“What’s dat knocking.”
The most painful consternation was exhibited by the members of a whole family, resident not a mile from the quiet sequestered parish of St Giles, the head of which is a swarthy shoemaker, his own physiognomy being emblematic of that tanning which makes leather so tough.
For some time past the inmates of the dwelling, which is old and of course haunted, have, as midnight approaches, been startled out of both propriety and wits by various heavy and sepulchral knockings, proceeding from where they knew not, but evidently from supernatural agency. By a well received maxim in rural districts, it is believed that the clergyman has the power of providing for all wandering and unquiet spirits some lengthy occupation, such as bundling the sand on the sea shore, or dipping it dry with the shell of the limpet. The Rev. gentleman has, we believe, been applied to on this occasion, but has, it would appear, failed to remove or even to elucidate the cause of the nocturnal visitation.
On questioning the master of the house as to whether he could in any way account for so ghostly an affair, he confessed having just before purchased of the sexton a couple of old tomb stones from the church yard, and which he had had laid down in the fireplace in the kitchen, and tremblingly suggested wether a disembodied spirit from the grave might not be the author of this midnight knocking, as the avenger of the sacrilegious act. The stones were immediately taken up and conveyed whence they came, but no radical cure was effected.
The ghost, for such it of course is, seems to have some malignant grudge, not having vacated the place; where, as says the ballad, he seems disposed “to stay a little longer.” The clerk, with two or three others, were employed to sit up to watch, when lo! scarcely had the clock gone twelve, when the same ominous knocks again sounded through the house, glueing those on duty to their seats; but, after things were again quiet, they came to the daring resolution that should it occur the second time they would speak to the ghostly visitor, come what might; this awful determination, however, was not put in practice, as nothing was heard during the remainder of the night.
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 6th July 1850.