The Lulworth Ghost; or, Cock Lane Revived.
On vulgar superstition and its firm belief in speaking shadows and apparitions we think it useless at present to descant, as the following facts, which transpired some time since in the village of Lulworth, form the best comment on such folly that we ever remember to have met with:-
A labourer, of the name of Peter, the father of eleven children, resides in an isolated cottage at the further end of the village, by the side of a very large pit, from which clay is annually dug to make bricks, which are burnt on the spot. Some time ago Peter’s uncle departed this life, leaving him heir to his whole property, consisting of household goods, a watch, clothes, &c., orally bequeathed before two or more witnesses. Other relations of the deceased, not satisfied, it was said, with so partial a bequest, threatened to put in their claim for a portion of the goods and chattels.
Alas, the cruel wretches! worse than the Witch of Endor, their magic threatenings burst the cerements of the dead, making the very grave to yawn asunder, and cast the sheeted ghost abroad to stalk upon the earth again – “Making night hideous, and us fools of nature / so horridly to shake our disposition, / with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls. / Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?”
The village, in consequence of this supernatural visitant, which nightly haunted the chamber in which Peter’s uncle gave up the ghost, was thrown for a considerable time into the most alarming state of terror and anxiety. The old women did not dare singly to venture a step from their own thresholds after it was dark, nor the young ones to enter a room after sunset without a candle, while they screamed at every turn to see their own shadows on the wall. All politics were at an end! and even scandal herself was for a time struck dumb with fear and trembling, while nothing was to be heard, from one end of the village to the other, but the most horrible stories of ghost-haunted dwellings, of hobgoblins and devils that had formerly appeared under various appalling shapes, with frightful horns, cloven feet, flaming eyes, as big as the moon, shaggy manes, and tremendous tails!
So that you might have daily seen “A smith stand with his hammer thus / the whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, / with open mouth , swallowing a tailor’s news; / Who, with his shears and measure in his hand, / standing on slippers, which his nimble haste / had falsely thrust upon contrary feet, / Told” of the nocturnal din the troubled spirit kicked up at poor Peter’s.
There was an assembly which by the kind invitation of Peter, met regularly, night after night, at the haunted house, composed of a numerous tribe of the gossips, male and female, of the neighbourhood, forming a new-fashioned conventicle of goblin-worshipers, for the purpose of listening to the solemn performances of the perturbed spectre, which regularly commenced about ten minutes after three boys, the eldest of whom was seven years old, were by their father led up to bed.
Now it was considered by the most understanding of these learned gossips, some of whom had formerly dwelt in spirit-troubled houses, and absolutely had borne the marks of Old Nick’s scratches on their tormented bodies, that it was principally on account of the eldest of these boys, to whom the uncle bequeathed his watch and a pair of stout leather inexpressibles, that his miserable spirit broke loose from the churchyard, and paid nightly visitation to Peter’s dwelling, because the boy, in sweet simplicity, told them that he had seen “mortal ugly things” by his bedside, such as great black dogs with fiery eyes, and shaggy cats with long horns!
Peter, who is himself a man of solid learning, and so deeply read in the science of astronomy as to be able, it is thought by many, to make an almanack, and so profoundly versed in that most profound and abstruse study of the Chaldeans, called astrology, as to far exceed Moore and all his sapient colleagues in the knowledge of future events, and always, like Mother Brulgruddery in John Bull, prophesying on the right side of the question – that is, after a thing has happened –
this Peter, holding the Bible in one hand and a cobbler’s last in the other, an instrument he often industriously makes use of, after his day’s work was over, did often, in the midst of the solemn conventicle, exorcise the inexorable spirit of his uncle, and command him, in the name of God, to declare his will, though he knew very well that he had made his will before he died. But all to no purpose; for the spirit, either deaf or dumb, or perhaps both, heeded not his words, but continued to exercise its pranks to the inexpressible terror of its astonished auditory.
It appeared that, after a certain number of nights, the spirit – whether from some sneers and sarcasms which two or three unbelievers in the village had dared to throw out, – was determined to impress the most awful conviction of the reality of the so-much-doubted visitation of supernatural agents on its hearers, or whether enraged at not being addressed by the proper person in the proper way, so as to cause the charm of its silence to be broken, and, by its vox terriloquus, enforce its wishes;
be which it may, the apparition grew outrageous, and with many knockings, groans, and scratches, so terrified the company present, that several hid their faces, expecting to behold some horrible vision, and stopped their ears; many fell on their knees, repeating the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments with such earnestness as they never had done before; while others lay flat on the ground, and shrieked and kicked, like poor wretches in bedlam. One woman, who had boasted much of her courage, absolutely fainted away!
Some were praying, some were shrieking, some running here and others there, without knowing what they did or what they said; while the terrific ghost above stairs, by its still-increasing thumps and scratches, seemed heartily to enjoy the confusion it had raised. At last the woman in fits, who happened to be tolerably en-bon-point, was dragged to the door, and, in the frenzy of consternation, whole basins of water were flung over her, to bring the poor unhappy creature to life.
In the midst of this uproar a man, who is considered by many of the village wiseacres to be deeply read in “all manner” of conjurations, who can send spirits to the bottom of the Red Sea with a puff of his breath, and who that evening, by the particular request of Peter, attended the ghostly conventicle – ay, and had dared, which no one else would have dared for a King’s ransom, to sit beside the haunted bed in the dark, with the intent to “lay the foul spirit” – received, or thought he received, such a violent blow on the side of his head from the shadowy and immaterial arm of some unknown being, as sent him headlong down the staircase, which stood at the foot of the haunted bed; and it was even declared by some who were present that he saw an indescribable formless form, with a long black tail, wrapped in a blanket of fire, flit across the room, as he tumbled down the stairs; for it seems he fell with his head foremost, and consequently his eyes were gazing upward.
Be that as it may, he was so terrified out of his senses, that when he reached the botto mof the staircase he scrambled over the poor woman who laid flat on her back just by the door, for the benefit of a little air, and received the whole contents of a large basin of water over him, that some one, in his agitation and alarm, intended for the fainting woman. Away he flew, dripping wet, he knew not whither; and unfortunately taking the path which led along by the side of the great clay-pit, saw, by the light of a volume of flame which the brick-kiln, that chanced then to be burning, threw out, Old Nick himself, as he thought, rising from the mud at the bottom of the pit in a most terrific shape, with all his hideous appendages of hoofs and tail and horns!
The poor wretch, forgetting all his powers of necromancy and wizardcraft, gave a piercing scream of horror, and thinking he had done like some others, who, as Bunyan says, “To shun the frying-pan, do leap into the fire!” turned instantly to fly back to the remaining company at the haunted house, when, woful to relate, either his foot slipped, or the mischievous demon of the clay-pit pushed him down the slippery steep, for in a few seconds he found himself up to the middle in mud and water at the bottom of the pit. With groans and cries he at last struggled out, and retreated back to the abode of fear and confusion.
Here he found the poor woman just coming to her senses, her cap off, and her long grey hair streaming about her shoulders, like a half-drowned witch just dragged out of a ducking-pond. The sight of the conjurer returned, his tale of the devil rising from the pit, clad in flames, and the sight of his mud-bespattered clothes, speaking louder than a thousand witnesses, gave such renewed terror and speed to all present, that with one universal scream they bolted out of the house, one over the other, and flew like hunted deer across the common, leaving the poor half-drowned woman and the mud-covered conjurer to take care of one another.
Happening to be at the time in the neighbourhood, and hearing of these terrible alarms, we determined one fatal night, if possible, to visit the dreadful chamber.
On our arrival at the house we found the solemn convocation assembled. Peter was seated in the centre, busily engaged at his occupation of cobbling, and on a table before him lay a large Bible. A dismal gloom hung on every countenance, and silence reigned unbroken, except by the solemn din of Peter’s lapstone and hammer, that sounded at intervals like an awful warning of the spectre’s approach, with now and then a fearful whisper of what would be the dreadful result of this most mysterious visitation.
At length a shrill and squeaking female voice exclaimed from a corner of the room, “Zam o’em do zay ’tis the chile, my poor dear grandchile; but ’tis noo zuch thing, soss. Han’t we a-heeard it in the clock-kease? and didn’t I, when I sleeped here t’other night, hear it goo clickity-clack in the middle o’ the groat chest? If you’ll believe me, soss, about two a’clock in the morning, for I never closed my eyes a wink, there comed zuch a bouching crack upon the cover, as made the very candle jump out o’ the socket! I am zure I lied and zweat wi’ fear like a drownded rot! Shall any Christian zoul make me believe ’tis the chile? Noa, noa, they shoant; ’tis noo zuch thing, soss, I be very zure on’t.”
The boys were now led up to bed; a dreadful silence ensued for about a quarter of an hour, when the eldest of them gave the horrid signal, by crying out “‘Tis come, daddy!” And come, indeed, it was; the thumps and the scratches were really awful! Peter flung down his cobbler’s awl, and stared like a wild cat hunted by a pack of blood-hunds; his daughters shook their heads, and put on long faces; a relation of the uncle’s, who had come a considerable distance to be convinced, beyond a doubt, of his supernatural appearance, turned as white as a sheet, and kept as far as possible from the foot of the stairs.
Peter’s eldest son seized fast hold of the Bible, and, directing his eyes towards the fatal chamber-door, looked most ludicrously aghast, as if he expected the devil himself would walk down the stairs every moment. The conjurer, who was also present, sat perched in one corner of the room, and now seemed as fearless as St Dunstan himself, when he took his Satanic Highness by the nose with a pair of red hot tongs; while the wife of Peter began to wring her hands bitterly, and exclaim “O Lord have macy upon me! ’tis at it again! If do keep on zoo much longer ‘twoul be the death o’ me! To haunt me in this manner! I that war zoo kind to ‘un in his last dying momments, and cared ‘un tea and bread and butter when a couldn’t even open his mouth. Lawk a macy! what’s that! Zumit twitched my elbow! There, again! O, ’tis oose and oose! I am zure I shall zoundy in the place!” “Come, come,” squeaked the mother, “don’t ye fear; put your trust in the Lord, and he’ll keep ye up, and zupport ye in it, and through it ale, goodnow.”
On the whole this scene was the richest of the kind we ever witnessed, and the inimitable pencil of a Hogarth could alone have done it justice. While this wobegone farce was acting above and below, we requested admission to the haunted room, which was granted, but not the use of a candle, as it was positively asserted that the ghost only performed its wonderful operations in the dark. But, to make as short as possible of this long-winded story, we entered the room, found our way to where the boys lay, and presently felt as well as heard the eldest of them violently scratch the bed under us, though he pretended to be asleep.
Having found out the way he produced the awful thumping, we played the ghost ourselves, by rattling the window, and increasing the panic of the party below; and then, thinking the scandalous farce had been carried on too long, exposed the whole plot, and released the village from its nocturnal terrors.
The reason of all this, we think, is pretty evident, and we shall leave our readers to make their own animadversions on country simplicity and rural innocence.
The Dorset County Chronicle, 3rd March 1825.