Ogilvy, it appeared, had just started for London, summoned by news that his father was dangerously ill.

And the very next day, as the Englishman’s Highlander guide was not at all surprised to learn, the Earl of Airlie died.

Of all family ghosts, however, none is so strongly substantiated by documentary[2] evidence as the Knocking Ghost of the Basil Woodds, an old English family. This ghost began operations about the time of the Stuart Restoration, and it is alleged has ever since continued to announce, by three or more loud knocks, the approaching death of a Basil Woodd. First-hand and thoroughly trustworthy accounts are extant of its activity in quite recent times.

December 15, 1893, Mr. Charles H. L. Woodd died at Hampstead, England, after a brief illness. The night before he died the Knocking Ghost was heard by two persons, at Hampstead by his daughter, and in London by his son, the Reverend Trevor Basil Woodd. Both have made statements describing their singular experiences.

“On Thursday evening, December 14, 1893, after church,” says the Reverend Mr. Woodd, “I was sitting before my fire. I knew my father was ill, and had a presentiment that he was dangerously ill, though if I had known this I should have remained at Hampstead, where I had been that day. As I sat, I distinctly heard three knocks, perhaps more, like the sound of some one emptying a tobacco pipe upon the bars of my fire grate.

“Thinking it might be a warning, I did not go to bed for an hour, fearing I would be sent for. At one A. M. I was awakened by a ringing of the front door-bell and knocking. It was my father’s butler, who told me the doctor had sent for me, as my father was very ill. I said to my housekeeper:

“‘I must go. I feel sure that my father is dying, because I heard the Woodd knocks, as I sat in my chair before going to bed.’

“On my arrival my first question was: ‘Is he still alive?’ for I believed he must have passed away at the time of the knocking. He died at eight-forty-five next morning.”

Mr. Woodd’s housekeeper corroborates this statement. As to the knocking heard at Hampstead, the daughter, Mrs. Winifred Dumbell, testifies:

“On December 14, 1893, Thursday morning, hearing my father, Mr. Charles Woodd, was not well, I left Epsom, where I had been staying, for Hampstead, and found my father in bed and very weak, but I was in no way anxious about him, as I did not suppose him to be seriously ill. At eleven o’clock at night, being tired and finding I could not assist my mother or the nurse, I lay down in an adjoining room, leaving the door wide open, and fell asleep.

“In a short time I was suddenly awakened by a loud rapping as if at the door. I jumped up and ran into the passage, thinking my mother had called me. I listened at the door of my father’s room, but no one was moving. I lay down again and instantly fell asleep, when exactly the same thing occurred. I did not actually sleep again, and cannot say whether any sound made me get up the third time, but I went in search of the doctor and gathered that he was anxious about my father, who was getting much weaker. We were all aroused, and about eight o’clock A. M. my father died.

“I did not connect this rapping with the Woodd warning, as all was so sudden and unexpected, but on mentioning it at breakfast the next morning to my brother, the Reverend Trevor Basil Woodd, he told me he also heard a similar warning in his rooms at Vauxhall Bridge Road about the same time.”

To mention only one other of the many instances that might be cited, the Knocking Ghost was again heard on June 3, 1895, just twenty-four hours before the death of Mr. Thomas Basil Woodd at Hampstead. Again, too, it was heard by more than one person and in more than one place, by Mr. Woodd’s daughters, Fanny and Kate, and by his niece, Miss Ethel G. Woodd, who was at the time visiting friends in Yorkshire, and at first mistook the Knocking Ghost for somebody hammering nails into the wall of the next room. Oddly enough, this was also the way it sounded to Fanny Woodd, in London, as appears from the following statement signed by her:

“On June 3, 1895, at ten-thirty P. M., Fanny Woodd, staying with Mrs. Stoney, 83 Wharton Road, West Kensington, heard knocks, apparently from next door, as of nails being hammered in and pictures hung, which seemed so unlikely at that hour of night that the next morning she mentioned it to Mrs. Stoney, whose bedroom was just below hers, asking if she had heard it or could account for it.”

But Mrs. Stoney had heard nothing, and the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Harriet Taylor, rather tartly declared that: “There has been no putting up of pictures or knocking of any sort in this house for quite two years. We are also early risers, and are always in bed and asleep by ten P. M.” That same day Miss Woodd rejoined her father and sister in Hampstead, and was astonished to hear that the latter had been awakened about half past ten the previous night by loud knockings against the window shutters.

A few hours more and the mystery was solved by the startlingly sudden death of Mr. Woodd, from an attack of apoplexy. The Knocking Ghost of the Basil Woodds had lived up to its reputation.

The giving of death warnings is by no means confined to family ghosts, as may be sufficiently indicated by relating an incident that happened in Canada some years ago, and that has always impressed me as one of the best ghost stories I have ever heard. It was told me by an actor in the strange little drama, and knowing as I do the persons concerned, I have not the slightest hesitation in vouching for its authenticity, incredible though the reader may be inclined to regard it.

In this instance the ghost was seen by a clergyman, the Reverend John Langtry, who afterward became a prominent dignitary of the English Church in Canada. His home was in Toronto, but on the occasion of the ghostly visitation he was at the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Ruttan, who lived with their only child, a young girl, in a small town some fifty or sixty miles north of Toronto. Mr. Ruttan was another Church of England clergyman, and was a warm friend of Doctor Langtry’s. This time, however, the latter had journeyed to see him simply on a matter of diocesan business, and was anxious to complete it and get back to Toronto.

To his disappointment he found that Mr. Ruttan had been called out of town, and would not be home until a late hour, possibly not until the following day. On the chance that he might return earlier than expected, Doctor Langtry accepted Mrs. Ruttan’s invitation to spend the evening with her.

As they were chatting together—she being so seated that her back was toward the door leading from the parlor, whereas Doctor Langtry’s position gave him a full view of the hall—she noticed that all at once he stopped in the middle of a sentence, leaned forward, and stared fixedly into the hall. She instantly turned her head, and followed the direction of his gaze, but could see nothing.

“What is the matter, Doctor Langtry?” she asked. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, recovering himself with an effort. “I fancied for a moment—”

He paused, then changed the