The Alleged Haunting of B---- House | Page 3

anonymous Times correspondent], they are without foundation." These words must, however, be, in any case, accepted in a special sense, considering the part taken by members of his own family, as well as by tenants and agents, in attesting the stories in question.
Lord Bute states that Father H---- did not, upon the occasion of his visit to Falkland, say anything as to having seen the brown wooden crucifix (see pp. 132, 142, 154), but after this apparition had been seen by two other persons separately, Lord Bute wrote to Father H---- to inquire whether he could remember anything of the sort. His reply was as follows:--
"When you mention the brown wooden crucifix, you awaken a new memory in me. I now seem to live some of those hours over again, and I recollect that between waking and sleeping there appeared before my eyes--somewhere on the wall--a crucifix, some eighteen inches, I should say, long, and, I think, of brown wood.
"My own crucifix is of black metal, and just the length of this page (seven inches); and though I usually have it with me in my bag, I cannot for certain say that it was in my bag at B----."
The following further communication from Father H---- carries the record further back:--
"In August 1893 it was that I met, quite by accident, a person who knew something about B---- House and its strange noises.
"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:--
"May I ask of your courtesy to insert this in the next issue of your paper. Seeing myself dragged into publicity in The Times of June 8, as 'having made admissions under pressure of cross-examination,' I beg to state that I as well as the rest of my family had not the remotest idea that our home was let to other than ordinary tenants. In my intercourse with them I