Haunted Houses (2)

Some half a century ago or more a native of Rannoch resided at Bonskeid (_Bonn-sgaod_) in the neighbouring parish of Blair Athole. He was married to a Badenoch woman, who had brought servants with her from her own country. In fact the only servants about the house were from Badenoch. In obedience to the law, which ascribes that which is mysterious to that which is remote, Badenoch was at that time esteemed a great place for witchcraft and things “uncanny.” A series of unaccountable noises and appearances began about the house in Bonskeid. Turnips and peats, thrown by unseen hands, flew about the house, lights were blown out, furniture was mysteriously moved, bedclothes were pulled off, and no one could be sure that an article would be found by him where he had left it. In all this there was no appearance of mortal agency, and the whole business was at once assumed to be the work of evil spirits. A friend from Rannoch, who had been on a visit to the house, declared solemnly (and he was a God-fearing, trustworthy man) that he himself heard the spinning-wheel coming down stairs, and saw it falling in pieces on the floor of the room in which he and the family were sitting, without any visible agency, and without any part of it being broken or injured. He put it together again, and with his own hands carried it upstairs and left it in its original place. He had not sat long after coming down when the wheel again came in the same mysterious manner, and fell in pieces on the floor. On another occasion, as he stood in the byre, a turnip came and knocked the candle out of his hand. To his certain knowledge there was no one in the byre who could have thrown it. These flying turnips came sometimes as if they had been hurled through the wall. The unhappy man, in whose house this occurred, endured the persecution for more than a year, and was sadly broken in health and spirits by the trouble. One day as he stood on the hearth-stone, warming the back of his feet to the fire, the hearth-stone began to move. A Badenoch dark hussy (_Caileag dhubh_) was at the time standing by, with her elbow rested on the kitchen ‘dresser,’ and her chin on her hand. He observed her smiling, and it struck him she was at the bottom of all this bedevilment. He turned her and all the rest of the Badenoch servants away, and no further disturbance took place.

About twenty years ago, a house in Kilmoluag, Tiree, was the scene of similar disturbances. With one or two exceptions, all the people of the island believed them to be produced by some supernatural evil agency, and all the superstition that with the spread of education had been quietly dying out was revived in renewed vigour. No one could deny the agency of spirits when the evidence was so clear. The annoyance began by the trickling of dirty water, mixed with sand, from the roof. The burning peats were found among the bedclothes, and pebbles in bowls of milk, where no peats or pebbles ought to be; linen was lifted mysteriously from the washing, and found in another room; articles of furniture were moved without being touched by visible hands, and stones flew about the house. The disturbances did not occur during the day, nor when a large company assembled at the house. Several went to lay the ghost, and a good deal of powder and shot was wasted by persons of undoubted courage in firing in the air about the house. The annoyance became so bad, and the advice of “wise people” so positive, that the family removed to another house, in the hope the evil would not follow. The removal, however, had no effect, and it is privately rumoured, the disturbances ceased only when some money that had gone amissing was restored. The cause was never clearly ascertained, but there is reason to suspect it was caused, as all similar disturbances are, by some one suborned for the purpose and shielded from suspicion by a pretended simplicity and terror.