Elliott O'Donnell - Glamis Castle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to find out
how to volunteer, please contact LibriVox dot org. Recording by
Peter Yearsley. Glamis Castle by Elliot O'Donnell. Of all the

(00:26):
hauntings in Scotland, none has gained such widespread notoriety as
the hauntings of Glamis Castle, the seat of the Earl
of Strathmore and Kinghorn in Forfordshire. Part of the castle,
that part which is the more frequently haunted, is of ancient,
though uncertain date, and if there is any truth in

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the tradition that Duncan was murdered there by Macbeth must
at any rate have been in existence at the commencement
of the eleventh century. Of course, extra buildings have from
time to time being added and renovations made, but the
original structure remains pretty nearly the same as it always
has been, and is included in a square tower that

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occupies a central position and commands a complete view of
the entire castle. Within this tower, the walls of which
are fifteen feet thick, there is a room hidden in
some unsuspected quarter that contains a secret. The keynote to
one at least of the hauntings, which is known only

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to the Earl, is heir on the attainment of his
twenty first birthday and the factor of the estate. In
all probability, the mystery attached to this room would challenge
but little attention were it not for the fact that
unearthly noises, which at the time were supposed to proceed

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from this chamber, have been heard by various visitors sleeping
in the square tower. The following experiences said to have
happened to a lady named Bond I appended more or
less in her own words, it is a good many
years since I stayed at Glamis. I was, in fact
but little more than a child, and had only just

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gone through my first season in town. But though young,
I was neither nervous nor imaginative, I was inclined to
be what is termed stolid, that is to say, extremely
matter of fact and practical. Indeed, when my friends exclaimed,
you don't mean to say you're going to stay at Glamys,
don't you know it's haunted, I burst out laughing. Haunted,

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I said, how ridiculous. There are no such things as ghosts,
one might as well believe in fairies. Of course, I
did not go to Glamis alone. My mother and sister
were with me. But whereas they slept in the more
modern part of the castle, I was, at my own
request apportioned a room in the Square Tower. I cannot
say that my choice had anything to do with the

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secret chamber. That and the alleged mystery had been dimmed
into my ears so often that I had grown thoroughly
sick of the whole thing. No, I wanted to sleep
in the Square Tower for quite a different reason, a
reason of my own. I kept an aviary. The tower
was old, and I naturally hoped its walls would be

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covered with ivy and teeming with birds nests, some of
which I might be able to reach, And I am
ashamed to say, plunder from my window. Alas for my expectations,
although the Square Tower was so ancient that in some
places it was actually crumbling away, Not the sign of
a leaf, not the vestige of a bird's nest, could

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I see anywhere. The walls were abominably brutally bare. However,
it was not long before my disappointment gave way to delight.
For the air that blew in through the open window
was so sweet, so richly scented with heather and honeysuckle,
and the view of the broad, sweeping, thickly wooded grounds

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so indescribably charming, that despite my inartistic and unpoetical nature,
I was entranced, entranced as I had never been before
and never have been since. Ghosts, I said to myself, Ghosts,
how absurd, how preposterously absurd. Such an adorable spot as

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this can only harbur sunshine and flowers. I well remember too,
for as I have already said, I was not poetical
how much I enjoyed my first dinner at Glemis. The
long journey and keen mountain air had made me hungry,
and I thought I had never tasted such delicious food,
such ideal salmon from the esk, and such heavenly fruit.

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But I must tell you that although I ate heartily
as a healthy girl should, by the time I went
to bed, I had thoroughly digested my meal, and was
in fact quite ready to partake of a few oatmeal
biscuits I found in my dressing case, and remembered having
bought at Perth. It was about eleven o'clock when my
maid left me, and I sat for some minutes, wrapped

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in my dressing gown, before the open window. The night
was very still, and save for an occasional rustle of
the wind in the distant tree tops, the hooting of
an owl, the melancholy cry of a pea wit, and
the horse barking of a dog, the silence was undisturbed.
The interior of my room was in nearly every particular modern.

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The furniture was not old. There were no grim carvings,
no grotesquely fashioned tapestries on the walls, no dark cupboards,
no gloomy corners. All was cozy and cheerful, And when
I got into bed no thought of bogul or mystery
entered my mind. In a few minutes I was asleep,
and for some time there was nothing but a blank,

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a blank in which all identity was annihilated. Then suddenly
I found myself in an oddly shaped room, with a
lofty ceiling and a window situated at so great a
distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether
inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of phosphorescent light made their

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way through the narrow panes and served to render distinct
the more prominent objects around, But my eyes struggled in
vain to reach the remoter angles of the wall, one
of which inspired me with terror such as I had
never felt before. The walls were covered with heavy draperies
that were sufficient in themselves to preclude the possibility of

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any save the loudest of sounds, penetrating without the furniture,
if such one could call it, puzzled me. It seemed
more fitted for the cell of a prison or lunatic asylum,
or even for a kennel, than for an ordinary dwelling room.
I could see no chair, only a coarse deal table,

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a straw mattress, and a kind of trough. An air
of irredeemable gloom and horror hung over and pervaded everything.
As I stood there, I felt I was waiting for something,
something that was concealed in the corner of the room.
I dreaded. I tried to reason with myself, to reassure
myself that there was nothing there that could hurt me,

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nothing that could even terrify me. But my efforts were
in vain. My fears grew. Had I some definite knowledge
as to the cause of my alarm. I should not
have suffered so much. But it was my ignorance of
what was there, of what I feared, that made my
terror so poignant. Each second saw the agony of my

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suspense increase, I dared not move, I hardly dare breathe,
and I dreaded lest the violent pulsation of my heart
should attract the attention of the unknown presence and precipitate
its coming out. Yet, despite the perturbation of my mind,
I caught myself analyzing my feelings. It was not danger

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I abhorred so much as its absolute effect fright. I
shuddered at the bare thought of what result the most
trivial incident, the creaking of a board, ticking of a beetle,
or hooting of an owl, might have on the intolerable
agitation of my soul. In this unnerved and pitiable condition,

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I felt that the period was bound to come sooner
or later when I should have to abandon life and
reason together in the most desperate of struggles with fear.
At length, something moved. An icy chill ran through my frame,
and the horror of my anticipations immediately reached its culminating point.

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The presence was about to reveal itself, the gentle rubbing
of a soft body on the floor, the crack of
a bony joint breathing another crack. And then was it
my own ex sighted imagination, or the disturbing influence of
the atmosphere, or the uncertain twilight of the chamber that
produced before me in the stygy and darkness of the recess,

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the vacillating and indistinct outline of something luminous and horrid.
I would gladly have risked futurity to have looked elsewhere.
I could not. My eyes were fixed. I was compelled
to gaze steadily in front of me, slowly, very slowly.
The thing, whatever it was, took shape. Legs crooked, misshapen

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human legs, a body tawny and hunched, arms long and spidery,
with crooked, knotted fingers. A head large and bestial and
covered with a tangled mass of gray hair that hung
around its protruding forehead, and pointed ears in ghastly mockery

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of curls. A face, and herein was the realization of
all my direst expectations. A face white and staring, piglike
in formation, malevolent in expression, a hellish combination of all
things foul and animal, and yet withal, not without a
touch of pathos. As I stared at it aghast, it

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reared itself on its haunches after the manner of an ape,
and leered piteously at me. Then shuffling forward, it rolled
over and lay sprawled out like some ungainly turtle, and
wallowed as for warmth in the cold gray beams of
early dawn. At this juncture, the handle of the chamber
door turned, some one entered. There was a loud cry,

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and I awoke, awoke to find the whole tower, walls
and rafters, ringing with the most appalling screams I have
ever heard, screams of something or of some one, for
there was in them a strong element of what was
human as well as animal. In the grin latest distress,
wondering what it meant, and more than ever terrified, I

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sat up in bed and listened, listened, whilst the conviction,
the result of intuition, suggestion, or what you will, but
a conviction all the same, forced me to associate the
sounds with the thing in my dream, And I associate
them still. It was, I think, in the same year,

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in the year that the foregoing account was narrated to me.
That I heard another story of the hauntings at Clamis,
a story in connection with a lady whom I will
call miss mc guiney. I appended her experience as nearly
as possible as she is stated to have told it.
I seldom talk about my adventure, Miss mc guiney announced,

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because so many people ridicule the superphysical and laugh at
the mere mention of ghosts. I own. I did the
same myself till I stayed at Cleamis. But a week
there quite cured me of skepticism, and I came away
where a confirmed Beleever, the incident occurred nearly twenty years ago,
shortly after my return from India, where my father was

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then stationed. It was years since I had been to Scotland. Indeed,
I had only once crossed the border, and that when
I was a babe. Consequently, I was delighted to receive
an invitation to spend a few weeks in the land
of my Berth. I went to Edinburgh first, I was
born in Drumshew Gardens, and thence to Glamis. It was

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late in the autumn, the weather was intensely cold, and
I arrived at the castle in a blizzard. Indeed, I
do not recollect ever having been out in such a
frightful storm. It was as much as the horses could
do to make headway, and when we reached the castle
we found a crowd of anxious faces eagerly awaiting us
in the hall. Chilled. I was chilled to the bone

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and thought I should never thaw. But the huge fires
and bright and cozy atmosphere of the rooms for the
interior of Glamis was modernized throughout soon set me right,
and by tea time I felt nicely warm and comfortable.
My bedroom was in the oldest part of the castle,
the square Tower, but although I had been warned by
some of the guests that it might be haunted, I

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can assure you that when I went to bed, no
subject was farther from my thoughts than the subject of ghosts.
I returned to my room at about half past eleven.
The storm was then at its height. All was bable
and confusion, impenetrable darkness mingled with the wildest roaring and shrieking,
and when I peeped through my casement window I could
see nothing. The panes were shrouded in snow, snow which

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was incessantly dashed against them with cyclonic fury. I fixed
the comb in the window frames, as not to be
kept awake by the constant jarring, and with the caution
characteristic of my sex, looked into the wardrobe and under
the bed for burglars, though heaven knows what I should
have done had I found one. There, placed a candlestick
and match box on the table by my bedside, lest

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the roof or window should be blown in during the night,
or any other catastrophe happened. And after all these precautions
got into bed. At this period of my life, I
was a sound sleeper, and, being somewhat unusually tired after
my journey, I was soon in a dreamless slumber. What
awoke me I cannot say, but I came to myself

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with a violent start, such as might have been occasioned
by a loud noise. Indeed, that was at first my impression,
and I strained my ears to try and ascertain the
cause of it. All was, however silent. The storm had abated,
and the castle and grounds were wrapped in an almost
preternatural hush. The sky had cleared, and the room was

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partially illuminated by a broad stream of silvery light that
filtered softly in through the white and tightly drawn blinds.
A feeling that there was something unnatural in the air,
that the stillness was but the prelude to some strange
and startling event gradually came over me. I strove to
reason with myself, to argue that the feeling was wholly

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due to the novelty of my surroundings. But my efforts
were fruitless, and soon there stole upon me a sensation
to which I had been hitherto an utter stranger. I
became afraid. An irrepressible tremor pervaded my frame. My teeth chattered,
my blood froze. Obeying an impulse, an impulse I could

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not resist, I lifted myself up from the pillows, and,
peering fearfully into the shadowy glow that lay directly in
front of me, listened. Why I listened, I do not know,
saving that an instinctive spirit prompted me. At first I
could hear nothing, and then from a direction I could

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not define, there came a noise, low, distinct, uninterpretative. It
was repeated in rapid succession and speedily construed itself into
the sound of mailed footsteps racing up the long flight
of stairs at the end of the corridor leading to
my room. Dreading to think what it might be, and

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seized with a wild sentiment of self preservation, I made
frantic endeavors to get out of bed and barricade my door.
My limbs, however, refused to move. I was paralyzed. Nearer
and nearer drew the sounds, and I could at length
distinguish with a clearness that petrified my very soul, the
banging and clanging of sword scabbards, and the panting and
gasping of men sore pressed in a wild and desperate race.

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And then the meaning of it all came to me
with hideous abruptness. It was a case of pursued and pursuing.
The race was for life. Outside my door, the fugitive halted,
and from the noise he made in trying to draw
his breath, I knew he was dead beat. His antagonist, however,
gave him but scant time for recovery. Bounding at him

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with prodigious leaps, he struck him a blow that sent
him reeling with such tremendous force against the door that
the panels, although composed of the stoutest oak, quivered and
strained like flimsy match board. The blow was repeated, the
cry that rose in the victim's throat was converted into
an abortive, gurgling groan, and I heard the ponderous battle

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axe carve its way through helmet, bone and brain. A
moment later came the sound of slithering armor, and the corpse,
slipping sideways toppled to the ground with a sonorous clang.
A silence too awful for words now ensued. Having finished
his hideous handiwork, the murderer was quietly deliberating what to

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do next, whilst my dread of attracting his attention was
so great that I scarcely dare breathe. This intolerable state
of things had already lasted for what seemed to me
a lifetime. When glancing involuntarily at the floor, I saw
a stream of dark looking fluid, lazily lapping its way
to me from the direction of the door. Another moment

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and it would reach my shoes. In my dismay, I
shrieked aloud. There was a sudden stir without a significant
clatter of steel, and the next moment, despite the fact
that it was locked, the door slowly opened. The limits
of my endurance had now happily been reached. The overtaxed
valves of my heart could stand no more. I fainted.

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On my awakening to consciousness. It was morning, and the
welcome sun rays revealed no evidences of the distressing drama
I own. I had a hard tussle before I could
make up my mind to spend another night in that room,
and my feelings as I shut the door on my
retreating maid and prepared to get into bed were not
the most enviable. But nothing happened, nor did I again

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experience anything of the sort till the evening. Before I left,
I had laid down all the afternoon, for I was
tired after a long morning's tramp on the moors a
thing ideally love, and I was thinking it was about
time to get up when a dark shadow suddenly fell
across my face. I looked up hastily, and there, standing
by my bedside and bending over me, was a gigantic

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figure in bright armor. Its visor was up, and what
I saw within the cask is stamped for ever on
my memory. It was the face of the dead, the
long since dead, with the expression the subtly hellish expression
of the living. As I gazed helplessly at it, it

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bent lower. I threw up my hands to ward it off.
There was a loud rap at the door, and as
my maid softly entered to tell me tea was ready,
it vanished. The third account of the glamest hauntings was
told me as long ago as the summer of eighteen
ninety three. I was traveling by rail from Perth to Glasgow,

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and the only other occupant of my compartment was an
elderly gentleman, who, from his general air and appearance, might
have been a dominie or member of some learned profession.
I can see him in my mind's I now, a tall,
thin man with a premature stoop. He had white hair
which was brushed forward on either side of his head
in such a manner as suggested a wig, bushy eyebrows,

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dark piercing eyes, and a stern, though somewhat sad mouth.
His features were fine and scholarly. He was clean shaven.
There was something about him, something that marked him from
the general horde, something that attracted me, and I began
chatting with him soon after we left Perth, in the
course of a conversation that was at all events interesting

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to me, I adroitly managed to introduce the subject of ghosts,
then as ever uppermost in my thoughts. Well, he said,
I can tell you of something rather extraordinary that my
mother used to say, happened to a friend of hers
at Glamis. I have no doubt you are well acquainted
with the hackneyed stories in connection with the hauntings at

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the castle, for example Earl Beardy playing cards with the
Devil and the leaping woman without hands or tongue. You
can read about them in scores of books and magazines.
But what befell my mother's friend, whom I will call
Missus Gibbons, for I have forgotten her proper name, was
apparently of a novel nature. The affair happened shortly before

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Missus Gibbons died, and I always thought that what took
place might have been in some way connected with her death.
She had driven over to the castle one day during
the absence of the owner, to see her cousin, who
was in the employer of the Earl and Countess, never
having been as glaym as before, but having heard so
much about it, Missus Gibbons was not a little curious

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to see that part of the building, called the Square Tower,
that bore the reputation of being haunted. Tactfully biding an opportunity,
she sounded her relative on the subject and was laughingly
informed that she might go anywhere about the place she pleased,
saving to one spot, namely blue Beard's chamber, and there

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she could search. Never succeed in poking her nose, as
its locality was known to only three people, all of
whom were pledged never to reveal it. At the commencement
of her tour of inspection, Missus Gibbons was disappointed. She
was disappointed in the tower. She had expected to see
a gaunt, grim place, crumbling to pieces, with age, full

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of blood curdling spiral staircases and deep, dark dungeons, whereas
everything was the reverse. The walls were in an excellent
state of preservation, absolutely intact, the rooms bright and cheerful
and equipped in the most modern style. There were no dungeons,
at least none on view, and the passages and staircases

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were suggestive of nothing more alarming than bats. She was
accompanied for some time by her relative, but on the
latter being called away. Missus Gibbons continued her rambles alone.
She had explored the lower premises and was leisurely examined
a handsome furnished apartment on the top floor, when in
crossing from one side of the room to the other,

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she ran into something. She looked down nothing was to
be seen. Amazed beyond description, she thrust out her hands
and they alighted on an object which she had little
difficulty in identifying. It was an enormous cask or barrel
lying in a horizontal position. She bent down close to
where she felt it, but she could see nothing, nothing

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but the well polished boards of the floor. To make
sure again that the barrel was there, she gave a
little kick and drew back a foot with a cry
of pain. She was not afraid the sunshine in the
room for bad fear, only exasperated. She was certain a
barrel was there, that it was objective, and she was
angry with herself for not seeing it. She wondered if

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she were going blind, but the fact that other objects
in the room were plainly visible to her discountenanced such
an idea. For some minutes, she poked and jabbed at
the thing, and then seized with a sudden and uncontrollable panic.
She turned round and fled, and as she tore out
of the room, along the passage and down the seemingly
interminable flight of stairs, she heard the barrel behind her

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in close pursuit bump bump bump. At the foot of
the staircase, Missus Gibbons met her cousin, and as she
clutched the latter for support, the barrel shot past her,
still continuing its descent bump bump, bump, though the steps
as far as she could see, had ended, till the
sounds gradually dwindled away in the far distance. While the

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manifestations lasted. Neither Missus Gibbons nor her cousin spoke, but
the latter, as soon as the sounds had ceased, dragged
Missus Gibbons away, and, in a voice shaking with terror, cried, quick, quick,
don't for heaven's sake, look round, worse as yet to come,
And pulling Missus Gibbons along in breathless haste, she unceremoniously
hustled her out of the tower. That was no barrel.

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Missus Gibbons's cousin subsquse, he remarked by way of explanation,
I saw it. I've seen it before. Don't ask me
to describe it. I dare not, I dare not even
think of it. Whenever it appears a certain thing happens
shortly afterwards, don't don't, on any account say a word
about it to any one here. And missus Gibbons, my
mother told me came away from gleamis a thousand times

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more curious than she was when she went. The last
story I have to relate is one I heard many
years ago when I was staying near Balmoral. A gentleman
named Vance, with strong antiquarian tastes, was staying at an
inn near the Strathmore estate and roaming abroad. One afternoon,

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in a fit of absent mindedness, entered the castle grounds.
It so happened, fortunately for him that the family were away,
and he encountered no one more formidable than a man
he took to be a gardener, an uncouth looking fellow
with a huge head covered with a mass of red hair,
hawk like features, and high cheek bones, high even for
a Scot. Struck with the appearance of the individual, mister

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Vance spoke and finding him wonderfully. Civil asked whether, by
any chance he ever came across any fossils when digging
in the gardens. I dinna ken the meaning of fossils,
the man replied, What are they? Mister Vance explained, and
a look of cunning gradually pervaded the fellow's features. No,
he said, I've never found any of those things. But

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if you'll give me your word to say nothing about it,
I'll show you something I once dug up over yonder
by the square tower. Do you mean the Haunted Tower,
the tower that is supposed to contain the secret room,
mister Vance exclaimed an extraordinary expression, an expression such as
mister Vance found it impossible to analyze, came into the
man's eyes. Yes, that's it, he nodded. What people call

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and rightly called the Haunted Tower. I got it from there,
But don't you say nought about it. Mister Vance, whose
curiosity was roused, promised, and the man, politely requesting him
to follow, led the way to a cottage that stood
near by in the heart of a gloomy wood. To
mister Vance's astonishment, the treasure proved to be the skeleton

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of a hand, a hand with abnormally large knuckles, and
the first joint of both fingers and thumb much shorter
than the others. It was the most extraordinarily shaped hand
mister Vance had ever seen, and he did not know
in the least how to classify it. It repelled yet
interested him, and he eventually offered the man a good

(27:33):
sum to allow him to keep it. To his astonishment,
the money was refused. You may have the thing and welcome,
the fellow said, only I advise you not to look
at it late at night or just before getting into bed.
If you do, you may have bad dreams. I'll take
much answer that, mister Vance laughed, you see, being a
hard headed cockney, I'm not superstitious. It's only you highlanders

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and your first cousins, the Irish you believe nowadays in
boguls and omens and such like. And packing the hand
carefully in his knapsack, mister Vance bid the strange looking
creature good morning and went on his way. For the
rest of the day, the hand was uppermost in his thoughts.
Nothing had ever fascinated him so much. He sat pondering

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over it the whole evening, and bedtime found him still
examining it. Examining it upstairs in his room by candlelight,
he had a hazy recollection that some clock had struck twelve,
and he was beginning to feel that it was about
time to retire, when in the mirror opposite him he
caught sight of the door. It was open, by Joe.

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That's odd, he said to himself, I could have sworn
I shut and bolted it. To make sure, he turned round.
The door was closed. An optical delusion, he murmured, I'll
try again. He looked into the mirror the door reflected
in it was open. Utterly. At a loss to know
how to explain the phenomenon, he leaned forward in his
seat to examine the glass more carefully, and as he

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did so, he gave a start. On the threshold of
the doorway was a shadow, black and bulbous. A cold
shiver ran down mister Vance's spine, and just for a
moment he felt afraid, terribly afraid, but he quickly composed himself.
It was nothing but an illusion. There was no shadow there.
In reality. He had only to turn round and a

(29:21):
thing would be gone. It was amusing, entertaining. He would
wait and see what happened. The shadow moved. It moved
slowly through the air, like some huge spider or odd
shaped bird. He would not acknowledge that there was anything
sinister about it, only something droll, excruciatingly droll. Yet it

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did not make him laugh. When it had drawn a
little nearer, he tried to diagnose it, to discover its
material counterpart in one of the objects around him, But
he was obliged to acknowledge his attempts were failures. There
was nothing in the room in the least degree like it.
A vague feeling of uneasy in his crept over him
was the thing, the shadow of something with which he

(30:03):
was familiar but could not just then recall to mind.
Something he feared, something that was sinister. He struggled against
the idea. He dismissed it as absurd, But it returned, returned,
and took deeper route. As the shadow drew nearer, he
wished the house was not quite so silent, that he
could hear some indication of life, anything, anything for companionship,

(30:27):
and to rid him of the oppressive, the very oppressive
sense of loneliness and isolation. Again, a thrill of terror
ran through him. Look here, he exclaimed aloud, glad to
hear the sound of his own voice. Look here. If
this goes on much longer, I shall begin to think
of going mad. I've had enough and more than enough
of magic mirrors for one night. It's high time I

(30:47):
got into bed. He strove to rise from his chair,
to move, He was unable to do either. Some strange,
tyrannical force held him a prisoner. A change now took
place in the shadow, the blur dissipated, and the clearly
defined outlines of an object, An object that made mister
Vance perfectly sick with apprehension, slowly disclosed themselves. His suspicions

(31:12):
were verified. It was the hand, the hand, no longer skeleton,
but covered with green, moldering flesh. Feeling its way slyly
and stealthily towards him, towards the back of his chair.
He noted the murderous twitching of its short, flat finger tips,

(31:33):
the monstrous muscles of its hideous thumb, and the great,
clumsy hollows of its clammy palm. It closed in upon him.
Its cold, slimy, detestable skin touched his coat, his shoulder,
his neck, his head. It pressed him down, squashed suffocated him.
He saw it all in the glass, and then an
extraordinary thing happened. Mister Vance suddenly became animated. He got

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up and peeped furtively round chairs, bed wardrobe had all disappeared,
so had the bedroom, and he found himself in a small, bare, comfortless,
queerly constructed apartment without a door, and with only a
narrow slit of a window somewhere near the ceiling. He
had in one of his hands a knife with a long,

(32:15):
keen blade, and his whole mind was bent on murder.
Creeping stealthily forward, he approached a corner of the room
where he now saw for the first time a mattress,
a mattress on which lay a huddled up form. What
the thing was, whether human or animal, mister Vance did
not know, did not care. All he felt was that

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it was there for him to kill. That he loathed
and hated it, hated it with a hatred such as
nothing else could have produced. Tiptoeing gently up to it,
he bent down, and, lifting his knife high above his head,
plunged it into the thing's body with all the force
he could command. He recrossed the room and found himself

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once more in his partment. At the inn. He looked
for the skeleton hand. It was not where he had
left it. It had vanished. Then he glanced at the mirror,
and on its brightly polished surface, saw not his own face,
but the face of the gardener, the man who had
given him the hand. Features, color, hair, all all were identical,

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wonderfully hideously identical. And as the eyes met his they
smiled devilishly. Early the next day mister Vance set out
for the spinney and cottage. They were not to be found.
Nobody had ever heard of them. He continued his travels,
and some months later, at a lone collection of pictures

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in a gallery in Edinburgh, he came to an abrupt,
a very abrupt halt, before the portrait of a gentleman
in ancient costume. The face seemed strangely familiar. The hued
head with thick red hair, the hawklike features, the thin
and stightly compressed lips. Then in a trice, it all

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came back to him. The face he looked at was
that of the uncouth gardener, the man who had given
him the hand. And to clinch the matter, the eyes leered.
The end of Glamous Castle by Elliot O'Donnell recording by

(34:29):
Peter Yearsley,