The Stoneground Ghost Tales: Compiled from the recollections of the Reverend Roland Batchel, Vicar of the parish.Swain, E. G. (Edmund Gill)
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The Stoneground Ghost Tales: Compiled from the recollections of the Reverend Roland Batchel, Vicar of the parish.
Swain, E. G. (Edmund Gill)
English fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories, English
Aug. 2.--There is a change in Andrew Birch since my absence, who
hath indeed the aspect of one in great depression, which is
noteworthy of so chearful a man. He haply shares our common
trouble in respect of Master Wilburton, of whom we remain
without tidings. Having made part of a sermon upon the seventh
Chapter of the former Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians
and the 27th verse, I found Andrew again at his task, and bade
him desist and saddle my horse, being minded to ride forth and
take counsel with my good friend John Palmer at the Deanery,
who bore Master Wilburton great affection.
Aug. 2 continued.--Dire news awaiteth me upon my return. The
Sheriff's men have disinterred the body of poor Master W. from
beneath the grass Andrew was rolling, and have arrested him on
the charge of being his cause of death.
Aug. 10--Alas! Andrew Birch hath been hanged, the Justice having
mercifully ordered that he should hang by the neck until he
should be dead, and not sooner molested. May the Lord have
mercy on his soul. He made full confession before me, that he
had slain Master Wilburton in heat upon his threatening to
make me privy to certain peculation of which I should not have
suspected so old a servant. The poor man bemoaned his evil
temper in great contrition, and beat his breast, saying that
he knew himself doomed for ever to roll the grass in the place
where he had tried to conceal his wicked fact.
"Thank you," said Mr. Groves. "Has that little negative got the date
upon it?" "Yes," replied Mr. Batchel, as he examined it with his glass.
The boy has marked it August 10. The Vicar seemed not to remark the
coincidence with the date of Birch's execution. Needless to say that it
did not escape Mr. Groves. But he kept silence about the man with the
roller, who has been no more seen to this day.
Doubtless there is more in our photography than we yet know of. The
camera sees more than the eye, and chemicals in a freshly prepared and
active state, have a power which they afterwards lose. Our units of
time, adopted for the convenience of persons dealing with the ordinary
movements of material objects, are of course conventional. Those who
turn the instruments of science upon nature will always be in danger of
seeing more than they looked for. There is such a disaster as that of
knowing too much, and at some time or another it may overtake each of
us. May we then be as wise as Mr. Groves in our reticence, if our turn
should come.
II.
BONE TO HIS BONE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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