believe least in them things that are always
least frightened at them."

This was a blow unintentionally dealt at me,
but of course I took no notice.

"Last night, however," proceeded Mr. Jones,
"the ghost was very much altered—quite
changed like."

"Stood twenty feet in his stockings instead
of ten," sneered Mr. Nicolls. " Growed, no
doubt."

"No; there you are out, sharp as you think
yourself," replied Jones. " If you must know
the truth, though you don't deserve to know it,
the ghost had a large hole like, right through the
middle of his chest. There is no mistake about
it, for I saw the moon shining clean through his
bosom, while all the rest of him was misty
like, as usual."

I rushed out of the room into the open air.
I had had an experience too strange for my
endurance. I, and I only, knew the cause of
the poor spectre's disfigurement. I believe,
indeed, that I am the only person recorded in
the pages of fact or fiction—the only person, I
say, who ever—jumped through a ghost.

NORTH GERMAN HARVEST-HOME.

TOWARDS the end of August, eighteen 'sixty-
two, I was at Daheran, a sea-bathing place on
a secluded part of the Baltic, and there made
the acquaintance of Herr Hillmann, a wealthy
"Ritterguttbesitzer"—literally Knight-estate-
owner—of the neighbourhood. Herr Hillmann,
being not only a wealthy but also a
well informed and pleasant man, who,
moreover, had a certain amount of English at his
command, I soon became very friendly with
him, and the result was, that he asked me to
spend a few days with him at Basdorf—the one
of his extensive farms which he inhabited—in
order to witness a harvest-home and peasant
wedding at Mecklenburg. Accordingly I gave
up the last day of the races, which formed the
special attraction of Daheran at that time, and
went by rail to Bützow.

Here I was met by a long waggon, the sides
of which were formed by a pair of ladders,
whence it derived the appellation of " Ladder-
waggon," and the seats of two well-stuffed
sacks, placed at a little distance, one behind
the other, in a cozy bedding of straw. The
first of these sacks was the seat of the driver,
I occupied the second, and the space behind
me received my luggage. This conveyance was
drawn by four splendid bay horses, which would
not have disgraced Hyde Park in the month of
June, had not the harness been made up of very
rusty leather and rope's ends. I climbed to my
sack, and we drove at a solemn pace out of the
station, through the town and past the red brick
prison, till we came to the " chaussée," or
macadamised high road, where the four bays, upon
a gentle admonition from Friedrich, went off
at the mildest trot ever performed by horses.
Thus we proceeded, till after about an hour
and a half we left the chaussée and entered a
country road, the recollection of which is still
enough to make my bones ache: for the soil here
being of the heaviest wheat-growing description,
and the road commissioners generally
contenting themselves with that part of their
duties which obliges them to go to a round of
country dinners (after which they are all more
or less in a state such as makes them forget
their sufferings on the road thither), I was most
forcibly impressed with every rut and flint that our
wheels encountered. An hour and a quarter of
this brought us to the manor-house of Basdorf,
Herr Hillmann's " estate," the approach to which
consisted of a long avenue of lime-trees, flanked
on either side by the outhouses—i.e. the stables,
cowhouses, barns, and other farm buildings—
and of a causeway, the like of which my English
mind could scarcely have accepted as a
possibility. The ruts between the boulders that
formed the pavement were such as to oblige
the horses to go at a procession pace, yea,
sometimes to come to a perfect stand-still. But
at last we did arrive at the door of a long
one-storied house, that stood in the shade of a row
of magnificent lime-trees. Hostess and host—
as perfectly well bred and educated a lady and
gentleman as one could wish to see, received
me with frank hospitality, and led me through
a spacious hall into a large whitewashed apartment
on the right, with homely but comfortable
furniture, and a rosewood grand piano; on
a side-table in this room, where all the meals
were taken (no less than six a day: breakfast
at eight, luncheon at eleven, dinner at half-past
one, coffee with cake at three, " vesperbrod,"
a kind of afternoon luncheon, generally
consisting of bread-and-butter and cold meats, to
which tea is added sometimes, at half-past five,
and supper—hot—at nine o'clock), a cold and
very appetising collation was laid out, of which
I gladly partook in company with my
entertainers. When our acquaintance had in this
way been cemented, we took a stroll in the
garden that flanked the house on either side,
and spread a considerable distance behind it—a
garden that was a wonderful conglomeration of
park, flower-garden, kitchen-garden, orchard,
wilderness, and stately avenues of grand old oaks
and beeches. Beguiling the walk with pleasant
chat, we had reached the edge of a thick
brushwood, when we suddenly heard a most
piteous whine. Herr Hillmann immediately
recognised the voice of his favourite pointer
dog, whistled to him, and received a feeble yelp
in answer. We hurried in the direction of the
sound, and soon found the dog, apparently
dying. Herr Hillmann examined the poor brute,
and discovered crowds of enormous horse-
leeches that were sucking the life out of him.
The poor old boy had evidently been in a
certain black pool hard by—probably in
pursuit of a water-hen—and there been fastened
on by these murderous creatures. It was a
pitiful sight, for nothing could be done to save
the poor animal, who died half an hour after.
This incident threw a slight gloom over the rest