many such upon the tree! On, by low-lying
misty grounds, through fens and fogs, up long
hills, winding dark as caverns between thick
plantations, almost shutting out the sparkling
stars; so, out on broad heights, until
we stop at last, with sudden silence, at an
avenue. The gate-bell has a deep, half-awful
sound in the frosty air; the gate swings open
on its hinges; and, as we drive up to a great
house, the glancing lights grow larger in the
windows, and the opposing rows of trees
seem to fall solemnly back on either side, to
give us place. At intervals, all day, a
frightened hare has shot across this whitened
turf; or the distant clatter of a herd of deer
trampling the hard frost, has, for the minute,
crushed the silence too. Their watchful eyes
beneath the fern may be shining now, if we
could see them, like the icy dewdrops on the
leaves; but they are still, and all is still.
And so, the lights growing larger, and the
trees falling back before us, and closing up
again behind us, as if to forbid retreat, we
come to the house.

There is probably a smell of roasted
chestnuts and other good comfortable things
all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories
—Ghost Stories, or more shame for us—round
the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred,
except to draw a little nearer to it. But, no
matter for that. We came to the house, and it is
an old house, full of great chimneys where wood
is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and
grim Portraits (some of them with grim
Legends, too) lower distrustfully from the
oaken panels of the walls. We are a middle-
aged nobleman, and we make a generous
supper with our host and hostess and their
guests—it being Christmas-time, and the old
house full of company—and then we go to
bed. Our room is a very old room. It is
hung with tapestry. We don't like the portrait
of a cavalier in green, over the fireplace.
There are great black beams in the ceiling,
and there is a great black bedstead,
supported at the foot by two great black
figures, who seem to have come off a couple
of tombs in the old Baronial Church in
the Park, for our particular accommodation.
But, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and
we don't mind. Well! we dismiss our
servant, lock the door, and sit before the fire
in our dressing-gown, musing about a great
many things. At length we go to bed. Well!
we can't sleep. We toss and tumble, and
can't sleep. The embers on the hearth burn
fitfully and make the room look ghostly. We
can't help peeping out over the counterpane,
at the two black figures and the cavalier—
that wicked-looking cavalier—in green. In
the flickering light, they seem to advance and
retire: which, though we are not by any
means a superstitious nobleman, is not agreeable.
Well! we get nervous—more and
more nervous. We say "This is very foolish,
but we can't stand this; we'll pretend to be
ill, and knock up somebody." Well! we are
just going to do it, when the locked door
opens, and there comes in a young woman,
deadly pale, and with long fair hair, who
glides to the fire, and sits down in the chair
we have left there, wringing her hands. Then,
we notice that her clothes are wet. Our
tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth, and
we can't speak; but, we observe her accurately.
Her clothes are wet; her long hair is dabbled
with moist mud; she is dressed in the fashion
of two hundred years ago; and she has at her
girdle a bunch of rusty keys. Well! there she
sits, and we can't even faint, we are in such a
state about it. Presently she gets up, and
tries all the locks in the room with the rusty
keys, which won't fit one of them; then, she
fixes her eyes on the Portrait of the Cavalier
in green, and says, in a low, terrible voice,
"The stags know it! " After that, she wrings
her hands again, passes the bedside, and goes
out at the door. We hurry on our dressing-
gown, seize our pistols (we always travel with
pistols), and are following, when we find the
door locked. We turn the key, look out into
the dark gallery; no one there. We wander
away, and try to find our servant. Can't be
done. We pace the gallery till daybreak;
then return to our deserted room, fall asleep,
and are awakened by our servant (nothing
ever haunts him) and the shining sun. Well!
we make a wretched breakfast, and all the
company say we look queer. After breakfast,
we go over the house with our host,
and then we take him to the Portrait of
the Cavalier in green, and then it all comes
out. He was false to a young housekeeper
once attached to that family, and famous
for her beauty, who drowned herself in a
pond, and whose body was discovered, after a
long time, because the stags refused to drink
of the water. Since which, it has been whispered
that she traverses the house at midnight
(but goes especially to that room where the
Cavalier in green was wont to sleep), trying
the old locks with her rusty keys. Well!
we tell our host of what we have seen, and a
shade comes over his features, and he begs it
may be hushed up; and so it is. But, it's all
true; and we said so, before we died (we are
dead now) to many responsible people.

There is no end to the old houses, with
resounding galleries, and dismal state-bed-
chambers, and haunted wings shut up for
many years, through which we may ramble,
with an agreeable creeping up our back, and
encounter any number of Ghosts, but, (it is
worthy of remark perhaps) reducible to a
very few general types and classes; for, Ghosts
have little originality, and " walk " in a
beaten track. Thus, it comes to pass, that a
certain room in a certain old hall, where a
certain bad Lord, Baronet, Knight, or Gentleman,
shot himself, has certain planks in the
floor from which the blood will not be taken
out. You may scrape and scrape, as the
present owner has done, or plane and plane,
as his father did, or scrub and scrub, as his