This agreement in the testimony of people who at different times, and generally quite unprepared, have seen particular apparitions is an interesting fact in itself, and surely not to be altogether despised as evidence of the cumulative order, though the scientific details demanded by the professional ghost-hunter may be lacking.
The stories in my later chapters dealing with some ancient Welsh superstitions need no comment, as, whatever may be thought of them as supernatural incidents, their interest from the standpoint of folk-lore is indisputable, and for that reason alone they are worth recording.
Throughout this book I shall change the real names of people for fictitious ones or initials, for reasons that will be obvious to every one. There are a few exceptions; and where they occur they will be noted. In most cases I shall disguise the names of houses, and sometimes those of villages and towns; but where the names of counties are mentioned they are the true ones.
"A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge and tiled and tall."
In one of the most remote parts of South Wales there stands on a low cliff that is washed by the waters of a certain bay in St. George's Channel a very curious old house which we will call Plâsgwyn. Inside one finds walls many feet in thickness, dark panelled rooms with enormous cupboards, and a beautiful oak staircase, its shallow, uneven steps polished by the feet of many generations. Of course there is a ghost story too, and one possessing an element of picturesqueness, its origin dating far back to the days when smuggling was considered by quite respectable people as a useful means of increasing their income in a gentlemanly manner.
When one reflects on the lonely situation of Plâsgwyn, and listens--especially in winter--to the boom of wind and wave advertising with loud persistence the nearness of the sea, it is not difficult for the imagination to conjure up those far-away times; to picture the landing of many an interesting cargo in the little cove hard by when the nights were dark and stormy and the Revenue men off their guard; and to conjecture that perhaps many crimes were committed at that period by villains using the smuggler's cloak to cover misdoing, and that possibly some such dark deed may have happened in the old house, thus giving a real foundation to our story.