The Ancient Romans and the Druids Are Partly Responsible for Some of the ModernMethods of Celebrating the Festival of the Spring Deities Which Are NowRepresented by Youthful Queens and Kings.
Customs do not become established without reason. If no meaning is seen in a popular superstition or an annual festival, the significance or the apparent lack of significance, is simply that the ritual, as so often happens, has long outlived the belief.
In many of our hereditary customs we bow down, unaware, before the gods of our pagan ancestors. Thus May-Day rites, which have come to us through Roman and Druidical channels, are remains of a very early worship.
The Druids, on May 1, lighted great fires in honor of Bel or Belen—the Apollo, or Orus, of other nations. In Celtic centers of Great Britain the day is still calledla Bealtine,Bealtine, orBeltine, which means "day of Belen's fire," since, in the Celtic language of Cornwall,tanmeans "fire," and the verbtinemeans to "light a fire."
In the Highlands of Scotland, as late as 1790, the Beltein, or rural sacrifice on May 1, was fully observed. The herdsmen of every village lighted a fire within a square outlined by cutting a trench in the turf. Over the fire was dressed a caudle of eggs, milk, oatmeal, and butter. Part was poured on the ground as a libation.
Then every one took a cake of oatmeal, upon which were nine knobs, each dedicated to some divinity. Facing the fire, they broke off the knobs, one at a time, throwing them over their shoulders and saying: "This I give to thee. Preserve thou my horses." "This to thee; preserve thou my sheep," and so on. The caudle was then eaten.
Traces of fire sacrifice are found in Ireland, particularly in the custom of lighting fires at short intervals and driving cattle between them, and the custom of fathers jumping over or running through fires with their children in their arms. Undoubtedly these singular forms of sport are modifications of what was once real sacrifice.
Our commonest May-Day games, however, probably come from the Floralia, or rather from the Maiuma, of the Romans, who, it is said, were but repeating the festal customs of ancient Egypt and India. The Maiuma were established under the Emperor Claudius, to take the place of the Floralia, from which they seem to have differed little, except, perhaps, that they were not made an occasion for so great license.
The May-festival, in its deepest meaning, is a recognition of the renewed fertility of the earth with the returning spring. It is one of the oldest of all festivals. The children who now go a Maying, or dance around the Maypole, or choose a May Queen, are unconsciously imitating the joyous ceremonies with which the ancients welcomed the new birth of Nature. Fertility was among the earliest of religious ideas.
"Going a Maying" is a very ancient custom in England. Bourne, in his "Antiquitates Vulgares," said:
On the calends, or first, of May, commonly called May Day, the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighboring wood, accompanied with music and blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn themselves with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this is done, they return with their booty homeward, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph with their flowery spoils.
On the calends, or first, of May, commonly called May Day, the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighboring wood, accompanied with music and blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn themselves with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this is done, they return with their booty homeward, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph with their flowery spoils.
In the "Morte d'Arthur" we find this passage:
Now it befell in the moneth of lusty May, that Queene Guenever called unto her the Knyghtes of the Round Table, and gave them warning that early in the morning she should ride on Maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.
Now it befell in the moneth of lusty May, that Queene Guenever called unto her the Knyghtes of the Round Table, and gave them warning that early in the morning she should ride on Maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.
Shakespeare, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," alludes to the custom:
No doubt they rise up early to observeThe rite of May.
The Maypole is still common in many countries. It used to be general throughout England, and the cutting and decorating of the pole was one of the many reasons for going a Maying. Often the pole was left standing until near the end of the year, and sometimes especially durable poles remained erect in their places for many seasons and were used in successive festivals.
The last Maypole erected in London was a hundred feet high and stood in the Strand. Taken down in 1717, it was removed to Wanstead Park, in Essex, where it was made part of the support for a large telescope which was set up by Sir Isaac Newton.
The May Queen traditionally represents the Roman goddess Flora.
The first day out: Steward—Did you ring, sir? Traveler—Yes, steward, I—I rang. Steward—Anything I can bring you, sir? Traveler—Y-yes, st-steward. Bub-bring me a continent, if you have one, or an island—anything, steward, so l-lul-long as it's solid. If you can't, sus-sink the ship.—Harper's Bazar.
Van Dyke—As the boat left the dock I waved my handkerchief, and then a most curious thing happened. Forney—What was it? Van Dyke—The ocean waved back.—Truth.
Uneasy Passenger (on an ocean steamship)—Doesn't the vessel tip frightfully? Dignified Steward—The wessel, mum, is trying to set hexample to the passengers.—Chicago Tribune.
Jinks—I can't understand how shipwrecked sailors ever starve to death. Filkins—Why not? Jinks—Because I just came over from Liverpool and I never felt any desire to eat.—Puck.
Lady (to sea captain)—How do you manage to find your way across the ocean? Captain—By the compass. The needle always points to north. Lady—But suppose you wish to go south?—London Tit-Bits.
Nervous Passenger—Why are you steaming along at such a fearful rate through this fog? Ocean Captain (reassuringly)—Fogs are dangerous, madam, and I'm always in a hurry to get out of them.—New York Weekly.
"This is your sixth trip across the ocean in winter, is it?" said the timid passenger. "Are you never oppressed by a fear that the ship will run into an iceberg and sink?" "Never, madam," replied the business-like passenger briskly; "I never invest a cent in ships."—Chicago Tribune.
Two ministers were crossing a lake in a storm. When matters became most critical some one cried out: "The two ministers must pray!" "Na, na," said the boatman; "the little ane can pray if he likes, but the big ane maun tak' an oar."—Century.
A judge, in crossing the Irish Channel one stormy night, knocked against a well-known witty lawyer who was suffering terribly from seasickness. "Can I do anything for you?" said the judge. "Yes," gasped the seasick lawyer; "I wish your lordship would overrule this motion!"—White Mountain Echo.
"My dear, look down below," said Mr. Grandiose, as he stood on deck with his wife and gazed at a tug hauling a long line of barges. "Such is life; the tug is like the man, working and toiling, while the barges, like women, are——" "I know," interrupted Mrs. G. acridly, "the tug does all the blowing, and the barges bear all the burden."—Charleston News.
The bishop thought the capful of wind was an Atlantic storm, and worried the captain by asking constantly if there was danger. The captain led his lordship to the hatch over the fo'cs'le. "You hear the crew swearing," he said. "Do you think those men would use such oaths if there was danger of their meeting death?" The sun set in an angry storm-torn sky, the wind rose higher yet, and the good steamer pitched and rolled and groaned and creaked. It was midnight, and a portly figure crept forward to the fo'cs'le hatch. "Thank heaven," murmured the bishop, "those men are swearing yet."—New York Mercury.
Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Throughthe Crucible of Small Beginnings and Won Out.
Compiled and edited forThe Scrap Book.
Englishman Spent Fortune After FortuneExperimenting With New Ideas,but Died a Millionaire.
Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, Lord Masham, whose air-brake is used on many British railroads and who invented the first successful wool-combing machine, started, in 1837, at Manningham, Yorkshire, England, in company with his elder brother, a small worsted-spinning establishment. Both brothers had worked at the trade since childhood, and both were capable men. For a time the business prospered. Then it began to drop off and the elder partner accused Samuel of wasting his time and energy in experimenting with toys when he should devote his efforts exclusively to building up the enterprise they had started. The discussion almost terminated in a rupture between the two, but a couple of the toys were patented and as machines in the worsted-spinning business they brought in a fair profit.
But another cause for dissension arose. As fast as money came in for early inventions it was spent in experimenting on other things. Several times Cunliffe-Lister spent what would then be looked upon as a fairly comfortable fortune in trying to perfect his ideas, and, despite his income, he continually hovered on the verge of bankruptcy.
At last, in 1865, he perfected the wool-comber, a machine that takes the raw material, thoroughly cleanses it, and straightens the fiber, leaving it ready for the carder to take in hand. Its enormous utility was instantly recognized, and the wool-working towns and cities of England and the United States were supplied with the new machines. During the subsequent years the inventor received every year, from this machine alone, an income that seldom fell below two hundred thousand pounds.
The first form of the wool-comber was far more perfect than the first form of most machines. Nevertheless, Cunliffe-Lister spent enormous sums of money in making improvements on it, and on one occasion, when several hundred of the machines were ready for shipment, he held them up in order that there might be incorporated in them certain improvements he had just made. His partners protested that the machines embodied all the features the purchasers had paid for. The inventor was obdurate, and every one of the machines had added to it the improvements, and all the alterations were made solely at his expense.
The immense fortune he had made from this and other inventions never for an instant turned him from his work and experiments. Like Edison, he had the ability to concentrate his mind for long periods, to work for long stretches with little rest, and to apportion to his assistants the experiments that he could not personally perform. He could have retired thirty-five years ago and been assured of a large income for the remainder of his life, but he preferred to stick to his work to the last.
"You've got your fortune now," said one of his friends; "why don't you stop working?"
"I didn't work simply to acquire wealth," he replied. "I value the money chiefly for what it will enable me to do."
His second great invention was theair-brake, introduced by him at about the same time Westinghouse introduced his air-brake in America. The English inventor, however, experienced little difficulty in having his device adopted, for he had already made a name for himself, and the English railroad officials were willing to give the benefit of thorough, practical tests to what he brought them. The tests proved the efficiency of the brake, and its general adoption added greatly to the inventor's already large income.
He worked incessantly, experimenting in all branches of science, and his improvements in mill machinery, in railroad devices and steel working are of immense value. For weeks at a time, the expense of his experiments averaged a thousand pounds a day. In spite of this, the enormous income he received from his patents more than kept pace with his expenses, and when he died, early last February, he was one of the richest men in the United Kingdom.
Founder of Modern Journalism WasCalled Everything That Had an UnpleasantName, but He Prospered.
James Gordon Bennett, who founded theNew York Herald, was well over thirty-five years of age when he left the office of the oldNew York Courier and Enquirer. He had learned what a newspaper should be, he believed, and he was going to put that knowledge into operation. He had toiled early and late all his life, and when he was ready to start for himself he had a nominal capital of five hundred dollars, and a big idea.
He was the only newspaper man in New York who thought that a newspaper didn't have to be dull to be good. In fact, he found that if he wished to be an editor at all it would have to be on his own paper. So on May 6, 1835, in a cellar on Wall Street, he issued the first number of theHerald.
Many things which we take for granted in the newspapers of to-day were originated by Bennett and his lively little cellar-born sheet. In the second month of its existence, theHeraldprinted the first Wall Street reports that had ever appeared in an American daily. Later, in the same year, Bennett introduced modern reportorial methods by his graphic "story" of the great fire that devastated down-town New York in December, 1835; and his introduction of a picture of the Stock Exchange on fire, and a map of the burned district, was another epoch-making innovation. It was he, too, who ordered for theHeralda telegraphic report of the first speech ever sent in full over the wires to a newspaper—that of Calhoun on the Mexican War.
There were no theories concerning the news in theHerald, no stately, long-winded, word-spinning explanations of what the news meant; just the news itself, given tersely and in as simple and bright language as possible. The readers were left to draw their own inferences and make their own comments.
Bennett was right in trusting to the readers' intelligence, for his following increased. But though the public came to him in goodly numbers, the battle was a desperate, up-hill one. Five years after he started, all the papers in the city banded together to crush him. The records of the fight are curious now, chiefly for the profusion of the epithets that were hurled at him. One paper, in one short broadside, managed to call him an "obscene rogue," "profligate adventurer," "venomous reptile," "pestilential scoundrel," "polluted wretch," "habitual liar," and "veteran blackguard."
Bennett weathered the storm, seldom bothering about hitting back, but all the time striving to make his paper brighter and more readable. His adversaries soon realized that they were losing ground, and they gradually relinquished the struggle.
Twelve years after he had started theHerald, Bennett got into a dispute with Horace Greeley concerning the relative circulation of theHeraldandTribune. The dispute was settled by an impartial committee, and this committee found that theHeraldhad a daily circulation of 16,711 to theTribune's11,455, while theWeekly Heraldhad a circulation of 11,455 to a circulation of 15,780 for theWeekly Tribune. On the whole, the result was a decided victory for Bennett.
Here is the announcement of his marriage, written by himself and published in theHeraldon June 1, 1840:
To the Readers of the "Herald"—Declaration of Love—Caught at Last—Going to Be Married—New Movement in Civilization.I am going to be married in a few days. The weather is so beautiful—times are getting so good—the prospects of political and moral reforms so auspicious, that I cannot resist the divine instincts of honest nature any longer; so I am going to be married to one of the most splendid women in intellect, in heart, in soul, in property, in person, in manner, that I have yet seen in the course of my interesting pilgrimage through human life.I cannot stop in my career. I must fulfil that awful destiny which the Almighty Father has written against my name, in the broad letters of life, against the wall of Heaven. I must give the world a pattern of happy wedded life, with all the charities that spring from a nuptial love.In a few days I shall be married according to the holy rites of the most holy Catholic Church, to one of the most remarkable, accomplished, and beautiful young women of the age. She possesses a fortune. I sought and found a fortune—a very large fortune.She has no Stonington shares, or Manhattan stock, but in purity and uprightness she is worth half a million of pure coin. Can any swindling bank show as much? In good sense and elegance, another half a million; in soul, mind, and beauty, millions on millions, equal to the whole specie of all the rotten banks in the whole world.Happily, the patronage of the public to theHeraldis nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum—almost equal to a President's salary. But property in the world's goods was never my object, Fame, public good, usefulness in my day and generation—the religious associates of female excellence—the progress of true industry—these have been my dreams by night and my desires by day.In the new and holy condition into which I am about to enter, and to enter with the same reverential feelings as I would Heaven itself. I anticipate some signal changes in my feelings, in my views, in my purposes, in my pursuits. What they may be I know not; time alone can tell. My ardent desire has been through life to reach the highest order of human excellence by the shortest possible cut. Associated night and day, in sickness and in health, in war and in peace, with a woman of this highest order of excellence, must produce some curious results in my heart and feelings, and these results the future will develop in due time in the columns of theHerald.Meantime I return my heartfelt thanks for the enthusiastic patronage of the public, both in Europe and in America. The holy estate of wedlock will only increase my desire to be still more useful. God Almighty bless you all.JAMES GORDON BENNETT.
To the Readers of the "Herald"—Declaration of Love—Caught at Last—Going to Be Married—New Movement in Civilization.
I am going to be married in a few days. The weather is so beautiful—times are getting so good—the prospects of political and moral reforms so auspicious, that I cannot resist the divine instincts of honest nature any longer; so I am going to be married to one of the most splendid women in intellect, in heart, in soul, in property, in person, in manner, that I have yet seen in the course of my interesting pilgrimage through human life.
I cannot stop in my career. I must fulfil that awful destiny which the Almighty Father has written against my name, in the broad letters of life, against the wall of Heaven. I must give the world a pattern of happy wedded life, with all the charities that spring from a nuptial love.
In a few days I shall be married according to the holy rites of the most holy Catholic Church, to one of the most remarkable, accomplished, and beautiful young women of the age. She possesses a fortune. I sought and found a fortune—a very large fortune.
She has no Stonington shares, or Manhattan stock, but in purity and uprightness she is worth half a million of pure coin. Can any swindling bank show as much? In good sense and elegance, another half a million; in soul, mind, and beauty, millions on millions, equal to the whole specie of all the rotten banks in the whole world.
Happily, the patronage of the public to theHeraldis nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum—almost equal to a President's salary. But property in the world's goods was never my object, Fame, public good, usefulness in my day and generation—the religious associates of female excellence—the progress of true industry—these have been my dreams by night and my desires by day.
In the new and holy condition into which I am about to enter, and to enter with the same reverential feelings as I would Heaven itself. I anticipate some signal changes in my feelings, in my views, in my purposes, in my pursuits. What they may be I know not; time alone can tell. My ardent desire has been through life to reach the highest order of human excellence by the shortest possible cut. Associated night and day, in sickness and in health, in war and in peace, with a woman of this highest order of excellence, must produce some curious results in my heart and feelings, and these results the future will develop in due time in the columns of theHerald.
Meantime I return my heartfelt thanks for the enthusiastic patronage of the public, both in Europe and in America. The holy estate of wedlock will only increase my desire to be still more useful. God Almighty bless you all.
JAMES GORDON BENNETT.
King of Italy's Prize for Language ScholarshipWon by Humble ToilerWho Amazes Europe.
Alfredo Trombetti, who won the King of Italy's Prize for Languages, has a remarkable history. In 1903 King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, carrying out his plan for encouraging education, offered a prize of ten thousandlire—two thousand dollars—for the best contribution to the study of languages. Hundreds of Italian scholars competed. But the work of the judges was facilitated by the fact that one man so far distanced the others that there could be absolute unanimity in making the award. The successful treatise was in five volumes, and was a remarkable study and comparison of ancient languages, into which the author had compressed a store of knowledge that astounded the learned judges.
The writer was Trombetti. Those who passed on his work had never before heard of him. They looked him up, and their astonishment at his erudition was heightened when they found he was a poor teacher in a little academy at Cuneo, a town with a population of thirty thousand. He, in turn, was astonished that the reward should come to him, for he was as modest as he was poor. His salary was less than two hundred and fifty dollars a year, and on this he supported a family of seven. The prize amounted to two thousand dollars—a sum greater than hecould earn in eight years of teaching. He was master of fifty languages and dialects.
They found he was a simple, enthusiastic man, without much knowledge of the world and of its ways. He had been living among books practically all his life, and they represented everything to him, and for them he had sacrificed practically everything. But underneath the naïveté there were the solidity and thoroughness of the scholar. Trombetti had cultivated his natural aptitude for languages by the most exhaustive studies and at a cost few men would care to meet. After the dull routine and hard work of the school year he employed his vacations in traveling about from one library to another in order to consult and study the books he could not afford to buy. On these trips black bread, wayside pot-herbs, and fruit given him from vineyards and orchards formed his fare.
He managed to buy some books, painfully saving the money cent by cent, and when other scholars discovered him he had already gathered together a fairly good library. In that library the chief place was occupied by a tattered old French grammar, a book he had bought for five cents when a boy, and from which he had learned his first foreign language.
"How did you manage to acquire such an amount of knowledge?" one of the judges asked him.
"I began when I was a barber," he said.
"A barber!"
"Yes. When a man sat in my chair I let him talk. I got from one a new word, from another a new variation in dialect. So even there I was learning all the time."
The faculty of learning languages, he said, was not easily acquired. It took him longer to gain a reading knowledge of French, despite the fact that French and Italian have an enormous number of words derived from the same common source, than it took him to learn Russian and Hebrew—the fifth and sixth languages he began to study—although both the latter are much more difficult than French.
"I had taught myself how to study," he said, "how to systematize, and make everything I had previously learned help me in everything I undertook. I know from my own case that any one can learn a language if he is determined and will give a little time each day to it."
So, by pursuing the method he had learned, Trombetti had placed himself, as far as the number of languages understood is concerned, with Cardinal Mezzofanti, who spoke fifty-eight.
The winning of the king's prize when Trombetti was thirty-seven years old, and after he had struggled amid the direst privations, changed the whole current of his life. He was appointed a professor at the University of Bologna. Linguists everywhere placed their collections at his service, for they recognized that the work he had already done would facilitate the researches and studies of all future inquirers. The scholars of the United States were especially prompt, and the Bureau of Ethnology, when he announced his intention of making a comparative study of Indian languages, sent him a large and valuable collection of works on the subject.
Famous Speculator Who Tries to LimitHis Investments to "Sure Things"Has Had Many Stumbles.
James R. Keene, famous as a leader of the Wall Street bulls—or occasionally of the bears—asserts that he never gambles in stocks, and that gambling is one of the worst of vices.
"I try not to touch anything that is not worth while," he said. "If a stock is good and is selling under price it is legitimate to take that stock and push it up to its real value."
Several times in attempting to do that Keene has been cleaned out and left as poor as he was when he started out in California in the fifties. He was a sickly, nervous, near-sighted boy of twelve when he arrived in the West. Three years of life in the open built him up, and he started in as a prospector onhis own account. It didn't pan out well, and he turned farmer for a while, left that work as a cowboy, and then put in a year as a newspaper reporter.
But the mines drew him back, and he managed to get ten thousand dollars out of the Comstock lode. With this he went to San Francisco, and when he saw how things were run on the exchange there he decided that he would enter the game. It took him three months to turn his ten thousand dollars into a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and it took his opponents two days to take that away from him and leave him not only without a cent, but also heavily in debt.
The period that followed was one of poverty for Keene, and for two years he fought through it, working at whatever he could find to do, but all the time intent on getting back to the exchange. Finally, his creditors allowed him to join the Mining Exchange, and his knowledge of mining properties soon put him at the head of the mining stockbrokers.
Keene won his success as a broker through his painstaking study of the property in which he invested either for himself or for others, and through the amazing courage he evinced in taking a chance on properties in which he believed.
"Keene's too blamed conscientious," said one of his fellow-brokers. "Why, he's taken a week to look over some Idaho property, and he could just as well have handled the investments even if there wasn't a sign of metal there. He wouldn't lose anything."
That was not Keene's way. He was not in the game to make a little and risk nothing. He was willing to risk everything in order to make a big killing, and usually the campaigns that looked like wild and reckless gambles were backed by good, solid knowledge, gained after examination of the value of the property involved.
Keene's clients liked such methods, and they came to him in such numbers that in a short time he forced his way to the leading position among the San Francisco brokers, and as an operator on his own account he easily distanced all the others both in daring and in winnings.
Thirty years ago he had a fortune of six million dollars, and he started for Europe, but stopped off in New York to sell railroad shares short, for what he had seen on his trip East convinced him that there would be a break. His first deal netted him two hundred thousand dollars, and he threw up all thoughts of a European trip.
There was a story current at the time that Keene had all his wealth turned into gold, and the gold was done up in neat little parcels. With this, so he was credited with saying, he intended to wipe Jay Gould off the financial map. This story, however, is not true. It was Keene's intention to take a little flier, gain a little spending money, and continue on his way to Europe for rest.
But Wall Street fascinated him. Everything there was done upon such a lavish scale that it just suited him. So instead of taking a vacation he plunged into the market, and his winnings at first were enormous. During the next two years he cleared nine million dollars. Then he went into a wheat corner, and before he got out again he was squeezed dry, and a million and a half in debt.
He fought the old San Francisco fight over again and he manifested the same old San Francisco courage.
They had pushed him down to such a point that he could no longer afford to live in New York, and he hired a little house in the suburbs. A cab was a luxury that was not to be thought of, and so every day, pleasant or stormy, Keene walked from the cars to his office. His lunch, and sometimes his dinner, consisted of fruit bought from a basket.
Around him were scores of men reduced to a similar pass, and most of them lost courage and drifted down and out. Courage was the only thing Keene did not lose. He hung on tight, and his former experience enabled him slowly to recover the position he had lost. Little by little, he got on to his feet, and when once he had wiped out his debts he began the fight again on a big scale, and has managed to make himself one of the richest men in the country.
BySIR WALTER SCOTT.
This tale by Sir Walter Scott is justly reckoned among the most effective ghost stories ever written. Its art lies in its perfect simplicity, which for the moment convinces the reader of its truth and therefore makes the horror of it intensely real. Scott had himself a strain of superstition in his nature, derived in part from his Scottish ancestry and heightened by the strange stories and gruesome legends which had been told him by the peasants around whose fires he had sat at night while still a boy.His belief in the supernatural appears and reappears in many of his most famous novels, as in the episode of theGray Specterin "Waverley," the second-sight ofMeg Merriliesin "Guy Mannering," and the weird figure ofNorna of the Fitful Headin "The Pirate." But no better example can be found of Scott's command of the mysterious as an element in fiction than this short story of "The Tapestried Chamber."
This tale by Sir Walter Scott is justly reckoned among the most effective ghost stories ever written. Its art lies in its perfect simplicity, which for the moment convinces the reader of its truth and therefore makes the horror of it intensely real. Scott had himself a strain of superstition in his nature, derived in part from his Scottish ancestry and heightened by the strange stories and gruesome legends which had been told him by the peasants around whose fires he had sat at night while still a boy.His belief in the supernatural appears and reappears in many of his most famous novels, as in the episode of theGray Specterin "Waverley," the second-sight ofMeg Merriliesin "Guy Mannering," and the weird figure ofNorna of the Fitful Headin "The Pirate." But no better example can be found of Scott's command of the mysterious as an element in fiction than this short story of "The Tapestried Chamber."
This tale by Sir Walter Scott is justly reckoned among the most effective ghost stories ever written. Its art lies in its perfect simplicity, which for the moment convinces the reader of its truth and therefore makes the horror of it intensely real. Scott had himself a strain of superstition in his nature, derived in part from his Scottish ancestry and heightened by the strange stories and gruesome legends which had been told him by the peasants around whose fires he had sat at night while still a boy.His belief in the supernatural appears and reappears in many of his most famous novels, as in the episode of theGray Specterin "Waverley," the second-sight ofMeg Merriliesin "Guy Mannering," and the weird figure ofNorna of the Fitful Headin "The Pirate." But no better example can be found of Scott's command of the mysterious as an element in fiction than this short story of "The Tapestried Chamber."
This tale by Sir Walter Scott is justly reckoned among the most effective ghost stories ever written. Its art lies in its perfect simplicity, which for the moment convinces the reader of its truth and therefore makes the horror of it intensely real. Scott had himself a strain of superstition in his nature, derived in part from his Scottish ancestry and heightened by the strange stories and gruesome legends which had been told him by the peasants around whose fires he had sat at night while still a boy.His belief in the supernatural appears and reappears in many of his most famous novels, as in the episode of theGray Specterin "Waverley," the second-sight ofMeg Merriliesin "Guy Mannering," and the weird figure ofNorna of the Fitful Headin "The Pirate." But no better example can be found of Scott's command of the mysterious as an element in fiction than this short story of "The Tapestried Chamber."
This tale by Sir Walter Scott is justly reckoned among the most effective ghost stories ever written. Its art lies in its perfect simplicity, which for the moment convinces the reader of its truth and therefore makes the horror of it intensely real. Scott had himself a strain of superstition in his nature, derived in part from his Scottish ancestry and heightened by the strange stories and gruesome legends which had been told him by the peasants around whose fires he had sat at night while still a boy.
His belief in the supernatural appears and reappears in many of his most famous novels, as in the episode of theGray Specterin "Waverley," the second-sight ofMeg Merriliesin "Guy Mannering," and the weird figure ofNorna of the Fitful Headin "The Pirate." But no better example can be found of Scott's command of the mysterious as an element in fiction than this short story of "The Tapestried Chamber."
The following narrative is given from the pen, so far as memory permits, in the same character in which it was presented to the author's ear; nor has he claim to further praise, or to be more deeply censured, than in proportion to the good or bad judgment which he has employed in selecting his materials, as he has studiously avoided any attempt at ornament which might interfere with the simplicity of the tale.
At the same time it must be admitted that the particular class of stories which turns on the marvelous, possesses a stronger influence when told than when committed to print. The volume taken up at noonday, though rehearsing the same incidents, conveys a much more feeble impression than is achieved by the voice of the speaker on a circle of fireside auditors, who hang upon the narrative as the narrator details the minute incidents which serve to give it authenticity, and lowers his voice with an affectation of mystery while he approaches the fearful and wonderful part.
It was with such advantages that the present writer heard the following events related, more than twenty years since, by the celebrated Miss Seward, of Litchfield, who, to her numerous accomplishments, added, in a remarkable degree, the power of narrative in private conversation.
In its present form the tale must necessarily lose all the interest which was attached to it by the flexible voice and intelligent features of the gifted narrator. Yet still, read aloud, to an undoubting audience by the doubtful light of the closing evening, or, in silence, by a decaying taper, and amidst the solitude of a half-lighted apartment, it may redeem its character as a good ghost-story.
Miss Seward always affirmed that she had derived her information from an authentic source, although she suppressed the names of the two persons chiefly concerned. I will not avail myself of any particulars I may have since received concerning the localities of the detail, but suffer them to rest under the same general description in which they were first related to me; and, for the same reason, I will not add to or diminish the narrative by any circumstance, whether more or less material, but simply rehearse, as I heard it, a story of supernatural terror.
About the end of the American War, when the officers of Lord Cromwell's army, which surrendered at Yorktown, and others who had been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated controversy, were returning to their own country, to relate their adventures, and repose themselves after their fatigues, there was among them a general officer, to whom Miss S. gave the name of Browne, but merely, as I understood, to save the inconvenience of introducing a nameless agent in the narrative. He was an officer of merit, as well as a gentleman of high consideration for family and attainments.
Some business had carried General Browne upon a tour through the western counties, when, in the conclusion of a morning stage, he found himself in the vicinity of a small country town, which presented a scene of uncommon beauty, and of a character peculiarly English.
The little town, with its stately old church, whose tower bore testimony to the devotion of ages long past, lay amid pastures and corn-fields of small extent, but bounded and divided with hedgerow timber of great age and size. There were few marks of modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated neither the solitude of decay nor the bustle of novelty; the houses were old, but in good repair; and the beautiful little river murmured freely on its way to the left of the town, neither restrained by a dam nor bordered by a towing-path.
Upon a gentle eminence, nearly a mile to the southward of the town, were seen, among many venerable oaks and tangled thickets, the turrets of a castle, as old as the wars of York and Lancaster, but which seemed to have received important alterations during the age of Elizabeth and her successor.
It had not been a place of great size; but whatever accommodation it formerly afforded was, it must be supposed, still to be obtained within its walls; at least, such was the inference which General Browne drew from observing the smoke arise merrily from several of the ancient wreathed and carved chimney-stalks.
The wall of the park ran alongside of the highway for two or three hundred yards; and through the different points by which the eye found glimpses into the woodland scenery, it seemed to be well stocked. Other points of view opened in succession; now a full one, of the front of the old castle, and now a side glimpse at its particular towers; the former rich in all the bizarrerie of the Elizabethan school, while the simple and solid strength of other parts of the building seemed to show that they had been raised more for defense than ostentation.
Delighted with the partial glimpses which he obtained of the castle through the woods and glades by which this ancient feudal fortress was surrounded, our military traveler was determined to inquire whether it might not deserve a nearer view, and whether it contained family pictures or other objects of curiosity worthy of a stranger's visit; when, leaving the vicinity of the park, he rolled through a clean and well-paved street, and stopped at the door of a well-frequented inn.
Before ordering horses to proceed on his journey, General Browne made inquiries concerning the proprietor of the château which had so attracted his admiration; and was equally surprised and pleased at hearing in reply a nobleman named, whom we shall call Lord Woodville. How fortunate!
Much of Browne's early recollections, both at school and at college, had been connected with young Woodville, whom, by a few questions, he now ascertained to be the same with the owner of this fair domain. He had been raised to the peerage by the decease of his father a few months before, and, as the general learned from the landlord, the term of mourning being ended, was now taking possession of his paternal estate, in the jovial season of merry autumn, accompanied by a select party of friends, to enjoy the sports of a country famous for game.
This was delightful news to our traveler. Frank Woodville had been Richard Browne's fag at Eton and his chosen intimate at Christ Church; their pleasures and their tasks had been the same; and the honest soldier's heart warmed to find his early friend in possession of so delightful a residence, andof an estate, as the landlord assured him with a nod and a wink, fully adequate to maintain and add to his dignity.
Nothing was more natural than that the traveler should suspend a journey, which there was nothing to render hurried, to pay a visit to an old friend under such agreeable circumstances.
The fresh horses, therefore, had only the brief task of conveying the general's traveling carriage to Woodville Castle. A porter admitted them at a modern Gothic lodge, built in that style to correspond with the castle itself, and at the same time rang a bell to give warning of the approach of visitors.
Apparently the sound of the bell had suspended the separation of the company, bent on the various amusements of the morning; for, on entering the court of the château, several young men were lounging about in their sporting dresses, looking at, and criticizing, the dogs which the keepers held in readiness to attend their pastime.
As General Browne alighted, the young lord came to the gate of the hall, and for an instant gazed, as at a stranger, upon the countenance of his friend, on which war, with its fatigues and its wounds, had made a great alteration. But the uncertainty lasted no longer than till the visitor had spoken, and the hearty greeting which followed was such as can only be exchanged between those who have passed together the merry days of careless boyhood or early youth.
"If I could have formed a wish, my dear Browne," said Lord Woodville, "it would have been to have you here, of all men, upon this occasion, which my friends are good enough to hold as a sort of holiday. Do not think you have been unwatched during the years you have been absent from us. I have traced you through your dangers, your triumphs, your misfortunes, and was delighted to see that, whether in victory or defeat, the name of my old friend was always distinguished with applause."
The general made a suitable reply, and congratulated his friend on his new dignities, and the possession of a place and domain so beautiful.
"Nay, you have seen nothing of it as yet," said Lord Woodville, "and I trust you do not mean to leave us till you are better acquainted with it. It is true, I confess, that my present party is pretty large, and the old house, like other places of the kind, does not possess so much accommodation as the extent of the outward walls appears to promise. But we can give you a comfortable old-fashioned room, and I venture to suppose that your campaigns have taught you to be glad of worse quarters."
The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"I presume," he said, "the worst apartment in your château is considerably superior to the old tobacco-cask, in which I was fain to take up my night's lodging when I was in the Bush, as the Virginians call it, with the light corps. There I lay, like Diogenes himself, so delighted with my covering from the elements that I made a vain attempt to have it rolled on to my next quarters; but my commander for the time would give way to no such luxurious provision, and I took farewell of my beloved cask with tears in my eyes."
"Well, then, since you do not fear your quarters," said Lord Woodville, "you will stay with me a week at least. Of guns, dogs, fishing-rods, flies, and means of sport by sea and land, we have enough and to spare; you cannot pitch on an amusement but we will find the means of pursuing it. But if you prefer the gun and pointers, I will go with you myself, and see whether you have mended your shooting since you have been among the Indians of the back settlements."
The general gladly accepted his friendly host's proposal in all its points. After a morning of manly exercise, the company met at dinner, where it was the delight of Lord Woodville to conduce to the display of the high properties of his recovered friend, so as to recommend him to his guests, most of whom were persons of distinction.
He led General Browne to speak of the scenes he had witnessed; and as every word marked alike the brave officer and the sensible man, who retained possession of his cool judgment under the most imminent dangers, the company looked upon the soldier with general respect, as on one who had proved himself possessed of an uncommon portionof personal courage; that attribute, of all others, of which everybody desires to be thought possessed.
The day at Woodville Castle ended as usual in such mansions. The hospitality stopped within the limits of good order; music, in which the young lord was a proficient, succeeded to the circulation of the bottle; cards and billiards, for those who preferred such amusements, were in readiness: but the exercise of the morning required early hours, and not long after eleven o'clock the guests began to retire to their several apartments.
The young lord himself conducted his friend, General Browne, to the chamber destined for him, which answered the description he had given of it, being comfortable, but old-fashioned. The bed was of the massive form used in the end of the seventeenth century, and the curtains of faded silk, heavily trimmed with tarnished gold. But then the sheets, pillows, and blankets looked delightful to the campaigner, when he thought of his "mansion, the cask."
There was an air of gloom in the tapestry hangings, which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the walls of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal breeze found its way through the ancient lattice-window, which pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet, too, with its mirror, turbaned, after the manner of the beginning of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-colored silk, and its hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements which had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and in so far a melancholy aspect.
But nothing could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles; or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming, bickering fagots in the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth through the snug apartment; which, notwithstanding the general antiquity of its appearance, was not wanting in the least convenience that modern habits rendered either necessary or desirable.
"This is an old-fashioned sleeping apartment, general," said the young lord; "but I hope you find nothing that makes you envy your old tobacco-cask."
"I am not particular respecting my lodgings," replied the general; "yet were I to make any choice, I would prefer this chamber by many degrees to the gayer and more modern rooms of your family mansion. Believe me, that when I unite its modern air of comfort with its venerable antiquity, and recollect that it is your lordship's property, I shall feel in better quarters here than if I were in the best hotel London could afford."
"I trust—I have no doubt—that you will find yourself as comfortable as I wish you, my dear general," said the young nobleman; and once more bidding his guest good night, he shook him by the hand and withdrew.
The general once more looked about him, and internally congratulating himself on his return to peaceful life, the comforts of which were endeared by the recollection of the hardships and dangers he had lately sustained, undressed himself, and prepared for a luxurious night's rest.
Here, contrary to the custom of this species of tale, we leave the general in possession of his apartment until the next morning.
The company assembled for breakfast at an early hour, but without the appearance of General Browne, who seemed the guest that Lord Woodville was desirous of honoring above all whom his hospitality had assembled around him.
He more than once expressed surprise at the general's absence, and at length sent a servant to make inquiry after him. The man brought back information that General Browne had been walking abroad since an early hour of the morning, in defiance of the weather, which was misty and ungenial.
"The custom of a soldier," said the young nobleman to his friends; "many of them acquire habitual vigilance, and cannot sleep after the early hour at which their duty usually commands them to be alert."
Yet the explanation which Lord Woodville thus offered to the company seemed hardly satisfactory to his own mind, and it was in a fit of silence and abstraction that he awaited the return of the general.
It took place near an hour after thebreakfast bell had rung. He looked fatigued and feverish. His hair, the powdering and arrangement of which was at this time one of the most important occupations of a man's whole day, and marked his fashion as much as, in the present time, the tying of a cravat, or the want of one, was disheveled, uncurled, void of powder, and dank with dew. His clothes were huddled on with a careless negligence, remarkable in a military man, whose real or supposed duties are usually held to include some attention to the toilet, and his looks were haggard and ghastly.
"So you have stolen a march upon us this morning, my dear general," said Lord Woodville; "or you have not found your bed so much to your mind as I had hoped and you seemed to expect. How did you rest last night?"
"Oh, excellently well! remarkably well! never better in my life," said General Browne rapidly, and yet with an air of embarrassment which was obvious to his friend. He then hastily swallowed a cup of tea, and, neglecting or refusing whatever else was offered, seemed to fall into a fit of abstraction.
"You will take the gun to-day, General?" said his friend and host, but had to repeat the question twice ere he received the abrupt answer: "No, my lord; I am sorry I cannot have the honor of spending another day with your lordship; my post horses are ordered, and will be here directly."
All who were present showed surprise, and Lord Woodville immediately replied: "Post horses, my good friend! What can you possibly want with them, when you promised to stay with me quietly for at least a week?"
"I believe," said the general, obviously much embarrassed, "that I might, in the pleasure of my first meeting with your lordship, have said something about stopping here a few days; but I have since found it altogether impossible."
"That is very extraordinary," answered the young nobleman. "You seemed quite disengaged yesterday, and you cannot have had a summons to-day; for our post has not come up from the town, and therefore you cannot have received any letters."
General Browne, without giving any further explanation, muttered something of indispensable business, and insisted on the absolute necessity of his departure in a manner which silenced all opposition on the part of his host, who saw that his resolution was taken, and forbore all further importunity.
"At least, however," he said, "permit me, my dear Browne, since go you will or must, to show you the view from the terrace, which the mist, that is now rising, will soon display."
He threw open a sash-window, and stepped down upon the terrace as he spoke. The general followed him mechanically, but seemed little to attend to what his host was saying, as, looking across an extended and rich prospect, he pointed out the different objects worthy of observation.
Thus they moved on till Lord Woodville had attained his purpose of drawing his guest entirely apart from the rest of the company, when, turning around upon him with an air of great solemnity, he addressed him thus:
"Richard Browne, my old and very dear friend, we are now alone. Let me conjure you to answer me upon the word of a friend, and the honor of a soldier. How did you in reality rest during last night?"
"Most wretchedly indeed, my lord," answered the general, in the same tone of solemnity; "so miserably, that I would not run the risk of such a second night, not only for all the lands belonging to this castle, but for all the country which I see from this elevated point of view."
"This is most extraordinary," said the young lord, as if speaking to himself; "then there must be something in the reports concerning that apartment." Again turning to the general, he said: "For God's sake, my dear friend, be candid with me, and let me know the disagreeable particulars which have befallen you under a roof where, with consent of the owner, you should have met nothing save comfort."
The general seemed distressed by this appeal, and paused a moment before he replied.
"My dear lord," he at length said, "what happened to me last night is of anature so peculiar and so unpleasant, that I could hardly bring myself to detail it even to your lordship, were it not that, independent of my wish to gratify any request of yours, I think that sincerity on my part may lead to some explanation about a circumstance equally painful and mysterious. To others, the communication I am about to make might place me in the light of a weak-minded, superstitious fool, who suffered his own imagination to delude and bewilder him; but you have known me in childhood and youth, and will not suspect me of having adopted in manhood the feelings and frailties from which my early years were free."
Here he paused, and his friend replied:
"Do not doubt my perfect confidence in the truth of your communication, however strange it may be," replied Lord Woodville, "I know your firmness of disposition too well to suspect you could be made the object of imposition, and am aware that your honor and your friendship will equally deter you from exaggerating whatever you may have witnessed."
"Well, then," said the general, "I will proceed with my story as well as I can, relying upon your candor; and yet distinctly feeling that I would rather face a battery than recall to my mind the odious recollections of last night."
He paused a second time, and then, perceiving that Lord Woodville remained silent and in an attitude of attention, he commenced, though not without obvious reluctance, the history of his night adventures in the Tapestried Chamber.
"I undressed and went to bed, so soon as your lordship left me yesterday evening; but the wood in the chimney, which nearly fronted my bed, blazed brightly and cheerfully, and, aided by a hundred exciting recollections of my childhood and youth, which had been recalled by the unexpected pleasure of meeting your lordship, prevented me from falling immediately asleep.
"I ought, however, to say that these reflections were all of a pleasant and agreeable kind, grounded on a sense of having for a time exchanged the labor, fatigues, and dangers of my profession for the enjoyments of a peaceful life, and the reunion of those friendly and affectionate ties which I had torn asunder at the rude summons of war.
"While such pleasing reflections were stealing over my mind, and gradually lulling me to slumber, I was suddenly aroused by a sound like that of the rustling of a silken gown, and the tapping of a pair of high-heeled shoes, as if a woman were walking in the apartment.
"Ere I could draw the curtain to see what the matter was, the figure of a little woman passed between the bed and the fire. The back of this form was turned to me, and I could observe, from the shoulders and neck, it was that of an old woman, whose dress was an old-fashioned gown, which, I think, ladies call a sacque; that is, a sort of robe completely loose in the body, but gathered into broad plaits upon the neck and shoulders which fall down to the ground and terminate in a species of train.
"I thought the intrusion singular enough, but never harbored for a moment the idea that what I saw was anything more than the mortal form of some old woman about the establishment, who had a fancy to dress like her grandmother, and who, having perhaps (as your lordship mentioned that you were rather straitened for room) been dislodged from her chamber for my accommodation, had forgotten the circumstance and returned by twelve to her old haunt.
"Under this persuasion I moved myself in bed and coughed a little, to make the intruder sensible of my being in possession of the premises. She turned slowly around, but, gracious heaven! my lord, what a countenance did she display to me!
"There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being.
"Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived. The body of some atrocious criminal seemed to have been given up from the grave, and the soul restored from the penal fire, in order to form, for a space, a union with the ancient accomplice of its guilt.
"I started up in bed and sat upright, supporting myself on my palms, as I gazed on this horrible specter.
"The hag made, as it seemed, a single and swift stride to the bed where I lay, and squatted herself down upon it in precisely the same attitude which I had assumed in the extremity of horror, advancing her diabolical countenance within half a yard of mine, with a grin which seemed to intimate the malice and the derision of an incarnate fiend."
Here General Browne stopped and wiped from his brow the cold perspiration with which the recollection of this horrible vision had covered it.
"My lord," he said, "I am no coward. I have been in all the mortal dangers incidental to my profession, and I may truly boast that no man ever knew Richard Browne dishonor the sword he wears; but in these horrible circumstances, under the eyes, and, as it seemed, almost in the grasp of an incarnation of an evil spirit, all firmness forsook me, all manhood melted from me like wax in the furnace, and I felt my hair individually bristle. The current of my life-blood ceased to flow, and I sank back in a swoon, as very a victim to panic terror as ever was a village girl, or a child of ten years old. How long I lay in this condition I cannot pretend to guess.
"But I was roused by the castle clock striking one, so loud that it seemed as if it were in the very room. It was some time before I dared open my eyes, lest they should again encounter the horrible spectacle. When, however, I summoned courage to look up, she was no longer visible.
"My first idea was to pull my bell, wake the servants, and remove to a garret or a hayloft, to be insured against a second visitation. Nay, I will confess the truth, that my resolution was altered, not by the shame of exposing myself, but by the fear that, as the bell-cord hung by the chimney, I might, in making my way to it, be again crossed by the fiendish hag, who, I figured to myself, might be still lurking about some corner of the apartment.
"I will not pretend to describe what hot and cold fever-fits tormented me for the rest of the night, through broken sleep, weary vigils, and that dubious state which forms the neutral ground between them. A hundred terrible objects appeared to haunt me; but there was the great difference between the vision which I have described, and those which followed, that I knew the last to be deceptions of my own fancy.
"Day at last appeared, and I rose from my bed, ill in health and humiliated in mind. I was ashamed of myself as a man and a soldier, and still more so at feeling my own extreme desire to escape from the haunted apartment, which, however, conquered all other considerations; so that, huddling on my clothes with the most careless haste, I made my escape from your lordship's mansion to seek in the open air some relief to my nervous system, shaken as it was by this horrible encounter with a visitant, for such I must believe her, from the other world.
"Your lordship has now heard the cause of my discomfiture, and of my sudden desire to leave your hospitable castle. In other places I trust we may often meet; but God protect me from ever spending a second night under that roof!"
Strange as the general's tale was, he spoke with such a deep air of conviction that it cut short all the usual commentaries which are made on such stories. Lord Woodville never once asked him if he was sure he did not dream of the apparition, or suggested any of the possibilities by which it is fashionable to explain supernatural appearances—as wild vagaries of the fancy or deceptions of the optic nerves.
On the contrary he seemed deeply impressed with the truth and reality of what he had heard; and, after a considerable pause, regretted, with much appearance of sincerity, that his early friend should in his house have suffered so severely.
"I am the more sorry for your pain, my dear Browne," he continued, "that it is the unhappy, though most unexpected, result of an experiment of my own. You must know that, for my father and grandfather's time at least, the apartment which was assigned to you last night had been shut on account of reports that it was disturbed by supernatural sights and noises.
"When I came, a few weeks since, into possession of the estate, I thought the accommodation which the castle afforded for my friends was not extensive enough to permit the inhabitants of the invisible world to retain possession of a comfortable sleeping apartment.
"I therefore caused the Tapestried Chamber, as we call it, to be opened; and, without destroying its air of antiquity, I had such new articles of furniture placed in it as became the modern times. Yet as the opinion that the room was haunted very strongly prevailed among the domestics, and was also known in the neighborhood and to many of my friends, I feared some prejudice might be entertained by the first occupant of the Tapestried Chamber, which might tend to revive the evil report which it had labored under, and so disappoint my purpose of rendering it a useful part of the house.
"I must confess, my dear Browne, that your arrival yesterday, agreeable to me for a thousand reasons besides, seemed the most favorable opportunity of removing the unpleasant rumors which attached to the room, since your courage was indubitable, and your mind free of any preoccupation on the subject. I could not, therefore, have chosen a more fitting subject for my experiment."
"Upon my life," said General Browne, somewhat hastily, "I am infinitely obliged to your lordship—very particularly indebted indeed. I am likely to remember for some time the consequences of the experiment, as your lordship is pleased to call it."
"Nay, now you are unjust, my dear friend," said Lord Woodville. "You have only to reflect for a single moment in order to be convinced that I could not augur the possibility of the pain to which you have been so unhappily exposed.
"I was yesterday morning a complete skeptic on the subject of supernatural appearances. Nay, I am sure that had I told you what was said about that room, those very reports would have induced you, by your own choice, to select it for your accommodation. It was my misfortune, perhaps my error, but really cannot be termed my fault, that you have been afflicted so strangely."
"Strangely indeed!" said the general, resuming his good temper; "and I acknowledge that I have no right to be offended with your lordship for treating me like what I used to think myself—a man of some firmness and courage. But I see my post horses are arrived, and I must not detain your lordship from your amusement."
"Nay, my old friend," said Lord Woodville; "since you cannot stay with us another day—which, indeed, I can no longer urge—give me at least half an hour more. You used to love pictures, and I have a gallery of portraits, some of them by Vandyke, representing ancestry to whom this property and castle formerly belonged. I think that several of them will strike you as possessing merit."
General Browne accepted the invitation, though somewhat unwillingly. It was evident he was not to breathe freely or at ease till he left Woodville Castle far behind him. He could not refuse his friend's invitation, however; and the less so, that he was a little ashamed of the peevishness which he had displayed toward his well-meaning entertainer.
The general, therefore, followed Lord Woodville through several rooms, into a long gallery hung with pictures, which the latter pointed out to his guest, telling the names, and giving some account of the personages whose portraits presented themselves in progression.
General Browne was but little interested in the details which these accounts conveyed to him. They were, indeed, of the kind which are usually found in an old family gallery. Here was a cavalier who had ruined the estate in the royal cause; there, a fine lady who had reinstated it by contracting a match with a wealthy Roundhead. There hung a gallant who had been in danger for corresponding with the exiled Court at Saint Germain's; here, one who had taken arms for William at the Revolution; and there, a third that had thrown his weight alternately into the scale of Whig and Tory.
While Lord Woodville was cramming these words into his guest's ear, "against the stomach of his sense," they gained the middle of the gallery, when he beheld General Browne suddenly start andassume an attitude of the utmost surprise, not unmixed with fear, as his eyes were caught and suddenly riveted by a portrait of an old lady in a sacque, the fashionable dress at the end of the seventeenth century.
"There she is!" he exclaimed; "there she is, in form and features, though inferior in demoniac expression to the hag that visited me last night!"
"If that be the case," said the young nobleman, "there can remain no longer any doubt of the horrible reality of your apparition. That is the picture of a wretched ancestress of mine, of whose crimes a black and fearful catalogue is recorded in a family history in my charter-chest. The recital of them would be too horrible; it is enough to say that in yon fatal apartment incest and unnatural murder were committed. I will restore it to the solitude to which the better judgment of those who preceded me had consigned it; and never shall any one, so long as I can prevent it, be exposed to a repetition of the supernatural horrors which could shake such courage as yours."
Thus the friends, who had met with such glee, parted in a very different mood; Lord Woodville to command the Tapestried Chamber to be unmantled and the door built up, and General Browne to seek in some less beautiful country, and with some less dignified friend, forgetfulness of the painful night which he had passed in Woodville Castle.