The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

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The Wesley Ghost. Given Critically and Why. Note on similar Stories, such as the Drummer of Tedworth. Sir Waller Scott's Scepticism about Nautical Eviden

the spectators. Among the most notorious is the story of Willington Mill, told by Howitt, and borrowed by Mrs. Crowe, in The Night Side of Nature. Mr. Procter, the occupant, a Quaker, vouched to Mrs. Crowe for the authenticity of Howitt's version. (22nd July, 1847.) Other letters from seers are published, and the Society of Psychical Research lately printed Mr. Procter's c

iew of the inhabitants, the extraordinary family of Wesley, seems necessary to an understanding of

ESLEY

Though educated among Dissenters, Samuel Wesley converted himself to the truth as it is in the Church of England, became a "poor scholar" of Exeter College in Oxford, supported himself mainly by hack-work in literature (he was one of the editors of a penny paper called The Athenian Mercury, a sort of Answers), married Miss Susanna Annesley, a lady of good family, in 1690-91, and in 1693 was presented to the Rectory of Epworth in Lincolnshire by Mary, wife of William of Orange, to whom he had dedicated a poem on the life of Christ. The living was poor, Mr. Wesley's family multiplied with amazing velocity, he was in debt, and unpopular. His cattle were maimed in 1705, and in 1703 his

had frequently preached, Mr. Wesley was certainly apt to have tricks played on him by his neighbours. His house, though

ter School; Charles, a boy of eight, away from home, and the girls, who were all at the parsonage. They were Emily, about twenty-two, Mary, Nancy and Sukey, probably about twenty-one, twenty and nineteen, and Hetty, who m

given great uneasiness to her parents." The servants, Robin Brown, Betty Massy and Nancy Marshall, were recent comers, but were acquitted by Mrs. Wesley of any share in the mischief. The family, though, like other

Sam at Westminster by his mother, Emily and Sukey, next a set of written statements made by these and other witnesses t

y always excepted) "heard a strange knocking in divers places," chiefly in the green room, or nursery, where (apparently) Hetty, Patty and Keziah lay. Emily heard the noises later than some of her sisters, perhaps a week after the original groans. She was locking up the house about ten o'clock when a sound came like the smashing and splintering of a huge piece of coal on the kitchen floor. She and Sukey went through the rooms on the ground floor, but found the dog asleep, the cat at the other end of the house, and everything in order. From her bedroom Emily heard a noise of breaking the empty bottles under the stairs, but was going to bed, when Hetty, who had been sitting on the lowest step of the garret stairs beside the nursery door, waiting for her father, was chased into the nursery by a so

nd the mastiff whining in terror. "We still heard it rattle and thunder in every room above or behind us, locked as well as open, except my study, where as yet it never came." On the night of the 26th Mr. Wesley seems to have heard of a phenomenon already familiar to Emily-"something like the quick winding up of a jack, at the corner of the room by my bed head". This was always followed by knocks, "hollow and loud, such as none of us could ever imitate". Mr. Wesley went into the nursery, Hetty, Kezzy and Patty were asleep. The knocks were loud, beneath and in the room, so Mr. Wesley went below to the kitchen,

and when she has removed has followed her," and it knocked under lit

ing George and the prince". In his study the agency pushed Mr. Wesley about, bumping him against the corner of his desk, and against his door. He would ask for a

noises were very boisterous and disturbing this night." Mr. Hoole says (in 1726, confirmed by Mrs. Wesley, 12th January, 1717) that there were sounds of feet, trailing gowns, raps, and a noise as of planing

uld be discovered, but "it commonly was nearer Hetty than the rest". On 24th January, Sukey said "it is now pretty quiet, but still knocks at prayers for the king." On 11th February, Mr. Wesley, much bored by Sam's inquiries, says, "we are all now quiet. . . . It would make a glorious penny book for Jack D

rites to Sam, remarking that as Hetty and Emily are also writing "so particularly," she need not say much. "One thing I believe you do not know, that is, last Sunday, to my father's no small amazemen

this time, is in a letter from Em

re no other contemporary letters preserved, but we may note Mrs. Wesley's opinion (25th Janua

n was knocked at on each side as she went round to the other. Sukey mentioned the noise as, on one occasion, coming gradually from the garret stairs, outside the nursery door, up to Hetty's bed, "who trembled strongly in her sleep. It then removed to the room overhead, where it knocked my father's knock on the ground, as

e affair of 1716 to his father's broken vow of deserting his mother till she recognised the Prince

f the disturbance, but could never hear anything." Again, "The first time my mother ever heard any unusual noise at Epworth was long before the disturbance of old Jeffrey . . . the door and windows jarred very loud, and p

her brother John, "that wonderful thing called by us Jeffery, how

t that there is no evidence from Hetty; that she was a lively, humorous girl, and he conceives that she began to frighten the maids, and only reluctantly exhibited before her father against whom, however, Jeffrey developed "a particular spite". He adds that cer

the thing could be managed from without remains a mystery. Sam Wesley, the friend of Pope, and Atterbury,

chcraft, but the petty jury would not convict, there being a want of evidence to prove threats, malum minatum, by the drummer. In 1662 the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, F.R.S., visited the house, and, in the bedroom of Mr. Mompesson's little girls, the chief sufferers, heard and saw much the same phenomena as the elder Wesley describes in his own nursery. The "little modest girls" were aged about seven and eight. Charles II. sent some gentlemen to the house for one night, when nothing occurred, the disturbances being intermittent. Glanvil published his narrative at the time, a

bances. In Lord St. Vincent's case, which follows, nothing of the kind is reported. As an almost universal rule children, especi

INCENT'S G

admiral, Lord St. Vincent, asks: "Who has seen Lord St. Vincent's letters?" He adds that the gallant admira

though the cause of the annoyances may remain as mysterious as ever. The contemporary correspondence (including that of Lor

he doors lest the villagers had procured keys, but this proved of no avail. The servants talked of seeing appearances of a gentleman in drab and of a lady in silk, which Mrs. Ricketts disregarded. Her husband went to Jamaica in the autumn of 1769, and in 1771 she was so disturbed t

hat Mrs. Ricketts was a good deal annoyed even before 2nd April, 1771, the day when she dates the beginning of the worst disturbances. She believed that the agency was human-a robber or a practical joker-and but slowly and reluctantly became convinced that the "exploded" notion of an abnormal force might be correct. We learn that while Captain Jervi

Ricketts may be allowe

t opened into my room, sometimes so loud, and of such continuance as to break my rest. Instant search being often made, we never could discover any appearance of human or brute being. Repeatedly disturbed in the same man

ts, the door of which "was always made fast by a drawn bolt". Yet somebody kept rustli

d in the chamber. Mrs. Ricketts boldly clung to her room, and was only now and then disturbed by "sounds of harmony," and heavy thumps, down stairs. After this, and early in 1771, she was "frequentl

of thing went on till Mrs. Ricketts despaired of any natural explanation. After mid-summer, 1771, the trouble increased, in broad daylight, and a shrill female voice, answered by two male voices was added to the afflictions. Captain Jervis came on a visit, but was told of nothing, and never heard anything. A

p with Captain Luttrell and his own man. He was rewarded by noises which he in vain tried to pursue. "I should do great injustice to my sister" (he writes to Mr. Ricketts on 9th August, 1771), "if I did not acknowledge to have heard what I could not, after the most diligent search an

her brother joined his ship, the Alarm (9th August), she retired to Dame Camis's house, that of her coachman's mother. Thence she went, and made another attempt to live at Hinton, but was "soon after assailed by a noise I never before heard,

er and another woman, including "the murmur". A year after Mrs. Ricketts left a family named Lawrence took the house, and, according to old Lucy Camis, in 1818, Mr. Lawrence very properly threatened to dismiss any servant who spoke of the disturbances. The result of this sensible course was that the Lawrences left suddenly, at the end of the year-and the house was pulled down. Some old political papers of

ne who heard the sounds was under the influence of "suggestion," caused first in

not previously disturbed him. If this explanation be true, it casts an unusual light on the human imagination. Physical science has lately inve