There is a strange story told of Littlecote Manor, a glorious old Tudor mansion that lies not far from the pleasant little Berkshire town of Hungerford. This, in Elizabeth’s time, was the ancestral home of the Darrells; but “Wild Darrell,” the last of them to hold it, had to sacrifice the place to save his wicked life. At least so the old tales tell.
This grim story begins with the awakening at dead of night of the village nurse at Shefford, some seven miles away from Littlecote. Masked messengers bade her come at once to a waiting coach to tend a lady “not far away.” She was to ask no questions, she was told, and she must submit to be blindfolded until she reached her destination. But to compensate her for this strange treatment a heavy purse of gold was offered. The nurse, torn between emotions of fear and greed, accepted; and the coach set off.
After a long drive through the winter night, the lumbering vehicle at last came to a halt. The blindfolded nurse was led up a great staircase and, when her bandages were removed, she found herself in a richly furnished bedroom where lay a masked lady in a huge four-post bed.
The nurse had no idea where she was, but her natural curiosity had caused her to make whatever mental notes she could. For one thing she counted the steps leading to the bedroom; for another she managed, while going about her work, to clip off a small piece of a heavy curtain which screened the window of the room. But of this later.
In due course there came a new born baby into the world. But fearful as the nurse had been at the mystery of the whole affair, she was terrified at what followed, for when the child was but a few hours old there came to the bedroom a man of ferocious manner, whose face, like those of all with whom she had come in contact, was masked, and snatching the child from the mother’s arms, barbarously killed it.
The nurse, in her horror, swooned; and when she regained consciousness she was being carried from a coach at the door of her own cottage. Before she could recover her wits the coach had gone, and she was left unable to decide whether the whole affair was some horrid dream, or whether she had really witnessed the terrible scene which had burnt itself into her memory.
But the discovery in her hand of the promised reward proved to her that it was no dream.
For some months the nurse kept her own counsel, fearful perhaps that should she speak she would lose the big reward which she had received. But at last, falling ill, and thinking herself about to die, she made a full confession. Enquiries were made, and the woman taken at last to Littlecote, where she identified the very room in which the crime had been committed. As final proof the piece of curtain she had taken with her was found to fit a hole in one of the curtains of the room.
“Wild Darrell,” they say, was arrested and brought to trial; but he managed to save his life by bribery, giving his whole estate to the judge who tried him in order to secure acquittal. But he did not live long after the trial. Still remaining in the neighbourhood, he gave himself up to the wildest debauchery in an endeavour to escape from the ghost of the murdered infant. Riding about the downs one night, they tell, the wraith of the child suddenly appeared in his path. His horse reared back in fright and threw its rider. The next morning they found him where he had fallen, with his neck broken.
They say “Wild Darrell” still rides the country-side of nights, and that a baby’s ghost for many years haunted an oak panelled room in Littlecote Manor. But you must please yourself whether to believe this or not.
At any rate Littlecote looks the sort of stately, romantic house that should be haunted. It lies in the peaceful Kennet valley, close by that stream so famous for its trout.
A mile or two away rise the fine open Marlborough Downs with their many relics of ancient civilization. Three or four miles to the westward and you are in glorious Savernake Forest with its silent glades and its world famous avenues. Hungerford itself is a quiet, tidy little market town, little known to the tourist, yet a wonderfully convenient centre for visiting the country that surrounds it. Gallows-crowned Inkpen Beacon is but a few miles off, a hill that misses being a mountain by only forty odd feet.
This is a magnificent country for the fisherman and the pedestrian; its hill tops are as lonely as the Welsh mountain summits, its leafy woods as unfrequented as an Alpine forest. Yet you may reach Hungerford in under a couple of hours from London; see Littlecote, the scene of “Wild Darrell’s” terrible action, wander over the hills, and return to Town between breakfast time and dinner on a summer’s day.
