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Ebook has 355 lines and 51291 words, and 8 pages

Introduction 15

Facsimile of original Title Page 57

The Last Fight of the Revenge 61

LIST OF PLATES

SOME APPRECIATIONS

Sir FRANCIS BACON

"S^r Richard Greenfield got eternall honour and reputation of great valour, and of a experimented Souldier, chusing rather to sacrifice his life, and to passe all danger whatsoever, then to fayle in his Obligation.... And rather we ought to imbrace an honourable death then to live with infamie and dishonour, by fayling in dutie."

Sir RICHARD HAWKINS

"Than this what have we more! What can be greater!"

JOHN EVELYN

"Struck a deeper terror, though it was but the action of a ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people; it dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and moral strength than the destruction of the Armada itself."

J. A. FROUDE

"Perhaps in all naval history there never was a more gallant fight than that of the Revenge off the Western Isles."

PROFESSOR ARBER

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more-- God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

INTRODUCTION

Which is the greatest name upon the roll of English ships? Which is the most sure of a lasting and effectual renown? There was a day when all England would have given but one answer. If you ask the Elizabethan of 1580, you will find him very positive upon the point, and not a little exalted. Drawn round the world by the Divine

She may be said, in no merely figurative sense, to be on active service still. If the day ever comes when she no longer helps to keep the sea for us, it can only be when Time shall have paid off the British Navy.

The last of her successes is more freshly remembered by our friends than by ourselves. A neighbouring potentate, whom pride in his English descent had exhilarated to a pitch of splendid audacity worthy of an Elizabethan, challenged us by a telegram encouraging a vassal State to throw off the suzerainty of the Queen. If the message meant anything, it was a promise of armed support; but the promise had none of the Elizabethan hardihood to back it, and proved bankrupt as soon as the Flying Squadron put to

The lesson, we may hope, remains; this was not a triumph of physical force. The challenger's nerve, and not his ships, failed him; he feared his

own destruction more than he desired ours. In an age even more materially minded, if possible, than those which went before it, we are increasingly diligent to measure our armour and our guns, to reckon up our horse-power and the number of our hits at target practice. It is not for any man to blame us; we should be wrong if we neglected these things, but we should be still more wrong if we forgot for a moment that there were years in our history when it was not we but our enemies who had the advantage of armament, and that whether by combination or otherwise, such a time may come upon us again. Build as we will, we cannot secure ourselves against it for ever; but we can forestall it by facing it with the remembrance of the past. It was by moral superiority that the

to Sea"; but to sea she went nevertheless. Upon the coast of Spain she was "readie to sinke with a great Leake," and "at her return into the harbour of Plimouth, she beat upon Winter Stone"--again without fatality. She escaped a still greater danger when, soon after, she twice ran aground in going out of Portsmouth Haven, lay twenty-two hours beating upon the shore, and was forced off with eight feet of water in her, only to ground again "upon the Oose," where she stuck for six months, until the following spring, testifying to the skill of those who built and the clumsiness of those who sailed her. Being at last got off and brought round into the Thames to be docked, "her old Leake breaking upon her, had like to

have drowned all those which were in her." Neither then, however, nor in any of her mishaps, does she appear to have actually drowned anyone, not even when, in 1591, "with a storme of wind and weather, riding at her moorings in the river of Rochester, nothing but her bare Masts overhead, shee was turned topse-turvie, her Kele uppermost." One might have thought that this final proof of her indestructibility would convince her detractor. Drake, at any rate, knew a good sea-boat when he saw one, for he chose her for his flagship when he sailed against the Armada as Vice-Admiral, and the Calendar of State Papers contains, under the date of November, 1588, a "Device of Lord Admiral Howard, Sir F. Drake, Sir W. Wynter, Sir John Hawkyns, Capt. Wm. Borough and others, for the construction of four new ships to be built on the

Miss Macdonald paused. A brief silence ensued, and she then went on with all her customary briskness: "I cannot describe the thing any more than you can, except that it gave me the impression it had no eyes. But what it was, whether the ghost of a man, woman, or some peculiar beast, I could not, for the life of me, tell. Now, Mr. O'Donnell, have you had enough horrors for one evening, or would you like to hear just one more?"

Knowing that sleep was utterly out of the question, and that one or two more thrills would make very little difference to my already shattered nerves, I replied that I would listen eagerly to anything she could tell me, however horrible. My permission thus gained--and gained so readily--Miss Macdonald, not without, I noticed, one or two apprehensive glances at the slightly rustling curtains, began her narrative, which ran, as nearly as I can remember, as follows:--

"After my father's death, I told my mother about our adventure the night we drove home from Lady Colin Ferner's party, and asked her if she remembered ever having heard anything that could possibly account for the phenomenon. After a few moments' reflection, this is the story she told me:--

THE INEXTINGUISHABLE CANDLE OF THE OLD WHITE HOUSE

"Oh, do come to my room!" she cried. "Something has happened to Mary."

We both accompanied her, and, on entering her room, found Mary seated on a chair, sobbing hysterically. One only had to glance at the girl to see that she was suffering from some very severe shock. Though normally red-cheeked and placid, in short, a very healthy, stolid creature, and the last person to be easily perturbed, she was now without a vestige of colour, whilst the pupils of her eyes were dilated with terror, and her entire body, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, shook as if with ague. I was immeasurably shocked to see her.

"Why, Mary," Margaret exclaimed, "whatever is the matter? What has happened?"

"It's the candle, miss," the girl gasped, "the candle in Miss Trevor's room. I can't put it out."

"You can't put it out, why, what nonsense!" Margaret said. "Are you mad?"

"It is as true as I sit here, miss," Mary panted. "I put the candle on the mantelpiece while I set the room to rights, and when I had finished and came to blow it out, I couldn't. I blew, and blew, and blew, but it hadn't any effect, and then I grew afraid, miss, horribly afraid," and here she buried her face in her hands, and shuddered. "I've never been frightened like this before, miss," she returned slowly, "and I've come away and left the candle burning."

"How absurd of you," Margaret scolded. "We must go and put it out at once. I have a good mind to make you come with us, Mary--but there! Stay where you are, and for goodness' sake stop crying, or every one in the house will hear you."

So saying, Margaret hurried off,--Alice and I accompanying her,--and on arriving outside my room, the door of which was wide open, we perceived the lighted candle standing in the position Mary had described. I looked at the girls, and perceived, in spite of my endeavours not to perceive it, the unmistakable signs of a great fear--fear of something they suspected but dared not name--lurking in the corners of their eyes.

"Who will go first?" Margaret demanded. No one spoke.

"Well then," she continued, "I will," and, suiting the action to the word, she stepped over the threshold. The moment she did so, the door began to close. "This is curious!" she cried. "Push!"

We did; we all three pushed; but, despite our efforts, the door came resolutely to, and we were shut out. Then before we had time to recover from our astonishment, it flew open; but before we could cross the threshold, it came violently to in the same manner as before. Some unseen force held it against us.

"Let us make one more effort," Margaret said, "and if we don't succeed, we will call for help."

Obeying her instructions, we once again pushed. I was nearest the handle, and in some manner,--how, none of us could ever explain,--just as the door opened of its own accord, I slipped and fell inside. The door then closed immediately with a bang, and, to my unmitigated horror, I found myself alone in the room. For some seconds I was spellbound, and could not even collect my thoughts sufficiently to frame a reply to the piteous entreaties of the Holkitts, who kept banging on the door, and imploring me to tell them what was happening. Never in the hideous excitement of nightmare had I experienced such a terror as the terror that room conveyed to my mind. Though nothing was to be seen, nothing but the candle, the light of which was peculiarly white and vibrating, I felt the presence of something inexpressibly menacing and horrible. It was in the light, the atmosphere, the furniture, everywhere. On all sides it surrounded me, on all sides I was threatened--threatened in a manner that was strange and deadly. Something suggesting to me that the source of evil originated in the candle, and that if I could succeed in extinguishing the light I should free myself from the ghostly presence, I advanced towards the mantelpiece, and, drawing in a deep breath, blew--blew with the energy born of desperation. It had no effect. I repeated my efforts; I blew frantically, madly, but all to no purpose; the candle still burned--burned softly and mockingly. Then a fearful terror seized me, and, flying to the opposite side of the room, I buried my face against the wall, and waited for what the sickly beatings of my heart warned me was coming. Constrained to look, I slightly, only very, very slightly, moved round, and there, there, floating stealthily towards me through the air, came the candle, the vibrating, glowing, baleful candle. I hid my face again, and prayed God to let me faint. Nearer and nearer drew the light; wilder and wilder the wrenches at the door. Closer and closer I pressed myself to the wall. And then, then when the final throes of agony were more than human heart and brain could stand, there came the suspicion, the suggestion of a touch--of a touch so horrid that my prayers were at last answered, and I fainted. When I recovered, I was in Margaret's room, and half a dozen well-known forms were gathered round me. It appears that with the collapse of my body on the floor, the door, that had so effectually resisted every effort to turn the handle, immediately flew open, and I was discovered lying on the ground with the candle--still alight--on the ground beside me. My aunt experienced no difficulty in blowing out the refractory candle, and I was carried with the greatest tenderness into the other wing of the house, where I slept that night. Little was said about the incident next day, but all who knew of it expressed in their faces the utmost anxiety--an anxiety which, now that I had recovered, greatly puzzled me. On our return home, another shock awaited me; we found to our dismay that my mother was seriously ill, and that the doctor, who had been sent for from Perth the previous evening, just about the time of my adventure with the candle, had stated that she might not survive the day. His warning was fulfilled--she died at sunset. Her death, of course, may have had nothing at all to do with the candle episode, yet it struck me then as an odd coincidence, and seems all the more strange to me after hearing your account of the bogle that touched your dear father in the road, so near the spot where the Holkitts' house once stood. I could never discover whether Lady Holkitt or her daughters ever saw anything of a superphysical nature in their house; after my experience they were always very reticent on that subject, and naturally I did not like to press it. On Lady Holkitt's death, Margaret and Alice sold the house, which was eventually pulled down, as no one would live in it, and I believe the ground on which it stood is now a turnip field. That, my dear, is all I can tell you.

"Now, Mr. O'Donnell," Miss Macdonald added, "having heard our experiences, my mother's and mine, what is your opinion? Do you think the phenomenon of the candle was in any way connected with the bogle both you and I have seen, or are the hauntings of 'The Old White House' entirely separate from those of the road?"

CASE II

THE TOP ATTIC IN PRINGLE'S MANSION, EDINBURGH

A charming lady, Miss South, informs me that no house interested her more, as a child, than Pringle's Mansion, Edinburgh. Pringle's Mansion, by the bye, is not the real name of the house, nor is the original building still standing--the fact is, my friend has been obliged to disguise the locality for fear of an action for slander of title, such as happened in the Egham Case of 1904-7.

Miss South never saw--save in a picture--the house that so fascinated her; but through repeatedly hearing about it from her old nurse, she felt that she knew it by heart, and used to amuse herself hour after hour in the nursery, drawing diagrams of the rooms and passages, which, to make quite realistic, she named and numbered.

There was the Admiral's room, Madame's room, Miss Ophelia's room, Master Gregory's room, Letty's room, the cook's room, the butler's room, the housemaid's room--and--the Haunted Room.

The house was very old--probably the sixteenth century--and was concealed from the thoroughfare by a high wall that enclosed it on all sides. It had no garden, only a large yard, covered with faded yellow paving-stones, and containing a well with an old-fashioned roller and bucket.

When the well was cleaned out, an event which took place periodically on a certain date, every utensil in the house was called into requisition for ladling out the water, and the Admiral, himself supervising, made every servant in the establishment take an active part in the proceedings. On one of these occasions, the Admiral announced his intention of going down the well in the bucket. That was a rare moment in Letty's life, for when the Admiral had been let down in the bucket, the rope broke!

Indeed, the thought of what the Laird would say when he came up, almost resulted in his not coming up at all. However, some one, rather bolder than the rest, retained sufficient presence of mind to effect a rescue, and the timid ones, thankful enough to survive the explosion, had to be content on "half-rations till further orders."

But in spite of its association with such a martinet, and in spite of her ghostly experiences in it, Letty loved the house, and was never tired of singing its praises.

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