1
00:00:00,760 --> 00:00:05,480
The True Tale of the Phantom Coach
by W. T. Lyndskill. The

2
00:00:05,559 --> 00:00:09,640
great curtain had fallen after the pantomime, and I was standing chatting on the

3
00:00:09,679 --> 00:00:13,039
stage of the theater at Cambridge,
when one of the stage men came to

4
00:00:13,039 --> 00:00:16,440
tell me I was wanted at the
stage door, and I must hurry up

5
00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:21,440
at once. Thither I proceeded and
found a lot of golfing boys, hunting

6
00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:26,920
boys, dramatic boys, and all
sorts of other merry varsity boys who shouted

7
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:31,160
out, come along quick to the
Blue Pig. The Blue Pig is a

8
00:00:31,239 --> 00:00:35,679
Camberg name for the Blue Boar Hotel. We want you to meet a fellow

9
00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,520
called Willie Carson, and there is
to be supper, and he has something

10
00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:43,960
to tell us. The bogey man
has gone on there now, so come

11
00:00:44,039 --> 00:00:48,359
right away, well off. We
went to the Blue Boar Hotel and we

12
00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:53,320
found Carson sitting over a blazing fire
with a capital supper set in his nice

13
00:00:53,359 --> 00:00:57,600
old fashioned room, lit up with
candles, only the picture of comfort.

14
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:03,159
Outside it was snowing hard and bitterly
cold. After a talk over the merits

15
00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:07,319
of the pantomime, we did full
justice to a most excellent supper, and

16
00:01:07,359 --> 00:01:11,640
then crowded round the blazing hearth to
hear a story our host wanted to tell

17
00:01:11,719 --> 00:01:15,760
us. Did you ever hear the
phantom coach at Saint Andrew's, He asked,

18
00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:21,480
turning to me suddenly and removing his
cigar often. I replied, I

19
00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,480
have heard most extraordinary yarns about it
from lots of people. But why do

20
00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:30,760
you ask? Because I've seen it, he replied softly and thoughtfully, some

21
00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:34,680
five years ago. It was very, very strange, not to be forgotten,

22
00:01:34,799 --> 00:01:38,799
and quite unexplainable. That is why
I asked you here to night.

23
00:01:38,359 --> 00:01:42,519
I wanted to talk to you about
it. He stooped over the fire and

24
00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:47,400
was silent for a few minutes.
Tell us all about it, we all

25
00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:51,239
shouted at once. We won't make
fun of it. There is nothing to

26
00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:53,799
make fun of. Indeed, it's
a true solemn fact, he said.

27
00:01:55,319 --> 00:01:57,239
Listen, and I will try to
tell you what I saw, but I

28
00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:01,840
can't half picture it properly. Five
years ago, I had just come home

29
00:02:01,879 --> 00:02:06,760
from America. I went to stay
at Saint Andrew's for some golf. I

30
00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:08,639
think it was the latter end of
August, and must have been in the

31
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:13,759
town about a week at least when
one night. It was hot and stuffy,

32
00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:17,400
and about midnight I determined to take
a good long country walk and struck

33
00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:23,560
out right along the road to Strathcynis. It was a hot, dark and

34
00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:28,199
stormy night, not wet. Fitful
black clouds floated now and again at a

35
00:02:28,319 --> 00:02:31,639
rapid pace over the moon, which
now and then shone out brightly in the

36
00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:37,199
distance. The sea made a perpetual
moan, and at intervals the dark eastern

37
00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:43,120
sky was lit up by flashes of
summer wild fire lightning over the distant cathedral

38
00:02:43,159 --> 00:02:46,599
towers. Now and again I could
hear the mutter of far away thunder,

39
00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:52,120
and there were incessant gusts of wind. I must have been about two miles

40
00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:55,680
along the road when I could descend
some very large object approaching me rapidly.

41
00:02:57,199 --> 00:03:00,759
As it came nearer, I noticed
it resembled a coach, dark, heavy,

42
00:03:01,039 --> 00:03:06,759
primitive. It seemed to have four
large black horses, and the driver

43
00:03:06,919 --> 00:03:10,120
was a muffled, shapeless figure.
It approached with a low humming or buzzing

44
00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:15,199
sound, which was most peculiar and
unpleasant to hear. The horses made a

45
00:03:15,199 --> 00:03:21,800
hollow kind of ticking sound with their
feet. Otherwise it was noiseless, no

46
00:03:21,879 --> 00:03:25,520
earthly coach of the kind could go
without any ordinary sound. It was weird

47
00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:30,879
and eerie in the extreme. As
it passed me, the moon shone out

48
00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:34,759
brightly, and I saw for a
second a ghastly white face at the coach

49
00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:39,240
window. But I saw those four
strange, silent black horses, the more

50
00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:46,479
extraordinary tall, swaddled up, shapeless
driver, and the quaint black, gloomy

51
00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:52,039
old coach with a coffin shaped box
on the roof, only far too well.

52
00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:55,800
One most remarkable thing was that it
threw no shadow of any kind.

53
00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:00,960
Just as it passed me, there
was a terrific roar of thunder and a

54
00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,759
blaze of lightning that nearly blinded me. And in the distance I saw that

55
00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:10,599
horrible, ghastly receding coach. Then
clouds came over the moon, and all

56
00:04:10,719 --> 00:04:15,680
was black and darkness. One could
feel a darkness of a shut up,

57
00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:18,839
smothering vault. I felt sick and
dazed. For a minute or two.

58
00:04:19,319 --> 00:04:23,600
I could not make out if I
had been struck by the lightning or was

59
00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:28,399
paralyzed. However, after a bit
it passed off. It was a horrible,

60
00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:32,240
deathly feeling. While it lasted,
I never experienced a similar sensation before

61
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:38,800
or since, and I hope I
never may again. Another very curious thing

62
00:04:38,879 --> 00:04:43,600
was the behavior of my favorite Collie
dog, usually frightened at nothing, on

63
00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:47,399
the approach of the phantom. For
phantom it was, he crouched down,

64
00:04:47,759 --> 00:04:51,759
shivering and whining, and as it
drew nearer, fled with a bark like

65
00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:57,160
a screech, and cowered down in
the ditch at the roadside and gave forth

66
00:04:57,399 --> 00:05:01,120
low growls. Val you boys,
it's all right in this room to talk

67
00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:04,279
about it, But none of you
would have liked to be in my place

68
00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:10,720
that queer, uncanny night on that
lonely road. That it was supernatural.

69
00:05:10,839 --> 00:05:15,279
I am convinced it is a very
thin veil between us and the unseen world

70
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:19,519
of spirits. They say I possess
a seventh cents, namely second sight,

71
00:05:19,959 --> 00:05:25,240
and I know I shall never forget
that night's experience. But listen, the

72
00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:29,240
story is not yet ended. Next
morning a telegram arrived from my brother in

73
00:05:29,319 --> 00:05:32,160
Kent. Are you all right?
I wondered much, and whire back that

74
00:05:32,199 --> 00:05:36,399
I was very well. The following
day a letter came from my brother giving

75
00:05:36,439 --> 00:05:42,480
me a curious explanation. The following
afternoon of the day I saw the coach.

76
00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:46,600
My brother was looking out of the
old manor house windows in Kent when

77
00:05:46,639 --> 00:05:53,680
he and several others noticed a large
bird having most peculiar plumage, seated on

78
00:05:53,759 --> 00:05:57,759
the garden wall. No one had
ever seen a bird of the kind before.

79
00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:00,519
He was rushing off for a gun
to shoot it, when our father,

80
00:06:00,879 --> 00:06:04,519
who looked very white and scared,
stopped him. Do not shoot,

81
00:06:04,639 --> 00:06:09,560
he said, it would be of
no use. That is the bird of

82
00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:14,839
ill omen to all our race.
It only appears before a death. I

83
00:06:14,879 --> 00:06:20,759
have only once seen it before that
week your dear mother died. My brother

84
00:06:20,839 --> 00:06:24,959
was so alarmed at this that he
sent the wire I have mentioned to me

85
00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,720
at Saint Andrew's. By the next
mail from Australia, we learned that our

86
00:06:29,759 --> 00:06:32,639
eldest brother had died there the very
day I saw the coach at Saint Andrew's

87
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:39,120
and my brother saw the bird at
our old home in Kent. Very odd,

88
00:06:39,399 --> 00:06:44,399
is it not. But what do
you know about that coach? Only

89
00:06:44,439 --> 00:06:47,439
tales, I said. Many people
swear they have heard it or seen it

90
00:06:47,519 --> 00:06:51,319
on stormy nights. I know a
girl who swears to it, and also

91
00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:55,800
a doctor who has passed it on
the road, and it nearly frightened his

92
00:06:55,920 --> 00:07:00,160
horse to death, and him too. The tale of the two tramps is

93
00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,279
funny. They were trudging into Saint
Andrew's own wild, stormy night when this

94
00:07:03,399 --> 00:07:08,920
uncanny coach overtook them. It stopped, the door opened, and a white

95
00:07:08,959 --> 00:07:14,199
hand beckoned towards them. One tramp
rushed up and got in. Then suddenly

96
00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:17,959
the door noiselessly shut and the coach
moved off, leaving the other tramp alone

97
00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:23,160
in the pitiless wind and rain.
I never saw my old maid again,

98
00:07:23,439 --> 00:07:28,000
said the tramp when he told the
tale, and I never shall that their

99
00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:31,839
old coach was nothing of this here
world of ours. It took my old

100
00:07:31,879 --> 00:07:38,160
mate off to Davy Jones's locker.
Mighty smart, poor fellow. They say

101
00:07:38,199 --> 00:07:41,959
his body was found in the sea
some months afterwards, And the tale goes

102
00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:46,439
that the phantom coach finishes its nocturnal
journey in the waves of Saint Andrew's Bay.

103
00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:51,079
Whose coach is it asked all that
were in the room, I cannot

104
00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:57,079
say. Some say Bethune, others
Sharp and others Haxton. I do not

105
00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:00,720
know who is supposed to be the
figure inside and left. It is his

106
00:08:00,959 --> 00:08:05,240
satanic majesty himself at all events.
It seems a certain fact that a phantom

107
00:08:05,279 --> 00:08:09,800
coach has been seen from time to
time when the roads around Saint Andrew's.

108
00:08:09,079 --> 00:08:15,680
I have never seen any of these
things myself, well said Carson. That

109
00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:18,720
awful coach does appear. It appeared
to me, and doubtless, in the

110
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:24,480
course of time, will appear to
many others. It bodes no one any

111
00:08:24,519 --> 00:08:28,839
good, and I pity with all
my heart anyone who meets it. Beware

112
00:08:28,879 --> 00:08:33,320
of those roads late at night,
or like me, you may some day,

113
00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:39,440
to your injury, make that ghastly
uncanny old phantom coach. If so

114
00:08:39,159 --> 00:08:45,320
you will remember it to your dying
day. Curious thing that about seeing the

115
00:08:45,399 --> 00:08:48,120
coach and the bird at the same
time, and in two places so far

116
00:08:48,159 --> 00:08:54,480
apart, murmured the golfing Johnny,
and then Carson's brother dying too. I'd

117
00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:58,440
sooner stayed a bird than the coach, said one guess. I'd rather not

118
00:08:58,519 --> 00:09:03,399
see e of them, said an
American present, And glad we have no

119
00:09:03,519 --> 00:09:09,360
phantom coaches in Yankee. Lad.
This is the end of the true Tale

120
00:09:09,519 --> 00:09:11,559
of the Phantom Coach by W.
T. Linskill