"I acknowledge nothing of the sort," he said. "Come with me to the mill-house to-night, and I will then tell you what I think."
To this proposition M. Durant willingly agreed, and, accompanied by his friend and the village priest, set off. On their arrival, M. Hersant produced a big compa.s.s, and on the earth floor of the mill-house drew a large circle, in which he made with white chalk various signs and symbols. He then sat in the middle of it, and bade his two companions stand in the doorway and watch. The night grew darker and darker, and presently into the air stole a something that all three men at once realized was supernatural. M. Hersant coughed nervously, the priest crossed himself, and M. Durant called out, "This is getting ridiculous.
These mediaeval proceedings are too absurd. Let us go home." The next moment, from the far distance, a church clock began to strike. It was midnight, and an impressive silence fell on the trio. Then there came a noise like the flutterings of wings, a loud, blood-curdling scream, half human and half animal, and a huge black owl, whirling down from the roof of the building, perched in the circle directly in front of M. Hersant.
"Pray, Father! Pray quickly," M. Hersant whispered. "Pray for the dead, and sprinkle the circle with holy water."
The priest, as well as his trembling limbs would allow, obeyed; whereupon the bird instantly vanished.
"For Heaven"s sake," M. Durant gasped, "tell us what it all means."
"Only this," M. Hersant said solemnly, "the phantasm we saw caused the death of the Popenkoff family. It is the spirit of an owl that the children, encouraged by their parents, killed in a most cruel manner. As soon as I examined Marthe"s body, I perceived the mutilations were due to a bird; and when I visited this mill on the eve of my arrival, I knew that a bird had once lived here; that it had been captured with lime and murdered, and that it haunted the place."
"How could you know that?" the priest exclaimed in astonishment.
"I am clairvoyant. I saw the bird"s ghost as it appeared to us just now.
Afterwards I enquired of the Popenkoffs" neighbours, and the information I gathered fully confirmed my suspicions--that the unfortunate bird had been put to death in a most barbarous manner. The deaths of the three children laid to rest any doubt I may have had with regard to the superphysical playing a part in the death of Marthe. Then when her better-half had been served likewise, I was certain that all five pseudo-murders were wholly and solely acts of retribution, and that they were perpetrated--I am inclined to think involuntarily--by the spirit of the owl itself. Accordingly, I decided to hold a seance here--here in its old haunt, and if possible to put an end to the earth-bound condition and wanderings of the soul of the unhappy bird. Thanks to Father Mickledoff we have done so, and there will be no more so-called murders near Orskaia."
_Hauntings by the Phantasms of Birds_
One of the most curious cases of hauntings by the phantasms of birds happened towards the end of the eighteenth century in a church not twenty miles from London. The s.e.xton started the rumours, declaring that he had heard strange noises, apparently proceeding from certain vaults containing the tombs of two old and distinguished families. The noises, which generally occurred on Friday nights, most often took the form of mockings, suggesting to some of the listeners--the enaction of a murder, and to others merely the flapping of wings.
The case soon attracted considerable attention, people flocking to the church from all over the country-side, and it was not long before certain persons came forward and declared they had ascertained the cause of the disturbance. The churchwarden, s.e.xton, and his wife and others all swore to seeing a huge crow pecking and clawing at the coffins in the vaults, and flying about the chancel of the church, and perching on the communion rails. When they tried to seize it, it immediately vanished.
An old lady, who came of a family of well-to-do yeomen, and who lived near the church about that time, said that the people in the town had for many years been convinced the church there was haunted by the phantom of a bird, which they believed to be the earth-bound soul of a murderer, who, owing to his wealth, was interred in the churchyard, instead of being buried at the cross-roads with the customary wooden stake driven through the middle of his body. This belief of the yokels received some corroboration from a neighbouring squire, who said he had seen the phantasm, and was quite positive it was the earth-bound soul of a criminal whose family history was known to him, and whose remains lay in the churchyard.
This is all the information that I have been able to gather on the subject, but it is enough to, at least, suggest the church was, at one time, haunted by the phantom of a bird, but whether the earth-bound soul of a murderer taking that guise, or the spirit of an actual dead bird, it is impossible to say.
_The Ghost of an Evil Bird_
Henry Spicer, in his _Strange Things Amongst Us_, tells the story of a Captain Morgan, an honourable and vivacious gentleman, who, arriving in London in 18--, puts up for the night in a large, old-fashioned hotel.
The room in which he slept was full of heavy, antique furniture, reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in modern English history for crime. Despite, however, his grimly suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping, and, on looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed.
The creature flew at him and endeavoured to peck his eyes. Captain Morgan resisted, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung himself on the top of it, when, to his surprise and terror, it immediately crumbled into nothingness. He left the house early next morning, convinced that what he had seen was a ghost, but Mr. Spicer offers no explanation as to how one should cla.s.sify the phenomenon.
It may have been the earth-bound spirit of the criminal or viciously inclined person who had once lived there, or it may have been the phantom of an actual bird. Either alternative is feasible.
I have heard there is an old house near Poole, in Dorset, and another in Ess.e.x, which were formerly haunted by spectral birds, and that as late as 1860 the phantasm of a bird, many times the size of a raven, was so frequently seen by the inmates of a house in Dean Street, Soho, that they eventually grew quite accustomed to it. But bird hauntings are not confined to houses, and are far more often to be met with out of doors; indeed there are very few woods, and moors, and commons that are not subjected to them. I have constantly seen the spirits of all manner of birds in the parks in Dublin and London. Greenwich Park, in particular, is full of them.
_Addendum to Birds and the Unknown_
Though their unlovely aspect and solitary mode of life may in some measure account for the prejudice and suspicion with which the owl, crow, raven, and one or two other birds have always been regarded, there are undoubtedly other and more subtle reasons for their unpopularity.
The ancients without exception credited these birds with psychic properties.
"Ignarres bubo dirum mortalibus omen," said Ovid; whilst speaking of the fatal prognostications of the crow Virgil wrote:
"Saepe sinistra cava praedixit ab ilice cornix."
A number of crows are stated to have fluttered about Cicero"s head on the day he was murdered.
Pliny says, "These birds, crows and rooks, all of them keep much prattling, and are full of chat, which most men take for an unlucky sign and presage of ill-fortune."
Ramesay, in his work _Elminthologia_ (1688), writes:
"If a crow fly over the house and croak thrice, how do they fear they, or someone else in the family, shall die."
The bittern is also a bird of ill omen. Alluding to this bird, Bishop Hall once said:
"If a bittern flies over this man"s head by night, he will make his will"; whilst Sir Humphry Davy wrote:
"I know a man of very high dignity who was exceedingly moved by omens, and who never went out shooting without a bittern"s claw fastened to his b.u.t.ton-hole by a riband, which he thought ensured him "good luck.""
Ravens and swallows both, at times, prognosticate death. In Lloyd"s _Stratagems of Jerusalem_ (1602) he says:
"By swallows lighting upon Pirrhus" tents, and lighting upon the mast of Mar. Antonius" ship, sailing after Cleopatra to Egypt, the soothsayers did prognosticate that Pirrhus should be slaine at Argos in Greece, and Mar. Antonius in Egypt."
He alludes to swallows following Cyrus from Persia to Scythia, from which the "wise men" foretold his death. Ravens followed Alexander the Great from India to Babylon, which was regarded by all who saw them as a fatal sign.
""Tis not for nought that the raven sings now on my left and, croaking, has once sc.r.a.ped the earth with his feet," wrote Plautus.
Other references to the same bird are as follows:
"The raven himself is hoa.r.s.e That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements."--(_Macbeth._)
"It comes o"er my memory As doth the raven o"er the infected house, Boding to all."--(_Oth.e.l.lo._)
"That tolls The sick man"s pa.s.sport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings."
(_Jew of Malta._)
"Is it not ominous in all countries where crows and ravens croak upon trees?"--(_Hudibras._)
"The boding raven on her cottage sat, And with hoa.r.s.e croakings warned us of our fate."
(_The Dirge._)
"In Cornwall," writes Mr. Hunt, in his work on popular beliefs, etc., of the West of England, "it is believed that the croaking of a raven over the house bodes evil to some of the family. The following incident, given to me by a really intelligent man, ill.u.s.trates the feeling:
""One day our family were much annoyed by the continual croaking of a raven over the house. Some of us believed it to be a token; others derided the idea. But one good lady, our next-door neighbour, said:
"""Just mark the day, and see if something does not come of it."
""The day and hour were carefully noted. Months pa.s.sed away, and unbelievers were loud in their boastings and enquiries after the token.
The fifth month arrived, and with it a black-edged letter from Australia, announcing the death of one of the members of the family in that country. On comparing the dates of the death and the raven"s croak, they were found to have occurred on the same day.""
In an old number of _Notes and Queries_ a correspondent relates that in Somersetshire the appearance of a single jackdaw is regarded as a sure prognostication of evil. He goes on to add that the men employed in the quarries in the Avon Gorge, Clifton, Bristol, had more than once noticed a jackdaw perched on the chain that spanned the river, prior to some catastrophe among them.
Dead magpies were once hung over the doorways of haunted houses to keep away ghosts; it being almost universally believed that all phantasms shared the same dread of this bird. Ghosts of magpies themselves are, however, far from uncommon; on Dartmoor and Exmoor, for example, I have seen several of them, generally in the immediate vicinity of bogs or deep holes.