This section is from the book "Phantasms Of The Living", by Edmund Gurney, Frederic W. H. Myers, Frank Podmore. Also available from Amazon: Phantasms of the Living.
[Case 349 is omitted.] We owe the next account in the first instance to Mrs. Willink, of Lindale Parsonage, Grange-over-Sands. The three firsthand witnesses all appear to be persons of good sense and of some education. Mrs. Willink writes, on Sept. 9, 1884:-
(350) ' One night (Friday) my nurse, Jane, came to tell me that they had been startled by seeing a ghastly face at the kitchen window. The servants had been annoyed for some time previously by some young men coming to the kitchen window, and making a noise on the glass, and trying to look in. The flower-bed under the window had been freshly dug up and tidied, and they were hoping the visits had ceased. The dog, whose kennel was close to the window, and who had been put on a long chain to keep away these visitors, began to howl, and Helen (now Mrs. Robinson), who was sitting so as to see through the edge of the blind, looked up, and seeing a ghastly face, which she recognised as Mrs. Robinson's, told the others, who got up and drew the blind on one side and so saw the face distinctly. Their account was that it gradually faded away below the bottom of the window. Jane and Aggie then went to the door, but though the dog continued howling (as he always does when a death in the village takes place), they could see nothing.
"I doubt the accuracy of the statement that the apparition looked at Helen rather than at the others; she sat where she could see through the space between the blind and the edge of the window, so naturally saw it first. Jane had never seen Mrs. Robinson, but some time after, on looking through a photograph-book in the village, she recognised the face, and was then told to whom it belonged. When she told me on the Friday evening of what they had seen, I rather pooh-poohed the story, as I found that the dog's howling was beginning to make them always nervous; and it was not until after service on Sunday that I was told how Mrs. Robinson had been persuaded to go to Leeds to the hospital there, and to undergo an operation, under which she died on Friday afternoon, I think, between 2 and 3. The appearance would be between 8 and 9. Mrs. Robinson had been servant to the clergyman here before she married; she had been away from the village some time before her death; was always an invalid, but none of us knew of her being more ill than usual.
"Margaret Willink".
We learn from the clerk at Finsthwaite, where Mrs. Robinson was buried, that she died at the Leeds Infirmary on March 25th, 1882, and a neighbour thinks that the hour was between 8 and 9 in the morning. Friday was the 24th, not the 25th; and the coincidence was thus not so close as Mrs. Willink supposes; but the interval probably did not exceed 12 hours.
Mary Jane Farrand says:-
"It was a Friday evening, of the exact time I am not sure, but it was between half-past 8 and 9 o'clock. The other two maids, with myself, were sitting at supper in the kitchen, close to the window, when we all became conscious of being watched by a woman from the outside, whom the other two immediately recognised as a person whom they both knew as Mrs. Robinson. Before her marriage, she lived at the parsonage for some time as housemaid. She looked intently upon each one, and then turned her face quite to the cook, looking slightly reproachful, then pleadingly. They asked one of the other where she could be staying, and they said it was strange for her to be out (as it rained heavily) without her bonnet. One was just about to go and ask her in, when we saw a great change come over the face, and it looked like that of a corpse, then disappeared altogether. I never saw the person previously, or remember ever hearing of her, however indirectly. The following Sunday morning I heard that she was dead from Mrs. Willink. The cook, whom we called Nell, was married to John Robinson about two years afterwards.
As we sat at the table I had such an impression of the face, eyes, and front of the hair as to be able to recognise the photograph a few months afterwards, without the least trouble, or being told.
"Mary Jane Farrand".
A. Nicholson (now Mrs. Capstick, of Silverdale, Carnforth) writes to Mary Jane Farrand, on September 4th, 1884: -
"Woodwell.
"In answer to your letter about the face at the window, I cannot remember much about it, except that we were sitting at supper, and Nell happened to look up at the window, and said some one was looking in, then told us to come and look. It was like the face of a skeleton, and we looked, and it was a very thin face, with large staring eyes. We still thought it was some one till you and I went to the door, but could see nothing. Nell was in the kitchen, and it never moved, but was still there when we got back. It seemed to gradually fade out of sight. I don't remember who passed the remark that it was like Mrs. Robinson.
"A. Nicholson".
In conversation, Mrs. Capstick stated that she has never had any other experience of a hallucination.
Mrs. Willink writes, on September 18th, 1884:-
" In answer to your question as to when the servants told me it was Mrs. Robinson's face they saw, as far as I recollect it was that same evening. Helen knew (as we all did) that Mrs. Robinson was ill, and had been so for years with an internal complaint, from which she never could recover; but she did not know that she was any worse than she had been before she left the village some months before.
"They went out next morning to look for footmarks on the flower bed, which would have been disturbed by any one standing at the window, but there were no traces of any".
In answer to inquiries, Mary Jane Farrand writes, on September 24th, 1884:-
"When I recognised Mrs. Robinson's photograph I was staying at Arnside with Mrs. Willink's children, and went to visit a person who had lived near Lindale and had not long been married, and she it was who when showing me the different things in her house, quite by chance took up her album, and showed me the photos of her friends, amongst them Mrs. Robinson. I cannot quite remember whether or not I told her that I recognised the face; for it seems so long ago to remember each fact, and I should not like to assert what I did not feel confident about, but you certainly may write to her to ask her.
"Never before had I seen anything of the kind, although I had heard of similar events, but was greatly wanting in faith with regard to such things happening, and thought it but a fancy in others, until I saw Mrs. Robinson [i.e., the photograph]".
She mentions, however, that she has had two subjective hallucinations, which fell within a few days of one another - one representing Mrs. Willink, and the other a fellow-servant.
Mrs. Jackson Thompson, of Ashmeadow Lodge, Arnside, Grange-over-Sands, writes, in February, 1886: -
" The only remark I remember Mary Jane Farrand making on the late Mrs. John Robinson's photograph was that it resembled the face which appeared at the Lindale Parsonage kitchen window.
"Charlotte Thompson".
The evidence of "Nell" (now Mrs. Robinson), the third witness, has now been obtained, and is as follows: -
"Lakeside Cottages. Newby Bridge.
"June, 1886.
"It was one evening, about 4 years ago, that I sat in the kitchen, at Lindale Parsonage, at supper, and looking at the window I saw, at the side of the blind, which was not hanging quite straight, a very pale face looking at me. It was turned sideways when I first saw it, and thinking it was one of the young men from the village come up to make game of us, I made a face at it; then it turned full face towards me, and I saw that it was the face of Mrs. John Robinson, my present husband's first wife. It looked very pale. I watched it with the other servants for about 3 minutes perhaps, and then it dropped down and disappeared. I could see all round it, so that I could see that it was not a real face, and it was too close to the window for that. It looked as if resting on the sill.
"I have never on any other occasion seen anything which was not really there. "Helen Robinson".
[The next case No. 351 is here omitted. - Ed].
 
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