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VII More Ghosts With A Purpose

       THE SLAYING OF SERGEANT DAVIES

       CONCERNING THE MURDER OF SERGEANT DAVIES

       THE GARDENER’S GHOST

       THE DOG O’ MAUSE

       PETER’S GHOST

       CHAPTER VIII

       TICONDEROGA

       THE BERESFORD GHOST

       HALF-PAST ONE O’CLOCK

       “PUT OUT THE LIGHT!”

       CHAPTER IX

       THE CREAKING STAIR

       THE GROCER’S COUGH

       MY GILLIE’S FATHER’S STORY

       THE DREAM THAT KNOCKED AT THE DOOR

       THE GIRL IN PINK

       THE DOG IN THE HAUNTED ROOM

       THE LADY IN BLACK

       THE DANCING DEVIL

       CHAPTER X Modern Hauntings

       THE WESLEY GHOST

       LORD ST. VINCENT’S GHOST STORY

       CHAPTER XI

       MORE HAUNTED HOUSES

       HAUNTED MRS. CHANG

       THE GREAT AMHERST MYSTERY

       DONALD BAN AND THE BOCAN {239b}

       THE HYMN OF DONALD BAN

       THE DEVIL OF HJALTA-STAD {246}

       THE GHOST AT GARPSDAL

       CHAPTER XII The Story of Glam. The Foul Fords.

       THE STORY OF GLAM

       ‘THE FOUL FORDS’ OR THE LONGFORMACUS FARRIER

       CHAPTER XIII The Marvels at Fródá

       THE MARVELS AT FRÓDÁ {273}

       CHAPTER XIV

       HANDS ALL ROUND

       THE COLD HAND

       THE BLACK DOG AND THE THUMBLESS HAND

       THE GHOST THAT BIT

PREFACE TO THE NEW IMPRESSION

       Table of Contents

      Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerable number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial, not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular series of such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to the gazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, The Making of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on the scene of the story called “The Foul Fords” (p. 269), so that tale is likely to endure in tradition.

      July, 1899.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

       Table of Contents

      The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For the sake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different grades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably startling. At the same time an account of the current theories of Apparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities as possible. According to modern opinion every “ghost” is a “hallucination,” a false perception, the perception of something which is not present.

      It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological and physiological processes involved in perception, real or false. Every “hallucination” is a perception, “as good and true a sensation as if there were a real object there. The object happens not to be there, that is all.” {0a} We are not here concerned with the visions of insanity, delirium, drugs, drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with “sporadic cases of hallucination, visiting people only once in a lifetime, which seems to be by far the most frequent type”. “These,” says Mr. James, “are on any theory hard to understand in detail. They are often extraordinarily complete; and the fact that many of them are reported as veridical, that is, as coinciding with real events, such as accidents, deaths, etc., of the persons seen, is an additional complication of the phenomenon.” {0b} A ghost, if seen, is undeniably

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