Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers — Chapter 13 - Haunted Houses (Part 2)

The following very curious relation I have received from the gentleman to whom the circumstance occurred, who is a professional man residing in London:— “I was brought up by a grandfather and four aunts, all ghost-seers and believers in supernatural appearances.

The former had been a sailor, and was one of the crew that sailed round the world with Lord Anson.

I remember, when I was about eight years old, that I was awakened by the screams of one of these ladies, with whom I was sleeping, which summoned all the family about her to inquire the cause of the disturbance.

She said that she had ‘seen Nancy by the side of the bed, and that she was slipping into it.

’ We had scarcely got down stairs in the morning, before intelligence arrived that that lady had died, precisely at the moment my aunt said she saw her.

Nancy was her brother’s wife.

Another of my aunts, who was married and had a large family, foretold my grandfather’s death, at a time that we had no reason to apprehend it.

He, also, had appeared at her bedside; he was then alive and well, but he died a fortnight afterward.

But it would be tedious were I to enumerate half the instances I could recall of a similar description; and I will therefore proceed to the relation of what happened to myself.

“I was, some few years since, invited to pass a day and night at the house of a friend in Hertfordshire, with whom I was intimately acquainted.

His name was B——, and he had formerly been in business as a saddler, in Oxford street, where he realized a handsome fortune, and had now retired to enjoy his _otium cum dignitate_, in the rural and beautiful village of Sarratt.

“It was a gloomy Sunday, in the month of November, when I mounted my horse for the journey, and there was so much appearance of rain, that I should certainly have selected some other mode of conveyance, had I not been desirous of leaving the animal in Mr. E——’s straw-yard for the winter.

Before I got as far as St. John’s wood, the threatening clouds broke, and by the time I reached Watford I was completely soaked.

However, I proceeded, and arrived at Sarratt before my friend and his wife had returned from church.

The moment they did so, they furnished me with dry clothes, and I was informed that we were to dine at the house of Mr. D——, a very agreeable neighbor.

I felt some little hesitation about presenting myself in such a costume, for I was decked out in a full suit of Mr. B——’s, who was a stout man, of six feet in height, while I am rather of the diminutive order; but my objections were overruled; we went, and my appearance added not a little to the hilarity of the party.

At ten o’clock we separated, and I returned with Mr. and Mrs. B——

to their house, where I was shortly afterward conducted to a very comfortable bed-room.

“Fatigued with my day’s ride, I was soon in bed, and soon asleep, but I do not think I could have slept long before I was awakened by the violent barking of dogs.

I found that the noise had disturbed others as well as myself, for I heard Mr. B——,

who was lodged in the adjoining room, open his window and call to them to be quiet.

They were obedient to his voice, and as soon as quietness ensued I dropped asleep again; but I was again awakened by an extraordinary pressure upon my feet; _that I was perfectly awake, I declare_; the light that stood in the chimney-corner shone strongly across the foot of the bed, and I saw the figure of a well-dressed man in the act of stooping, and supporting himself in so doing by the bed-clothes.

He had on a blue coat, with bright gilt buttons, but I saw no head; the curtains at the foot of the bed, which were partly looped back, just hung so as to conceal that part of his person.

At first I thought it was my host, and as I had dropped my clothes, as is my habit, on the floor at the foot of the bed, I supposed he was come to look after them, which rather surprised me: but, just as I had raised myself upright in bed, and was about to inquire into the occasion of his visit, the figure passed on.

I then recollected that I had locked the door; and, becoming somewhat puzzled, I jumped out of bed; but I could see nobody; and on examining the room I found no means of ingress but the door through which I had entered, and one other; both of which were locked on the inside.

Amazed and puzzled I got into bed again, and sat some time ruminating on the extraordinary circumstance, when it occurred to me that I had not looked under the bed; so I got out again, fully expecting to find my visiter, whoever he was, there; but I was disappointed.

So, after looking at my watch, and ascertaining that it was ten minutes past two, I stepped into bed again, hoping now to get some rest.

But, alas!

sleep was banished for that night; and after turning from side to side, and making vain endeavors at forgetfulness, I gave up the point, and lay till the clocks struck seven, perplexing my brain with the question of who my midnight visiter could be, and also how he had got in and how he had got out of my room.

About eight o’clock I met my host and his wife at the breakfast-table, when, in answer to their hospitable inquiries of how I had passed the night, I mentioned, first, that I had been awaked by the barking of some dogs, and that I had heard Mr. B—— open his window and call to them.

He answered that two strange dogs had got into the yard and had disturbed the others.

I then mentioned my midnight visiter, expecting that they would either explain the circumstance, or else laugh at me and declare I must have dreamed it.

But, to my surprise, my story was listened to with grave attention, and they related to me the tradition with which this spectre, for such I found they deemed it to be, was supposed to be connected.

This was to the effect, that many years ago a gentleman so attired had been murdered there, under some frightful circumstances, and that his head had been cut off.

On perceiving that I was very unwilling to accept this explanation of the mystery, for, in spite of my family peculiarity, I had always been an entire disbeliever in supernatural appearances, they begged me to prolong my visit for a day or two, when they would introduce me to the rector of the parish, who could furnish me with such evidence with regard to circumstances of a similar nature, as would leave no doubt on my mind as to the possibility of their occurrence.

But I had made an engagement to dine at Watford, on my way back, and I confess, moreover, that after what I had heard I did not feel disposed to encounter the chance of another visit from the mysterious stranger; so I declined the proffered hospitality, and took my leave.

“Some time after this, I happened to be dining at C—— street, in company with some ladies resident in the same county, when, chancing to allude to my visit to Sarratt, I added, that I had met with a very extraordinary adventure there, which I had never been able to account for, when one of these ladies immediately said that she hoped I had not had a visit from the headless gentleman, in a blue coat and gilt buttons, who was said to have been seen by many people in that house.

“Such is the conclusion of this marvellous tale as regards myself; and I can only assure you that I have related facts as they occurred, and that I had never heard a word about this apparition in my life, till Mr. B—— related to me the tradition above alluded to.

Still, as I am no believer, in supernatural appearances, I am constrained to suppose that the whole affair was the product of my imagination.

“I must add, that Mr. B—— mentioned some strange circumstances connected with another house in the county, inhabited by a Mr. M——, which were corroborated by the ladies above alluded to.

Both parties agreed that, from the unaccountable noises, &c. , &c. , which were heard there, that gentleman had the greatest difficulty in persuading any servants to remain with him.

“A—— W—— M——.

“_C—— street, 5th September, 1846. _” This is one of those curious instances of determined skepticism that fully justify the patriarch’s prediction.

The following interesting letter, written by a member of a very distinguished English family, will furnish its own explanation:— “As you express a wish to know what degree of credit is to be attached to a garbled tale which has been sent forth, after a lapse of between thirty and forty years, as an ‘accredited ghost-story,’ I will state the facts as they were recalled to my mind last year by a daughter of Sir William A. C——, who sent the book to me, requesting me to tell her if there was any foundation for the story, which she could scarcely believe, since she had never heard my mother allude to it.

I read the narrative with surprise, it being evidently not furnished by any of the family, nor indeed by any one who was with us at the time!

yet, though full of mistakes in names, &c. , &c. , some particulars come so near the truth as to puzzle me.

The facts are as follows:— “Sir James, my mother, with myself and my brother Charles, went abroad toward the end of the year 1786. After trying several different places, we determined to settle at Lille, where we found the masters particularly good, and where we had also letters of introduction to several of the best French families.

There Sir James left us, and, after passing a few days in an uncomfortable lodging, we engaged a nice, large family house, which we liked very much, and which we obtained at a very low rent, even for that part of the world.

“About three weeks after we were established in our new residence, I walked one day with my mother to the bankers, for the purpose of delivering our letter of credit from Sir Robert Herries, and drawing some money, which, being paid in heavy five-franc pieces, we found we could not carry, and therefore requested the banker to send, saying, ‘We live in the Place du Lion D’or.

’ Whereupon he looked surprised, and observed that he knew of no house there fit for us, ‘except, indeed,’ he added, ‘the one that has been long uninhabited, on account of the _revenant_ that walks about it.

’ He said this quite seriously, and in a natural tone of voice, in spite of which we laughed, and were quite entertained at the idea of a ghost; but at the same time we begged him not to mention the thing to our servants, lest they should take any fancies into their heads; and my mother and I resolved to say nothing about the matter to any one.

‘I suppose it is the ghost,’ said my mother, laughing, ‘that wakes us so often by walking over our heads.

’ We had, in fact, been awakened several nights by a heavy foot, which we supposed to be that of one of the men-servants, of whom we had three English and four French; of women-servants we had five English, and all the rest were French.

The English ones, men and women, every one of them, returned ultimately to England with us.

“A night or two afterward, being again awakened by the step, my mother asked Creswell, ‘Who slept in the room above us?

’ ‘No one, my lady,’ she replied—‘it is a large, empty garret.

’ “About a week or ten days after this, Creswell came to my mother, one morning, and told her that all the French servants talked of going away, because there was a _revenant_ in the house; adding that there seemed to be a strange story attached to the place, which was said, together with some other property, to have belonged to a young man, whose guardian, who was also his uncle, had treated him cruelly and confined him in an iron cage; and as he had subsequently disappeared, it was conjectured he had been murdered.

This uncle, after inheriting the property, had suddenly quitted the house and sold it to the father of the man of whom we had hired it.

Since that period, though it had been several times let, nobody had ever stayed in it above a week or two, and for a considerable time past it had had no tenant at all.

“‘And do you really believe all this nonsense, Creswell?

’ said my mother.

“‘Well, I don’t know, my lady,’ answered she; ‘but there’s the iron cage in the garret over your bed-room, where you may see it, if you please.

’ “Of course we rose to go; and as just at that moment an old officer, with his Croix de St. Louis, called on us, we invited him to accompany us and we ascended together.

We found, as Creswell had said, a large empty garret with bare brick walls; and in the further corner of it stood an iron cage, such as wild beasts are kept in, only higher; it was about four feet square, and eight in height, and there was an iron ring in the wall at the back, to which was attached an old rusty chain with a collar fixed to the end of it.

I confess it made my blood creep when I thought of the possibility of any human being having inhabited it!

And our old friend expressed as much horror as ourselves, assuring us that it must certainly have been constructed for some such dreadful purpose.

As, however, we were no believers in ghosts, we all agreed that the noises must proceed from somebody who had an interest in keeping the house empty; and since it was very disagreeable to imagine that there were secret means of entering it at night, we resolved, as soon as possible, to look out for another residence, and in the meantime to say nothing about the matter to anybody.

About ten days after this determination, my mother, observing one morning that Creswell, when she came to dress her, looked exceedingly pale and ill, inquired if anything was the matter with her.

‘Indeed, my lady,’ she answered, ‘we have been frightened to death, and neither I nor Mrs. Marsh can sleep again in the room we are now in.

’ “‘Well,’ returned my mother, ‘you shall both come and sleep in the little spare room next us; but what has alarmed you?

’ “‘Some one, my lady, went through our room in the night; we both saw the figure, but we covered our heads with the bed-clothes, and lay in a dreadful fright till morning.

’ “On hearing this, I could not help laughing, upon which Creswell burst into tears; and seeing how nervous she was, we comforted her by saying we had heard of a good house, and that we should very soon abandon our present habitation.

“A few nights afterward, my mother requested me and Charles to go to her bed-room and fetch her frame, that she might prepare her work for the next day.

It was after supper, and we were ascending the stairs by the light of a lamp which was always kept burning, when we saw going up before us a tall, thin figure, with hair flowing down his back, and wearing a loose powdering gown.

We both at once concluded it was my sister Hannah, and called out: ‘It won’t do, Hannah—you can not frighten us!

’ Upon which the figure turned into a recess in the wall;

but, as there was nobody there when we passed, we concluded that Hannah had contrived, somehow or other, to slip away and make her escape by the back stairs.

On telling this to my mother, she said: ‘It is very odd, for Hannah went to bed with a headache before you came in from your walk;’ and sure enough, on going to her room, there we found her fast asleep; and Alice, who was at work there, assured us that she had been so for more than an hour.

On mentioning this circumstance to Creswell, she turned quite pale and exclaimed that that was precisely the figure she and Marsh had seen in their bed-room.

“About this time, my brother Harry came to spend a few days with us, and we gave him a room up another pair of stairs, at the opposite end of the house.

A morning or two after his arrival, when he came down to breakfast, he asked my mother angrily whether she thought he went to bed drunk and could not put out his own candle, that she sent those French rascals to watch him.

My mother assured him that she never thought of doing such a thing; but he persisted in the accusation, adding: ‘Last night I jumped up and opened the door, and, by the light of the moon through the skylight, I saw the fellow in his loose gown at the bottom of the stairs.

If I had not been in my shirt, I would have gone after him and made him remember coming to watch me.

’ “We were now preparing to quit the house, having secured another, belonging to a gentleman who was going to spend some time in Italy; but, a few days before our removal, it happened that Mr. and Mrs. Atkyns, some English friends of ours, called, to whom we mentioned these circumstances, observing how extremely unpleasant it was to live in a house that somebody found means of getting into, though how they contrived it we could not discover, nor what their motive could be except it was to frighten us; adding, that nobody could sleep in the room Marsh and Creswell had been obliged to give up.

Upon this Mrs. Atkyns laughed heartily, and said she should like, of all things, to sleep there, if my mother would allow her, adding, that with her little terrier she should not be afraid of any ghost that ever appeared.

As my mother had, of course, no objection to this fancy of hers, she requested Mrs. Atkyns to ride home with the groom, in order that the latter might bring her night-things before the gates of the town would be shut, as they were then residing a little way in the country.

Mr. Atkyns smiled and said she was very bold; but he made no difficulties, and sent the things,—and his wife retired with her dog to her room when we retired to ours, apparently without the least apprehension.

“When she came down in the morning, we were immediately struck at seeing her look very ill; and on inquiring if she too had been frightened, she said she had been awakened in the night by something moving in her room, and that, by the light of the night-lamp, she saw most distinctly a figure, and that the dog, which was spirited and flew at everything, never stirred, although she had endeavored to make him.

We saw clearly that she had been very much alarmed; and when Mr. Atkyns came, and endeavored to dissipate the feeling by persuading her that she might have dreamed it, she got quite angry.

We could not help thinking that she had actually seen something; and my mother said, after she was gone, that though she could not bring herself to believe it was really a ghost, still she earnestly hoped that she might get out of the house without seeing this figure, which frightened people so much.

“We were now within three days of the one fixed for our removal.

I had been taking a long ride, and, being tired, had fallen asleep the moment I lay down; but, in the middle of the night, I was suddenly awakened—I can not tell by what, for the steps over our heads we had become so used to that it no longer disturbed us.

Well, I awoke.

I had been lying with my face toward my mother, who was asleep beside me, and, as one usually does on awaking, I turned to the other side, where, the weather being warm, the curtain of the bed was undrawn, as it was, also, at the foot;

and I saw standing by a chest of drawers, which were betwixt me and the window, a thin, tall figure, in a loose powdering gown, one arm resting on the drawers, and the face turned toward me.

I saw it quite distinctly by the night-light, which burned clearly.

It was a long, thin, pale, young face, with, oh, such a melancholy expression as can never be effaced from my memory!

I was, certainly, very much frightened; but my great horror was, lest my mother should awake and see the figure.

I

turned my head gently toward her, and heard her breathing high in a sound sleep.

Just then the clock on the stairs struck four.

I dare say it was nearly an hour before I ventured to look again, and when I did take courage to turn my eyes toward the drawers, there was nothing; yet I had not heard the slightest sound, though I had been listening with the greatest intensity.

“As you may suppose, I never closed my eyes again; and glad I was when Creswell knocked at the door, as she did every morning, for we always locked it, and it was my business to get out of bed and let her in; but on this occasion, instead of doing so, I called out, ‘Come in; the door is not fastened;’ upon which she answered that it was, and I was obliged to get out of bed and admit her as usual.

“When I told my mother what had happened, she was very grateful to me for not waking her, and commended me much for my resolution; but as she was always my first object, that was not to be wondered at.

She however resolved not to risk another night in the house; and we got out of it that very day, after instituting, with the aid of the servants, a thorough search, with a view to ascertain if there was any possible means of getting into the rooms except by the usual modes of ingress;

but our search was vain—none could be discovered.

“I think, from the errors in the names, &c. , that the publisher of the ‘Accredited Ghost-Stories’ must have obtained his account from the inhabitants of Lille.

” Considering the number of people that were in the house, the fearlessness of the family, and their disinclination to believe in what is called _the supernatural_, together with the great interest the owner of this large and handsome residence must have had in discovering the trick, if there had been one, I think it is difficult to find any other explanation of this strange story, than that the sad and disappointed spirit of this poor, injured, and probably murdered boy, had never been disengaged from its earthly relations, to which regret for its frustrated hopes and violated rights still held it attached.

There is a story told by Pliny the younger, of a house at Athens, in which nobody could live, from its being haunted.

At length the philosopher Athenadorus took it; and the first night he was there, he seems to have comported himself very much as the courageous Mrs. Canning did, on a similar occasion, at Plymouth.

He sent his servants to bed, and set himself seriously to work with his writing materials, determined that fancy should not be left free to play him false.

For some time all was still, and his mind was wholly engaged in his labors, when he heard a sound like the rattling of chains—which was the sound that had frightened everybody out of the house; but Athenadorus closed his ears, kept his thoughts collected, and wrote on, without lifting up his eyes.

The noise, however, increased; it approached the door; it entered the room; then he looked round, and beheld the figure of an old man, lean, haggard, and dirty, with dishevelled hair, and a long beard, who held up his finger and beckoned him.

Athenadorus made a gesture with his own hand in return, signifying that he should wait, and went on with his writing.

Then the figure advanced and shook his chains over the philosopher’s head, who, on looking up, saw him beckoning as before;

whereupon he arose and followed him.

The apparition walked slowly, as if obstructed by his chains; and having conducted him to a certain spot in the court, which separated the two divisions of an ancient Greek house, he suddenly disappeared.

Athenadorus gathered together some grass and leaves, in order to mark the place; and the next day he recommended the authorities to dig there, which they did, and found the skeleton of a human being encircled with chains.

It being taken up, and the rights of sepulture duly performed, the house was no longer disturbed.

This was, probably, some poor prisoner also; and in his desire to direct notice to his body, we see the prejudices of his age and country surviving dissolution.

Grose, the antiquary, who is, as I have before observed, very facetious on the subject of ghosts, remarks that “Dragging chains is not the custom of English ghosts, chains and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres, seen in arbitrary governments.

” Now, this is a very striking observation.

Grose’s studies had, doubtless, introduced him to many histories of this description; and the different characteristics of these apparitions, under different governments, is a circumstance in remarkable conformity with the views of those who have been led to take a much more serious view of the subject.

They appear as they lived, and as they conceive of themselves; and when rapport or receptivity enable them to see, and to render themselves visible to those yet living in the flesh, it is by so appearing that they tell their story, and ask for sympathy and assistance.

I say enable them _to see_, because there seem many reasons for concluding that they do not, under ordinary circumstances, see us, any more than we see them.

Whether it be rapport with certain inhabitants, or whether the phenomenon be dependent on certain periods, or any other condition, we can not tell; but I have met with several accounts of houses in which an annoyance of this sort has recurred more than once, at different intervals, sometimes at a distance of seven or ten years, the intermediate time being quite free from it.