< The Royal Irish Constabulary Defied by Spirits (continued from page 3-93) >
then mainly confined to breaking the windows. It may be thought there was nothing very extraordinary and ghostlike in such a procedure, but there was. When several panes were broken, and the how and means escaped attention, a strict watch was put upon the windows, but all was useless; the cause was still undiscoverable. Sometimes stones were used as the media. but by whom or what nobody could see; and more frequently again the glass broke, apparently of its own accord. Even the frames began at last to get abused, more especially at the rear of the house, and the strictest and most constant guard could make nothing of it. The house, by the way, is a small two-story building, with three windows behind, and the ordinary shop and front windows before. The yard is small, and surrounded by a wall ten feet high, from whence extend the open fields. All the glass at the back of the premises having been repeatedly broken, and every effort at protection avoided, one of the windows was barricaded with a shutter, to which was affixed a bell, in such a position that if the shutter were moved the bell must ring. Men were also placed at each window with loaded guns, so that it was impossible for any individual to approach without being at once observed and in their power. Notwithstanding this, the shutter was taken down, the bell simply noting the fact when it was accomplished, and that in such a gentle, tinkling monotone as to be almost unheard. In the front of the premises glass was broken with the same security and freedom from observation.
Fear now commenced to grow into serious alarm, which in no way decreased as other incidents, equally, if not more, bewildering in their character, became of daily occurrence. Bowls took a fancy to route, with various degrees of swiftness, upon the tables, and then, as if smitten with the same idea of self-martyrdom, shot off at a tangent, ending sharply and forever their symmetrical usefulness upon the floor. Coats, which formerly hung with all staidness and propriety upon their respective pins, now shivered and fluttered, as if seized with an ague, and again expanded in all their proportions, as if each were enveloping an invisible Falstaff, or an aspiring Claimant. Hats took unto themselves wings, and bodily flew away. In sooth, the natural order of affairs in the house was completely deranged, and the more agitated became the inanimate articles, the more excited became, naturally enough, the members of the family. Every conceivable project that could be devised for elucidating these mysteries tailed utterly in pointing out a cause which could be understood. Even the potatoes boiling in a pot on the fire became mashed, and leaped behind the fire. And when ten or twelve were entered for boiling, a tot up in a few minutes revealed the startling fact that several had altogether and unaccountably disappeared, though many pairs of straining eyes were watching with almost painful eagerness every motion of the immovable pot Latterly, also, large stones, weighing on an average about three pounds, or three pounds and a half, have rolled slowly down the stairs, bobbing with leisurely ease from step to step. These have been sometimes damp and wet with clay, as if just removed from a ditch or roadway, and at other times dry and clean, as if preserved from the weather for a considerable space of time.
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