The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-SeersCrowe, Catherine
Religion
The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers
Crowe, Catherine
Ghosts; Parapsychology
“One of Mrs. Procter’s brothers—a gentleman in middle life, and
of a peculiarly sensible, sedate, and candid disposition, a
person apparently most unlikely to be imposed on by fictitious
alarms or tricks—assured me that he had himself, on a visit
there, been disturbed by the strangest noises; that he had
resolved, before going, that if any such noises occurred, he
would speak, and demand of the invisible actor who he was, and
why he came thither: but the occasion came, and he found himself
unable to fulfil his intention. As he lay in bed one night, he
heard a heavy step ascend the stairs toward his room, and some
one striking, as it were, with a thick stick on the banisters,
as he went along. It came to his door, and he essayed to call,
but his voice died in his throat. He then sprang from his bed,
and, opening the door, found no one there—but now heard the
same heavy steps deliberately descending, though invisible, the
steps before his face, and accompanying the descent with the
same loud blows on the banisters.
“My informant now proceeded to the room-door of Mr. Procter, who
he found had also heard the sounds, and who now also arose, and
with a light they made a speedy descent below, and a thorough
search there, but without discovering anything that could
account for the occurrence.
“The two young ladies, who, on a visit there, had also been
annoyed by this invisible agent, gave me this account of it: The
first night, as they were sleeping in the same bed, they felt
the bed lifted up beneath them. Of course, they were much
alarmed. They feared lest some one had concealed himself there
for the purpose of robbery. They gave an alarm, search was made,
but nothing was found. On another night, their bed was violently
shaken, and the curtains suddenly hoisted up[3] all round to the
very tester, as if pulled by cords, and as rapidly let down
again, several times! Search again produced no evidence of the
cause. The next, they had the curtains totally removed from the
bed, resolving to sleep without them, as they felt as though
evil eyes were lurking behind them. The consequences of this,
however, were still more striking and terrific. The following
night, as they happened to awake, and the chamber was light
enough (for it was summer) to see everything in it, they both
saw a female figure, of a misty substance, and bluish-gray hue,
come out of the wall at the bed’s head, and through the
head-board, in a horizontal position, and lean over them. They
saw it most distinctly—they saw it as a female figure come out
of, and again pass into, the wall. Their terror became intense,
and one of the sisters from that night refused to sleep any more
in the house, but took refuge in the house of the foreman during
her stay; the other shifting her quarters to another part of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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