the false window outside, indeed it had the sound of being in the room.  The kettle-drum sounds might easily have been a trick of the wind, though the night was still, but the only natural explanation of this noise that I can give is practical joking, as the noise might have come from my dressing-room.  The coal-scuttle was standing between the fireplace and door-post, just where the sound seemed to come from.  The second night I moved the scuttle right away to between the head of the bed and the window, and the noise was not repeated.  The second night the talking and footsteps were both heard when first we went up; and once, shortly after all was still, early in the night.  Nevertheless we again both of us slept very badly indeed—­I may say that except from about 6 to 8 A.M.  I slept very little either night.  I should say that all through both nights I frequently heard the owls hooting—­both the tawny owl and another, which I think was the little owl; the former on one occasion was very close to the window, and any one with a vivid imagination or unacquainted with the cry of the owl (and, strange as it may seem, a country-bred girl, staying at L——­ the other day, did not know the owls’ cry when she heard it), might well take it for shrieks.”

N.B.—­No one ever heard shrieks during Colonel Taylor’s tenancy at B——.

   “The third night, as I have said, we were in No. 8, and both of
   us slept like tops, and heard or saw nothing.

   “One morning, in the smoking-room in the east wing, I heard
   voices which seemed to come from above, but which I am
   convinced were from the kitchen beneath.

   “As you know, ‘Ishbel’ was not kind enough to show herself to
   me....

“P.S.—­I wrote the above without reading over my wife’s account.  I have only to add that I had none of the uncomfortable sensations she talks of.  Bodily and mentally I was comfortable all night.  Nor was I in the least restless—­only wakeful.  But for the noises, B——­ certainly strikes one as a very unghostly house.”

April 3rd, Saturday.—­Miss Langton and I heard footsteps walking up and down overhead at dinner-time last night, in No. 7, a room which is not in use.  We looked at each other, but did not at first say anything, on account of the presence of the servants.  After it had gone on for at least ten minutes, I asked the butler if he had heard them.  He at once said, “Yes, and might he go and see if any one were about?” We heard him go upstairs and open the door of the room, and walk across it, but his step was quite different from the sound we had heard.  He came back saying, “The housemaid had been in to draw the blind down since we had been at dinner.”  I have questioned her since, and she says she simply went in and out again—­was not there half a minute.

About four o’clock this afternoon, Miss Langton ran in from the garden where we were