i never met a better fellow in the world than my old friend, allan beauchamp. he had been educated at eton, and magdalen at oxford, after which he joined a crack regiment, and later on took it into his head to turn doctor. he was a great traveller and a magnificent athlete. there was no game in which he did not excel. curiously enough, he hated music; he had no ear for it, and he did not know the difference between the airs of “tommy, make room for your uncle” and “the lost chord.” he was tremendously proud of his pedigree; he had descended from the de beauchamps, and one of his ancestors, he gravely informed people, had helped noah to get the wasps and elephants into the ark. another of them seems to have been not very far away in the garden of eden. in fact, they seem to have been quite prehistoric. he was quite cracked on the subject of brain transference, telepathy, spiritualism, ghosts, warnings, and the like, and on these points he was most uncanny and fearsome. the literature he had about them was blood curdling. he believed in dual personality, and in visions, horoscopes, and dreams. he showed me a pamphlet he had written, entitled “the toad-faced demon of lone devil’s dyke.” he was always flitting about britain exploring haunted houses and castles, and sleeping in haunted rooms when it was possible. some years ago beauchamp and myself, accompanied by his faithful valet, rejoicing in the name of pellingham truffles, went to the highlands for a bit of quiet and rest, and it was there i heard his curious story of the skull.
we were sitting over a cosy fire after dinner. it was snowing hard outside, and very cold. our pipes were alight[45] and our grog on the table, when allan beauchamp suddenly remarked—“it’s a deuced curious thing for a man to be always followed about the place by a confounded grinning skull.”
“eh, what,” i said, “who the deuce is being followed about by a skull? it’s rubbish, and quite impossible.”
“not a bit,” said my friend, “i’ve had a skull after me more or less for several years.”
“it sounds like a remark a lunatic would make,” i rejoined rather crossly. “do not talk bunkum. you’ll go dotty if you believe such infernal rot.”
“it is not bunkum or rot a bit,” said allan, “it’s gospel truth. ask truffles, ask jack weston, or jimmy darkgood, or any of my south country pals.”
“i don’t know jack weston or jimmy darkgood,” i said, “but tell me the whole story, and some day, if it’s good, i’ll put it in the st andrews citizen.”
“it’s mostly about st andrews,” said beauchamp, “so here goes, but shove on some coals first.”
i did so, and then requested him to fire away.
“it was long, long ago, i think about the year 1513, that one of my ancestors, a man called neville de beauchamp, resided in scotland. it seems he was an uncommonly wild dog, went in for racing and cards, and could take his wine and ale with any of them even in those hard-drinking days. he was known as flash neville. later on he married a pretty girl, the daughter of a silk mercer in perth, who, it seems, died (they said of a broken heart) two years after. neville de beauchamp was seized with awful remorse, and became shortly after a monk in greyfriars monastery at st andrews. after neville’s wife’s death, her relations seem to have been on the hunt after him, burning for revenge, and the girl’s brother, a rough, wild dog in those stormy days, at last managed to track his quarry down in the monastery at st andrews.”
“very interesting,” i said, “that monastery stood very nearly on the site of the present infant school, and we found the well in 1880. well, what did this brother do, eh?”
“it seems that one afternoon after vespers he forced his way into the monastery chapel, sought out neville de beauchamp,[46] and slashed off his head with a sword in the aisle of the kirk. now a queer thing happened—his body fell on the floor, but the severed head, with a wild scream, flew up to the chapel ceiling and vanished through its roof.”
“mighty queer that,” i said.
“the body was reverently buried,” went on allan, “but the head never was recovered, and, whirling through the air over the monastery, screaming and groaning most pitifully, it used to cause great terror to the monks and others o’ nights. it was a well-known story, and few cared to venture in that locality after nightfall. the head soon became a skull, and since that time has always haunted some member of the house of beauchamp. now comes a strange thing. i went a few years ago and lived in rooms at st andrews for a change, and while there i heard of my uncle’s death somewhere abroad. i had never seen him, but i had frequently heard that he was very much perplexed and worried by the tender attentions paid him by the skull of neville de beauchamp, which was always turning up at odd times and in unexpected places.”
“this is a grand tale,” i said.
“now i come on the job,” said allan, ruefully. “that uncle was the very last of our family, and i wondered if that skull would come my way. i felt very ill and nervous after i got the news of my uncle’s death. a strange sense of depression and oppression overcame me, and i got very restless. one stormy evening i felt impelled by some strange influence to go out. i wandered about the place for several hours and got drenched. i felt as if i was walking in my sleep, or as if i had taken some drug or other. then i had a sort of vision—i had just rounded the corner of north bell street.”
“now called greyfriars garden,” i remarked.
“yes! well, when i got around that corner i saw a large, strange building before me. i opened a wicket gate and entered what i found to be the chapel; service was over, the lights were being extinguished, and the air was laden with incense. as i knelt in a corner of the chapel i saw the whole scene, the tragedy of which i had heard, enacted all over again. i saw that monk in the aisle, i saw a man rush in and cut off his head.[47] i saw the body fall and the head fly up with a shriek to the roof. when i came to myself i found i was sitting on the low wall of the school. i was very cold and wet, and i got up to go home. as i rose i saw lying on the pavement at my feet what appeared to be a small football. i gave it a vicious kick, when to my horror it turned over and i saw it was a skull. it was gnashing its teeth and moaning. then with a shriek it flew up in the air and vanished. a horrible thing. then i knew the worst. the skull of the monk neville de beauchamp had attached itself to me for life, i being the last of the race. since then it is almost always with me.”
“where is it now?” i said, shuddering.
“not very far away, you bet,” he said.
“it’s a most unpleasant tale,” i said. “good night, i’m off to bed after that.”
i was in my first sleep about an hour afterwards, when a knock came at my door, and the valet came in.
“sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but the skull has just come back. it’s in the next room. would you like to see it?”
“certainly not,” i roared. “get away and let me go to sleep.”
then and there i firmly resolved to leave next morning. i hated skulls, and i fancied that probably it might take a fancy to me, and i had no desire to be followed about the country by a skull as if it was a fox terrier.
next morning i went in to breakfast. “where is that beastly skull?” i said to allan.
“oh, it’s off again somewhere. heaven knows where; but i have had another vision, a waking vision.”
“what was it?”
“well,” said allan, “i saw the skull and a white hand which seemed to beckon to me beside it. then they slowly receded and in their place was what looked like a big sheet of paper. on it in large letters were the words—your friend, jack weston, is dead. this morning i got this wire telling me of his sudden death. read it.”
that afternoon i left the highlands and allan beauchamp.
[48]
since then i have constant letters from him from his home in england. he has tried every means possible to get rid of that monk’s skull; but they are of no avail, it always returns. so he has made the best he can of it, and keeps it in a locked casket in an empty room at the end of a wing of the old house. he says it keeps fairly quiet, but on stormy nights wails and gruesome shrieks are heard from the casket in that closed apartment.
i heard from him last week. he said:—
“dear w. t. l.,—i don’t think i mentioned that twice a year the skull of neville de beauchamp vanishes from its casket for a period of about two days. it is never away longer.
“i wonder if it still haunts its old monastery at st andrews where its owner was slain. do write and tell me if anyone now in that vicinity hears or sees the screaming skull of my ancestor, neville de beauchamp.”
