The following day a new maid arrived. She slept in the old part of the house, and shortly afterwards asked my sister if the house was haunted, as she had been kept awake by "heavy people running past her door with naked feet."
By this time it was only the influence of the staid old servants which prevented the younger ones from taking flight. My sister and her husband were not alarmed, they were profoundly interested.
The summer passed on, and there were days and weeks when nothing was heard, then quite suddenly the disturbances would begin again. As the noises sounded so very human it was extremely difficult to believe that they really did not proceed from incarnate beings, and my sister told me that time after time, as she listened, she would say to herself, "Now, beyond a shadow of doubt there are men in that room." She would creep upstairs, listen for some time with her hand on the door-knob--then suddenly throw it open--to find nothing. She never wearied of trying to surprise those invisible men.
At times when her husband was away from home, she would spend the entire night in an obstinate attempt to solve the mystery. When she had no guests, and the servants were asleep in their new wing, she would awake to the noise. Taking her candle she would mount on bare, silent feet to the floor above, and listen at the door, often for half an hour at a time. She had no fear, but intense curiosity. It was easy to trace what was going on in the room. Men were packing, moving heavy boxes, throwing down heavy articles, walking about the floor with ponderous tread. First they would be at one end of the room, then move on to the other. Sometimes they approached so near the door behind which she stood, that she expected to see it open, and to be confronted by several burly ruffians. She would rush suddenly in, candle in hand, only to be received in sudden, utter silence. Not even the scurry of a scared mouse. After half an hour of patient waiting within the room, she would leave it, close the door, and sit down on the staircase. In a few moments the disturbance was again in full swing.
Were I writing an account of these hauntings for the Psychical Society I should go into the most minute details; suffice it here to say, that during all this time every sort of investigation had been carried out by practical men and women, who had personally heard the disturbances, and who were keenly interested in the phenomena.