IN 1913 my husband and self and two children went to reside in North
Devon, and took a house that had been empty some years. It was old and
next to a churchyard. The landlord was anxious for us to take the
house, and had it decorated. We took it on a weekly tenancy. Within
the first week of our occupation my little daughter, aged two years,
used to wake up at midnight screaming and say somebody was biting her
ears. At the same time I used to break out into a cold sweat and
tremble from head to feet. Then I saw a tall shadow go round the room
with a lighted candle and disappear before it reached me. I was quite
unable to get out of bed to take my baby into my bed. My husband saw
none of this. My son, aged eight years, would ask us why we always
rapped on his wall at night, and once he said he saw a hand over his
bed. The last week of our occupation my husband heard padded feet come
up the stairs and to the bedroom door, but no one entered. Curiously
enough, fresh flowers put into a room at night would be quite dead the
next morning. We stayed in that house only six weeks, and found no
solution to the mystery.