“It may well be supposed what a sensation the report of the visit of Mr. Drury and its result must have created. It flew far and wide, and when it appeared in print, still wider; and, what was not a little singular, Mr. Procter received, in consequence, a great number of letters from individuals of different ranks and circumstances, including many of much property, informing him that their residences were, and had been for years, subject to annoyances of precisely a similar character.
“So, the ghosts and the hauntings are not gone, after all! We have turned our backs on them, and, in the pride of our philosophy, have refused to believe in them; but they have persisted in remaining, notwithstanding!
“These singular circumstances being at various times related by parties acquainted with the family at Willington, I was curious, on a tour northward some time ago, to pay this haunted house a visit, and to solicit a night’s lodging there. Unfortunately the family was absent, on a visit to Mrs. Procter’s relatives in Carlisle, so that my principal purpose was defeated; but I found the foreman and his wife, mentioned in the foregoing narrative, living just by. They spoke of the facts above detailed with the simple earnestness of people who had no doubts whatever on the subject. The noises and apparitions in and about this house seemed just like any other facts connected with it—as matters too palpable and positive to be questioned, any more than that the house actually stood, and the mill ground. They mentioned to me the circumstance of the young lady, as above stated, who took up her lodging in their house, because she would no longer encounter the annoyances of the haunted house—and what trouble it had occasioned the family in procuring and retaining servants.
“The wife accompanied me into the house, which I found in charge of a recently-married servant and her husband, during the absence of the family. This young woman—who had, previous to her marriage, lived some time in the house—had never seen anything, and therefore had no fear. I was shown over the house, and especially into the room on the third story, the main haunt of the unwelcome visiters, and where Dr. Drury had received such an alarm. This room, as stated, was and had been for some time abandoned as a bed-room, from its bad character, and was occupied as a lumber-room.
“At Carlisle, I again missed Mr. Procter: he had returned to Willington, so that I lost the opportunity of hearing from him or Mrs. Procter any account of these singular matters. I saw, however, various members of his wife’s family, most intelligent people, of the highest character for sound and practical sense, and they were unanimous in their confirmation of the particulars I had heard, and which are here related.
“One of Mrs. Procter’s brothers—a gentleman in middle life, and of a peculiarly sensible, sedate, and candid disposition, a person apparently most unlikely to be imposed on by fictitious alarms or tricks—assured me that he had himself, on a visit there, been disturbed by the strangest noises; that he had resolved, before going, that if any such noises occurred, he would speak, and demand of the invisible actor who he was, and why he came thither: but the occasion came, and he found himself unable to fulfil his intention. As he lay in bed one night, he heard a heavy step ascend the stairs toward his room, and some one striking, as it were, with a thick stick on the banisters, as he went along. It came to his door, and he essayed to call, but his voice died in his throat. He then sprang from his bed, and, opening the door, found no one there—but now heard the same heavy steps deliberately descending, though invisible, the steps before his face, and accompanying the descent with the same loud blows on the banisters.
“My informant now proceeded to the room-door of Mr. Procter, who he found had also heard the sounds, and who now also arose, and with a light they made a speedy descent below, and a thorough search there, but without discovering anything that could account for the occurrence.
“The two young ladies, who, on a visit there, had also been annoyed by this invisible agent, gave me this account of it: The first night, as they were sleeping in the same bed, they felt the bed lifted up beneath them. Of course, they were much alarmed. They feared lest some one had concealed himself there for the purpose of robbery. They gave an alarm, search was made, but nothing was found. On another night, their bed was violently shaken, and the curtains suddenly hoisted up[[3]] all round to the very tester, as if pulled by cords, and as rapidly let down again, several times! Search again produced no evidence of the cause. The next, they had the curtains totally removed from the bed, resolving to sleep without them, as they felt as though evil eyes were lurking behind them. The consequences of this, however, were still more striking and terrific. The following night, as they happened to awake, and the chamber was light enough (for it was summer) to see everything in it, they both saw a female figure, of a misty substance, and bluish-gray hue, come out of the wall at the bed’s head, and through the head-board, in a horizontal position, and lean over them. They saw it most distinctly—they saw it as a female figure come out of, and again pass into, the wall. Their terror became intense, and one of the sisters from that night refused to sleep any more in the house, but took refuge in the house of the foreman during her stay; the other shifting her quarters to another part of the house. It was the young lady who slept at the foreman’s who saw, as above related, the singular apparition of the luminous figure in the window, along with the foreman and his wife.
“It would be too long to relate all the forms in which this nocturnal disturbance is said by the family to present itself. When a figure appears, it is sometimes that of a man, as already described, which is often very luminous, and passes through the walls as though they were nothing. This male figure is well known to the neighbors by the name of “Old Jeffrey!” At other times, it is the figure of a lady, also in gray costume, and as described by Mr. Drury. She is sometimes seen sitting wrapped in a sort of mantle, with her head depressed, and her hands crossed on her lap. The most terrible fact is, that she is without eyes.
“To hear such sober and superior people gravely relate to you such things, gives you a very odd feeling. They say that the noise made is often like that of a pavior with his rammer thumping on the floor. At other times it is coming down stairs, making a similar loud sound. At others it coughs, sighs, and groans, like a person in distress; and, again, there is the sound of a number of little feet pattering on the floor of the upper chamber, where the apparition has more particularly exhibited itself, and which, for that reason, is solely used as a lumber-room. Here these little footsteps may be often heard as if careering a child’s carriage about, which in bad weather is kept up there. Sometimes, again, it makes the most horrible laughs. Nor does it always confine itself to the night. On one occasion, a young lady, as she assured me herself, opened the door in answer to a knock, the housemaid being absent, and a lady in fawn-colored silk entered, and proceeded up stairs. As the young lady, of course, supposed it a neighbor come to make a morning call on Mrs. Procter, she followed her up to the drawing-room, where, however, to her astonishment, she did not find her, nor was anything more seen of her.