Aunt Joanna

Scary Books: A Book Of Ghosts

In the Land's End district is the little church-town of Zennor. There is

no village to speak of--a few scattered farms, and here and there a

cluster of cottages. The district is bleak, the soil does not lie deep

over granite that peers through the surface on exposed spots, where the

furious gales from the ocean sweep the land. If trees ever existed

there, they have been swept away by the blast, but the golden furze or

orse defies all winds, and clothes the moorland with a robe of

splendour, and the heather flushes the slopes with crimson towards the

decline of summer, and mantles them in soft, warm brown in winter, like

the fur of an animal.



In Zennor is a little church, built of granite, rude and simple of

construction, crouching low, to avoid the gales, but with a tower that

has defied the winds and the lashing rains, because wholly devoid of

sculptured detail, which would have afforded the blasts something to lay

hold of and eat away. In Zennor parish is one of the finest cromlechs in

Cornwall, a huge slab of unwrought stone like a table, poised on the

points of standing upright blocks as rude as the mass they sustain.



Near this monument of a hoar and indeed unknown antiquity lived an old

woman by herself, in a small cottage of one story in height, built of

moor stones set in earth, and pointed only with lime. It was thatched

with heather, and possessed but a single chimney that rose but little

above the apex of the roof, and had two slates set on the top to protect

the rising smoke from being blown down the chimney into the cottage

when the wind was from the west or from the east. When, however, it

drove from north or south, then the smoke must take care of itself. On

such occasions it was wont to find its way out of the door, and little

or none went up the chimney.



The only fuel burnt in this cottage was peat--not the solid black peat

from deep bogs, but turf of only a spade graft, taken from the surface,

and composed of undissolved roots. Such fuel gives flame, which the

other does not; but, on the other hand, it does not throw out the same

amount of heat, nor does it last one half the time.



The woman who lived in the cottage was called by the people of the

neighbourhood Aunt Joanna. What her family name was but few remembered,

nor did it concern herself much. She had no relations at all, with the

exception of a grand-niece, who was married to a small tradesman, a

wheelwright near the church. But Joanna and her great-niece were not on

speaking terms. The girl had mortally offended the old woman by going to

a dance at St. Ives, against her express orders. It was at this dance

that she had met the wheelwright, and this meeting, and the treatment

the girl had met with from her aunt for having gone to it, had led to

the marriage. For Aunt Joanna was very strict in her Wesleyanism, and

bitterly hostile to all such carnal amusements as dancing and

play-acting. Of the latter there was none in that wild west Cornish

district, and no temptation ever afforded by a strolling company setting

up its booth within reach of Zennor. But dancing, though denounced,

still drew the more independent spirits together. Rose Penaluna had been

with her great-aunt after her mother's death. She was a lively girl, and

when she heard of a dance at St. Ives, and had been asked to go to it,

although forbidden by Aunt Joanna, she stole from the cottage at night,

and found her way to St. Ives.



Her conduct was reprehensible certainly. But that of Aunt Joanna was

even more so, for when she discovered that the girl had left the house

she barred her door, and refused to allow Rose to re-enter it. The poor

girl had been obliged to take refuge the same night at the nearest farm

and sleep in an outhouse, and next morning to go into St. Ives and

entreat an acquaintance to take her in till she could enter into

service. Into service she did not go, for when Abraham Hext, the

carpenter, heard how she had been treated, he at once proposed, and in

three weeks married her. Since then no communication had taken place

between the old woman and her grand-niece. As Rose knew, Joanna was

implacable in her resentments, and considered that she had been acting

aright in what she had done.



The nearest farm to Aunt Joanna's cottage was occupied by the Hockins.

One day Elizabeth, the farmer's wife, saw the old woman outside the

cottage as she was herself returning from market; and, noticing how bent

and feeble Joanna was, she halted, and talked to her, and gave her good

advice.



"See you now, auntie, you'm gettin' old and crimmed wi' rheumatics. How

can you get about? An' there's no knowin' but you might be took bad in

the night. You ought to have some little lass wi' you to mind you."



"I don't want nobody, thank the Lord."



"Not just now, auntie, but suppose any chance ill-luck were to come on

you. And then, in the bad weather, you'm not fit to go abroad after the

turves, and you can't get all you want--tay and sugar and milk for

yourself now. It would be handy to have a little maid by you."



"Who should I have?" asked Joanna.



"Well, now, you couldn't do better than take little Mary, Rose Hext's

eldest girl. She's a handy maid, and bright and pleasant to speak to."



"No," answered the old woman, "I'll have none o' they Hexts, not I. The

Lord is agin Rose and all her family, I know it. I'll have none of

them."



"But, auntie, you must be nigh on ninety."



"I be ower that. But what o' that? Didn't Sarah, the wife of Abraham,

live to an hundred and seven and twenty years, and that in spite of him

worritin' of her wi' that owdacious maid of hern, Hagar? If it hadn't

been for their goings on, of Abraham and Hagar, it's my belief that

she'd ha' held on to a hundred and fifty-seven. I thank the Lord I've

never had no man to worrit me. So why I shouldn't equal Sarah's life I

don't see."



Then she went indoors and shut the door.



After that a week elapsed without Mrs. Hockin seeing the old woman. She

passed the cottage, but no Joanna was about. The door was not open, and

usually it was. Elizabeth spoke about this to her husband. "Jabez," said

she, "I don't like the looks o' this; I've kept my eye open, and there

be no Auntie Joanna hoppin' about. Whativer can be up? It's my opinion

us ought to go and see."



"Well, I've naught on my hands now," said the farmer, "so I reckon we

will go."



The two walked together to the cottage. No smoke issued from the

chimney, and the door was shut. Jabez knocked, but there came no answer;

so he entered, followed by his wife.



There was in the cottage but the kitchen, with one bedroom at the side.

The hearth was cold.



"There's some'ut up," said Mrs. Hockin.



"I reckon it's the old lady be down," replied her husband, and, throwing

open the bedroom door, he said: "Sure enough, and no mistake--there her

be, dead as a dried pilchard."



And in fact Auntie Joanna had died in the night, after having so

confidently affirmed her conviction that she would live to the age of a

hundred and twenty-seven.



"Whativer shall we do?" asked Mrs. Hockin.



"I reckon," said her husband, "us had better take an inventory of what

is here, lest wicked rascals come in and steal anything and everything."



"Folks bain't so bad as that, and a corpse in the house," observed Mrs.

Hockin.



"Don't be sure o' that--these be terrible wicked times," said the

husband. "And I sez, sez I, no harm is done in seein' what the old

creetur had got."



"Well, surely," acquiesced Elizabeth, "there is no harm in that."



In the bedroom was an old oak chest, and this the farmer and his wife

opened. To their surprise they found in it a silver teapot, and half a

dozen silver spoons.



"Well, now," exclaimed Elizabeth Hockin, "fancy her havin' these--and me

only Britannia metal."



"I reckon she came of a good family," said Jabez. "Leastwise, I've heard

as how she were once well off."



"And look here!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "there's fine and beautiful linen

underneath--sheets and pillow-cases."



"But look here!" cried Jabez, "blessed if the taypot bain't chock-full

o' money! Whereiver did she get it from?"



"Her's been in the way of showing folk the Zennor Quoit, visitors from

St. Ives and Penzance, and she's had scores o' shillings that way."



"Lord!" exclaimed Jabez. "I wish she'd left it to me, and I could buy a

cow; I want another cruel bad."



"Ay, we do, terrible," said Elizabeth. "But just look to her bed, what

torn and wretched linen be on that--and here these fine bedclothes all

in the chest."



"Who'll get the silver taypot and spoons, and the money?" inquired

Jabez.



"Her had no kin--none but Rose Hext, and her couldn't abide her. Last

words her said to me was that she'd 'have never naught to do wi' the

Hexts, they and all their belongings.'"



"That was her last words?"



"The very last words her spoke to me--or to anyone."



"Then," said Jabez, "I'll tell ye what, Elizabeth, it's our moral dooty

to abide by the wishes of Aunt Joanna. It never does to go agin what is

right. And as her expressed herself that strong, why us, as honest

folks, must carry out her wishes, and see that none of all her savings

go to them darned and dratted Hexts."



"But who be they to go to, then?"



"Well--we'll see. Fust us will have her removed, and provide that her be

daycent buried. Them Hexts be in a poor way, and couldn't afford the

expense, and it do seem to me, Elizabeth, as it would be a liberal and a

kindly act in us to take all the charges on ourselves. Us is the closest

neighbours."



"Ay--and her have had milk of me these ten or twelve years, and I've

never charged her a penny, thinking her couldn't afford it. But her

could, her were a-hoardin' of her money--and not paying me. That were

not honest, and what I say is, that I have a right to some of her

savin's, to pay the milk bill--and it's butter I've let her have now and

then in a liberal way."



"Very well, Elizabeth. Fust of all, we'll take the silver taypot and the

spoons wi' us, to get 'em out of harm's way."



"And I'll carry the linen sheets and pillow-cases. My word!--why didn't

she use 'em, instead of them rags?"



All Zennor declared that the Hockins were a most neighbourly and

generous couple, when it was known that they took upon themselves to

defray the funeral expenses.



Mrs. Hext came to the farm, and said that she was willing to do what she

could, but Mrs. Hockin replied: "My good Rose, it's no good. I seed your

aunt when her was ailin', and nigh on death, and her laid it on me

solemn as could be that we was to bury her, and that she'd have nothin'

to do wi' the Hexts at no price."



Rose sighed, and went away.



Rose had not expected to receive anything from her aunt. She had never

been allowed to look at the treasures in the oak chest. As far as she

had been aware, Aunt Joanna had been extremely poor. But she remembered

that the old woman had at one time befriended her, and she was ready to

forgive the harsh treatment to which she had finally been subjected. In

fact, she had repeatedly made overtures to her great-aunt to be

reconciled, but these overtures had been always rejected. She was,

accordingly, not surprised to learn from Mrs. Hockin that the old

woman's last words had been as reported.



But, although disowned and disinherited, Rose, her husband, and children

dressed in black, and were chief mourners at the funeral. Now it had so

happened that when it came to the laying out of Aunt Joanna, Mrs. Hockin

had looked at the beautiful linen sheets she had found in the oak chest,

with the object of furnishing the corpse with one as a winding-sheet.

But--she said to herself--it would really be a shame to spoil a pair,

and where else could she get such fine and beautiful old linen as was

this? So she put the sheets away, and furnished for the purpose a clean

but coarse and ragged sheet such as Aunt Joanna had in common use. That

was good enough to moulder in the grave. It would be positively sinful,

because wasteful, to give up to corruption and the worm such fine white

linen as Aunt Joanna had hoarded. The funeral was conducted, otherwise,

liberally. Aunt Joanna was given an elm, and not a mean deal board

coffin, such as is provided for paupers; and a handsome escutcheon of

white metal was put on the lid.



Moreover, plenty of gin was drunk, and cake and cheese eaten at the

house, all at the expense of the Hockins. And the conversation among

those who attended, and ate and drank, and wiped their eyes, was rather

anent the generosity of the Hockins than of the virtues of the

departed.



Mr. and Mrs. Hockin heard this, and their hearts swelled within them.

Nothing so swells the heart as the consciousness of virtue being

recognised. Jabez in an undertone informed a neighbour that he weren't

goin' to stick at the funeral expenses, not he; he'd have a neat stone

erected above the grave with work on it, at twopence a letter. The name

and the date of departure of Aunt Joanna, and her age, and two lines of

a favourite hymn of his, all about earth being no dwelling-place, heaven

being properly her home.



It was not often that Elizabeth Hockin cried, but she did this day; she

wept tears of sympathy with the deceased, and happiness at the ovation

accorded to herself and her husband. At length, as the short winter day

closed in, the last of those who had attended the funeral, and had

returned to the farm to recruit and regale after it, departed, and the

Hockins were left to themselves.



"It were a beautiful day," said Jabez.



"Ay," responded Elizabeth, "and what a sight o' people came here."



"This here buryin' of Aunt Joanna have set us up tremendous in the

estimation of the neighbours."



"I'd like to know who else would ha' done it for a poor old creetur as

is no relation; ay--and one as owed a purty long bill to me for milk and

butter through ten or twelve years."



"Well," said Jabez, "I've allus heard say that a good deed brings its

own reward wi' it--and it's a fine proverb. I feels it in my insides."



"P'raps it's the gin, Jabez."



"No--it's virtue. It's warmer nor gin a long sight. Gin gives a

smouldering spark, but a good conscience is a blaze of furze."



The farm of the Hockins was small, and Hockin looked after his cattle

himself. One maid was kept, but no man in the house. All were wont to

retire early to bed; neither Hockin nor his wife had literary tastes,

and were not disposed to consume much oil, so as to read at night.



During the night, at what time she did not know, Mrs. Hockin awoke with

a start, and found that her husband was sitting up in bed listening.

There was a moon that night, and no clouds in the sky. The room was full

of silver light. Elizabeth Hockin heard a sound of feet in the kitchen,

which was immediately under the bedroom of the couple.



"There's someone about," she whispered; "go down, Jabez."



"I wonder, now, who it be. P'raps its Sally."



"It can't be Sally--how can it, when she can't get out o' her room

wi'out passin' through ours?"



"Run down, Elizabeth, and see."



"It's your place to go, Jabez."



"But if it was a woman--and me in my night-shirt?"



"And, Jabez, if it was a man, a robber--and me in my night-shirt? It 'ud

be shameful."



"I reckon us had best go down together."



"We'll do so--but I hope it's not----"



"What?"



Mrs. Hockin did not answer. She and her husband crept from bed, and,

treading on tiptoe across the room, descended the stair.



There was no door at the bottom, but the staircase was boarded up at the

side; it opened into the kitchen.



They descended very softly and cautiously, holding each other, and when

they reached the bottom, peered timorously into the apartment that

served many purposes--kitchen, sitting-room, and dining-place. The

moonlight poured in through the broad, low window.



By it they saw a figure. There could be no mistaking it--it was that of

Aunt Joanna, clothed in the tattered sheet that Elizabeth Hockin had

allowed for her grave-clothes. The old woman had taken one of the fine

linen sheets out of the cupboard in which it had been placed, and had

spread it over the long table, and was smoothing it down with her bony

hands.



The Hockins trembled, not with cold, though it was mid-winter, but with

terror. They dared not advance, and they felt powerless to retreat.



Then they saw Aunt Joanna go to the cupboard, open it, and return with

the silver spoons; she placed all six on the sheet, and with a lean

finger counted them.



She turned her face towards those who were watching her proceedings, but

it was in shadow, and they could not distinguish the features nor note

the expression with which she regarded them.



Presently she went back to the cupboard, and returned with the silver

teapot. She stood at one end of the table, and now the reflection of the

moon on the linen sheet was cast upon her face, and they saw that she

was moving her lips--but no sound issued from them.



She thrust her hand into the teapot and drew forth the coins, one by

one, and rolled them along the table. The Hockins saw the glint of the

metal, and the shadow cast by each piece of money as it rolled. The

first coin lodged at the further left-hand corner and the second rested

near it; and so on, the pieces were rolled, and ranged themselves in

order, ten in a row. Then the next ten were run across the white cloth

in the same manner, and dropped over on their sides below the first row;

thus also the third ten. And all the time the dead woman was mouthing,

as though counting, but still inaudibly.




COINS, ONE BY ONE, AND ROLLED THEM ALONG THE TABLE.]



The couple stood motionless observing proceedings, till suddenly a cloud

passed before the face of the moon, so dense as to eclipse the light.



Then in a paroxysm of terror both turned and fled up the stairs, bolted

their bedroom door, and jumped into bed.



There was no sleep for them that night. In the gloom when the moon was

concealed, in the glare when it shone forth, it was the same, they

could hear the light rolling of the coins along the table, and the click

as they fell over. Was the supply inexhaustible? It was not so, but

apparently the dead woman did not weary of counting the coins. When all

had been ranged, she could be heard moving to the further end of the

table, and there recommencing the same proceeding of coin-rolling.



Not till near daybreak did this sound cease, and not till the maid,

Sally, had begun to stir in the inner bedchamber did Hockin and his wife

venture to rise. Neither would suffer the servant girl to descend till

they had been down to see in what condition the kitchen was. They found

that the table had been cleared, the coins were all back in the teapot,

and that and the spoons were where they had themselves placed them. The

sheet, moreover, was neatly folded, and replaced where it had been

before.



The Hockins did not speak to one another of their experiences during the

past night, so long as they were in the house, but when Jabez was in the

field, Elizabeth went to him and said: "Husband, what about Aunt

Joanna?"



"I don't know--maybe it were a dream."



"Curious us should ha' dreamed alike."



"I don't know that; 'twere the gin made us dream, and us both had gin,

so us dreamed the same thing."



"'Twere more like real truth than dream," observed Elizabeth.



"We'll take it as dream," said Jabez. "Mebbe it won't happen again."



But precisely the same sounds were heard on the following night. The

moon was obscured by thick clouds, and neither of the two had the

courage to descend to the kitchen. But they could hear the patter of

feet, and then the roll and click of the coins. Again sleep was

impossible.



"Whatever shall we do?" asked Elizabeth Hockin next morning of her

husband. "Us can't go on like this wi' the dead woman about our house

nightly. There's no tellin' she might take it into her head to come

upstairs and pull the sheets off us. As we took hers, she may think it

fair to carry off ours."



"I think," said Jabez sorrowfully, "we'll have to return 'em."



"But how?"



After some consultation the couple resolved on conveying all the

deceased woman's goods to the churchyard, by night, and placing them on

her grave.



"I reckon," said Hockin, "we'll bide in the porch and watch what

happens. If they be left there till mornin', why we may carry 'em back

wi' an easy conscience. We've spent some pounds over her buryin'."



"What have it come to?"



"Three pounds five and fourpence, as I make it out."



"Well," said Elizabeth, "we must risk it."



When night had fallen murk, the farmer and his wife crept from their

house, carrying the linen sheets, the teapot, and the silver spoons.

They did not start till late, for fear of encountering any villagers on

the way, and not till after the maid, Sally, had gone to bed.



They fastened the farm door behind them. The night was dark and stormy,

with scudding clouds, so dense as to make deep night, when they did not

part and allow the moon to peer forth.



They walked timorously, and side by side, looking about them as they

proceeded, and on reaching the churchyard gate they halted to pluck up

courage before opening and venturing within. Jabez had furnished himself

with a bottle of gin, to give courage to himself and his wife.



Together they heaped the articles that had belonged to Aunt Joanna upon

the fresh grave, but as they did so the wind caught the linen and

unfurled and flapped it, and they were forced to place stones upon it to

hold it down.



Then, quaking with fear, they retreated to the church porch, and Jabez,

uncorking the bottle, first took a long pull himself, and then presented

it to his wife.



And now down came a tearing rain, driven by a blast from the Atlantic,

howling among the gravestones, and screaming in the battlements of the

tower and its bell-chamber windows. The night was so dark, and the rain

fell so heavily, that they could see nothing for full half an hour. But

then the clouds were rent asunder, and the moon glared white and ghastly

over the churchyard.



Elizabeth caught her husband by the arm and pointed. There was, however,

no need for her to indicate that on which his eyes were fixed already.



Both saw a lean hand come up out of the grave, and lay hold of one of

the fine linen sheets and drag at it. They saw it drag the sheet by one

corner, and then it went down underground, and the sheet followed, as

though sucked down in a vortex; fold on fold it descended, till the

entire sheet had disappeared.



"Her have taken it for her windin' sheet," whispered Elizabeth.

"Whativer will her do wi' the rest?"



"Have a drop o' gin; this be terrible tryin'," said Jabez in an

undertone; and again the couple put their lips to the bottle, which came

away considerably lighter after the draughts.



"Look!" gasped Elizabeth.



Again the lean hand with long fingers appeared above the soil, and this

was seen groping about the grass till it laid hold of the teapot. Then

it groped again, and gathered up the spoons, that flashed in the

moonbeams. Next, up came the second hand, and a long arm that stretched

along the grave till it reached the other sheets. At once, on being

raised, these sheets were caught by the wind, and flapped and fluttered

like half-hoisted sails. The hands retained them for a while till they

bellied with the wind, and then let them go, and they were swept away

by the blast across the churchyard, over the wall, and lodged in the

carpenter's yard that adjoined, among his timber.



"She have sent 'em to the Hexts," whispered Elizabeth.



Next the hands began to trifle with the teapot, and to shake out some of

the coins.



In a minute some silver pieces were flung with so true an aim that they

fell clinking down on the floor of the porch.



How many coins, how much money was cast, the couple were in no mood to

estimate.



Then they saw the hands collect the pillow-cases, and proceed to roll up

the teapot and silver spoons in them, and, that done, the white bundle

was cast into the air, and caught by the wind and carried over the

churchyard wall into the wheelwright's yard.



At once a curtain of vapour rushed across the face of the moon, and

again the graveyard was buried in darkness. Half an hour elapsed before

the moon shone out again. Then the Hockins saw that nothing was stirring

in the cemetery.



"I reckon us may go now," said Jabez.



"Let us gather up what she chucked to us," advised Elizabeth.



So the couple felt about the floor, and collected a number of coins.

What they were they could not tell till they reached their home, and had

lighted a candle.



"How much be it?" asked Elizabeth.



"Three pound five and fourpence, exact," answered Jabez.