“I lay with wide open eyes till daybreak. “I must have lain there awake for two or three hours, sometimes with my head buried under the clothes, sometimes peeping out, when at last the moaning suddenly stopped. I was really too terrified to move, and the ghost kept more or less to that part of the room where the door was situated. sleeping in the next room to mine, and wondered how I could reach them. “Luckily she never looked at me, or I should have screamed, and I thought of Lord and Lady I. Her face and form were lit up exactly like a picture thrown upon a magic lantern screen, and every detail of her dress was clearly defined. I’m sure she was the ghost of a mad woman. I saw a woman dressed exactly like Mary Tudor, in her pictures, and she was wandering round the walls, flinging herself against them, like a bird against the bars of a cage, and beating her hands upon the walls, and all the time she moaned horribly. I longed to light my candles, but didn’t dare, and the moaning continued, and I thought I should go quite mad. I shut my eyes instantly, and pulled the bedclothes over my head in a paroxysm of fear. The room was in total darkness, but I saw something very bright near the door. “On the fourth night I was awakened by a moaning sound in my room, and I opened my eyes. We were a very cheery party, and every one was frightfully thrilled and nervously expectant, but we were very careful not to breathe the word ‘ghost’ before our host and hostess. “I had been in the Castle for three nights and much to my satisfaction seen absolutely nothing. She then told the following story, which has a sequel:. Lord Wynford was not present, and Lady Wynford at once greeted me by exclaiming, “We are going to stay at Glamis next week, and Lady Reay has been there and seen a ghost.” She was a wonderful woman in her way, and preserved her youth up till very late in life. I went one afternoon to see Wynford in the hotel in which they stayed whilst in Scotland, and found Lady Reay with them. To-day it is universally believed that the monstrosity is at last laid to rest, and that though other ghosts still walk the Castle, the worst has departed forever. This story was readily discussed in old days by members of the Strathmore family, who were just as keen as outsiders were to probe the mystery. They grew aged and haggard in a single night.
This information was of so terrible a nature that it changed not only the lives of those two men, but even their personal appearance. No ghost book is ever considered complete without reference to this celebrated Castle, and the story usually narrated is, that in the secret room some abnormal horror lived, and that the heir, Lord Glamis, and the factor, had to be told of its existence by the Earl of Strathmore in person. At that period the great topic of conversation amongst ghost-hunters was Glamis Castle, the most celebrated of all haunted houses.
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