"Though, on my leaving his house, Mr. S---- begged me not 'to give the
house a bad name,' I did not understand by this that, as a point of
honour, I should refrain from ever mentioning the subject. I respected
his request to the extent of not alluding indiscriminately to the
noises that disturbed my nights there. But I did speak to several
people about them, and they had so impatiently and incredulously heard
my statements, that I at last refused to repeat them, even when
pressingly requested to do so. It was, therefore, quite a surprise to
find myself talking about B---- House, or rather, listening with rapt
attention to another talking about the place.
"Miss Y----, I think her name was, kept house for a priest at----. One
evening, while on a visit there, I found her knitting as I passed the
kitchen door, and bidding her the time of day, I discovered from a
remark she made that she had in former days filled more important
posts. She soon settled down when she found me an attentive listener
to a somewhat detailed account of by no means a short life.
"'Had she been in Scotland?' 'Yes, sir; and in a very beautiful part
of Scotland, in P----shire.' 'Indeed!' In short she told me that she
had been, twelve years ago, governess in the S---- family at B----
House. (I need not say that I was now intensely interested.) 'Why did
she leave?' 'Well, sir, so many people complained of queer noises in
the house, that I got alarmed and left.' I asked her had she seen
anything? She said No, and the noises were only heard in certain
rooms, and the servants inhabited quite a different part of the house.
When I closely questioned her she located the queer noises precisely
in the two rooms I had successively occupied. She did not learn from
me that I had ever been there. Pressed for a concrete case of fright
and abrupt leavetaking (I _think_), she told me two military officers
had 'left next morning.'
"In conclusion, as against all the above, my own, and this good
woman's account, I must set it down that, before I left the house, two
young ladies, relatives of the family, occupied the rooms in
question, and certainly, to my surprise, did not seem at breakfast as
if they had spent an unquiet night."
Inquiry shows that Miss Y----'s residence at B---- must have been
about the years 1878-80.
The earliest witnesses in chronological sequence would be the S----
family themselves; but though much information has been contributed by
them to various persons interested in B---- House during the tenancy
both of Mr. H---- and Colonel Taylor, the present Editors are
unwilling to make use of it without permission.
A statement in _The Times_ article, of the character of which the
reader can here judge for himself, elicited the following letter from
Mrs. S----, which is to be found in the issue of that journal for June
18, 1897:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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