IF anyone had asked me seven years ago the question “Do you believe in
ghosts and haunted houses?” my answer would have been a very decided
“No.” But now I don't know. For several years I have been living in a
very old-fashioned cottage in a country village. Soon after settling
here, both I and my husband were awakened night after night by strange
noises, bumps as of something falling, sounds as of water dripping,
and, most strange of all, every night at about the same time the latch
of our stair-door would drop with a loud click as if someone had
opened it hurriedly. Although we used to come down and search,
everything was as usual, and nothing we could think of accounted for
the sounds. Each night, on retiring, I would firmly shut the
stair-door, but still the latch would be heard to drop, and several
nights, while having a light burning (through having to tend a small
baby) I have seen a shadow pass through the room and down the stairs.
Then would come the dropping of the latch, but, however quickly I
turned, or however long I watched, nothing appeared again the same
night. We would gladly have moved, but, owing to the shortage of
houses, it was impossible, and, in time, the sounds no longer
startled us; we had to get used to them. Now, if we are awakened
suddenly, my husband says, “It's only the ghost,” and we go to sleep
again. But twice just lately I have lain awake and heard the latch
drop as before and at the same time.
The other day my husband was talking to a very old inhabitant of our
village—a man aged seventy-eight—who, upon hearing where we lived
said, “Lor', my boy, that's the house my father used to live in, where
the queer rows was, d'ye ever hear any now?”
What is the answer to the riddle of this old cottage, I wonder, ghosts
or some other explanation? Anyhow I do know that during the next few
months we shall gladly say “good-bye” to it and take possession of a
new home, where I hope there will be nothing uncanny.