The Undertaker's Ghost
"It was a bitterly cold winters evening on the 17th January 1903, the lane was dark and the moon cast eerie shadows over the rough, unmade track. Slowly along this track came a horse and cart. At first glance it didn't look particularly special, just a normal carthorse pulling a normal cart. However if you looked closely you would notice that the man sat in the cart was not a man to be run into on a dark night. He wore a long black coat, black trousers, black shoes, and a very tall black hat. His hair was long and black and although his eyes were set deep into his face, casting them in shadow, they had a strange glow about them. He was, all in all, a very strange gentleman.
The wind whistled through the trees, across the fields and the down the narrow lane, sending the dead leaves scurrying helter-skelter before it, and almost blowing the gentleman's hat off. He muttered something about the English weather under his breath, gripped both his hat, and the horse's reins more tightly with his gnarled fingers and continued on his way. After travelling a couple more miles along the lane our strange traveller came to a cross roads, there he turned left and continued slowly making his way to where ever it was he was going. As he did so the moon peaked out from behind a dark cloud; and you could just make out the letters on the signpost – TUMBLEDOWN HOUSE 1 1/2 MILES.
Now before I continue, I must I suppose, tell you something about this house. It used to be called Thistledown House and was a great house with vast estates stretching for miles, one might even have called it one of the great houses of England but it had come into disrepair. It was due to its state of disrepair that the local farmers had renamed in Tumbledown House. Its previous owners, Mr and Mrs Mortimer, a rich, well to do, couple, had moved away to the city, Mrs Mortimer yearned for the hustle and bustle of city life and so they had left the old gardener to look after the entire estate. For a time the gardener received money from Mr and Mrs Mortimer and so was able to keep the house and grounds in order, and pay people to repair it when occasion demanded. However after a while, the money stopped coming and the gardener grew older and couldn't do as much as he used to. So, having decided that Mr and Mrs Mortimer weren't going to return, he sold the house to a couple who would pay for the ruin that it was becoming, and left. The couple that bought Tumbledown House weren't a particularly rich couple and so after settling in they sold off most of the estate to local farmers and with the money they received, started, very slowly, to restore the house to some of its former glory. However their money soon dried up also and they were forced to stop renovating the house and instead live off handouts given to them by the people of the village whilst the house started to deteriorate once again.
It is here that our strange traveller once again enters the story. By this time he had almost completed his journey to Tumbledown House and had just pulled up at the huge iron gates in front of the house. He rang the bell and, after a few minutes, a light slowly appeared bobbing around the far corner of the house, throwing shadows which danced among the overgrown flower beds sending rabbits scurrying for cover from its pale glow and eventually came to rest on our traveller. A few words were exchanged between our traveller and the carrier of the light from which we discover that the traveller has a name – Mr Chambers, as does the man carrying the light – Mr Gaskins (one of the couple who bought Tumbledown House). Pleasantries having been exchanged, along with comments about the terrible English weather, the two men went to the back of the cart and unloaded something, no, two somethings which were very big and bulky and covered with large, dirty, sheets. Slowly they carried these things back to the house, and after going through the warm kitchen along the hall and up the wide, ornately carved staircase, they eventually entered a cold back bedroom. It was just like any other bedroom in the house, one wall was covered with a huge old wooden wardrobe, which was engraved with many strange patterns, and standing against the other was a very plain chair and a dressing table. The only thing missing from this room was a bed. Into this room the two men entered and put down the heavy things that they were carrying. Then, with a flourish, Mr Chambers removed the dirty sheets to reveal two old but sturdy beds.
'Will these do sir?' He asked.
'They're wonderful' Mr Gaskins answered. 'How much do I owe you for them?' he continued, reaching his coat pocket from which he pulled a rather thin wallet; for although Mr and Mrs Gaskins were poor they were proud people and liked to pay for things when they were able.
Mr Chambers looked up and then slowly replied, 'Don't worry about any money sir, I got them for nothing when an old couple of friends entered my business if you know what I mean, so I wouldn't dream of charging you anything.'
Mr Gaskins gasped and then said quietly, 'Entered your business?' and the after a pause, 'You mean died?'
'Yes, that's right sir. Died, right here on these beds!'
Mr Gaskins looked as if he were about to refuse the beds and make Mr Chambers take them all the way back to the village again, but then, remembering that he had looked for beds for this room for months without success, he decided to accept these beds gratefully if not slightly apprehensively. He did so and then quickly showed Mr Chambers the door. Shutting him out in the cold winters night. And, as Mr Chambers slowly made his way back through the bleak English countryside to the village, Mr Gaskins went back upstairs to inspect the beds. The strange thing was though that although Mr Chambers set out to return home, he never actually made it back to the village. Never again did anyone see the undertaker! Now normally I would take time to describe the beds but as you are sat on them…"
The two girls in front of him gasped! Tom laughed and looked at the girl's terrified faces as they quickly jumped off the big iron framed beds and stood huddled together in the corner of the shed. Tom was about 15 and the two girls in front of him – his cousins – about 9 and 10. They were all sat in the old shed at the bottom of Tom's garden and he had begun to tell them a ghost story to try and scare them, it was working!