But the night was come down pitch dark, wild, and windy, and old John Basford had to return to Leicester.
“To Leicester!” exclaimed at once man and wife; “to Leicester!” No such thing. He must stay where he was—where could he be better?
John Basford confessed that that was true; he had great pleasure in conversing with them; but then, was it not an unwarrantable liberty to come to a stranger’s house, and make thus free?
“Not in the least,” the farmer replied; “the freer the better!”
The matter thus was settled, and the evening wore on; but in the course of the evening, the guest, whose simple manner, strong sense, and deeply pious feeling, had made a most favorable impression on his entertainers, hinted that he had heard some strange rumors regarding this house, and that, in truth, had been the cause which had attracted him thither. He had heard, in fact, that a particular chamber in this house was haunted; and he had for a long time felt a growing desire to pass a night in it. He now begged this favor might be granted him.
As he had opened this subject, an evident cloud, and something of an unpleasant surprise, had fallen on the countenances of both man and wife. It deepened as he proceeded; the farmer had withdrawn his pipe from his mouth, and laid it on the table; and the woman had risen, and looked uneasily at their guest. The moment that he uttered the wish to sleep in the haunted room, both exclaimed in the same instant against it.
“No, never!” they exclaimed; “never, on any consideration! They had made a firm resolve on that point, which nothing would induce them to break through.”
The guest expressed himself disappointed, but did not press the matter further at the moment. He contented himself with turning the conversation quietly upon this subject, and after a while found the farmer and his wife confirm to him every thing that he had heard. Once more then, and as incidentally, he expressed his regret that he could not gratify the curiosity which had brought him so far; and, before the time for retiring arrived, again ventured to express how much what he had now heard had increased his previous desire to pass a night in that room. He did not profess to believe himself invulnerable to fears of such a kind, but was curious to convince himself of the actual existence of spiritual agency of this character.
The farmer and his wife steadily refused. They declared that others who had come with the same wish, and had been allowed to gratify it, had suffered such terrors as had made their after-lives miserable. The last of these guests was a clergyman, who received such a fright that he sprang from his bed at midnight, had descended, gone into the stable, and saddling his horse, had ridden away at full speed. Those things had caused them to refuse, and that firmly, any fresh experiment of the kind.
The spirit visitation was described to be generally this: At midnight, the stranger sleeping in that room would hear the latch of the door raised, and would in the dark perceive a light step enter, and, as with a stealthy tread, cross the room, and approach the foot of the bed. The curtains would be agitated, and something would be perceived mounted on the bed, and proceeding up it, just upon the body of the person in it. The supernatural visitant would then stretch itself full length on the person of the agitated guest, and the next moment he would feel an oppression at his chest, as of a nightmare, and something extremely cold would touch his face.