Cock Lane and Common-Sense Part 7

Again there is the noise made apparently by violent movement of heavy furniture, which on immediate examination (as in Scott's case at Abbotsford) is found not to have been moved. The writer is acquainted with a dog, a collie, which was once shut up alone in a room where this disturbance occurred. The dog was much alarmed and howled fearfully, but it soon ceased to weigh on his spirits. When phantasms are occasionally seen by respectable witnesses, where these noises and movements occur, the haunted house is of a healthy, orthodox, modern type. But the phenomena are nothing less than modern, for Mather, Sinclair, Paracelsus, Wierus, Glanvill, Bovet, Baxter and other old writers are full of precisely these combinations of sounds and sights, while many cases occur in old French literature, old Latin literature, and among races of the lower barbaric and savage grades of culture. One or two curious circ.u.mstances have rather escaped the notice of philosophers though not of Thyraeus. First, the loudest of the unexplained sounds are _occasionally_ not audible to all, so that (as when the noise seems to be caused by furniture dragged about) we may conjecture with Thyraeus, that there is no real movement of the atmosphere, that the apparent crash is an auditory hallucination. The planks and heavy objects at Abbotsford had _not_ been stirred, as the loud noises overhead indicated, when Scott came to examine them.

In a dreadfully noisy curacy vouched for by 'a well-known Church dignitary,' who occupied the place, there was usually a frightful crash as of iron bars thrown down, at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

All the boxes and heavy material in a locked set of attics, seemed to be dancing about, but were never found to have been stirred. Yet this clergyman discovered that 'the great Sunday crash might manifest itself to some persons in the house without his wife or himself being conscious of it. Knowing how overwhelming the sound always appeared to me when I did hear it, I cannot but consider this one of the most wonderful things in the whole business.' {142}

In this case, in a house standing hundreds of yards apart from any neighbour, and occupied only by a parson, his wife, and one servant, these phenomena lasted for a year, with great regularity. There were the usual footsteps, the ordinary rappings were angry when laughed at, and the clergyman when he left at the end of a year, was as far as ever from having detected any cause. Indeed it is not easy to do so. A friend of the writer's, an accomplished man of law, was once actually consulted, in the interests of an enraged squire, as to how he could bring a suit against _somebody_ for a series of these inexplicable disturbances. But the law contained no instrument for his remedy.

From the same report of the S. P. R. we take another typical case.

A lady, in an old house, saw, in 1873, a hideous hag watching her in bed; she kept the tale to herself, but, a fortnight later, her brother, a solicitor, was not a whit less alarmed by a similar and similarly situated phenomenon. In this house dresses were plucked at, heavy blows were struck, heavy footsteps went about, there were raps at doors, and n.o.body was ever any the wiser as to the cause.

Here it may be observed that a ghost's power of making a noise, and exerting what seems to be great physical energy, is often in inverse ratio to his power of making himself generally visible, or, at all events, to his inclination so to do. Thus there is a long record of a haunted house, by the chief observer, Miss Morton, in P. S. P. R., pt. xxii. p. 311. A lady had died of habits too convivial, in 1878.

In April, 1882, Miss Morton's family entered, but n.o.body saw the ghost till Miss Morton viewed it in June. The appearance was that of a tall lady in widow's weeds, hiding her face with a handkerchief. From 1882 to 1884, Miss Morton saw the spectre six times, but did not name it to her family. Her sister saw the appearance in 1882, a maid saw it in 1883, and two boys beheld it in the same year. Miss Morton used to follow the appearance downstairs and speak to it, but it merely gave a slight gasp, and seemed unable to converse. By way of testing the spectre, Miss Morton stretched threads at night from the railing of the stair to the wall, but the ghost descended without disturbing them. Yet her footsteps sounded on the stairs. This is, in fact, a crucial difficulty about ghosts.

They are material enough to make a noise as they walk, but _not_ material enough to brush away a thread! This ghost, whose visible form was so much en evidence, could, or did, make no noise at all, beyond light pushes at doors, and very light footsteps. In the curacy already described, noises were made enough to waken a parish, but no form was ever seen. Briefly, for this ghost there is a cloud of witnesses, all solemnly signing their depositions. These two examples are at the opposite poles between which ghostly manifestations vary, in haunted houses.

A brief precis of 'cases' may show how these elements of noise, on one side, and apparitions, on the other, are commonly blended. In a detached villa, just outside 'the town of C.,' Mrs. W. remarks a figure of a tall dark-haired man peeping round the corner of a folding door. She does not mention the circ.u.mstance. Two months later she sees the same sorrowful face in the drawing-room. This time she tells her husband. Later in the same month, when playing cricket with her children, she sees the face 'peeping round from the kitchen door'. Rather later she heard a deep voice say in a sorrowful tone, 'I can't find it'; something slaps her on the back.

Her step-daughter who had not heard of the phantasm, sees the same pale dark-moustached face, 'peeping round the folding doors'. She is then told Mrs W.'s story. Her little brother, later, sees the figure simultaneously with herself. She also hears the voice say, 'I can't find it,' at the same moment as Mrs. W. hears it. A year later, she sees the figure at the porch, _in a tall hat_! Neither lady had enjoyed any other hallucination. Nothing is known of the melancholy spectre, probably the ghost of a literary person, searching, always searching, for a ma.n.u.script poem by some total stranger who had worried him into his grave, and not left him at peace even there. This is a very solemn and touching story, and appeals tenderly and sadly to all persons of letters who suffer from the unasked for ma.n.u.scripts of the general public.

2. Some ladies and servants in a house in Hyde Park Place, see at intervals a phantom housemaid: she is also seen by a Mr. Bird.

There is no story about a housemaid, and there are no noises. This is _not_ an interesting tale.

3. A Hindoo native woman is seen to enter a locked bath-room, where she is not found on inquiry. A woman had been murdered there some years before. The percipient, General Sir Arthur Becher, had seen other uncanny visions. A little boy, wakened out of sleep, said he saw an ayah. Perhaps he did.

4. A Mr. Harry, in the South of Europe, saw a white female figure glide through his library into his bedroom. Later, his daughters beheld a similar phenomenon. Mr. Harry, a gentleman of st.u.r.dy common-sense, 'dared his daughters to talk of any such nonsense as ghosts, as they might be sure apparitions were only in the imagination of nervous people'. He himself saw the phantasm seven or eight times in his bedroom, and twice in the library. On one occasion it lifted up the mosquito curtains and stared at Mr. Harry.

As in the case of meeting an avalanche, 'a weak-minded man would pray, sir, would pray; a strong-minded man would swear, sir, would swear'. Mr. Harry was a strong-minded man, and behaved 'in a concatenation accordingly,' although Petrus Thyraeus says that there is no use in swearing at ghosts. The phantasm seemed to be about thirty-five, her features were described as 'rather handsome,' and (unromantically) as 'oblong'. A hallucination, we need hardly say, would not raise the mosquito curtains, this ghost had more heart in it than most.

5. Various people see 'a column of light vaguely shaped like a woman,' moving about in a room of a house in Suss.e.x. One servant, who slept in the room in hopes of a private view, saw 'a ball of light with a sort of halo round it'. Again, in a very pretty story, the man who looked after an orphan asylum saw a column of light above the bed of one of the children. Next morning the little boy declared that his mother had come to visit him, probably in a dream.

On this matter of lights {146} Mr. Podmore enters into argument with Mr. Frederick Myers. Mr. Myers, on the whole, believes that the phenomena of haunted houses are caused by influences of some sort from the minds of the dead. Mr. Podmore, if we understand him holds that some living person has had some empty hallucination, in a house, and that this is 'telepathically' handed on, perhaps to the next tenant, who may know nothing about either the person or the vision. Thus, a Miss Morris, much vexed by ghostly experiences, left a certain house in December, 1886. Nearly a year later, in November, 1887, a Mrs. G. came in. Mrs. G. did not know Miss Morris, nor had she heard of the disturbances. However sobs, and moans, and heavy thumps, and noises of weighty objects thrown about, and white faces, presently drove Mrs. G. to seek police protection.

This only roused the ghost's ambition, and he 'came' as a man with freckles, also he walked about, shook beds, and exhibited lights. A figure in black, with a white face, now displayed itself: barristers and clergymen investigated, but to no purpose. They saw figures, heard crashes, and the divine did a little Anglican exorcism. The only story about the house showed that a woman had hanged herself with a skipping rope in the 'top back bedroom,' in 1879. Here are plenty of phenomena, apparitions male and female.

But Miss Morris, in addition to hearing noises, only saw a pale woman in black.

Mr. Podmore's theory comes in thus: 'the later experiences may have been started by thought transference from Miss Morris, whose thoughts, no doubt, occasionally turned to the house in which she had suffered so much agitation and alarm'. Moreover 'real noises'

may have 'suggested' the visual hallucinations to Miss Morris. {147} Mr. Podmore certainly cannot be accused of ordinary superst.i.tion.

There is a house, and there is a tenant. She hears footsteps pounding up- and down-stairs, and all through her room, she says nothing and gets used to it. Let it be granted that these noises are caused by rats. After conquering her dislike to the sounds, three weeks after her entry to the house, Miss Morris meets a total stranger, deadly pale, in deep black, who vanishes. This phantasm has gathered round the nucleus which the rats provided by stamping up- and down-stairs, and through Miss Morris's room. It is natural that a person who hears rats, or wind, or waterpipes, and makes up her mind not to mind it, should then see a phantasm of a pale woman in black; also should hear loud knocks at the door of her chamber.

Miss Morris goes away, a year later comes Mrs. G., and Mrs. G., her children, her servants, a barrister and an exorcist, are all disturbed by

Noises.

Knocks.

Sobs.

Moans.

Thumps.

Dragging of heavy weights.

One dreadful white face.

One little woman.

Lights.

One white skirt hanging from the ceiling.

One footfall which played two notes on the piano (!).

One figure in brown.

One man with freckles.

Two human faces.

One shadow.

One 'part of the dress of a super-material being' (Barrister).

One form (Exorcist).

One small column of misty vapour.

Now all this catalogue of prodigies which drove Mrs. G. into the cold, bleak world, was caused, 'by thought transference from Miss Morris,' who had been absent for a year, and whose own hallucinations were caused by noises which may have been produced by rats, or what not.

This ingenious theory is too much for Mr. Myers's powers of belief: 'The very first effect of Miss Morris's ponderings was a heavy thump, followed by a deep sob and moan, and a cry of, "Oh, do forgive me," all disturbing poor Mrs. G. who had the ill luck to find herself in a bedroom about which Miss Morris was possibly thinking. . . . Surely the peace of us all rests on a very uncertain tenure.' Meanwhile Mr. Myers prefers to regard the whole trouble as more probably caused by the 'dreams of the dead' woman who hanged herself with a skipping rope, than by the reflections of Miss Morris. In any case the society seem to have occupied the house, and, with their usual bad luck, were influenced neither by the ponderings of Miss Morris, nor by the fredaines of the lady of the skipping rope. {149} It may be worth noticing that the raps, knocks, lights, and so forth of haunted houses, the 'spontaneous'

disturbances, have been punctually produced at savage, cla.s.sical, and modern seances. If these, from the days of the witch of Endor to our own, and from the polar regions to Australia, have all been impostures, at least they all imitate the 'spontaneous' phenomena reported to occur in haunted houses. The lights are essential in the seances described by Porphyry, Eusebius, Iamblichus: they were also familiar to the covenanting saints. The raps are known to Australian black fellows. The phantasms of animals, as at the Wesleys' house, may be beasts who play a part in the dead man's dream, or they may be incidental hallucinations, begotten of rats, and handed on by Miss Morris or any one else.

There remains a ghost who ill.u.s.trates the story, spread all over Europe, of the farmer who was driven from his house by a bogle. As his carts went along the road, the bogle was heard exclaiming, 'We're flitting today,' and it faithfully stayed with the family.

This tale, current in Italy as well as in Northern England, might be regarded as a mere piece of folklore, if the incident had not reproduced itself in West Brompton. In 1870 the T.'s took a house here: now mark the artfulness of the ghost, it did nothing for eighteen months. In autumn, 1871, Miss T. saw a figure come out of the dining-room, and the figure was often seen, later, by five independent witnesses. It was tall, dressed in grey, and was chiefly fond of haunting Miss T.'s own room. It did not walk, it glided, making no noise. Mr. T. met it in the hall, once, when he came in at night, and from the street he saw it standing in the drawing-room window. It used to sigh and make a noise as of steps, when it was not visible, it knocked and moved furniture about, and dropped weights, but these sounds were sometimes audible only to one, or a few of the observers. In 1877 the T.'s left for another house, to which Miss T. did not repair till 1879. Then the noises came back as badly as ever,--the bogle had flitted,--and, on Christmas Day, 1879, Miss T. saw her old friend the figure. Several members of the family never saw it at all. One lady, in another case, Miss Nettie Vatas-Simpson, tried to flap a ghost away with a towel, {150} but he was not thus to be exorcised. He presently went out through a locked door.

Such are the ordinary or typical phenomena of haunted houses. It is plainly of no use to take a haunted house for a month and then say it is not haunted because you see no ghosts. Even where they have been seen there are breaks of years without any 'manifestations'.

Besides, the evidence shows that it is not every one who can see a ghost when he is there: Miss Morton's father could not see the lady in black, when she was visible to Miss Morton.

It is difficult to write with perfect seriousness about haunted houses. The writer will frankly confess that, when living in haunted houses (as he has done at various times when suffering from illness and overwork), he takes a very solemn view of the matter about bed-time. If 'expectant attention' on a mind strained by the schools, and a body enfeebled by bronchitis, could have made a man, who was the only occupant of the haunted wing of an old Scotch castle, see a ghost, the writer would have seen whatever there was to see. To be sure he could not rationally have regarded a spectre beheld in these conditions, as a well-authenticated ghost. {151} As far as his experience of first-hand tales is concerned, the persons known to him who say they have seen ghosts in haunted houses, were neither unhealthy, nor, except in one solitary case, imaginative, nor were they _expecting_ a ghost. The apparition was 'a little pleasant surprise'. The usual seer is not an invalid, nor a literary person who can always be dismissed as 'imaginative,' though he is generally nothing of the kind. But it cannot be denied that ladies either see more ghosts than men or are less reluctant to impart information. The visionary lady who keeps up a regular telepathic correspondence with several friends is likely to see a ghost, and should certainly be entered at 'fixed local ghosts,' but there are slight objections to such evidence, as not free from suspicion of fancifulness.

Turning from the seers to the seen, it is difficult or impossible even to suggest an hypothesis which will seem to combine the facts.

The most plausible fancy is that which likens the apparitions to figures in a feverish dream. Could we imagine a more or less bad man or woman dead, and fitfully living over again, 'in that sleep of death,' old events among old scenes, could we go further and believe that these dreams were capable of being made objective and visible to the living, then we might find a kind of theory of the process.

But even if it were possible to demonstrate the existence of such a process, we are as far as ever from accounting for the force which causes noises, or hallucinations of noises, a force of considerable vigour, according to observers. Still less could we explain the rare cases in which a ghost produces a material effect on the inanimate or animate world, as by drawing curtains, or pulling people's hair and clothes,--all phenomena as well vouched for as the others. A picture projected by one mind on another, cannot conceivably produce these effects. They are such as ghosts have always produced, or been said to produce. Since the days of ancient Egypt, ghosts have learned, and have forgotten nothing. Unless we adopt the scientific and popular system of merely saying 'Fudge!' we find no end to the conundrums of the ghostly world. Ghosts seem to know as little about themselves as we do, so that, if we are to discover anything, we must make haste, before we become ghosts ourselves.

Writers on Psychology sometimes make a push at a theory of haunted houses. Mr. James Sully, for example, has done so in his book styled Illusions. {153} Mr. Sully appears well pleased with his hypothesis, and this, granting the accuracy of a tale for which he is indebted to a gentleman who need not be cited here, argues an easily contented disposition. Here is the statement:--

'A lady was staying at a country house. During the night and immediately on waking up she had (sic) an apparition of a strange- looking man in mediaeval costume, a figure by no means agreeable, and which seemed altogether unfamiliar to her. The next morning, on rising, she recognised the original of her hallucinatory image in a portrait hanging on the wall of her bedroom, which must have impressed itself on her brain before the occurrence of the apparition, though she had not attended to it. Oddly enough, she now learned for the first time that the house at which she was staying had the reputation of being haunted, and by the very same somewhat repulsive-looking mediaeval personage that had troubled her inter-somnolent moments. The case seems to me to be typical with respect to the genesis of ghosts, and of the reputation of haunted houses.'

This anecdote affords much joy to the superst.i.tious souls who deal in Psychical Research, or Ghost Hunting. Mr. Sully's manner of narrating it clearly proves the difference between Science and Superst.i.tion. For a Ghost Hunter or Psychical Researcher would not venture to publish a modern ghost story (except for mere amus.e.m.e.nt), if he had it not at first hand, or at second hand with corroboration at first hand. Science, however, can adduce a case without indicating the evidence on which it rests, as whether Mr. Sully's informant had the tale from the lady, or at third, fourth, fifth, or a hundredth hand. So much for the matter of evidence. Next, Mr.

Sully does not tell us whether the lady 'had an apparition,' when she supposed herself to be awake, or asleep, or 'betwixt and between'. From the phrase 'inter-somnolent,' he appears to prefer the intermediate condition. But he does not pretend to have interrogated the lady, the 'percipient'. Again, the figure wore a 'mediaeval costume,' the portrait represented a 'mediaeval personage'. Does Mr. Sully believe that the portrait was an original portrait of a real person? and how many portraits of mediaeval people does he suppose to exist in English country houses?

Taking the Middle Ages as lasting till the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., say till Holbein, we can a.s.sure Mr. Sully that they have left us very few portraits indeed. But perhaps it was a modern picture, a fanciful study of a man in mediaeval costume. In that event, Mr. Sully's case is greatly strengthened, but he does not tell us whether the work of art was, or was not, contemporary with the Middle Ages. Neither does he tell us whether the lady was in the habit of seeing hallucinations.

The weakest point in the whole anecdote and theory is in the statement, 'oddly enough, she now learned for the first time that the house at which she was staying had the reputation of being haunted' by the mediaeval personage. It certainly would be very odd if one picture in a house troubled 'the inter-somnolent moments' of a succession of people, who, perhaps, had never seen, or, like the lady, never attended to it. Such 'troubles' are very rare: very few persons have seen a dream which, in Mr. Sully's words, 'left behind, for an appreciable interval after waking, a vivid after- impression, and in some cases, even the semblance of a sense perception'. Mathematicians may calculate the chances against a single unnoticed portrait producing this very rare effect, in a series of cases, so as to give rise to a belief in haunting, by mere casual coincidence. In the records of the Psychical Society, one observer speaks of seeing a face and figure at night, which he recognises next morning in a miniature on his chimney-piece. But, in this case, there was no story of haunting, there had been no series of similar impressions on successive occupants of the room, _that_ is the circ.u.mstance which Mr. Sully finds 'odd enough,' a sentiment in which we may all agree with him. This is exactly the oddity which his explanation does not explain.

While psychological science, in this example, seems to treat matters of evidence rather laxly, psychical conjecture, on the other hand, leaves much unexplained. Thus Mr. Myers puts forward a theory which is, in origin, due to St. Augustine. The saint had observed that any one of us may be seen in a dream by another person, while our intelligence is absolutely unconscious of any communication. Apply this to ghosts in haunted houses. We may be affected by a hallucination of the presence of a dead man or woman, but he, or she (granting their continued existence after death), may know nothing of the matter. In the same way, there are stories of people who have consciously tried to make others, at a distance, think of them.