The Glowing Man ( Revised) - Adam Maxwell -Farquhar - Tale 5

 After my experiences in France, I returned to Aberdeen, and being adversely affected by my experiences there, I was deemed to be ‘distressed’ by the Great War, and was advised by my physician Dr McHardy, to step back from being a clergyman for a year or so, to allow myself time to recover.I was advised that another clergyman from outwith the city would tend to my parish in the interim. Meantime, I returned to the Maberly Street area of the city where I rented a spacious tenement flat, where I would spend more time among my books, and write some memoirs, investigate some malevolent spirits, and hauntings.

My flat, as I said was spacious, but the room at the back of the building was always cold, even in the blistering heat of Summer. I suspected a malevolent spirit, and I was not wrong.

Mr Mitchell, the owner of the building said that the spirit that haunted the room was that of a man who had drowned in the Loch of Aberdeen which had been in this area five hundred years prior to our own time. Some of the earliest settlers in the city were hunter-gatherers who had set up home by the loch, and built up their own settlements, which became the district of the Loch lands, hardworking individuals who drew their living from fishing and weaving, and from the fertile land which blessed them with crops with each successive year.

As time passed, the loch was drained and new tenement housing was built on its site, commemorated by the street names, Loch Street for example, which was a mere stone’s throw from where I now stood.

Mitchell told me that he heard many stories of Aberdeen’s history over the years, so he was aware of the loch and was well versed in the evolution of Aberdeen as a city over the years.

He advised that there had been wet footprints leading up to the second floor of the tenement, even on nights when rain had not fallen, so that was one for future investigations.

Mitchell was a real repository of the facts and folklore of the city and its people, and in years to come would provide me with the assistance I needed in my new vocation, his collection of books on ancient lore and arcane facts were second to none, all piled high in his garret rooms in the self-same building.

In time, Mitchell , who claimed to be ‘nae feart,’ of anything supernatural,  would become my trusted companion on my ghost hunting, exorcisms, and the like, but the first of our investigations was into an apparent haunting in a house in Aberdeen, locals had been alarmed in the Rosemount area of the Granite City, returning from a local tavern, a Mr Rowley, somewhat worse for wear, had seen what he described as a ‘glowing man’ standing in the stairwell of the building.

One dreich November night , All Souls Day, if I remember correctly. I had been drowsing over a pint of dark ale, thinking about the souls of the faithful departed, when I happened upon Mitchell in Ma Cameron’s , and this was the night we would investigate, or least come across the ‘Glowing Man.’

‘I’ve heard the tale o’ Rowley and the Glowing Man’, it’s nae far awa’ fae this place’, said Mitchell, but first ye’ll hae to jine me in a glass of the uisge beatha’ said Mitchell, in his broad Aberdonian accent, though I would question his pronunciation of the fiery spirit we were drinking. Once we had drained our glasses, we were off out into the mist, and trudging our way uphill towards Rosemount , where Rowley resided. John Rowley was a man who was a gravedigger in one of the local cemeteries, so he would be no stranger to strange phenomena, spirits, ghosts, in his line of work. In my days as an Episcopal minister, I also encountered some unusual things, good, of divine origin, and evil spirits, which inhabited some of the old and unoccupied buildings of our fair city.

On arrival at the building in which Rowley resided, in Wallfield Place, we entered the building to find it in darkness. He was resident at the top floor, and the gas light was clearly not in operation. We faltered our way through the darkness, to find that Rowley’s door was ajar, and he was nowhere to be found. It was a spartan flat with a candle burning in one room, in what looked to be a church candlestick, a chair and table, and a threadbare mattress lay on the bare floorboards that served as his living quarters. The room then lit up with a wavering blue light, and the flames or what appeared to be flames formed into the shape of a figure, that of a man, perchance a ‘fire spirit,’ like a Djinn, or something similar, Mitchell would know.

‘Spontaneous human combustion, that’s fit it is!’ exclaimed Mitchell.

 Mitchell said that Charles Dickens had referenced this in his novel ‘Bleak House,’ which I must admit , I had not read, though I did like his ghost stories, especially ‘The Signalman.’ The apparition glowed and shimmered for a few minutes, and ignited briefly, and burned itself out, leaving charred remains on the floorboards, but strangely not burning anything else within the room.

A cry came from the other room in the flat, it was Rowley, looking unshaven and somewhat dishevelled , he was clearly disturbed by the incident, and crossed himself when he saw he with my priest’s robe and dog collar.

‘So, Faither , ye’ve got rid of the Glowing Man!’ I’ve nae idea fa’ he wis, but he has been in this hoose for a lang time,’ said Rowley.

Neither Mitchell nor I were sure if this was a case of Spontaneous Human Combustion, or if it was just a common or garden haunting, as with the one I referenced earlier in my story.

Once we had tidied things up in his abode, Rowley was seen by a local doctor, Douglas McBain, and was sent to the local psychiatric asylum for treatment, as he was ‘severely distressed’ by the episode.

This was just the first of many weird and wonderful investigations that Mitchell and I would undertake in my time away from the church.

I have taken the trouble to note these strange occurrences in my diary for future reference, and if I am honest I can see this episode of my life on this Earth being like something from the works of Sir Walter Scott of John Buchan, both Scottish storytellers of supernatural phenomena, which I am becoming to see myself as.

A couple of months after the incident of the ‘Glowing Man’, Mitchell and I were sent for by the Reverend Yeadon, at the Cauld Parish church in the wee village, in upper Deeside, not an area that I was familiar with in any way, but I was eager to investigate  mysterious happenings , and this was another alleged haunting in a church just south of the Granite City, in the little known village of Cauld. Mitchell had remarked to me that it was named such, as the climate was always ‘cauld,’ in that area, and today that was the case.

It was January , and the snow was thick around the environs of the small church.

 Yeadon had been hearing music in his head, he was not diagnosed with any madness of any kind and assured me that this music was heard in the church when there was nobody else present.

He told me that the music could be cacophonic, sometimes there was a brass band, he said. like the Salvation Army band, that sort of thing, not a noise like that ‘jazz music’ that is coming from America these days, he mentioned that he had been dreaming also of this band, who were named ‘The Band of Holy Joy.’

I thought back to my adventure in France, that very title was like something from an Arthur Machen tale, in fact the title had a real Machenesque ring to it.

This prefaces my next tale which I have provisionally named ‘The Band of Holy Joy,’ describing the events that took place in upper Deeside , and the repercussions they had for Rev. Yeadon and his congregation.