The Invisible Hand
The following account was sent to the S. P. R. Ghosts are usually seen; they are sometimes heard; they are very rarely felt. The account which follows is an example of the latter class, in which the ghost was not only seen but touched.
After stating that she was visiting a friend of hers in the country, when the event occurred, the narrator proceeds:
“We went upstairs together, I being perhaps a couple of steps behind my friend, when, on reaching the topmost step, I felt something suddenly slip behind me from an unoccupied room on the left of the stairs. Thinking it must be imagination, no one being in the house except the widow and servant, who occupied rooms on another landing, I did not speak to my friend, who turned off to a room on the right, but walked quickly into my room, which faced the staircase, still feeling as though a tall figure was bending over me. I turned on the gas, struck a light, and was in the act of applying it, when I felt a heavy grasp on my arm of a hand, minus the middle finger. Upon this I uttered a loud cry, which brought my friend, the widow lady, and the servant girl, into the room to inquire the cause of my alarm. The two latter turned very pale on hearing the story. The house was thoroughly searched, but nothing was discovered.
“Some weeks passed, and I had ceased to be alarmed at the occurrence, when I chanced to mention it whilst spending the afternoon with some friends. A gentleman asked me if I had ever heard a description or seen a ‘carte’ of the lady’s late husband. On receiving a reply in the negative, he said, singularly enough, he was tall, had a slight stoop, and has lost the middle finger on his hand! On my return, I inquired of the servant, who had been in the family from childhood, if such were the case, and learned that it was quite correct, and that she (the girl) had once, when sleeping in the same room, awakened on feeling some one pressing down her knees, and on opening her eyes saw her late master by the bed side—on which she fainted, and had never dared to enter the room after dark since. She is not an imaginative girl; nor am I. When I was grasped, however, I did not see anything.
“But worse was to follow! It so chanced that I had to sleep in that room once again, as the house was full of company, and there was nowhere else for me to go. I had by this time got over my fears, and hardly minded the idea of sleeping in the room at all. I left the room door open, turned out the light and was soon sound asleep.
“Some time in the early hours of the morning I awoke with an indescribable feeling. I was suddenly wide awake—without the slightest traces of sleep; yet I did not know how I awoke; and had not any recollection of waking. But there I was wide awake, and staring up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes. My right hand was hanging over the side of the bed; so that it fell outwards, into the room. Imagine my horror, then, in feeling a hand suddenly grasp my hand, and I felt distinctly that it was minus the middle finger. The hand was icy cold, and of a peculiar hardness. I hung on to the hand, however, determined to go to the bottom of the affair. I gripped tightly; and still retained the hand in my grip. Bending over, I stretched out my left hand, and, with the fingers of that hand, felt over the hand and wrist I was holding. I then commenced to trace it up the arm. I had about reached the elbow—or a little below—when the arm suddenly ended—came to nothing; was no more! Yet the hand in mine was as solid as ever. This gave me such a shock that I let go the hand I was holding, and sank back onto my pillows. Then terror took possession of me; and I do not know what happened later. I only know that I had brain fever, which laid me low for several weeks. The occurrence has never been explained.”