The Alleged Haunting of B---- House | Page 4

spoke as one lady to another, never imagining that my private conversations were going to be used for purposes carefully concealed from me--a deceit which I deeply resent."
It will be observed that Mrs. S---- here leaves no doubt as to the nature of the information with which she was so good as to favour Miss Freer, but, notwithstanding this fact, and the language which Mrs. S---- has considered it right to use--or, at least, to sign--with regard to Miss Freer, Miss Freer prefers to continue to treat Mrs. S----'s statements as confidential, and blanks will accordingly be found in the Journal under the dates on which such conversations occurred. Miss Freer extends the same regard for a privacy, which the S---- family have themselves violated, to communications made by other members. There have, however, been several witnesses unconnected with them, some of whom are referred to in the Journal. Not only the villagers and persons in the immediate neighbourhood, but many accidentally met with in visits to show-places and in excursions for twenty miles round B----, were ready to pour out traditions and experiences which are not here quoted, as, though often suggestive, not always evidential.
The Rev. P. H----, already referred to, quotes a witness who testifies to processions of monks or nuns having been seen by Mr. S---- from a window, and of a married couple who, "relating the events of the night, declared they could not hear each other's voices for the noise overhead between them and the ceiling," which was especially interesting to him, as corroborative of his own experience.
A former servant at B---- has voluntarily related, at great length, the story of the alleged hauntings, which shows that they have occurred at intervals during the past twenty years. He is of opinion that as the earlier hauntings were ascribed to the late Major S----, so their revival may be referred to the late proprietor; but his reasons, as well as his narrative, are of a nature which might cause annoyance to the S---- family, and are therefore withheld.
Dr. Menzies, a correspondent of The Times, June 10th, who speaks of himself as an old friend of Major S----, refers to a still earlier haunting--a tradition current at the time of the Major's succession in 1844.
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In August 1896, B---- House, with the shooting attached, was let by Captain S----, the present proprietor, for a year to a wealthy family of Spanish origin. Their experience was of such a nature that they abandoned the house at the end of seven weeks, thus forfeiting the greater part of their rent, which had been paid in advance. The evidence of Mr. H---- himself, of his butler, and of several guests, will be found in due chronological sequence.
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When Colonel Taylor, one of the fundamental members of the London Spiritualist Alliance, a distinguished member of the S.P.R., whose name is associated both in this country and in America with the investigation of haunted houses, offered to take a lease of B---- House, after the lease had been resigned by Mr. H----, the proprietor made no objection whatever. Indeed, the only allusion made to the haunting was the expression of a hope on the part of Captain S----'s agents in Edinburgh, that Colonel Taylor would not make it a subject of complaint, as had been done by Mr. H----, in reply to which they were informed that Colonel Taylor was thoroughly well aware of what had happened during Mr. H----'s tenancy, and would undertake to make no complaint on the subject. Captain S---- having thus thrown the house into the open market, and let it to the well-known expert, with no reference whatever to the subject of haunting, except that it should not be made a ground of complaint, it is obvious that he deprived himself of any right to complain as to observations upon the subject of local hallucination, any more than of observation upon the habits of squirrels or other local features. Nor had he any more right to complain upon this ground, as vendor of the lease, than any other vendor of articles exposed for public sale, such as a hatter, who after selling a hat to Lord Salisbury, might complain that he had been induced to provide headgear for a Conservative. At the same time, both Colonel Taylor and his friends were well aware, from a vexatious experience, that phenomena of the kind found at B---- are very often associated with private matters, which the members of a family concerned might object to see published, just as they might object to the publication of the results of an examination of some object--say, old medicine-bottles--found in the house let by them to a strange tenant.
Acting upon this knowledge, it has been the general