Ghost Story.
The following story appears in the Suffolk Chronicle, and upon inquiry of the last occupier of the house, the statements are confirmed, with the exception of those which we have printed in italics-
“The lovers of the marvellous in this town have had something to talk about lately, in one of those midnight visitations which furnish food for gossip to weak and distempered imaginations, and which if inquired into would no doubt turn out, like all such things, to have originated in the silly fears and apprehensions of the parties themselves, or, what in this case is much more likely, in the waggery of some of their neighbours.
It appears that some months since, the wife of a painter residing in College-street died in the Hospital, it is said from the effects of ill-treatment by her husband, and whether stricken by remorse, or grief for her loss is not known, but shortly after her death the man was heard to declare that the ghost of his wife was in the habit of nightly visiting him, and that he could get neither peace nor rest. Be that as it may, he soon after quitted the house and subsequently the town, and is now, we believe, working somewhere near Cambridge.
The [wife of the] next tenant was a woman nearly related to the owner of the house, but her imagination became so much worked upon by what she either saw or heard, that she was afraid to go up stairs after dark until she had procured some one from the next house to accompany her, adn unable to endure this constant state of apprehension, she abruptly quitted it, after a few weeks’ residence.
She was succeeded by a cabinet-maker and his family, consisting of his wife, three children, a lodger, who had previously been residing with him, and her daughter, a girl about seventeen years of age. For the first three or four nights after they had taken up their abode in the house, they were disturbed by all sorts of strange noises, the children were startled out of their sleep, lifted out of bed and placed on the floor, and although the father, a man of strong mind, made every effort to detect the cause of these disturbances, and the authors of them, the mystery remained unsolved.
On Monday se’nnight, between eleven and twelve o’clock, the lodger, who slept in a room adjoining that of the cabinet-maker and his wife, was awakened by some one pulling the clothes off the bed. She called to her daughter, who slept with her, supposing it was her, but the girl denied it, and almost at the same instant exclaimed that they were now pulled in the opposite direction. Strong flashes of light suddenly illuminated the room, and on looking into a closet from whence they proceeded, the woman and her daughter distinctly saw a female lifting the two younger children who slept there out of bed. They instantly called out to the cabinet-maker, when the light immediately diappeared: and by the time his wife got into the room, no traces of their mysterious visitor were to be found. The man himself saw the light from his bedroom; and the statements of the children who were lifted out of bed corroborate that of the woman who witnessed the occurrence. The latter can hardly be suspected of collusion in the business, as she has been long residing with the family, and one of the children has been severely ill ever since, from the effects of the fright.
The doors and windows were examined to see if egress had been obtained through them, but were all secure. That some one has been playing on the superstitious fears of the different occupants of the house, from a love of mischief or some more interested motive, is sufficiently evident from the above facts; and if the object is to prevent any one from taking it, or residing in it, as we strongly suspect it is, it has been in part accomplished; for the cabinet-maker, finding that he was not a bit more fortunate than his predecessors, and that, although whatever he might think of the matter, his wife and children were likely to be sufferers if he continued longer to brave these nocturnal horrors, quitted the house next day, and it now remains unoccupied, the terror and theme of all the gobe-mouches of the neighbourhood.”
Bury and Norwich Post, 1st August 1838.