“From 1882 to 1890 Mr. Romanes rented Geanies, a beautiful place overlooking the Moray Firth. It belongs to a cousin of the Romanes family, Captain Murray, of the 81st Regiment. Captain Murray’s mother and sisters lived not far away, and the Murrays and Romanes formed a little coterie in that not very populous neighbourhood.” From The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, written and edited by his wife (second edition, 1896).
In the case of a tapping Spook, its behaviour may often be confounded with the noisy antics of a rat or the atmospheric crackings of furniture or woodwork. Professor Romanes was extremely interested in instances of such phenomena, and particularly so one summer when he rented the shooting at a place called Geanies in Ross-shire, a name which is said to mean “Windy Point.”
He and his wife were occupying the Lodge on the estate when it was reported to him that unaccountable disturbances had been heard in a cottage about a mile off. The latter was a humble dwelling occupied by a labouring man and his wife with their two boys, also his aged father and mother; the old couple, indeed, asserted they were specially plagued by the unseen tormentor. They declared that they were often pinched by invisible fingers, prevented from sleep by incessant knockings, and sometimes the old man even had his nightcap twitched off his head in impudent fashion, and tossed on to the floor.
As the cottage was at so short a distance from the Lodge, Mr Romanes established a system of signals and kept a horse saddled in readiness to take him there as soon as the disturbances occurred; but the ghosts or poltergeists in residence there were peculiarly aggravating – directly he entered the cottage, having ridden thither at top speed, the disturbances invariably ceased; and though he waited patiently for hours at a time, they were never resumed so long as he was on the premises.
This fact was, in itself, suspicious, especially with regard to the strange scratchings heard on the outside wall, in connection with which, indeed, some faint signs of intelligence were detected. For instance, when asked if the height of Professor Romanes could be indicated, a long scratch was given, and when the question was repeated in regard to the stature of Mrs Romanes, a short scratch was heard – not signs of brilliant mentality, but some token of the question being understood and an answer attempted! A hoax on the part of the boys was of course a suggested explanation, but these scratchings and knockings occurred when the boys were away at school; and moreover one of the obects most mysteriously infected was a bed, the eccentricities of which could not be explained even on the score of trickery.
Unlike the mysterious, persistent furrow which had appeared across the bed of the Mackintosh of Mackintosh, in this cottage bed a movement was perceptible under the ticking of the mattress, as though some small animal were imprisoned there and trying to make an escape. The ticking was observed to heave gently up and down almost as if caused by the breathing of some creature beneath it, while occasionally a faint movement was audible, as if some living thing stirred there. Rabbit-traps were therefore placed on the bed, but these were found flung on the floor with the wires broken; so at last the owner of the cottage, with the assistance of a neighbour, carried the mattress out of doors, split it open, took out all the straw, and thoroughly examined it. As nothing could be found, they replaced the straw, sewed up the ticking and carried it back to the bed, whereupon the movement inside it was at once resumed.
Professor Romanes was so intrigued with this mystery that on one occasion he took a friend with him to the haunted cottage, and both being enthusiastically determined to solve the problem, they sat up all night, playing chess to while away the time till dawn, but nothing uncanny occurred; and they both returned disappointed to their respective homes. Soon afterwards Professor Romanes left Scotland; and later he heard that the disturbances in the haunted cottage had entirely ceased. Why they ever commenced, why they persisted, why they ended was never explained. The nuisance remained as inexplicable as it was futile.
pp. 109-111 of ‘Ghosts Vivisected’, by Anna M.W. Stirling (1957).