"The Marquis of Cholmondeley, the Patron of the Living, had the ground round the house excavated to ascertain whether there was any vault underneath the house—none, however, was found. Two Bow Street officers were sent to exercise their skill. They passed the night, armed with loaded pistols, in chambers opposite to one another. In the night, each, hearing a noise as if in the opposite chamber, came out with a loaded pistol with the intention of firing. But a mutual recognition ensuing, the catastrophe of each being shot by the other was averted.
"The house, to the best of my belief, like a number of other old parsonages, was at length pulled down and a new one built in its stead...."
In another letter my correspondent says:—"Mr. Stewart was a quasi alumnus of the great Greek scholar, Dr. Parr, and was a man of eminent local literary celebrity. Mrs. Stewart, his wife, was a daughter of an Admiral McDougall, so there was neither in them, nor in any of their children, any peasant or bourgeois predilection to superstition about ghosts."
Upon my writing to the Rev. H. Hacon, M.A., and asking him if he had given me an exhaustive account of all the phenomena that were experienced in the Parsonage, he sent me the following list, which was a brief recapitulary of what he had already told me, with a few additions:—
(1) The sound as of a huge ball descending upon the roof and penetrating to the ground floor.
(2) A sound as of metal coin showering down from above.
(3) Scratching on the inner wall as of from the claws of a lion or tiger.
(4) On the occasion of a guest retiring for the night and putting his hand out for the night candlestick, a blow as from a hammer upon the under-side of the table where the candlestick was standing. The guest, by the way, had been expecting to hear the sounds, and was now concluding there would be none.
(5) The sound as of a hand on the woodwork of the bed, keeping time to the singing of the Evening Hymn by Mrs. Stewart's daughter, on the conclusion of the latter's daily devotions.
(6) The incident of the Bow Street officers.