"'Some one must have done that,' she said; 'such a noise could never have been made by a ghost!'
"But neither of us had the courage to go out into the passage! The noise lasted, I should say, for only two or three seconds, and ceased as suddenly as it had begun. We lay awake till the light came in, but the house was quite quiet. I may mention, as against the 'supernatural' origin of the sound, that it came against the outer door, did not pass in to the inner one, and avoided the glass-panelled door of the sitting-room, which would certainly have been shivered by the application of force sufficient to produce such noise. Another very curious thing was, that on the nights when it came to our door (we only heard it once, but other visitors heard it often) Willie H—— heard nothing; whereas on the nights when he was disturbed, we heard nothing, yet the rooms were close together.
"The following night my sister and Miss H—— and two of her brothers sat up all night in the morning-room, which opened off the main hall. We sat with the door open and in the dark, but neither heard or saw anything; the house was absolutely still.
"The next night my sister and I stayed in Miss H——'s room, watching with her. It was on the third storey of the house, and on a line with the specially haunted room, then occupied by Colonel A——. Two of the men sat up downstairs.
"After 2.30 Mr. Eustace H—— came and told his sister we need not sit up later, as everything was so quiet, and the noises seldom came after that hour. He went to his room then, but his door was scarcely closed when we all heard a loud knocking at Colonel A——'s door. We ran out, without waiting a moment, into the passage, where the lamps were still burning brightly, but it was absolutely empty and quiet. We heard it several times that night in distant parts of the house, and once we heard a scream, which seemed to come from overhead. We stayed six days in the house after this, but heard nothing more ourselves, though every one else in the house was disturbed nightly."
The Major B—— mentioned in the above statement has been good enough to furnish the following note as to his personal impressions:—
"On 22nd August 1896 I arrived at B——, and remained there until the 2nd September. During this period I slept in the room on the first floor, which is at the end of a short corridor running from the top of the back stairs to my room [No. 1].
"Colonel A—— occupied the room next to me [No. 3]. It was a double room, connected by a door, and was situated just at the top of the back stair.
"August 24th, about 3.30 a.m., I heard very loud knocking, apparently on Colonel A——'s door, about nine raps in all—three raps quickly, one after the other, then three more the same, and three more the same. It was as if some one was hitting the door with his fist as hard as he could hit. I left my room at once, but could find nothing to account for the noise. It was broad daylight at the time. I heard the same noises on the 28th and 30th August at about the same hour, viz. between 3 and 4 a.m."
The following, which adds somewhat to the above, was contained in a private letter written in January 1897 from Major B—— to the Hon. E—— F——:—