Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (15 page)

I turned abruptly, and lo, before me stood the fair, graceful figure of my quondam love, Miss C. It was for a moment only, and she vanished.

“By heaven!” I exclaimed, leaping upright. “Thou art a devil to do this!”

“Steady, monsieur!” he smilingly replied. “It is only the shadowy resemblance—the spiritual essence of the fair Miss C. The real clay original is—”

“At Easyville, of course,” I replied.

“Yes, monsieur; but in the grave there!”

And he was right.

* * * *

It is five years ago since Miss C. died, and today I stand looking from my chamber window at her once beautiful mansion. The very window, whe
n I first beheld the “strange unknown” walking up and down Gossip-street, six years ago! How altered all things seem since then! I am in the “sere and yellow leaf” now, my heart crushed, my hopes blighted, and my health impaired.

I have been thinking of this “strange unknown” today. I never saw him since the memorable night in Sydney. I expect to see him again. There is a fatal link that binds me to this man, or demon, whatever he be, and I cannot sever it. Today, I strolled to the cemetery at Easyville. I saw Miss C’s grave, and wept over it. Tomorrow finds me on board ship for Europe.

I never loved but once, and that love was unrequited. I take the picture of the “Love Test” with me. I am a ruined, broken-spirited man now. Fortune seems to turn against me, and I am haunted with visions of the “strange unknown.”

I never speak of him—or of my strange adventures with him—to any. They would laugh at my silly story; but I feel that there is some fatality about the man, or demon, that I am subservient to. I hope I may never meet him again.

The Haunted House

Moreton Hall is the oldest and largest mansion in the vicinity of Easyville, and it stands upon an eminence not half a mile from the township, half hidden amongst the recesses of a thickly clustering pinewood. A little creek runs at the western end of the wood, and a broad avenue, skirted on either side with lofty pines, leads us to the old mansion. Years ago the Hall and its lands were the property of a wealthy old Scotch gentleman, who died on the premises, and was buried in the village cemetery. The property fell into the hands of his nephew—for the old gentleman was a bachelor. The heir to Moreton Hall estate was a wild profligate young man, who spent his easily acquired wealth in betting, horseracing, and such like, and eventually became bankrupt. To add to his misfortune, he became addicted to drink, and from being one of the leading men of society in the neighbourhood, he fell into a state of dissipation and degradation, from which he hopelessly endeavoured to extricate himself. The rich and respectable shunned him, the poor despised him. Friendless and moneyless, and despicably clad, he left the neighbourhood, and sought to earn a livelihood in the metropolis, by manual labour; but death put an end to his misfortunes, for on the third day after his arrival in Melbourne, he was found dead in one of the low houses of Little Bourke street. He was buried at the expense of the Government; and his name forgotten amongst men.

He had scarcely been dead a week, ere strange rumours were circulated about Easyville that Moreton Hall was haunted. The new proprietor of the old mansion was a native of Sydney, a member of the legal profession, who had retired into private life, and hoped to live his life comfortably at the hall; but somehow he was disappointed; the servants asserted that the place was haunted; strange unearthly noises were audible at unlawful hours, and screams were heard ever and anon about the “witching time” of midnight. Fear took possession of their hearts, and the proprietor was forced to believe that there was something in it. Whether he heard the strange noises or not, he never said; but eventually the servants at Moreton Hall left one by one, and when strangers were brought in their stead, it was the same thing. They in turn declared that the house was haunted, some even averring that they saw the ghost stalking along the passage. The report spread, and the superstitious added their own to the mass of strange intelligence concerning the Hall. The proprietor left in turn, and let the place to a young farmer, a recent arrival from Gippsland. This man was newly married, and on the first night of his advent to the Hall his wife declared that she saw a man walk with folded arms and drooped head along the passage leading to the parlour. The young farmer, alarmed at this piece of intelligence, and knowing nothing of the report circulated concerning the place, instantly essayed to search for the intruder, whom he suspected to be some burglar. Armed with a revolver, he hunted up and down the place from one chamber to the other, holding a lighted candle in one hand and a revolver on full-cock in the other, but without success. He then retired to bed, and had scarcely done so, ere he and his partner heard the footstep of a man—a slow measured tread—along the passage. The young man, who was a courageous fellow, instantly leaped up and, armed with a revolver, rushed after the supposed burglar; but imagine his consternation when he found the doors all locked, the windows barred as he left them, and no trace of the twice sought for burglar. Determined to make the discovery, he called up his wife, and having attired themselves, they seated themselves by the fire, with a lighted candle on the table beside them. Again they heard the footstep along the passage, as if coming towards the chamber wherein they were seated, eagerly listening. A strange fear took possession of the pair as the footsteps approached them. The husband grasped the revolver, but it fell from his hand on the table, the wife looked at him with eyes distended with terror and alarm, and as a cold rush of air penetrated the room and blew out the light, she uttered one load shriek of terror and fainted.

When she recovered, she declared to her husband that she saw the figure of a man, attired in shabby habiliments, standing with his arms folded, and his eyes set fixedly, fearfully gazing at her, at the next moment the cold rush of air alluded to penetrated the room, and she saw no more.

The young farmer left the premises on that very night, and took his lodgings at a neighbour’s house, to whom he related the whole of the strange affair. Of course the Easyville folks had heard the strange reports concerning the place from various other sources, and they advised the young man to leave the hall instantly, as no one had ever remained for any length of time in the place at night since Harry Greville, the young profligate
roué
, died.

The young farmer took their advice and decamped; and for upwards of four years Moreton Hall was without an occupant.

At last a tenant in the person of an old sea captain, with a servant, rented it for a month. He had been apprised of all the danger of seeing an apparition within its walls after nightfall; but he laughed at the strange piece of intelligence.

Armed with an old cutlass and, having his servant at his elbow, the captain waited for the ghost of the witching hour. Nor did he wait long in vain. As the hour of midnight came, the footsteps of a man approached from the farther end of the passage, and stopped abruptly in front of the chamber wherein the captain and his servant were located. This was the same chamber where the young farmer and his wife were seated when the latter beheld the ghost of young Greville. At this moment, the captain’s servant (an Irishman named Clynch) uttered a loud scream and rolled from his seat senseless on the floor. The captain threw a jug of water over him, and, with his eye fixed on the door, waited patiently.

The captain was in no way superstitious; he believed that the whole cause of the strange reports, etc., originated with some natural design, some trick of an intriguer for his own purpose. But his opinion soon changed when he beheld in the doorway the figure of a man, dressed in a suit of grey habiliments, with his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes glaring wildly.

The courage which supported the captain on former occasions did not desert him now; so calling on the ghostly intruder to speak and declare his errand, he was somewhat astonished to see the apparition point to a small nook adjoining the fire-place, and disappear without uttering a word. The captain roused his servant into a state of consciousness, and they searched the nook in question. It was a small aperture in the wall, wherein a stove had once been placed, but which had long been unused. In this aperture the skeleton of a human being (to all appearance that of a woman, from the length of the hair still attached to the skull) was found doubled up, as if it had been placed or compressed in that manner, in order to conceal it within the small compass accorded to it. To drag this skeleton from its place of concealment was the work of a few moments; and, on the following day, the captain communicated with the authorities, and a minute search was made in and about the premises of Moreton Hall.

The skeleton was recognised as that of a young woman who was the paramour of Harry Greville, and who suddenly disappeared from the place a year or so previous to his downfall. He had circulated a report that she had gone to England; and the report was credited. The fact was, the unfortunate woman was murdered by him and hidden in the aperture in the wall, a place where no one would have sought for aught concerning her fate. But his shade could not rest ’til the affair was cleared up; and, strange though it be, it is an acknowledged fact that Moreton Hall no longer possesses the repute of being haunted since the memorable discovery of the skeleton, and at the time I write this it is tenanted by the local attorney, a gentleman to whom the reader is referred for the credence of the above marvellous tale.

L’envoi

So ends the “Chronicles of Easyville,” which I found carefully tied up in a packet at my hotel lodgings. I made researches and inquiries amongst the residents of Easyville, and found that “the Strange Unknown,” “The Dan O’Toole,” “My Friend D’Arcy,” and “Tim Mulvaney,” are no fictitious characters, and now as I sit leisurely smoking my pipe, I can see “Moreton Hall” in the distance, and I marvel much at the strange story of its having once been haunted. Of Paul Selwyn, “The Wronged and the Wronger,” I may say that there is a picture of his (painted by him a year before his death) hanging in the parlour of my hotel lodgings, and entitled, “A glimpse of the Snowy Mountains.” They tell me that the landscape artist was a constant visitor at “Mac’s Hotel” (my hotel lodgings), and painted this picture gratis for my landlord. There is an
on dit
report current in Easyville also that “My friend D’Arcy” is at present in Melbourne, and contributes occasionally to the weekly journals. So be it. In the meantime I beg leave to bid adieu to the reader, and conclude my postscript with a verse of one of D’Arcy’s songs:

“When a man has fleeced his pockets out,

How gruff a “pub” looks I know;

Because a man should never “shout”

Unless he’s got the “rhino.”

And when a yarn, spun out too dry,

Grows dull in any quarter,

What should a fellow do? Well, why,

Of course, to cut it shorter!”

POINT DESPAIR, by H. B. Marriott Watson

H. B. Marriott Watson (1863-1921) was born in Melbourne, educated in New Zealand, and settled in England in 1885 where he took up journalism. He was assistant editor on
Black and White
and the
Pall Mall
Gazette
and eventually published over fifty books. He collaborated with James Barrie on the play
Richard Savage
. He also penned several supernatural stories, including “The Devil of the Marsh” and the vampire tale “The Stone Chamber.” His short story collections
Diogenes of London and other Fantasies and Sketches
(1893),
The Heart of Miranda
(1899),
Alarums and Excursions
(1903), and
Aftermath: A Garner of Tales
(1919) contain the odd supernatural tale. The following story comes from an early Australian anthology,
By Creek and Gully
(1899), and concerns a Maori massacre.

A generation has slipped away since the Great Massacre, and even in this district in which I live, scarcely a hundred miles from the theatre of that abominable tragedy, the facts are almost forgotten, at least blurred to a fading patch of colour. It is remarkable how swiftly time passes; and what was yesterday a fear, tomorrow will become a reminiscence somewhat agreeable to talk over. Yet upon my mind are scored deeply the recollections of that horrible scene.

In the year of the Great Massacre I was in my eighth year, pretty sharp for a child, though somewhat undersized. My escape came about in this way. I had left Point Despair about eleven in the morning in the company of a lad, somewhat over my own age, who was returning to his people at Murimuru, some twelve miles distant. The road was plain and easy, running for some miles along the coast; moreover, living alone with my uncle, I maintained a certain licence in my expeditions. Consequently, I asked no leave to slip forth and accompany this playmate a certain part of his journey. It was a bright, warm day; we had some sandwiches in our pockets, and there was the sea smiling with a thousand lures at our feet. The suggestion was irresistible; we stripped to the skin, half way to Murimuru, and idled most of the afternoon in the water. It was not until my companion was suddenly pricked by his tardy conscience, and marched off, declaring he must make Murimuru with all speed, that I turned to retrace my way to Point Despair. The road as it reached the point, dipped into a sparse piece of bush, through which it twisted irregularly for a mile or more, and ere I had issued from its shadows the dusk had fallen.

It was not at once that I was struck by the singular quiet which ruled the flat, for I was occupied at the moment with lively fears about my length of absence; but half way to the post-house some uneasy appreciation of the stillness brought me up, and almost simultaneously I noticed a column of thin smoke rising at the back of Willis’s lean-to. With that the significance of the silence went out of my mind; there was plainly a fire forward, a most unusual event in our small settlement, and, my anxiety forgotten, I broke into a run, thrilling under the stimulus of a new sensation. I had barely passed the lean-to in the dull twilight when I stumbled and went sprawling over something in the pathway. The thing gave way under me, shifting a little aslant, and I cannot tell you my sensations when I perceived it to be a dead body. The light was still sufficient to see by, and ere I withdrew with a pant of alarm and terror I recognised the face, which was now staring up at me, as that of Willis himself. The spectacle was horrible. I carry it still in my memory, as vivid and as ghastly as on that evening thirty years back. God knows how barbarously the wretch had been done to death, or perhaps the innumerable and dreadful wounds had been inflicted after the release of that poor spirit. My mouth fell open, and my eyes watched the dead man’s fearfully, drawn with a nameless attraction. It was the first time, I had ever encountered death, and I had no power of motion in my limbs. My legs shook, I stood transfixed; the stare of those dead eyes held and terrified me, But presently the tide of reflection returned; I took my gaze from the corpse and let it go round the vicinity.

I was alive now, on wires of fear, ready to jump off at an instant’s sound. But no noise came save the low, persistent murmur of the sea upon the shingle. Even then I had not conceived the fate which had fallen on the settlement. The horror had been so extreme that it had dulled my nerves, but as the blood flowed anew from my heart a certain reaction set in, and I was able to gather my wits together. I supposed that this Willis, who had never been popular with me for a sourness of temper, had met with an abominable accident, and that I was the first to come upon the tragedy. The news, shocking as it was in all the horrid circumstances of its presentment, roused in me an alacrity, and I hurried to be off. I turned from the still and stupid body, which as it lay had somehow a look of obscene importance, and I scuttled towards my home with all speed.

As I did so the dark and moving shadows of the column of smoke saluted my eyes once more. Vague and distant in my mind was a restless wonder of this appearance. I had a momentary presage of a wider fear, unintelligible but colossal, and then I was running for life with the terror of that defiled body at my heels.

The house in which I kept my uncle company was little more than a shanty, and lay about the middle of the four-and-twenty houses which constituted the township of Point Despair. The settlement held no street; it had not reached the dignity of order, and few of the plots were enclosed. A kitchen-garden, containing a handful of gooseberry-bushes, a few currant-bushes, and rows on rows of cabbages and potatoes, for the most part surrounded each dwelling-place. Macfarlane’s house alone had the luxury of a verandah, and was, in addition, fenced with posts and rails, against which grew a hedge of
pinus insignis
. Here it was that I stopped for the third time. For the front door, flung wide, was squeaking in the breeze and a figure in a woman’s dress lay in a heap on the verandah.

The sight sunk me back into my abject fears. I would have fled past it on the feet of panic, had not a horrible fascination mingled with my terror. I had come direct from one corpse upon another. The bare fact of this sequence appalled and benumbed me, and yet once more I was drawn insensibly to inspect this second horror.

It was not so dark but I could make out every particular of that mangled heap. I remember that I pored over it stupidly, noting every ghast
ly detail, but comprehending little. My imagination suffered under a surfeit of the earlier horrors, and could digest no more. She lay with an arm clutching at her side; it may be she kept some secret in that final moment, or perhaps it was merely by an instinct of defence. I could peer at the body so, but I should have shrieked out to have touched it with a fingertip. When I left the verandah I had no proper sensations and no settled thoughts save a desire to get home. So incapable was I of further impressions that the body of a child in the pathway conveyed no meaning to me, though I was conscious that its name had been Sally. I merely accepted it as a natural part of this strange and rather terrible condition. I stepped over the child, backed away from it cautiously, keeping my eyes upon it, and then swiftly resumed my former gait. It might perhaps have leaped upon me. I knew not what would happen.

The smoke was rising from the ruins of the store, which stood only a few paces from my uncle’s cottage. The flames had not worked much harm, as the fire been unskilfully kindled, for the roof alone had been consumed, and the walls were still solid, but smouldering. Even the windows, though they were broken, showed still a few packages of grocery. The sight of the store, filled, as I pictured it, with innumerable sweets and treasures, struck me with more interest than the dead bodies, and for a moment I awoke to a thrill of excitement. But it was only mechanical, and I hardly paused to wonder as I dashed through the patch of cabbages to the door of my home. I had no thought of finding my uncle also dead, but the image of the woman returned persistently, and I glanced involuntarily about to see if perchance the body lay here also. As I entered by the door, which stood open, and my resounded familiarly upon the wooden flooring, something of comfort warmed me suddenly, and yet something of trouble too. I went clattering through the rooms, calling upon my uncle, a quaver in my tones.

The sound of my voice, solitary in the dusk alarmed me further. No uncle answered me: there was no reassurance from the falling night. Indeed, the only noise that reached me came from the shore a mile away, where the waves of the Pacific moaned by day and night perpetually. It inspired me now with fresh terror to hear this melancholy sound, of which as a rule I passed unconscious, save on nights of storm. Inside the house it was more obscure than in the open road but in two rooms I could swear that there was no sign of my uncle. One corner of the third was wrapped in deeper darkness, and upon this I stared with dilating eyes. I dared not enter and inquire there. Somehow the conviction grew in me firmly that there sat my uncle in the evil blackness of that corner with a grin upon his face, and on his body all the gross marks of those dead creatures I had seen.

I had ceased calling, and the silence frightened me even more than my lonely voice. Terror crept over me, at first gently, and then with a rush. It held my face blanched and fixed towards the darkness, lest something should spring from it upon me. The rickety table by which I stood shook under my trembling hands, and the harsh grating and creaking completed my horror. I yelled like a cat, and like a cat fleeing from the room dashed out of the house, down the garden and into the road.

I ran on heedless of my direction until my wind was spent, and then, the original impulse of fear being lost in breathless fatigue, I stopped, and found that I was on the sandhills that filled the mile between the sea and the houses of the Point. The air was warm, and I was now all a-sweat from my running. I could hear
the water roaring louder than before upon the beach. Inwards, where the bush lay black, in the rear of the houses, was a, dreadful quiet. Somewhere across the dunes a
weka
called and was silent. The moon came out and shone faintly, for the night had already fallen as it is used to fall suddenly from southern skies. I was alive in a graveyard.

It was some time ere I was able to drag myself back to the houses. Indeed, I think nothing short of a new terror would have made me return. As I lay crouching in the “scrub” of the dunes my ears and eyes were preternaturally alert. The sand was covered with thin, rough tussock-grass, which shook and sighed in the wind. These sounds again discomfited me, and more particularly as the wind grew. A first breath of trouble, as it seemed to me, stirred through the long culms and set them gently whispering, as it had been the lamentation of a little child. Then with a slowly growing volume of wailing the reeds rocked and swayed in anguish, and it was as if the groans of that whole company of dead were expressed in my ears. The horrible tragedy, as I now conceived it, was enacted before me in these noises. As the wind rose I heard the shrieks of the poor women barbarously handled, and the screams and prayers of the dying returned to me; and as it fell so I conceived again a silence to fall upon the settlement, which was the final stillness of death.

This impression made such a mark upon me that the beats of my heart quickened to a gallop, and I began to see life start from the inanimate bushes and creepers about me. What nameless things I imagined were haunting those trembling and invisible bushes I have now no notion, nor indeed had I at the time. The dunes were alive with crying ghosts, and I was alone with them. I was stung once more into action, and with despair in my heart I crept from the open seaward space into the settlement again.

I took up my post now as distinct from the houses as I could manage to be, without being actually beyond the precincts of the township. A space, still unoccupied, and the common playground of children, spread out before the store, and upon a slope in this, where the ground rolled up against a patch of bush, I sat in a heap of furze and watched the night. Some sparks of fire lingered in the beams of the store, and broke out into flame from time to time, revealing thick clouds of smoke that still rolled upwards to the moon. I took a certain comfort in this companionship, and after a time my terrors had so nearly subsided that I began to feel hungry; for I had eaten no food since midday. Though my spirit was returning, and my fancies were gone, I lacked the courage to approach my uncle’s cottage, or even to explore the store, in which I was sure to find some food. I endured the pangs with fortitude rather than face the unknown terrors across the threshold. But presently I remembered the wild fuchsia-tree which grew in the bush at my back, and with some of the
kanini
berries I stayed my appetite. The scene was so peaceful, and my refuge among the ferns was so warm that I grew even cheerful, and was soon whistling softly to myself; and when at last my extreme thirst compelled me to make a journey to the creek, two hundred yards away, I set out upon the expedition with scarcely any reluctance.

A house with a garden which in our wilderness had always been held quite magnificent, stood upon the verge of the creek. I had made the distance swiftly and in a respectful silence, but having taken my drink without accident I resumed something of my normal ease and security and strolled back more leisurely, whistling the catch of a song. But at the gate of the house I was brought suddenly to a halt, my heart stood for a moment still, and I was rooted to the earth with the fear of what I saw. Something was moving under the white light in the rude track before the gate, crawling and crawling, as it seemed, towards me. It was not until the clouds streamed from the moon and the light grew clearer, that I realised the cause of my stupefaction. It was the body of a woman, stirring feebly, and as soon as I had perceived this my fright left me and I drew closer and looked down upon it. I recognised her at once as Mrs Stainton, a young woman of comely appearance, who since her advent to Point Despair three months before, with her newly-married husband, had shown me much kindness. She was still alive, and as I stood over her, not knowing what to do, she groaned and opened her eyes upon me. She lifted her hand and beckoned to me feebly; but I was reluctant to approach, and eyed her from a yard, or two away. I saw her part her lips and struggle for speech. Her body writhed, and features were contorted with her efforts. Her uplifted arm shook and fell.