Читать книгу The Big Book of Canadian Hauntings - John Robert Colombo - Страница 11
ОглавлениеCreaky floorboards, phantom footsteps, locked doors, rusty skeleton keys, fusty attics, dank cellars, curtains that billow in the breeze, thunder and lightning, moans and groans! Everyone who has ever been to the movies or watched television has, vicariously, entered a haunted house — and then tried to get out! Then the fun begins. The scary stuff!
In this section moviegoers and television watchers will be able to read some stories of old-fashioned houses haunted by some old-fashioned ghosts and spirits.
Halifax Daily Reporter, July 15, 1869
To His Satanic Majesty, much has been attributed in days gone by, and at the present moment it appears the inclination of the masses is far from lessening his responsibility. The latest sensation His Majesty is responsible for is the destruction of the peace and harmony of the neighbourhood of Number 294, St. Mary Street, in so far that he has taken possession of the house bearing that number, and both during the day and dark night giving blood-curdling and mysterious proofs of his presence there. “The masses may laugh and jeer and sneer,” as the inmates of the house say, “but if they were only here instead of us, they would soon find out the terrible truth we are telling.” Upon enquiry, the following is the manner and means whereby His Majesty chooses to indicate his “being there.” The house is a small one and under an apartment there is as usual in such dwellings, a small but deep and dark cellar, reached by a trap door through the floor. It is of this cellar the infernal headquarters have taken possession. The first indication of anything unusual was the flying up of the trap door one day not long ago, and the ejection from the darkness below of a scrubbing brush, a lot of nails, eggshells, etc., etc., all accompanied by a strong smell of brimstone. The eruption done, the trap door closed again, leaving the horror-stricken and trembling inmates speechless, and in a profuse cold perspiration. Of course, the neighbours heard of the mysterious indications, and a number of them, boldly declaiming they did not believe it, and were not afraid, were invited to wait and see for themselves. They did so, and sure enough as midnight drew near, bang-bang opened the trap door, out came nails, egg shells, feathers, etc., and out rushed, wildly screaming, the bold neighbours, who at once declared it was the devil, one being ready to swear he saw him sitting in a corner with his tail twisted round his neck. Then it was at once settled that the devil was in possession and no one else. The opening of the trap door and discharges took place at regular intervals. The police were then sent for and one of the number having entered the house, stood with the eldest female awaiting developments. He had not to wait long when up flew the trap door and out came the usual quantity of infernal machines. “Don’t you see him? Don’t you see him?” screamed the female, and away she rushed to tell that the devil had appeared even before a policeman. “Well,” said the policeman, “if it’s the devil in the cellar, I’ll have you up for having spirits in the house without licence, that’s all.” It’s but just to say the policeman looked into the cellar, but could see no signs of an infernal presence. Meanwhile, the trap door opens and closes at intervals, accompanied by the usual egg shells and iron nail discharges. The neighbourhood are convinced it is the devil himself, and with trepidation await the result of the infernal visit.
A hard-headed unbeliever says that the tenant in the house has for some times found the rent rather high and is desirous to lower it or have it lowered by some or any means surely, surely not. — Montreal Gazette.
The Apparition Seen and Described
Sarnia Observer, August 15, 1873
For some days past the ghost, which, it is asserted, has been seen in the neighbourhood of the Court House, has been the talk of Whitby. The apparition, according to report, is seen under various forms — that of a black dog, which suddenly assumes the shape of a rather tall man, and from whose eyes burning red flames seem to issue, being the most familiar. Others assert that the ghost has been seen leaning with both hands on a staff standing on the Court House steps, or walking slowly between the steps and the entrance gate, at “the witching hour of night.” Those who have had the temerity to approach the midnight intruder allege that on their approach it has all at once disappeared as in a flame of fire, sinking, as it were, into the ground. Others say that the most sorrowful moaning has been heard to proceed from where the ghost makes itself at first visible, and in fact all sorts of versions are given as to what has been seen and heard of what people persist in calling the “Court House Ghost.” Last night a gathering assembled around the Court House railings, and remained there until nearly twelve o’clock to ascertain what could be seen, but at that hour hurried home to bed, cold and disappointed at the non-appearance of his ghostship. After the departure of the crowd, however, it is stated that the apparition was again seen by respectable and creditable people, that it was a tall figure walking heavily with a cane, and frequently stopping to look up at the sky, and groan while making its round wearily through the grounds in front of the Court House. There are, as may be expected, all sorts of surmises as to what the trouble is, and a determination avowed by many parties to find out all about it, and if it be a trick, to expose those who would impose this latest ghost hoax upon a community. — Whitby Chronicle.
The Devil Looking in at Parkhill — through the Bar Room Window — [From a Correspondent]
London Daily Advertiser, July 8, 1870
Allow me a little space in the columns of your valuable paper to describe one of the most fearful sights that ever was seen in this village, as witnessed by six or seven persons.
On the night of Thursday, June 30th, at about eleven o’clock at night, the inmates of a certain hotel in Parkhill were apparently enjoying themselves carousing, singing sacred songs, and having a regular jollification, when suddenly appeared at the bar room window a most fearful-looking object taking a look at them through the window, and more particularly at Mr. Hastings, who generally is styled “the deacon.” The size of this unnatural object was about two feet in length, and not quite as broad, covering nearly two large panes of glass; its body was smooth, having four arms or legs extended with long, slender claws, and a fifth leg emanating from its body, upon which it turned backwards and forwards on the window. Its head was rather small, but therein were placed two fiery eyes, which stared like fiery globes at the inmates of the bar room. One would think that the age of such unnatural visions had long ago passed away. The consternation and awe of the beholders of this object cannot adequately be described, particularly that of Hastings’s. To his horror he beheld two flaming eyes looking at him through the window. What to do in such a crisis he did not know, imagining that he was the object of pursuit, and feeling himself unprepared to accompany the old gentleman he took to his heels, and bound for the hall door, leading to the stairway; summoning all his strength and courage, the deacon with one or two such strides as he never before in his life had made, found himself at the top of a flight of stairs twenty feet long. But unfortunately for the deacon, he nearly lost his coat tail in his flight, it having come in contact with the railing. A dint of about an inch deep is said to have been left in the post.
The incident is all the talk in Parkhill; though there are those who profess to know that the object purposely placed at the window was much less formidable than the excited imagination of Hastings pictured it.
Free Press, Acton, Ontario, March 6, 1879
A stout Yorkshire farmer of the name of James Wreggit, having emigrated to Canada, settled himself and family on a good farm which he rented in one of the townships. He was considered fair-dealing and honourable in all transactions with his neighbours, and in every respect bore a most excellent character. In the farmer’s house was a first-floor sitting-room with a large fire-place. In this room the children slept, but from the first night evinced the greatest dislike to going to bed there, screaming with terror, and saying that a man was in the room with them. For a long time the parents paid no attention to their complaints. During harvest time a change was made, and the farmer himself slept in this room, as it was cooler and more convenient. The first night he slept there he was about to rise almost before the break of day, when, glancing towards the fire-place, he saw standing there a stranger of a dissipated drunken appearance. “Ha’lo! What’s thee doing there?” was his very natural exclamation. Receiving no reply, “Won’t thee speak? I’ll make thee speak!” and picking up one of his heavy boots from the bedside he was preparing to throw it at the intruder, when the man, suddenly raising his arm as if to ward off the blow, vanished in a moment from before his eyes. Wreggit, unable to get this matter of his head, brooded over it till the next day, when about noon he entered into conversation with a neighbour who was working with him, and asked him to describe the former tenant of the farm, who had died from excessive drinking. The description so entirely resembled the man he had seen in the room that he at once exclaimed, “I saw him last night!” Wreggit recounted this to some old friends near whom he had lived before taking the farm, and it is from the dictation of one of his auditors that I have written down this remarkable circumstance. At the time neither Wreggit nor his friend had the slightest belief in apparitions.
This account offers a view of a farming community in Ontario. It appeared in The Globe (Toronto), September 9, 1880. The incident took place near Crosshill, Wellesley Township, Ontario.
Remarkable Phenomena — The Windows of a Farmer’s Dwelling — Repeatedly Shattered to Pieces — And the Inmates Drenched with Water
WELLESLEY, Sept. 6. — A very extraordinary story having gained currency in this section of the country that Mr. George Manser, a very respectable and well-to-do farmer residing near the village of Crosshill, in the township of Wellesley, had with his family been driven out of his dwelling by the mysterious breaking of his windows and showering down of water in dry weather, your correspondent took occasion to-day to visit the place and interview Mr. Manser and his family in regard to the report in circulation. On approaching the house he noticed the windows, six in number, closed up with boards, which still further excited his curiosity and gave reason to believe that there must be some ground for the report.
The house I found to be a large one-and-a-half story hewed log building, rather old but in a very good state of repair, situated a short distance from the highway on the most elevated part of the farm. On stating the object of my visit Mr. Manser very kindly showed me through the building and gave me the following facts:
About a month or six weeks ago the glass in the windows began to break, several panes bursting out at a time. These were replaced with new ones only to meet the same fate. A careful examination was then made to ascertain the cause. It was at first supposed that the house being old and getting a little out of shape might affect the windows, but the sash was found to be quite easy and even loose in the frames. Then the family are surprised and put to flight with a shower of water, saturating their beds, their clothing, in fact everything in the house, whilst the sun is shining beautifully in the horizon, and outside all is calm and serene. Nothing daunted, Mr. Manser repairs to the village store and obtains a fresh supply of glass, and even tries the experiment of using some new sash, and utterly failing to discover the mysterious cause of either the breaking of the glass or the sudden showers of water, all taking place in broad day light. His neighbours are called in, and whilst they are endeavouring to solve the mystery, a half dozen or more panes of glass would suddenly burst, making a report similar to that of a pistol shot. Mr. Manser states that he inserted more than one hundred new lights of glass and then gave it up, and boarded up the windows, first taking out the sash and setting them aside, but on account of the continued bursts of water, they were compelled to remove all their beds, some to the wood-shed and others to the barn, leaving only those things in the house that are not so liable to be damaged by the showering process to which he has been so repeatedly subjected. He has commenced the erection of a new dwelling, hoping thereby to escape those remarkable tricks of nature, or whatever it may be, which seem to continue their operations to the old house. If these strange occurrences had taken place at night one would suspect that Mr. Manser was the victim of some mischievous people, but occurring in the daytime in the presence of the family and other witnesses, and in fine weather, it seems very difficult of solution. Various theories have been put forward, but none of them seem sufficient to account for the double phenomena of the sudden showers of water under a good roof in fine weather, and the oft-repeated bursting out of the windows. Perhaps you or some of your scientific readers can crack the nut.
A Supernatural Visitor
Ottawa Free Press, June 16, 1882
A respected and jolly hotel keeper on the Perth Road from Kingston, recently at the midnight hour, when silence reigned in the tavern and the noisy bibulists had sought repose, was quietly roused from sleep, and at once recognized something standing near his bed in the appearance of a brother recently deceased, as also a man well known around the country who died some short time ago, who cautioned the landlord to at once give up selling drink, or if he did not stop giving out liquor, ruining the bodies and souls of his fellow men he would surely merit just condemnation; or to use his own words, “go to h .. ll.”
So convinced was he of the truth of the apparition and meaning he received, that he got up early next morning, took down his sign board, locked up his bar room and will on no account give liquor to any one. This landlord is well known as a sober, clear-headed, conscientious man, a good neighbor in every way, and a man much respected by all who know him. Would not our temperance friends wish that those midnight visitants may also appear to and tickle the consciences of some other of the publicans who are not yet too hardened to reform.
A Christmas Tale of Toronto — Specially Written for The World
Toronto World, December 25, 1883
The natural and proper scene of a ghost story is some lonely old mansion in the country, whose better days have long deserted it, and which is now falling gradually into decay. A ghost is indigenous to such a house, with its long flights of stairs leading nowhere in particular, its gloomy straggling corridors which run hither and thither, and its musty, old-fashioned rooms, not less mysterious and gloomy. The blue room, and the red room, and the room which a hundred years ago was shut up because of some terrible deed committed within it, at the mention of which the gray-headed butler shakes his head solemnly and says nothing, offer attractions which no ghost in the course of my reading has ever been able to resist. The portraits of the periwigged and balloon-skirted ancestors which hang grimly on the walls, seem inanimate enough, but the on-looker secretly feels, as he gazes on them, that there is not one which is unprepared to step out of the frame when the clock strikes at midnight, and proceed at once to play all sorts of unwarrantable and ghostly antics. The wind, too, at night has a fashion of moaning dolorously around the corners and among the nooks and crannies of the old building, while the trees which cower close to its moss-covered sides, bend over and tap with their branches at the windows of the visitor’s room, and add fresh horrors to his lot. For, be it observed, it is always a stranger, some guest invited by the family perhaps, who is treated in this shabby way by the inhospitable old place. It is no credit to the house of this kind to have a ghost or two in it. Indeed, as modern advertisements say, it would not be complete without one.
Number 39, Clarion-Square, is not at all a place of this kind, and you would as soon think of looking for a ghost in a baker’s shop as inside its walls. Judging from appearances indeed, no building in the whole city of Toronto would be less likely to harbor a supernatural occupants. As everybody who is acquainted with the Square knows, Number 39 is one of the new red brick row of houses, all of which are built exactly on the same pattern, and all of which bear equal testimony to the thriftiness of the builder, who has successfully solved the problem of how to get the maximum of rent in return for the minimum of outlay. True, the walls are not very tight, and the doors not very close, so that a moderately flexible ghost would experience very little difficulty in any of these respects, and as the plumbing is not better than that of the ordinary brick house built to see, his ghostship could, I am convinced, if he found every other means of ingress blocked, obtain easy entrance by way of the waste-pipe. At the time of my story, Number 39 did duty as a genteel boarding-house, and fairly comfortable we were on the whole with Mrs. Rackham. I — that is the secretary and paymaster of a thriving railway company — had a large room which opened off the first landing up-stairs, and immediately above mine were the apartments of Gormes and Johnson, two students of the law, of whom Johnson was a harum-scarum fellow, chiefly noted for his love of mischief and late hours, while Gormes, on the contrary, was steady and studious, with hopes someday of becoming a Q.C., and in the meantime a regular attendant at the Oak street church. One evening in December, not many years ago, as I was reclining in my easy chair after dinner, in front of a cheerful fire, Gormes tapped at the door, and in response to my invitation entered and took a seat. We lit our pipes, and as I liked nothing better than a chat with my young friend Gormes, who was an earnest, clever fellow, I essayed a conversation on one of our customary themes. Somewhat to my surprise, he made little or no effort to reply, and our talk flagged. I looked at him and saw he wore a perturbed look.
“Gormes,” said I, “what’s the matter? Have you got the blues? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
“So I have,” was the rather startling reply.
“Tut, you’re joking,” said I, though somewhat disconcerted by Gormes’ serious face.
“Not joking a bit,” returned he; “I saw a ghost, or something very like one, no longer ago than last night.”
“Where?”
“In this very house, and in my own room,” said Gormes.
This was coming near home indeed; for, as I said before, Gormes’ room was immediately above mine, and if a nocturnal visitor of this kind had called on him I was very likely to receive a similar compliment next.
“Tell me how it was,” I said.
“Well,” replied he, “you’ll laugh at me, perhaps, but I saw something last night that wasn’t of this world, or else I’m not Gormes, and I’m not sitting here on this chair looking at you.”
As he was certainly both, I could offer nothing by way of objection and Gormes went on.
“I’m not particularly superstitious, and I haven’t much faith in ghost yarns as a rule, but last night I was lying in bed reading, after everybody else was asleep, yourself included, and not a soul moving in the house. It was Taylor’s Equity I had, for that’s one of the books on the list for our next exam, and I was reading away when suddenly I felt constrained to lift my eyes from the book and raise them to the top of the door opposite the foot of the bed. In doing so, I caught a glimpse of something that looked like a face disappearing quickly from behind the fanlight, just as if somebody were standing on a chair peering in, and drawing away as soon as noticed. I got up and opened the door, but there was nobody there. Only half convinced that I had not dropped into a momentary doze and been deceived by my imagination I went back to bed and took up my book again. Presently I had the same feeling of being obliged to look up, and again I saw the face withdrawing from above the door. Thinking it might be some trick of Johnson’s I stole along quietly to his room, but no, his door was locked, and on listening I could hear him snoring inside. Besides, it was not possible for him to have come out of bed and climbed up to the top of my door without making noise enough for me to hear him. I returned to my room and in a little while the same thing occurred again in precisely the same way. I cannot be mistaken. I was fully awake and in possession of my senses, and I say I saw that face three times above my door last night.”
“What did it look like?” said I, impressed by the seriousness of Gormes’ manner.
“The face,” replied Gormes, “was that of a young girl, with a queer, troubled expression. And the strangest thing was that beyond being a little nervous, I didn’t feel in the least frightened. But I don’t know what to make of it. I always thought ghosts were out of date.”
Then after a pause:
“Don’t tell Johnson or any one. If I don’t see it again I shall think it was all an illusion, though dear knows Taylor’s Equity is not the kind of book to excite one’s imagination.”
Next morning I inquired of Gormes if he had seen anything the previous night, but he shook his head and said he hadn’t. Nothing occurred in two weeks, and then Gormes left the house, saying that though he had seen nothing more, he could not any longer sleep comfortably in the room. A few days after his departure, I met Johnson on the stairs in the act of removing his trunk and other valuables, as if he were taking leave of his quarters.
“Hello! Johnson,” said I, “going away? I didn’t know you intended moving.”
“Neither did I,” responded Johnson, “until to-day. I wouldn’t stay here any longer if I were paid for it.”
“What’s up now?” I queried. “Had a quarrel with Mrs.
Rackham?”
“No,” said he, “but I’ve wanted to change for a long time.”
Then seeing his explanation was somewhat contradictory, he drew me into my own room, and having closed the door, said with unusual solemnity:
“This place is haunted, and I’ve seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“Why, the ghost.” And Johnson went on to relate in almost precisely the words Gormes had used: how he had been reading in his room late the night before; how he had felt compelled to lift his eyes to the half-open door, and how, as he did so, a face had suddenly disappeared behind it, how he had got up and looked but found nothing; and how the same thing had occurred twice again before he turned out the light. On my pressing him he recalled that the face seemed to be that of a girl or young woman, and had an anxious look, as of a person in fear or perplexity.
“I don’t expect you to believe me,” continued Johnson, “but that’s what I saw, and I don’t propose to stay in the house where there’s any such nonsense going on.”
“Did Gormes tell you why he left?” said I.
“No,” returned Johnson, “why?”
“Well,” said I, “he said he saw something of the kind, too.”
“That settles it,” said Johnson; “Number 39 sees me no more. And you had better come too or it’ll be your turn next.”
“Thanks, I’m pretty comfortable. I guess I shan’t move yet. I want to see the ghost,” said I.
Nevertheless I was not at all reassured. The accounts which had been given by Gormes and Johnson, whom I had no reason to suspect of being in collusion, agreed so exactly that I was more than half inclined to believe they had both actually seen something. What that something was I was anxious to know, and after a little conflict between my resolution and the misgivings I secretly entertained I determined to stay and see whether as Johnson had predicted “it would be my turn next.” This was in broad daylight, and my nerves were correspondingly strong. When evening approached, however, my courage weakened and I began to repent that I had not followed the example of my friends and left too. It so happened that that night — a week or so before Christmas — I had the whole house to myself, Mrs. Rackham and husband having gone out to spend the evening at a neighbor’s. I sat before my fire as usual, thinking partly of the strange events that had occurred of late, and partly of the journey which lay before me on the morrow, when I was going along the line to pay the band’s their month’s wages, for which purpose I had that afternoon drawn from the bank several thousand dollars, and placed the same in the breast-pocket of my overcoat. All was silent — so silent I could hear the ticking of my gold timepiece which lay on the dressing-case close at hand. Outside the snow was falling noiselessly, yet thickly, and once in a while I could see below the half-lowered blind that the wind caught up some of it from the kitchen roof just below my window and dashed it against the panes. Hark! what’s that? Only the falling of a lump of coal in the self-feeder downstairs. But listen! isn’t that some one walking about in the room above? No, it’s the man next door. Pshaw! I’m getting nervous. I sit a little while longer, and at last begin to feel sleepy. All at once I am wide awake, every sense on the alert. I hear nothing; but I feel there is somebody or something behind me. I turn quickly around and lo! the face at the door. ’Tis the ghost! I jerk open the door and rush to the top of the stairs! Again the face! and in some mysterious way moving straight through the glass door in the hall, and turning one beckoning look on me before it disappears. I seize a hat from the rack, and follow impetuously into the street. Is that the drifting snow or a ghostly face at the lamppost a few yards away? When I get there, nothing. Round the Square I go, still looking for the face, and round the next block, and round half a dozen blocks, but finding it not, and at last awake to the fact that I am out in a snowstorm overcoatless, and with nothing on my feet more substantial than a pair of slippers. I make my way back to the house as best I can. Fortunately, I never part with my latch-key, and so get in without trouble, resolved to give Mrs. Rackham notice in the morning, and to leave before night. On entering my room, the first thing that catches my eye is my window wide open, through which the snow is drifting in. Wondering what has happened, I look around. My watch is gone! I rush to my Newmarket. Gone is my wallet! The truth is too clear; during my short absence I’ve been robbed, robbed of watch and money, and probably thrown out of my situation, to be a suspected man for life for who would believe that I had lost the company’s funds in so extraordinary a way? But all these things in a moment appear as trifles, for turning round, I catch sight of something lying on the bed, and realize how narrow is the escape which I have had. There, glittering in the light of the gas jet which is still burning, is a long, sharp, deadly looking knife, a grim and murderous weapon indeed, and a surer and more silent instrument than the noisy revolver. Beyond a doubt, it has been left behind in his hasty flight by a wretch who would have cut my throat with as little compunction as he has shown in robbing me. But I have no time to lose even in reflections of this kind, and so give alarm at once. The neighbors rush in and a policeman is called, who takes possession of the knife and discovers the ladder by which the scoundrel obtained access to the room from the kitchen roof below, but this is all. The miscreant’s footsteps are already covered by the falling snow, and there is nothing to show which way he has gone. And though I have reason to believe that every diligence was used by the police, the owner of the knife has never turned up to this day. As for the money, it was in bank bills, and the same has long ago been transferred to the wrong side of the profit and loss account in the railway company’s books. It was evident next morning that the rooms upstairs formerly occupied by Gormes and Johnson had also been visited and ransacked, but as they were unoccupied no further booty was obtained. It was doubtless fortunate for these young men that they left the house when they did; otherwise my fate, or even a worse one, might have befallen them. The theory was advanced by the police that I had been seen at the bank during the day drawing out this large sum of money by the villain, who then followed me home and laid his plans for committing the robbery — and murder if necessary — accordingly. But this was mere theory, and the misery which attended the commission of the crime still hides its perpetrator.
As I carried out my intentions of leaving the house next day, I cannot say whether or not the mysterious face has ever reappeared at Number 39. From the fact that a genteel boarding establishment still flourishes there, though presided over by another than Mrs. Rackham, which I understand to be well patronized. I infer that it has not, nor do I think it likely, as I have never heard of any burglaries or attempted murders having since taken place there. I am happy to say that the railway authorities after a fall investigation into the case, unanimously agreed that there were no grounds whatever for attaching suspicion to me, and that they meant this, an increase of salary which the New Year brought me abundantly testified. I have never since that eventful night shortly before Christmas 188— been able to regard ghosts in the same light as previously. Before that time I fully shared in the general disrespect, nay, dislike, in which they are held, but now there is a large corner of my heart which I keep warm on their account, and should like nothing better than an opportunity to personally express my gratitude to one of their number. Indeed, I have come to think that ghosts are a very much reprehended class. However this may be, Gormes and Johnson agree with me in being very grateful to the particular ghost which rendered us such good services at 39 Clarion-Square. If we are ever able to do anything for that ghost by way of return you may be sure we will do it.
Strange Sounds in a Clarence Street House — Occupant Thinks It a Case of Spite
Daily Free Press, Ottawa, Ontario, March 1, 1890
“I’m surprised at your living in this house so long. Ghosts!”
This is the wording of a scrawling epistle received a couple of weeks ago by Mrs. Chenier, of 239 Clarence street, who has been terrorized since the receipt by all sorts of noise every night around the house.
Mrs. Chenier is not inclined to be superstitious nor in any way afraid of ghosts, but the noises she has heard have made her somewhat nervous and have interfered a little with her regular sleep.
She stated yesterday that she thought the whole thing was a matter of spite against the owner of the house. For the past week she heard vigorous knocking at her door. She went out once or twice, but could see no one in the immediate vicinity. She stood this patiently until the last couple of nights, when the “ghosts,” to whom she refers as human tricksters, made a peculiar noise on the roof of the house and apparently dangled a chain down the chimney. On one occasion she went out and looked up on the roof, but it being slanted, she thinks a party could avoid being seen by lying down on the opposite side behind the chimney.
Last night the noise became worse, so Mrs. Chenier has asked the policeman on the beat to keep a watch for the ghosts. The request will be complied with, and, if no cause for the noise can be discovered from the outside, the bobby will search inside. The house is a small one and the constable is confident of corralling the “spirits” in some way or another if they continue their pranks.
King’s County News, Hampton, New Brunswick., January 3, 1895
At one corner of my house is a tall, wide tower, rising high above the trees which surround it. In one of the upper rooms of this tower I work and think, and here in the evening and early part of the night, I used to be quite alone except for the ghosts.
Before I had come to this house, I knew that the tower was haunted but I did not mind that. As the ghosts had never done anyone any harm, I thought I should really be glad of their company which must certainly be different from the company of ordinary people. So, when I had arranged an upper room in the tower so that I might pleasantly work and think therein, I expected the ghosts to come to me, and should have been very much disappointed if they had not.
I did not exactly understand these ghosts, of which I had heard nothing definite except that they haunted the tower and I did not know in what way they would manifest themselves to me. It was not long, however, after I had begun to occupy the room before the ghosts came to me. One evening a little before Christmas, after everybody in the house but myself had gone to bed, and all was quiet outside and inside, I heard a knock and was on the point of saying “Come in!” when the knock was repeated and I found that it did not come from the door but from the wall. I smiled.
You cannot come in that way, I thought, unless there are secret doors in these walls, and even then you must open them for yourself.
I went on with my writing, but I soon looked up again, for I thought I heard a chair gently pushed back against the wall in a corner behind me, and almost immediately I heard a noise as if some little boy had dropped a number of marbles, or perhaps pennies, but there was no chair in the corner at which I looked, and there were no pennies nor marbles on the floor.
Night after night I heard my ghosts — for I had come to consider them as mine, which I had bought with the house — and although I could not see them there were so many ways in which they let me know they existed that I felt for them a sort of companionship. When in the quiet hours of early night I heard their gentle knocks I knew they would have been glad to come in, and I did not feel lonely.
Now and then I thought I heard the voices of the ghosts, sometimes outside, under my window, and sometimes behind me in the distant corner of the room. Their tones were low and plaintive, and I could not distinguish words or phrases, but it often seemed as if they were really speaking to me, and that I ought to try to understand and answer them. But I soon discovered that these voice-like sounds were caused by the vagrant breezes going up and down the tall chimney of the tower, making aeolian tones, not of music, but of vague and indistinct speech.
The winter passed, and at last there came a time when I saw one of the ghosts. It was in the dusk of an evening, early in spring, and just outside of an open window, that it appeared to me. It was as plain to my sight as if it had been painted in delicate half-tones against a somber background of tender foliage and evening sky.
It was clad from head to foot in softest gray, such as phantoms of the night are said to love, and over its shoulders and down its upright form were thrown the fleecy folds of a mantle so mistily gray that it seemed to blend into the dusky figure it partly shrouded. The moment I saw it I knew it saw me. Out of its cloudy grayness there shone two eyes, black, clear and sparkling, fixed upon me with questioning intensity. I sat gazing with checked breath at this ghost of the tower.
Suddenly I leaned forward — just a little — to get a better view of the apparition, when, like a bustling bubble, it was gone, and there was nothing before me but the background of foliage and evening sky.
Frequently after that I saw the ghost or it may have been one of the others, for it was difficult, with these gray visions, with which one must not speak or toward which it was hazardous to move even a hand, to become so well acquainted that I should know one from another. But there they were; not only did I hear them; not only, night after night, did my ears assure me of their existence, but in the shadows of the trees, as the summer came on, and on the lonelier stretches of the lawn I saw them and I knew that in good truth my home was haunted.
Late one afternoon, while walking in my grounds, I saw before me one of the specters of my tower. It moved slowly over the lawn, scarcely seeming to touch the tips of the grass, and with no more sound than a cloud would make when settling on a hilltop. Suddenly it turned its bright watchful eyes upon me, and then with a start that seemed to send a thrill even through the gray mantle which lightly touched its shoulders it rose before my very eyes until it was nearly as high as the top of my tower.
Wings it had not nor did it float in the air; it ran like a streak of gray electricity along the lightning rod, only instead of flashing down in, as electricity would pass from the sky, it ran upward. I did not see this swiftly moving spirit reach the topmost point of the rod, for at a point where the thick wire approached the eaves it vanished.
By this time I had come to the conclusion, not altogether pleasant to my mind, that my ghosts were taking advantage of my forbearance, with their mystic knocks and signals in the night and their visits in the daylight and that there must be too many of them in my tower. I must admit that they annoyed me very little and I was not in the least afraid of them, but there were others who came into my tower and slept in some of its rooms and to the minds of visitors and timorous maids there was something uncanny and terrifying in these midnight knocks and scratches.
So, having concluded from what I had seen that day that it was the very uppermost part of the tower which had become the resort of these gray sprites, and from which they came to disturb our quiet and repose, I determined to interfere with their passage from the earth to my tower top. If, like an electric current, they used the lightning rod as a means of transit, I made a plan which would compel them to use it in the conventional and proper way. The rod was placed that the lightning might come down it, not that it might go up, so I set myself to put the rod in a condition that it would permit the ghosts to descend as the lightning did, but which would prevent them from going up.
Accordingly I thoroughly greased the rod for a considerable distance above the ground.
“No,” said I to myself, “you may all come down, one after the other whenever you like. You will descend very quickly when you reach the greased part of the rod, but you will not go up it again. You are getting very bold, and if you continue your mad revels in my tower you will frighten people and give my house a bad name. You may become dryads if you like and shut yourself up in the hearts of the tall and solemn oaks. There you may haunt the blue jays and the woodpeckers, but they will not tell tales of ghostly visits, which may keep my friends away and make my servants give me warning.”
After that there were no more gray flashes up my lighting rod, though how many came down it I know not, and the intramural revels in the tower ceased. But not for long. The ghosts came back again; perhaps not so many as before, but still enough for them to let me know that they were there.
How they ascended to their lofty haunts I could not tell, nor did I try to find out. I accepted the situation. I could not contend with these undaunted sprites.
One evening in the autumn, outside the same window from which I had seen the first ghost of the tower, I saw another apparition, but it was not one of the gray specters to which I had become accustomed. It was a jet black demon. Its eyes large, green and glaring, shone upon me, and it was as motionless and hard as a statue cut in coal.
For only an instant I saw it, and then in a flash, like the apparition I had first seen from that window, it disappeared. After that I saw the demon again and again and strange to say the ghosts in my tower became fewer and fewer, and at last disappeared altogether. The advent of the black spirit seemed to have exerted an evil influence over the spirits in gray, and like the Indian in the presence of the white man, they faded away and gradually became extinct.
The last time I saw one of my ghosts it appeared to me late on the November afternoon among the brown foliage of an aged oak, just as a dryad might have peeped forth from her leafy retreat wondering if the world were yet open to her for a ramble under the stars. The world was open to my gray ghost, but only in one direction.
Between it and me could be seen among the shadows of the ground the dark form of the demon, trembling and waiting. Then away from the old oak, away from my house and tower, along the limbs of the trees which stood on the edge of the wood, slowly and silently, my ghost vanished from my view like a little gray cloud, gently moving over the sky, at last dissolving out of my sight.
Now, in the early hours of the night my tower is quiet and still. There are no more knocks, no more revels in the hidden passages in the walls. My ghosts are gone. All that I hear now are the voices in the chimney, but I know that these are only imaginary voices, and, therefore they produce in me no feeling of companionship. But my ghosts really existed.
