 Part 1 of Chapter 3 of Animal Ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Animal Ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell. Part 1 Chapter 3. Horses and the Unknown. As in my chapters on Cats and Dogs, I will preface this chapter on horses with instances of alleged haunted localities. I take my first case from Mr. W. T. Steed's Real Ghost Stories, published in 1891. It is called A Weird Story from the Indian Hills, and Mr. Steed preludes it thus. The tale is told by General Barter, C. B. of Currie's Town, White Gate Company Court. At the time he witnessed the spectral calvacade, he was living on the hills in India, and when one evening he was returning home, he caught sight of a rider and attendants coming towards him. The rest of the story, given in the general's own words, is as follows. At this time the two dogs came, and, crouching at my side, gave low, frightened wimpers. The moon was at the full, a tropical moon, so bright that you could see to read a newspaper by its light, and, I saw the party before me advance as plainly as if it were noonday. They were above me, some eight or ten feet on the bridal road, the earth thrown down from which sloped to within a pace or two of my feet. On the party came, until almost in front of me, and now I had better describe them. The rider was in full dinner dress, with white waistcoat, and wearing a tall chimney pot hat, and he sat a powerful hill pony, dark brown with mane and tail, in a listless sort of way, the reins hanging loosely from both hands. A sace led the pony on each side, but their faces I could not see, the one next to me having his back to me, and the one farthest off being hidden by the pony's head. Each held the bridal close by the bit, the man next to me with his right, and the other with his left hand, and the hands were on the thighs of the rider, as if to steady him in his seat. As they approached, I, knowing they could not get to any place other than my own, called out in Hindustani, Qwane, who is it? There was no answer, and on they came, until right in front of me, when I said in English, Hello, what the devil do you want here? Instantly the group came to a halt, the rider gathering the bridal reins up in both hands, turned his face, which had hitherto been looking away from me, towards me, and looked down upon me. The group was still, as in a tableau, with the bright moon shining upon it, and I at once recognized the rider as Lieutenant B, whom I had formerly known. The face, however, was different from what it used to be. In the place of being clean-shaven, as when I used to know it, it was now surrounded by a fringe, what used to be known as a Newgate fringe, and it was the face of a dead man, the ghastly waxen pallor of it brought out more distinctly in the moonlight by the dark fringe of hair by which it wasn't circled. The body, too, was much stouter than when I had known it in life. I marked this in a moment, and then resolved to lay hold of the thing, whatever it might be. I dashed up the bank, and the earth, which had been thrown on the side, giving under my feet, I fell forward up the bank on my hands, recovering myself instantly. I gained the road, and stood in the exact spot where the group had been, but which was now vacant. There was not the trace of anything. It was impossible for them to go on. The road stopped at a precipice, about twenty yards further on, and it was impossible to turn and go back in a second. All this flashed through my mind, and I then ran along the road for about one hundred yards, along which they had come, until I had to stop for want of breath. But there was no trace of anything, and not a sound to be heard. I then returned home, where I found my dogs, who, on all other occasions, my most faithful companions, had not come with me along the road. Next morning I went up to Dee, who belonged to the same regiment as Bee, and gradually induced him to talk of him. I said how very stout he had become lately, and what possessed him to allow his beard to grow with that horrid fringe. Dee replied, yes, he became very bloated before his death. You know, he led a very fast life, and while on the sick list he allowed the French to grow, in spite of all that we could say to him. And I believe he was buried with it. I asked him where he got the pony I had seen, describing it minutely. Why, said Dee, how do you know anything about all this? You hadn't seen Bee for two or three years, and the pony you never saw. He bought him at Peshawar, and killed him one day, riding in his reckless fashion down the hill to Triti. I then told him what I had seen the night before. Once when the galloping sound was very distinct, I rushed to the door of my house. There I found my Hindu bearer, standing with a tatty in his hand. I asked him what he was there for. He said that there came a sound of riding down the hill, and passed him like a typhoon, and went round the corner of the house, and he was determined to wailay it whatever it was. In commenting on the case, Mr. Steed remarks, that such a story as this gravely told by a British general in the present day, helps us to understand how our ancestors came to believe in the wonderful story of Herney the Hunter. I do not know about Herney the Hunter, but it is at all events, good testimony, that horses, as well as men, have spirits. For one of the ghosts the general saw was, undoubtedly, that of the pony murdered by bee. Why it was still ridden by the phantom of its former master is another question. The next case I narrate is also taken from Mr. Steed's same work. It was sent him by one of the leading townsmen of Cowes, in the Isle of White, and thus runs, on a fine evening in April, 1859, the rider was riding with a friend on a country road. Twilight was closing down on us, when after a silence of some minutes my friend suddenly exclaimed, No man knows me better than you do, Jay. Do you think I am a nervous, easily frightened sort of man? Far from it, said I, among all the men I know in the wild country I have lived and worked in, I know none more fearless, or of more unhesitating nerve. Well, said he, I think I am that too, and though I have traveled these roads all sorts of hours, summer and winter, for twenty years I never met anything to startle me, or that I could not account for, until last Monday evening. About this time it was, riding old fan, a chestnut mare, here on this cross, a four-way cross, road, and on my near side was a man on a gray horse, coming from this left-hand road. I had to pull my off-rain to give myself room to pass ahead of him. He was coming at a right angle to me. As I passed the head of the horse, I called out, good night. Hearing no reply, I turned in my saddle to the off-side to see whether he appeared to be as sleep as he rode, but to my surprise I saw neither man nor horse. So sure was I that I had seen such that I wheeled old fan round and rode back to the middle of the cross, and on neither of the four roads could I see a man or horse, though there was light enough to see two hundred or three hundred yards, as we can now. Well, I then rode over to that gate, a gate at one corner opening into a grass field, thinking he might have gone that way. Looking down by each hedge, I could see nothing of my man and horse. And then, and not until then, I felt myself thrill and start with a shuttering sense that I had seen something uncanny. And jove I put the mare down this hill we are on now at her very best pace. But the strangest part of my story is to come, said he, continuing. After I had done my business at the farmhouse here, at the foot of this hill, I told the old farmer and his wife what I had seen, as I have now told you. The old man said, For many years I have known the M on this road, and you have never seen the light before on that cross? Seen what before? I said, Why, a man in light-colored clothes on a gray horse, said he. No, never, said I, but I swear I have this evening. The farmer asked, Had I never heard of what happened to the miller of L, mills about forty years ago? No, never a word, I told him. Well, he said, About forty years ago this miller, returning from market, was waylaid and murdered on that cross-road, pockets rifled of money and watch. The horse ran home about a mile away. Two serving men set out with lanterns and found their master dead. He was dressed, as millers often do in this part of the country, in light-colored clothes, and the horse was a gray horse. The murderers were never found. These are facts, continued the farmer. I took this farm soon after it all happened, and, though I have known all this, and have passed over that cross several thousands of times, I never knew anything unusual there myself. But there have been a number of people who tell the same story you have told mothering me, M, and describe the appearance as you have done to us tonight. Mr. Steed goes on to add, For evenings after all this occurred, my friend related it to me as we were riding along the same road. He continued to pass there many times every year for ten years, but never a day saw anything of that sort. My next case, a reproduction of a letter in the occult review of September 1906, reads thus, A Phantom Horse and Rider, Mrs. Gaskin Anderson's story. The following story is, I think, very remarkable, and I give it exactly as it was told to me and written down at the time. A number of members of a gentleman's club were talking and discussing, amongst other subjects, the possibility of there being a future state for animals. One of the members said, I firmly believe there is. In my early youth I had a practice as a medical man in one of the Midland counties. One of my patients was a very wealthy man who owned large tracts of land and had a stud composed entirely of bay horses with black points. This was a hobby of his, and he would never have any others. One day a messenger came summoning me to Mr. L. as he had just met with a very bad accident and was on the point of death. I mounted my horse and started off without delay. As I was riding through the front gates to the house, I heard a shot, and to my amazement the very man I was going to visit rode past at a furious pace, riding a wretched looking chestnut with one white forefoot and a white star on its forehead. Alived at the house, the butler said, He has gone, sir. They had to shoot the horse. You would hear the shot, and at the same moment my master died. He had had this horse sent on approval. Whilst riding it, it backed over a precipice, injuring Mr. L. fatally, and on being taken to the stables, it was found necessary to shoot it. Alpha. The next case I append, I published it in a weekly journal some years ago, was related to me by a captain bow clerk. The White Horse of Eastover When I came down to breakfast one morning, I found amongst several letters awaiting me, one from Colonel Onslow, the commanding officer of my regiment, when I first joined. He had always been rather partial to me, and the friendship between us continued after his retirement. I heard from him regularly at more or less prolonged intervals, and either at Christmas or Easter invariably received an invitation to spend a few days with him. On this occasion, he was most anxious that I should accept. Do come to us for Easter, he wrote, I am sure this place will interest you. It is haunted. The cunning fellow. He knew I was very keen on psychical research work, and would go almost anywhere on the bare chance of seeing a ghost. At that time, I was quite open-minded. I had arrived at no definite conclusion as to the existence or non-existence of ghosts. But to tell the truth, I doubted very much if the Colonel's word in these circumstances could be relied upon. I had grave suspicions that this haunting was but an invention for the purpose of getting me to Eastover. However, as it was just possible that I might be mistaken that there really was a ghost, and as I had not seen Colonel Onslow for a long time, and indulged in feelings of the warmest regard for both him and his wife, I resolved to go. Accordingly, I set out early in the afternoon of the Good Friday. The weather, which had been muggy in London, grew colder and colder the further we advanced along the line, and by the time we reached Eastover there was every prospect of a storm. As I expected, a closed carriage had been sent to meet me. For the Colonel, carrying conservatism, with more conservatism than since, perhaps, to a fine point cherished the deep root aversion to innovations of any sort, and consequently of horrid motors. His house, Eastover Hall, is three miles from the station and lies at the foot of a steep spine of the children's. The grounds of Eastover Hall were extensive, but in the ordinary sense, far from beautiful. To me, however, they were more than beautiful. There was a grandeur in them, a grandeur that appealed to me far more than mere beauty, the grandeur of desolation, the grandeur of the unknown. As we passed through the massive iron gates of the lodge, I looked upon countless acres of withered undulating grass, upon a few rank sedges, upon a score or so of decayed trees, upon a house huge, bare, gray and massive, upon bleak walls, upon vacant, eye-like windows, upon crude scenic inhospitality, the very magnitude of which overpowered me. I have said it was cold, but there hung over the estate of Eastover an iciness that brought with it a quickening, a sickening of the heart, and a dreariness that, whilst being depressing in the extreme, was, with all, sublime, sublime and mysterious, mysterious and insoluble. A thousand fancies swarmed through my mind, yet I could grapple with none, and I was loth to acknowledge that, although there are combinations of very simple, material objects which might have had the power of affecting me thus, yet any attempt to analyze that power was beyond, far beyond, my mental capability. The house, though old, and its black oak panelings, silent staircases, dark corridors, and general air of gloom were certainly suggestive of ghosts, did not affect me in the same degree. The fear it inspired was the ordinary fear, inspired by the ordinary, super-visical. But the fear I felt in the grounds was a fear created by something out of the way, something far more bizarre than a mere phantom of the dead. The Colonel asked me if I had experienced any unusual sensations the moment I entered the house, and I told him, yes, nearly everyone does, he replied, and yet, so far as I know, no one has ever seen anything. The noises we hear all around the house have lately become more frequent. I won't describe them. I want to learn your unbiased opinion of them first. We then had tea, and whilst the rest, there was a large house party indulged in music and cards, the Colonel and I had a delightful chat about old times. I went to bed in the firm resolution of keeping awake, till at least two, but I was very tired, and the excessive cold had made me extremely sleepy. Consequently, despite my heroic efforts, I gradually dozed off and knew no more till it was broad daylight, and the butler entered my room with a cup of tea. When I came down to breakfast, I found everyone in the best of spirits. The on-slows are great hands at original entertainments, and the announcement that there would be a masked ball that evening was received with tremendous enthusiasm. Tonight we dance, tomorrow we feed on Easter eggs and fancy cakes. One of the guests, laughingly, whispered, what a nicely ordered program. I hear, too, we are to have a real old-fashioned Easter day, heaving and lifting and stool ball. Hey, God, the Colonel deserves some knighthood. When after breakfast, there was a general stampede to Seton and dintable to buy gifts. For in that respect again, the on-slows stuck to old customs, and there was generally an interchange of presents on Easter morning. My purchases made, I joined one or two of the house party at lunch in Seton, cycled back alone to Eastover in time for tea, and at five o'clock commenced my first explorations of the grounds. The sky, having become clouded, my progress was somewhat slow. I did the park first, and I had not gone very far before I detected the same presence I had so acutely felt at the previous afternoon. Like the scent of a wild beast, it had a certain defined track which I followed astutely, eventually coming to a full stop in front of a wall of rock. I then perceived by the aid of a few fitful rays of suppressed light, which at intervals struggled successfully through a black bank of clouds, the yawning mouth of a big cavern from the roof of which hung innumerable stalactites. I now suddenly realized that I was in a very lonely, isolated spot, and became immeasurably perturbed. The unknown something in the atmosphere which had inspired me with so much fear was here conglomerated. It was no longer the mere essence. It was the whole thing. The whole thing. But what was that thing? A hideous fascination made me keep my gaze riveted on the gaping hole opposite me. At first I could make out nothing, nothing but jagged walls and roof and empty darkness. Then there suddenly appeared in the very innermost recesses of the cave a faint glow of crimson light, which grew and grew until, with startling abruptness, it resolved itself into two huge eyes, red and menacing. The sight was so unexpected, and by reason of its intent, malignity so appalling that I was simply dumbfounded, I could do nothing but stare at the thing, paralyzed and speechless. I made a desperate effort to get back my self-possession. I strove with all my might to reason with myself, to assure myself that this was the supreme moment of my life. The moment I had so long and earnestly desired, but it was in vain. I was terrified, helplessly, hopelessly terrified. The eyes moved. They drew nearer and nearer to me, and as they did so, they became more and more hostile. I opened my mouth to shout for help. I could feel my lungs bursting under the tension. Not a sound came. And then, then, as the eyes closed on me, I could feel the cold, clammy weight pressing me down, there rang out loud and clear, in the keen and cutting air of the spring evening, a whole choir of voices, the village choral society. I am not particularly fond of music, certainly not of village music, however well trained it may be, but I can honestly affirm that, at that moment, no sounds could have been more welcome to me than those old folk songs piped by the rustics. For the instant they commenced, the spell that so closely held me prisoner was broken. My faculties returned, and reeling back out of the clutches of the hateful thing, I joyfully turned and fled. I related my adventure to the Colonel, and he told me that the cave was generally deemed to be the most haunted spot in the grounds, and that no one cared to venture there alone after dark. I have myself many times visited the cave at night, in the company of others, he said, and we have invariably experienced sensations of the utmost horror and repulsion, though we have seen nothing, it must be a double. I thought so too, and exclaimed with some vehemence that the proper course for him to pursue was to have the cave filled in or blasted. That night I awoke at about one o'clock, with the feeling very strong on me that something was prowling about under my window. For some time I fought against the impulse to get out of bed and look, but at last I yielded. It was bright moonlight, every obstacle in the grounds stood out with wonderful clearness, and directly beneath the window, peering up at me, were the eyes red, lurid, satanical. A dog barked, and they vanished. I did not sleep again that night, not until the daylight broke, when I had barely shut my eyes before I was aroused by decidedly material bangings on the doors and hyperboisterous Easter greetings. After breakfast a few of the party went to church, a few into the nursery to romp with the children, whilst the rest dispersed in different directions. That luncheon all met again, and there was much merrymaking over the tansy cakes, very foolish no doubt, but to me at least very delightful, and perhaps a wise practice at times, even for the most prosaic. In the afternoon the Colonel took me for a drive to a charmingly picturesque village in the Chilterns, whence we did not set out on our way back till it was twilight. The Colonel was a good whip, and the horse, though young and rather high spirited, was, he said, very dependable on the whole, and had never caused him any trouble. We spun along at a brisk trot, the last village separating us from the hall was past, and we were on a high eminence, almost within sight of home, when a startling change in the atmosphere suddenly became apparent. It turned icy cold. I made some sort of comment to the Colonel, and as I did so, the horse shied. Helloa, I exclaimed, does she often do this? No, not often, only when we are on this road, about this time, was the grim rejoinder. Keep your eyes open, and sit tight. We were now amid scenery of the same desolate type that had so impressed me the day of my arrival, gaunt, bare in hills, wild, uncultivated levels, somber valleys, inhabited only by grotesque, enigmatic shadows that came from heaven knows where, and hemmed us in on all sides. A large quarry, half full of water, and partly overgrown with brambles riveted my attention, and as I gazed, fixedly at it, I saw, or fancied I saw, the shape of something large and white, vividly white, rise from the bottom. The glimpse I caught of it was, however, only momentary, for we were moving along at a great pace, and I had hardly seen the last of it before the quarry was left behind, and we were descending a long, gradual, declivity. There was but little wind, but the cold was benumbing. Neither of us spoke, and the silence was unbroken, saved by the monotonous patter-patter of the horse's hooves on the dark road. We were, I should say, about half way down the hill, when away in our rear, from the direction of the quarry, came a loud, protracted ney. I had once looked round, and saw standing on the crest of the eminence we had just quitted, and most vividly outlined against the enveloping darkness a gigantic horse, white and luminous. At that moment our own mare took fright. We were abruptly swung forward, and, had I not, mindful of the Colonel's warning, been sitting tight, I should undoubtedly have been thrown out. We dashed downhill at a terrific rate, our mare mad with terror, and on peering over my shoulder I saw to my horror the white steed tearing along not fifty yards behind us. I was now able to get a vivid impression of the monstrous beast. Although the night was dark, a strong, lurid glow which seemed to emanate from all over it enabled me to see distinctly its broad, muscular breast, its panting, steaming flanks, its long, graceful legs with their hairy fetlocks and shoeless, shining hooves. It's powerful, but arched back, its lofty colossal head with waving forelock and broad massive forehead, its snorting nostrils, its distended foaming jaws, its huge glistening teeth and its lips, wreathed in a savage grin. On and on it raced, its strides prodigious, its mighty mane rising and falling and blowing all around it an unrestrained confusion. A slip, a single slip, and we should be entirely at its mercy. Our own horse was now out of control. A series of violent plunges which nearly succeeded in unseating me had enabled her to get the check of the bit between her teeth so as to render it utterly useless. And she had then started off at a speed I can only liken to flying. Fortunately, we were now on a more or less level ground, and the road, every inch of which our horse knew, was smooth and broad. I glanced at the colonel convulsively clutching the reins. He was clinging to his seat for dear life, his hat gone. I wanted to speak, but I knew it was useless. The shrieking of the air as it roared past us, dead into all sounds. Once or twice I glanced over the side of the trap. The rapidity with which we were moving caused a hideous delusion. The ground appeared to be gliding from beneath us, and I experienced the sensation of resting on nothing. Despite our danger, however, from natural causes—a danger which, I knew, could not have been more acute—my fears were wholly of the super-physical. It was not the horror of being dashed to pieces, I dreaded. It was the horror of the phantom horse, of its sinister, hostile appearance, of its unknown powers. What would it do if it overtook us? With each successive breath I drew, I felt sure the fateful event, the long-anticipated crisis, had come. At last my expectations were realized. The teeth of the gigantic steed closed down on me, its nostrils hissed resistance out of me. I swerved, tottered, fell, and as I sank on the ground my senses left me. On coming to, I found myself in a propped-up position on the floor of a tiny room with someone pouring brandy down my throat. Happily, beyond a severe shock, I had sustained no injury, a sufficiently miraculous circumstance as the trap had come to grief in failing to clear the lodge gates, the horse had skinned its knees and the colonel had fractured his shoulder. Of the phantom horse, not a glimpse had been seen. Even the colonel, strange to relate, though he had managed to peep round, had not seen it. He had heard and felt a presence, that was all, and after listening to my experience, he owned, he was truly thankful, he was only clear audience. A gift like yours, he said, with more candor than kindness, is a curse, not a blessing. And now I have your corroboration, I might as well tell you, that we have long suspected the ghost to be a horse, and have attributed its hauntings to the fact that, some time ago, when exploring in the cave, several prehistoric remains of horses were found, one of which we kept, whilst we presented the others to a neighboring museum. I dare say there are heaps more. Undoubtedly there are, I said, but take my advice and leave them alone, re-enter the remains you have already unearthed, and thus put a stop to the hauntings. If you go on excavating, and keep the bones you find, the disturbances will and all probability increase, and the hauntings will become, not only many, but multi-form. Needless to say, the colonel carried out my injunctions to the letter, far from continuing his work of excavation, he lost no time in restoring the bones he had kept to their original resting place, after which, as I predicted, the hauntings ceased. This case, to me, is very satisfactory, as it testifies to what was unquestionably an actual phantasm of the dead, of a dead horse, albeit that horse was prehistoric, and such horses are, all the more likely to be earthbound, on account of their wild, untamed natures. Here is another account of a phantom horse taken from Mr. Steed's real ghost stories. It is written by an african der, who, in a letter to Mr. Steed, says, I am not a believer in ghosts, nor never was, but seeing you wanted a senses of them, I can't help giving you a remarkable experience of mine. It was some three summers back, and I was out with a party of boar hunters. We had crossed the northern boundary of the transveil, and were camped on the ridges of the Simbombo. I had been out from sunrise, and was returning about dusk, with the skin of a fine black ostrich thrown across the saddle in front of me. And the best spirits at my good luck. Making straight for camp, I had hardly entered a thick bush when I thought that I heard somebody behind me. Looking behind, I saw a man mounted on a white horse. You can imagine my surprise, for my horse was the only one in camp, and we were the only party in the country. Without considering, I quickened my pace into a canter, and, on doing so, my follower appeared to do the same. At this, I lost all confidence, and made a run for it, with my follower in hot pursuit, as it appeared to my imagination. And I did race for it. The skin went flying in about two minutes, and my rifle would have done the same had it not been strapped over my shoulders. This I kept up until I rode into camp right among the pals cooking the evening meal. The boars about the camp were quick in their inquiries as to my distressed condition, and regaining confidence I was putting them off as best I could, when the old boss, an old bower of some sixty-eight or seventy years, looking up from the fire said, the white horse, the Englishman has seen the white horse. This I denied, but to no purpose. And that night, round the campfire, I took the trouble to make the inquiries as to the antecedents of the white horse. And the old bower, after he had commanded silence, began. He said, The English are not brave but foolish. We beat them at Majuba some twenty-five seasons back. There was an Englishman here, like you. He had brought a horse with him, against our advice, to be killed with the fly, the same as yours will be in a day or two. And he, like you, would go where he was told not to go. And one day he went into a bush, that very bush you rode through tonight, and he shot seven elephants. And the next day he went in to fetch the ivory, and about night his horse came into camp riderless, and was dead from the fly before the sun went down. The Englishman is in that bush now. Anyway, he never came back, and now anybody who ventures into that bush is chased by the white horse. I wouldn't go into that bush for all the ivory in the land. The English are not brave, but foolish. We beat them at Majuba. Here he ran into a torrent of abuse of all Englishmen in general, and in particular. And I took the opportunity of rolling myself up in my blankets for the night, sleeping all the better for my adventure. Now, Mr. Steed, I don't believe in ghosts, but I was firmly convinced during that run of mine, and can vouch for the accuracy of it, not having heard a word of the Englishman or his white horse before my headlong return to camp that night. I shortly hoped to be near that bush again, but, like the old bower, I can say I wouldn't go into that bush again for all the ivory in the land. P.S. A few days after, we dropped across a troop of elephants without entering the fatal bush and managed to bag seven photographs of which I took, and shall be pleased to send for your inspection if desired. There can be very little doubt that the phantom the African Dursal was the actual spirit of a dead horse. And of Part 1 of Chapter 3. Part 2 of Chapter 3 of Animal Ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on a volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Part 2. Chapter 3 of Animal Ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell. Another experience of haunting by the same animal was told me by a Chelsea artist, who assured me it was absolutely true. I appended it as nearly as possible in his own words. Harold's of Death. It is many years ago, he began, since I came into my property, Heather Lee Hall, near Carlyle, Cumberland. It was left me by my great-uncle, General Winpole, whom I have never seen, but who made me his heir in preference to his other nephews, owing to my reputed likeness to an aunt, to whom he was greatly attached. Of course I was much envied, and I dare say a good many unkind things were said about me, but I did not care. Heather Lee Hall was mine, and I had as much right to it as anyone else. I came there alone. My two brothers, Dick and Hall, the one a soldier, and the other a sailor, were both away on foreign service, whilst Barrel, my one and only sister, was staying with her fiance's family and bath. Never shall I forget my first impressions. Depicts the day, in October afternoon, the air mellow, the leaves yellow, and the sun a golden red. Not a trace of clouds or wind anywhere. Being serene and still, a broad highway, a wood, a lodge in the midst of the wood, large iron gates, a broad carriage-drive planted on either side with lofty pines and elms whose gnarled and forked branches threw grotesque and not altogether pleasing shadows on the pale gravel. At the end of the avenue, at least a quarter of a mile long, wide expanses of soft velvety grass interspersed at regular intervals with plots of flowers, dalleas, daisies no longer in their first bloom, chrysanthemums, etc. Beyond the lawn, the house, and beyond that again, and on either side, big old-fashioned gardens of full of fruit, fruit of all kinds, some such as grapes and peaches, and monster greenhouses, and others, luscious pears, oranges, golden pippins, etc., in rich profusion in the open. The hole encompassed by a high and solid brick wall topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass. The house, which was built, or rather faced with split flints, and edged with buttressed and cut-gray stone, had a majestic but gloomy appearance. Its front, lofty and handsome, was somewhat cast-related in style. Two semicircular bows, or half-moons, placed at a suitable distance from each other, rising from the base to the summit of the edifice. These were pierced at every floor with rows of stone-mullioned windows rising to the height of four or five stories. The flat wall between had larger windows, lighting the great hall, gallery, and upper apartments. These windows were abundantly ornamented with stained glass, representing the arms, honors, and alms deeds of the Wimpole family. The towers, half included in the building, were completely circular within, and contained the winding stair of the mansion, and, who so ascended them, when the winter wind was blowing, seemed rising by a tornado to the clouds. Gateway between the towers was a heavy-stone porch, with a gothic gateway, surmounted by a battle-minted parapet, made gable fashion, the apex of which was garnished by a pair of dolphins, rampant and antagonistic, whose corkscrewed tails seemed contorted by the last agonies of rage convulsed. The porch doors, thrown open to receive me, led into a hall, wide, vaulted, and lofty, and decorated here and there with remnants of tapestry and grim portraits of the Wimples. One picture in particular riveted my attention. Hung in an obscure corner, where the light rarely penetrated, it represented the head and shoulders of a young man with a strikingly beautiful face. The features, small and regular, like those of a woman, the hair yellow and curly. It was the eyes that struck me most. They followed me everywhere I went with a persistency that was positively alarming. There was something in them I had never seen in canvas eyes before, something deeper and infinitely more intricate than could be produced by mere paint, something human and yet not human, friendly and yet not friendly, something baffling, ignomadical, haunting. I inquired of my deceased relative's aged housekeeper, Mrs. Grimstone, whom I had retained, whose portrait it was, and she replied with a scared look. Horace, youngest son of Sir Algernon Wimple, who died here in 1745. The face fascinates me, I said. Is there any history attached to it? Why, yes, sir, she responded, her eyes fixed on the floor, but the late master never liked referring to it. Is it as bad as that? I said, laughing. Tell me. Well, sir, she began. They do say, as how Sir Algernon, who was a thorough county squire, very fond of hunting and shooting and all sorts of manly exercises, never liked Mr. Horace, who was delicate and dandified, what the folk in those days used to style a macaroni. The climax came when Mr. Horace took up with the Jacobites. Sir Algernon would have nothing more to do with him then, and turned him adrift. One day there was a great commotion in the neighborhood. The government troops were hunting the place in search of rebels, and who should come galloping up the avenue with a couple of troopers in hot pursuit but Mr. Horace. The noise brought out Sir Algernon, and he was infuriated to think that his son was the cause of the disturbance, a disgraceful young cub, he called him. That despite Mr. Horace's entreaties for protection, he ran through him with his sword. It was a dreadful thing for a father to do, and Sir Algernon bitterly repented it. His wife, who had been devoted to Mr. Horace, left him, and at last, in a fit of despondency, he hanged himself. Out there, on one of the elms, lining the avenue, it is still standing. Ever since then, they do say that the wood is haunted, and that before the death of any member of the family, Mr. Horace is seen galloping along the old carriage-drive. Hmm, pleasant, I grunted, and how about the house, is it haunted too? I darescent say, she murmured, some will tell you it is, and some will tell you it isn't. In which category are you included? I asked. Well, she said, I have lived here happy and comfortable forty-five years, the day after tomorrow, and that speaks for itself, don't it? And with that, she hobbled off and showed me the way to the dining room. But a house it was. From the hall proceeded doorways and passages more than the ordinary memory could retain. Of these portals, one at each end conducted to the tower stairs, others to the reception rooms and to domestic offices. In the right wing, besides bedrooms galore, was a lofty and spacious picture gallery. In the left, a chapel, for the wimples were, formerly, Roman Catholics. The general fittings and furniture, both of the hall and the house in general, were substantial, venerable, and strongly corroborative of what Mrs. Grimstone hinted at. They suggested ghosts. The walls lined with black oak panels or dark hangings that fluttered mysteriously each time the wind blew were funereal indeed, and so high and narrow were the windows that little was to be discerned through them but crossbarred portions of the sky. One spot in particular appealed to my nerves, and that, a long vaulted stone passage leading from a morning room to the foot of the back staircase. Here the voice, and even the footsteps, echoed with a hollow, low response, and often when I have been hurrying along it, I never dared walk slowly, I have fancied, and maybe it was more than fancy, I have been pursued. Having passed, and from being merely used to my new environments, I grew to take a pride in them, to love them. I made the acquaintance of several of my neighbors, those I deemed the most desirable, and on returning from wintering abroad brought home a bride, a young Polish girl who added luster to the surroundings, and in no small degree helped to dissipate the gloom. Indeed had it not been for the picture in the hall, and for the twilight shadows and twilight footsteps in the stone passage, I should soon have ceased to think of ghosts. Ghosts, forsooth, went all around me, vibrated with sounds of girlish laughter, and the summer sun shines sparkling on the golden curls of my child-wife, saw itself reflected a million fold in the alluring depths of her azure eyes, in housing and days like these, who thinks of ghosts and death? And yet, it is in just such times as these that hell is nearest. There came a night in August when the air was so hot the sultry that I could scarcely breathe, and unable to bear the atmosphere of the house and the gardens any longer, I sought the coolness of the wood. Olga, my wife, did not accompany me, as she was suffering from a slight, thank God it was only slight, sunstroke. It was close on midnight, and there was a dead stillness abroad that seemed as if it must be universal, as if it enveloped the whole of nature. I tried to realize London to depict the strand in Piccadilly, a glow with artificial light, and reverberating with the role of countless traffic and the tread of millions of feet. I failed. The incongruity of such imaginings here, here amidst omnipotent silence, rendered such thoughts impossible. A leaf rustled, and its rustling sounded to my ears like the gentle closing of some giant door. A twig fell, and I turned sharply round, convinced I should see a pile of broken debris. I love all trees, but I love them best by day. To me it seems that night utterly metamorphizes them, brings out in them a subtler, darker side one would little suspect. Here in this oak, for instance, was an example. In the morning, one sees in it not but quiet dignity, venerable old age, benevolence, and by reason of the ample protection its branches afford from the sun, charity and philanthropy. Its leaves are bright, dainty, pretty. Its trunk suggests nothing but a cozy and soothing retreat for students and lovers. But now, see how different these great, spreading, gnarled branches are hands, claws, monstrous and menacing. Those leaves no longer bright, remind me of a hearse's plumes, their rustling of the rustling and switching of a pall or winding sheet. The trunk, black, sinuous, towering, is assuredly no peace of timber, but something pulpy, nothing intangible, something antagonistic, mystic, devilish. I turn from it and shudder. Then my mind reverts to the Elm, the Elm on which Sir Algernon hanged himself. I remember it is not more than twenty yards from where I stand. I stare down at the soil, at the clumps of crested dog's tail and stray blades of succulent Darnell. I force my attention on a toadstool, whose soft and lowly head gleams sickly white in the moonbeams. I glance from it to a sleeping, closed-capped dandelion, from it to a thistle, from it again to a late bush vetch, and then, willy-nilly, to the accursed Elm. My God, what a change! It wasn't like that when I passed it at noon. It was just an ordinary tree then. But now? Now? And what is that, that sinister bundle, suspended from one of its curling branches? A cold sweat bursts out on me. My knees tremble, my hair begins to rise on end. Swinging round, I am about to rush away, blindly rush away, hither, thither, anywhere, anywhere out of sight of that tree, and of all the hideous possibilities it promises to materialize for me. I have not taken five strides, however, before I am pulled sharply up by the sounds of horses' hooves. Of hooves on the hard gravel away in the distance, they speedily grow nearer. A horse is galloping, galloping towards me along the broad carriage-drive. Nearer, nearer, and nearer it comes. Who is it? What is it? My deadly nausea seizes me. I swerve, totter, reel, and am only prevented from falling by the timely interference of a pine. The concussion with its leviathan trunk clears my senses. All my faculties become wonderfully and painfully alert. I would give my very soul if it were not so, if I could but fall asleep or faint. The sound of the hooves is very much nearer now, so near indeed that I may see the man. Heaven grant it may be only a man after all any moment. Ah, my heart gives a great, sickly jerk. Something has shot into view. There, not fifty yards from me where the road curves and the break in the foliage overhead admits a great flood of moonlight, I recognize the thing at once. It's not a man, it's nothing human, it's the picture I know so well and dread so much. The portrait of Horace Wimpole that hangs in the main hall, and it's mounted on a cold black horse with wildly flying mane and foaming mouth, on and on they come, thud, thud, thud. The man is not dressed as a rider, but is wearing the costume in the picture, i.e. that of a macaroni, a nut, more fit for a lady seminary than a fine old English mansion. Something beside me rustles, rustles angrily, and I know I can feel it is the bundle on the branch, the ghastly, groaning, creaking, croaking caricature of Sir Algernon. The horseman comes up to me, our eyes meet, I am looking in those of a dead, of a long since dead man, my blood freezes, he flashes past me, thud, thud, thud, a bend in the road and he vanishes from sight, but I can still hear him, still hear the mad patter of his horse's hoofs as they bear him onward, lifeless, fleshless, weightless, to his ancient home, God pity the souls that know no rest. Now I got back to the house I hardly know, I believe it was with my eyes shut, and I am certain I ran all the way. About four o'clock the following afternoon I received a cable-gram from Malta. Intuition warned me to prepare for the worst. Its contents were unpleasantly short and pithy. Howl drowned at two o'clock this morning. Dick. Two years passed, again an August night, hot and oppressive as before, and again though surely against my will, my better judgment, if you like, I visited the wood, horse's hoofs just the same as before, the same galloping, the same figure, the same eyes, the same mad panic-stricken flight home, and early in the succeeding afternoon a similar cable-gram, this time from Sicily, Dick died at midnight, dysentery, Andrews. Jack Andrews was Dick's pal, his bosom friend, so once again the phantom rider had brought its grisly message, played its ghoulish role. My brothers were both dead now, and only barrel remained. Another year sped by, and the last night in October, a Monday, saw me impaled by a fascination I could not resist, once again in the wood. Up to a point everything happened as before, as the monotonous church clock struck twelve, from afar came the sound of hoofs, nearer, nearer, nearer, and then with startling abruptness, the rider shot into view. And now, mixed with the awful and describable terror the figure always conveyed with it, came a feeling of intense rage and indignation. Should barrel, barrel whom I loved next best to my wife, be torn from me even as Dick and Hal had been, no, ten thousand times no, sooner than that I would risk anything. A sudden inspiration, coming maybe from the whispering leaves or from the elm, or from the mysterious flickering moonbeams flashed through me. Could I not intercept the figures, drive them back? By doing so, something told me barrel might be saved. A terrible struggle at once took place within me, and it was only after the most desperate efforts that I, at length, succeeded in fighting back my terror and flung myself out into the middle of the drive. No words of mine can describe all I went through as I stood there anticipating the arrival of the phantoms. At length they came right up to me, and as with frantic resolution, I screwed up the courage to plant myself directly in their path and steered up into the rider's eyes. The huge steed halted, gave one shrill ney, and turning round galloped back again disappearing wither it had emerged. Two days afterwards, I received a letter from my brother-in-law. I have been having an awful time, he wrote. My darling barrel has been frightfully ill. On Monday night we gave up all hope of her recovery, but at twelve o'clock when the doctor bid us prepare for the end the most extraordinary thing happened. Turning over in bed she distinctly called out your name and rallied, and now thank God she is completely out of danger. The doctor says it is the most astonishing recovery he has ever known. That is twenty years ago, and I have not seen the phantom rider since, nor do I fancy he will appear again for when I look into the eyes of the picture in the hall they are no longer wandering but at rest. Perhaps one of the most interesting accounts of the phantasm of a horse in my possession is that recorded by C.E.G., a friend of my boyhood, writing to me from the United States some months ago. He says, knowing how interested you are in all cases of hauntings and in those relating to animal ghosts, especially, I am sending you an account of an experience that happens to my uncle, Mr. John Dale, about six months ago. He was returning to his home in Bishopstone near Helena, Montana, shortly after dark, and had arrived at a particularly lonely part of the road where the trees almost meet overhead when his horse showed signs of restlessness. It slackens down, halted, shivered, winnied, and kept up such a series of antics that my uncle descended from the trap to see if anything was wrong with it. He thought that, perhaps, it was going to have some kind of fit or an attack of agoo, which is not an uncommon complaint among animals in this part of the country, and he was preparing to give it a dose of quinine when suddenly it reared up violently and before he could stop it was careering along the road at lightning speed. My uncle was now in a pretty mess. He was stranded in a forest, without a lantern, ten miles at least from home. When too depressed to do anything, he sat down by the roadside and seriously thought of remaining there till daybreak. A twinge of rheumatism, however, reminded him the ground was a little warmer than ice and made him realize that lying on it would be courting death. Consequently, he got up and, setting his lips grimly, struck out in the direction of Bishopstone. At every step he took, the track grew darker. Horses of trees and countless other things, for which he could see no counterpart, crept out and rendered it almost impossible for him to tell where to tread. A peculiar, indefinable dread also began to make itself felt, and the darkness seemed to him to assume an entirely new character. He plotted on, breaking into a jogged trot every now and then, and whistling by way of companionship. The stillness was sepulchral. He strained his ears, but could not even catch the sound of those tiny animals that are usually heard in the thickets and furs bushes at night, and all his movements were exaggerated, until their echoes seemed to reverberate through the whole forest. A turn of the road brought him into view of something that made his heart throb with delight. Standing by the wayside was an enormous coach with four huge horses pawing the ground impatiently. My uncle rushed up to the driver, who was so enveloped in wraps he could not see his face, and in a voice trembling with emotion, begged for the favor of a lift, if not to Helena itself, as far in that direction as the coach was going. The driver made no reply, but with his hand motioned my uncle to get in. The latter did not need a second bidding, and the moment he was seated the vehicle started off. It was a large, roomy conveyance, but had a stifling atmosphere about it that struck my uncle as most unpleasant, and although he could see no one, he intuitively felt he was not alone, and that more than one pair of eyes were watching him. The coach did not go as fast as my uncle expected, but moved with a curious, gliding motion, and the wheels made no noise whatever. This added to my uncle's apprehensions, and he almost made up his mind to open the carriage door and jump out. Something, however, which he could not account for, restrained him, and he maintained his seat. Outside, all was still profoundly dark, the trees were scarcely distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow, and were recognizable only by the resinous odor that, from time to time, sluggishly flowed in at the open window as the coach rolled on. At length they overtook some other vehicle, and for the first time for some hours my uncle heard the sound of solid wheels, which were as welcome to him as any joy bells. Just as they were passing the conveyance, a small wagonette drawn by a pair of horses, the latter took fright. There were loud shouts, and a great stampede, and my uncle, who leaned out of the coach window, caught a glimpse of the vehicle dashing along ahead of them at a frightful speed. The driver of the coach, apparently totally unconcerned, continued his journey at the same regular mechanical pace. Presently, my uncle heard the sound of rushing water, and knew they must be nearing the usk, a tributary of the battle, which was only five miles from his house. The forest now ceased, and they crossed the road over the bridge in a brilliant burst of moonlight. About a mile or so further on the coach halted, and to my uncle's surprise he found himself in front of a house he had no recollection of seeing before. He got out, and to his horror saw that instead of riding in a coach he had been riding in a hearse, and that the horses had on their heads gigantic, sable plumes. While he was standing, gazing at the extraordinary equipage, the door of the house slowly opened, and two figures came out, carrying a small coffin which they placed inside the vehicle. He then heard loud peals of mad, hilarious laughter, and coach and horses immediately vanished. My uncle arrived home safely, but the shock of what he had experienced kept him in bed for some days. He learned that a phantom coach, similar to the one he had ridden in, had been seen in the forest twenty years previously, and that it was supposed to be a prognostication of some great misfortune, which, supposition, in my uncle's case at least, proved true as his wife died of apoplexy a few days after this adventure. End of part two of chapter three of animal ghosts. Part three of chapter three of animal ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Animal ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell. Chapter three, part three. Yet another case of haunting by the phantasms of a horse comes to me from a gentleman in Marcel's who told it me thus. It was nine p.m. when I left my friend Maitland's hotel in Chateaubourne and, facing north, set out on my way to Lefer where my headquarters had been for the past fortnight. Lefer is in the hills, and the road which separated it from Chateaubourne wild and lonely enough in daylight, and when the weather is fair, is almost untroversable in winter. The night in question was Christmas Eve, the snow had fallen heavily during the day, and with the wind blowing in icy drops from the northeast, there was every prospect of another downfall. Maitland pressed me to stay in his hotel. It is sheer folly, he said, for you to attempt to get home in weather like this. It is pitch dark, you are not familiar with the route, and, if you don't wander off the track and tumble over a precipice, you will walk into a snowdrift. Be sensible, sleep here. Much however, as I should have liked to follow his counsel, I did not feel justified in doing so, as I had a lot of correspondence to attend to, and I realized it was most necessary for me to get back to Lefer without any further delay. It was true, the night was inky black, but, with the aid of a lamp, I hadn't the slightest doubt I could find my way. Maitland bartered for a candle lantern with his host, and armed with this, a flagon of brandy and water, and a thick stick, I said goodbye to Chateaubourne. A couple of hundred yards saw me beyond the outskirts of the town, wherein I was the sole pedestrian, and silence reigned supreme. On and on I plotted, the feeble, yellow light of my lantern just preventing me, but only just from wandering from the track. The road, which, for the first mile or so, was tolerably level, gradually began to rise, and, as it did so, I noticed for the first time, indistinct images of gigantic, naked trees, that becoming more and more numerous, and closer and closer together, at length, united their long and grotesquely shaped branches overhead, and I found myself in the depths of a vast forest. The snow, which had up to the present, held off, now recommenced to fall, and presently the wind, which had, for some time, been slowly acquiring strength, came howling through the trees with the utmost fury, the first blasts swishing the lantern out of my hands, and hurling me with considerable force into an undergrowth of thorns and brambles, out of which I extricated myself, with no little difficulty. I was now in the sorriest of plights, enveloped on all sides in stygian darkness. I was unable to discover my lantern, and was thus totally at the mercy of the ruthless elements. There were only two courses before me. Whether I must remain where I was, and be frozen to death, or making a guess at the route, I must push on ahead, and run the risk of ending my life at the bottom of a ravine. I chose the latter. Groping about with my feet, until I, at length, discovered what I thought must be the right track, I pushed ahead, and staggering and stumbling forward managed to make some sort of progress, terribly slow, though it was. The blinding darkness of the snowy night, the intense silence and utter solitude of the place, combined with the knowledge that on all sides of me lay holes and chasms, dampened my spirits, and raised strange phantoms in my imagination. The wind now rose, and the dismal sighing of the trees speedily grew into a series of the most perturbing screeches as the branches and trunks swayed to and fro like reeds before the violence of the hurricane. At this juncture I gave myself up for lost, and, coming to a standstill up to my knees in snow, was preparing to lie down and die, when, to my great joy, a light suddenly appeared ahead of me, and the next moment a man, mounted on a big white horse, rode noiselessly up to me. He was wrapped in a shaggy, great coat, and a slouch hat worn low over his eyes completely hid his face from me. In his disengaged hand he carried a lantern. By Jove, I exclaimed, I am glad to see you, for I've lost the track to Laffer. Can you tell me, or better still, show me the way to some house where I can put up for the remainder of the night? The stranger made no reply, but bidding me follow with a wave of his hand rode silently in front of me, and although I tried to keep up with him, I could not, and the odd thing was that without apparently increasing his pace, he always maintained his distance. After proceeding in this manner for possibly ten minutes, we suddenly turned to the left, and I found myself in a big clearing in the wood with a long, low-built house opposite me. My guide then paused, and indicating the front door of the house with an emphatic gesture of his hand seemed suddenly to melt away into thin air, for although I peered about me on all sides to try to find some indications of him, neither he nor his horse was anywhere to be seen. Thinking this was rather queer, but quite ready to attribute it to natural causes, I approached the building, and making use of my knuckles in lieu of a knocker beat a loud tattoo on the woodwork. There was no response. Again I rapped, and the door slowly opening revealed a pair of gleaming dark eyes. What do you want? Inquired a harsh voice and barbarous accents. A night's lodging, I replied, and I'm willing to pay a good price for it, for I am more than half-brozen. At this the door opened wider, and I found myself confronted by a woman with a candle. She had not the most prepossessing of expressions, though her hair, eyes, and features were decidedly good. She was dressed with tawdry smartness, earrings, necklace and rings, and very high-heeled buckled shoes. Indeed, her costume was so out of keeping with the rusticity of her surroundings as to be quite extraordinary. This fact struck me at once, as did her fingers, which, though spatulate and ugly, had been manicured, and of course very much over-manicured for a fact. Had this not been the case, I probably should not have noticed them. But the unnatural gloss on them, exaggerated by the candle light, made me look, and I was at once impressed with the criminal formation of the fingers. The club-shaped ends denoted something very bad, something homicidal, and as my eyes wandered from the hands to the face, I saw with a thrill of horror that the ears were set low down and far back on the head, and that the eyes gleamed with the sinister glitter of the wolf. Still, I must take my chance, the woman or the wood. It had to be one of the two. If you'll step inside, Montior, she said, I'll see what can be done for you. We have only recently come here, and the house is anyhow at present. Still, if you don't mind roughing it a little, we can let you have a bed, and you can rely upon me that it is clean and well-aird. I followed her eagerly, and she led me down a narrow passage into a big room with low ceiling, traversed with a ponderous oak beam, blackened with the smoke of endless peat fires. Before the blazing faggots on the hearth sat a burly individual in a blue blouse. On our arrival, he arose, and as his huge form towered above me, I thought I had never seen anyone quite so hideous, nor so utterly unlike the orthodox Frenchman. Obeying his injunction, for I can scarcely call it an invitation, to sit down, I took a seat by the fire, and warming my half-frozen limbs, waited impatiently, whilst the woman made up my bed, and prepared supper. The storm had now reached cyclonic dimensions, and under its stupendous fury, the whole house, stoutly built though it was, swayed on its foundations. The howling of the wind in the rude old-fashioned chimney, and along the passage, and the frenzy beating of the snow against the diamond window panes, deadened all other noises, and rendered any attempt at conversation absolutely abortive. So I ate my meal in silence, pretending not to notice the subtle interchange of glances that constantly took place between the strangely assorted payer. Whether they were husband and wife, what the man did for a living, were questions that continually occurred to me, and I found my eyes incessantly wandering to the numerous packing cases, piles of carpets, casks, and other articles which corroborated the woman's statement that they had but recently moved in. Once I attempted to empty the coffee, which was black and peculiarly bitter, under the table, but had to desist, as I saw the man's devilish eyes fixed searchingly on me. I then pushed aside the cup, and all the woman asking if it was not to my liking, I shouted out that I was not in the least thirsty. After this incident, the covert looks became more numerous, and my suspicions increased accordingly. At the first opportunity I got up, and signaling my intention to go to bed, was preparing to leave my seat, when my host, walking to the cupboard, fetched out a bottle of cognac, and pouring out a tumbler handed at me with a mean that I dare not refuse. The woman then led me up a flight of rickety wooden steps into a supple-crawl-looking chamber with no other furniture in it, save a long, narrow iron bed stand, a dilapidated wash stand, a very unsteady, common deal table on which was a looking-glass, and a collar-stud, and a rush-bottom chair. Setting the candlestick on the dressing-table, and assuring me again that the bed was well-air, my hostess withdrew, observing as she left the room that she would get me a nice breakfast, and call me at seven. At seven? How I wished it was seven now! As I stood in the midst of the floor shivering, for the room was icy cold, I suddenly saw a dark shadow emerge from a remote corner of the room, and slide surreptitiously toward the door where it halted. My eyes then fell on the lock, and I perceived that there was no key, no key, and that evil-looking pair below. I must barricade the door somehow, yet with what? There was nothing of any weight in the room, nothing. I began to feel horribly tired and sleepy, so sleepy that it was only with supreme effort I could prevent my eyelids closing. Ah! I had it! A wedge! I had a knife! Of wood there was plenty, a piece off the wash-stand, table, or chair. Anything would suffice. I assayed to struggle to the chair, my limbs tottered, my eyelids closed. Then the shadow from the doorway moved towards and through me, and with the coldness of its passage, I revived. With desperate energy, I cut a couple of chunks off the wash-stand, and peering them down, eventually succeeded in slipping them in the crack of the door and rendering it impossible to open from the outside. That done, I staggered to the bed, and falling, dressed as I was, on the counterpane, sank into a deep sleep. How long I slept, I cannot say. I suddenly heard the loud neighing of a horse which seemed to come from just under my window, and, as in a vision, saw by my side in the bed, a something which gradually developed into the figure of a man. The counterpart of the mysterious being in the shaggy coat who had guided me to the house. He was fully dressed, sound asleep, and breathing heavily. As I was looking, a dark shadow fell across the sleeper's face, and on glancing up, I perceived, to my horror, a black something crawling on the floor, nearer and nearer it came, until it reached the side of the bed, when I immediately recognized the evil, smirking face of my hostess. In one hand she held a lamp, and in the other, a horn-handled knife. Getting the lamp on the floor, she coolly undid the collar of the sleeping man, and I saw a stud. The counterpart of the one on the dressing table, fall on the bareboards with a sharp tap, and disappear in the surrounding darkness. Then the woman felt the edge of the knife, with her repulsive thumb, and calmly cut the helpless man's throat. I screamed, and the murderess and her victim instantly vanished, and I realized I was alone in the room and very much awake. Whether all that had occurred was a dream I cannot say with certainty, though I am inclined to think not. For some minutes my heart pulsated painfully, and then, as the sound of its throbbing grew fainter and fainter, I heard a curious noise outside my room. Someone was ascending the stairs. I endeavored to rise, but could not. Fear, an awful, ungovernable fear, held me spellbound. The steps paused outside the door, the handle of which was gently turned. Then there was a suggestive silence, then whispering, then another turning of the handle, and then my state of coma abruptly ended, and I stepped noiselessly out of the bed and crept to the window. I was heard. Stop him, the woman cried out. He's trying to escape. Use the gun. She hurled herself against the door as she spoke, while it's the man tore down stairs. It was now a matter of seconds. The slightest accident, a hesitation, and I was lost. Swinging open the window, I scrambled on the ledge, and without the slightest idea of the distance, dropped. There was a brief rushing through air, and I alighted, safe and sound, on the snow. Blessed snow, had it not been for the snow, I should have an all probability hurt myself. I alighted, not an instant too soon, for hardly had I touched the ground before my gigantic host came tearing round the angle of the wall with a lantern in one hand and a gun in the other. I immediately dashed away, and thanks to the intense darkness of the morning, for it must have been two o'clock, had no difficulty in evading my pursuer, who fired twice in rapid succession. On and on I went, sometimes falling up to my armpits in the snowdrift, and sometimes stunning myself against a low hanging branch of a tree. With the first rays of sunlight, however, my troubles came to an end. The snow had ceased falling, and I quickly alighted on a track, which brought me to a village, whence I obtained a conveyance into Laferre. I reported the affair to the local police, and had a party of zondarms at once set off to arrest the misgrants. But alas, they had fled. The house was pulled down, and on the soil being excavated, a dozen or more skeletons of men and women, all showing unmistakable signs of foul play, together with the remains of a horse were found in various parts of the premises. The place was a veritable Golgotha. I suppose the phantom horse and rider had appeared to me with the sole purpose of making their fate known. If so, they at all events partly achieved their end, though the mystery surrounding their identity was never solved. All the remains, both human and animal, were removed elsewhere, and accorded a decent burial. The sight of their original internment, however, is, I believe, still haunted, and maybe will remain so till the miscreants are brought to book. Brief Summary After a little consideration, I am inclined to think there are quite as many authentic cases of hauntings by the phantasms of horses as by the phantasms of cats and dogs. Enumerable horses die unnatural deaths. Apart from those killed in war, many, more particularly, it is true in the olden times, have been murdered in the highways along with their masters. Whilst all but the comparative few, when no longer of use to their owners, are butchered in the slaughterhouse, and subsequently dispatched into the zoological gardens to be eaten by lions and tigers. So much for Christianity and for man's gratitude. How much better would be the promoters of the White Slave Traffic Act be employed if, instead of trying to pass a bill which obviously cannot cure the evil it aims at, but can only, by diverting the course of that evil, drive from pillar to post thousands of defenseless, albeit erring women, they were to labor to secure a peaceful ending for our forefooted toilers who work for us all their lives, never strike, never think of a pension for old age, and never even dream of a vote. Alas, if only our poor horses could vote, what a different attitude would our farceical politicians at once adopt towards them? Phantasms of living horses. From what I have experienced and have been told, I am of the opinion that horses possess the same faculty of separating their immaterial from their material bodies as cats and dogs. A new of Virginia lady who had a piebald horse that frequently appeared simultaneously in two places. She lived in an old country house near Winchfield, and one morning when she went out into the breakfast room, she was surprised to see the paybald horse standing on the gravel path outside the window looking in at her. When she called it by name, it immediately melted into fine air. Going round to the stables, she found the horse in its stall, and on inquiry was informed that it had been there all the time. The same thing frequently occurred other members of the household besides herself witnessing it, and so like, in all its details, was the immaterial horse to the material, that they were often at a loss to tell which was which. The phenomenon sometimes occurring when the real horse was awake, and sometimes when it was asleep, proves that the animal possessed the faculty of projecting its spiritual ego, astral body, or whatever you like to call it, both consciously and unconsciously. I know of many similar instances. Horses and the psychic faculty of scent. Horses in a rather less degree than cats, and in much the same degree as dogs, possess the property of senting the advent and the presence of spirits. On more than one occasion, when I have been riding after dusk, my horse has suddenly come to an abrupt halt and shown unmistakable signs of terror. I have not been able to see anything to account for its conduct, but on subsequent inquiry have learned either that a tragedy was actually known to have taken place there, or that the spot had a long-born reputation for being haunted. And my experiences are the experiences of countless other people. Before a death, a horse will often nay repeatedly outside the house of the doomed person, and not infrequently show evidences of terror in passing close to it, from which I deduce the horse, can at all events, sent the proximity of the phantom of death. Like the dog, however, I think it only possesses this peculiar psychic property and a limited degree. It can, for example, readily detects the whereabouts of phantasms haunting localities, but not so easily those haunting people. It shows little or no discrimination on site between cruel and brutal people and those who are kind, giving the same amount of passing space to the one as it does to the other. Yet, on the other hand, I have watched horses at night, standing in the fields, their heads thrown back, a transfixed, far-off expression in their eyes, sniffing the atmosphere, and snuffling it in a manner that strongly suggested to me that they were carrying on, by means of some silent, secret code, a conversation with some superficial presence, which they either saw, or scented, or very likely both. Sent, I am convinced, is the medium of conversation, not only between super-physical animals, but between material animals. And if we ever wish to converse with spirits, we must employ cats, dogs, and horses to teach us. Phantom Coaches. There are a few parts of the British Isles, few countries in Europe, which have not their phantom coaches. Perhaps the most famous are those that haunt a road near Newport, South Wales, and an old highway in Devon. A specter coach, and horses, and Pembroke Shear. Miss Mary L. Luce, in an article called Some More Welsh Ghosts That Appeared in the Occult Review for December 1907, writes, thus, in common with several other districts in Great Britain and Ireland, Pembroke Shear possesses a good phantom coach legend, localized in the southern part of the county at a place where four roads meet called Sampson Cross. In old days, the belated farmer, driving home in his gig from market, was apt to cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as his pony slowly climbed the last pitch, heading up to the cross. For tradition says that every night, a certain Lady Z, who lived in the 17th century and whose monument is in the church close by, drives over from Tenby, ten miles distant, in a coach drawn by headless horses, guided by a headless coachman. She also has no head, and arriving by midnight at Sampson Cross, the whole equipage is said to disappear in a flame of fire with a loud noise of explosion. Miss Mary L. Luce goes on to add, a clergyman living in the immediate neighborhood, who told the writer the story, said that some people believed the ghostly traveler had been safely laid many years ago in the waters of the lake not far off. He added, however that might be, it was an odd fact that his sedate and elderly cob, when driven home past the cross after nightfall, would invariably start as if frightened there, a thing which never happened by daylight. What these kinds of spectral horses are no one can say. At the most, despite what theosophists and occultists may declare to the contrary, one can only theorize, and the speculations of one person, be he who he may, seem to me to be of no more consequence than those of another. For my own part, I am inclined to think that whereas, in some cases, the ghostly coached horses are the phantoms of horses that were killed on the highways, in others they are either vice elementals, or elementals whose particular function it is to prognosticate death, either the death of those who see them, or the death of someone connected with those who see them. A Phantom Horse and Policeman According to one of my correspondents, Mr. T.P., a comparatively modern phantom rider, has been seen in Canada. Riding to me from sea, where he lives, he says, it is stated that this town is periodically haunted by the phantom of a tall, fair policeman mounted on a white horse and clothed in the uniform of the forties, namely tailcoat, tight trousers, and tall hat. His phantom beat extends from a gateway at the commencement of Cod Hill, along the parkside of Pablo Street to Sutton Street, and Adam Street, Down Dane Street, and back through Pablo Street to the gateway on Cod Hill. A gentleman well known in the art world, who, in order to avoid publicity, wishes to be designated Mr. Bates, gave me his experience of the phenomena as follows. Yes, I have seen the ghostly policeman and his milk-white horse. I was walking along Pablo Street on the parkside, one gray afternoon in November, with the express intention of meeting a friend at my club in Royal Street. Went to my surprise, just as I was about a hundred yards from the gateway on Cod Hill, I was overtaken by a tall, fair-haired man riding a white horse. He was so dressed that I steered in astonishment. He was wearing the costume of seventy or eighty years ago, and reminded me of the policeman in Crookshank's illustrations of Dickens. I was not frightened because I thought he must be someone masquerading, and in my curiosity to see his face, I hastened my steps to overtake him. I failed, for although he appeared to be riding slowly, hardly moving at all, I could not draw an inch nearer to him. This made me think, and I examined him more critically. Then I noticed several things about him, that at first had escaped my notice. They were these. One, that although he was mounted, he was wearing walking clothes, he had on long trousers, and thick, clumsy boots. Two, that his ears and neck were perfectly colorless, of an unnatural and startling white. Three, that despite the incongruity of his attire, no one but myself seemed to see him. On he rode, neither looking to the left, nor to the right, until he came to Sutton Street, when, without paying the slightest attention to traffic, he began to cross over. There were crowds of vehicles passing at the time, and one of them rushed right on him. Making sure he would be killed, I uttered an ejaculation of horror. Judge then, of my amazement, when, instead of seeing him lying on the ground, crushed all out of shape, I saw him still riding on, as leisurely and unconcernedly as if he had been on a country road. The vehicle had passed right through him. Though I had hitherto scoffed at ghosts, I was now certain I had seen one, and suddenly becoming conscious how very cold it was, I tore on, not feeling at all comfortable, till I had reached the warm, cheery, and thoroughly material quarters of my club. To corroborate the evidence of Mr. Bates, I append a narrative given me verbally by Ms. Hartley, who, like Mr. Bates, had, up to the time of her experience, posed as a pronounced and somewhat bitter skeptic. She was an emphatic free-thinker, and then had no belief whatsoever in a future life. Now she believes a sight more than most people. One afternoon in February, 1911, she stated, just as twilight was commencing, I left the park, where I had been exercising my dog, and turning into Pablo Street, made for Bright Street. At the corner of Wolf Street, I saw something so strange that I involuntarily halted. Writing slowly along on a big white horse, a few paces ahead of me, was an enormous policeman in the quaint attire of the forties, top hat, tailcoat, tight trousers, just as I had so often seen portrayed in old books. He was writing stiffly, as if unaccustomed to the saddle, and kept looking rigidly in front of him. Thinking it was someone doing it, either for a joke or a wager, I was greatly tickled, and kept saying to myself, well, you are a sport, an A1 sport. I tried to catch him up, to see how he made up his face, but could not, for although the horse never seemed to quicken its pace, a mere crawl, and I ran, it nevertheless maintained precisely the same distance in front of me. When we had progressed in this fashion some hundred or so yards, I perceived a city policeman advancing towards us. Come now, I said to myself, we shall see some fun, the 1911 copper meeting the peeler of 1840, I wonder what he will think of him. To my intense astonishment, however, neither, even as much as gave the other a fleeting glance, but passed by, unmoved, and to all appearance, wholly unconscious of each other. A few yards further, I aspired a negro looking intently in a store window. Just as the strange policeman came up to him, he gave a violent start, turned round, and stared at him, gasped, his cheeks ashy pale, his eyes bulging. Made some exclamation I could not catch, and dashing past me fled. Then, and not till then, did I begin to feel funny. Further on, still, we came to a crossing, a carriage and pair with a coronet on the panels of the door was standing, waiting. Directly, the policeman approached, both the horses reared so violently, they all but threw the coachman off the box. One of the men cried out, Heavens, Bill, what's that? But the other, and older of the two, who was clinging to the reins with all his might, merely swore. Convince now that I was on the trail of something not human, something in all probability super-physical, and impaled by a fascination I could not resist, I followed. At the top of Wolf Street, the policeman paused, then crossing slowly over, turned into Dane Street, down which he continued to ride with the same mechanical and automatic tread. At length, when within a few feet of a certain shop, over which is a flat that has long borne a reputation for being haunted, the horse came to a dead halt, and horse and rider, veering slowly round, looked at me. What I saw, I shall never forget. I saw the faces of the dead, the long sense dead. For some moments they confronted me, and then vanished, vanished where they stood. I saw them again under precisely the same conditions two days later, and I have seen them once since. I am not an imaginative or highly strong person, but am, on the contrary, exceedingly practical and a matter of fact, no better proof of which I can give than this fact. I am engaged to be married to a Quebec solicitor, an Irish haunting. Mr. Reginald B. Spann, in a most interesting article called Some Glimpses of the Unseen that appeared in the Occult Review for February 1906, writes as follows. Another strange incident, which also occurred in Ireland, was told me by a coachman in my cousin's employ at Kilpecan near Limerick. This man had previously been a parkkeeper to Lord Donorail in County Cork. One bright moonlight night, he was coming across Lord Donorail's park, having been round to see that the gates were shut. When his attention was drawn to the distant baying of hounds, and he stopped to listen, as the sounds seemed to proceed from within the park walls, and he knew there were no hounds kept on the estate. His young son was with him, and also heard the noise, which was getting louder and clearer, and was evidently moving rapidly in their direction. His first idea was that a pack of hounds, which were kept in the hunting kennels a few miles away, had escaped, and had somehow gotten into the park, although he had seen that the gates were closed, and there was really no way by which they could have entered. The baying of hounds, as if in full cry, sounded closer and closer, and suddenly, out of the shadow of some trees, a number of foxhounds, running at full speed, appeared in the clear light of the moon. They raced past the amazed spectators. A whole pack of them followed closely by an elderly man on a large horse. Although they came very near, no sound could be heard, but the baying of one or two of the hounds. The galloping of the horse was not heard at all. They swung across the grass at a tremendous pace, and were lost to view round the end of a plantation. The parkkeeper knew that all the gates were shut, and that it would be impossible for a pack of hounds to pass out, and he thought the mystery might be solved the next day. However, it was never explained. By any natural cause, no hounds or horsemen had been in the park. The mansion was closed, Lord Donnell being away, and no one had the right of entering the grounds within the park walls. He heard later that there was a story in the neighborhood about the ghost of a former Lord Donnell haunting the park, and possibly the spectral horseman was he. I questioned the man and his son closely about it, and am convinced that they were not deceived by hallucination, and that their account is perfectly true. To this account, Mr. Spann adds this note. The apparition of the hounds and huntsmen was witnessed on an estate belonging to Lord Donnell in the south of Ireland, Donnell Park. The man who told me the incident was coachman in the service of my cousin, near Limerick. His young son confirmed his father's account, as he also saw it. Yours faithfully, Reginald B. Spann. To throw additional light on the matter, Mr. Ralph Shirley, editor of the Occult Review, published the following letter written to him by Lord Donnell. Dear Shirley, it is a rather curious thing that neither Lady Castletown nor Lady Donnell has ever heard of the story of the moonlight vision of Lord Donnell and the pack of hounds. However, there is a man at Donnell called Jones, a chemist who is a most enthusiastic antiquarian and a dabbler in the occult sciences. And he takes the greatest interest in all that concerns the St. Leaguers. Lady Castletown wrote to him, and the reply comes from his brother. I suppose he is away, and that I send you. Lady Donnell says it must refer to the third Lord Donnell of the first creation, who was killed in a duel afterwards. And there appear to be a lot of stories which Jones has ferreted out or been told. Of course, I don't know how far you could say Jones was authentic. All I can say is that he believes the things himself. Your sincerely, Donnell. December 27, 1905. I should explain, adds Mr. Shirley, that Lady Castletown is daughter to the late Lord Donnell and present owner of Donnell House. Here follows the enclosure, i.e. the extract made by Walter A. Jones, Donnell, from his notes on the legends of peasantry in connection with Donnell Branch of the St. Leaguers family, dated December 21, 1905. Wild Daryl. Little Coat, as everyone knows, is haunted by the spirits of the notorious Wild Will Daryl and the horse he invariably rode, and which eventually broke his neck. But there are many Wild Daryls, all Europeans being overrun by them. They nightly tear on their phantom horses over the German and Norwegian forests and more lands that echo and re-echo with their horse shouts and the mournful baying of their grizzly hounds. Many travelers in Russia and Germany, journeying through the forests at night, have caught the sound of whales, of moans that, starting from the far distance, have gradually come nearer and nearer. Then they have heard the winding of a horn, the shouting and cursing of the huntsmen, and in a biting cold wind, have seen the whole calvocade sweet by. According to various authorities on the subject, this spectral chase goes by different names. In Thuringia and elsewhere, it is Halkenburg, or Halkenberend. The story being that Halkenburg, a German knight, who had devoted his whole life to the chase on his deathbed, had told the officiating priest that he cared not a jot for heaven, but only for hunting, the priest losing patience and exclaiming, then hunt till doomsday. So in all weathers and snow and ice, Halkenburg, his horse and hounds, are seen careering after imaginary game. There are similar stories current in the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, and practically all over Europe and not only Europe, but in many of the states and departments of the New World. This being so, I think there must be a substantial substratum of truth underlying the beliefs, fantastic as they may appear. And yet, are no more fantastic than many of the stories we are asked to give absolute credence to in the Bible. In Old Castile, the spirit of a Moorish leader who won many victories over the Spaniards, and was drowned by reason of his heavy armor in a swamp of the river Duero, still haunts his burial place, a piece of marshy ground near Burgles. There, weird noises such as the winding of a huntsman's horn and the naing of a horse are heard, and the phantasm of the dead Moor is seen mounted on a white horse followed by 12 huge black hounds. In Sweden, many of the peasants say when a noise like that of a coach and horses is heard rumbling past than the dead of night, it is the white rider. Woutst in Norway, they say of the same sounds, it is the hunt of the devil and his four horses. In Saxony, the rider is believed to be Barbarossa, the celebrated hero of olden days. Near Fountain Blow, Hugh Capet is stated to ride a gigantic, sable horse to the palace, where he hunted before the assassination of Henry IV, and in the lands, the rider is thought to be Judas Iscariot. In other parts of France, the wild huntsman is known as the Harlequin, and in some parts of Brittany, he is Herod in pursuit of the Holy Innocence. Alas, that no such Herod visits London, how welcome would he be were he only to flout a few of the brawling brats who allowed to go anywhere they please, make an inferno of every road they choose to play in. Here my notes on horses end, and although the evidence I have offered may have failed to convince many, I myself am fully satisfied that these noble and indispensable animals do not terminate their existence in this world, but pass on to another, and let us all sincerely hope far happier plain. End of Part 3, Chapter 3 of Animal Ghosts.