Sometimes the ghostly
visitors of old houses became so obnoxious that they
ousted the living inhabitants.
An instance
occurred near the quay at Penzance at the beginning
of the nineteenth century. A nocturnal spirit,
deprived of his rest, apparently was determined to do
the same to the house's inhabitants.
Old people of the
neighborhood could remember the house as a
public-house where a sailor who was know to possess
money had previously disappeared in its neighborhood.
In 1813, the house
was purchased and part was torn down. During this
work, a human skeleton was found beneath the
floorboards, greatly decayed. This was thought to be
the sailor whose ghost had so long disturbed the
precincts where he had been murdered.
