A Ghost.
(From a correspondent).
For some weeks past the tenants of a small cottage at the South end of Gainsboro’ have been kept in a constant state of alarm by the imaginary visits of a ghost, the shade of the late inhabitant, an old man who died there some time since, but who, although safely laid within the “hallowed precincts of the grave,” has thought proper to leave the sod for the purpose of troubling and annoying those whom he has (apparently much against his inclination) left behind.
The form of his visitation is so various and uncertain that it is difficult to speak precisely respecting it; but we believe the most usual one, when he does put on something of a substantial “shape,” is that of a black dog, – or a cat, – or something of the four-footed kind. It is but seldom, however, that he assumes so tangible a shape – generally only announcing his approach by tapping at the door, or window, or bed-posts – sometimes on an old box or chest of drawers; and by the time the watchers have “screwed their courage to the sticking-place,” behold he has shifted his quarters.
Various have been the schemes adopted to allay this “spirit from the vasty deep,” who comes when he is neither called nor wished for; but hitherto all have been unsuccessful. Godly men (who, thus putting themselves in the front of the battle, would show they fear none of the “flights or cantrips of the devil” or any of his agents) have watched and listened, and listened and watched, night after night, but the cunning old fellow (who had not an atom of cunning while he lived) knows better than to trust himself within reach of their wiles, and wisely abandons the field thus rendered unsafe.
Indeed, the principal object of his attack seems to be a poor harmless girl, who, little able to withstand this new sort of enemy, and readily abandons herself a prey to the terrors of an aerial nocturnal visitant. In these circumstances there seems little chance of the poor old man’s obtaining his quietus, until having passed the term allotted to the wanderings of his spirit, he shall be permitted to pass beyond that space which separates the mockeries from the realities of life.
Stamford Mercury, 12th September 1823.