To add to the mystery and the uncanny character of the place, there is a certain part of the garden connected with the farm, on which nothing will grow. Time after time have the tenants endeavoured to cultivate this little spot, but always unsuccessfully. Some years ago human bones were dug up, and the secret attached to their interment is supposed to account for the sterile nature of the soil. The present tenant of the farm asserts that he has paid special attention to the piece of ground, has applied quantities of the best manure, and in other ways has endeavoured to bring the soil to the same state of fruitfulness as the rest of the garden, but all to no purpose. So recently as the month of April, 1906, primroses growing on that part of the garden are pale and withered; while those in other parts are fine and healthy flowers.
The present tenant’s wife relates a strange story of a supernatural death-warning which occurred in connection with this haunted house. Her brother lay ill in the farm, and she had occasion to go to Gee Cross on business. Returning homewards, she met a black cat, which, do what she would she was unable to catch. Then, whilst walking along the lane leading to the farm, in company with her mother who had met her, a strange thing happened. It was a beautiful summer night, hot and still; not a breath of air stirred the leaves upon the trees; and there was no sound. Suddenly the high thorn hedge on their right commenced to rock violently; and behind it there sailed along from the direction of the farm a female figure draped in white. The beholders were spellbound, and they entered the house with bated breaths. There they found that the sick man had just died.
The history of this haunted farm is but another testimony to the truth of the saying that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by ordinary mortals. Things such as these are beyond human ken; and in all probability the apparition and the ghost-noises of this old farm house in Godley will baffle the wisdom and the cunning of generations yet unborn.
Author’s Note.
It is quite probable that the majority of those who read the foregoing account of “The Haunted Farm” will come to the conclusion that it is entirely the outcome of the writer’s imagination. I therefore hasten to explain that there is not a single detail in the account which has been imagined by me. Every incident recorded has been supplied to me by persons who have resided in the farm, and all that I have done has been to put them in the form in which they now appear.
Most of my informants are still living; indeed, I saw and interviewed four of them so recently as the last week in March, 1906. One of these was the old lady, who, as a young woman, was one of the lovers mentioned in the account; after her marriage she resided in the farm and is “the farmer’s wife” referred to, who witnessed, and stopped the mysterious rocking-chair. The other individuals, who were much younger, related to me the story of the strange noises, invisible footsteps, and uncanny opening and closing of doors, which they witnessed towards the close of the nineteenth century. They are persons of the most reputable character, and of social standing, and they solemnly assure me that the things recorded in the above article are literally true.
I also visited the farm in the month of April, 1906, and obtained from the present occupants their experiences, which are also embodied in the above narrative. The sterility of the “haunted” part of the garden I saw for myself; and can unhesitatingly testify that, from some cause or other, the flowers growing on it are quite withered and weak, whilst similar flowers in other parts of the garden are healthy and blooming. There is no apparent reason for this fact, inasmuch as the unfruitful portion of the ground is as advantageously situated as the rest of the garden.
