The woman's story was prolix. Its substance
was this: Her husband, habitually an early riser,
had left his bed that morning still earlier than
usual, to give directions about some cattle that
were to be sent for sale to a neighbouring fair.
An hour afterwards he had been found by a shepherd
near the mausoleum apparently lifeless. On
being removed to his own house, he had
recovered speech, and bidding all except his wife
leave the room, he then told her that on walking
across the park towards the cattle-sheds he
had seen, what appeared to him at first, a
pale light by the iron door of the mausoleum.
On approaching nearer, this light changed into
the distinct and visible form of his master, Sir
Philip Derval, who was then abroad—supposed to
be in the East —where he had resided for many
years. The impression on the steward's mind was
so strong, that he called out, "Oh! Sir Philip!"
when, looking still more intently, he perceived
that the face was that of a corpse. As he
continued to gaze, the apparition seemed gradually
to recede, as if vanishing into the sepulchre
itself. He knew no more; he became
unconscious. It was the excess of the poor
woman's alarm, on hearing this strange tale,
that had made her resolve to send for me instead
of the parish apothecary. She fancied so astounding
a cause for her husband's seizure could only be
properly dealt with by some medical man reputed
to have more than ordinary learning. And the
steward himself objected to the apothecary in
the immediate neighbourhood, as more likely
to annoy him by gossip than a physician from a
comparative distance.

I took care not to lose the confidence of the
good wife by parading too quickly my disbelief
in the phantom her husband declared that he
had seen; but as the story itself seemed at once
to decide the nature of the fit to be epileptic, I
began to tell her of similar delusions which, in
my experience, had occurred to those subjected
to epilepsy, and finally soothed her into the conviction
that the apparition was clearly reducible
to natural causes. Afterwards, I led her on
to talk about Sir Philip Derval, less from any
curiosity I felt about the absent proprietor than
from a desire to re-familiarise her own mind
to his image as a living man. The steward
had been in the service of Sir Philip's father, and
had known Sir Philip himself from a child. He
was warmly attached to his master, whom the
old woman described as a man of rare benevolence
and great eccentricity, which last she imputed to
his studious habits. He had succeeded to the title
and estates as a minor. For the first few years
after attaining his majority he had mixed much
in the world. When at Derval Court his house
had been filled with gay companions, and was the
scene of lavish hospitality. But the estate was not
in proportion to the grandeur of the mansion, still
less to the expenditure of the owner. He had
become greatly embarrassed, and some love
disappointment (so it was rumoured) occurring
simultaneously with his pecuniary difficulties, he had
suddenly changed his way of lite, shut himself up
from his old friends, lived in seclusion, taking
to books and scientific pursuits, and, as the old
woman said, vaguely but expressively, "to odd
ways." He had gradually, by an economy that,
towards himself, was penurious, but which
did not preclude much judicious generosity to
others, cleared off his debts, and, once more
rich, he had suddenly quitted the country, and
taken to a life of travel. He was now about
forty-eight years old, and had been eighteen years
abroad. He wrote frequently to his steward,
giving him minute and thoughtful instructions in
regard to the employment, comforts, and homes
of the peasantry, but peremptorily ordering him
to spend no money on the grounds and
mansion, stating, as a reason why the latter might be
allowed to fall into decay, his intention to pull it
down whenever he returned to England.

I stayed some time longer than my engagements
well warranted at my patient's house, not
leaving till the sufferer, after a quiet sleep, had
removed from his bed to his arm-chair, taken
food, and seemed perfectly recovered from his
attack.

Riding homeward, I mused on the difference
that education makes, even pathologically,
between man and man. Here was a brawny inhabitant
of rural fields, leading the healthiest of
lives, not conscious of the faculty we call imagination,
stricken down almost to death's door by his
fright at an optical illusion, explicable, if examined,
by the same simple causes which had
impressed me the night before with a moment's
belief in a sound and a spectre—me, who, thanks
to sublime education, went so quietly to sleep a
few minutes after, convinced that no phantom,
the ghostliest that ear ever heard or eye ever saw,
can be anything else but a nervous phenomenon.

THE BOUNDLESS BED-CHAMBER.

EÖTHEN has told us of the pleasurable sensations
experienced by the traveller who becomes
familiar with Mother Earth, and seeks repose
without fear on her bosom, calmly enjoying the
glories of his "boundless bed-chamber." I am
a traveller who have spent some nights in that
bed-chamber with sensations far from pleasurable.

There are as yet no guide-books to the Rocky
Mountains. Mounted on a stout Indian pony
or light-limbed Texian mule, of matchless
powers of endurance, with a leathern canteen of
water and the lightest of camp-kettles slung to
his saddle, the wanderer may traverse the rolling
prairies, explore the rugged mountain ranges,
and test his own capabilities of supporting the
pains of thirst, upon the salt and barren table-lands
which are to be met with "beyond white
settlements." He is left to study for himself, as
rare occasion serves, the lawlessness of human
nature in the half Mexican towns on the Upper
Rio Grande, or, without Murray's help to the
best hotel, must share with the solitary trapper
by the San Pedro his supper of roast beaver-tail.