Speaker 1: The Phantom Coach by Amelia B. Edwards. The circumstances I
am about to relate to you have truth to recommend them.
They happened to myself, and my recollection of them is
vivid as if they had taken place only yesterday, twenty
years ago. However, have gone by since that night. During
those twenty years I have told the story to but
one other person. I tell it now with a reluctance
which I find it difficult to overcome. All I entreat meanwhile,
is that you will abstain from forcing your own conclusions
upon me. I want nothing explained away. I desire no arguments.
My mind on this subject is quite made up, and
having the testimony of my own senses to rely upon,
I prefer to abide by it. Well, it was just
twenty years ago, and within a day or two of
the end of the grouse season I had been out
all day with my gun and had had no sport
to speak of. The wind was due east the month December.
The place a bleak wide more in the far north
of England, and I had lost my way. It was
not a pleasant place in which to lose one's way.
With the first feathery flakes of a coming snowstorm, just
fluttering down upon the heather, and the leaden evening closing
in all around. I shaded my eyes with my hand
and stared anxiously into the gathering darkness, where the purple
moorland melted into a range of low hills, some ten
or twelve miles distant. Not the faintest smoke wreath, not
the tiniest cultivated patch or fence or sheep track, met
my eyes in any direction. There was nothing for it
but to move on and take my chance of finding
what shelter I could by the way. So I shouldered
my gun again and pushed warily forward, for I had
been on foot since an hour after daybreak, and had
eaten nothing since breakfast. Meanwhile, the snow began to come
down with ominous steadiness, and the wind fell. After this,
the cold became more intense, and the night came rapidly up.
As for me, my prospects darkened with the darkening sky,
and my heart grew heavy as I thought how my
young wife was already watching for me through the window
of our little inn parlor, and thought of all the
suffering in store for her throughout this weary night. We
had been married four months, and, having spent out autumn
in the Highlands, were now lodging in a remote little
village situated just on the verge of the great English Moorlands.
We were very much in love, and of course very happy.
This morning when we parted. She had implored me to
return before dusk, and I had promised her that I would.
What would I not have given to have kept my word?
Even now, weary as I was, I felt that with
a supper, an hour's rest, and a guide I might
still get back to her before midnight, if only guide
in shelter could be found. And all this time the
snow fell and the night thickened. I stopped and shouted
every now and then, but my shouts seemed only to
make the silence deeper. Then a vague sense of uneasiness
came upon me, and I began to remember stories of
travelers who had walked on and on in the falling
snow until wearied out they were fain to lie down
and sleep their lives away. Would it be possible, i
asked myself, to keep on thus through all the long
dark night. Would there not come a time when my
limbs must fail? And my resolution give way, when I
too must sleep the sleep of death, death, I shuddered.
How hard to die just now, when life lay also
bright before me? How hard for my darling, whose whole
loving heart but that thought was not to be borne
to banish it? I shouted again, and again the echo followed.
Then a wavering speck of light came suddenly out of
the dark, shifting, disappearing, growing momentarily nearer and brighter. Running
towards it at full speed, I found myself, to my
great joy, face to face with an old man and
a lantern. Thank God, was the exclamation that burst involuntarily
from my lips. Blinking and frowning, he lifted his lantern
and peered into my face. What for, growled he sulkily,
Well for you, I began to fear I should be
lost in the snow. Eh, Then folks do get cast
away hereabouts for a time to time. And what's to
hinder you from being cast away? Likewise? If the Lord
so minded, if the Lord is so minded, that you
and I shall be lost together, my friend, we must submit,
I replied. But I don't mean to be lost without you.
How far am I now from dwelding a good twenty
mile more or less in the nearest village. The nearest
village is white, and that's twelve miles to other side.
Where do you live then, out yonder, said he, with
a vague jerk of the lantern. You're going home, I
presume maybe I am. Then I'm going with you. The
old man shook his head and rubbed his nose reflectively
with the handle of the lantern. It ain't no use,
growled he. He'n't let you in, not he. We'll see
about that, I replied briskly. Who is he the master?
Who is the master? That's not to you? Was the
unceremonious reply. Well, well, you lead the way, and I'll
engage that the Master shall give me shelter and a
supper to night. Eh, you can try him, muttered my
reluctant guide, and still shaking his head, he hobbled gnome
like away through the falling snow. A large mass loomed
up presently out of the darkness, and a huge dog
rushed out, barking furiously. Is this the house? I asked, Ay,
it's the house down bay, and he fumbled in his
pocket for the key. I drew up close behind him,
prepared to lose no chance of entrance, and saw in
the little circle of light shed by the lantern that
the door was heavily studded with iron nails, like the
door of a prison. In another minute he had turned
the key, and I had pushed past him into the house.
Once inside, I looked around with curiosity, and found myself
in a great raftered hall which served apparently a variety
of uses. One end was piled to the roof with
corn like a barn. The other was stored with four sacks,
agricultural implements, casks, and all kinds of miscellaneous lumber, while
from the beams overhead hung rows of hams, flitches, and
bunches of dried herbs for winter use. In the center
of the floor stood some huge object, gauntly dressed in
a dingy wrapping doth, and reaching half way to the rafters.
Lifting a corner of this cloth, I saw, to my
surprise a telescope of very considerable size, mounted on a
rude movable platform with four small wheels. The tube was
made of painted wood, bound round with bands of metal,
rudely fashioned thus speculum so far as I could estimate
its size in the dim light, measured at least fifteen
inches in diameter. While I was yet examining the instrument
and asking myself whether it was not the work of
some self taught optician, a bell rang sharply. That's for you,
said my guide with a malicious grin yonders his room.
He pointed to a low black door at the opposite
side of the hall. I crossed over, wrapped somewhat loudly,
and went in without waiting for an invitation. A huge,
white haired old man rose from a table covered with
books and papers and confronted me sternly. Who are you?
Said he? How came you here? What do you want?
James Murray, barrister at law on foot across the moor,
meet drink and sleep. He bent his bushy brows into
a portentous frown. Mine is not a house of entertainment,
he said, haughtily, Jacob, how dare you admit this stranger?
I didn't admit him, grumbled the old man. He followed
me over the mirror and shouldered his way in before me.
I'm no match for six foot two, and pray, sir, by,
what right have you forced an entrance into my house,
the same by which I should have clung to your
boat if I were drowning the right of self preservation,
self preservation. There's an inch of snow on the ground already,
i replied briefly, and it would be deep enough to
cover my body before daybreak. He strode to the window,
pulled aside a heavy black curtain, and looked out. It
is true, he said, you can stay, if you choose,
till morning. Jacob served the supper with this, He waved
me to a seat, resumed his own, and became at
once absorbed in the studies from which I had disturbed him.
I placed my gun in a corner, drew a chair
to the hearth, and examined my quarters at leisure. Smaller
and less incongruous in its arrangements than the hall, this
room contained, nevertheless much to awaken my curiosity. The floor
was carpetless, The whitewashed walls were in parts scrawled over
with strange diagrams, and in others covered with shelves crowded
with philosophical instruments, the uses of many of which were
unknown to me. On one side of the fireplace stood
a bookcase filled with dingy folios, on the other a
small organ fantastically decor with painted carvings of medieval saints
and devils. Through the half open door of a cupboard
at the furtherer end of the room, I saw a
long array of geological specimens, surgical preparations, crucibles, retorts, and
jars of chemicals. While on the mantel shelf beside me,
amid a number of small objects, stood a model of
the solar system, a small galvanic battery, and a microscope.
Every chair had its burden, Every corner was heaped high
with books. The very floor was littered over with maps, casts, papers, tracings,
and learned lumber of all conceivable kinds. I steered about
me with an amazement, increased by every fresh object upon
which my eyes chanced to rest. So strange a room
I had never seen, yet seemed it stranger still to
find such a room, and a lone farmhouse amid those
wild and solitary mores. Over and over again, I looked
from my host to his surroundings, and from his surroundings
back to my hosts, asking myself who and what he
could be. His head was singularly fine, but it was
more the head of a poet than of a philosopher.
Brought in the temples, prominent over the eyes, and clothed
with a rough profusion of perfectly white hair. It had
all the ideality and much of the ruggedness that characterizes
the head of Louis von Beethoven. There were the same
deep lines about the mouth, and the same stern furrows
in the brow. There was the same concentration of expression.
While I was yet observing him, the door opened, and
Jacob brought in the supper. His master then closed his book, rose,
and with more courtesy of manner than he had yet shown,
invited me to the table. A dish of ham and eggs,
a loaf of brown bread, and a bottle of admirable
sherry were placed before me. I have but the homeliest
farmhouse fair to offer you, sir, said my entertainer. Your appetite,
I trust, will make up for the deficiencies of our larder.
I had already fallen upon the viands, and now protested,
with the enthusiasm of a starving sportsman, that I had
never eaten anything so delicious. He bowed stiffly and sat
down to his own supper, which consisted primitively of a
jug of milk and a basin of porridge. We ate
in silence, and when we had done, Jacob removed the tray.
I then drew my chair back to the fireside. My host,
somewhat to my surprise, did the same, and, turning abruptly
towards me, said, Sir, I have lived here in strict
retirement for three and twenty years. During that time I
have not seen as many strange faces, and I have
not read a single newspaper. You the first stranger who
has crossed my threshold for more than four years. Will
you favor me with a few words of information respecting
that outer world from which I have parted company? So
long pray interrogate me, I replied, I am heartily at
your service. He bent his head in acknowledgment, leaned forward,
with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin
supported in the palms of his hands, stared fixedly into
the fire, and proceeded to question me. His inquiries related
chiefly to scientific matters, with the later progress of which,
as applied to the practical purposes of life. He was
almost wholly unacquainted. No student of science myself, I replied,
as well as my slight information permitted. But the task
was far from easy, and I was much relieved when
passing from interrogation to discussion, he began pouring forth his
own conclusions upon the facts which I had been attempting
to place before him. He talked, and I listened, spellbound.
He talked till I believe he almost forgot my presence
and only thought aloud, I had never heard anything like it.
Then I have never heard anything like it since. Familiar
with all systems of all philosophies, subtle in analysis, bold
in generalization, he poured forth his thoughts in an uninterrupted stream, and,
still leaning forward in the same moody attitude, with his
eyes fixed upon the fire, wandered from topic to topic,
from speculation to speculation, like an inspired dreamer, from practical
science to mental philosophy, from electricity in the wire to
electricity in the nerve, from watts to Mesmer, from Mesmer
to Reichenbach, from Reichenbach to Swedenborg, Spinosa, Condilact, Descartes, Berkeley, Aristotle, Plato,
and the magi and mystics of the East were transitions which,
however bewildering in their variety, and scope seemed easy and
harmonious upon his lips, as sequences in music. By and
by I forget now by what length of conjecture or
illustration he passed on to that field which lies beyond
the boundary line or even conjectural philosophy, and reaches no
man knows whither. He spoke of the soul and its aspirations,
of the spirit, and its powers of second sight, of prophecy,
of those phenomena which, under the names of ghosts, specters,
and supernatural appearances, have been denied by the skeptics and
attested by the credulous of all ages. The world, he said,
grows hourly more and more skeptical of all that lies
beyond its own narrow radius. And our men of science
foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as fable, all that
resists experiment, they reject as false, all that cannot be
brought to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting room.
Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate
a war as against the belief and apparitions? And yet
what superstition has maintained its hold upon the minds of
men so long and so firmly show me any fact
in physics, in history, and archaeology which is supported by
testimonies so wide and so various, attested by all races
of men, in all ages and in all climates, by
the soberist sages of antiquity, by the rudest savage of today,
by the Christian, the pagan, the pantheist, the materialist. This
phenomenon is treated as a nursery tale by the philosophers
of our century. Circumstantial evidence weighs with them as a
feather in the balance. The comparison of causes with effects,
however valuable in physical science, is put aside as worthless
and unreliable. The evidence of competent witnesses, however conclusive in
a court of justice, counts for nothing. He who pauses
before he pronounces is condemned as a trifler. He who
believes is a dreamer or a fool. He spoke with bitterness,
and having said thus, relapsed for some minutes into silence.
Presently he raised his head from his hands and added,
with an altered voice and manner, I sir, paused, investigated, believed,
and was not ashamed to state my convictions to the world,
I too, was branded as a visionary, held up to
ridicule by my contemporaries, and hooted from that field of
science in which I had labored with honor during all
the best years of my life. These things happened just
three and twenty years ago. Since then, I have lived
as you see me living now, and the world has
forgot me as I have forgotten the world. You have
my history. It is a very sad one, I murmured,
scarcely knowing what to answer. It is a very common one,
he replied. I have only suffered for the truth, as
many a better and wiser man has suffered before me.
He rose, as if desirous of ending the conversation, and
went over to the window. It has ceased snowing, he observed,
as he dropped the curtain and came back to the fireside. Ceased,
I exclaimed, starting eagerly to my feet. Oh, if it
were only possible. But no, it is hopeless. Even if
I could find my way across the moor, I could
not walk twenty miles tonight, Walk twenty miles tonight, repeated
my host. What are you thinking of of my wife?
I replied, impatiently, of my young wife, who does not
know that I have lost my way, and who is
at this moment breaking her heart with suspense and terror.
Where is she at Dwolding twenty miles away? At Dwelding,
he echoed thoughtfully. Yes, the distance, it is true, is
twenty miles. But are you so very anxious to save
the next six or eight hours, so very very anxious
that I would give ten guineas at this moment for
a guide and a horse. Your wish can be gratified
at a less costly rate, said he, smiling. The night
mail from the North, which changes horses at Dwelding, passes
within five miles of this spot, and will be due
at a certain crossroad in about an hour and a quarter.
If Jacob were to go with you across the moor
and put you into the old coach road, you could
find your way, I suppose to where it joins the
new one, easily. Gladly, he smiled again, rang the bell,
gave the old servant his directions, and, taking a bottle
of whiskey and wine glass from the cupboard in which
he kept his chemicals, said the snow lies deep and
it will be difficult walking to night on the moor.
A glass of uskuba before you start. I would have
declined the spirit, but he pressed it on me and
I drank it. It went down my throat like liquid flame,
and almost took my breath away. It is strong, he said,
but it will help to keep out the cold. And
now you have no moments to spare good night. I
thanked him for his hospitality, and would have shaken hands,
but that he had turned away before I could finish
my sentence. In another minute, I had traversed the hall,
Jacob had locked the outer door behind me, and we
were out on the wide white moor. Although the wind
had fallen, it was still bitterly cold. Not a star
glimmered in the black vault overhead. Not a sound save
the rapid crunching of the snow beneath our feet, disturbed
the heavy stillness of the night. Jacob, not too well
pleased with his mission, shambled on before in sullen silence,
his lantern in his hand and his shadow at his feet.
I followed with my gun over my shoulder, as little
inclined for conversation as himself. My thoughts were full of
my late host. His voice yet rang in my ears.
His eloquence yet held my imagination captive. I remember to
this day with surprise, how my over excited brain retained
whole sentences and parts of sentences, troops of brilliant images,
and fragments of splendid reasoning in the very words in
which he had uttered them. Musing thus over what I
had heard, and striving to recall a lost link here
and there. I strode at the heel of my guide,
absorbed and unobservant, presently at the end, as it seemed
to me, of only a few minutes. He came to
a sudden halt and said, yon, gi rou, keep the
stone fence to your right hand, and you can't fail
of the way. This, then, is the old coach road.
I tis the old coach road. And how far do
I go? Before I reached the crossroads? Nigh upon three mile?
I pulled out my purse, and he became more communicative.
The road's affair road enough, said he for foot passengers,
but twas over steep and narrow for the northern traffic.
You'll mind where the parpet's broken away. Close again the signpost.
It's never been mended since the accident. What accident, eh,
the nightmail pitched right over into the valley below, a
good fifty feet and more, just at the worst biddle
road in the whole county. Horrible were many lives lost.
All four were found dead, and to other two died
next morning. How long is it since this happened just
nine year near the signpost? You say, I will bear
it in mine, good night, good night, sit and thank'ee.
Jacob pocketed his half crown, made a faint pretense of
touching his hat, and trudged back by the way he
had come. I watched the fight of his lantern till
it quite disappeared, and then turned to pursue my way alone.
This was no longer matter of the slightest difficulty, for
despite the dead darkness overhead, the line of stone fence
showed distinctly enough against the pale gleam of the snow.
How silent it seemed, now, with only my footsteps to
listen to, How silent and how solitary. A strange, disagreeable
sense of loneliness stole over me. I walked faster, I
hummed a fragment of a tune, I cast up enormous
sums in my head, and accumulated them at compound interest.
I did best, in short, to forget the startling speculations
to which I had but just been listening, and to
some extent I succeeded. Meanwhile, the night air seemed to
become colder and colder, and though I walked fast, I
found it impossible to keep myself warm. My feet were
like ice. I lost sensation in my hands and grasped
my gun mechanically. I even breathed with difficulty, as though
instead of traversing a quiet north country highway, I were
scaling the uppermost heights of some gigantic alp. This last
symptom became presently, so distressing that I was forced to
stop for a few minutes and lean against the stone fence.
As I did so, I chanced to look back up
the road, and there, to my infinite relief, I saw
a distant point of light, like the gleam of an
approaching lantern. I at first concluded that Jacob had retraced
his steps and followed me. But even as the conjecture
presented itself, a second light flashed into sight, a light
evidently parallel with the first and approaching at the same
rate of motion. It needed no second thought to show
me that these must be the carriage lamps of some
private vehicle. Though it seemed strange that any private vehicle
should take a road professedly disused and dangerous. There could
be no doubt, however, of the fact, for the lamps
grew larger and brighter every moment, and I even fancied
I could already see the dark outline of the carriage
between them. It was coming up very fast and quite noiselessly,
the snow being nearly a foot deep under the wheels,
and now the body of the vehicle became distinctly visible
behind the lamps. It looked strangely lofty. A sudden suspicion
flashed upon me. Was it possible that I had passed
the crossroads in the dark without observing the signpost? And
could this be the very coach which I had come
to meet? No need to ask myself that questioned a
second time, for here it came round the bend of
the road, guard and driver, one outside passenger, and four
steaming grays, all wrapped in a soft haze of light,
through which the lamps blazed out like a pair of
fiery meteors. I jumped forward, waved my hat and shouted.
The mail came down at full speed and passed me.
For a moment, I feared that I had not been
seen or heard, But it was only for a moment.
The coachman pulled up the guard, muffled to the eyes
and capes and comforters, and apparently sound asleep in the rumble.
Neither answered my hail, nor made the slightest effort to dismount.
The outside passenger did not even turn his head. I
opened the door for myself and looked in. There were
but three travelers inside, so I stepped in, shut the door,
slipped into the vacant corner, and congratulated myself of my
good fortune. The atmosphere of the coach seemed, if possible,
colder than that of the outer air, and was pervaded
by a singularly damp and disagreeable smell. I looked round
at my fellow passengers. They were all three men, and
all silent. They did not seem to be asleep, but
each leaned back in his corner of the vehicle, as
if absorbed in his own reflections. I attempted to open
a conversation. How intensely cold it is to night, I said,
addressing my opposite neighbor. He lifted his head, looked at me,
but made no reply. The winter I seems to have
begun in earnest. Although the corner in which he sat
was so dim that I could distinguish none of his features.
Very clearly, I saw that his eyes were still turned
full upon me, and yet he answered never a word.
At any other time I should have felt and perhaps
expressed some annoyance, but at the moment I felt too
ill to do either. The icy coldness of the night
air had struck a chill to my very marrow, and
the strange smell inside the coach was affecting me with
an intolerable nausea. I shivered from head to foot, and,
turning to my left hand neighbor, asked if he had
any objection to an open window. He neither spoke nor stirred.
I repeated the question somewhat more loudly, but with the
same result. Then I lost my patience and let the
sash down. As I did so, the leather strap broke
in my hand, and I observed that the glass was
covered with a thick coat of mildew. The accumulation apparently
of years. My attention being thus drawn to the condition
of the coach, I examined it more narrowly, and saw,
by the uncertain light of the outer lamps that it
was in the last state of dilapidation. Every part of
it was not only out of repair, but in a
condition of decay. The sashes splintered at a touch, The
leather fittings were crusted over with mold and literally rotting
from the woodwork. The floor was almost breaking away beneath
my feet. The whole machine, in short, was foul with damp,
and had evidently been dragged from some outhouse in which
it had been moldering away for years to do another
day or two of duty on the road. I turned
to the third passenger, whom I had not yet addressed,
and hazarded one more remark. This coach, I said, is
in deplorable condition. The regular mail, I suppose is under repair.
He moved his head slowly and looked me in the
face without speaking a word. I shall never forget that
look while I live. I turned cold at heart under it.
I turned cold at heart even now when I recall it.
His eyes glowed with a fiery, unnatural luster his face
was livid as the face of a corpse. His bloodless
lips were drawn back, as if in the agony of death,
and showed the gleaming teeth between the words that I
was about to utter died upon my lips. In a
strange horror, A dreadful heart came upon me. My sight
had by this time become used to the gloom of
the coach, and I could see with tolerable distinctness. I
turned to my opposite neighbor. He too was looking at me,
with the same startling pallor in his face and the
same stony glitter in his eyes. I passed my hand
across my brow. I turned to the passenger on the
seat beside my own, and saw, Oh Heaven, how shall
I describe what I saw? I saw that he was
no living man, that none of them were living men
like myself. A pale phosphorescent light, the light of putrefaction,
played upon their awful faces, upon their hair, dank with
the dews of the grave, upon their clothes, earth stained
and dropping to pieces, upon their hands, which were as
the hands of corpses long buried. Only their eyes, their
terrible eyes, were living, and those eyes were all turned
menacingly upon me. A shriek of terror, a wild, unintelligent
will cry for help, and mercy burst from my lips
as I flung myself against the door and strove in
vain to open it. In that single instant, brief and vivid,
as a landscape beheld in the flash of summer lightning,
I saw the moon shining down through a rift of
stormy cloud, the ghastly signpost rearing its warning finger by
the wayside, the broken parapet, the plunging horses, the black
gulf below. Then the coach reeled like a ship at sea.
Then came a mighty crash, a sense of crushing pain,
and then darkness. It seemed as if years had gone
by when I awoke one morning from a deep sleep
and found my wife watching by my bedside. I will
pass over the scene that ensued and give you, in
half a dozen words, the tale, she told me, with
tears of thanksgiving. I had fallen over a precipice close
against the junction of the old coach road and the new,
and had only been saved from certain death by lighting
upon a deep snow drift that acum related at the
foot of the rock beneath in this snow drift. I
was discovered at daybreak by a couple of shepherds, who
carried me to the nearest shelter and brought a surgeon
to my aid. The surgeon found me in a state
of raving delirium, with a broken arm and a compound
fracture of the skull. The letters in my pocket book
showed my name and address. My wife was summoned to
nurse me, and thanks to youth and a fine constitution,
I came out of danger at last. The place of
my fall, I need scarcely say, was precisely that at
which a frightful accident had happened to the North Mail
nine years before. I never told my wife the fearful
events which I have just related to you. I told
the surgeon who attended me, but he treated the whole
adventure as a mere dream born of the fever in
my brain. We discussed the question over and over again
until we found that we could discuss it with temper
no longer, and then we dropped it. Others may form
what conclusions they please. I know that twenty years ago
I was the fourth inside passenger in that phantom coach
end of the Phantom Coach.