watching her.  Other people saw her in the garden crying, and sent messages to ask what was the matter, and who was the lady in distress.  Many members of the family, boys, girls, married ladies, servants and others often saw the lady in black.  In 1885 loud noises, bumps and turning of door handles were common, and though the servants were told that the lady was quite harmless, they did not always stay.  The whole establishment of servants was gradually changed, but the lady still walked.  She appeared more seldom in 1887-1889, and by 1892 even the light footsteps ceased.  Two dogs, a retriever and a Skye terrier, showed much alarm.  “Twice,” says Miss Morton, “I saw the terrier suddenly run up to the mat at the foot of the stairs in the hall, wagging its tail, and moving its back in the way dogs do when they expect to be caressed.  It jumped up, fawning as it would do if a person had been standing there, but suddenly slunk away with its tail between its legs, and retreated, trembling, under a sofa.”  Miss Morton’s own emotion, at first, was “a feeling of awe at something unknown, mixed with a strong desire to know more about it”. {200}

This is a pretty tame case of haunting, as was conjectured, by an unhappy revenant, the returned spirit of the second Mrs. S. Here it may be remarked that apparitions in haunted houses are very seldom recognised as those of dead persons, and, when recognised, the recognition is usually dubious.  Thus, in February, 1897, Lieutenant Carr Glyn, of the Grenadiers, while reading in the outer room of the Queen’s Library in Windsor, saw a lady in black in a kind of mantilla of black lace pass from the inner room into a corner where she was lost to view.  He supposed that she had gone out by a door there, and asked an attendant later who she was.  There was no door round the corner, and, in the opinion of some, the lady was Queen Elizabeth!  She has a traditional habit, it seems, of haunting the Library.  But surely, of all people, in dress and aspect Queen Elizabeth is most easily recognised.  The seer did not recognise her, and she was probably a mere casual hallucination.  In old houses such traditions are common, but vague.  In this connection Glamis is usually mentioned.  Every one has heard of the Secret Chamber, with its mystery, and the story was known to Scott, who introduces it in The Betrothed.  But we know when the Secret Chamber was built (under the Restoration), who built it, what he paid the masons, and where it is:  under the Charter Room. {201} These cold facts rather take the “weird” effect off the Glamis legend.

The usual process is, given an old house, first a noise, then a hallucination, actual or pretended, then a myth to account for the hallucination.  There is a castle on the border which has at least seven or eight distinct ghosts.  One is the famous Radiant Boy.  He has been evicted by turning his tapestried chamber into the smoking-room.  For many years not one ghost has been seen except the lady with the candle, viewed by myself, but, being ignorant of the story, I thought she was one of the maids.  Perhaps she was, but she went into an empty set of rooms, and did not come out again.  Footsteps are apt to approach the doors of these rooms in mirk midnight, the door handle turns, and that is all.