I AM not superstitious neither do I believe in ghosts, but the
following tale may interest some of your readers.
Some time ago I used to stay at an old rectory in a Kentish village.
The rectory stood in a beautiful garden joining the churchyard, and
was approached by a carriage drive bordered by thick hedges and
trees. The house was low, gloomy-looking and rambling, containing many
rooms and winding passages and had three staircases, but it had been
somewhat modernised. One room was supposed to be haunted.
I once slept in this room, but the ghost did not visit me; neither did
I see or hear anything unusual. The room was a large one with two
windows overlooking the carriage drive. A niece of the rector came on
a visit and was given as a bedroom the haunted chamber. It was early
autumn, a warm, beautiful moonlight night, not a leaf moving. The
rector's niece had gone to her room, but wishing to finish a book, sat
reading between the two open windows. Just as the church clock struck
twelve, the door (which was fastened) opened. There was a sound of a
scuffle, a rush past, a swish of skirts, a loud groan which seemed to
end at the window, and a deep thud as if a heavy body had fallen. The
window curtains, which were thick and heavy, blew straight out into
the room.
At breakfast next day, the lady related her experience and was told
she had seen, or rather heard the ghost. Other members of the family
had had a similar experience. The story goes:
Many years ago a certain rector murdered his wife at midnight in this
room, and threw the body out of the window.
At certain periods the lady's ghost is supposed to visit the scene of
the murder.