The Alleged Haunting of B---- House by - (read me like a book TXT) π
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When Colonel Taylor, one of the fundamental members of the LondonSpiritualist Alliance, a distinguished member of the S.P.R., whosename is associated both in this country and in America with theinvestigation of haunted houses, offered to take a lease of B----House, after the lease had been resigned by Mr. H----, the proprietormade no objection whatever. Indeed, the only allusion made to thehaunting was the expression of a hope on the part of Captain S----'sagents in Edinburgh, that Colonel Taylor would not make it a subjectof complaint, as had been done by Mr. H----, in reply to which theywere informed that Colonel Taylor was thoroughly well aware of whathad happened during Mr. H----'s tenancy, and would undertake to makeno complaint on the subject. Captain S---- having th
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After the appearance of The Times correspondent's accusation against the Hββ family, Mrs. "G." wrote as follows to Lord Bute:β
"June 10th.βIf the noises complained of by nearly all who have stayed at Bββ were the result of practical jokes perpetrated by the Hββs, how is it that not only were they heard by guests who stayed there years ago, but are admitted by members of the Sββ family to have been heard by themselves? Miss Freer also has told me, that the same noises were heard at all hours day and night by herself and her guests for months after the Hββ family and their servants had left Scotland. This so completely exonerates them from the absurd charge, that I should hardly have mentioned it, had not Miss Freer seemed quite under the impression that practical jokes had been played during the tenancy of the Hββs; and as a proof of this, she told me that the doors, especially of two of the rooms, were marked with nailed boots, and the panels even split through, and this damage was attributed by her to the younger members of the Hββ family. I am happy to say I was able to disabuse her mind of this idea, as we were staying at Bββ within a few days of their leaving Scotland, and I had most carefully examined the doors especially of the two rooms specified, one of which was our own room. There was not a scratch, nor the smallest mark or indentation; others can also vouch for this fact. The Hββs had all left Bββ for good at that time, except the eldest son, and Miss Freer agreed with me that whatever damage was done to the doors, must therefore have been done after the Hββs left, and before her party came in.... The hot-water pipe theory revived by the writer of the article in The Times is disproved by Miss Freer, who told me that the hot-water apparatus was not used for some time, and that the disturbances continued just the same.... The stories told in connection with Bββ were not circulated or started by the Hββ family. They were told to them by persons living around Bββ."
In a letter to Miss Freer, dated June 12th, Mrs. "G." writes, in reference to the charge of practical joking:β
"They are the most unlikely family to do such a thing; and besides, if further proof were wanted, the young men of the family were away from Bββ when we stayed there ten days, and there was only one night when we did not hear the noises."
Miss Freer of course entirely accepts Mrs. "G.'s" statement, and that of Mr. Hββ as published in The Times. She had been led to her earlier conclusions as to the marks of a boot-heel on the upper panels of the doors by the statements of interested persons.
A suggestive point in this connection is the fact, to which Miss "G." has herself testified, that while Mr. and Mrs. "G." were disturbed to the utmost degree, their daughter, who slept in a room communicating with that of her mother, heard nothing whatever; from which it would appear that the noises heard by them were subjective, and that the alleged evidence of the boot-heel, even were it credible, would be, in fact, irrelevant.
The mention of the hallucinatory nature of such phenomena suggests attention to the intellectual acumen displayed by The Times correspondent in saying that "Lord Bute ought to have employed a couple of intelligent detectives" for the purpose of catching subjective hallucinations. On the same principle, he ought to offer to his learned friend, Sir James Crichton-Browne, well known as an alienist, some advice as to the best mode of securing morbid hallucinations in strait-waistcoats. Is he prepared to propose to take photographs of a dream, to put thoughts under lock and key, or to advocate the supply of hot and cold water on every floor of a castle in the air?
One of the guests at Bββ during Colonel Taylor's tenancy wrote after his return to London to Miss Freer as follows:β
"March 24th.βI went to call the other day on the 'G.'s' who chanced to be still in town.... I begin chronologically, and give you what I was told in all seriousness.... The Hββs knew nothing about any stories of haunting when they took the place, and Miss Hββ and one of the sons went up, most innocently, to prepare for the arrival of the others. As soon as they entered it the son said to his sister that he couldn't explain why, but he had a conviction that the house was haunted. That night, however, nothing happened. But the second night the bangings began. An old Spanish nurse was in the haunted room, and was greatly disturbed by the noise upon her door, which seemed as if it were going to be burst open. She didn't seem to be alarmed in the least however, and later took steps to secure its remaining shut by stuffing a towel under the chink (why this should secure it I rather fail to see, still that was her view). Apparently the ghost resented this, and one night did actually burst the door open, with such violence that the towel was precipitated into the middle of the room. The longer they stayed in the house, the worse things got. The noises were all over the house more or less, and were by no means confined to bangings. Miss Hββ slept in room No. 8, where the ghost limped round her bed. She was so alarmed that she fetched her brother in, and he slept on the sofa. The limping began again, and she asked him if he heard anything, and he at once agreed that somebody was walking round the bed. In his own roomβI forget whichβhe twice saw the ghost, once in the shape of an indeterminate mist, once in the shape of a man, who came in by the door and vanished in the wall. Mrs. 'G.'[B] now appears on the scene, and slept in No. 1 (I think). She heard only the bangings, which she declares were indescribably loud. They were mostly at the door of the haunted room. Traps were laid to catch unwary jesters; the door, or the surrounding floor, I forget which, was covered with flour, and wires were stretched across the door; and if I had the proper mind of a ghost-story narrator, I should say that the bangings were as bad as ever, and the flour and the wires were found undisturbed.
"But as a matter of fact she didn't say that, though doubtless she intended to, but jumped on to something else. Mr. "G.," who was there some weeks after his wife, was put down in the wingβI don't know which roomβand had visitations. He heard steps approach down the passage, followed by a heavy body flinging itself against his door. He also heard screams, which seemed to him to recede as though the screamer was passing through the walls. (I couldn't quite understand this effect, but that was how he described it.) Their chaplain, who was put into the haunted room, was also greatly worried, and both he and the Spanish nurse and Colonel Aββ all had the sensation that their bedclothes were being pulled off, and they had to hold on to them to prevent their departure. The most interesting part of the story is that Mrs. Sββ later admitted to Mrs. "G." that it was quite true the house was supposed to be haunted, that she had lived there for twenty years, and at various times there had been outbreaks of this kind of thing of greater or less duration, but that the outbreaks had not been often enough for them to think it worth while mentioning the fact to incoming tenants. It appears also that the story of the bangings on the table in the daylight on the occasion of the last interview between the late Mr. Sββ and the land-steward, came from one of the young Sββs. It was also said that one of the young Sββs used to sleep in the dressing-room between No. 1 and the haunted room, and used to complain that somebody kept pulling his bedclothes off.
"I may add that it is quite clear that the people about the placeβsome of whom, on my leaving, I vainly tried to drawβhave been threatened not to talk about the ghost. There was no mystery about it whatever last year, the station officials being exceedingly loquacious and full of information...."
The above are the circumstances which The Times correspondent thus describes:β
"Lord Bute's confidence has been grossly abused by some one. It was represented to him by some one that he was taking the 'most haunted house in Scotland,' a house with an old and established reputation for mysterious if not supernatural disturbances. What he has got is a house with no reputation whatever of that kind, with no history, with nothing germane to his purpose beyond a cloud of baseless rumours produced during the last twelve-month. Who is responsible for the imposture it is not my business to know or to inquire, but that it is an imposture of the most shallow and impudent kind there can be no manner of doubt. I interviewed in Pββ a man who has the district at his finger-tips, and was ready to enumerate in order all the shooting properties in the valley. He had never heard until the moment I spoke to him of Bββ possessing any reputation, ancient or modern, for being haunted, although he is familiar with the estate, and has slept in the house. It has no local reputation of the kind even now beyond the parish it stands in. The whole thing has been fudged up in London upon the basis of some distorted account of the practical jokes of the Hββs."
As the writer in question obtained his admission to the house as a guest by Sir James Crichton-Browne's solicitation through Sir William Huggins and Lord Bute, it might naturally have been supposed that the real facts were known to him, at least so far as they were concerned. It appears, however, that he cherished a voluntary ignorance upon the subject, to judge from the phrase, "it is not my business to know or to inquire." Of such a writer, and of such statements, the reader will now form his own opinion; but that the correspondent in question should continue to cling to his journalistic anonymity, is little to be wondered at.
Colonel Taylor served in the Bedfordshire Regiment. He was afterwards Professor of Tactics at Sandhurst, and retired in 1894. Possessed of means, leisure, and intelligence, he chose to make the study of psychic subjects his particular occupation. He is one of the seven fundamental members who, in 1895, signed the Articles of Association of the London Spiritualist Alliance, holds office in the Society for Psychical Research, and has rendered very valuable services in investigation of various kinds. Having made the investigation of houses alleged to be haunted his special province, he may be fairly considered to be somewhat of an expert in this matter. It may, or may not, be regarded as a drawback to his usefulness in this direction, that he is so peculiarly insensitive to subjective impressions, that a man who is colour-blind would be almost as useful a witness as to shades of colour as Colonel Taylor upon hallucinations, local or otherwise; but, as will be seen, he is fertile in expedients, experienced in research, and careful and observant of the phenomena experienced by others.
Lord Bute, who takes some interest in scientific matters, has been accustomed not infrequently to defray
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