72 Collectanea.
ing very loudly ; then the dishes, &c., in the cupboard would sound as if they were being smashed. At last Hall and his wife left Little Tew, and went to Hook Norton, where he set up in business ; but the same noises were heard here. Mrs. Bench, mother of Mrs. Hall, told Jeffries that when she went to bed there was a noise under her head in the pillow, as if some one were groaning. She actually struck the pillow with a pen-knife, and blood appeared on it, The Halls left Hook Norton and came to Enstone, where they again set up a smithy ; but here the noises were worse than ever. Jeffries says that he often went into the blacksmith's shop to help Hall, and that when he was striking the iron, it seemed as if some one took hold of the handle of the hammer and made him miss his stroke. Once, when he was talking to the Halls in their sitting-room, the fire-irons suddenly left their places and walked across the room, whereupon Jeffries bolted. Another time, when Mrs. Hall was laying the table for dinner, a voice asked for a plate as well, and Mrs. Hall said she was obliged to put one, or there would be no peace. Jeffries often heard the plates and dishes rattling as if they were all coming down together. Once he was in the house talking to Hall, when there was a bang as if a gun had been fired, and a bullet came through the door and hit the table. No hole was to be seen in the door.
Hall and his wife have been dead some years, and no noises are now heard in Enstone. Mrs. Jeffries says that Mrs. Hall was always very strange, but she liked her as a neighbour.— (July, 1894.)
There was once a large house at Northbrook, near Kirtlington, where Sir James Dashwood lived and died. After his death he " came again," and at last he came so often that they had to lay him in the pond. When this pond runs dry he will come again. After the ghost was laid the house was pulled down and the stones used to build the house in Kirthngton Park. — (February, 1894.)^
' Northbrook, which lies about one-and-a-half miles north of Kirtlington village, is now only a farmhouse, but a chain of fishponds shows that there was once a more important residence here, and indeed a mansion-house is depicted in the map appended to R. Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire in 1677. The tradition is not quite correct. The present seat of the Dashwood family in Kirtlington Park was built by J. Saunderson in 1746 for Sir James Dashwood, who lived there, and died in 1779.
