Victorian Christmas: Rock of Ages, Haunt for Me: 94

In which Carla returns to the haunted English coastline for Victorian Christmas ghost stories.

Source: Strange Stories of Ghosts and Coincidence, ed. Arthur Conan Doyle https://archive.org/details/doyle-arthur-conan-et-al.-strange-stories-of-coincidence-and-ghostly-adventure-george-redway-1891
Contents: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?369419 
Alternative source: Doyle, Arthur Conan; Scott, Sir Walter. The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories (pp. 180-193). Valancourt Books.
Fenn Bibliography: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?162372
The Society for Psychical Research https://www.spr.ac.uk/about-spr
W. W. Fenn: https://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/show_author.php?aid=376 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, this is Carla, and welcome back to there might
be cupcakes, and welcome back to our mutually favorite season,
Victorian Yule Horror. This is episode ninety four Rock of
Ages Haunt. For me, you know I love a good title.
This episode lands us right the zenith of the Victorian
era eighteen eighty one. You know I also love a
good deep dive on details. So let's have some and

(00:24):
place the scene. And this is Yule, So blessed Yule.
For those who celebrate, the very specific dates of the
Victorian era are those of the reign of Queen Victoria
June twentieth, eighteen thirty seven to January twenty second, nineteen
oh one. For those who are new, yes, I mean
it when I say I love details. To center the

(00:44):
most well known event of this period and to further
set the mood, the dates of the East London Jack
the Ripper cerial murders were April third, eighteen eighty eight
through February thirteenth, eighteen ninety one. Finally, the Society for
Psychical Research was founded in eighteen eighty two, the year
after the first publication of this story in the Christmas

(01:05):
edition of The Illustrated London News Today's author is a
special choice for he began writing horror after becoming disabled.
William Wealthou forgive me, sir if I pronounced that wrong.
William Wealthou Fenn was a Londoner born in eighteen twenty
seven during the last of the Georgian Era. The son
of a successful and popular tea dealer, Fenn pursued the

(01:28):
study of art, becoming a landscape artist until his sight
began to fail due to the eye disease. He was
completely blind by the age of twenty five. Unfortunately we
laid this career path. He then began writing essays and
short stories, first collected in Delightfully to Me as a
Disabled Person titled Half Hours of blind Man's Holiday, God

(01:53):
Bless Him, dated eighteen seventy eight. He did this again
and again with eighteen eighty one's After Sundown or The
Palette and the Pen in eighteen eighty five's Woven in Darkness,
a medley of stories, essays and dream work. Oh God,
I love him as a disabled person. I love this
self directed cheek. Just go for it. Then he also

(02:14):
directly addressed his disability and his feelings about horror and
the supernatural and such essays as Strange Stories of Coincidence
and Ghostly Adventure, published in eighteen ninety one and edited
by the Arthur Conan Doyle title Wait for It a
blind Man's Notion about ghosts. I love the honesty and

(02:36):
forthrightness given it. Even now. People really aren't that comfortable
discussing disability so openly, or even come to it paranormal.
His wife, Elizabeth Susan Eleanor Bowles, worked as his m nusus.
I love that word em writing and typing his work
as he dictated, and he publicly honored her role as set.

(02:56):
They lived a quiet and happy life in London until
his death and Night six at the beginning of the
Edwardian era. So in other words, they were lovely, scandal
free people, and I love that for them. If you
know differently, please break it to me gently, because I'm
really adoring him. Because Fenn is also unusual, and that

(03:18):
he co wrote some of his horror works with a
woman I know, Bertha Henry Buxton aka Bertha Leopold. Her
maiden name aka bhb ak on tb one is a
noble name. I persh that really wrong. One of her
works is a noble name. With other stories by W. W.

(03:42):
Finn three volumes published in eighteen eighty three. Buxton wrote
both horror and children's stories, as you can tell by
tour of her later name names, so Fenn is one
of the most progressive Victorian authors we've explored in our
mule Journeys into Gaslight, right up there with Amelia Ann
Blandford Edward from episode fifty Tara Incognita. She was if

(04:03):
you don't remember or you haven't listened yet, it was
a solo explorer, a true polymath, and a celt taught Egyptologist,
as well as an accomplished horror author linked to that
episodes in the show notes, So please enjoy the data fence.
Death was actually December nineteenth. Just happened. So lift your
wish sail or mulled wine and a toast to the

(04:24):
brave missus Amelia and the brave mister William Bold and
charting new frontiers geographical and societal, and pull closer to
the fire as it turned down the gaslights in the
library in preparation for telling this ghost story, the shadows
will grow greedily around us like a dark blanket. Chestnuts
are freshly off the fire as is the popcorn. Help

(04:45):
yourself eat heartily, and please don't look too closely into
the corners of the room. That darting movement might just
be one of the servants refilling a picture taking care
of us, or it might not. I'm not certain if
they are on employ this fine advent evening. I can

(05:07):
never remember which weekday they have off the Haunted Rock.
A legend of poorth Garon Cove by W W Fen.
Poorth Garon is in Cornwall. If you do not know
the place, it must be because in your exploration of
the one hundred and one similar villages abounding on that
romantic coast, you have overlooked the one, and that one

(05:28):
must be fourth Giron. Like many of its fellows, it
is situated in a little ravine and the dark serpentine
rock running down to the sea from the higher land
of Gorse and heather clad Moore. Most of the thatched
and occasionally slate roofed cottages with their irregular patches of
garden nestle right and left, among the ferny craggy banks
of the steep winding way by courtesy called a street

(05:51):
by which the traveler reaches the beach. Some few other
dweblings looking from the sea like huge white winged gulls
are to be seen perched here and there up on
apparently inaccessible ledges of cliff, whence they command many a
fine peep across the quote unquote wide wide world. The
square towered, tiny church on the verge of a few

(06:11):
green pastures and cornfields, stands at the head of the village,
and the water mill, worked by a miniature mountain torrent,
stands at the bottom. Only a little below this begins
a conglomeration of cap stands, beach houses, boats and boat sheds, anchors, spars, chains,
and the rest of the rumble tumble of the fishing trade,
which holds high change on the shore. Here, the coasts,

(06:33):
broadening out with a curve on either hand, forms a
secluded cove between two arms of frowning, precipitous cliff, which
seems stretching force to embrace this lap full of deep green,
blue sea. The rugged and lofty formation of the land
almost hides the existence of this little industrial hive until
you come close upon it, and so far as its
importance in the world is concerned, you may be excused

(06:55):
for overlooking it altogether. As you probably have done. But
if so, oh, you have missed a very beautiful and
romantic picture, and will scarcely have realized to its full
extent the superstitious side of the Cornish mind. For there
is attached to this place a legend in which many
of the inhabitants believed with almost a religious intensity. It

(07:15):
was told to me some years ago by a brave
and intelligent old Salt when Jacob Seller by name, a
native of the village, whose implicit credence of the story
supplied a strong example of the characteristics of his race.
I was returning from America in one of the Canard boats.
Seller was a seaman on board, and spunk from me
many a yarn, ghostly and otherwise. I had lately witnessed

(07:37):
some unaccountable spiritual manifestations in the States, and my natural
skepticism on the question, had I confessed, been considerably shaken.
My mind was full of the subject, so that I
listened with more interest than I might otherwise have done
to this particular story, which greatly impressed me, not only
from the man's manner of telling it, but from its
weird nature, and I never forgot it. Thus, when fate

(08:00):
took me to the western Crags of England in the
autumn of eighteen seventy seven, and I came plump upon
the nesting village of Port Ghiron, as most people do.
Before being aware of it, I recognized on the instant
the feature in the landscape which marked it as the
background to the legend I had heard from the very
lips of Old Jacob. This was a tall, isolated mass

(08:20):
of almost inaccessible rock, standing about two hundred yards away
from the western headland of the Cove. I call it
isolated because it nearly always is so, for except about
an hour at the lowest of spring tides in very
calm weather, it is entirely cut off in the mainland.
But on these occasions a narrow ridge of soft, soft

(08:41):
sandy shingle is left bare, looking as if it would
form an easy path to the rude promontory. Yet a
little closer inspection soon shows this idea to be fallacious,
insomuch as except by a boat, you cannot even reach
the main shore end of this little causeway, jutting out
as it does from the base of the sheer Down cliff. Hence,
the Leopard, as the crag is named, is never scaled,

(09:03):
being inaccessible except at the one spot where its rocky
spurs loose themselves in the sand of the narrow connecting ridge.
Thus it is left the undisputed possession of the myriad
sea birds that make it their home. The fishing boats,
on their way to and from their anchorage in the cove,
always keep outside the leper's head, and are never tempted
to make a short cut westward by passing between it

(09:23):
and the mainland. However high the tide or calm the sea,
they avoid this narrow channel with its treacherous never absent
grounds well for apart from its natural dangers, the superstition
runs to the effect that a malignant demon stretches a
huge iron net across the opening, invisible to him until
his craft is entangled within its fatal meshes. The mariner, who,

(09:46):
from ignorance or hardihood, should attempt the passage, will, it
is declared, struggle in vain to extricate himself, and must
inevitably founder. So ran the legend as told to me
by the old salt. Aforesaid, did he believe it? I
asked him, Yes, indeed he did. He said he had
good reason. He had seen the net once himself when

(10:06):
a lad, and it was terrible and strange business. It
was the end of September eighteen forty seven, and a boat,
during a heavy squall from the westward, was trying to
make the cove by the short cut. And surely, just
as she got betwixt the leopard and the mainland and
the leopard's grip as the channel was called, she seemed
to kind of stick fast, though she'd been running quite
free the moment before. There was plenty of water, and

(10:29):
she couldn't hardly have struck on the bar a little
beachway but houseome. Ever, whether she did or not, she
couldn't get through. The heavy seas broke over her. Of course,
directly she was brought to pooped her in fact, and
down she went with all hands. Two men and a boy.
The boy was my brother, Isaac, continued Jacob Seller, looking
very grave when telling me the tale. But he was saved,

(10:50):
that is, he was picked up in the cove, senseless,
but they managed to restore him to life. The other
two were never found. Even there's there's a many cure
things connected with that calamity, sir, I can tell you,
he added, one of which is that. It being pretty
nigh dark at the time, nobody couldn't exactly make out
what did happen, except that we all saw as we

(11:10):
stood on the beach the net suddenly stretched across the channel,
and could see that it was that that the craft
got tangled in as it brought her up and turned
her broadside onto the seas. The water was breaming at
the time, you know, and this made the net plain
to us, for it seemed to come up out of
the sea just in front of the boat, and was
sparkling all over its meshes, just like silver with a

(11:31):
phosphorescent light. And you saw this. I asked that I did, sir,
with very own eyes. And the boy your brother, when
he came to his senses, what had he to say
about it? Ah, that's where it tis, you see, sir.
Poor chap he never did come rightly to his senses.
It gave him such a scare as he never got over.
He's been kind of cracky ever since. He's a bit

(11:52):
younger than I am, though elderly you know by this time.
But he never quite got his wits back. He's harmless,
don't you know, but he's days and silly, especially at times,
and he never could give any account of how the
accident happened. How was it that the boat came to
grief in the leopard's grip? No, sir, he warn't. Never
able to tell nothing all about it, never a word. Well,

(12:13):
I remarked, after a pause. It was true. The poor
fellows lost their lives anyhow, whether the devil caught them
in his net or not, Yes, sir. But another curious
thing is these two men I remember them well, Tom
Fentnel and Raymond sass were partners of the boat and
said to be great friends and staunched to one another.
But they were both in love with the same girl,

(12:34):
Alice Dornell, and it was said there had been words
about her between them more than once, and especially just
before they got lost. Another curious thing, yet, went on
Old Jacob presently, is that some of the people looking
on declared that, as well as seeing the net, as
I've just told you, when the boat foundered, they saw
one of the men get ashore on the lower rocks

(12:56):
of the leopard's head, And he was seen standing there
and waving his arms until night quite hit him. But
could they not get him off? No, No boat durst
go near the place in such a sea. And the
next morning, the next morning, he was gone, been carried
away again, if so be as he had ever been
seen there at all, though I make no doubt he had,

(13:16):
and the girl would become of her. Uhh, that's the
most curious part of all, said the seaman, growing graver
and graver and slower and slower in his utterances, more
curious than anything I've told you yet, sir. And this
I've seen myself too many times before I came away
to see. Poor Alice Darnell took on terribly when she

(13:40):
knew her lover was drownded, for she gave the preference,
it was said, to Raymond's ass howsome. Ever, a couple
of years afterwards she died in a kind of decline
like and she's the phantom of poorth Geron what haunts
this place? I suppose, I said, smiling, yes, But you

(14:01):
needn't laugh, sir. This is a fact. I tell you.
I've seen her more than a score of times. And
I do hear say she may be seen even now,
specially in September about the anniversary. As you may say, well,
what does one see? What did you see? Why, I've
seen her standing in the dusk on the rocks of

(14:22):
the leopard, all lighted up by the phosphorus, just as
if she'd come out of the sea as we saw
the net that night. Well, i've seen her just so.
I remember her by sight when she was alive quite well,
And i've seen her looking just as she did then,
only all lighted up. As I say, lots of the

(14:42):
poorest girl on folk have seen her, and they'll tell
you so if you ever go there. My poor brother
can always see her. He has kind of a gift
that way. Like enough you'll see her yourself. And what
does she do? Oh do? Why? She seems to come
out of the sea, as I tell you, and stand
on the and then she'll go up higher and higher,

(15:04):
not seeming to clamber. But if she was going up
and up as a spirit would, don't you know, floating
light rising, rising till she reached the flatish top of
the leopard's head. And there she'll stay for hours, passing
to and fro, breaming with the light all the time.
Oh I, then she makes a sort of a lighthouse,

(15:24):
I said, still smiling, A very useful phantom. Truly, tain't
no good for you to laugh, sir tende Jacob, yet
more seriously, evidently not relishing my skepticism. I tell you
I've seen her over and over again, as you may
if you ever go to Poorth Giron. And now I
was at Pourth Giron. And now, as I have said,
the old Salt story came back to my mind with

(15:44):
the renewal of the interest it originally created. The vexed
question of how far we are permitted to have contact
with the bast unseen has never ceased to interest me
since my visit to the States, but a subsequent deep
immersion in the stern realities of life has left me
no opportunities for pursuing the subject. Here, however, was one
at hand unexpectedly put before me. And although I had

(16:05):
attributed Jacob Seller's strong belief to the natural superstition of
the Cornish people, there was nevertheless an earnestness in his manner,
and an intelligence peeping out beneath his uncultured speech, which
forbade one to disregard it. And since for the present
I was a wanderer, and my time all my own,
for once, some of that I determined should be spent
upon the scene of the mystery I had given but

(16:27):
the barest outline of my talk with Seller. It was
resumed over and over again, and elicited so many circumstantial
details that, if there were not the result of a
too fervid imagination, the phantom of poorth geron Cove was
a manifestation equal to anything I'd ever heard of, and
well worth investigating. Snug quarters at the Little Inn were
readily obtained, and in the course of two or three

(16:49):
days I had scraped acquaintance with many of the hearty, honest,
kindly natives, including Jacob's brother, Old Isaac Seller, the poor
chap who had been kind of cracky like ever since
that fatal time when he nearly lost his life in
the leopard's grip. He was quite a feature of the place,
much respected by his fellow villagers, and not at all
incapable of work. But I was told he had periodical

(17:11):
fits of abstraction and wandering, which seemed to lift him
quite above the world, and gave him a dazed and
incoherent manner. Otherwise he was a strong, fine looking man,
with a long gray beard, and with quite the air
of a prophet and seer, as he professed himself to be.
He was also a preacher at times when the spirit
moved him, and though undoubtedly kind of cracky, he was

(17:34):
by no means bereft of intelligence. All the fisherfolk were
ready to talk about the phantom and to believe in it,
but I found very few, after all, besides poor crazy Isaac,
who admitted having seen it in his garrulous, half witted way. However,
he was very strong on the point throwing it into
sort of a religious fervor, and they said he was

(17:54):
the only one. It was the only point on which
he was thoroughly sane. He confirmed many of the details
given to me by his brother, too. Wit. The spirit
of Alis Darnell was only to be seen by ordinary
folk in the glooming, and then only under conditions of
tide and weather similar to those which had prevailed when
her lover lost his life, now thirty years ago about

(18:15):
the anniversary, too, she was more frequently visible than any
other time. But he Isaac Seller, could see her almost
whenever he liked, He said, because he had faith and
could see farther into things than most folks. He had
been a dreamer and a seer all his life. He
avowed he saw many strange things of which other people
had no idea. But sometimes when they would believe him,

(18:36):
he could make them see strange things too. In fact,
from his own account of himself, Isaac Seller would have
been considered a first rate medium in America. He seemed
endowed with all the qualifications. In answer to my inquiry,
if he thought he could make me see Alis Darnell,
he said he thought he could. I doubt not. But
YE will see yourself, he added, after looking at me

(18:58):
in an odd, vacant yet penetrating manner. Ye have the
eye of beliefs, the face of a believer. It all
depends on faith, as the scripture tells us, faith in
something just beyond what ye can touch and lay hold of.
If ye'll walk in the right way, sir, ye'll have
the gift vouch safety. After a pause during which he

(19:19):
removed his eyes from mine and seemed to gaze into space,
he continued fervently, h sweet Alice. I knew her when
I was a child. She'd loved the lad Raymond. Truly,
I knew that all along. He had no need to
have told me. And now she never leaves him, never
strays far from him, As in life so in death
you mean I said that her spirit never strays far

(19:42):
from the place where he was drowned. That is my meaning,
answered exec. She dwells with the sea birds, among the
rocks of the leopard's head, and sometimes with them dives
deep beneath the treacherous waves which encircle it. Dives deep,
I believe, to where he lies, many a fathom down,
comes up. She breams with light and waves her arms,

(20:03):
often beckoning and pointing. And in the dusk or by night,
she will be visible even to some of those without faith.
Even the fool who has said in his heart there
is no God, may see her then. But I I
can see her in all lights, at all times, as
plainly as the birds with whom she skims and flies
her on the head. Sometimes, too, I hear her voice

(20:25):
mingling with their notes, faint but clear. It comes to
me a painful, wailing cry that the unbeliever will tell
you is not but that of the kiddiwake as seagulls.
But I know the difference. Though she speaks no word,
Surely tomorrow will be of all days, the day to
look for her presence. Thirty years will then come and

(20:45):
gone to the very hour at nightfall, when Raymond died
early and late, she will be there, And as the
dawn creeps into the air, ye shall see her. If
ye come and bide by me, you will think me
as crazy as poor Isaac himself when I say that
I listened with deep interest to these half mystic, half prophetic,
but most earnestly delivered inernances. But we all have my

(21:07):
crazy side to her characters politely called a weakness, and
I am bound to repeat that what I had seen
in the States had vastly developed this my weakness, and
left the truth of spiritualism quite a moot point in
my mind. To me, there was much reason in this
man's pretensions to hold commune with the spirits that departed,
as any of the mediums with whom I'd come in contact,

(21:27):
albeit he knew little of the ways in which its
powers were used. Why then, should I not place myself
in his mediamistic hands and see if he could put
me on roppoort with this troubled spirit from the Vastudu.
After the manner of some of my late American experiences,
I determined to do so, and it was arranged that
I should meet him the following morning between five and six,

(21:48):
on that part of the shore, commanding the nearest view
of the haunted Rock. Barely a wild goose chase, it
might have appeared even to the fisher folk of Port Giron,
had they known our purpose. When the first few early
movers among them saw us meat at the foot of
the village and stroll away along the lonely shore in
the semi darkness of that chill, gray, misty morning. A

(22:08):
perfect calm prevailed, but heavy banks of dense sea fog
hung about the headlands, now shrouding and now slightly revealing
their gloomy masses. At first, the leopards stood out gaunt
and huge against the gray surroundings, but as we approached it,
it became more and more obscure. The tardy dawn gave
just enough light to indicate our whereabouts, lending a most

(22:29):
weird aspect to the scene. When we had gone about
half a mile round the western arm of the bay, Isaac,
who kept in advance of me and scarcely ever spoke,
suddenly stopped, and, stretching back a hand, whispered, hold on, sir,
I saw her. But now take my hand and turn
your eyes due west see, where she hovers with the
sea birds round the leopard's base. I gazed eagerly in

(22:52):
the direction indicated, and faintly beheld a form which, for
one moment certainly did look like that of a woman
clothed in silver light rising out of the sea, but
in another like nothing but that of a fantastic wreath
of mist. It was gone as rapidly as it had appeared,
as rapidly as though it had been, but the flashing
whiteness from the outstretched pinions of the birds that by

(23:15):
myriad soared and swooped through the heavy folds of the fog,
gone as though it had been a passing fancy, an
oculiar illusion, momentary, vague, and unsubstantial as the misty air itself.
Ye saw her, Sir, I doubt not. Then went on
my guide, silence, patience, and faith, and ye shall see

(23:35):
her again. We had reached the utmost limits of the
Shingly shore, where the frowning cliffs at the western horn
of the cove stretched precipitously into the sea, and stopped
farther progress. Fifty yards beyond this barrier began the sandy
causeway connecting the mainland with the leopard. But had the
tide been out even we could not have seen it
from our position, and the leopard, when the fog lifted

(23:57):
a little, lay before us completely isolated. Nothing in nature
could well have looked more weird and ghostly than did
the scene, or more in harmony with our purpose. The
day was breaking languidly and still shedding but the faintest,
palest light whilst the reletank, while the restless fog banks
swirling to and fro, might have been likened to giant

(24:18):
specters as they swept across the oily ocean, or cling
to the towering cliffs in strange fantastic forms. An intense
chill was in the air, which was greatly increased when
every now and then the gray mist enveloped us in
its ghostly folds, shutting out everything beyond an arm's length,
and seeming to cut us off from the world of

(24:39):
fact and light. During one of the densest of these visitations,
I felt the rough, broad palm of Isaac close tightly
on mine, and through a gap which suddenly appeared in
obscurity surrounding us, I once more saw the female form
in strong relief against the dark cracks of the leopard.
Now there was no mistake about it bathes in the

(25:00):
same translucent light. There it plainly was floating in mid
air as one is seen angels represented in pictures, and
slowly waving one arm, half beckoning and pointing upwards. Say
it was some three hundred yards distant across the water.
Say that it was still vague and vapor alike, semi

(25:21):
transparent in parts as the fog itself. Say that I
was out of my mind or in a dream. Are
unduly acted upon by those transatlantic experiences and the imaginings
arising therefrom which Old Isaac had rekindled. Say all this
if you please. But I say distinctly that with these
eyes I saw a woman's form, palpable, unmistakable, floating upwards

(25:46):
across the face of the cliff, pointing and beckoning. The
features at such a distance, of course, could not be discerned.
Nor do I say that I could see any details.
All was merged into the unsubstantial substance. If I'm going
to use the paradox of silvery light. But the form
and action were distinct for two minutes or more. It
may have been. The vision was so far clearly before me,

(26:09):
nor did it dissolve into the mist, of which I
admit it seemed composed until the figure reached, in its
slow ascent, the topmost verge of the isolated crag. Then
the fog again shut it all out, and for a
while held us in its weird gloom. But soon after
this it lifted, A soft breeze sprang up, and the
cheering rays of the morning sun restored us to warmth

(26:30):
and reality. Beyond. A momentary look of triumph was shot
from Old Isaac's lap gluster eyes as he turned them
on me. Little or nothing passed between us as we
retraced our steps, and I had full time to cojugate
over this strange experience at length, I said, as we
got back among the boats, how long is it since
the leopard was explored? Isaac shook his head. Isaac shook

(26:55):
his head as he answered, it never was explored. No
one can lend, No one ever goes nearer to it
than we have been. If they did, the iron net,
which the evil spirit of the place stretches across the channel,
and which costs Raymond his life and made my wits
to wander, would wind itself round and strangle the life

(27:15):
out of those who dare to brave the dangers of
the crag. But I'm told, said I, one could manage
to land there when the sand is exposed a very
low tide. Aye, But you would not bide there along
the net would be shot over you, shirley as fate.
There are spring tides, now, I think, I went on,

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when will the sand be clearest at this evening's ebb?
It was nearly clear this morning, we were first there.
This evening, the tide will run out farther and be
dead low water sometime nine to five o'clock. Then I said, decidedly,
as the sea holds smooth, I'll land there myself and
have a closer look at the place where this troubled
spirit wanders. This determination was the result of my conjugation,

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for not with standing what I had seen, I had
no dread of nor belief in the existence of this
direful net. That part of the story was doubtless founded
on some antique myth as old as the crag itself.
If I understood spiritual manifestations, all right, they always pointed
to a purpose. It is nothing but man's own wilful
blindness and skepticism, which hides from him their end and aim,

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and leads him in their arrogance, to ask what is
their use? What good ever comes from these departed souls
revisiting the glimpses of the moon, and by sights, signs,
or sounds, holding converse with us of the visible world.
Isaac's face was something to see as I announced my resolve,
and in spite of all persuasion and argument, he entirely

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refused to accompany me on the expedition. He declared his
conviction that I should never return alive, and that I
should find no one in Porthgaron who would go with me,
adding a doubt whether they'll even len ye a boat
if they know your bent. I was so fully determined, however,
that by an hour before low water that evening, I'd
hired the lightest row boat in the place, and, keeping

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my object to myself, was afloat in the bay. Under
pretext of simple amusement. Old Isaac reluctantly promised to say
nothing of my intention, and though doing all he could
to dissuade me, helped me to push the boat off
from the beach. As I pulled out, I saw his
tall gaunt figure passing along the shore towards the point
we had occupied in the morning. It was a lovely, soft,

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windless autumn evening. As the sun sank towards the west,
and keeping my eye upon the tide, I had lazily
pulled in to within twenty boat's length of the sandy ridge.
When the thin line of rippling breakers marking its position
faded away and left it bare. Then I gave way lustily,
and a few minutes the boat's nose ran softly up
on the sand, just below the spur of the fatal

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crag springing ashore. I made her fast by the grapnel
I had ready in her bows. An athlete and a
fairish crag man, I soon managed to scale the lower declivities,
and before long I had clambered well nigh to the
top of the leopard's head. I will not stop to
describe the wild beauty of the scene stretching around me,
nor do more than hint at the strange undercurrent of

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feeling which had prompted me to make this expiration. But
a conviction had taken root in my mind that I
might by gain it some clue to the purpose of
the manifestation I had witnessed a conviction that I have
said that there had been an object in it, and
that I might trace this object out. Thus I began
examining and surveying every rift and fissure, cleft and ledge

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of this wild storm beaten islet, this hereto undisputed home
of the sea birds, which, astounded by my audacity, at first,
seemed so reluctant to move that I might almost have
captured many with my hands. But at length the whole
colony was on the wing, swirling, swooping, hovering until the
air was darkened with them as if by a cloud,

(30:52):
and their shrill piping and discordant notes nearly deafened me.
Half an hour passed, and by the time I had
wandered whatever foothole was possible all over and around the
top of the plateau, twilight was setting in. I was
descending by the way I had come, and it got
a short distant down when upon a rocky shelf, just
below a strangely beating crag, my eye fell upon an object,

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which startled me and instantly riveted my attention. Getting close
to the edge of the overhanging rock, the better to
look down upon this discovery, I all but lost my
footing through the shock which the spectacle then gave me,
for there, partially coiled under shelter of the projecting cliff,
lay a human skeleton, bleached and moldering. Was the face

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of the skull turned upwards to the sky, the hollow
sockets of the eyes seeming to meet mine with a horrible,
imploring expression. When the amazement caused by this ghastly sight
a little subsided, I began to realize the fact that
the fact that in it perhaps laid the very clue
I was looking for. How had the unhappy being whose

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remains laid thus exposed before me come there? Instantly I
thought a ram in sass and the account Jacob Sellar
had given me of either he or his companion being
seen clinging to the rocks when their boat foundered in
the leopard's grip, just thirty years ago this very night.
If these bleaching bones were indeed of the happless fishermen,
and it seemed a likely solution, had I not discovered

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the purpose for which the restless spirit of Alice Darnell
had ever since haunted this wild and supposedly inaccessible rock, well,
not to prolong my tail. I got back to my boat,
and as soon as it touched the shore of the cove,
without waiting to answer the questions with which I was assailed,
I hastened straight away to the vicarage and communicated my
discovery to the incumbent of the square towered, tiny church

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at the head of the village. He was a pompous,
unsociable man whom I had rather avoided. And although at
first he seemed to entirely discredit my statement for unwisely,
I told him how I had been led to visit
the leopard, I convinced him of his In the end
he took such steps as led to the interment in
the churchyard by the grave of Alice Darneil of the

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remains of poor Room, and sass that they were his.
There could be no doubt inso much as lying with them,
beside the remains of some other slowly perishable trifles says
to is tobacco, tobacco, box, knife, et cetera. There was
found a little trinket in the shape of a heart.
On it was engraved his name and that of Alice
the donor, and he had evidently warned around his neck.

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But the little chain with which it was attached. One
word more about Isaac Cellar and my fisher friends. Although
I had, for few of them dispelled the fable of
the iron net and shown that access to the rock
was easy and without danger, he entirely refused to make
one of the small party, who were at length persuaded
to accompany me on a second visit to assist in

(33:48):
the removal of all that was left of their lost comrade.
And as to the phantom, well, it has never appeared again.
Even Isaac Celler, whom I had a talk with only
last autumn, has I've never seen it. The three years
has passed since I cleared up the mystery by restoring
to rest in peace the airwhile troubled spirit of Alistairnell.
For I did this by procuring for her lover Christian burial.

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I have no matter of doubt my experience of Porthgaron
have finally determined my wavering belief in the truth of
spiritual manifestations. I can no longer doubt that they have
their object and that they have their real existence. For
those whose minds are rightly attuned, and who can, as
Isaac put it, have faith in something just beyond what
ye can touch and have hold. If you are interested

(34:36):
in continuing this haunted United Kingdoms, she sure mood, because
you are quite welcome to linger by my fire here
in this growing dark. Please have a listen to episode
eighty nine, Victorian Christmas, a peculiar atmosphere of cranky scholarship,
And I'll read m R. James' seminal story a whistle,

(34:57):
and I'll come to you, my lad to you. Then
I suggest curling up with the spooky movie The Others,
which is on my Boo without Goo list, which is
episodes ten and seventy four. So far, can't you just
smell the salt air? I love the beach when it's
chilly and isolated and haunted, and the person walking near

(35:18):
you might just be a haint, or you might lose
your way, even though you followed the shore in a
straight line,