Mr. Proctor, who lived at the mill, on hearing Davidson's account, said that he had seen the animal on various occasions.
After this experience ghosts were frequently seen and heard of at the mill. The noises were dreadful, sometimes sounding like a galloping donkey, at others like falling fire-irons. Doors creaked and sticks crackled as though burning, and the rapping became almost incessant. Sometimes the lavender-gowned lady appeared, and at another time several of the inmates of the mill saw a bald-headed old man in a flowing robe like a surplice. Spectral animals always formed an important feature of the haunting.
In November, 1841, a gentleman paid a visit to the place and was confronted by the figure of an animal about two feet high, which appeared in a window. After careful search nothing was found, though the animal was seen in the window by others from the grounds for half an hour, after which it slowly faded away. A two-year-old child saw a ghost kitten, while Davidson's aunt thought the spectre looked like a white pocket handkerchief, knotted at four corners, which danced up and down, leaping as high as the first floor window. This lady was one day standing by the kitchen table when she was startled by the bark of a dog, and two paws were laid heavily on her shoulders, so that she had to lean against the table for support. No dog, however, was found in the house. On several occasions the children, though nothing had been said to them about ghosts, found amusement in chasing up and down the stairs some animal they described either as a "funny cat or a bonny monkey."
In 1853, an attempt was made to discover the secret of the mystery of the mill by a clairvoyante, who in her trance distinctly saw, the "lady like a shadow, with eyes but no sight in them," as she described her, as well as a number of animals. When questioned about these, she answered, "One is like a monkey and another like a dog. Had the lady dogs and monkeys? They all go about the house. What is that other one? It is not a pussy, it runs very fast and gets amongst feet. It is a rabbit but a very quick one." When asked whether the animals were real, the medium replied in her quaint way, "We don't touch them to see, we would not like a bite."
Beyond this there appears to have been no solution as to the mystery of the haunted mill, although the medium declared that the trouble "came from the cellar."[162]
A writer in "Notes and Queries,"[163] H. Wedgewood by name, visited Mr. Proctor in 1873-4 to ask him the truth about the Willington Mill ghost, and he told her that he had seen a tabby cat in the furnace room. There was nothing unusual in the animal's appearance, and it would not have caught his attention particularly had it not begun to move. But then instead of walking like an ordinary cat it wriggled along like a snake. He went close to it and followed it across the room, holding his hand about a foot above it, until it passed straight into the solid wall.
The well-known Cornish tradition says that if a young woman dies neglected after being betrayed by her lover, she haunts him after her death in the form of a white hare. The false lover is continuously pursued by the phantom. At times it may rescue him from danger, but in the end it is the cause of his death.
The following story of a phantom hare pursuing a false lover to his death is told by Robert Hunt in "Popular Romances of the West of England."[164]
A young farmer settled at a fine new farmhouse and a peasant's daughter was placed there in charge of the dairy. The young farmer fell deeply in love with her and she with him, and he betrayed her under a promise of marriage, but his family refused to agree to the alliance taking place, and provided a bride for him suitable to his station. The dairymaid was sent away ignominiously when it was known she was about to become a mother. One morning the corpse of a newly-born infant was found in the farmer's field and the dairymaid was accused of strangling her child, and was finally convicted of murder and executed.