The True Tale of the Phantom Coach by W. T. Lyndskill. The
great curtain had fallen after the pantomime, and I was standing chatting on the
stage of the theater at Cambridge, when one of the stage men came to
tell me I was wanted at the stage door, and I must hurry up
at once. Thither I proceeded and found a lot of golfing boys, hunting
boys, dramatic boys, and all sorts of other merry varsity boys who shouted
out, come along quick to the Blue Pig. The Blue Pig is a
Camberg name for the Blue Boar Hotel. We want you to meet a fellow
called Willie Carson, and there is to be supper, and he has something
to tell us. The bogey man has gone on there now, so come
right away, well off. We went to the Blue Boar Hotel and we
found Carson sitting over a blazing fire with a capital supper set in his nice
old fashioned room, lit up with candles, only the picture of comfort.
Outside it was snowing hard and bitterly cold. After a talk over the merits
of the pantomime, we did full justice to a most excellent supper, and
then crowded round the blazing hearth to hear a story our host wanted to tell
us. Did you ever hear the phantom coach at Saint Andrew's, He asked,
turning to me suddenly and removing his cigar often. I replied, I
have heard most extraordinary yarns about it from lots of people. But why do
you ask? Because I've seen it, he replied softly and thoughtfully, some
five years ago. It was very, very strange, not to be forgotten,
and quite unexplainable. That is why I asked you here to night.
I wanted to talk to you about it. He stooped over the fire and
was silent for a few minutes. Tell us all about it, we all
shouted at once. We won't make fun of it. There is nothing to
make fun of. Indeed, it's a true solemn fact, he said.
Listen, and I will try to tell you what I saw, but I
can't half picture it properly. Five years ago, I had just come home
from America. I went to stay at Saint Andrew's for some golf. I
think it was the latter end of August, and must have been in the
town about a week at least when one night. It was hot and stuffy,
and about midnight I determined to take a good long country walk and struck
out right along the road to Strathcynis. It was a hot, dark and
stormy night, not wet. Fitful black clouds floated now and again at a
rapid pace over the moon, which now and then shone out brightly in the
distance. The sea made a perpetual moan, and at intervals the dark eastern
sky was lit up by flashes of summer wild fire lightning over the distant cathedral
towers. Now and again I could hear the mutter of far away thunder,
and there were incessant gusts of wind. I must have been about two miles
along the road when I could descend some very large object approaching me rapidly.
As it came nearer, I noticed it resembled a coach, dark, heavy,
primitive. It seemed to have four large black horses, and the driver
was a muffled, shapeless figure. It approached with a low humming or buzzing
sound, which was most peculiar and unpleasant to hear. The horses made a
hollow kind of ticking sound with their feet. Otherwise it was noiseless, no
earthly coach of the kind could go without any ordinary sound. It was weird
and eerie in the extreme. As it passed me, the moon shone out
brightly, and I saw for a second a ghastly white face at the coach
window. But I saw those four strange, silent black horses, the more
extraordinary tall, swaddled up, shapeless driver, and the quaint black, gloomy
old coach with a coffin shaped box on the roof, only far too well.
One most remarkable thing was that it threw no shadow of any kind.
Just as it passed me, there was a terrific roar of thunder and a
blaze of lightning that nearly blinded me. And in the distance I saw that
horrible, ghastly receding coach. Then clouds came over the moon, and all
was black and darkness. One could feel a darkness of a shut up,
smothering vault. I felt sick and dazed. For a minute or two.
I could not make out if I had been struck by the lightning or was
paralyzed. However, after a bit it passed off. It was a horrible,
deathly feeling. While it lasted, I never experienced a similar sensation before
or since, and I hope I never may again. Another very curious thing
was the behavior of my favorite Collie dog, usually frightened at nothing, on
the approach of the phantom. For phantom it was, he crouched down,
shivering and whining, and as it drew nearer, fled with a bark like
a screech, and cowered down in the ditch at the roadside and gave forth
low growls. Val you boys, it's all right in this room to talk
about it, But none of you would have liked to be in my place
that queer, uncanny night on that lonely road. That it was supernatural.
I am convinced it is a very thin veil between us and the unseen world
of spirits. They say I possess a seventh cents, namely second sight,
and I know I shall never forget that night's experience. But listen, the
story is not yet ended. Next morning a telegram arrived from my brother in
Kent. Are you all right? I wondered much, and whire back that
I was very well. The following day a letter came from my brother giving
me a curious explanation. The following afternoon of the day I saw the coach.
My brother was looking out of the old manor house windows in Kent when
he and several others noticed a large bird having most peculiar plumage, seated on
the garden wall. No one had ever seen a bird of the kind before.
He was rushing off for a gun to shoot it, when our father,
who looked very white and scared, stopped him. Do not shoot,
he said, it would be of no use. That is the bird of
ill omen to all our race. It only appears before a death. I
have only once seen it before that week your dear mother died. My brother
was so alarmed at this that he sent the wire I have mentioned to me
at Saint Andrew's. By the next mail from Australia, we learned that our
eldest brother had died there the very day I saw the coach at Saint Andrew's
and my brother saw the bird at our old home in Kent. Very odd,
is it not. But what do you know about that coach? Only
tales, I said. Many people swear they have heard it or seen it
on stormy nights. I know a girl who swears to it, and also
a doctor who has passed it on the road, and it nearly frightened his
horse to death, and him too. The tale of the two tramps is
funny. They were trudging into Saint Andrew's own wild, stormy night when this
uncanny coach overtook them. It stopped, the door opened, and a white
hand beckoned towards them. One tramp rushed up and got in. Then suddenly
the door noiselessly shut and the coach moved off, leaving the other tramp alone
in the pitiless wind and rain. I never saw my old maid again,
said the tramp when he told the tale, and I never shall that their
old coach was nothing of this here world of ours. It took my old
mate off to Davy Jones's locker. Mighty smart, poor fellow. They say
his body was found in the sea some months afterwards, And the tale goes
that the phantom coach finishes its nocturnal journey in the waves of Saint Andrew's Bay.
Whose coach is it asked all that were in the room, I cannot
say. Some say Bethune, others Sharp and others Haxton. I do not
know who is supposed to be the figure inside and left. It is his
satanic majesty himself at all events. It seems a certain fact that a phantom
coach has been seen from time to time when the roads around Saint Andrew's.
I have never seen any of these things myself, well said Carson. That
awful coach does appear. It appeared to me, and doubtless, in the
course of time, will appear to many others. It bodes no one any
good, and I pity with all my heart anyone who meets it. Beware
of those roads late at night, or like me, you may some day,
to your injury, make that ghastly uncanny old phantom coach. If so
you will remember it to your dying day. Curious thing that about seeing the
coach and the bird at the same time, and in two places so far
apart, murmured the golfing Johnny, and then Carson's brother dying too. I'd
sooner stayed a bird than the coach, said one guess. I'd rather not
see e of them, said an American present, And glad we have no
phantom coaches in Yankee. Lad. This is the end of the true Tale
of the Phantom Coach by W. T. Linskill