To Psychical Researchers.
To the Editor.
Dear Sir, – In the midst of the heated discussion on the subjects of granite cubes, wood blocks, sewage treatement, and rescued nuns, it is refreshing to be able to turn to a matter of a more chilly nature. It will interest your readers to know that a genuine ghost has made its appearance in a village not far from Norwich. The scene of its visit is a farm house known to all the country side as the “Haunted Farm.”
The servant girls will not stay (not an uncommon occurrence even in ordinary households); they object to a ghost in th ehouse, much more to one that has a knack of visiting their private apartments. The ghostly visitor is habited in knee-breeches, silk stockings, plum-coloured coat, and bag wig (evidently a regular old-fashioned ghost); he also carries a lantern.
When the village is wrapped in slumber, th elaggards at the public-house have stumbled home, the last fagged out hired pony has had his drink of beer at the Spotted Dog and been goaded on its way, then it is that the watcher waiteth for the coming of the ghost. All is still save the faintly heard chiming of a distant church clock striking the midnight hour, or the hooting of an owl on its midnight prowl. And the watcher waiteth not in vain, for see, the ghost approaches. But the watcher, where is he?
A gnetleman, not altogether unacquainted with with spirits, is making investigations. Not many nights agone he, in company with the farmer and a friend, waited all night in the farm parlour for the coming of the ghostly old gentleman, but on that occasion the latter was otherwise engaged.
A strong-headed, stout-hearted gardener has now taken up his abode in the haunted house determined to lay that ghost, and the result is being anxiously awaited by all the timid ones in the village. Would Dr Jessopp, Mr Stead, or the Society for Psychical Research take the matter up? – Yours timidly, Simple Simon. Norwich, April 30th, 1894.
Eastern Evening News, 1st May 1894.
On the trail of a ghost.
The correspondent calling himself “Simple Simon,” who addressed us a few days ago on the subject of a farm near Norwich alleged to be troubled by some ghostly visitant, was not merely indulging a perverted fancy. We have taken the trouble to make a few inquiries on our own account, with the result that a state of things has been disclosed even more mystifying than was indicated by “Simple Simon.” If human testimony counts for anything, our correspondent’s story has something like a basis of fact. “Simple Simon” fell into the error, pardonable perhaps in a gentleman with a vigorous imagination and a ready pen, of investing the case with certain romantic trappings of his own, whereas the circumstances unfolded to a representative of this journal need no such adornment; they are sufficiently blood-curdling in themselves.
We would not have it supposed that our representative has swallowed unreservedly the tittle-tattle of some terrified farm servants. We shall content ourselves with a bare statement of the circumstances as they were related to us. The incredulous may pooh-pooh them if they please; the believing few may eplain them according to their own particular theories of the occult.
I am not permitted, says our rpresentative, to disclose the identity of the farm in question, or even the names of the persons concerned. The story is so rapidly gaining currency, however, that reserve on these points will soon be no longer necessary. The farm lies by the side of a turnpike, at a point not far from Norwich. Grouped about with substantial modern farm buildings, and fronted by tastefully kept gardens, the homestead is a picture of order and prosperity.
Four years ago the house was occupied by a steward, his wife, and two or three members of their family. Then a young farmer and his wife, both of whom are still on the youthful side of thirty, leased the premises, and extended and re-arranged them on a liberal and expensive scale. The doors, sashes, and flooring being substantial and up-to-date are not of the kind that would create ghostly rappings on their own account. Nor are the occupiers persons who would be likely to evolve such troubles from their own imagination. They are people who enjoy the bodily and nervous vigour of the typical agriculturist, and as their lease has still some years to run they would have no palpable excuse for inventing a ghost.
Two or three months after their occupation had begun some unexplainable sounds were heard. Sometimes there were noises as if the furniture was being moved about, a sound as of some one banging on the stairs would be noticed, and the doors would slam and clatter in a fashion that the wind could hardly explain. All this was to be borne without much difficulty by a full-blooded young farmer, whose nerves had never before been shaken by psychical perplexities. But the matter assumed a more acute phase when the servants refused to stay, and when several of them came forward with apparent good faith and unmistakable distress of mind to complain of a mysterious figure that was wont to frequent the stairways and the sleeping apartments.
The most remarkable feature of the case is that the evidence is singularly corroborative. there are about half-a-dozen persons who solemnly affirm, not merely that other people have seen the mysterious visitant, but that they have themselves seen it. There is at present living at the farm a stout-hearted, capable -looking woman, who is nurse to the three children of her employer, and who has refused so far to yield to her fears and fly. She seems to be a person of honesty and intelligence. She has no romantic tendencies; she is not addicted to the penny novelette. She assures me that hearing a noise one night at the top of the main staircase, she opened her bedroom door and looked out. A lamp standing on her dressing table cast a faint light along the corridor, and she was thus able to see some strangely clad figure crossing the corridor, apparently on its way to one of the back bedrooms. It had the form of a man, she thinks. It seemed to wear a white robe or night-dress, and there was something white upon its head.
On various occasions the ghost- so perhaps I may call it for convenience sake – has been seen on the corridors and the stairs; but the most painful experience of all seems to have fallen to a servant who has since thrown up her situation and left the house. She was sent by her mistress to sit with one of the children in the best bedroom, and see him safely off to sleep. As she watched by the bedside in the dark a strange figure, enveloped in a soft light, suddenly appeared before her. She describes it as a man of average height with dark eyes, and it was clad in white or greyish garments. The figure stood gazing at her for a time, and then disappeared.
On reading a story of this sort the impulse of most people will be to cry out with impatience that the testimony of a few servant girls should be so gravely recorded. But here comes corroboration from another and a less doubtful source. The occupier of the farm has three children, the older being boys of three and four years of age respectively, from whom, it need hardly be said, every care has been taken to withhold the story of the ghost. The younger child has lately been heard to inquire who was the tall old lady with a white thing on her head who came to his cot at night and stretched a hand out towards his face. So recently as last Tuesday week he made a complaint of this kind. His four-year old brother has also had some uncanny experiences in the night. On one occasion, wearing his little dressing gown and carrying his socks and shoes in his hand, he ran excitedly out of his bedroom into the nursery, crying out that “Old Fadanny” was after him. His description of “Old Fadanny” tallied in th emain with that of the other people who profess to have seen the ghost.
The theory that some reckless practical joker has been playing pranks is somewhat discounted by the fact that long before the present occupier went to reside at the farm inexplicable sounds were heard, and there were those who complained of some unknown and mysterious visitor. A girl of weak intellect who lived at th ehouse at the time when the steward occupied it used frequently to ask who was the person who came and gazed into her face at night, and extended a hand towards her with a curious clawing movement.
At the same time there lived in th ehouse a woman who is now the wife of the cowherd employed upon the farm, and she also has had one or two strange experiences. I took the opportunity of calling at the cowherd’s house, and there can be no doubt, if the testimony of the woman is at all trustworthy, that the place lay under a cloud of evil reputation years before it became a farm-house. The present occupier and his wife have themselves seen nothing of an unaccountable sort, and probably they would put up with the curious noises inflicted upon them if only they could induce the servants to stay. So serious was their difficulty in this respect that a week or two ago they were driven to import a couple of girls from a distant part of the county.
One of the girls slept alone on the first night of her arrival, and was troubled with nothing. On the second night she was joined by her fellow servant, and they slept together. On the following morning they came down very late. Being called to account for their negligence they complained that they could get no sleep till half-past four in the morning by reason of having been troubled with the banging of things in their room. At times sounds proceeded from the wash-house beneath as of a horse stamping about, and once the apartment was filled with some curious light, though there was no illuminant in the room.
Whatever may be the explanation of all these things, it will be admitted that life has assumed some very unpleasant aspects at the farm in question. The repeated noises, the alarm and the desertion of the servants, have unsteadied the nerves of everyone in the household. One of the servants has been so thoroughly upset that she has been ordered away from the place by a doctor.
The most prompt and vigorous efforts of the farmer to discover the perpetratator of these outrages have been so far without avail. On hearing the noises at night the farmer has dashed out of his room revolver in hand, but there has been no one to shoot, and the noises have instantly ceased, or receded to some distant part of the house.
A gentleman who resides in the village, and who has for years been a student of spiritualism and occult things, has taken immense interest in the subject, and he, in company with the farmer and one or two others, has been sitting up night after night in the hope of solving the mystery. On one of these occasions, as I learned from the lips of the spiritualist himself, a servant had swooned in her room on account of something or other she had seen or heard, and the spiritualist took up a position at the foot of the main staircase while the farmer watched the back staircase. A tremendous banging was then heard, such as might have been caused with a stout oak stick, and the spiritualist, instantly bounding up the stairs, was positive no human agency could have caused the manifestation. No one was visible, the servants’ doors were closed.
Matters have already reached such a point that a remedy must be found, or the tenant is sadly afraid that, no matter what the cost, he will have to abandon the advantages of a well appointed and most desirable holding. The spiritualist wants the farmer to employ the services of a professional medium from London. A ghostly “intelligence,” he says, is haunting the house, and the evil will not be overcome till someone has succeeded in getting into communication with this “intelligence.” That, however, is an opinion for which I accept no responsibility. Lest it should be thought that the spiritualist himself has been up to a few Maskelyne and Cooke experiments, let me say in justice to that gentleman that the trouble began before he visited the house, and that he was only called in with a view to a solution of the difficulty. I believe steps are being taken to bring the matter under the notice of the Society for Psychical Research in the hope that they may undertake an investigation of the case.
I may here express my indebtedness to a well-known Norwich gentleman, one who has held high civi office in the city, and who stands in the relation of father to the tenant of the farm. By his courtesy I have been enabled to visit the farm and examine the servants. Should he consent to the names of persons and places being disclosed, the subject may come in for further notice in these columns. – Daily Press, May 11th.
Norfolk News, 19th May 1894.
A real ghost.
Where is Mr Stead?
There is a Norfolk ghost, not Dr Jessop’s, but a new one. It haunts a farmhouse in the neighbourhood of Norwich, it has frightened away servants, causes the owner of the homestead to patrol his rooms at night with a revolver, and it has attracted the attention of Mr F.W.H. Myers. Moreover, it has been investigated by the Eastern Daily Press, and has converted the reporter. He finds that it appears now as a man now as a woman, or rather that the dread mysterious figure has a certain bi-sexual character, and there is the usual accompanying orchestra of banging doors, falling furniture, and unexplained noises. Perhaps the most curious part of the story is that a great many children have been frightened by it, and that they have run out of their rooms at night complaining of a mysterious visitant. All this may be ground for speculation, but it does not take us very far. No ghost stories are worth much until we are in possession of all evidence, until each witness has been examined and cross-examined with something at all events of the pitiless minuteness of a court of law. We are afraid the Norfolk ghost has not yet gone through these processes.
South Wales Echo, 26th May 1894.