Frank Podmore

“ But if cases of the kind recorded by William Moir and Miss Morton should ultimately be multiplied, such a conclusion would no doubt appear less dubious. To secure that end it is essential to cultivate a scientific attitude towards the facts. Whatever these vague phantasms may ultimately prove to be, whether messages from the dead, or mere random dreams of the living, they are, at any rate, amongst the things that happen. They are questionable shapes, and will, if we persevere, yield an answer to our questioning. ”

“ The dream or vision has represented some one known when alive to the dreamer, and on familiar terms with him. [1] The cause of the percipience—the reason why the vision was seen by that particular person, and not by the man in the street—must in the cases hitherto considered be sought in the bonds of personal affection or relationship. And the same principle applies to the messages from the living dealt with in the earlier chapters of this book. The apparition of the dying man is seen as a rule by some one amongst his closest friends. ”

“ But one inmate of the house saw the figure of a man in his shirt-sleeves; the apparition of a white dog was also seen by several persons. Here then in this one case we have four distinct kinds of apparition.
The impression left upon the mind after a careful survey of the best attested narratives is that the authentic ghost rarely appears in recognisable, perhaps not even in constant shape; that his connection with tragedies is obscure and uncertain. He appears in fact in most narratives as a fugitive, irrelevant, and frequently polymorphic phantasm. ”

“ The man was not at all affected by the appearance of the skull, the idea in his mind being that the turning-up of the skull was nothing more than what was to have been expected. He took other spadefuls of earth, and brought up the lower jaw with teeth, followed by the shoulder bones, and, digging farther along, dug up other bones of a human body as far as the thigh. Laying the bones out on the surface of the ground just in the position he had found them buried, he realised that he was digging up a skeleton.
Moir reported the matter to the police ”

“ In another case the scene was a lodging-house in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. Loud and unaccountable noises had been heard in the house by the landlady, her servant, and at least two lodgers (undergraduates) . The two former witnesses had also seen the apparition of a female figure. Some years afterwards three skulls, one that of a woman, were found just outside the window of the dining-room. [10]
The discovery of human remains in or near a dwelling-house in any civilised country is in itself so rare an event that the coincidence in these cases is the more striking. ”

“ It is possible that these very characteristics are due to the same cause which has preserved a contemporary record of the incidents, viz., the scientific temper and training of Miss Morton, who was actually studying medicine at the time when she wrote the account.
However that may be, in the ordinary ghost story, of which we have, as said, numerous examples recorded at first hand, the figure is as a rule seen only for a few moments, vanishing before it can be closely examined; it rarely indicates any purpose, or makes any motion indicative of intelligence. ”

“ But in view of them we are hardly justified in speaking of the figures seen by the several witnesses as the same figure. It will be seen, from the descriptions given by Miss M. W. Scott and Miss Louisa Scott of the first appearance, that their visions were not simultaneous, and that the successive positions in which the figure was seen were inconsistent with its being a real figure. It should perhaps be added that there is a vague rumour of a murder having been committed in the neighbourhood, but that there is no authentic legend which throws any light upon the apparition. ”

“ They were greatly startled, and said: "Can this be the house where the suicide happened a few weeks ago?" I at once called up the landlady. She denied it, saying it was next door. I was determined to find out, and on sending to the various tradespeople with whom we dealt, found it was the very house. The landlady then admitted it. The poor young man had slept in my bedroom, and the adjoining room (to which he had pointed) was his sitting-room, from the window of which he threw himself out. He was killed on the spot. The landlady's son waited on us at table. ”

“ Just outside the morning-room window she suddenly disappeared. I was quite near her; it was quite impossible that a real person could have got away."
During the next few years the characteristic light footsteps were frequently heard by all the inmates of the house; also other sounds which gradually grew more loud and terrifying. The figure was also frequently seen, by Miss Morton herself, by her sisters, and by servants; sometimes in the garden or orchard, more frequently in the house; sometimes in full daylight, at other times in the dusk or by artificial light. ”

“ O'Donnell states that she had not heard of the suicide, and, indeed, the fact that she took the rooms is sufficient proof that she had not connected the tragedy with this particular house. It is perhaps conceivable that the vision may have been due to the revival of a forgotten memory of the newspaper report. In any single case of the kind it is no doubt possible, without violent straining of the probabilities, to find a normal explanation of the incident. ”

“ Benecke gives the following particulars:
Teddy was in the habit of walking regularly in the garden, from 10 minutes past 12 till I o'clock, and again directly after luncheon, varying, according to the time this meal took us, from 1.30 or 1.45 till 2.30. He was so regular that I could tell the time by his footfall on the stairs. He never, except in the very coldest weather—to please me—wore a hat or cap in the garden. The laundress often watched him walking up and down the garden paths, noticing the wind playing with his wavy hair. ”

“ Benecke heard of the vision only after the news of the disappearance had reached England, on the 20th July.
Here it would seem that Mrs. Nichols saw the apparition because she happened to be on the spot to which the dying man's thoughts would inevitably turn. And the obvious interpretation of the incident—the interpretation which in fact obtained generally until the work of the Society for Psychical Research had familiarised another explanation— is that the spirit was actually present, and able to assume visible shape. ”

“ But the fact, which seems to be well established, that in certain houses or places hallucinatory figures have been seen independently by several witnesses, is one which calls for explanation. The noises described as occurring in haunted houses have no doubt less significance, except in so far as they indicate a tendency to nervousness or hallucination on the part of the witnesses. ”

“ It should be noted, as pointed out by Miss Scott herself, that the dress of the figure on the two occasions last mentioned seems to have differed from the dress as seen by the original percipient. Miss Scott had seen a long coat and knee-breeches. Miss Irvine, in writing to us, describes the figure as wearing "a long cloak with cape and slouched hat, his hands in his coat pockets." No mention is made of knee-breeches. The village girls, according to Miss Scott, saw only a filmy looking sheet. We may look upon these discrepancies as some testimony to the accuracy of our informants. ”

“ Brieuc, who was in the habit of staying in this particular room when he visited the Convent. The funeral of the Bishop was taking place about sixteen miles off that same afternoon. [6]
When all allowance has been made for coincidence, the effect of unconscious suggestion, and for the almost inevitable embellishments, from which the narrators are not withheld in a case of this kind by any sense of personal sacredness in their experience, we find it difficult to resist the conclusion that these apparitions are in some fashion connected with the dead persons whom they purport to represent. ”

“ Space will not permit of more than one other example of this class of narrative, and I will choose, therefore, the case of which we have the fullest and most satisfactory record.
The chief percipient in the following history refrained from mentioning her early experiences to any member of her family, but wrote an account of them in contemporary letters to a friend. It is from these letters, which were happily preserved, that Miss "Morton's" account, written in 1892, is compiled. ”

“ In the case which follows an apparition was seen in the same neighbourhood on several occasions, more than once by two persons simultaneously. We have, I think, no other case in our collection in which an apparition has been repeatedly seen on a country road in full daylight.
No. 60. From Miss M. W. Scott [11]
Lessudden House, St. ”