Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/117

 Rh once the most fashionable part of Penzance, but the large houses are now divided into smaller tenements; in some of them bits of finely-moulded ceilings, &c. still exist. One of the houses reputed to have been haunted was torn down in 1813, when the skeleton of a man was found built into a wall. It was, of course, put down to be the sailor's, whose spirit was so often seen there, and who (tradition said) had been murdered in that house for the sake of his money. It was well known that he had brought back great riches from foreign parts. There is a myth that Sir Walter Raleigh landed at Penzance Quay when he returned from Virginia, and on it smoked the first tobacco ever seen in England, but for this I do not believe that there is the slightest foundation. Several western ports, both in Devon and Cornwall, make the same boast.

It is a fact, however, that the news of Nelson's death was first heard here. It was brought into the port by two fishermen, who had it from the crew of a passing vessel. A small company of strolling actors were playing that night at the little theatre then standing over some stables in Chapel Street, and the play was stopped for a few moments whilst one of the actors told the audience.

Another haunted house, at the opposite side of Penzance, is celebrated in a poem called "The Petition of an Old Uninhabited House," written and published in 1811 by the Rev. C. V. Le Grice, who was then vicar of Madron. He was a friend of Charles Lamb, who mentions him in his "Essay on Christ's Hospital." About this house a lady once told me a strange story, that I will relate. Forty years ago, she, a perfect stranger to the place, never having been in Penzance before, came to it with her husband and her first child, for she was then a young wife. As they meant to settle in the town, they went first to an hotel, where they intended staying until they could get a suitable house. On the evening of their arrival, her husband having gone out, she sat alone before the fire nursing her child, when she suddenly saw a little old man, in a very old-fashioned dress, come into the room. He sat down in a chair near her, looked steadfastly into the fire, and, after some time, without saying a word, he rose and left. On her husband's return, she told him of her queer visitor. The next morning they made inquiries about him, and found