Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.2 #62 (26 Sep 1891).
Some years ago there was a lone house standing by itself, near a plantation not far from Guildford. This house nobody would ever take because it was haunted, and strange noises heard in it every night after dark; several tenants tried it, but were frightened away by the noises.
At last, one individual, more courageous than the rest, resolved to unravel the mystery. He accordingly armed himself, and having put out the light, remained sentry in one of the rooms. Shortly, he heard on the stairs, pit-pat; a full stop, then pit-pat; a full stop again. The noise was repeated several times, as though some creature, ghost or no ghost, was coming upstairs. At last the thing, whatever it was, came close to the door of the room where the sentry was placed, and listening, his heart, too, chimed in the tune pit-pat, rather faster than it was wont to do. He flung open the door—hurry skurry, bang; something went down the stairs with a tremendous jump, and all over the bottom of the house the greatest confusion, as of thousands of demons rushing in all directions, was heard.
This was enough for one night. The next night our crafty sentry established himself on the first landing with a heap of straw and a box of lucifer matches; soon all was quiet. Up the stairs again came the pit-pat, pit-pat. When the noise was close to his ambush he scraped his match, and set fire to his straw, which blazed up like a bonfire in an instant; and what did he see? Only a rabbit, who stood on his hind legs, as much astonished as was the sentry. Both man and beast having mutually inspected each other, the biped hurled a sword at the quadruped, who disappeared down the stairs quicker than he came up.
The noise made was only the rabbit's fore and hind- legs hitting the boards as he hopped from one stair to the other. The rabbits had got into the house from the neighbouring plantation, and had fairly frightened away, by their nocturnal wanderings, the rightful owners thereof. The more courageous sentry was rewarded for his vigil, for he held his tongue as to the cause of the ghost. He got the house at a reduced rent, and several capital rabbit pies made out of the ghosts' bodies into the bargain.