PREFACE
If human beings, with all their vices, have a future life, assuredly
animals, who in character so often equal, nay, excel human beings, have a
future life also.
Those who in the Scriptures find a key to all things, can find nothing
in them to confute this argument. There is no saying of Christ that
justifies one in supposing that man is the only being, whose existence
extends beyond the grave.
Granted, however, merely for the sake of argument, that we have some
ground for the denial of a future existence for animals, consider the
injustice such a denial would involve. Take, for example, the case of the
horse. Harming no one, and without thought of reward, it toils for man all
its life, and when too old to work it is put to death without even the
compensation of a well-earned rest. But if compensation be God's law,—as
I, for one, believe it to be—and also the raison d'être of a
hereafter, then surely the Creator, whose chief claim to our respect and
veneration lies in the fact that He is just and merciful, will take good
care that the horse—the gentle, patient, never-complaining horse—is
well compensated—compensated in a golden hereafter.
Consider again, the case of another of our four-footed friends—the
dog; the faithful, affectionate, obedient and forgiving dog, the dog who
is so often called upon to stand all sorts of rough treatment, and is shot
or poisoned, if, provoked beyond endurance, he at last rounds on his
persecutors, and bites. And the cat—the timid, peaceful cat who is
mauled, and all but pulled in two by cruel children, and beaten to a jelly
when in sheer agony and fright it scratches. Reflect again, on the cow and
the sheep, fed only to supply our wants; shouted at and kicked, if, when
nearly scared out of their senses, they wander off the track; and
pole-axed, or done to death in some equally atrocious manner when the
sickening demand for flesh food is at its height.
And yet, you say, these innocent, unoffending—and, I say,
martyred—animals are to have no future, no compensation. Monstrous!
Absurd! It is an effrontery to common sense, philosophy—anything,
everything. It is a damned lie, damned bigotry, damned nonsense. The whole
animal world will live again; and it will be man—spoilt, presumptuous,
degenerate man—who will not participate in another life, unless he very
much improves.
Think well over this,—you who preach the gospel of man's
pre-eminence;—you who prate of God and know nothing whatsoever about
Him! The horse, dog, cat,—even the wild animals, whose vices, perchance,
pale beside your own, may go to Heaven before you. The Supreme Architect
is neither a Nero, nor a Stuart, nor a clown. He will recompense all who
deserve recompense, be they great or small—biped or quadruped.
It is to testify to a future existence for animals and to create a
wider interest in it that I have undertaken to compile this book; and my
object, I think, can best be achieved in my own way, the way of the
investigator of haunted places. The mere fact that there are
manifestations of "dead" people (pardon the paradox) proves some
kind of life after death for human beings; and happily the same proof is
available with regard a future life for animals; indeed there are as many
animal phantasms as human—perhaps more; hence, if the human being lives
again, so do his dumb friends.
Be comforted then, you who love your pets, and have been kind to them.
You will see them all again, on the soft undying pasture lands of your
Elysium and theirs.
Be warned, you—you who have despised animals, and have been cruel to
them. Who knows but that, in your future life, you may be as they are
now—in subjection?
My task in writing this book has been considerably lightened by the
extreme courtesy and kindness of Mr. Shirley, Mr. Eveleigh Nash, and the
Proprietors of the Review of Reviews, in allowing me to make use of
extracts and quotations from their most valuable works.
ELLIOTT O'DONNELL.
CONTENTS
CATS
The Black Cat of the Old Manor House, Oxenby—Correspondence re
Cat Phantasms—The Headless Cat of No. ——, Lower Seedley Road,
Seedley, Manchester—The Cat on the Post—Mystic Properties of Cats
DOGS
The Case of James Durham—The Grey Dog of —— House,
Birmingham—The Dog in the Cupboard—How the Ghost of a Dog saved
Life—A Precentor's Adventure—Phantom Dog seen on Souter Fell—The
Jumping Ghost—Dogs seen before a Death—A Dog scared by a Canine
Ghost—The Phantom Dachshund of W—— Street, London, W.—An ALL
Hallow Eve Ghost—The Strange Disappearance of Mr. Jeremiah
Dance—Phantasms of Living Dogs—The Yellow Dog of K——
University—National Ghosts in the form of Dogs—The Mauthe Doog—Spectral
Hounds
HORSES AND THE UNKNOWN
A Phantom Cavalcade—The Miller on the Grey Horse—A Phantom Horse
and Rider—The White Horse of Eastover—The Afrikander's Story—Heralds
of Death—Phantom Coach in U.S.A.—A Story from Marseilles—Summary of
Horses—Phantasms of Living Horses—Horses and the Psychic Faculty of
Scent—Phantom Policeman and Horse—Phantom Huntsmen and Horses
BULLS, COWS, PIGS, ETC.
The Kirk-grim—Phantasm of a Goat—Phantom Hogs of the Moat
Grange—Sheep—Spectre Flock of Sheep in Germany
WILD ANIMALS AND THE UNKNOWN
Animal Phantasms and the Moon—The Case of Martin Tristram—Phantasms
of Cat and Ape—Hauntings by a White Rabbit—John Wesley's
Ghost—Psychic Faculty in Hares and Rabbits
INHABITANTS OF THE JUNGLE
Elephants, Lions, Tigers, etc.—The White Tiger—Jungle Animals and
Psychic Faculties
BIRDS AND THE UNKNOWN
Case from Occult Review—Bird Hauntings in Russia—Hauntings
in the Country Church—Capt. Morgan's Experiences—Addenda—Old
Authorities on Bird Omens
A BRIEF RETROSPECT
PART I
DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE UNKNOWN
ANIMAL GHOSTS
CHAPTER I
CATS
In opening this volume on Animals and their associations with the
unknown, I will commence with a case of hauntings in the Old Manor House,
at Oxenby.
My informant was a Mrs. Hartnoll, whom I can see in my mind's eye, as
distinctly as if I were looking at her now. Hers was a personality that no
lapse of time, nothing could efface; a personality that made itself felt
on boys of all temperaments, most of all, of course, on those who—like
myself—were highly strung and sensitive.
She was classical mistress at L.'s, the then well-known dame school in
Clifton, where for three years—prior to migrating to a Public School—I
was well grounded in all the mysticisms of Kennedy's Latin Primer and
Smith's First Greek Principia.
I doubt if she got anything more than a very small salary—governesses
in those days were shockingly remunerated—and I know,—poor soul, she
had to work monstrously hard. Drumming Latin and Greek into heads as thick
as ours was no easy task.
But there were times, when the excessive tension on the nerves proving
too much, Mrs. Hartnoll stole a little relaxation; when she allowed
herself to chat with us, and even to smile—Heavens! those smiles! And
when—I can feel the tingling of my pulses at the bare mention of
it—she spoke about herself, stated she had once been young—a
declaration so astounding, so utterly beyond our comprehension, that we
were rendered quite speechless—and told us anecdotes.
Of many of her narratives I have no recollection, but one or two, which
interested me more than the rest, are almost as fresh in my mind as when
recounted. The one that appealed to me most, and which I have every reason
to believe is absolutely true,[1]
is as follows:—I give it as nearly as I can in her own somewhat stilted
style:—
"Up to the age of nineteen, I resided with my parents in the Manor
House, Oxenby. It was an old building, dating back, I believe, to the
reign of Edward VI, and had originally served as the residence of noble
families. Built, or, rather, faced with split flints, and edged and
buttressed with cut grey stone, it had a majestic though very gloomy
appearance, and seen from afar resembled nothing so much as a huge and
grotesquely decorated sarcophagus. In the centre of its frowning and
menacing front was the device of a cat, constructed out of black shingles,
and having white shingles for the eyes; the effect being curiously
realistic, especially on moonlight nights, when anything more lifelike and
sinister could scarcely have been conceived. The artist, whoever he was,
had a more than human knowledge of cats—he portrayed not merely their
bodies but their souls.
"In style the front of the house was somewhat castellated. Two
semicircular bows, or half towers, placed at a suitable distance from each
other, rose from the base to the summit of the edifice, to the height of
four or five stairs; and were pierced, at every floor, with rows of
stone-mullioned windows. The flat wall between had larger windows,
lighting the great hall, gallery, and upper apartments. These windows were
wholly composed of stained glass, engraved with every imaginable fantastic
design—imps, satyrs, dragons, witches, queer-shaped trees, hands, eyes,
circles, triangles and cats.
"The towers, half included in the building, were completely
circular within, and contained the winding stairs of the mansion; and
whoever ascended them when a storm was raging seemed rising by a whirlwind
to the clouds.
"In the upper rooms even the wildest screams of the hurricane were
drowned in the rattling clamour of the assaulted casements. When a gale of
wind took the building in front, it rocked it to the foundations, and, at
such times, threatened its instant demolition.
"Midway between the towers there stood forth a heavy stone porch
with a Gothic gateway, surmounted by a battlemented parapet, made gable
fashion, the apex of which was garnished by a pair of dolphins, rampant
and antagonistic, whose corkscrew tails seemed contorted—especially at
night—by the last agonies of rage convulsed. The porch doors stood open,
except in tremendous weather; the inner ones were regularly shut and
barred after all who entered. They led into a wide vaulted and lofty hall,
the walls of which were decorated with faded tapestry, that rose, and
fell, and rustled in the most mysterious fashion every time there was the
suspicion—and often barely the suspicion—of a breeze.
"Interspersed with the tapestry—and in great contrast to its
antiquity—were quite modern and very ordinary portraits of my family.
The general fittings and furniture, both of the hall and house, were
sombre and handsome—truss-beams, corbels, girders and panels were of the
blackest oak; and the general effect of all this, augmented, if anything,
by the windows, which were too high and narrow to admit of much light, was
much the same as that produced by the interior of a subterranean chapel or
charnel house.
"From the hall proceeded doorways and passages, more than my
memory can now particularize. Of these portals, one at each end conducted
to the tower stairs, others to reception rooms and domestic offices.
"The whole of the house being too large for us, only one
wing—the right and newer of the two—was occupied, the other was
unfurnished, and generally shut up. I say generally because there were
times when either my mother or father—the servants never ventured
there—forgot to lock the doors, and the handles yielding to my daring
fingers, I surreptitiously crept in.
"Everywhere—even in daylight, even on the sunniest of
mornings—were dark shadows that hung around the ingles and recesses of
the rooms, the deep cupboards, the passages, and silent, winding
staircases.
"There was one corridor—long, low, vaulted—where these shadows
assembled in particular. I can see them now, as I saw them then, as they
have come to me many times in my dreams, grouped about the doorways,
flitting to and fro on the bare, dismal boards, and congregated in
menacing clusters at the head of the sepulchral staircase leading to the
cellars. Generally, and excepting at times when the weather was
particularly violent, the silence here was so emphatic that I could never
feel it was altogether natural, but rather that it was assumed especially
for my benefit—to intimidate me. If I moved, if I coughed, almost if I
breathed, the whole passage was filled with hoarse reverberating echoes,
that, in my affrighted ears, appeared to terminate in a series of
mirthless, malevolent chuckles. Once, when fascinated beyond control, I
stole on tiptoe along the passage, momentarily expecting a door to fly
open and something grim and horrible to pounce out on me, I was brought to
a standstill by a loud, clanging noise, as if a pail or some such utensil
were set down very roughly on a stone floor. Then there was the sound of
rushing footsteps and of someone hastily ascending the cellar staircase.
In fearful anticipation as to what I should see—for there was something
in the sounds that told me they were not made by anything human—I stood
in the middle of the passage and stared. Up, up, up they came, until I saw
the dark, indefinite shape of something very horrid, but which I could
not—I dare not—define. It was accompanied by the clanging of a pail. I
tried to scream, but my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth prevented
my uttering a syllable, and when I essayed to move, I found I was
temporarily paralysed. The thing came rushing down on me. I grew icy cold
all over, and when it was within a few feet of me, my horror was so great,
I fainted.
"On recovering consciousness, it was some minutes before I
summoned up courage to open my eyes, but when I did so, they alighted on
nothing but the empty passage—the thing had disappeared.
"On another occasion, when I was clandestinely paying a visit to
the unused wing, and was in the act of mounting one of the staircases
leading from the corridor, I have just described, to the first floor,
there was the sound of a furious scuffle overhead, and something dashed
down the stairs past me. I instinctively looked up, and there, glaring
down at me from over the balustrade, was a very white face. It was that of
a man, but very badly proportioned—the forehead being low and receding,
and the rest of the face too long and narrow. The crown rose to a kind of
peak, the ears were pointed and set very low down and far back. The mouth
was very cruel and thin-lipped; the teeth were yellow and uneven. There
was no hair on the face, but that on the head was red and matted. The eyes
were obliquely set, pale blue, and full of an expression so absolutely
malignant that every atom of blood in my veins seemed to congeal as I met
their gaze. I could not clearly see the body of the thing, as it was hazy
and indistinct, but the impression I got of it was that it was clad in
some sort of tight-fitting, fantastic garment. As the landing was in
semi-darkness, and the face at all events was most startlingly visible, I
concluded it brought with it a light of its own, though there was none of
that lurid glow attached to it, which I subsequently learned is almost
inseparable from spirit phenomena seen under similar conditions.
"For some seconds, I was too overcome with terror to move, but my
faculties at length reasserting themselves, I turned round and flew to the
other wing of the house with the utmost precipitation.
"One would have thought that after these experiences nothing would
have induced me to have run the risk of another such encounter, yet only a
few days after the incident of the head, I was again impelled by a
fascination I could not withstand to visit the same quarters. In sickly
anticipation of what my eyes would alight on, I stole to the foot of the
staircase and peeped cautiously up. To my infinite joy there was nothing
there but a bright patch of sunshine, that, in the most unusual fashion,
had forced its way through from one of the slits of windows near at hand.
"After gazing at it long enough to assure myself it was only
sunshine, I quitted the spot, and proceeded on my way down the vaulted
corridor. Just as I was passing one of the doors, it opened. I
stopped—terrified. What could it be? Bit by bit, inch by inch, I watched
the gap slowly widen. At last, just as I felt I must either go mad or die,
something appeared—and, to my utter astonishment, it was a big, black
cat! Limping painfully, it came towards me with a curious, gliding motion,
and I perceived with a thrill of horror that it had been very cruelly
maltreated. One of its eyes looked as if it had been gouged out—its ears
were lacerated, whilst the paw of one of its hind-legs had either been
torn or hacked off. As I drew back from it, it made a feeble and pathetic
effort to reach me and rub itself against my legs, as is the way with
cats, but in so doing it fell down, and uttering a half purr, half gurgle,
vanished—seeming to sink through the hard oak boards.
"That evening my youngest brother met with an accident in the barn
at the back of the house, and died. Though I did not then associate his
death with the apparition of the cat, the latter shocked me much, for I
was extremely fond of animals. I did not dare venture in the wing again
for nearly two years.
"When next I did so, it was early one June morning—between five
and six, and none of the family, saving my father, who was out in the
fields looking after his men, were as yet up. I explored the dreaded
corridor and staircase, and was crossing the floor of one of the rooms I
had hitherto regarded as immune from ghostly influences, when there was an
icy rush of wind, the door behind me slammed to violently, and a heavy
object struck me with great force in the hollow of my back. With a cry of
surprise and agony I turned sharply round, and there, lying on the floor,
stretched out in the last convulsions of death, was the big black cat,
maimed and bleeding as it had been on the previous occasion. How I got out
of the room I don't recollect. I was too horror-stricken to know exactly
what I was doing, but I distinctly remember that, as I tugged the door
open, there was a low, gleeful chuckle, and something slipped by me and
disappeared in the direction of the corridor. At noon that day my mother
had a seizure of apoplexy, and died at midnight.
"Again there was a lapse of years—this time nearly four—when,
sent on an errand for my father, I turned the key of one of the doors
leading into the empty wing, and once again found myself within the
haunted precincts. All was just as it had been on the occasion of my last
visit—gloom, stillness and cobwebs reigned everywhere, whilst permeating
the atmosphere was a feeling of intense sadness and depression.
"I did what was required of me as quickly as possible, and was
crossing one of the rooms to make my exit, when a dark shadow fell athwart
the threshold of the door, and I saw the cat.
"That evening my father dropped dead as he was hastening home
through the fields. He had long suffered from heart disease.
"After his death we—that is to say, my brother, sisters and
self—were obliged to leave the house and go out into the world to earn
our living. We never went there again, and never heard if any of the
subsequent tenants experienced similar manifestations."
This is as nearly as I can recollect Mrs. Hartnoll's story. But as it
is a good many years since I heard it, there is just a possibility of some
of the details—the smaller ones at all events—having escaped my
memory.
When I was grown up, I stayed for a few weeks near Oxenby, and met, at
a garden party, a Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, the then occupants of the Manor
House.
I asked if they believed in ghosts, and told them I had always heard
their house was haunted.
"Well," they said, "we never believed in ghosts till we
came to Oxenby, but we have seen and heard such strange things since we
have been in the Manor House that we are now prepared to believe
anything."
They then went on to tell me that they—and many of their visitors and
servants—had seen the phantasms of a very hideous and malignant old man,
clad in tight-fitting hosiery of mediæval days, and a maimed and bleeding
big, black cat, that seemed sometimes to drop from the ceiling, and
sometimes to be thrown at them. In one of the passages all sorts of queer
sounds, such as whinings, meanings, screeches, clangings of pails and
rattlings of chains, were heard, whilst something, no one could ever see
distinctly, but which they all felt to be indescribably nasty, rushed up
the cellar steps and flew past, as if engaged in a desperate chase.
Indeed, the disturbances were of so constant and harrowing a nature, that
the wing had to be vacated and was eventually locked up.
The Wheelers excavated in different parts of the haunted wing and
found, in the cellar, at a depth of some eight or nine feet, the skeletons
of three men and two women; whilst in the wainscoting of the passage they
discovered the bones of a boy, all of which remains they had properly
interred in the churchyard. According to local tradition, handed down
through many centuries by word of mouth, the house originally belonged to
a knight, who, with his wife, was killed out hunting. He had only one
child, a boy of about ten, who became a ward in chancery. The man
appointed by the Crown as guardian to this child proved an inhuman
monster, and after ill-treating the lad in every conceivable manner,
eventually murdered him and tried to substitute a bastard boy of his own
in his place. For a time the fraud succeeded, but on its being eventually
found out, the murderer and his offspring were both brought to trial and
hanged.
During his occupation of the house, many people were seen to enter the
premises, but never leave them, and the place got the most sinister
reputation. Among other deeds credited to the murderer and his offspring
was the mutilation and boiling of a cat—the particular pet of the young
heir, who was compelled to witness the whole revolting process. Years
later, a subsequent owner of the property had a monument erected in the
churchyard to the memory of this poor, abused child, and on the front of
the house constructed the device of the cat.
Though it is impossible to determine what amount of truth there may be
in this tradition, it certainly seems to accord with the hauntings, and to
supply some sort of explanation to them. The ghostly head on the banisters
might well be that of the low and brutal guardian, whose spirit would be
the exact counterpart of his mind. The figure seen, and noises heard in
the passage, point to the re-enaction of some tragedy, possibly the murder
of the heir, or the slaughter of his cat, in either of which a bucket
might easily have played a grimly significant part. And if human murderers
and their victims have phantasms, why should not animals have phantasms
too? Why should not the phenomenon of the cat seen by Mrs. Hartnoll and
the Wheelers have been the actual phantasm of an earthbound cat?
No amount of reasoning—religious or otherwise—has as yet
annihilated the possibility of all forms of earthly life possessing
spirits.
Letter from my Wife
I heard the foregoing account from my husband when first I met him
years ago, and I know it to be true. I have seen the rooms, etc. in the
Old Manor House, Oxenby, where the incidents Mrs. Hartnoll mentions took
place.
Ada B. O'Donnell.
July 2, 1913.
To further substantiate my views with regard to a future existence for
animals, I reproduce (by permission of the Editor) the following letters
and articles that have appeared from time to time in the Occult Review:—
Letter 1
That other Cat
One evening about four years ago I was in my drawing-room with two
friends; we were all standing up on the point of going to bed, and only
waiting till the old cook had succeeded in inducing the grey Persian cat
to come in for the night. This was sometimes difficult, and then cook came
up as on this occasion and called him from the balcony, and the French
window was wide open, when a cat rushed in at the window and through the
door.
"What was that?" we said, looking at one another. It was not
Kitty, the grey Persian, but darker, and was it really a cat, or what? My
friend "Rügen" has written the account of what she saw before
seeing what I have said. "Iona" confirms our description. What I
saw seemed dark and shadowy and yet unmistakably a cat. It seemed to me
like the predecessor of Kitty, which was a black Persian; he had the same
habit of coming in at night by this window, and he constantly rushed
through the room, and downstairs, being in a hurry for his supper. A
moment or two afterwards the grey cat walked slowly in, and though we
searched the house, we could find no other.
"Thanet."
Letter 2
Fräulein Mullet's Story
Three or four years ago, Iona and I were sitting in the drawing-room on
a Sunday evening, when cook came in to ask for Kitty (a silver-grey
Persian cat) to settle him in the kitchen for the night. Kitty was still
in the garden, and cook went to the balcony calling him.
Suddenly I saw a black cat flying in and disappearing behind or under a
seat. First, I did not take much notice of this. But when a minute after
Kitty slowly and solemnly stepped in, followed by cook, it struck me that
the dark something could not have been Kitty, and Thanet and Iona made the
remark simultaneously. Now we began to look for the dark one all over the
place without any result. Cook had not seen any cat passing her on the
balcony, but Kitty the grey one. Thanet had had a black Persian cat, which
died before Kitty came.
"Rügen."
Letter 3
I can entirely corroborate the accounts written by "Thanet"
and "Rügen."
I remember that I saw something like a dark shadow move very quickly
and disappear in front of a cottage piano. I exclaimed simultaneously with
my friends "What was that?" and shared their surprise when no
black cat was found, and the grey Persian walked in unconcernedly through
the open window.
"Iona."
Letter 4
What Kitty saw
Cook said, "I wish you would come downstairs and see how strangely
Kitty behaves as soon as I open the cupboard. There is nothing in it but
the wood; I turned it all out to see what might be the reason—not even a
mousehole can I find." Some days previously cook had told me that
nothing could induce Kitty to sleep in his basket, and one day he would
not eat any food in the kitchen, and his meals had to be given him
outside. So I went down to please cook. Kitty was picked up, and while
cook petted and stroked him, she knelt down and opened the cupboard.
Kitty, stretching his neck and looking with big, frightened eyes into the
cupboard's corner, suddenly turned round; struggling out of cook's hold
and rushing over her shoulder, he flew out of the kitchen. Getting up,
Cook said: "That's always what he does, just as if he was seeing
something horrible!"
Next day I encouraged cook to talk of Ruff, the former black cat, which
had been a great favourite of hers, and which she had been nursing when he
was dying. "Oh, poor thing, when he was ill, he would creep into dark
corners, so I put him in his basket into the cupboard, making it very
comfortable for him, and there he died"—pointing to the very corner
which caused such horror to Kitty.
"Rügen."
Letter 5
Captain Humphries's Story—A Materialized Cat
My son had the following experience at the age of four years in our
Worcestershire home.
He was an only child and spent much of his time in the company of a cat
who shared his tastes and pursuits even to the extent of fishing in the
River Weir with him, the cat being far more proficient at the sport than
the boy. When the cat died we none of us dared to break the news to the
child, and were much surprised when he asked us to say why his cat only
came to play with him at nights nowadays. When we questioned him about it,
he stoutly maintained that his cat was there in bodily form every night
after he went to bed, looking much the same but a little thinner.
At about the same age, one evening after being in bed one hour, I heard
him cry out, and going upstairs (his maid also heard and ran up) and
asking him what was the matter, he said that an old gentleman with a long
grey beard like his grandfather came into his room, and stood at the front
of his bed. At the very moment, the former had a seizure in his carriage
while driving through the streets of Birmingham, from which he died
without regaining consciousness; later on he recognized a photograph of
his grandfather as being the person he saw at the foot of his bed. My
wife, the maid, and myself can vouch for the accuracy of these statements,
also friends to whom we have related these facts.
"Munster."
Letter 6
Mrs. E.J. Ellis's Story—"The Old Woman's Cat"
My wife, writes Mr. Ellis, who was brought up in Germany, and who is
not sufficiently confident about her English to attempt to put down
anything for publication in that language, tells me the following story
for the Occult Review:—
"When I was a little girl living with my family near Michelstadt
in the Odenwald, I remember an old woman like an old witch, whose name was
Louise, and who was called 'Pfeiffe Louise,' because she exhibited pipes
for sale in her cottage window, along with the cheap dress-stuffs, needles
and threads, and simple toys for children which were her stock-in-trade.
She had a favourite cat which was devoted to her, but its attachment
doesn't seem to have been enough to make her happy, for she married a
young sergeant named Lautenschlager, who might have been her son—or
indeed her grandson—and who, as everyone said, courted her for her
money. She died as long ago as 1869, and during her last illness the
devoted cat was always with her. It kept watch beside the body when she
was dead, and refused to be driven away. In a fit of exasperation
Lautenschlager seized it, carried it off, and drowned it in the little
River Mumling, at a place where the road from Michelstadt to the
neighbouring village Steinbach runs near the water's edge. It was bordered
with poplars then, but chestnut trees shade it now.
"Soon after his first wife was buried Lautenschlager married
again, and opened an eating-house in Steinbach, where he established his
second wife. He had a sister whom he placed in the cottage of poor 'Pfeiffe
Louise.' She carried on the business, and every day Lautenschlager used to
walk over from Steinbach to see how she was getting on, returning in the
evening to his wife, who used to relate to my mother that he frequently
came home terrified and bathed in perspiration, for as he passed the place
where he had drowned the cat, its ghost used to come out of the river and
run beside him along the dark road, sometimes terrifying him still more by
jumping in front of him.
"After a few years of married life the second wife died, and
Lautenschlager married a third. The little cottage business had prospered,
and in its place he now had a considerable draper's shop in Michelstadt.
He continued to walk over from Steinbach, where now the third wife lived
in the eating-house, and the ghost of the cat continued to frighten him by
appearing at nightfall as he walked beside the river.
"I can remember hearing his third wife describe his dread of it,
and my mother has told me how both the sister and the second wife used to
say the same thing, though I was too young then for them to tell me about
it. Lautenschlager used also to complain to the country people who came to
dine at his eating-house. He considered himself an ill-used man, and felt
that the supernatural powers were treating him very hardly, and subjecting
him to a real persecution. I have only the conversation of his wife and
the gossip of the village to vouch for his sincerity, and the genuineness
of the apparition is supported only by Lautenschlager's word, but his
evident anger and agitation were accepted as genuine, and no one dreamed
of doubting his word. He was not at all a dreamy or imaginative man, and
did not drink. His passion was merely momentary. He was not only a draper
and caterer but a usurer, and realized something of a fortune by lending
money on good security to peasants and farmers who, it was said, did not
consider how they bound themselves when they signed the papers he put
before them.
"Lautenschlager continued to be haunted by the cat-ghost at
irregular intervals for more than twenty years, and it made a marked
change in his character. He became serious, and during the latter part of
his life would only talk about religion and read sacred literature. He
died about ten years ago."
"Feline."
Letter 7
A Spectral Fox-terrier
Two or three years ago I visited a medium (Mrs. Davies of 44 Laburnum
Grove, Portsmouth). I had been seated only a few minutes when a little
pug-dog of hers looked up in the direction of my knees and down towards my
feet, growling and howling in a most strange manner.
"What on earth is he looking at?" I exclaimed.
"Oh," said the medium, "there is a little fox-terrier
lying across your feet; one half of his face is quite dark and the other
half white, but he has such a peculiar black patch over the eye that one
would almost think it was a black bruise." Now, sir, I had such a
little dog in India, but this lady did not know of him, and would never
have known had he not, as I afterwards found, died out there. This is not
only a case of the appearance of an animal after death, but also a case in
which it was seen by another animal, as also by the medium. I am also told
that the pug-dog who had this vision of my dog was once seen to pounce
upon what seemed to the medium to be several cats, near the copper in the
scullery of the same house. The medium asked a neighbour if the previous
occupants had had any cats. "Oh, yes," replied the neighbour,
"and badly the poor things were served, for they were cruelly thrown
into the copper, which was full of boiling water."
"Simla"
(M. Conder).
Letter 8
Killed by a Street Car, but walks in at the Front
Door
Some five years ago we had a little puppy about six months old. I used
to train him to always go round the back way to come into the house. One
day he got hurt and run over, being instantly killed by a street car. A
day or two after the accident I was going in my front door and I saw the
dog go up the steps in front of me, as plain as I ever saw him in my life.
It seemed he knew that I had taught him he must not go in the front way,
because he would go a few steps and then turn round and look at me, as
though he wanted to see how I was taking it, and I positively saw him go
to the full length of the hall into the house, a distance of about twenty
feet, before he disappeared. I saw him do this at least three times in two
months that we stayed in that flat. I told at least a half-dozen people of
the incident at the time it happened, and I can vouch for its
authenticity.
I remain, yours truly,
"Majilton"
(Chas. A. Thompson, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.).
Letter 9
Mrs. Vincent Taylor's Experience. A Spirit Purr
One evening in February, 1906, my son and I were quietly reading, in
full gaslight, our small grey cat lying on the sofa a short distance from
where I sat. Suddenly I saw on my knee a large red and white cat which
belonged to us in India, which was a very dear family friend and as fond
of us as a child.
On leaving India we were obliged to give him to a friend, and in the
end he shared the usual fate of pets in that country, making a meal for
some wild animal.
"Rufie-Oofie," in his spirit shape, purred vigorously,
rubbing his head against me and giving every sign of delight at seeing us
again. I did not speak, but in a few minutes my son looked up and said,
"Mother, Rufie-Oofie is on your knee," when the spirit cat
jumped down and went to him to be petted. Then he returned to me, and
walked along the sofa to where our present cat, "Kim," was
asleep. The spirit cat, with a look of almost human fun, patted Kim's
head, the latter awaking with a start. Rufie-Oofie continued to make
playful dabs at Kim's ears, Kim following each movement with glaring eyes,
distinctly seeing and realizing that another cat was invading his sofa,
but not in the least angry with him and quite ready to play. After a few
minutes the spirit cat came back to my knee, whereupon the earth cat
displayed jealousy which Rufie-Oofie resented, but before they came to
actual "words" the spirit cat retired behind the veil.
"Arjüna."
Letter 10
Sir,
The following notes of psychological experiences with animals may be of
interest:—
I had a collie who lived to a good old age. She was deaf and infirm,
and one hind-leg was paralysed, so that it dragged as she walked. I was
taken ill, not seriously, nor so as in any way to affect my brain, but as
my poor old dog would insist on coming and lying in my room the doctor
insisted on her being destroyed. I felt that her life was no pleasure to
her, and she was killed with chloroform. Three days afterwards in the
afternoon I heard her come upstairs with her dragging hind-leg. I heard
her steps come along the long passage which had my room at the end, and
lost them about half-way up. On the third day I called her and spoke to
her, putting out my hand as if she would come and put her head under it,
and told her all was right. I never heard her any more.
I believe that on one occasion she told me by thought transference that
she had no water in her pan. The pan was always filled, and I knew that
she wanted something, but thought of all other wants but water. She made
her eyes protrude, and looked at me intently, and "water"
flashed into my mind. I looked and found the pan empty. It is, of course,
possible that the suggestion came from my own subconscious mind. I never
saw the aura of a human being, but I once had a kind of vision of this
dog, which experts have told me was her aura. I was sitting by the fire,
somewhat somnolent, and he was lying on the hearthrug. All at once his
golden brown coat disappeared, and I saw a mass of reddish brown or
perhaps I should say brownish red, and on one side of it was an irregular
patch of fleecy white, bordered with sapphire blue. I was told that the
brownish red represented the dog's animal instincts, the pearly white his
animal innocence, and the sapphire blue his devotional instinct, in his
case directed to me as his deity. Whether any of your readers have had
similar experiences and explain them similarly, I do not know.
I had to go abroad one summer and my dog was ill with eczema, and as I
did not very much trust the maid I was leaving in charge, I sent him to
the vet's to be treated. As soon as I reached my destination I wrote to a
friend to go and inquire how he was. She replied that the dog was
perfectly miserable, and that he had an enormous wound on his back, that
he had eaten nothing for a week, that he was too weak to stand, and that
if he were hers, she would have him put out of his misery at once. I wrote
at once to the vet, telling him to telegraph "Curable" or
"Hopeless," and to act accordingly. Meanwhile, I sat that
afternoon in the Bürgerpark by myself and imagined the dog upon my lap,
and myself stroking and healing him. After this I found myself fully
believing that he would get better. The telegram I received was
"Curable," and my friend wrote a second letter and said it was a
miracle, for the dog was quite convalescent. He recovered perfectly. Here,
again, however, it may have been that he was breaking his heart for a
friend, and that my friend's visit cheered him. Or may not both causes
have had their effect?
"Ambrose Zail Martyn."
Here is another case in the veracity of which I have every confidence.
I will call it
The Headless Cat of No.— Lower Seedley Road,
Seedley, Manchester
It was related to me by Mr. Robert Dane, who was at one time a tenant
of No. —— Lower Seedley Road, Seedley. I quote it as nearly as
possible in his words, thus:—
"When we—my wife and I—took No. —— Lower Seedley Road, no
possibility of the place being haunted crossed our minds. Indeed ghosts
were the very last things we reckoned on, as neither of us had the
slightest belief in them. Like the generality of solicitors, I am stodgy
and unimaginative, whilst my wife is the most practical and matter-of-fact
little woman you would meet in a day's march. Nor was there anything about
the house that in any way suggested the superphysical. It was airy and
light—no dark corners nor sinister staircases—and equipped throughout
with all modern conveniences. We began our lease in June—the hottest
June I remember—and nothing occurred to disturb us till October.
"It happened then in this wise. I will quote from my diary:—
"Monday, October 11th.—Dick—that is my
brother-in-law—and I, at 11 p.m., were sitting smoking and chatting
together in the study. All the rest of the household had gone to bed. We
had no light in the room—as Dick had a headache—save the fire, and
that had burned so low that its feeble glimmering scarcely enabled us to
see each other's face. After a space of sudden and thoughtful silence,
Dick took the stump of a cigar from his lips and threw it in the grate,
where for a few moments it lay glowing in the gloom.
"'Jack,' he said, 'you will think me mad, but there is something
deuced queer about this room to-night—something in the atmosphere I
cannot define, but which I have never felt here—or indeed
anywhere—before. Look at that cigar-end—look!'
"I did so, and received a shock. What I saw was certainly not the
stump Dick had had in his mouth, but an eye—a large, red and lurid
eye—that looked up at us with an expression of the utmost hate.
"Dick raised the shovel and struck at it, but without effect—it
still glared at us. A great horror then seized us, and unable to remove
our gaze from the hellish thing, we sat glued to our chairs staring at it.
This state of affairs lasted till the clock in the hall outside struck
twelve, when the eye suddenly vanished, and we both felt as if some
intensely evil influence had been suddenly removed.
"Dick did not like the idea of sleeping alone, and asked if he
might keep the electric light on in his room all night. Tremendous
extravagance, but under the circumstances excusable. I confess I devoutly
wished it was morning.
"Tuesday, October 12th.—I was awakened at 11.30 p.m. by
Delia saying to me, 'Oh, Edward, there have been such dreadful noises on
the landing, just as if a cat were being worried to death by dogs. Hark!
there it is again.' And as she spoke, from apparently just outside the
door, came a series of loud screeches, accompanied by savage growls and
snarls.
"Not knowing what to make of it, as we had no animals of our own
in the house, but concluding that a door or window having been left open,
a dog and cat had got in from outside, I lit a candle, and opened the
bedroom door. Instantly the sounds ceased and there was dead silence, and
although I searched everywhere, not a vestige of any animal was to be
seen. Moreover all the doors leading into the garden were shut and locked,
and the windows closed. Not wishing to frighten Delia, I laughingly
assured her the cat—a black Tom—was all right, that it was sitting on
the roof of the summer-house, looking none the worse for its treatment,
and that I had sent the dog—a terrier—flying out of the gate with a
well-deserved kick. I explained it was my fault about the front door being
left open—my brain had been a bit overstrained through excessive
work—and asked her on no account to blame the servants. I grow alarmed
at times when I realize how easy lawyering makes lying.
"Friday, October 21st.—On my way to bed last night I
encountered a rush of icy cold air at the first bend of the staircase. The
candle flared up, a bright blue flame, and went out. Something—an animal
of sorts—came tearing down the stairs past me, and on peering over the
banisters, I saw, looking up at me from the well of darkness beneath, two
big red eyes, the counterparts of the one Dick and I had seen on October
11th. I threw a matchbox at them, but without effect. It was only when I
switched on the electric light that they disappeared. I searched the house
most carefully, but there were no signs of any animal. Joined Delia,
feeling nervous and henpecky.
"Monday, November 7th.—Tom and Mable came running into
Delia's room in a great state of excitement after tea to-day. 'Mother!'
they cried, 'Mother! Do come! Some horrid dog has got a cat in the spare
room and is tearing it to pieces.' Delia, who was mending my socks at the
time, flung them anywhere, and springing to her feet, flew to the spare
room. The door was shut, but proceeding from within was the most appalling
pandemonium of screeches and snarls, just as if some dog had got hold of a
cat by the neck and was shaking it to death. Delia swung open the door and
rushed in. The room was empty—not a trace of a cat or dog anywhere—and
the sounds ceased! On my return home Delia met me in the garden. 'Jack!'
she said, 'I have probed the mystery at last. The house is haunted! We
must leave.'
"Saturday, November 12th.—Sublet house to James Barstow,
retired oil merchant, to-day. He comes in on the 30th. Hope he'll like it!
"Tuesday, November 15th.—Cook left to-day. 'I've no fault
to find with you, mum,' she condescendingly explained to Delia. 'It's not
you, nor the children, nor the food. It's the noises at night—screeches
outside my door, which sound like a cat, but which I know can't be a cat,
as there is no cat in the house. This morning, mum, shortly after the
clock struck two, things came to a climax. Hearing something in the corner
and wondering if it was a mouse—I ain't a bit afraid of mice, mum—I
sat up in bed and was getting ready to strike a light—the matchbox was
in my hand—when something heavy sprang right on the top of me and gave a
loud growl in my ear. That finished me, mum—I fainted. When I came to
myself, I was too frightened to stir, but lay with my head under the
blankets till it was time to get up. I then searched everywhere, but there
was no sign of any dog, and as the door was locked there was no
possibility of any dog having got in during the night. Mum, I wouldn't go
through what I suffered again for fifty pounds; I've got palpitations even
now; and I would rather go without my month's wages than sleep in that
room another night.' Delia paid her up to date, and she went directly
after tea.
"Friday, November 18th.—As I was coming out of the
bathroom at 11 p.m. something fell into the bath with a loud splash. I
turned to see what it was—there was nothing there. I ran up the stairs
to bed, three steps at a time!
"Sunday, November 20th.—Went to church in the morning and
heard the usual Oxford drawl. On the way back I was pondering over the
sermon and wishing I could contort the Law as successfully as parsons
contort the Scriptures, when Dot—she is six to-day—came running up to
me with a very scared expression in her eyes. 'Father,' she cried,
plucking me by the sleeve, 'do hurry up. Mother is very ill.' Full of
dreadful anticipations, I tore home, and on arriving found Delia lying on
the sofa in a violent fit of hysterics. It was fully an hour before she
recovered sufficiently to tell me what had happened. Her account runs
thus:—
"'After you went to church,' she began, 'I made the custard
pudding, jelly and blancmange for dinner, heard the children their
collects, and had just sat down with the intention of writing a letter to
mother, when I heard a very pathetic mew coming, so I thought, from under
the sofa. Thinking it was some stray cat that had got in through one of
the windows, I tried to entice it out, by calling "Puss, puss,"
and making the usual silly noise people do on such occasions. No cat
coming out and the mewing still continuing, I knelt down and peered under
the sofa. There was no cat there. Had it been night I should have been
very much afraid, but I could scarcely reconcile myself to the idea of
ghosts with the room filled with sunshine. Resuming my seat I went on with
my writing, but not for long. The mewing grew nearer. I distinctly heard
something crawl out from under the sofa; there was then a pause, during
which you could have heard the proverbial pin fall, and then something
sprang upon me and dug its claws in my knees. I looked down, and to my
horror and distress, perceived, standing on its hind-legs, pawing my
clothes, a large, tabby cat, without a head—the neck terminating in a
mangled stump. The sight so appalled me that I don't know what happened,
but nurse and the children came in and found me lying on the floor in
hysterics. Can't we leave the house at once?'
"Wednesday, November 30th.—Left No. —— Lower Seedley
Road at 2 p.m. Had an awful scurry to get things packed in time, and dread
opening certain of the packing-cases lest we shall find all the crockery
smashed. Just as we were starting Delia cried out that she had left her
reticule behind, and I was despatched in search of it. I searched
everywhere—till I was worn out, for I know what Delia is—and was
leaving the premises in full anticipation of being sent back again, when
there was a loud commotion in the hall, just as if a dog had suddenly
pounced on a cat, and the next moment a large tabby, with the head hewn
away as Delia had described, rushed up to me and tried to spring on to my
shoulders. At this juncture one of the servants cautiously opened the hall
door from without, and informed me I was wanted. The cat instantly
vanished, and, on my reaching the carriage in a state of breathless haste
and trepidation, Delia told me she had found her reticule—she had been
sitting on it all the time!"
In a subsequent note in his diary a year or so later Mr. Dane says:
"After innumerable enquiries re the history of No. ——
Lower Seedley Road prior to our inhabiting it, I have at length elicited
the fact that twelve years ago a Mr. and Mrs. Barlowe lived there. They
had one son, Arthur, whom they spoilt in the most outrageous fashion, even
to the extent of encouraging him in acts of cruelty. To afford him
amusement they used to buy rats for his dog—a fox-terrier—to worry,
and on one occasion procured a stray cat, which the servants afterwards
declared was mangled in the most shocking manner before being finally
destroyed by Arthur. Here, then, in my opinion, is a very feasible
explanation for the hauntings—the phenomenon seen was the phantasm of
the poor, tortured cat. For if human tragedies are re-enacted by ghosts,
why not animal tragedies too? It is absurd to suppose man has the monopoly
of soul or spirit."
The Cat on the Post
In her Ghosts and Family Legends Mrs. Crowe narrates the
following case of a haunting by the phantom of a cat:—
"After the doctor's story, I fear mine will appear too
trifling," said Mrs. M., "but as it is the only circumstance of
the kind that ever happened to myself, I prefer giving it you to any of
the many stories I have heard.
"About fifteen years ago I was staying with some friends at a
magnificent old seat in Yorkshire, and our host being very much crippled
with the gout, was in the habit of driving about the park and
neighbourhood in a low pony phaeton, on which occasions I often
accompanied him. One of our favourite excursions was to the ruins of an
old abbey just beyond the park, and we generally returned by a remarkably
pretty rural lane leading to the village, or rather small town, of
C——.
"One fine summer's evening we had just entered this lane when,
seeing the hedges full of wild flowers, I asked my friend to let me alight
and gather some. I walked before the carriage picking honeysuckles and
roses as I went along, till I came to a gate that led into a field. It was
a common country gate with a post on each side, and on one of these posts
sat a large white cat, the finest animal of the kind I had ever seen; and
as I have a weakness for cats I stopped to admire this sleek, fat puss,
looking so wonderfully comfortable in a very uncomfortable position, the
top of the post, on which it was sitting with its feet doubled up under
it, being out of all proportion to its body, for no Angola ever rivalled
it in size.
"'Come on gently,' I called to my friend; 'here's such a
magnificent cat!' for I feared the approach of the phaeton would startle
it away before he had seen it.
"'Where?' said he, pulling up his horse opposite the gate.
"'There,' said I, pointing to the post. 'Isn't he a beauty? I
wonder if it would let me stroke it?'
"'I see no cat,' said he.
"'There on the post,' said I, but he declared he saw nothing,
though puss sat there in perfect composure during this colloquy.
"'Don't you see the cat, James?' said I in great perplexity to the
groom.
"'Yes, ma'am; a large white cat on that post.'
"I thought my friend must be joking, or losing his eyesight, and I
approached the cat, intending to take it in my arms and carry it to the
carriage; but as I drew near she jumped off the post, which was natural
enough, but to my surprise she jumped into nothing—as she jumped she
disappeared! No cat in the field—none in the lane—none in the ditch!
"'Where did she go, James?'
"'I don't know, ma'am. I can't see her,' said the groom, standing
up in his seat and looking all round.
"I was quite bewildered; but still I had no glimmering of the
truth; and when I got into the carriage again my friend said he thought I
and James were dreaming, and I retorted that I thought he must be going
blind.
"I had a commission to execute as we passed through the town, and
I alighted for that purpose at the little haberdasher's; and while they
were serving me I mentioned that I had seen a remarkably beautiful cat
sitting on a gate in the lane, and asked if they could tell me who it
belonged to, adding it was the largest cat I ever saw.
"The owners of the shop, and two women who were making purchases,
suspended their proceedings, looked at each other and then looked at me,
evidently very much surprised.
"'Was it a white cat, ma'am?' said the mistress.
"'Yes, a white cat; a beautiful creature and——'
"'Bless me!' cried two or three, 'the lady's seen the white cat of
C——. It hasn't been seen these twenty years.'
"'Master wishes to know if you'll soon be done, ma'am. The pony is
getting restless,' said James.
"Of course I hurried out, and got into the carriage, telling my
friend that the cat was well known to the people at C——, and that it
was twenty years old.
"In those days, I believe, I never thought of ghosts, and least of
all should have thought of the ghost of a cat; but two evenings
afterwards, as we were driving down the lane, I again saw the cat in the
same position and again my companion could not see it, though the groom
did. I alighted immediately, and went up to it. As I approached it turned
its head and looked full towards me with its soft mild eyes, and a
friendly expression, like that of a loving dog; and then, without moving
from the post, it began to fade gradually away, as if it were a vapour,
till it had quite disappeared. All this the groom saw as well as myself;
and now there could be no mistake as to what it was. A third time I saw it
in broad daylight, and my curiosity greatly awakened, I resolved to make
further enquiries amongst the inhabitants of C——, but before I had an
opportunity of doing so, I was summoned away by the death of my eldest
child, and I have never been in that part of the world since.
"However, I once mentioned the circumstance to a lady who was
acquainted with that neighbourhood, and she said she had heard of the
white cat of C——, but had never seen it."
This is Mrs. M.'s account as related by Mrs. Crowe, and after perusing
the authoress's preface to the work, I am inclined to give it full
credence.
The Mystic Properties of Cats
The most common forms of animal phenomena seen in haunted houses are
undoubtedly those of cats. The number of places reported to me as being
haunted by cats is almost incredible—in one street in Whitechapel there
are no less than four. This state of affairs may possibly be accounted for
by the fact that cats, more than any other animals that live in houses,
meet with sudden and unnatural ends, especially in the poorer districts,
where the doctrine of kindness to animals has not as yet made itself
thoroughly felt. Now I am touching on the subject of cat ghosts, it may
not be out of place to reproduce the following article of mine, entitled
"Cats and the Unknown," which appeared in the Occult Review
for December, 1912:—
"Since, from all ages, the cat has been closely associated with
the supernatural, it is not surprising to learn that images and symbols of
that animal figured in the temples of the sun and moon, respectively, in
ancient Egypt. According to Horapollo, the cat was worshipped in the
Temple of Heliopolis, sacred to the sun, because the size of the pupil of
the cat's eye is regulated by the height of the sun above the horizon.
"Other authorities suggest a rather more subtle—and, in my
opinion, more probable—reason, namely, that the link between the sun and
the cat is not merely physical but superphysical, that the cat is
attracted to the sun not only because it loves warmth, but because the sun
keeps off terrifying and antagonistic occult forces, to the influences of
which the cat, above all other animals, is specially susceptible; a fact
fully recognized by the Egyptians, who, to show their understanding and
appreciation of this feline attachment, took care that whenever a temple
was dedicated to the sun an image or symbol of the cat was placed
somewhere, well in evidence, within the precincts.
"To make this theory all the more probable, images and symbols of
the cat were dedicated to the moon, the moon being universally regarded as
the quintessence of everything supernatural, the very cockpit, in fact, of
mystery and spookism. The nocturnal habits of the cat, its love of
prowling about during moonlight hours, and the spectacle of its two round,
gleaming eyes, may, of course, as Plutarch seems to have thought, have
suggested to the Egyptians human influence and analogy, and thus the
presence of its effigy in temples to Isis would be partially, at all
events, accounted for; though, as before, I am inclined to think there is
another and rather more subtle reason.
"From endless experiments made in haunted houses, I have proved to
my own satisfaction, at least, that the cat acts as a thoroughly reliable
psychic barometer.
"The dog is sometimes unaware of the proximity of the Unknown.
When the ghost materializes or in some other way demonstrates its advent,
the dog, occasionally, is wholly undisturbed—the cat never. I have never
yet had a cat with me that has not shown the most obvious signs of terror
and uneasiness both before and during a superphysical manifestation.
"Now, although I won't go so far as to say that ghostly
demonstrations are actually dependent on the moon—that they occur only
on nights when the moon is visible—experience has led me to believe that
the moon most certainly does influence them—that moonlight nights are
much more favourable to ghostly appearances than other nights.
Hence—there is this much in common between the moon and cats—the one
influences and the other is influenced by psychic phenomena—a fact that
could scarcely have failed to be recognized by so keen observers of the
occult as the Ancient Egyptians.
"The presence of the cat's effigy in the temples of Isis might
thus be explained. Over and over again we come across the cat in the land
of the Pharaohs. It seems to be inseparable from the esoteric side of
Egyptian life. The goddess Bast is depicted with a cat's head, holding the
sistrum, i.e. the symbol of the world's harmony, in her hand.
"One of the most ancient symbols of the cat is to be found in the
Necropolis of Thebes, which contains the tomb of Hana (who probably
belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty). There, Hana is depicted standing erect,
proud and kingly, with his favourite cat Borehaki—Borehaki, the picture
of all things strange and psychic, and from whom one cannot help supposing
he may have chosen his occult inspiration—at his feet. So sure were the
Egyptians that the cat possessed a soul that they deemed it worthy of the
same funeral rites they bestowed on man. Cats were embalmed, and
innumerable cat mummies have been discovered in wooden coffins at Bubastis,
Speos, Artemidos and Thebes. When a cat died the Egyptians shaved their
eyebrows, not only to show grief at the loss of their loved one, but to
avert subsequent misfortune.
"So long as a cat was in his house the Egyptian felt safe from
inimical supernatural influences, but if there was no cat in the house at
night, then any undesirable from the occult world might visit him. Indeed,
in such high esteem did the Egyptians hold the cat, that they voluntarily
incurred the gravest risks when its life was in peril. No one of them
appreciated the cat and set a higher value on its mystic properties than
the Sultan El-Daher-Beybas, who reigned in A.D. 1260, and has been
compared with William of Tripoli for his courage, and with Nero for his
cruelty. El-Daher-Beybas kept his palace swarming with cats, and—if we
may give credence to tradition—was seldom to be seen unaccompanied by
one of these animals. When he died, he left the proceeds from the product
of a garden to support his feline friends—an example that found many
subsequent imitators. Indeed, until comparatively recently in Cairo, cats
were regularly fed, between noon and sunset, in the outer court of the
Mehkemeh.
"In Geneva, Rome and Constantinople, though cats were generally
deemed to have souls and to possess psychic properties, they were thought
to derive them from evil sources, and so strong was the prejudice against
these unfortunate animals on this account, that all through the Middle
Ages we find them suffering such barbaric torture as only the perverted
minds of a fanatical, priest-ridden people could devise (which treatment,
no doubt, partly, at all events, accounts for the many palaces, houses,
etc., in those particular countries, stated to have been haunted by the
spirits of cats).
"The devil was popularly supposed to appear in the shape of a
black Tom in preference to assuming any other guise, and the bare fact of
an old woman being seen, once or twice, with a black cat by her side was
quite sufficient to earn for her the reputation of a witch. It would be
idle, of course, to expect people in these unmeditative times to believe
there was ever the remotest truth underlying these so-called phantastic
suppositions of the past; yet, according to reliable testimony, there are,
at the present moment, many houses in England haunted by phantasms in the
form of black cats, of so sinister and hostile an appearance, that one can
only assume that unless they are the actual spirits of cats, earthbound
through cruel and vicious propensities, they must be vice-elementals, i.e.
spirits that have never inhabited any material body, and which have either
been generated by vicious thoughts, or else have been attracted elsewhere
to a spot by some crime or vicious act once perpetrated there.
Vice-elemental is merely the modern name for fiend or demon.
"Apart from his luciferan qualities, the cat was awarded all sorts
of other qualities, not the least important of which was its prophetic
capability. If a cat washed its face, rainy weather was regarded as
inevitable; if a cat frolicked on the deck of a ship, it was a sure sign
of a storm; whilst if a live ember fell on a cat, an earthquake shock
would speedily be felt. Cats, too, were reputed the harbingers of good and
bad fortune. Not a person in Normandy but believed, at one time, that the
spectacle of a tortoiseshell cat, climbing a tree, foretold death from
accident, and that a black cat crossing one's path, in the moonlight,
presaged death from an epidemic. Two black cats viewed in the open between
4 and 7 a.m. were generally believed to predict a death; whereas a strange
white cat, heard mewing on a doorstep, was loudly welcomed as the
indication of an approaching marriage. According to tradition, one learns
that cats were occasionally made use of in medicine; to cure peasants of
skin diseases, French sorcerers sprinkling the afflicted parts with three
drops of blood drawn from the vein under a cat's tail; whilst blindness
was treated by blowing into the patient's eyes, three times a day, the
dust made from ashes of the head of a black cat that had been burned
alive.
"Talking of burning cats reminds me of a horrible practice that
was prevalent in the Hebrides as late as 1750. It was firmly believed
there that cats were extraordinarily psychic, and that a sure means of
getting in close touch with occult powers, and of obtaining from them the
faculty of second sight—such as the cat possessed—was to offer up as
sacrifices innumerable black cats. The process was very simple. A black
cat was fastened to a spit before a slow fire, and as soon as the wretched
animal was well roasted, another took its place; victims being supplied
without intermission, until their vociferous screams brought to the scene
a number of ghostly cats who joined in the chorus. The desired climax was
reached, when an enormous phantom cat suddenly appeared, and informed the
operator that it was willing to grant him any one request if he would only
refrain from his cruel persecution. The operator at once demanded the
faculty of second sight—a power more highly prized in the Hebrides than
any other—and the moment it was bestowed on him, set free the remaining
cats. Had all races been as barbarously disposed as these occult-hungering
Westerners, cats would soon have become extinct; but it is comforting to
think that in some parts of the world a very different value was set on
their psychic properties.
"In various parts of Europe (some districts of England included)
white cats were thought to attract benevolently disposed fairies, and a
peasant would as soon have thought of cutting off his fingers, or
otherwise maltreating himself, as being unkind to an animal of this
species. In the fairy lore of half Europe we have instances of
luck-bringing cats—each country producing its own version of Puss in
Boots, Dame Mitchell and her cat, the White Cat, Dick Whittington and his
cat, etc. It is the same in Asia, too; for nowhere are such stories more
prolific than in China and Persia.
"To sum up—in all climes and in all periods of past history, the
cat was credited with many propensities that brought it into affinity and
sympathy with the supernatural—or to quote the up-to-date term—superphysical
world. Let us review the cat to-day, and see to what extent this past
regard of it is justified.
"Firstly, with respect to it as the harbinger of fortune. Has a
cat insight into the future? Can it presage wealth or death? I am inclined
to believe that certain cats can at all events foresee the advent of the
latter; and that they do this in the same manner as the shark, crow, owl,
jackal, hyena, etc., viz. by their abnormally developed sense of smell. My
own and other people's experience has led me to believe that when a person
is about to die, some kind of phantom, maybe, a spirit whose special
function it is to be present on such occasions, is in close proximity to
the sick or injured one, waiting to escort his or her soul into the world
of shadows—and that certain cats scent its approach.
"Therein then—in this wonderful property of smell—lies one of
the secrets to the cat's mysterious powers, it has the psychic faculty of
scent—of scenting ghosts. Some people, too, have this faculty. In a
recent murder case, in the North of England, a rustic witness gave it in
her evidence that she was sure a tragedy was about to happen because she
"smelt death in the house," and it made her very uneasy. Cats
possessing this peculiarity are affected in a similar manner—they are
uneasy.
"Before a death in a house I have watched a cat show gradually
increasing signs of uneasiness. It has moved from place to place, unable
to settle in any one spot for any length of time, had frequent fits of
shivering, gone to the door, sniffed the atmosphere, thrown back its head
and mewed in a low, plaintive key, and shown the greatest reluctance to
being alone in the dark.
"This faculty—possessed by certain cats—may in some measure
explain certain of the superstitions respecting them. Take, for example,
that of cats crossing one's path predicting death.
"The cat is drawn to the spot because it scents the phantom of
death, and cannot resist its magnetic attraction.
"From this, it does not follow that the person who sees the cat is
going to die, but that death is overtaking someone associated with that
person; and it is in connection with the latter that the spirit of the
grave is present, employing, as a medium of prognostication, the cat,
which has been given the psychic faculty of smell that it might be so
used.
"But although I regard this theory as very feasible, I do not
attribute to cats, with the same degree of certainty, the power to presage
good fortune, simply because I have had no experience of it myself. Yet,
adopting the same lines of argument, I see no reason why cats should not
prognosticate good as well as evil.
"There may be phantoms representative of prosperity, in just the
same manner as there are those representative of death; they, too, may
also have some distinguishing scent (flowers have various odours, so why
not spirits?) and certain cats, i.e. white cats in particular, may be
attracted by it.
"This becomes all the more probable when one considers how very
impressionable the cat is—how very sensitive to kindness. There are some
strangers with whom the cat will at once make friends, and others whom it
will studiously avoid. Why? The explanation, I fancy, lies once more in
the occult—in the cat's psychic faculty of smell. Kind people attract
benevolently disposed phantoms, which bring with them an agreeably scented
atmosphere, that, in turn, attracts cats. The cat comes to one person
because it knows by the smell of the atmosphere surrounding him, or her,
that it has nothing to fear—that the person is essentially gentle and
benignant. On the contrary, cruel people attract malevolent phantoms,
distinguishable also to the cat by their smell, a smell typical of
cruelty—often of homicidal lunacy (I have particularly noticed how cats
have shrunk from people who have afterwards become dangerously insane). Is
this sense of smell, then, the keynote to the halo of mystery that has for
all times surrounded the cat—that has led to its bitter
persecution—that has made it the hero of fairy lore, the pet of old
maids? I believe it is—I believe that in this psychic faculty of smell
lies, in degree, the solution to the oft-asked riddle—why is the cat
uncanny? Having then satisfied oneself on this point, namely, that cats
are in the possession of rare psychic properties, is it likely that the
Unknown Powers which have so endowed them, should withhold from them
either souls or spirits? Is it not contrary to reason, instinct, and
observation to suppose that the many thoroughly material and grossly
minded people—people whose whole beings are steeped in money
worship—we see around us every day should have spirits, and that pretty,
refined and artistic-looking cats, whose occult powers place them in the
very closest connection with the superphysical, should not?
Monstrous—the bare conception of such incongruity in the one case, and
such an omission in the other, is inconceivable, wholly irreconcilable
with the notion of any other than a mummer of a creator—a mere court
fool of a God."
CHAPTER II
APPARITIONS OF DOGS
One of the most extraordinary cases of hauntings by the phantasms of
dogs is related in an old Christmas number of the Review of Reviews,
edited by the late Mr. W.T. Stead, and entitled "Real Ghost
Stories."
"The most remarkable," writes Mr. Stead, "of all the
stories which I have heard concerning ghosts which touch is one that
reaches me from Darlington. I owe this, as I owe so many of the other
narratives in this collection, to the Rev. Harry Kendall, of Darlington,
whose painstaking perseverance in the collection of all matters of this
kind cannot be too highly praised. Mr. Kendall is a Congregational
minister of old standing. He was my pastor when I was editing the Northern
Echo, and he is the author of a remarkable book, entitled All the
World's Akin. The following narrative is quite unique in its way, and
fortunately he was able to get it at first hand from the only living
person present. Here we have a ghost which not only strikes the first
blow, hitting a man fair in the eye, but afterwards sets a ghostly dog
upon his victim and then disappears. The narrative was signed by Mr. James
Durham as lately as December 5th, 1890." Mr. Stead then proceeds to
quote the account which he had from Mr. Kendall, and which I append ad
verbum from the Review of Reviews. It is as follows: "I
was night watchman at the old Darlington and Stockton Station at the town
of Darlington, a few yards from the first station that ever existed. I was
there fifteen years. I used to go on duty about 8 p.m. and come off at 6
a.m. I had been there a little while—perhaps two or three years—and
about forty years ago. One night during winter at about 12 o'clock or
12.30 I was feeling rather cold with standing here and there; I said to
myself, 'I will away down and get something to eat.' There was a porter's
cellar where a fire was kept on and a coal-house was connected with it. So
I went down the steps, took off my overcoat, and had just sat down on the
bench opposite the fire and turned up the gas when a strange man came out
of the coal-house, followed by a big black retriever. As soon as he
entered my eye was upon him, and his eye upon me, and we were intently
watching each other as he moved on to the front of the fire. There he
stood looking at me, and a curious smile came over his countenance. He had
a stand-up collar and a cut-away coat with gilt buttons and a Scotch cap.
All at once he struck at me, and I had the impression that he hit me. I up
with my fist and struck back at him. My fist seemed to go through him and
struck against the stone above the fireplace, and knocked the skin off my
knuckles. The man seemed to be struck back into the fire, and uttered a
strange, unearthly squeak. Immediately the dog gripped me by the calf of
my leg, and seemed to cause me pain. The man recovered his position,
called off the dog with a sort of click of the tongue, then went back into
the coal-house, followed by the dog. I lighted my dark lantern and looked
into the coal-house, but there was neither dog nor man, and no outlet for
them except the one by which they had entered.
"I was satisfied that what I had seen was ghostly, and it
accounted for the fact that when the man had first come into the place
where he sat I had not challenged him with any enquiry. Next day, and for
several weeks, my account caused quite a commotion, and a host of people
spoke to me about it; among the rest old Edward Pease, father of railways,
and his three sons, John, Joseph, and Henry. Old Edward sent for me to his
house and asked me all particulars. He and others put this question to me:
"Are you sure you were not asleep and had the nightmare?" My
answer was quite sure, for I had not been a minute in the cellar, and was
just going to get something to eat. I was certainly not under the
influence of strong drink, for I was then, as I have been for forty-nine
years, a teetotaler. My mind at the time was perfectly free from trouble.
What increased the excitement was the fact that a man a number of years
before, who was employed in the office of the station, had committed
suicide, and his body had been carried into this very cellar. I knew
nothing of this circumstance, nor of the body of the man, but Mr. Pease
and others who had known him, told me my description exactly corresponded
to his appearance and the way he dressed, and also that he had a black
retriever just like the one which gripped me. I should add that no mark or
effect remained on the spot where I seemed to be seized.
"(Signed) James
Durham.
"Dec. 9th, 1890."
Following the above statement Mr. Stead appends Mr. Kendall's reasons
for believing that what James Durham experienced was objective psychic
phenomena, and neither produced during sleep nor by hallucination.
The arguments used strike me as being so concise and sensible that I
think it will not be out of place to reproduce them.
"First," Mr. Kendall says, "he (James Durham) was
accustomed as watchman to be up all night, and therefore not likely from
that cause to feel sleepy. Secondly, he had scarcely been a minute in the
cellar, and, feeling hungry, was just going to get something to eat.
Thirdly, if he was asleep at the beginning of the vision, he must have
been awake enough during the latter part of it when he had knocked the
skin off his knuckles. Fourthly, there was his own confident testimony. I
strongly incline to the opinion that there was an objective cause for the
vision, and that it was genuinely apparitional."
So interested was Mr. Kendall in the case that he visited the spot some
short time later. He was taken into the cellar where the manifestations
took place, and his guide, an old official of the North Road Station,
informed him he well remembered the clerk—a man of the name of
Winter—who committed suicide there, and showed him the exact spot where
he had shot himself with a pistol. In dress and appearance Mr. Winter
corresponded minutely with the phenomenon described by James Durham, and
he had had a black retriever.
Mr. Kendal came away more convinced than ever of the veracity of James
Durham's story, though he admits it was not evidential after the high
standard of the S.P.R. I do not know whether the S.P.R. published the
case, and I certainly do not think Mr. Kendall need have minded if they
did not—for after all there is no reason to suppose the judgment of the
S.P.R. is always infallible.
Mr. Stead does not comment on the apparition of the dog, which leads
one to suppose cases of animal phantasms were by no means uncommon to him.
The Grey Dog of —— House, Birmingham
According to a story current in the Midlands, a house in Birmingham,
near the Roman Catholic Cathedral, was once very badly haunted. A family
who took up their abode in it in the 'eighties complained of hearing all
sorts of uncanny sounds—such as screams and sighs—coming from a room
behind the kitchen. On one occasion the tenant's wife, on entering the
sitting-room, was almost startled out of her senses at seeing, standing
before the fireplace, the figure of a tall, stout man with a large, grey
dog by his side. What was so alarming about the man was his face—it was
apparently a mere blob of flesh without any features in it. The lady
screamed out, whereupon there was a terrific crash, as if all the crockery
in the house had been suddenly clashed on the stone floor; and a friend of
the lady's, attracted to the spot by the noise, saw two clouds of vapour,
one resembling a man and the other a dog, which, after hovering over the
hearth for several seconds, finally dispersed altogether.
A gasfitter, when working in the house, saw the same figures no less
than nine times, and so distinctly that he was able to give a detailed
description of both the man and dog.
The house seems to have been well known in Birmingham, and was
certainly standing as recently as 1885. Many theories were advanced as to
its history, the one gaining most credence being that it was occupied, in
1829, by a man who supplied the medical students with human bodies.
It was noticed at the time that many people who were seen to enter the
house in the company of the owner were never seen to leave it, which
accords well with the theory of resurrection men.
No suggestion has been offered to account for the animal, which may
very easily have been the phantom of the murderer's dog, or, what is
rather less likely, the dog of one of his numerous victims.
Anyhow, explanation or no explanation, the fact remains the house was
haunted in the manner described, and F. Grey, a Warwickshire Chief
Constable, in his Recollections, published 1821, alludes to it.
The Dog in the Cupboard
Miss Prettyman, whom I met some years ago in Cornwall, told me she once
lived in a house in Westmorland that was haunted by the apparition of a
large dog, enveloped in a blueish glow, which apparently emanated from
within it. The dog, whilst appearing in all parts of the house, invariably
vanished in a big cupboard at the back of the hall staircase. Miss
Prettyman, her family, several of their visitors, and the servants all saw
the same phantasm, and were, perhaps, more frightened by the suddenness of
its advent than by its actual appearance.
The theory was that it was the ghost of some dog that had been cruelly
done to death—possibly by starvation—in the cupboard.
How the Ghost of a Dog saved Life
When I was a boy, an elderly friend of mine, Miss Lefanu, narrated to
me an anecdote which impressed me much. It was to this effect.
Miss Lefanu was walking one day along a very lonely country lane, when
she suddenly observed an enormous Newfoundland dog following in her wake a
few yards behind. Being very fond of dogs, she called out to it in a
caressing voice and endeavoured to stroke it. To her disappointment,
however, it dodged aside, and repeated the manoeuvre every time she tried
to touch it. At length, losing patience, she desisted, and resumed her
walk, the dog still following her. In this fashion they went on, until
they came to a particularly dark part of the road, where the branches of
the trees almost met overhead, and there was a pool of stagnant, slimy
water, suggestive of great depth. On the one side the hedge was high, but
on the other there was a slight gap leading into a thick spinney. Miss
Lefanu never visited the spot alone after dusk, and had been warned
against it even in the daytime. As she drew near to it, everything that
she had ever heard about it flashed across her mind, and she was more than
once on the verge of turning back, when the sight of the big,
friendly-looking dog plodding behind, reassuring her, she pressed on. Just
as she came to the gap, there was a loud snapping of twigs, and, to her
horror, two tramps, with singularly sinister faces, sprang out, and were
about to strike her with their bludgeons, when the dog, uttering a low,
ominous growl, dashed at them. In an instant the expression of murderous
joy in their eyes died out, one of abject terror took its place, and,
dropping their weapons, they fled, as if the very salvation of their souls
depended on it. As may be imagined, Miss Lefanu lost no time in getting
home, and the first thing she did on arriving there was to go into the
kitchen and order the cook to prepare, at once, a thoroughly good meal for
her gallant rescuer—the Newfoundland dog, which she had shut up securely
in the back yard, with the laughing remark, "There—you can't escape
me now." Judge of her astonishment, however, when, on her return, the
dog had gone. As the walls of the back yard were twelve feet high, and the
doors had been shut all the while—no one having passed through them—it
was impossible for the animal to have escaped, and the only interpretation
that could possibly be put on the matter was that the dog was
superphysical—a conclusion that was subsequently confirmed by the
experiences of various other people. As the result of exhaustive enquiries
Miss Lefanu eventually learned that many years before, on the very spot
where the tramps had leaped out on her, a pedlar and his Newfoundland dog
had been discovered murdered.
This story being true, then, there is one more link in the chain of
evidence to show that dogs, as well as men, have spirits, and spirits that
can, on occasion, at least, perform deeds of practical service.
A Precentor's Story
The late Mr. W.T. Stead, in his volume of Real Ghost Stories,
narrates the following, which by reason of its being witnessed by three
people simultaneously, may be regarded as highly evidential.
In reply to Mr. Stead's request to hear the anecdote the precentor says
(I quote him ad verbum):
"I was walking, about nine years ago, one night in August, about
ten o'clock, and about half a mile from the house where we are now
sitting. I was going along the public road between the hamlets of Mill of
Haldane and Ballock. I had with me two young women, and we were leisurely
walking along, when suddenly we were startled by seeing a woman, a child
about seven years old, and a Newfoundland dog jump over the stone wall
which was on one side of the road, and walk on rapidly in front of us. I
was not in the least frightened, but my two companions were very much
startled. What bothered me was that the woman, the child, and the dog,
instead of coming over the wall naturally one after the other, as would
have been necessary for them to do, had come over with a bound,
simultaneously leaping the wall, lighting on the road, and then hurrying
on without a word. Leaving my two companions, who were too frightened to
move, I walked rapidly after the trio. They walked on so quickly that it
was with difficulty that I got up to them. I spoke to the woman, she never
answered. I walked beside her for some little distance, and then suddenly
the woman, the child, and the Newfoundland dog disappeared. I did not see
them go anywhere, they simply were no longer there. I examined the road
minutely, at the spot where they had disappeared, to see if it was
possible for them to have gone through a hole in the wall on either side;
but it was quite impossible for a woman and a child to get over a high
dyke on either side. They had disappeared, and I only regret that I did
not try to pass my stick right through their bodies, to see whether or not
they had any resistance. Finding they had gone, I returned to my lady
friends, who were quite unnerved, and who, with difficulty, were induced
to go on to the end of their journey."
One of his companions, Mr. Stead goes on to explain, who heard him tell
the story at the time, corroborated the fact that it had made a great
impression on those who had seen it. Nothing was ever ascertained as to
any woman, child, or Newfoundland dog that had ever been in the district
before. When they got to Ballock they enquired of the keeper of the bridge
whether a woman, a child, and a dog had passed that way, but he had seen
nothing. The apparition had disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
Mr. Stead's article ends here. Of course, one can only surmise as to the
nature of the phenomena. No member of the Psychical Research Society could
do more—and in the absence of any authentic history of the spot where
the manifestations occurred, such a surmise can be of little value. Since
the phenomena were seen by three people at the same time, it is quite safe
to assume they were objective, but it is impossible to lay down the law as
to whether they were actual phantasms of the dead—of a woman, child, and
Newfoundland dog who had all three met with some violent end—or
phantasms of three living beings, who, happening to think of that locality
at the same time, had projected their immaterial bodies there
simultaneously. But whichever of these alternatives be true, the same
thing holds good in either case, viz. that the Newfoundland dog had a
spirit—and what applies to one dog should assuredly apply to the
generality, if not, indeed, to all.
Phantom Dog seen on Souter Fell
Miss Harriet Martineau, in her English Lakes, refers to certain
strange phenomena seen from time to time on Souter Fell.
In 1745, for example, a Mr. Wren and his servant saw, simultaneously, a
man and dog pursuing some horses along a razor-like ridge of rocks, on
which it was obviously impossible for any ordinary being to gain a bare
foothold, let alone walk. They watched the figures until the latter
suddenly vanished, when Mr. Wren and his servant, thinking, perhaps, the
man, dog, and horses had really fallen over the cliff, went to look for
them. They searched elsewhere, but despite their vigilance, nothing was to
be found, and convinced at last that what they had seen was something
superphysical, they came away mystified, and no doubt somewhat frightened.
There is no suggestion to make here other than the manifestations may
have been the phantasms of a man, dog, and horses that at some former date
had been killed, either accidentally or purposely, in or near that spot.
The Jumping Ghost
Mr. George Sinclair, in his work Satan's Invisible World Discovered,
gives a detailed account of hauntings in a house in Mary King's Close,
Edinburgh.
The house, at the time Mr. Sinclair writes, was occupied by Mr. Thomas
Coltheart, a law agent. Seated one afternoon at home reading, Mrs.
Coltheart was immeasurably startled at seeing, suspended in mid-air gazing
at her, the head of an old man. She uttered some sort of exclamation, most
probably a cry, and the apparition at once vanished. Some nights later,
when in bed, both she and her husband saw the same head, which was
presently joined by the head of a child, and a long, naked arm, which
tried to catch hold of them.
On another occasion, a member of the Coltheart family was greatly
alarmed by the sudden appearance of a large dog, which leaped on the chair
by her side, and as suddenly disappeared.
Every effort was made to lay the ghosts. Ministers—and one knows how
pious Scotch clergymen are—were called in, but their exhortations,
instead of dispelling or even minimizing the phenomena, only increased
them. It was a case of more prayers, more spooks; which state of affairs,
however complimentary to the ministers' powers of address, was scarcely as
comforting to the Colthearts, who, unable to bear the strange sights and
noises any longer, evacuated the premises. As no other tenants could be
found, the house was eventually pulled down, and a row of fine modern
buildings now occupy the site. As the history of the place could never be
traced with any degree of authenticity, one can do no more than speculate
as to the cause of the disturbances, which, I am inclined to think, were
due to the phantoms of people and animals that had once actually lived and
died there.
Dogs seen before a Death
Mrs. Crowe, in her Night Side of Nature, mentions the case of a
young lady named P——, who saw a big black dog twice suddenly appear
and disappear by her side, immediately before the death of her mother.
In The Unseen World a story is also told of the phantasm of a
big black dog appearing on the bed of a Cornish child, doomed to die
shortly afterwards, the same dog invariably manifesting itself before the
death of any member of the child's family.
There are so many cases of a similar kind—one hears of them nearly
everywhere one goes—that one is led to believe some of them, at least,
must be true. There is no more reason to believe all ghost-story tellers
are liars, than there is to believe all parsons are liars—and this being
so, additional proof is afforded of the continuation of the dog's life
after death; for these family canine ghosts are more than probably the
phantasms of dogs that once belonged to families—maybe centuries
ago—and met their fate in some cruel and unnatural manner.
A Dog scared by a Canine Ghost
A friend of mine, Edward Morgan, had a terrier that was found one
morning, poisoned in a big stone kennel. Soon afterwards this friend came
to me and said, "I have got a new dog—a spaniel—but nothing will
induce it to enter the kennel in which poor Zack was poisoned. Come and
see!"
I did so, and what he said was true. Mack (Morgan gave all his dogs
names that rhymed—Zack, Mack, Jack, Tack, and even Whack and Smack),
when carried to the entrance of the kennel, resolutely refused to cross
the threshold, barking, whining, and exhibiting unmistakable symptoms of
fear. I knelt down, and peering into the kennel saw two luminous eyes and
the distinct outlines of a dog's head.
"Morgan!" I exclaimed, "the mystery is easily solved;
there's a dog in here."
"Nonsense!" Morgan cried, speaking very excitedly.
"But there is," I retorted, "see for yourself."
Morgan immediately bent down and poked his head into the kennel.
"What rot," he said. "You're having me on, there's
nothing here."
"What!" I cried, "do you mean to say you can see no
dog?"
"No!" he replied, "there is none!"
"Let me look again!" I said, and kneeling down, I peeped in.
"Do you mean to say you can't see a dog's face and eyes looking
straight at us?" I asked.
"No," he answered, "I can see nothing." And to
prove to me the truth of what he said, he fetched a pole and raked about
the kennel vigorously with it. We both, then, tried to make Mack enter,
and Morgan at last caught hold of him and placed him forcibly inside.
Mack's terror knew no limit. He gave one loud howl, and flying out of the
kennel with his ears hanging back, tore past into the front garden, where
we left him in peace. Morgan was still sceptical as to there being
anything wrong with the kennel, but two days later wrote to me as
follows:—
"I must apologize for doubting you the other day. I have just had,
what you declared you saw, corroborated. A friend of my wife's was calling
here this afternoon, and, on hearing of Mack's refusal to sleep in the
kennel, at once said, 'I know what's the matter. It's the smell. Mack
scents the poison which was used to destroy Zack. Have the kennel
thoroughly fumigated, and you'll have no more trouble.' At my wife's
request she went into the yard to have a look at it, and the moment she
bent down, she cried out like you did, 'Why, there's a dog inside—a
terrier!' My wife and I both looked and could see nothing. The lady,
however, persisted, and, on my handing her a stick, struck at the figure
she saw. To her amazement the stick went right through it. Then, and not
till then, did we tell her of your experience. 'Well!' she exclaimed, 'I
have never believed in ghosts, but I do so now. I am quite certain that
what I see is the phantom of Zack! How glad I am, because I am at last
assured animals have spirits and can come back to us.'"
In concluding the accounts of phantasms of dead dogs, let me quote two
cases taken from my work entitled The Haunted Houses of London,
published by Mr. Eveleigh Nash, of Fawside House, King Street, Covent
Garden, London, W.C., in 1909. The cases are these:—
The Phantom Dachshund of W—— St., London, W.
In letter No. 1 my correspondent writes:—
"Though I am by no means over-indulgent to dogs, the latter
generally greet me very effusively, and it would seem that there is
something in my individuality that is peculiarly attractive to them. This
being so, I was not greatly surprised one day, when in the immediate
neighbourhood of X——Street, to find myself persistently followed by a
rough-haired dachshund wearing a gaudy yellow collar. I tried to scare it
away by shaking my sunshade at it, but all to no purpose—it came
resolutely on; and I was beginning to despair of getting rid of it, when I
came to X—— Street, where my husband once practised as an oculist.
There it suddenly altered its tactics, and instead of keeping at my heels,
became my conductor, forging slowly ahead with a gliding motion that both
puzzled and fascinated me. I furthermore observed that notwithstanding the
temperature—it was not a whit less than ninety degrees in the
shade—the legs and stomach of the dachshund were covered with mud and
dripping with water. When it came to No. 90 it halted, and veering swiftly
round, eyed me in the strangest manner, just as if it had some secret it
was bursting to disclose. It remained in this attitude until I was within
two or three feet of it—certainly not more—when, to my unlimited
amazement, it absolutely vanished—melted away into thin air.
"The iron gate leading to the area was closed, so that there was
nowhere for it to have hidden, and, besides, I was almost bending over it
at the time, as I wanted to read the name on its collar. There being no
one near at hand, I could not obtain a second opinion, and so came away
wondering whether what I had seen was actually a phantasm or a mere
hallucination. No. 90, I might add, judging by the brass plate on the
door, was inhabited by a doctor with an unpronounceable foreign
name," etc. etc.
I think one cannot help attaching a great deal of importance to what
this lady says, as her language is strictly moderate throughout, and
because she does not seem to have been biassed by any special views on the
subject of animal futurity.
Correspondent No. 2 (who, by the way, is a total stranger to the writer
whose letter I have just quoted) is candidly devoted to dogs, regarding
them as in every way on a par with, if not actually superior to, most
human beings. Still, notwithstanding this partiality, and consequent
profusion of terms of endearment, which will doubtless prove somewhat
nauseating to many, her letter is, in my opinion, valuable, because it not
only refers to the phenomenon I have mentioned, but to a certain extent
furnishes a reason for its occurrence. The lady writes as follows:—
"I once had a rough-haired dachshund, Robert, whom I loved
devotedly. We were living at the time near H—— Street, which always
had a peculiar attraction for dear Robert, who, I am now obliged to
confess, had rather too much liberty—more, indeed, than eventually
proved good for him. The servants complained that Robert ruled the house,
and I believe what they said was true, for my sister and I idolized him,
giving him the very best of everything and never having the heart to
refuse him anything he wanted. You will probably scarcely credit it, but I
have sat up all night nursing him when he had a cold and was otherwise
indisposed. Can you therefore imagine my feelings when my darling was
absent one day from dinner? Such a thing had never happened before, for,
fond of morning 'constitutionals' as poor Robert was, he was always the
soul of punctuality at meal times.
"Neither my sister nor I would hear of eating anything. Whilst he
was missing, not a morsel did we touch, but slipping on our hats, and
bidding the servants do the same, we scoured the neighbourhood instead.
The afternoon passed without any sign of Robert, and when bedtime came (he
always slept in our room) and still no signs of our pet, I thought we
should both have gone mad. Of course, we advertised, selecting the most
popular and, accordingly, the most likely papers, and we resorted to |
