CHAPTER III.
"ELEMENTALS."
The reticence people in general show towards having their names and houses mentioned in print has led me to substitute fictitious names in most of the cases referred to in this chapter.
In one of my former works I alluded to a phantasm with a pig's head I saw standing outside an old burial ground in Guilsborough, Northampton. Some years after the occurrence I was discussing the occult with my father-in-law, Henry Williams, M.D. (late of Chapel Place, Cavendish Square), and was very much surprised when he told me that he, too, had witnessed the same or a similar phenomena in Guilsborough. I append the statement he made with regard to it:--
"GUILSBOROUGH, "NORTHAMPTON, "_January 23, 1909._
"I well remember many years ago, when a boy, running upstairs into the top room of a certain house in Guilsborough and seeing a tall, thin figure of a man with an animal's head crouching on the bed. I was so frightened when I saw it that I ran out of the room as fast as I could.
"HENRY W. WILLIAMS, M.D."
My father-in-law had certainly made no mention of what he had seen to me before he heard my experience, neither had I the slightest idea that such a phantasm had been encountered in the village by any one but myself. Close to the house where he saw the phenomena I believe an ancient sacrificial stone was once found, whilst in the same neighbourhood there are the remains of a barrow and numerous other evidences of the Stone Age; hence the pig-faced phantasm may have been either a Vice Elemental attracted to Guilsborough by the human blood once spilt on the sacrificial stone, or by certain crimes committed in and around the village in modern times, or by the thoughts of some peculiarly bestial-minded person, or people, buried in the now disused cemetery; or, again, the phantasm may have been the actual earth-bound spirit of some very vicious person, whose appearance would be in accordance with the life he or she led when on earth. Which of the two it is I cannot, of course, say: that is--for the present, at least--beyond human knowledge.
I have recorded another haunting of a similar nature.
Writing to me from Devizes on May 15th, 1910, Mr. "I. Walton" says:--
"DEAR SIR,
"I have just been reading your book, 'Haunted Houses of London.' It recalls to my mind a hideous apparition which I witnessed about ten days ago, and which made such an impression on my mind that I send you particulars of it.
"I was on a visit to my two sons, who live at No. 37, M---- Square, Chelsea. On the first night of my visit I slept in a room on the third floor facing the Square. I have no knowledge of the science you profess, and no personal faith in supernatural apparition, but the spectacle I witnessed was so extraordinary that, by the light of your thrilling narratives, it looks as though I may have been sleeping in a room that has been the scene of a tragedy.
"The room was not utterly dark, and some light penetrated from the lamps in the Square, but as I lay with my face to the wall, all in front of me was dark.
"I fell asleep, and remained so for an hour or more, when I suddenly awoke with a great jerk, and found confronting me the most awful apparition you can imagine. It was a dwarfed, tubby figure with a face like a pig, perfectly naked, in a strong bright light. The whole figure resembled in appearance the scalded body of a pig of average size, but the legs and arms were those of a human being brutalised, male or female I could not say. In ten or fifteen seconds it vanished, leaving me in a profuse perspiration and trembling, from which I did not recover for some time. But I slept off the rest of the night.
"When the landlady came to call me (she slept on the third floor back) she pointed out that a picture on the connecting door had fallen down between my bed and the next room. Doubtless it was the fall of the picture that waked me up with a start. But what about the apparition? I can only assign it to some occult cause.
"I remain, dear Sir, "Yours faithfully, "'I. WALTON.'"
In this instance it is, of course, very difficult to tell whether the phenomena is Subjective or Objective. Presuming it to be Objective, which I am inclined to believe it was, then it was either the earth-bound spirit of some particularly vicious person who was in some way connected with the house, or else it was a Vice Elemental attracted to the house either by the foul thoughts of some occupant or by some murder formerly committed there.
Writing to me again on June 13th, 1910, Mr. "I. Walton" says:--
"DEAR SIR,
"I am quite willing that you should find a place for my experience in your forthcoming book. I think I omitted one detail of the spectre: it had bright yellow hair worn in ringlets extending barely as far as the shoulders.
"Yours faithfully, "'I. WALTON.'"
Another case in which there is little or no doubt of the apparition being a Vice Elemental was related to me by Mrs. Bruce, whose husband was recently stationed in India. Her narrative is as follows:--
"We once lived in a bungalow that had been built on the site of a house whose inhabitants had been barbarously murdered by the Sepoys during the Indian Mutiny, and we had not occupied it many days before we were disturbed by hearing a curious, crooning noise coming from various parts of the building. The moment we entered a room, whence the noise seemed to proceed, there was silence, while the instant our backs were turned it recommenced. We never saw anything, however, until one day when my husband, hearing the sounds, hurriedly entered the room in which he fancied he could locate them. He then saw the blurred outlines of something--he could only describe as semi-human--suddenly rise from one of the corners and dart past him. The disturbances were so worrying that we eventually left the house."
In this case the amount of blood spilt on the site of the bungalow would in itself be a sufficient cause for the hauntings, and my only surprise is that it did not attract many more Elementals of this species.
Miss Frances Sinclair had an uncanny experience whilst travelling by rail between Chester and London last autumn.
On entering a tunnel, at about six in the evening, Miss Sinclair was quite positive there was no one in the compartment saving herself and her dog. Judge then her astonishment and dismay, when she suddenly saw, seated opposite her, the huddled-up figure of what she took to be a man with his throat cut! He had two protruding fishy eyes, which met hers in a glassy stare. He was dressed in mustard-coloured clothes, and had a black bag by his side. Miss Sinclair was at once seized with a violent impulse to destroy herself, and whilst her dog was burying its nose in the folds of her dress and exhibiting every indication of terror, Miss Sinclair was doing all she could to prevent herself jumping out of the carriage. Just when she thought she must succumb and was on the verge of opening the door, the tunnel ended, the phantasm vanished, and her longing for self-destruction abruptly ceased. She had never before, she assures me, experienced any such sensations.
Here, of course, it is impossible to say whether what she witnessed was Subjective or Objective, but assuming the latter, then I am inclined to think that the apparition, judging by its appearance and the desires it generated, was a Vice Elemental, and not a Phantasm of the Dead. It need not necessarily have been attached to the compartment in which she happened to see it, but may have haunted the tunnel itself, manifesting itself in various ways.
An author, whom I will designate Mr. Reed, told me a few weeks ago, that he and his brother, on going upstairs one evening, had seen the figure of a man with a cone-shaped head suddenly stalk past them, and, bounding up the stairs, vanish in the gloom. Though naturally very surprised, neither Mr. Reed nor his brother were in the least degree frightened. On the contrary, they were greatly interested, as the phantasm answered so well to their ideas of a bogey! As both brothers saw it, and neither of them were in the least degree nervous, I am inclined to think that this phantom was a Vagrarian, and that its presence in the house was due either to some prehistoric relic that lay buried near at hand, or to the loneliness and isolation of the place.
Mrs. H. Dodd had a strange experience with an Elemental. "Waking up one night many years ago," she tells me, "I saw a tall figure standing by my bedside. It appeared to have a light inside it, and gave the same impression that a hand does when held in front of a candle. I could see the red of the flesh and dark-blue lines of the ribs--the whole was luminous. What the face was like I do not know, as I never got so far, being much too frightened to look. It bent over me, and I hid my head in the bedclothes with fright. When I told my parents about it at breakfast, to my surprise no one laughed at me; why, I do not know, unless the house was haunted and they knew it. My brother said he had seen a tall figure disappear into the wall of his room in the night."
As Mrs. Dodd adds that a near relative of hers died about that time, it is, of course, possible that the phantasm was that of the latter, although from the possibilities of grotesqueness suggested by what she saw of the ghost, as well as from the fact that the house was newly built in a neighbourhood peculiarly favourable to Elementals, I am inclined to assign it to that class of apparitions.
Some months ago I received from the Baroness Von A---- the following account of a haunting experienced by her family:--
"DEAR MR. O'DONNELL" (she writes),
"I should be much obliged if you would tell me the meaning of the things witnessed by my grandmother, Lady W----, widow of General Sir B. W----. I must first tell you that she was always a most truthful, sensible and unimaginative woman, that I am quite sure she would not have invented or added to anything she told so often. The story is thus:--
"During the fifties or sixties, she and my grandfather, then Colonel W----, went to stay with some very old friends of theirs, Colonel and Mrs. V----, at their place in the country: I forget the name, but think it was near Worcester. Neither of my grand-parents had ever heard of anything supernatural in connection with the V----'s house, yet my grandmother told me she felt a sense of the most acute discomfort the minute she entered her friends' house. This, however, passed off until, having occasion to go upstairs to her room after dinner to fetch her needlework, she felt it again on crossing the hall. Scarcely had she started to mount the stairs than she distinctly heard footsteps behind her. She stopped, so did they; so, thinking it a trick of imagination, she went on, when the footsteps went on, too. They could not possibly be the echo of hers, as she heard the sound of her own, and the others were quite different, lighter and shorter. They followed her to the door of her bedroom, the door of which she quickly shut and bolted, as she was feeling very frightened, but all the time she felt the footsteps were waiting for her outside. At last she made up her mind to go down again, but scarcely had she emerged from her room and started to go down the corridor, when the footsteps recommenced. Thoroughly frightened, she ran to the drawing-room, never stopping till she was in the midst of her friends, but hearing all the while the light steps flying after her. They stopped only when she entered the drawing-room. On Mrs. V---- remarking on her pale face, my grandmother told her what had happened. Mrs. V---- then announced that the footsteps were a common occurrence, that nearly every one in the house had heard them, and that a thorough investigation had been made without result--there was no explanation. My grandmother heard the footsteps on several other occasions.
"The other manifestations occurred during her stay in the same house. It was some days after the last occurrence, that my grandfather had occasion to go up to town with Colonel V----, leaving my grandmother alone. Quite contrary to her usual habit, when bedtime came she felt unaccountably nervous, and therefore asked a friend, Miss R----, who was also a guest at the V----'s, to stay with her for the night. They went to bed and to sleep, but not for long. They were both awakened by the clock on the landing outside striking twelve, when they both sat up in bed simultaneously, owing to their hearing the most unaccountable knocking over their heads, although, otherwise, the house was absolutely silent. They listened, and heard it again and again, and my grandmother said it sounded to them both as if nails were being driven into a coffin. The knocking continued for some time, until, unable to bear it any longer, Miss R---- jumped out of bed and said, 'Well! I'm going to see what it is; it is evidently coming from the room on the floor above, just over us, and I must find out.' My grandmother volunteered to go with her, and they crept up to the second storey, the knocking getting louder each step they took. On arriving at the door whence the sounds--which were very distinct now--proceeded, they found the door was locked, and as they turned the handle for the second time the knocking ceased, to be replaced by the most gruesome and hellish laughter. Too frightened to go on with their investigations, they fled downstairs, the laughter continuing as they ran. Immediately they entered their room the knocking recommenced, and went on for a considerable time, and when it stopped, being both too frightened to sleep, they lit a lamp and talked till the morning. When the housemaid brought them their tea, she remarked on their worn looks, and on being told the reason, said, 'Oh, dear! That's Mr. Harry's room, and it's always kept locked when he is away. If only nothing has happened to him!'
"During the day a telegram came to say that the eldest boy, Harry, who was then in London, had died during the night; they did not even know he was ill.
"One thing I ought to mention is that a large cage of doves stood outside on the second floor landing. As a rule, these birds are frightened at the smallest sound, but my grandmother says she noticed that they never moved, although the noise of the knocking and laughter was enough to waken any one."
The Baroness Von A---- goes on to ask if I think the disturbances were due to Phantasms of the Dead or to Elementals. I told her that, in my opinion, the knockings and laughter were due to one and the same agency, namely, that of an Elemental which had attached itself to the house in the same way as other Elementals--commonly known as Family Ghosts--attach themselves to families. Very probably the Elemental was attracted to the house in the first instance by some crime committed there, or it may even have been attracted to the soil prior to the building of the house. Such spirits vary in their attitude to Man. "The Yellow Boy," for instance, that haunted a certain room at Knebworth, appearing periodically to whoever was sleeping there, and by gestures describing the manner of their approaching death, did not, when giving the warning, exhibit any glee or malice: his actions were perfectly mechanical and his expression neutral. For example, when the apparition appeared to Lord Castlereagh, it merely drew its hand three times across its throat, thus predicting the way his lordship would die. (Lord Castlereagh shortly afterwards committed suicide by cutting his throat.)
Other cases of death-warning in which there is no apparent malice are "The Radiant Boy" at Corby Castle, when the apparition is benevolent rather than otherwise, and the "Drummer" at Cortachy Castle, when the phenomenon appears to be mischievous rather than malicious.
On the other hand, that there is evil design and intention on the part of some death-warning phenomena is quite evident, to my mind, from the case of the clock to which I have alluded in Chapter I.; a case which also proves, I think, that the fates of some, if not indeed of all of us, are pre-ordained, and that there are certain orders of Elementals that not only have the power to warn us of these fates, but that can also be instrumental in accomplishing them. For instance, _re_ the clock that struck thirteen, and the lady who was killed in the taxi-cab accident, it will be remembered that the latter was of a very extraordinary nature--so extraordinary, in fact, that it really seems as if the Elemental was the actual contriver of it--that it deliberately plotted the disaster, and that it was present at the time, predominating the thoughts and guiding the hands of the two drivers as they collided with one another. Why it did so is difficult to conceive, unless, preferring solitude for its domain, it regarded Mrs. Wright as an obstacle in its way, and an intruder where it had the sole privilege of haunting. Possibly, too, the house in which Mrs. Wright lived may be under some curse or ban, which necessitates those having the temerity to occupy it, paying the penalty of so doing with their lives, the time and nature of their deaths being decided by the phenomenon in charge.
This supposition--namely, that Elementals can be instrumental in working evil--coincides with my theory that diseases are primarily due to powers or spirits antagonistic to the human race, and that such powers or spirits exist in multitudinous forms; but whereas Morbas have the widest range possible, the other two species of Elementals, _i.e._, Vice Elementals and Clanogrians, or Family Ghosts, are confined to certain families and houses.
Miss Rolands, a friend of mine, who is an artist, gives me an experience that once happened to her.
"I am afraid I will tell this story very badly," she begins, "but I will do my little best. I remember it all so well, though I was little more than a child at the time. I lived with my grandparents, aunts, and sister in an old house in Birkenhead. The house was a very high one. It had both attics and cellars, and in one of the attics there was a bloodstain, due, so I was told, to a murder of a particularly horrible nature, that had once been perpetrated there, and on account of which the house was reputed to be haunted. Rumour said that in bygone days the house had been inhabited by priests, and that it was one of them who had been killed, his body being taken away in a barrel! In spite, however, of the bloodstain and the grim tales in connection with it, my sisters and I, at the commencement of our tenancy of the house, used to play in the attic, and nothing happened. But at last there came a night when we awoke to the fact that there was a ghastly amount of truth in what we had heard. Some time after we had all gone to bed, we were all aroused (even my practical old grandfather) by three loud knocks on one of the doors which each of us fancied was our own. Then there was silence, and then, from the very top of the house where the attic was situated, a barrel was rolled down the stairs!--bump! bump! bump! When it reached each separate landing, there was a short interval as if the barrel was settling itself before beginning its next journey, and then again, bump! bump! fainter and fainter, until it reached the cellar, when the sounds ceased.
When this stage was reached, we used to light tapers and all look out of our respective doors with white scared faces and hair that literally felt as if it were standing on end, and then, after a few seconds of breathless silence we flew with one accord to one room, where we remained, packed like herrings, till the morning.
This strange, mysterious occurrence happened at least three times to my knowledge, and I can vouch for its absolute truth, as can my aunts and sister, and as could my grandparents, if they were alive.
Without any accurate details with regard to the murder, it is impossible to say definitely to what class of phantasms this haunting was due. One might attribute it entirely to the work of IMPERSONATING ELEMENTALS, entirely to phantasms of the Dead, or to both Impersonating Elementals and Phantasms of the Dead.
I have recently been seeking for information concerning Pixies, and as the result of my enquiries have received replies from several people (whose social position and consequent sense of honour are a guarantee of their veracity) declaring they have seen this species of Elemental.
One of my informants, Miss White, who lives in West Cornwall, tells me that on one occasion, when she was crossing some very lonely fields, almost within sight of Castle-on-Dinas, she suddenly saw a number of little people rise from among the boulders of granite on the top of a hill facing her; they were all armed with spears and engaged in a kind of mimic battle, but, on Miss White approaching them, they instantly vanished, nor did she ever see them again.
I can quite imagine that the hill, where Miss White alleges she saw these little phantasms, is haunted, as the whole of that neighbourhood (with which I have been acquainted for some years) is most suggestive of every kind of Elemental. There are, for example, on Castle-on-Dinas, the remains of an ancient Celtic village, and I have no doubt the locality has experienced many violent deaths, and that many prehistoric people lie buried there.
Another of my correspondents, Mrs. Bellew, says:--"In the winter of 1888-89 I was suffering from delicate lungs, and was advised to have a fire in my bedroom night and morning. One night, between eleven and twelve, I was awakened suddenly by a coal falling into the fender, and heard a small voice, resembling the squeaking of a mouse, say, 'We did that! you didn't know it,' then there followed shrill laughter. I sat up in bed so as to command a view of the fireplace, and saw sitting on a live coal two little beings about six inches high, with human faces and limbs and white skins.
"Quite naturally I answered, 'I knew perfectly well it was you.' At the sound of my voice they vanished at once, and I, only then, realised how strange an experience I had had. The whole incident only occupied a minute or two."
Of course, it is very difficult to think that this was not entirely subjective, and were it not for the fact that Mrs. Bellew is so positive that the phenomena were objective, I should be inclined to believe otherwise. Still, it is very delightful to think there may be such a pleasant type of Elemental.
An interesting incident occurred to the Rev. G. Chichester, with whom I had some correspondence two years ago. It was the only psychic experience he had had, and took place at a Druid's Circle in the North of England. As he was examining the stones of the Circle, he suddenly became aware of a "death-like smell" (to quote his own words) and the sense of some approaching presence. Retreating hastily to a distance, he then perceived a figure clad in white or light grey glide from the adjoining wood and vanish near the largest stone of the cromlech. The Circle was in a pine wood, and under one of the stones which had been dug up in the late seventies of the last century an urn had been found, which urn is now in a museum. The Rev. G. Chichester informed me that manifestations of an unpleasant nature had also followed the lifting of a stone in a celebrated cromlech in Cumberland, so that he was inclined to think psychic phenomena invariably followed the disturbance of any of the stones. Though Mr. Chichester did not give me any very definite idea of what he saw, it seems to me highly probable that it was a BARROWVIAN, or the phantasm of a prehistoric man; the latter, being thoroughly animal, would possess no soul, and his spirit would doubtless remain earth-bound _ad infinitum_. On the other hand, of course, it might have been a Vagrarian.
Of the appearance of spirit lights I have had abundant evidence. Mrs. W----, of Guilsborough, with whom I am well acquainted, informs me that on awaking one night she found the room full of the most beautiful coloured lights, that floated in mid-air round the bed. They were so pretty that she was not in the least alarmed, but continued to watch them till they suddenly vanished. The darkness of the night, the inclemency of the weather, and the situation of the room precluded the probability of the lights being produced by any one outside the house.
In the memoirs of a famous lady artist I have just been editing, I have given an account of blue lights seen by her and her husband in their bedroom. On this occasion the manifestations filled the eye-witnesses with horror, and the husband, in his endeavours to ward them off the bed, struck at them with his hand, when they divided, re-uniting again immediately afterwards.
I am inclined to think that in both instances the lights were due to the presence of some form of Elemental in the initial stage of materialisation; but whereas the beauty of the lights and the absence of fear in the first case suggests that the phantasms belonged to some agreeable type of Elemental, very likely of the order of Pixies, the uniform blueness and the presence of fear in the latter case suggests that the lights were due to some terrifying and vicious form of Elemental, that was in all probability permanently attached to the house.
These lights seem to resemble in some respects those seen from time to time in Wales, though in the latter case the phenomena appear with the purpose of predicting death. A description is given of them in "Frazer's Magazine." They would seem to be closely allied with the corpse candles, or Canhyllan Cyrth, also seen in Wales, an account of which is given in "News from the Invisible World," a work by T. Charley, who collected his information (so I understand from an announcement on the title-page) from the works of Baxter, Wesley, Simpson, and other writers. These candles are so called because their light resembles in shape that of a candle; in colour it is sometimes white, sometimes of various shades of blue. If it is pale blue and small, it predicts the death of an infant; if big, an adult. The writer then narrates several cases relative to the appearance of these lights, the concluding one running thus: "About thirty-four or thirty-five years since, one Jane Wyatt, my wife's sister, being nurse to Baronet Rud's three eldest children and (the lady being deceased) the lady controller of that house, going late into a chamber where the maidservants lay, saw there no less than five of these lights together. It happened a while after, the chamber being newly plastered and a grate of coal fire therein kindled to hasten the drying up of the plastering, that five of the maidservants went there to bed, as they were wont; but in the morning they were all dead, being suffocated in their sleep with the steam of the newly tempered lime and coal. This was at Langathen, in Carmarthenshire."
These lights do not appear to have ever reached any further stage of materialisation, though I imagine they possess that capability and that they are in reality some peculiarly grim form of Elemental--as grim, maybe, as the drummers and pipers of Scotland, and other Glanogrians or Family Ghosts, with which they would seem to be closely connected.
Of Noises, that are popularly attributed to Poltergeists, but which I think are due either to Phantasms of the Dead or to Vagrarian, Impersonating or Vice Elementals, I have received many accounts.
Miss Dulcie Vincent, sister to the Society beauty (whose experience I shall give later on), and herself a well-known beauty, says:--
"When I was staying with my uncle some years ago in his house in Norfolk, we used to hear the most remarkable noises at night, which no one could in any way explain. For example, there were tremendous crashes as if all the crockery in the house was being dashed to pieces on the kitchen tiles, whilst at other times we heard heavy thuds and bumps as if furniture were being moved about wholesale from one room to another. One night, the noises were so great that my uncle took his gun and went downstairs, making sure that there were burglars in the house; but the moment he opened the door of the room whence the sounds proceeded, there was an intense hush, and nothing was to be seen. A few nights after this incident, I was awakened by hearing my bedroom door slowly open. I looked, but saw no one. Seized with ungovernable terror, I then buried my head under the bedclothes, when I distinctly heard soft footsteps approach the bed. There was then a silence, during which I instinctively felt some antagonistic presence close beside me. Then, to my indescribable terror, the bedclothes were gently pulled from my face, and I felt something--I knew not what--was peering down at me and trying to make me look. Exerting all my will power, however, I am thankful to say I kept my eyes tightly closed, and the Thing at length stealthily withdrew, nor did I ever experience it again.
"My uncle's house was built on the site of some old cottages, in one of which lived a mad woman, but whether the disturbances were due to her phantasm or not, I cannot, of course, say."
Neither can I! though I should think it not at all improbable, as many hauntings of a similar nature are undoubtedly caused by the earth-bound spirits of the mad, which accounts for the senseless crashings and thumpings!
Miss Featherstone, a lady residing in Hampshire, has also had an experience with similar phenomena. "About six years ago," she informs me, "after my sister's death, I had a very unpleasant form of Psychism" (I quote her own words), "which has only lately ceased. Things used to disappear and reappear in a very strange way. Though it was apparently uncanny, it was, of course, difficult to prove absolutely they had not been moved by physical means. The first time the phenomena took place was during the visit of a very practical friend. She had been writing, and had put her materials together, and was walking out of the room, when her pen was whisked out of her hand. She looked about everywhere, she shook her dress (which was quite a new one), but the pen had vanished--it was nowhere to be seen. Then she went upstairs, put on her walking shoes, hat, and gloves, and went to the railway station, came straight home, and, on taking off her outdoor things, discovered the missing pen inside a tailor's stitching across the front of her dress! She could not find any opening where it could have got in, and was obliged to unpick part of the dress to get it out. I wanted her to send an account of the incident to the S.P.R., but as she had a strong aversion to anything in the nature of publicity, I could not persuade her to do so. After this things constantly disappeared, and reappeared in a prominent position after every one had searched the place. I think, and hope, however, that this has now ceased, as it procured me a very bad reputation with several servants, who emphatically declared I was in league with the Evil One."
In a subsequent letter she writes:--"The house in which my Poltergeist experiences took place was in Dawlish, but the annoyances followed me to London. I had been sitting at friendly _séances_ with one or two friends at that time. At the beginning the phenomena seemed in some way associated with an old cupboard which I had bought second-hand, and which I still possess."
If the disturbances were not brought about by human agency, then I think it highly probable that both the _séances_ at which Miss Featherstone had been attending and the oak chest may have been responsible for them. I am quite sure that whenever a genuine spirit manifestation takes place at a _séance_, that that manifestation is due either to the earth-bound spirits of people who were merely silly when in the body (and of these there have been, still are, and always will be a superabundance), to the earth-bound spirits of people who were bestial and lustful, or simply due to mischievous Impersonating and other kinds of Elementals. These latter, when once encouraged, are extremely difficult to shake off. They attach themselves to certain of the sitters, whom they follow to their homes, which they subsequently haunt. I have known many such instances; hence, I think it very probable that a mischievous Elemental attached itself to Miss Featherstone at one of the _séances_ she attended, and, following her from place to place, pestered her with its unpleasant attentions. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the oak chest was haunted by some species of Elemental, as is often the case with pieces of furniture, either old in themselves or constructed of antique wood--wood, for instance, that comes from a bog, an ancient forest, a mountain top, or any other spot frequented by Vagrarians.
Miss Featherstone gives me another experience she once had, and which is not without interest.
"About seven years ago," she says, "my two sisters and I were staying at a farmhouse near Chagford, on Dartmoor, between Thridly and Gidleigh. We started one day to walk to the latter place, and went through the village and up a lane beyond, on to the open moor, where we found ourselves on a level piece of ground, with Kes Tor close by to our left, whilst on our right were three new-looking houses, with little gardens and wicket gates leading to them. I went into one to enquire if there were any rooms to let for the following year, and was shown over it, while my sisters waited on the moor for me. Strange to say, I forgot to ask the name and address of the place, but it seemed on a perfectly straight road from Gidleigh. When we got back to Chagford, we asked our landlady where we had been, and she said the name of the place was Berry Down; so the next year we wrote there for rooms, but on arriving were astonished to find quite a different place--not on the open moor at all. We then set about looking for the three houses we had seen. We walked round Gidleigh in every direction, enquiring of the postman, clergymen, farmers, and villagers, but none knew of any such houses, nor could we ever find the remotest traces of them. The day on which we saw them was bright and sunny, so that we could not possibly have been mistaken, and, moreover, we rested on the moor opposite them for some time, so that had they been mere optical illusions, we should have eventually become aware of the fact. Several old Gidleigh cottagers to whom we narrated the incident were of the opinion we had been 'Pixie led.' Is such a thing possible?"
There are instances I know--though I cannot at present recall one--where people have seen and entered phantom houses, just as sailors have witnessed the phenomenon of the phantom ship--which I have heard has been seen again comparatively recently off the North Cornwall coast--but whether such visions are due to Pixies, or any other kind of Elemental, I cannot, with certainty, say. Taking into consideration, however, the numerous tricks Elementals do play, and how they very often, I believe, suggest dreams, I see no reason why they should not have been responsible for the delusion of the three cottages.