Here is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in Light. The narrator is a Colonel X.
"When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night the sentry came to tell me that there was something very extraordinary going on in the White Chapel, which, in those days, was used as a storeroom.
"I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed up and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly lit up, and presently priests in vestments and boys swinging silver censers came in and arranged themselves before an altar. Then the large entrance doors opened and a procession of persons in old quaint costumes filed in. Walking alone was a lady in black, and behind her was a masked man, also in black, who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded away, and there was utter darkness.
"Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so laughed at that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a gentleman introduced himself as the keeper of the records of the Tower, and said that he had heard my story, but wished to hear it again from my own lips; and when I had told it he remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision has been seen by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's death.'"
It not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in a court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in "Sights and Shadows," gives an account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year 1890.
"A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner, Miss Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of £23.
"The last-named persons took possession of it in due course; but two days subsequently they became aware of the presence of a spirit or ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs Kinney asserted, 'threw heavy things at her,' and so alarmed and inconvenienced her, that in a very short period both husband and wife were forced to quit their abode.
"This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it; and, because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised to decline to pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to release them from their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's rent; and when this remained for sometime unpaid, sued them for it before Judge Kisby.
"A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants, who, having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in question, asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that of several other people. This, however, was disallowed by the judge.
"It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side or the other had been said regarding the haunting when the house was let; yet that the rent was due and must be paid.
"A judgment was consequently entered for the landlady although it had been shown indirectly that unquestionably the house had the reputation of being haunted, and that previous tenants had been much inconvenienced and affrighted."
Another case is chronicled which took place in Dublin in 1885. Dr Lee's account is confirmed by The Evening Standard of February 23rd of that year.
"Mr Waldron, a solicitor, sued his next-door neighbour, one Kiernan, a mate in the merchant service, to recover £500 for damages done to his house. Kiernan altogether denied the charges, but asserted that Waldron's residence was notoriously haunted. Witnesses proved that every night from August 1884, to January 1885, stones were thrown at the windows and doors and other serious damage done—in fact that numerous extraordinary and inexplicable occurrences constantly took place.
"Mrs Waldron, wife of the plaintiff, swore that one night she saw one of the panes of glass of a certain window cut through with a diamond, and a white hand inserted through the hole. She at once caught up a bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand, cutting off one of the fingers. Neither this finger, however, could be found nor were any traces of blood seen.
"A servant of hers was sorely persecuted by noises and the sound of footsteps. Mr Waldron, with the aid of detectives and policemen, endeavoured to find the cause, but with no avail. The witnesses in this case were closely cross-examined, but without shaking their testimony. The facts appeared to be proved, so the jury found for Kiernan, the defendant. At least twenty persons had testified on oath to the fact that the house had been known to have been haunted."
The possible agency of small boys in the matter of stone-throwing is apparently overlooked, while it can be easily imagined that a servant girl, well aware of the uncanny reputation of the house she lived in, would very soon develop a capacity for hearing mysterious sounds and footsteps on the smallest provocation. Then again the testimony of the plaintiff's wife was surely very damaging to her own case since she was, presumably, endeavouring to prove that the whole of the "extraordinary and inexplicable occurrences" were due to some mad freak on the part of her neighbour.
On the whole I can find no class of occult phenomena of greater antiquity and persistence than that of haunting. Even though the ghost may not be as visible as that of Hamlet's father, yet the idea of a perturbed spirit revisiting its former haunts or the scene of its bodily murder finds credence amongst all peoples and epochs in the world's history. Fable is usually the dulled image of the truth: just as what we call presentiment or rumour is a kind of aura or van-wind of truth. On these grounds alone I should be inclined to take the legendary evidence for haunting seriously, just as every man who investigates its astonishing history now perceives that witchcraft is not to be dismissed as a mere groundless superstition. Indeed, I lay it down as a proposition that any belief which spontaneously and universally arises and persistently survives must have truth in the web of it. But the modern authentic testimony for haunting is so clear and strong and the attestors so clear-headed and indeed inexpugnable that we must really believe the physical sounds, with their revealed significance, actually occurred and do occur. Hallucination I put here out of the question. Neither will the theory of telepathy between the living serve to account for anything here.
There is some other solution of the mystery. Has it been propounded? We shall see. Cock Lane is not now to be dismissed derisively. Nor are these manifestations to be treated in the spirit of one of the characters in Mr Wells' "Love and Mr Lewisham"—"Even if it be true—it is all wrong."