The Baron and the Ghost

On December 24th, 1922, the “Weekly Dispatch” carried a Christmas ghost story narrated by the wonderfully named Alexander Peregrine Fuller-Acland Hood, Lord St. Audries.  It is described as a genuine experience of his, but it is certainly colorful enough to fit in with any fictional collection of spooks and apparitions:

Do you believe in ghosts ? Or are you one of those fortunate persons who have no fear of the unseen? Or, again, do you belong to the great majority who keep an open mind, but who like to feel on Christmas Eve that, after all, just round the corner, in the mysterious darkness, something might happen?...

I believe in ghosts, and not only on Christmas Eve, for it was a perfect summer evening, in July, 1920, tranquil and moonlit, that the astounding experience befell me, which the editor of The Weekly Dispatch has requested me to relate.

I was staying in Devonshire with an old Oxford friend who had taken orders. I had been living a delightful, care-free existence in the open air, bathing and playing tennis, in fact, doing everything but think of ghosts.

Then one night at dinner the conversation turned, as it often does, to the psychic, and the usual discussion took place. Paul, my Oxford friend, had been reading stories by Algernon Blackwood, and was still deeply affected by the impression they had made on him. His brother Philip, a clever, cool-headed young man, who was spending his long vacation at home, openly scoffed at his foolishness, and a keen argument took place.

Finally Paul leaned forward and said: "Well, we have an opportunity of testing all these theories." I asked him what he meant.

And then he explained. Not a mile away, on the farthest side of the hill, standing off the road in a desolate and overgrown garden, was a house which I had often noticed. We will call it Weir Court (not its correct name). This house has been empty for years. It had an evil reputation. Grass had grown thick on the deserted drive, bats had built their nests in the blank windows, the roof had fallen in, making the top floor unapproachable. But no workmen would venture to repair the roof, and, though the house was for sale, no tenant could be found for it.

"Why not go there and see and test for yourselves?"

I sat down at the bottom of the stairs--it was the only place to sit--and waited. There was absolute silence. Opposite me were the two large front rooms, and to the right of them a corridor onto which gave the small room from which I had felt all the evil influences coming. The door of the room, which was some twenty feet away, I watched intently.

I buried my head in my hands and fell to wondering what type of people had inhabited this strange house in the past. Weird tales ran through my brain of some of the things which had been seen here which Paul had told me as we walked along, tales of a strange man who had been the last tenant, and who had never ventured outside, but had taken in provisions through the door with his white hands--long, thin, with fingers pale as death. And how those hands had been seen on the wall, tapping, tapping.

 

Via Newspapers.com

I pulled myself together and thought of more cheerful things. I whistled again, the echoes resounding shrilly against the cold walls. From outside came the answering whistle. That reassured me and I turned my attention again to the little room.

Suddenly I felt that all was not well. Somebody, something, was trying to make me go away. The air was charged with a hostile influence. I knew I was not wanted. And I knew that the force came from the little room with the open door down the corridor which I was watching.

I leant forward and looked into the semi-darkness. As I looked I felt, as though it were a keen wind, this influence growing stronger and stronger. I summoned every effort of will power and tried to rise to my feet.

It happened. Out of the door, down the dark passage, something rushed, like an immense bat, towards me. I say something, because in the few seconds in which the episode lasted I had no time to see clearly. It was black from head to foot, and it seemed to be built in the form of a very powerful man. But two things made me know that it was no human being that sprang towards me. First, I could see no face. There was just a hideous blank, that was all. And secondly, though it came with huge leaps over the rough, rubbled floor, it made no noise. There was absolute silence all the time.

Now, I am not a small man. As a matter of fact, I am six foot two in my socks, and I think I may say that I am built in proportion to my size. Moreover, I was in the best of condition, and seated as I was in a defensive position, I think I may say that it would have taken a pretty powerful man to knock me over.

But when this thing dashed out I was struck backwards with an irresistible force. And as I fell I felt a sensation of incredible evil, as though the forces of Hell were conspiring against me. And with it something warm, not physically warm, but with a psychic warmth that cloyed and enveloped.

The rest is told in a few words. For a moment the whole world was blank, and then I found myself fighting, struggling with I know not what, down the steep stairs. Who or what it was, if it was one or two or a dozen, I do not know. All I know is that I saw nothing, and that I just managed to fight my way outside, where I sank down onto the grass.

The rest is best told by Paul, from whose written narrative I quote.

"When Lord St. Audries first went into the house we naturally felt somewhat anxious as to what would happen. After all, he was our guest, and after my brother's experience I did not feel that I was justified in letting him go in alone. However, when he whistled I felt reassured. I whistled back and waited with interest but without fear.

"I think about a quarter-of-an-hour must have passed without anything uncanny happening. I was just about to turn to my brother to suggest that we should call him back and go home, when something so extraordinary happened that I must narrate it in detail.

"The night was absolutely windless. That is an important point. I noticed that a tall belt of poplar trees at the end of the garden were without movement of any sort. It therefore follows that what we heard and felt was, whatever else it may have been, not wind.

"With absolute suddenness, sweeping over our heads, something came. I could not call it a wind, though I felt it. I could not call it a noise, though there was in one's ears a sensation of rushing. A second afterwards there came from the house one of the most terrible cries I have ever imagined, as though somebody had been violently stabbed in the back. It was Lord St. Audries' voice and was followed by the sound of a heavy crash.

"Aghast, I turned to my brother. He rushed to the entrance. Then we realised that we could not get in, for the place was pitch dark, and so blocked up that it was quite impossible to force an entry. A cloud had drifted over the moon, and it was impossible to find our way through the wreckage of the basement without a candle.

"We therefore ran at full speed to the neighbouring house, whose tenants I fortunately knew, in order to obtain a light. As we vaulted the gate the whole house resounded with violent shocks and shouts.

"We secured the candle and tore back. The noise in the house was indescribable. And then it suddenly ceased and we saw Lord St. Audries advancing towards us, covered with dirt and plaster."

That is Paul's narrative.

I offer no explanation for this story beyond saying that it is true in every detail. However, the following points may be of interest :

(1) It has transpired that the small room which was the centre of the trouble was once a bathroom in which some fifty years ago a particularly atrocious murder had been committed by a semi-insane doctor who had afterwards committed suicide.

(2) No dog will venture into the garden of the house, and many refuse even to pass it. 

(3) On the next night to my experience (at midnight to be precise) the inhabitants of the neighbouring house, who are also confirmed sceptics, were awakened by the sound of a violent report which, they allege, came from "Weir Court."

The house is still standing there and it remains without a tenant.