745 A. From Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. no. The narrative is written by General Sir Arthur Becher, of St. Faith's Mede, Winchester.

April 11th, 1884. General Sir A. Becher, who held a high appointment on the Staff in India, went, accompanied by his son and A.D.C., to the Hill Station of Kussowlie, about March 1867, to examine a house he had secured for his family to reside in during the approaching hot season. They both slept in the house that night. During the night the General awoke suddenly and saw the figure of a native woman standing near his bed, and close to an open door which led into a bathroom. He called out, "Who are you?" and jumped out of bed, when the figure retreated into the bath-room, and in following it the General found the outer door locked and the figure had disappeared.

He went to bed again, and in the morning he wrote in pencil on a door-post, "Saw a ghost," but he did not mention the circumstance to his wife.

A few days after, the General and his family took possession of the house for the season, and Lady Becher used the room the General had slept in for her dressing-room. About 7 p.m. on the first evening of their arrival, Lady Becher was dressing for dinner, and on going to a wardrobe (near the bath-room door) to take out a dress, she saw, standing close by and within the bath-room, a native woman, and, for the moment thinking it was her own ayah, asked her "what she wanted," as Lady Becher never allowed a servant in her room while dressing. The figure then disappeared by the same door as on the former occasion, which, as before, was found locked! Lady Becher was not much alarmed, but felt that something unusual had occurred, and at dinner mentioned the event to the General and his son, when the General repeated what had occurred to him on the former occasion. That same night their youngest son, a boy about eight years of age, was sleeping in the same room as his father and mother, his bed facing an open door leading into the dressing-room and bath-room, before mentioned, and in the middle of the night the boy started up in his bed in a frightened attitude and called out, "What do you want, ayah? what do you want?" in Hindustani, evidently seeing a female figure in the dressing-room near his bed.

His mother quieted him and he fell asleep, and the figure was not seen by us on that occasion, nor was it ever again seen, though we lived for months in the house. But it confirmed our feeling that the same woman had appeared to us all three, and on inquiry from other occupants we learned that it was a frequent apparition on the first night or so of the house being occupied.

A native Hill, or Cashmere woman, very fair and handsome, had been murdered some years before in a hut a few yards below the house, and immediately under the door leading into the bath and dressing-room, through which, on all three occasions, the figure had entered and disappeared. My son sleeping in another side of the house never saw it.

I could give the names of some other subsequent occupants who have told us much the same story.

Subsequently Sir Arthur Becher writes:-

Winchester, May 14th, 1884. I write to say Lady Becher does not desire to write anything more personally on the subject of the "Ghost Story" I before detailed, as she says my account of it was given in connection with and entirely in accordance with her recollection of the circumstances. The woman appeared to me in the night, and in the ordinary light of a room without any blinds or shutters.

In answer to inquiries, he further tells us that the bath-room door was locked on the inside; that the rooms were on the ground floor; but that there was no exit but by the doors referred to. Also that the child had certainly not heard of the ghost before he saw it.