The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
The Hide-and-Seek Scholar of the Flint Schoolroom
Littlehampton Friends Meeting House, church, Littlehampton, West Sussex
I.Background & History
Littlehampton Friends Meeting House is a Quaker place of worship in the seaside town of Littlehampton, in the Arun district of West Sussex. A Quaker community has met in the town since the 1960s, when it acquired a former Penny School building put up in the early nineteenth century.
The structure is L-shaped and faced in flint, comprising the old schoolrooms and a schoolmaster's house. It has been converted for worship, weekly meetings are held there, and the house is a Grade II Listed building.
II.The Entity
Hushaby Jack
Glimpsed only as a small hunched shape pressed into corners of the old schoolrooms, grey as flint-dust, with a hare's long ears folded flat against a child's skull. It stands perfectly still with its face to the wall and its hands over its eyes, and those who look closely see that the fingers are too many and have no nails. When found it does not run; it turns.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
The entity detains those who search for it, locking doors and silencing clocks until the seeker names it aloud, and three seekers are recorded as never wholly returning. It appears to mark any person who stops to look into a corner.
III.The Account
The Society's file opens with a cutting from the Sussex Weekly Advertiser, pasted at the first leaf. It recounts a local tradition that in the reign of King Edward VI, when the ground beside the harbour mouth was still rough pasture, a village child named Jack played at hiding among the sheepfolds on the evening the Commissioners rode in to strip the chantry goods. The other children sought him until dark, were called home, and went. Jack was not found. The Secretary notes that the tale is commonly told with the unvarying detail that the seekers were afterwards heard to say they had given up, and that this is the wrong thing to have said.
The second cutting, from the Littlehampton Gazette of 1834, concerns the new Penny School built upon that pasture. The master, a Mr. Tobias Crane, wrote to the trustees that the scholars would not be dismissed at the bell. Counted at the door, they numbered one more than at the desks. He reported that on three evenings the youngest pupils stood looking at the corner by the stove and refused to leave until someone found 'the other one.' The Secretary has annotated in red that Mr. Crane was found in the north schoolroom in the morning, seated, his eyes open and his face turned to the wall, and that he lived eleven years more and never again spoke except to say 'Coming, coming.'
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦A count of children at the door that exceeds the count at the desks
- ✦A faint whispering of numbers from ten downward, heard from empty corners
- ✦Interior doors that will not open until every corner has been looked into
- ✦A small damp handprint upon the plaster at the height of a child's shoulder
- ✦Stillness in any room where a person has said 'I give up'
Testimony of Witnesses
“I counted them at the door and I counted them at the desk, and the sums would not agree, and I have not been easy at a sum since.”
“There is always one more corner than a body counts, sir, and it is in the last one that it stands with its hands up to its face.”
“I found the door chained on the outside, and I heard the boy within say very plainly, 'Not yet,' though he was by then at the sea wall.”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A child's woollen glove
- ☐A dry slate and a piece of chalk
- ☐A tallow candle
- ☐A handbell
- ☐A length of white ribbon
The Rite
- I.Enter at dusk with the glove in the left hand, and speak no word of surrender.
- II.Chalk upon the slate the number of corners in the building, and write one more.
- III.Walk the L of the building with the candle held low, looking into each corner without hurrying.
- IV.At the last corner ring the handbell once and say aloud, 'Come out, you are found, and you may go home.'
- V.Tie the ribbon about the door handle and leave without looking back.
- VI.Return before dawn and wipe the slate clean.
Caution. On no account say 'I give up' within the building. The Society's officer Mr. Lionel Harker said it in 1957 and was answered.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
Select a bar to filter the register.
St Catherine's Church · Church · 0.3 miles
The Candle-Pale Chorister, white lady. A slender woman in white stands at the font each Candlemas, singing a single line over and over to a congregation of bare pews.
Slayer's Slab · Tomb · 1.7 miles
The Slab-Sitter, revenant. A broad-shouldered figure sits upon the stone at midnight and rises, slowly, if anyone approaches.
Lyminster Priory · Abbey · 1.7 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Poling Preceptory · Templar Preceptory · 2.4 miles
The Lantern Knights of Poling, phantom procession. Twelve mounted shapes ride the field at midwinter without sound, and the eleventh turns his helmeted head toward the watcher.
Zachary Merton Hospital · Hospital · 1.7 miles
The Bedpan Rattler, poltergeist. Night after night the ward's cold taps run and the beds are found shifted a yard toward the door.
St Nicholas Church · Church · 1.8 miles
Salt-Muzzle, phantom hound. A pale hound pads beside lone walkers from the lychgate and is gone when they look down, leaving wet prints before them.
Bailiffscourt Chapel · Church · 1.9 miles
The Sea-Chapel Stooper, unclassified entity. Something bent double kneels at the altar rail and is never seen to rise.
St Mary Magdalene's Church · Church · 2.4 miles
The Magdalene Gleaner, headless apparition. A headless woman in a harvest smock stoops in the churchyard grass as though picking up what she has lost.
Arundel Blackfriars · Abbey · 3.1 miles
Blackfriar's Taper, will-o'-the-wisp. A small blue flame drifts above the old precinct and leads the unwary toward the river.
Arundel Castle · Castle · 3.3 miles
The Keep Tenor, possession. Sentries on the wall are taken in the small hours and speak in a stranger's rich voice until morning.
St Margaret's Church · Church · 2.7 miles
The Lych-Gate Ram, spectral animal. A great horned ram stands on the churchyard path and will not be driven off, its eyes reflecting no light.
Trinity Congregational Church · Church · 3.1 miles
Deacon Threadbare, revenant. A gaunt man in a rusty black coat sits in the back pew after the congregation has left, his lips moving over a sermon never finished.
Arundel Cathedral · Church · 3.3 miles
The Gilt-Vestment Canon, spectre. A tall canon crosses the nave in the dark with a taper, and the candles he passes are found snuffed in the morning.
Ecclesden Manor · Manor House · 3.3 miles
The Pantry Latchkey, poltergeist. Keys turn in locks by themselves in the manor's servants' passage, and the doors open upon rooms that were not there the day before.
Arundel Priory · Church · 3.3 miles
The Hooded Almoners, phantom procession. A line of hooded figures bearing empty bowls files through the priory ruin at dusk, each pausing to hold a bowl toward the watcher.
