Animal Ghosts, Elliott O'Donnell [classic literature list txt] 📗

at a second-hand shop in Bury St. Edmunds.

"I think I can use this one," he said to himself. "It will do nicely for the people of Aylesham. They are so steeped in hypocrisy that nothing short of violent denunciation will bring it home to them. This I think, however, will pierce even their skins."

A sudden noise made him spring up.

"Hounds!" he exclaimed. "And at this time of night! Good heavens!"

He flew to the window, and there, careering through the yard, baying as they ran, were, at least, fifty luminous, white hounds. Instead of leaping the stone wall, they passed right through it, and the bishop then realized that they were Gabriel Hounds. The following evening he received tidings of his son's—his only son's—death.

I have heard that the "Yeth Hounds" were seen, not so long ago, in a parish in Yorkshire by an old poacher called Barnes. Barnes was walking in the fields one night, when he suddenly heard the baying of the hounds, and the hoarse shouts of the huntsman. The next moment the whole pack hove in view and tore past him so close that he received a cut from "the whip" on his leg. To his surprise, however, it did not hurt him, it only felt icy cold. He then knew that he had seen the "Yeth Hounds."

A Spectral Pack of Hounds in Russia

A gentleman of the name of Rappaport whom I once met in Southampton told me of an experience he had once had with a spectral pack of hounds on the slope of the Urals. "It was about half-past eleven one winter's night," he said, "and I was driving through a thick forest, when my coachman suddenly leaned back in his seat and called out, 'Do you hear that?' I listened, and from afar came a plaintive, whining sound. 'It's not Volki, is it?' I asked. 'I'm afraid so, master,' the coachman replied, 'they're coming on after us.'

"'But they are some way off still!' I said.

"'That is so,' he responded, 'but wolves run quick, and our horses are tired. If we can reach the lake first we shall be all right, but should they overtake us before we get there—' and he shrugged his great shoulders suggestively. 'Not another word,' I cried. 'Drive—drive as if 'twere the devil himself. I have my rifle ready, and will shoot the first wolf that shows itself.'

"'Very good, master,' he answered. 'I will do everything that can be done to save your skin and mine.' He cracked his whip, and away flew the horses at a breakneck speed. But fast as they went, they could not outstrip the sound of the howling, which gradually drew nearer and nearer, until around the curve we had just passed shot into view a huge gaunt wolf. I raised my rifle and fired. The beast fell, but another instantly took its place, and then another and another, till the whole pack came into sight, and close behind us was an ocean of white, tossing, foam-flecked jaws and red gleaming eyes.

"I emptied my rifle into them as fast as I could pull the trigger, but it only checked them momentarily. A few snaps, and of their wounded brethren there was nothing left but a pile of glistening bones. Then, hie away, and they were once again in red-hot pursuit. At last our pace slackened, and still I could see no signs of the lake. A great grey shape, followed by others, then rushed by us and tried to reach the horses' flanks with their sharp, gleaming teeth. A few more seconds, and I knew we should be both fighting, back to back, the last great fight for existence. Indeed I had ceased firing, and was already beginning to strike out furiously with the butt end of my rifle, when a new sound arrested my attention. The baying of dogs! 'Dogs!' I screamed, 'Dogs, Ivan!' (that was the coachman's name) 'Dogs!' and, in my mad joy, I brained two wolves in as many blows. The next moment a large pack of enormous white hounds came racing down on us. The wolves did not wait to dispute the field; they all turned tail and, with loud howls of terror, rushed off in the direction they had come. On came the hounds—more beautiful dogs I had never seen; as they swept by, more than one brushed against my knees, though I could feel nothing save intense cold. When they were about twenty yards ahead of us, they slowed down, and maintained that distance in front of us till we arrived on the shores of the lake. There they halted, and throwing back their heads, bayed as if in farewell, and suddenly vanished. We knew then that they were no earthly hounds, but spirit ones, sent by a merciful Providence to save us from a cruel death."

CHAPTER III HORSES AND THE UNKNOWN

As in my chapters on cats and dogs, I will preface this chapter on horses with instances of alleged haunted localities.

I take my first case from Mr. W.T. Stead's Real Ghost Stories, published in 1891. It is called "A Weird Story from the Indian Hills," and Mr. Stead preludes it thus: The "tale is told by General Barter, c.b., of Careystown, Whitegate, Co. Cork. At the time he witnessed the spectral cavalcade he was living on the hills in India, and when one evening he was returning home he caught sight of a rider and attendants coming towards him. The rest of the story, given in the General's own words, is as follows:—

"At this time the two dogs came, and, crouching at my side, gave low, frightened whimpers. The moon was at the full—a tropical moon—so bright that you could see to read a newspaper by its light, and—I saw the party before me advance as plainly as it were noon day. They were above me some eight or ten feet on the bridle-road, the earth thrown down from which sloped to within a pace or two of my feet. On the party came, until almost in front of me, and now I had better describe them. The rider was in full dinner dress, with white waistcoat, and wearing a tall chimney-pot hat, and he sat a powerful hill pony (dark brown, with mane and tail) in a listless sort of way, the reins hanging loosely from both hands. A Syce led the pony on each side, but their faces I could not see, the one next to me having his back to me and the one farthest off being hidden by the pony's head. Each held the bridle close by the bit, the man next me with his right and the other with his left hand, and the hands were on the thighs of the rider, as if to steady him in his seat. As they approached, I knowing they could not get to any place other than my own, called out in Hindustani, 'Quon hai?' (Who is it?). There was no answer, and on they came until right in front of me, when I said, in English, 'Hullo, what the d——l do you want here?' Instantly the group came to a halt, the rider gathering the bridle reins up in both hands, turned his face, which had hitherto been looking away from me, towards me, and looked down upon me. The group was still as in a tableau, with the bright moon shining upon it, and I at once recognized the rider as Lieutenant B., whom I had formerly known. The face, however, was different from what it used to be; in the place of being clean-shaven, as when I used to know it, it was now surrounded by a fringe (what used to be known as a Newgate fringe), and it was the face of a dead man, the ghastly waxen pallor of it brought out more distinctly in the moonlight by the dark fringe of hair by which it was encircled; the body, too, was much stouter than when I had known it in life.

"I marked this in a moment; and then resolved to lay hold of the thing, whatever it might be. I dashed up the bank, and the earth which had been thrown on the side giving under my feet, I fell forward up the bank on my hands, recovering myself instantly. I gained the road, and stood in the exact spot where the group had been, but which was now vacant, there was not the trace of anything; it was impossible for them to go on, the road stopped at a precipice about twenty yards further on, and it was impossible to turn and go back in a second. All this flashed through my mind, and I then ran along the road for about 100 yards, along which they had come, until I had to stop for want of breath, but there was no trace of anything, and not a sound to be heard. I then returned home, where I found my dogs, who, on all other occasions my most faithful companions, had not come with me along the road.

"Next morning I went up to D., who belonged to the same regiment as B., and gradually induced him to talk of him. I said, 'How very stout he had become lately, and what possessed him to allow his beard to grow with that horrid fringe?' D. replied, 'Yes, he became very bloated before his death. You know he led a very fast life, and while on the sick list he allowed the fringe to grow, in spite of all that we could say to him, and I believe he was buried with it.' I asked him where he got the pony I had seen, describing it minutely. 'Why,' said D., 'how do you know anything about all this? You hadn't seen B. for two or three years, and the pony you never saw. He bought him at Peshawur, and killed him one day riding in his reckless fashion down the hill to Trete.' I then told him what I had seen the night before.

"Once, when the galloping sound was very distinct, I rushed to the door of my house. There I found my Hindoo bearer, standing with a tattie in his hand. I asked him what he was there for. He said that there came a sound of riding down the hill, and 'passed him like a typhoon,' and went round the corner of the house, and he was determined to waylay it, whatever it was."

In commenting on the case, Mr. Stead remarks, "That such a story as this, gravely told by a British General in the present day, helps us to understand how our ancestors came to believe in the wonderful story of Herne the Hunter." I do not know about Herne the Hunter, but it is at all events good testimony that horses as well as men have spirits, for one of the ghosts the General saw was, undoubtedly, that of the pony murdered by B. Why it was still ridden by the phantom of its former master is another question.

The next case I narrate is also taken from Mr. Stead's same work. It was sent him by one of the leading townsmen of Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, and runs thus:—

"On a fine evening in April, 1859, the writer was riding with a friend on a country road. Twilight was closing down on us, when, after a silence of some minutes, my friend suddenly exclaimed:

"'No man knows me better than you do, J. Do you think I am a nervous, easily frightened sort of man?'

"'Far from it,' said I, 'among all the men I know in the wild country I have lived and worked in, I know none more fearless or of more unhesitating nerve.'

"'Well,' said he, 'I think I am that, too, and though I have travelled these roads all sorts of hours, summer and winter, for twenty years, I