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Ghosts and Family Legends: A Volume for Christmas

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Title: Ghosts and Family Legends: A Volume for Christmas

Author: Catherine Crowe


        
Release date: April 19, 2012 [eBook #39485]

Language: English

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Credits: E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHOSTS AND FAMILY LEGENDS: A VOLUME FOR CHRISTMAS ***


E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net)



GHOSTS AND FAMILY LEGENDS.

A Volume for Christmas.

by

MRS. CROWE,

Authoress of "Night Side of Nature," &c.







London:
Thomas Cautley Newby, Publisher,
Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square.
1859.




CONTENTS.


                                                           _page_

    FIRST PART.

      PREFACE                                                   v

    ROUND THE FIRE.

      FIRST EVENING                                             1
        THE LOVER'S FAREWELL.
        _The Appointment Kept_.

      SECOND EVENING                                           19
        THE WHITE CAT.
        PASSING SPIRITS.
        THE GARDE CHASSE.

      THIRD EVENING                                            43
        THE CARRIER.

      FOURTH EVENING                                           63
        REHEARSALS, &C.
        PROPHETIC DREAMS.

      FIFTH EVENING                                            81
        THE VIGIL.
        THE STRANGE DOG.
        THE SCOTCH MINISTER.

      SIXTH EVENING                                            93
        THE RADIANT BOY.
        THE PREDICTION.
        HAUNTED HOUSES.
        THE JUSTIFICATION.

      SEVENTH EVENING                                         111
        THE GERMAN INN.
        THE BENIGHTED TRAVELLER.

      EIGHTH EVENING                                          135
        MY OWN VISIT TO A HAUNTED HOUSE.
        MR. G.'S ADVENTURE.
        CONCLUSION TO FIRST PART.

    APPENDIX                                                  149

        AUTOGRAPH LETTERS COMMUNICATING
        PERSONAL EXPERIENCES ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR.


    SECOND PART.

      LEGENDS OF THE EARTHBOUND.

        THE ITALIAN'S STORY                                   173

        THE DUTCH OFFICER'S STORY                             209

        THE OLD FRENCHMAN'S STORY                             229

        THE SWISS LADY'S STORY                                259

        THE SHEEP FARMER'S STORY                              297

        MY FRIEND'S STORY                                     327




PREFACE.


It happened that I spent the last winter in a large country mansion, in
the north of England, where we had a succession of visitors, and all
manner of amusements--dancing, music, cards, billiards, and other games.

Towards the end of December, 1857, however, the gaiety of the house was
temporarily interrupted by a serious misfortune that occurred to one of
the party, which, in the evening, occasioned us to assemble with grave
faces round the drawing-room fire, where we fell to discussing the
slight tenure by which we hold whatever blessings we enjoy, and the sad
uncertainty of human life, as it affects us in its most mournful
aspect--the lives of those we love.

From this theme, the conversation branched out into various speculations
regarding the great mysteries of the here and hereafter; the reunion of
friends, and the possible interests of them that have past away in the
well-being of those they have left behind; till it fell, naturally, into
the relation of certain experiences which almost everybody has had, more
or less; and which were adduced to fortify the arguments of those who
regard the future as less disjoined from the present than it is
considered to be by Theologians generally.

In short, we began to tell ghost stories; and although some of the party
professed an utter disbelief in apparitions, they proved to be as
fertile as the believers in their contributions--relating something that
had happened to themselves or their friends, as having undoubtedly
occurred, or to all appearance, occurred--only, with the reservation,
that it must certainly have been a dream.

The substance of these conversations fills the following pages, and I
have told the stories as nearly as possible in the words of the original
narrators. Of course, I am not permitted to give their names; nobody
chooses to confess, in print, that he or anybody belonging to him, has
seen a ghost, or believes that he has seen one. There is a sort of
odium attached to the imputation, that scarcely anyone seems equal to
encounter; and no wonder, when _wise_ people listen to the avowal with
such strange incredulity, and pronounce you at the best a superstitious
fool, or a patient afflicted with spectral illusions.

Under these circumstances, whether I have ever seen a ghost, myself, I
must decline confiding to the public; but I take almost as courageous a
step in avowing my entire and continued belief in the fact that others
do occasionally see these things; and I assert, that most of those who
related the events contained in the ensuing pages of this work,
confessed to me their absolute conviction that they or their friends had
actually seen and heard what they said they did.

Some of the company related curious traditions and legends connected
with their family annals; and these form the second part of this little
book, which I hope may prove a not uninteresting companion for a
Christmas fireside.

CATHERINE CROWE.

15th _October_, 1858.




GHOST STORIES

AND

FAMILY LEGENDS.




ROUND THE FIRE.

FIRST EVENING.


"But there are no ghosts now," objected Mr. R.

"Quite the contrary," said I; "I have no doubt there is nobody in this
circle who has not either had some experience of the sort in his own
person, or been made a confidant of such experiences by friends whose
word on any other subject he would feel it impossible to doubt."

After some discussion on the existence of ghosts and cognate subjects,
it was agreed that each should relate a story, restricting himself to
circumstances that had either happened to himself or had been told him
by somebody fully entitled to confidence, who had undergone the
experience.

We followed the order in which we were sitting, and Miss P. began as
follows:--

"I was some years ago engaged to be married to an officer in the ----
regiment. Circumstances connected with our families prevented the union
taking place as early as we had expected; and in the mean while Captain
S., whose regiment was in the West Indies, was ordered to join. I need
not say that this separation distressed us a good deal, but we consoled
each other as well as we could by maintaining a constant correspondence;
though there were no steam packets in those days, and letters were much
longer on their way and less certain in their arrival than they are now.
Still I heard pretty regularly, and had no reason for the least
uneasiness.

"One day that I had been out shopping, and had returned rather tired, I
told my mother that I should go and lie down for an hour, for we were
going out in the evening, and I was afraid I might have a head-ache, to
which I am rather subject; so I went up to my room, took down a book and
threw myself on the bed to read or sleep as it might happen. I had read
a page or two, and feeling drowsy had laid down the volume in order to
compose myself to sleep, when I was aroused by a knock at my chamber
door.

"'Come in,' I said, without turning my head, for I thought it was the
maid come to fetch the dress I was going to wear in the evening.

"I heard the door open and a person enter, but the foot was not her's;
and then I looked round and saw that it was Captain S. What came over me
then I can't tell you. I knew little of mesmerism at that period, but I
have since thought that when a spirit appears, it must have some power
of mesmerising the spectator; for I have heard other people who had been
in similar situations describe very much what I experienced myself. I
was perfectly calm, not in the least frightened or surprised, but
transfixed. Of course, had I remained in my normal state, I should
either have been amazed at seeing Captain S. so unexpectedly, especially
in my chamber; or if I believed it an apparition, I should have been
dreadfully distressed and alarmed; but I was neither; and I can't say
whether I thought it himself or his ghost. I was passive, and my mind
accepted the phenomenon without question of how such at thing could be.

"Captain S. approached the bedside, and spoke to me exactly as he was
in the habit of doing, and I answered him in the same manner. After the
first greeting, he crossed the room to fetch a chair that stood by the
dressing table. He wore his uniform, and when his back was turned, I
remember distinctly seeing the seams of his coat behind. He brought the
chair, and having seated himself by the bed side, he conversed with me
for about half-an-hour; he then rose and looking at his watch, said his
time had expired and he must go; he bade me good bye and went out by the
same door he had entered at.

"The moment it closed on him, I knew what had happened; if my hypothesis
be correct, his power over me ceased when he disappeared and I returned
to my normal state. I screamed, and seized the bell rope which I rang
with such violence that I broke it. My mother, who was in the room
underneath, rushed up stairs, followed by the servants. They found me on
the floor in a fainting state, and for some time I was unable to
communicate the cause of my agitation. At length, being somewhat calmed,
I desired the servants might leave the room, and then I told my mother
what had happened. Of course, she thought it was a dream; in vain I
assured her it was not, and pointed to the chair which, wonderful to
say, had been actually brought to the bedside by the spirit--there it
stood exactly as it had been placed by him; luckily nobody had moved it.
I said, you know where that chair usually stands; when you were up here
a little while ago it was in its usual place--so it was when I lay
down--I never moved it; it was placed there by Captain S.

"My mother was greatly perplexed; she found me so confident and clear;
yet, the thing appeared to her impossible.

"From that time, I only thought of Captain S. as one departed from this
life; suspense and its agonies were spared me. I was certain.
Accordingly, about a month afterwards, when one morning Major B. of the
---- regiment sent in his card, I said to my mother, 'Now you'll see; he
comes to tell me of Henry's death.'

"It was so. Captain S. had died of fever on the day he paid me that
mysterious visit."

We asked Miss P. if any similar circumstance had ever occurred to her
before or since.

"Never," she answered; "I never saw anything of the sort but on that
occasion."

"I have no experience of my own to relate," said Dr. W., "but in the
course of my late tour in Scotland, I went amongst other places to Skye,
and I found the whole island talking of an event that had just happened
there, which may perhaps interest you. There was a tradesman in Portree
of the name of Robertson; I believe he was a sort of general dealer, as
shopkeepers frequently are in those remote localities. Whatever his
business was, however, it frequently took him to the other islands or
the mainland to make purchases. He had arranged to go on one of these
expeditious, I think to Raasa, when a friend called to inform him that a
meeting of the inhabitants was to be held on some public question in
which he, Robertson, was much interested."

"'You had better defer going till after Friday,' said Mr. Brown; 'we
can't do without you, and its very possible you may not get back in
time.'

"'Oh, yes, I can do all my business, and be back very well on Thursday,'
said Mr. Robertson; objecting that if he waited over Friday it would be
no use going till Monday. Brown tried to persuade him to alter his
plans, but in vain; 'however,' said he, 'you may rely on seeing me on
Thursday, if you'll look in, in the evening; as I would not miss the
meeting on any account.'

"This conversation took place at an early hour on Tuesday morning.
Immediately afterwards Mr. Robertson bade his wife and children
good-bye, and proceeded to the boat which left at eleven o'clock, having
on board, besides himself, two other passengers, and two boatmen.

"On Thursday evening, Mr. Brown, who had been busying himself in
fortifying and encouraging their adherents against the next day, and had
taken upon himself to answer for his friend Robertson's presence, as
soon as he had finished business, set off to keep his appointment with
the latter, anxious to ascertain that he was arrived.

"His anxiety was soon relieved, for on his way he met him.

"'Well, here you are,' said he, holding out his hand.

"'Yes,' answered Robertson, not appearing to notice the hand, 'I have
kept my promise.'

"Upon that Mr. Brown introduced the subject of the meeting, and
mentioned the hopes he had of carrying the question, with which
Robertson seemed satisfied; but as soon as possible turning the
conversation into another direction, he began talking to his friend
about his wife and children, and certain arrangements he had wished to
be made respecting his property.

"His mind seemed so much more engrossed with these matters than the
meeting, that little was said upon the latter subject, and Mr. Brown,
having parted with him in the street, rather wondered why he chose such
a moment to discuss his private affairs.

"The next morning, at the appointed hour, the principal inhabitants of
the place assembled in a public room at the Tun. Brown, who wanted to
say a word to Robertson, lingered at the door; but as he did not come,
he thought he must have arrived before himself, and went up stairs.

"'Is Robertson here?' said he, on entering the room.

"'No,' said one, 'I'm afraid he's not come back from Raasa.'

"'Oh, yes,' said Brown, 'he'll be here; I saw him yesterday evening.'

"They then discoursed about the matter in hand for some time, till
finding the chairman was about to proceed to business, Robertson's
absence was again reverted to.

"'I know he's come back,' said one, 'for I saw him standing at his own
door as I passed last night.'

"'He can't have forgotten it,' said another.

"'Certainly not, for we spoke of it last night,' said Brown.

"'Perhaps he's ill,' suggested somebody.

"'Just send your man to Mr. Robertson's, and say we are waiting for
him,' said Brown to the landlord.

"The landlord left the room to do so; and, in the meantime, they
proceeded to business.

"Presently, the landlord re-entered the room, saying, that Mrs.
Robertson answered that her husband had not returned from Raasa, and
that she did not much expect he would be back till night.

"'Nonsense,' cried Brown, 'Why, I saw the man yesterday according to
appointment, and had a long conversation with him.'

"'I am sure he's come back,' said one who had spoke before. 'I was
coming down the street on the other side of the way, and I saw him
standing at the door with his apron on. I should have crossed over to
speak to him, but I was in a hurry.'

"'It's extraordinary,' said the landlord: 'Mrs. Robertson declares he's
not come.'

"Some jokes were then passed about the apparent defection of Robertson
from his spouse, and the meeting concluded their business without him,
his party being exceedingly annoyed at his absence, which they thought
not fair to the cause.

"'He should have given us his support.'

"'I suppose he has altered his opinions.'

"'Then he had better have said so.'

"'It struck me, certainly, that he was rather lukewarm on the subject
when I talked to him last night; but on Tuesday I saw him just before he
started, and he said he would not miss the meeting on any account. I'll
go and look after him and know what he means.'

"Accordingly, Brown proceeded to his friend's house, and found Mrs.
Robertson and her children at dinner.

"'Weel," Mr. Brown,' she said, 'so your meeting's over.'

"'Aye,' said he, 'but where's Robertson? Why didn't he keep his word
with us?'

"'Why, you see, I dare say he meant to be back--indeed, I know he did:
but business won't be neglected, and I suppose he could not manage it.'

"'Do you mean to say he's not come back!' said Brown.

"'Sure, I do,' answered Mrs. R. 'Of course, he'd have been at the
meeting if he had.'

"'But people saw him last night, standing at his own door,' answered the
cautious Brown.

"'Na, na, Mr. Brown, don't you believe that,' said Mrs. R., laughing;
they that say that had too much whiskey in their een.'

"The children laughed at the idea of anybody seeing their father when he
was at Raasa, and on the whole it was evident, that if John Robertson
had returned, it was unknown to his family. But what could be his reason
for so strange a proceeding, and why, if he wanted to evade the meeting,
had he needlessly shown himself at all? Why not really stay away from
Portree?

"However, Robertson did not appear; and later in the day the landlord of
the Tun said to Brown, as he was passing the door, 'You must have been
mistaken about seeing Mr. Robertson; the boat from Raasa is not come
in.'

"'Then he must have come over by some other, for I not only saw him but
walked and talked with him. I can't think what he can mean by playing
at Hide and Seek in this way?'

"'It's very extraordinary,' said the landlord, 'for I am expecting a
hamper from Raasa; and so, hearing from you that Mr. Robertson was come,
I went down to inquire about it; but they declare no boat of any sort
has come in these two days; the wind's right against them.'

"'I know the boat from Raasa is not come back,' said the porter; 'for I
saw Jenny McGill just now, and she says her husband is not returned.'

"'Really you'll persuade me that I'm not in my right senses,' said the
perplexed Brown. 'If ever I saw Robertson in my life I saw him last
night; I was going to call upon him, as he had asked me to do so before
he went away; but I met him, not far from my own house; and what is
more, he told me of a thing I did not know before, regarding a purchase
he had made, and spoke of what he intended to do with it.'

"'It's most extraordinary,' said the landlord.

"'Eh, sirs,' said an old fishwife, who was standing by, 'I wish it may
not be John Robertson's ghaist that ye saw, for the wind's sair agin
them, and I'd a bad dream about Jamie McGill last night.'

"They all laughed; but this was the first suggestion of the sort that
had been made; and though he would not confess it, Brown began to feel
rather uncomfortable; the more so as several things were recalled to his
memory that had not struck him at the time. He remembered that Robertson
had avoided shaking hands with him, either on meeting or parting, as was
his wont; he had even then been struck with the grave tone of his
conversation, and with his choosing that particular moment for pressing
on his friend's attention what did not appear to have any urgent
interest at present. Then it occurred to him that he looked ill and
sad--he had attributed this to fatigue; but now, putting everything
together, he could not help feeling a considerable degree of uneasiness.
He kept hovering about Robertson's house, and from that to the shore all
day; went to bed at night quite nervous; and by the next afternoon the
alarm had spread and become universal. It was not without cause.

"John Robertson never came back; the boat had been lost--how, was not
known, as all on board had perished. However, Mr. Brown took upon
himself to be the friend and guardian of the bereaved family; and the
information he received in that melancholy interview he was enabled to
turn much to the advantage of their circumstances."

"A very remarkable story," said I.

"Yes," answered Dr. W. "very remarkable indeed, if true."

"And is it not true," I said, "remember, we are upon honour; I should
think it a very ill compliment if any one attempted to mystify us with
an invented story."

"I did not invent it, I assure you," replied Dr. W.; "I give it you as
it was given to me on the spot. If you ask me if I believe it, I can't
say I do."

"Do you think the people who told you believed it?"

"They certainly appeared to do so."

"And did it seem generally believed?"

"I can't say but it did; but of course, one must have wonderfully strong
evidence before one could believe such a thing as that."

"Granted; but unless you had seen the thing yourself, you cannot have
stronger evidence of a phenomenon of that description, than that it was
believed by those who had good reason to know the grounds of their
belief. They were able to judge how far Mr. Brown was worthy of credit;
and they had the advantage of having witnessed his demeanour at the
public meeting, when he asserted that he had walked and talked with
Robertson, at a time he could not possibly know if he was telling a lie,
that the man would not sooner or later return to confute him. Besides,
as far as we see, it would have been a useless and wicked lie, inasmuch
as it was calculated to make the man's family very uneasy. His
subsequent conduct does not at all countenance the persuasion that he
was capable of such a proceeding.'

"Certainly not; but you know the Scotch are very superstitious."

"I can't agree with you; the higher and lower classes of the towns are
exactly similar in that respect to the same classes of England. In all
countries the lower classes are more disposed to put faith in these
things, because they believe in their traditions and adhere to the axiom
that seeing is believing. The higher classes, on the other hand, are
carefully educated not to believe in such traditions and to reject the
axiom that seeing is believing, if the thing seen is a ghost. Now I
freely admit, that our senses often deceive us, and that we think we see
what we do not; every body with the slightest intelligence has, I
suppose, learnt to distrust his own senses to a certain extent; but why
on one particular point we should reject their evidence altogether, I
never could understand."

"You have heard, I suppose of spectral illusions?" said the Doctor.

"Of course I have, and admit their existence; but we have so many cases
on our side, that doctrine will not cover, and it is so impossible for
you to prove that any particular case of ghost seeing falls under that
head, that it is no use discussing the subject. It complicates the
difficulty I confess, but can never decide the question. I was going to
say, however, that the shopkeepers and middle classes of Scotland are
anything but what you mean by superstitious--the class to whom Brown and
Robertson belong, is the most hardheaded, argumentative, and matter of
fact in the kingdom; and their religion, which is eminently
unimaginative, so far from inducing a belief in ghosts, would have a
precisely opposite tendency, because ghosts do not form an article of
belief in either the longer or shorter catechism. In the remoter
districts of the Highlands, the people are said to have more of what you
would call superstition; but the same peculiarity is remarked in all
mountainous regions; and as it has never been satisfactorily accounted
for, we will not enter into the discussion now."




ROUND THE FIRE.

SECOND EVENING.


"After the doctor's story, I fear mine will appear too trifling," said
Mrs. M., "but as it is the only circumstance of the kind that ever
happened to myself, I prefer giving it you to any of the many stories I
have heard.

"About fifteen years ago, I was staying with some friends at a
magnificent old seat in Yorkshire, and our host being very much crippled
with the gout, was in the habit of driving about the park and
neighbourhood in a low pony phaeton, on which occasions, I often
accompanied him. One of our favourite excursions was to the ruins of an
old abbey just beyond the park, and we generally returned by a
remarkably pretty rural lane leading to the village, or rather, small
town of C.

"One fine summer's evening we had just entered this lane, when seeing
the hedges full of wild flowers, I asked my friend to let me alight and
gather some; I walked on before the carriage picking honeysuckles and
roses as I went along, till I came to a gate that led into a field. It
was a common country gate, with a post on each side, and on one of these
posts sat a large white cat, the finest animal of the kind I had ever
seen; and as I have a weakness for cats, I stopt to admire this sleek,
fat puss, looking so wonderfully comfortable in a very uncomfortable
position; the top of the post on which it was sitting, with its feet
doubled up under it, being out of all proportion to its body, for no
Angola ever rivalled it in size.

"'Come on, gently,' I called to my friend, 'here's such a magnificent
cat!' for I feared the approach of the phaeton would startle it away
before he had seen it.

"'Where?' said he, pulling up his horse opposite the gate.

"'There,' said I, pointing to the post, 'Isn't it a beauty; I wonder if
it would let me stroke it!'

"'I see no cat,' said he.

"'There on the post,' said I, but he declared he saw nothing, though
puss sat there in perfect composure during this colloquy.

"'Don't you see the cat, James,' said I, in great perplexity to the
groom.

"'Yes, ma'am; a large white cat on that post.'

"I thought my friend must be joking, or else losing his eye-sight, and I
approached the cat, intending to take it in my arms, and carry it to the
carriage; but as I drew near, she jumped off the post, which was natural
enough--but to my surprise she jumped into nothing--as she jumped she
disappeared! no cat in the field--none in the lane--none in the ditch!

"'Where did she go, James?'

"'I don't know, ma'am, I can't see her,' said the groom, standing up in
his seat, and looking all round.

"I was quite bewildered; but still I had no glimmering of the truth; and
when I got into the carriage again, my friend said he thought I and
James were dreaming, and I retorted that I thought he must be going
blind.

"I had a commission to execute as we passed through the town, and I
alighted for that purpose at the little haberdasher's; and while they
were serving me, I mentioned that I had seen a remarkably beautiful cat
sitting on a gate in the lane; and asked if they could tell me who it
belonged to, adding, it was the largest cat I ever saw.

"The owners of the shop, and two women who were making purchases,
suspended their proceedings, looked at each other, and then looked at
me, evidently very much surprised.

"'Was it a white cat, ma'am?' said the mistress.

"'Yes, a white cat; a beautiful creature and--'

"'Bless me!' cried two or three, 'the lady's seen the _White Cat of C._
It hasn't been seen these twenty years.'

"'Master wishes to know if you'll soon be done, ma'am? The pony is
getting restless,' said James.

"Of course, I hurried out, and got into the carriage, telling my friend
that the cat was well known to the people at C., and that it was twenty
years old.

"In those days, I believe, I never thought of ghosts, and least of all
should I have thought of the ghost of a cat; but two evenings
afterwards, as we were driving down the lane, I again saw the cat in the
same position, and again my companion could not see it, though the groom
did. I alighted immediately, and went up to it. As I approached, it
turned its head, and looked full towards me with its soft, mild eyes,
and a kindly expression, like that of a loving dog; and then, without
moving from the post, it began to fade gradually away, as if it were a
vapour, till it had quite disappeared. All this the groom saw as well as
myself; and now there could be no mistake as to what it was. A third
time, I saw it in broad daylight, and my curiosity greatly awakened, I
resolved to make further inquiries amongst the inhabitants of C., but
before I had an opportunity of doing so, I was summoned away by the
death of my eldest child, and I have never been in that part of the
world since. However, I once mentioned the circumstance to a lady who
was acquainted with that neighbourhood, and she said she had heard of
the White Cat of C., but had never seen it.

"But as you may not think this story very interesting since it only
relates to a cat, I will, if you please, tell you another, in which I
was concerned, although I saw nothing myself."

"We shall be very happy," I said, "but I am far from thinking your story
wanting in interest, in fact, to me it has a very peculiar interest.
There are few friends so sincere as the animals who have loved us, and
none that I, for my part, more earnestly desire to see again. I have had
two dogs, in my life, who contributed much to my happiness while they
lived, and never caused me a sorrow till they died. Besides, there is a
deep mystery in the being of these creatures, which proud man never
seeks to unravel, or condescends to speculate on. What is their relation
to the human race? Why are these spiritual germs embodied in those forms
and made subject to man, that hard and cruel master! who assumes to be
their superior, because he is endowed with some higher faculties, the
most of which he grossly misuses. How beautiful are their characters
when studied? how wonderful their intelligence when cultivated? how
willing they are to serve us when kindly treated? But man, by his
cruelty, ignorance, laziness, and want of judgment, spoils their temper,
blunts their intelligence, deteriorates their nature, and then punishes
them for being what he himself has made them. Well might Chalmers
exclaim, 'All nature groans beneath the cruelty of man.' Why are these
creatures, sinless, as far as we see, placed here as the subjects of
this barbarous, unthinking tyrant? That has always appeared to me a
solemn question."

After this little digression, Mrs. M. continued as follows:--

"I had been travelling on the continent, and was staying at Brussels on
my way home. The bedroom I occupied was within another, in which slept
my faithful maid, Rachel, and one of my children. I had been in bed
sometime, and had not been to sleep, when I heard Rachel's voice, saying
something which I did not distinctly hear, and before I could ask what
it was, she uttered a cry that immediately brought me to her bedside. I
found her in a state of violent agitation, and as soon as she was
composed enough to speak, she told me that she had not been long in bed
when she heard a voice call her, which she supposed to be mine, and
immediately afterwards, in the glass which was opposite the foot of the
bed, she saw a figure in white, enter and proceed to the other end of
the room. She concluded it was me in my night dress, and that I had only
mentioned her name to ascertain if she was awake, fearing to disturb the
child, who was restless, she lay still, and did not answer. The figure
went back through the door, but presently returned again, and seemed to
be looking about for something, whereupon she half sat up in bed; when
it approached, and laid its hand heavily on her knee, there was
something painful in the pressure, and she exclaimed, 'Oh, don't do that
ma'am!' but she had scarcely uttered the words when she discerned the
features, and saw it was her sister. The phantom looked sadly at her,
and then retreating to the opposite corner, disappeared. This
circumstance, in spite of my arguments and suggestions that it was a
dream, made a very painful impression on her; she felt sure some
misfortune had happened, and so it proved; her sister had died on that
night, leaving a family of young children, about whom, in her last
moments, she was very anxious."

"Cases of that sort are very numerous," said Lady A., "I know of two
which I can give upon perfectly good authority. A friend of mine was
sitting a few years since in the drawing room at her country seat; there
was a door at each end, leading to other rooms, both of which were open.
A slight rustle caused her to raise her eyes from her work, when she saw
her nephew enter at one door, walk straight through, and out at the
other. The young man was at college, and she had no reason to expect
him then, but concluding some unforeseen business had brought him, and
that he was in search of her, she called--'Arthur, here I am,' and
pursued him into the adjoining room, and then into the hall. Receiving
no answer, and not being able to find him in any direction, she rang for
the servants, and inquired where he was; but they did not know; they had
seen nothing of him. She insisted he had arrived, and he was sought for
all over the house and grounds in vain. The thing remained perfectly
incomprehensible, till the post brought a letter, announcing that the
young man had been drowned on that day.

"Another instance, equally well established, is that of Dr. C., of
Dublin. He resided with his family some few miles from the city, I
believe, at or near Howth, and when he returned in the evening after
visiting his patients, he frequently, to save time, took a short cut
across some sands, which in certain states of the tide were not always
safe. Mrs. C. had often entreated him to relinquish this practice, and
take the more circuitous way; but he thought he was too well acquainted
with the place to run any danger. One evening that they were expecting
him, as usual, to dinner, his brother, who was standing at the window,
saw him arrive; he rode a white horse, and was therefore a conspicuous
object. When the dinner hour came, as he had not appeared in the drawing
room, his brother and Mrs. C., to whom the latter had mentioned having
seen him, desired the servants to seek him in his dressing room, and ask
if he was ready. He was not in his room, nor was he any where to be
found; neither had any of the servants seen him, nor was his horse in
the stable. Mr. C., however, confident of his arrival, suggested that he
might be gone to visit some sick person in the neighbourhood; so they
waited. But in vain; news presently arrived that horse and man had been
drowned that evening in crossing the sands."

There was scarcely any one present unacquainted with examples of this
kind of appearance amongst their family or friends, but Captain L.
related to us a case still more curious and unaccountable that had
happened to himself in India when he was in the Himalaya.

"I was just finishing my breakfast one morning," said he, "when my
servant entered and announced a visitor. It was Captain P. B. of ours,
who came to invite me to a game of billiards. Our billiard-room was
situated about a mile beyond my quarter, and Captain B., who lived at
the other extremity, had to pass my residence to go to it.

"'Are you going up there now?' I said.

"'Yes,' said he; 'will you come?'

"'Why, I can't come directly,' I answered; 'for I have a letter to write
first; but if you'll go on, I'll join you presently.'

"He left me, and as soon as I had written my letter, I started for the
billiard-room. When I entered it, Captain P. B. was not there, nor,
indeed, anybody but the marker--which was not surprising, as it was
earlier than we usually went there.

"'Where's Captain B?' I said.

"'Don't know, sir; he has not been here yet.'

"'Not been here?'

"'No, sir, not to-day.'

"Thinking, that as I was not ready, he had filled up the interval by
going somewhere else, I began knocking about the balls; every now and
then looking out of the window, expecting to see him approach; but when
this had lasted upwards of two hours, I began to be rather impatient,
and was just thinking of going away, when I saw him approaching with his
wife in an open carriage from an opposite direction.

"'A pretty fellow you are, to keep me kicking my heels here waiting for
you,' said I, as he entered the room.

"'Keep you waiting!' he said; 'I have not kept you waiting.'

"'Why, I've been here these two hours and more.'

"'How was I to know that; I did not know you were coming up here.'

"'Why, I told you I'd come as soon as I had finished my letter.'

"'My dear fellow, what are you talking about?' exclaimed my friend, in
evident surprise; 'when did you tell me so? I don't recollect making any
appointment to meet you to-day.'

"'What! not this morning, as you were passing my quarter?' said I,
amazed in my turn. 'Didn't you ask me to come and play a game at
billiards; and didn't I tell you I'd come as soon as I had finished my
letter? and I did.'

"P. B. looked at me as if he thought I'd suddenly become insane; but as
I suppose my countenance did not confirm that impression, he said,
'Here's some mistake; when do you suppose I made this appointment with
you?'

"'Suppose!' I answered, rather indignant; 'what do you mean by
_suppose_? Didn't you come into my quarter about three hours ago, just
as I was finishing breakfast, and ask me to come up here and play a game
at billiards with you?'

"'No; it must have been somebody else. Who gave you the message?'

"'Message! there was no message,' I answered, quite bewildered. 'You
came in yourself--you know you did. What's the use of trying to hoax
one?'

"'I don't know whether you are trying to hoax _me_,' replied P. B.; 'but
upon my soul I have not been in your quarter to-day; nor have I seen you
at all, till I entered this room. Moreover, I went with my wife at an
early hour to breakfast with Captain D., and we are now returning
thence; and I told the coachman to set me down here as he passed.'

"This was most confounding; and as we were both equally positive in what
we asserted, we left the billiard-room together, and proceeded to take
the testimony of my servant. On being asked who he had introduced when I
was finishing breakfast, he unhesitatingly answered, Captain B. His
account, in short, coincided entirely with mine.

"'Now then,' said Captain B., 'as you have your witness, you must hear
mine,' and we went on to his quarter, where I received the most
satisfactory and unimpeachable evidence, that what he said was correct.
He had left home with Mrs. B. at six o'clock, and gone by appointment to
breakfast with Captain D., who lived quite in a different direction to
my quarter; and Captain D. afterwards testified to his never having left
his house till he stept into the carriage with his wife.

"This event created a great sensation at the time; and people
endeavoured by every means to explain it away, but nobody ever could.
Captain B. did not like it at all; and his wife and family were very
much alarmed, but nothing ensued, and I believe he is alive and well at
this moment."

We next turned to Madame Von B., who said she knew so many cases of
spiritual appearances, and occurrences of that nature, that she was
rather perplexed by the abundance of her recollections. Amongst these
she selected the following on account of its singularity:--

"We resided a great deal on the continent before I was married, and my
mother had a favourite maid, called Francoise, who lived with her many
years--a most trustworthy, excellent creature, in whom she had the
greatest confidence; insomuch, that when I married, being very young and
very inexperienced, as she was obliged to separate from me herself, she
transferred Francoise to my service, considering her better able to take
care of me than anybody else.

"I was living in Paris then, where Francoise, who was a native of Metz,
had some relations settled in business, whom she often used to visit.
She was generally very chatty when she returned from these people; for I
knew all her affairs, and through her, all their affairs; and I took an
interest in whatever concerned her or hers.

"One Sunday evening, after she had been spending the afternoon with this
family, observing that she was unusually silent, I said to her, while
she was undressing me, 'Well, Francoise, haven't you anything to tell
me? How are your friends? Has Madame Pelletier got rid of her
_grippe_?'

"Francoise started as if I had awakened her out of a reverie, and said,
'Oh! oui, Madame; oui, merce; elle se porte bien aujourd'hui.'

"'And Monsieur Pelletier and the children, are they well?'

"'Oui, Madame, merci; ils se portent bien.'

"These curt answers were so unlike those she generally gave me, that I
was sure her mind was pre-occupied, and that something had happened
since we parted in the morning; so I turned round to look her in the
face, saying '_Mais, qu'avez vous donc, Francoise? Qu'est ce qu'il y
a?_'

"Then I saw what I had not observed before, that she was very pale, and
that her cheeks had a glazed look, which showed that she had been
crying.

"'Mais, ma bonne Francoise,' I said; 'vous avez quelque chose--est il
arrive quelque malheur a Metz?'

"'C'est cela, Madame,' answered Francoise, who had a brother there whom
she had not seen for several years, but to whom she still continued
affectionately attached. His name was Benoit, and he was in a good
service as garde forestier to a nobleman who possessed very extensive
estates, _pres de chez nous_, as Francoise said. He had a wife and
children; and some time before the period I am referring to, Francoise
had told me, with great satisfaction, that in order to make him more
comfortable, the Prince de M---- had given Benoit the privilege of
gathering up all the dead wood in the forest to sell for firewood,
which, as the estate was very large, rendered his situation extremely
profitable. When she said 'c'est cela, Madame,' Francoise, who had just
encased me in my dressing gown, sunk into a chair, and having declared
that she was _bete, tres bete_, she gave way to a hearty good cry, after
which, being somewhat relieved, she told me the following strange
story:--

"'You remember,' she said, 'that the prince was so good as to give
Benoit all the dead wood of the forest--and a great thing it was for him
and his family, as you will think, when I tell you it was worth upwards
of two thousand francs a-year to him. In short, he was growing rich, and
perhaps he was getting to think too much of his money and too little of
the _bon Dieu_--at all events, this privilege which the prince gave him
to make him comfortable, and which made him a great man amongst the
foresters, has been the cause of a dreadful calamity.'

"'How?' said I.

"'We never heard anything of what had happened,' said she, till
yesterday, when Mons. Pelletier received a letter from Benoit's wife,
and another from a cousin of ours, relating what I am going to tell you,
and saying that both he and his family had wished to keep it secret; but
that was no longer possible.'

"'Well, and what has happened?'

"'La chose la plus incroyable! Eh bien, Madame; it appears that one day
last autumn, Benoit went out in the forest to gather the dead-wood. He
had his cart with him, and as he gathered it he bound it into faggots
and threw it in the cart. He had extended his search this day to a
remote part of the forest, and found himself in a spot he did not
remember to have visited before; indeed, it was evident to him that he
had not, or he could not have escaped seeing an old wooden cross which
was lying on the ground, and had apparently fallen into that recumbent
position from old age. It was such a cross as is usually set up where a
life has been lost, whether by murder or suicide; or sometimes when
poor wanderers are frozen to death or lost in the deep winter snows. He
looked about for the grave, but saw no indication of one; and he tried
to remember if any catastrophe had happened there in his time, but could
recall none. He took up the cross and examined it. He saw that the wood
was decayed, and it bore such marks of antiquity, that he had no doubt
the person whose grave it had marked had died before he was born--it
looked as if it might be a hundred years old.

"'Eh bien,' said Francoise, wiping her eyes, into which the tears kept
starting, 'of course you will think that Benoit, or anybody in the world
who had the fear of God before his eyes, as he could not find the grave
to replace it as it should be, would have laid it reverently down where
he had found it, saying a prayer for the soul of the deceased; but,
alas! the demon of avarice tempted him, and he had not the heart to
forego that poor cross, but bound it up into a faggot with the rest of
the dead wood he found there, and threw it into his cart!'

"'Well, Francoise,' said I, 'you know I am not a Catholic, but I respect
the custom of erecting these crosses, and I do think your brother was
very wrong; I suppose he has lost the prince's favour by such impious
greediness.'

"'Pire que ca! worse than that,' she replied. 'It appears that while he
was committing this wicked action, he felt an extraordinary chill come
over him, which made him think that, though it had been a mild day, the
evening must have suddenly turned very cold, and hastily throwing the
faggot into his cart, he directed his steps homeward. But walk as he
would, he still felt this chill down his back, so that he turned his
head to look where the wind blew from, when he saw, with some dismay, a
mysterious-looking figure following close upon his footsteps. It moved
noiselessly on, and was covered with a sort of black mantle that
prevented his discerning the features. Not liking its appearance, he
jumped into the cart and drove home as fast as he could, without looking
behind him; and when he got into his own farmyard he felt quite
relieved, particularly, as when he alighted he saw no more of this
unpleasant-looking stranger. So he began unloading his cart, taking out
the faggots, one by one, and throwing them upon the ground; but when he
threw down the one that contained the cross, he received a blow upon
his face, so sharp that made him stagger and involuntarily shout aloud.
His wife and children were close by, but there was no one else to be
seen; and they would have disbelieved him and fancied he had
accidentally hit himself with the faggot, but that they saw the distinct
mark on his cheek of a blow given with an open hand. However, he went
into supper perplexed and uncomfortable; but when he went to bed this
fearful phantom stood by his side, silent and terrible, visible to him,
but invisible to others. In short, madame, this awful figure haunted him
till, in spite of his shame, he resolved to consult our cousin Jerome
about it.'

"But Jerome laughed, and said it was all fancy and superstition. 'You
got frightened at having brought away this poor devil's cross, and then
you fancy he's haunting you,' said he.

"But Benoit declared that he had thought nothing about the cross, except
that it would make fire wood, and that he had no more believed in ghosts
than Jerome; 'but now,' said he, 'something must be done. I can get no
sleep and am losing my health; if you can't help me, I must go to the
priest and consult him.'

"'Why don't you take back the cross and put it where you found it,' said
Jerome.

"'Because I am afraid to touch it and dare not go to that part of the
forest.'

"'So Jerome who did not believe a word about the ghost, offered to go
with him and replace the cross. Benoit gladly accepted, more especially,
as he said he saw the apparition standing even then beside him,
apparently, listening to the conversation. Jerome laughed at the idea;
however, Benoit lifted the cross reverently into the cart and away they
went into the forest. When they reached the spot, Benoit pointed out the
tree under which he had found it; and as he was shaking and trembling,
Jerome took up the cross and laid it on the ground, but as he did so he
received a violent blow from an invisible hand, and at the same moment
saw Benoit fall to the ground. He thought he had been struck too, but it
afterwards appeared that he had fainted from having seen the phantom
with its upraised hand striking his cousin. However, they left the cross
and came away; but there was an end to Jerome's laughter, and he was
afraid the apparition would now haunt him. Nothing of the sort happened;
but poor Benoit's health has been so shaken by this frightful
occurrence that he cannot get the better of it; his friends have advised
change of scene, and he is coming to Paris next week.'

"This was the story Francoise told me, and in a few days I heard he had
arrived and was staying with Mons. Pelletier; but the shock had been too
great for his nerves, and he died shortly after. They assured me that
previous to that fatal expedition into the forest, he had been a hale,
hearty man, totally exempt from superstitious fancies of any sort; and
in short, wholly devoted to advancing his worldly prosperity and getting
money."




ROUND THE FIRE.

THIRD EVENING.


"I don't know that I could tell you anything interesting in the way of
Ghost Stories; I have never attended to them, though I have heard a
great many," said Colonel C.; "but I can tell you an extraordinary
circumstance which may, perhaps, be considered of a spiritual nature,
and which I can myself vouch for the truth of.

"My father, when I was young, resided in the South of England--I shall
not give the name of the place, nor of the people immediately concerned,
if these stories are to be published; because, for anything I know, some
persons may survive to whom the publication might give pain; I lived
there with him and my mother and sisters. Our house was on the road
between two large towns, situated about eight miles distant from each
other; and though we had a little ground and a short avenue in front, we
were not more than half a quarter of a mile from the highway. When all
was still, we could distinctly hear the carts and carriages as they
passed, and even distinguish by the sound of the wheels what kind of
vehicle it was. There was a carrier that plied between these two towns,
whom I will call Healy, and as everything we used we had from B., he was
generally at our house three or four times a week; in short, he did our
marketings, in a great degree; my mother giving him an order, as he
passed, for what he was to bring back; and many a time Healy has
smuggled a novel from the circulating library for my sisters, or done
little commissions for me that I could not so well manage for myself.
All this made him a popular character with us, for he was very obliging;
but for all that, he did not bear the best of characters. It was his
interest to be well with us, and the gentry in general, who were his
customers; and he understood that too well to incur our ill-will; but by
his equals and inferiors he was looked upon with a less favourable eye.
They had nothing very positive to allege against him; but they thought
him a hard, griping, greedy man, who was honest in his dealings with us
because the slightest suspicion would have ruined his trade, but who
would take an advantage when he thought no possible damage to himself
could accrue from it. He was about forty years of age; tall, with a long
face, prominent nose, and dark complexion; his shoulders were round, but
his frame was wiry, and he was reputed very strong.

"One evening, between thirty and forty years ago, towards the beginning
of winter, we were expecting Healy--my mother was solicitous about some
provisions she had ordered for an approaching dinner-party; and I was
very anxious for the arrival of a cricket-bat that I wanted for use the
day after the next. Of course, long before the time he usually arrived,
I was looking out for him, and fancying him late; I said, 'I wondered
Healy was not come!' Upon which my father looked at his watch, and found
that it wanted full half-an-hour of his time, which was nine o'clock;
sometimes, indeed, later, but never earlier. It was then exactly
half-past eight; and before my father had returned his watch into his
pocket, one of my sisters exclaimed, 'Here he is!' and we heard the
wheels coming up the avenue--we should have heard him before, but two
of my sisters were practising a duet, which was to be produced at the
approaching festivity, and drowned the sound.

"Thereupon, I and my mother left the room, and went towards the back
door, where Healy had just alighted, and was bringing sundry packages
into the kitchen.

"'Have you got my bat, Healy?' said I.

"'No, sir,' he replied; 'there wasn't one in the whole town the size you
wanted; but I'll bring you one from S. as I pass to-morrow. I know
they've got 'em there. I believe that's all, Ma'am?' he added,
addressing my mother.

"She said she believed it was, and was going to pay him his week's
account, which she had asked for, but he hurried out, saying, 'Another
time, if you please, Ma'am; I'm rather late to-night;' and he was in his
cart and away before I had time to give him some directions in regard to
the bat.

"'What a hurry he's in!' I said; 'and it wants almost twenty minutes to
nine now.'

"'I suppose he has a great many places to stop at,' said my mother; 'if
he don't get all his parcels delivered before people are gone to bed, he
gets into trouble sometimes. He's a very punctual fellow certainly.'

"We returned to the drawing-room, and resumed our occupations; and about
half-an-hour afterwards--happening to be all silent at the moment, we
heard a pair of light wheels and a brisk trotting horse passing in the
road.

"'That's farmer Gould's mare, I'm sure,' said I. 'What a famous trotter
she is!'

"'Yes,' said my father; 'I wish he'd part with her. I made him an offer
the other day. I should like her for my buggy.'

"'And what did he say? Won't he sell her?'

"'He said nothing--he only laughed, and shook his fat sides.'

"'Money is no object to him,' said my mother, 'he won't part with her
unless he gets another he likes better.'

"We breakfasted at nine o'clock, and I was getting up, and about half
dressed, when one of my sisters burst into my room, crying, 'La! Fred.,
such a shocking thing has happened! poor Farmer Gould was found dead in
the road this morning; they think his horse ran away, for it's not to
be found; and the chaise was upset and lying on its side. How lucky,
papa did not get the mare!'

"'Who says so?' said I.

"'The postman;' she answered, 'he saw some labourers standing round
something in the road; and when he came up to them, he found it was the
chaise, and poor farmer Gould quite dead beside it!'

"When I got down stairs I found the whole house occupied with the
subject of this sad accident, all lamenting the good man, who was a
general favourite, and agreeing that, for so heavy a person, a
two-wheeled carriage was very dangerous, as a fall was almost sure to be
fatal.

"My father said when he had finished his letters and papers he would
walk up to the farm, and see if he could be of any use to poor Mrs.
Gould; I, with the curiosity of fifteen, begged to go with him; and my
mother improved the occasion by giving the governor a serious lecture
about his love for high-trotting horses and buggies.

"I expected Healy with my bat about eleven o'clock, as he had nothing
else to bring, I knew he wouldn't come up the avenue, but leave it at a
cottage near our gate; and wishing to learn if he'd heard any
particulars about the accident, I walked down to meet him when the hour
approached. Presently, I saw him coming, sitting in front of his cart.

"'Well, Healy,' I said, 'isn't this a shocking thing about poor Farmer
Gould? You've heard he was found dead in the road this morning?'

"'Yes, Sir, the mare ran away, and pitched him out upon his head; I
can't say as ever I liked her myself; but I've got your bat, Master
Frederick; a nice un too; I wouldn't come away this morning till I'd got
it.'

"I thanked him, and he drove on, as if he had no time to lose in gossip,
while I was untying the string of my parcel.

"By the time my father and I reached Gould's farm, the doctor had
arrived from B., and we heard he was examining the body in the parlour,
where it had been laid by the labourers who found it. The chaise, too,
was standing near the door, just as it had been wheeled up, and the
mare, they told us, had been found in a neighbouring field, with the
harness hanging about her, and unhurt, except on the forehead, where
she appeared to have had a violent blow. The farm men, standing about,
said, that she had no doubt taken her head, and ran foul of something,
and so pitched out Mr. Gould, and overturned the chaise; which seemed
likely enough.

"My father said, he should like to see Mr. Wills, the surgeon; so we
stood about outside till he came. When he did, he looked very grave, as,
indeed, befitted the occasion; but in answer to my father's inquiries,
he said, that he could give no decided opinion of the cause of death
till he had investigated the case further; and then he proceeded to
examine the chaise, and next the horse. He then walked with us down to
the spot where the thing had happened, and narrowly surveyed the ground;
but he was very uncommunicative, which, as we knew him well, rather
surprised us. He hurried away, saying, that he must prepare for the
inquest on the following day.

"My father went to the inquest; and I should have liked to go, too, but
I was engaged to play a match at cricket with a few of my young
neighbours. However, I was home first, for the inquest lasted a long
time, and took a very unexpected turn.

"It appeared that Mr. Wills, who was by marriage a connexion of Gould's
wife, had suspected on the first examination of the body that the farmer
had not come fairly by his end. It so happened that Gould had dined with
him the last day he was at B., and had mentioned to him that he had 'at
last got that seventy pounds that he was afraid he should never see;'
alluding to some money that had been long owing to him; and as he spoke,
he drew from his pocket a bundle of notes, some of which appeared to be
of the Bank of England, and some of country banks. As soon, therefore,
as Wills had arrived at certain conclusions, he inquired of Mrs. Gould
if she had found his money safe.

"In her grief and surprise it had not occurred to her to search--and
indeed she was not aware of his having any sum of importance about him.
They proceeded immediately to examine his pockets, but no notes were
there; a few shillings, a silver watch, and some unconsidered trifles,
were all that was found about him. Mr. Wills made inquiries at the
banker's and others, at B., and by the time the inquest sat he was
prepared to say, that there was every reason to think that Mr. Gould had
had this money in his waistcoat pocket, where he had seen him deposit
it, at the time he left to return home.

"This presented quite a new view of the case to the coroner, who had
come there without the slightest suspicion of anything beyond an
accident. The labourers were examined as to the attitude in which they
had discovered the body, which, they all agreed, was lying on its face;
and indeed there were some stains from the dirt of the road, which
testified to this being the case; yet, according to Mr. Wills, death had
been occasioned by a terrible blow on the back of the head which had
fractured the skull; and which, in his opinion, was inflicted by a heavy
bludgeon. The man's hair was very thick behind; but on dividing it a
wound was visible, from which a small quantity of blood had oozed and
dried up.

"After a long investigation, the inquest was adjourned for a few days in
order that further evidence might be collected. We were all much excited
about this affair; it formed the staple of conversation at our dinner
party, and various were the conjectures formed as to who was the
criminal, if criminal there were; for some thought it possible that
Gould had fallen on his back in the first instance, and then got upon
his legs, and fallen a second time on his face; but Mr. Wills was
confident the death wound was not the result of a fall; and besides,
where was the money? Then all agreed, that if he had been robbed, it was
by no ordinary thief; it must have been by some one who knew the sum he
had in his pocket, and who did not care for the loose silver and the
watch.

"'No doubt,' said my father, 'they will find out if anybody was present
when the money was paid to him, or he may have told somebody of it, as
he told Wills.'

"We had so many things provided for the party, that for two or three
days we wanted nothing of Healy and did not see him; but the servants
having mentioned that they wanted soap for the next week's washing, my
mother sent a note to the cottage, where he always stopt to enquire for
orders, desiring him to bring some on his return, and also a barrel of
beer for the use of the kitchen.

"When I heard the cart coming up the avenue, I went to the back door, to
have a little gossip.

"'Well Healy,' said I, as he rolled in the barrel of beer; have you
heard any news?'

"'No sir,' said he.

"'Nothing about farmer Gould?' I asked.

"'No sir, nothing. Shall I put the beer in the cellar?' he enquired.

"This question being answered, I said, 'Did you meet anybody on the road
that night?'

"'Lord, sir, I meet loads of people as I never take any notice of. I've
enough to do to mind my own business.'

"'You couldn't have been far off when he was attacked--for you know Mr.
Wills says he's been killed by a blow on the back of the head, don't
you?'

"'Well, sir, I've heard so; but how should he know? He wasn't there, I
suppose. Anything else wanted, sir?'

"'I believe not, Healy,' I said; and he got into his cart and drove away
while I went back to the drawing-room.

"'What does Healy say?' asked my father. 'Has he heard anything new
about this affair?'

"'No, he says he hasn't, but he said very little and seemed rather
sulky, I thought.'

"'By the bye, he couldn't have been far off when the thing happened; for
he had only been gone half-an-hour when we recognized the step of poor
Gould's mare I recollect, and she'd soon overtake him.'

"'So I told him; and I asked him if he had met anybody on the road that
night, but he said he'd plenty to do to mind his own business.'

"My father who was reading the paper at the time, looked up at me over
his spectacles; and then fell into a reverie that lasted some minutes,
but he said nothing; my mother observed that she thought Healy ought to
be summoned as a witness; and my father rejoined, that no doubt he'd be
examined.

"On the following day the inquest was resumed; my father went early and
had some private conversation with Mr. Wills and I waited outside
amongst the assembled crowd, listening to their speculations and
conjectures. Presently, the coroner arrived, and I went in with him and
heard the whole of the evidence. That of Mr. Wills, and the labourers
who found the body was the same as before. Then, as my father had
conjectured, Healy was called; his face was familiar to everybody in the
room, and there was not one I should think who was not struck with the
singularly sulky, dogged expression his features had assumed. There was
no manifest reason for it, for he was only summoned like other
witnesses, and no breath of suspicion had been cast upon him; at least,
as far as we had heard. But he evidently came in a spirit of resistance
and wound up for self-defence. He declared that he had not overtaken Mr.
Gould on the night in question, and did not know he was on the road; nor
did he hear anything of what had happened till the next morning. He
believed he had met some tramps on the road that night--two men and a
woman--but he had not particularly noticed them, and he did not
recollect meeting anybody else. He had first heard of the accident at a
shop where he had gone to buy a bat for Master C. When he said this, he
looked up at me and our eyes met. I have often thought of that look
since.

"The next witness was Mr. F., who had paid Gould the seventy pounds in
notes; and then a Mr. H. B., a solicitor, came forward and volunteered
the following evidence, which, he said, he should have given before, but
that he had left home on the afternoon preceding this unfortunate
business, and had only returned yesterday. He was acquainted with Gould;
and had met him at the door of the bank at B----, as he himself was on
his way to the coach that was starting for E. Gould spoke to him, and
said he had just got that seventy pounds; and when he said so, he clapt
his hand on his pocket, implying it was there. He said, 'I came to pay
it in here, but I see they're shut, and it does not signify; I shall
have to pay away a good deal of it next week;' this was all that passed,
as I told him I must be off for I should lose the coach. Upon this, he
was asked if anybody else had been present when Gould made this
communication. He answered, that people had been passing to and fro, but
he could not say whether they heard it. There was one person who he
thought might, though he could not affirm that he did; and that was
Healy, the carrier, who was standing at the door of the tanner's shop,
which is next to the bank, and examining some cricket bats that he had
in his hand. Gould had spoken loud, as was his wont.

"I saw Mr. Wills and my father exchange looks when this evidence was
given, and then for the first time the question occurred to me, could
Healy be the murderer? I could hardly entertain the suspicion--it is so
difficult to believe such a thing of a person one is having constant
intercourse with. Healy was recalled and asked if he remembered seeing
Mr. Gould and the lawyer together on that day. He declared he did not.

"The harness was afterwards produced; and it appeared that the traces
had been cut, which was a strong confirmation of the worst suspicions.

"The inquest was once more adjourned; and Healy plied his trade as usual
for the next two days, though everybody had a strange feeling towards
him; and he retained his dogged, sulky look; on the third night we
missed him. We had expected a parcel from B----, but he did not come;
and the next day we heard he had been arrested on suspicion of being the
murderer of Mr. Gould. A gentleman's servant, who had been out without
leave to some festivity at B----, and had come home and got in at the
pantry window without being discovered, at last came forward, and said,
that as he was going to the rendezvous, he had seen a cart, which he
believed to be Healy's, though it was very dark, drawn right across the
road; the horse was out of the shafts and tied to a gate, for he nearly
ran against him; he did not see any person with the cart, but the driver
might be behind it. It was just where there are some large trees
over-hanging the road, which made it darker than in other parts; and a
person driving would not see the obstruction till he was on it. He
himself, thinking it was Healy, slipt quietly by, for he did not want to
be recognised, as the carrier often came to his master's, and might have
betrayed him. He met a one-horse carriage about a couple of miles
further on; the horse was trotting pretty fast. He thought it was Mr.
Gould, but he could not positively say, as the night was so dark.

"The spot described was precisely where Mr. Gould's body was found; and
the man added, that it struck him when he met the gig, that if the cart
had not moved out of the way, there would be an accident, and he should
have warned the driver to look out, if he had not been upon a lark
himself.

"You may imagine the sensation created by this allegation in the
neighbourhood, where the carrier was so well known. Till the spring
assizes at E----, where he was to be tried, it furnished the staple of
conversation, and every fresh bit of evidence, for or against him, was
eagerly repeated and canvassed. My father was summoned as a witness to
the hour at which Healy had been at our house that night, and also to
the recognising the foot of Mr. Gould's mare. The evidence was entirely
circumstantial, as nobody had witnessed the murder, though murder there
certainly had been; nor was there anybody else to whom suspicion could
attach. As for the tramps Healy said he had met, no trace of them could
be found, nor did anyone appear to have seen such a party.

"When all the evidence had been heard, my father said he felt
considerable doubt what the verdict would be, and he really believed the
jury were greatly perplexed; but when Healy stood up, and in the most
solemn manner said, 'I am innocent, my Lord! I call God to witness, I am
innocent! May this right arm wither if I murdered the man!' So great an
impression was made on the court, that, added to the prisoner's previous
good character, every body saw he would be acquitted.

"He was; Healy went forth a free man, and we were all too glad to
believe in his innocence, to dispute the justice of the verdict; but lo!
the hand of the Lord was on him. He had called upon God to bear witness
to his words; and he did. In three days from that time, Richard Healy's
stalwart right arm was withered! The muscles shrunk; the skin dried up;
and it looked like the limb of a mummy!

"Though a voice from Heaven testified against him, he could not be
arraigned again for the same crime, and he remained at liberty. He
attempted for a short time to carry on his business, but people ceased
to employ him; and his feeble arm could no longer lift the boxes and
hampers with which his cart was wont to be loaded. He went about,
avoided by every one but his own immediate connexions. I often met him,
but he never looked me in the face; indeed, he rarely, if ever, raised
his eyes; his round shoulders grew rounder, till he came to stoop like
an old man. He seemed to move under a heavy burthen that weighed him to
the earth.

"After an interval, however, he bought some property; and in his old
age--for he survived his trial several years--he was in prosperous
circumstances. But everybody said, 'Where did he get the money?'

"We were all deeply interested in this singular story; and in reference
to the withered arm, Colonel C. said, that he should certainly not have
believed it had he not seen it himself.

"I think, said I, that it was not so difficult to account for the
phenomenon as at first appears. Had he been innocent, the solemn
adjuration he uttered in court would have been justifiable in the eyes
of God and man, and would have occasioned him no concern afterwards; but
he was guilty; he had called upon God to bear witness to a lie, and,
doubtless, the consciousness of this sacrilegious appeal filled him with
horror and alarm. He would tremble lest his prayer should be heard and
the curse fall upon him. These terrors would direct all his thoughts to
his arm, and produce the very thing he feared; for Sir Henry Holland
asserts that the mind is capable of acting upon the body to such a
degree, as sometimes to create disease in a particular part on which the
attention is too intently fixed."




ROUND THE FIRE.

FOURTH EVENING.


"The circumstance I am going to mention," said Sir Charles L., "will
appear very insignificant after these interesting narratives, but as it
happened very lately, you'll perhaps think it worth hearing.

"I was living a few months ago in an hotel, the owner of which died
while I was there. He had an apoplectic seizure, and expired shortly
afterwards. A week before this happened, at a time he was supposed to be
in perfect health, an acquaintance of the family called, and without
giving any reason, requested his daughter not to attend a ball she was
engaged to go to. The young lady did not take her advice; but the
visitor confided to another person that she had a particular reason for
her request, which reason was as follows:--

"The night before she called, she and her husband had retired to bed in
a somewhat anxious state of mind respecting a near relative of theirs,
who was very ill, and whom they had been visiting. The husband, however,
soon fell asleep, but the wife lay thinking of the sick person, and the
consequences that would ensue if she died, when her reflections were
interrupted by seeing a bright spot of light suddenly appear upon the
wall--that is, upon the wainscoat of her room. She looked about to see
whence it proceeded; there was no light burning, nor could any be
reflected from the window; as she looked it increased in size, till, at
last, it was as large as the frame of a picture; then there began to
appear in the frame a form, gradually developed, till there was a
perfect head and face, hair and all, distinctly visible.

"Whilst this development was proceeding, she lay, as it were,
transfixed; she wanted to wake her husband, but she could neither speak
nor move; at length she seemed to burst the bonds, and cried to him to
look, but as she spoke, the vision faded, and by the time he was
sufficiently aroused there was nothing to be seen.

"Both he and she interpreted this occurrence into a bad omen for their
sick relative, and augured very ill of her case; but the next morning,
as she was standing in her shop, she saw the hotel keeper pass to
market, and he nodded to her, whereupon she turned to her husband, and
exclaimed--'That's the face I saw last night! Sure nothing can be going
to happen to him!'

"I heard these circumstances from my servant; and the unexpected seizure
and death occurred within a few days."

"When I was at Weimar, about two years ago," said Mademoiselle G., "an
accident occurred that occupied the attention of the whole place, and
which seems to belong to the same class of phenomena as the story just
related. The palace, called the Chateau, in Weimar, is at one end of the
park, and at the other end is another chateau, called the Belvedere;
both are ducal residences, and an avenue runs from the one palace to the
other. Opposite this avenue is the Russian chapel or Greek church--the
present Dowager Duchess being a sister of the Emperor Nicholas--and in
front of this chapel a sentinel is always posted.

"The Grand Duke, Charles Frederick, father of the present sovereign,
was, at the period I allude to, residing at the Belvedere not well in
health, but by no means alarmingly ill, for had that been the case he
would have been brought into Weimar, where etiquette requires that the
sovereign should make his first and last appearance in this world--there
he must be born, and there die, if possible.

"One night the sentinel, who was standing at the entrance of the Russian
chapel, was surprised to see, in the far distance, a long procession
winding its way down the avenue from the Belvedere. As there was no stir
in the town, for the night was far advanced, and as he had not heard of
any solemnity in preparation, the man stared at it in mute wonder, but
his amazement was redoubled when it approached near enough for him to
distinguish the individual objects to perceive that it was a State
funeral, accompanied by the royal mourners, and all the pomp usual at
these ceremonies; the velvet pall bore the initials and arms of the
duke, and following the bier was his favourite and well known horse, led
by one of his attendants. Slowly and mournfully the procession moved on
till it reached the chapel; the doors opened to admit the cortege; it
passed in; and as the doors closed on this mysterious vision the soldier
fell to the ground, where he was found in a state of insensibility when
the guard was relieved.

"Of course, nobody believed his story; he was placed under arrest,
severely punished, and had a nervous fever that brought him to the brink
of the grave.

"I was there when this happened, said Mademoiselle G., and it was the
talk of the town; almost everybody laughed at him; but five days
afterwards the Duke fell suddenly ill, and was found to be in so
dangerous a state, that the physicians forbade his being removed into
the town. He finally died at the Belvedere, and was buried in the
Russian chapel, exactly in the manner pourtrayed by the shadowy forms
seen by the sentinel, and there buried."

We all agreed that these rehearsals, if we may so call them, are amongst
the most perplexing of these very perplexing phenomena; a very curious
case of this description will be found in one of the letters inserted in
the Appendix.

"My sister-in-law, Lady S.," said Lady R., "Told me, the other day,
that during her late residence in St. Petersburg, she was intimately
acquainted with a Prussian lady of high rank, to whom the following
strange events occurred, an account of which she herself gave to my
sister. This Prussian lady was sitting one morning in her boudoir, when
she heard a rustling sound in the ante-room, which was divided by a
_portiere_ from the boudoir. The sound continuing, she rose and drew
aside the curtain to ascertain the cause, when, to her surprise, she saw
a very pale man, in a Chasseur's uniform, standing in the middle of the
room. She was about to speak to him, and inquire what he was doing
there, when he retreated towards the window and vanished. Greatly
alarmed, she sought her husband, and related what had occurred; but he
laughed at her, and desired her not to expose herself to ridicule by
talking of it. Some days afterwards, whilst in the boudoir, she heard
the same rustling noise near her, and on looking up, she saw the figure
of the Chasseur suspended in the air between the ceiling and the floor,
with his legs dangling in the air. A scream brought her husband, who was
in the adjoining room, and he saw the figure as well as herself.
Nevertheless, the fear of ridicule kept them silent; but some time
afterwards, when they had a party, one of the company exclaimed, 'Good
Heavens! This, I remember, is the very room that unfortunate Chasseurs
hung himself in!' And then they learned that the house had been
previously occupied by the Danish minister, and that a Chasseur in his
service had, from some cause or other, committed suicide."

"I don't know whether dreams are admissible," said Miss M.; "but the
sort of occurrences just related appear to me to be little removed from
waking dreams. I know two cases of extraordinary dreaming, the
authenticity of which I can answer for, if you would like to hear them."
We accepted gladly, and the lady began as follows:--

"My father was intimate with Mr. S.--whose name, perhaps, is known to
you as the particular friend of Mr. Spencer Percival. This gentleman,
Mr. S., when he was a young man, had one night a remarkable dream, that
he could not in any way account for--the circumstances having no
relation to any previous event, train of thought, or conversation
whatever.

"He found himself, in his dream, on horseback, in a very extensive
forest; he was alone, evening was drawing on, and he sought some place
where he could pass the night. After riding a little farther, he espied
an inn; he rode up to it and alighted, asking if they could give him
lodging for the night, and stabling for his horse. They said 'yes,' and
conducted him to an upper chamber. He ordered some refreshments, when it
occurred to him that he should like to see how his horse was faring; and
he descended, in order to find his way to the stables; in doing so, he
got a glimpse of some very ill-looking men in a side chamber, who seemed
in close conference; moreover, he thought he saw weapons lying on the
table, and there were other circumstances which I do not precisely
remember, the effect of which was to create alarm, and lead him to
suspect he had fallen into a _repaire de voleurs_.

"He saw his horse rubbed down and fed, and then re-ascended to take his
refreshment; betraying no suspicion of evil, but secretly resolved on
flight. After his supper, he went down again, stood at the door, and
pretended to stroll about. When he saw an opportunity, he went round to
the stable, saddled his horse, and cautiously rode away. But he had not
gone far, when he heard the tramp of horses' feet behind him, and from
the pace they came, he felt sure he was pursued. He urged his horse
forward, but the animal was not fresh--he had done his day's work
already, and the pursuers were gaining on him, when he saw he was
approaching a spot where two roads met. Which of the two should he
follow? He had nothing to guide him in his choice, and his life probably
depended on his decision! Suddenly, a voice whispered in his ear, 'Take
the right!' He did so, and shortly reached a house where he obtained
shelter and protection.

"When he awoke, the circumstances of his dream were so vividly impressed
on his mind, that he could hardly believe the thing had not actually
happened. He related it to his friends; and, for some days, thought a
good deal of it; but he was just entering into active life, and the
impression soon faded before the varied interests that absorbed him; and
the strange dream was entirely forgotten.

"Many years afterwards, when he had reached middle age, he was
travelling in Germany, and in the course of an excursion he was making
to see the country, he had occasion to cross a part of the
Schwarzwald--the Black Forest. He was on horseback and alone; he reached
an inn, the aspect of which he fancied was familiar to him. Here he
thought he might conveniently pass the night; so he alighted, ordered
his supper, and then went to see his horse fed. On further acquaintance
with the place, he did not like the look of it, and he saw
suspicious-looking men hanging about. He resolved to seek another
resting-place; and leaving some money on the table to pay for what he
had had, he went down stairs, and after lounging about a little,
strolled to the stable, saddled his horse, and rode off as quietly as he
could. But he was missed and pursued, he heard the tramp of the horses
as they gained upon him. At this critical moment, he saw he was
approaching a place where the roads divided; his life depended on which
of the two he should take; suddenly, and strange to say, though he had
misty recollections of the scene, now for the first time, the dream of
his youth clearly and vividly recurred to him. He remembered the voice
that whispered, 'Take the right!' He obeyed the hint, and his pursuers
soon gave up the chase. He found a chateau about half-a-mile from the
turning; the owner of which hospitably received him. His host said there
had been for some time unpleasant suspicions with regard to the inn in
question; and that, if he had taken the left hand road, he would have
been quite at their mercy."

This very curious dream reminded us of that of Dr. W., which I have
related in the "Night Side of Nature;" who in the same manner was saved
from the attack of an infuriated bull, in his dream, having been shown
where to fly for safety; but the case is less remarkable than that of
Mr. S., as the dream occurred only the night before the danger presented
itself.

"The other dream I alluded to," said Miss M., "is less curious on that
account. Some friends of mine, who reside in the country, had an old
nurse who had lived in the family many years, and for whom they had a
great regard. When her services ceased to be required, she was settled
in a cottage on the estate, where she lived very comfortably with her
only daughter. The daughter, however, married a man who kept a turnpike
some miles distant; and one morning, just as the family were leaving
home on some expedition, the old woman arrived in considerable
agitation, saying that she had had a frightful dream about her daughter,
and that she was going off immediately to the place where she lived. The
ladies endeavoured to dissuade her from walking all that way, merely on
account of a dream. But she said she could not rest, and must go. They
even promised that if she would wait till the following day they would
drive her there in the carriage, in which there was now no room; if
there had been they would have taken her, as their road lay not far from
the spot.

"With this offer they left her and went their way; but her anxiety would
not permit her to wait; and shortly afterwards she set off and walked
all the distance to the turnpike. The moment she arrived she saw reason
to rejoice in her determination; she found her daughter alone, her
husband having been called away on business; and, said the young woman,
I am dreadfully alarmed, for there is a quantity of money in the house.
The farmers are accustomed to bring the money for their rent here twice
a year, as it save them several miles, and the agent always comes to
fetch it on the same day. But a letter to my husband has just arrived
from the agent to say, he can't come till to-morrow. Knowing his hand, I
opened it; and I am terrified, for the custom of leaving the money here
is no secret; and if it should get wind that it has not been fetched
away, heaven knows what may happen.

"The old woman then told her daughter that she had dreamed on the
preceding night that some thieves had broken into the turnpike house,
and robbed and murdered the inhabitants.

"But what were these two helpless women to do, mutually confirmed in
their apprehensions as they naturally were? It was already late in the
day; there was no help near at hand, and besides they did not dare to
separate in search of any. They watched anxiously for a traveller,
resolved to confide in the first respectable one that passed, and beg
him to send assistance. But none came that they thought it safe to
trust. Night approached; and it being a little frequented road, except
on market days, every moment their hope of help declined. So they did
the best they could in this extremity; they shut and barricaded the
lower part of the house, stopping up the door and windows with every
piece of furniture they had, and locked themselves up, with the money,
in an upper chamber, put out the light, and with a chink of the window
open, they set themselves down to listen for the marauders whom they
confidently expected to arrive.

"Nor were they disappointed; about eleven o'clock their anxious ears
distinguished the sound of approaching footsteps. Presently, they heard
voices and the door was attempted; the men said they had lost their way,
and on receiving no answer they attempted to force an entrance. Then,
the poor women knowing their poor defences would soon yield to violence,
began to scream lustily from the window above; and luckily not in vain.

"It happened, that the family, who had gone on some expedition of
pleasure in the morning, was just then returning; their road lay within
a quarter of a mile of the turnpike; and in the silence of the night,
the women's shrill voice reached their ears. They immediately desired
the coachman to turn his horses heads in the direction the cries came
from, and before the thieves had effected an entrance into the little
fortification, they were scared by the sound of approaching wheels and
took to flight."

"A dream of a very singular nature occurred to a young friend of mine,"
said Mr. S. "She was about fifteen at the time, and a schoolfellow who
was going to be married had promised her that she should be one of the
bridesmaids. The intended wedding was near at hand; insomuch that the
dresses and everything was prepared--in short, the fixing of the day was
only delayed by some small matter of business that was not completed. My
young friend, to whom the whole thing was an exciting novelty, while
impatiently waiting for the affair to come off, dreamt, one night, that
a person in a very unusual costume, presented himself at her bedside and
informed her that he was Brutus; and that he would reveal to her
anything that she particularly desired to know; whereupon she begged him
to tell when Miss L. would be married. Brutus answered 'Paulo post
Graecas Kalendas.' When she awoke in the morning, she perfectly
remembered the words; but not having the most distant idea of their
meaning she ran to her brother to enquire if he could explain them. He
told her that they were equivalent to _never_. The prophecy was
fulfilled; obstacles entirely unforseen arose, and the couple were never
united."

"Some years ago," said Dr. Forster, "two young friends of mine were
staying at Naples, when one of them told the other that he had on the
preceding night, seen in his sleep, the face of a beautiful woman; but
the features were disfigured by a horrible expression--and that it was,
somehow, impressed on his mind that he was in danger, and that he must
be on his guard against her. The conviction was so strong as to create
considerable uneasiness, and he never went out without scrutinizing
every female face he saw; but some weeks past without any fulfilment of
his dream or vision, and gradually the impression faded. However, he was
one day on the Chiaja, surrounded by several people, who like himself,
were observing a gang of convicts going to the Castle of St. Elmo; when
something occasioned him suddenly to turn his head, and there, close
behind him, he recognized the beautiful face of his dream. By an
instinctive impulse, he sprang aside, and at the same moment felt
himself wounded in the back. The woman was seized and did not attempt to
deny the act, but alleged that she had mistaken the young Englishman for
another person who had done her an irreparable injury, expressing great
regret at having wounded an unoffending stranger, and also at having
failed in the revenge she sought. He told me that the dream saved his
life; for that, had he not sprung aside, the wound would in all
probability have been mortal."




ROUND THE FIRE.

FIFTH EVENING.


"I have but one experience to relate," said Miss D., the next speaker.
"When I was a child, I and my elder sister slept in two beds, placed
close beside each other. We were in the country, and one night my
father, going to the door, perceived an unusual light in the sky, and
learnt on inquiry that there was a great fire a mile or two off. He said
he'd go to see it, and the night being fine, my mother accompanied him,
having first seen us safe in bed. She locked the chamber door, and took
the key, thinking that every body would be out looking at the fire, and
we might take the opportunity of playing tricks, for we were quite young
at the time--not more than six or seven years old.

"After they were gone, we lay chattering, as children do, about our own
little concerns, when our voices were suddenly arrested by terror. At
the foot of my bed I perceived a figure, apparently kneeling, for I saw
only the head--but that I saw distinctly--it looked dark and sad, and
the eyes were intently fixed on me. I crept into my sister's bed, and
neither of us dared to look up again till my mother returned, and came
to see if we were asleep. We had not closed our eyes, and we told her
what we had seen, agreeing perfectly in our account of it. The room was
searched, but nothing unusual found. The incident made a lasting
impression on my sister and myself, and we both remember the face as if
we had seen it but yesterday."

One of the ladies present mentioned a very similar circumstance
occurring to herself, but as she was alone at the time, she had always
endeavoured to believe it an illusion.

"The first part of the story I am going to relate to you," said Dr. S.,
"was told me by an eminent man in my own profession, who had every
opportunity of testing the truth of it; the latter part I give you on my
own word.

"Some years ago there was a house in the suburbs of Dublin that had
remained a long time unoccupied, in consequence, it was said, of its
evil reputation--the report was, that it was haunted. People who had
taken it got rid of it as soon as they could, and those who lived in the
neighbourhood affirmed that they saw lights moving about the interior,
and, sometimes, a lady in white standing at the window with a child in
her arms, when they knew there was no living creature, except rats and
mice, within the walls. The wise and learned laughed at these rumours;
but still the house remained empty, and was getting into a very
dilapidated state.

"The former owner of the house was dead. He was a miser or a
misanthrope, or both; at all events, for several years he had lived in
it utterly alone, and scarcely ever seen by any body. It was rumoured
that for a short time a young female had been occasionally observed by
the neighbours, but she disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared, and
nobody knew whence she came, nor whither she was gone. His life was a
mystery, and whether merely on this account, or whether there were
better grounds for it, there had certainly existed a prejudice against
him. However, as I said, he had been dead some years, and the relative
to whom the property had fallen on his decease was naturally very
anxious to let the house, and offered it to any occupant at an extremely
low rent.

"At length, a gentleman who wanted to establish a manufactory, seeing
that it would answer his purpose--for the premises were extensive, and
there was some garden ground behind--took it, and erected buildings on
this waste ground for his workmen to inhabit. Between the new part and
the old there was a long vestibule, or covered passage, by which they
might pass from one to the other without exposing themselves to the
weather. A large door, which was open by day and closed at night,
divided this passage in two, and on one side there was a small room or
office, where a clerk sat and kept the books and memoranda, of various
sorts, incident to a considerable business.

"However, the thing was scarcely set going and established before it
reached the ears of the master that the workmen objected to pass the
night on the premises; the reason alleged being that they were disturbed
and alarmed by various sounds, especially footsteps, and the banging of
the heavy door in the vestibule which divided the sleeping places from
the workrooms. At first, the objection being thought absurd, was not
attended to; next, it was supposed to be a trick of some of the workmen
to frighten the others; but when it became serious, and they began to
act upon it, and steady, respectable men declared they heard these
things, the master, still persuaded it was some practical jokers amongst
them mystifying the more simple, took measures, first, to ascertain if
such sounds as they described were audible; and next, to discover who
made them. For this purpose he sat up himself, and his clerks sat up,
and exactly as had been described, at one o'clock this clatter and
banging of doors commenced--that is, there was the sound; for the doors
remained immovable, and though they heard footsteps they could see
nobody.

"'Still,' said the manufacturer, who was not willing to be made the
victim of this mischievous conspiracy, 'we must discover who it is; and
we shall, when they are more off their guard,' and for this purpose it
was arranged that a relation of his own, a young man in whose discretion
and courage he had great confidence should sleep in the office.

"Accordingly, a bed was prepared there; and he arranged himself for that
night or as many future nights as it might be necessary; determined not
to relinquish the investigation till he had unravelled the mystery.

"At dawn of day, the next morning, there was a violent knocking at the
outer door; an early passenger had found this young man in the street,
with nothing on but his night dress, and in a state of delirium. He was
taken home and Dr. W. was sent for. The result was a brain fever; but
when he recovered, he said that he had gone to bed and to sleep, that he
was wakened by a loud noise, and that just as he was about to rise to
ascertain the cause, his door opened, and the apparition of a female
dressed in white entered, and approached his bed side. He remembered no
more, but being seized with horror, supposed he had got out of the
window into the street, where he was found.

"This was, certainly, very extraordinary and very serious; still the
persuasion that it was some mystification prevailed; and Dr. W.'s offer
to pass a night in the office himself, was gladly accepted. He had
informed me of the young man's illness and the cause of it; and when I
heard of his intention, I requested leave to bear him company.

"The noise had not been interrupted by the catastrophe that had
occurred, and nobody had slept in the office during the young man's
confinement. The bed had been removed, but we declined having it
re-placed, for we wished our intention to remain a secret; besides, we
preferred watching through the night. It was not till the workmen had
all retired that we took up our position, accompanied by a sharp little
terrier of mine, and each armed with a pistol. We took care to go over
the house, to make sure that nobody was concealed in it; and we examined
every door and window to ascertain that it was secure. We had provided
ourselves with refreshments also, to sustain our courage; and we entered
upon our vigil with great hopes of detecting the imposition.

"Dr. W. is a most enlightened and agreeable companion, and we soon fell
into a lively discussion that carried us away so entirely, that, I
believe, we had both ceased to think of the object of our watch, when we
were recalled to it by the clock in the vestibule striking one; and the
loud bang that immediately followed, accompanied by the barking of our
little dog, who had been aroused from a tranquil sleep by the uproar. W.
and I seized our pistols, and rushed into the passage, followed by the
terrier. We saw nothing to account for the noise; but we distinctly
heard receding footsteps, which we hastened to pursue, at the same time
urging on the dog; but instead of running forward, he slunk behind, with
his tail between his legs, and kept at our heels the whole way. On we
went, distinctly hearing the footsteps preceding us along the vestibule,
down some steps, and, finally, down some stairs that led to an unused
cellar--in one corner of which lay a heap of rubbish. Here the sound
ceased. We removed the rubbish, and under it lay some bones, which we
recognised at once as parts of a human skeleton. On further examination,
we ascertained that they were the remains of a female and a new-born
infant.

"They were buried, and the men were no more disturbed with these
mysterious noises. Who the woman was, was never ascertained; nor was any
further light thrown upon these strange circumstances."

Some remarks on the terror displayed by animals, on these occasions,
elicited a curious story from Mrs. L. "They not only seem to see
sometimes," she said, "what we do not; but occasionally to be gifted
with a singular foreknowledge.

"Many years ago," she continued, "I and my husband went to pay a visit
in the north. I am very fond of animals, and my attention was soon
attracted by a dog that was not particularly handsome, but seemed gifted
with extraordinary intelligence.

"'I see,' said my hostess, 'you are struck with that dog. Well, he is
the most mysterious creature; he not only opens and shuts the door, and
rings the bell, and does all sorts of wonderful things, but I am sure he
understands every word we say, and that he knows as well what I am
saying now as you do. Moreover, we got him in a very unaccountable
manner.

"'One night, not long ago, we had been out to dinner; and on returning
at a pretty late hour, we found the gentleman stretched out comfortably
on the dining-room rug. Where in the world did this dog come from? I
said to the servants. They couldn't tell; they declared the doors had
been long shut, and that they had never set eyes on him till that
minute.'

"'Well,' I said, 'don't turn him out; he'll no doubt be claimed by some
one in the neighbourhood--for he had quite the manners and air of a dog
accustomed to good society; and I liked his large, expressive eyes. He
made himself quite at home; and now we have discovered what a strangely
intelligent creature he is, I hope no one will claim him, for I should
be very sorry to part with him. But,' added she, 'poor Mrs. X. can't
endure him.' Mrs. X., I must mention, was a widow lady, also on a visit
there, with an only son.

"'Why?' said I.

"'It is rather singular, certainly,' said she; but whenever young X. is
in the room, the dog never takes his eyes off his face--you see he has
peculiar eyes--they're full of meaning; and out of doors he does the
same.'

"'Perhaps the dog has taken a fancy to him?' I suggested.

"'It does not seem to be that; no, I think he likes me and Mrs. C. and
my children a great deal better. I can't tell what it is; but if you
watch, you'll see it.'

"I did, and it was really remarkable, and evidently annoyed Mrs. X. very
much. The young man affected to laugh at it, but I don't think he liked
it altogether.

"Suddenly, one evening, Mrs. X.--whose visit was to have extended to
some weeks longer, announced that she should take her departure in a few
days. I suspected this move was occasioned by her desire to get away
from the dog, and so did my hostess--and we both thought it absurd.

"Mr. L. being obliged to return to London, we took our leave the morning
after this announcement was made; but we had scarcely arrived there,
when a letter from my friend followed, informing me that young Mr. X.
had been unfortunately drowned in the fish-pond, and that the dog had
never been seen since the accident, though they had made inquiries and
sought for him in every direction. Whence he came, or whither he went,
they were never able to discover.

"But," said Mrs. L., "as this is not a ghost story, I will tell you
another anecdote that belongs more legitimately to the subjects you are
treating of. Once, when we were travelling in the North, Mr. L. fell ill
of a fever at Paisley. This detained us there, and the minister called
on us. When Mr. L. recovered, we returned his visit; and, in the course
of conversation, some of the old customs of the Scotch fell under
discussion; amongst others the _cutty stool_, which we had heard still
subsisted.

"'Why don't you abolish it?' said Mr. L. 'It would be much better to
amend people by other influences than exposure.'

"'Well, sir,' said the good man, 'that was my opinion also; and I had
determined to do it. Before taking the step, however, I thought it
advisable to publish my reasons; and I was one day sitting at the table
writing on the subject, when I looked up, and beheld my father, who was
minister here before me, and died in this manse, sitting on the opposite
side of the table.'

"'Don't do any such thing, David,' said he; 'morality is loose enough;
don't make it looser.'"




ROUND THE FIRE.

SIXTH EVENING.


"The most interesting circumstance of the ghostly kind that I know, as
really authentic," said Madame S., "is what happened to the late Lord
C., when he was a young man--it is an old story, and you must have heard
of the _Radiant Boy_; but as I had it from a member of the family,
perhaps you will accept it as my contribution.

"Captain S., who was afterwards Lord C., when he was a young man,
happened to be quartered in Ireland. He was fond of sport; and one day
the pursuit of game carried him so far that he lost his way. The
weather, too, had become very rough, and in this strait he presented
himself at the door of a gentleman's house, and sending in his card,
requested shelter for the night. The hospitality of the Irish country
gentry is proverbial; the master of the house received him warmly, said
he feared he could not make him so comfortable as he could have wished,
his house being full of visitors already--added to which, some
strangers, driven by the inclemency of the night, had sought shelter
before him, but that such accommodation as he could give he was heartily
welcome to; whereupon he called his butler, and committing his guest to
his good offices, told him he must put him up somewhere, and do the best
he could for him. There was no lady, the gentleman being a widower.

"Captain S. found the house crammed, and a very jolly party it was. His
host invited him to stay, and promised him good shooting if he would
prolong his visit a few days; and, in fine, he thought himself extremely
fortunate to have fallen into such pleasant quarters.

"At length, after an agreeable evening, they all retired to bed, and the
butler conducted him to a large room, almost divested of furniture, but
with a blazing peat fire in the grate, and a shake down on the floor,
composed of cloaks and other heterogeneous materials.

"Nevertheless, to the tired limbs of Captain S., who had had a hard
day's shooting, it looked very inviting; but before he lay down, he
thought it advisable to take off some of the fire, which was blazing up
the chimney, in what he thought, an alarming manner. Having done this,
he stretched himself upon the couch, and soon fell asleep.

"He believed he had slept about a couple of hours when he awoke
suddenly, and was startled by such a vivid light in the room, that he
thought it was on fire, but on turning to look at the grate he saw the
fire was out, though it was from the chimney the light proceeded. He sat
up in bed, trying to discover what it was, when he perceived, gradually
disclosing itself, the form of a beautiful naked boy, surrounded by a
dazzling radiance. The boy looked at him earnestly, and then the vision
faded, and all was dark. Captain S., so far from supposing what he had
seen to be of a spiritual nature, had no doubt that the host, or the
visitors, had been amusing themselves at his expense, and trying to
frighten him. Accordingly he felt indignant at the liberty; and on the
following morning, when he appeared at breakfast, he took care to evince
his displeasure by the reserve of his demeanour, and by announcing his
intention to depart immediately. The host expostulated, reminding him
of his promise to stay and shoot. Captain S. coldly excused himself and,
at length, the gentleman seeing something was wrong, took him aside, and
pressed for an explanation; whereupon Captain S., without entering into
particulars, said that he had been made the victim of a sort of
practical joking that he thought quite unwarrantable with a stranger.

"The gentleman considered this not impossible amongst a parcel of
thoughtless young men, and appealed to them to make an apology; but one
and all, on honour, denied the impeachment. Suddenly, a thought seemed
to strike him; he clapt his hand to his forehead, uttered an
exclamation, and rang the bell.

"'Hamilton,' said he to the butler, 'where did Captain S. sleep last
night?'

"'Well, Sir,' replied the man, in an apologetic tone,' 'you know every
place was full--the gentlemen were lying on the floor, three or four in
a room--so I gave him the _Boy's Room_; but I lit a blazing fire to keep
him from coming out.'

"'You were very wrong,' said the host, 'you know I have positively
forbidden you to put any one there, and have taken the furniture out of
the room to ensure its not being occupied.' Then retiring with Captain
S., he informed him very gravely of the nature of the phenomenon he had
seen; and, at length, being pressed for further information, he
confessed that there existed a tradition in his family, that whoever the
_Radiant Boy_ appeared to will rise to the summit of power; and when he
had reached the climax, will die a violent death, and I must say, he
added, that the records that have been kept of his appearance go to
confirm this persuasion.

"I need not remind you," said Madam S., "what a remarkable confirmation
was afforded by the life and death of Lord C."

"I had never heard these particulars before; but I had heard the story
of Lord C.'s _Radiant Boy_ alluded to, apropos of the case of the Rev.
Mr. A., who saw a very similar apparition some years ago at C. Castle. I
have related this case in the 'Night Side of Nature.' I received the
particulars from a relation of Mr. A.'s, who was himself surviving at
the time I published it."

"It is curious," observed Mrs. E., "how many houses in the north of
England where I have been lately residing have something of this sort
attached to them. Some friends of mine not long ago heard of a very
pretty place to let, and finding the rent unusually moderate they took
it. They were delighted with their new residence; and often wondered
that the proprietor, with whom they were slightly acquainted, did not
either live there himself, or insist on more money for it.

"After they had been there some time, his brother, that is, the brother
of the proprietor, who did not live very far off, called one morning to
see them; and asked them how they liked the place. They expressed their
extreme satisfaction; adding, 'We wonder your brother does not live here
himself.'

"'There are reasons why it does not suit our family,' he answered.

"When he was going away, my friends proposed to walk through the grounds
with him; they had to cross a little brook not far from the house; and
as they did so, a hare sprang past them and they all stopt and turned
round to look at her, by which means they had a full view of the house.

"'Good Heavens!' exclaimed the visitor, 'there she is!'

"'Where?' enquired my friend, thinking he alluded to the hare.

"'Is any of your family ill?' asked the stranger.

"'No they answered;' and following the direction of his eyes, they
observed at one of the upper windows of the house, a female figure in
white, and enveloped in what looked like grave clothes.

"The visitor appearing much agitated, my friend rushed back and ran up
to the floor where the female had appeared; and not only was there no
one there, but he found that the window was that of a vestibule and much
too high from the ground for any one to reach.

"On returning to their visitor, he said 'one of us will die before this
year has expired; it is an unfailing omen in our family, and caused us
so much distress, that that is the real reason why we do not live here.
But it concerns nobody but ourselves; you will never be troubled by her
visitations.' The destiny fell on the seer himself this time; he was
dead before the year had expired.

"There is another house in the same part of the county, where sometime
ago a young friend of mine, one of three sisters, went on a visit for a
short time. The first night, after she got into bed, she was startled by
the most terrific screams she ever heard, which appeared close to her
door. She jumped up and opened it, but there was nobody there. The next
day she mentioned the circumstance, but the old lady she was visiting,
said her ears must have deceived her, and turned the conversation; but
she heard it again several times, and was quite sure there was no
mistake. When she went home she told her sisters, who laughed at her;
but each of them went to visit subsequently at the same house and heard
precisely the same thing; but as it was evidently an unpleasant subject
to their hostess, they could get no information on the subject."

"A near relation of mine," said Lord N., "is living in a place at
present, where there is very much the same annoyance, and three families
successively, had left the house in consequence of it. The building is
large, part of it very old, and it is surrounded by a fine park;
nevertheless, it has been found difficult to get a tenant--or, at least,
to keep one. My relation was warned of the inconvenience before he took
it. It is said that a lady was murdered there by her husband; at all
events, there is one room--one of the best in the house, shut up, and
never allowed to be opened. Whoever sleeps in the room under this, is
liable to be disturbed by extraordinary noises--footsteps and moving of
furniture, &c.; but the most strange thing is, that every now and then a
dreadful piercing scream is heard through the house, that brings any
strangers who happen to be there, out of their rooms, in terror, to
enquire what has occurred. The family who resided there before, met the
apparition of a lady occasionally, and left the place in consequence. My
relations have never seen anything; but everybody who stays there any
time hears the screams.

"Another relation of mine, a very religious person, and as she belongs
to the free church of Scotland, most opposed to the belief in ghosts,
went some time since to pay a visit at an old place belonging to our
family. On the morning after her arrival, she announced at breakfast
that she was going away. She gave no reason, but went, to the
consternation of her host. With much difficulty, he has since extracted
from her, that in the night an apparition appeared at the foot of her
bed--a man dressed in an old-fashioned brown suit. He spoke to her, and
some conversation passed--the subject of which she declares she will
never disclose; she says it was not a good spirit, and nothing would
induce her to visit the place again. This house has always been said to
be haunted, but this is the only instance I know of the family
themselves seeing anything of the sort; but no better evidence could be
adduced of such a phenomenon than that of the lady in question. Nobody
ever doubted her word, and a more confirmed disbeliever in ghosts never
existed.

"A rather curious thing happened to myself lately," continued Lord N. "I
went to visit some friends at the Lakes. As they had no vacant rooms, I
engaged apartments near them for myself and servant. The house was
small, quite modern, and as un-ghostly as possible. I always dined with
my friends, and went to my lodgings about twelve o'clock, and I had been
there five or six nights without anything unusual occurring. On the
fourth or fifth evening, I had returned home rather earlier than usual,
and instead of going to bed, I sat down to write a letter. While so
engaged, I heard what I thought was a boy cracking a whip close to the
drawing-room door. I paid no attention to it at first, though rather
wondering at the hour chosen for the amusement. However, as it continued
unintermittingly, and grew louder, I got up and opened the door, with
the intention of desiring the child to go away. There was no one there.
It then occurred to me that my ears must have deceived me, and that the
sound might have proceeded from some explosive substance in my bedroom
fire. The room was on the same floor, and the door shut; but when I
opened it, I found the fire almost out--certainly not in a state to
produce the noises I had heard. I went forward to stir it, and while
doing so, the whip was cracked over my shoulder. I turned round quickly,
but could see nothing, and I returned to the drawing-room, and had just
seated myself again, when I was amazed to see the table rise about a
foot perpendicularly into the air, and at the same moment, both the
candles that were on it went out, without being upset or even moved.
There was a fire, so that I was not quite in the dark, and I re-lighted
them; after which the whip began cracking again vigorously, and cracked
on till I went to bed and afterwards. I stayed in these apartments a
fortnight or three weeks longer; and once, again, I heard the whip, but
much fainter and for a shorter time; and one night there were distinct
rappings on the mantel-piece, and afterwards on the dressing-table.

"I could make no discovery in regard to these phenomena; and I leave it
to the company to decide whether they were of a spiritual nature or not.
The only other thing of the sort that ever happened to me was this:--I
was travelling on the Continent, and not being very well, was lying in
bed, when I suddenly saw the door open, and two of my brothers walk
through the room, dressed in deep mourning. I rang the bell furiously,
and the people came, but could in no way explain what had happened. I
shortly received letters, announcing that another brother had died at
that time.

"I will mention another instance that occurred in our family a few years
since. During my grandfather's last illness, all the family were
assembled at K. Castle, except my brother John, with whom he was not on
good terms. While we were living there, waiting to see what turn the
illness would take, John died very unexpectedly, but we resolved not to
mention the circumstance to Lord A., as it might affect him injuriously;
it was therefore kept a profound secret.

"One day, some little time afterwards, Lord A. had been asleep in his
arm-chair, and on waking, he suddenly exclaimed, 'I shall see John on
Thursday!' This was on a Monday, and he died on the Thursday following."

"A relation of mine," said Mrs. L., "had a friend with whom a great
intimacy had subsisted for many years, but a subject of difference arose
that embittered her feelings towards this lady to such a degree, that
she felt reconciliation impossible. They continued to live in the same
town, but all intercourse was at an end.

"One morning, lately, she was lying awake in her bed, when the door
opened, and this lady came in; approaching the bed side, she spoke in a
friendly manner, and entered into explanations with regard to the
misunderstanding. My relation was not frightened during this interview;
but when it was over, and she was gone, she suspected the nature of the
visit. When her maid came to her room, she enquired if there had been
any news of Miss ----. The servant answered, none; but presently
afterwards, a person called to mention the lady's death, which had taken
place that morning."

"For my part," said Sir A. C., "I am acquainted with a circumstance that
has settled entirely any doubts I might have entertained on the subject
of ghosts. Not many miles from my place in S--shire, there is a seat
belonging to some connexions of my own. At the time I am about to refer
to, an old lady was in possession, and it so happened, that a matter of
business arose regarding the heirs of the property, which made it
necessary to refer to the title deeds. To the surprise and dismay of the
family they could not be found. A vigorous search was instituted, in
vain; and the circumstance so preyed on my old relation's mind that she
at length committed suicide, under the impression that some one else
would lay claim to the estate.

"After her death people complained that they could not live there--the
place they said was haunted by this old lady, who, with her grey hair
dishevelled, and dressed exactly as she used to be in her life time,
they described as walking about the house, looking into drawers and
cupboards, and incessantly searching for her deeds. We, of course, did
not believe in the story, and were not even altogether convinced when
the house, after being let to several strangers in succession, who all
gave it up on the same plea, seemed destined to remain without an
inhabitant.

"It had stood empty two or three years, though offered at a very low
rent, when a lady and gentleman from the West Indies came into the
neighbourhood to visit some acquaintance, and being in want of a
residence, and hearing this was to be had on very reasonable terms, they
proposed to take it. Their friends told them of the objection made by
preceding tenants, but they laughed with scorn at the idea of losing so
good a house on account of a ghost; so they closed the bargain, took
possession of the place, and sent for their family to join them.

"The children, the youngest of whom was between three and four, and the
eldest about ten, were, as a temporary arrangement, placed on the first
night of their arrival to sleep in one room; but the next morning, when
their mother went at a very early hour to see how they were, to her
surprise, she found them all wide awake. They were looking pale and
weary, and began with one voice to complain that they had been kept
awake all night by such a disagreeable old lady, who would keep coming
into the room, and looking for something in the drawers. 'I told her I
wished she'd go away,' said the eldest, 'and then she did go; but she
came back; and we don't like her. Who is she, mamma? Is she to live with
us?'

"They then, on being questioned, described her appearance, which exactly
coincided with the account given by the former tenants. I can vouch for
the truth of these circumstances; and since these children had,
certainly, never heard a word on the subject of the apparition, and had,
indeed, no idea that it was one, 'I think the evidence,' said Sir A. C.,
'is quite unexceptionable.'

"I should say so, too, if it referred to any other question," said Mr.
E., a barrister, who happened to be present when the story was related;
"but on the subject of ghosts I cannot think any evidence sufficient."

"A state of mind by no means uncommon," I said, "and which it is, of
course, in vain to contend with. I can only wonder and admire the
confidence that can venture to prejudge so interesting and important a
subject of inquiry."




ROUND THE FIRE.

SEVENTH EVENING.


"My story will be a very short one," said Mrs. M.; "for I must tell you
that though, like every body else, I have heard a great many ghost
stories, and have met people who assured me they had seen such things, I
cannot, for my own part, bring myself to believe in them; but a
circumstance occurred when I was abroad, that you may perhaps consider
of a ghostly nature, though I cannot.

"I was travelling through Germany, with no one but my maid--it was
before the time of railways, and on my road from Leipsic to Dresden, I
stopt at an inn that appeared to have been long ago part of an
aristocratic residence--a castle in short; for there was a stone wall
and battlements, and a tower at one side; while the other was a
prosaic-looking, square building that had evidently been added in
modern times. The inn stood at one end of a small village, in which some
of the houses looked so antique that they might, I thought, be coeval
with the castle itself. There were a good many travellers, but the host
said he could accommodate me; and when I asked to see my room, he led me
up to the towers, and showed me a tolerably comfortable one. There were
only two apartments on each floor; so I asked him if I could have the
other for my maid, and he said yes, if no other traveller arrived. None
came, and she slept there.

"I supped at the table d'hote, and retired to bed early, as I had an
excursion to make on the following day; and I was sufficiently tired
with my journey to fall asleep directly.

"I don't know how long I had slept--but I think some hours, when I awoke
quite suddenly, almost with a start, and beheld near the foot of the
bed, the most hideous, dreadful-looking old woman, in an antique dress,
that imagination can conceive. She seemed to be approaching me--not as
if walking, but gliding, with her left arm and hand extended towards me.

"'Merciful God deliver me!' I exclaimed under my first impulse of
amazement; and as I said the words she disappeared."

"Then, though you don't believe in ghosts, you thought it was one when
you saw it," said I.

"I don't know what I thought--I admit I was a good deal frightened, and
it was a long time before I fell asleep again.

"In the morning," continued Mrs. M., "my maid knocked, and I told her to
come in; but the door was locked, and I had to get out of bed to admit
her--I thought I might have forgotten to fasten it. As soon as I was up,
I examined every part of the room, but I could find nothing to account
for this intrusion. There was neither trap or moving panell, or door
that I could see, except the one I had locked. However, I made up my
mind not to speak of the circumstance, for I fancied I must have been
deceived in supposing myself awake, and that it was only a dream; more
particularly as there was no light in my room, and I could not
comprehend how I could have seen this woman.

"I went out early, and was away the greater part of the day. When I
returned I found more travellers had arrived, and that they had given
the room next mine to a German lady and her daughter, who were at the
table d'hote. I therefore had a bed made up in my room for my maid; and
before I lay down, I searched thoroughly, that I might be sure nobody
was concealed there.

"In the middle of the night--I suppose about the same time I had been
disturbed on the preceding one--I and my maid were awakened by a
piercing scream; and I heard the voice of the German girl in the
adjoining room, exclaiming, 'Ach! meine mutter! meine mutter!'

"For some time afterwards I heard them talking, and then I fell
asleep--wondering, I confess, whether they had had a visit from the
frightful old woman. They left me in no doubt the next morning. They
came down to breakfast greatly excited--told everybody the
cause--described the old woman exactly as I had seen her, and departed
from the house incontinently, declaring they would not stay there
another hour."

"What did the host say to it?" we asked.

"Nothing; he said we must have dreamed it--and I suppose we did."

"Your story," said I, "reminds me of a very interesting letter which I
received soon after the publication of 'The Night side of Nature.' It
was from a clergyman who gave his name, and said he was chaplain to a
nobleman. He related that in a house he inhabited, or had inhabited, a
lady had one evening gone up stairs, and seen, to her amazement, in a
room, the door of which was open, a lady in an antique dress, standing
before a chest of drawers, and apparently examining their contents. She
stood still, wondering who this stranger could be, when the figure
turned her face towards her, and, to her horror, she saw there were no
eyes. Other members of the family saw the same apparition also. I
believe there were further particulars; but I unfortunately lost this
letter, with some others, in the confusion of changing my residence.

"The absence of eyes I take to be emblematical of moral blindness; for
in the world of spirits there is no deceiving each other by false
seemings; as we are, so we appear."

"Then," said Mrs. W. C., "the apparition--if it was an apparition--that
two of my servants saw lately, must be in a very degraded state.

"There is a road, and on one side of it a path, just beyond my garden
wall. Not long ago two of my servants were in the dusk of the evening
walking up this path, when they saw a large, dark object coming towards
them. At first, they thought it was an animal; and when it got close,
one of them stretched out her hand to touch it; but she could feel
nothing, and it passed on between her and the garden wall, although
there was _no space_, the path being only wide enough for two; and on
looking back, they saw it walking down the hill behind them. Three men
were coming up on the path; and as the thing approached, they jumped off
into the road.

"'Good heavens, what is that!' cried the women.

"'I don't know,' replied the men; 'I never saw such a thing as that
before.'

"The women came home greatly agitated; and we have since heard there is
a tradition that the spot is haunted by the ghost of a man who was
killed in a quarry close by."

"I have travelled a great deal," said our next speaker, the Chevalier de
La C. G.; and, certainly, I have never been in any country where
instances of these spiritual appearances were not adduced on apparently
credible authority. I have heard numerous stories of the sort, but the
one that most readily occurs to me at present, was told to me not long
ago, in Paris, by Count P.--the nephew of the celebrated Count P. whose
name occurs in the history of the remarkable incidents connected with
the death of the Emperor Paul.

"Count P., my authority for the following story, was attached to the
Russian embassy; and he told me, one evening, when the conversation
turned on the inconveniences of travelling in the East of Europe, that,
on one occasion, when in Poland, he found himself about seven o'clock in
an autumn evening on a forest road, where there was no possibility of
finding a house of public entertainment within many miles. There was a
frightful storm; the road, not good at the best, was almost
impracticable from the weather, and his horses were completely knocked
up. On consulting his people what was best to be done, they said, that
to go back was as impossible as to go forward; but that by turning a
little out of the main road, they should soon reach a castle where
possibly shelter might be procured for the night. The count gladly
consented, and it was not long before they found themselves at the gate
of what appeared a building on a very splendid scale. The courier
quickly alighted and rang at the bell, and while waiting for admission,
he enquired who the castle belonged to, and was told that it was Count
X's.

"It was some time before the bell was answered, but at length an elderly
man appeared at a wicket, with a lantern, and peeped out. On perceiving
the equipage, he came forward and stept up to the carriage, holding the
light aloft to discover who was inside. Count P. handed him his card,
and explained his distress.

"'There is no one here, my lord,' replied the man, 'but myself and my
family; the castle is not inhabited.'

"'That's bad news,' said the count; 'but nevertheless, you can give me
what I am most in need of, and that is--shelter for the night.'

"'Willingly,' said the man, 'if your lordship will put up with such
accommodation as we can hastily prepare.'

"'So,' said the count, 'I alighted and walked in; and the old man
unbarred the great gates to admit my carriages and people. We found
ourselves in an immense _couer_, with the castle _en face_, and stables
and offices on each side. As we had a _fourgon_ with us, with provender
for the cattle and provisions for ourselves, we wanted nothing but beds
and a good fire; and as the only one lighted was in the old man's
apartments, he first took us there. They consisted of a _suite_ of small
rooms in the left wing, that had probably been formerly occupied by the
upper servants. They were comfortably furnished, and he and his large
family appeared to be very well lodged. Besides the wife, there were
three sons, with their wives and children, and two nieces; and in a part
of the offices, where I saw a light, I was told there were labourers and
women servants, for it was a valuable estate, with a fine forest, and
the sons acted as _gardes chasse_.

"'Is there much game in the forest?' I asked.

"'A great deal of all sorts,' they answered.

"'Then I suppose during the season the family live here?'

"'Never,' they replied. 'None of the family ever reside here.'

"'Indeed!' I said; how is that? It seems a very fine place.'

"'Superb,' answered the wife of the custodian; 'but the castle is
haunted.'

"She said this with a simple gravity that made me laugh; upon which they
all stared at me with the most edifying amazement.

"'I beg your pardon,' I said; 'but you know, perhaps, in great cities,
such as I usually inhabit, there are no ghosts.'

"'Indeed!' said they. 'No ghosts!'

"'At least,' I said, 'I never heard of any; and we don't believe in such
things.'

"They looked at each other with surprise, but said nothing; not
appearing to have any desire to convince me. 'But do you mean to say,'
said I, 'that that is the reason the family don't live here, and that
the castle is abandoned on that account?'

"'Yes,' they replied, 'that is the reason nobody has resided here for
many years.'

"'But how can you live here then?'

"'We are never troubled in this part of the building,' said she. 'We
hear noises, but we are used to that.'

"'Well, if there is a ghost, I hope I shall see it,' said I.

"'God forbid!' said the woman, crossing herself. 'But we shall guard
against that; your seigneurie will sleep not far from this, where you
will be quite safe.'

"'Oh! but,' said I, 'I am quite serious, if there is a ghost, I should
particularly like to see him, and I should be much obliged to you to put
me in the apartments he most frequents.'

"They opposed this proposition earnestly, and begged me not to think of
if; besides, they said if any thing was to happen to my lord, how should
they answer for it; but as I insisted, the women went to call the
members of the family who were lighting fires and preparing beds in some
rooms on the same floor as they occupied themselves. When they came they
were as earnest against the indulgence of my wishes as the women had
been. Still I insisted.

"'Are you afraid,' I said, 'to go yourselves in the haunted chambers?'

"'No,' they answered. 'We are the custodians of the castle and have to
keep the rooms clean and well aired lest the furniture be spoiled--my
lord talks always of removing it, but it has never been removed
yet--but we would not sleep up there for all the world.'

"'Then it is the upper floors that are haunted?'

"'Yes, especially the long room, no one could pass a night there; the
last that did is in a lunatic asylum now at Warsaw,' said the custodian.

"'What happened to him?'

"'I don't know,' said the man; 'he was never able to tell.'

"'Who was he?' I asked.

"'He was a lawyer. My lord did business with him; and one day he was
speaking of this place, and saying that it was a pity he was not at
liberty to pull it down and sell the materials; but he cannot, because
it is family property and goes with the title; and the lawyer said he
wished it was his, and that no ghost should keep him out of it. My lord
said that it was easy for any one to say that who knew nothing about it,
and that he must suppose the family had not abandoned such a fine place
without good reasons. But the lawyer said it was some trick, and that it
was coiners, or robbers, who had got a footing in the castle, and
contrived to frighten people away that they might keep it to themselves;
so my lord said if he could prove that he should be very much obliged to
him, and more than that, he would give him a great sum--I don't know how
much. So the lawyer said, he would; and my lord wrote to me that he was
coming to inspect the property, and I was to let him do any thing he
liked.

"'Well, he came, and with him his son, a fine young man and a soldier.
They asked me all sorts of questions, and went over the castle and
examined every part of it. From what they said, I could see that they
thought the ghost was all nonsense, and that I and my family were in
collusion with the robbers or coiners. However, I did not care for that,
my lord knew that the castle had been haunted before I was born.

"'I had prepared rooms on this floor for them--the same I am preparing
for your lordship, and they slept there, keeping the keys of the upper
rooms to themselves, so I did not interfere with them. But one morning,
very early, we were awakened by some one knocking at our bedroom door,
and when we opened it, we saw Mr. Thaddeus--that was the lawyer's
son--standing there half-drest and as pale as a ghost; and he said his
father was very ill and he begged us to go to him; to our surprise he
led us up stairs to the haunted chamber, and there we found the poor
gentleman speechless, and we thought they had gone up there early and
that he had had a stroke. But it was not so; Mr. Thaddeus said, that
after we were all in bed, they had gone up there to pass the night. I
know they thought that there was no ghost but us, and that's why they
would not let us know their intention. They laid down upon some sofas,
wrapt up in their fur cloaks, and resolved to keep awake, and they did
so for some time, but at last the young man was overcome by drowsiness,
he struggled against it, but could not conquer it, and the last thing he
recollects was his father shaking him and saying 'Thaddeus, Thaddeus,
for God's sake keep awake!' But he could not, and he knew no more till
he woke and saw that day was breaking, and found his father sitting in a
corner of the room speechless, and looking like a corpse; and there he
was when we went up. The young man thought he'd been taken ill or had a
stroke, as we supposed at first; but when we found they had passed the
night in the haunted chambers, we had no doubt what had happened--he had
seen some terrible sight and so lost his senses.'

"'He lost his senses, I should say, from terror when his son fell
asleep,' said I, 'and he felt himself alone. He could have been a man of
no nerve. At all events, what you tell me raises my curiosity. Will you
take me up stairs and shew me those rooms?'

"'Willingly,' said the man, and fetching a bunch of keys and a light,
and calling one of his sons to follow him with another, he led the way
up the great staircase to a suite of apartments on the first floor. The
rooms were lofty and large, and the man said the furniture was very
handsome, but old. Being all covered with canvas cases, I could not
judge of it. 'Which is the long room?' I said.

"Upon which he led me into a long narrow room that might rather have
been called a gallery. There were sofas along each side, something like
a dais at the upper end; and several large pictures hanging on the
walls.

"I had with me a bull dog, of a very fine breed, that had been given me
in England by Lord F. She had followed me up stairs--indeed, she
followed me every where--and I watched her narrowly as she went smelling
about, but there were no indications of her perceiving any thing
extraordinary. Beyond this gallery there was only a small octagon room,
with a door that led out upon another staircase. When I had examined it
all thoroughly, I returned to the long room and told the man, as that
was the place especially frequented by the ghost, I should feel much
obliged if he would allow me to pass the night there. I could take upon
myself to say that Count X., would have no objection.

"'It is not that,' replied the man; 'but the danger to your lordship,'
and he conjured me not to insist on such a perilous experiment.

"When he found I was resolved, he gave way, but on condition that I
signed a paper, stating that in spite of his representations I had
determined to sleep in the long room.

"I confess, the more anxious these people seemed to prevent my sleeping
there, the more curious I was; not that I believed in the ghost the
least in the world. I thought that the lawyer had been right in his
conjecture, but that he hadn't nerve enough to investigate whatever he
saw or heard; and that they had succeeded in frightening him out of his
senses. I saw what an excellent place these people had got, and how much
it was their interest to maintain the idea that the castle was
uninhabitable. Now, I have pretty good nerves--I have been in situations
that have tried them severely--and I did not believe that any ghost, if
there was such a thing, or any jugglery by which a semblance of one
might be contrived, would shake them. As for any real danger, I did not
apprehend it; the people knew who I was, and any mischief happening to
me would have led to consequences they well understood. So they lighted
fires in both the grates of the gallery, and as they had abundance of
dry wood, they soon blazed up. I was determined not to leave the room
after I was once in it, lest, if my suspicions were correct, they might
have time to make their arrangements; so I desired my people to bring up
my supper, and I ate it there.

"My courier said he had always heard the castle was haunted, but he
dare say there was no ghost but the people below, who had a very
comfortable berth of it; and he offered to pass the night with me, but I
declined any companion and preferred trusting to myself and my dog. My
valet, on the contrary, strongly advised me against the enterprize,
assuring me that he had lived with a family in France whose chateau was
haunted, and had left his place in consequence.

"By the time I had finished my supper it was ten o'clock, and every
thing was prepared for the night. My bed, though an impromptu, was very
comfortable, made of amply stuffed cushions and thick coverlets, placed
in front of the fire. I was provided with light and plenty of wood; and
I had my regimental cutlass, and a case of excellent pistols, which I
carefully primed and loaded in presence of the custodian, saying, you
see I am determined to fire at the ghost, so if he cannot stand a
bullet, he had better not pay me a visit.

"The old man shook his head calmly, but made no answer. Having desired
the courier, who said he should not go to bed, to come up stairs
immediately if he heard the report of fire-arms, I dismissed my people
and locked the doors, barricading each with a heavy ottoman besides.
There was no arras or hangings of any sort behind which a door could be
concealed; and I went round the room, the walls of which were pannelled
with white and gold, knocking every part, but neither the sound, nor
Dido, the dog, gave any indications of there being anything unusual.
Then I undressed and lay down with my sword and my pistols beside me;
and Dido at the foot of my bed, where she always slept.

"I confess I was in a state of pleasing excitement; my curiosity and my
love of adventure were roused; and whether it was ghost, or robber, or
coiner, I was to have a visit from, the interview was likely to be
equally interesting. It was half-past ten when I lay down; my
expectations were too vivid to admit of sleep; and after an attempt at a
French novel, I was obliged to give it up; I could not fix my attention
to it. Besides, my chief care was not to be surprised. I could not help
thinking the custodian and his family had some secret way of getting
into the room, and I hoped to detect them in the fact; so I lay with my
eyes and ears open in a position that gave me a view of every part of
it, till my travelling clock struck twelve, which being pre-eminently
the ghostly hour, I thought the critical moment was arrived. But no, no
sound, no interruption of any sort to the silence and solitude of the
night occurred. When half-past twelve, and one struck, I pretty well
made up my mind that I should be disappointed in my expectations, and
that the ghost, whoever he was, knew better than to encounter Dido and a
brace of well charged pistols; but just as I arrived at this conclusion,
an unaccountable _frisson_ came over me, and I saw Dido, who tired with
her day's journey, had lain till now quietly curled up asleep, begin to
move, and slowly get upon her feet. I thought she was only going to
turn, but, instead of lying down, she stood still with her ears erect
and her head towards the dais, uttering a low growl.

"The dais, I should mention, was but the skeleton of a dais, for the
draperies were taken off. There was only remaining a canopy covered with
crimson velvet, and an arm chair covered with velvet too, but cased in
canvas like the rest of the furniture. I had examined this part of the
room thoroughly, and had moved the chair aside to ascertain that there
was nothing under it.

"Well, I sat up in bed and looked steadily in the same direction as the
dog, but I could see nothing at first, though it appeared that she did;
but as I looked, I began to perceive something like a cloud in the
chair, while at the same time a chill which seemed to pervade the very
marrow in my bones crept through me, yet the fire was good; and it was
not the chill of fear, for I cocked my pistols with perfect self
possession and abstained from giving Dido the signal to advance, because
I wished eagerly to see the denouement of the adventure.

"Gradually, this cloud took a form, and assumed the shape of a tall
white figure that reached from the ceiling to the floor of the dais,
which was raised by two steps. At him, Dido! At him! I said, and away
she dashed to the steps, but instantly turned and crept back completely
cowed. As her courage was undoubted, I own this astonished me, and I
should have fired, but that I was perfectly satisfied that what I saw
was not a substantial human form, for I had seen it grow into its
present shape and height from the undefined cloud that first appeared
in the chair. I laid my hand on the dog who had crept up to my side, and
I felt her shaking in her skin. I was about to rise myself and approach
the figure, though I confess I was a good deal awe struck, when it
stepped majestically from the dais, and seemed to be advancing. 'At
him!' I said, 'At him, Dido!' and I gave the dog every encouragement to
go forward; she made a sorry attempt, but returned when she had got half
way and crouched beside me whining with terror. The figure advanced upon
me; the cold became icy; the dog crouched and trembled; and I, as it
approached, honestly confess, said Count P., that I hid my head under
the bed clothes and did not venture to look up till morning. I know not
what it was--as it passed over me I felt a sensation of undefinable
horror, that no words can describe--and I can only say that nothing on
earth would tempt me to pass another night in that room, and I am sure
if Dido could speak, you'd find her of the same opinion.

"I had desired to be called at seven o'clock, and when the custodian,
who accompanied my valet, found me safe and in my perfect senses, I
must say the poor man appeared greatly relieved; and when I descended
the whole family seemed to look upon me as a hero. I thought it only
just to them to admit that something had happened in the night that I
felt impossible to account for, and that I should not recommend any body
who was not very sure of their nerves to repeat the experiment."

When the Chevalier had concluded this extraordinary story, I suggested
that the apparition of the castle very much resembled that mentioned by
the late professor Gregory, in his letters on mesmerism, as having
appeared in the Tower of London some years ago, and from the alarm it
created, having occasioned the death of a lady, the wife of an officer
quartered there, and one of the sentries. Every one who had read that
very interesting publication was struck by the resemblance.




ROUND THE FIRE.

EIGHTH EVENING.


"As this was our last evening, I was called upon for a story; but I
pleaded that I had told all mine in the 'Night Side of Nature,' and of
personal experience I had very little to tell; but I said I will give
you the history of a visit I made several years ago to a haunted house
although it resulted in almost nothing.

"After the publication of the 'Night Side,' I received many valuable
communications--I wish I had kept a note of them all, but I never
expected to publish again on the same subject. Amongst others, I
received a letter from a gentleman called Mc. N., and as it contained
several interesting particulars, I requested him to call on me. I
remember, in the letter, he told me that a few years previously, he had
been on an excursion from home, and that while stopping at an inn, one
morning, about five o'clock, the door opened and his father entered; he
came to the bedside, looked at him, and then went out again. The young
man sprang from his bed, and followed him down stairs, where he lost
sight of him. He returned home, and found his father had died on that
morning.

"He was in a lawyer's office, and, amongst other things, he mentioned to
me that there was not very far off a house said to be haunted, of which
they had the charge, but that it was impossible to do anything with it.
'We offer it at a mere nominal rent, but no one will stay there.'

"I was often absent from home at this time, but for the next two or
three years I sometimes met him and inquired about the house. The report
was always the same; till, at length, no one would go into it; it was
shut up--the shutters were closed, and the boys of the neighbourhood
threw stones at the windows and broke the glass. Yet it was situated in
a street where every other house was inhabited, and which had not been
built many years.

"It was as much as six or seven years after I had first heard of this
house, that I happened to mention the circumstance to some gentlemen of
my acquaintance--very eminent men, with honest, inquiring minds; truth
seekers, who, if she were in the bottom of a well, would have thought it
right to go after her. As they had humility enough to feel that they
could not pronounce upon a question that they had never studied or
investigated, they expressed a wish to visit the house. Accordingly, I
applied to Mr. Mc. N., who had the keys in his office, and he obligingly
consented to accompany us. Our expedition was to be kept a profound
secret; and it was so, till some time afterwards, when, like most other
secrets, it got wind and it spread abroad.

"We started in a carriage, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night,
taking with us a young girl who was easily mesmerised, and when in that
state a good clairvoyante. She was not told the object of our journey,
and had no means whatever of learning it. We said we were going to look
at a house, and that that was the most convenient time for the gentleman
to show it us. We did not drive to the door, but Mr. Mc. N. met us in
the next street, where we alighted, lest we should attract observation.
We walked to our destination, and Mr. Mc. N. explained to the policeman
on duty who he was and where we were going, lest he should suspect
mischief, and interrupt us. He then unlocked the door with the aid of
the policeman's lantern, for it was a dark winter's night; and on
entering, we found ourselves in a narrow passage.

"It was a small house, in no respect different from the others in the
street. They seemed all of the same description. A narrow frontage, with
one window and the door, on the ground floor; two windows above; two
rooms on a floor, three stories in height, and a kitchen, scullery, and
cellars underground.

"As soon as the door closed on us, we were in utter darkness, but we had
provided ourselves with candles and matches, and when we had lighted
them, we entered the back parlour, which Mr. Mc. N. had heard from the
different inhabitants was the room in which they had met with most
annoyance.

"The clairvoyante was then put to sleep, and asked if she liked the
house, and would recommend us to take it. She shuddered and said 'No;
that two people had been murdered there, and we should be _troubled_.'
We asked in which room; she answered, 'it was before this house was
built--that another house stood there then--a very old house.' This was
not exactly on the same ground, but the room we were in was on part of
it. She said that it was these murdered people who would trouble us. We
asked if she could see them, and she answered 'no.'

"We then waited in silence to see if anything occurred; but nothing did,
except a metallic sound at the door, which was ajar, like the striking
of two pieces of iron. We all heard it, but could not say what
occasioned it.

"After a little time, some one suggested that we should extinguish the
lights. We did so, and were then in absolute darkness. There was but one
window in the room, and that was coated with dust, and the shutter was
shut; besides, as I have said, it was a very dark night, and this room,
being at the back, looked into a yard, I believe; at all events, not
into a street.

"Presently, the clairvoyante started, and exclaimed, 'Look there!' We
saw nothing, and asked what it was.

"'There!' she said. 'There again! don't you see it?'

"'What?' we asked. 'The lights!' she said. 'There! Now!' These
exclamations were made at intervals of two or three seconds.

"We all said we saw nothing whatever.

"'If Mrs. Crowe would take hold of my hand, I think she would see them,'
she suggested.

"I did so; and then at intervals of a few seconds, I saw thrown up,
apparently from the floor, waves of white light, faint, but perfectly
distinct and visible. In order that I might know whether our perceptions
of this phenomenon were simultaneous, I desired her, without speaking,
to press my hand each time she saw it, which she did; and each time I
distinctly saw the wave of white light. I saw it, at these intervals, as
long as I held her hand and we were in the dark. Nobody saw it but she
and myself; and we did not follow up the experiment by the others taking
her hand, which we should have done.

"During this interval, another light suddenly appeared in the middle of
the room, away from where we were standing, I saw a bright diamond of
light, like an extremely vivid spark--only not the colour of fire; it
was white, brilliant, and quiescent, but shed no rays. I did not mention
this, because I wished to learn if it was visible to any body else--but
nobody spoke of it; not even the clairvoyante. Whether she saw it or
not, I cannot say. When the candles were re-lighted these lights were no
longer visible. I and one of the gentlemen went over the house above and
below, but saw nothing but the dust and desolation of a long uninhabited
dwelling.

"When we came away, and Mr. Mc. N. had locked the door, we walked to the
carriage. I said, 'then you none of you saw the waves of light.'

"'No,' said they.

"'Well,' said I, 'I certainly did, and I never saw anything like it
before. Moreover, I saw another sort of light.'

"'Did you,' said Mr. Mc. N., interrupting me; 'was it a bright spark of
light like the oxy-hydrogen light.'

"'Exactly,' said I. 'I could not think what to compare it to; but that
was it.'

"I thus was certain that he had seen the same thing as myself; he had
not spoken of it from a similar motive; he waited to have his impression
confirmed by further testimony.

"You see our results were not great, but the visit was not wholly barren
to me. Of course, many wise people will say, I did not see the lights,
but that they were the offspring of my excited imagination. But I beg to
say that my imagination was by no means excited. If I had been there
_alone_, it would have been a different affair; for though I never saw a
ghost nor ever fancied I did, I am afraid I should have been very
nervous. But I was in exceedingly good company, with two very clever
men, besides the lawyer, a lady, and the clairvoyante; so that my nerves
were perfectly composed, as I should not object to seeing any ghost in
such agreeable society. Moreover, I did not _expect_ any result;
because, there is very seldom any on these occasions, as ghosts appear
we know not why; but certainly not because people wish to see them. They
generally come when least expected and least thought of.

"Mr. Mc. N., on inquiry, learnt that unaccountable lights were amongst
the things complained of. What occasioned them and the other phenomena,
it had certainly been the proprietor's interest for many years to
discover; it had also been the interest of numerous tenants, who having
taken the house for a term, found themselves obliged to leave it at a
sacrifice. Yet, for all those years, no explanation could be found for
the annonyances but that the house was haunted. No tradition seems
extant to account for its evil reputation. If what the clairvoyante said
was true, the murders must have occurred long ago.

"A gentleman, an inhabitant of the same city, once mentioned to me that
a friend of his, many years previously, when quite a young man, had one
Sunday evening been walking alone in the fields outside this town; and
that he met a young woman, a perfect stranger, who, on some pretence
asked him to see her safe home. He did so; she led him to a lone farm
house, and then inviting him to walk in, shewed him into a room and left
him. Whilst waiting for her return, idly looking about, he found hidden
under the table, which was covered with a cloth, a dead body. On this
discovery, he rushed to the door; it was locked; but the window was not
very high from the ground, and by it he escaped; terrified to such a
degree, that he not only left the city that very evening, but hastened
out of the country, apprehensive that he had been enticed to the house
and shut up with the murdered man, for the purpose of throwing the guilt
on him; and as justice was not so clear sighted, and much more
inexorable than in these days, he feared the circumstantial evidence
might go against him. He settled in a foreign country and finally died
there.

"Where this locality was, I don't know, except that it was in the
environs of the city--environs which have since been covered with
buildings; what if the house that we visited should have been erected on
the site of that lone farm!

"It may be so; at all events, this story shews how possible it is that
some similar event might have occurred on the spot where the haunted
house stands."

In conclusion, let me once more recall to my readers that one, whose
insight none will dispute, reminds us, in relation to this very subject,
that "our philosophy," does not comprehend all wisdom and all truth.
Philosophy is a good guide when she opens her eyes, but where she
obstinately shuts them to one class of facts because she has previously
made up her mind they cannot be genuine, she is a bad one.

Professor A. told me that when he was at Goettingen, as a great favour,
and through the interest of an influential professor there, he was
allowed to see a book that had belonged to Faust, or Faustus, as we call
him. It was a large volume, and the leaves were stiff and hard like
wood. They contained his magic rites and formulas, but on the last page
was inscribed a solemn injunction to all men, as they loved their own
souls, not to follow in his path or practice the teaching that volume
contained.

There appears to be a mystery out of the domain--I mean the present
domain of science; within the region of the hyper-psychical, regarding
our relations, while in this world, with those who have past the gates,
a belief in which is, I think, innate in human nature. This belief, in
certain periods and places, grows rank and mischievous; at others, it is
almost extinguished by reaction and education; but it never wholly dies;
because, every where and in all times, circumstances have occurred to
keep it alive, amongst individuals, which never reach the public ear.
Now, the truth is always worth ascertaining on any subject; even this
despised subject of ghosts, and those who have an inherent conviction
that they themselves are spirits, temporarily clothed in flesh, feel
that they have an especial interest in the question. We are fully aware
that the investigation presents all sorts of difficulties, and that the
belief is opposed to all sorts of accepted opinions; but we desire to
ascertain the grounds of a persuasion, so nearly concerning ourselves
which in all ages and all countries has prevailed in a greater or less
degree, and which appears to be sustained by a vast amount of facts,
which, however, we admit are not in a condition to be received as any
thing beyond presumptive evidence. These facts are chiefly valuable, as
furnishing cumulative testimony of the frequent recurrence of phenomena
explicable by no known theory, and therefore as open to the spiritual
hypothesis as any other. When a better is offered, supported by
something more convincing than pointless ridicule and dogmatic
assertion, I for one, shall be ready to entertain it. In the meanwhile,
hoping that time may, at length, in some degree, rend the veil that
encompasses this department of psychology, we record such experiences as
come under our observation and are content to await their
interpretation.




APPENDIX.


I have referred in the preceding pages to the loss of several letters,
which I should have been glad to insert here.

The following very interesting ones I have fortunately retained. I give
them verbatim, only suppressing the names of the writers, as requested.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER I.


_Aug. 18, 1854._

MADAM,

I have received your kind favor of the 15th, and I really feel that I
must now apologize to you, for venturing so quickly to call in question
the accuracy of your details. Being unaware, however, of the marvellous
coincidence of the _two dreams_, I feel assured you at once appreciated
the motives which alone impelled me to write.

Allow me, then, to attempt a narration of the particulars referred to in
my last, as having come under my own observation.

Two intimate friends of mine (clergymen of the Church of England) and
one of whom is unmarried, have for the last three years occupied a large
old-fashioned house in the country. It is a very pretty place--stands
within its own grounds--and is quite aloof from any other dwellings. It
has long had the reputation in the neighbourhood of being haunted, in
consequence, it is said, of a former proprietor having committed suicide
there. The story goes thus, he was _laid out_ in a chamber which is now
called the spare room, and is the scene of what I am about to relate. I
may as well tell you that it was only on my last visit, some six weeks
since, that I became at all aware of the _character_ of the mansion, for
my friends felt so annoyed at what has taken place, that they purposely
avoided communicating to their visitors what they thought might make
them anything but comfortable.

On that occasion there happened to be on a visit to my friend's wife, a
lady very nearly related to him. She had the spare room assigned to her
as a chamber, and on the very first night of her arrival was so
terrified by what took place that she would not again sleep there
without company.

She stated that in the middle of the night she was alarmed by the most
unearthly groanings and lamentations--the voice seemed close to her
bedside. It was afterwards attended by a rustling noise, and she
distinctly felt the curtains at the foot of the bed removed. Now, as my
knowledge of what was going on could not be disputed, my friends
admitted that it was not the _first_ time these noises had been heard,
nay, that in two instances the apparition of a form in grave-clothes had
been seen; the one occurring to a young gentleman of about twenty years
of age, who happened to be visiting them, and the other to one of their
own servants. In the former case, it appears that the young man was
sitting rather late at night in the study reading--all the family being
in bed--when the form emerged, apparently, from the wall dividing the
study from the haunted chamber. It remained a short time only and then
melted away. So great was the young man's terror that he has never been
near the place since. The servant also described a similar appearance,
and no one in the house who saw her terror could believe it acted.
Independently of all this, no less than four gentlemen, two of them from
the University, have experienced all the unearthly groanings and
be-wailings before mentioned, and in nearly every instance the parties
were, like myself, ignorant of the character attributed to the house.
But I now come to my own experience.

I was on a visit to my friends about twelve months since, when I met a
gentleman who had just left the army for the church. He appeared about
21 years of age, and there was that indescribable _something_ in his
manner which charmed me immediately. Without any pretence to being set
up--so to speak--in piety, there was yet _that_ in his sunny countenance
and air of cheerfulness, which made you feel that he had been called to
a brighter path of usefulness. I certainly very much admired him, and I
have since learnt that he is a general favourite. On retiring to rest I
found that he was to occupy the next room--not the study side.

From a variety of causes I could not sleep--but the imaginative powers
were not particularly aroused--my thoughts were of very prosy and
worldly things. As near as I could recollect, about an hour after I had
been in bed, I heard the most dreadful groans followed by exclamations
of the most horrible kind. The voice certainly _seemed_ in the room, and
was continued for at _least two hours_, at intervals of about ten
minutes. It was that of a man who had committed a deadly sin which could
never be pardoned! The agony seemed to me to be intense.

Will you believe it, Madam, in spite of what I thought of my
acquaintance of the next chamber, I ascribed it to him. I believed
little in the supernatural, and concluded it to be some dreadful dream.
It is astonishing the thought never struck me that a _continuous_ dream
of such a character was scarcely possible. It did not, however, and
despite of its unearthly character, and the apparent woe of the
unfortunate one--the despair, as I said before, of a lost soul--I
continued to associate it all with my neighbour next door, until the
events which occurred at my last visit entirely upset my conviction, and
I became at once assured I had been doing him a great injustice.

Like some of the cases in the "Night Side of Nature," you will perceive
here a great difference in the manifestations--to some it was given to
_hear_, to others to _see_. Are you still of opinion that this results
from what you term comparative freedom of _rapport_! Do you not think
there _are_ times when the material may give place to the supernatural?
I admit freely the truth of spectral illusions--I have myself
experienced one--but knew it to be nothing more. Still, notwithstanding
this, and my further belief in a _certain_ connection of mind and
matter, I cannot altogether cast from me the persuasion that the
Almighty One may _at times_ think fit to exercise a power independent of
all rule, for the attainment of certain ends to us, perhaps, unknown.

I cannot conclude without telling you that with regard to what I have
mentioned above, nothing in the shape of _trick_ could possibly have
been practised. Trusting I may not have trespassed too much on your
patience, I will now remain, Madam, yours very respectfully,

J. H. H.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER II.


_Gloucestershire, June 10, 1854._

MADAM,

Being not long ago on a visit of some days at the house of a friend, I
happened to meet with your work, entitled "The Night side of Nature."

The title struck my imagination, and opening the book I was delighted to
find that it treated of subjects which had long engaged my serious
thoughts. I was much pleased to see in you such an able and earnest
protester against the cold scepticism of the age in reference to truths
of the highest order, and those too sustained by a body of evidence
which in any other case would be esteemed irresistible. I must also say
that I never met with so great a number of well authenticated facts in
any other work as you have given us, whilst the truly catholic spirit of
your theological reflections, was to me pecularly refreshing. I once had
a thought of making a similar collection, that design I have however
abandoned, the state of my health not admitting of much literary labour.
I could relate to you many things as remarkable as any you have
described, for the truth of which I can vouch. I will mention one of a
most singular nature, and should you be inclined to read anything more
from me on these matters, I shall feel a pleasure in the communication.
Writing letters I find to be a relief from a melancholy, induced some
two years ago by a variety of heavy afflictions, and this must be my
apology for addressing you. But to my narrative:--

Shortly after I entered the ministry, I was introduced to a gentleman of
very superior mind who belonged to the same profession, and whom I had
never seen equalled for the genius and eloquence which his conversation
displayed.

I became at once attached to him, and for some reason or other he
evinced a desire to cultivate my friendship. After some months of most
agreeable intercourse had elapsed, he was taken seriously ill, and one
evening I was hastily summoned to his house. On my entering his chamber
he requested that we might be left alone, and he then told me that it
was his impression that his disease was mortal--that many supernatural
occurrances had marked his life, which he desired might be given to the
world when he was gone, and that he wished me to perform this office.
Having expressed my willingness to gratify him, he commenced the chapter
of extraordinaries. Here is one event in his remarkable history. Prior
to his becoming a minister and when in humble circumstances, he lodged
at the house of a tradesman at a certain sea-port town in W--s. He was
then in perfect health. One night he retired to rest in peculiarly good
spirits, and as his custom was (for it was then summer) he sat near the
window and gazed for some time on the beauties of nature. He then amused
himself for a while by humming a tune, when presently on looking towards
the door, he saw the figure of a man enter--his dress was a blood red
night cap, flannel jacket, and breeches. The man approached the bed (his
countenance and walk indicating extreme illness), threw himself upon it,
gave several groans and apparantly expired. My friend was so filled with
horror that he lost all power of speech and motion, and remained fixed
on his seat till morning, when he told his landlord the occurrence of
the night, and declared that unless they could find him other apartments
he would leave them that very day. The honest people were disinclined to
part with him and agreed to accommodate him on the ground-floor. About
_twelve months after this_, he went out on a market day for the purpose
of purchasing some provisions, and when he returned, he heard that his
old room was taken; but what was his surprise to find in the new lodger
the very form, with the very same dress that had so terrified him a year
before!

The man was then very ill: he died in a few weeks, and the circumstances
were without _any exception_ the same as those which my friend had
witnessed. This is one of those cases in which it is extremely difficult
to ascertain the design of the appearance.

I should much like to know what conjecture you would form, as to the
_modus_ and end of such a singular incident.

Of the veracity of the narrator it was impossible for me to doubt. As
this minister is still _living_ I am not at liberty to mention his
name.

Pray excuse the freedom of thus addressing you, and believe me to be

    Madam, with every sentiment
    of respect and esteem,
    Yours, very truly,
    Mrs. C. Crowe.      R. I. O.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER III.


_Gloucestershire, June 21, 1854._

MADAM,

As I find that another communication will not be unacceptable, I proceed
to detail a few cases. My first relates to the minister, a part of whose
history I have given you, and belongs to the class of prophetic dreams.
When he had resolved to study for the ministry and through the influence
of friends, had obtained admission to a Dissenting College; as the day
affixed for his departure drew near, he was filled with anxiety, from
the fact that he had not even money to pay his travelling expenses.

He did not like to borrow, and he had no reason to conclude that any
one suspected the miserable state of his finances. The evening before
his expected removal, he laid down to rest with a troubled heart. This
was in the very same seaport where the circumstance happened which I
have already told you. After some hours of great mental suffering sleep
came to his relief, and in his dream there seemed to approach him one of
a most pleasing form, who told him that he not only saw that he was in
distress, but that he well knew the cause of it, and that if he would
walk down on the beach to a certain place which he pointed out as in a
picture, he would find under some loose stones enough for his present
necessities. In the morning, accordingly, almost as soon as it was light
he hastened to the indicated spot and to his great surprise and delight
found a sum amounting to a trifle more than was absolutely necessary for
his journey. I would just, in passing, remark that he said that on
another occasion, his father who died many years before appeared to him
with an angry countenance, and assured him that he would suffer much
from something he had done in reference to his family, but as this was
evidently an unpleasant and even painful topic I did not wish him to
enlarge upon it. The other fact I shall mention, happened to my
grandfather who was also a minister. I am well aware that it is of such
a nature that the relation of it would in most companies excite a burst
of laughter or at least a contemptuous and sceptical smile, but I know I
am addressing one who has studied in a very different school of
philosophy. It was in the large town of B--m where my grandfather
resided for many years, that the event took place. He himself my
grandfather, my aunts, and my mother used often to tell it to their
friends when the conversation turned on the supernatural. I have
probably heard it a hundred times and I am not ashamed to say that on
the testimony of such a man as my grandfather I cannot but yield to it
my belief.

One morning when _breakfast had just commenced_, my grandfather went
from the table, at which my grandmother also was sitting, into the
passage, for what purpose I have now forgotten, and there he found (for
the front door had been standing open,) a strange looking man in black,
with a shuffling gait and a club foot. He declared that he had an
instantaneous conviction that this was a supernatural appearance, and
that a spirit of evil stood before him. The man in black exclaimed,
moving towards the breakfast room, "I am come to take breakfast with you
this morning." My grandfather convulsively seizing the handle of the
door, said, with a stern look, "you are too late sir," to which the
other instantly replied, "I am not too late for the remnant," and then
rushed into the street. My grandfather followed, and to his amazement
saw this creature at the top of the street, which was of great length,
and in a moment or two he vanished. My grandmother heard a loud talking,
and when my grandfather returned to the table in considerable agitation,
she naturally wished to know what had occurred, but as she was near her
confinement he of course concealed the matter from her. The mysterious
words of the stranger followed him continually, and he puzzled himself
in seeking to explain their meaning. In a few days my grandmother was
confined. The child was dead-born and her life for some time hung in
jeopardy. He now believed he had arrived at the solution of the
difficulty--the infant was the "remnant" referred to.

I am not the subject of remarkable dreams. I had one, however, lately,
and I give it you because it stands connected in my mind with the
knowledge of a singular psychical fact which I am confident will greatly
interest you, if you have not yet fallen upon it in the course of your
reading. About a fortnight ago I thought I saw in my sleep, a young man,
who is assistant to our principal surgeon, come into my room, looking
exceedingly unwell. He laid himself on the other bed in my chamber, and
I thought that he had come there to linger out his last illness, at
which I felt not the least surprise or objection. He seemed to be
perfectly resigned, and presently he began to converse with me, and
after we had talked for some time, whilst he was replying to something I
had said, I distinctly saw his spirit rise up out of his body. He gazed
at the corpse with the deepest interest and pleasure. One moment he
would stand by the head and survey the face, and the next move to the
feet, and then gaze at the entire body. He called me to come and stand
by his side and view this lifeless frame, which I did with as much
placidity as he seemed himself to possess, and without the slightest
idea of their being anything absurd in what I saw. I could not,
however, help saying "O, that I could leave my body and have such a view
of it as you have now of yours!" I remember no more. In the morning I
had occasion to call on a friend, who has a large library containing
many rare books. Not being in the humour for close reading (for I spend
many hours at a time there) I took up from a centre table a volume of a
lighter kind. It happened to be Mrs. Child's "Letters from New York."
Turning the leaves over carelessly, my eye lighted on a chapter headed
"The spirit surveying its own body!" She there says that she was told by
a pious lady, that when once in a swoon, she felt that she left the body
and was _standing by it_ during the whole time it lasted; that she
distinctly heard every word spoken by the doctor and her family, and saw
every movement of their countenances, and all that was done with her
body. I may observe that I have not heard that anything has occurred to
the young man I saw. If I have not already tired your patience you may
draw on my memory for something more. A line to that effect will oblige,

    Yours very truly,
    Mrs. Crowe,      R. I. O.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER IV.


_Edinburgh, Aug. 10th._

MADAM,

In consequence of a long absence abroad, I never had, till recently, an
opportunity of reading your agreeable work, "The Night side of Nature,"
which contains a mass of evidence in favour of your theories, to which I
take the liberty of adding a few cases from my own experience.

Many years ago I lived in a house in Edinburgh, which belonged to my
mother's relatives, and in which my maternal grandfather had died,
several years antecedent to my own birth. The room in which I slept was
that (but at the time unknown to me) in which my relative had expired.
There were two beds in the room--one a large four-poster and the other a
sort of couch. The latter was next the door, and both lay between it and
the window, which was barred and bolted, and opposite to them was the
fireplace, with rather a high mantlepiece. Being summer, the "board" was
on the chimney. It was about eleven o'clock at night; the rest of the
family had retired to rest. As there were only about two inches of
candle left, I placed the candlestick on the mantlepiece, intending to
allow it to burn out, and went to my bed, which was on the couch. I had
just lain down, and was looking towards the candle, when, to my extreme
horror, I perceived a tall old man in his night dress, standing by the
mantlepiece. His sight seemed impaired, for he put forth his hand _and
felt for something_, and then moved across the fireplace, in doing
which, _he obscured the light on passing it_. My gaze was riveted on
him. He then turned towards the large bed on my left, and stretching out
his hands attempted with a feeble effort to lay himself down, and in
doing so I heard him _sigh_ distinctly. He disappeared almost at the
same moment. He did not appear to have noticed me. I immediately sprang
out of bed and opening the door on my right hand, called out loudly, but
_never left the doorway_, as I was resolved that if the figure were that
of a living person there should be no means of egress. On the assembling
of the family in my room, a search was made; but there was nothing to be
seen, and there had been no possibility of a human being having been in
the room; the affair was put down to an _illusion_. Yet so strong an
impression did it leave on my mind, that a few years since (1851 or 52),
when in India, I published in "Saunder's Magazine," printed at the Delhi
Gazette press, an account of this apparition, in a narrative, which I
wrote called "Idone, or Incidents in the life of a dreamer," and which
with the exception of this introductory vision, was, in reality, a
series of actual dreams of which I had kept a record, and this I
endeavoured to weave into a vague story, with the view of illustrating
how a person might live _two distinct lives_!

Sometime after the above were published, I read with much interest,
"Swedenborg's Theory of the Spiritual World;" and lately when reading
your work, I was struck with some peculiar resemblances between my own
experience and the cases you cite.

But to return to the family and house in Edinburgh, of my grandfather.
Other members of the family have seen unaccountable figures in the same
house. An aunt of mine and a cousin, one night, met an old woman on the
stairs with a large bunch of keys, and were in the greatest alarm. On
another occasion, on going to open a room which had been locked up for
some time, in order to prepare it for the reception of my eldest uncle,
who had just returned that night from abroad, two members of the family
started back and locked the door again, for on entering they had both
seen the _mattrass &c. violently heaved up_. On returning with the
servants, nothing was visible of an unusual description. Again, two
relatives occupied the same room, and one night, as the fire was burning
low, after they had gone to bed (the door being locked) they were
alarmed by a sound like wings, over their beds, and by a _dusky form_
moving about the room. It walked up to the fireplace and seemed
restless. When it had disappeared, they both rose and _unlocked_ the
door, called for assistance, but, as usual, nothing of their visitor was
to be seen. A still more remarkable incident occurred in the same house.
As two of my aunts were sitting opposite the window, at night, they were
startled by the apparition of an absent brother-in-law looking in, and
with a pen in his hand. A few days afterwards the intelligence of his
death arrived. He had been _signing his will_ at the exact time they
had seen his apparation. My eldest uncle shortly after his return from
abroad went to Musselburgh to visit an old school-master, and as he
entered the yard he observed him limping into the school. He tried to
overtake him, and on reaching the door he met one of the tutors, who
informed him that the Dr. had been confined to his bed for some time
with a broken leg.

The same uncle, who was an officer in the army, dreamt that he had
obtained his captaincy by the retirement of an officer of the name of
Patterson (so far as I remember.) There was no such officer then in the
regiment, and he mentioned it as strange that he should have dreamt of a
_particular_ name. A few Gazettes afterwards my uncle obtained his
promotion by an officer of _this_ name being _brought in from the
half-pay to sell out in the same Gazette_.

I have myself heard the most remarkable and unaccountable noises in my
grandfather's house. The servants were often in the greatest terror. I
have heard, seemingly, the whole of the furniture, in a particular room,
thrown violently about, accompanied with the noise of something rolling
on the floor. At other times I have distinctly heard, as it were, a
boy's marble falling step by step down the stairs and striking against
my door, which was at the foot of them, and yet this was at night, and
there were no children in the house. This annoyance, with that of steps
heard round my bed, was so common as to cease to make any impression on
me.

I may mention that my grandfather was not happy in his family relations,
and died in an uneasy frame of mind, on Christmas eve, 1820. Since my
family sold his house, I have never heard that its new occupants were
disturbed.

I have at different periods of my life had _groups_, as it were, of very
remarkable allegorical dreams.

It is somewhat singular that involuntary efforts may be made during
sleep, which are I believe beyond the bounds of possibility during
waking moments. Indeed the curious phenomena which you have so ably
criticised, are without limit.

Though you do not approve of the concealment of names, I hope you will
excuse my asking you to do so in the present instance as many of the
parties concerned might be displeased.

    I have the honour to remain,
    Madam,
    Your obedient servant,

    Mrs. Catherine Crowe.      H. A.

"P.S. I know two remarkable instances of prophetic denunciation or the
power of will, under, of course, the control of Providence. In one
instance, the death of the party denounced, followed on the week
predicted, although at the time he was well. Moreover, the denunciation
was never mentioned to him.

"In the other instance, the accomplishment of the denunciation was
accomplished to the exact day, and under very remarkable circumstances.
I believe this power to be _involuntary_, and more of the nature of
inspiration."




SECOND PART.

LEGENDS OF THE EARTHBOUND.




THE ITALIAN'S STORY.


"How well your friend speaks English!" I remarked one day to an
acquaintance when I was abroad, alluding to a gentleman who had just
quitted the room. "What is his name?"

"Count Francesco Ferraldi."

"I suppose he has been in England?"

"Oh, yes; he was exiled and taught Italian there. His history is very
curious and would interest you, who like wonderful things."

"Can you tell it me."

"Not correctly, as I never heard it from himself. But I believe he has
no objection to tell it--with the exception of the political
transactions in which he was concerned, and which caused his being sent
out of the Austrian dominions; that part of it I believe he thinks it
prudent not to allude to. We'll ask him to dinner, if you'll meet him,
and perhaps we may persuade him to tell the story."

Accordingly, the meeting took place; we dined _en petit comite_,--and
the Count very good-naturedly yielded to our request; "but you must
excuse me," he said, "beginning a long way back for my story commences
three hundred years ago.

"Our family claims to be of great antiquity, but we were not very
wealthy till about the latter half of the 16th century, when Count
Jacopo Ferraldi made very considerable additions to the property; not
only by getting, but also by saving--he was in fact a miser. Before that
period the Ferraldis had been warriors, and we could boast of many
distinguished deeds of arms recorded in our annals; but Jacopo, although
by the death of his brother, he ultimately inherited the title and the
estates, had begun life as a younger son, and being dissatisfied with
his portion, had resolved to increase it by commerce.

"Florence then was a very different city to what it is now; trade
flourished, and its merchants had correspondence and large dealings with
all the chief cities of Europe. My ancestor invested his little fortune
so judiciously, or so fortunately, that he trebled it in his first
venture; and as people grow rapidly rich who gain and don't spend, he
soon had wealth to his heart's content--but I am wrong in using that
term as applied to him--he was never content with his gains but still
worked on to add to them, for he grew to love the money for itself, and
not for what it might purchase.

"At length, his two elder brothers died, and as they left no issue he
succeeded to their inheritance, and dwelt in the palace of his
ancestors; but instead of circulating his riches he hoarded them; and
being too miserly to entertain his friends and neighbours, he lived like
an anchorite in his splendid halls, exulting in his possessions but
never enjoying them. His great pleasure and chief occupation seems to
have been counting his money, which he kept either hidden in strange
out-of-the-way places, or in strong iron chests, clamped to the floors
and walls. But notwithstanding those precautions and that he guarded it
like a watch dog, to his great dismay he one day missed a sum of two
thousand pounds which he had concealed in an ingeniously contrived
receptacle under the floor of his dining-room, the existence of which
was only known to the man who made it; at least, so he believed. Small
as was this sum in proportion to what he possessed, the shock was
tremendous; he rushed out of his house like a madman with the intention
of dragging the criminal to justice, but when he arrived at the man's
shop he found him in bed and at the point of death. His friends and the
doctor swore that he had not quitted it for a fortnight; in short,
according to their shewing, he was taken ill on his return from working
at the Count's, the very day he finished the job.

"If this were true, he could not be the thief, as the money was not
deposited there till some days afterwards, and although the Count had
his doubts, it was not easy to disprove what everybody swore, more
especially as the man died on the following day, and was buried. Baffled
and furious, he next fell foul of his two servants--he kept but two, for
he only inhabited a small part of the palace. There was not the smallest
reason to suspect them, nor to suppose they knew anything of the hiding
place, for every precaution had been used to conceal it; moreover, he
had found it locked as he himself had locked it after depositing the
money, and he was quite sure the key had never been absent from his own
person. Nevertheless, he discharged them and took no others. The thief,
whoever he was, had evinced so much ingenuity, that he trembled to think
what such skill might compass with opportunity. So he resolved to afford
none; and henceforth to have his meals sent in from a neighbouring
eating-house, and to have a person once a week to sweep and clean his
rooms, whom he could keep an eye on while it was doing. As he had no
clue to the perpetrators of the robbery, and the man whom he had most
reason to suspect was dead, he took no further steps in the business,
but kept it quiet lest he should draw too much attention towards his
secret hoards; nevertheless, though externally calm, the loss preyed
upon his mind and caused him great anguish.

"Shortly after this occurrence, he received a letter from a sister of
his who had several years before married an Englishman, saying that her
husband was dead, and it being advisable that her dear and only son
should enter into commerce, that she was going to send him to Florence,
feeling assured that her brother would advise him for the best, and
enable him to employ the funds he brought with him advantageously.

"This was not pleasing intelligence; he did not want to promote any
body's interest but his own, and he felt that the young man would be a
spy on his actions, an intruder in his house, and no doubt an expectant
and greedy heir, counting the hours till he died; for this sister and
her family were his nearest of kin, and would inherit if he left no will
to the contrary. However, his arrival could not be prevented; letters
travelled slowly in those days, and ere his could reach England his
nephew would have quitted it, so he resolved to give him a cold
reception and send him back as soon as he could.

"In the mean time, the young man had started on his journey, full of
hope and confidence, and immediately on his arrival hastened to present
himself to this rich uncle who was to shew him the path he had himself
followed to fortune. It was not for his own sake alone he coveted
riches, but his mother and sister were but poorly provided for, and they
had collected the whole of their little fortune and risked it upon this
venture, hoping, with the aid of their relative, to be amply repaid for
the present sacrifice.

"A fine open countenanced lad was Arthur Allen, just twenty years of
age; such a face and figure had not beamed upon those old halls for many
a day. Well brought up and well instructed too; he spoke Italian as well
as English, his mother having accustomed him to it from infancy.

"Though he had heard his uncle was a miser, he had no conception of the
amount to which the mania had arisen; and his joyous anticipations were
somewhat damped when he found himself so coldly received, and when he
looked into those hard grey eyes and contracted features that had never
expanded with a genial smile; so fearing the old man might be
apprehensive that he had come as an applicant for assistance to set him
up in trade, he hastened to inform him of the true state of the case,
saying that they had got together two thousand pounds.

"'Of course, my mother,' he said, 'would not have entrusted my
inexperience with such a sum; but she desired me to place it in your
hands, and to act entirely under your direction.

"To use the miser's own expression--for we have learnt all these
particulars from a memoir left by himself--'When I heard these words the
devil entered into me, and I bade the youth bring the money and dine
with me on the following day.'

"I daresay you will think the devil had entered into him long before;
however, now he recognized his presence, but that did not deter him from
following his counsel.

"Pleased that he had so far thawed his uncle's frigidity, Arthur arrived
the next day with his money bags at the appointed hour, and was received
in an inner chamber; their contents were inspected and counted, and then
placed in one of the old man's iron chests. Soon afterwards the tinkle
of a bell announced that the waiter from the neighbouring traiteur's had
brought the dinner, and the host left the room to see that all was
ready. Presently he re-entered, and led his guest to the table. The
repast was not sumptuous, but there was a bottle of old Lacryma Christi
which he much recommended, and which the youth tasted with great
satisfaction. But strange! He had no sooner swallowed the first glass,
than his eyes began to stare--there was a gurgle in his throat--a
convulsion passed over his face--and his body stiffened.

"'I did not look up,' says the old man in his memoir, 'for I did not
like to see the face of the boy that had sat down so hearty to his
dinner, so I kept on eating mine--but I heard the gurgle, and I knew
what had happened; and presently lest the servant should come to fetch
the dinner things, I pushed the table aside and opened the receptacle
from which my two thousand pounds had been stolen--curses on the thief!
and I laid the body in it, and the wine therewith. I locked it and drove
in two strong nails. Then I put back the table--moved away the lad's
chair and plate, unlocked the door which was fast, and sat down to
finish my dinner. I could not help chuckling as I ate, to think how his
had been spoilt.

"'I closed up that apartment, as I thought there might be a smell that
would raise observation, and I selected one on the opposite side of the
gallery for my dining-room. All went well till the following day. I
counted my two thousand pounds again and again, and I kept gloating
over the recovery of it--for I felt as if it was my own money, and that
I had a right to seize it where I could. I wrote also to my sister,
saying, that her son had not arrived; but that when he did, I would do
my best to forward his views. My heart was light that day--they say
that's a bad sign.

"'Yes, all was so far well; but the next day we were two of us at
dinner! And yet I had invited no guest; and the next and the next, and
so on always! As I was about to sit down, he entered and took a chair
opposite me, an unbidden guest. I ceased dining at home, but it made no
difference; he came, dine where I would. This preyed upon me; I tried
not to mind, but I could not help it. Argument was vain. I lost my
appetite, and was reduced nearly to death's door. At last, driven to
desperation, I consulted Fra Guiseppe. He had been a fast fellow in his
time, and it was said had been too impatient for his father's
succession; howbeit, the old man died suddenly; Guiseppe spent the money
and then took to religion. I thought he was a proper person to consult,
so I told him my case. He recommended repentance and restitution. I
tried, but I could not repent, for I had got the money; but I thought,
perhaps, if I parted with it to another, I might be released; so I
looked about for an advantageous purchase, and hearing that Bartolomeo
Malfi was in difficulties, I offered him two thousand pounds, money
down, for his land--I knew it was worth three times the sum. We signed
the agreement, and then I went home and opened the door of the room
where it was; but lo! he sat there upon the chest where the money was
fast locked, and I could not get it. I peeped in two or three times, but
he was always there; so I was obliged to expend other moneys in this
purchase, which vexed me, albeit the bargain was a good one. Then I
consulted friend Guiseppe again, and he said nothing would do but
restitution--but that was hard, so I waited; and I said to myself, I'll
eat and care not whether he sit there or no. But woe be to him! he
chilled the marrow of my bones, and I could not away with him; so I said
one day, "What if I go to England with the money?" and he bowed his
head.'

"The old man accordingly took the moneybags from the chest and started
for England. His sister and her daughter were still living in the house
they had inhabited during the husband's lifetime; in short, it was their
own; and being attached to the place they hoped, if the young man
succeeded in his undertakings, to be able to keep it. It was a small
house with a garden full of flowers, which the ladies cultivated
themselves. The village church was close at hand, and the churchyard
adjoined the garden. The poor ladies had become very uneasy at not
hearing of Arthur's arrival; and when the old man presented himself and
declared he had never seen anything of him, great was their affliction
and dismay; for it was clear that either some misfortune had happened to
the boy, or he had appropriated the money and gone off in some other
direction. They scarcely admitted the possibility of the last
contingency, although it was the one their little world universally
adopted, in spite of his being a very well conducted and affectionate
youth; but people said it was too great a temptation for his years, and
blamed his mother for entrusting him with so much money. Whichever it
was, the blow fell very heavy on them in all ways, for Arthur was their
sole stay and support, and they loved him dearly.

"Since he had set out on this journey, the old man had been relieved
from the company of his terrible guest, and was beginning to recover
himself a little, but it occasioned him a severe pang when he remembered
that this immunity was to be purchased with the sacrifice of two
thousand pounds, and he set himself to think how he could jockey the
ghost. But while he was deliberating on this subject, an event happened
that alarmed him for the immediate safety of the money.

"He had found on the road, that the great weight of a certain chest he
brought with him, had excited observation whenever his luggage had to be
moved; on his arrival two labouring men had been called in to carry it
into the house, and he had overheard some remarks that induced him to
think they had drawn a right conclusion with regard to its contents.
Subsequently, he saw these two men hovering about the house in a
suspicious manner, and he was afraid to leave it or to go to sleep at
night, lest he should be robbed.

"So far we learn from Jocopo Ferraldi himself; but there the memoir
stops. Tradition says that he was found one morning murdered in his bed
and his chest rifled. All the family, that is the mother and daughter
and their one servant, were accused of the murder; and notwithstanding
their protestation of innocence were declared guilty and executed.

"The memoir I have quoted was found on his dressing table, and he
appears to have been writing it when he was surprised by the assassins;
for the last words were--'I think I've baulked them, and nobody will
understand the--' then comes a large blot and a mark, as if the pen had
fallen out of his hand. It seems wonderful that this man, so suspicious
and secretive, should thus have entrusted to paper what it was needful
he should conceal; but the case is not singular; it has been remarked in
similar instances, when some dark mystery is pressing on a human soul,
that there exists an irresistible desire to communicate it,
notwithstanding the peril of betrayal; and when no other confident can
be found, the miserable wretch has often had recourse to paper.

"The family of Arthur Allen being now extinct, a cousin of Jacopo's,
who was a penniless soldier, succeeded to the title and estate, and the
memoir, with a full account of what had happened, being forwarded to
Italy, enquiries were made about the missing two thousand pounds; but it
was not forthcoming; and it was at first supposed that the ladies had
had some accomplice who had carried it off. Subsequently, however, one
of the two men who had borne the money chest into the house, at the
period of the old man's arrival, was detected in endeavouring to dispose
of some Italian gold coin and a diamond ring, wh

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