Legends Of Longdendale Part 21

"I would not live in that house again if its owner would give it to me, and the land it stands on. The place is uncanny, and the boggart is always there. I saw it more than once. I remember going into the orchard one evening with my sister. We went to pick some apples, and having got as many as we wanted, were returning to the house. At the gate, which leads into the meadow, we saw the boggart--in the form of an old lady, with a withered face. She stood there waving her ap.r.o.n, and saying 'Ish, ish, ish.'"

"We dropped the apples, and fled."

Other persons still alive a.s.sert that they have seen this boggart, and it is firmly believed by many that the ghost of the old woman will continue to haunt the house until her sins are expiated, or until some minister or holy man "lays the boggart," by using the forms laid down by law in the olden time, for exorcising evil spirits.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

To the two other ghost stories relating to the towns.h.i.+p of G.o.dley--namely, the stories of "The Haunted Farm" and "The Spectre Hound"--I have thought it necessary to append a note of explanation. I now adopt the same course with regard to the story of "The Boggart of G.o.dley Green." I wish to repeat in this instance that nothing in the story must be credited to the imagination of the writer. All the details have been given to me by persons still living (May, 1906), who have resided in the house at one time or another, and who solemnly a.s.sert that they have seen the boggart, under the circ.u.mstances related in the above account. Their statements were given to me in the presence of witnesses, and it is impossible to doubt the earnestness and honesty of my informants.

I do not wish to cast any harsh doubt upon their statements, nor do I, on the other hand, desire to give it forth that I am a convert to the belief in ghosts and boggarts. I merely record the stories as told to me by people whose honesty I know to be above suspicion, and who firmly believe that they have seen the things they describe.

The houses and the fields and lanes mentioned in the three stories, as haunts of the ghosts, are all well known to me. I have walked over them alone, at all times of the night and day, and in all seasons. And with the house and grounds mentioned in the story of "The Boggart of G.o.dley Green" I am especially familiar. The land behind the house dips down to a secluded valley; and the gate mentioned by the narrators as a favourite haunt of the ghost is half-way up the slope. It is overshadowed by tall trees, and in certain lights the darkness cast by these trees is peculiar, and almost palpable. Beyond the gate is a meadow, from which at certain times the mists rise thick and white.

When seen through the trees the mist sometimes takes strange forms. My first experience of it was rather startling. I had been in the orchard alone one night, and when slowly walking up the rise I chanced to look towards the gate, and there in the gap between the trees appeared a white form, like the veiled and draped figure of a female. It seemed to be moving, and for the moment I received a shock. On proceeding towards the gate, however, I found it was nothing but a moving column of mist, framed by the thick foliage of the trees. Even then, by an abnormal imagination, it might have been taken for a spectre.

But although the mist might in some degree explain away the appearance of "The Boggart" at the gate, I must candidly admit that it does not account for the spectre hound, or the strange noises, movings of furniture, and openings of doors, recorded in the two first stories.

These things are as much a mystery as ever.

THE END