A Ghost at Colby.
For a week or two past a ghostly apparition has greatly alarmed the inhabitants of the village of Colby, near Appleby. The phantom visitant appears to have laid the scene of its operations nearly about the centre of the village, where windows were broken wholesale, doors driven in with thundering crashes, hen coops sent flying into the air, sheaves of corn stooked in the fields turned topsy-turvy, milk was turned sour in the dairy, and mighty aid had to be invoked before butter would come.
These ghostly appearances having been reported to the police, P.C. Mitchell, acting under the instructions of Supt. Hodgson, spent the whole of Friday night in endeavouring to discover the cause of alarm, but without avail, he being himself impressed with the idea that some mysterious agency which he could not fathom was at work; more especially when a huge cobble stone fell right in front of his feet, and which had evidently been hurled from a point which he had just before minutely inspected.
The inhabitants of the village have very naturally been filled with dread by these nocturnal visitations: and although the older inhabitants of the hamlet are aware that the “Orton Ghost” was “laid” many years ago, still there are some of the superstitious among them who believe that a resurrection may possibly have taken place. Judging from this, our correspondent says he is afraid that the inhabitants of Colby are in a “parlous state,” and that unless they mend their ways the phantom will still continue to haunt the picturesque locality in which corn crops grow luxuriantly, and the heather and the ling abound on every hand.
Penrith Observer, 2nd October 1888.