You have a reason to care. You know someone. You've lost someone. You've lived it.
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After that, it becomes exclusive to patrons from the $1 level. Without further ado, the morbid curiosity podcast presents the corpse light written by Dick Donvin, also known as J.E. Preston, Madak originally published in 1899. Enjoy and happy Halloween.
My name is John Patmore Lindsey. My profession, I'm a medical man and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and a member of the Royal College of Physicians London. I'm also the author of numerous medical works, but that's no perhaps being how to keep in good health and live long. I was educated with the large public schools and took my degree at Oxford.
I have generally been regarded as a hard headed man and skeptical about all the that were not capable of being explained by rational and no laws. My criticism occultism, spiritualism and the like, only served to excite my ridicule. And I entertained anything about a flattering opinion of those people who profess belief in such things. I was pleased to think argued we can survive.
I have referred to the few foregoing facts about myself because I wish to make it clear that I do not belong to that class of nervous and excitable people who fall prey to their own fantasies, construct shapes and scenes other imaginings, and then bow and declare that they have been confronted with certain realities. What I'm about to relate is so marvelous, so weird and startling, that I am vain to be in my story in half a politic way, and even now as a total panel, I wonder why I have all now and should be subjected to the unnatural and unearthly influence. But so it is, and though in a sense I am only half convinced, I no longer scoffed off when somebody reminds me that there is no work in heaven and earth that is dreamt of in our philosophy. But to my story and when it is told, the reader can judge for himself how powerful must be the effect of what I witness when it could induce a man of my mental fiber to commit to papers so astounding and narrative as the one I now pen.
It is about 20 years ago that I took up the practice in the old fashion and pictures as little town of Rinton on sea. At the time there was no railway intervention, the nearest station being some 7 or 8 miles away. The result was, the town still retained a delightful old time air while the people were as primitive and old fashioned as their town. Nevertheless, Rinton was far ahead its neighbors, and though an apparently agricultural district was enterprising and business like, while its weekly Tuesday market brought in enormous influx of the population of the district from miles around, and very large sums of money changed hands, being the chief town of the parish and boasting a very curious ancient church and still more ancient market cross to say nothing of several delightful old hostelries and small though excellent museum of local curiosities consisting principally of Roman remains and fossils for which the district was renowned.
It attracted not only the end to query and the gourment, but artists, tourists and lovers of the picturesque as well as those in search of quiet food and repose. The nearest village was highly about 3 miles away between the two places was a wide sweep of magnificent rowing down, delightful at all times, especially so in summer. Many ancient farmhouses died about, with here and there, Oindoel, the down on the seaside, terminated in a high headland from which a splendid lighthouse sent forth its warning beams over the fearsome with sea. Second only in conspicuousness to this lighthouse was an old and half room in Oindoel known all over the countryside as the haunted mill.
When I first went to live in Rinton, this mill early attracted my attention for it was one of the most picturesque old places of its kind I had ever seen, and as I had some artistic instincts and could sketch with as my two flattering friends said, no meability, the haunted mill appealed to me, it stood on a rising ground close to the high road that ran between Rinton and highly, I gathered that there had been some dispute about the ownership and, as is usually the case, the suckers of the harpies of the law had fastened upon it so to see and drained all its vitality away after the manner of lawyers generally. The old-fashioned legal luminaries of the country were a slow-going set and for over a quarter of a century that dismuted claim had remained unsettled, and during that long period the old mill had been gradually falling into ruin. The foundations had from some cause sunk, throwing the main building out of the particular part of the roof had fallen in, and the fierce ails of a quarter of a century had battered the sails pretty well to match wood. Along flight of wooden steps laid up to the principal door, with these steps had rounded away in places and the door itself had partly fallen inwards.
Needless to say, this mill had become home of bats and owls, and according to the yokels of something more fearsome than either. It was for lorn and mournful looking place anyway, even in the full place of sunshine, but seen in moonlight, its appearance was singularly weird and well calculated to be yet in the rustic mind, a feeling of horror, and to produce a creepy and uncanny sensation in anyone susceptible to the influence of outer appearances. To me it did not appeal in any of these aspects. I saw it at only subject matter for an exceedingly effective picture, and yet I am bound to confess that even when transferred to board or canvas there was a certain grim suggestiveness of things on canny, and I easily understood how the superstitious and unreasoning rustic mind was awed into a belief that this moldary old mill was haunted by something more creepy than harrowing than bats and owls.
Anyway, I heard wonderful tales at which I laughed, and when I learned that the country people generally gave the mill a wide berth at night, blame them for their stupidity, but it was a fact that worthy and in other respects intelligent farmers and market folk coming are going between Britain and highly after dark, refer the much longer and dangerous route by the sea cliffs even in the wildest weather. I have dwelt thus long on the haunted mill because it bulks largely in my story as well presently be seen, and I came in time to regard it, which scarcely less awed in the rustic stid. It was during the second few of my residents in Britain that a young man named Charles Royce came home after having been absent at sea for three years, Royce's people occupied Gorse Hill farm, about two miles to south of Britain. Young Charlie, a fine handsome but rather wild youngster, had it appears fallen desperately in love with Hannah Charlesville, who was a domestic in the employ of the rector of the parish, but Charlie's people did not approve of his choice and they can secure him, packed him off to sea, and after an absence of three years and a month, the young fellow bronze, Hardy, more well-king and handsome than ever, returned to his native village.
I had no nothing of Charles Royce or his history up to the day of his return, but at chance on that very day I had to pay a professional visit to the rectory and the rectory pressed me to lunch with him, greatly interested in all his parishioners, and knowing something of the private history of most of the families in his district, the Reverend gentlemen, Barry naturally fell to talking about young Royce and he told me the story, adding Hannah is a good girl and I think it's rather a pity Charlie's people object to his courting her. I believe she would have made him a capital life. Has she given him up entirely? I asked.
Oh yes, and is engaged to silence heart-drop whose father owns the fishing snack at the North C.B.E. I've never had a very high opinion of silence, and afraid he's a little too fond of Skittles and beer, however Hannah seems to turn into half him inside of anything I can say, so she must take her course. But I hope she will be able to reform him, and that the marriage will be a happy one. I really shouldn't be a bit surprised however if the girl took up with her old lover again, for I have reason to know she was much attached to him, and that fancy Charlie, if he was so minded, could easily influence her to throw silence overboard.
This little story of love and disappointment naturally interested me, for in a country town, the affairs of one's neighbors are matter of greater moments than if the case in a big city. So it came to pass that a few weeks after Charlie's return, it was pretty generally known that even as the rectory has adjusted it might be, young Royce and pretty Hannah traveled over spoon again, and Silas had virtually been told to go about his business. It was further known that Silas had taken his dismissal so much to heart that he had been seeking consolation in the beer pot. Of course, folk talked a great deal, and most of them sympathized to Silas and Blaine Hannah.
Very soon began to be rooted about that Royce's people no longer posed any objection to the wooing, and that in consequence Hannah and Charlie were to become husband and wife at Christmas, that was in about seven weeks time. A month of the time had passed, and the asking were up in the parish church, when one day they went forth a rumor that Charlie's Royce was missing. Rumor took a more definite shape a few hours later when it was positively stated that two nights previously Charlie had left his father's house in high spirits and the best of health to visit Hannah, and walked with her as she was going to town to make some purchases. On his way he called it the two wagons, always out in, where he had kind of beer and purchased an ounce of tobacco.
From the time he left the inn, all trace of him was lost, and he was seen no more. Hannah waited his coming until long past the appointed hour, and when he failed to put in appearance, she became angry and went off to the town by herself. Next day her anger gave place to anxiety when she learned that he had left his home to visit her and had not since returned, and anxiety became alarm when two and three days lived by without bringing any tidings of the Truman. On the night that he left his home, the weather was very tempestuous and it had been wild and stormy since.
It was therefore suggested that on leaving the two wagons he might have got confused when he reached the common which he had to cross to get to the rectory, and as there were several pools and treacherous hollows on the common, it was thought he had come to grief, but the most diligent search failed to justify the sunrise. Such an event as this was well calculated to cause a sensation, not only in Brinton and its neighborhood, but throughout the country. Indeed, for many days it was a common topic of conversation, and at the Brinton Weekly Market, the farmers and the rustic's dwelled upon it to the exclusion of other things, and of course, everybody, or nearly everybody, had some wonderful theory of his or her own to account for the missing hands to experience. As expected by his disappointment with regard to Hannah, went to the dogs as the saying is, and drank so heavily that it ended in an attack of the time to swallow their, who had been taken suddenly and as reports said, seriously ill, I had had rather a heavy David, as there had been a good deal of sickness about for some time passed, and it had taken me several hours to get through my list of patience.
I had just refreshed myself with a cup of tea and was about to enjoy a cigar with a messenger cane, telling him to ride back as quickly as possible and say that I was coming, I busy myself with a few important matters which had to be attended to, as I might be absent for some hours, and then ordered my favourite mayor, Princess, to be settled. I set off from Brinton soon after seven, it was November night, bitterly cold, darkest air this, while every now and then, violent swallows swept the land from seeward, Princess knew the road well, so I gave the mayor her head, and she went splendidly until we reached the room in the middle, when suddenly she wheeled round with such a promise that though I was a good horseman, I was nearly pitched for the by-somethings that seemed cold and cliny, I thought it first was a bat, but remembered that bats do not fly in November, and owl, but an owl would not have felt cold and funny, however I had little time for thought as my attention had to give into the mayor, she seemed disposed to bolt and was trembling with fear, then to my intense astonishment I noticed what seemed to be a large luminous body lying on the roadway, it had the appearance of the corpse, illuminated in some wonderful and mysterious manner, had it not been for the fright of my mayor, I should have thought I was the victim of some optical delusion, but Princess evidently saw the weird object and refused to pass it, so impressed was I with the idea that a real and substantial body was lying in the road, notwithstanding was arranged under the light that I slipped from the saddle intending to investigate the matter, when suddenly it disappeared, and the cold and cliny something again struck me in the face, I confess that for the first time in my life I felt a strange, nervous, unaccountable fear, I say unaccountable because it would have been difficult for me to have given any explanation of my fear, why end of what was I afraid? Now, whatever the phenomenon was, there was a hard, stern fact to face that my horse had seen what I had seen and was terrified, there was something strangely uncanny about the whole business, and when a terrific squall, reading with it, sleep and rain, can howling from the sea, it seems to emphasize the uncannyness and a ruined mill, looming gaunt and grim in the darkness, caused me to shake with an involuntary shudder, the next moment I was trying to laugh myself out of my nervousness, Princess and I mentally argued, have been the victims of some atmospheric delusion, that was all very well, but the something cold and cliny that struck me in the face and which may have struck the mayor in the face also was no atmospheric delusion, with an alacrity I did not often swear to the I was afraid to say, I sprang into the saddle, spoke some encouraging words to the mayor for she was still trembling, and when she bounded forward and haunt a mill was behind me, I experienced a positive sense of relief, I found my patient at high-lead in a very bad way, he was suffering from an attack of apoplexy, and though I used all my scale on his behalf, he passed away toward midnight, his wife very kindly offered me a bed for the night, but as I had important matters to attend to early in the morning, I declined to lost a tally, though I was thankful for a glass or two of generous port wine and some sandwiches, it was half past 12 when I left the house on my return journey, the incident by the haunted mill had been put out of my head by the case I hadn't called upon to attend, but as I mounted my mayor, the groom who had brought around from the stable said, it'd be a bad night doctor for riding, the kind of night when dead things come out with her graves, I laughed and replied, I thought you had more sense than that, well I tell you what, doctor, if I had to ride to Britain tonight, I'd go by the cliffs and chance to be in drown rather than pass the annal mill, these words for the moment unnerdly, and I honestly confess that I resolved to go by the cliffs, dangerous as the road was in the dark, nevertheless I left it on seers and ridicule him, though when I left the squires grounds, I turned the mayor's head towards the cliffs, and a few minutes I was ridiculing myself, John Patmore Lindsey, I mentally exclaimed, you're a fool, all your life you have been ridiculing stories of super natural, and now, at your time of life, are you going to allow yourself to be frightened by a bogey, shame on you, I bucked up, grew bold, and thereupon altered my course and got into the high road again, there had been a slight improvement in the weather, it had ceased to rain, but the wind had settled down into a steady gale and scree of the morlin with a demon-ionical fury, the darkness however was not so intense as it was, and a star here and there was visible through the torn clouds, but it was an eerie sort of night, and I was strangely impressed with the sense of my loneliness, it was absolutely unusual for me to feel like this, and I suggested to myself that my nerves were a little unstrong, but overworked, and the anxiety the squares in this caused me, and so I rode on, bowing my head to the storm while the mayor stepped out well, and I anticipated that a little more than half an hour I should be snug in bed, as we got abreast of the haunted mill, the mayor once more gibbed, and all that threw me, and again I was struck at the face by the cold, clammy something, I have generally prided myself on being a bold man, but my boldness had evaporated now, and I almost think my hair rose on end as I observed that the illuminated corpse was lying in the roadway again, but now I appeared to be surrounded by a lake of blood, it was the most horrible, weird, marrow-curdling sight that every human eyes looked upon, I tried to urge princess forward, but she was stricken with terror, and weaving right around was sitting off towards high lee again, but once more I was struck in the face by the invisible something, and its coldness and clammy has made me shudder, while they are in front of us lay the corpse in a pool of blood, the mayor reared and plunged, but I got her head round, determining to make a wild gala for g a ghastly object confronted me, and the blow in the face was repeated again and again, how long I endured the unaudible horrors of the situation I really don't know, possibly the time was measured by brief minutes, it seems to me hours, at last my presence of mine returned, I dismounted and reasoned with myself that, whatever the apparition was, it had some import, I soot the mayor by patting her neck and talking to her, and I determined then to try and find a solution of the mystery, but now a more wonderful thing happened, the corpse which was still made visible by the unearthly light rose straight up, and as it did so the blood seems to flow away from it in great gurgling streams, for I saw and they declared that distinctly hurt gurgling sounds, the figure glided past me, and a sense of extraordinary coldness and any shiver, slowly and gracily, the shining corpse glided up the rotting steps of the old mill and disappeared through the doorway, no sooner had it gone, than the mill itself seemed to glow with phosphorous and light and to be transparent, and I be held aside to talk my breath away, I am disposed to think that for some moments my brain became so numb, at incenseability ensued, for I'm conscious of a blank, when the power of thought returned I was still holding the bridal of the mayor and she was cropping the grass at her feet, the mill loomed blackly against the night sky, it had resumed its normal appearance again, the wind shrieked about it, the ragged stone raced through the heavens and the air was filled with the sounds of raging wind, at first I was inclined to doubt the evidence of my own senses, I tried to reason myself into belief that my imagination had played me a trick, but I didn't succeed, although the mystery was too profound for my fathoming, so I mounted the mayor, urge her to her fastest pace, galloped into the house with a feeling of intense relief, thoroughly exhausted by the prolonged physical and mental strain I had endured, I speedily sank into a deep, though troubled slumber as soon as I got into bed, I was unusually rising the next day, I found that I had no appetite for breakfast, indeed I felt ill in out of sorts, and though I busy myself from my professional duties, I was haunted by the strange incidents for the preceding night, never before in the whole course of my career had I been so impressed, so unnerved and so dispirited, I wanted to believe that I was still as skeptical as ever, but it was no use, what I had seen might have been unearthly, but I had seen it, and it was no use trying to argue myself out of that fact, the result was in the course of the afternoon, I called on my old friend Mr. Goodyear, who was chief of the country constabulary, he was a strong minded man, and like myself, a hardened skept about all things that's now back to the supernatural, Goodyear, I said, I'm out of sorts, and I want you to humor as strange fancy I have, bring one of your best men and come with me to the haunted mill, but first let me accept from you a plan to honor that if our journey should result in nothing, you will keep them out of secret, and I'm very sensitive to ridicule, he looked at me in amazement, and then as he burst into a hearty laugh, exclaimed, I say my friend, you are overworking yourself, it's time you got to look on tenants and to go holiday, I told him that I agreed with him, nevertheless I begged him to humor me, and to company me to the mill, at last he reluctantly consented to do so, and in our later we drove out of town in my dog cart, there were four of us, and I took Peter, my groom with me, we had provided ourselves with lanterns, but good years now and Peter knew nothing of the object to our journey, when we got abreast of the mill, and I was looking at him on one side, I said, I had a vision, and at last I am the victim of incipient madness, we shall find a dead body in the mill, the light of the dog cart was shining full on his face, and I saw the expression of alarm that my words brought, look hero chap, he said in a gerry kindly way as he put his arm through mine, you are not going into that mill, but straight home again, come now get into the cart and don't let's have any more of this nonsense, I felt disposed to yield him, and it actually placed my foot in the step to mount when I staggered back and exclaimed, my god, am I going mad, or is this a reality, once again I have been struck in the face by the cold clammy something, and I saw Goodyear suddenly clap his hand to his face and cry out, hello, what the deuces that, I exclaimed exultantly, for I no longer thought my brain was getting way, you have felt it too, well something cold and is that I expect, confound him, that's not fly as time of year, I replied, by a show no more they do, I approached him and said in a low tone, Goodyear this is a mystery beyond our solving, I am resolved to go into that mill, he was a brave man, though for a moment or two he hesitated, but online sisting he consented to hear me and so we lit the lantern, and leaving the room in charge of the horse entrap, I, Goodyear and his man, made our way with difficulty of the right steps, which was slimy and sought in with wet, as we entered the mill and extraordinary scene of distillation and ruin met our gaze, as we flashed the light of the lantern about in places the floor had broken away, leaving yawning chasms of blackness.
From the molding rafters, huge festoons of cobweins hung, the accumulated dust and dampness of years had given them the appearance of hordes, and oh, how the wind moned eerly through the rifts and crannies and broken windows. If ever there was a place on this earth where evil spirits might dwell, it was surely that it was haunted, old male. The startling aspect of the place impressed us all, perhaps me more than the other two. We advanced gingerly, for the floor was so wrong we were afraid it would crumble beneath our feet.
My companions were a little bewildered, I think, and reverently I lost to know what we had come there for, but some strange feeling impaled me to seek for something, though if I had been asked to define that something for the life of me I could not have done it. Forward I went however, taking the lead and holding the lantern above my head, so that its rays might fall far, but they revealed nothing to save the running floor and slimy walls, a ladder led to the upper story, and I expressed my intention of mounting it. Goodyear tried to dissuade me, but I was removed and, like the way. The ladder was so creepy and fragile that it was not safe for more than one to be on it at a time.
When I reached the second floor and drew myself up through the trap, I'm absolutely certain I heard a sigh. You may say it was the wind, I swear it was not. The wind was moaning dread enough, but the sigh was a distinctive note and unmistakable. As I turned to a lantern round so that it's light to my sweet every hole in corner of the place, I noticed what seemed to be a sack full of something lying in a corner.
I approached and touched it with my foot and drew back in alarm for touch and sound, told me it contained neither core nor chaff. I waited until my companions had joined me, then I said to Goodyear, unless I mistaken there was something dreadful in that sack. He stooped and placed his hand on the sack, and I saw him start back in another moment he recovered himself, and whipping out his knife cut the string which fastened up the mouth of the sack and revealed a human skull with a hair and shriveled mummified flesh still adhering to it. Great heavens he exclaimed, here is a human body.
We held a hurry conversation and decided to leave the ghastly thing under stir until the morrow, so we scuttled down as fast as we could in my home. I did not return to the mill again myself. My part had been played. Investigation made it absolutely certain that the moldering remains were those of poor Charlie Royce, and it was no less absolutely certain that he had been foully murdered.
For not only was there a bullet hole in the skull and a bullet inside, but his throat had been cut. It was murder, horrible and damnable. The verdict of the coroner's jury pronounced it murder, but there was no evidence to prove who had done the deed. Circumstances, however, pointed to Charlie's rival, Silas Hartrop, was it a guilty conscience that drove him to drink, and did a fury so he had been discharged in Pellham on that dark and stormy night in the North Sea to end the torture of his accursed earthly life.
Who can tell the sea holds its secrets, and not a scrap of legal evidence could be obtained, but though the law declined to responsibility of fixing the guilt of the dark deed on Silas, there was a consensus of opinion that he was the guilty party. It was a mystery, but the greatest mystery of all was that I, the skeptic, should have been selected by some supernatural power to be the instrument for bringing the foul crime to light. For myself, I attempt to know explanation. I have told a true story.
Let those who can explain it. I admit now that there are more things in head and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.