Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/The alibi

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THE ALIBI.
A REAL EXPERIENCE.
I wholly disbelieve in spirit-rapping, table-turning, and all supernatural eccentricities of that nature. I refuse credence to the best authenticated ghost story (mind you, ghost story pur et simple).
I can sleep in the gloomiest haunted room in the gloomiest haunted house, without the slightest fear of a nocturnal visit from the other world.
But, although I scoff at white ladies, bleeding nuns, et hoc genus omne, there is a species of supernatural occurrence in which I am, I confess, an unwilling and hesitating believer.
The circumstances I am about to relate are of this nature, and were told me by an intimate friend of mine, as having lately occurred to a relation of his own.
I give the story as he gave it to me, namely, in the words as nearly as possible of the principal actor in it.
Two years ago, towards the end of the London season, weary of the noise and bustle that for the last three months had been ceaselessly going on around me, I determined upon seeking a few days’ rest and quiet in the country. The next evening saw me comfortably installed in a pretty farm-house about two miles from the cathedral town of X——. The little cottage in which

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