A Ghost Story.
Some few weeks ago, a small cottage, in the neighbourhood of Yiewsley, occupied by a poor man, his wife, and an only daughter, the latter in ill-health, was the theme of considerable excitement, owing to a report that the cottage was haunted, and that sundry regular knockings were heard at nightfall, and occasionally in the day time, for which no one could account, and to which the unintelligent portion of the neighbourhood attributed supernatural causes.
The police, as a matter of course, were called in to investigate, and, if possible to clear up the mystery, and for some time they were as much puzzled as the neighbouring villagers; indeed, it is even reported that one stalwart officer of the force was so alarmed that his very hair stood on end. This was not to be endured; various means were adopted, and one of the police even secreted himself under the sick girl’s bed, unknown to her, and while there discovered to his entire satisfaction that the noise was made by the invalid herself, by knocking with her knuckles against the bedpost, in her nervous and irritably feverish state of bodily infirmity.
Satisfied with this, the matter remained quiet for a short time, but not so his ghostship, who still continued its alarming knockings as before, the poor girl never having been the cause at all. On Saturday night, the noises continued as usual, when some one or two more courageous, and not so easily satisfied as the police, unearthed a large badger from the dwelling, and made it captive. The animal had got into the house under the floor, and had endeavoured to gnaw his way through the flooring, and this gnawing constituted the whole cause of alarm. The poor brute is kept in durance vile, and is the subject of much fun an damusement to the neighbours.
South Bucks Free Press, Wycombe and Maidenhead Journal, 4th February 1860.