The Milkman and Church-Yard Ghost
A man much addicted to the heinous sin of drunkenness, in coming home late one winter’s night, had to cross Stepney church-yard; where, close to the foot path, a deep grave had been opened the day before. He, being very drunk, staggered into the grave; it was a great mercy he did not break his neck, or any of his limbs; but, as it rained hard all night, and the grave was so deep that he could not got out, he had but an uncomfortable bed. For some hours nobody passed by; till, shortly after the clock had struck four, a milkman, who had been to the cow-house for his milk, came by, and said to himself, “I wonder what o’clock it is.” The man in the grave hallooed out, “Just gone four.” The milkman seeing nobody, immediately conceived a ghost from one of the graves had answered him, and took to his heels with such rapidity, that when he reached an ale-house he was ready to faint; and, what added to his trouble, in running, he so jumbled his pails as to spill great part of his milk. The people who heard his relation, believed it must have been a ghost that had answered him. The tale went round, and would have been credited, perhaps, till now, had not the drunkard, sitting one day in the very alehouse the milkman had stopped at, on hearing the story repeated, with a hearty laugh acknowledged himself to be the ghost, and that he had much enjoyed the jumbling of the man’s pails, as he ran away, and the loss which it occasioned him.
THE
FAKENHAM GHOST.
The lawns were dry in Euston Park;
(Here truth inspires my tale)
The lonely footpath, still and dark,
Led over hill and dale.
Benighted was an ancient dame,
And fearful haste she made
To gain the vale of Fakenham,
And hail its willow shade.
Her footsteps knew no idle stops,
But follow’d faster still;
And echo’d to the darksome copse
That whisper’d on the hill.
Where clam’rous rooks, yet scarcely hush’d,
Bespoke a peopled shade;
And many a wing the foliage brush’d,
And hov’ring circuits made.
The dappled herd of grazing deer,
That sought the shades by day,
Now started from her path with fear,
And gave the stranger way.
Darker it grew; and darker fears
Came o’er her troubled mind;
When, now, a short quick step she hears
Come patting close behind.
She turn’d; it stopt!—nought could she see
Upon the gloomy plain!
But, as she strove the sprite to flee,
She heard the same again.
Now terror seiz’d her quaking frame:
For, where the path was bare,
The trotting ghost kept on the same!
She mutter’d many a pray’r.
Yet once again, amidst her fright
She tried what sight could do;
When through the cheating glooms of night,
A monster stood in view.
Regardless of whate’er she felt,
It follow’d down the plain!
She own’d her sins, and down she knelt,
And said her pray’rs again.
Then on she sped; and hope grew strong,
The white park-gate in view,
Which, pushing hard, so long it swung,
That ghost and all past through.
Loud fell the gate against the post,
Her heart-strings like to crack,
For much she fear’d the grisly ghost
Would leap upon her back.
Still on, pat, pat, the goblin went,
As it had done before;
Her strength and resolution spent,
She fainted at the door.
Out came her husband, much surpris’d,
Out came her daughter dear;
Good-natur’d souls, all unadvis’d
Of what they had to fear.
The candle’s gleam pierc’d through the night,
Some short space o’er the green;
And there the little trotting sprite
Distinctly might be seen.
An ass’s foal had lost its dam
Within the spacious park,
And, simple as the playful lamb,
Had follow’d in the dark.
No goblin he, nor imp of sin,
No crimes he’d ever known.
They took the shaggy stranger in,
And rear’d him as their own.
His little hoofs would rattle round
Upon the cottage floor;
The matron learn’d to love the sound,
That frighten’d her before.
A favourite the ghost became,
And ’twas his fate to thrive;
And long he liv’d, and spread his fame,
And kept the joke alive.
For many a laugh went through the vale,
And some conviction too;
Each thought some other goblin tale
Perhaps was just as true.