"As usual I went to bed about 12 P.M. I had no desire to be disturbed,
and so my room was still No. 4, which I had originally selected as
being reputed innocuous, and which, save in one slight instance, I had
hitherto found to deserve its reputation. My repeated visits had
eliminated any expectancy which may at first have, perhaps, existed.
"My bed was alongside the south wall of my room, and parallel to the
corridor or passage, my head towards No. 5, and my feet towards No. 3.
"As often happened at B----, I awoke from a sound slumber, not by
degrees, but in a moment. There was no transition--no half-awakening,
but full and complete consciousness all at once. I struck a light,
looked at my watch, found it was 4.30, and went to sleep again
immediately. I then wakened slowly and gradually, hearing more and
more clearly a noise which appeared to me to be the cause of my
awakening. The noise was the kind of sound which is produced by a
person walking rapidly with one foot longer than the other--_i.e._,
it was a succession of beats in rapid sequence, each alternate beat
being louder than the one immediately before it.
"It appeared to me (1) to be produced outside my room; (2) to be on a
higher level; and (3) to be moving in the direction of my bed--_i.e._,
going as from No. 5 past No. 4, in which I was, towards No. 3. I at
once jumped out of bed, opened my door and looked out. I saw nothing,
and the noise stopped. I then struck a light, and found that it was
only 4.45. I lay awake till I heard the servants obviously moving
about, and then went to sleep again. At breakfast I asked, 'Has
anybody ever heard this kind of noise?' reproducing it as well as I
could by a series of thumps on the table. 'Oh yes,' was the answer,
'that is what we call the 'limping' or 'scuttering' noise. Of course I
had heard the phrases used, but thought they referred to two separate
noises. I had also formed quite distinct ideas as to the kind of
noises these epithets were intended to describe--both entirely
different from the kind of noise I had heard--and I showed what I
meant. 'Oh no,' said Miss Freer, 'what you heard is what we have been
calling indiscriminately the _limping_ or _scuttering_ noise, and we
have not heard the kinds of noise these words suggested to you.' I
emphasise this as showing clearly that I cannot have been expecting to
hear the particular noise in question.
"The next thing was to account for the noise, if possible, and we
spent some time experimenting. First of all the servants were
interrogated as to whether any of them had been moving about at 4.45.
Answer, 'No.' Next we asked who got up first. This was a maid who
slept in X, and went into Y to call the kitchenmaid, who slept there.
To do so she had, of course, to go through the narrow room which was
over part of my bedroom.
"This, she said, was a good bit later than 4.45. But we thought it
well to make her go from X to Y while I lay down on my bed and
listened. We made her walk backwards and forwards, both with her
slippers on and also in her stocking soles. I and some of the others
who came into my room heard her quite distinctly. But (1) the noise of
her steps was in a different place--near my window, and exactly in
the line of her progress; (2) it was an entirely different kind of
noise. She walked now fast, and now slowly, but both footsteps seemed
always of the same weight; and (3), and this, to my mind, was most
important, we heard her quite distinctly going from X to Y, and back
again from Y to X and could tell in which direction she was moving.
Now, the noise which I had heard only went in the one direction,
_i.e._, parallel to the maid's outward progress. I did not hear
anything going in the other direction. I was entirely wakened by the
noise which I had heard, and, as I have said, I continued to listen
intently for some considerable time, and yet I heard nothing.
"In short, alike from its apparent _locus_, from its quality, and from
the direction of its movements, I am convinced that the noise which I
heard was not caused by any of the servants moving about upstairs.
"Anybody who knows the house will understand that where the noise
seemed to me to be was in the neighbourhood of the dome. For all I
know, the dome, as somebody suggested, may be a regular
sounding-board; but even so, that does not help much towards an
explanation. Wherever the noise may have been produced, the question
still remains, 'What produced it?' and that we have entirely failed to
answer."
* * * * *
The gist of this account was communicated by Mr. MacP---- to the Hon.
E---- F----, who replied as follows on April 19, 1897: "Do you
appreciate the fact that your ghost, with the footsteps of alternate
lowness and softness, is absolutely correct, and corresponds with Miss
H----'s ghost, as I heard it from Mrs. G---- lately in town. Miss
H---- slept, I _think_, in No. 4 [this is wrong; _cf._ p. 124], and
was wakened by the sound of walking round her bed with a peculiar
limp. Much alarmed, she went and called her brother, who came and
slept on the sofa (is there a sofa in No. 4?), and shortly afterwards
they both heard the same noise again."
Mr. MacP----, as already mentioned, did not know that this noise had
been heard by any one.
Miss "Duff" thus describes her next night: "Having heard nothing
unusual all day, I went to bed quite disappointed. However, I
was to be again awakened, and this time by a loud _crash_ at my
door, which resounded for some time. I lit a candle, but nothing
had fallen in my room to account for the sound.
"I began to think I might be mistaken as to the direction of the
noise, and that it might have been caused by a large piece of
coal falling in the fender. I went to look, but there was no
coal at all, only the dying embers in the fire. I soon fell
asleep again, only to be again awakened by a similar crash
(although not so loud), and this time between the washstand and
the window. I kept awake till morning, and heard nothing more."
[We had carefully concealed from Miss "Duff" the nature of the
usual phenomena of this room.]
_March 23rd, Tuesday._--Mr. L---- and his friend Captain B----
arrived.
The proof of this portion of the Journal was submitted to Mr. L----,
who returned it with, _inter alia_, the following note:--
"I do not wish to suppress the fact of my visit to B----, but object
to the publication of any details about me or any of my writings." In
deference to Mr. L----'s wish, therefore, his contributions to the
Journal have been withdrawn, and all further references to him
deleted.
Captain B---- had no experiences, and by his desire some interesting
suggestions made by him as to possible normal causes have been
omitted.