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As the corpse-candle is obviously a phantasm whose invariable custom is to foretell death, it must, I think, be classified with that species of elementals which I have named for want of a more appropriate title CLANOGRIAN. CLANOGRIANS embrace every kind of national and family ghost, such as The White Owl of the Arundels, the Drummer of the Airlies, and the Banshee of the O'Neills and O'Donnells.
By this ebbing and flowing light which seemed to me, for all that I knew the natural cause of it, so outside of nature that I thrilled with a creeping fear as I looked at it I could see clearly the shapes of the strange ancient ships around me: their great poops and fore-castles rising high above their shallow waists, and here and there among them the remnant of a mast making a line of light rising higher still like a huge corpse-candle shining against the blackness beyond.
If the corpse-candle be small, pale, or bluish, it denotes the death of an infant; if it be big, the death of an adult is foretold; and if there are two, three, or more candle-lights, varying in size, then the deaths are predicted of a corresponding number of infants and adults. "Of late," the Rev.
"A light in the burial-ground!" hastily repeated the bishop. "What light?" "Oh, a corpse-candle, or some nonsense of that sort, he had his mind running on, my lord. Half the world is idiots, and Jenkins is the biggest of 'em." "My lord," spoke poor Jenkins, deprecatingly, "I never had such a thought within me as that it was a 'corpse-candle. I said I fancied it might be a glowworm.
"There's our corpse-candle!" cried Coe, triumphantly; "that would keep us without witnesses, even if any one were so bold as, in a night like this, to venture near Wheal Danes, to trespass on Tom Tiddler's ground, where we shall pick up the gold and the silver." There was a wild excitement, quite foreign to his habit, about this man, and he whirled the torch about his head in flaring circles.
I'll give you an example: A man returning from market from Llan Eglos to Llan Curig, not far from Plynlimmon, was struck down dead as a horse not long ago by a corpse-candle. It was a rainy, windy night, and the wind and rain were blowing in his face, so that he could not see it, or get out of its way. And yet the candle was not abroad on purpose to kill the man.
Well, let us take torch and ladder, and play at corpse-candle. What say you?" "Well, I'll come," said Balfour, reluctantly, "though I don't much like the chance of being made a fool of. What day will suit you best to start? All's one to me." "I'll start to-morrow," said Solomon, with excitement.
These reflections gave me more courage, for I considered that the tales of Blackbeard walking or digging among the graves had been set afloat to keep those that were not wanted from the place, and guessed now that when I saw the light moving in the churchyard that night I went to fetch Dr. Hawkins, it was no corpse-candle, but a lantern of smugglers running a cargo.
There were no lights in the villa windows all was darkness. He rang it again he even shook the gate as though he would break it open. At last the poor Giacomo came, half undressed and holding a lantern in his hand he seemed terrified, and trembled so much that the lantern jogged up and down like a corpse-candle on a tomb.
Lady Deppingham," he replied, with a most reassuring smile. "Good Lord, Chase, you're not clinging to that corpse-candle straw, are you?" cried his lordship, beginning to pace the floor. "Don't be a fool! We can't leave you here to the mercy of these brutes. What's more, we won't!" "My dear fellow," said Chase ruefully, "we are talking as though the ship had already dropped anchor out there.
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