St. Andrews Ghost Stories

By W. T. Linskill

St Andrews
Ghost Stories

BY
W. T. LINSKILL
(Dean of Guild).

FOURTH EDITION.

There are ghosts and phantoms round us,

On the mountains, on the sea;

Some are cold and some are clammy,

Some are hot as hot can be.

They can creep, and crawl, and hover,

And can howl, and shriek, and wail,

And those who want to hear of them

Must read this little tale.

W. T. L.

J. & G. Innes, St Andrews Citizen Office.
1921.

Dedicated to My Old Friends,
JOHN L. LOW
and
CHARLES BLAIR MACDONALD.

CONTENTS.

The Beckoning Monk.

Many years ago, about the time of the Tay Bridge gale, I was staying at Edinburgh with a friend of mine, an actor manager. I had just come down from the paint-room of the theatre, and was emerging from the stage-door, when I encountered Miss Elsie H⸺, a then well-known actress.

“You are just the very person I wanted to meet,” she said. “Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Mr Spencer Ashton. He’s not an actor, he’s an artist, and he’s got such a queer, queer story about ghosts and things near your beloved St Andrews.”

I bowed to Mr Ashton, who was a quiet-looking man, pale and thin, rather like a benevolent animated hairpin. He reminded me somehow of Fred Vokes. We shook hands warmly.

“Yes,” he said, “my story sounds like fiction, but it is a fact, as I can prove. It is rather long, but it may possibly interest you. Where could we foregather?”

“Come and dine with me at the Edinburgh Hotel to-night at eight. I’ll get a private room,” I said.

“Right oh!” said he, and we parted.

That evening at eight o’clock we met at the old Edinburgh Hotel (now no longer in existence), and after dinner he told me his very remarkable tale.

“Some years ago,” he said, “I was staying in a small coast town in Fife, not very far from St Andrews. I was painting some quaint houses and things of the sort that tickled my fancy at the time, and I was very much amused and excited by some of the bogie tales told me by the fisher folk. One story particularly interested me.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

“Well, it was about a strange, dwarfish, old man, who, they swore, was constantly wandering about among the rocks at nightfall; a queer, uncanny creature, they said, who was ‘aye beckoning to them,’ and who was never seen or known in the daylight. I heard so much at various times and from various people about this old man that I resolved to look for him and see what his game really was. I went down to the beach times without number, but saw nothing worse than myself, and I was almost giving the job up as hopeless, when one night ‘I struck oil,’ as the Yankees would say.”

“Good,” I said, “let me hear.”

“It was after dusk,” he proceeded, “very rough and windy, but with a feeble moon peeping out at times between the racing clouds. I was alone on the beach. Next moment I was not alone.”

“Not alone,” I remarked. “Who was there?”

“Certainly not alone,” said Ashton. “About three yards from me stood a quaint, short, shrivelled, old creature. At that time the comic opera of ‘Pinafore’ was new to the stage-loving world, and this strange being resembled the character of ‘Dick Deadeye’ in that piece. But this old man was much uglier and more repulsive. He wore a tattered monk’s robe, had a fringe of black hair, heavy black eyebrows, very protruding teeth, and a pale, pointed, unshaven chin. Moreover, he possessed only one eye, which was large and telescopic looking.”

“What a horrid brute,” I said.

“Oh! he wasn’t half so bad after all,” said Ashton, “though his appearance was certainly against him. He kept beckoning to me with a pale, withered hand, continually muttering, ‘Come.’ I felt compelled to follow him, and follow him I did.”

I lit up another pipe and listened intently.

“He took me,” resumed Ashton, “into a natural cave, a cleft in the rocks, and we went stumbling over the rocks and stones, and splashing into pools. At least I did. He seemed to get along all right. At the far end of this clammy cave, a very narrow staircase, cut out of solid rock, ascended abruptly about twenty or thirty steps, then turned a corner and descended again into a large passage. Then a mighty queer thing happened.”

“What might that be?” I enquired.

“Well, my guide somehow or other suddenly became possessed of a huge great candlestick with a lighted candle in it, about three feet high, which lit up the vaulted passage.

“‘We now stand in the monk’s sub-way,’ he said.

“‘Indeed, and who may you be? Are you a man or a ghost?’

“The queer figure turned. ‘I am human,’ he said, ‘do not fear me. I was a monk years ago, now I am reincarnate—time and space are nothing whatever to me. I only arrived a short while ago from Naples to meet you here.’”

“Good heavens, Ashton,” I said, “is this all true?”

“Absolutely true, my dear fellow,” said Ashton. “I was in my sound senses, not hypnotised or anything of that sort, I assure you. On and on we went, the little man with his big candle leading the way, and I following. Two or three times the sub-way narrowed, and we had a tight squeeze to get through, I can tell you.”

“What a rum place,” I interjected.

“Yes, it was that,” said Ashton, “but it got still rummer as we went up and down more stairs, and then popped through a hole into a lower gallery, and I noticed side passages branching off in several different directions.

“‘Walk carefully and look where you tread,’ said my monkish guide. ‘There are pitfalls here; be very wary.’

“Then I noticed at my feet a deep, rock-hewn pit about two feet wide right across the passage. ‘What is that for?’ I asked. ‘To trap intruders and enemies,’ said the little monk. ‘Look down.’ I did so, and I saw at the bottom, in a pool of water, a whitened skull and a number of bones. We passed four or five such shafts in our progress.”

“’Pon my word, this beats me altogether,” I interpolated.

“It would have beaten me altogether if I had fallen into one of those traps,” said Ashton. “Suddenly the close, damp, fungus sort of air changed and I smelt a sweet fragrant odour. ‘I smell incense,’ I said to the monk.

“‘It is the wraith, or ghost, of a smell,’ he said. ‘There has been no incense hereaway since 1546. There are ghosts of sounds and smells, just as there are ghosts of people. We are here surrounded by spirits, but they are transparent, and you cannot see them unless they are materialised, but you can feel them.’

“‘Hush, hark!’ said the monk, and then I heard a muffled sound of most beautiful chiming bells, the like I never heard before.

“‘What is that?’

“‘The old bells of St Andrews Cathedral. That is the ghost of sounds long ago ceased,’ and the monk muttered some Latin. Then all of a sudden I heard very beautiful chanting for a moment or more, then it died away.

“‘That is the long dead choir of monks chanting vespers,’ remarked my guide, sadly.

“At this period the monk and I entered a large, rock-hewn chamber, wide and lofty. In it there were numerous huge old iron clamped chests of different sizes and shapes.

“‘These,’ said the monk, ‘are packed full of treasures, jewels, and vestments. They will be needed again some day. Above us now there are ploughed fields, but long ago right over our heads there existed a church and monastery to which these things belonged.’ He pointed with a skinny claw of a hand to one corner of the chamber. ‘There,’ he said, ‘is the staircase that once led to the church above.’”

Ashton stopped and lit a cigar, then resumed.

“Well, on we went again, turning, twisting, going up steps, round corners, through more holes, and stepping over pitfall shafts. It was a loathsome and gruesome place.

“Out of a side passage I saw a female figure glide quickly along. She was dressed as a bride for a wedding; then she disappeared.

“‘Fear not,’ said the monk, ‘that is Mirren of Hepburn’s Tower, the White Lady, she can materialise herself and appear when she chooses, but she is not reincarnate as I am.’

“Well, after we had gone on it seemed for hours, as I have described, the monk paused.

“‘I fear I must leave you,’ he said, suddenly. ‘I am wanted. Before I go, take this,’ and he placed in my hand a tiny gold cup delicately chased; ‘it is a talisman and will bring you good luck always,’ he said. ‘Keep it safe, I may never see you again here, but do not forget.’

“Then I was alone in black darkness. He and his candle had vanished in a second. Quite alone in that awful prison, heaven only knows how far below the ground, I could never have gone back, and I feared to go forward. I was entombed in a worse place than the Roman Catacombs, with no hope of rescue, as it was unknown and forgotten by all.”

“What a fearful position to be in,” I said.

“I should think it was,” said Ashton. “The awful horror of it I can never forget as long as I live. I was absolutely powerless and helpless. I had lost my nerve, and I screamed aloud in an agony of mind. I had some matches, and these I used at rare intervals, crawling carefully and feeling my way along the slimy floor of the passage. I had a terrible feeling, too, that something intangible, but horrible, was crawling along after me and stopping when I stopped. I heard it breathing. I struck a match, and it was lucky, for I just missed another of those pitfalls. By the light of the match I saw a small shrine in an alcove which had once been handsomely ornamented. My progress forward was suddenly stopped by a gruesome procession of skeleton monks all in white. They crossed the main sub-way from one side passage and entered another. Their heads were all grinning skulls, and in their long bony fingers they bore enormous candles, which illuminated the passage with a feeble blue glare.”

“It’s awful,” I remarked.

“On, and on, I slowly went. It seemed hours and hours. I was exhausted and hungry and thirsty. After a time I passed through open oak nail-studded doors that were rotting on their hinges, and then—then, I saw a sight so horrible that I would never mention it to anyone. I dare not, I may know its meaning some day—I hope so—”

“What on earth was it?” I inquired eagerly.

“For heaven’s sake let me go on and do not ask about it,” said Ashton, turning ghastly pale. “The horror of the whole thing so upset me that my foot slipped, and I fell down what seemed to be a steep stairway. As I struck the bottom I felt my left wrist snap, and I fainted. When I regained my senses for a brief moment, I found that the White Lady, bearing a taper, was bending kindly over me. She had a lovely face, but as pale as white marble. She laid an icy cold hand on my hot brow, and then all was darkness again.

“Now listen! Next time I came to myself and opened my eyes I was out of the accursed passage. I saw the sky and the stars, and I felt a fresh breeze blowing. Oh! joy, I was back on the earth again, that I knew. I staggered feebly to my feet, and where on earth do you think I found I had been lying?”

“I cannot guess,” I said.

“Just inside the archway of the old Pends gateway at St Andrews,” said Ashton.

“How on earth did you get there?”

“Heaven knows,” said Ashton, “I expect the White Lady helped me somehow. It all seemed like a fearful nightmare, but I had the gold cup in my pocket and my broken wrist to bear testimony to what I had gone through. To make a long story short, I went home to my people, where I lay for six long weeks suffering from brain fever and shock. I always carry the cup with me. I am not superstitious; but it brings me good luck always.”

Ashton showed me the monk’s gold cup. It was a beautiful little relic.

“Did you ever examine the place where you entered the passage?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, “I went there some years afterwards and found the cave, but it has all fallen in now.”

“By Jove! It’s very late, thanks for the dinner, I must be off. Good night.”

I lit a pipe and pondered over that curious story. The entrance to the passage in the cave has fallen in; the exit from it in St Andrews is unknown to Ashton—only the White Lady knows.

On the whole, the story is wrapped in mystery, and does not help one much to unravel the wonders that lie in underground St Andrews. We may know some day or never.

The Hauntings and Mysteries of Lausdree Castle.

It is many years ago since I was on a walking tour in the Highlands, far to the north of Bonnie Glenshee; and when on the moorlands I was overtaken, for my sins, by a regular American snowstorm—a genuine blissard of the most pronounced type. I struggled along as well as I could for some considerable time, and then I became aware that someone was beside me. It was a young Highland lassie with a plaid over her head. I was pleased to learn from her that her name was “Jean,” that she was the niece of a neighbouring innkeeper, and that she would speedily convey me to his haven of rest. We trudged along in the blinding snow without a word, and I was more than thankful to the lassie when I at last found myself out of the snow in a nice little sanded parlour with a glorious fire of peat and logs blazing on the hospitable hearth. A glass of something hot, brought by mine host, was most welcome.

I found there was one other storm-stayed traveller in the wee house, an old family butler, whose name I discovered was Jeremiah Anklebone. He had been on a visit to relations in the North, and had been caught in the snow like myself. We were both thankful to find such a warm, cosy shanty on such an inclement evening, and, to use a Scots term, we foregathered at the ingle inside.

He asked me if I knew much about spirits, to which I replied that I had just had a glass, but he at once explained that although not averse to toddy, he alluded to spirits of another nature, viz., ghosts, banshees, boggards, and the like.

I told him I had frequently been in so-called haunted places in various countries, but had never seen or heard anything except owls, bats, rats, or mice.

He ventured the remark I had often heard before, that I could not be receptive, and I told him I was thankful that I was not.

He was a fine old fellow, an ideal family butler, and doubtless the recipient of many family secrets. He had big mutton-chop whiskers and a bald head, and looked as if he had served turtle soup all his life; but it was not soup he was soaked with—he seemed fairly saturated with spook lore. He informed me, quite calmly, that he was gifted with the remarkable faculty of seeing apparitions, demons, etc.

I could not help remarking that it seemed a very unpleasant faculty to possess, but he quite differed with me, and got as warm as his toddy on the subject. I shall not in a hurry forget that wild evening in the Highland inn before that blazing fire, or the wonderful narrations I heard from Butler Anklebone. Space precludes me from putting down here all the marvels he revealed to me.

It seemed all his life—he was 62—he had been gasping like a fish on a river’s bank to get into a really well-haunted house, but had utterly failed till he took the post of head butler at Lausdree Castle, which he informed me was but a short distance from St Andrews. He gave me a most tremendous description of the old castle, and from his account it seemed to be the asylum and gathering place of all the bogies in Britain and elsewhere. Congregated together there were the Ice Maid, the Brown Lady, a headless man, a cauld lad, a black maiden, the Flaming Ghost, the Wandering Monk, a ghost called Silky, auld Martha, a radiant bay, an iron knight, a creeping ghost, jumping Jock, old No-legs, Great Eyes, a talking dog, the Corbie Craw, a floating head, a dead hand, bleeding footprints, and many other curious creatures far too numerous to mention.

The Castle, he said, was full of uncouth and most peculiar sights and sounds, including rappings, hammerings, shrieks, groans, crashings, wailings, and the like.

“What a remarkable place,” I said to Mr Butler Anklebone, “and how do you account for so many spectres in so limited an area?”

“Oh! there is no time or space for them,” he said, “they are earth-bound spirits, and can go from one part of the globe to another in a second; but they have their favourite haunts and meeting places just as we folks have, and Lausdree seems to appeal to their varied tastes.”

He then went on to tell me some details of the Haunted Castle. “There are supposed to be,” he said, “beneath the Castle splendid old apartments, dungeons, winding passages, and cellars; but history states that any of those persons who tried to investigate these mysteries returned no more, so the entrances were walled up and are now completely lost sight of.

“There is a built-up chamber, but no one durst open it, the penalty being total blindness or death, and such cases are on record. There is also a coffin room shaped exactly like its name; but one of the queerest places at Lausdree is a small apartment with a weird light of its own. At night this room can be seen from the old garden, showing a pale, uncanny, phosphorescent glow.

“Mr Snaggers—that’s the footman—and I unlocked the door and examined the place carefully. There is a table, a sofa, and a few old chairs therein, and an all-pervading sickly light equally diffused. The furniture throws no shadows whatever. The room seemed very chilly, and there was a feeling as if all one’s vitality was being sucked out of one’s body, and drawing one’s breath caused pain. Snaggers felt the same. No one could live long in that eerie apartment. I know we were glad to lock it up again.

“Then there is a spiral stair, called ‘Meg’s Leg.’ I don’t know the legend, but almost every night one hears her leg stumping up these steps.”

“What a creepy place it must be, to be sure,” I murmured, gravely.

“Yes!” said Anklebone, “and I tell you sir, Snaggers and I generally arranged to go up to bed together; one always felt there was something coming up the stairs behind one. When a person stopped, it stopped also, and one could hear it breathing and panting, but nothing was to be seen. Snaggers said one night when the candle went out he saw monstrous red eyes, but I saw nothing then. The creeping creature I only saw twice, it was like an enormous toad on spider’s legs. They say it has a human head and face, but I only saw its back. Some folks say it is alive and not a ghost, and that it hides somewhere in the cellars, but we never could get a trace of it. One night I was going down to the service room when my way was barred by a ghastly, tall figure, with great holes where eyes should have been, so I just shut my eyes and rushed through it downstairs. When I got down, I found all my clothes were covered with a vile, sickly-smelling sticky sort of oil, and I had to destroy them all.”

“Go on, please,” I said, “you astonish me vastly.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s all very queer. Lausdree is haunted and no mistake. Snaggers and I shared the same room. One night a great blood-stained hand and arm came round the corner of the bed curtain and tried to grab me. It was dead ice-cold too. Then a thing, an invisible thing, used to patter into the room, puffing and groaning, and get under the bed and heave it up, but we looked and there was never anything there, and the door locked too. We saw a great black corkscrew thing one night fall from the ceiling on to the floor and disappear, and then there was a mighty rush along the passage. Outside the door a great crash, a yell, and a groan dying away far below. There was a humorous spirit also, the Iron Knight. We called him ‘Uncle.’ He was up to tricks. We didn’t mind him. When the fat cook was sitting down to a meal, he’d pull back her chair, and down she would come with a rare crash. If any of the maids upset a tray of tea-things, or fell downstairs with the kettle, or knocked over the great urn, they used to say—‘Oh! That’s Uncle again!’”

I told him (Mr Anklebone) that I was delighted there was a touch of comedy in such a gruesome place, as I preferred comedians to ghosts any day. One thing I learnt from his story, and that was, that if he was head butler at Lausdree Castle, the head ghost was Sir Guy Ravelstocke, whose portrait still hung in the old picture gallery. The Castle dated back to Norman times, but about 1457 it fell into the hands of this Sir Guy Ravelstocke, who had been educated at the “Stadium Generale,” or University of Saint Andrews. He and his two friends, Geoffrey De Beaumanoir and Roger Le Courville, held high revel and carnival in the old halls of Lausdree, and were the terror of the whole countryside. Sir Guy was a dissolute fellow, a gambler, and everything else bad. The neighbours alleged that he had sold himself to Old Nick. He would spill blood as if it was water, and he and his white steed, “Nogo,” were well known all over Fife and the Lothians. He was held to be a free-booter, a wizard and a warlock, a highwayman, a pirate, and a general desperado. He had slain many men in mortal combat, and was found invulnerable.

“He must have been a sort of Michael Scott of Balwearie,” I remarked.

“He must have been a holy terror,” said the butler. “I’ve seen him often, exactly like his portrait in the picture gallery. I’ve seen him in his old-world dress with his sword hanging at his side, sometimes on his white horse and sometimes on foot.

“There were always terrible knockings, shrieks, and crashes before he appeared, and all our dogs showed the greatest terror. I slept in an old four-poster bed, and he used to draw aside the curtain and glare at me constantly. He nearly always was accompanied by the spectre of a negro carrying his head under his arm. Sir Guy was a great traveller in foreign lands, and, I have been told, used to bring back all sorts of curious animals and insects with him. Perhaps that great toad thing I saw was one of the creatures. I’ve heard toads live for ages.”

I said I believed that was quite true.

“I found a queer place one day,” said Anklebone. “I was going up the turret staircase, and found some of the steps moved back. I got Mr Snaggers and Darkgood, the gardener, and we tugged them out. We called the master, and then we found narrow steps going down to a locked door. We forced it open, and got into a stone chamber. There were skulls and bones all over the place. Most of them belonged to animals, but there was a horrible thing on the floor, a sort of mummified vampire bat, with huge teeth and enormous outstretched wings, like thick parchment, and four legs. Perhaps it was a regular vampire. They fanned folks to sleep with their great wings, and then sucked their blood dry. We cleared out the room, and buried all the things in a wood.

“Now,” said Anklebone, “I will tell you the end of Sir Guy Ravelstocke. He brought back with him from them foreign parts a nigger servant, and they called him the ‘Apostle.’ Well, one night,” continued Anklebone, “he and his chums were dining, and full of wine, and the ‘A—Postal’ offended them somehow, and Sir Guy stabbed him. Then they chained his hands and feet together, took him to the dungeon, and filled his mouth, nose, and ears full of clay and left him. That is the nigger ghost I saw always with Sir Guy—the murdered negro.

“About two years after, Sir Guy and his friends were in the same room drinking when there came a great hammering at the Castle door. Sir Guy drew his sword, flung open the door, and plunged out into the darkness. A few moments passed then his friends rushed out on hearing wild unearthly shrieks, but there was no Sir Guy to be seen, he had totally disappeared, and was never heard of or seen in life again. We found his remains three years ago, but I will tell you of that directly. One day Snaggers and I had gone to St Andrews to buy things. We were just at the end of South Street when a horseman dashed past us at full gallop. ‘Heavens,’ said Snaggers, ‘it’s Sir Guy as I live.’ He went bang into the big iron gates at the Cathedral. When we came up the great gates were locked, and there was Sir Guy leaning up against the west gable scowling at us, but the white horse had gone, and he melted away as we looked. I saw him again with the negro at Magus Muir, and alone one dark night in North Street.

“I was alone one evening in the room below the banquet hall at Lausdree and heard a pattering on the table. On looking up I saw a stain in the ceiling, and drops of blood were dropping down on the table and the floor. The room above was the very place where the negro was stabbed. Next morning we went into the room where I saw the blood drip, and there was the mark of a bloody hand on the table, but no stain on the roof.

“Now for the discovery. I had often dreamed about an old overgrown well there was in the gardens, and felt very suspicious of what might be therein. Then the gardener and the woodman told me they had frequently seen the awful spectre of Sir Guy and the ‘Apostle’ hovering round about the thicket that enclosed what was known as the haunted well, and then vanish in the brushwood without disturbing it. I felt sure that there lay the mystery of Sir Guy Ravelstocke. This idea was soon after confirmed by a curious occurrence. One morning Snaggers was dusting an old oil painting over the huge mantelpiece, and above the weeping stone in the great hall, when somehow or other he contrived to touch a secret spring and the painting flew back, open in its frame, and revealed a chamber beyond.

“We sent for master, and got down by some steps into the room. Such a queer place! It was octagonal in shape, and there had been either a great fire or an explosion there. The vaulted stone roof and floor were all blackened and cracked, and the fireplace and wood-panelling were all burnt and charred.”

“Perhaps the chapel,” I remarked.

“That is what master said,” replied the butler, “and there were remains of burnt tapestry, charred wood, and documents all over the stone floor. Master got one piece of burnt paper with faded writing on it in some foreign tongue. The odd thing was the big picture. The eyes were sort of convex-like, and two holes were bored in the pupil of each of its eyes, so that anyone standing up on top of the stone stairs could see all that took place in the great hall below, and hear also.

“Master took the piece of parchment and managed to make out a few words. They were—‘I am sure that Ravelstocke lies in the old Prior’s Well, with the dead nigger servant we placed there. I would not go near that spot for my life. Heaven grant it may not come for me, I must leave the place.’ That was all he could decipher on the burnt paper.

“‘We must explore that Prior’s Well (evidently that is its name) to-morrow morning,’ said our master. We were all up at dawn, and got all the men available to cut down the shrubs, bushes, and the undergrowth round the well, the growth of ages. When the well was exposed it looked very like the holy well at St Andrews, only it had been very finely carved and ornamented at one time. The entrance was a Norman archway, and the remains of an oak door still hung there. We found a shallow bath shaped pool of muddy water inside, and a lot of broken stones and bits of old statues and glass. At the far end was a large square opening a few feet above the pool of water. We, of course, made for this, and found there was a cell beyond. The whole well on one side was riven and rent, either by lightning or the effects of an earthquake shock. If that ancient well could have spoken it would have told us as queer tales as St Rule’s Tower at St Andrews. There was a most curious, overpowering, sickening odour inside the place, like a vault or charnel house.”

I remarked that I knew no smells worse than acetylene gas or the awful smell I unearthed when digging, long ago, opposite the St Andrews Cathedral.

“Well,” said Anklebone, “I can’t imagine a worse odour than there was beside that Prior’s Well. It turned us all so faint. We had to get some brandy. We got into the far cell, and there were two skeleton bodies on the flagged floor. One was a blanched skeleton as far as the neck, but the skull was well preserved, and matted black hair still clung on it and round the jaws. All the teeth were in their place. Some rings had fallen from the bony fingers, and a sword, all eaten away by rust, lay beside the skeleton. The other was like a mummified ape, of a dark oak colour, the nails on the fingers and toes being quite perfect. Chains, also almost worn away, hung round the feet and hands.

“‘Good Heavens,’ said master, ‘it is Sir Guy Ravelstocke and the murdered Apostle!’ There was no doubt of that whatever. We had them removed and buried at once. The mystery was solved after all these long years.

“The nigger had been placed there, but the mystery of Sir Guy was inexplicable. Who came for him that night when he rushed out of the door of Lausdree Castle, centuries ago, with his sword, and who carried him to his doom in the Friar’s Well? No one can answer that terrible question now. Oh! that the old well could speak and reveal its secret.”

A Haunted Manor House and the Duel at St Andrews;
OR,
The Old Brown Witch.

This can hardly be termed a St Andrews ghost story, but it is so remarkably strange and weird that I have been specially requested to add it to the series, and there is an allusion to St Andrews in it after all.

Several years ago we had in the Golf Club at Cambridge a Russian Prince who took up golf, and the questions of spirits, bogies, witches, banshees, death warnings, and the like, equally strongly. He was a firm disbeliever in all of them, and belonged to a Phantasmalogical Research Society to inquire into and expose all such things. I frequently have long letters from him from all sorts of remote parts of the world where he is investigating tales of haunted houses, churchyards, and so on; but from this, his last letter, he seems to have contrived to meet a genuine and very unpleasant sort of spectre. Of course I suppress all names.

“X⸺x Manor,
Feb. ⸺, 1905.

Dear W. T. L.,—Well, here I am, actually in a really haunted manor house at last, and I have had a most horribly, weird, and uncanny experience of a most loathsome appearance. I have been here a fortnight now—such a queer, great old house, all turrets and towers, and damp wings covered with ivy and creepers, and such small, narrow windows. It is on a slight elevation, and has in bygone days had a moat around it. It is surrounded by dense woods, and there is a black-looking lake at the back. The staircases are all stone and very narrow, and there is an old chapel and a coffin room in the house. In the garden, in a yew avenue, is a vault and a tombstone, and thereby hangs my curious tale.

It seems that centuries ago a very unpleasant old widow lady, and a very unpleasant son, had the old house. She was a very ugly and eccentric creature, and a miser, and was nicknamed by the village folk “The Brown Witch.” The tales about her ongoings told to this day are most remarkable. It seems her son, who, according to all accounts, was a shocking bad lot, was killed in a duel, and the old lady died shortly afterwards a raving maniac.

She seems to have left a very curious will. I deal with only two details in it. One was that the chamber in which she lived and died was for ever to be left untouched and undisturbed, but unlocked, or the disturber would be cursed with instant blindness and ultimately death. The second was that she was to be buried in the vault in the yew avenue that she had specially made for her remains; that she was to be dressed in her usual clothes and bonnet, and that she must be placed in a tightly-sealed glass coffin, so as to be visible to any intruder. My host told me the chamber or the vault in the grounds had never been interfered with, but that her appearances had been very frequent to most credible witnesses, and that such appearances all portended some dire calamity to some one.

She had appeared and terrified many visitors, both in the house and in the grounds. She had also been seen by the village pastor and by the servants. He had never seen her himself, but he had taken every measure he could think of to unravel the mystery, but in vain. The outdoor servants were terrified, and would never remain, and one lady visitor had been nearly driven mad by seeing her peering in at the window at dusk.

Of course, I laughed the tale to scorn, and also the story of the alarm bell which tolled at intervals without any apparent or human agency. Not even the bravest would dare to walk down the yew avenue after nightfall.

Well, I had been ten days in the house before anything happened. I must say, the wind and the rats, and owls and bats, and the tapping noise of the ivy on the old windows at night were rather creepy, but nothing really out of the common happened till the other night.

My room was in a long, narrow, old gallery. After cards and billiards, and at about 12.30, I was going off to my well-earned rest, and was getting near my door in the gallery, when I saw a faint light coming towards me round a corner. I went into my room and waited to see who was wandering about so late at night. Then a figure stopped at my door, evidently carrying a lighted old lantern. I raised my candle to have an inspection, and then, oh! horror!—I staggered back for a moment, for before me clearly stood the horrible figure of the old “Brown Witch.” A cold sweat broke out all over me.

Far, far worse than the description. I saw her brown robe and the poke bonnet, the horrible face, the huge black sockets of the eyes without eyeballs, the nose gone, and, worst of all, that fearful grin, the cruel grin of a maniac, a wicked, terrible face.

I opened my drawer and seized my always loaded revolver. I shouted loudly, and fired once, twice, thrice. She never moved; only the horrible mocking smile grew wider and more devilish. I rushed forward, slammed my door to shut out the awful sight, and then collapsed back into a chair.

I must have hit it each time for certain. An offensive charnel house smell pervaded the air. Then the door flew open, and my host and several men and servants rushed into the room, anxiously asking what was the matter, and why I fired? I told them everything. We found the three bullet shots in the wall opposite my door. They must have passed through that abominable horror.

Need I say I spent a wretched night? In fact, I sat up and never went to bed at all. I resolved to leave next day early, but before doing that I determined at all hazards, to go into that vault and see what it contained, and also to carefully investigate the “Brown Witch’s” chamber without disturbing anything in it. I told my host next day at breakfast what I proposed doing, and he offered no objection whatever, but declined absolutely to go near the vault or chamber himself, or to let any of his household do so.

“Oh! by-the-by, did you ring the alarm bell in the tower last night?” he asked me. “It was the sound of your shots and the great bell ringing immediately afterwards that brought me along so quickly to your room. We all heard it.”

I told him I knew nothing of it and never even heard the bell.

“I thought that,” he said, “for you were nearly off in a faint when we all came in, and hardly knew us for a bit.

“I can’t make out the bell,” said my host, “or what on earth can make it ring so. It has no rope, and it cannot possibly be the wind. I must have it removed. Last time it rung loudly like that, my old housekeeper was found dead in her bed in the morning.”

To make a long story short, the next thing I did was to get a couple of labourers to shovel away the earth and find the lid of the old vault in the yew avenue. This was soon done, and we quickly descended into the place with lights. We found ourselves in a large-built, clammy chamber, and on the floor lay a tattered and broken old lantern. At first we thought the chamber was empty, but all of a sudden we noticed a niche at one end and at once went forward to it. In this singular alcove was a large glass box, or coffin, standing on its end, and in it and standing upright was the horrible eyeless mummy (still arrayed in the brown robe and poke bonnet) of the terrible creature I had seen in the gallery, and with the same mocking, grinning mouth and the huge ugly teeth. The same smell I have told you of before pervaded the whole place.

She was hermetically sealed up in this ghastly glass coffin and preserved. We were all very glad to leave that charnel-house and cover it up out of sight, but not out of memory. That would be perfectly impossible to any of us. I can’t get that smell out of my nose yet. It would sicken you.

Next, I went to the chamber with a friend and my bicycle lantern to investigate. It was up a long, narrow stone stair. The old oak door (it was unlocked, as I said before) soon yielded to our combined efforts and creaked open, and we stood in a room of the middle ages. The old shutters were tightly closed. The ceiling, which had once been handsomely painted, was rapidly falling away, and the tapestry was rotting off the walls. It had evidently once been a splendid apartment, but now it was given up to rats and moths and spiders and damp. It chilled one to the very marrow, and it had that same horrible smell. There was a four-poster bed in one corner with rags and shreds of curtains, probably where the old creature had died. The tables and chairs were covered with the dust of ages. There was no carpet of any kind. An old spinet stood against the wall; and papers were lying all over the place inches deep in dust. A few charred logs of wood lay in the gaping old fireplace with its old-time chimney corners, and there seemed to be bits of valuable old china and bric-a-brac about the place. Many pictures had fallen off the walls, but a few faded pencil drawings were still in their places. Just guess my surprise and astonishment when I found they were Scottish views—one of Edinburgh, one of Crail Church, and three of St Andrews, including the old College and Chapel, the Castle, and St Leonards College, with date 1676. Here was another most curious thing I determined to ask about before I left. However, I touched nothing in the room, as I had promised my host, and besides—you will laugh—I had no wish to be stricken with the “Brown Witch’s” promised curse of blindness and ultimate death to any intruder who touched her things. I dreaded her far too much since I had seen her in the gallery and in her tomb, and heard of her bewitched alarm bell, which portended death to some one.

Before I left, I mentioned the Scottish drawings in the witch’s room to my host, and asked him if he could throw any light on how they came there.

Briefly, it seems that she (the witch) sent her son far away in those old days to a Scottish University, and St Andrews was her choice. It seems he was very quarrelsome in his cups, and frequently fought duels, and generally proved the victor. One of the last he fought at Sauchope Stone, near Crail, with a nephew of the Laird of Balcomie Castle, and they fought with broadsword and buckler, and again the “Witch’s” son killed his man. His last duel was fought on St Andrews sands with rapiers, and he was run through the heart—a good job.

Now I must conclude. I am determined to investigate further the whole most mysterious affair. If you ever visit this place, my host, Mr ⸺, says he will let you explore the vault in the yew avenue, and see the coffin and the old witch, and you may also go and look at the chamber. If you ever do, take the advice of an old friend and do not dare to touch anything therein.

Your Friend to Command.

The Apparition of the Prior of Pittenweem.

It was in September 1875 that I first met dear old Captain Chester (now gone to his rest); and it was very many years before that date that he rented his fearsomely haunted old house in St Andrews.

I was a Cambridge boy when I met him—how the undergraduates scorn that term “boy.” He told me the following queer tales in the Poppledorf Avenue at Bonn when I was on holiday.

The house he rented at St Andrews, from his accounts, must have been a most unpleasant and eerie dwelling. Rappings and hammerings were heard all over the house after nightfall, trembling of the walls, quiverings. Heavy falls and ear-piercing shrieks were also part of the nightly programme.

I suggested bats, rats, owls, and smugglers as the cause, which made the old man perfectly wild with rage, and caused him to use most unparliamentary language.

I pointed out that such language would probably have scared away any respectable ghost. However, let me tell the story in his own peculiar way.

“My brother and I took the house, sir,” he said, “and we had a nephew and some nieces with us. There were also three middle-aged English servants at the time; and, gadsooth, sir, they had strange names. The cook possessed the extraordinary name of Maria Trombone, the housemaid was called Jemima Podge, and the other old cat was called Teresa Shadbolt.

“One evening I was sitting smoking in my study, when the door flew open with a bang and Maria rushed in.

“‘Zounds! Mrs Trombone,’ I said, ‘how dare you come into my room like this?’

“‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘there are hawful things going on to-night. I’m frighted to death. I was washing hup, please sir, when something rushed passed me with a rustle, and I got a great smack on the cheek with a damp, cold hand, and then the place shook, and all the things clattered like anything.’

“‘Nonsense, Trombone,’ I said, ‘you were asleep, or have you been drinking, eh?’

“‘Lor’ bless you, sir, no! never a drop; but last night, sir, Teresa Shadbolt had all the bedclothes pulled off her bed twice, sir, and Jane said a tall old man in a queer dressing-gown came into her room and brushed his white beard over her face, and, lor’, sir, didn’t you hear her a-screamin’?’

“‘No, I’m hanged if I did. You must all be stark, staring mad, you know.’

“‘Not a bit of us, master,’ continued Mrs Trombone. ‘There is something wrong about this blessed house—locked doors and windows fly wide open, and the bells keep ringin’ at all hours of the night, and we hear steps on the stairs when everyone is in bed, and knocks, and crashes, and screams. Then the tables and things go moving about. No Christian could put up with it, please sir. We must all leave.’

“Well, I got all those women up, and they told me deuced queer things, but I squared them up at last.”

“How?” I inquired.

“I doubled their wages, sir, and I told them they might all sleep in one room upstairs together, and I promised them a real good blow-out at Christmas, and so on.

“Next my nephew and little nieces saw the old man with the long white beard at various times in the passages and on the stairs. Oddly enough, my little nieces got quite accustomed to see the aged man with the grey beard, and were not a bit timid. They said he was just like the pictures of old Father Christmas, and he looked kind.

“I never saw him,” continued Chester, “till one All Hallows Night, or Hallowe’en as they termed it in St Andrews; but I will speak of that later on.”

“Go on,” I said, “it is very interesting indeed to me.”

“The servants all saw him at times, and that old arch fiend, Trombone, was constantly getting frightened, and breaking things and fainting. I was myself annoyed by strange unearthly sounds when sitting smoking at night late. There were curious rollings and rumblings under the house, like enormous stone balls being bowled along, then a heavy thud followed by intolerable silence. Then there was a curious sound like muffled blinds being quickly drawn up and down; that and a sort of flapping and rustling seemed to pervade the air.

“This perplexed me, and I got in a detective; but he found out nothing at all. After much trouble and research I learned of the legend of the Prior of Pittenweem and his connection with the old house.

“It seems when Moray and his gang of plunderers shut up St Monance Church and the old Priory of Pittenweem, the last Prior (not Forman or Rowles), a very old man, was cut adrift, and for some months lay hidden at Newark Castle, food being brought him by some former monks. Newark Castle was burned, and this old Prior fled to Balcomie Castle. From there he went to Kinkell Cave near St Andrews.

“I know all those places well,” I said.

“After some weeks, and when winter came, he took refuge in the very old house in which I lived. He seems to have been among both friends and foes there, and brawls were quite common things within those walls.

“One night those long dead and forgotten old-world inhabitants were startled from their slumbers by shots, the clashing of arms, and wild yells. To make a long tale short, that old Prior of Pittenweem was never seen by human eyes after that fearful night.

“Many suspected foul play, but in those times it was deemed best to keep one’s mouth shut tight, and what mattered it if an old Prior disappeared?”

“They were awful times those,” I said. “Glad we live in these days.”

“Well, now,” said the Captain, “I must come to the night of All Hallows E’en, or Holy Even, when the spirits of the night are said to wander abroad. We dined early in those days, and after dinner I walked down to an old Clubhouse in Golf Place, of which I was an hon. member, to play cards. It was a perfect night, and a few flakes of snow had begun to fall, and the wind was keen and sharp. When I left the Club later the ground was well covered with snow, but the storm had ceased, and the moon and stars were shining bright in a clear sky. By Jove, sir, it was like fairyland, and all the church towers and house tops were glittering in the moonbeams.

“I wandered about the old place for fully an hour. It was lovely. I was reluctant to go indoors. Gad, sir, I got quite sad and poetical. I thought of my poor sister who died long ago and is buried in Stefano Rodundo at Rome, and lots of other things. Then I thought of St Andrews as it is and what it might have been. I thought of all its holy temples, erected by our pious forefathers, and its altars and statues lying desolate, ruined and profaned.

“At last I arrived at my own door, and entered—in a thoughtful mood. I went to my study and put on my slippers and dressing gown. I had just sat down and commenced reading when there came a most tremendous shivering crash. I involuntarily cowered down. I thought the roof had fallen—at least, gad, sir, I was flabbergasted. It woke everyone. The crash was followed by a roaring sound.”

“It must have been an earthquake, Captain Chester,” I said.

“Zounds, sir, I don’t know what it was. I thought I was killed. Then my nephew and I got a lamp and examined the house.

“Everything was right—nothing to account for the fearful noise. Finally, we went downstairs to the vaulted kitchens. Zounds, sir, all of a sudden my nephew gripped my arm, and with a cry of abject terror pointed to the open kitchen door. ‘Oh, look there, look there!’ he almost screamed.

“I looked, and, gad, I got a queer turn. There facing us in the open doorway was a very tall, shaven-headed old man with a long grey beard. He had a white robe or cassock on, a linen rocket, and, above all, an almuce or cloak of black hue lined with ermine—The Augustinian Habit. In one hand he held a very large rosary, and he lent on a stout cudgel.

“As I advanced he retreated backwards, always beckoning to me—and I followed lamp in hand. I had to follow—could not help myself. Do you know the way a serpent can fascinate or hypnotise its prey before it devours them?”

“Yes,” I said, “I have seen the snakes at the Zoo do that trick.”

“Well, sir, I was hypnotised like that—precisely like that. He beckoned and I followed.

“Suddenly I saw a little door in the corner of the kitchen standing open—a door I had never noticed before. The shadowy vision backed towards it. Still I followed. Then he entered its portals. As I advanced he grew more and more transparent, and finally melted away, and the heavy door shut upon him with a tremendous crash and rattle. The lamp fell from my trembling hand and was shattered to fragments on the stone floor. I was in pitch darkness—silence reigned—I don’t remember how I got out to the light again.

“Next morning early I got in some workmen and took them down to the kitchen, direct to the corner where the door was through which the apparition vanished the previous night.

“Zounds, sir, there was no door there—only the white plastered wall. I was dumbfoundered. ‘Mrs Trombone,’ I said to the cook, ‘where the devil is that door gone?’”

“‘The door, sir,’ said the cook, ‘there ain’t no door there that I ever saw.’

“‘Trombone,’ I replied, ‘don’t tell falsehoods—you’re a fool.’

“I made the men set to work and tear down the plaster and stuff, and, egad, sir, in an hour we found the door—a thick oak, nail studded, iron clamped old door. It took some time to force it open, and then down three steps we found ourselves in a chamber with mighty thick walls and with a flagged floor, about six feet square, lit by a small slit of a window.

“‘Tear up the flags,’ I said.

“They did so, and there was only earth below.

“‘Dig down,’ I said, ‘dig like thunder,’

“In about an hour we came to a huge flag with a ring in it. Up it came, and below it was a dryly-built bottle-shaped well.

“We went down with lights. What do you think we found at the bottom of it?”

“Perhaps water,” I suggested.

“Water be d⸺,” said Captain Chester, “we found the mouldering skeleton of a very tall man in a sitting posture. Beside him lay a large rosary and a stout oak cudgel—the rosary and cudgel I had seen in the phantom’s hands the previous night. My friend, I had solved the problem—that was the skeleton of the old Prior of Pittenweem who vanished in that house hundreds of years ago.”

The True Tale of the Phantom Coach.

The great curtain had fallen after the pantomime, and I was standing chatting on the stage of the theatre at Cambridge when one of the stage men came to tell me I was wanted at the stage door and I must hurry up at once. Thither I proceeded, and found a lot of golfing boys, hunting boys, dramatic boys, and all sorts of other merry ’Varsity boys, who shouted out “Come along quick to the Blue Pig” (the “Blue Pig” is a Cambridge name for the Blue Boar Hotel), “we want you to meet a fellow called Willie Carson, and there is to be supper, and he has something to tell us. The ‘Bogie Man’ has gone on there now, so come right away.”

Well, off we went to the Blue Boar Hotel, and we found Carson sitting over a blazing fire, with a capital supper set in his nice old-fashioned room, lit up with candles only, the picture of comfort—outside it was snowing hard and bitterly cold.

After a talk over the merits of the pantomime, we did full justice to a most excellent supper, and then crowded round the blazing hearth to hear a story our host wanted to tell us.

“Did you ever hear of the Phantom Coach at St Andrews?” he asked, turning to me suddenly and removing his cigar.

“Often,” I replied, “I have heard most extraordinary yarns about it from lots of people; but why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve seen it,” he replied, softly and thoughtfully. “Some five years ago, it was very, very strange, not to be forgotten and quite unexplainable; that is why I asked you here to-night. I wanted to talk to you about it.” He stooped over the fire and was silent for a few minutes.

“Tell us all about it,” we all shouted at once, “we won’t make fun of it.”

“There is nothing to make fun of; indeed, it’s a true, solemn fact,” he said. “Listen, and I will try to tell you what I saw, but I can’t half picture it properly. Five years ago I had just come home from America. I went to stay at St Andrews for some golf. I think it was the latter end of August, and I must have been in the town about a week at least, when one night—it was hot and stuffy, and about midnight—I determined to take a good long country walk, and struck out right along the road to Strathkinness.

“It was a hot, dark, and stormy night, not wet; fitful black clouds floated now and again at a rapid pace over the moon, which now and then shone out brightly; in the distance the sea made a perpetual moan, and at intervals the dark eastern sky was lit up by flashes of summer wildfire lightning over the distant Cathedral towers.

“Now and again I could hear the mutter of far-away thunder, and there were incessant gusts of wind. I must have been about two miles along the road, when I could discern some very large object approaching me rapidly. As it came nearer I noticed it resembled a coach, dark, heavy, primitive; it seemed to have four large black horses, and the driver was a muffled, shapeless figure. It approached with a low humming or buzzing sound, which was most peculiar and unpleasant to hear. The horses made a hollow kind of ticking sound with their feet, otherwise it was noiseless.

“No earthly coach of the kind could go without any ordinary sound. It was weird and eerie in the extreme. As it passed me the moon shone out brightly, and I saw for a second a ghastly white face at the coach window; but I saw those four strange, silent black horses, the more extraordinary, tall, swaddled-up shapeless driver, and the quaint black, gloomy old coach, with a coffin-shaped box on the roof, only far, far too well. One most remarkable thing was that it threw no shadow of any kind.

“Just as it passed me there was a terrific roar of thunder, and a blaze of lightning that nearly blinded me, and in the distance I saw that horrible ghastly receding coach; then clouds came over the moon and all was black—a darkness one could feel, a darkness of a shut-up smothering vault. I felt sick and dazed for a minute or two. I could not make out if I had been struck by the lightning or was paralysed. However, after a bit it passed off; it was a horrible deathly feeling while it lasted. I never experienced a similar sensation before or since, and hope I never may again. Another very curious thing was the behaviour of my favourite collie dog, usually frightened at nothing, on the approach of the phantom (for phantom it was). He crouched down, shivering and whining, and as it drew nearer fled with a bark like a screech, and cowered down in the ditch at the roadside and gave forth low growls.

“I tell you, boys, it’s all right in this room to talk about it, but none of you would have liked to be in my place that queer, uncanny night on that lonely road. That it was supernatural, I am convinced; it is a very thin veil between us and the unseen world of spirits.

“They say I possess a seventh sense, namely, second sight, and I know I shall never forget that night’s experience.

“But listen—the story is not ended yet. Next morning a telegram arrived from my brother in Kent, ‘Are you all right?’ I wondered much, and wired back that I was very well.

“The following day a letter came from my brother giving me a curious explanation.

“The following afternoon of the day I saw the coach, my brother was looking out of the old manor house windows in Kent, when he and several others noticed a large bird, having most peculiar plumage, seated on the garden wall. No one had ever seen a bird of the kind before. He was rushing off for a gun to shoot it, when our father, who looked very white and scared, stopped him. ‘Do not shoot,’ he said, ‘it would be of no use. That is the bird of ill omen to all our race, it only appears before a death. I have only once seen it before—that week your dear mother died.’

“My brother was so alarmed at this that he sent the wire I have mentioned to me at St Andrews. By the next mail from Australia we learned that our eldest brother had died there the very day I saw the coach at St Andrews and my brother saw the bird at our old home in Kent. Very odd, is it not; but what do you know about that coach?”

“Only tales,” I said. “Many people swear they have heard it, or seen it, on stormy nights. I know a girl who swears to it, and also a doctor who passed it on the road, and it nearly frightened his horse to death and him too.

“The tale of the two tramps is funny. They were trudging into St Andrews one wild stormy night when this uncanny coach overtook them. It stopped; the door opened, and a white hand beckoned towards them. One tramp rushed up and got in, then suddenly the door noiselessly shut and the coach moved off, leaving the other tramp alone in the pitiless wind and rain. ‘I never saw my old mate again,’ said the tramp, when he told the tale, ‘and I never shall—that there old coach was nothing of this here world of ours, it took my old mate off to Davy Jones’s locker mighty smart, poor fellow.’

“They say his body was found in the sea some months afterwards, and the tale goes that the phantom coach finishes its nocturnal journey in the waves of St Andrews Bay.”

“Whose coach is it?” asked all that were in the room.

“I cannot say; some say Bethune, others Sharpe, and others Hackston; I do not know who is supposed to be the figure inside, unless it is his Satanic Majesty himself. At all events, it seems a certain fact that a phantom coach has been seen from time to time on the roads round St Andrews. I have never seen any of these things myself.”

“Well,” said Carson, “that awful coach does appear; it appeared to me, and, doubtless, in the course of time will appear to many others. It bodes no one any good, and I pity with all my heart anyone who meets it. Beware of those roads late at night, or, like me, you may some day to your injury meet that ghastly, uncanny, old phantom coach. If so, you will remember it to your dying day.”

“Curious thing that about seeing the coach and the bird at the same time, and in two places so far apart,” murmured the golfing Johnny, “and then Carson’s brother dying too.”

“I’d sooner see the bird than the coach,” said one.

“Guess I’d rather not see either of them,” said an American present, “glad we have no phantom coaches in Yankeeland.”

The Veiled Nun of St Leonards.

Curiously enough, although I have been in many old haunted castles and churches (at the exactly correct hour, viz., midnight) in Scotland, England, Wales, and the Rhine country, yet I have never been able to either see or hear a ghost of any sort. The only thing of the kind I ever saw was an accidental meeting with the far-famed “Spring-heeled Jack” in a dark lane at Helensburgh. It was many years ago, and as I was then very small and he was of immense proportions, the meeting was distinctly unpleasant for me.

Now, from legends we learn that St Andrews is possessed of a prodigious number of supernatural appearances of different kinds, sizes, and shapes—most of them of an awe-inspiring and blood curdling type. In fact, so numerous are they—80 in number they seem to be—that there is really no room for any modern aspirants who may want a quiet place to appear and turn people’s hair white. It might be well to mention a few of them before telling the tale of “The Veiled Nun of St Leonards Church Avenue.”

We will put aside ordinary banshees and things that can only be heard. Well, there is the celebrated Phantom Coach that Willie Carson told us of. It has been heard and seen by many. There is also a white lady that used to haunt the Abbey Road, the ghost of St Rule’s Tower, the Haunted Tower ghost, the Blackfriars ghost, the wraith of Hackston of Rathillet, the spectre of the old Castle, the Dancing Skeletons, the smothered Piper Lad, the Phantom Bloodhound, the Priory Ghost, and many, many more. The Nun of St Leonards is as curious and interesting as any of them, though a bit weird and gruesome. In the time of charming Mary Stuart, our white Queen, there lived in the old South Street a very lovely lady belonging to a very old Scottish family, and her beauty and wit brought many admirers to claim her hand, but with little or no success. She waved them all away. At last she became affianced to a fine and brave young fellow who came from the East Lothian country, and for some months all went merrily as a marriage bell, but at last clouds overspread the rosy horizon. She resolved that she would never become an earthly bride, but would take the veil and become a bride of Holy Church—a nun, in point of fact. When her lover heard that she had left home and entered a house of Holy Sisters, he at once announced his intention of hastening to St Andrews, seizing her, and marrying her at once. In this project it would seem the young lady’s parents were in perfect agreement with the devoted youth. He did hasten to St Andrews almost immediately, and there received a terrible shock. On meeting this once lovely and loved maiden, he discovered that she had actually done what she had written and threatened to do. Sooner than be an earthly bride she had mutilated her face by slitting her nostrils; she had cut off her eyelids and both her top and bottom lips, and had branded her fair cheeks with cruel hot irons.

The poor youth, on seeing her famous beauty thus destroyed, fled to Edinburgh, where he committed suicide, and she, after becoming a nun, died from grief and remorse. That all happened nearly 400 years ago; but her spirit with the terribly marred and mutilated face still wanders o’ nights in the peaceful little avenue to old St Leonards iron kirk gate down the Pends Road. She is all dressed in black, with a long black veil over the once lovely face, and carries a lantern in her hand. Should any bold visitor to that avenue meet her, she slowly sweeps her face veil aside, raises the lantern to her scarred face, and discloses those awful features to his horrified gaze. Here is a curious thing that I know happened there a few years ago.

I knew a young fellow here who was reading up theology and Church canon law. I also knew a great friend of his, an old Cambridge man. The former I will call Wilson, and the latter Talbot, as I do not want to give the exact names. Well, Wilson had invited Talbot up to St Andrews for a month of golf, and he arrived here on a Christmas day. He came to my rooms for about ten minutes, and I never saw any one merrier and brighter and full of old days at Cambridge. Then he hurried off to see the Links and the Club. Late that evening Wilson rushed in. “Come along quick and see Talbot; he’s awfully ill, and I don’t know what’s up a bit.” I went off and found Talbot in his lodgings with a doctor in attendance, and he certainly looked dangerously ill, and seemed perfectly dazed. Wilson told me that he had to go to see some people on business that evening down by the harbour, and that he took Talbot with him down the Pends Road. It was a fine night, and Talbot said he would walk about the road and enjoy a cigar till his friend’s return. In about half-an-hour Wilson returned up the Pends Road, but could see Talbot nowhere in sight. After hunting about for a long time, he found him leaning against the third or fourth tree up the little avenue to St Leonards kirk gate.

He went up to him, when Talbot turned a horrified face towards him, saying, “Oh, my God, have you come to me again?” and fell down in a fit or a swoon. He got some passers-by to help to take poor Talbot to his rooms. Then he came round for me. We sat up with him in wonder and amazement; and, briefly, this is what he told us. After walking up and down the Pends Road, he thought he would take a survey of the little avenue, when at the end he saw a light approaching him, and he turned back to meet it. Thinking it was a policeman, he wished him “Good evening,” but got no reply. On approaching nearer he saw it to be a veiled female with a lantern. Getting quite close, she stopped in front of him, drew aside her long veil, and held up the lantern towards him. “My God,” said Talbot, “I can never forget or describe that terrible, fearful face. I felt choked, and I fell like a log at her feet. I remember no more till I found myself in these rooms, and you two fellows sitting beside me. I leave this place to-morrow”—and he did by the first train. His state of panic was terrible to see. Neither Wilson nor Talbot had ever heard the tale of the awful apparition of the St Leonards nun, and I had almost forgotten the existence of the strange story till so curiously reminded of it. I never saw Talbot again, but I had a letter from him a year after written from Rhienfells, telling me that on Christmas day he had had another vision, dream, or whatever it was, of the same awful spectre. About a year later I read in a paper that poor old Talbot had died on Christmas night at Rosario of heart failure. I often wonder if the dear old chap had had another visit from the terrible Veiled Nun of St Leonards Avenue.

The Monk of St Rule’s Tower.

Some years ago I was perfectly surrounded with crowds of bonny children in the St Albans Holborn district of London. I fancy they belonged to some guild or other, and they enacted the part of imps, fairies, statues, &c., in various pantomimes in neighbouring theatres.

I had been invited there to amuse the kiddies with songs and imitations, and now they were all shrieking and yelling at the top of their voices for a ghost story. “It’s getting near Christmas,” they all shouted, “and we all want to hear about ghosts, real creepy ghosts.” I pointed out the fact that most ghost stories were bunkum, and that such tales were very apt to keep wee laddies and lassies awake at night; but, bless you, they wouldn’t listen to that one bit. They wanted ghosts, and ghosts they would have.

Well, in about an hour I had yarned off most of my best bogey stories. I had used up most of my tales regarding Scottish, English, and Continental Castles, and the banshees, water kelpies, wraiths, &c., connected therewith; but still those children, like Oliver Twist, demanded more. I really was fairly stumped, when, all of a sudden, my mind flew back to 1875, when a strange story was told me by Captain Chester in the Coursal grounds at beautiful Baden-Baden. I first fell in with this dear old warrior in Rome, and we became firm friends, and travelled together for many cheery weeks. He told me his queer tale in the very strongest of military language, which I must omit. The language would be suitable to use in bunkers, but not on paper. It was a sultry day. So were his remarks.

It would seem that many years before, he had visited Scotland and England to try and see a ghost or two. He had been to Cumnor Hurst in order to investigate the appearances of ill-fated Amy Robsart. He went to Rainham Hall to interview the famous Brown Lady, and he journeyed to Hampton Court to hear the Shrieking Ghost, and also went to Church Strelton to see if he could fix the ghost at the Copper Hole. In Scotland he followed the scent of various ghosts, and finally landed in St Andrews.

“By Jove, sir,” he said, “that’s the place for ghosts. Every blessed corner is full of them—bang full. Look at those fellows in the Castle dungeons, and Beaton and Sharpe and the men that got hanged and burned, and the old dev⸺ I mean witches. I saw my ghost there. Years and years ago I took an old house in St Andrews, which was a small place then. Very little golf was played, and there was very little to do. But, gad, sir, the ghosts were thick, and the quaint old bodies in the town were full of them. They could spin yarns for hours about phantom coaches, death knells, corpse candles, people going about in winding sheets, phantom hearses, and Lord knows what else. I loved it, it took me quite back to the middle ages.”

So I told these children Captain Chester’s tale, as nearly as possible in his own words, minus the forcible epithets. I managed to hit off his voice and manner, and this in particular seemed to amuse the bairns. “Egad, sir,” he said, “it was a curious time. Of all the tales I heard, the one that pleased and fascinated me most was the legend of the monk that looks over St Regulus’s Tower on moonlight nights. I went thither every night, and constantly fancied I saw a figure peering over the edge, but was not certain. Then I got hold of a very old man, who related to me the old legend. It seems that years ago there was a good Prior of St Andrews named Robert de Montrose. He ruled well, gently, and wisely, but among the monks there was one who was always in hot water, and whom Prior Robert had often to haul over the coals. He played practical jokes, often absented himself from the daily and nightly offices of Holy Kirk, and otherwise upset the rules and discipline. Finally, when Earl Douglas and his retinue came to St Andrews to present to the Cathedral a costly statue, long known as the Douglas Lady, this monk made desperate love to one of the waiting women of Lady Douglas. For this he was imprisoned in the Priory Dungeon for some days. It was the custom of Robert de Montrose almost every fine night to ascend the tower of St Rule and admire the view. The summit was reached in those days by means of ladders and wooden landings—not, as it is now, by a stair. In those days, too, the apse and part of the nave were still standing, and the summit of the solemn old tower was crowned by a small spire. One evening just before Yuletide, when the Prior, as usual, was on the top of the tower, the contumacious monk slyly followed him up the ladders, stabbed him in the back with a small dagger, and flung him over the north side of the old tower.”

“I thought, Captain Chester,” I said, “that the murder took place on the Dormitory stairs.”

“Gad, Zooks, and Oddbodkins, sir, I am telling you what I was told, and what I can prove, sir.”

“All right,” I replied, “please fire away.”

“Well,” continued Chester, “they told me the Prior had often been seen since peeping over the tower, and at times he was seen to fall, as he did years ago, from the summit. By the bye, his assassin was starved to death and buried in some old midden. One moonlight night as my brother and I were standing on the Kirkhill, to our horror and amazement we saw a figure appear suddenly on the top of the tower, leap on to the parapet, and deliberately jump over. Zounds, sir, my blood ran cold.”

“We did not hesitate long, but jumped the low wall of the Cathedral. It was easily done in those days, and we were young and active, and hurried to the grim old tower. Just as we neared it, a monk passed us in the Augustinian habit, his cowl was thrown back, and for just one second we had a view of his pallid, handsome face and keen penetrating eyes. Then he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. We were alone in the moonlight, nothing stirring.”

“That is very odd,” I said.

“Zooks! sir, I have odder things still to tell you. We went home to the old house, had supper, and retired to bed thoughtfully. I woke about 2 a.m. The blinds were up and it was as clear as day with the moonlight. Imagine my blank astonishment when I clearly perceived, leaning up against the mantelpiece, the pallid monk I had seen a few hours before near the Square Tower. He leaned on his elbow and was gazing intently at me, while in his hand he held some object that had a blue glitter in the moonbeams.

“He smiled. ‘Fear not, brother,’ he said, ‘I am Prior Robert of Montrose who quitted this earth many years syne, and of whom you have been talking and thinking so much of late days. I saw you to-night in our cruelly ruined Abbey Kirk. Alas! alas! but I come from ayont the distant hills and have far to go to-night.’

“‘What do you want, Holy Father?’ I said, ‘and what of your murder?’

“‘That is forgiven and forgotten long syne,’ he said, ‘and I love to revisit, at times, my old haunts, and so does he. You have in your regiment, methinks, one named Montrose, a scion of our family.’

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know Bob Montrose well.’

“‘See you this dagger I hold,’ said Prior Robert, ‘it was with this I lost my life on this earth many years syne on the tower of blessed St Rule. They buried it with me in my stone kist; I will leave it here with you to give to my kinsman, for it will prove of use to him e’er he pass hence—mark my words.’

“He raised his hand as in act of blessing, and melted away. I fell back in a sleep or in a faint. When I woke the morning sun was streaming into my bedroom. At first I thought I had eaten too much supper and had a nightmare, but there on the table by my bed lay an old dagger of curious workmanship—the dagger that slew the Prior years and years ago. I faithfully fulfilled my vow, and my friend, Major Bob Montrose, has now got his monkish ancestor’s dagger.”

“That’s all Captain Chester told me, dear children. Goodbye, don’t forget me, and do not forget old St Andrews Ghosts, the Tower of St Rule, and the Spectre of Prior Robert of Montrose.”

Then a modern hansom whirled me away to King’s Cross.

Related by Captain Chester.

In my travels I have met many very extraordinary and remarkable people with hobbies and fads of various kinds, but I never met a man of such curious personality as this old friend of mine, Captain Chester. All his methods and ideas were purely original. Everyone has some hobby; his hobby was ghost and spook-hunting.

We were sitting one lovely September evening in the gardens of one of the hotels at Bonn, which stretched down to the river Rhine, listening to the band and watching the great rafts coming down the river from the Black Forest.

“By Jove, sir,” said the old man, “I have shot big game in the Rockies, and hunted tigers and all that sort of thing; but, zooks! sir, I prefer hunting ghosts any day. That Robert de Montrose was the first I saw. There are shoals of these shades about, a perfect army of them everywhere, especially in St Andrews. Gad, sir, you should hear the banshees shrieking at night in the Irish bogs. I don’t believe in your infernal sea serpents, but I’ve seen water kelpies in the Scottish and American lakes.”

I told him I had never heard a banshee or seen a water kelpie.

“Very likely, sir, very probable. Everyone can’t see and hear these things. I can.”

I told him I had never seen a disembodied spirit, and didn’t want to.

“Gad, zooks! sir, I consider disinspirited bodies far worse. They are quite common. I allude to human bodies that have lost their spirits or souls, and yet go about among us. Zounds! sir, my cousin is one of them.

“Ah,” he continued, “detached personality is a curious thing. I can detach my personality, can you?”

“Most certainly not,” I said, “what the deuce do you mean?”

“Mean,” he said, “I mean my spirit can float out of my body at will. My spirit becomes a sort of mental balloon. I can then defy destiny.”

“How in thunder do you manage to do it anyway?”

“By practice, sir, of course. When my spirit floats out of my body, I can see my own old body sitting in my armchair and an ugly old wreck of a body it is. It is bad for one, I admit; it is very weakening. Another thing may happen; another wandering spirit may suddenly take possession of one’s body, and then one’s own spirit can’t get back again, and it becomes a wandering spirit, and is always trying to force itself into other people’s bodies. Then one’s spirit gets into a mental bunker, you see.”

“I don’t see a bit. It is most unpleasant. Tell me about ghosts you have seen, and about that dagger you gave Major Montrose.”

“Oh! so then you are not interested in eliminated personality?”

“Not a bit,” I said, “I don’t know what it is. Tell me about that dagger for a change.”

“Oh! ah! Well, the dagger Robert of Montrose gave me proved of great use to my old friend, Bob Montrose, on many occasions. It had a wonderful power of its own. Once he got into a broil with a lot of Spanish fellows one night, and as he was unarmed at the time he was in a remarkably tight corner. Suddenly something slipped into his hand, and, by Jove, sir, it was the dagger, and that dagger saved his life. Another time he found himself in an American train with a raving lunatic, and if it had not been for the protecting dagger he’d have been torn limb from limb. After that he took it everywhere with him.”

“Where is it now?”

“Well, there’s an odd thing if you like. Bob died in the Isle of France, where Paul and Virginia used to be. He was killed by a fall, and is buried there. He left the dagger to me in his will, but no human eyes have ever seen that dagger since his death. It may have been stolen, or it may have gone back to where it came from into Robert of Montrose’s stone kist in the old Chapter-House at St Andrews Cathedral. Probably its usefulness was at an end, and it was needed no more. Bob told me one queer thing about that dagger. Once a year near Christmastide (the dagger hung on the wall of his bedroom) it used to exude a thick reddish fluid like blood, which used to cover the blade in large drops, and it remained so for several hours—and, again, sometimes at night it used to shine with a bright light of its own.”

“That is indeed wonderful,” I said, lighting another cheroot, “but tell me more about the St Andrews bogles. Astral bodies, dual personality, and things of that kind depress me a bit.”