“Things that go Bump in the night.” “Widdershins.”

It is not surprising that stories of haunting or of the supernatural should be linked with wills. The perturbation of the dying man, as he utters his last bequest or ponders upon his affairs; the failure to make his wishes known; neglect of his dispositions and desires; non-completion of the will or its loss; concealment of his treasure or hoard: here are the bases or occasions for many a tale of spirit and of ghost.

It is said that fear lest the spirit should not be at rest was the origin of the priest’s injunction to the sick to make his will, an injunction which still forms part of the “Visitation of the Sick” in the Book of Common Prayer. “And if he hath not before disposed of his goods, let him then be admonished to make his Will, and to declare his Debts, what he oweth, and what is owing unto him; for the better discharging of his conscience and the quietness of his Executors. But [Pg 231] men should often be put in remembrance to take order for the settling of their temporal estates, whilst they are in health.” In other chapters this subject has been touched, and instances have been given of wills made in the hour of death. But when no will is made, no friend is near, can the spirit of the dying or of the dead indicate his last will? There are tales to this effect.

“During the cholera epidemic in the North of England, about 1867-8, I remember an incident which had a great effect upon my boyish mind at the time. I lived in North Shields, and was the favourite of my great-grandmother, with whom I often stayed. The old lady was rather a recluse in her habits, and occupied two upper rooms in her daughter’s house. She was known to have some paper money about her, which, however, she carefully concealed somewhere from all her relatives. At the same time, it was known she had a particular partiality for one certain cupboard which she used as a wardrobe in her bedroom.... At three o’clock one morning, while sleeping at my own home, I awoke to find the old lady standing at the foot of my bed, calling to me and beckoning to me to follow her. I sat up in bed, terrified at the sight, but, of course, manifested no desire to move. The old lady then became impatient, and saying she could not remain longer, begged of me to be sure and go to ‘the cupboard,’ this being her usual phrase when referring to the small wardrobe.... On the old lady’s departure I was [Pg 232] so frightened that I felt I dare not stay in the room.... I awoke my mother and told her what had happened. She calmed me as much as possible and saw me off to bed again, but in the morning she was so much impressed with my story that she accompanied me on my way to school, and we called to see if anything was wrong with the old lady. Imagine our surprise on reaching the house to learn that she had been found dead in bed a short time before our visit. The body was cold, proving that she had been dead some hours, the doctor declaring she had died of cholera. The inference formed was that she must have died about the hour she visited me. Suffice it to say, an inspection of ‘the cupboard’ revealed the fact that other hands had done duty there before ours had a chance, but with what result will never be known.”

What such visions are, whether of the dying or of the dead, or otherwise, is a subject of keen controversy, but is not our business here.

The following is a tale still more strange, but is akin to the preceding, since the deceased died unattended, and strove by abnormal means to indicate his will. Michael Conley, a farmer of Chichasow County, Iowa, on February 1, 1891, went to be medically treated at Dubuque, in Iowa, leaving his children Pat and Elizabeth at home. The latter was a girl of twenty-eight. “On Feb. 3rd Michael was found dead in an outhouse near his inn. In his pockets were nine dollars, seventy cents, but his clothes, including his shirt, were thought so dirty and [Pg 233] worthless that they were thrown away. The body was then dressed in a white shirt, black clothes and satin slippers of a new pattern. Pat Conley was telegraphed for, and arrived at Dubuque on Feb. 4th.... Pat took the corpse home in a coffin, and on his arrival Elizabeth fell into a swoon, which lasted for several hours. Her account ... may be given in her own words. ‘When they told me that father was dead I felt very sick and bad; I did not know anything. Then father came to me. He had on a white shirt and black clothes and slippers. When I came to, I told Pat I had seen father. I asked Pat if he had brought back father’s old clothes. He said “No,” and asked me why I wanted them. I told him father said he had sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey shirt, in a pocket made of a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, and father came to me again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go and get the clothes.’ Pat now telephoned to Mr. Hoffmann, coroner of Dubuque, who found the old clothes in the back yard of the local morgue. They were wrapped up in a bundle. Receiving this news, Pat went to Dubuque on Feb. 9th, where Mr. Hoffmann opened the bundle in Pat’s presence. Inside the old grey shirt was found a packet of red stuff, sewn with a man’s long, uneven stitches, and in the pocket notes for thirty-five dollars.”

There is a similar story which was well investigated, and recounted at great length in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. [Pg 234] But in this instance the girl was artificially entranced. She was a Spanish servant of a Dr. Vidigal, who resided in Brazil, and soon after her engagement in his service she was hypnotised and appeared to communicate with her father; later she gave a message seemingly from Dr. Vidigal’s mother, who had died three months before. The deceased lady, it was announced, had left 75 milreis (￡3 to ￡4) in the pocket of a dress which was still hanging in her room. No one knew of this money, which the family could ill dispense with. Dr. Vidigal’s wife with another lady went at once to the room, and found the identical sum of money sewn up in one of the two dresses that still remained there.

The failure of the deceased to make his wishes known after death is the source of some curious cases. For several years a villa at Annecy, occupied by a Count Galateri, was disturbed by manifestations of haunting; doors opened of their own accord, books and furniture moved without visible means. The noises seemed to emanate from a cellar in the house. A clairvoyant medium stated that at the door of the villa she saw a soldier with a wooden leg, who said that during the Napoleonic wars he had robbed the dead and waxed rich therewith, bought this villa, and hid his treasure in the cellar. But remorse had seized him, and these disturbances were made to induce the Countess to find the money and give it to the poor. Eventually the Countess dug on the [Pg 235] spot, and found a jar containing many francs in gold; she did as desired, doled them among the poor, and house and spirit had rest.

From the latest psychical research the thesis may be illustrated. Richard Hodgson, who during his life devoted himself to the study of the problems of mind and spirit, and himself investigated the story of Dr. Vidigal’s mother, determined that after death he would if possible prove the survival of the soul. He died suddenly on December 20, 1905, and eight days later the medium with whom he had often sat, the famous Mrs. Piper, declared that his spirit was communicating through her. He held in his hand a ring. A fortnight later under the same circumstances he begged that this ring might be returned to a certain lady, saying that on the day of his death he had put it in his waistcoat pocket, where, indeed, it was afterwards found. A lady had given him the ring, and is sure no living person knew the fact. But what more natural than that he should will it to be returned to her?

Lastly, the delightful tale of Mrs. Veal may illustrate this category: “the apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury. September 8, 1705.” In this case, however, the disposal of a few trifles, which she managed to wedge into the conversation, was not the main object of her visit. Mrs. Bargrave, “a woman of much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course as it [Pg 236] were of piety,” had no notion that she was speaking to one of the departed. Her surprise was great, therefore, when Mrs. Veal said to her, “She would have to write a letter to her brother and tell him, she would have him give rings to such and such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson. Talking at this rate Mrs. Bargrave thought there was a fit coming on her, and so placed herself in a chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it: for the elbow chair she thought would keep her from falling either side. And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her it was a scowered silk, and newly made up. But for all this Mrs. Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave she must not deny her: and she would have her tell her brother all their conversation when she had the opportunity. ‘Dear Mrs. Veal,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘this seems so impertinent that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman!’ ‘Why,’ says Mrs. Bargrave ‘’tis much better methinks to do it yourself.’ ‘No,’ says Mrs. Veal, ‘though it seems impertinent to you now you will see more reason for it hereafter.’ Mrs. Bargrave then to satisfy her importunity was going to fetch a pen and ink; but Mrs. Veal said, ‘Let it alone now, and do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do it. [Pg 237]’ Which was one of the last things she enjoined her at parting, and so she promised her.” Not unnaturally her brother objected to this post-mortem will, and “said he asked his sister on her death-bed ‘whether she had a mind to dispose of anything?’ And she said ‘no.’” Certainly, if he wished to prove such a nuncupative will, he would have had little trouble as against Mrs. Bargrave’s ghostly will and testament.

How frequently the desires of the dead were frustrated, and to what language testators were moved in striving to prevent such neglect or opposition, has been commented upon. In one of the earliest of extant wills, that of Favonius, made in the war in Lusitania against Viriathus, 142 b.c., the testator invokes his ‘manes’ to avenge him, if his sons do not remove his bones and bury them on the Latin Way. And (to make a swift transition) Dr. Ellerby, who died in London in February, 1827, bequeathed his heart, lungs, and brains to certain persons “in order that they may preserve them from decomposition; and I declare that if these gentlemen shall fail faithfully to execute these my last wishes in this respect I will come—if it shall be by any means possible—and torment them until they shall comply.”

With such threats some have died: the sequel is now to be told. There is a Welsh tale, for instance, of Barbara, wife of Edward, a tailor of Llantivit Major; she was hale and hearty enough, till a secret weighed [Pg 238] more and more upon her mind. For a long time after her husband’s mother’s death, she concealed the fact that the old woman had entrusted her with a bag of money, to divide equally among the family. This Barbara secreted for herself. But the old woman’s spirit so harassed and pinched her that she grew wretched and wasted away. Finally, rather than divide it according to the woman’s will, she cast the bag into the Ogmore stream, where in Welsh folklore treasure was wont to be thrown. Then at last she had peace.

Burton Agnes Hall, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was occupied in the reign of Queen Elizabeth by three sisters. The youngest, Anne Griffith, put her heart and soul into the restoration of the building and in additions to its beauty. But it was not long before she fell a victim to highwaymen, being set upon when alone in the lanes. She was found, and lingered several days; before she died, she besought her sisters to sever her head from her dead body and suffer it to remain within the Hall. If her wish were not fulfilled, she threatened to make the house uninhabitable. The sisters promised, but did not perform it. But soon noises as of slamming doors, and as of the groans of the dying, terrified the household and broke in upon the sisters’ sorrow. They remembered their promise. The coffin was opened and the head brought to the house. It was said that the head had already been mysteriously severed from the body, as if ready to be carried to the resting-place it desired. Surely enough, when the head was safely ensconced in the Hall, the noises were no more heard. [Pg 239]

The tale of the Demon of Spraiton, dating from the seventeenth century, is another story to the purpose. A servant was one day surprised by the apparition of his master’s father, saying that several legacies which by his testament he had bequeathed were still unpaid, and promising if his behests were carried out to cease from troubling. “The spectrum left the young man, who according to the direction of the spirit took care to see the small legacies satisfied, and carried the twenty shillings that were appointed to be paid the gentlewoman near Totnes, but she utterly refused to receive it, being sent her (as she said) from the devil. The same night the young man lodging at her house, the aforesaid spectrum appeared to him again; whereupon the young man challenged his promise not to trouble him any more, saying he had performed all according to his appointment, but that the gentlewoman, his sister, would not receive the money. To which the spectrum replied that this was true indeed; but withal directed the young man to ride to Totnes and buy for her a ring of that value, which the spirit said she would accept of, which being provided accordingly she received. Since the performance of which the ghost or apparition of the old gentleman hath seemed to be at rest, having never given the young man any further trouble.”

This English ghost appeared in 1682. In 1683 an Italian apparition troubled the living. The Marchesa Astalli was a young married woman of [Pg 240] pure religious life. After her sudden death, however, as though she was not at rest, she several times revealed herself to a secular priest who was devoted to souls in Purgatory. At the last appearance it seemed as though an internal voice bade him speak, and ask the spirit her desire. “But she was silent,” says the priest, “for the space of half an Ave Maria, and then said: ‘Go to the Marchese Camillo, and tell him to have two hundred masses said for me.’ ... I replied in great perplexity, and almost with my heart in my mouth: ‘They will not believe me, they will take me for a mad-man.’ Then the spirit, opening its white mantle, exclaimed: ‘My son, pity me.’ And, as she said this, streaks of fire came towards me from her breast, as though two bundles of tow had been lighted. Then she closed her mantle with her hands; folding one side over the other as it was at first, she moved a few steps, looking me in the face; and I, lying almost in mortal agony, all bathed in a cold sweat, which passed through the mattress to the boards, plucked up spirit and said to her: ‘Why do you not go to the Marquis.’ Then the spirit, with a trembling voice and with many tears, which issued from her reddened eyes, as though she had wept long and bitterly, replied: ‘God does not will it.’ I again summoned up courage and said: ‘They will not believe me.’ Then the spirit replied: ‘Look where I touch,’ and departed.... After she had gone I remained languid and speechless [Pg 241] for half an hour, then, as it pleased the Lord, having come somewhat to myself, I knocked on the door at the head of the bed, which led into my brother’s room, and he immediately answered.... Then I asked him to look whether there was anything on the bed. He replied that there was nothing: then, looking more attentively, he said with a surprised air that the coverlet was burnt, and in the middle of it was the imprint of a right hand.... I, Domenico Denza, in the interests of truth, attest and confirm what is above written with my own hand.”

Needless to relate, the masses were duly said, and the noise of the tale was rumoured abroad. Her husband found, among the papers of the deceased lady, memoranda to the effect that two hundred masses were to be said on account of a vow, which she had made but at her death had not yet fulfilled.

This seventeenth-century tale of Italy finds an echo in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century. An aunt, who narrates the facts, received her nephew at Barbacena after the death of his young Belgian wife, in 1894, and though the nephew did not stay long, some luggage appears to have been left at the aunt’s house. Two months or so later she had a vivid dream. “It seemed to me that she entered the room where I really lay asleep, and, sitting down on the bedside, asked me as a favour to look into an old tin box under the staircase for a certain wax candle which had already been lighted, and which she had promised [Pg 242] to Our Lady. On my consenting to do so, she took leave of me saying, ‘Até o outro mundo’ (‘Till the other world’). I awoke from the dream much impressed. It was still dark, but I could no longer sleep.” Search was duly made in the box, which contained old clothes and cuttings, and among them the candle of the dream. “It was of wax—of the kind used for promises [to saints]—and, what was a still more singular coincidence, it had already been lighted. We delivered the candle to M. Jose Augusto of Barbacena, in performance of my niece’s pious vow thus curiously revealed in a dream.”

In England, before the Reformation, it was common in wills to order solemn celebrations, for the rest of the soul and for a memorial of the departed. In this respect the will of Richard Cloudesley, of Islington, is not unusual. “In the Name of the Holy Trinity, Father, and Son and Holy Ghost, Amen, the 13th day of the month of January, the year of our Lord, 1517, and the ninth year of the reign of King Henry VIIIth. I, Richard, otherwise called Richard Cloudysley, clear of mind, and in my good memory being, loved be Almighty God, make and ordain my testament or my last will, in the manner and form as followeth. First, I bequeath and recommend my soul unto Almighty God, my Creator and Saviour, and His most blessed mother Saint Mary the Virgin, and to all the Holy Company of Heaven. My body, after I am passed this present and transitory life, to be buried within the churchyard of the parish [Pg 243] Church of Islington, near unto the grave of my father and mother, on whose souls Jesu have mercy. Also I bequeath to the high altar of the same church, for tythes and oblations peradventure by me forgotten or withholden, in discharging of my conscience, 20s. Also I bequeath to the said church of Islington eight torches, price the piece six shillings four of them, after my month’s mind is holden and kept, to remain to the Brotherhood of Jesu within the said church, and the other four torches to burn at the sacryng of the high mass within the said church as long as they will last.... I will that there be incontinently after my decease, as hastily as may be, a thousand masses said for my soul, and that every priest have for his labour 4d. Item, I will that there be dole for my soul the day of burying, to poor people 5 marks in pence.... I bequeath to the poor lazars of Highgate to pray for me by name in their bead roll 6s. 8d. Also, I will that, every month after my decease, there be an obit kept for me in Islington Church, and each priest and clerk have for their pains to be taken, as they used to have afore this time. And I will that there be distributed at every obit, to poor people, to pray for my sou............