Ghosts in the House: Tales of Terror by A. C. Benson and R. H. Benson - Hugh Lamb

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from me, flat on my face, with my hands over my eyes.

      ‘“I thought of a hundred thousand things: of the inn, and you; and the walk we had had; and I prayed – well, I suppose I prayed. I wanted God to take me right out of this place. I wanted the rocks to open and let me through.”’

      Mr Percival stopped. His voice shook with a tiny tremor. He cleared his throat.

      ‘Well, Reverend Fathers; Murphy got up at last, and looked about him; and of course, there was nothing there, but just the rocks and the dust, and the sky overhead. Then he came away home, the shortest way.’

      It was a very abrupt ending; and a little sigh ran round the circle.

      Monsignor struck a match noisily, and kindled his pipe again.

      ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ he said briskly.

      Mr Percival cleared his throat again; but before he could speak Father Brent broke in.

      ‘Now that is just an instance of what I was saying, Monsignor, the night we began. May I ask if you really believe that those were the souls of the miners? Where’s the justice of it? What’s the point?’

      Monsignor glanced at the lawyer.

      ‘Have you any theory, sir?’ he asked.

      Mr Percival answered without lifting his eyes.

      ‘I think so,’ he said shortly, ‘but I don’t feel in the least dogmatic.’

      Father Brent looked at him almost indignantly. ‘I should like to hear it,’ he said, ‘if you can square that—’

      ‘I do not square it,’ said the lawyer. ‘Personally I do not believe they were spirits at all.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘No. I do not; though I do not wish to be dogmatic. To my mind it seems far more likely that this is an instance of Mr Hudson’s theory – the American, you know. His idea is that all apparitions are no more than the result of violent emotions experienced during life. That about the pathetic expression is all nonsense, I believe.’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ said Father Brent.

      ‘Well; these men, killed by the fall of the roof, probably went through a violent emotion. This would be heightened in some degree by their loneliness and isolation from the world. This kind of emotion, Mr Hudson suggests, has a power of saturating material surroundings and under certain circumstances, would once more, like a phonograph, give off an image of the agent. In this instance, too, the absence of other human visitors would give this materialised emotion a chance, so to speak, of surviving; there would be very few cross-currents to confuse it. And finally, Murphy was alone; his receptive faculties would be stimulated by that fact, and all that he saw, in my belief, was the psychical wave left by these men in dying.’

      ‘Oh! did you tell him so?’

      ‘I did not. Murphy is a violent man.’

      I looked up at Monsignor and saw him nodding emphatically to himself.

       THE TRAVELLER

      R.H. Benson

      ‘I am amazed, not that the Traveller returns from that Bourne, but that he returns so seldom.’

       The Pilgrims’ Way

      On one of these evenings as we sat together after dinner in front of the wide open fireplace in the central room of the house, we began to talk on that old subject – the relation of Science to Faith.

      ‘It is no wonder,’ said the priest, ‘if their conclusions appear to differ, to shallow minds who think that the last words are being said on both sides; because their standpoints are so different. The scientific view is that you are not justified in committing yourself one inch ahead of your intellectual evidence: the religious view is that in order to find out anything worth knowing your faith must always be a little in advance of your evidence; you must advance en échelon. There is the principle of our Lord’s promises. “Act as if it were true, and light will be given.” The scientist on the other hand says, “Do not presume to commit yourself until light is given.” The difference between the methods lies, of course, in the fact that Religion admits the heart and the whole man to the witness-box, while Science only admits the head – scarcely even the senses. Yet surely the evidence of experience is on the side of Religion. Every really great achievement is inspired by motives of the heart, and not of the head; by feeling and passion, not by a calculation of probabilities. And so are the mysteries of God unveiled by those who carry them first by assault; “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence; and the violent take it by force.”

      ‘For example,’ he continued after a moment, ‘the scientific view of haunted houses is that there is no evidence for them beyond that which may be accounted for by telepathy, a kind of thought-reading. Yet if you can penetrate that veneer of scientific thought that is so common now, you find that by far the larger part of mankind still believes in them. Practically not one of us really accepts the scientific view as an adequate one.’

      ‘Have you ever had an experience of that kind yourself?’ I asked.

      ‘Well,’ said the priest, smiling, ‘you are sure you will not laugh at it? There is nothing commoner than to think such things a subject for humour; and that I cannot bear. Each such story is sacred to one person at the very least, and therefore should be to all reverent people.’

      I assured him that I would not treat his story with disrespect.

      ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I do not think you will, and I will tell you. It only happened a very few years ago. This was how it began:

      ‘A friend of mine was, and is still, in charge of a church in Kent, which I will not name; but it is within twenty miles of Canterbury. The district fell into Catholic hands a good many years ago. I received a telegram, in this house, a day or two before Christmas, from my friend, saying that he had been suddenly seized with a very bad attack of influenza, which was devastating Kent at that time; and asking me to come down, if possible at once, and take his place over Christmas. I had only lately given up active work, owing to growing infirmity, but it was impossible to resist this appeal; so Parker packed my things and we went together by the next train.

      ‘I found my friend really ill, and quite incapable of doing anything; so I assured him that I could manage perfectly, and that he need not be anxious.

      ‘On the next day, a Wednesday, and Christmas Eve, I went down to the little church to hear confessions. It was a beautiful old church, though tiny, and full of interesting things: the old altar had been set up again; there was a rood-loft with a staircase leading on to it; and an awmbry on the north of the sanctuary had been fitted up as a receptacle for the Most Holy Sacrament, instead of the old hanging pyx. One of the most interesting discoveries made in the church was that of the old confessional. In the lower half of the rood-screen, on the south side, a square hole had been found, filled up with an insertion of oak; but an antiquarian of the Alcuin Club, whom my friend had asked to examine the church, declared that this without doubt was the place where in pre-Reformation times confessions were heard. So it had been restored, and put to its ancient use; and now on this Christmas Eve I sat within the chancel in the dim fragrant light, while penitents came and knelt outside the screen on the single step, and made their confessions through the old opening.

      ‘I know this is a great platitude, but I never can look at a piece of old furniture without a curious thrill at a thing that has been so much saturated with human emotion; but, above all that I have ever seen, I think that this old confessional moved me. Through that little opening had come so many thousands of sins, great and little, weighted with sorrow; and back again, in Divine exchange for those burdens, had returned the balm of the Saviour’s blood. “Behold! a door opened in heaven,” through which that strange commerce of sin and grace may be carried on – grace pressed down and running over, given into the bosom in exchange

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