pursued the phantom: never with this man's stride
of mine to come up with it, never with these
man's hands of mine to touch it, never more
to this man's heart of mine to hold it in
its purity. And here you see me working
out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my
doom of shaving in the glass a constant change
of customers, and of lying down and rising up
with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal
companion.

                   THE GHOST IN THE GARDEN ROOM

MY friend and solicitor rubbed his bald forehead — which is quite Shakespearian — with his
hand, after a manner he has when I consult him professionally, and took a very large pinch of snuff.
"My bedroom," said he, "has been haunted by the Ghost of a Judge."

"Of a Judge?" said all the company.

"Of a Judge. In his wig and robes as he sits upon the Bench, at Assize-time. As  I have
lingered in the great white chair at the side of my fire, when we have all retired for the night to
our respective rooms, I have seen and heard him. I never shall forget the description he gave
me, and I never have forgotten it since I first heard it."

"Then you have seen and heard him before, Mr. Undery?" said my sister.

"Often."

"Consequently, he is not peculiar to this house?"

"By no means. He returns to me in many intervals of quiet leisure, and his story
haunts me."

We one and all called for the story, that it might haunt us likewise.

"It fell within the range of his judicial experience," said my friend and solicitor, "and this
was the Judge's manner of summing it up."

Those words did not apply, of course, to the great pinch of snuff that followed them, but to
the words that followed the great pinch of snuff. They were these:

Not many years after the beginning of this
century, a worthy couple of the name of Huntroyd
occupied a small farm in the North Riding
of Yorkshire. They had married late in life,
although they were very young when they first
began to "keep company" with each other.
Nathan Huntroyd had been farm servant to Hester
Rose's father, and had made up to her at a time
when her parents thought she might do better;
and so, without much consultation of her feelings,
they had dismissed Nathan in somewhat
cavalier fashion. He had drifted far away from
his former connexions, when an uncle of his
died, leaving Nathan—by this time upwards of
forty years of age— enough money to stock a
small farm, and yet to have something over to
put in the bank against bad times. One of
the consequences of this bequest was that
Nathan was looking out for a wife and
housekeeper in a kind or discreet and leisurely way,
when, one day, he heard that his old love, Hester,
was—not married and flourishing, as he had
always supposed her to be—but a poor maid-of-
all-work, in the town of Ripon. For her father
had had a succession of misfortunes, which had
brought him in his old age to the workhouse;
her mother was dead; her only brother
struggling to bring up a large family; and Hester
herself, a hard-working, homely-looking (at
thirty-seven) servant. Nathan had a kind of
growling satisfaction (which only lasted for a
minute or two, however) in hearing of these
turns of Fortune's wheel. He did not make many
intelligible remarks to his informant, and to no
one else did he say a word. But, a few days afterwards,
he presented himself, dressed in his Sunday
best, at Mrs. Thompson's back door in Ripon.

Hester stood there in answer to the good
sound knock his good sound oak stick made;
she with the light full upon her, he in shadow.
For a moment there was silence. He was
scanning the face and figure of his old love, for
twenty years unseen. The comely beauty of
youth had faded away entirely; she was, as I
have said, homely-looking, plain-featured, but
with a clean skin, and pleasant, frank eyes.
Her figure was no longer round, but tidily
draped in a blue and white bedgown, tied round
her waist by her white apron-strings, and her
short red linsey petticoat showed her tidy feet
and ankles. Her former lover fell into no
ecstasies. He simply said to himself, "She'll
do;" and forthwith began upon his business.

"Hester, thou dost not mind me. I am
Nathan, as thy father turned off at a minute's
notice, for thinking of thee for a wife, twenty
year come Michaelmas next. I have not thought
much upon matrimony since. But Uncle Ben
has died, leaving me a small matter in the bank;
and I have taken Nab-end Farm, and put in a
bit of stock, and shall want a missus to see after
it. Wilt like to come? I'll not mislead thee.
It's dairy, and it might have been arable. But
arable takes more horses than it suited me to
buy, and I'd the offer of a tidy lot of kine.
That's all. If thou'lt have me, I'll come for
thee as soon as the hay is gotten in."

Hester only said, "Come in, and sit thee
down."

He came in, and sat down. For a time she
took no more notice of him than of his stick,
bustling about to get dinner ready for the family
whom she served. He meanwhile watched her
brisk, sharp movements, and repeated to himself,