Part 6

“It was in the gathering dusk of a summer evening that I tripped merrily down the stairs to meet George. We were not married then, but courting. Near the foot of the first stair I was surprised to see a girlish figure, clad in white, come gliding up the stairs. Her face was in shadow, but her dark hair floated over her shoulders. As she came nearer, something impelled me to lay my hand on the railing and go backwards step by step. She came on slowly, and, retreating so, I had time to see her figure quite distinctly though her face and feet remained in shadow. Her white dress was filled with tiny frills right up to the waist. She wore a girdle of narrow black velvet that fell in loops on the left side. There was black velvet at her wrists, and, I think, at her throat. Also I distinctly saw red strands of hair amongst the brown.

“I felt no sensation of fear—only a sort of fascination—till I reached the top of the stair. I turned my head to see if my aunt's door was open, and found it was. Then, somehow, such terror seized me I could not look round again, but, screaming loudly, I ran inside and shut the door.

“My aunt, who had been chatting to a neighbour, came rushing in, and she and others were enraged to think that someone had so frightened me. The stairs, back court, and everywhere about was searched, but I knew they might have saved their pains. The girl I saw was no ordinary being of flesh and blood. Nothing happened afterwards; no warning had been conveyed, nor could anyone identify my girlish ghost with any known celebrity who had lived there. I do not know why she came, nor why she appeared to me, but she was there and, for the moment, was as real as myself.”

This lady knows nothing about clairvoyance, had never attended a Spiritualists’ meeting in her life, and her simple narrative impressed all present as an absolutely true statement. She died last summer, but her husband could, I am sure, testify to the truth of what is here related.

“The Old Master”

IN the eventide of a busy life I find a pleasant relaxation from my little daily duties in reading different items in the Daily News, and have been especially interested in those letters on “Visitants.” These have brought to my mind incidents which have taken place during my lifetime.

In my young days ghosts were much believed in, and some were seen which afterwards were proved to be the work of foolish young fellows.

But a short distance from my father’s house was a nice old farm where a well-known family had lived for several generations. The grandfather of the then resident family had been quite a unique character in the district, and had been known as “the old master.” A grandson, who had been abroad for a considerable time, returned to the old home, bringing a manservant with him. A spare room not being available for the man, a comfortable bed was made for him in the big farm-kitchen.

The house had for some time had the reputation of being haunted, but of this the man knew nothing. However, in the early morning he suddenly woke up to see a stout old gentleman walking down a long passage which was opposite the bed. He came noiselessly into the kitchen, and the old sheep dog that lay on the mat by the fireplace at once jumped up, wagging its tail, and ran to him, when he vanished from sight.

In the morning the man related his experience to the family, and, on being questioned, gave an exact description of “the old master.”

The Little Grey Lady

WITHIN three miles of my native city, on the outskirts of a little village, rather isolated by its grounds and its position on a slight eminence, stands a picturesque verandahed dwelling, which at one time was inhabited by elderly cousins of mine. Their father lived with them, and when very occasionally they left him in the house alone for a time, he invariably remarked that they need not mind, for he always had someone near him. This was his only reference to the spirit which haunted the place. Later, the house passed into the possession of townsfolk, who removed to it on account of the failing health of their only child. They had been there only a few days when a frightened scream from the child’s room made them both rush to it, to find her sitting up in bed, with eyes protruding and cheeks blanched. On seeing them, she wildly shrieked: “The little grey lady, the little grey lady! She has gone through the wall.” They soothed her, but could not persuade her that it was merely a nightmare.

Within a week of this, the father chanced to be absent from home for a few days, and the mother shared the child’s room. Again the wild cry arose, suddenly wakening her, and she, with the child, beheld the figure of a little old woman, garbed in a grey shawl and apron, who moved with the aid of a stick, making a strange little stumping noise. She paused by a dressing chest, and appeared to search anxiously for something, then just faded out.

For some little time these folk stayed in the house and frequently heard the tap of her stick, but did not see her again. The strain of the possibility of doing so, however, so told upon them that they moved. Before doing so the lady approached another relative of mine who had lived many years in the neighbourhood, and asked her if she could in any way account for the apparition. She was able to tell her the story which she had heard from an old nurse, who had attended the “little grey lady” in her last illness. It appears that she had sorely wronged her children, misjudging them and leaving her worldly goods to others. At the last she was quite unable to speak, but made pathetic efforts to communicate something which was evidently very much on her mind, at the same time pointing in the direction in which the lady and her child had seen her searching. Nothing was ever found, but one cannot help thinking that the little grey lady had made an effort to right the wrong by trying to tell where some document was hidden.

This story has been known to me for many years, and I always look curiously at the old place as I pass, and wonder if the restless spirit has at last found peace.

A Convincing Experience

AS children we were taught that only ignorant people believed in ghosts, and at twenty-one years of age I would have slept, without a tremor, in any room reported to be haunted. At that age I went to stay with a recently-married brother in a modern and comfortable house near Manchester.

On the first night, at about twelve o’clock, I was still awake. A dim light came from the street gas, and the fire that was nearly out; but it was too dark to see anything distinctly. Suddenly something leant over me, and fear that no words can describe possessed me. My hair seemed to prick me, and intense cold seemed to penetrate to my heart. I thought if it went on I should die. No thought of burglar or any physical danger entered my mind. From the first instant I knew that this was something from outside normal human life—something “ghostly.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” I gasped to the vague form leaning over me. There was no answer. Suddenly it was gone. I jumped out of bed, lit the gas, and left it full on. In the daylight I dared not tell my tale and ask to change my room; I knew how I should have regarded such a tale the day before. When I went to bed the second night I left the gas dimly alight. Towards midnight I felt suddenly cold, and my hair began to prick. I jumped up and turned the gas on full. The fear and cold passed away.

The next night I left the gas full on. Towards midnight I was aware of a little sudden cold, a little sense of panic, but both passed quickly. After that third night nothing happened.

Some weeks later, when I was no longer afraid, I told my brother that something had leant over me in bed. He looked amazed; and, with a sort of horror, I saw that something he knew would give reason for the terror I had felt.

He said the house had been untenanted for some years because the room I slept in was reported to be haunted. A woman had either fallen or thrown herself from the window and had been killed, and she was said to lean over the bed. My brother utterly disbelieved the tale, and forgot it. Had he mentioned it to me I should have laughed at it and gone to bed in that room without a tremor.

Those are the facts. I cannot explain them, but in Hudson's Psychic Phenomena” there is a very possible explanation of such apparitions.

The Hooded Lady

MY father was a Nonconformist minister. In the autumn of 18— he went to reside in the country town of W——, which has the distinction of possessing a large county gaol.

Going down, as a schoolgirl, to spend my first Christmas holidays there, I was astonished to find such a palatial “manse.” It was situated a mile out of the town, had a square turreted tower, an old moat (then the channel for a running stream), an encircling verandah, stabling for four horses, and a long carriage drive, at the gates of which was an old, ivy-covered, uninhabited lodge—an altogether unusual dwelling for its modest tenant!

The only room in the turreted tower was occupied by my father as his “study,” but he rarely made his sermons in it, we children observed, and when asked why, he would reply evasively that he always felt chilly and uncomfortable there.

On the night of Christmas Eve, I was restless and fidgety. A younger sister occupied another bed in the same room, but she soon dropped off to sleep. It was a moonlight night, so I drew up my blind and lay watching the fitful shadows of a tree outside as they played over my walls.

At last I had an uncanny feeling that another presence was added to the occupants of the large old bedroom. I looked towards the door and saw a dark figure gliding through it, apparently in a cloak, the hood of which encircled the small white face of a woman.

I sprang up frightened. The dark figure walked slowly towards me, then deviated to the window, and, without opening it, went through to the verandah. I ran across to my sister's bed, thinking she was playing a trick on me, but, no, she lay there fast asleep.

I had no sleep that night, you may be sure. On telling my story at the breakfast-table next morning, I was merely told that I had been reading too many Christmas ghost stories and had doubtless had a bad nightmare. Though hardly convinced, I dropped the subject.

A few weeks later my father sent me with a note to the office of a solicitor in the town, an elderly man who was deeply versed in all the topographical, historical and social knowledge of the place. He was a Celt, and the custodian of half the human secrets of the district, which may or may not bear on the rest of my story. As I was leaving, he asked in a friendly fashion: “How do you like the manse?”

Taken aback somewhat, I replied: “Oh, very much, but—er—” His spectacled, curious eyes seemed seeking some private confidence.

“‘But' what? You haven’t seen the manse ghost, I suppose? You have! I can see it in your face. Well, did it frighten you?”

Seeing that evasion was impossible, I replied: “Yes, it did—but father—”

“Oh, never mind your father. He pooh-poohed it, no doubt. Not psychic enough to see it himself, of course. Tell me about it.”

Half ashamed, I told my little story. When I had finished, he pulled up his office chair confidentially and said in a low voice: “The stewards of my church bought the manse some ten years ago very cheaply on account of its reputation for being haunted. Most of its tenants since, being religious men, like your father, have never been troubled by the story and never see anything spectral; being temperamentally unable to, probably. But you, young lady, are doubtless psychic and therefore have been privileged. I'll now tell you the story its reputation is founded on.

“Fifteen Christmases ago a young lady visitor came to stay at what you now know as the manse. A wealthy, rather profligate young bachelor in the town fell in love with her and persecuted her with his attentions. She rejected his suit. On Christmas Eve he accompanied her home from a local party. As she did not return, her friends set out in the early morning to look for her and found her lying dead in her evening cloak and hood just outside the little lodge at the gates.

“Suspicion fell on her rejected suitor. He was tried for murder and hanged in the local gaol here, the last execution, by the way, that has taken place. It is said that every Christmas Eve this poor girl's spirit comes back and haunts the place of the tragedy.”

“So you think the hooded lady I saw was the spirit of that poor young girl?” I questioned, horrified.

“Undoubtedly, and it interests me exceedingly that you have had this experience before either hearing the story or the traditional reputation of the house. Probably I ought not to have told you, but, as every Christmas comes round, I, as a believer in psychic phenomena, look expectantly for someone to corroborate this tradition. Do not be troubled; the ghost will not appear again this year. Good morning!”

I spent several more Christmases at the manse, but never again saw the ghost.

I leave it to my readers to decide how much my youth and temperament and my old friend the solicitor’s Celtic bias towards the romantic and the occult had to do with my sincere belief in the objective reality of that hooded lady whom I saw twenty years ago.

Uncle’s Story

On special occasions, a great-uncle of mine regales the family with the story of the ghost he saw.

How he awoke, one night, with the uneasy feeling that someone or something was near, and how he saw a little lady clad in brown at his bedside; how he thought it was his wife because she, too, was small, but, on second thoughts, knew her to be asleep at his side; how he saw the “little brown lady” walk—not glide—into a large cupboard at the end of the room; how he roused his wife, and how she, not he, went to the cupboard, only to find no trace of the “little lady.”

All this he recounts, and, on his word as a Christian, swears it to be true. He appeals to his wife, who nods, and tells us of the colour of his face, of the beads of perspiration on his brow, and emphasises how terrified he was, and that it was she who investigated.

If a member of the circle ventures to suggest that it was the after-effects of a good supper, my uncle has his answer ready, and recommences: How a special organist, playing in the village, stayed at his house for the night; how, next day at breakfast, on being asked how he slept, he replied, ‘Very fair, but I have had a disagreeable nightmare,’ how the organist had seen a “little lady” enter his room, walk to his bedside, and then disappear into a cupboard.

This is the final point in the narrative, and my uncle sits up straight in his chair and exclaims, “Here's his address, go to him and ask him; he is still alive!” And the doubting one does not move—my uncle’s ghost story has another believer. We of the family know that our uncle would never have told of the incident if he had not actually experienced it, and are, thus, bound to believe in ghosts. Yet this ghost signified nothing—no one died, neither misfortune nor pleasant surprise occurred, and we have no family tradition.

The Ghost Horse of the Derbyshire Moors

SOME years ago a friend of ours bought a house which was spoken of for miles around as “haunted”; one family after another had at various times lived at the place, but each of them, in turn, abruptly gave up the tenancy, declaring the house was indeed haunted. All round the house was a wide drive, and the story ran that every midnight at certain periods of the year a horse was heard to gallop round the drive, and, at times, reared itself so high as to touch the bedroom windows.

Though the horse itself was not visible, it was known to be a white one, and sometimes sent out flashing lights.

As soon as our friend was settled in the place, he invited my husband and I to go and stay with him. We readily accepted, just laughing at the ghost story, and, up to the moment of going to bed, we joked about the whole thing. We had been in bed only a short time when we heard the regular gallop, gallop, of a horse going round the drive. It was too real to make any mistake, and we both seemed to freeze with fear and, for a few minutes, were unable to speak. When my husband had gained a little self-control, he struck a light, and we saw the fingers of his watch pointed to a few minutes after midnight. The galloping had now ceased, but there was no sleep for us. As we lay awake, each resolving inwardly that, so soon as morning came, we would with all speed make for our own home, another terrifying thing happened. It was as though someone had given the shutter of our bedroom window a heavy blow. Being, by this time, quite unnerved, I gave a low moan of despair, but my husband made one big leap for the window, and through the light that was just breaking, he saw the outline of a huge bat, just flying away from the shutter. Evidently it had hit the shutter in its flight, and had caused the rattle which had so upset us. So that was one ghost accounted for! But that did not explain away the gallop of the horse, as by this time we neither of us had any doubts regarding its presence in the grounds.

As the house was walled in on all sides it was obvious no stray animal could have entered, and we felt, as morning drew near, we should have no option but to join in the general belief that there really was something uncanny about the place.

As we sat down to breakfast the following morning our host greeted us with—“Well, did you see or hear the ghost?” He laughed merrily as we replied, “We did, and have had no sleep, and there are two people here who are clearing out as soon as possible—without breakfast for preference.”

He then said, “Well it may interest you to know I have laid the ghost horse, but thought I’d let you have one night before I explained.” He said, “The first night my wife and I slept here we heard the gallop, gallop, quite clearly, just at the time we had been told we should hear it. My wife became angry as well as frightened and laid the blame on me, saying, ‘Why did you buy such a place—you might have known all the people who have tried to live here could not have been mistaken. I shall not stay in the house another day, and if your money is lost, it's lost.’

“She left the house the next morning. I determined I would fathom the matter, for, truth to tell, my own confidence had been somewhat shaken. So, the next night, instead of going to bed, I decided I would walk out into the country, returning at the time the phantom horse was supposed to appear. I walked about half a mile and came to the turnpike road where I saw and spoke to a policeman. Whilst I was talking to him a high dog cart passed us, carrying two brightly burning lamps. I made some remark to the policeman about the driver’s lonely drive, when he said, ‘Yes, Lord ——— is in residence at ——— Hall, and he sends his groom to town every night with his letters, in time to catch the midnight mail; he always returns about this time. I know exactly when he is returning, even if I am by that house on the hill there (my house), nearly a mile away.’ ‘Why, how is that?’ I queried. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘the echo of his horse galloping is so clear in the still of the night, and, as he passes certain gaps in the hedges, his lights shine more clearly than any other lights that pass this way.’ I then told him why I was out at that time of night and asked him if ever he had heard the story connected with my house, to which he answered, ‘No; I have been in this part of the country only a few months, and it is only within the past month that I have noticed the echo.’

Well, the next night we tested his explanation together, and that was how we laid the ‘ghost horse of the Derbyshire Moors.’”

A Ghost Story from Wales

THE following is an authentic story which I obtained first hand from a fellow traveller whilst waiting for a train on the small station of Ferryside, Carmarthenshire (Wales).

He had, it appears, unfortunately missed the earlier train of the day and, to pass away an idle hour or two, had visited the old castle in the district. He had some difficulty in obtaining the key, and, so, on reaching the castle, was not surprised to find that the door was not to be opened easily, as it was obvious that the castle is seldom visited these days. At length, when the door did open, imagine his surprise at finding an apparently well set up woman staring at him. Thinking it must be some sort of caretaker, he essayed to speak to her, but, to his great consternation, she disappeared. This so startled my companion that he returned at once to the station, where I met him very much shaken by his experience.

We, later, got into conversation with a resident, who informed us that the castle had the reputation for being haunted, and this was the generally accepted story:—