The Mystery Footstep January 26, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
A busy day, so a good and, let’s say, credible story from Llanfillin in Wales. This tale also involve a favourite Beachcombian theme, which cannot be revealed to the end without ruining the story. An English man goes to live in Wales and is warned that the house he wished to rent is haunted.
The lowness of the rent of course operated as an additional inducement, and having fixed upon four or five rooms upstairs, he struck the bargain, got in few little things until his wife should arrive with all the domestic equipments of a family, and forthwith wrote off for her. The first night of his sojournment he lighted a fire to dispel the dampness, and having taken his cup of grog, be lay down and enjoyed an excellent night’s rest. On his rising in the morning, his first visit was to barber’s shop in the town order get shaved, and there several persons inquired most earnestly how he slept; and when he declared that he had never enjoyed a better night’s rest in his life, every one seemed amazed. The mystery was now dispelled, and his eyes were opened by being informed that Tee Gwyn or White House, as the mansion was called, had been haunted for fifty years. The supervisor laughed at this notion… As night advanced, he threw an extra log on the fire, and having borrowed a chair in the town he sat himself down before it, to eat his bread and cheese, and sipped his cup amidst various ruminations. At one time be thought his situation rather dangerous—in the event of his suspicions being true, there was no assistance at hand. He might have his throat cut from ear to ear, and his body thrown into a tub, while his wife and family would be none the wiser. Fears of the living, more than the dead, flitted across his brain, and at length he resolved, in case he heard anything going on, to remain as quiet as possible, and send all the information he could to the head of his department.
Around midnight things take a turn for the worse.
Of a sudden he heard footsteps on the staircase, and he felt or thought he felt his hair lift his hat involuntarily, at least an inch off his forehead, his heart fluttered, the logs did not seem to blaze so bright; he listened anxiously, but heard nothing. After chiding his fancy for frightening him, he mustered courage enough to open the door, which he left in that state, and then betook himself to his couch, after a paralytic sort of poke at the fire. Scarce had the first doze relaxed his limbs when was awakened a strange clattering the stair case, as if ten thousand imps were ascending to his room! In the panic of the moment, he jumped up, rushed to the landing place, where be distinctly heard the said imps clatter down the broad staircase again, making faint shrieking cries, which died away with the sounds of their footsteps as they seemed to gain the vaults beneath the house. It was now manifest that there were other living tenants in his tenement beside himself, and the remainder of that sleepless night was spent in gloomy conjectures. With painful anxiety did he watch the grey morning breaking in the east; and when the day burst forth he commenced a most scrutinizing search every where. Nothing, however, was discovered, not even a footstep on the staircase; and he could have sworn that he really did hear his disturbers ascend towards his room and then depart.
Now he gets ready for the fight
Towards the next evening he determined to ascertain whether anything really did ascend the staircase, or whether it was mere fancy; for this purpose he spread a thick coat of sand on every step [first example in ghost hunting?], imagining, shrewdly enough, that if his tormentors were really substantial they must leave some tracks behind them. The next night was accompanied by the same extraordinary noises; but the supervisor had provided himself with pistols, and being doubly armed with a lamp also, he proceeded down stairs as fast as he could. The imps, however, were too nimble for him, and he could not even get a glimpse of them. Again did he search in every hole and corner, disturbing the poor spiders with the blaze of his lamp; and finding his scrutiny in vain, was retracing his steps, when he recollected the sand, which, in his terrified descent, he bad forgotten when, and behold! he perceived some five or six hundred cloven tracks! They were too small for old devils, and much too large for rats, and therefore he concluded they must be supernatural beings. The matter now assumed rather a serious aspect, and he determined to write to his wife, forbidding her arrival until she heard further from him. All the day long his brain was racked with conjecture to the species of creature that could have disturbed his quiet.
Note Beach worked it out about here. If you haven’t wait for the punchline…
Fifty times did he conclude that it was perhaps a trick, as often did he abandon that notion as improbable but then be could not account for not being able to see the authors of the tracks, and forthwith resolved another project. He had given up every idea that rats could have made such noise or tracks large, but be determined to try if a few rat-traps could solve the mystery. Accordingly, he procured six, which were all that he could get, and on the fourth night carefully set them in a row on one of the steps the staircase; that the devils ascended in a column he was sure of catching at least one of them as a curiosity. Still he could not abandon his pistols or his lamp, but determined to be at guard all night. About the mystic hour of twelve, he again heard the devils jumping or hopping, as it seemed, up the stairs, while he cocked one of the pistols he heard a trap go off, then another, succeeded by appalling shrieks and the same clattering noise down stairs again. He proceeded to the spot, there to his infinite astonishment he found, not a devil, not an imp, nor any thing supernatural, but three fine fat rabbits caught by the legs in the traps. The simple fact was, that the inhabitants of an adjoining rabbit warren used to make their way up through the sewers into the deserted mansion and their gambols through the empty rooms first gave rise the story of the Tee Gwyn being haunted. It is needless to add, that Mr. Thomas forthwith sent for his family, and they now enjoy a house and many rabbits as they can eat for five pounds year.
Rabbits and the supernatural again. Chester Courant (6 Nov 1827), 4
Other rabbit ghosts: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
