Who Can Lay A Ghost?
The lovers of the marvellous at Skipton and its neighbourhood (says a correspondent) are being at present gratified to their full desire. A haunted house – a thing that belongs to the days of yore and of witchcraft – is the subject of continued wonder amongst them. The house of the Rev. R. Gibbs is said to be the scene, during night, of strange and unaccountable noises, the result of supernatural agency; and the consequence is, that large crowds have for a fortnight past assembled around it, to be witnesses, if possible, of those fantastic tricks which are said to be wrought by some unseen spirit!
Not a few have had their “eyes made fools o’ the other senses;” for it is averred by more than one credible person, that one day recently, while a crowd was gathered in front of the house, a volley of stones, which could not possibly have been thrown by any human hands were seen by “fear-surprised eyes” to fly at the windows of the house; and true it is, and of verity, that thus some forty squares of glass in the windows of Mr Gibb’s house have been broken. The stones, which must have risen from – somewhere – were seen at the moment they entered the squares; and no common mortal had aught to do with the act!
Divers other stories equally marvellous are told by the people in the neighbourhood and are readily taken for gospel! Pots and pans move through the house as by a will of their own; or jumping from one part to another, are shivered to atoms. The explanation given by the crowd is, that some of Mr Gibb’s servants, having incautiously had access to some books of “black art,” have raised a power which they cannot control! Another account is, that the stones which have been thrown through the windows were propelled by some maliciously disposed persons, and a reward of ten guineas is offered for their detection.
Bradford Observer, 23rd December 1847.