d to Mrs. "G." that it was quite
true the house was supposed to be haunted, that she had lived there
for twenty years, and at various times there had been outbreaks of
this kind of thing of greater or less duration, but that the outbreaks
had not been often enough for them to think it worth while mentioning
the fact to incoming tenants. It appears also that the story of the
bangings on the table in the daylight on the occasion of the last
interview between the late Mr. S---- and the land-steward, came from
one of the young S----s. It was also said that one of the young S----s
used to sleep in the dressing-room between No. 1 and the haunted room,
and used to complain that somebody kept pulling his bedclothes off.

"I may add that it is quite clear that the people about the
place--some of whom, on my leaving, I vainly tried to draw--have been
threatened not to talk about the ghost. There was no mystery about it
whatever last year, the station officials being exceedingly loquacious
and full of information...."

The above are the circumstances which _The Times_ correspondent thus
describes:--

"Lord Bute's confidence has been grossly abused by some one. It was
represented to him by some one that he was taking the 'most haunted
house in Scotland,' a house with an old and established reputation for
mysterious if not supernatural disturbances. What he has got is a
house with no reputation whatever of that kind, with no history, with
nothing germane to his purpose beyond a cloud of baseless rumours
produced during the last twelve-month. Who is responsible for the
imposture it is not my business to know or to inquire, but that it is
an imposture of the most shallow and impudent kind there can be no
manner of doubt. I interviewed in P---- a man who has the district at
his finger-tips, and was ready to enumerate in order all the shooting
properties in the valley. He had never heard until the moment I spoke
to him of B---- possessing any reputation, ancient or modern, for
being haunted, although he is familiar with the estate, and has slept
in the house. It has no local reputation of the kind even now beyond
the parish it stands in. The whole thing has been fudged up in London
upon the basis of some distorted account of the practical jokes of the
H----s."

As the writer in question obtained his admission to the house as a
guest by Sir James Crichton-Browne's solicitation through Sir William
Huggins and Lord Bute, it might natu