Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore

by Mary L. Lewes

Mrs. Hunt was extremely puzzled by this piece of information, as she had never seen any strange child in the house, and at length she concluded that it was only some nonsense imagined by the two boys. However, she still could not help thinking a little about the mysterious "Bobo," and eventually determined to make some inquiries about the house; as to who had lived there, &c. &c.; and great was her astonishment to learn through these inquiries that the house was always supposed to be haunted "by the ghost of a little girl."

This story reminded me of a very old house near Arundel, in Sussex, said to be haunted by the ghost of a nun; and it is alleged that the apparition has been seen by children living there. Inexplicable noises are also frequently heard, and a window visible from outside is said to belong to "the nun's room," though the room it really lights is walled up and cannot be entered.

The apparition of a child figures in another very curious tale. I was once told of a certain rectory in one of the English counties, where, during a summer not very long ago, a Mr. Shadwell, by profession an artist, went to stay as a paying guest. He was given a sitting-room of his own, and did not join the family of an evening unless he felt inclined. One evening after dinner he was sitting reading in this room by himself, when the door was quietly opened, and in walked a little girl. The clergyman had several children, with whom Shadwell had already made friends, but this child he had not seen before, so concluded she must have been away from home and had probably only just returned. So he remarked, "Good evening, my dear, I don't think I have seen you before."

However, the child made no reply, and did not even look at him, but walking slowly along the side of the room, she paused, laid her hand on a certain part of the wall, and then turned, and as slowly and deliberately walked out again. Trifling as the action was, there was something so curiously impassive about the demeanour of the little girl, and her absolute indifference to his presence, that it struck Shadwell as extremely odd, and the more he thought of it the more uncomfortable he felt, though for the life of him he could not imagine why. Next morning, when he saw the Rector, he said to him: "I did not know you had another daughter, the little girl who came into my room last evening. Why haven't I heard about her before?" He spoke lightly enough, for a night's sleep had convinced him that life in the country had made him fanciful, and that the impression made upon him by the silent child was due to morbid imagination. So what was his astonishment to see the clergyman appear greatly agitated by his question, and apparently unable to reply at once. Presently he said to Shadwell: "That was no living child that entered your room, but an apparition which has been seen before; and I beg of you not to mention the matter to my wife, for she always reproaches herself with being partly to blame for the death of that little girl, who was our eldest-born." He then told the artist that a few years previously they had had workmen in the house, doing some plastering and papering. One day, while the work was going on, the Rector's wife had wished to pay somebody some money, and remembering that she had just left half a crown on her dressing-table, she told her eldest girl to run upstairs and bring down this coin. But after rather a long interval, the child returned saying the money was not there. Whereupon the mother became annoyed, knowing she had really left the half-crown on the table, and told the child she must have either stolen the coin or else be playing a trick for mischief. The little girl obstinately denied all knowledge of the money, so she was sent to bed in disgrace, where she presently fell into such a terrible fit of sobbing and crying that an attack of convulsions came on, and finally she became unconscious and died. To the parents' grief was added remorse, caused by the torturing doubt that the poor child might have been after all unjustly blamed for a fault committed perhaps by one of the strange workmen, for the missing half-crown was never found.

Shadwell listened thoughtfully to this sad story, and later, after thinking over the incident of the evening before, in connection with the tragic circumstances of the child's death, an idea struck him. He at once sought the Rector, and asked him whether he had ever thought of having the wall examined at the spot to which the apparition had pointed. On hearing that this had not been done, he asked permission to investigate, and, with the clergyman's help, he opened the wall. And there, embedded an inch or two in the plaster, exactly where the child's hand had been placed the night before, was a half-crown!

Now was this merely a wonderful coincidence? Or may we believe that the little girl, having hidden the coin in the tempting surface of the wet plaster—whether for mischief or her own gain one cannot tell—was afraid to confess her fault? And Death overtaking her, could not give the spirit rest, till its efforts to reveal the truth had been recognised and understood.

But it is certain that since the discovery of the coin in the wall the apparition of the child has never again been seen.

Another rectory that possessed the reputation of being haunted is that of Clifton, in Kent. This is a very old house, dating from the fourteenth century, and, according to my informant, who knew the house well (a relation of his having held the living from 1869 to 1880), mysterious noises had often been heard there by different individuals. One lady who was paying a visit reported having a "dreadful night," "with people walking up and down the passage, and muffled voices," but no one had left their rooms all night. And a youth of sixteen or seventeen, employed as an outside servant, declared that once when an errand brought him into the house, he saw "an old gentleman in a grey dressing-gown walk down the stairs before him, and suddenly disappear." Whatever it was he saw, the boy was so thoroughly frightened that he would never enter the house again. My friend's letter continued: "Mrs. Lowther (whose husband, the late Dr. Lowther, succeeded my relative as Rector) when 'moving in' elected to stay the night in the rectory by herself, instead of returning to ... London. The workpeople left, and a village woman, having prepared Mrs. Lowther's evening meal and made up fires for her in sitting-room and bedroom, went home. Something is said to have occurred during the night, and Mrs. Lowther acknowledged (so the writer has been told) as much, but would never say what it was that had alarmed her; but it is believed that she did say that nothing would induce her again to be alone in the house at night."

I once went to tea with the wife of Canon C——, in the cathedral city of E——. In the course of conversation the subject of "ghosts" came up, apropos of which Mrs. C—— remarked: "As you know, these houses are exceedingly old, being actually part of the ancient Norman monastery adapted to modern use. Very odd and unaccountable noises were for a long while heard in the house next door to ours, which of course is all part of the same old building; and these noises were vaguely ascribed to 'the ghost,' though nothing was ever seen. But, at last, some structural alteration of the house became necessary, and in the course of this work the discovery was made of a human skeleton, which had evidently lain hidden for centuries, and presumably was that of a Benedictine monk. The bones were carefully buried, and from that time no more noises have been heard."

This story rather resembles the tale of a much more interesting ghost which inhabited an old manor-house in Somersetshire, and which succeeded for many years in keeping human beings out of the place. Time after time the house would be let, people always making light of its haunted reputation, or else determining to brave its terrors. But they never stayed more than a few weeks, when they invariably went away, declaring that one or more members of the household had seen an apparition on the main staircase. The description—and rather horrible it was—was always the same. The figure of a woman would come gliding downstairs, carrying her head under her arm, and on arriving at the foot of the stairs she invariably vanished.