Produced by Clare Boothby, Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber's Note: The Author uses lines of spaced periods to mark the passing of time, this has been preserved in this edition.] THE ALLEGED HAUNTING OF B---- HOUSE [Illustration: ATTICS] [Illustration: SECOND FLOOR] [Illustration: GROUND FLOOR L. Lift. A. Iron gate in Area.] [Illustration: BASEMENT] THE ALLEGED HAUNTING OF B---- HOUSE INCLUDING A JOURNAL KEPT DURING THE TENANCY OF COLONEL LEMESURIER TAYLOR EDITED BY A. GOODRICH-FREER (MISS X) AND JOHN, MARQUESS OF BUTE, K.T. LONDON GEORGE REDWAY 1899 "I visited B---- representing that Society [S.P.R.], ... and decided that there was no such evidence as could justify us in giving the results of the inquiry a place in our _Proceedings_."--_The Times_, June 10, 1897. FREDERIC W.H. MYERS, _Hon. Sec. of the Society for Psychical Research_. _Compare pages 189 et seq._ * * * * * THE ALLEGED HAUNTING OF B---- HOUSE It was in 1892 that Lord Bute first heard of the matter. It was not, as stated by _The Times_ correspondent in that journal for June 8, 1897, in or from London, but at Falkland, in Fifeshire, and in the following manner:-- There is no public chapel at Falkland, and the private chapel in the house is attended by a variety of priests, who usually come only from Saturday to Monday. Lord Bute's diary for the second week in August 1892 contains the following entries:-- "_Saturday, August 6th._--Father H----, S.J., came. "_Sunday, August 7th._--In afternoon with Father H---- and John [Lord Dumfries] to Palace, and then with him to the Gruoch's Den. He gives us a long account of the psychical disturbances at B----; noises between his bed and the ceiling, like continuous explosion of petards, so that he could not hear himself speak, &c. &c. "[Mr. Huggins afterwards recommended the use of a phonograph for these noises, in order to ascertain absolutely whether they are objective or subjective, and I wrote so to S---- of B----.] "_Monday, August 8th._--Father H---- went away. "_Tuesday, August 9th._--Mr. Huggins [now Sir William Huggins], outgoing President of the British Association, and Mrs. Huggins came. "_Saturday, August 13th._--Father H---- came. "_Sunday, August 14th._--In afternoon with the children, &c., to the Palace, leaving Mr. Huggins as much as possible alone with Father H---- (both being with us), in order to interrogate him about the psychical noises he heard recently at B----, when there, to give a Retreat to some nuns. "_Monday, August 15th._--Father H---- went away after luncheon."