heard—repeating their tricks. The steward or factor on the estate concurs with the lawyer and the minister in denying that the house had any reputation for being haunted before the advent of the H—— family. Yet he is a Highlander, and not without superstition; for he gave it as his opinion that if there was anything in these noises, they must be due to Black Art. Asked what Black Art might be, he said he could not tell, but he had often heard about it, and had been told that when once set going it would go on without the assistance of its authors. He was quite clear, however that if there is Black Art, it came in with the H—— family."

Mr. H——'s rejoinder, which appeared in The Times, was dated June 10th:—

To the Editor of "The Times"

"Sir,—I must ask you to be good enough to publish, on behalf of the tenant of B——, a few remarks on the article that appeared in your paper of the 8th inst. with the heading 'On the Trail of a Ghost.' The writer of that article finds a very easy solution to the mystery by attacking a private family who happened to be tenants of B—— for a short time, and making them a 'scapegoat' for his argument. I do not quite understand if your correspondent pretends to assert that the place had not the reputation of being haunted previous to my tenancy for three months last year; probably he does not charge me with originating such reports, as he mentions a story of the visit of a Catholic Archbishop to the house to exorcise the ghost. This must have happened some time ago, and proves that the house was then supposed to be haunted. What your correspondent does state as a fact is, that the younger members of my family played practical jokes, which have given rise to Lord Bute's investigations. My object in writing to you is to deny most emphatically this statement. The principal proof that is brought forward to corroborate this slander is, that the doors are marked by the blows struck to produce the noises heard. Surely no one could be frightened after the cause and reason of the noises were once ascertained by the boot-marks! But there were no such marks on the doors when we left B——. Some of our guests were with us until very shortly before my family left, and can testify to this, for the good reason that in the endeavour to localise the extraordinary noises, all doors and other parts of the house were constantly examined up to the very last. When I went to B—— at the beginning of August, my family had already been there a few days, and at once they told me they had found out the house was supposed to be haunted, and that they had heard most unaccountable noises. I had the greatest difficulty to persuade all my people to stay in the place, and after all, we left Scotland about the end of September, two months earlier than usual. I personally did not give any importance to the rumours that B—— House is haunted, and attributed the very remarkable noises heard to the hot-water pipes and the peculiar way in which the house is built. In fact, I have to confess I cannot believe in ghosts, and, consequently, I did my best to persuade everybody that B—— was not haunted, but I am afraid I was not always successful. I hope you will forgive me for taking up so much valuable space in your paper, but I had to do so in self-defence against a false accusation.—Yours faithfully, H——."

It is believed that, in consequence of this letter, Mr. H—— was threatened with legal proceedings, which, however, have not yet been initiated.

The following is the account given of the same period by Miss "B.," a lady of some position in the literary world:—

"... We arrived there on Wednesday the 25th August, the house being then tenanted by Mr. J.R. H—— of K—— Court, C——, G——shire. The household consisted of Mr. and Mrs. H——, three sons, Miss H——, my sister and I, and two other guests, Colonel A—— and Major B——.

"We had rooms in the wing on the ground floor of the house, opening off the main hall, divided from the rest of the house by a long passage, and shut off by a swing-door. Our rooms opened off each other, and the inner room opened off a little sitting-room, which had a door with glass panels leading into the passage. The only other person who slept in that wing of the house was Mr. Willie H——, whose room was exactly opposite the door of our room.

"We heard a great deal of discussion about the 'ghost' when we arrived, and so that night my sister made me sleep in the inner room with her. We heard nothing that night. The next night I slept in the outer room, and neither of us heard anything. The third night, my sister being still a little nervous, I slept in the inner room with her. The door of the outer room was locked, the door between the rooms was locked, and there was a wardrobe placed against the door leading into the sitting-room. We both, having taken these precautions, fell sound asleep.

"I wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, and noticed how quiet the house was. Then I heard the clock strike two, and a few minutes later there came a crashing, vibrating batter against the door of the outer room. My sister was sleeping very soundly, but she started up in a moment at the noise, wide awake.

"'Some one must have done that,' she said; 'such a noise could never have been made by a ghost!'

"But neither of us had the courage to go out into the passage! The noise lasted, I should say, for only two or three seconds, and ceased as suddenly as it had begun. We lay awake till the light came in, but the house was quite quiet. I may mention, as against the 'supernatural' origin of the sound, that it came against the outer door, did not pass in to the inner one, and avoided the glass-panelled door of the sitting-room, which would certainly have been shivered by the application of force sufficient to produce such noise. Another very curious thing was, that on the nights when it came to our door (we only heard it once, but other visitors heard it often) Willie H—— heard nothing; whereas on the nights when he was disturbed, we heard nothing, yet the rooms were close together.

"The following night my sister and Miss H—— and two of her brothers sat up all night in the morning-room, which opened off the main hall. We sat with the door open and in the dark, but neither heard or saw anything; the house was absolutely still.

"The next night my sister and I stayed in Miss H——'s room, watching with her. It was on the third storey of the house, and on a line with the specially haunted room, then occupied by Colonel A——. Two of the men sat up downstairs.

"After 2.30 Mr. Eustace H—— came and told his sister we need not sit up later, as everything was so quiet, and the noises seldom came after that hour. He went to his room then, but his door was scarcely closed when we all heard a loud knocking at Colonel A——'s door. We ran out, without waiting a moment, into the passage, where the lamps were still burning brightly, but it was absolutely empty and quiet. We heard it several times that night in distant parts of the house, and once we heard a scream, which seemed to come from overhead. We stayed six days in the house after this, but heard