Speaker 1: The White House by s Bearing Gauld, on the road
between Raskelf and Easingwall, stood in sixteen twenty three and
stand still a lonely inn called the White House. The
wide brown heathery moor called Pillmore then extended to the
roots of the Hambledon Hills, on a slight rising ground
above the marshes. Stood here and there a farm or cottage,
and here and there a portion of the soil had
been enclosed. To this day, a large portion of the
moor remains untilled, and as a favorite resort of botanists,
who find there several varieties of gentien an orchis rare elsewhere.
Originally it stretched from borough Bridge to the Hambledons, intersected
by the streams flowing into the Ooze, patched here and
there with pools of water. In the White House lived
a man called Ralph Reynard, and his sister. Ralph paid
his addresses to a fine looking young woman, dark eyed,
who lived at Thornton Bridge. At the Red House, where
the road from Brafferton or Tollaton crossed the Ooze to
Topcliff and Rippon, the old house, lonely, surrounded by trees,
with traces of a moat or pond in spring full
of yellow flags, stands to this day almost deserted. The
girl was poor and a good match was of the
first advantage to her. She was at the time in
service at the Red House, and thither Ralph came to
visit her, But for some cause unknown they quarreled. An
estrangement ensued, and Ralph came no more across Thornton Bridge.
At the same time, a yeoman named Fletcher, living at
Moor House in the parish of Rascal, had cast his
eyes on the comely young woman, and he took advantage
of the rupture between the lovers to step in and
offer his hand to the damsel. He was at once
accepted in a fit of resentment against Ralph Reynard, and
the marriage rapidly followed, so that she soon found herself
the wife of a man whom she did not love,
and some miles nearer the White House where lived Ralph,
whom she did love, than when she had resided at
Thornton Bridge. The resentment she had felt died away. An
explanation followed, when too late there was a scene despair
on both sides, and resentment entertained by both Ralph Reynard
and Missus Fletcher against the unfortunate yeoman who stood between
them and perfect union and happiness. On market Day, when
Missus Fletcher ambled on her nag into Easingwold, she invariably
halted at the White House when the hostler one Mark Done,
a beatle browed uncouth fellow from Huby, received and held
her horse as she dismounted and entered the inn. Ralph,
the host was always there, and received Missus Fletcher with
an affection which dissatisfied his sister, a woman of sense,
who saw that this cherishing of an old passion could
lead to no good. When Mark Dunn disappeared for hours
at a time, she shrewdly suspected that he was sent
on messages to Rascal. More than once she interfered and
rebuked Ralph her brother, warning him of the dangerous consequences
of thus encouraging the attachment of a woman now bound
to another man by the most sacred ties. With an oath.
He bade her mind her own business and not interfere
with him. Fletcher could not but be aware that his
wife did not love him. Whispers reached him that she
met her old sweetheart when he was from home that
her nag was seen standing an unreasonable time outside the
door of the White House. He caught Mark Dunn one
evening prowling in his orchard, and he fell on him
with a stick. The ungainly fellow howled with pain and
swore revenge. Fletcher became gloomy, neglected his affairs, and began
to fall into difficulties. He had been seally passionately attached
to the dark eyed, handsome girl he had brought to
his home. He had done his utmost to render her happy,
and now she was making his home miserable, destroying the
former serenity of its spirits. He was obliged to go
one day on business to Easingwald. He would not return
till late. His wife knew it. Something troubled his mind.
A presentiment of evil which he could not shake off,
hung over him, and he wrote on a sheet of paper,
if I should be missing or suddenly wanted be Mark
Ralph Reynard, Mark Dunn, and mark my wife for me.
Directed it to his sister, and on reaching Easingwald, posted it.
No sooner was he gone than missus. Fletcher mounted her
horse and rode to the White House. She asked to
see Reynard, and he walked by her side some way
back to Rascalf. There they parted, and Reynard was next
observed in close conversation with his hostler, Mark Dunn. It
was May day in the sweet spring evening. Fletcher was
returning on foot from Easingwold when he came to Doornay Bridge,
where at that time a road branched off from the
Highway from the North to York and traversing the land
led to Rascal. As he crossed the bridge, he stood
still for a moment and looked up at the stars
just appearing. Next moment, Reinard and Dunn were upon him.
They had sprung from behind the bridge and he was
flung over it into the water. The stream is narrow
and not deep, so that once recovered from the shock,
he could have easily crawled out, but the murderers leaped
into the water after him. Missus Fletcher, with a long
sack over her shoulder, ran out from the shadow of
a bush where she had been concealed, and they held
the farmer under water, the two men grasping his throat,
his wife retaining his feet in the sack into which
she thrust them till his struggles ceased and he was
or was supposed to be dead. The body was then
thrust into the sack which missus Fletcher had brought for
the purpose, and the three guilty ones assisted in carrying
or dragging the body along the road towards the White House.
They were alarmed once the clatter of a horse's hoofs
was heard, and they concealed themselves by the roadside. The
horsemen passed, they emerged from their place of hiding and
continued their course. As they drew near to the inn,
a streak of light from the inn door showed that
it was open. They heard voices. The horseman had called
for something to drink, and it was brought to him
without his dismounting. Then miss Reynard was heard calling Ralph Ralph.
She wondered perhaps at his long absence, or wanted him
for some purpose in the house. No answer was returned.
Reynard done, and missus Fletcher lifted the body over the
low hedge into Reynard's croft or garden and buried it
in a place where the ground had been disturbed that
day by his having stubbed up an old route. They
carefully covered the body with earth, and Reynard sewed mustard
seed over the place. It was thought prudent that missus
Fletcher and Reynard should not meet after this. People wondered
what had become a Fletcher, but knowing that he was
somewhat embarrassed in his circumstances, they readily accepted the statement
of his wife that he had gone out of the
way to avoid having a writ served on him. Thus
matters stood till the seventh of July. When Ralph Raynard
rode to Topcliff Fair. It was a bright sunny day.
He passed the Moor House, but did not stay there.
Cross Thornton Bridge went before the Red House, where he
had so often visited and spent such happy hours with
the woman who was now his accomplice in crime. Along
by Cundle to Topcliff. He dismounted at the inn there
the Angel, an old fashioned house near the dilapidated market Cross.
He led his horse out of the yard into the stable.
The sun glared without within it was dark. As he
was removing the bridle from his horse. Suddenly he saw
standing before him the spirit of Fletcher, pale with a
phosphoric light. Playing about him, pointing to him and saying, Oh, Ralph, Ralph, repent,
vengeance is at hand. In an agony of horror, he
fled out of the stable in the daylight without He
recovered composure and endeavored to believe that he had been
a victim to delusion. He thought he must buy some
present for the woman love for whom had led him
to the commission of murder. He went to one of
the stalls to buy some trinket, a chain of imitation
coral beads. How does it look on the neck, he asked,
extending it to the keeper of the stool. Then he
looked up and saw a ghastly figure opposite the dead man,
with the coral round his neck, knotted under his ear,
and his head on one side, the eyes wide open,
with a blaze in the eyes, and heard him say,
how like you a red streak round the neck such
as this? I will put one round the throat of
my wife, and you shall wear one too. Sick and faint,
he hastened back to the inn and called for beer.
Towards evening he rode home. He saw as he came
towards the car, where there is a dense clump of
trees a figure looking at him. It was deliberately getting
out of a sack and shaking and ringing water out
of its clothes. With a scream of terror, Reynard plunged
his spurs into the horse's flanks and galloped past Kundle Home.
As he crossed Thornton Bridge, he closed his eyes, but
when he opened them again he saw the well known
figure of the dead Man walking before him, so fast
that his horse could not catch him up. The ghost
trailed the sack after it, and left a luminous track
on the ground when it reached a point at a
little distance from the White House, the very spot where Reynard,
Missus Fletcher and Mark Dunn had turned aside the body,
the specter strode across the heather, leaped the low hedge,
and melted apparently into the ground where now a rich
green crop of mustard was growing. You're back earlier than
I thought, said the sister of Ralph Reynard. I reckon
thou hast not been stopping this time at moor House.
Reynard said nothing except i'm ill, ah, said his sister.
I've gotten thee a nice bit of supper ready with
a beautiful dish of salad, and she laid the cloth
and placed upon it a plate of fresh cut mustard.
Raynard's face grew rigid and white. What is the matter,
asked his sister opposite him on the settle sat the
dead man, pointing to the salad. Ralph sprang up, drew
his sister away and told her all. She poor woman,
horror struck, ran off at once to Sir William Sheffield,
a Justice of peace residing at Raskelf Park. The three
guilty parties were apprehended and taken to York, where on
July twenty eighth, sixteen twenty three, all three were hung.
When they had been cut down, the bodies were removed
and conveyed in a wagon to the White House, the
hangman seated by the driver in front. There is a
little rise not far from the Inn, commanding the spot
where the murder was committed, and the green mustard bed
where the body of Fletcher had been hidden, but which
had been removed and buried in Rascalf Churchyard. On this
hill a gibbet had been erected, and there the three
bodies were hung, with their faces towards the dismal flat
and the gurgling stream where the murdered man had been drowned.
There they hung, blown about by the autumn storms, screeched
over by the ravens and magpies, baked by the summer sun,
their bare scalps capped with cakes of snow in the
cold winter till they dropped upon the ground. And then
the bones were buried and the gallows cut down. About
eighty years ago the plow was drawn over Gallows Hill
when a quantity of bones were unearthed by the chare.
They were the bones of Reynard Dunn and Missus Fletcher.
The hill to this day bears its ill omened name,
and people mutter about Rascal the doggerel lines, a wooden church,
a wooden steeple, rascally church and rascally people. End of
the White House by S. Baring Gould.