About 5.45 I fell asleep, and did not wake till my tea came up at 7.30, when I asked the maid if she had been disturbed, and she replied that the servants had been extra busy the day before, had gone to bed early, and had slept soundly.
Miss Langton and Mr. T—— attest the above as a correct account of our experience, so far as they were concerned.
The following is from Miss Langton's private diary:—
"Miss Freer, Mr. T——, and I all agreed that, as it was the anniversary of the old Major's death, we would sit to-night in his own sitting-room, which we always call 'the downstairs smoking-room.' Just before dinner, Miss Freer, who was sitting between the writing-table and fireplace, suddenly called out, 'What is Spooks running after?' and then she said that there were two black dogs in the room, and that the other dog was larger than Spooks she said, 'like a spaniel.'
"After dinner we three sat round the fire and played games; suddenly one of us called out, 'Listen to those footsteps,' and then we distinctly heard a heavy man walking round the room, coming apparently from the direction of the safe, in the wall adjoining the billiard room, and then walking towards the door, passing between us and the fireplace in front of which we were sitting. It was a very curious sensation, for the steps came so very close, and yet we saw nothing. Footsteps died away, and we resumed our game. Three times over we distinctly heard outside the door the voices of a man and woman, apparently in anger, for their voices were loud and rough. Each time we jumped up at once and opened the door quietly—there was nothing to be seen; the passage was in total darkness, all the servants having gone to bed (the last time was nearly eleven o'clock). We certified this fact by making an expedition into the kitchen regions. We then returned to the smoking-room, and not long after the footsteps again began in exactly the same direction. This time they lasted a longer time.
"I slept in No. 8, and was so tired I slept pretty well, but before going to sleep, just before one o'clock, I heard the sound of a heavy man in slippers come down the corridor and stop near my door, and then the sound as of a long argument in subdued voices, a man and a woman."
On April 9th Miss Freer and Miss Langton left B—— in order to pass Easter elsewhere, and Mr. T—— left with them.
During Miss Freer's absence the house was occupied for some days by the eminent classical scholar Mr. F.W.H. Myers, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, one of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, and Hon. Sec. to the S.P.R.
It is well known that the S.P.R. is very greatly indebted to Mr. Myers for his most valuable services for many years as Hon. Sec., and for his many important contributions to its literature. He has, however, of late years somewhat alienated the sympathies of many of its members, by the extent to which he has introduced into its Proceedings the reports of spiritualist phenomena, and the lucubrations of mediums. The original rules of the society would appear to exclude the employment of hired mediums, and it is difficult to distinguish Mrs. Piper, and certain other subjects of experiment, from this class. The differences, however, between Mr. Myers and some of the members do not stop at this point, for his preference for the experiences of female mediums, whether hired or gratuitous, would appear to amount to an indifference to spontaneous phenomena, an indifference that is distinctly and rapidly progressive.
Mr. Myers, however, appeared to take considerable interest in the phenomena of B——, and on March 13, 1897, after reading the journal for the first five weeks, the only part of the evidence which has been submitted to him, or indeed to any member of the Council of the S.P.R., he wrote to Miss Freer:—