The Alleged Haunting of B---- House | Page 6

June 8, 1853, bequeathed B---- to the representatives of his married sister Mary, and on his death was accordingly succeeded by her second (but eldest surviving) son, John, who on succeeding assumed the name of S----.
Major S---- was a Protestant, but this John was a Roman Catholic, like his aunt Isabella. His eldest brother died without issue in 1867, but he had a younger brother, married, with issue, and two sisters, Louisa and Mary, whom Major S----, by a codicil of December 14, 1868, carefully excluded from all benefit under his will.
The register of the parish of L----, in which B---- House is situated, mentions under the date July 14, 1873, the death of Sarah N----, housekeeper of B---- House (single), aged twenty-seven years, daughter of John N----, farmer, and Helen R----. (In Scottish legal documents married women are described by their maiden name.) It is said that her last illness was very short, lasting only three days. Mrs. S---- had the great charity to attend her on her deathbed. It is mentioned in the register, that the official intimation of Sarah N----'s death was given, not by her parents nor by Major S----, but by her uncle, Neil N----.
Major S---- seems to have been somewhat eccentric, and was very fond of dogs, of which he kept a considerable number. He had very strong views upon psychical subjects. He was a believer in spirit-return, and many witnesses have attested that he frequently spoke of his own return after death. Among these psychic beliefs were two relating to animals; and as they are of a kind not very commonly discussed even among spiritualists, and enter, to some extent, into the following narrative, it is convenient here to state them at length. It is very commonly held that the soul or living personality of man, which will survive the change called by us "death," is capable of entering living bodies and making use of their organs. The form in which this belief is most commonly met with, is that of the alleged inspiration of trance mediums by the souls of the dead. Such a case is that of Mrs. Piper, said to have been animated by the soul of Dr. Phinuit and other personalities now disincarnated. It has naturally been argued that if it is possible for the disembodied spirit to occupy and animate the body of a human being, it would, a fortiori, be easy for it to do the same with the body of a beast, where the resistance of will would presumably be less.
This idea, coupled with the belief that the soul can be separated from the body during life, so producing a kind of temporary death, while leaving the body in such a state that it is capable of being again inhabited and animated, lies at the bottom of the numerous statements as to sorcerers and sorceresses changing themselves into hares, wolves, or cats, which are to be found in the records of witch trials.
That this was possible, at least after death, was evidently a strong belief upon the part of Major S----. We are informed that he frequently intimated his intention of entering the body of a particular black spaniel which he possessed, and so strong a belief was attached to his words, that after his death all his dogs, including the spaniel in question, were shot, apparently in order to render impossible any such action upon his part. The policy of the measure adopted was short-sighted. If the Major had thoroughly succeeded in animating the body of the living spaniel, the physical resources at his disposal would have been too limited to have enabled him to give much trouble. As it is, a series of witnesses attest apparitions of this spaniel, and of at least one other dog, which may naturally be regarded as much more disturbing.
The second point is possibly the same as the last, but it appears to be more probably based upon the belief held by Major S----, in common with a large number of those who have made a serious study of apparitions--and certainly a large number of the members of the S.P.R.--that such apparitions are really hallucinations or false impressions upon the senses, created, so far as originated by any external cause, by other minds either in the body or out of the body, which are themselves invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the term, and really acting through some means at present very imperfectly known. Such an opinion of course reserves the question of the possible action of unseen forces upon what is commonly called matter involved in 'spirit'-photography, materialisation, levitation, the passage of matter through matter, and other forms of apport, although such a distinction, if logically carried out, becomes somewhat tenuous in face of the generally