ry. But, as
no one says that all the other witnesses are visionaries, this helps
us little. 2. M. Leleu makes all the noise himself. That is, he
climbs to the roof with a heavy sack of grain on his shoulder, and
lets it fall; he runs up and down the chimneys with his heavy sack
on his shoulder, he frolics with weighty planks all over the house,
thumps the walls, makes furniture dance, and how? What is his
motive? His tenants leave him, he is called a fool, a devil, a
possessed person: his business is threatened, they talk of putting
him in jail, and that is all he has got by his partiality for making
a racket. 3. The neighbours make the noises, and again the
narrator asks 'how?' and 'why?' 4. Some priests slept in the house
once and heard nothing. But nobody pretends that there is always
something to hear. The Bishop of Amiens licenses the publication
'with the more confidence, as we have ourselves received the
depositions of ten witnesses, a number more than sufficient to
attest a fact which nobody has any interest in feigning'.

In a tale like this, which is only one out of a vast number, exactly
analogous, Common-sense is ill-advised in simply alleging imposture,
so long maintained, so motiveless, and, on the whole, so very
difficult to execute. M. Leleu brought in the Church, with its
exorcisms, but our Dominican authority does not say whether or not
the noises ceased after the rites had been performed. Dufresnoy, in
whose Dissertations {178} these documents are republished, mentions
that Bouchel, in his Bibliotheque du Droit Francois, d. v. 'Louage,'
treats of the legal aspect of haunted houses. Thus the profession
has not wholly disdained the inquiry.

Of all common sensible explanations, the most sporting and good-
humoured is that given by the step-daughter of Alexander Dingwall, a
tenant in Inverinsh, in 1761. Poor Dingwall in his cornyard 'heard
very grievous lamentations, which continued, as he imagined, all the
way to the seashore'. These he regarded as a warning of his end,
but his stepdaughter sensibly suggested that, as the morning was
cold, 'the voice must be that of a fox, to cause dogs run after him
to give him heat'. Dingwall took to bed and died, but the
suggestion that the fox not only likes being hunted, but provokes it
as a form of healthy exercise, is invaluable. The tale is in
Theophilus Insulanus, on the second sight.

There is no conclusion to be drawn from this mass of