Uncommon Folk

Uncommon Folk 31 Days of Winter - Ghost Stories at Christmas

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It's time to celebrate Christmas with a Spooky story from the mind of MR James

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Speaker 1:

The Ash Tree by M R James. Everyone who has travelled over Eastern Europe knows the smaller country houses with which it is studded, the rather dank little buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some 80 to 100 acres. For me they have always had a very strong attraction, with a grey paling of split oak, the noble trees, the mares with their reed beds and a line of distant woods. Then I like the pillared portico, perhaps stuck onto a red brick Queen Anne house, which has been faced with stucco to bring it into line with the Grecian taste of the end of the 18th century, the hall inside going up to the roof, which hall ought always to be provided with a gallery and a small organ. I like the library too, where you may find anything from a psalter of the 13th century to a Shakespeare. Quarto, I like the pictures, of course, and perhaps most of all, I like fancying what life in such a house was when it was first built and in the piping times of landlord's prosperity, and not least now when, if money is not so plentiful, taste is more varied and life quite as interesting. I wish to have one of these houses and enough money to keep it together and entertain my friends in it. Modestly but this is a digression I have to tell you of a curious series of events which happened in such a house.

Speaker 1:

As I have tried to describe. It is Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good deal has been done to the building since the period of my story, but the essential features I have sketched are still there Italian portico, square block of white house, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and meh, the one feature that marked out the house from a score of others is gone. As you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great old ash tree growing within half a dozen yards of the wall and almost all quite touching the building with its branches. I suppose it had stood there ever since Castringham ceased to be a fortified place and since the moat was filled in and the Elizabethan dwelling house built. At any rate, it had well nigh attained its full dimensions in the year 1690.

Speaker 1:

In that year the district in which the hall is situated was the scene of a number of witch trials. It will be long, I think, before we arrive at a just estimate of the amount of solid reason if there were any which lay at the root of the universal fear of witches in old times, whether the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were possessed of unusual powers of any kind, or whether they had the will at least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours. Or whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted by the mere cruelty of the witch-finders. These are questions which are not, I fancy, yet solved, and the present narrative gives me pause. I cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention. The reader must judge for himself.

Speaker 1:

Castringham contributed a victim to the autoaffair. Mrs Mothersole was her name, and she differed from the ordinary run of village witches only in being rather better off and in a more influential position. Efforts were made to save her by several reputable farmers of the parish. They did their best to testify to her character and showed considerable anxiety as to the verdict of the jury. But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the then proprietor of Castringham Hall, Sir Matthew Fell. He deposed to having watched her on three different occasions from his window. At the full of the moon, gathering sprigs from the ash tree near my house, she had climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did so she seemed to be talking to herself. On each occasion, sir Matthew had done his best to capture the woman, but she had always taken alarm at some accidental noise he had made, and all he could see when he got down to the garden was a hare running across the park in the direction of the village. On the third night he had been at the pains to follow her at his best speed and had gone straight to Mrs Mother Soul's house, but he had to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then she'd come out very cross and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed, and he had no good explanation to offer of his visit. And he had no good explanation to offer of his visit.

Speaker 1:

Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking and unusual kind from other parishioners Mrs Mothersole was found guilty and condemned to die. She was hanged a week after the trial, with five or six more unhappy creatures at Bury St Edmunds. Sir Matthew Fell, then Deputy Sheriff, was present at the execution. It was a damp, drizzly March morning when the cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside Northgate where the gallows stood. The other victims were apathetic or broken down with misery, but Mrs Mothersole was was, as in life, so in death, of a very different temper. Her poisonous rage, as a reporter of the time puts it, did so work upon the bystanders, yay, even upon the hangman that it was constantly affirmed of all that saw her that she presented the living aspect of a mad devil. Yet she offered no resistance to the officers of the law. Only she looked upon those that laid hands upon her with so direful and venomous an aspect that, as one of them afterwards assured me, the mere thought of it prayed inwards upon his mind for six months after, however, however, all that she is reported to have said was the seemingly meaningless words there will be guests at the hall, which she repeated more than once in an undertone.

Speaker 1:

Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. He had some talk upon the matter with the vicar of his parish, with whom he traveled home after the assize business was over. His evidence at the trial had not been very willingly given. He was not specially infected with the witch finding mania, but he declared then and afterwards that he could not give any other account of the matter than that he had given and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as to what he saw. The whole transaction had been repugnant to him, for he was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms with those about him, but he saw a duty to be done in this business and he had done it. That seems to have been the gist of his sentiments, and the vicar applauded it as any reasonable man must have done.

Speaker 1:

A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full, vicar and squire met again in the park and walked to the hall together. Lady Fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was alone at home. So the vicar, mr Crome, was easily persuaded to take a late supper at the hall. Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The talk ran chiefly on family and parish matters and, as luck would have it, sir Matthew made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions regarding his estates, which afterwards proved exceedingly useful when Mr Crome thought of starting for home.

Speaker 1:

About half past nine o'clock, sir Matthew and he took a preliminary turn on the graveled walk at the back of the house. The only incident that struck Mr Crome was this they were in sight of the ash tree which I described as growing near the windows of the building when Sir Matthew stopped and said what is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash. It is never a squirrel. They will all be in their nests by now. The vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing of its colour in the moonlight. The sharp outline, however seen for an instant, was imprinted on his brain and he could have sworn, he said, although it sounded foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four legs. Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision and the two men parted. They may have met since then, but it was not for a score of years.

Speaker 1:

Next day, sir matthew fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight. Hereupon the servants went and knocked at his chamber door. I need not prolong the description of their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the panels. The door was opened at last from the outside, and they found their master dead and black. So much you've guessed that there were any marks of violence did not at the moment appear, but the window was open.

Speaker 1:

One of the men went to fetch the parson and then, by his directions, rode on to give notice to the coroner. Mr Crome himself went as quick as he might to to the hall and was shown to the room where the dead man lay. He has left some notes among his papers which show how genuine a respect and sorrow was felt for Sir Matthew, and there is also this passage which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon the course of events and also upon the common sake of the light it throws upon the course of events and also upon the common beliefs of the time. There was not any the least trace of an entrance having been forced to the chamber, but the casement stood open, as my poor friend would always have it in this season. He had his evening drink of small ale in a silver vessel of about a pint measure, and to-night had not drunk it out.

Speaker 1:

This drink was examined by the physician from Bury, a Mr Hodgkins, who could not, however, as he afterwards declared upon his oath before the coroner's quest, discover that any matter of a venomous kind was present in it. For, as was natural in the great swelling and blackness of the corpse, there was talk made amongst the neighbors of poison. The body was very much disordered as it laid in the bed being twisted after so extreme a sort as to give too probable conjecture that my worthy friend and patron had expired in great pain and agony. And what is as yet unexplained and to myself, the argument of some horrid and artful design in the perpetrators of this barbarous murder, was this that the women which were entrusted with the laying out of the corpse and washing it, being both sad persons and very well respected in their mournful professional, came to me in a great pain and distress, both of mind and body. Great pain and distress, both of mind and body, saying what was indeed confirmed upon the first view that they had no sooner touched the breast of the corpse with their naked hands, that they were sensible of a more than ordinary, violent, smart and aching in their palms which, with their whole forearms, in no long time swelled so immoderately, the pain still continuing that, as afterwards proved, during many weeks they were forced to lay by the exercise of their calling and yet no mark seen on the skin. Upon hearing this, I sent for the physician, who was still in the house, and we made as careful a proof as we were able, by the help of a small magnifying lens of the crystal of crystal, of the condition of the skin on this part of the body, but could not detect, with the instrument we had, any matter of importance beyond a couple of small punctures or pricks, which we then concluded were the spots by which the poison might be introduced, remembering that ring of Pope Borgia with other known specimens of the horrid art of the Italian poisoners of the last age.

Speaker 1:

So much is to be said of the symptoms seen on the corpse. As to what I am to add, it is merely my own experiment and to be left to posterity to judge whether there be anything of value therein. There was, on the table, by the bedside, a Bible of the small size in which my friend, punctual as in matters of less moment, so in this more weighty one, used night and upon his first rising to read a set portion, and I taking it up, not without a tear duly paid to him, which from the study of this poorer adumbration was now passed to the contemplation of its great original, it came into my thoughts as to such moments of helplessness we are prone to catch, at any the least glimmer that makes promise of light, to make trial of that old and, by many accounted, superstitious practice of drawing the sorts of which a principal instance in the case of his late sacred majesty, the blessed martyr king charles and my lord falkland, was now much talked of. I must needs admit that by my trial not much assistance was afforded me. Yet as the cause and origin of these dreadful events may hereafter be searched out, I set upon the results, in the case it may be found that they pointed the true quarter of the mischief to the quicker intelligence than my own. I made then three trials, opening the book and placing my finger upon certain words which, down in the second, isaiah 13, 20, it shall never be inhabited. And upon the third experiment, job 35, 30, her young ones also suck up blood. This is all that need be quoted from mr chrome's papers. So matthew fell, was duly coffined and laid into the earth, and his funeral sermon, preached by mr chrome on the following sunday, has been printed under the title of the unsearchable way or england's danger and the malicious dealings of antichrist. It, it being the vicar's view, as well as that most commonly held in the neighbourhood that the squire was the victim of a recrudescence of the popish plot. His son, sir Matthew II, succeeded to the title and estates, and so ends the first act of the Castringham tragedy.

Speaker 1:

It is to be mentioned, though the fact is not surprising, that the new baronet did not occupy the room in which his father had died, nor indeed was it slept in by anyone but an occasional visitor during the whole of his occupation. He died in 1735, and I do not find that anything particular marked his reign, save a curiously constant mortality amongst his cattle and livestock in general, which showed a tendency to increase slightly as time went on. Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account in a letter to the Gentleman's Magazine of 1772, which draws the facts from the Baronet's own papers. He put on an end to it at last by a very simple expedient, that of shutting up all of his beasts and sheds at night and keeping no sheep in his park, for he had noticed that nothing was ever attacked that spent the night indoors. After that, the disorder confined itself to wild birds and beasts of chase, but as we have no good account of the symptoms, and as all night watching was quite unproductive of any clue.

Speaker 1:

I do not dwell on what the Suffolk farmers called the Castronum sickness. The second, sir Matthew, died in 1735, as I said, and was duly succeeded by his son, sir Richard. It was in his time that the great family pew was built out on the north side of the parish church, so large were the squire's ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the building had to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. Among them was that of mrs mother soul, the position of which was accurately known thanks to a note on a plan of the church and yard, both made by Mr Crome.

Speaker 1:

A certain amount of interest was excited in the village when it was known that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed, and the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very strong. When it was found, though, her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body bones or dust. Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying, no such things were dreamt of as resurrection men, and it is difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise than for use of the dissecting room. The incident revived for a time all the stories of witch trials and the exploits of the witches dorm dormant for forty years, and Sir Richard's orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out. Sir Richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain Before his time the hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red brick. But Sir Richard had travelled in Italy and become infected with the Italian taste, and, having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave. An Italian palace where he had found an English house were planted about in the entrance hall and gardens, a reproduction of the Sybil's Temple at Tivoli was erected on the opposite bank of the mere, and Castingham took on an entirely new and, I must say, a less engaging aspect. But it was much admired and served as a model to a good many of the neighbouring gentry.

Speaker 1:

After years, one morning it was in 1745, sir Richard woke after a night of discomfort. It had been windy and his chimney had smoked persistently, and yet it was so cold that he must keep up a fire. Also, something had so rattled about the window that no man could get a moment's peace. Further, there was the prospect of several guests of position arriving in the course of the day, who would expect sport of some kind. And the inroads of the distemper which continued amongst his game had been lately so serious that he was afraid for his reputation as a game preserver. But what really touched him most nearly was the other matter of this sleepless night. He could certainly not sleep in that room again. That was the chief subject of his meditations at breakfast, and after he began a systematic examination of the rooms to see which would suit his notions best, it was long before he found one. This had a window with an eastern aspect and with that a northern. This door the servants would always be passing, and he did not like the bedstead in that. No, he must have a room with a western lookout so that the sun could not wake him early, and it must be out of the way of the business of the house.

Speaker 1:

The housekeeper was at the end of her resources. Well, sir Richard, she said, you know that there is but one room like that in the house, which, may that be said, sir Richard, is sir matthew's, the west chamber. Well, put me in there, for there I lie to-night, said her master. Which way is it? But no one has slept there these forty years. The air has hardly been changed since Sir Matthew died there, and thus she spoke and rustled after him. Come open the door, mrs Chiddock, I'll see the chamber at least. So it was opened, and indeed the smell was very close and earthy. Sir Richard crossed to the window and impatiently, as was his want, threw the shutters back and flung open.

Speaker 1:

The casement for this end of the house was one which the alterations had barely touched, grown up as it was, with the great ash tree and being otherwise concealed from view. Mrs Chiddock, all today and move my bed furniture in this afternoon, but put the Bishop of Kilmore in my old room Pray, sir Richard, said a new voice breaking in his speech. Might I have the favour of a moment's interview? Sir Richard turned round and saw a man in black in the doorway who bowed. I must ask your indulgence for this intrusion.

Speaker 1:

Sir Richard, you will perhaps hardly remember me. My name is William Crome and my grandfather was vicar here in your grandfather's time. Well, sir, said Sir Richard, the name of Crome is always a passport to Castringham. I am glad to renew a friendship of two generations standing In. What can I serve you For your hour of calling and if I do not mistake you, your bearing shows you to be in some haste. That is no more than the truth, sir. I am riding from Norwich to Bury St Edmunds with what haste I can make and have called in on my way to leave with you with some papers which we have but just come upon in looking over what my grandfather left at his death. It is thought you might find some matters of family interest in them. You are mighty obliging, mr Crome, and if you will be so good as to follow me to the parlour and drink a glass of wine, we will take a first look at these same papers together. And you, mrs Chiddock, as I said, be about airing the chamber. Yes, it is here. My grandfather died. Yes, the tree perhaps does make the place a little dampish. No, I do not wish to listen to any more. Make no difficulties, I beg. You have your orders Go. Will you follow me, sir?

Speaker 1:

They went to the study the packet which young Mr Crome had brought he was then just become a fellow of Clare Hall in Cambridge, I may say and subsequently brought out a respectable edition of Polyanus containing, amongst other things, the notes which the old vicar had made upon the occasion of Sir Matthew Fell's death. And for the first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatic sortes biblica which you have heard, sorte's Biblica which you have heard. They amused him a great deal. Well, he said, my grandfather's Bible gave one prudent piece of advice Cut it down. If that stands for the ash tree, he may rest assured, I shall not neglect it. Such a nest of guitars and agues I've never seen.

Speaker 1:

The parlour contained the family books which, pending the arrival of a collection which Sir Richard had made in Italy and the building of a proper room to receive them, were not many in number. Sir Richard looked up from the paper to the bookcase, I wonder, he says. Sir Richard looked up from the paper to the bookcase, I wonder he says whether the old prophet is there yet. I fancy I see him Crossing the room. He took out a dumpy Bible which sure enough bore on the flyleaf the inscription to Matthew Fell, from his loving godmother Anne Algiers, to September 1659.

Speaker 1:

It would be no bad plan to test him again. Mr Crome, I will wager we get a couple of names in the chronicles. Hmm, what have we here? Thou shalt seek me in the morning and I shall not be Well. Well, your grandfather would have made a fine omen of that. Hey, no more profits for me, they're all in a tale. And now, mr Crome, I am infinitely obliged to you for your packet. You will, I fear, be impatient to get on Pray, allow me another glass.

Speaker 1:

So, with offers of hospitality, which were genuinely met, for Sir Richard thought well of the young man's address and manner they parted. In the afternoon came the guests the Bishop of Kilmore, lady Mary Hervey, lady mary hervey, sir william kentfield, etc. Dinner at five, wine cards, supper and dispersal to bed. Next morning, sir richard is disinclined to take his gun with the rest. He talks with the bishop of kilmore.

Speaker 1:

This prelate, unlike a good many of the Irish bishops of his day, had visited his see and indeed resided there for some considerable time. This morning, as the two were walking along the terrace and walking over the alterations and improvements in the house, the bishop said, pointing to the window at the west room you could never get one of my Irish flock to occupy that room, sir Richard, why is that? My lord? It is in fact my own. Well, our Irish peasantry will always have it that it brings the worst of luck to sleep near an ash tree, and you have a fine growth of ash, not two yards from your chamber window.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps the bishop went on with a smile. It has given you a touch of its quality already, for you do not seem, if I may say it, as so much the fresher for your night's sleep as your friends would like to see you. That, or something else, it is true, cost me my sleep from 12 to 4, my lord. But the tree is to come down tomorrow, so I shall not hear much more about it. I applaud your determination. It can hardly be wholesome to have the air you breathe strained, as it were, through all that leafage. Your lordship is right there, I think, but I had not my window open last night. It was rather the noise that went on, no doubt from the twigs sweeping the glass, that kept me open-eyed. I think that can hardly be, sir Richard. Here you see it from this point. None of the nearest branches can even touch your casement, unless there were a gale, and there was none of that last night. You missed the pains by a foot. No, sir, true. What then will it be, I wonder, that scratched and rustled so Aye, and covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks. At last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy. That was the bishop's idea, and Sir Richard jumped at it.

Speaker 1:

So the day passed quietly and night came and the party dispersed to their rooms and wished Sir Richard a better night. And now we are in his bedroom with the light out and the squire in bed. The room is over the kitchen and the night outside still and warm. So the window stands open. There is very little light above the bedstead, but there is a strange movement there. But there is a strange movement there. It seems as if Sir Richard were moving his head rapidly to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. And now we would guess so deceptive is the half darkness that he had several heads round and brownish which moved back and forward, even as low as his chest. It is a horrible illusion, is it nothing more there? Something drops off the bed with a soft plump like a kitten and is out of the window in a flash. Another four after that there is quiet again. Thou shalt seek me in the morning and I shall not be there. As with Sir Matthew, so with Sir Richard dead and black in his bed, a pale and silent party of guests and servants gathered under the window.

Speaker 1:

When the news was known, italian poisoners popish emissaries infected air. All these and more guesses were hazarded, and the Bishop of Kilmore looked at the tree in the fork of whose lower boughs a white tomcat was crouching, looking down the hollow which years had gnawed in the trunk. It was watching something inside the tree with great interest. Suddenly it got up and craned over the hole. Then a bit of the edge which it stood on gave way and it went slithering in. Everyone looked up at the noise of the fall. It is known to most of us that a cat can cry, but few of us have heard, I hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the fall. It is known to most of us that a cat can cry, but few of us have heard, I hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the great ash. Two or three screams were there the witnesses are not sure which and then a slight, unmuffled noise of some commotion or struggling was all that came. But Lady Mary Hervey fainted outright and the housekeeper stopped her ears and fled till she fell on the terrace.

Speaker 1:

The Bishop of Kilmore and Sir William Kentfield stayed. Yet even they were daunted, though it was only at the cry of the cat, and Sir William swallowed once or twice before he could say once or twice before he could say there is something more than we know of in that tree. My lord, I am for an instant search. And this was agreed upon. A ladder was brought and one of the gardeners went up and, looking down the hollow, could detect nothing but a few dim indications of something moving. They got a lantern and let it down by a rope. We must get at the bottom of this. My life upon it, my lord. But the secret of these terrible deaths is there. Up went the gardener again with the lantern and let it down the hole cautiously. They saw the yellow light upon his face as he bent over and saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing, before he cried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder where, happily, he was caught by two of the men letting the lantern fall inside the tree. He was in a dead faint and it was some time before any word could be got from him.

Speaker 1:

By then they had something else to look at. The lantern must have broken at the bottom and the light in it caught upon dry leaves and rubbish that lay there, for in a few minutes a dense smoke began to come up and then flame and to be short, the tree was in a blaze. The bystanders made a ring at some yards' distance and Sir William and the bishops sent men to get what weapons and tools they could, for clearly, whatever might be using the tree as its lair would be forced out by the fire. So it was. First at the fork. They saw a round body covered with fire, the size of a man's head, appear very suddenly, then seem to collapse and fall back this five or six times. Then a similar ball leapt into the air and fell on the grass where after a moment it lay still. The bishop went as near as he dared to it and saw what but the remains of an enormous spider, venous and seared. And as the fire burned lower down, more terrible bodies like this began to break out from the trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with greyish hair.

Speaker 1:

All that day. The ash burned until it fell to pieces. The men stood about it from time to time, killed the brutes as they darted out At last. There was a long interval when none appeared and they cautiously closed in and examined the roots of the tree. Cautiously closed in and examined the roots of the tree. They found, said the Bishop of Kilmore, below it is a rounded hollow place in the earth wherein were two or three bodies of these creatures that had plainly been smothered by the smoke. And, what it is to me more curious, at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy of a skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones, having some remains of black hair, which is pronounced by those that examined it to undoubtedly be the body of a woman and clearly dead for a period of 50 years.

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