"B---- HOUSE.
"I arrived here last evening, Tuesday, 30th of March, about six
o'clock. It was a nice bright evening, but cold. I was received
by Miss Freer, who gave me some tea, and then I was taken to my
bedroom by Miss Langton, of whom I asked if my room was haunted.
She said it had 'a reputation', but somehow or another it did
not seem to impress me much. That night Miss S---- and her
brother dined here; they were very pleasant, and talked away
hard, and we played card games, such as 'Old Maid' and
'Muggins.' We went to bed feeling quite happy, saying we had
never been in such an unghostly house before. The bed was quite
comfortable, and we lay talking quite happily, but could not
sleep, and were not in the least bit restless. About two o'clock
we dozed off, and a few minutes to four A.M. we were both
suddenly awoke by a terrific noise, which sounded to me like the
lid of the coal-scuttle having caught in a woman's gown. We then
lay awake until about 6.30, and in that interval we heard a few
noises, what I cannot exactly describe, as they were very
ordinary sounds one might hear in any not very solidly built
house. We came down to breakfast feeling we had passed a
sleepless night, but otherwise quite happy. After breakfast I
went into the smoking-room in the new wing, where my husband was
writing letters. I sat there a good time, and he was in and out
of the room. All the time I heard tramping up above as if the
housemaid was doing the room. Not knowing the geography of the
house I took it for No. 8. and thought what very noisy servants
these were. I then went into the drawing-room to write my own
letters, and Miss Freer came and spoke to me there. While she
was with me there, I heard a distant cannon, exactly like the
one o'clock gun in Edinburgh, and the whole morning a ceaseless
chatter, which I put down to Miss Freer and Miss Langton in the
room next door (_cf._ under date, March 23rd).
_April 1st, Thursday._--This is Mrs. M----'s account of last
night. "Last evening we were late for dinner, as Mr. M---- and I
had been out to see the nun by the burn, but had seen nothing.
The whole evening I had a sort of half consciously disagreeable
feeling, and when I went to my room it was some time before I
could make up my mind to get into bed. The servants very much
annoyed me; they were making such a needless amount of noise in
running about the room overhead. [The room overhead was empty.
Since their adventure of March 23rd, the servants had slept on
the other side of the house.] At last I got into bed, and I may
say I hardly slept a wink the whole night. I simply lay in
terror, of what I cannot say, but I had the feeling of some very
disagreeable sensation in the air, but we did not hear a sound
all night from the time we got into bed until we got up next
morning at 8.30.
"I spent the whole of the morning in the drawing-room writing
letters and reading, and from time to time I went up to No. 1 to
get books and different things, and each time was a little
surprised to find the room empty, as there had been a ceaseless
noise of housemaids, and very noisy ones too. I also heard what
I had described before as the cannon. After luncheon Miss Freer
and Miss Langton and I went out walking, and just as we were
coming in to tea we all three heard the cannon, and then I said
that is the noise I heard every morning, and sometimes in the
evening, in the drawing-room."
This afternoon we were having tea in the drawing-room at 4.30,
Mrs. M----, Miss Langton, and myself. We heard some one walking
overhead in No. 1, a sound we have heard often before, when we
knew the room to be empty above. Mrs. M---- remarked that it was
just the sound she had heard, again and again, when sitting
alone in the drawing-room.
It was so exactly the heavy, heelless steps we had heard before,
that Miss L---- ran upstairs softly to see if any one was there,
but found no one about. Next we heard a loud bang--not of a
door--in the hall, and she went out again to ascertain the
cause, and met the butler on the same errand. We could find
nothing to account for it. It was like the noise before
described, of something dropped heavily into the hall from the
gallery above.
There had been so much trouble of ascertaining whether the
noises were caused by doors banging, that since the warmer
weather set in, ever since our return on March 20th, in fact, we
have had every passage-door opening into the hall and into the
gallery upstairs fixed open with wedges.
We had scarcely settled to our tea again before we again heard
the footsteps overhead, and again Miss Langton went up and found
the room empty. She walked across the room, and we heard her do
so, but the sound was quite different. She did it noisily on
purpose, but though she is very big and tall, she didn't sound
heavy enough.
Mrs. M---- remarks, on hearing this read over, that the sound
was different in character as well as in volume--that the
footsteps she (and we) heard were "between a run and a walk." My
phrase was, and has always been, "as of the quick, heavy steps
of a person whose foot-gear didn't match." We called it, when we
first heard it in No. 8, a "shuffling step."
After she came down the servants' tea-bell rang, and we at once
said, "Now we shall know where they all are." The hall is under
the wing, at the other end of the house, and we knew that the
room underneath us was empty, and the shutters up, and that all
who were in the house were either in the drawing-room or the
servants' hall.
In a few minutes we again heard the pacing footsteps, up and
down, up and down; we heard them at intervals during
half-an-hour. We also heard voices as of a man and woman
talking. I went to the foot of the stairs, just below the door
of No. 1, and heard them plain. Mrs. M---- is not quick of
hearing, but she heard them distinctly several times. At 5.20 we
heard the maids go up the stone staircase, coming away from
their tea, and though we listened till after six, the other
sounds did not occur again.
_April 2nd, Friday._
[Mr. M---- left early, Mrs. M---- remaining till a later train.]
At 11.15 Miss Langton and I were in the library at two different
tables writing. The room was silent. Suddenly we heard a heavy
blow struck on a third table, ten feet at least away from either
of us. I instantly fetched Mrs. M----, and in her hearing Miss
Langton imitated the sound on the same table, by hitting with
her fist as heavily as possible. There is a drawer in the table,
empty, which added to the vibration, and also pendent brass
handles. I tried, but could not make noise enough. We kept watch
in the room till lunch, Mrs. M---- keeping guard when we were
obliged to leave, but nothing happened till, when we were
sitting at luncheon (there is only a single door and a curtain
between the two rooms), we heard it again as above described.
One of the informants, who described the scene which occurred
the day the late Mr. S---- left this house for the last time,
said "a very heavy blow like a man's fist came on the table
between them." This is the same room.
The same sound occurred again while we were at lunch in the
dining-room just now. The first time Miss Langton rushed to the
library and found a housemaid there at the stove, so we agreed
it should not count. It occurred again in about five minutes,
and again she went into the room (which is next the dining-room)
and found it empty and no one in the hall.
Mrs. M----, whom I asked to locate the sound, pointed to just
that part of the wall by the table upon which the knock had
struck.
Signed (as correct) by Mrs. M---- and Miss Langton.
(I have since asked the housemaid if she heard anything, and she
says no, she was making too much noise herself. We all heard it
distinctly, above the clatter of the fire-irons.)
On April 9th Mr. M---- sent me the following account of his
impressions:--
"... You ask me to describe the noises I heard while staying
with you at B----. I should say, in the first place, that I am a
good, but light, sleeper; I seldom lie awake, am generally
asleep five minutes after going to bed, but wake easily, and
awake at once to full consciousness. I am not the least nervous,
and have often slept in so-called 'haunted' rooms [Mr. M---- has
had very exceptional opportunities in this direction]; and while
I certainly cannot say that I altogether disbelieve in what are
commonly called 'ghosts,' I do believe that in nine cases out of
ten, noises, and even appearances, may, if investigated, be
traced to perfectly normal causes.
"We spent three nights at B----: March 30th and 31st, and April
1st. The first two nights room No. 1 was our bedroom, and the
third night room No. 8. Room No. 2 was my dressing-room.
"When talking to you and Miss Langton at the top of the stairs,
just before going to bed, we all of us heard
noises--rappings--coming apparently from No. 2. The noises were
very undoubted, but as we were talking at the time I cannot
define them more accurately.
"When first going to bed, both nights in No. 1, we heard
footsteps and voices apparently in conversation above us. The
sounds seemed to come from a room which was over the bed, but
did not extend as far as the fireplace in No. 1, and also from
the room which would be above the room next to ours behind the
bed."
The rooms overhead were empty. _Cf._ under date April 1st.
"These noises I attributed at the time, and still attribute, to
the maids going to bed. I am bound to say, however, that they
were heard both by Mrs. M---- and her maid, who was in No. 1
with her, during the daytime, at an hour when it was said no
servants were upstairs. These voices and footsteps did not go on
for long into the night. For (I should say) some hours during
the night of the 30th, I frequently heard a sound which seemed
to come from near the fireplace, and which I can best describe
as a gentle tap on a drum--like some one tuning the kettle-drum
in an orchestra. I do not think Mrs. M---- heard this noise, for
though she slept very badly, she was dozing a good deal during
the first half of the night. At 3.55 A.M. I was in a state of
semi-consciousness, when both I and Mrs. M---- were fully
roused by a noise so loud that I wonder it did not wake people
sleeping in other parts of the house. It seemed to come either
from the door between No. 1 and 2, or from between that door and
the fireplace. To me it sounded like a kind of treble rap on a
hollow panel, but far louder than any one could rap with their
knuckles. My wife described it as the sound of some one whose
gown had caught the lid of a heavy coal-scuttle and let it fall.
This noise was not repeated, and by a treble rap I mean the
sound was like an arpeggio chord. I feel certain it was not
against the false window outside, indeed it had the sound of
being in the room. The kettle-drum sounds might easily have been
a trick of the wind, though the night was still, but the only
natural explanation of this noise that I can give is practical
joking, as the noise _might_ have come from my dressing-room.
The coal-scuttle was standing between the fireplace and
door-post, just where the sound seemed to come from. The second
night I moved the scuttle right away to between the head of the
bed and the window, and the noise was not repeated. The second
night the talking and footsteps were both heard when first we
went up; and once, shortly after all was still, early in the
night. Nevertheless we again both of us slept very badly
indeed--I may say that except from about 6 to 8 A.M. I slept
very little either night. I should say that all through both
nights I frequently heard the owls hooting--both the tawny owl
and another, which I think was the little owl; the former on one
occasion was very close to the window, and any one with a vivid
imagination or unacquainted with the cry of the owl (and,
strange as it may seem, a country-bred girl, staying at L----
the other day, did _not_ know the owls' cry when she heard it),
might well take it for shrieks."
_N.B._--No one ever heard shrieks during Colonel Taylor's tenancy at
B----.
"The third night, as I have said, we were in No. 8, and both of
us slept like tops, and heard or saw nothing.
"One morning, in the smoking-room in the east wing, I heard
voices which _seemed_ to come from above, but which I am
convinced were from the kitchen beneath.
"As you know, 'Ishbel' was not kind enough to show herself to
me....
"_P.S._--I wrote the above without reading over my wife's
account. I have only to add that I had none of the uncomfortable
sensations she talks of. Bodily and mentally I was comfortable
all night. Nor was I in the least restless--only wakeful. But
for the noises, B---- certainly strikes one as a very unghostly
house."
_April 3rd, Saturday._--Miss Langton and I heard footsteps
walking up and down overhead at dinner-time last night, in No.
7, a room which is not in use. We looked at each other, but did
not at first say anything, on account of the presence of the
servants. After it had gone on for at least ten minutes, I asked
the butler if he had heard them. He at once said, "Yes, and
might he go and see if any one were about?" We heard him go
upstairs and open the door of the room, and walk across it, but
his step was quite different from the sound we had heard. He
came back saying, "The housemaid had been in to draw the blind
down since we had been at dinner." I have questioned her since,
and she says she simply went in and out again--was not there
half a minute.
About four o'clock this afternoon, Miss Langton ran in from the
garden where we were gathering fir-cones, to fetch a basket out
of the library, and heard so much noise going on in the
drawing-room that she went in to investigate. It was empty and
silent. The noise was a violent hammering on the door between
the two rooms on the drawing-room side.
The two rooms below the library and drawing-room were empty, and
shuttered (the smoking-room and billiard-room), No. 1 was
disused (over the drawing-room), and Miss Langton found no one
in No. 8 (over the library). She came back and told me at once.
I have now had the following rooms locked up and the keys taken
away by the butler:--
Ground floor: All the wing and drawing-room.
Above: 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7. (I am sleeping in No. 5, Miss Langton
in No. 8.)
Basement: Smoking and billiard rooms.
Mr. T---- arrived in the afternoon. We were all out till
dinner-time. While at dinner, we all three, as well as the
butler, heard steps walking overhead in No. 7, as we did last
night.
_April 4th, Sunday._--I was wakened early this morning by the
sound of a crash. As it was mixed with my dreams I did not think
it worth while to get up and investigate, but looked at my
watch. It was twenty minutes to six. Five minutes later I heard
another crash under the dome--of the kind so often
described--and looked out, but the house was perfectly still. I
heard the servants come down about seven o'clock.
Miss Langton, sleeping in No. 8, describes the same sounds at
the same moment.
Mr. B. S---- and Miss S----, brother and sister of the
proprietor, called.
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