The following very singular circumstance was related to me by the daughter of the celebrated Mrs. S——: Mrs. S—— and her husband were travelling into Wales, and had occasion to stop on their way, some days, at Oswestry. There they established themselves in a lodging, to reach the door of which they had to go down a sort of close, or passage. The only inhabitants of the house were the mistress, a very handsome woman, and two maids. Mr. and Mrs. S——, however, very soon had occasion to complain of the neglected state of the rooms, which were apparently never cleaned or dusted; though, strange to say, to judge by their own ears, the servants were doing nothing else all night, their sleep being constantly disturbed by the noise of rubbing, sweeping, and the moving of furniture. When they complained to these servants of the noise in the night, and the dirt of the rooms, they answered that the noise was not made by them, and that it was impossible for them to do their work, exhausted as they were by sitting up all night with their mistress, who could not bear to be alone when she was in bed. Mr. and Mrs. S—— afterward discovered that she had her room lighted up every night; and one day, as they were returning from a walk, and she happened to be going down the close before them, they heard her saying, as she turned her head sharply from side to side, “Are you there again? What, the devil! Go away, I tell you!” &c., &c. On applying to the neighbors for an explanation of these mysteries, the good people only shook their heads, and gave mysterious answers. Mr. and Mrs. S—— afterward learned that she was believed to have murdered a girl who formerly lived in her service.
There is nothing in the conduct of this unhappy woman which may not be perfectly well accounted for, by the supposition of a guilty conscience; but the noises heard by Mr. and Mrs. S—— at night, are curiously in accordance with a variety of similar stories, wherein this strange visionary repetition of the trivial actions of daily life, or of some particular incident, has been observed. The affair of Lord St. Vincent’s was of this nature; and there is somewhere extant, an account of the ghost of Peter the Great, of Russia, having appeared to Doctor Doppelio, complaining to him of the sufferings he endured from having to act over again his former cruelties; a circumstance which exhibits a remarkable coincidence with the Glasgow dream, mentioned in a preceding chapter. We must, of course, attach a symbolical meaning to these phenomena, and conclude that these reactings are somewhat of the nature of our dreams. Certainly, there would need no stronger motive to induce us to spend the period allotted to us on earth, in those pure and innocent pleasures and occupations, which never weary or sicken the soul, than the belief that such a future awaits us!
A family in one of the English counties, was a few years ago terribly troubled by an unseen inmate who chiefly seemed to inhabit a large cellar, into which there was no entrance except the door which was kept locked. Here there would be a loud knocking—sometimes a voice crying—heavy feet walking, &c., &c. At first, the old trustworthy butler would summon his accolytes, and descend, armed with sword and blunderbuss; but no one was to be seen. They could often hear the feet following them up stairs from this cellar; and once, when the family had determined to watch, they found themselves accompanied up stairs not only by the sound of the feet, but by a visible shadowy companion! They rushed up, flew to their chamber, and shut the door, when instantly they felt and saw the handle turned in their hand by a hand outside. Windows and doors were opened in spite of locks and keys; but notwithstanding the most persevering investigations, the only clew to the mystery was the appearance of that spectral figure.
The knockings and sounds of people at work, asserted to be heard in mines, is a fact maintained by many very sensible men, overseers, and superintendents, &c., as well as by the workmen themselves; and there is a strong persuasion, I know, among the miners of Cornwall, and those of Mendip, that these visionary workmen are sometimes heard among them; on which occasions the horses evince their apprehensions by trembling and sweating; but as I have no means of verifying these reports, I do not dwell upon them further.
When the mother of George Canning, then Mrs. Hunn, was an actress in the provinces, she went, among other places, to Plymouth, having previously requested her friend, Mr. Bernard, of the theatre, to procure her a lodging. On her arrival Mr. B. told her that if she was not afraid of a ghost, she might have a comfortable residence at a very low rate, “For there is,” said he, “a house belonging to our carpenter, that is reported to be haunted, and nobody will live in it. If you like to have it, you may, and for nothing, I believe, for he is so anxious to get a tenant; only you must not let it be known that you do not pay rent for it.”
Mrs. Hunn, alluding to the theatrical apparitions, said it would not be the first time she had had to do with a ghost, and that she was very willing to encounter this one; so she had her luggage taken to the house in question, and the bed prepared. At her usual hour, she sent her maid and her children to bed, and, curious to see if there was any foundation for the rumor she had heard, she seated herself, with a couple of candles and a book, to watch the event. Beneath the room she occupied was the carpenter’s workshop, which had two doors. The one which opened into the street was barred and bolted within; the other, a smaller one, opening into the passage, was only on the latch; and the house was, of course, closed for the night. She had read something more than half an hour, when she perceived a noise issuing from this lower apartment, which sounded very much like the sawing of wood. Presently other such noises as usually proceed from a carpenter’s workshop were added, till by-and-by, there was a regular concert of knocking and hammering, and sawing and planing, &c.; the whole sounding like half a dozen busy men in full employment. Being a woman of considerable courage, Mrs. Hunn resolved, if possible, to penetrate the mystery; so taking off her shoes, that her approach might not be heard, with her candle in her hand, she very softly opened her door and descended the stairs, the noise continuing as loud as ever, and evidently proceeding from the workshop, till she opened the door, when instantly all was silent—all was still—not a mouse was stirring; and the tools and the wood, and everything else, lay as they had been left by the workmen when they went away. Having examined every part of the place, and satisfied herself that there was nobody there, and that nobody could get into it, Mrs. Hunn ascended to her room again, beginning almost to doubt her own senses, and question with herself whether she had really heard the noise or not, when it recommenced and continued, without intermission, for about half an hour. She however went to bed, and the next day told nobody what had occurred, having determined to watch another night before mentioning the affair to any one. As, however, this strange scene was acted over again, without her being able to discover the cause of it, she now mentioned the circumstance to the owner of the house and to her friend Bernard; and the former, who would not believe it, agreed to watch with her, which he did. The noise began as before, and he was so horror-struck that, instead of entering the workshop as she wished him to do, he rushed into the street. Mrs. Hunn continued to inhabit the house the whole summer; and, when referring afterward to the adventure, she observed that use was second nature, and that she was sure if any night these ghostly carpenters had not pursued their visionary labors, she should have been quite frightened, lest they should pay her a visit up stairs.
From many recorded cases, I find the vulgar belief, that buried money is frequently the cause of these disturbances, is strongly borne out by facts. This certainly does seem to us very strange, and can only be explained by the hypothesis suggested, that the soul awakes in the other world in exactly the same state in which it quitted this.
In the abovementioned instances, of what are called haunted houses, there is generally nothing seen; but those are equally abundant where the ghostly visiter is visible.
Two young ladies were passing the night in a house in the north, when the youngest, then a child, awoke and saw an old man, in a Kilmarnock nightcap, walking about their bed-room. She said, when telling the story in after-life, that she was not the least frightened—she was only surprised! but she found that her sister, who was several years older than herself, was in a state of great terror. He continued some time moving about, and at last went to a chest of drawers, where there lay a parcel of buttons, belonging to a travelling tailor who had been at work in the house. Whether the old man threw them down or not, she could not say; but, just then, they all fell rattling off the drawers to the floor, whereupon he disappeared. The next morning, when they mentioned the circumstance, she observed that the family looked at each other in a significant manner; but it was not till she was older she learned that the house was said to be haunted by this old man. “It never occurred to me,” she said, “that it was a ghost. Who could have thought of a ghost in a Kilmarnock nightcap!”
At the Leipsic fair, lodgings are often very scarce, and on one occasion a stranger, who had arrived late in the evening, had some difficulty in finding a bed. At length he found a vacant chamber in the house of a citizen. It was one they made no use of, but they said he was welcome to it; and, weary and sleepy, he gladly accepted the offer. Fatigued as he was, however, he was disturbed by some unaccountable noises, of which he complained to his hosts in the morning. They pacified him by some excuses; but the next night, not long after he had gone to bed, he came down stairs in great haste, with his portmanteau on his shoulder, declaring he would not stay there another hour for the world; for that a lady, in a strange old-fashioned dress, had come into the room with a dagger in her hand, and made threatening gestures at him. He accordingly went away, and the room was shut up again; but some time afterward, a servant-girl in the family of this citizen, being taken ill, they were obliged to put her into that room, in order to separate her from the rest of the family. Here she recovered her health rapidly; and as she had never complained of any annoyance, she was asked, when she was quite well, whether anything particular had happened while she inhabited that chamber. “Oh, yes,” she answered; “every night there came a strange lady into the room, who sat herself on the bed and stroked me with her hand, and I believe it is to her I owe my speedy recovery; but I could never get her to speak to me—she only sighs and weeps.”