Glamis Castle - Elliot O'Donnell

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Glam's castle by Elliott O'Donnell.

Of all the hauntings in Scotland, none has gained such widespread notoriety as the hauntings of

Glam's castle, the seat of the Earl of Strathmore and King Horn in Forfershire. Part of the

castle, that part which is the more frequently haunted, is of ancient, though uncertain date.

And if there is any truth in the tradition that Duncan was murdered there by Macbeth,

must at any rate have been an existence at the commencement of the 11th century. Of course extra

buildings have from time to time been added and renovations made, but the original structure

remains pretty nearly the same as it always has been, and is included in a square tower that

occupies a central position and commands a complete view of the entire castle. Within this tower,

the walls of which are 15 feet thick, there is a room hidden in some unsuspected quarter that

contains a secret. The key note to one at least of the hauntings, which is known only to the

Earl, his heir, on the attainment of his 21st birthday and the factor of the estate.

In all probability, the mystery attached to this room would challenge but little attention,

where it not for the fact that unearthly noises which at the time were supposed to proceed from

this chamber have been heard by various visitors sleeping in the square tower.

The following experiences said to have happened to a lady named Bond. I append it more or less

in her own words. It is a good many years since I stayed at Glams. I was, in fact, but little more

than a child, and had only just gone through my first season in town. But though young,

I was neither nervous nor imaginative. I was inclined to be what has termed stall it,

that is to say, extremely matter of fact, and practical. Indeed, when my friends exclaimed,

you don't need to say you're going to stay at Glams. Don't you know it's haunted?

I burst out laughing. Haunted, I said. How ridiculous. There are no such things as ghosts. One

might as well believe in fairies. Of course, I didn't go to Glams alone. My mother and sister

were with me, but whereas they slept in the more modern part of the castle, I was at my own

request, apportioned a room in the square tower. I can't say that my choice had anything to do

with the secret chamber. That and the alleged mystery had been dinned into my ears so often

that I had grown thoroughly sick of the whole thing. No, I wanted to sleep in the square tower for

quite a different reason, a reason of my own. I kept in Avery the tower was old and I naturally

hoped its walls would be covered with Avery and teeming with bird's nests, some of which I might

be able to reach, and I am ashamed to say plunder from my window. Alas, from my expectations,

although the square tower was so ancient that in some places it was actually crumbling away,

not the sign of a leaf, not the vestige of a bird's nest could I see anywhere. The walls were

abominably brutally bare. However, it was not long before my disappointment gave way to delight

for the air that blew in through the open window was so sweet, so richly scented with

heather and honeysuckle and the view of the broad sweeping, thickly wooded grounds so indescribably

charming that despite my inartistic and unpoetal cool nature, I was entranced. Entranced, as I had never

been before, and never have been since. Ghosts, I said to myself, ghosts, how absurd, how preposterously

absurd, such an adorable spot as this can only harbor sunshine and flowers. I well remember to,

for, as I have already said, I was not too poetical, how much I enjoyed my first dinner at clams.

The long journey and keen mountain air had made me hungry, and I thought I had never tasted such

delicious food, such ideal salmon from the esk and such heavenly fruit. But I must tell you that,

although I ate heartily as a healthy girl should, by the time I went to bed I had thoroughly digested

my meal and was in fact quite ready to partake of a few oatmeal biscuits I found in my dressing

case, and remembered having bought a Perth. It was about 11 o'clock when I made left me,

and I sat for some minutes wrapped in my dressing gown before the open window. The night was very

still, and save for an occasional rustle of the wind in the distant treetops, the hooting of an

owl, the melancholy cry of a poet, and the horse barking of a dog, the silence was undisturbed.

The interior of my room was, in nearly every particular modern. The furniture was not old,

there were no grim carvings, no grotesquely fashion tapestries on the walls, no dark

cupboards, no gloomy corners, all was cozy and cheerful, and, when I got into bed, no thought of

boggle or mystery entered my mind. In a few minutes I was asleep, and for some time there was nothing

but a blank, a blank in which all identity was annihilated. Then suddenly I found myself

in an oddly shaped room with a lofty ceiling, and a window situated at so great a distance from

the black oak and floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of a

phosphorant light made their way through the narrow pains and served to render distinct

the more prominent objects around, but my eyes struggled in vain to reach the remotor angles

of the wall, one of which inspired me with terror such as I had never felt before. The walls

were covered with heavy draperies that were sufficient in themselves to preclude the possibility

of any, say the loudest of sounds, penetrating without. The furniture, if such one could call it,

puzzled me, it seemed more fitted for the sale of a prison or lunatic asylum or even for a

kennel than for an ordinary dwelling room. I could see no chair, only a coarse deal table,

a straw mattress and a kind of trough, an air of irredeemable gloom and horror hung over and

pervaded everything. As I stood there I felt I was waiting for something, something that was

concealed in the corner of the room I dreaded. I tried to reason with myself, to assure myself that

there was nothing there that could hurt me, nothing that could even terrify me, but my efforts

were in vain, my fears grew. Had I had some definite knowledge as to the cause of my alarm,

I should not have suffered so much, but it was my ignorance of what was there, of what I feared

that made my terror so poignant. Each second saw the agony of my suspense increase.

I dared not move. I hardly dare breathe, and I dreaded less the violent pulsation of my heart

should attract the attention of the unknown presence and precipitate its coming out.

Yet, despite the perturbation of my mind, I caught myself analysing my feelings.

It was not danger I abored so much, as its absolute effect, fright. I shuttered at the bare

thought of what result the most trivial incident, the creaking of a board, taking of a beetle,

or hooting of an owl, might have on the intolerable agitation of my soul.

In this unnerved and pitiful condition I felt that the period was bound to come sooner later,

when I should have to abandon life and reason together in the most desperate of struggles with

fear. At length, something moved, an icy chill ran through my frame, and the horror of my

anticipation immediately reached its culminating point. The presence was about to reveal itself.

The gentle grubbing of a soft body in the floor, the crack of a bony joint, breathing,

another crack, and then was at my own excited imagination, or the disturbing influence of the

atmosphere, or the uncertain twilight of the chamber that produced before me, in the stigian darkness

of the recess, the facilitating and indistinct outling of something luminous and horrid.

I would gladly have risked futurity to have looked elsewhere. I could not. My eyes were fixed,

I was compelled to gaze steadily in front of me. Slowly, very slowly, the thing, whatever it was,

took shape, legs, crooked, misshapen, human legs, a body, tony, and hunched, arms, long, and spidery,

with crooked knotted fingers. A head, large and bestial, and covered with a tangled mass of gray

hair that hung around its protruding forehead and pointed ears in ghastly mockery of curls.

A face, and herein was the realization of all my direst expectations, a face, white and staring,

pig-like information, malevolent in expression, a hellish combination of all things full and animal,

and yet, with all, not without a touch of pathos. As I stared at it a ghast, it reared itself on

its haunches, after the manner of an ape, and leared pitiously at me. Then shuffling forward,

it rolled over, and lay sprawled out like some ungainly turtle, and wallowed as for warmth,

in the cold grey beams of early dawn. At this juncture, the handle of the chamber door turned,

someone entered, there was a loud cry, and I awoke, awoke to find the whole tower, walls and

rafters, ringing with the most appalling screams I have ever heard. Screams of something, or of

someone, for there was in them a strong element of what was human, as well as animal, in the great

distress. Wondering what it meant, and more than ever terrified, I sat up in bed and listened,

while a conviction, the result of intuition, suggestion, or what you will, but a conviction

all the same, forced me to associate the sounds with the thing in my dream, and I associate them still.

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It was, I think, in the same year, in the year that the foregoing account was narrated to me

that I heard another story of the hauntings it glams. A story in connection with a lady whom I

will call Miss McGinney. I append her experience as nearly as possible as she has stated to have told it.

I seldom talk about my adventure, Miss McGinney announced, because so many people ridicule the

super physical and laugh at the mere mention of ghosts. I own I did the same myself till I

stated glams, but a week there quite queued me of skepticism and I came away a confirmed believer.

The incident occurred nearly twenty years ago, shortly after my return from India,

where my father was then stationed. It was years since I had been to Scotland. Indeed, I had only

once crossed the border and that when I was a babe. Consequently, I was delighted to receive an

invitation to spend a few weeks in the land of my birth. I went to Edinburgh first, I was born in

Drumshay Gardens and thens to glams. It was late in the autumn, the weather was intensely cold

and I arrived at the castle in a blizzard. Indeed, I do not recollect ever having been out in such a

frightful storm. It was as much as the horses could do to make headway and when we reached the castle,

we found a crowd of anxious faces eagerly awaiting us in the hall. Child, I was chilled to the bone

and I thought I never should saw, but the huge fires and bright and cozy atmosphere of the rooms

for the interior of glams was modernised throughout. Soon set me right and by tea time I felt nicely

warm and comfortable. My bedroom was the oldest part of the castle, the square tower, but although

I had been worn by some of the guests that it might be haunted, I can assure you that when I went

to bed, no subject was farther from my thoughts than the subject of ghosts. I had returned to my room

at about half past eleven. The storm was then at its height, all was bable and confusion,

impenetrable darkness mingled with the wildest roaring and shrieking and when I peeped through my

casement window I could see nothing. Pains were shrouded in snow, snow which was incisantly dashed

against them with cyclonic fury. I fixed a comb in the window frame so as not to be kept awake

by the constant jarring and with the caution characteristic of my sex looked into the wardrobe

and under the bed for burglars. Though heaven knows what I should have done had I funned one

there, placed a candlestick and matchbox on the table by my bedside, less the roof or window

should be blown in during the night or any other catastrophe happened and after all these preparations

got into bed. At this period of my life I was a sound sleeper and being somewhat unusually tired

after my journey I was soon in a dreamless slumber. What awoke me I cannot say but I came to myself

with a violent start such as might have been occasioned by a loud noise, indeed that was at first

my impression and I strained my ears to try and ascertain the cause of it. All was however silent.

The storm had abated and the castle and grounds were wrapped in an almost pre-ternatural hush.

The sky had cleared and the room was partially illuminated by a broad stream of

silvery light that filtered softly in through the white and tightly drawn lines. A feeling that there

was something unnatural in the air that the stillness was but the prelude to some strange and

startling event gradually came over me. I strove to reason with myself to argue that the feeling was

holy due to the novelty of my surroundings but my efforts were fruitless and soon there

stole upon me a sensation to which I had been hitherto an utter stranger I became afraid.

An irrepressible tremor pervaded my frame, my teeth shattered, my blood froze,

obeying an impulse and impulse I could not resist, I lifted myself up from the pillows and

peering fearfully into the shadowy glows and laid directly in front of me, listened.

Why, I listened, I do not know, saving that an instinctive spirit prompted me.

At first I could hear nothing and then from a direction I could not define their chemo noise,

low, distinct, uninterpretive. It repeated in rapid succession and speedily construed

itself into the sound of mailed footsteps, racing up the long flight of stairs at the end of the

corridor leading to my room. Dreading to think what it might be and seized with a wild sentiment

of self-preservation, I made frantic endeavors to get out of bed and barricade my door.

My limbs, however, refused to move. I was paralyzed, nearer and nearer drew the sounds,

and I could at length distinguish with a clearness that petrified my very soul,

the banging and clanging of sword scabbards, and the panting and gasping of men,

sore pressed in a wild and desperate race, and then the meaning of it all came to me with hideous

abruptness. It was a case of pursued and pursuing. The race was for life. Outside my door,

the fugitive halted, and from the noise he made in trying to draw his breath, I knew he was dead

beat. His antagonist, however, gave him but scant time for recovery, bounding at him with prodigious

leaps, he struck him a blow that sent him reeling with such tremendous force against the door

with the panels, although composed of the stoutest oak, quivered and strained, like flimsy matchport.

The blow was repeated, the cry that rose in the victim's throat was converted into an

abortive, gurgling groan, and I heard the ponderous battle ax carve its way through helmet,

bone and brain. A moment later came the sound of slithering armor, and the corpse slipping sideways,

toppled to the ground with a syrenorous clang. A silence too awful for words now ensued,

having finished his hideous handiwork, the murderer was quietly deliberating what to do next.

Lashed my dread of attracting his attention was so great that I scarcely dare breath.

This intolerable state of things had already lasted for what seemed to me a lifetime.

When, glancing involuntarily at the floor, I saw a stream of dark looking fluid,

lazily lapping its way to me from the direction of the door.

Another moment, and it would reach my shoes. In my dismay I shrieked a loud,

there was a sudden stir without, a significant clatter of steel, and the next moment,

despite the fact that it was locked, the door slowly opened.

The limits of my endurance had now happily been reached, the overtaxed vals of my heart could

stand no more, I fainted. On my awakening to consciousness it was morning, and the welcome

sun rays revealed no evidences of the distressing drama. I own I had a hard tussle before I could

make up my mind to spend another night in that room, and my fillings as I shut the door

or mine a treating made, and prepare to get into bed, were not the most innvable.

But nothing happened, nor did I again expedient anything of the sort till the evening before I left.

I had laid down all the afternoon, for I was tired after a long morning's tramp on the murs.

I think I dearly love, and I was thinking it was about time to get up when a dark shadow suddenly

fell across my face. I looked up hastily, and there, standing by my bedside, and bending over

me was a gigantic figure in bright armor. Its visor was up, and what I saw within the cask

is stamped forever on my memory. It was the face of the dead, the long, since dead,

with the expression the subtly hellish expression of the living. As I gazed helplessly at it,

it bent lower, I threw at my hands to warded off, there was a loud rap at the door,

and as my maid softly entered to tell me tea was ready, it vanished.

The third account of the glamorous hauntings was told me as long ago as the summer of 1893.

I was travelling by rail from Perth to Glasgow, and the only other occupant of my compartment

was an elderly gentleman who, from his general heir and appearance, might have been a domine,

or member of some other learned profession. I can see him in my mind's eye now,

a tall thin man with a premature stoop. He had white hair, which was brushed forward

down either side of his head in such a manner as suggested a wake. Bouchie eyebrows, dark,

piercing eyes, and a stern, though somewhat sad, mouth. His features were fine and scholarly,

he was clean shaven. There was something about him, something that marked him from the general

hoard, something that attracted me, and he began chatting with him soon after we left Perth.

In the course of a conversation that was at all events interesting to me,

I had jointly managed to introduce the subject of ghosts, then, as ever, upermost in my thoughts.

Well, he said, I can tell you of something rather extraordinary that my mother used to say

happened to a friend of hers at Glam's. I have no doubt you are well acquainted with the

hackneyed stories in connection with the hauntings at the castle. For example, it'll be a day playing

cards with the devil and the weeping women without hands or tongue. You can read about them in

scores of books and magazines, but what befell my mother's friend whom I will call Mrs. Gibbons,

for I have forgotten her proper name, was apparently of a novel nature.

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The affair happened shortly before Mrs. Gibbons died and I always thought that what took place

might have been in some way connected with her death. She had driven over to the castle one day

during the absence of the owner to see her cousin who was in the employ of the herel in contest.

Never having been at glams before, but having heard so much about it, Mrs. Gibbons was not

a little curious to see that part of the building called the square tower that bore the

reputation of being haunted. Tactically biding an opportunity, she sounded her relative on the

subject and was laughingly informed that she might go anywhere about the place she pleased,

saving to one spot, namely Bluebeard's chamber, and there she could certainly never succeed in

poking her nose as its locality was known only to three people, all of whom were pledged never to

reveal it. At the commencement of her tour of inspection, Mrs. Gibbons was disappointed. She was

disappointed in the tower. She had expected to see a gaunt, grim place crumbling to pieces with age,

full of blood-curdling, spiral staircases, and deep, dark dungeons. Whereas everything was

the reverse, the walls were an excellent state of preservation. Absolutely intact, the rooms bright

and cheerful and equipped in the most modern style. There were no dungeons, at least none on view,

and the passages and staircases were suggestive of nothing more alarming than bats.

She was accompanied for some time by her relative, but on the latter being called away, Mrs. Gibbons

continued her rambles alone. She had explored the lower premises and was leisurely examining a

handsomely furnished apartment on the top floor when, in crossing from one side of the room to

the other, she ran into something. She looked down, nothing was to be seen. Amazed beyond description,

she thrust out her hands, and they allighted on an object, which she had little difficulty in

identifying. It was an enormous cask or barrel, lying in a horizontal position. She bent down close

to where she felt it, but she could see nothing, nothing but the well-polished boards of the floor.

To make sure again that the barrel was there, she gave a little kick, and drew back her foot

with a cry of pain. She was not afraid, the sunshine in the room for bade fear, only exasperated.

She was certain a barrel was there, that it was objective, and she was angry with herself

for not seeing it. She wondered if she were going blind, but the fact that other objects in the room

were cleanly visible to her, this countenanced such an idea. For some minutes she poked and

jabbed at the thing, and then seized with sudden and uncontrollable panic, she turned round and fled,

and as she tore out of the room along the passage and down the seemingly interminable flight of

stairs, she heard the barrel behind her in close pursuit, bump, bump, bump. At the foot of the

staircase Mrs. Gibbons met her cousin, and as she clutched the latter for support, the barrel

shot past her, still continuing its descent, bump, bump, bump. Though the steps as far as you could see

had ended, till the sounds gradually dwindled away in the far distance.

Whilst the manifestations lasted, neither Mrs. Gibbons nor her cousin spoke, but the latter,

as soon as the sounds had ceased, dragged Mrs. Gibbons away, and in a voice shaking with terror

cried quick, quick, don't for heaven's sake look round, worse has yet to come. And pulling Mrs.

Gibbons along in breathless haste, she unceremoniously hustled her out of the tower.

That was no battle, Mrs. Gibbons cousin subsequently remarked by way of explanation.

I saw it, I have seen it before, don't ask me to describe it, I dare not, I dare not even think of

it, whenever it appears a certain thing happens shortly afterwards. Don't, don't on any account say

a word about it, to anyone here. And Mrs. Gibbons, my mother told me, came away from glam's a thousand

times more curious than she was when she went. The last story I have to relate is one I heard many

years ago, when I was staying near Balmoro, and gentlemen named Vance with strong antiquarian

tastes was staying at an inn near the Strathmore Estate, and roaming abroad one afternoon

in a fit of absent-mindedness entered the castle grins. It so happened, fortunately for him,

that the family were away, and he encountered no one more formidable than a man he took to be a

gardener, an uncouth-looking fellow with a huge head covered with a mass of red hair, hawk-like

features, and high cheekbones, high, even for a scot. Struck with the appearance of the individual,

Mr. Vance spoke, and finding him wonderfully civil, asked whether by any chance he ever came across

any fossils when digging in the gardens. And then again the meaning of fossils, the man replied,

what are they? Mr. Vance explained, and a look of cunning, gradually pervaded the fellow's features.

No, he said, I've never found any of those things. But if you'll give me your word to say

nothing about it, I'll show you something I once dug up over yonder by the square tower.

Do you mean the haunted tower, the tower that is supposed to contain the secret room, Mr. Vance

exclaimed? An extraordinary expression, an expression such as Mr. Vance found it impossible to analyze,

came into the man's eyes. Yes, that's it, he nodded. What people call, and rightly call,

the haunted tower? I got it from there, but don't you say nought about it.

Mr. Vance's curiosity was roused, promised, and the man politely requesting him to follow,

led the way to a cottage that stood nearby in the heart of a gloomy wood.

To Mr. Vance's astonishment, the treasure proved to be the skeleton of a hand. A hand was

abnormally large knuckles, and the first joint of both fingers and thumb much shorter than the others.

It is the most extraordinarily shaped hand Mr. Vance had ever seen, and he did not know in the

least how to classify it. It repelled, yet interested him, and he eventually offered the man a good

sum to allow him to keep it, to his astonishment the money was refused. You may have the thing,

and welcome, the fellow said, only I advise you not to look at it late at night,

or just before getting into bed. If you do, you may have bad dreams.

I will take my chance of that, Mr. Vance laughed. You see, being a hard-headed cockney,

I am not superstitious. It is only you, Highlanders, and your first cousin's the Irish,

who believe nowadays in boggles, omens and such like. When packing the hand carefully in his

knapsack, Mr. Vance bid the strange-looking creature good morning, and went on his way.

For the rest of the day the hand was uppermost in his thoughts. Nothing had ever fascinated him so

much. He sat pondering over it the whole evening, and the bedtime found him still examining it,

examining it upstairs in his room by candlelight. He had a hazy recollection that some clock had

struck twelve, and he was beginning to feel that it was about time to retire. When, in the mirror

opposite him, he caught sight of the door. It was open. By jove, that's odd, he said to himself,

I could have sworn I shut and bolted it. To make sure he turned round, the door was closed.

An optical delusion he murmured, I will try again. He looked into the mirror, the door reflected in

it was open. Utterly at a loss to know how to explain the phenomenon, he leaned forward in his seat

to examine the glass more carefully, and as he did so he gave a start. On the threshold of the doorway

was a shadow, black and bulbous. A cult shiver ran down Mr. Vance's spine, and just for a moment he

felt afraid. Terribly afraid, but he quickly composed himself. It was nothing but an illusion.

There was no shadow there in reality. He had only took turn round, and the thing would be gone.

It was amusing, entertaining. He would wait and see what happened.

The shadow moved. It moved slowly through the air like some huge spider or odd shaped bird.

He would not acknowledge that there was anything sinister about it, only something drool,

excruciatingly drool. Yet it did not make him laugh. When it had drawn a little

nearer, he tried to diagnose it, to discover its material counterpart in one of the objects around

him. But he was obliged to acknowledge his attempts were failures. There was nothing in the room,

in the least degree like it. A vague feeling of uneasiness gradually crept over him.

Was the thing the shadow of something with which he was familiar, but couldn't just then recall

to mind something he feared, something that was sinister? He struggled against the idea. He

dismissed it as absurd, but it returned. Returned and took deeper root as the shadow drew nearer.

He wished the house was not quite so silent, that he could hear some indication of life,

anything, anything for companionship, and to rid him of the oppressive, the very oppressive

sense of loneliness and isolation. Again a thrill of terror ran through him.

Look here, he exclaimed aloud, glad to hear the sound of his own voice. Look here, if this goes on

much longer I shall begin to think I'm going mad. I have had enough, and more than enough of

magic mirrors for one night. It's high time I got into bed. He strove to rise from his chair,

to move. He was unable to do either. Some strange tyrannical force held him a prisoner.

A change now took place in the shadow, the blur dissipated, and the clearly defined outlines of

an object, an object that made Mr. Vans perfectly sick with apprehension slowly disclosed themselves.

His suspicions were verified. It was the hand. The hand no longer skeleton but covered with green

moldering flesh, filling its way slightly and stealthily towards him towards the back of his chair.

He noted the murderous twitching of its short, flat fingertips, the monstrous muscles of its hideous

thumb, and the great clumsy hollows of its clammy palm. It closed in upon him. It's called

slimy, detestable skin touched his coat, his shoulder, his neck, his head. It pressed him down,

squashed, suffocated him. He saw it all in the glass, and then an extraordinary thing happened.

Mr. Vans suddenly became animated. He got up and peeped furtively around, chairs,

bed, wardrobe had all disappeared. So had the bedroom, and he found himself in a small

bear, comfortless, clearly constructed apartment without a door, and with only a narrow slit of a

window somewhere near the ceiling. He had in one of his hands a knife with a long keen blade,

and his whole mind was bent on murder. Creeping stealthily forward, he approached the corner of the

room, where he now saw for the first time a mattress, a mattress on which lay a huddled up form.

What the thing was, with our human or animal, Mr. Vans did not know.

Did not care. All he felt was that it was there for him to kill, that he loathed and hated it.

Hated it with a hatred such as nothing else could have produced.

Tiptoeing gently out to it, he bent down, and lifting his knife high above his head, plunged it

into the things body with all the force he could command. He re-crossed the room and found himself

once more in his apartment at the inn. He looked for the skeleton hand. It was not where he had left

it. It had vanished. Then he glanced at the mirror, and on its brilliantly polished surface,

saw not his own face, but the face of the gardener, the man who had given him the hand. Features,

colour, hair, all, all were identical, wonderfully hideously identical, and as the eyes met his,

they smiled, devilishly. Early the next day, Mr. Vans set out for the spinning and cottage.

They were not to be found. Nobody had ever heard of them. He continued his travels, and

some once later, at a lone collection of pictures in a gallery in Edinburgh, he came to an abrupt,

a very abrupt halt, before the portrait of a gentleman in ancient costume.

The face seemed strangely familiar. The huge head with thick, red hair, the hawk-like features,

the thin and tightly compressed lips. Then, in a trice, it all came back to him. The face he looked

at was that of the uncouth gardener, the man who had given him the hand, and to clinch the matter,

the eyes lit.

End of Glam's Castle

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