I spoke to them for the first time about the noises to-day.  The butler’s wife has heard sounds, but her husband only scoffs.  The upper housemaid thinks ghosts the proper thing, and tolerates them along with the high families to which she is accustomed.  The under housemaid is very shy, is Highland, and knows little English, and won’t talk, but owns to discomfort, and is scoffed at by the other servants, who think it all part of her having been only a “general” till she came here.  The kitchenmaid goes home to sleep, but I believe some one fetches her.

   I have had a girl out of the village to make up the linen, and
   she, we notice, is careful to go home before dark.

This morning we all went to churches of various sorts.  When the men came in to tea they reported that they had had a conversation with an outdoor servant, who proved to have been in the service of [Mr. F——­’s father] Lord D——­, and was consequently the more communicative.  I know him, and have found him extremely intelligent.

He says that having heard from the H——­s’ butler (who slept on the dining-room floor, in the room my maid is to occupy to-night) that it was impossible to sleep in a room so noisy, he induced him to allow him to share his room, that they heard much, but they dared not show a light for fear of his admission being discovered (the H——­s being much on the alert), and they saw nothing [cf. p. 40 for evidence of the H——­s’ butler].

   We did not like to send for him on a Sunday, but decided to have
   him in on Monday, and test him as to the intensity of the noise.

In the evening, while we were all chatting in the drawing-room, Miss Moore came out into the hall, where she had been looking after the dog.  In spite of the noise we were all making, she distinctly heard the clang noise upstairs.  She had said the same thing, though with less certainty, once before, and we agreed that one night some one must sit up in the hall. (This was afterwards done without result.)

   February 8th, Monday.—­Last night my maid heard footsteps and
   the sound of hands fumbling on her door; this she told us when
   she came in with our early tea.

Miss Moore in the early morning, between one and two, heard again the sharp, reverberating bang as before.  We speculated at breakfast as to whether the sound could have been made by the men after we had gone upstairs, though they were all sure of having been quite still before midnight.  We made them rehearse every sound they had in fact made, but nothing was in the least like it, either in quality or quantity.

I had been disturbed about 5.30 A.M. by the sound (which we had not heard hitherto) described by former witnesses as “explosive.”  I know of nothing quite like it.  I have heard the Portsmouth guns when at a place eight miles away; the sound was like that, but did not convey