The 9.30 Up Train

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a LibriVox recording. All Libervox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information than to find out
how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
nine thirty up Train by s Barring Gould, recorded by
Adrian Pratzellus. In a well authenticated ghost story, names and

(00:25):
dates should be distinctly specified. In the following story, I
am unfortunately able to give only the year and the month,
for I have forgotten the date of the day, and
I don't keep a diary with regard to names. My
own figures as a guarantee that of the principal personage
to whom the following extraordinary circumstances occurred. But the minor

(00:49):
actors are provided with fictitious names, for I am not
warranted to make their real ones public. I may add
that the believer in ghosts may make you of the
facts which I relate to establish his theory, if he
finds that they will be of service to him, when
he has read through and weighed well the startling account

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which I am about to give from my own experiences.
On a fine evening in June eighteen hundred and sixty,
I paid a visit to missus Lyons on my way
to the hassecks Gate station on the London and Brighton line.
This station is the first out of Brighton. As I
rode to leave, I mentioned to the lady whom I

(01:31):
was visiting that I expected a parcel of books from town,
and that I was going to the station to inquire
whether it had arrived. Oh, she said readily, I expect
doctor Lyons out from Brighton by the nine thirty train.
If you like to drive the pony chaise down and
meet him, you are welcome, and you can bring your
parcel back with you in it. I gladly accepted her offer,

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and in a few minutes I was seated and little
low basket carriage drawn by a pretty iron gray Welsh pony.
The station road commands the line of the South Downs
from Chantonbury Ring, with its cap of dark firs, to
Mount Harry, the scene of the memorable Battle of Lewis

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Wolfsonbury stands out like a headland above the dark danny
woods over which the Rooks were wheeling and cawing previous
to settling themselves in for the night. Ditchling Beacon, its
steep sides gashed with chalk pits was faintly flushed with light.
The Clayton windmills, with their sails motionless, stood out darkly

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against the green evening sky. Close beneath opens the tunnel,
in which not so long before, had happened one of
the most fearful railway accidents on record. The evening was exquisite.
The sky was kindled with light, though the sun was set.
A few gilded bars of cloud lay in the west.

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Two or three stars looked forth. One I noticed twinkling green,
crimson and gold, like a gem from a field of
young wheat. Hard By, I heard the harsh grating note
of the corn crake. Mist was lying on the low
meadows like a mantle of snow, pure smooth and white.

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The cattle stood in it to their knees. The effect
was so singular that I drew up to look at
it attentively. At the same moment I heard the scream
of an engine, and on looking toward the downs, I
noted the up train shooting out of the tunnel, its
red signal lamps flashing brightly out of the purple gloom

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which bathed the roots of the hills. Seeing that I
was late, I whipped the Welsh pony on and proceeded
at a fast trot. About a quarter of a mile
from the station, there is a turnpike and on looking
building tenanted by a strange old man, usually dressed in
a white smock, over which his long white beard flowed

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to his chest. This toll collector, he is dead now,
had amused himself in bygone days by carving life size
heads out of wood, and these were stuck along the eaves.
One is the face of a drunkard, round and blotched,
leering out of misty eyes at the passers by. The

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next has the crumpled features of a miser worn out
with toil and moil. The third has the wild scowl
of a maniac, and the fourth the stare of an idiot.
I drove past, flinging the toll at the door, and
shouting to the old man to pick it up, for
I was in a vast hurry to reach the station

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before doctor Lyons left it. I whipped a little pony on,
and he began to trot down a cutting in the
green sand through which leads the station rod. Suddenly Taffy
stood still, planted his feet resolutely on the grounds, threw
up his head snorted and refused to move a peg.
I gee uped and hushed, but all to no purpose.

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Not a step with the little fellow advance. I saw
that he was thoroughly alarmed. His flanks were quivering, and
his ears were thrown back. I was on the point
of leaving the chaise when the pony made a bound
to one side and ran the carriage up into the hedge,
thereby upsetting me on the road. I picked myself up

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and took the beast's head. I could not conceive what
had frightened him. There was positively nothing to be seen
except a puff of dust running up the road, as
such might be blown along by a passing current of air.
There was nothing to be heard except the rattle of
a gig or a tax cart with one wheel loose.

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Probably a vehicle of this kind was being driven down
the London Road, which branches off at the turnpike at
right angles. The sound became fainter, and at last died
away in the distance. The pony now refused to advance.
It trembled violently and was covered with sweat. Well, upon

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my word, you have been driving hard, exclaimed Doctor Lyons,
when I met him at the stations. I have not, indeed,
was my reply. But something has frightened Taffy. But what
that something was is more than I can tell. Dwow hah,
said the doctor, looking round with a certain degree of
interest in his face. So you met it, did yo? What? Oh? Nothing?

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Only I've heard of horses being frightened along this road
after the arrival of the nine to thirty up train.
Flies never leave the moment the train comes in, or
horses become restive. Wonderful thing for our fly horse to
become restive, isn't it? But what causes the alarm? I

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saw nothing? Huh. You ask me more than I can answer.
I'm as ignorant as the cause as yourself. I take
things as they stand and make no inquiries. When the
flyman tells me that he can't start for a minute
or two after the train has arrived, or urges his
horses to reach the station before the arrival of this train,

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giving as his reason that his brutes become wild if
he does not do so, well, then I merely say,
do as you think best, Cabby, and I bother my
head no more about the matter. I shall search this
matter out, said I resolutely. What has taken place so

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strangely corroborates the superstition that I shall leave it not uninvestigated.
Take my advice and banish it from your thoughts. When
you've come to the end, you will be sadly disappointed,
and will find that all the mystery evaporates and leaves
a dull commonplace residjum. It is best that the few

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mysteries that remain to us unexplained should remain mysteries. Oh,
we shall disbelieve in supernatural agencies Altogether. We have searched
out the ocana of nature and exposed all her secrets
to the garish eye of day, and we find in
despair that the poetry and the romants of life are gone?

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Are we the happier for knowing that there are no ghosts,
no fairies, no witches, no mermaids, no wood spirits? One?
Not our forefathers happier in thinking every lake to be
the abode of a fairy, every forest to be the
bower of a yellow haired sylph, every moll and sweet
to be tripped over by elf and pixie. I found

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my little boy one day, lying on his face in
a fairy ring. Oh, oh, dear dear little fairies, I
will believe in you, though Papa says you are all nonsense.
I used, in my childish dage to think, when a
silence fell upon a company, that an angel was passing
through the room. Alas I now know that it results

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only from the subject of weather having been talked to death,
and no new subject having been started. Believe me, science
has done good to mankind, but it has done mischief too.
If we wish to be poetical or romantic, we must
shut our eyes to facts. The heads and the heart

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wage mutual war. Now a lover preserves a lock of
his mistress's hair as a holy relic, Yet he must
know perfectly well that for all practical purposes a bit
of rhinoceros hide would do as well. The chemical constituents
are identical. If I adore a fair lady and feel
the thrill through all my veins when I touch her hand,

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a moment's consideration tells me that a phosphate of lime
number one is a touching phosphate of lime number two,
nothing more. If for a moment I forget myself so
far as to wave my cap and cheer for king
or Queen or Prince. I laugh at my folly next moment,
for having paid reverence to one disgusting machine over another.

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I cut Doctor short as he was lapsing into his
favorite subject of discussion, and asked him whether he would
lend me the pony chaise on the following evening that
I might drive to the station again and try to
unravel the mystery. I will lend you the pony, said he,
but not the chaise, as I am afraid of it

(10:50):
being injured. Should Taffy take fright and run up into
the hedge again, I've got a saddle. Next evening, I
was on my way to the station, considerably before the
time at which the train was due. I stopped at
the turnpike and chatted with the old man who kept it.
I asked him whether he could throw any light upon

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the matter which I was investigating. He shrugged his shoulders,
saying that he knowed nothing about it at all. What
nothing at all? I don't trouble my head with matters
of this sort, was the reply. People do say that
something out of the common passes along the road and

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turns down the other road leading to Clayton and Brighton.
But I pays no attention to what them people says.
Do you ever hear anything after the arrival of the
nine thirty train? He does at times hear the rattle
as of a mail cart, and the trot of a
horse along the road, and the sound of it is

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as though one of the wheels is loose. I've been
out many a time to take the toe. But Lord
bless ee them spirits, if spirits them be, don't go
for a pay toll? Have you never inquired into the matter?
Why should I anything? As don't go for a pay toll?

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Don't concern me? Do he think that I know how
many people and dogs go through this ere gate in
a day? Not I them don't pay toll, So them's
no odds to me. Nor here my man said, I
do you object to my putting the bar across the
road immediately upon the rival of the train. Not a bit,

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please yourself. But you don't have much time to lose,
for there comes Dickie train out Clayton Tunnell. I shut
the gate, mounted taffy and drew up across the road
a little way below the turnpike. I heard the train arrive,
I saw it puff off at the same moment I

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distinctly heard trap coming up the road, one of the
real wheels rattling as though it were loose. I repeat
deliberately that I heard it. I cannot account for it.
Though I heard it, yet I saw nothing whatsoever. At
the same time, the pony became restless. It tossed its head,

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pricked up its ears. It started pranced, then made a
bound to one side entirely regardless of whip and rain.
It tried to scramble up the sand bank in its alarm,
and I had to throw myself off and catch its head.
I then cast a glance behind me at the turnpike.

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I saw the bar bent as though someone were passing
against it, and then with a click, it flew open
and was dashed violently back against the white post to
which it was usually hasp in the daytime. There it
remained quivering from the shock. Immediately I heard the rattle, rattle,

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rattle of the tax cart. I confess that my first
impulse was to laugh. The idea of a ghostly tax
cart was so essentially ludicrous, But the reality of the
whole scene soon brought me to a graver mood, and
remounting taffy, I rode down to the station. The officials

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were taking their ease as another train was not due
for some while, so I stepped up to the station
master and entered into conversation with him. After a few
desultry remarks, I mentioned the circumstances which had occurred to
me on the road and my ability to account for them.
So that's what you're after, said the master, somewhat bluntly,

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While I can tell you nothing about it. Spirits don't
come in my way, save in and accepting those which
can be taken inwardly, A mighty comforted war. Well, when
things they be, when they're so taken. So you asked
me about other sorts of spirits, I tell you flatly
I don't believe in them, though I don't mind drinking
their health. And then what does Perhaps you may have

(15:12):
the chance if you are a little more communicative, said I. Well,
I'll tell you all I know, and that's precious little,
answered the worthy man. I know one thing for certain,
that one compartment of a second class carriage is always
left vacant between Brighton and Hasse's Gate by the nine

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point thirty up train. For what purpose? Ah, That's more
than I can fully explain. Before the orders came to
this effect, people went into fits, and like that in
one of their carriages, any particular carriage, the first compartment
of the second class carriage nearest that engine is lucked
at Brighton, and I unlucky at this station. What do

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you mean by saying that people had fits? I mean
that I used to find men and women are screeching
and a hollering like mad to be let out. They'd
seen some had frightened them as they were passing through
the Clayton Tunnel. That was before they made the arrangement.
I told you of very strange, I said, meditatively, very

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much so, but true for all that I don't believe
in nothing but spirits of a woman and a cheer
in nature them and sow ape founding Clayton Tunnel. To
my thinking, there was evidently nothing more to be got
out of my friend. I hope that he drank my
health that night. If he omitted to do so, it
was his fault, not mine. As I rode home, revolving

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in my mind all that I had heard and seen,
I became more and more settled in my determination to
thoroughly investigate the matter the best means that I could
adopt for so doing would be to come out from
Brighton by the nine thirty train in the very compost
aarpment of the second class carriage, from which the public

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were considerately excluded. Somehow, I felt no shrinking from the attempt.
My curiosity was so intense that it overcame all apprehension
as to the consequences. My next free day was Thursday,
and I had hoped to execute my plan in this However,
I was disappointed as I found that a battalion drill

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was fixed for that very evening, and I was desirous
of attending it. Being somewhat behindhand in the regulation number
of drills, I was consequently obliged to postpone my Brighton trip.
On the Thursday evening, about five o'clock I started in
Regimentals with my rifle over my shoulder for the drilling ground,

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a piece of furzy common near the railway station. I
was speedily overtaken by mister Ball, a corporal in the
Rifle Corps, a capital shot and a most efficient in
his drill. Mister Ball was dry his gig. He stopped
on seeing me and offered me a seat beside him.
I gladly accepted, as the distance to the station is

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a mile and three quarters by the road, and two
miles by what is commonly supposed to be the short
cut across the fields. After some conversation on volunteering matters,
about which Corporal Ball was an enthusiast, we turned out
of the lanes into the station road, and I took
the opportunity of averting to the subject which was uppermost

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to my mind. Oh I've heard a great deal about that,
said the corporal. My workmen often told me some cockaball
story of that kind. I can't say ours. I believe him.
What you tell me is, however, very remarkable. I never
ad it on such good authority. Afore still I can't
believe that there's anything supernatural about it. I don't yet

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know what to believe, I replied, for the whole matter
is to me perfectly inexplicable. You know, of course, the
story which gave ride to the superstition, not, I pray
tell it to me. Hmm, just about seven years, agone.
Why you must remember the circumstances as well as I do.

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There was a man drove from I can't say where,
for it never was actually ascertained, but from the Henfield
direction in a light cut. He went to the station
hin throwing the reins to John Thomas, the ostler batting
to take up the trap and bring it around to
meet the nine point thirty train, by which he calculated

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to return from Brighton. John Thomas said, how the stranger
was quite unbeknown to him, and they looked as though
he had had some matter on his mind. When he
went up to the train. It was a queer sort
of a chap, with thick gray hair and a beard,
and delicate white hands, just like a lady's. The trap
was ran to the station door as he all by

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the arrival of the nine thirty train. The ostler observed
then that the man was ashen pale, and that his
hands trembled as he took the reins, that the stranger
stared at him in a wild, abstracted way, and that
he would have driven off without tendering payment had he

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not been respectfully reminded that the orse had been given
a feed of hoatz. John Thomas made an observation to
the gent relative to the wheel, which was loose, but
that observation meant with no corresponding hanswer the driver whipped
his orse and went off. He passed the turnpike and

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was seen to take the Brighton Road instead of that
by which he had come. A workman observed the trap
next on the downs above Clayton Chalkpits. He didn't pay
much attention to it, but he said the driver was
on his legs at the end of the orse. Next morning,
when the quarrymen went to the pit, they found a

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shattered tax cart at the bottom and the auction driver dead,
the latter with his neck broken. What was curious, too,
was that an ankerchief was bound round the brute's highs,
so that he must have driven over the edge blindfolded. Hodd,

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wasn't it well? Folks say that Jentanese tax cart passes
along that road every evening after the arrival of the
nine to thirty train. I don't believe it. I ain't
a bit superstitious. Not I Next week I was again
disappointed in my expectation of being able to put my

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scheme into execution. But on the third Saturday, after my
conversation with Corporal Ball, I walked into Brighton in the afternoon,
a distance being about nine miles. I spent an hour
on the shore watching the boats, and then I sauntered
around the pavilion ardently, longing that fire may break forth

(22:12):
and consume that architectural monstrosity. I believe that I afterwards
had a cup of coffee at the refreshment rooms at
the Station and Capital refreshment rooms. They are or were
very moderate and very good. I think I partook of
a bun and if I put my oath, I could

(22:32):
not swear to the fact a floating reminiscence of bun
lingers in the chamber of memory. But I cannot be positive,
and I wish this paper to advance nothing but reliable facts.
I squandered precious time in reading the advertisements of baby jumpers,
which no mother should be without, which are indispensable in

(22:54):
the nursery, and the greatest acquisition in the parlor, the
greatest discovery of modern time times, et cetera, et cetera.
I perused the notice of the advantage of metallic brushes
and admired the young lady with her hair white on
one side and black on the other. I studied the
Chinese letter commentary of Hornyman's Tea and the inferior English translation,

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and counted up the number of agents in Great Britain
Den Ireland in length. The ticket office opened and I
booked for Hassett's Gate second class fare one shilling. I
ran along the platform till I came to the compartment
of the second class carriage which I wanted. The door
was locked, so I shouted for a guard put me

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in here. Please can't there, sir? Next please empty? One
woman and a baby, I particularly wish to enter this carriage, said,
I can't be locked Orders company, replied the guard, turning
on his heel. What reason is there for the public
being excluded? May I ask? Dunno? Express Orders can't let

(24:00):
you in? Next carriage plays now then quick plays. I
knew the guard and he knew me by sight, for
I often traveled to and fro on the line, so
I thought it best to be candid with him. I
briefly told him my reason for making the request and
begged him to assist me in executing my plan. He
then consented, although with reluctance have it own way, he said,

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only if anything happens, don't blame me. Never fear laughed,
I jumping into the carriage. The guard left the carriage unlocked,
and in two minutes we were off. I did not
feel in the slightest degree nervous. There was no light
in the carriage, but that did not matter, as there
was twilight. I sat facing the engine on the left side,

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and every now and then I looked out at the downs,
with the soft haze of light still hanging over them.
We swept into a cutting, and I watched the lines
of flint in the chalk, and longed to be geologizing
among them with my hammer, picking out shepherd's crowns and
shark's teeth, the delicate riconnella, and the quait verniculite. I

(25:12):
remembered a not very distant occasion on which I had
actually ventured there and been chased off by the guard,
having brought down an avalanche of chalk debris in a
manner dangerous to traffic, while endeavoring to extricate a magnificent
ammonite which I had found and alas left protruding from

(25:34):
the side of the cutting. I wondered whether that ammonite
was still there. I looked about to identify the exact
spot as we whizzed along, and at that moment we
shot into the tunnel. I cannot explain how it was
that now, all of a sudden a feeling of terror

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came over me. It seemed to drop over me like
a wet sheet and wrapped me round and round. I
felt that someone was seated opposite me, someone in the darkness,
with his eyes fixed on me. Many persons possessed of

(26:15):
keen nervous sensibility are well aware when they are in
the presence of another, even though they can see no one,
and I believe that I possessed this power strongly. If
I were blindfolded, I think I should know when anyone
was looking fixedly at me, and I am certain that

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I should instinctively know that I was not alone if
I entered a dark room into which another person was seated,
even though he made no noise. I remember a college
friend of mine, who dabbled in anatomy, telling me that
a little Italian violinist once called upon him to give
him a lesson on that instrument. The foreigner, a singularly

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nervous individual, moved restlessly from the place where he had
been standing, casting many a furtive glance over his shoulder
at a press which was behind him. At last, the
little fellow tossed aside his violin, saying, I cannot give
the lesson if someone will look at me from behind.
There's somebody in the cupboard. I know you are right

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there is, laughed my anatomical friend, flinging open the door
of the press and discovering a skeleton. The horror which
possessed me was numbing. For a few moments, I could
neither lift my hands nor stort a finger. I was
tongue tied. I seemed paralyzed in every member. I fancied

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that I felt eyes staring at me through the gloom.
A cold breath seemed to play over my face. I
believed that fingers touched my chair and plucked at my coat.
I drew back against the partition. My heart stood still,
my flesh became stiff, my muscles rigid. I do not

(28:10):
know whether I breathed. A blue mist swam before my
eyes and my head span. The rattle and roar of
the train dashing through the tunnel drowned out every other sound.
Suddenly we rushed past a light fixed against the wall
in the side, and it sent a flash instantaneous as

(28:32):
that of lightning through the carriage. At that moment I
saw what I shall never never forget. I saw a
face opposite me, livid as that of a corpse, hideous
with passion like that of a gorilla. I cannot describe
it accurately, for I saw it but for a second.
Yet there rises before me now as I write. The low,

(28:55):
broad brow seamed with wrinkles, the shaggy, overhanging gray eyebrows,
the wild ashen eyes which glared as those of a demoniac.
The coarse mouth with its fleshy lips compressed until they
were white. The profusion of wolf gray hair about the

(29:17):
cheeks and the chin. The thin, bloodless hands raised and
half open, extended toward me as though they would clutch
and tear me. In the madness of terror, I flung
myself along the seat to the further window. Then I
felt it moving slowly down and was opposite me again.

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I lifted my hand to let down the window, and
I touched something. I thought it was a hand. Yes, yes,
it was a hand, for it folded over mine and
began to contract on it. I felt each finger separately.
They were cold, dully cold. I wrenched my hand away.
I slipped back to my former place in the carriage
by the open window, and in frantic horror, I opened

(30:03):
the door, clinging to it with both hands around the
window jam, swinging myself out with my feet on the
floor and my head turned from the carriage. If the
cold fingers had but touched my woven hands, mine would
have given way. Had I but turned my head and
seen that hellish countenance peering out at me, I must

(30:25):
have lost my hold. Ah. I saw the lights from
the tunnel mouth. It smote upon my face. The engine
rushed out with a piercing whistle. The roaring echoes of
the tunnel died away. The cool, fresh breeze blew over
my face and tossed my hair. The speed of the

(30:47):
train was relaxed. The lights of the station became brighter.
I heard the bell ringing loudly. I saw people waiting
for the train. I felt the vibration as the brake
was put on. We stopped, and then my fingers gave way.
I dropped as a sack on the platform, and then

(31:08):
then not till then I awoke There Now, from beginning
to end, the whole thing had been a frightful dream
caused by my having too many blankets over my bed.
Ah if I must append a moral don't sleep too hot.

(31:35):
End of the nine thirty Up Train by S Baring
Gould