Mr. S---- was succeeded by his eldest son, Captain S----, who showed
no hesitation in throwing the house into the public market, with its
4400 acres of shooting. The alleged haunting was not mentioned
beforehand to the first tenant, as it afterwards was to Colonel
Taylor.
This tenant was Mr. J.R. H---- of K---- Court, C----, in G----shire,
and the following is the account of experiences during his visit, as
given by his butler:--
ON THE TRAIL OF A GHOST
_To the Editor of "The Times"_
"SIR,--In your issue of the 8th, under the above heading, 'A
Correspondent' tries at some length to describe what he calls a most
impudent imposture. I having lived at B---- for three months in the
autumn of last year as butler to the house, I thought perhaps my
experience of the ghost of B---- might be of interest to many of your
readers, and as the story has now become public property, I shall not
be doing any one an injury by telling what I know of the mystery.
"On July 15, 1896, I was sent by Mr. H----, with two maidservants, to
take charge of B---- from Mr. S----'s agents. I was there three days
before the arrival of any one of the family, and during that time I
heard nothing to disturb me in any way; but on the morning after the
arrival of two of the family, Master and Miss H----, they came down
with long faces, giving accounts of ghostly noises they had heard
during the night, but I tried to dissuade them from such nonsense, as
I then considered it to be; but on the following two or three nights
the same kind of noises were heard by them, and also by the
maidservants, who slept in the rooms above, and they all became
positively frightened. I heard nothing whatever, though the noises, as
they described them, would have been enough to wake any one much
farther away than where I slept, for the noises they heard were made
immediately over my room. I suggested the hot-water pipes or the twigs
of ivy knocking against the windows, but no--nothing would persuade
them but that the house was haunted; but as the noises continued to be
heard nightly, I suggested that I should sit up alone, and without a
light, outside their bedroom doors, where the footsteps and other
rustling noises were heard. I think one other member of the family, or
two young gentlemen, had arrived at this time, and they had also heard
the noises. I told them of my intention to sit up alone, for as one
of them had a revolver I did not want to run the risk of being shot
for a ghost. However, I took my post on the landing at 11.30 and kept
watch, I am certain, until half-past one; then I must have fallen
asleep, for about two o'clock Master H----, hearing the knocking as
usual, came out of his room to hear if I had seen or heard anything,
but found me fast asleep on the floor, which gave him a greater fright
than the knocking, for he supposed for the moment that I had been
slain by the ghost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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