The Botathen Ghost by Robert Stephen Hawker
















There was something very painful and peculiar in the position of the clergy in the west of
England throughout the seventeenth century. The Church of those days was in a transitory
state and her ministers, like her formularies, embodied a strange mixture of the old belief
with the new interpretation. Their wide severance also from the great metropolis of life and
manners, the city of London (which in those times was civilised England, much as the Paris
of our own day is France), divested the Cornish clergy in particular of all personal access to
the master-minds of their age and body.

Then, too, the barrier interposed by the rude rough roads of their country, and by their
abode in wilds that were almost inaccessible, rendered the existence of a bishop rather a
doctrine suggested to their belief than a fact revealed to the actual vision of each in his
generation. Hence it came to pass that the Cornish clergyman, insulated within his own
limited sphere, often without even the presence of a country squire (and unchecked by the
influence of the Fourth Estate -- for until the beginning of this nineteenth century, Flindell's
Weekly Miscellany, distributed from house to house from the pannier of a mule, was the
only light of the West), became developed about middle life into an original mind and man,
sole and absolute within his parish boundary, eccentric when compared with his brethren in
civilised regions and yet, in German phrase, 'a whole and seldom man' in his dominion of
souls. He was 'the parson' in canonical phrase -- that is to say, The Person, the somebody
of consequence among his own people.

These men were not, however, smoothed down into a monotonous aspect of life and
manners by this remote and secluded existence. They imbibed, each in his own peculiar
circle, the hue of surrounding objects and were tinged into a distinctive colouring and
character by many a contrast of scenery and people. There was the 'light of other days',
the curate by the sea-shore, who professed to check the turbulence of the 'smugglers'
landing' by his presence on the sands, and who 'held the lantern' for the guidance of his
flock when the nights were dark, as the only proper ecclesiastical part he could take in the
proceedings. He was soothed and silenced by the gift of a keg of hollands or a chest of tea.
There was the merry minister of the mines, whose cure was honeycombed by the
underground men.

He must needs have been artist and poet in his way, for he had to enliven his people three
or four times a year, by mastering the arrangements of a 'guary' or religious mystery, which
was duly performed in the topmost hollow of a green barrow or hill, of which many survive,
scooped out into vast amphitheatres and surrounded by benches of turf which held two
thousand spectators. Such were the historic plays, The Creation and Noe's Flood, which
still exist in the original Celtic as well as the English text and suggest what critics and
antiquaries these Cornish curates, masters of such revels, must have been -- for the native
language of Cornwall did not lapse into silence until the end of the seventeenth century.

Then, moreover, here and there would be one parson more learned than his kind in the
mysteries of a deep and thrilling lore of peculiar fascination. He was a man so highly
humoured at college for natural gifts and knowledge of learned books which nobody else
could read, that when he 'took his second orders' the bishop gave him a mantle of scarlet
silk to wear upon his shoulders in church, and his lordship had put such power into it that,
when the parson had it rightly on, he could 'govern any ghost or evil spirit' and even 'stop
an earthquake'.

Such a powerful minister, in combat with supernatural visitations, was one Parson Rudall, of
Launceston, whose existence and exploits we gather from the local tradition of his time,
from surviving letters and other memoranda and indeed from his own 'diurnal' which fell by
chance into the hands of the present writer. Indeed the legend of Parson Rudall and the
Botathen Ghost will be recognised by many Cornish people as a local remembrance of their
boyhood.
It appears, then, from the diary of this learned master of the grammar school -- for such
was his office as well as perpetual curate of the parish -- 'that a pestilential disease did
break forth in our town in the beginning of the year AD 1665; yea, and it likewise invaded
my school, insomuch that therewithal certain of the chief scholars sickened and died.'
'Among others who yielded to the malign influence was Master John Eliot, the eldest son
and the worshipful heir of Edward Eliot, Esquire, of Trebursey, a stripling of sixteen years of
age, but of uncommon parts and hopeful ingenuity. At his own especial motion and earnest
desire I did consent to preach his funeral sermon.' It should be remembered here that,
howsoever strange and singular it may sound to us that a mere lad should formally solicit
such a performance at the hands of his master, it was in consonance with the habitual
usage of those times. The old services for the dead had been abolished by law and in the
stead of sacrament and ceremony, month's mind and year's mind, the sole substitute, which
survived was the general desire 'to partake', as they called it, of a posthumous discourse,
replete with lofty eulogy and flattering remembrance of the living and the dead.

The diary proceeds: 'I fulfilled my undertaking, and preached over the coffin in the
presence of a full assemblage of mourners and lachrymose friends. An ancient gentleman,
who was then and there in the church, a Mr Bligh, of Botathen, was much affected with my
discourse, and he was heard to repeat to himself certain parentheses there from, especially
a phrase from Maro Virgilius, which I had applied to the deceased youth, "Et puer ipse fuit
cantari dignus".

'The cause wherefore this old gentleman was moved by my applications was this: He had a
first-born and only son -- a child who, but a very few months before, had been not unworthy
the character I drew of young Master Eliot, but who, by some strange accident, had of late
quite fallen away from his parent's hopes and become moody and sullen and distraught.
When the funeral obsequies were over, I had no sooner come out of church than I was
accosted by this aged parent and he besought me incontinently, with a singular energy,
that I would resort with him forthwith to his abode at Botathen that very night; nor could I
have delivered myself from his importunity, had not Mr Eliot urged his claim to enjoy my
company at his own house. Hereupon I got loose, but not until I had pledged a fast
assurance that I would pay him, faithfully, an early visit the next day.'

'The Place', as it was called, of Botathen, where old Mr Bligh resided, was a low-roofed
gabled manor-house of the fifteenth century, walled and mullioned and with clustered
chimneys of dark-grey tone from the neighbouring quarries of Ventor-gan. The mansion
was flanked by a pleasance or enclosure in one space of garden and lawn and it was
surrounded by a solemn grove of stag-homed trees. It had the sombre aspect of age and of
solitude and looked the very scene of strange and supernatural events. A legend might well
belong to every gloomy glade around and there must surely be a haunted room somewhere
within its walls. Hither, according to his appointment, on the morrow, Parson Rudall betook
himself. Another clergyman, as it appeared, had been invited to meet him, who, very soon
after his arrival, proposed a walk together in the pleasance, on the pretext of showing him,
as a stranger, the walks and trees, until the dinner-bell should strike. There, with much
prolixity and with many a solemn pause, his brother minister proceeded to 'unfold the
mystery'.

A singular infelicity, he declared, had befallen young Master Bligh, once the hopeful heir of
his parents and of the lands of Botathen. Whereas he had been from childhood a blithe
and merry boy, 'the gladness', like Isaac of old, of his father's age, he had suddenly and of
late, become morose and silent -- nay, even austere and stern -- dwelling apart, always
solemn, often in tears. The lad had at first repulsed all questions as to the origin of this
great change, but of late he had yielded to the importune researches of his parents, and
had disclosed the secret cause. It appeared that he resorted every day, by a pathway
across the fields, to this very clergyman's house, who had charge of his education and
grounded him in the studies suitable to his age. In the course of his daily walk he had to
pass a certain heath or down where the road wound along through tall blocks of granite
with open spaces of grassy sward between.

There in a certain spot and always in one and the same place, the lad declared that he
encountered, every day, a woman with a pale and troubled face, clothed in a long loose
garment of frieze, with one hand always stretched forth and the other pressed against her
side. Her name, he said, was Dorothy Dinglet, for he had known her well from his childhood
and she often used to come to his parents' house; but that which troubled him was that she
had now been dead three years and he himself had been with the neighbours at her burial;
so that, as the youth alleged, with great simplicity; since he had seen her body laid in the
grave, this that he saw every day must needs be her soul or ghost. 'Questioned again and
again,' said the clergyman, 'he never contradicts himself; but he relates the same and the
simple tale as a thing that cannot be gainsaid. Indeed, the lad's observance is keen and
calm for a boy of his age. The hair of the appearance, sayeth he, is not like anything alive,
but it is so soft and light that it seemeth to melt away while you look; but her eyes are set,
and never blink -- no, not when the sun shineth full upon her face. She maketh no steps,
but seemeth to swim along the top of the grass; and her hand, which is stretched out alway,
seemeth to point at something far away, out of sight. It is her continual coming, for she
never faileth to meet him and to pass on, that hath quenched his spirits; and although he
never seeth her by night, yet cannot he get his natural rest.'

Thus far the clergyman; whereupon the dinner-clock did sound and we went into the house.
After dinner, when young Master Bligh had withdrawn with his tutor, under excuse of their
books, the parents did forthwith beset me as to my thoughts about their son. Said I, warily,
'The case is strange but by no means impossible. It is one that I will study and fear not to
handle, if the lad will be free with me and fulfil all that I desire.' The mother was overjoyed,
but I perceived that old Mr Bligh turned pale and was downcast with some thought which,
however, he did not express. Then they bade that Master Bligh should be called to meet me
in the pleasance forthwith. The boy came, and he rehearsed to me his tale with an open
countenance and, withal, a pretty modesty of speech. Verily he seemed ingenui vultus puer
ingenuique pudoris. Then I signified to him my purpose. 'Tomorrow,' said I, 'we will go
together to the place; and if, as I doubt not, the woman shall appear, it will be for me to
proceed according to knowledge, and by rules laid down in my books.'

The unaltered scenery of the legend still survives and, like the field of the forty footsteps in
another history, the place is still visited by those who take interest in the supernatural tales
of old. The pathway leads along a moorland waste, where large masses of rock stand up
here and there from the grassy turf and clumps of heath and gorse weave their tapestry of
golden and purple garniture on every side. Amidst all these and winding along between the
rocks, is a natural footway worn by the scant, rare tread of the village traveller. Just midway,
a somewhat larger stretch than usual of green sod expands, which is skirted by the path
and which is still identified as the legendary haunt of the phantom, by the name of Parson
Rudall's Ghost.

But we must draw the record of the first interview between the minister and Dorothy from his
own words. 'We met,' thus he writes, 'in the pleasance very early and before any others in
the house were awake; and together the lad and myself proceeded towards the field. The
youth was quite composed and carried his Bible under his arm, from whence he read to me
verses, which he said he had lately picked out, to have always in his mind. These were Job
~: 14, "Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions;" and Deuteronomy
28: 67, "In the morning thou shalt say, Would to God it were evening, and in the evening
thou shalt say, Would to God it were morning; for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou
shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see."

'I was much pleased with the lad's ingenuity in these pious applications, but for mine own
part I was somewhat anxious and out of cheer. For aught I knew that might be a daemonium
meridianum, the most stubborn spirit to govern and guide that any man can meet and the
most perilous withal. We had hardly reached the accustomed spot, when we both saw her
at once gliding towards us; punctually as the ancient writers describe the motion of their
"lemures, which swoon along the ground, neither marking the sand nor bending the
herbage". The aspect of the woman was exactly that which had been related by the lad.

There was the pale and stony face, the strange and misty hair, the eyes firm and fixed, that
gazed, yet not on us, but on something that they saw far, far away; one hand and arm
stretched out, and the other grasping the girdle of her waist. She floated along the field like
a sail upon a stream, and glided past the spot where we stood, pausingly. But so deep was
the awe that overcame me, as I stood there in the light of day, face to face with a human
soul separate from her bones and flesh, that my heart and purpose both failed me. I had
resolved to speak to the spectre in the appointed form of words, but I did not. I stood like
one amazed and speechless, until she had passed clean out of sight. One thing remarkable
came to pass. A spaniel dog, the favourite of young Master Bligh, had followed us, and lo!
when the woman drew nigh, the poor creature began to yell and bark piteously, and ran
backward and away, like a thing dismayed and appalled. We returned to the house and
after I had said all that I could to pacify the lad, and to soothe the aged people, I took my
leave for that time, with a promise that when I had fulfilled certain business elsewhere,
which I then alleged, I would return and take orders to assuage these disturbances and
their cause.

January 7th 1665 -- At my own house, I find, by my books, what is expedient to be done;
and then Apage, Sathanas!

January 9th 1665 -- This day I took leave of my wife and family, under pretext of
engagements elsewhere and made my secret journey to our diocesan city, wherein the
good and venerable bishop then abode.

January 10th -- Deo gratias, in safe arrival in Exeter; craved and obtained immediate
audience of his lordship; pleading it was for counsel and admonition on a weighty and
pressing cause; called to the presence; made obeisance; then and by command stated my
case -- the Botathen perplexity -- which I moved with strong and earnest instances and
solemn asseverations of that which I had myself seen and heard.

Demanded by his lordship, what was the succour that I had come to entreat at his hands.
Replied, licence for my exorcism, that so I might, ministerially, allay this spiritual visitant and
thus render to the living and the dead release from this surprise. 'But,' said our bishop, 'on
what authority do you allege that I am entrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is
well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds of perversion
and abuse.' 'Nay, my lord,' I humbly answered, 'under favour, the seventy-second of the
canons ratified and enjoined on us, the clergy, anno Domini 1604, doth expressly provide,
that "no minister, unless he hath the licence of his diocesan bishop, shall essay to exorcise
a spirit, evil or good." Therefore it was,' I did here mildly allege, 'that I did not presume to
enter on such a work without lawful privilege under your lordship's hand and seal.'
Hereupon did our wise and learned bishop, sitting in his chair, condescend upon the theme
at some length with many gracious interpretations from ancient writers and from Holy
Scriptures and I did humbly rejoin and reply, till the upshot was that he did call in his
secretary and command him to draw the aforesaid faculty, forthwith and without further
delay, assigning him a form, insomuch that the matter was incontinently done; and after I
had disbursed into the secretary's hands certain moneys for signatory purposes, as the
manner of such officers hath always been, the bishop did himself affix his signature under
the sigillum of his see and deliver the document into my hands. When I knelt down to
receive his benediction, he softly said, 'Let it be secret, Mr R. Weak brethren! weak
brethren!'

This interview with the bishop and the success with which he vanquished his lordship's
scruples, would seem to have confirmed Parson Rudall very strongly in his own esteem and
to have invested him with that courage which he evidently lacked at his first encounter with
the ghost.

The entries proceed ?

January 11th 1665 -- Therewithal did I hasten home and prepare my instruments and cast
my figures for the onset of the next day. Took out my ring of brass and put it on the
index-finger of my right hand, with the scutum Davidis traced thereon.

January 12th 1665 -- Rode into the gateway at Botathen, armed at all points, but not with
Saul's armour, and ready. There is danger from the demons, but so there is in the
surrounding air every day. At early morning then and alone -- for so the usage ordains -- I
betook me towards the field. It was void and I had thereby due time to prepare. First I paced
and measured out my circle on the grass. Then I did mark my pentacle in the very midst
and at the intersection of the five angles I did set up and fix my crutch of raun [rowan].
Lastly, I took my station south, at the true line of the meridian, and stood facing due north. I
waited and watched for a long time. At last there was a kind of trouble in the air, a soft and
rippling sound, and all at once the shape appeared and came on towards me gradually. I
opened my parchment-scroll and read aloud the command. She paused and seemed to
waver and doubt; stood still; then I rehearsed the sentence again, sounding out every
syllable like a chant. She drew near my ring, but halted at first outside, on the brink. I
sounded again, and now at the third time I gave the signal in Syriac -- the speech which is
used, they say, where such ones dwell and converse in thoughts that glide.

She was at last obedient and swam into the midst of the circle and there stood still,
suddenly. I saw, moreover, that she drew back her pointing hand. All this while I do confess
that my knees shook under me and the drops of sweat ran down my flesh like rain. But now,
although face to face with the spirit, my heart grew calm and my mind was composed. I
knew that the pentacle would govern her and the ring must bind, until I gave the word. Then
I called to mind the rule laid down of old, that no angel or fiend, no spirit, good or evil, will
ever speak until they have been first spoken to. N. B. This is the great law of prayer. God
Himself will not yield reply until man hath made vocal entreaty, once and again. So I went on
to demand, as the books advise; and the phantom made answer, willingly. Questioned
wherefore not at rest. Unquiet, because of a certain sin. Asked what, and by whom.
Revealed it; but it is sub sigillo, and therefore nefas dictu; more anon. Enquired, what sign
she could give that she was a true spirit and not a false fiend. Stated, before next Yuletide
a fearful pestilence would lay waste the land and myriads of souls would be loosened from
their flesh, until, as she piteously said, 'our valleys will be full'.

Asked again, why she so terrified the lad. Replied: 'It is the law: we must seek a youth or a
maiden of clean life and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.' We conversed
with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would
degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered and which my mind received that day. I broke
the ring and she passed, but to return once more next day. At evensong, a long discourse
with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and
penance; whatsoever I enjoin; full acknowledgement before pardon.

January 13th 1665 -- At sunrise I was again in the field. She came in at once and, as it
seemed, with freedom. Enquired if she knew my thoughts and what I was going to relate?
Answered, 'Nay, we only know what we perceive and hear; we cannot see the heart.' Then I
rehearsed the penitent words of the man she had come up to denounce and the
satisfaction he would perform. Then said she, 'Peace in our midst.' I went through the
proper forms of dismissal, and fulfilled all as it was set down and written in my memoranda;
and then with certain fixed rites, I did dismiss that troubled ghost, until she peacefully
withdrew, gliding towards the west. Neither did she ever afterward appear, but was allayed
until she shall come in her second flesh to the valley of Armageddon on the last day.

These quaint and curious details from the 'diurnal' of a simple-hearted clergyman of the
seventeenth century appear to betoken his personal persuasion of the truth of what he saw
and said, although the statements are strongly tinged with what some may term the
superstition, and others the excessive belief, of those times. It is a singular fact, however,
that the canon which authorises exorcism under episcopal licence is still a part of the
ecclesiastical law of the Anglican Church, although it might have a singular effect on the
nerves of certain of our bishops if their clergy were to resort to them for the faculty which
Parson Rudall obtained.

The general facts stated in his diary are to this day matters of belief in that neighbourhood;
and it has been always accounted a strong proof of the veracity of the Parson and the
Ghost, that the plague, fatal to so many thousands, did break out in London at the close of
that very year. We may well excuse a triumphant entry, on a subsequent page of the
'diurnal', with the date of July 10th 1665: 'How sorely must the infidels and heretics of this
generation be dismayed when they know what this Black Death, which is now swallowing its
thousands in the streets of the great city, was foretold six months agone, under the
exorcisms of a country minister, by a visible and suppliant ghost! And what pleasures and
improvements do such deny themselves who scorn and avoid all opportunity of intercourse
with souls separate and the spirits, glad and sorrowful, which inhabit the unseen world!'
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