True Irish Ghost Stories | Page 6

following tale, sent by Mr. E. B. de Lacy, contains a most
extraordinary and unsatisfactory element of mystery. He says: "When I
was a boy I lived in the suburbs, and used to come in every morning to
school in the city. My way lay through a certain street in which stood a
very dismal semi-detached house, which, I might say, was closed up
regularly about every six months. I would see new tenants coming into
it, and then in a few months it would be 'To let' again. This went on for
eight or nine years, and I often wondered what was the reason. On
inquiring one day from a friend, I was told that it had the reputation of
being haunted.
"A few years later I entered business in a certain office, and one day it
fell to my lot to have to call on the lady who at that particular period
was the tenant of the haunted house. When we had transacted our
business she informed me that she was about to leave. Knowing the
reputation of the house, and being desirous of investigating a
ghost-story, I asked her if she would give me the history of the house as
far as she knew it, which she very kindly did as follows:
"About forty years ago the house was left by will to a gentleman named
----. He lived in it for a short time, when he suddenly went mad, and
had to be put in an asylum. Upon this his agents let the house to a lady.

Apparently nothing unusual happened for some time, but a few months
later, as she went down one morning to a room behind the kitchen, she
found the cook hanging by a rope attached to a hook in the ceiling.
After the inquest the lady gave up the house.
"It was then closed up for some time, but was again advertised 'To let,'
and a caretaker, a woman, was put into it. One night about one o'clock,
a constable going his rounds heard some one calling for help from the
house, and found the caretaker on the sill of one of the windows
holding on as best she could. He told her to go in and open the hall
door and let him in, but she refused to enter the room again. He forced
open the door and succeeded in dragging the woman back into the
room, only to find she had gone mad.
"Again the house was shut up, and again it was let, this time to a lady,
on a five-years' lease. However, after a few months' residence, she
locked it up, and went away. On her friends asking her why she did so,
she replied that she would rather pay the whole five years' rent than live
in it herself, or allow anyone else to do so, but would give no other
reason.
"'I believe I was the next person to take this house,' said the lady who
narrated the story to me (i.e. Mr. de Lacy). 'I took it about eighteen
months ago on a three years' lease in the hopes of making money by
taking in boarders, but I am now giving it up because none of them will
stay more than a week or two. They do not give any definite reason as
to why they are leaving; they are careful to state that it is not because
they have any fault to find with me or my domestic arrangements, but
they merely say they do not like the rooms! The rooms themselves, as
you can see, are good, spacious, and well lighted. I have had all classes
of professional men; one of the last was a barrister, and he said that he
had no fault to find except that he did not like the rooms! I myself do
not believe in ghosts, and I have never seen anything strange here or
elsewhere; and if I had known the house had the reputation of being
haunted, I would never have rented it."
Marsh's library, that quaint, old-world repository of ponderous tomes,
is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of its founder, Primate Narcissus

Marsh. He is said to frequent the inner gallery, which contains what
was formerly his own private library: he moves in and out among the
cases, taking down books from the shelves, and occasionally throwing
them down on the reader's desk as if in anger. However, he always
leaves things in perfect order. The late Mr. ----, who for some years
lived in the librarian's rooms underneath, was a firm believer in this
ghost, and said he frequently heard noises which could only be
accounted for by the presence of a nocturnal visitor; the present tenant
is more sceptical. The story goes