A Haunting Lost To Time - Addington Lodge

An account from an old newspaper
Something Uncanny
(Talking to the then owner Mr. Rathbone) “That must be so,” said my friend, “for the last persons in the place were, or at least, one of them was. They were man and wife and stayed there eight or nine months. ‘ One day the man came to me and said his wife would not stay any longer. I asked him why. He said he did not rightly know, but his wife was frightened. ‘Of what,’ I asked. He was not sure, so I saw his wife, who told me that she had not seen any- thing or heard anything out of the ordinary, but there was ‘something uncanny about.’ All I could say had no effect, and they went. Since then it has been empty. It is a pity, but the sooner the place is down the better:” Thanks,” I said and came away to piece the story together. It appears that long before the war, folk were apprehensive, and the Haunted House, lacking regular tenants. Frequently it was empty. Shortly before the embers of discontent in South Africa burst into the flames of war, a hop-picker having drawn his cash at Bushy Park was “waltzing Matilda” to Hobart. He was weary with tramping the hot and dusty road, but doubtless he looked forward with unfeigned pleasure to the flesh.-pots and foaming tankards of. the city. As the sun set, he came unaware of its story, to the Haunted House. Shadows deepened on the near-by river as the “hopper” pushed open an unfastened door, entered the fateful house, ate his cold mutton and bread, washed it down with part of a billy-can of beer purchased at New Norfolk, spread his blanket on the floor, and slept the sleep of the weary. Presently he stirred ‘and rubbed his eyes, and as he looked, the very marrow froze in his bones. His hair stood on end and his heart seemed to stay its pulsing for, rising before him in the door- way he saw a ghastly thing. “Thing” is the, right word, for the hop-picker had not seen, or dreamed, of anything like it. Thin legs, curved and bent, supported an enormous body which, though it seemed to be clothed, was still visible to the trembling mortal who saw the apparition’s internal organs hideously pulsing and distended. Its neck, gashed from ear to. ear, was unable to support the head, which sagged horribly from one aide to the other. Blood dropped from the severed jugular and the baleful gleams-from the staring eyes pierced the semi-darkness, and seemed’ to impale the terrified watcher. A butcher’s knife was clasped tightly in the spectre’s right hand and hand and knife were horribly red. Writhed and Struggled In a crouching pose, the creature swayed toward the ‘’hopper,” whose limbs seemed fettered by unseen manacles,’ from which he writhed and struggled to free himself as the menacing and blood stained figure approached. A foul-smelling breath stung his nostrils and the knife was within striking distance of his heart, when, with a wrench that would have done credit to Samson, the “hopper” broke free, dodged the ghost, darted through the doorway and looking neither right nor left, sped down the road, a white and terror-stricken figure clad only in a shirt. Feeling rather than seeing the “thing” close behind him, he essayed a short cut over a bank, slipped on a stone, gashed his head on a sharp rock, and lapsed into blessed insensibility. When he came to, he found himself prone on the cold floor of the room in which he supped. His blanket lay in a disordered heap. His fingers bled where he had scratched and torn at the floorboards. A lump on the side of his head betokened a meeting with some foreign body. Looking round cautiously the “hopper” could see nothing of his ghostly visitor but, thinking discretion the better part of valour, gathered his belongings, moved tremulously through the door to spend the remaining hours of darkness in vigil by the roadside. I do not know how all these details became known, or to whom the “hop- per” told his tale. I give the story as it came to me, and as a sample of many others. It is said that, “hopper’s ghost” is the spiritual remnant of a whaler, who, wandering further afield than usual, met at the Golden Fleece (for that was the sign of the haunted house 100 years ago) a bushranger disguised as an honest man. The pair spent some happy hours, until the Tasmanian Robin Hood, seeing his chance, expertly slit the throat of his “friend” and disappeared with his wallet. Another story has to do with a young and beautiful woman who, betrayed by the usual dashing cavalier, languished in spite of the kindly protection of the landlady, until, with a broken heart and saying a prayer for bitter revenge, she stabbed herself, and so won a way to brighter, and, I hope, happier fields. Still another tale is told about the landlord and the landlady, when, the place was the William the Fourth hostelry. This couple having decided to essay life together without bothering the clergy, lived happily for a while, but only for a while. Quarrel followed quarrel, and in these the woman visually came out on top, for she was bigger, quicker and stronger, although the landlord, had been a soldier and had seen wars, having been with that army which .”swore terribly in Flanders.” He became tired of being the vanquished and one day finding his “wife” asleep, stabbed her.. Not content with that he drove a spike into her head, cut out her tongue, slit her throat, and not being quite sure at this stage, that she was really, dead, poured some poison down her throat. I think I must have been told this in the wrong sequence, for it stands to reason that a sensible man would have poured the poison down before, and not after her throat had been cut. He then tenderly buried her and was caught and duly hanged, which seems to be the only really proper and moral part of the story,