Sir Walter Scott, writing about the disturbances in the house occupiedby Mrs. Ricketts, sister of the great admiral, Lord St. Vincent, asks:"Who has seen Lord St. Vincent's letters?" He adds that the gallantadmiral, after all, was a sailor, and implies that "what the sailorsaid" (if he said anything) "is not evidence".The fact of unaccountable disturbances which finally drove Mrs.Ricketts out of Hinton Ampner, is absolutely indisputable, though thecause of the annoyances may remain as mysterious as ever. Thecontemporary correspondence (including that of Lord St. Vincent, thenCaptain Jervis) exists, and has been edited by Mrs. Henley Jervis,grand-daughter of Mrs. Ricketts. {222}There is only the very vaguest evidence for hauntings at LadyHillsborough's old house of Hinton Ampner, near Alresford, before Mr.Ricketts took it in January, 1765. He and his wife were thendisturbed by footsteps, and sounds of doors opening and shutting.They put new locks on the doors lest the villagers had procured keys,but this proved of no avail. The servants talked of seeingappearances of a gentleman in drab and of a lady in silk, which Mrs.Ricketts disregarded. Her husband went to Jamaica in the autumn of1769, and in 1771 she was so disturbed that her brother, CaptainJervis, a witness of the phenomena, insisted on her leaving the housein August. He and Mrs. Ricketts then wrote to Mr. Ricketts about theaffair. In July, 1772, Mrs. Ricketts wrote a long and solemndescription of her sufferings, to be given to her children.We shall slightly abridge her statement, in which she mentions thatwhen she left Hinton she had not one of the servants who came thitherin her family, which "evinces the impossibility of a confederacy".Her new, like her former servants, were satisfactory; Camis, her newcoachman, was of a yeoman house of 400 years' standing. It will beobserved that Mrs. Ricketts was a good deal annoyed even _before_ 2ndApril, 1771, the day when she dates the beginning of the worstdisturbances. She believed that the agency was human--a robber or apractical joker--and but slowly and reluctantly became convinced thatthe "exploded" notion of an abnormal force might be correct. We learnthat while Captain Jervis was not informed of the sounds he neverheard them, and whereas Mrs. Ricketts heard violent noises after hewent to bed on the night of his vigil, he heard nothing. "Severalinstances occurred where very loud noises were heard by one or twopersons, when those equally near and in the same direction were notsensible of the least impression." {223}With this preface, Mrs. Ricketts may be allowed to tell her own tale."Sometime after Mr. Ricketts left me (autumn, 1769) I--then lying inthe bedroom over the kitchen--heard frequently the noise of some onewalking in the room within, and the rustling as of silk clothesagainst the door that opened into my room, sometimes so loud, and ofsuch continuance as to break my rest. Instant search being oftenmade, we never could discover any appearance of human or brute being.Repeatedly disturbed in the same manner, I made it my constantpractice to search the room and closets within, and to secure the onlydoor on the inside. . . . Yet this precaution did not preclude thedisturbance, which continued with little interruption."Nobody, in short, could enter this room, except by passing throughthat of Mrs. Ricketts, the door of which "was always made fast by adrawn bolt". Yet somebody kept rustling and walking in the innerroom, which somebody could never be found when sought for.In summer, 1770, Mrs. Ricketts heard someone walk to the foot of herbed in her own room, "the footsteps as distinct as ever I heard,myself perfectly awake and collected". Nobody could be discovered inthe chamber. Mrs. Ricketts boldly clung to her room, and was only nowand then disturbed by "sounds of harmony," and heavy thumps, downstairs. After this, and early in 1771, she was "frequently sensibleof a hollow murmuring that seemed to possess the whole house: it wasindependent of wind, being equally heard on the calmest nights, and itwas a sound I had never been accustomed to hear".On 27th February, 1771, a maid was alarmed by "groans and flutteringround her bed": she was "the sister of an eminent grocer inAlresford". On 2nd April, Mrs. Ricketts heard people walking in thelobby, hunted for burglars, traced the sounds to a room whence theirwas no outlet, and found nobody. This kind of thing went on till Mrs.Ricketts despaired of any natural explanation. After mid-summer,1771, the trouble increased, in broad daylight, and a shrill femalevoice, answered by two male voices was added to the afflictions.Captain Jervis came on a visit, but was told of nothing, and neverheard anything. After he went to Portsmouth, "the most deep, loudtremendous noise seemed to rush and fall with infinite velocity andforce on the lobby floor adjoining my room," accompanied by a shrilland dreadful shriek, seeming to proceed from under the spot where therushing noise fell, and repeated three or four times.Mrs. Ricketts' "resolution remained firm," but her health wasimpaired; she tried changing her room, without results. Thedisturbances pursued her. Her brother now returned. She told himnothing, and he heard nothing, but next day she unbosomed herself.Captain Jervis therefore sat up with Captain Luttrell and his own man.He was rewarded by noises which he in vain tried to pursue. "I shoulddo great injustice to my sister" (he writes to Mr. Ricketts on 9thAugust, 1771), "if I did not acknowledge to have heard what I couldnot, after the most diligent search and serious reflection, any wayaccount for." Captain Jervis during a whole week slept by day, andwatched, armed, by night. Even by day he was disturbed by a sound asof immense weights falling from the ceiling to the floor of his room.He finally obliged his sister to leave the house.What occurred after Mrs. Ricketts abandoned Hinton is not verydistinct. Apparently Captain Jervis's second stay of a week, when hedid hear the noises, was from 1st August to 8th August. From astatement by Mrs. Ricketts it appears that, when her brother joinedhis ship, the Alarm (9th August), she retired to Dame Camis's house,that of her coachman's mother. Thence she went, and made anotherattempt to live at Hinton, but was "soon after assailed by a noise Inever before heard, very near me, and the terror I felt not to bedescribed". She therefore went to the Newbolts, and thence to the oldPalace at Winton; later, on Mr. Ricketts' return, to the Parsonage,and then to Longwood (to the _old_ house there) near Alresford.Meanwhile, on 18th September, Lady Hillsborough's agent lay with armedmen at Hinton, and, making no discovery, offered 50 pounds (increasedby Mr. Ricketts to 100 pounds) for the apprehension of the persons whocaused the noises. The reward was never claimed. On 8th March, 1772,Camis wrote: "I am very sorry that we cannot find out the reason ofthe noise"; at other dates he mentions sporadic noises heard by hismother and another woman, including "the murmur". A year after Mrs.Ricketts left a family named Lawrence took the house, and, accordingto old Lucy Camis, in 1818, Mr. Lawrence very properly threatened todismiss any servant who spoke of the disturbances. The result of thissensible course was that the Lawrences left suddenly, at the end ofthe year--and the house was pulled down. Some old political papers ofthe Great Rebellion, and a monkey's skull, not exhibited to anyanatomist, are said to have been discovered under the floor of thelobby, or of one of the rooms. Mrs. Ricketts adds sadly, "Theunbelief of Chancellor Hoadley went nearest my heart," as he hadpreviously a high opinion of her veracity. The Bishop of St. Asaphwas incredulous, "on the ground that such means were unworthy of theDeity to employ".Probably a modern bishop would say that there were no noises at all,that every one who heard the sounds was under the influence of"suggestion," caused first in Mrs. Ricketts' own mind by vague talesof a gentleman in drab seen by the servants.The contagion, to be sure, also reached two distinguished captains inthe navy, but not till one of them was told about disturbances whichhad not previously disturbed him. If this explanation be true, itcasts an unusual light on the human imagination. Physical science haslately invented a new theory. Disturbances of this kind are perhaps"seismic,"--caused by earthquakes! (See Professor Milne, in TheTimes, 21st June, 1897.)
