Who knows if this is fictional or not. It’s quite detailed if it is. And it’s not particularly like other things I’ve found, although it does perfectly fit the mould.
Strange freaks in a Nottingham workshop
A correspondent, who gives his name and address, sends us the following account of strange freaks in a Nottingham workshop. He states that the occurrences here related only concluded last month: –
The following narrative of circumstances that have actually taken place in a shoemaker’s workshop will no doubt prove interesting to a considerable class of your readers, and if there should be differences of opinion respecting their origin and nature, they will at least agree that it is instructive to know what extraordinary things can happen in our midst.
It is now four years since I first went to work in the shop in question, and perhaps three since the curious occurrences which I am about to relate began their course. The shop was situated in a private back-yard, and I worked along with the master and his on, a young man advanced in his teens, whom I shall call F., and who afterwads became my sole companion. At this time I was subject to a disagreeable effect on my memory and attention if I caught, as I often did, a very slight cold in the head. I used to put things strangely out of their places, and knew nothing about it. But I began to find that vexatious temporary losses of things occurred oftener than could this way be accounted for. In fact the cause ceased, but the same effect went on.
The cases, besides, were of a character that required some other explanation. How could I hide my own knife under the stove, throw it into the water, or conceal it snugly in a dark corner behind a vacant bench? And though I might put an eye-glass, for which I had frequent use, in a wrong box on my bench, it was wholly different thing to scratch it well about the centre with a diamond, as I found done for me one fine day.
There was a succession of such petty mischiefs at brief intervals, for many of which there was quiet opportunity while I was away from the sthop, and the question of their origin began naturally to grown interesting. But on this point neither F. nor any other member of the family, old or young, would acknowledge responsibility. In the meantime F. declared that he had caught my complaint, and was annoying himself in the same way. Then with him, too, the same thing occurred; the cases grew unaccountable.
Two useful files were broken, and nobody was guilty of breaking them, and a new one was spirited away and seen no more. Another article, after a protracted absence of three weeks, tranquill awaited him after dinner one day, on the top of a stool which he had frequently sat upon. He declared, not unnaturally, that he should grow superstitious about the shop.
I should observe that the shop door was locked during the dinner hour as well as at night, and that there was no possibility of any trespasser entering the yard by the back door, except under view of the kitchen window. Everybody who could be suspected denying the charge, and always declaring that no foreigner had entered, there remained nobody to be held responsible for these occurrences but that prince of mischief whose shoulders have always to bear such a miscellaneous burden, and in short, the responsibility was thrown, and remained upon, the devil.
Perhaps for a period of two years things had proceeded in this annoying and vexatioius course, in which it was always remarkable that I was the principle victim, and then a new act in the drama was opened. F. had married, and succeeded to his father’s business. There was a total change of population on the premises, it being now limited to himself and his young wife, with, in a few weeks a servant girl. The little shop in the yard was pulled down, and we used instead the first back room upstairs, to which there was no access, except through a part of both kitchen and parlour. Now at last we might expect security from unauthorised visitors, and immunity from practical jokers, and surely there was at length a period of peace in store for me. But no such thing.
Strange to say, the unaccountable freaks of tools, &c., grew presently more pronounced than ever, and F. had especially to complain, three shillingworth of hardware having, he declared, mysteriously disappeared, and omitted to return. But matters in this respect did not proceed with uniformity. Various things having strangely departed, as strangely returned, and shortly after midsummer the mysterious agent, whoever or whatever he might be, broke out into a rampant jubilee of tricks, mischiefs, and crazes, such as roused at once my astonishment and admiration.
Up to this period I had scarcely ever thought of the spiritualists, and their peculiar opinions about the performances of spirits with material bodies. Several circumstances, however, having recalled them to mind, I began to think that what so many people believed must be true. My own experience agreed with what I had read, and there was always the most positive contradiction from F. whenever I expressed, as I continually did, any suspicion that he was concerned in the performances I had now to see.
I must explain that we both worked for the most part standing. Our benches were situated against the window, each bench separate, with a little space between. From mine, the tools now began to move, often before my face. They put themselves in the window and out of the window, and did anything else that pleased me, even putting themselves in my coat pockets, hanging a couple of yards off. The most remarkable thing in connection with this amusement was that I was never permitted to see them in the act of moving.
But achievements on a larger scale began to be performed before my arrival in the morning and during the dinner hour. At noe time a monstrous necklace, grotesque and grim, and passing anything made of shark’s teeth, was formed of above a dozen tools, mostly sharp awls, knives, &c., which were tied at equal distances on a piece of twine, suspended by both ends over the fireplace. Then my bench, one time after another, was nearly cleared of tools, which were sometimes found so cunningly hidden as to suggest the idea that some things had been made to pass through the substance of others.
Once a number were tied in a bundle, and effectually concealed a while by being hung under the ceiling almost over my head. Some were stuck in the wall outside the window; four or five hung half-way up the house side. A number were found strung to-gether in the yard, where also I discovered under a heap of rubbish one of F.’s newly cleaned boots, strangely spirited away from the kitchen mantel-piece.
F. had a share – though a more moderate one – of the same kind of fun, and I should not omit to mention that various articles, chiefly joiner’s tools, were by some mysterious agency introduced at different times into the shop.
The game sometimes partook more of real mischief. One day I found my bench overturned, all the tools in a heap on the floor, the contents of a little toolbox emptied amongst them, the box itself hung high up on the wall, a couple of hammers stuck upright in depressions in the bottom of the bench legs, and on the back of the bench was nailed a piece of carboard box, on which, round a red star, was printed, “The sprite, the wonder of his age.” I had also one working knife hacked into a saw, another ground thick and flat on the edge, and in a fortnight made as sharp again.
Scraping knives, bits of sheet stell, were punched through like graters. Hammer heads, two of mine and one of F.’s, were taken off and ridiculously put on the wrong wa. A sharp knife was stuck in the ceiling, nine feet high, and when I broke the point off I found it one afternoon driven to the hilt, apparently at a single lunge, through an elm board 7-8ths of an inch thick.
This feat in the coarse arts was paralleled the same day by a clever performance. An old working cap was suspended over the mantelpiece by a long fine auburn lady’s hair, adroitly tied to a ragged edge. My bench at different times was partially pulled to pieces, and parts belonging to it hidden away, and it once took us both a quarter of an hour to rectify the recking-horse condition to which it had been reduced in the dinner hour by all its joints being loosened, and some urgent work was thrown late in consequence.
The “sprite,” whether in the flesh or out of it, proved itself decidedly unclean. It was not enough continually to throw things into the paste that had no business there, the paste itself was once smeared all over my stool, and the pot left there turned upside down. A charming snow of powdered chalk one morning covered both the benches, but this play with innocent dirt was atoned for in the afternoon by both being covered with a dustpanful or two of sweepings from the shop floor, and both our working caps made as full as they would hold.
There was an endless variety in the tricks. Sticks were frequently thrown in at the window, and even pieces of brick and bone were found upon the floor, and there were mysterious knockings heard. Rivets and tacks, long and short, brass and iron, that should be kept carefully separate, were amusingly mixed together on both benches, and when sorted with pains, were mixed again. Ink was repeatedly diluted so as to stain leather brown instead of black, and a pint and a half belonging to F. having disappeared, was reduced to half a pint when in a day or two the bottle was found. On one occasion my work book was taken away, and on its return the entries had been grotesquely interfered with, such a rise of wages being granted me that one day’s work amounted to over £130.
This mysterious mischief-lover, be it said to his credit, did not always hinder work, but on some occasions actually helped it. One day after dinner for example, I found that seven inches of strong sewing at a man’s boot had been done for me in my absence, besides some advances made with another. F., who entered along with me, was as much surprised as myself, and at dinner-time next day we both left work for the “unpaid volunteer” to do. He again did a little for me, coupling it with a bit of silly mischief at the same boot, and the further exploit of unscrewing the iron plate from both benches, and throwing mine into the water pot.
At length there was a remarkable alteration. Manipulations of solid bodies intended to be funny almost ceased, and writing took their place. Benches, boards, stools, and leather now grew eloquent with inscriptions in chalk. Some of the writing was of the cracked, cramped, zigzag, forked-lightning character which I remembered having seen printed some years ago as examples of the writing obtained – somehow – at spiritual seances. The words, of which no living writer would acknowledge the authorship, were such as “Friends,” “Friendly,” “Love Tricks,” “Faith, Hope, Charity,” “Be Holy and Virtuous,” &c. For F. there were frequently a number of hieroglyphic as obscure as ever puzzled an Egyptologist, and such writing as “Still I love thee,” “Do not swear” (a very appropriate admonition).
The hieroglyphics sometiems made their useless appearance on my own bench; but quite as useuless and equally mysterious was the voluntary announcement, “I am Usanbra et ne Cairo.” When this curious address had been puzzled over a few days there appeared in plainer English, “Good bye (sic). I’m off to Cairo.” This as announcing a cessation of “Usanbra’s” habitual proceedings was welcome enough, but at any rate it made me demand of F. his oath that he knew nothing about the authorship. The answer was that I might have 50,000 oaths, that while I was away nobody had been upstairs, and therefore “Usanbra,” mysterious to the last, had to remain the reputed author.
His promised departure, however, was not sudden. He wrote for me next day, “Remember me, I start at two for Cairo.” And for F. “Don’t speak ill of me, I’m leaving you for a long time.” He again returned to restore two valuable pairs of punches which F. had been lamenting over for weeks past, but he now earnestly declared that he would rather have lost the tools than that the former practices should be recommenced. After all I found it but the introduction of a fresh novelty. Chalk pictures, redolent of Egypt, now suddenly put in an appearance, and obelisks, pyramids, sphinxes, crocodiles, teh well of Abu Klea, &c., arose spontaneously. F. was so delighted with the first of the series that he ran downstairs for a card and made a careful copy before the chalk was rubbed out, and then fastened it on the wall. This also proved a new departure. “Usanbra” liked the flattery of imitation. Not contented now with drawing merely, he added “Copy this,” and we did so once or twice.
However, I had something else to do, and I soon disobeyed. This led to nothing else than threats. “Copy, or I know what,” “Beward,” was now the language employed. Whether, however, “Usanbra” were from above or below, or the regions between, I would not submit to the proposed slavery, though I was very sure that he had the power, and most likely the will, to take vengeance. F. urged me to comply but, notwithstanding, I set him at defiance. However, my bench was not utterly broken up, as F. appeared to expect as well as myself, and I began to contemplate taking “Usanbra’s” occupation out of his hands. There was plenty of writing about when we entered the shop next morning. On my bench “Cheer, boys, cheer.” On F.’s “Bow-wow-wow,” and about, “Usanbra’s compliments, and how are young sphinx?” “Will you meet me in Cairo or in —?” and a mysterious line in the window to the effect that “it was F.’s turn now.”
After this, however, there was a languishment. Some of my tools did vanish a while, and F. lent me his own; some of his did the same, and I lent him mine. On the whole it was against him; but entering the shop one night, simultaneous with his appearance a sharp explosion took place against the closed window. I was struck on the leg and he on the head; but nothing could be found that had caused the blow.
With this explosion I will conclude these mysteries of “Usanbra.” The details with which I have occupied so much of your space are certainly not public matters; they are mere incidents of private life; but I submit that it is no despicable part of knowledge to know of what unique experiences some private lives are made. – Nottingham Express.
Boston Guardian, 15th October 1887.