"What can a band be doing in this lonely place? Has Lord Ogilvy brought a band with him?" The Highlander glanced at him strangely. "I hear naething," he said. "Why, yes, can't you hear it? A band playing in the distance--or at any rate, somebody playing a drum." "An' is it a drum ye hear?" cried the Highlander. "Then 'tis something no canny." In another moment the lighted windows of the shooting box came into view, and the Englishman hastened forward, fully expecting to have the mystery solved. But he found no musicians--only a scene of considerable confusion. Lord Ogilvy, it appeared, had just started for London, summoned by news that his father was dangerously ill. And the very next day, as the Englishman's Highlander guide was not at all surprised to learn, the Earl of Airlie died. Of all family ghosts, however, none is so strongly substantiated by documentary[2] evidence as the Knocking Ghost of the Basil Woodds, an old English family. This ghost began operations about the time of the Stuart Restoration, and it is alleged has ever since continued to announce, by three or more loud knocks, the approaching death of a Basil Woodd. First-hand and thoroughly trustworthy accounts are extant of its activity in quite recent times. [2] The documents in this case are published in the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xi, pp. 538-542. December 15, 1893, Mr. Charles H. L. Woodd died at Hampstead, England, after a brief illness. The night before he died the Knocking Ghost was heard by two persons, at Hampstead by his daughter, and in London by his son, the Reverend Trevor Basil Woodd. Both have made statements describing their singular experiences. "On Thursday evening, December 14, 1893, after church," says the Reverend Mr. Woodd, "I was sitting before my fire. I knew my father was ill, and had a presentiment that he was dangerously ill, though if I had known this I should have remained at Hampstead, where I had been that day. As I sat, I distinctly heard three knocks, perhaps more, like the sound of some one emptying a tobacco pipe upon the bars of my fire grate. "Thinking it might be a warning, I did not go to bed for an hour, fearing I would be sent for. At one A. M. I was awakened by a ringing of the front door-bell and knocking. It was my father's butler, who told me the doctor had sent for me, as my father was very ill. I said to my housekeeper: "'I must go. I feel sure that my father is dying, because I heard the Woodd knocks, as I sat in my chair before going to bed.' "On my arrival my first question was: 'Is he still alive?' for I believed he must have passed away at the time of the knocking. He died at eight-forty-five next morning." Mr. Woodd's housekeeper corroborates this statement. As to the knocking heard at Hampstead, the daughter, Mrs. Winifred Dumbell, testifies: