“The greater portion of the epistle was simply a formal declaration of sympathy, but the concluding lines, inasmuch as they bear on the haunting, are worth repeating.
“The worthy divine wrote as follows:
“‘If you recollect, at our last meeting I gave you to understand that I had something further to tell you re the occult disturbances in your late abode.
“‘You will probably treat my statement with contempt, badly concealed under cover of a pretty pasquinade, but I am prepared to run the gauntlet of your scepticism in order to relieve my conscience.
“‘What I would have told you had I not been silenced (culpably I own) by your ridicule, is this: the appearance of the sick man had always been followed by some dire calamity, whenever any attempt has been made to set even as much as one foot on the staircase during the manifestations—hence my warning to Bobbie.
“‘I cannot, of course, explain to you why a phenomenon of this sort should entail physical disaster any more than I can elucidate the mystery of the Ghost Candles of Wales, or the Banshees of Ireland, between which manifestations and the phenomena in question there is a strong analogy. But should you feel sufficiently interested in the subject to ask for further information, or even be sufficiently dubious to demand testimony, I will with pleasure provide you with an abundance of creditable corroborations both documentary and oral.’
“But Mr. Hartley was perfectly satisfied.”
THE MINERY, DEVON
THE MAN WITH THE BUCKET
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of dead