They then went on to tell me that they--and many of their visitors and
servants--had seen the phantasms of a very hideous and malignant old
man, clad in tight-fitting hosiery of mediæval days, and a maimed and
bleeding big, black cat, that seemed sometimes to drop from the ceiling,
and sometimes to be thrown at them. In one of the passages all sorts of
queer sounds, such as whinings, meanings, screeches, clangings of pails
and rattlings of chains, were heard, whilst something, no one could ever
see distinctly, but which they all felt to be indescribably nasty,
rushed up the cellar steps and flew past, as if engaged in a desperate
chase. Indeed, the disturbances were of so constant and harrowing a
nature, that the wing had to be vacated and was eventually locked up. The Wheelers excavated in different parts of the haunted wing and found,
in the cellar, at a depth of some eight or nine feet, the skeletons of
three men and two women; whilst in the wainscoting of the passage they
discovered the bones of a boy, all of which remains they had properly
interred in the churchyard. According to local tradition, handed down
through many centuries by word of mouth, the house originally belonged
to a knight, who, with his wife, was killed out hunting. He had only one
child, a boy of about ten, who became a ward in chancery. The man
appointed by the Crown as guardian to this child proved an inhuman
monster, and after ill-treating the lad in every conceivable manner,
eventually murdered him and tried to substitute a bastard boy of his own
in his place. For a time the fraud succeeded, but on its being
eventually found out, the murderer and his offspring were both brought
to trial and hanged. During his occupation of the house, many people were seen to enter the
premises, but never leave them, and the place got the most sinister
reputation. Among other deeds credited to the murderer and his
offspring was the mutilation and boiling of a cat--the particular pet of
the young heir, who was compelled to witness the whole revolting
process. Years later, a subsequent owner of the property had a monument
erected in the churchyard to the memory of this poor, abused child, and
on the front of the house constructed the device of the cat. Though it is impossible to determine what amount of truth there may be
in this tradition, it certainly seems to accord with the hauntings, and
to supply some sort of explanation to them. The ghostly head on the
banisters might well be that of the low and brutal guardian, whose
spirit would be the exact counterpart of his mind. The figure seen, and
noises heard in the passage, point to the re-enaction of some tragedy,
possibly the murder of the heir, or the slaughter of his cat, in either
of which a bucket might easily have played a grimly significant part. And if human murderers and their victims have phantasms, why should not
animals have phantasms too? Why should not the phenomenon of the cat
seen by Mrs. Hartnoll and the Wheelers have been the actual phantasm of
an earthbound cat? No amount of reasoning--religious or otherwise--has as yet annihilated
the possibility of all forms of earthly life possessing spirits. LETTER FROM MY WIFE

I heard the foregoing account from my husband when first I met him years
ago, and I know it to be true. I have seen the rooms, etc. in the Old
Manor House, Oxenby, where the incidents Mrs. Hartnoll mentions took
place. ADA B. O'DONNELL. _July_ 2, 1913. To further substantiate my views with regard to a future existence for
animals, I reproduce (by permission of the Editor) the following letters
and articles that have appeared from time to time in the _Occult
Review_:--


Letter 1

_That other Cat_

One evening about four years ago I was in my drawing-room with two
friends; we were all standing up on the point of going to bed, and only
waiting till the old cook had succeeded in inducing the grey Persian cat
to come in for the night. This was sometimes difficult, and then cook
came up as on this occasion and called him from the balcony, and the
French window was wide open, when a cat rushed in at the window and
through the door. "What was that?" we said, looking at one another. It was not Kitty, the
grey Persian, but darker, and was it really a cat, or what? My friend
"Rügen" has written the account of what she saw before seeing what I
have said. "Iona" confirms our description. What I saw seemed dark and
shadowy and yet unmistakably a cat. It seemed to me like the predecessor
of Kitty, which was a black Persian; he had the same habit of coming in
at night by this window, and he constantly rushed through the room, and
downstairs, being in a hurry for his supper. A moment or two afterwards
the grey cat walked slowly in, and though we searched the house, we
could find no other. "THANET." Letter 2


_Fräulein Mullet's Story_

Three or four years ago, Iona and I were sitting in the drawing-room on
a Sunday evening, when cook came in to ask for Kitty (a silver-grey
Persian cat) to settle him in the kitchen for the night. Kitty was still
in the garden, and cook went to the balcony calling him. Suddenly I saw a black cat flying in and disappearing behind or under a
seat. First, I did not take much notice of this. But when a minute after
Kitty slowly and solemnly stepped in, followed by cook, it struck me
that the dark something could not have been Kitty, and Thanet and Iona
made the remark simultaneously. Now we began to look for the dark one
all over the place without any result. Cook had not seen any cat passing
her on the balcony, but Kitty the grey one. Thanet had had a black
Persian cat, which died before Kitty came. "RÜGEN." Letter 3


I can entirely corroborate the accounts written by "Thanet" and "Rügen." I remember that I saw something like a dark shadow move very quickly and
disappear in front of a cottage piano. I exclaimed simultaneously with
my friends "What was that?" and shared their surprise when no black cat
was found, and the grey Persian walked in unconcernedly through the open
window. "IONA." Letter 4


_What Kitty saw_

Cook said, "I wish you would come downstairs and see how strangely Kitty
behaves as soon as I open the cupboard. There is nothing in it but the
wood; I turned it all out to see what might be the reason--not even a
mousehole can I find." Some days previously cook had told me that
nothing could induce Kitty to sleep in his basket, and one day he would
not eat any food in the kitchen, and his meals had to be given him
outside. So I went down to please cook. Kitty was picked up, and while
cook petted and stroked him, she knelt down and opened the cupboard. Kitty, stretching his neck and looking with big, frightened eyes into
the cupboard's corner, suddenly turned round; struggling out of cook's
hold and rushing over her shoulder, he flew out of the kitchen. Getting
up, Cook said: "That's always what he does, just as if he was seeing
something horrible!"