SOURCE: "The House of Strange Stories" (1886)  by Andrew Lang

DESCRIPTION: "'At that moment,' said the bishop, 'I was summoned to the drawing-room, and did not at first notice that my friend the priest had not followed me. He had an interesting and careworn face,' added the bishop. 'You have certainly seen the family ghost,' said Lord Birkenhead; 'he only haunts the library, where, as you may imagine, his retirement is but seldom disturbed.' And, indeed, the habits of the great, in England, are not studious, as a rule." ("The House of Strange Stories" by Andrew Lang)

NOTES: The Ghostly Priest, Francis Wilton, condemned himself to walk the Earth when he wrote down Lady Birkenhead's confession back in 1657. Fond of hunting, he tucked the written confession into a copy of Cicero's De Officiis and ran off to join the hunt, during which he fell off a horse and died. For two hundred years he has been trapped in the library of the Birkenhead estate, trying to get people to destroy the confession. All the servants run from the room and will not listen. The priest is freed when a visitor to the house calmly listens to him.

HISTORY: The Girton Girl, one of the people listening to the Squire's story, nails it on the head when she complains all we really want to know is what Lady Birkenhead's confession was. The rest of it is boring.