I told them I thought it quite possible that such might be the case, and narrated to them my experiences in Dublin. They appeared to be greatly interested; and were, moreover, quite willing, provided I promised them not to discuss the matter too openly, as they wanted to let the house, that I should spend a few nights at “Bocarthe.” They were, in fact, rather anxious to know if anything unusual still took place there. Thinking, perhaps, that I might not like to go alone, they gave me an introduction to a young friend of theirs, Dr. Swinton, who, they thought, might be prevailed upon to accompany me; and, before I left them, all the preliminaries relating to my visit to “Bocarthe” were satisfactorily arranged.
That same day the Rowlandsons went to Edinburgh, where they told me they intended living, and the following day at noon I wended my way to the house they had vacated. As there was no story connected with “Bocarthe,” I set to work to make enquiries about the ground on which it stood, and instead of learning too little, I learned too much. An old minister, who looked fully eighty, was sure that the ground in question, until it was built upon quite recently, had been grazing land ever since he was a boy, and that it had never witnessed anything more extraordinary than the occasional death of a sheep or a cow that had been struck by lightning. An equally aged and equally positive postmistress declared that the ground had never been anything better than waste land, where, amid rubbish heaps galore, all the dogs in the parish might have been seen scratching and fighting over bones. Another person remembered a pond being there, and another a nursery garden; but from no one could I extract the slightest hint as to anything that could in any way account for the haunting.
When I entered the house, I thought I had seldom seen such a cheerful one: the rooms were light and lofty, and about them all there was an air of geniality, that hitherto, at all events, I had never dreamed of associating with ghosts.
Dr. Swinton joined me in the evening, but although we sat up till long after dawn, we neither saw nor heard anything we could not account for by natural causes. We repeated the process for two more nights, and then, feeling that we had given the house a fair trial, we concluded it was either no longer haunted, or that the hauntings were periodical, and might not occur again for years. I wrote to Mr. Rowlandson, upon returning the keys of the house, and, in reply, received the following letter from him:—
No. —, C—— Crescent,
Edinburgh.
November 8th, 1893.
Dear Mr. O’Donnell,
Many thanks for the keys. No wonder you did not see our ghost! It is here, and we are having just the same experiences in this house as we had in “Bocarthe.” If you would care to stay a few nights with us, on the chance of seeing the ghost, we shall be delighted to put you up.
Yours, etc.,
Robert Rowlandson.
I was obliged to return home very shortly, in order to decide definitely and speedily what I intended to do for a living; but although I knew I had little or no time to waste, I could not resist the Rowlandsons’ kind invitation to try and see their ghost, and accordingly accepted.