Cornish Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ For permission to reproduce both I am indebted to the courtesy of the grandson of the inventor.

      THE BOTATHAN GHOST

      IN April, 1720, Daniel Defoe published his History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell. In August a second edition was called for, of which some copies included a pamphlet that had been printed in June: "Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the Entertainment of Gentlemen and Ladies," and this "Pacquet" contains "A Remarkable Passage of an Apparition, related by the Rev. Dr. Ruddle, of Launceston, in Cornwall, in the year 1665."

      It has been assumed that this ghost story was a bit of invention of the lively imagination of Defoe. Mrs. Bray in her Trelawny of Trelawne stated that the story could not be true, as no such a name as Dingley, which was that of the ghost, was known in Launceston. As it happened, James Dingley had been instituted to the vicarage of the very parish of South Petherwin, in which the ghost appeared, in the same reign in which the apparition occurred, and he assisted Ruddle in his ministrations in Launceston, and the name occurs to this day in the town and neighbourhood. In fact, Dingley, Pethebridge, and Dingley are bankers there.

      In the same heedless fashion Cyrus Redding wrote in 1842 that the story was "told with so much simplicity of truth that it is difficult to believe that the tale is not, as novel writers say, 'founded on fact.'" And he goes on to state: "No clergyman of the name of Ruddle had been incumbent in Launceston for two hundred years past, at least in S. Mary's Church." Yet the monument of Parson Ruddle is in the church, and he occupied the living from 1663 to his death in 1699.

      Again, Samuel Drew, in his History of Cornwall, blunders as to the locality, making the apparition appear in the parish of Little Petherick, near Padstow.

      Next Mr. Hawker, of Morwenstow, fabricated a "Diurnall" of Ruddle, which adopted Drew's error, and by altering the date made the story as given by him disagree with the facts as they stand upon record.

      The "Remarkable Passage of an Apparition" was no invention of Defoe; it was a genuine narrative written by the hand of John Ruddle himself. This has been conclusively demonstrated by the late Mr. Alfred Robbins in the Cornish Magazine, 1898.

      John Ruddle, M.A. of Caius College, Cambridge, was instituted to the vicarage of Altarnon on May 24th, 1662; and the incumbency of S. Mary Magdalen, Launceston, becoming vacant by the ejection of the Independent intrusive pastor, Ruddle was appointed to it, and "began his ministry at Launceston on ye Feast of Our Saviour's Nativity, 1663." At the same time he received the appointment to the Launceston Free School as master.

      Now it so fell out that he was invited on the 20th June, 1665, to preach a funeral sermon on the occasion of the burial of John Eliot at South Petherwin. John was the son of Edward Eliot, of Trebursey, who was the third son of Sir John Eliot, who died in the Tower of London.

      After the conclusion of the service, Parson Ruddle was leaving the church, when an "ancient gentleman" addressed him, and, Ruddle says, "With an unusual importunity almost forced against my humour to see his house that night; nor could I have rescued myself from his kindness, had not Mr. Eliot interposed and pleaded title to me for the whole of the day." However, Ruddle promised to call on the old gentleman, whose name was Bligh, and whose house was Botathan.

      The Blighs were an ancient family, well connected and owning a good estate, but Botathan was not a house of any pretence, and it is now the dwelling of a farmer, and has not the appearance of having been the residence of a county family.

      On the following Monday John Ruddle went to Botathan, where he partook of an early dinner, and a neighbouring parson had been invited to meet him.

      "After dinner this brother of the coat undertook to show me the gardens, when, as I was walking, he gave me the first discovery of what was mainly intended in all this treat and compliment. First he began to tell the infortunity of the family in general, and then gave an instance in the youngest son. He related what a hopeful, sprightly lad he lately was, and how melancholic and sottish he was now grown. Then did he with much passion lament that his ill-humour should so incredibly subdue his reason; for, says he, the poor boy believes himself to be haunted with ghosts, and is confident that he meets with an evil spirit in a certain field about half a mile from this place as often as he goes that way to school.

      "In the midst of our twaddle the old gentleman and his lady came up to us. Upon their approach, and pointing me to the arbour, the parson renews the relation to me; and they (the parents of the youth) confirmed what he said, and added many minute circumstances. In fine, they all three desired my thoughts and advice in the affair."

      Neither the parents nor the parson who made this communication believed that the boy saw anything; they shrewdly suspected that he was lazy, and made the apparition an excuse for not going to school.

      Ruddle, however, saw the boy, and was convinced of his sincerity. "He told me with all naked freedom, and a flood of tears, that his friends were unkind and unjust to him, neither to believe nor pity him; and that if any man (making a bow to me) would but go with him to the place, he might be convinced that the thing was real.

      "'This woman which appears to me,' saith he, 'lived a neighbour here to my father, and died about eight years since; her name, Dorothy Dingley. She never speaks to me, but passeth by hastily, and always leaves the footpath to me, and she commonly meets me twice or three times in the breadth of the field.

      "'It was about two months before I took notice of it, and though the shape of the face was in my memory, yet I did not recall the name of the person, but I did suppose it was some woman who lived there about, and had frequent occasion that way. Nor did I imagine anything to the contrary before she began to meet me constantly, morning and evening, and always in the same field (the Higher Brown Quartils), and sometimes twice or thrice in the breadth of it.

      "'The first time I took notice of her was about a year since, and when I first began to suspect it to be a ghost, I had courage enough not to be afraid, but kept it to myself a good while, and only wondered very much about it. I did often speak to it, but never had a word in answer. Then I changed my way, and went to school the under Horse Road, and then she always met me in the narrow lane, between the Quarry Park and the Nursery, which was worse. At length I began to be terrified at it, and prayed continually that God would either free me from it or let me know the meaning of it. Night and day, sleeping and waking, the shape was ever running in my mind, when, by degrees, I grew pensive, inasmuch that it was taken notice of by all our family; whereupon, being urged to it, I told my brother William of it, and he privately acquainted my father and mother, and they kept it to themselves for some time.

      "'The success of this discovery was only this: they did sometimes laugh at me, sometimes chide me, but still commanded me to keep to my school, and put such fopperies out of my head. I did accordingly go to school often, but always met the woman by the way.'"

      When Parson Ruddle had heard this story he promised the boy to go with him next morning to the field, and went with the lad to the hall, whither the parents and the parson, the Rev. Samuel Williams, came to meet them from the parlour. They began at once to importune Ruddle about the interview and to pass remarks on the boy, who fled from them to his own room. The vicar of Launceston begged them to restrain their curiosity till he had made further investigation into the matter.

      "The next morning, before five o'clock, the lad was in my chambers, and very brisk. I arose and went with him. The field he led me to I guessed to be twenty acres, in an open country, and about three furlongs from any house. We went into the field, and had not gone above a third part before the spectrum, in the shape of a woman, with all the circumstances he had described her to me the day before, met us and passed by. I was a little surprised at it, and though I had taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, yet I had not the power, nor indeed durst I look back; yet I took care not to show any fear to my pupil and guide, and therefore telling him СКАЧАТЬ