A Wiltshire Ghost.
“A face resembling a cart-wheel and a frightful tail.”
The little Wiltshire village of Ham has a ghost – an up-to-date nineteenth century ghost – which discards tradition, and instead of appearing as respectable ghosts should, at the witching hour of midnight, erratically selects any opportunity for appearing.
This is what a correspondent who has visited the ghostly hunting-ground writes:- The information gathered was to the effect that on Thursday, in last week, the occupants of the haunted house – a cottage occupied by a married man – were suddenly alarmed by an unexpected movement of the chairs. The wife was naturally greatly agitated, and sought the aid of her neighbours, who, however, were unable to restore her composure or allay her apprehension. The report of this remarkable occurrence spread, and as the result a council of war was held, and a representative body undertook to verify the extraordinary statements that were made. Accordingly the man’s employer, the village publican, the village policeman, and an ex-prize-fighter known as “Jack,” proceeded to the cottage in question with a view to clearing up the mystery. The policeman had his lamp alight, and the party also took with them two cats. It is alleged that soon after they had established themselves a distant rumbling sound was heard, and one of the number, “Jack,” it is alleged, sought to make his exit, but the door was blocked by the entrance of the ghost, who bade “Jack” resume his seat. This, however, was impossible, because the chairs, without any visible sign of interference, were tumbling over each other in delightful confusion.
While this was proceeding the watchers are said to have departed in great fright. Though able to escape from the scene of these unaccountable manifestations, the policeman, publican, farmer, and ex-prize-fighter were not free from the shock sustained; and that their affright was not simulated or mere sentiment is shown by the fact that two of the number have since severely suffered mentally and physically, and have required medical treatment.
In the meantime the occupants of the cottage had removed to another house, and on Sunday they were alleged to have received another visit, and to have suffered from similar occult manifestations. It is also reported that on Sunday a boy was playing an accordion in the house, when he suddenly found the chair mysteriously go from under him. His shrieks and cries were so alarming that they aroused the whole village. Some people, determining to get at the truth of the business, began to watch, and they declare that the apparition appeared having a face resembling a cart wheel and a frightful tail, the extremity being bifurcated, and in appearance like an inverted V, with eight pairs of fins and scales like a fish.
They also allege that the chairs turned over, the pictures also acted in a similar manner, and that so alarmed were the poor cats that one jumped into the fire, and the other was apparently forced across the room. Nor were these the whole of the manifestations, for the top of the boiler flew off, and eight pairs of boots were seen flying in all directions about the room, as well as from out of the oven. One villager in declaring his experiences remarked to the writer “Why, sir, it was enough to make your hair stand up.” Another said “Me and my wife and nine children be afeared to chop wood.” When asked what was his reason, he replied, “We’re afeard of angering the spirit.”
By Monday the feeling had increased, and the news of these supernatural experiences having got abroad, a number of people visited the village. One “Posty” Challis, an authority on most matters, declared his intention to find out the mystery. In company with others he proceeded at 10 o’clock to the “haunted house,” and they declare that they heard unearthly noises; sometimes it appeared as the wailing of an infant, sometimes like the cry of a sailor in distress; at other times the cry for help, succour, and relief. All day long people were going to the village, not that they could see anything, but they usually ended by adjourning to the village inn, where the extraordinary stories of what had been seen and heard were told over a glass and a pipe. It was here that I met a hardy son of the soil, who had, perhaps, reached his fourscore years. With his half-pint of fourpenny and a screw of tobacco, which he leisurely discussed, he told me that years ago a “spirit” came to Ham in much the same fashion. He recollected his father saying that a man who was prone to use bad language went to the haunted house, and whilst standing outside the door the step suddenly opened, and he fell in the cavity above his knees, and the step closing quickly his legs were snapped clean off. For years afterwards the villagers declared they saw him going home at night with the aid of two bean-sticks. The mystery thickens and refuses to be solved, and as a result the whole village is scared.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser – 6th February 1895.
The “Haunted House at Ham.”
Investigated by “Tatler”.
No Ghost, But Table and Chairs Act in an Unaccountable Manner.
The “Ham Ghost” has attained a notoriety not unworthy of the aristocratic celebrity of Littlecote House. A whole district has been aroused into excitement, people have talked of nothing else from morning to night, and when they have gone to bed it has been with a kind of shivery feeling not altogether in consequence of the thermometer indicating a dozen or so degrees of frost. Young servant girls who read the accounts in the dim light of their kitchens, have been afraid to go to bed, and one impressionable domestic in the immediate vicinity of Ham so firmly declared that her box indulged in a waltz around the bedroom that she went off into a fit of hysterics, and had to be sent home.
In Hungerford, there has been no such excitement since the memorable days of the police murders, and even the calm surface of life in Newbury was ruffled by the extraordinary revelation which was made to people at their breakfast tables on Thursday morning. Indeed, if all the stories that are to be heard respecting this remarkable affair were to be collected, they would make a Christmas number of the most approved type, sufficient to set even Mr Stead’s hair on end, and make Mrs Besant open her eyes with astonishment.
But these stories, vouched for on the most reliable and unimpeachable authority, must be taken cum grano salis, as indeed must the story of the Ham Ghost itself, which was given to the world last week on the authority of a local correspondent. Perhaps it would be as well to recall the leading incidents then so veraciously related. In a certain cottage in Ham a week or so since the chairs began to misbehave themselves. They displayed a giddiness unworthy of the respectability attaching to Windsor chairs, and kicked up their legs as do young persons on the music hall stage. Naturally this so much distressed the good wife that all the efforts of the neighbours failed to assure her that this was the natural conduct of Windsor chairs.
“By this time” says a descriptive writer in the Morning Leader, “Ham was moved. It looked to its leaders to discover, and if necessary to exorcise, the foul spirit which caused the chairs to dance. Its leaders responded to the call of duty, and like the sturdy Britons they are, they at once formed themselves into a committee of inspection. The committee consisted of a farmer, representing the chief interest in the village, a policeman (law and order), the publican (no committee complete without him – and besides, the policeman was there), and an ex-prize-fighter, ‘Jack’ (providing moral support). This unique committee, which seems to have had power to add to its numbers, co-opted two cats, and then marched to the scene of operations. They went, they saw, and they were ignominiously defeated. A rumbling noise caused the professor of the noble art to bolt for the door. The ghost was at that moment coming in, and he instructed poor ‘Jack,’ in the best Parliamentary style, to “resume his seat.” There was sarcasm in the direction, as the chairs were playing leapfrog. The committee hastily adjourned. The farmer, the publican, the policeman, and the ex-prizefighter stood not upon the order of their going, but they went at once, and in a hurry.”
So far the tale was sufficiently remarkable, but the local correspondent’s imagination was raised to its highest pitch, and he proceeded to evolve a monster of hideous mien and horrible shape, a gentleman with the face of a cart-wheel, a frightful tail, the extremity being bifurcated (good word that, conveying a whole dictionary of meaning to the bucolic mind), eight pairs of fins, and scales like a fish. That local correspondent must have found his ink running dry, or the time for the last post approaching, or he might have added a few other details, such as a couple of pair of saucer-like eyes, a forked-tongue darting flames of fire from a mouth resembling a – but the imagination fails to picture anything more terrible than those primeval monsters who doubtless roamed the Hampshire Hills long before Ham was, or local correspondents came into being. It was only possible to suppose that one of these prehistoric gentlemen, having survived the Flood and the agricultural depression, had awakened from his long sleep, and, like Rip Van Winkle, revisited the scenes of his juvenile days. But careful investigation at once disposes of the theory, and the ghost is miserably reduced to a mere turning of tables and the acrobatic diversion of certain chairs.
It would seem that even these mysterious manifestations ceased last week, and the good people of Ham were beginning to recover from the fright. But on Sunday the “spirit” resumed operations on a new and improved method. On Monday morning there was received a telegraphic message at the office of the Newbury Weekly News. “Ghost re-appeared again, are you coming down?” The Editor mentally reviewed his staff, and selecting the most sceptical and unbelieving person on whom he could lay hands, “Tatler” was despatched on a mission of investigation.
It was not altogether the best of days for hunting of any kind, and least of all ghost-hunting. The sun shone out brightly, and nobody can expect a self-respecting ghost to face the sun; there was a biting east wind and the air was keen with the frost. Nobody but human beings would venture abroad on such a day, and therefore it can scarcely be said that the weather favoured the investigation. Ham, as everybody knows now, is a sequestered little village nestling at the foot of the Hampshire hills, some four miles from Hungerford, to which town, writes “Tatler,” I journeyed by train on Monday morning. In order to be equipped for any emergency, I secured the company and co-operation of the local photographer, Sam Hawkes, whose disbelief in anything supernatural was sufficiently known to enable him to present his camera at even the “cart-wheeled” visitor should he deign to appear.
Ham was reposing in the quietude of a winter’s day, the children were unconcernedly snow-balling each other and sliding on the village pond. Our arrival was noted from behind windows and blinds, but so numerous have been the recent comings and goings of people to this sequestered village, that there appeared to be nothing unusual in the appearance of a photographer with his camera.
The haunted house is situated immediately opposite the village inn, a most convenient arrangement. You can station yourself in the cosy parlour, or mingle with the democracy of the tap-room, and make observations on the house opposite without running much danger or discomfort. I am afraid that this is what the majority have done, and that under the consoling influence of mine host’s good ale, and the dreamy imaginativeness of the “weed,” the greater part of the uncanny stories now in circulation have been evolved – concocted is rather a hard word to use.
The “Haunted Houses,” for there are two of them, have certainly a somewhat weird appearance, and as they appeared on Monday, with the snow on the thatch and a generally forlorn and deserted look about them, it only required a slight use of the imagination to believe them invested with something mysterious. As the “ghost” was not expected to walk just then, my photographic friend took advantage of the light to take a picture of the cottages, first with a crowd of village children in the foreground, with open mouths and staring eyes. There was a little too much reality about this, so the children were relegated to the background and then the cottages were taken in all their lonely solitude.
Meanwhile I began to investigate. I first called upon Mr John Carpenter, known to friends as “Jack,” and more latterly as the “ex-prize-fighter.” Jack is a bit of a character in his way, has been captain of a barge, also acted as the pugilistic representative in a race-horse trainer’s establishment. He has now settled down to end his days in peace in the “High street” of Ham. “You don’t believe in ghosts?” I asked Jack pointedly. “Ghosts,” he remarked with a force of expression that type could never represent, “Ghosts, I never see one yet, and I’ve been about a bit in my time. The only time I was ever frightened was when I was going down a dark lane at twelve o’clock, and a black object in the road refused to say who or what it was. I was a bit scared, but it only turned out to be a parson on his way home, and he was afraid of me.”
“But how about the ghost here?” I asked him. “Oh that’s gospel,” he replied. “Did you see it,” said I coming to the point. “No I didn’t get inside the door, but there’s plenty who did see the chairs and table turn over.” “But how about the ghost with the ‘cartwheel face?'” “Oh that’s all something lies,” he said with a vicious wave of his stick, as if he would like to have had the veracious describer of that apparition within his reach. John’s evidence was after all only hear-say, and this is not admissable.
The landlord of the inn, who hails the ghost as a welcome visitant, bringing thirsty customers in shoals, was a little more definite. He was on the committee of investigation and declared he had seen the chairs fall over without the slightest reason. Could he give a reason? No. It was unaccountable and unexplainable.
The landlady who had wisely stopped at home to look after the customers, had not seen the manifestations, but she had heard the story told with such circumstantial detail, that she firmly believed in everything but the primeval monster with the bifurcated tail. This was nothing but shameful lies, and ought to be contradicted. So she said with an indignant emphasis.
The innkeeper is a vendor of many of the necessaries of life, among them being anti-bilious pills, the demand for which has singularly enough fallen off since the ghost story has been current. A customer came in for some whiskey, a buxom domestic of about twenty. Had she heard of the ghost? Not only heard of it, everybody in Ham had done that, but she had seen it. At last, I thought, there was something reliable. This young woman declared she was at the cottage, at the same time as the squire’s daughter, and the four-legged stool, without any rhyme or reason, turned over topsy-turvy. Nobody pushed or pulled it over. Was this witness at all frightened? Not a bit of it, she laughed heartily and seemed to have enjoyed the experience. What did the squire’s daughter say? Well she couldn’t account for it, but she saw it.
I happened to catch the village schoolmaster at the well; he was not exactly in search of truth, but more anxious to obtain a supply of water for domestic use. The schoolmaster is a middle-aged man who has a reputation to maintain, and expresses his opinion guardedly and with deliberation. I approached him cautiously, commented on the depth of the well, the purity of the water, the severity of the weather, and casually mentioned the subject of the haunted houses opposite. The cottages are within a few yards of the village school, and the master admitted he had heard of the unusual antics of the furniture. As a neighbour he had looked in to satisfy his curiosity, and to ascertain the real facts of the case that he might allay the fears of his scholars.
He made an afternoon call quite casually, and succeeded in finding the “spirits” at home. At any rate he saw, so he solemnly asseverated, the chairs tumble over, the outward and visible signs for such conduct being entirely wanting. Did he think it was caused by electricity, or the action of underground springs, or from any natural cause? Being a cautious man, the schoolmaster didn’t appear prepared to commit himself. He had heard of lots of people coming to try to find out the cause, but he had heard nothing of the result of their inquiries. Were his scholars afraid? Well, at first they were a little scared, but he explained to them that there were no such things as ghosts, and they need never be afraid of wooden chairs, even if they did act unlike others of their kind. The bell now rang for school, and the master departed with his pails of water, and to resume his scholastic duties. So far the outside evidence had not succeeded in adducing any actual proof.
There was nought left but to interview the “spirits” themselves at their last known place of abode, and accordingly I made across the road to the cottages. The photographer went also, but declined to take his camera. He hadn’t a plate that would take in the bifurcated tail and the other essential details. It is a curious feature that the alleged manifestations have not been confined to the cottage where they were first discovered, but on the Turner family moving to next door, the spirits moved also, and continued their mysterious antics with the furniture.
On Monday the first cottage was in a state of chaos, being in the possession of very substantial personages, including a postman, a carpenter, and a labourer. The postman, George Challis by name, is a man who knows how to employ his time. Morning and night he trudges to and from Hungerford with the epistolary correspondence of the good people of Ham. In the interval he earns a bit of money by doing odd jobs. He was entrusted with the ostensible duties of repairing the cottage; in reality it was no doubt to discover the reason for the disturbances. Challis, although a firm believer in the supernatural character of the affair, went to work in a very thorough manner. The oven, which had disgorged eight pairs of boots in so strange a manner, ad been bricked up, and a cupboard of more useful character instituted; the floor was to be taken up, the ceiling mended, and a number of other necessary things done to make the cottage more comfortable. But it failed to elucidate the mystery.
I found Mrs Turner at home in the next cottage, with her little daughter of eleven years of age, very small in stature, and with a curious expression on her old-fashioned face. Mrs Turner is above the ordinary type of a country woman, a neat, tidy woman, of possibly 40, a trifle inclined to be nervous, although she denied the insinuation. She is not a gossipy woman, the neighbours say they have scarcely seen her outside her cottage during the nine years she and her husband have lived there. She was nothing loth to relate her experiences with much detail of circumstance, how first the oven lid fell off, the boots flew out, and the startled cats flew in all directions; then the chairs took to falling about.
At first she occupied herself by restoring them to their proper position. But as they persisted in kicking their legs in the air, she ran out in alarm, and took counsel with her neighbours. They in turn visited the cottage, and true enough found all the chairs in a reclining position. For the further edification of the neighbours, the pictures jumped off their nails, and when one woman began to declare her unbelief a boy’s toy sword fell off its nail and dropped at her feet. A frightful omen surely.
Mrs Turner says she had never before noticed anything particularly uncanny. She had come downstairs after the family had gone to bed, without a light, and without the slightest nervousness. At first she believed it to be due to the illness of her mother, who was lying very ill at Huish Hill near Marlborough, and wanted to see her. When the manifestations stopped, she concluded her mother was dead, and that they would cease.
Nothing happened between Wednesday and Sunday, but during the afternoon of the latter day, while husband and wife were dozing comfortably in front of the fire, the screen fell down, the kettle tumbled off the fire, and the bellows flew off their nail by the fire, and travelled several yards to the corner of the kitchen. In proof of the latter fact, the place was pointed out where the nose of the bellows came into contact with the wall, while the singed fur of the cat proved conclusively that something had startled that sagacious animal, who was slumbering peacefully on a stool by the side of the fire. The woman would not accept the suggestion that the kettle might have overbalanced, or that the screen might have been blown over by the wind which sweeps through the kitchen with an icy keenness. For the extraordinary conduct of the bellows there was no accounting, and in a brand new pair it was most disreputable.
The woman’s husband came in, and he confirmed the story of the bellows and the kettle, and illustrated the flight of the bellows. He was about to give further demonstrations when his master appeared at the door, and anathematising the ghost, ordered him back to his work.
All this time the chairs behaved in the most discreet and orderly manner, and the table, although a bit rickety, declined to do anything but stand on its own legs. The screen was securely tied to the bacon-rack, the kettle was on the floor, and the bellows hanging by a substantial leather fastening to its nail. It became monotonous to watch for either of these articles to demonstrate. The only spirit I found moving was the north-east wind, which careered around that kitchen with playful vivacity. Each of the chairs bore substantial bruises where they had come into contact with the brick floor. Curiously, they had always fallen forward in the same way, and the marks were singularly alike. The arm-chair, in which I located myself, had adopted a different method, falling on its side. At least so the marks indicated. But those chairs resolutely declined to fall in my presence, and after much weariness of the flesh I hastened across the road to the comfort of the inn, to get warm once more, and sum up the situation.
What is the Cause of it All. I knew it must come to this, and I am unable to give an answer. I am sceptical enough to say there is nothing supernatural about the affair, but common courtesy compels me to allow people to believe what they say they have seen with their own eyes. Some declare that electricity is the cause, or that the underground springs produce the movement of the furniture. One Hungerford worthy tried the effect of the divining rod, and said there was water beneath the floor. But a solid brick floor is not the best conductor for an electric current and even water would have to displace the bricks before it could affect the chairs.
I am inclined to fancy it is hallucination on the part of the woman, coupled with a good deal of easy belief on the part of those who say they have seen the manifestations. At any rate the monster with the tail has been disposed of. As the squire has issued rather peremptory orders respecting the admittance of people to the cottage, possibly the chairs will also cease their antics. I have no doubt the illusion will be kept going as long as possible, for with the visitors come also a substantial addition to the Turner family, a notice posted in the cottage appealing for donations to compensate for the inconvenience caused. The landlord over the way likewise hopes for a continuation of the visitations. He has never known such a busy time, and his regular customers have suggested that he should give a supper in honour of the Ham Ghost.
Newbury Weekly News and General Advertiser, 7th February 1895.
Following on the publicity given in these columns, the mysterious ghost at Ham appears to have gone quiet for a few days. Notwithstanding the attendance of curious unbelievers for miles round, the ghost in Hamlet, or rather the supernatural disturber of the peace of the residents of the hamlet of Ham absolutely refused any manifestations and crowds went away tearful as a consequence.
On Sunday, however, it woke up again and the most sensational reports of its movements are in circulation. The most reliable and convincing evidence of the reality of the ghostly visitation, only the Hungerford public are so sceptical, is in the statement that one day the woman at the haunted house had a rabbit which she was preparing for dinner. She had duly skinned the rabbit, and left both rabbit and skin on the table, also some Brussels sprouts, for a few minutes while she went about some other pressing household duty. When she returned she was horrified to find that the rabbit had got into his skin again, and had eaten up all the Brussels sprouts!
Reading Standard, 8th February 1895.
A Wiltshire Ghost Scare.
The village of Ham, which is about four miles from Hungerford, has been in an unwonted state of excitement, owing to some ghostly manifestations which, it is alleged, have taken place in a labourer’s cottage there. It is stated that one night the labourer and his wife, named Turner, were sitting in their cottage, when they were nearly frightened out of their wits, by an unearthly occurrence. It appears that by the side of the fire place there is one of those old-fashioned ovens formerly used by cottagers for baking their bread. This had not been used for that purpose some time, but had become a store place for old boots, and other lumber, with which it was filled. All at once the oven door was, by some means, forced into the oven. At the same time, the chairs and table became in motion and tipped over. The occupants of the cottage became so scared they removed into the next house. Even then they could not be at peace, as the furniture still objected to stand still. The whole village became alarmed, and the neighbourhood much excited.
People from Hungerford and other places visit Ham daily in hope of seeing the manifestation. One lady who drove up there stated that on going into the cottage, the women of the house being present, but not near the furniture, she saw a chair and table gradually rise from the floor and topple over without any apparent cause; no one being near them. Miss Woodman took some soup to Mrs Turner, being sceptical on the subject of the manifestation, and it is stated that just as she was leaving the house the table turned upside down without any apparent cause.
A Hungerford man was confident that the matter was a hoax, and, taking his seat in a chair in the cottage, contended that if the spirit had power to move an oak table it could move him in the chair, and he would not leave until it did so. Having sat there three hours, he got up to light his pipe, and when he went to sit down again he “landed” on the chair legs, the chair having in the meantime been noislessly turned topsey turvy! The village postman, Challis, asserts that he has seen the same thing occur, and many others say the same. The Hungerford postmaster visited Ham, and although nothing occurred while he was in the house he was informed by some of the most influential person there that they had seen the chairs and table move and fall over. He also saw the oven door which is said to have blown out into the room, and this weighed about 20lbs. The oven was, by order of Mr. H.D. Woodman, the owner of the house, taken down by Mr Challis, to see if the occurence could be accounted for in any way, but nothing could be found.
A break full of people went from Hungerford on Wednesday evening, but it was a “quiet day,” and they were not rewarded for their trouble by seeing anything of a ghostly nature. The landlord at the public house at Ham is doing a roaring trade, and will doubtless be sorry when the scarce[sic] is over.
Swindon Advertiser and North Wilts Chronicle
9th February 1895
Studies in Psychical Research, Frank Podmore (1897).
Early in February, 1895, we received intelligence of a Poltergeist at Ham, a little village near Hungerford, in Berkshire. The following extract from a letter written by a local clergyman will give some idea of how the matter was regarded in the neighbourhood: –
“F. Vicarage, Hungerford, Berks., Jan. 31st, 1895. There is a veritable ghost at Ham; it has overturned boots and shoes from the slab of an oven onto the hob – overturned a stool, and pitched the cat on it into the fire – upset tables and all sorts of things. The tenant’s name is T–, and he works for Mr. W–. W– has put the man into an adjacent, but not adjoining house, and he has had the floor of the house taken up, but has not discovered the cause, and now the same pranks are going on in the house into which the people have removed. It is no delusion – it takes place in broad daylight before people’s eyes, and E.W. saw a table overturned on Tuesday. No one can explain it – it is quite a mystery, and is causing great excitement through the country-side; people from Marlborough, Hungerford, and Froxfield visit the scene of these operations. They say that the people have a daughter eccentric and deformed.”
From several witnesses, including a police constable, we have received accounts of the disturbances. The lid of an oven was frequently seen to fall; chairs, stools, and other articles of furniture were upset, n the presence of numerous witnesses, and frequently in broad daylight. Polly T., the little girl, was always present during these performances, but the witnesses seem as a rule to have been completely satisfied that the movements were beyond her power to execute, and many sent a plan of the room and the position of the people in it to demonstrate the impossibility of the movements being due to ordinary human agency.
Early in February Mr Westlake went to Ham. On the morning following his arrival he wrote as follows:
“Letter I. Post office, Ham, Hungerford, Berks, February 9, 1895.
Nothing is alleged in this case but the frequent movements of objects (except that Mrs T. says that once she saw a woman’s face in the oven). It is one of those baffling cases where the thing won’t work, or only inconclusively, in the presence of strangers. At least that was my experience last evening; some local observers have had better success, I hear. Nevertheless I think it to be genuine from the hundred and one indications which one gathers when talking with the folks around their hearth – the primitive seance. Polly, a little dwarfed, black-haired girl, turning twelve, sits in the chimney corner and nurses the cats Topsy and Titit – she is the centre of force – then (in the absence of strangers) the coals fly about and all moveable objects are thrown down ad libitum and ad nauseum according to their account.
It has been a nine days’ wonder, and local interest (all unintelligent) is dying. The T–s, however, say that things are as active as ever (last evening, e.g.) The report that they have made money out of it seems to be untrue.”
On the same day, a few hours later, Mr Westlake writes as follows:
“Letter II.
The “Ham Ghost” is a humbug now, whatever it may have been. I made friends with the cats, and their mistress, poor child, gave me a private sitting of some two or three hours, in the course of which she moved between forty and fifty objects when she thought I wasn’t looking (her plan being to watch me till I looked away). However, I saw her in contact with the objects with every degree of distinctness, and on seven (at least) occasions by simple devices I had a clear view of her hands in contact with the objects and saw them quickly moved. I entered into the spirit of the thing, and said nothing to anyone, beyond suggesting to the lady (Miss W.) at the Manor House that the affair would probably cease if no further attention were paid to it, and that some one would do well to watch the child.
She is a dwarf, aged twelve, who has only lately learned to walk, pale, with long, black hair, and eyes very sharp, and watches one like a cat a mouse. Her mother is said never to leave the house or to allow the child to do so.
But it is curious that a little child should succeed in deceiving a whole countryside, and especially in deceiving her parents (for I do not think they are implicated; – if they have suspicions, they smother them; they appear genuinely worried). The mother would sometimes ask the child, after a particularly barefaced “upset,” whether she did it, and she always denied.”
Mr Westlake has kindly furnished the following additional particulars of what he observed:
“After posting my first letter, I went to the T–s and sat on a bench in front of the fire. No one else was present besides the child. She sat on a low stool in the chimney on the right of the fire. On the other side of the hearth there was a brick oven in which, much to Polly’s interest, I placed a dish of flour, arguing that a power capable of discharging the contents of the oven (one of the first disturbances) might be able to impress the flour. After a time I went to the oven to see how the flour was getting on, stooping slightly to look in, but kept my eyes on the child’s hands, looking at them under my right arm.
I saw her hand stealing down towards a stick that was projecting from the fire; I moved slightly and the hand was withdrawn. Next time I was careful to make no movement and saw her hand jerk the brand out on to the floor. She cried out. I expressed interest and astonishment; and her mother came in and cleared up the debris. This was repeated several times, and one or two large sticks ready for burning which stood near the child were thrown down. Then a kettle which was hanging on a hook and chain was jerked off the hook on to the fire. This was repeated. As the kettle refused to stay on its hook, the mother placed it on the hearth, but it was soon overturned on to the floor and upset. After this I was sitting on the bench which stood facing the fire in front of the table.
I had placed my hat on the tale behind me. The little girl was standing near me on my right hand. Presently the hat was thrown down on the ground. I did not on the first occasion see the girl’s movements, but later, by seeming to look in another direction, I saw her hand sweep the hat off on to the floor. This I saw at least twice. A Windsor chair near the girl was then upset more than once, falling away from her. On one occasion I saw her push the chair over with both hands. As she was looking away from me, I got a nearly complete view. After one of these performances the mother came in and asked the girl if she had done it, but she denied it.”
It may be of interest to add that Mr E. N. Bennett, of Hertford College, Oxford, spent nearly five hours in the cottage, and witnessed several movements of furniture. But though he strongly suspected the child of trickery, and watched her very closely, he was not able actually to detect any fraudulent movement on her part.