More Ghost Stories.
Fish basket that walked about.
Baby’s boot that passed through closed door.
(Special to the “Mercury”)
The account given in yesterday’s “Mercury” of the remarkable happenings at Wyke has caused a large number of our readers to send us stories of similar remarkable happenings coming within their own experience. Among these is a singular story of ghostly visitations recorded by our Keighley correspondent, though the scene of these strange happenings was a quiet fishing village on the north-west coast of England, and the house was occupied by a widowed lady, five grown-up daughters, and a grown-up son.
Narrating the story, the eldest of the five girls, a bright young governess in her twenties, tells how, while she, her mother and sister were sitting in the back room of the house, about 9.30 p.m, when suddenly an empty fish basket that had been left on the mat turned round and moved forward into the kitchen. She cried out, “Mother, the basket is moving!” At the same moment she seized the basket and brought it back again. A moment later she saw the basket start off again. She immediately jumped up and followed it, the mother sitting still in her alarm. Along went the basket, scraping its way over the linoleum, as if some unseen had had been dragging it, and then stopped again in front of the kitchen fender.
“Again,” she says, “my sister took hold of the handle of the basket and brought it back to the mat. And again the basket started off and had reached the kitchen, when the front door was opened by Emmie. As soon as Emmie turned into the kitchen, the basket moved from the floor and jumped up against her. Supposing that her sister Annie had thrown it at her she gave it a kick, saying: “What did you throw that thing at me for?” The basket went into the middle of the floor, turned round, and set off into the pantry beyond, whence it was brought and handed over to the fisherman’s daughter, who on being told of the occurrence, replied, “Well, it must have had a fish in it.”
Some time afterwards, says the lady, we had some young visitors – “Baby,” Norah, five years old, Dorothy (9), and Madge (11). I placed their boots in the passage just by the dining-room door, and there were other pairs of boots placed close by them. Emmie went out, intending to fetch something from the kitchen, when she saw a little boot turning round. She immediately came back, and cried, “Mother, there’s one of baby’s boots moving out there!” Grasping Annie’s hand, I looked into the passage. We both distinctly saw the boot turn round, and then once or twice from side to side with a rocking motion. Afterwards it set off and moved in a straight line , toe first, into the kitchen, and right up to the fender, just as if pulled by an invisible string.
I got up and followed, fascinated by what I saw. I picked up the boot at the fender, and found it to be just as it always had been. I brought back the boot to the same place, and it did exactly as before, passing the other boots, which remained motionless. Emmie got up and went tot he bottom of the stairs. And then another strange thing happened. The boot, instead of proceeding in the direction of the kitchen, moved slowly towards Emmie, and when within a short distance, it jumped from the floor and struck her.
It was just as if some unseen hand had taken up the boot and thrown it like a ball. Emmie shrieked when the boot came at her, and when it dropped we saw it go to the front door, where we found it on the mat. There we left it.
After that, on several nights we placed the boot near the dining-room door, and it moved off as before, but sometimes in different directions; and it was only the baby’s boot that did this, and the right boot at that. This thing went on for about ten nights, with sometimes a night free from movement.
The children went away, and subsequently a basket of our own was seen to move repeatedly. We tried the same thing with a small wicker basket, and it did exactly as the boot had done, except that it never rose off the floor. It always went forward into the kitchen or to the front door, or into the middle of the front-room floor.
Subsequently a sceptical friend visited the house, and scoffed at the stories he was told. But placing the child’s boot at the usual spot in the kitchen, and collecting all the members of the household in the drawing room, he was amazed to find that the boot had disappeared. It was found, after a long search, far back in a cupboard under the staircase. A second time the experiment was tried, and on this occasion the boot made its way through the closed door into the drawing -room, and was found two yards away from the door. On a third occasion it also disappeared, adn was found twisted up in the curtain behind the front door. Even the sceptic confessed himself puzzled.
Leeds Mercury, 9th June 1909