"GUILSBOROUGH, "NORTHAMPTON, "_January 23, 1909._
"I well remember many years ago, when a boy, running upstairs into the top room of a certain house in Guilsborough and seeing a tall, thin figure of a man with an animal's head crouching on the bed. I was so frightened when I saw it that I ran out of the room as fast as I could.
My father-in-law had certainly made no mention of what he had seen to me before he heard my experience, neither had I the slightest idea that such a phantasm had been encountered in the village by any one but myself. Close to the house where he saw the phenomena I believe an ancient sacrificial stone was once found, whilst in the same neighbourhood there are the remains of a barrow and numerous other evidences of the Stone Age; hence the pig-faced phantasm may have been either a Vice Elemental attracted to Guilsborough by the human blood once spilt on the sacrificial stone, or by certain crimes committed in and around the village in modern times, or by the thoughts of some peculiarly bestial-minded person, or people, buried in the now disused cemetery; or, again, the phantasm may have been the actual earth-bound spirit of some very vicious person, whose appearance would be in accordance with the life he or she led when on earth. Which of the two it is I cannot, of course, say: that is--for the present, at least--beyond human knowledge.
I have recorded another haunting of a similar nature.
Writing to me from Devizes on May 15th, 1910, Mr. "I. Walton" says:--
"I have just been reading your book, 'Haunted Houses of London.' It recalls to my mind a hideous apparition which I witnessed about ten days ago, and which made such an impression on my mind that I send you particulars of it.
"I was on a visit to my two sons, who live at No. 37, M---- Square, Chelsea. On the first night of my visit I slept in a room on the third floor facing the Square. I have no knowledge of the science you profess, and no personal faith in supernatural apparition, but the spectacle I witnessed was so extraordinary that, by the light of your thrilling narratives, it looks as though I may have been sleeping in a room that has been the scene of a tragedy.
"The room was not utterly dark, and some light penetrated from the lamps in the Square, but as I lay with my face to the wall, all in front of me was dark.