The Spectre of the Castle.

Several years had elapsed since I met the butler of Lausdree Castle in the Highland Inn. I had just come up from the south of England for some golf and fresh air, and was looking over my letters one morning at breakfast when I opened the following missive:—

Lausdree Castle,
......

Sir,—Yours to command. Sir, I have not forgot our pleasant talk on that snowy night up in the far north, when you were pleased to be interested in my experiences of Lausdree. Could you very kindly meet me any day and time you choose to fix at Leuchars? And oblige,

Your obedient servant,

Jeremiah Anklebone.

P.S.—I have something to divulge to you connected with St Andrews that may absorb your mind.

Accordingly, I fixed up arrangements and met Mr Anklebone at Leuchars, where we went to the nearest hostelry and ordered the best lunch they had there. Jeremiah looked thinner, older, and whiter than when I last saw him, doubtless owing to his frequent communing with spirits.

“How is Lausdree getting on?” I meekly inquired, “and what of the ghosts?”

“It is getting on fine, sir. I have had a number of new experiences since I had the pleasure of seeing you last. You must understand, sir, that my family for generations have been favoured with occult powers. My father was a great seer, and my great-grandfather, Mr Concrikketty Anklebone, of the Isle[50] of Skye, was a wonderful visionary.”

Now, Anklebone was an interesting old fellow, but he had a tiresome habit of wandering away from his theme, and, as it were, getting off the main road into a labyrinth of bye-ways, and one had, metaphorically, to push him out of these side lanes and place him on his feet again in the main road.

“Before I come to St Andrews Castle,” he said, “I must tell you about a queer episode of an astral body at Lausdree, a disentangled personality, as it were.”

“Push along,” I said, “and tell me.”

“Well, one afternoon after luncheon the master and I were in the dining hall, when we saw a gentleman crossing the lawn towards the castle. He was a tall man in a riding dress, with curly hair and a large flowing moustache. He came up to the window and looked in earnestly at us, and then walked along the gravel-walk round to the castle door. ‘Hullo!’ said the master, ‘that is my old friend, Jack Herbert, to whom I have let Lausdree for this summer. What on earth can bring him here? I’ll go to the door myself and let him in. He never said he was coming.’

“In a minute or two the master came back looking bewildered. ‘Anklebone,’ he said, ‘that’s a very queer thing; there is nobody there!’ ‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘the gentleman has gone round to the stables’; so we both hurried off to look, but not a sign of anyone could be seen, and we stared blankly at each other. We could not make it out. Two days after, the master got a letter from Mr Jack Herbert telling him he had had a bad fall off his horse, had injured his spine, and was confined to bed.

“Mr Herbert went on to say that two days before, while he was asleep, he dreamt vividly that he was at Lausdree; that he crossed the lawn to the window of the dining hall, and, looking in, saw my master and the butler (that’s me) in the room. He was going round to the front door when he awoke. Now that was his astral body that Master and I saw. He loved Lausdree, and during sleep he came and paid us that visit. Queer, isn’t it? Ten days after, he died. He wanted to see the old castle before he died, and his force of will power brought his[51] double self, or astral body, to visit us. It is not so uncommon as people think.

“Numbers of people are seen in two places at once far apart. Look at Archbishop Sharpe of St Andrews. He was in Edinburgh, at Holyrood I think, and sent his servant over post haste to St Andrews to bring back some papers he had forgotten there. When his trusty servant went up to his study in the Novum Hospitium to get the papers from the desk, lo! there was the Archbishop sitting in his usual chair and scowling at him. He told the Archbishop this when he returned with the papers to Edinburgh, but his Grace sternly bade him be silent and mention the matter to no one on pain of death.

“Now, sir, it seems that my master is able to see astral bodies, for he saw Mr Jack Herbert, but I doubt if he could see a real spirit. Perhaps, sir,” suggested Anklebone, politely, “you might be able to see astral bodies?”

“Thank you very much indeed,” I replied, “but I’m ? if I want to see anything of the sort; but I have heard a tale of an eminent man in London who took a nap in his armchair every afternoon, and while asleep appeared to his friends in different parts of the country, but I doubt the fact very much.”

“Ah!” said the butler, very solemnly, “only about one in a thousand has the power of visualising real spirits. Many ordinary persons have long sight, and some have short sight, but most people are short-sighted when ghosts are visible. The ghosts are really there all the time. Some people cannot see them, but can feel their presence or touch only. Most animals can see spirits; sometimes they are killed with terror when they see the spirits.”

I pulled the bell rope and ordered some spirits for the butler. “I don’t think that will kill you with terror,” I said when it arrived.

He looked grateful, and remarked that talking was dry work, however interesting the subject might be.

“Now, look here, Mr Anklebone,” I said, “you know, I daresay, the stories about the Cathedral, the Haunted Tower, and all that. Please tell me what your experiences have been there.”

[52]

Anklebone’s whole appearance suddenly changed; he gripped my arm violently, shivered and shuddered, and turned ghastly pale. I thought he was going to have a fit.

“For pity’s sake, sir,” he said, trembling, “ask me nothing about that. There is something too terrible there, but I dare not reveal what I know and have seen to anyone. Do not allude to it again or it will drive me mad.”

He lay back in his chair for a few moments with his eyes closed and shaking all over, but he gradually recovered his usual appearance.

“I wish to tell you about the Castle Spectre,” he said, weakly.

I must confess that I felt nonplussed and disappointed at the turn the conversation had taken, as whatever my private opinion was regarding the worthy Jeremiah’s curious statements, still I felt anxious to find out his experiences at the Cathedral particularly. However, I swallowed my disappointment like a Trojan, and begged him to proceed.

He gulped down his spirits and informed me he felt better again, but he did not seem quite himself for some time.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I often used to climb over the Castle wall after dusk, and smoke my pipe and meditate on all the grand folk that must have been there in bygone days before the smash-up. I thought of lovely young Queen Mary, of Mary Hamilton, and her other Maries, of Lord Darnley, of the poet Castelar, of Lord Arran, and the Duke of Rothesay, and all the Stuart Kings that used to be there. Then I thought of Prior Hepburn and poor murdered Cardinal Beaton, and of monks, knights, and lovely wenches that used to frequent the old place. I loved it, for I have read history a lot. One could not help thinking of the feasting, revelry, and pageants of those interesting old times, and the grand services in the churches, and what fine dresses everybody wore.”

I saw he was going bang off the subject again, and when he began to tell me there were lots of Anklebones in Norman times about Fifeshire, I had to pull him back with a jerk to his ghost at the Castle.

“Very well, sir, I was in the Castle one evening, and I was sitting[53] on the parapet of the old wall when I saw a head appearing up the old broken steps on the east side of the Castle that once led down to the great dining hall. I knew no one could now come up that way without a ladder from the sea beach, and when the figure got to the level ground it came right through the iron railing just as if no obstruction were there. I stared hard and watched the advancing figure. It looked like a woman. I had heard of the Cardinal’s ghost, and wondered if it could be his Eminence himself. Nearer and nearer it came, and although it was a gusty evening, I noticed the flowing garments of the approaching figure were quite still and unruffled by the wind. It was like a moving statue. As it passed me slowly a few yards away, I saw they were not the robes of a Cardinal, but those of an Archbishop. I am a Churchman, and know the garments quite well. I saw all his vestments clearly, and I shall never forget the pale, ashen set face, and the thin determined mouth. Then I noticed one very very strange thing—the statuesque tall figure had a thick rope round the neck, and the end of the rope was trailing along the grass behind it, but there was no sound whatever. On it went and began to climb the stairs to the upper apartments. I tried to follow, but could not move for a bit. I felt as if I was mesmerised or paralysed. I was all in a cold sweat, too, and I was glad to get away from the Castle at last and hurry home. I haven’t gone so fast for many years. When I went next day to Lausdree I made a clean breast of the whole affair to Master.

“‘Would you know him again?’ he asked me.

“‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘I would know that face and figure among a thousand.’

“‘Come to the study,’ said the master, ‘and I will show you some pictures.’

“We went, and I looked over a number of them. At last I came to one that fairly transfixed me. There was no mistaking the face. Before me was the picture of the spectre I had seen the previous night in the ruined Castle of Saint Andrews.

“‘Well, Anklebone,’ said the master, ‘this is really wonderful, and you actually saw the rope round the neck?’

[54]

“‘I did,’ I said, ‘as I am a living man, but who is it? It is not the Cardinal?’

“‘No,’ said the master very gravely, ‘this man was publicly hanged by his enemies on a gibbet at the Market Cross of Stirling on April 1st, 1571.’

“‘But who was he?’ I asked, imploringly.

“‘The man, or ghost, you saw,’ said master, ‘was Archbishop John Hamilton of St Andrews—in his own Castle grounds where he once reigned supreme.’”

I said farewell to Mr Anklebone, and as I thought over his extraordinary story journeying home in the train, I could not help repeating over and over again to myself that very curious name that seemed to rhyme with the motion of the train—Concrikketty Anklebone.