“It is certainly a bell,” said he, “and no ghost.”
“But who rings it?” replied his wife, drawing her chair close to his, and shivering from fear; “who rings it?”
“I cannot tell, my dear,” said he, “but we will try to find out.” Accordingly he took a candle, and followed the sound from one room to another. He heard it distinctly, though faintly, sometimes near, and sometimes far; but he could by no means detect the cause. At last the sound ceased, and the distracted family went to rest.
The next night the same scene occurred. At the hour of nine, the frightful notes issued again, as if from the very walls of the room, and exciting the fears of all, still baffled every attempt to discover the cause. Unlike the former proprietor, who believed that some ghost or spirit caused the bell to ring, the present occupant rejected such a notion as absurd; and though a cold, creeping sensation would sometimes chill his blood, still he took every opportunity to endeavor to detect the truth.
While he was one evening sitting by the fire, the tinkling sound was heard more distinctly than usual, and instead of issuing from the wall, undefined and spirit-like, it seemed now to come distinctly from a cupboard in one corner of the room. The man arose, went to the cupboard, and opened the door. Instantly a small hand-bell fell from a crevice in the wall, over the cupboard, upon the floor. It had a small string tied to it, and it was now discovered, that by this string the rats were accustomed to pull about the bell in their gambols, thus giving it a tinkling sound, which seemed to issue from the walls, giving it the awful and mysterious character, which had occasioned so much terror and distress.
E. Well, that’s a good story; and it puts me in mind of one which I heard Captain Lewis Smith tell. It happened when he was somewhere in the Jerseys fighting the revolution, as he calls it. It seems there was a sergeant Kitely, who, when he returned to the camp one night, declared that he had seen a spirit. He was evidently frightened, for his teeth chattered as if he was half dead with cold, and for a long time he could not muster sufficient courage to tell the story. At last he was prevailed upon to relate it, which he did as follows:
“It was a raw, blustering night,” said he, “when I had occasion to walk down a lane, to the house of an old woman by the name of Warlock, who washes for the regiment. It was dark, and I had some difficulty in finding the place. At last I found it, and knocked at the door. But there was no answer returned. I lifted the latch, but I could see nobody in the house. The fire was out, but in a corner of the room under the bed were two bright, fiery balls, which I knew to be the eyes of a cat, but they seemed to be twice as large as common.
“This made me a little skittish, for I then happened to remember that the old beldam herself is reputed a witch; and I thought to myself, that perhaps after all, it was she, sitting there under the bed, rolling up her fiery eyes at me, and pretending to be a cat. As I thought this, the eyes seemed to grow bigger and bigger. I then shut the door, and prepared to run.
“Just as I was about to start, I saw a thing as white as the driven snow and in the shape of an old woman, flying and flapping in the air, and lifting up her arms, and seeming to threaten me in the most awful manner. I tried to run, but my feet stuck to the ground. I should have screamed, but my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth, and my hair rose up so as to throw my hat off my head.
“How I contrived to pick it up I cannot say, but I heard the footsteps of some one near, and this I believe gave me courage. I caught my hat and ran as fast as my legs would carry me. A voice called after me, but I felt as light as a feather, and bounded forward like a school-boy’s ball, with a sturgeon’s nose in the centre. It seems to me that I went two rods at every step, and so I soon reached the barrack. But if I live to the age of Methuselah, I shall never forget the fiery eyeballs of the cat, or how old dame Warlock leaped up and down in the heavens, seeming to me as tall as a steeple.”