Essex Ghost Tales E-Book

Robert Hallmann

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 210

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The stories in this haunting collection are as ancient and recent, powerful and fantastical, real and imaginary as the ghosts of myth and legend they feature. Here you will find chilling tales of long-dead Vikings, stirred by the darkness of an eclipse; a wild forest with a wicked secret in its roots; the feared cross on Gallows Hill; a restless Grey Lady forever searching for her revenge; and the killing of a dead man. Read about phantom highwaymen; dastardly smugglers; mysterious pasts; foul murders and one-eyed strangers, all twisted into Essex's history and brought to life by noted storyteller Robert Hallmann. Richly illustrated with original drawings, these spine-tingling stories interweave fact and fiction to create perfect tales for reading under the covers on stormy nights.

Leseprobe

For Minna and Theo

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

‘The Silent Fleet’, a poem by Robert Hallmann

Introduction

1 Silence of the Woods

2 Gallows Cross

3 The Antipodean Ghost

4 Murder on the Marsh

5 Grey Lady’s Vengeance

6 The Viking Eclipse

7 Odin’s Storm

Copyright

THE SILENT FLEET

When night falls on the ancient coast

And stars abound, the sparkling host

Reflect in ev’ry ripple small,

The night owl hoots its eerie call

And quietness cloaks all,

Then rises proud a silent fleet

Of spectres from the muddy deep.

And all the ships that ever sunk

Or rotted on a muddy bank

Reclaim their naval rank

As ghostly shadows. Floating free,

The lichen hulks take to the sea.

And masts appear where pennents flew.

From Davy’s Locker climbs the crew

And sails unfurl anew.

And black, barge black, the spritsails glide

From friendly quays on wind and tide,

From busy Harwich to the Nore,

From all around the sleeping shore

Collects the silent corps.

But none who sleep will ever see

The little ships take to the sea

And travel to a foreign strand

To pluck the soldiers from the sand

As brothers, hand in hand …

Robert Hallmann

INTRODUCTION

The shadows of millennia haunt this land. History is everywhere.

There are secrets, sometimes horrible, in families or in the landscape, buried only to escape and take their revenge. All around the convoluting estuary, on the bleak marshes, the sea rises and falls and sometimes releases the dead of centuries from its greedy deep.

Beware the hour of the owl. Avert your eyes when the Gentlemen – gun-packing smugglers – land their stash in some lonely rill close to a forgotten barn or an abandoned vessel, or right under the noses of the Revenue Men. Is that a smuggler or the law that rides quietly through the landscape, heard but not seen? Or something more sinister?

Out on the marshes, wildfowlers glide soundlessly through the reeds or among the tussocks on slim flat boats, waiting for first light, knowledgeable of nature and the habits of its creatures, nine-foot guns pointing out over the rims.

Abroad on the wild heath, old crimes can stay hidden for centuries where shadows abound. Beware the gnarled hanging tree on Gallows Corner. Stay the attention of the highwayman and the footpad when the moon is hiding and the ground is soft. We think we are too wise and enlightened to believe in the old stories, but are you prepared to face your fear out there alone? Moonlight shadows can be deceiving.

Close your ears to the footsteps behind you in the mist, they may well be in your mind. The noises that echo through the old hall at night, the chilling sounds without a human presence and the flickering light swaying down the deep lane are best ignored, preferably avoided.

Enter the primeval forest that once covered most of Essex. If your conscience is clear you’ll have little to fear. Then enter the once-sacred grove and discover its awful secrets. Storms uproot trees. Saxon fights Celt. Old habits die hard. Old gods are reluctant to leave.

When the peripatetic missionaries stepped from their primitive ships and preached their new religion, did the old gods of the Saxons simply roll over and vanish? Was the message of love and forgiveness quietly accepted by men who were looking forward to an eternity of fighting and drinking, served by high-breasted maidens in the mead halls of Valhalla? Would they not have fought, at least in the minds of their followers? Would they have accepted their Götterdämmerung without a struggle?

All their blood and hate soaked into the earth at the sites of the ancient battlefields; would they not demand their remembrance?

The shadows of millennia haunt this land. History is everywhere.

Robert Hallmann, 2015

All illustrations by Claire Bartlett: www.sitandfidget.weebly.com

1

SILENCEOFTHE WOODS

It wasn’t the first time he had seen or been approached by someone who wasn’t there.

The stranger raised his arm and pointed directly at his heart. ‘You think you’ve got away with it. But I know. You might as well confess now, if you want me to save you.’

Silas Gregson was about to give a defensive answer, or an evasive one, but he could not help his hand feeling for the woodman’s knife he carried in his belt. Facing the hooded and shadowy figure, he realised, moments later, that there was no one. Had he imagined it? Was it a figure of his imagination? The trees about him stood silent and majestic as always, though they were old and broad enough to hide someone, should they want to conceal themselves. There were many trees in this large primeval forest.

‘Where are you? Who are you? Come out and show yourself!’

He waited, crouching, knife in hand. Where could the owner of that voice be hiding? Silas listened.

Silence.

Nothing but silence. Unnatural silence, it suddenly occurred to him. There was not even birdsong. He shivered. What had he to worry about? He was made of sterner stuff. No one knew, he had convinced himself of that long ago. No one knew and the night had been dark and dismal. No one had ever suspected him, at least not to his face. Until now. Just lately there had been other occasions. Someone was mocking him. Accusing him. Terrorising him.

Yet there was no one – no one human anyway. Just the old gnarled and misshapen tree nearest to him, twisted and distorted into what might be a grimace, a menacing, gurning grin. An accusing presence.

‘It’s only a tree, damn it, only a tree …’ It was always near trees that he had these pangs of anxiety.

Silas relaxed his coiled stance. He had been on high alert, ready to pounce on whoever had spoken to him in such an accusing tone, but as time passed and nothing happened, he straightened up and calmed down. He had to get a grip. The way he had reacted could have been interpreted as guilt. He should watch his step and act normal.

‘It’s only a tree,’ he repeated under his breath.

As the shock receded he realised the silence was natural again. A woodpigeon cooed and a cuckoo called some distance away. There was even the ak-ak-ak of a woodpecker. It occurred to him that he had not actually seen the owner of the voice. Not actually. He must have imagined it. The stranger had just been a shadow. Anyway, no one could possibly know …

‘I know.’

Silas froze again, but only for a moment. He shook his head as if to shake out some bad dream. That voice had come from within. From his heart? His conscience? He thought he had dealt with that. It had to be done and it was for the best. He had convinced himself often enough. Though the world might see it differently, he himself knew it was the only way. It wasn’t his fault and that was an end to it. Or so he thought. As he once more looked about him it seemed as if some of the older gnarled and deformed trees were looking at him, pulling faces.

Silas was beginning to hate the woods. He had been surrounded by forest all his life – someone in the past had cleared a fine bit of land that he had inherited – but now he saw shadows behind every tree. Faces grinned at him. Faces like awful distorted masks of hideous creatures taunted him. Every damn tree seemed to be alive and knowing. Whenever possible, he tried to avoid the woods, but it just wasn’t always possible.

Without thinking he drove his knife into the scarred bark of the nearest tree, just a little ways, then he jumped back, took a deep breath and scolded himself for being so irrational.

If that had been a human the knife would have penetrated deep.

‘You’re late,’ his wife scolded him. ‘Your supper is getting cold. Do you want it warmed up again?’

Silas mumbled about being held up by something, and sat down to his lukewarm plate of rabbit and turnip stew.

His private world of nightmares wouldn’t leave him be. Was it Arthur’s ghost? He …? It didn’t look like Arthur. What or whoever they were was about his own height. Arthur had been a tall fellow, tall and strong. That’s why people accepted that he had been wanted by the pressmen. Besides, Arthur wouldn’t be the type to haunt him. He was too gentle and good-natured. That’s why Margaret had adored him. But why then was it that he was having these visions more and more often as time went by?

‘I could kill him …’ William, their second son, came in, shook with the cold, threw off his heavy jacket on a chair and walked to the fireplace, slapping his arms about him to encourage the blood flow to his numb fingers. Then he stretched out his hands towards the lusty flickering flames. ‘I could …’ He grumbled the words as from deep within his being.

‘Don’t speak like that!’ said his mother with concern in her voice. ‘Not in this house.’

Only a dismissive growl came from the direction of the fire.

‘Who could you kill?’ his father asked with as normal a voice as possible.

‘That damn brother of mine. He always knows better. Every idea I have he is against. And because he’s the elder he always gets his way. It’s alright Will, Arthur knows what he is doing …’ Raising the pitch of his voice with that last comment, he attempted to imitate his mother’s voice.

His father tried to be reasonable. ‘Calm down son, that’s no way to react to your mother. What’s the trouble now? I wish you two would get on and work as a team. You’ve only got one brother.’

‘That’s one too many …’ As with a sudden decision the young man turned, grabbed his damp coat and made for the door.

‘I’m warming up your supper, here …’ His mother bustled about, refilling his plate and placing it on the table.

‘Keep it for Big Brother. I’m going down to the inn.’

With that he brushed past his mother, threw open the door and slammed it behind him. As his steps receded, the room was left in utter silence for long moments. Now the scraping of Silas Gregson’s spoon over the simple tin plate sounded exaggerated in the stillness and the fire suddenly seemed to crackle louder.

It felt like an eternity before Margaret Gregson picked up the courage and broke the silence: ‘It’s history repeating itself,’ she said with ice in her voice. ‘It’s you and your brother all over again. If Arthur had not been taken by the pressgang, you two would have killed each other.’

Her husband had sat still on the same spot, his head held between his hands. Now he raised his head with a strange look in his eyes, a look she had not seen before. It almost silenced her. Almost. Instead it gave her courage.

‘It is true, that he was taken, is it? Strange he has never returned in all this time … nor a sign of life …’ She had never before dared to speak her innermost thoughts and doubts. For five long years she had held out, resisting Silas Gregson’s advances after Arthur’s disappearance, waiting for his return. Eventually she had relented when her brother married and she had fears of remaining alone.

Now her husband jumped up as if stung. His chair toppled backwards and the veins on his temples stood out like ropes.

‘My brother is dead … gone.’ He corrected himself. ‘What are you saying, woman? Are you accusing me? Come on, spit it out! What have you been thinking in that small mind of yours?’ His hand was stretched out towards her, palm upwards, his fingers curled inward as if he beckoned her to come nearer. ‘Come on, spit it out. You think I had anything to do with it?’

She had never seen her husband so wild. Cowed, she stayed silent. She had always told herself that she was wrong, that her instinct was sinful, as were her thoughts. Now, with her husband’s surprise reaction taking her aback, she was not so sure. What if …?

There was no more time to think, as her husband clasped his chest and started coughing in spasms that had her by his side instantly, catching him as he collapsed. She just managing to half guide and half lift him over to the rocking chair by the fire, still coughing and spluttering.

‘You shouldn’t arouse yourself so. I’m going to make you a poultice …’

‘You … try to kill me …? Will you?’ The heavily breathing man spat out the words between shaking bouts. In his mind’s eye he still saw the girl he’d desired above anything, though nowadays his brother always came between them. ‘Whatever did I see in you?’ he coughed. ‘I should have … left you … to Arthur …’

By the time their eldest son returned for his meal his father had retired to his bed upstairs. His mother began to ladle out the simple fare.

‘You’re late …’

‘I had to bring in the pigs from the woods. Not easy when it’s almost dark.’

‘Why didn’t William help you?’

‘He stormed off again. Something upset him. He seems to find nothing to his liking these days. Keeps saying he’ll go away to sea like Uncle Arthur. But where is he? And where’s Father?’ It was more a comment than a question.

His mother looked at him with concern. Deep, deep inside old feelings stirred, feelings of regret, then as quickly faded – he so resembled his missing uncle. Sometimes she thought he was her Arthur of long ago.

‘Father’s retired. It’s his chest again. Those coughing fits will be the death of him if he’s not careful. Something is eating away at him. Sometimes I don’t hardly recognise him anymore …’ She wiped her face with her pinafore to avoid showing her tears.

‘And now you and William, fighting just like your father and your uncle used to … Always fighting … What’s it this time?’

Arthur had emptied his plate, pushing it away towards his mother. ‘Thanks. Tasty rabbit, that.’

‘Do you want some more?’ she asked. ‘There is leftover. Your brother … Your brother didn’t stop to eat …’ She turned to him with a pot in one hand and a filled ladle in the other.

‘Well, if it’s going to waste?’ Arthur accepted the extra meal with good grace. ‘Thanks, Mother … Hope you have eaten yourself.’

With a sudden decision his mother turned back to him, ‘Be careful, Arthur, your brother … I’m worried. Your uncle has been away an awful long time and never a word …’ She bit her lip as soon as the words had slipped out, regretting her outburst.

Arthur stood up, gripped her upper arms with some concern and looked down intensely into her eyes. ‘Mother, what are you saying? You’re not suggesting that Father’s …? That …? Mother … Is that what you’re thinking? Mother …’

She inhaled deeply and placed one hand across her mouth as if to stifle her own voice. ‘Forgive me. Please. Forget I ever said it. Please, don’t mention it …’ She glanced upwards to where her husband was lying abed.

‘I heard nothing,’ Arthur said confidently, ‘and don’t you worry. William is wild and he’s got his own mind on many things, but he is my brother and he’ll calm down. Is Father ill then?’

‘He worries me. It’s more than just his chest and his coughing. Something’s on his mind, something dark.’ Then she added on a more practical note: ‘What was it this time, you and your brother, I mean?’

‘Oh, you know William. He wants to straighten out the track to Burnt Wood hamlet to make the drive straighter and shorter … directly down through the dell and up the steep embankment on the other end. I told him again it’ll be the devil’s own job. But would he listen to reason? It’s too soft in the dell. It’ll be murder for the horses that way and just for saving a few minutes’ time.’

The atmosphere was charged in the household after that evening. A few uneasy days later and the argument came to a head.

‘For once I’ll make a decision,’ young William shouted. ‘The road will be shorter, passing through the dell … Any road, it’s of no use. The brush will have to go. It’s in the way. It’s mostly beech scrub now anyway, apart from the old stumps that are no good to man or beast. It’s not even much use for fuel this winter. That oak tree will be useful, though. A beam for the new stable, the one Uncle Arthur started. It’s about time that was actually built … Nice and straight and small enough to be pulled out, roots and all …’ William took the team of horses. ‘Won’t be a problem.’

The headstrong son ignored his father, defying his word. Arthur tried to talk sense to him, but that only added to his brother’s determination. It had become a battle of wills. Who was going to inherit the farm? It seemed that unspoken question was underlying their arguments. William tried to prove himself the more capable, the more worthy, but all he did was antagonise. The quiet Arthur was no match for his cunning, nor his stubborn will. Now the old man followed him to the woods, carrying an axe. Wearily Arthur followed, while Margaret anxiously called after their diminishing figures from the croft doorway, crying and wringing her hands, not knowing what to do.

‘Stop them, Arthur, stop them. No, don’t you go as well! Oh, please God, someone stop them …’ Torn between the love for her boys and regard for her husband, she collapsed in prayer.

Silas Gregson’s chest hurt. Again and again he looked over his shoulder. He was convinced someone was following him. He summoned superhuman strength to overtake William and the horses via a shortcut and there he stopped to listen.

‘Remember … I know …’ said the voice that would be the death of him. But he made it. Behind him Arthur had trouble keeping up.

‘You will not!’ His father almost shouted the words, now remarkably calm. He moved between William and the thicket. ‘That’s an ancient site. That was sacred long before Christianity: the sacred grove of the Ancients. It’s where the Elders met when the moon was right and when judgements had to be given …’ His voice was slow, low and breathless, but determined. ‘Don’t raise the ghosts of the past …’

‘What rubbish. You don’t believe in that old nonsense, do you? It’s a load of scrub and it’s in the way. I’ll start with that oak. That’s what … maybe twenty-five or thirty years old? Not so ancient, is it? As for the old trunks …’

‘They’re ancient oaks. They’ll not be touched. They’ve been here a thousand years …’ He started coughing again, now spitting blood, but still he tried to stop his son: ‘I’ll not have them touched. Do you hear? I’ll not have them touched!’ In his excitement he began to shake and cough again and he collapsed forward on to the soft forest floor.

The son ignored his father, but now Arthur stepped in, picking up the axe. ‘That’s enough. Don’t you see what it means to the old man? You’d have him dead next. I’ll take him back and I need the horses. So leave it be.’ With that, Arthur took the reins out of his brother’s hand and fastened the dray to the horses’ chains. Then he lifted his convulsing father gently on to the simple conveyance, placing the axe by his side.

William stood by, silently, not daring to interfere, but not happy either. Inwardly he was seething. He’d bide his time.

With rest and the doctor’s attention, Silas’ health had settled down again by the day they went to market. A couple of well-fattened pigs bobbed about and squealed on the small two-wheeled cart as if they had an inkling of the fate that soon would befall them. A wind had come up and at the front on the hard bench seat rode the father and his second son, while his eldest son Arthur walked in front, leading the single horse.

Only their mother was left behind to look after the farm in the woods, but all three men had promised to remember her at the fair. It had been a struggle. She had tried to keep her husband at home to make him rest, yet he was determined not to miss the trading and the gossip. There was no stopping him. At last she suspected he meant to keep an eye on their sons. She had relented, but it had not eased her mind.

A gust of wind gripped the hats of the two men riding the high seat and scattered them back along the track behind them like so many leaves when the small group reached a bend in the road, where gnarled old willows leant over a small stream. Lopping had given the contorted old trunks a top-heavy look from which the new wood rose like unkempt hair from mangled heads, now struggling and bending and flailing in the wind.

With a little imagination one could recognise faces, grimaces, deformed features in the overgrowing bark, but it was not imagination that stirred the father. He had been uneasy as they approached the willows. Now he suddenly rose as in pain and raising his fists to the sky, screaming, he yelled, ‘Stop it. It wasn’t my fault. Leave me alone …’ Then he crumpled back on his stark seat, covering his ears with his fists, just staring ahead of him.

Arthur had halted the horse and rushed after the hats disappearing among a whorl of autumn leaves, retrieving them only slightly the worse for wear. He returned just to see his father’s wild gesticulations. Wondering what drove him, he enquired if there was anything that needed to be done.

Next to the old man on the high seat William sat almost unconcerned, his mouth slightly open. He looked at Arthur, then again at his father and back to his brother before shrugging his shoulders and intimating that his father’s brains were scrambled.

‘Are you all right, Father?’ asked Arthur, at the same time listening out for anything untoward in the trees. Only the wind could be heard. What was it his father had reacted to? ‘Do you want to turn back?’

It was as if the old man woke at that and he shouted back at his son,‘What are you stopping for? We must get away from here … Go! Go!’

Arthur thought it best to obey and with a tug on the bridle he commanded the horse to move forward, at a faster pace than before. His father sunk back into himself, brooding and muttering and shaking his pale frame.

Most people were familiar in the small community and the brothers joined in the banter with friends and acquaintances. This time it was Silas who made straight for the inn ‘to rest his bones’ as he put it, trusting his sons with the commercial part of the visit. The inn was crowded and it was only when he began coughing and spluttering that someone made way and allowed him a seat on one of the benches.

‘My, does your eldest look like ’is Uncle Arthur. There was a lovely fellow. Thought I’d been asleep and come back to earth thirty years on when I saw ’im … An’ he’s jus’ as polite. Could a had me, could your Arthur, but he were far too polite to ask …’ The woman addressing Silas would have been about Arthur’s age, maybe a little younger, he figured. Only with some difficulty did he recognise in the lush bloated features that she had been a beauty in her day, the talk of the young men in all of the neighbourhood when he had been little more than a boy. If he remembered rightly, she had run away with a militiaman.

She continued. ‘He was polite awright, our Arthur. Jus’ his bad luck to run into them pressmen. Like as not he’s sitting in some warm and foreign clime with lots o’ servants an’ no worries. Been missing him ever since.’ The woman paused in thought, then from her toothless mouth burst the most jarring, heartless laughter. ‘Been good for you though, him disappearing like that sudden like. An’ him being sweet on your Margaret an’ all …’

Silas Gregson’s hands clenched to fists, but before he could express his anger he fell into another bout of coughing. The landlord refilled his empty mug and said, ‘You’ve got it bad today, Silas. You shouldn’t be out with that cough o’ yourn. You’ll catch your death. An’ there’s a storm brewing.’

But the woman would not leave it alone: ‘Must be an annivers’ry today, St Michaelmas Fair …’ she sneered and hiccupped. ‘Wasn’t that when young Arthur vanished? After the fair …? Yeah, an annivers’ry today …’