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The Hauntings Of ---- House In The Neighbourhood Of The Great Western Road Aberdeen

Scary Books: Scottish Ghost Stories

The following experience of a haunting is that of Mr. Scarfe, who told

it me some few summers ago, expressing at the same time great

eagerness to accompany me on some of my investigations.



I append it as nearly as possible in his own words:--



I was spending Easter, he began, with some friends of mine in

Aberdeen, and, learning from them that there was a haunted house in

the immediate vicinit
of the Great Western Road, I begged them to try

and get me permission to spend a night in it. As good luck would have

it, the landlord happened to be a connection of theirs, and although

at first rather reluctant to give me leave, lest by doing so he

should create a precedent, and, consequently, be pestered to death by

people whom he knew to be as anxious as I was to see the ghost, he

eventually yielded; and, the following evening at 8 p.m., accompanied

only by my dog, Scott, I entered the premises.



I cannot say I felt very comfortable when the door slammed behind me,

and I found myself standing alone in a cold, dark passage out of which

rose a gloomy staircase, suggestive of all sorts of uncanny

possibilities. However, overcoming these nervous apprehensions as best

I could, I began a thorough search of the premises, to make sure that

no one was hiding there.



Descending first of all into the basement, I explored the kitchen,

scullery, larder, and other domestic offices. The place fairly reeked

with damp, but this was not to be wondered at, taking in consideration

the fact, that the soil was clay, the floor of the very poorest

quality of cement, cracked and broken in a dozen and one places, and

that there had been no fires in any of the rooms for many months. Here

and there in the darkest corners were clusters of ugly cockroaches,

whilst more than one monstrous rat scampered away on my approach. My

dog, or rather the dog that was lent me, and which went by the name of

Scott, kept close at my heel, showing no very great enthusiasm in his

mission, and giving even the rodents as wide a berth as possible.



I invariably trust to my psychic faculty (as you know, Mr. O'Donnell,

some people are born with the faculty) to enable me to detect the

presence of the superphysical. I generally feel the latter

incorporated in some inexplicable manner in the ether, or see it

inextricably interwoven with the shadows.



Here in the basement it was everywhere--the air was simply saturated

with it, and, as the fading sunlight called shadow after shadow into

existence, it confronted me enigmatically whichever way I turned.



I went upstairs, and the presence followed me. In one or two of the

top bedrooms--more particularly in a tiny garret overlooking the

back-yard--the Presence seemed inclined to hover. For some seconds I

waited there, in order to see if there would be any further

development; there being none--I obeyed the mandates of a sudden

impulse and made my way once more to the basement. On arriving at the

top of the kitchen stairs, Scott showed a decided disinclination to

descend farther. Crouching down, he whined piteously, and when I

attempted to grasp him by the collar, snarled in a most savage manner.

Consequently, thinking it better to have no companion at all than one

so unwilling, I descended without him.



The stairs terminated in a very dark and narrow passage, into which

the doors of the kitchen, larder, store room, etc., opened

respectively, and at the farther extremity of which was a doorway

leading to the back-yard. The superphysical Presence seeming to be

more pronounced in this passage than anywhere else, I decided to spend

the night in it, and, selecting a spot opposite the entrance to the

scullery, I constructed a seat out of two of the drawers of the

kitchen dresser, by placing them, one on the other, bottom uppermost

on the floor.



It was now half-past nine; the traffic in the street overhead was

beginning to diminish--the rumbling of drays or heavy four-wheelers

had almost ceased, whilst the jingling of hansoms and even the

piercing hoot-hoot and loud birr-birr of motors was fast becoming less

and less frequent. I put out my candle and waited; and, as I waited,

the hush and gloom of the house deepened and intensified, until, by

midnight, all round me was black and silent--black with a blackness

that defies penetration, and silent with a silence that challenges

only the rivalry of the grave. Occasionally I heard sounds--such, for

example, as the creaking of a board, the flopping of a cockroach, and

the growling of Scott--sounds which in the daytime would have been too

trivial to attract attention, but which now assumed the most startling

and exaggerated proportions. From time to time I felt my pulse and

took my temperature to make sure that I was perfectly normal, whilst

at one o'clock, the hour when human vitality begins to be on the wane,

I ate some chicken and ham sandwiches, which I helped down with a

single glass of oatmeal stout. So far, beyond my feeling that there

was a superphysical something in the house, nothing had occurred.

There had not been the slightest attempt at manifestation, and, as the

minutes sped swiftly by I began to fear that, perhaps, after all the

hauntings were only of a negative nature. As the clock struck two,

however, Scott gave an extra savage snarl, and the next moment came

racing downstairs. Darting along the passage and tearing towards me,

he scrambled up the overturned drawers, and, burying his face in my

lap, set up the most piteous whinings. A sensation of icy coldness,

such as could not have been due to any physical cause, now surged

through me; and, as I got out my pocket flashlight ready for

emergencies, I heard an unmistakable rustling in the cellar opposite.

At once my whole attention became riveted in the direction of this

sound, and, as I sat gazing fixedly in front of me, the darkness was

suddenly dissipated and the whole passage, from one end to the other,

was illuminated by a phosphorescent glow; which glow I can best

describe as bearing a close resemblance, in kind though not in degree,

to the glow of a glow-worm. I then saw the scullery door slowly begin

to open. A hideous fear seized me. What--what in the name of Heaven

should I see? Transfixed with terror, unable to move or utter a

sound, I crouched against the wall paralysed, helpless; whilst the

door opened wider and wider.



At last, at last after an interval which to me was eternity,

Something, an as yet indefinite shadowy Something, loomed in the

background of the enlargening space. My suspense was now sublime, and

I felt that another second or so of such tension would assuredly see

me swoon.



The shadowy Something, however, quickly developed, and, in less time

than it takes to write, it assumed the form of a woman--a middle-aged

woman with a startlingly white face, straight nose, and curiously

lined mouth, the two front upper teeth of which projected considerably

and were very long. Her hair was black, her hands coarse, and red, and

she was clad in the orthodox shabby print of a general servant in some

middle-class family. The expression in her wide-open, glassy blue eyes

as they glared into mine was one of such intense mental and physical

agony that I felt every atom of blood in my veins congeal. Creeping

stealthily forward, her gaze still on me, she emerged from the

doorway, and motioning to me to follow, glided up the staircase. Up,

up, we went, the cold, grey dawn greeting us on our way. Entering the

garret to which I have already alluded, the phantasm noiselessly

approached the hearth, and, pointing downward with a violent motion of

the index finger of its right hand, suddenly vanished. A great feeling

of relief now came over me, and, yielding to a reaction which was the

inevitable consequence of such a severe nervous strain, I reeled

against the window-sill and shook with laughter.



Equanimity at length reasserting itself, I carefully marked the spot

on the floor, indicated by the apparition, and descending into the

basement to fetch Scott, made hurried tracks to my friends' house,

where I was allowed to sleep on till late in the day. I then returned

to the haunted house with the landlord, and my friend, and, on raising

the boarding in the garret, we discovered a stamped and addressed

envelope.



As the result of our combined inquiries, we learned that a few years

previously the house had been occupied by some tradespeople of the

name of Piblington, who, some six or seven months before they left

the house, had had in their employment a servant named Anna Webb.

This servant, the description of whose person corresponded in every

way with the ghost I had seen, had been suspected of stealing a letter

containing money, and had hanged herself in the cellar.



The letter, I gathered, with several others, had been given to Anna to

post by Mrs. Piblington, and as no reply to the one containing money

was received, Anna was closely questioned. Naturally nervous and

highly strung, the inquisition confused her terribly, and her

embarrassment being construed into guilt, she was threatened with

prosecution. As a proof of my innocence, she scribbled on a piece of

paper, which was produced at the subsequent inquest, I am going to

hang myself. I never stole your letter, and can only suppose it was

lost in the post.



The mere fact of the accused committing suicide would, in many

people's opinion, point to guilt; and as the postal order was never

traced, it was generally concluded that Anna had secreted it, and had

been only waiting till inquiries ceased, and the affair was forgotten,

to cash it. Of course, the letter I found was the missing one, and

although apparently hidden with intent, the fact of its never having

been opened seemed to suggest that Anna was innocent, and that the

envelope had, by some extraordinary accident, fallen unnoticed by Anna

through the crack between the boards. Anyhow, its discovery put an end

to the disturbances and the apparition of the unfortunate

suicide--whether guilty or innocent, and the Judgment Day can alone

determine that--has never been seen since.



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