Cornish Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ I was satisfied in the truth of his complaint, we walked to the end of the field and returned, nor did the ghost meet us that time above once.

      "At our return the gentlewoman watched to speak with me. I gave her a convenience, and told her that my opinion was that her son's complaint was not to be slighted, yet that my judgment in his case was not settled. I gave her caution that the thing might not take wind, lest the whole country should ring with what we had yet no assurance of.

      "In this juncture of time I had business which would admit no delay, wherefore I went to Launceston that evening, but promised to see them again next week. Yet I was prevented by an occasion which pleaded a sufficient excuse. However, my mind was upon the adventure. I studied the case, and about three weeks after went again, resolving, by the help of God, to see the utmost.

      "The next morning, the 27th day of July, 1665, I went to the haunted field by myself, and walked the breadth of the field without any encounter. I returned and took the other walk, and then the spectrum appeared to me, much about the same place where I saw it before, when the young gentleman was with me. In my thoughts it moved swifter than the time before, and about ten feet distant from me on my right hand, insomuch that I had not time to speak, as I had determined with myself beforehand.

      "The evening of this day, the parents, the son, and myself being in the chamber where I lay, I propounded to them our going all together to the place next morning, and after some asseveration that there was no danger in it, we all resolved upon it. The morning being come, lest we should alarm the servants, they went under the pretence of seeing a field of wheat, and I took my horse and fetched a compass another way, and so met at the stile we had appointed.

      "Thence we all four walked leisurely into the Quartils, and had passed above half the field before the ghost made appearance. It then came over the stile just before us, and moved with that swiftness that by the time we had gone six or seven steps it passed by. I immediately turned head and ran after it, with the young man by my side; we saw it pass over the stile by which we entered, but no farther. I stepped upon the hedge at one place, he at another, but could discern nothing; whereas I dare aver that the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things I observed in this day's appearance. (1) That a spaniel dog, who followed the company unregarded, did bark and run away as the spectrum passed by; whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear or fancy which made the apparition. (2) That the motion of the spectrum was not by steps and moving of the feet, but a kind of gliding, as children upon ice or a boat down a swift river.

      "But to proceed. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but strangely frightened, the old gentleman and his wife, who knew this Dorothy Dingley in her lifetime, were at her burial, and now plainly saw her features in this present apparition.

      "The next morning, being Thursday, I went out very early by myself, and walked for about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field next adjoining the Quartils. Soon after five I stepped over the stile into the disturbed field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared at the farther stile. I spake to it with a loud voice, whereupon it approached, but slowly, and when I came near it moved not. I spake again, and it answered, in a voice neither very audible nor intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and therefore persisted until it spake again and gave me satisfaction. But the work could not be finished at this time; wherefore the same evening, an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side it quickly vanished, and neither doth appear since, nor ever will more to any man's disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour.

      "These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded that my senses do deceive me about their proper object, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe the Christian religion, I must and will assert that these things in this paper are true."

      It must be noted that Defoe in his printed account omits the names of the family of Bligh, and that he changes Dorothy Dingley into Mrs. Veale. Parson Ruddle's original MS. is not in existence; it was probably given to Defoe; but a copy is preserved made by the son of the Rev. John Ruddle. Defoe was in Launceston acting as a spy for the minister Harley in August, 1705, and at that time he must have got hold of the MS. After the signature "John Ruddle" at the end of the narrative and the date is the sentence: "This is a copy of wt I found written by my father and signed John Ruddle. Taken by me, William Ruddle," who had become vicar of South Petherwin in 1695, and who became subsequently incumbent also of S. Thomas-by-Launceston. This copy bears the following attestation: "The readers may observe yt I borrowed the remarkable passage of ye grandson of John Ruddle who had it from his Uncle William Ruddle. I think I'm exact in its transcription. I well know the sd John Ruddle to have had (and I daresay deserved) the character of a learned and eminent Divine, and I also knew his son ye sayd William Ruddle, a Divine whose character was so bright yt I have no room to add to its lustre, and I hereby certify yt I copyed this from ye very hand-writing of the sayd William Ruddle. Quinto die Februarii Anno Dni, 1730. James Wakeman."

      As Mr. Robbins says: "The completeness of the body of proof of the Ruddle authorship leaves nothing therefore to be desired."

      Parson John Ruddle eventually became prebend of Exeter, and held the vicarage of Altarnon along with that of Launceston to his death.

      Ruddle does not state that the boy Bligh was his pupil at Launceston Free School, but one does not see to what other school he can have gone, and the readiness with which the lad opened his heart to him leads to the notion that they had some previous acquaintance. His way to Launceston would be over the common, on which stand three barrows, to the road at Penfoot, where he would strike the road. When he endeavoured to avoid the ghost he took the Under Horse Road between Quarry Park and the Nursery. The Quarry is still visible with a pool in it, and a stream flowing into it that rises on the moor where he saw the ghost, and Under Horse Road still bears its name. The lad endeavoured to take a short cut, though not as short as across the Higher Brown Quartils, to reach the Launceston road without having to go through South Petherwin village.

      Parson Ruddle does not give the Christian name of the boy who saw the ghost, and we are thrown into perplexity at once.

      The "ancient gentleman" may have been Thomas Bligh of Botathan, Esq., but he was aged no more than fifty-three. Colonel Vivian's pedigree of the Blighs in his Visitation of Cornwall is most unsatisfactory.

      Thomas Bligh was buried at South Petherwin, April 10th, 1692. There is no entry in Vivian's pedigree of Walter Bligh, gentleman, who was buried January 29th, 1667-8. Besides, there are many entries of an Edmund Bligh and Katherine, his wife, and their children. Thomas Bligh seems to have lived at one time at S. Martin's-by-Looe. Dr. Lee in his Glimpses of the Supernatural calls Dorothy Dingley, Dorothy Durant; but on what authority I do not know. There is an entry in the South Petherwin register of the burial of Dorothy Durant, widow, 1st May, 1677, but according to the story of the boy, Dorothy Dingley died in or about 1657. Unfortunately the South Petherwin registers do not go back beyond August, 1656, but there is no entry in them in 1656 or 1657 of the burial of Dorothy Dingley.

      The Dingleys had been settled in Lezant and Linkinhorne from 1577, and owned the place Hall in the latter parish; but they had connections in Worcestershire; and Dorothy was the youngest daughter of Francis Dingley, baptized at Cropthorne, in the latter county, in 1596. She married Richard, son of George Durant, of Blockly, Worcestershire. As no further trace of her can be found in the register there, it is not unfair to suppose that having kinsfolk in Cornwall she may have journeyed there, and both were buried at South Petherwin, Dorothy Durant, as already stated, in 1677. She was then aged eighty-seven. She cannot have been the ghost. But was the ghost that of her mother, a Dorothy, who came to South Petherwin with her, and died there about the year 1655? We cannot tell, as we do not know her mother's Christian name. Dr. Lee clearly confused the Dorothy Durant with the Dorothy Dingley, the ghost.

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