A Ghost in a Drab Colored Coat

Reprinted from: Rare Bits, January 10, 1885

       It was in the year 1771 that the distinguished Captain John Jervis, afterwards created Earl St. Vincent, who had recently returned from the Mediterranean, paid a visit to his youngest sister, Mary, wife of Mr. Ricketts, a bencher of Gray's Inn. The lady was at that time residing, her husband being absent at his estates in Jamaica, in the old manor-house of Hinton Ampner, situated near Alresford in Hampshire. The mansion and estates had been for many generations in the possession of the Stewkelays, and on the death of Sir Hugh passed jure uxoris to Edward, Lord Stawell, who, sitting there in a little parlor, died suddenly of apoplexy in 1755. For the next ten years the house, now become the property of the Right Honorable Henry Bilson Legge, husband of Lord Stawell's daughter, was left chiefly in occupation of servants, Mr. Legge only visiting it for a month or so during the shooting season. At his death in 1764, his widow let it to Mr. Rickett, the bencher.

      For some time prior to the arrival of the new tenants, the house seems to have been gradually acquiring an evil reputation; strange sounds were said to have been heard in it, and strange sights seen. In particular it was asserted that the figure of a gentleman in a drab-colored coat, standing in the moonlight with his hands behind him, after the manner of the late Lord Stawell, was seen by a groom, and recognized by him as that of his deceased master. These reports, however, do not appear to have reached the ears of Mr. or Mrs. Ricketts. But they had not been long settled at Hinton before their attention was aroused by certain noises that they themselves heard in the night, as if persons opening and shutting doors with violence. Mr. Ricketts frequently went round the house in the hope of detecting the offenders. Failing in this, and supposing that some of the villagers possessed fake keys, he had all the locks changed, but with no better result. The noises continued to be repeated at intervals, but apparently without causing any great annoyance to the family. At all events, when Mr. Ricketts, at the close of the year 1769, was called away to Jamaica, his wife, who was a woman of remarkable vigor (she reached the age of ninety-one), both physically and mentally, and whose good sense had acquired additional strength under the wise training of Nicholas Tindal, determined to remain at the house with her three infant children. There were also in the house eight servants, all of whom, it is to be observed, left it from various causes in the course of the following year. Soon after the departure of Mr. Ricketts, the disturbances became more serious. The servants got frightened; Mrs. Ricketts herself, among other inexplicable sounds, frequently heard the rustling of silk clothes and the steps of some one walking in the adjoining room or lobby. On one occasion she plainly distinguished the tread of a man walking heavily towards the foot of her bed. The appearances too, of the drab-colored gentleman became more frequent; and the figure of a lady in a stiff silk dress was more than once seen to rush past by the domestics. But it was not till Midsummer 1771 that the residence in the house began to grow intolerable, so much so that the health of Mrs. Ricketts became a length affected. She declared that she could frequently distinguish articulate sounds; that usually a shrill female voice would begin and then two others with deeper and manlike tones, would join the discourse, and that yet, though the conversation sounded as if close to her, she could never catch the words.

      It was at this time that Mrs. Gwynne came to visit her old and dear friend, and being a woman of strong nerve, she remained longer than she had originally intended, although not a day or night passed without their being disturbed. Mrs. Gwynne described the sounds as most frequently resembling the ripping and rending of boards, and on more than one occasion she herself distinctly heard the whisperings of three voices, seemingly so close to her that by putting out her hands she fancied she could have touched the persons uttering them. One night she was aroused by Mrs Ricketts cries (who slept in the next chamber to her), and on running to her assistance, was informed that just before she (Mrs. Ricketts) had been alarmed by "a most deep, tremendous noise, as of something falling with great velocity and force on the lobby floor adjoining her room. This was succeeded by a shriek--a dreadful shriek, which was repeated three or four times, growing fainter and fainter, as it seemed to descend, till it sank to the earth."

      Various were the causes assigned in the neighborhood to these supernatural visitations. Among other things, it was said that the late Lord Stawell had been a notorious evil liver; that he had in his employ one Isaac Makrel, a man with a remarkably hoarse, guttural voice, who was well known as a pander to his master's vices, and who although he had been detected in robbing the latter, had still been retained in his service; that there had been resident at the house with my lord a younger sister of his deceased wife. It was further hinted that a guilty intrigue had been carried on between the two, and that, though no child was positively known to have been born, strong suspicions had been entertained on that score by the village gossips. The lady died at Hinton in 1754. In the year following, Lord Stawell . . . expired under a fit of apoplexy and some time after the steward was killed by the fall of a faggot-stick.

      Mrs. Ricketts and her friends endeavored to follow up these rumors but without success. Matters were in this state when Captain Jervis made his appearance at Hinton. But, notwithstanding the torture she was enduring, it was not without considerable reluctance that Mrs. Ricketts brought herself to confide the history of her troubles to her brother. Captain Jervis listened with surprise and wonder; and their friend, Captain Luttrell, chancing to call at the time, the two determined to unite their endeavors in investigating the mystery. With this in view, it was agreed that the latter should come late in the evening, and that they should divide the night watch between them. Having taken the precaution of going into every apartment, and examining every possible place of concealment, and seen every door fastened, Captain Jervis retired to bed, leaving Captain Luttrell, armed with pistols, sitting in the adjoining room. After awhile they were both simultaneously aroused by the sound of dreadful groans and other inexplicable noises. Captain Jervis immediately sprang forth to join his friend, declaring that something flitted past him as he did so. The gentlemen, after a parley, cut short by the renewal of the sounds, which to all seeming were immediately above their heads, rushed upstairs, aroused their servants, and commenced a vigorous search throughout the whole premises. Nothing was to be discovered! The doors were all found locked as they had been left, and the investigation proved, heretofore, altogether fruitless. In the morning Captain Jervis and Captain Luttrell agreed that the house was an unfit residence for any human being; and by the advice of her brother Mrs. Ricketts removed to Wolvesey, the palace of the Bishop of Winchester, with whom she was connected.

      A Mr. Lawrence was the next tenant of Hinton. He brought his family, remained in the house about a year, then suddenly quitted it. After this the mansion was never occupied. In 1797 it was pulled down, when under the floor of the lobby there was found, together with a number of old papers, a box containing bones, and what was said to be the skull of a monkey; but no regular inquiry was set on foot, and no professional opinion ever taken as to the real character of the relic.

      The only person who might possibly have thrown some light upon the mystery was a old woman who had been housekeeper in Lord Stawell's time, and who on her death-bed expressed a desire to make a confession to a member of the Jervis family, but who unfortunately died before the lady summoned could arrive . . . ."