The dress, which is dignified, is very peculiar and striking, and not
the least like the very ordinary nun's attire in which the phantom
appeared, while it would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast
than that between the merry old lady of the description and the
weeping girl so often seen.
There was, however, at least one very peculiar reason, which will be
noticed presently, for supposing that this phantom was really intended
to represent the late Rev. Mother Frances Helen, and that its
inaccuracy was owing to the stupid, and rather melodramatic
misconception in the mind which originally imagined it and transferred
it to the witnesses at B----.
This is our arrangement for to-night:--
Room 1 (where we heard noises). Mr. F----.
" 2. Dressing-room communicating with Nos. 1 and 3; doors
opened between.
" 3. Mr. L. F---- (specially "haunted").
" 4. Mr. MacP----.
" 5. Mr. W----.
" 6. Dressing-room, Miss Moore.
" 7. Myself.
" 8. Mr. C----. (Sounds alleged, see evidence.)
_N.B._--Nothing is alleged against 4 and 5.
_February 7th, Sunday._--Miss Moore was awakened this morning
soon after one o'clock by a loud reverberating bang, which
seemed close to her bed. She lay awake for a long time
afterwards, but the sound was not repeated. The men heard
nothing. They report that they went to bed soon after eleven,
and very quietly.
My maid, who has had to give up her room, slept downstairs last
night. She was kept awake nearly all night by noises and
footsteps. The wing is not yet fit for use, as all the pipes are
frozen, and the only downstairs bedroom was insufficiently
aired; so I told her to use that for dressing, and make herself
up a bed on one of the sitting-room sofas, and she slept (or
rather, lay awake) in the drawing-room. She was not frightened,
as she thought all the noises were made by the gentlemen; but
they declare they made no noise.
I asked her as to the other servants. She says the maids are
still very nervous. I spoke to them for the first time about the
noises to-day. The butler's wife has heard sounds, but her
husband only scoffs. The upper housemaid thinks ghosts the
proper thing, and tolerates them along with the high families to
which she is accustomed. The under housemaid is very shy, is
Highland, and knows little English, and won't talk, but owns to
discomfort, and is scoffed at by the other servants, who think
it all part of her having been only a "general" till she came
here. The kitchenmaid goes home to sleep, but I believe some one
fetches her.
I have had a girl out of the village to make up the linen, and
she, we notice, is careful to go home before dark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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