
vive for any indication to-day both going and returning; but there
was a thick mist on the way back, and I was not in trim for wandering
about unknown pastures, especially on an evening when bushes looked
like men, and a cow lowing in the distance might have been the last
trump. I assure you, if Uncle Henry had stepped out from among the
trees in a little copse which borders the path at one place, carrying
his head under his arm, I should have been very little more
uncomfortable than I was. To tell you the truth, I was rather expecting
something of the kind. But I must drop my pen for the moment: Mr.
Lucas, the curate, is announced.
Later. Mr. Lucas has been, and gone, and there is not much
beyond the decencies of ordinary sentiment to be got from him. I can
see that he has given up any idea that the Rector can be alive, and
that, so far as he can be, he is truly sorry. I can also discern that
even in a more emotional person than Mr. Lucas, Uncle Henry was not
likely to inspire strong attachment.
Besides Mr. Lucas, I have had another visitor in the shape of my
Boniface—mine host of the ‘King's Head’—who came to see whether I had
everything I wished, and who really requires the pen of a Boz to do him
justice. He was very solemn and weighty at first. ‘Well, sir,’ he said,
‘I suppose we must bow our 'ead beneath the blow, as my poor wife had
used to say. So far as I can gather there's been neither hide nor yet
hair of our late respected incumbent scented out as yet; not that he
was what the Scripture terms a hairy man in any sense of the word.’
I said—as well as I could—that I supposed not, but could not help
adding that I had heard he was sometimes a little difficult to deal
with. Mr. Bowman looked at me sharply for a moment, and then passed in
a flash from solemn sympathy to impassioned declamation. ‘When I
think,’ he said, ‘of the language that man see fit to employ to me in
this here parlour over no more a matter than a cask of beer—such a
thing as I told him might happen any day of the week to a man with a
family—though as it turned out he was quite under a mistake, and that
I knew at the time, only I was that shocked to hear him I couldn't lay
my tongue to the right expression.’
He stopped abruptly and eyed me with some embarrassment. I only
said, ‘Dear me, I'm sorry to hear you had any little differences; I
suppose my uncle will be a good deal missed in the parish?’ Mr. Bowman
drew a long breath. ‘Ah, yes!’ he said; ‘your uncle! You'll understand
me when I say that for the moment it had slipped my remembrance that he
was a relative; and natural enough, I must say, as it should, for as to
you bearing any resemblance to—to him, the notion of any such a thing
is clean ridiculous. All the same, 'ad I 'ave bore it in my mind,
you'll be among the first to feel, I'm sure, as I should have abstained
my lips, or rather I should not have abstained my lips with no
such reflections.’
I assured him that I quite understood, and was going to have asked
him some further questions, but he was called away to see after some
business. By the way, you need not take it into your head that he has
anything to fear from the inquiry into poor Uncle Henry's
disappearance—though, no doubt, in the watches of the night it will
occur to him that I think he has, and I may expect explanations
to-morrow.
I must close this letter: it has to go by the late coach.
LETTER III
Dec. 25, '37.
MY DEAR ROBERT,
—This is a curious letter to be writing on Christmas
Day, and yet after all there is nothing much in it. Or there may
be—you shall be the judge. At least, nothing decisive. The Bow Street
men practically say that they have no clue. The length of time and the
weather conditions have made all tracks so faint as to be quite
useless: nothing that belonged to the dead man—I'm afraid no other
word will do—has been picked up.
As I expected, Mr. Bowman was uneasy in his mind this morning; quite
early I heard him holding forth in a very distinct voice—purposely so,
I thought—to the Bow Street officers in the bar, as to the loss that
the town had sustained in their Rector, and as to the necessity of
leaving no stone unturned (he was very great on this phrase) in order
to come at the truth. I suspect him of being an orator of repute at
convivial meetings.
When I was at breakfast he came to wait on me, and took an
opportunity when handing a muffin to say in a low tone, ‘I 'ope, sir,
you reconize as my feelings towards your relative is not actuated by
any taint of what you may call melignity—you can leave the room,
Eliza, I will see the gentleman 'as all he requires with my own
hands—I ask your pardon, sir, but you must be well aware a man is not
always master of himself: and when that man has been 'urt in his mind
by the application of expressions which I will go so far as to say 'ad
not ought to have been made use of (his voice was rising all this time
and his face growing redder); no, sir; and 'ere, if you will permit of
it, I should like to explain to you in a very few words the exact state
of the bone of contention. This cask—I might more truly call it a
firkin—of beer—’
I felt it was time to interpose, and said that I did not see that it
would help us very much to go into that matter in detail. Mr. Bowman
acquiesced, and resumed more calmly:
‘Well, sir, I bow to your ruling, and as you say, be that here or be
it there, it don't contribute a great deal, perhaps, to the present
question. All I wish you to understand is that I am prepared as you are
yourself to lend every hand to the business we have afore us, and—as I
took the opportunity to say as much to the Orficers not three-quarters
of an hour ago—to leave no stone unturned as may throw even a spark of
light on this painful matter.’
In fact, Mr. Bowman did accompany us on our exploration, but though
I am sure his genuine wish was to be helpful, I am afraid he did not
contribute to the serious side of it. He appeared to be under the
impression that we were likely to meet either Uncle Henry or the person
responsible for his disappearance, walking about the fields—and did a
great deal of shading his eyes with his hand and calling our attention,
by pointing with his stick, to distant cattle and labourers. He held
several long conversations with old women whom we met, and was very
strict and severe in his manner—but on each occasion returned to our
party saying, ‘Well, I find she don't seem to 'ave no connexion with
this sad affair. I think you may take it from me, sir, as there's
little or no light to be looked for from that quarter; not without
she's keeping somethink back intentional.’
We gained no appreciable result, as I told you at starting; the Bow
Street men have left the town, whether for London or not, I am not
sure.
This evening I had company in the shape of a bagman, a smartish
fellow. He knew what was going forward, but though he has been on the
roads for some days about here, he had nothing to tell of suspicious
characters—tramps, wandering sailors or gipsies. He was very full of a
capital Punch and Judy Show he had seen this same day at W——, and
asked if it had been here yet, and advised me by no means to miss it if
it does come. The best Punch and the best Toby dog, he said, he had
ever come across. Toby dogs, you know, are the last new thing in the
shows. I have only seen one myself, but before long all the men will
have them.
Now why, you will want to know, do I trouble to write all this to
you? I am obliged to do it, because it has something to do with another
absurd trifle (as you will inevitably say), which in my present state
of rather unquiet fancy—nothing more, perhaps—I have to put down. It
is a dream, sir, which I am going to record, and I must say it is one
of the oddest I have had. Is there anything in it beyond what the
bagman's talk and Uncle Henry's disappearance could have suggested?
You, I repeat, shall judge: I am not in a sufficiently cool and
judicial frame to do so.
It began with what I can only describe as a pulling aside of
curtains: and I found myself seated in a place—I don't know whether in
doors or out. There were people—only a few—on either side of me, but
I did not recognize them, or indeed think much about them. They never
spoke, but, so far as I remember, were all grave and pale-faced and
looked fixedly before them. Facing me there was a Punch and Judy Show,
perhaps rather larger than the ordinary ones, painted with black
figures on a reddish-yellow ground. Behind it and on each side was only
darkness, but in front there was a sufficiency of light. I was ‘strung
up’ to a high degree of expectation and listened every moment to hear
the panpipes and the Roo-too-too-it. Instead of that there came
suddenly an enormous—I can use no other word—an enormous single toll
of a bell, I don't know from how far off—somewhere behind. The little
curtain flew up and the drama began.
I believe someone once tried to re-write Punch as a serious tragedy;
but whoever he may have been, this performance would have suited him
exactly. There was something Satanic about the hero. He varied his
methods of attack: for some of his victims he lay in wait, and to see
his horrible face—it was yellowish white, I may remark—peering round
the wings made me think of the Vampyre in Fuseli's foul sketch. To
others he was polite and carneying—particularly to the unfortunate
alien who can only say Shallabalah—though what Punch said I
never could catch. But with all of them I came to dread the moment of
death. The crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary
way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving
way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. The baby—it
sounds more ridiculous as I go on—the baby, I am sure, was alive.
Punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not
real, I know nothing of reality.
The stage got perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and
at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that
I could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. It was
accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it
Punch came and sat on the foot-board and fanned himself and looked at
his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and
sniggered in so deadly a fashion that I saw some of those beside me
cover their faces, and I would gladly have done the same. But in the
meantime the scene behind Punch was clearing, and showed, not the usual
house front, but something more ambitious—a grove of trees and the
gentle slope of a hill, with a very natural—in fact, I should say a
real—moon shining on it. Over this there rose slowly an object which I
soon perceived to be a human figure with something peculiar about the
head—what, I was unable at first to see. It did not stand on its feet,
but began creeping or dragging itself across the middle distance
towards Punch, who still sat back to it; and by this time, I may remark
(though it did not occur to me at the moment) that all pretence of this
being a puppet show had vanished. Punch was still Punch, it is true,
but, like the others, was in some sense a live creature, and both moved
themselves at their own will.
When I next glanced at him he was sitting in malignant reflection;
but in another instant something seemed to attract his attention, and
he first sat up sharply and then turned round, and evidently caught
sight of the person that was approaching him and was in fact now very
near. Then, indeed, did he show unmistakable signs of terror: catching
up his stick, he rushed towards the wood, only just eluding the arm of
his pursuer, which was suddenly flung out to intercept him. It was with
a revulsion which I cannot easily express that I now saw more or less
clearly what this pursuer was like. He was a sturdy figure clad in
black, and, as I thought, wearing bands: his head was covered with a
whitish bag.
The chase which now began lasted I do not know how long, now among
the trees, now along the slope of the field, sometimes both figures
disappearing wholly for a few seconds, and only some uncertain sounds
letting one know that they were still afoot. At length there came a
moment when Punch, evidently exhausted, staggered in from the left and
threw himself down among the trees. His pursuer was not long after him,
and came looking uncertainly from side to side. Then, catching sight of
the figure on the ground, he too threw himself down—his back was
turned to the audience—with a swift motion twitched the covering from
his head, and thrust his face into that of Punch. Everything on the
instant grew dark.
There was one long, loud, shuddering scream, and I awoke to find
myself looking straight into the face of—what in all the world do you
think?—but a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill immediately
opposite my bed-foot, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms. I
caught the fierce glance of its yellow eyes, and then it was gone. I
heard the single enormous bell again—very likely, as you are saying to
yourself, the church clock; but I do not think so—and then I was broad
awake.
All this, I may say, happened within the last half-hour. There was
no probability of my getting to sleep again, so I got up, put on
clothes enough to keep me warm, and am writing this rigmarole in the
first hours of Christmas Day. Have I left out anything? Yes, there was
no Toby dog, and the names over the front of the Punch and Judy booth
were Kidman and Gallop, which were certainly not what the bagman told
me to look out for.
By this time, I feel a little more as if I could sleep, so this
shall be sealed and wafered.
LETTER IV
Dec. 26, '37.
MY DEAR ROBERT,
—All is over. The body has been found. I do not make
excuses for not having sent off my news by last night's mail, for the
simple reason that I was incapable of putting pen to paper. The events
that attended the discovery bewildered me so completely that I needed
what I could get of a night's rest to enable me to face the situation
at all. Now I can give you my journal of the day, certainly the
strangest Christmas Day that ever I spent or am likely to spend.
The first incident was not very serious. Mr. Bowman had, I think,
been keeping Christmas Eve, and was a little inclined to be captious:
at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what I could
hear, neither men or maids could do anything to please him. The latter
were certainly reduced to tears; nor am I sure that Mr. Bowman
succeeded in preserving a manly composure. At any rate, when I came
downstairs, it was in a broken voice that he wished me the compliments
of the season, and a little later on, when he paid his visit of
ceremony at breakfast, he was far from cheerful: even Byronic, I might
almost say, in his outlook on life.
‘I don't know,’ he said, ‘if you think with me, sir; but every
Christmas as comes round the world seems a hollerer thing to me. Why,
take an example now from what lays under my own eye. There's my servant
Eliza—been with me now for going on fifteen years. I thought I could
have placed my confidence in Elizar, and yet this very
morning—Christmas morning too, of all the blessed days in the
year—with the bells a ringing and—and—all like that—I say, this
very morning, had it not have been for Providence watching over us all,
that girl would have put—indeed I may go so far to say, 'ad put the
cheese on your breakfast table——’ He saw I was about to speak, and
waved his hand at me. ‘It's all very well for you to say, 'Yes, Mr.
Bowman, but you took away the cheese and locked it up in the cupboard,'
which I did, and have the key here, or if not the actual key one very
much about the same size. That's true enough, sir, but what do you
think is the effect of that action on me? Why it's no exaggeration for
me to say that the ground is cut from under my feet. And yet when I
said as much to Eliza, not nasty, mind you, but just firm like, what
was my return? 'Oh,' she says: 'Well,' she says, 'there wasn't no bones
broke, I suppose.' Well, sir, it 'urt me, that's all I can say: it 'urt
me, and I don't like to think of it now.’
There was an ominous pause here, in which I ventured to say
something like, ‘Yes, very trying,’ and then asked at what hour the
church service was to be. ‘Eleven o'clock,’ Mr. Bowman said with a
heavy sigh. ‘Ah, you won't have no such discourse from poor Mr. Lucas
as what you would have done from our late Rector. Him and me may have
had our little differences, and did do, more's the pity.’
I could see that a powerful effort was needed to keep him off the
vexed question of the cask of beer, but he made it. ‘But I will say
this, that a better preacher, nor yet one to stand faster by his
rights, or what he considered to be his rights—however, that's not the
question now—I for one, never set under. Some might say, 'Was he a
eloquent man?' and to that my answer would be: 'Well, there you've a
better right per'aps to speak of your own uncle than what I have.'
Others might ask, 'Did he keep a hold of his congregation?' and there
again I should reply, 'That depends.' But as I say—Yes, Eliza, my
girl, I'm coming—eleven o'clock, sir, and you inquire for the King's
Head pew.’ I believe Eliza had been very near the door, and shall
consider it in my vail.
The next episode was church: I felt Mr. Lucas had a difficult task
in doing justice to Christmas sentiments, and also to the feeling of
disquiet and regret which, whatever Mr. Bowman might say, was clearly
prevalent. I do not think he rose to the occasion. I was uncomfortable.
The organ wolved—you know what I mean: the wind died—twice in the
Christmas Hymn, and the tenor bell, I suppose owing to some negligence
on the part of the ringers, kept sounding faintly about once in a
minute during the sermon. The clerk sent up a man to see to it, but he
seemed unable to do much. I was glad when it was over. There was an odd
incident, too, before the service. I went in rather early, and came
upon two men carrying the parish bier back to its place under the
tower. From what I overheard them saying, it appeared that it had been
put out by mistake, by some one who was not there. I also saw the clerk
busy folding up a moth-eaten velvet pall—not a sight for Christmas
Day.
I dined soon after this, and then, feeling disinclined to go out,
took my seat by the fire in the parlour, with the last number of
Pickwick, which I had been saving up for some days. I thought I
could be sure of keeping awake over this, but I turned out as bad as
our friend Smith. I suppose it was half-past two when I was roused by a
piercing whistle and laughing and talking voices outside in the
market-place. It was a Punch and Judy—I had no doubt the one that my
bagman had seen at W——. I was half delighted, half not—the latter
because my unpleasant dream came back to me so vividly; but, anyhow, I
determined to see it through, and I sent Eliza out with a crown-piece
to the performers and a request that they would face my window if they
could manage it.
The show was a very smart new one; the names of the proprietors, I
need hardly tell you, were Italian, Foresta and Calpigi. The Toby dog
was there, as I had been led to expect. All B——turned out, but did
not obstruct my view, for I was at the large first-floor window and not
ten yards away.
The play began on the stroke of a quarter to three by the church
clock. Certainly it was very good; and I was soon relieved to find that
the disgust my dream had given me for Punch's onslaughts on his
ill-starred visitors was only transient. I laughed at the demise of the
Turncock, the Foreigner, the Beadle, and even the baby. The only
drawback was the Toby dog's developing a tendency to howl in the wrong
place. Something had occurred, I suppose, to upset him, and something
considerable: for, I forget exactly at what point, he gave a most
lamentable cry, leapt off the foot board, and shot away across the
market-place and down a side street. There was a stage-wait, but only a
brief one. I suppose the men decided that it was no good going after
him, and that he was likely to turn up again at night.
We went on. Punch dealt faithfully with Judy, and in fact with all
comers; and then came the moment when the gallows was erected, and the
great scene with Mr. Ketch was to be enacted. It was now that something
happened of which I can certainly not yet see the import fully. You
have witnessed an execution, and know what the criminal's head looks
like with the cap on. If you are like me, you never wish to think of it
again, and I do not willingly remind you of it. It was just such a head
as that, that I, from my somewhat higher post, saw in the inside of the
show-box; but at first the audience did not see it. I expected it to
emerge into their view, but instead of that there slowly rose for a few
seconds an uncovered face, with an expression of terror upon it, of
which I have never imagined the like. It seemed as if the man, whoever
he was, was being forcibly lifted, with his arms somehow pinioned or
held back, towards the little gibbet on the stage. I could just see the
nightcapped head behind him. Then there was a cry and a crash. The
whole show-box fell over backwards; kicking legs were seen among the
ruins, and then two figures—as some said; I can only answer for
one—were visible running at top speed across the square and
disappearing in a lane which leads to the fields.
Of course everybody gave chase. I followed; but the pace was
killing, and very few were in, literally, at the death. It happened in
a chalk pit: the man went over the edge quite blindly and broke his
neck. They searched everywhere for the other, until it occurred to me
to ask whether he had ever left the market-place. At first everyone was
sure that he had; but when we came to look, he was there, under the
show-box, dead too.
But in the chalk pit it was that poor Uncle Henry's body was found,
with a sack over the head, the throat horribly mangled. It was a peaked
corner of the sack sticking out of the soil that attracted attention. I
cannot bring myself to write in greater detail.
I forgot to say the men's real names were Kidman and Gallop. I feel
sure I have heard them, but no one here seems to know anything about
them.
I am coming to you as soon as I can after the funeral. I must tell
you when we meet what I think of it all.
END
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