What Mrs. Claughton's children were doing all this time, and whetherthey were in the room or not, does not appear.On Thursday Mrs. Claughton went to town, and her governess wasperturbed, as we have seen.On Friday night Mrs. Claughton _dreamed_ a number of things connectedwith her journey; a page of the notes made from this dream was shownto Mr. Myers. Thus her half ticket was not to be taken, she was tofind a Mr. Francis, concerned in the private affairs of the ghosts,which needed rectifying, and so forth. These premonitions, withothers, were all fulfilled. Mrs. Claughton, in the church at night,continued her conversation with the ghosts whose acquaintance she hadmade at Rapingham. She obtained, it seems, all the informationneedful to settling the mysterious matters which disturbed the maleghost who hid his face, and on Monday morning she visited the daughterof Mr. Howard in her country house in a park, "recognised the stronglikeness to her father, and carried out all things desired by the deadto the full, as had been requested. . . . The wishes expressed to herwere perfectly rational, reasonable and of natural importance."The clerk, Wright, attests the accuracy of Mrs. Claughton'sdescription of Mr. Howard, whom he knew, and the correspondence of herdates with those in the parish register and on the graves, which hefound for her at her request. Mr. Myers, "from a very partialknowledge" of what the Meresby ghosts' business was, thinks thereasons for not revealing this matter "entirely sufficient". Theghosts' messages to survivors "effected the intended results," saysMrs. Claughton.* * * * *Of this story the only conceivable natural explanation is that Mrs.Claughton, to serve her private ends, paid secret preliminary visitsto Meresby, "got up" there a number of minute facts, chose a hauntedhouse at the other end of England as a first scene in her littledrama, and made the rest of the troublesome journeys, not to mentionthe uncomfortable visit to a dark church at midnight, and did all thisfrom a hysterical love of notoriety. This desirable boon she wouldprobably never have obtained, even as far as it is consistent with apseudonym, if I had not chanced to dine with Dr. Ferrier while theadventure was only beginning. As there seemed to be a chance oftaking a ghost "on the half volley," I at once communicated the firstpart of the tale to the Psychical Society (using pseudonyms, as here,throughout), and two years later Mrs. Claughton consented to tell theSociety as much as she thinks it fair to reveal.This, it will be confessed, is a round-about way of obtaining fame,and an ordinary person in Mrs. Claughton's position would have gone tothe Psychical Society at once, as Mark Twain meant to do when he sawthe ghost which turned out to be a very ordinary person.There I leave these ghosts, my mind being in a just balance ofagnosticism. If ghosts at all, they were ghosts with a purpose. Thespecies is now very rare.The purpose of the ghost in the following instance was trivial, butwas successfully accomplished. In place of asking people to do whatit wanted, the ghost did the thing itself. Now the modern theory ofghosts, namely, that they are delusions of the senses of the seers,caused somehow by the mental action of dead or distant people, doesnot seem to apply in this case. The ghost produced an effect on amaterial object.
