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Ghosts And Family Legends; A Volume For Christmas

<h2>ROUND THE FIRE.</h2><h2>EIGHTH EVENING.</h2> "As this was our last evening, I was called upon for a story; but I pleaded that I had told all mine in the 'Night Side of Nature,' and of personal experience I had very little to tell; but I said I will give you the history of a visit I made several years ago to a haunted house although it resulted in almost nothing. "After the publication of the 'Night Side,' I received many valuable communications—I wish I had kept a note of them all, but I never expected to publish again on the same subject. Amongst others, I received a letter from a gentleman called Mc. N., and as it contained several interesting particulars, I requested him to call on me. I remember, in the letter, he told me that a few years previously, he had been on an excursion from home, and that while stopping at an inn, one morning, about five o'clock, the door opened and his father entered; he came to the bedside, looked at him, and then went out again. The young man sprang from his bed, and followed him down stairs, where he lost sight of him. He returned home, and found his father had died on that morning. "He was in a lawyer's office, and, amongst other things, he mentioned to me that there was not very far off a house said to be haunted, of which they had the charge, but that it was impossible to do anything with it. 'We offer it at a mere nominal rent, but no one will stay there.' "I was often absent from home at this time, but for the next two or three years I sometimes met him and inquired about the house. The report was always the same; till, at length, no one would go into it; it was shut up—the shutters were closed, and the boys of the neighbourhood threw stones at the windows and broke the glass. Yet it was situated in a street where every other house was inhabited, and which had not been built many years. "It was as much as six or seven years after I had first heard of this house, that I happened to mention the circumstance to some gentlemen of my acquaintance—very eminent men, with honest, inquiring minds; truth seekers, who, if she were in the bottom of a well, would have thought it right to go after her. As they had humility enough to feel that they could not pronounce upon a question that they had never studied or investigated, they expressed a wish to visit the house. Accordingly, I applied to Mr. Mc. N., who had the keys in his office, and he obligingly consented to accompany us. Our expedition was to be kept a profound secret; and it was so, till some time afterwards, when, like most other secrets, it got wind and it spread abroad. "We started in a carriage, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, taking with us a young girl who was easily mesmerised, and when in that state a good clairvoyante. She was not told the object of our journey, and had no means whatever of learning it. We said we were going to look at a house, and that that was the most convenient time for the gentleman to show it us. We did not drive to the door, but Mr. Mc. N. met us in the next street, where we alighted, lest we should attract observation. We walked to our destination, and Mr. Mc. N. explained to the policeman on duty who he was and where we were going, lest he should suspect mischief, and interrupt us. He then unlocked the door with the aid of the policeman's lantern, for it was a dark winter's night; and on entering, we found ourselves in a narrow passage. "It was a small house, in no respect different from the others in the street. They seemed all of the same description. A narrow frontage, with one window and the door, on the ground floor; two windows above; two rooms on a floor, three stories in height, and a kitchen, scullery, and cellars underground. "As soon as the door closed on us, we were in utter darkness, but we had provided ourselves with candles and matches, and when we had lighted them, we entered the back parlour, which Mr. Mc. N. had heard from the different inhabitants was the room in which they had met with most annoyance. "The clairvoyante was then put to sleep, and asked if she liked the house, and would recommend us to take it. She shuddered and said 'No; that two people had been murdered there, and we should be troubled.' We asked in which room; she answered, 'it was before this house was built—that another house stood there then—a very old house.' This was not exactly on the same ground, but the room we were in was on part of it. She said that it was these murdered people who would trouble us. We asked if she could see them, and she answered 'no.' "We then waited in silence to see if anything occurred; but nothing did, except a metallic sound at the door, which was ajar, like the striking of two pieces of iron. We all heard it, but could not say what occasioned it. "After a little time, some one suggested that we should extinguish the lights. We did so, and were then in absolute darkness. There was but one window in the room, and that was coated with dust, and the shutter was shut; besides, as I have said, it was a very dark night, and this room, being at the back, looked into a yard, I believe; at all events, not into a street. "Presently, the clairvoyante started, and exclaimed, 'Look there!' We saw nothing, and asked what it was. "'There!' she said. 'There again! don't you see it?' "'What?' we asked. 'The lights!' she said. 'There! Now!' These exclamations were made at intervals of two or three seconds. "We all said we saw nothing whatever. "'If Mrs. Crowe would take hold of my hand, I think she would see them,' she suggested. "I did so; and then at intervals of a few seconds, I saw thrown up, apparently from the floor, waves of white light, faint, but perfectly distinct and visible. In order that I might know whether our perceptions of this phenomenon were simultaneous, I desired her, without speaking, to press my hand each time she saw it, which she did; and each time I distinctly saw the wave of white light. I saw it, at these intervals, as long as I held her hand and we were in the dark. Nobody saw it but she and myself; and we did not follow up the experiment by the others taking her hand, which we should have done. "During this interval, another light suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, away from where we were standing, I saw a bright diamond of light, like an extremely vivid spark—only not the colour of fire; it was white, brilliant, and quiescent, but shed no rays. I did not mention this, because I wished to learn if it was visible to any body else—but nobody spoke of it; not even the clairvoyante. Whether she saw it or not, I cannot say. When the candles were re-lighted these lights were no longer visible. I and one of the gentlemen went over the house above and below, but saw nothing but the dust and desolation of a long uninhabited dwelling. "When we came away, and Mr. Mc. N. had locked the door, we walked to the carriage. I said, 'then you none of you saw the waves of light.' "'No,' said they. "'Well,' said I, 'I certainly did, and I never saw anything like it before. Moreover, I saw another sort of light.' "'Did you,' said Mr. Mc. N., interrupting me; 'was it a bright spark of light like the oxy-hydrogen light.' "'Exactly,' said I. 'I could not think what to compare it to; but that was it.' "I thus was certain that he had seen the same thing as myself; he had not spoken of it from a similar motive; he waited to have his impression confirmed by further testimony. "You see our results were not great, but the visit was not wholly barren to me. Of course, many wise people will say, I did not see the lights, but that they were the offspring of my excited imagination. But I beg to say that my imagination was by no means excited. If I had been there alone, it would have been a different affair; for though I never saw a ghost nor ever fancied I did, I am afraid I should have been very nervous. But I was in exceedingly good company, with two very clever men, besides the lawyer, a lady, and the clairvoyante; so that my nerves were perfectly composed, as I should not object to seeing any ghost in such agreeable society. Moreover, I did not expect any result; because, there is very seldom any on these occasions, as ghosts appear we know not why; but certainly not because people wish to see them. They generally come when least expected and least thought of. "Mr. Mc. N., on inquiry, learnt that unaccountable lights were amongst the things complained of. What occasioned them and the other phenomena, it had certainly been the proprietor's interest for many years to discover; it had also been the interest of numerous tenants, who having taken the house for a term, found themselves obliged to leave it at a sacrifice. Yet, for all those years, no explanation could be found for the annonyances but that the house was haunted. No tradition seems extant to account for its evil reputation. If what the clairvoyante said was true, the murders must have occurred long ago. "A gentleman, an inhabitant of the same city, once mentioned to me that a friend of his, many years previously, when quite a young man, had one Sunday evening been walking alone in the fields outside this town; and that he met a young woman, a perfect stranger, who, on some pretence asked him to see her safe home. He did so; she led him to a lone farm house, and then inviting him to walk in, shewed him into a room and left him. Whilst waiting for her return, idly looking about, he found hidden under the table, which was covered with a cloth, a dead body. On this discovery, he rushed to the door; it was locked; but the window was not very high from the ground, and by it he escaped; terrified to such a degree, that he not only left the city that very evening, but hastened out of the country, apprehensive that he had been enticed to the house and shut up with the murdered man, for the purpose of throwing the guilt on him; and as justice was not so clear sighted, and much more inexorable than in these days, he feared the circumstantial evidence might go against him. He settled in a foreign country and finally died there. "Where this locality was, I don't know, except that it was in the environs of the city—environs which have since been covered with buildings; what if the house that we visited should have been erected on the site of that lone farm! "It may be so; at all events, this story shews how possible it is that some similar event might have occurred on the spot where the haunted house stands." In conclusion, let me once more recall to my readers that one, whose insight none will dispute, reminds us, in relation to this very subject, that "our philosophy," does not comprehend all wisdom and all truth. Philosophy is a good guide when she opens her eyes, but where she obstinately shuts them to one class of facts because she has previously made up her mind they cannot be genuine, she is a bad one. Professor A. told me that when he was at Göttingen, as a great favour, and through the interest of an influential professor there, he was allowed to see a book that had belonged to Faust, or Faustus, as we call him. It was a large volume, and the leaves were stiff and hard like wood. They contained his magic rites and formulas, but on the last page was inscribed a solemn injunction to all men, as they loved their own souls, not to follow in his path or practice the teaching that volume contained. There appears to be a mystery out of the domain—I mean the present domain of science; within the region of the hyper-psychical, regarding our relations, while in this world, with those who have past the gates, a belief in which is, I think, innate in human nature. This belief, in certain periods and places, grows rank and mischievous; at others, it is almost extinguished by reaction and education; but it never wholly dies; because, every where and in all times, circumstances have occurred to keep it alive, amongst individuals, which never reach the public ear. Now, the truth is always worth ascertaining on any subject; even this despised subject of ghosts, and those who have an inherent conviction that they themselves are spirits, temporarily clothed in flesh, feel that they have an especial interest in the question. We are fully aware that the investigation presents all sorts of difficulties, and that the belief is opposed to all sorts of accepted opinions; but we desire to ascertain the grounds of a persuasion, so nearly concerning ourselves which in all ages and all countries has prevailed in a greater or less degree, and which appears to be sustained by a vast amount of facts, which, however, we admit are not in a condition to be received as any thing beyond presumptive evidence. These facts are chiefly valuable, as furnishing cumulative testimony of the frequent recurrence of phenomena explicable by no known theory, and therefore as open to the spiritual hypothesis as any other. When a better is offered, supported by something more convincing than pointless ridicule and dogmatic assertion, I for one, shall be ready to entertain it. In the meanwhile, hoping that time may, at length, in some degree, rend the veil that encompasses this department of psychology, we record such experiences as come under our observation and are content to await their interpretation. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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