The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

THE DOG IN THE HAUNTED ROOM The author's friend, Mr. Rokeby, lives, and has lived for some twenty years, in an old house at Hammersmith. It is surrounded by a large garden, the drawing-room and dining-room are on the right and left of the entrance from the garden, on the ground floor. My friends had never been troubled by any phenomena before, and never expected to be. However, they found the house "noisy," the windows were apt to be violently shaken at night and steps used to be heard where no steps should be. Deep long sighs were audible at all times of day. As Mrs. Rokeby approached a door, the handle would turn and the door fly open. {196} Sounds of stitching a hard material, and of dragging a heavy weight occurred in Mrs. Rokeby's room, and her hair used to be pulled in a manner for which she could not account. "These sorts of things went on for about five years, when in October, 1875, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I was sitting" (says Mrs. Rokeby) "with three of my children in the dining-room, reading to them. I rang the bell for the parlour-maid, when the door opened, and on looking up I saw the figure of a woman come in and walk up to the side of the table, stand there a second or two, and then turn to go out again, but before reaching the door she seemed to dissolve away. She was a grey, short-looking woman, apparently dressed in grey muslin. I hardly saw the face, which seemed scarcely to be defined at all. None of the children saw her," and Mrs. Rokeby only mentioned the affair at the time to her husband.