|
CASE VIII
THE DRUMMER OF CORTACHY
What ancient Scottish or
Irish family has not its Family Ghost? A banshee—the heritage of Niall
of the Nine Hostages— is still the unenviable possession of his
descendants, the O'Donnells, and I, who am a member of the clan, have
both seen and heard it several times. As it appears to me, it resembles
the decapitated head of a prehistoric woman, and I shall never forget my
feelings one night, when, aroused from slumber by its ghastly wailing, I
stumbled frantically out of bed, and, groping my way upstairs in the
dark, without venturing to look to the left or right lest I should see
something horrible, found every inmate of the house huddled together on
the landing, paralysed with fear. I did not see it on that occasion, but
on the following morning, as I had anticipated, I received the news that
a near and dear relative had died.
Possessing such an heirloom myself, I can therefore readily sympathise
with those who own a similar treasure — such, for example, as the
famous, or rather infamous, Drummer of Cortachy Castle, who is
invariably heard beating a tattoo before the death of a member of the
clan of Ogilvie.
Mrs. Crowe, in her Night Side of Nature, referring to the haunting, says
:—
“Miss D., a relative of the present Lady C., who had been staying some
time with the Earl and Countess at their seat, near Dundee, was invited
to spend a few days at Cortachy Castle, with the Earl and Countess of
Airlie. She went, and whilst she was dressing for dinner the first
evening of her arrival, she heard a strain of music under her window,
which finally resolved itself into a well-defined sound of a drum. When
her maid came upstairs, she made some inquiries about the drummer that
was playing near the house ; but the maid knew nothing on the subject.
For the moment the circumstance passed from Miss D.’s mind, but,
recurring to her again during the dinner, she said, addressing Lord
Airlie, ‘My lord, who is your drummer ?' Upon which his lordship turned
pale, Lady Airlie looked distressed, and several of the company, who all
heard the question, embarrassed; whilst the lady, perceiving that she
had made some unpleasant allusion, although she knew not to what their
feelings referred, forebore further inquiry till she reached the
drawing-room; when, having mentioned the circumstance again to a member
of the family, she was answered, ‘What, have you never heard of the
drummer boy?' *No" replied Miss D.; ‘who in the world is he?' ‘Why'
replied the other, ‘he is a person who goes about the house playing his
drum, whenever there is a death impending in the family. The last time
he was heard was shortly before the death of the last Countess (the
Earl's former wife); and that is why Lord Airlie became so pale when you
mentioned it. The drummer boy is a very unpleasant subject in this
family, I assure you."
“Miss D. was naturally much concerned, and indeed not a little
frightened at this explanation, and her alarm being augmented by hearing
the sounds on the following day, she took her departure from Cortachy
Castle, and returned to Lord C.’s, where she related this strange
circumstance to the family, through whom the information reached me.
“This affair was very generally known in the north, and we awaited the
event with interest. The melancholy death of the Countess about five or
six months afterwards, at Brighton, sadly verified the prognostications.
I have heard that a paper was found in her desk after her death,
declaring her conviction that the drum was for her.”
Mrs. Crowe goes on to explain the origin of the phenomenon. According to
legend, she says, there was once at Cortachy a drummer, who, incurring
the jealousy of the then Lord Airlie, was thrust into his own drum and
flung from a window of the tower (in which, by the way, Miss D. slept).
Before being put to death thus, the drummer is stated to have said he
would for ever after haunt the Airlie family—a threat he has obviously
been permitted to fulfil.
During one of my visits to Scotland, I stayed some days in Forfarshire
not far from Cortachy. Among the visitors at my hotel was a very old
gentleman of the name of Porter, who informed me that, when a boy, he
used to visit some relatives who, at that time, lived within easy
walking distance of Cortachy. One of these relatives was a lad of about
fourteen, named Alec, with whom he had always been the closest of
friends. The recollection of their many adventures evidently afforded
Mr. Porter infinite amusement, and one of these adventures, in
particular, he told me, was as fresh in his mind as if it had happened
yesterday.
“Looking back upon it now,” he said, with a far-away look in his eyes,
“it certainly was a strange coincidence, and if you are interested in
the hauntings of Cortachy, Mr. O’Donnell, you may, perhaps, like to hear
the account of my ghostly experiences in that neighbourhood.”
Of course I replied that nothing would give me greater pleasure, and Mr.
Porter forthwith began his story.
“One misty night in October, my friend Alec and I, both being keen on
rabbiting, determined to visit a spinney adjoining the Cortachy estate,
in pursuit of our quarry. Alec had chosen this particular night,
thinking, under cover of the mist, to escape the vigilance of the
keepers, who had more than once threatened to take him before the laird
for trespassing.
“To gain access to the spinney we had to climb a granite wall and drop
on the other side—the drop, in addition to being steep, being rendered
all the more precarious by reason of the man-traps the keepers were in
the habit of setting. When I got astride the wall and peered into the
well-like darkness at our feet, and heard the grim rustling of the wind
through the giant pines ahead of me, I would have given all I possessed
to have found myself snug and warm in bed; but Alec was of a different
‘kidney'—he had come prepared for excitement, and he meant to have it.
For some seconds, we both waited on the wall in breathless silence, and
then Alec, with a reckless disregard of what might be in store for him,
gently let himself drop, and I, fearing more, if anything, than the
present danger, to be for ever after branded as a coward if I held back,
timidly followed suit. By a great stroke of luck we alighted in safety
on a soft carpeting of moss. Not a word was spoken, but, falling on
hands and knees, and guiding ourselves by means of a dark lantern Alec
had bought second-hand from the village blacksmith, we crept on
all-fours along a tiny bramble-covered path, that after innumerable
windings eventually brought us into a broad glade shut in on all sides
by lofty trees. Alec prospected the spot first of all to see no keepers
were about, and we then crawled into it, and, approaching the nearest
burrows, set to work at once with our ferrets. Three rabbits were
captured in this fashion, and we were eagerly anticipating the taking of
more, when a sensation of icy coldness suddenly stole over us, and, on
looking round, we perceived, to our utmost consternation, a very tall
keeper standing only a few yards away from us. For once in a way, Alec
was nonplussed, and a deathly silence ensued. It was too dark for us to
see the figure of the keeper very distinctly, and we could only
distinguish a gleaming white face set on a very slight and perpendicular
frame, and a round, glittering something that puzzled us both
exceedingly. Then, a feeling that, perhaps, it was not a keeper
gradually stole over me, and in a paroxysm of ungovernable terror I
caught hold of Alec, who was trembling from head to foot as if he had
the ague. The figure remained absolutely still for about a minute,
during which time neither Alec nor I could move a muscle, and then,
turning round with an abrupt movement, came towards us.
“Half-dead with fright, but only too thankful to find that we had now
regained the use of our limbs, we left our spoil and ran for our lives
in the direction of the wall.
“We dared not look back, but we knew the figure followed us, for we
heard its footsteps close at our heels; and never to my dying day shall
I forget the sound —rat-tat, tat, rat-tat, tat—for all the world like
the beat of a muffled drum.
“How we ever managed to reach the wall I could never tell, but as we
scrambled over it, regardless of man-traps and bruises, and plunged into
the heather on the other side, we heard the weird footsteps receding in
the direction of the castle, and, ere we had reached home, the rat-tat,
tat, rat-tat, tat, had completely died away.
“We told no one a word of what had happened, and a few days after,
simultaneously with the death of one of the Airlies, we learned, dor the
first time, the story of the Phantom Drummer.
“I have little doubt," Mr. Porter added, in conclusion, “that the figure
we took to be a keeper was the prophetic Drummer, for I can assure you
there was no possibility of hoaxers, especially in such ill-omened
guise, anywhere near the Cortachy estate."
Poor old Mr. Porter ! He did not long survive our rencontre. When I next
visited the hotel, some months later, I was genuinely grieved to hear of
his decease. His story had greatly fascinated me, for I love the
solitude of the pines, and have myself from time to time witnessed many
remarkable occult phenomena under the shadow of their lofty summits. One
night, during this second visit of mine to the hotel, the mood to ramble
came upon me, and, unable to resist the seductive thought of a midnight
stroll across the bracken-covered hills, I borrowed a latchkey, and,
armed with a flask of whisky and a thick stick, plunged into the moonlit
night.
The keen, heather-scented air acted like a tonic—I felt younger and
stronger than I had felt for years, and I congratulated myself that my
friends would hardly know me if they saw me now, as I swung along with
the resuscitated stride of twenty years ago. The landscape for miles
around stood out with startling clearness in the moonshine, and I
stopped every now and then to drink in the beauties of the glittering
mountain-ranges and silent, glimmering tarns. Not a soul was about, and
I found myself, as I loved to be, the only human element in the midst of
nature. Every now and then a dark patch fluttered across the shining
road, and with a weird and plaintive cry, a night bird dashed abruptly
from hedge to hedge, and seemingly melted into nothingness. I quitted
the main road on the brow of a low hill, and embarked upon a wild
expanse of moor, lavishly covered with bracken and white heather,
intermingled with which were the silvery surfaces of many a pool of
water. For some seconds I stood still, lost in contemplating the
scenery,—its utter abandonment and grand sense of isolation; and
inhaling at the same time long and deep draughts of the delicious
moorland air, unmistakably impregnated now with breaths of ozone. My
eyes wandering to the horizon, I detected, on the very margin of the
moorland, a dense clump of trees, which I instantly associated with the
spinney in my old friend Mr. Porter's story, and, determining that the
renowned spinney should be my goal, I at once aimed for it, vigorously
striking out along the path which I thought would be most likely to lead
to it. Half an hour's brisk walking brought me to my destination, and I
found myself standing opposite a granite wall which my imagination had
no difficulty in identifying with the wall so well described by Mr.
Porter. Removing the briars and gorse prickles which left little of my
stockings whole, I went up to the wall, and, measuring it with my body,
found it was a good foot taller than I. This would mean rather more
climbing than I had bargained for. But the pines— the grim silence of
their slender frames and gently swaying summits—fascinated me. They
spoke of possibilities few could see or appreciate as I could;
possibilities of a sylvan phantasmagoria enhanced by 9 the soft and
mystic radiance of the moon. An owl hooted, and the rustling of
brushwood told me of the near proximity of some fur-coated burrower in
the ground. High above this animal life, remoter even than the tops of
my beloved trees or the mountain-ranges, etched on the dark firmament,
shone multitudinous stars, even the rings round Saturn being plainly
discernible. From the Milky Way my eyes at length wandered to the pines,
and a puff of air laden with the odour of their resin and decaying
brushwood decided me. I took a few preliminary sips of whisky, stretched
my rusty limbs, and, placing one foot in a jagged crevice of the wall,
swarmed painfully up. How slow and how hazardous was the process! I
scratched my fingers, inured to the pen but a stranger to any rougher
substance; I ruined my box-calf boots, I split my trousers at the knees,
and I felt that my hat had parted with its shape for ever; and yet I
continued the ascent. The end came all too suddenly. When within an ace
of victory, I yielded to impulse, and with an energy the desperate
condition of my skin and "clothes alone could account for, I swung up,
and—the outer edge of the wall melted beneath me, my hands frantically
clutched at nothingness, a hideous sensation of falling surged through
my brain, my ears and eyes filled to bursting, and with a terrific crash
that seemed to drive my head and spine right through my stomach, I met
the black, uprising earth, and lost consciousness.
Providentially for me, I had pitched head first into a furze bush which
broke the fall, otherwise I must have met with serious injury. As it
was, when I recovered my momentary loss of consciousness, I found that I
had sustained no worse harm than a severe shaking, scratches galore, and
the utter demolition of my clothes ! I picked myself up with difficulty,
and spent some time searching for my hat and stick—which I at length
discovered, lodged, of course, where one would least have thought of
looking for them. I then took close stock of my surroundings, and found
them even grimmer than I had anticipated. Though the trees were packed
closely together, and there was much undergrowth, the moonbeams were so
powerful and so fully concentrated on the spinney, that I could see no
inconsiderable distance ahead of me. Over everything hung a solemn and
preternatural hush. I saw shadows everywhere —shadows that defied
analysis and had no material counterparts. A sudden crashing of
brushwood brought me to a standstill, and sent the blood in columns to
my heart. Then I laughed loudly — it was only a hare, the prettiest and
pertest thing imaginable. I went on. Something whizzed past my face. I
drew back in horror— it was a bat, merely a bat. My nerves were out of
order, the fall had unsteadied them; I must pull myself together. I did
so, and continued to advance. A shadow, long, narrow, and grotesque,
fell across my path, and sent a thousand and one icy shivers down my
back. In an agony of terror I shut my eyes and plunged madly on.
Something struck me in the face and hurled me back. My eyes opened
involuntarily, and I saw a tree that, either out of pique or sheer
obstinacy, had planted itself half-way across the path. I examined its
branches to make sure they were branches, and continued my march. A
score more paces, a sudden bend, and I was in an open space, brilliantly
illuminated by moonbeams and peopled with countless, moving shadows. One
would have to go far to find a wilder, weirder, and more grimly
suggestive spot. As I stood gazing at the scene in awestruck wonder, a
slight breeze rocked the tops of the pine trees, and moaning through
their long and gloomy aisles reverberated like thunder. The sounds,
suggesting slightly, ever so slightly, a tattoo, brought with them vivid
pictures of the Drummer, too vivid just then to be pleasant, and I
turned to go. To my unmitigated horror, a white and lurid object barred
my way. My heart ceased to beat, my blood turned to ice ; I was sick,
absolutely sick, with terror. Besides this, the figure held me
spellbound—I could neither move nor utter a sound. It had a white,
absolutely white face, a tall, thin, perpendicular frame, and a small,
glittering, rotund head. For some seconds it remained stationary, and
then, with a gliding motion, left the path and vanished in the shadows.
Again a breeze rustled through the tops of the pine trees, moaned
through their long and gloomy aisles, and reverberated like thunder;
rat-tat, tat, rat-tat, tat—and with this sound beating in my ears,
reaction set in, and I never ceased running till I had reached my hotel. |
