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or, at all events, to his inclination so to do. Thus there is a long record of a haunted house, by the chief
observer, Miss Morton, in P. S. P. R., pt. xxii. p. 311. A lady had died of habits too convivial, in 1878. In
April, 1882, Miss Morton's family entered, but nobody saw the ghost till Miss Morton viewed it in June. The
appearance was that of a tall lady in widow's weeds, hiding her face with a handkerchief. From 1882 to 1884,
Miss Morton saw the spectre six times, but did not name it to her family. Her sister saw the appearance in
1882, a maid saw it in 1883, and two boys beheld it in the same year. Miss Morton used to follow the
appearance downstairs and speak to it, but it merely gave a slight gasp, and seemed unable to converse. By
way of testing the spectre, Miss Morton stretched threads at night from the railing of the stair to the wall, but
the ghost descended without disturbing them. Yet her footsteps sounded on the stairs. This is, in fact, a
crucial difficulty about ghosts. They are material enough to make a noise as they walk, but not material
enough to brush away a thread! This ghost, whose visible form was so much en évidence, could, or did, make
no noise at all, beyond light pushes at doors, and very light footsteps. In the curacy already described, noises
were made enough to waken a parish, but no form was ever seen. Briefly, for this ghost there is a cloud of
witnesses, all solemnly signing their depositions. These two examples are at the opposite poles between
which ghostly manifestations vary, in haunted houses.
A brief précis of 'cases' may show how these elements of noise, on one side, and apparitions, on the other, are
commonly blended. In a detached villa, just outside 'the town of C.,' Mrs. W. remarks a figure of a tall
dark-haired man peeping round the corner of a folding door. She does not mention the circumstance. Two
months later she sees the same sorrowful face in the drawing-room. This time she tells her husband. Later in
the same month, when playing cricket with her children, she sees the face 'peeping round from the kitchen
door'. Rather later she heard a deep voice say in a sorrowful tone, 'I can't find it'; something slaps her on the
back. Her step-daughter who had not heard of the phantasm, sees the same pale dark-moustached face,
'peeping round the folding doors'. She is then told Mrs W.'s story. Her little brother, later, sees the figure
simultaneously with herself. She also hears the voice say, 'I can't find it,' at the same moment as Mrs. W.
hears it. A year later, she sees the figure at the porch, in a tall hat! Neither lady had enjoyed any other
hallucination. Nothing is known of the melancholy spectre, probably the ghost of a literary person, searching,
always searching, for a manuscript poem by some total stranger who had worried him into his grave, and not
left him at peace even there. This is a very solemn and touching story, and appeals tenderly and sadly to all
HAUNTED HOUSES 50
Cock Lane and Common-Sense
persons of letters who suffer from the unasked for manuscripts of the general public.
2. Some ladies and servants in a house in Hyde Park Place, see at intervals a phantom housemaid: she is also
seen by a Mr. Bird. There is no story about a housemaid, and there are no noises. This is not an interesting
tale.
3. A Hindoo native woman is seen to enter a locked bath-room, where she is not found on inquiry. A woman
had been murdered there some years before. The percipient, General Sir Arthur Becher, had seen other
uncanny visions. A little boy, wakened out of sleep, said he saw an ayah. Perhaps he did.
4. A Mr. Harry, in the South of Europe, saw a white female figure glide through his library into his bedroom.
Later, his daughters beheld a similar phenomenon. Mr. Harry, a gentleman of sturdy common-sense, 'dared
his daughters to talk of any such nonsense as ghosts, as they might be sure apparitions were only in the
imagination of nervous people'. He himself saw the phantasm seven or eight times in his bedroom, and twice
in the library. On one occasion it lifted up the mosquito curtains and stared at Mr. Harry. As in the case of
meeting an avalanche, 'a weak-minded man would pray, sir, would pray; a strong-minded man would swear,
sir, would swear'. Mr. Harry was a strong-minded man, and behaved 'in a concatenation accordingly,'
although Petrus Thyræus says that there is no use in swearing at ghosts. The phantasm seemed to be about
thirty-five, her features were described as 'rather handsome,' and (unromantically) as 'oblong'. A
hallucination, we need hardly say, would not raise the mosquito curtains, this ghost had more heart in it than
most.
5. Various people see 'a column of light vaguely shaped like a woman,' moving about in a room of a house in
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