the great curtain had fallen after the pantomime, and i was standing chatting on the stage of the theatre at cambridge when one of the stage men came to tell me i was wanted at the stage door and i must hurry up at once. thither i proceeded, and found a lot of golfing boys, hunting boys, dramatic boys, and all sorts of other merry ’varsity boys, who shouted out “come along quick to the blue pig” (the “blue pig” is a cambridge name for the blue boar hotel), “we want you to meet a fellow called willie carson, and there is to be supper, and he has something to tell us. the ‘bogie man’ has gone on there now, so come right away.”
well, off we went to the blue boar hotel, and we found carson sitting over a blazing fire, with a capital supper set in his nice old-fashioned room, lit up with candles only, the picture of comfort—outside it was snowing hard and bitterly cold.
after a talk over the merits of the pantomime, we did full justice to a most excellent supper, and then crowded round the blazing hearth to hear a story our host wanted to tell us.
“did you ever hear of the phantom coach at st andrews?” he asked, turning to me suddenly and removing his cigar.
“often,” i replied, “i have heard most extraordinary yarns about it from lots of people; but why do you ask?”
“because i’ve seen it,” he replied, softly and thoughtfully. “some five years ago, it was very, very strange, not to be forgotten and quite unexplainable; that is why i asked you here to-night. i wanted to talk to you about it.” he stooped over the fire and was silent for a few minutes.
“tell us all about it,” we all shouted at once, “we won’t make fun of it.”
[28]
“there is nothing to make fun of; indeed, it’s a true, solemn fact,” he said. “listen, and i will try to tell you what i saw, but i can’t half picture it properly. five years ago i had just come home from america. i went to stay at st andrews for some golf. i think it was the latter end of august, and i must have been in the town about a week at least, when one night—it was hot and stuffy, and about midnight—i determined to take a good long country walk, and struck out right along the road to strathkinness.
“it was a hot, dark, and stormy night, not wet; fitful black clouds floated now and again at a rapid pace over the moon, which now and then shone out brightly; in the distance the sea made a perpetual moan, and at intervals the dark eastern sky was lit up by flashes of summer wildfire lightning over the distant cathedral towers.
“now and again i could hear the mutter of far-away thunder, and there were incessant gusts of wind. i must have been about two miles along the road, when i could discern some very large object approaching me rapidly. as it came nearer i noticed it resembled a coach, dark, heavy, primitive; it seemed to have four large black horses, and the driver was a muffled, shapeless figure. it approached with a low humming or buzzing sound, which was most peculiar and unpleasant to hear. the horses made a hollow kind of ticking sound with their feet, otherwise it was noiseless.
“no earthly coach of the kind could go without any ordinary sound. it was weird and eerie in the extreme. as it passed me the moon shone out brightly, and i saw for a second a ghastly white face at the coach window; but i saw those four strange, silent black horses, the more extraordinary, tall, swaddled-up shapeless driver, and the quaint black, gloomy old coach, with a coffin-shaped box on the roof, only far, far too well. one most remarkable thing was that it threw no shadow of any kind.
“just as it passed me there was a terrific roar of thunder, and a blaze of lightning that nearly blinded me, and in the distance i saw that horrible ghastly receding coach; then clouds came over the moon and all was black—a darkness one[29] could feel, a darkness of a shut-up smothering vault. i felt sick and dazed for a minute or two. i could not make out if i had been struck by the lightning or was paralysed. however, after a bit it passed off; it was a horrible deathly feeling while it lasted. i never experienced a similar sensation before or since, and hope i never may again. another very curious thing was the behaviour of my favourite collie dog, usually frightened at nothing, on the approach of the phantom (for phantom it was). he crouched down, shivering and whining, and as it drew nearer fled with a bark like a screech, and cowered down in the ditch at the roadside and gave forth low growls.
“i tell you, boys, it’s all right in this room to talk about it, but none of you would have liked to be in my place that queer, uncanny night on that lonely road. that it was supernatural, i am convinced; it is a very thin veil between us and the unseen world of spirits.
“they say i possess a seventh sense, namely, second sight, and i know i shall never forget that night’s experience.
“but listen—the story is not ended yet. next morning a telegram arrived from my brother in kent, ‘are you all right?’ i wondered much, and wired back that i was very well.
“the following day a letter came from my brother giving me a curious explanation.
“the following afternoon of the day i saw the coach, my brother was looking out of the old manor house windows in kent, when he and several others noticed a large bird, having most peculiar plumage, seated on the garden wall. no one had ever seen a bird of the kind before. he was rushing off for a gun to shoot it, when our father, who looked very white and scared, stopped him. ‘do not shoot,’ he said, ‘it would be of no use. that is the bird of ill omen to all our race, it only appears before a death. i have only once seen it before—that week your dear mother died.’
“my brother was so alarmed at this that he sent the wire i have mentioned to me at st andrews. by the next mail from australia we learned that our eldest brother had died there the very day i saw the coach at st andrews and my brother saw the bird at our old home in kent. very odd, is it not; but what[30] do you know about that coach?”
“only tales,” i said. “many people swear they have heard it, or seen it, on stormy nights. i know a girl who swears to it, and also a doctor who passed it on the road, and it nearly frightened his horse to death and him too.
“the tale of the two tramps is funny. they were trudging into st andrews one wild stormy night when this uncanny coach overtook them. it stopped; the door opened, and a white hand beckoned towards them. one tramp rushed up and got in, then suddenly the door noiselessly shut and the coach moved off, leaving the other tramp alone in the pitiless wind and rain. ‘i never saw my old mate again,’ said the tramp, when he told the tale, ‘and i never shall—that there old coach was nothing of this here world of ours, it took my old mate off to davy jones’s locker mighty smart, poor fellow.’
“they say his body was found in the sea some months afterwards, and the tale goes that the phantom coach finishes its nocturnal journey in the waves of st andrews bay.”
“whose coach is it?” asked all that were in the room.
“i cannot say; some say bethune, others sharpe, and others hackston; i do not know who is supposed to be the figure inside, unless it is his satanic majesty himself. at all events, it seems a certain fact that a phantom coach has been seen from time to time on the roads round st andrews. i have never seen any of these things myself.”
“well,” said carson, “that awful coach does appear; it appeared to me, and, doubtless, in the course of time will appear to many others. it bodes no one any good, and i pity with all my heart anyone who meets it. beware of those roads late at night, or, like me, you may some day to your injury meet that ghastly, uncanny, old phantom coach. if so, you will remember it to your dying day.”
“curious thing that about seeing the coach and the bird at the same time, and in two places so far apart,” murmured the golfing johnny, “and then carson’s brother dying too.”
“i’d sooner see the bird than the coach,” said one.
“guess i’d rather not see either of them,” said an american present, “glad we have no phantom coaches in yankeeland.”
