Afraid of ghosts?

In 1906 Sabine Baring Gould, the noted Dartmoor antiquarian and folklore author, wrote an article for a London newspaper. It was called “Do you believe in ghosts? – Explanations of some strange sights and sounds.”

“Mr. William Ewebank Jones was a man of many parts, and all good. He was a sportsman, a pleasant companion at the table, and an athlete. In fact he had won two silver tankards at the longest and highest jump made by any man in England. He was invited to an old-fashioned country house for the pheasant shooting. On his arrival his host said, with profuse apologies, “I am awfully sorry, but there is only one room vacant in the house for you, and it is haunted. Do you mind?” “Not in the least,” answered Mr. W. Ewebank Jones, “I shall put my revolver under my pillow, and if a ghost appears, try conclusions with him.”

That night he went to bed as usual and did as he had said. About midnight he woke, very chilly, and saw that the October Hunter’s Moon was flooding the room, and he observed a pair of very white hands upon the bottom board of his bed. Mr. Ewebank Jones cautiously pulled forth his revolver. “Now,” said he, “I mean what I say. Take those hands away or I shoot.” The hands did not stir. “I mean what I say,” repeated Mr. Ewebank Jones. “Remove those hands. When I say three I shall fire.” Still the hands remained. Mr. Ewebank Jones levelled his weapon. “One-Two-Three!” and he fired. From that night Mr. W. Ewebank Jones ceased to be a long of a high jumper – for he had lost two of his toes.”

I believe that the vast majority of ghost stories are due in inaccurate and mistaken observations or hearing. In observing the lack of light leads to errors, as does the nervousness of the observer. And with respect to sounds, in the stillness of the night, sounds that would pass unnoticed in the day are liable to startle and perplex.

The recent coming on of heavy rain after an exceptionally fine and dry summer has filled old houses with strange noises caused by the rats which have been lying out in banks and hedges during the dry, hot weather coming under cover of our rooves. And rats can make the most strange sounds. I remember many years ago hearing such a disturbance in the room below where I slept, that was the library, that I was convinced burglars were in the house. Then I heard as I believed a conveyance drawn up under the window – presumably to carry away the spoils. I sprang from my bed, seized an old gun – not loaded, by the way – and rushed downstairs only to disperse half-a-dozen rats. And there was no trap outside. But one of the oddest experiences was this – observing one of my shoes promenading over the floor without being on any foot attached to any leg. It moved jerkily across a strip of moonlight. On my going after it and catching up the shoe, out fell a rat, that had entered, and with his endeavours to thrust forward, was propelling the shoe.

The river Dart, as it twists and coils among the hills and granite tors of Dartmoor, at a certain place is believed at times to utter at night a wild and desolate cry, and this “cry of the Dart” is held to be the clamouring of the river for a human life – “The river Dart. The river dart, – Every year demands a heart.” I have been assured by those who have heard that cry that it is most weird. It is caused by the wind blowing in a certain direction up the tortuous passage of the gorge, in which it is constricted so as to produce a musical plaintive cry.

There is a pool on Dartmoor thought to be unfathomable, called Claddenwell (sic.) that is also supposed to cry out. According to popular belief, at certain times at night a loud voice is heard shouting from the water in articulate tones, naming the next person who is to die in the parish.

At other times what are heard are howls of a spirit in torment. The water lies low, covering an acre, and the surrounding banks are high – fifty feet. The peculiar sounds are doubtless caused by a swirl of wing in the basin that contains the pond. An old lady, now deceased, told me how as a child, she dreaded going near this tarn – her parents house being not far off – fearing least she should hear the voice calling her name.

I am satisfied that the mysterious steps so often heard in old houses, going along the passages, and passing doors, is due to rats, which have a peculiar knack of imitating the human tread by their bounds. Such steps pacing along a corridor of the house in which I live were quite familiar to us as children. We thought it was the ghost of “Old Madam,” and so were wont to speak of it. But since I have completely revolutionised the drainage of the old house and cut off every door by which the rats could enter – Old Madam has ceased to walk. For an uncomfortable noise, commend me to a three-legged rate. With is three legs it can make more uncanny noises than can one with four.

I was sitting reading one night in my study, when I heard a most perplexing sound. It began with a musical tone, rising to a shrill pitch, then a pause, and then again this swelling and vibrating note. I traced it to my window and found that it was produced by a very large snail that was crawling up a pane, and  so in doing caused the glass to thrill and sound much as children call forth musical notes by passing their wetted fingers around glass bowls at dessert. Another experience was not mine, but that of an aunt staying at Park. She was in the boudoir, on the ground floor, late at night at Christmas-time, reading, when she was startled by hearing a peculiar and unaccountable sound against the windowpanes. Being alarmed she roused the butler, and a search was made, when it was discovered that the sound proceeded from a deer licking the panes of glass for the salt that had been deposited on them by a gale from the sea.

What strange sounds are heard in a wood at night? The beasts are stirring but cannot be seen; the night birds are about hooting, piping, screaming. If any has heard the nightjar close to his ears in the depths of a wood – he will not forget it in a hurry. And should he be passing under a rookery and light a match and make a noise with his feet, the birds are roused as if woke by an electric shock and rise and rush away with such a sound of their wings as to startle the stillness of the night.”

I have had the misfortune of living in two old houses which we shared with rats and I can heartily agreed with the weird and at times spooky noises they make. They are either scampering around in the loft and gnawing on wood etc. One of the freaky nights I have ever spent was staying at Two Bridges Hotel many, many years ago. It was in an old spooky bedroom on a dark, sultry night and so I had left the window open. At some point I detected a scrabbling noise which seemed to be coming from beneath the bed which initially I ignored. Then the scrabbling changed to a frantic scratching and tearing sound. But as I “ain’t scared of no ghosts,” I finally plucked up enough nerve to peer over the side of the bed at which point a tabby cat bolted out ran around the room and fled back out of the window.