 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Silver Mirror by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Read by Alexita Lander. Davis, California. January 3. This affair of white and water spoons accounts proved to be a gigantic task. There are twenty thick ledgers to be examined and checked. Who would be a junior partner? However, it is the first bigger business which has been left entirely in my hands. I must justify it. But it has to be finished so that the lawyers may have the result in time for the trial. Johnson said this morning that I should have to get the last figure out before the twentieth of the month. Good Lord! Well, have at it, and if human brain and nerve can stand the strain, I will out at the other side. It means obvious work from ten to five, and then a second sitting from about eight to one in the morning. There's drama in an accountant's life. When I find myself in the still early hours while all the world sleeps, hunting through column after column for those missing figures which will turn a respected alderman into a felon, I understand that it is not such a prosaic profession after all. On Monday I came on the first trace of defalcation. No heavy game hunter ever got a finer thrill when first he caught sight of the trail of his quarry. But I look at the twenty ledgers and think of the jungle through which I have to follow him before I get my kill. Hard work, but rare sport too in a way. I saw the fat fellow once at a city dinner, his red face glowing above a white napkin. He looked at the little pale man at the end of the table. He would have been pale too if he could have seen the task that would be mine. January 6. What perfect nonsense it is for doctors to prescribe rest when rest is out of the question. Asses! They might as well shout to a man who has a pack of wolves at his heels that what he wants is absolute quiet. My figures must be out by a certain date, unless they are so I shall lose the chance of my lifetime. So how on earth am I to rest? I'll take a week or so after the trial. Perhaps I was myself a fool to go to the doctor at all. But I got nervous and highly strung when I sit alone at my work at night. It's not a pain, only a sort of fullness of the head with an occasional mist over the eyes. I thought perhaps some bromide or chloral or something of the kind might do me good. But stop work! It's absurd to ask such a thing. It's like a long-distance race. You feel queer at first and your heart thumps and your lungs part, but if you have only the pluck to keep on you get your sick and win. I'll stick to my work and wait for my second win. If it never comes all the same I'll stick to my work. Two ledges are done, and I'm well on into the third. The rascals covered his tracks well, but I picked them up for all that. January 9. I had not meant to go to the doctor again, and yet I have had to. Straightening my nerves, risking a complete breakdown, even endangering my sanity. That's a nice sentence to have fired off at one. Well, I'll stand the strain and I'll take the risk, but so long as I can sit in my chair and move a pen I'll follow the old sinner's slot. By the way, I may as well sit down here the queer experience which drove me this second time to the doctor. I'll keep an exact record of my symptoms and sensations, because they are interesting in themselves. A curious psychophysiological study says the doctor, and also because I am perfectly certain that when I am through with them they will all seem blurred and unreal, like some queer dream between sleeping and waking. So now, while they are fresh, I will just make a note of them, if only as a change of thought after the endless figures. There's an old silver-framed mirror in my room. It was given me by a friend who had a taste of antiquities, and he, as I happened to know, picked it up at a sale and had no notion where it came from. It's a large thing, three feet across and two feet high, and it leans at the back of the side table on my left as I ride. The frame is flat, about three inches across, and very old, far too old for hallmarks or other methods of determining its age. The glass part projects with a beveled edge, and has the magnificent reflecting power, which is only, as it seems to me, to be found in very old mirrors. There's a feeling of perspective when you look into such as no modern glass can ever give. The mirror is so situated that as I sit at the table I can usually see nothing in it but the reflection of the red window curtains. But a queer thing happened last night. I have been working for some hours very much against the grain with continual bouts of that mistiness of which I have complained. Again and again I had to stop and clear my eyes. While on one of these occasions I chanced to look at the mirror. It had the oddest appearance. The red curtains which should have been reflected in it were no longer there, but the glass seemed to be clouded and steamy, not on the surface, which glided like steel, but deep down in the very grain of it. This opacity, when I stared hard at it, appeared to slowly rotate this way and that until it was a thick white cloud swirling in heavy wreaths. So real and solid was it, and so reasonable was I, that I remember turning with the idea that the curtains were on fire. But everything was deadly still in the room. No sound saved the ticking of the clock, no movement saved the slow gyration of that strangely woolly cloud deep in the heart of the old mirror. Then as I looked, the mist, or smoke, or cloud, or whatever one may call it, seemed to coalesce and solidify at two points quite close together, and I was aware, with a thrill of interest rather than a fear, that these were two eyes looking out into the room. A vague outline of a head I could see, a woman's by the hair, but this was very shadowy. Only the eyes were quite distinct, such eyes. Dark, luminous, filled with some passionate emotion, fury or horror, I could not say which. Never have I seen eyes which were so full of intense, vivid life. They were not fixed on me, but stared out into the room. Then as I sat erect, passed my hand over my brow and made a strong conscious effort to pull myself together, the dim head faded into the general opacity. The mirror slowly cleared, and there were the red curtains once again. A skeptic would say, no doubt, that I had dropped asleep over my figures and that my experience was a dream. As a matter of fact, I was never more vividly awake in my life. I was able to argue about it even as I looked at it and to tell myself that it was a subjective impression, a chimera of the nerves, begotten by warrior and insomnia. But why this particular shape? And who is the woman, and what is the dreadful emotion which I read in those wonderful brown eyes? They come between me and my work. For the first time I have done less than the daily tally, which I had marked out. Perhaps this is why I have had no abnormal sensations tonight. Tomorrow I must wake up, come what may. January 11th. All well and good progress with my work. I wind the net, coil after coil, round that bulky body. But the last smile may remain with him if my own nerves break over it. The mirror would seem to be a sort of barometer which marks my brain pressure. Each night I have observed that it had clouded before I reached the end of my task. Dr. Sinclair, who is, it seems, a bit of a psychologist, was so interested in my account that he came round this evening to have a look at the mirror. I had observed that something was scribbled and crabbed old characters upon the metalwork at the back. He examined this with the lens, but could make nothing on it. Sank ex pal was his final reading of it. But that did not bring us any further. He advised me to put it away in another room. But after all, whatever I may see in it is, by his own account, only a symptom. It is in the cause that the danger lies. The twenty ledges, not the silver mirror, should be packed away if I could only do it. I am at the eighth now, so I progress. January 13th. Perhaps it would have been wiser, after all, if I had packed away the mirror. I had an extraordinary experience with it last night, and yet I find it so interesting, so fascinating, that even now I will keep it in its place. What on earth is the meaning of it all? I suppose it was about one in the morning, and I was closing my books, preparatory to staggering off to bed in front of me. The stage of mistiness and development must have passed unobserved, and there she was in all her beauty and passion and distress, as clear-cut as if she were really in the flesh before me. The figure was small, but very distinct, so much so that every feature, and even every detail of dress, is stamped in my memory. She is seated on the extreme left of the mirror, a sort of shadowy figure crouches down beside her. I could dimly discern that it is a man, and then behind them is a cloud as which move. It is not merely a picture upon which I look. It is a scene in life, an actual episode. She crouches and quivers. The man beside her cowers down. The vague figures make abrupt movements and gestures. All my fears are swallowed up in my interest. It was manning to see so much, and not to see more. But I can at least ascribe the woman to the smallest point. She is very beautiful and quite young, not more than five and twenty. I should judge. Her hair is of a very rich brown, just not shade, finding into gold at the edges. A little flat-pointed cap comes to an angle in front and is made of lace edged with pearls. The forehead is high, too high perhaps for perfect beauty, but one would not have it otherwise, as it gives a touch of power and strength to what would otherwise be a softly feminine face. The brows are more delicately curved over heavy eyelids, and then come those wonderful eyes, so large, so dark, so full of over-mastering emotion, of rage, of horror, with a pride of self-control, which holds her from sheer frenzy. The cheeks are pale, the lips white with agony, the chin and throat more exquisitely rounded. The figure sits and leans forward in the chair, straining and rigid, cataleptic with horror. The dress is black velvet, a jewel gleams like a flame in the breast, and a golden crucifix smolders in the shadow of a fold. This is the lady whose image still lives in the old silver mirror. What dire deed could it be which has left its impress there, so that now the image, if the spirit of a man be but attuned to it, he may be conscious of its presence. One other detail. Down on the left side of the skirt of the black dress was what I thought at first was a shapeless bunch of white ribbon. Then, as I looked more intently, or as the vision defined itself more clearly, I perceived what it was. It was the hand of a man, clenched and knotted in agony, which held on with a convulsive grasp to the whole fold of the dress. The rest of the crouching figure was a mere vague outline, but that strenuous image shone clear on the dark background with the sinister suggestion of tragedy in its frantic clutch. The man is frightened, horribly frightened, that I can clearly discern. But what has terrified him so? Why does he grip the woman's dress? The answer lies amongst those moving figures in the background. They have brought danger both to him and to her. The interest of the thing fascinated me. I thought no more of its relation to my own nerves, but I stared and stared as if in a theatre. But I could get no further. There were tumultuous movements in which all the figures were vaguely concerned. Then the mirror was clear once more. The doctor says I must stop work for a day, and I can afford to do so, for I have made good progress lately. It is quite evident that the visions depend entirely upon my nervous state, for I sat in front of the mirror for an hour tonight, with no result whatever. My soothing day has chased them away. I wonder whether I shall ever penetrate what they all mean. I examine the mirror this evening under a good light, with the vision, sunk ex-pal. I was able to discern some signs or herodic marks, very finely visible upon the silver. They must be very ancient, as they are almost obliterated. So far as I could make out there were three spearheads, two above and one below. I will show them to the doctor when he calls tomorrow. January 14th I feel perfectly well again, and I intend that nothing else shall stop me until my task is finished. The doctor was showing the marks on the mirror and agreed that they were immoral bearings. He was deeply interested in all that I have told him, and cross-questioned me closely on the details. It amuses me to notice how he is torn and too by conflicting desires. The one that his patient should lose his symptoms, the other that the medium, for so he regards me, should solve this mystery in the past. He advised, continued to rest, but did not oppose me too violently when I declared that such a thing was out of the question until the ten remaining ledgers have been checked. January 17th For three nights I have had no experiences. My day of rest is borne fruit. Only a quarter of my task is left, but I must make a forced march for the lawyers are clamoring for their material. I will give them enough and to spare. I have been fast on a hundred accounts. When they realize what a slippery, cunning rascal he is, I should gain some credit for the case. False trading accounts, false balance sheets, dividends drawn from capital, losses written down as profits, suppression of working expensive, manipulation of petty cash, it's a fine record. January 18th The critics, nervous twitches, mischievous, fullness to the temples, all the premonitions of trouble, and the trouble came sure enough. Yet my real sorrow is not so much that the vision should come as that it should cease before all is revealed. But I saw more tonight. The crouching man was as visible as the lady whose gown he clutched. He is a little swarthy fellow, with a black pointed beard. He has a loose gown of Damasque, trimmed with fur. The prevailing tints of his dress are red. He cowers and shivers and glares back over his shoulder. There is a small knife in his other hand, but he is far too trivenless and cowed to use it. Dimly now I begin to see the figures in the background. Fierce faces, bearded and dark, shapes themselves out of the mist. There is one terrible creature, a skeleton of a man, with hollow cheeks and eyes sunk in his head. He also has a knife in his hand. On the right of the woman stands a tall man, very young, with flaxen hair, his face sullen and dour. The beautiful woman looks up at him in appeal. So does the man on the ground. This youth seems to be the arbiter of their fate. The crouching man draws closer and hides himself in the woman's skirts. The tall youth bends and tries to drag her away from him. So much I saw last night before the mirror cleared. Shall I never know what it leads to and whence it comes? It is not a mere imagination of that I am very sure. Somewhere, sometime, this scene has been acted, and this old mirror has reflected it. But when? Where? January 20th. My work draws to a close, and it is time. I feel a tenseness within my brain, a sense of intolerable strain, which warns me that something must give. I have worked myself to the limit, but tonight should be the last night. With a supreme effort, I should finish the final ledger and complete the case before I arise from my chair. I will do it. I will. February 7th. I did. My God, what an experience. I hardly know if I am strong enough yet to set it down. Let me explain in the first instance that I am writing this in Dr. Sinclair's Private Hospital some three weeks after the last entry in my diary. On the night of January 20th, my nervous system finally gave way. I remember nothing afterwards until I found myself three days ago in this home of rest. And I can rest with a good conscience. My work was done before I went under. My figures are in the solicitor's hands. The hunt is over. And now I must describe that last night. I had sworn to finish my work, and so intently did I stick to it, though my head was bursting that I would never look up until the last column had been added. And yet it was fine self-restraint for all the time I knew that one of the things were happening in the mirror. Every nerve in my body told me so. If I looked up, there was an end of my work, so I did not look up till all was finished. Then, when I'd lost with throbbing temples, I threw down my pen and raised my eyes. What a sight was there. The mirror in its silver frame was like a stage, brilliantly lit, in which a drama was in progress. There was no mist now. The oppression of my own nerves had wrought this amazing clarity. They were cut as in life. To think that I, a tired accountant, the most prosaic of mankind, were the account books of a swindling bankrupt before me, should be chosen of all the human race to look upon such a scene. It was the same scene and the same figures, but the drama had advanced the stage. The tall young man was holding the woman in his arms. She strained away from him and looked up at him with loathing in her face. They had torn the crouching man away from his hold upon the skirt of her dress. A dozen of them were round him. They hacked at him with knives. All seemed to strike him together. Their arms rose and fell. The blood did not flow from him. It squirted. His red dress was dabbled in it. He threw himself this way and that, purple upon crimson, like an overripe plum. Still they hacked and still the jets shot from him. It was horrible, horrible. They dragged him kick into the floor. The woman looked over her shoulder at him and her mouth gaped. I heard nothing, but I knew that she was screaming. And then, whether it was this nerve-wracking vision that finished, all the overwork of the past weeks came in one rushing weight upon me. The room danced around me. The floor seemed to sink away beneath my feet and I remembered no more. In the early morning my land lately found me, stretched senseless before the silver mirror. But I knew nothing myself until three days ago. I awoke in the deep peace of the doctor's nursing home. February 9. Only today have I told Dr. Sinclair my fall experience. He had not allowed me to speak of such matters before. He lives with an absorbed interest. You don't identify this with any well-known scene in history. He asked, with suspicion in his eyes. I assured him that I knew nothing of history. Have you no idea whence that mirror came and to whom it once belonged? He continued, Have you, I asked, for he meant spoke with meaning. It's incredible, said he, and yet how else can one explain it? The scenes which you described before suggested it, but now it has gone beyond all range of coincidence. I will bring you some notes in the evening. Later. He has just left me. Let me sit down his words so closely as I can recall them. He began by laying several musty volumes upon my bed. These you can consult at your leisure, said he. I have some notes here which you can confirm. There is not a doubt that what you have seen is the murder of Rizio, by the Scottish nobles in the presence of Mary, which occurred in March 1566. Your description of the woman is accurate. The high forehead and heavy eyelids combined with great beauty could hardly apply to two women. The tall young man was her husband, Donley. Rizio, says the chronicle, was dressed in a loose dressing gown of furred Damascus, with hoes of russet velvet. With one hand he clutched Mary's gown, with the other he held a dagger. Your fierce hollow-eyed man was Ruthven, who was new risen from a bed of sickness. Every detail is exact. But why to me, I asked in bewilderment, why have all the human race to me? Because you were in the fit because you chanced to own the mirror which gave the impression. The mirror! You think then that it was Mary's mirror? That it stood in the room where this deed was done? I am convinced that it was Mary's mirror. She had been Queen of France. Her personal property would be stamped with the royal arms. What you took to be three spearheads were really the lilies of France. And the inscription? You can expand it into Sancte Cruces Palatium. Someone has made a note upon the mirror since it came. It was the Palace of the Holy Cross. Holy Rude! I cried. Exactly, your mirror came from Holy Rude. You have had one very singular experience and have escaped. I trust that you will never put yourself into the way of having such another. End of The Silver Mirror by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle read by Alex Tallander, Davis, California www.alexetallander.com Staley Fleming's Hallucination by Ambrose Beers Of two men who were talking, one was a physician. I sent for you, doctor, said the other, but I don't think you can do me any good. Maybe you can recommend a specialist in psychopathy. I fancy I'm a bit loony. You look all right, the physician said. You shall judge. I have hallucinations. You shall judge. I have hallucinations. I wake up every night and see in my room intently watching me a big black Newfoundland dog with a white forefoot. You say you wake. Are you sure about that? Hallucinations are sometimes only dreams. Oh, I wake all right. Sometimes I lie still a long time looking at the dog as earnestly as the dog looks at me. I always leave the light going. When I can't endure it any longer I sit up in bed and nothing is there. Hmm. What is the beast's expression? It seems to me sinister. Of course I know that except in art an animal's face in repose has always the same expression. But this is not a real animal. Newfoundland dogs are pretty mild looking, you know. What's the matter with this one? Really, my diagnosis would have no value. I am not going to treat the dog. The physician laughed at his own pleasantry but narrowly watched his patient in the manner of his eye. Presently he said, Fleming, your description of the beast fits the dog of the late Atwell Barton. Fleming half-wors from his chair sat again and made a visible attempt at indifference. I remember Barton, he said. I believe he was. It was reported that wasn't there something suspicious in his death? Looking squarely now into the eyes of his patient, the physician said, three years ago the body of your dog was found in the woods near his house and yours. He had been stabbed to death. There have been no arrests. There was no clue. Some of us had theories. I had one, have you? I? Why bless your soul, what could I know about it? You remember that I left for Europe almost immediately afterward, a considerable time afterward. In the few weeks since my return you could not expect me to construct a theory. The dog. It was the first to find the body. It died of starvation on his grave. We do not know the inexorable law underlying coincidences. Staley Fleming did not, or he would perhaps not have sprung to his feet as the night wind brought in through the open window, the long, wailing howl of a distant dog. He stirred several times across the room in the steadfast gaze of the physician, then abruptly confronting him, almost shouted, Mr. Halderman, you forget why you were sent for. Rising the physician laid his hand upon his patient's arm and said gently, pardon me, I cannot diagnose your disorder offhand. Tomorrow perhaps. Please go to bed, leaving your door unlocked. I will pass the night here with your books. Can you call me without rising? Yes, there is an electric bell. Good. If anything disturbs you, push the button without sitting up. Good night. The two men sat on an armchair, the man of medicine stared into the glowing coals and thought deeply and long, but apparently to little purpose, for he frequently rose, and, opening a door leading to the staircase, listened intently, then resumed his seat. Presently however he fell asleep, and when he woke it was past midnight. He stirred the failing fire, lifted a book from the table at his side and looked at the title. It was Danaker's meditations. For, as much as it is ordained of God, that all flesh bath spirit, and thereby taketh on spiritual powers, so also the spirit bath powers of the flesh, even when it is gone out of the flesh, and liveth as a thing apart, as many of violence performed by Wraith and the Merceweth, and there be who say that man is not single in this, but the beasts have the like evil inducement, and the reading was interrupted by a shaking of the house, as by the fall of a heavy object. The reader flung down the book, rushed from the room, and mounted the stairs to Fleming's bed-chamber. He tried the door, but contrary to his instructions it was locked. He set his shoulder against it with such force that it gave way. On the floor near the disordered bed in his nightclothes lay Fleming gasping away his life. The physician raised the dying man's head from the floor, and observed a wound in the throat. I should have thought of this, he said, believing it's suicide. When the man was dead an examination disclosed the unmistakable marks of an animal's fangs deeply sunken into the jugular vein, but there was no animal. End of Staley Fleming's Hallucination by Ambrose Beers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost by H. G. Wells The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly to my mind. There he sat for the greater part of the time, in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him, smoking the brosy clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who was also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight, which indeed gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible. We had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may have been that indeed he was lying. Of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote. But that, we thought, was only the incurable artifice of the man. I say, he remarked, after a long consideration of the outpoured rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, you know I was alone here last night. Except for the domestics, said Wish. Who sleep in the other wing, said Clayton. Yes, well. He pulled at his cigar for some little time, as though he still hesitated about his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, I caught a ghost. What a ghost did you, said Sanderson. Where is it? An Evans, who admires Clayton immensely, and has been four weeks in America, shouted, caught a ghost did you, Clayton? I'm glad of it. Tell us all about it right now. Clayton said he wouldn't a minute, and asked him to shut the door. He looked apologetically at me. There's no eavesdropping, of course, but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumors of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak paneling to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. I don't think it will come again, ever. You mean to say you didn't keep it, said Sanderson? I hadn't the heart to, said Clayton. And Sanderson said he was surprised. We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. I know, he said, with the flicker of a smile. But the fact is it really was a ghost, and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not joking. I mean what I say. Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe with one reddish eye on Clayton, and then emitted a thin jet of smoke, more eloquent than many words. Clayton ignored the comment. It is the strangest thing that has ever happened in my life. You know I never believed in ghosts or anything of the sort before ever. And then you know I bagged one in a corner and the whole business is in my hands. He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce a second cigar with a curious little stabber he effected. You talked to it, asked Wish. For the space probably of an hour. Chattie, I said, joining the party of the skeptics. The poor devil was in trouble, said Clayton, bowed over to his cigar end, and with a very faintest note of reproof. Sobbing, someone asked. Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. Good Lord, he said, yes. And then, poor fellow, yes. Where did you strike it? asked Evans in his best American accent. I never realized, said Clayton, ignoring him, the poor sort of thing a ghost might be. And he hung us up again for a time, while he sought for matches in his pocket, and lit and warmed to his cigar. I took an advantage, he reflected at last. We were none of us in a hurry. A character, he said, remains just the same character for all that's been disembodied. That's a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose. Most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one idea as monomaniacs, and as obstinate as mules to come back again again. This poor creature wasn't. He suddenly looked up rather clearly, and his eye went round the room. I say it, he said, in all kindness. But that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance, he struck me as weak. He punctuated with the help of his cigar. I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards me, and I saw him first. Right off, I knew him for a ghost. He was transparent and whitish. Cleaned through his chest, I could see the glimmer of the little window at the end. And not only his physique, but his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though he didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand was on the paneling, and the other fluttered to his mouth, like so. What sort of physique, said Sanderson? Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great flutings down the back, here and here, so. And a little meanish head with scrubby hair, and rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the hips. Turned down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy, and a little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me. I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know. The candles are on the landing table, and there is that lamp. And I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that, taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested. I thought, good Lord, here's a ghost at last. And I hadn't believed for a moment in ghosts during the last five and twenty years. I'm, said Wish. I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I was there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little mustache, a feeble chin. So for an instant we stood. He looking over his shoulder at me and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands in approved ghost fashion, came towards me. As he did so, his little jaw dropped, and he admitted a faint drawn out boo. No, it wasn't, not a bit dreadful. I'd dined, I'd had a bottle of champagne, and being on alone, perhaps two or three, perhaps even four or five whiskies. So I was as solid as rocks, and no more frightened than if I'd been assailed by a frog. Boo, I said, nonsense. You don't belong to this place. What are you doing here? I could see him wince. Boo, he said. Boo, be hanged. Are you a member, I said, and just to show I didn't care a pin for him, I stepped through a corner of him and made to light my candle. Are you a member, I repeated, looking at him sideways. He moved a little, so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became crestfallen. No, he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of my eye. I'm not a member. I'm a ghost. Well, that doesn't give you the run of the mermaid club. Is there anyone you want to see or anything of that sort? And, doing it as steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whiskey for this distraction of fear, I got my candle in light. I turned on him, holding it. What are you doing here, I said. He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. I'm haunting, he said. You haven't any business, too, I said, in a quiet voice. I'm a ghost, he said, as if in defense. That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is a respectable private club. People often stop here with nursemaids and children, and going about in the careless way you do, some poor little mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose you didn't think of that. No, sir, he said. I didn't. You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you? Weren't murdered here or anything of that sort? No, sir, but I thought it was old and oak-paneled. That's no excuse. I regarded him firmly. You're coming here is a mistake, I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. If I were you, I wouldn't wait for Cock Crow. I'd vanish right away. He looked embarrassed. The fact is, sir, he began. I'd vanish, I said, driving at home. The fact is, sir, that somehow I can't. You can't? No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never come haunting before, and it seems to put me out. Put you out? Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off. There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back. That, you know, rather pulled me over. He looked at me in such an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite the high-hectoring vein I had adopted. That's queer, I said. And as I spoke, I fancied I heard someone moving about down below. Come into my room and tell me more about it, I said. I didn't, of course, understand this, and I tried to take him by the arm. But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff of smoke. I had forgotten my number, I think. Anyhow, I remember going into several bedrooms. It was lucky I was the only soul in the wing, until I saw my traps. Here we are, I said, and sat down in the armchair. Sit down and tell me all about it. It seems to me that you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap. Well, he said he wouldn't sit down. He'd prefer to flip up and down the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did. And in a little while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me. And I began to realize, just a little, what a thundering, rum and weird business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent, the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost of a voice, flitting chew and fro in that nice, clean, chins-hung old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners of the framed engravings on the wall. And there he was, telling me all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth. A, said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair. What, said Clayton? Being transparent couldn't avoid telling the truth. I don't see it, said Wish. I don't see it, said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. But it is so I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once a nail's breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed. He went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage of gas, and described himself as a senior English master in a London private school when that release occurred. Poor wretch, said I. That's what I thought, and the more he talked, the more I thought it. There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been anything to her in the world meanly. He had been too sensitive, too nervous. None of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he said. He had never had a real friend of the world, I think. He had never had a success. He had shirked games and failed examinations. It's like that with some people, he said. Whenever I got into the examination room or anywhere, everything seemed to go. Engaged to be married, of course, to another oversensitive person, I suppose, when the indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs. And where are you now, I asked. Not in. He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. I don't know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear idea of the kind of place, kind of country there is on the other side of things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of kindred spirits, ghosts of weak, cockney young men who were on a footing of Christian names, and among these there was certainly a lot of talk about going haunting and things like that. Yes, going haunting. They seemed to think haunting a tremendous adventure, and most of them funk did all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come. But really, said wish to the fire. These are the impressions he gave me anyhow, said Clayton modestly. I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state. But that was the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and down, with his thin voice going, talking, talking about his wretched self, and never a word of clear firm statement from first to last. He was thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he had been real and alive. Only then, you know, he would not have been in my bedroom here. If he had been alive, I should have kicked him out. Of course, said Evans, there are poor mortals like that. And there's just as much chance of there having ghosts as the rest of us, I admitted. What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that he did seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had made of haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told it would be a lark. He had come expecting it to be a lark, and here it was, nothing but another failure added to his record. He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to do anything all his life that he hadn't made a perfect mess of, and through all the waste of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy, perhaps he paused at that and stood regarding me. He remarked that, strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not anyone ever, had given him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a brute, you know, but being the only real friend, the recipient of the confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. Don't you brood on these things too much, I said. The thing you've got to do is to get out of this, get out of this sharp. You pull yourself together and try. I can't, he said. You try, I said, and try he did. Try, said Sanderson. How? Passes, said Clayton. Passes? Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's how he had come in, and that's how he had to get out again. Lord, what a business I had. But how could any series of passes I began? My dear man, said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis on certain words. You want everything clear. I don't know how. All I know is that you do, that he did anyhow, at least. After a fearful time, you know, he got his passes right, and suddenly disappeared. Did you, said Sanderson, slowly, observe the passes? Yes, said Clayton, and seemed to think. It was tremendously queer, he said. There we were, I and this thin, vague ghost in that silent room, in this silent empty inn, in this silent little Friday night town, not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when he swung. There was a bedroom candle and one candle on the dressing table, a light that was all. Sometimes one or other would flare up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space, and queer things happened. I can't, he said, I shall never. And suddenly he sat down on a little chair at the foot of the bed, and began to sob and sob. Lord, what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed. You pull yourself together, I said, and tried to pat him on the back, and my confounded hand went through him. By that time, you know, I wasn't nearly so massive as I had been on the landing. I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching my hand back out of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing table. You pull yourself together, I said, to him, and try. And in order to encourage him and help him, I began to try as well. What, said Sanderson, the passes? Yes, the passes. But, I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space. This is interesting, said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away, did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? Yes. He didn't, said Wish. He couldn't, or you'd have gone there, too. That's precisely it, I said, finding my elusive idea put into words for me. That is precisely it, said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the fire. For just a little while there was silence. And at last he did it, said Sanderson. At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard. But he did it at last, rather suddenly. He despaired. We had a scene. And then he got up abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance slowly so that he might see. I believe, he said, if I could see, I should spot what was wrong at once. And he did. I know, he said. What do you know, said I. I know, he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, I can't do it if you look at me. I really can't. It's been that partly all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that you put me out. Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see. But he was as obstinate as a mule. And suddenly I had come over tired as a dog. He tired me out. All right, I said. I won't look at you. And turned towards the mirror on the wardrobe by the bed. He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the looking glass to see just what it was that hung. Round went his arms and his hands, so and so and so. And then with a rush came to the last gesture of all. You stand erect and open out your arms. And so, don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't. He didn't. He wasn't. I wheeled round from the looking glass to him. There was nothing. I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking one. So, ping. And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and whiskey gone into the vast serene, feeling queer, you know, confoundedly queer. Queer, good Lord! He regarded his cigar ash for a moment. That's all that happened, he said. And then you went to bed, asked Evans. What else was there to do? I looked wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, something perhaps, in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our desire. And about these passes, said Sanderson. I believe I could do them now. Oh! said Sanderson, and produced a penknife, and set himself to grub the doddle out of the bowl of his clay. Why don't you do them now, said Sanderson, shutting his penknife with a click? That's what I'm going to do, said Clayton. They won't work, said Evans. If they do, I suggested. You know I'd rather you didn't, said Wish, stretching out his legs. Why? asked Evans. I'd rather he didn't, said Wish. But he hasn't got them right, said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco in his pipe. All the same I'd rather he didn't, said Wish. We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through these gestures was like mocking a serious matter. But you don't believe, I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing something in his mind. I do. More than half anyhow I do, said Wish. Clayton, said I, you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was all right. But that disappearance happened to be convincing. Tell us, it's a tale of cock and bull. He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearth rug, and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his eyes, and so began. Now Sanderson is a freemason, a member of the Lodge of the Four Kings, which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the mysteries of masonry past and present. And among the students of this lodge, Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions with a singular interest in his reddish eye. That's not bad, he said, when it was done. You really do, you know, put things together, Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out. I know, said Clayton. I believe I could tell you which. Well, this, said Clayton, ended a queer little twist and writhing and thrust of the hands. Yes. That, you know, is what he couldn't get right, said Clayton. But how do you, most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't understand it all, said Sanderson, but just that phase I do, he reflected. These happened to be a series of gestures connected with a certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know, or else how. He reflected still further. I do not see I can do any harm in telling you just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know. If you don't, you don't. I know nothing, said Clayton, except what the poor devil let out last night. Well, anyhow, said Sanderson, and placed his church warden very carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly, he gesticulated with his hands. So, said Clayton, repeating, so, said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again. Ah, now, said Clayton, I can do the whole thing right. He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think there was just a little hesitation in his smile. If I begin, he said. I wouldn't begin, said Wish. It's all right, said Evans. Matter is indestructible. You don't think any jiggery pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton into the world of shades? Not it. You may try, Clayton, so far as I'm concerned, until your arms drop off at the wrists. I don't believe that, said Wish, and stood up and put his arm on Clayton's shoulder. You've made me half-believe in that story somehow, and I don't want to see the thing done. Goodness, said I. Here's Wish frightened. I am, said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. I believe that if he goes through these motions right, he'll go. He'll not do anything of the sort, I cried. There's only one way out of this world for men, and Clayton is 30 years from that. Besides, and such a ghost, do you think? Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs and stopped beside the toll and stood there. Clayton, he said, you're a fool. Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. Wish, he said, is right. And all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get to the end of these passes. And as the last Wish whistles through the air, presto. This hearth rug will be vacant, the room will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of 15 stone will plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I declined to argue further. Let the thing be tried. No, said Wish, and made a step and ceased. And Clayton raised his hands once more to repeat the Spirit's passing. By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension, largely because of the behavior of Wish. We sat, all of us, with our eyes on Clayton. I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs, my body had been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbly serene, Clayton bowed and swayed, and waved his hands and arms before us. As he drew towards the end, one piled up, one tingled in one's teeth. The last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture, I ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost story feeling. It was after dinner in a queer, old, shadowy house. Would he, after all, there he stood for one's dependist moment, with his arms open and his upturned face assured and bright in the glare of the hanging lamp. We hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a reassuring no, for visibly he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. He had told an idle story and carried it almost to conviction, that was all. And then in that moment the face of Clayton changed. It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed. His smile was frozen on his lips. And he stood there still. He stood there very gently swaying. That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms. It stunned us all. For a minute, I suppose, no one said a coherent thing. We believed it, yet could not believe it. I came out of a muddled stupification to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay on his heart. Well, the simple fact before us could very well wade our convenience. There was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour. It lies a thwart by memory, black and amazing still to this day. Clayton had indeed passed into the world that lies so near to and so far from our own. And he had gone thither by the only road that mortal man may take. But whether he did indeed pass there by that poor ghost incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale, as the coroner's jury would have us believe, is no matter for my judging. It is just one of those inexplicable riddles that must remain unsolved until the final solution of all things shall come. All I certainly know is that, in the very moment, in the very instant of concluding those passes, he changed and staggered and fell down before us, dead. End of the story of the inexperienced ghost by H.G. Wells. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alex C. Tlander. The Tale of the Mysterious Mirror by Sir Walter Scott. 1. You are fond, said my aunt, of sketches of the society which has passed away. I wish I could describe to you Sir Philip Forester, the chartered libertine of Scottish good company, about the end of the last century. I never saw him indeed, but my mother's traditions were full of his wit, gallantry and dissipation. This gay night flourished about the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. He was the Sir Charles Easy and the lovelace of his day in country, renowned for the number of duels he had fought, and the successful intrigues which he had carried on. The supremacy which he had attained in the fashionable world was absolute, and when we combine it with one or two anecdotes for which, if laws were made for every degree, he ought certainly to have been hanged the popularity of such a person really serves to show. Either the present times are much more decent, if not more virtuous than they formerly were. Or that high breeding, then, was of more difficult attainment than that which is now so-called, and consequently entitled the successful professor to a proportional degree of plenary indulgences and privileges. No bow of this day could have borne out so ugly a story as that of pretty Peggy Grindstone, the miller's daughter at Syllermills. It a well-nigh made work for the Lord Advocate. But it hurts to Philip Forrester no more than the hail hurts the hearthstone. He was as well received in society as ever, and dine with the Duke of Ae. The day the poor girl was buried, she died of heartbreak. But that has nothing to do with my story. Now you must listen to a single word upon kith, kin, and ally. I promise you I will not be prolix, but it is necessary to the authenticity of my legend that you should know that Sir Philip Forrester, with his handsome person, elegant accomplishments, and fashionable manners, married the younger Miss Palconer of King's Copland. The elder sister of this lady had previously become the wife of my grandfather, Sir Jeffrey Bothwell, and brought into our family of good fortune. Miss Jemima, or Miss Jemmy Falconer, as she was usually called, had also about ten thousand pounds sterling, then thought a very handsome portion indeed. The two sisters were extremely different, though each had their admirers while they remained single. Lady Bothwell had some touch of the old King's Copland blood about her. She was bold, though not to the degree of audacity, ambitious and desirous to raise her house and family, and was, as been said, a considerable spur to my grandfather, who was otherwise an indelible man, but whom, unless he has been slandered, his lady's influence involved in some political matters which had been more wisely little alone. She was a woman of high principle, however, and masculine good sense, as some of her letters testify, which are still in my Wayne Scott cabinet. Jemmy Falconer was the reverse of her sister in every respect. Her understanding did not reach above the ordinary pitch, if indeed she could be said to have attained it. Her beauty, while it lasted, consisted in a great measure of delicacy of complexion and regularity of features, without any peculiar force of expression. Jemmy and these charns faded out of the suffering's attendant on an ill-sworded match. She was passionately attached to her husband, by whom she was treated with a callous yet polite indifference, which, to one whose heart was as tender as her judgment was weak, was more painful perhaps than absolute ill-usage. Sir Philip was a voluptuary, that is, a completely selfish egotist whose disposition and character resembled the rapier he wore, polished, keen, and brilliant, but in flexible and impitiating. As he observed carefully all the usual forms towards his lady, he had the art to deprive her even of the compassion of the world, and useless and unavailing as that may be while actually possessed by the sufferer it is to a mind like Lady Forester's most painful to know she has it not. The tattle of society did its best to place the peckant husband above the suffering wife. Some called her a poor, spiritless thing, and declared that with the little help of her sister's spirit she might have brought to reason any Sir Philip whatsoever, were at the Termigent Falcon Bridge himself. But the greater part of their acquaintance affected Candor, and saw faults on both sides, though in fact there only existed the oppressor and the oppressed. The tone of such critics was, to be sure, no one would justify Sir Philip Forester. But then we all know Sir Philip and Jimmy Falconer might have known what she had to expect from the beginning. What made her set her cap as Sir Philip? He would never have looked as to her if she had not thrown herself at his head with her poor ten thousand pounds. I am sure if it is money he wanted she spoiled his market. I know where Sir Philip could have done much better, and then if she would have the man, could not she try to make him more comfortable at home, and have his friends oftener and not plague him with the squalling children, and take her all was handsome and in good style about the house. I declare I think Sir Philip would have made a very domestic man, with a woman who knew how to manage him. Now these fair critics, in raising their profound edifice of domestic felicity, did not let recollect that the cornerstone was wounding, and that to receive good company with good cheer, the means of the banquet ought to have been furnished by Sir Philip, whose income, dilapidated as it was, was not equal to the display of hospitality required, and at the same time to the supply of the good night's manous plazers. So in spite of all that was so sagely suggested by female friends, Sir Philip carried his good humor everywhere abroad, and left at home a solitary mansion and a pining-spouse. He had length inconvenience in his money affairs, and tired even of the short time which he spent in his own dull house, Sir Philip Forrester determined to take a trip to the continent in the capacity of a volunteer. It was then common for men of fashion to do so, and our night perhaps was an opinion that a touch of the military character, just enough to exalt, but not render pedantic, his qualities as bogar song, was necessary to maintain possession of the elevated situation which he held in the ranks of fashion. Sir Philip's resolution threw his wife into agony as a terror, by which the worthy Baronette was so much annoyed that, contrary to his want, he took some trouble to soothe her apprehensions, and once more brought her to shed tears, in which sorrow was not altogether amingled with pleasure. Lady Bothwell asked, as a favour, Sir Philip's permission to receive her sister and her family into her own house during his absence on the continent. Sir Philip readily assented to a prince's proposition which saves the expense, silent the foolish people who might have talked of a deserted wife and family, and gratified Lady Bothwell, for whom he felt some respect, as for one who often spoke to him, always with freedom, and sometimes with severity, without being deterred either by his railery or the prestige of his reputation. A day or two before Sir Philip's departure, Lady Bothwell wrote the liberty of asking him, in her assistant's presence, the direct question which his twit timid wife had often desired, but never ventured to put to him. Praise, Sir Philip, what route do you take when you reach the continent? I go from Leith to Helvoet, by a packet with advices. That I copperhead perfectly, said Lady Bothwell dryly, but do you not mean to remain long at Helvoet, I presume? I would should like to know what is your next object. You ask me, my dear lady, answers to Philip, a question which I have not dared to ask myself. The answer depends on the fate of war. I shall, of course, go to headquarters, wherever they may happen to be for the time, deliver my letters of introduction, learn as much of the noble art of war as may suffice a poor interloper and a mature, and then take a glance at the sort of thing which we read so much in the cassette. And I trust, Sir Philip, said Lady Bothwell, that you will remember that you are a husband and a father, and that though you think fit to indulge this military fancy, you will not let it hurry you into dangers, which it is certainly not necessary for any saved professional persons to encounter. Lady Bothwell does me too much honour, replied the adventurous knight, in regarding such a circumstance with the slightest interest. But to soothe your flattering anxiety, I trust your ladyship will recollect that I cannot expose to hazard the venerable and paternal character which you so obliging recommend to my protection, without putting in some peril and on its fellow called Philip Forrester, with whom I have kept company for thirty years, and with whom those some folk consider him coxcomb, I have not the least desired a part. Well, Sir Philip, you are the best judge of your own affairs. I have little right to interfere. You are not my husband. God forbid, since Sir Philip hastily, instantly adding however, God forbid that I should deprive my friend, Sir Geoffrey, of so inestimable a treasure, but you are my sister's husband, replied the lady, and I suppose you are aware of her present distress of mine. If hearing of nothing else from morning to night can make me aware of it, said Sir Philip, I should know something of the matter. I did not pretend to reply to your wits, Sir Philip, answered Lady Bothwell, but you must be sensible that all this distress is on account of apprehensions for your personal safety. In that case, I am surprised that Lady Bothwell, at least, should give herself so much trouble upon sewing a significant a subject. My sister's interest may account for my being anxious to learn something of Sir Philip Forrest's motions about which otherwise I know he would not wish me to concern myself. I have a brother's safety, too, to be anxious. You mean Major Falconer, your brother by the mother's side? What can he possibly have to do with our present agreeable conversation? You have had words together, Sir Philip, said Lady Bothwell. Naturally, we are connections, replied Sir Philip, and as such have always had the usual intercourse. That is an evasion of the subject, answered the Lady. By words I mean angry words on the subject of your usage of your wife. If replied Sir Philip Forrester, you suppose Major Falconer is simple enough to intrude his advice upon me, Lady Bothwell, in my domestic matters you are indeed warranted in believing that I might possibly so far displease with the interference as to request him to reserve his advice till it was asked. And being on these terms you are going to join the very army in which my brother Falconer is now serving. No man knows the path of the honour better than Major Falconer, said Sir Philip, and aspire it after fame, like me, cannot choose a better guide than his footsteps. Lady Bothwell rose and went to the window, the tears gushing from her eyes, and this heartless railery, she said, is all the consideration that is to be given to our apprehensions of a quarrel which may bring on the most terrible consequences. Good God, of what can men's hearts be made, who can thus daily be rid of the raggedy of others. Sir Philip Forrester was moved. He laid aside the mocking tone in which he had heard the two spoken. Dear Lady Bothwell, he said, taking her reluctant hand, we are both wrong. You are too deeply serious. I perhaps too little so. The dispute I had with Major Falconer was of no earthly consequence. Had anything occurred betwixt this that ought to have been settled, par voie du fait, as we say in France, neither of us are persons that are likely to postpone such a meeting. Permit me to say that we are generally known that you or my Lady Forrester are apprehensive of such a catastrophe. It might be the very means of bringing about what would not otherwise be likely to happen. I know your good sense, Lady Bothwell, and that you will understand me when I say that really my affairs require my absence for some months. This Jemima cannot understand. It is a perpetual recurrence of questions. Why can you not do this, or that, or the third thing, and when you have proved to her later that her expedience are totally ineffectual, you have just to begin the whole round again. Now do you tell her, dear Lady Bothwell, that you are satisfied? She is, you must confess, one of those persons with whom authority goes further than reasoning. Do but repose a little confidence in me, and you shall see how amply I will pay it. Lady Bothwell shook her head, as one but half satisfied. How difficult it is to extend confidence, when the basis on which it ought to rest has been so much shaken, but I will do my best to make Jemima easy, and further I can only say that for keeping your present purpose I hold you responsible, both to God and man. Do not fear that I will deceive you, said Sir Philip. The safest conveyance to me will be through the General Post Office. He'll vote sleuths, where I will take care to leave orders for forwarding my letters. As for Falconer, our only encounter will be over a bottle of burgundy. So make yourself perfectly easy on his score. Lady Bothwell could not make herself easy, yet she was sensible that her sister hurt her own cause by taking on, as the maid servants call it, too vehemently, and they show him before every stranger, by manner and sometimes by words also, a dissatisfaction with her husband's journey, that was sure to come to his ears and equally certain to displease him. But there was no help for this domestic dissension, which ended only with a day of separation. I am sorry I cannot tell, with position, the year in which Sir Philip Forrester went over to Vlanters, but it was one of those in which the campaign opened with extraordinary fury, and many bloody though indecisive skirmishes were fought between the French on the one side, and the Allies on the other. In all our modern improvements there are none perhaps greater than in the accuracy and speed with which intelligence is transmitted from any scene of action to those in this country whom it may concern. During Marlboro's campaigns the sufferings of the many who had relations in or along with the army were greatly augmented by the suspense in which they were detained for weeks, after they had heard of bloody battles in which, in all probability, those for whom their bosoms throughout with anxiety had been personally engaged. Amongst those who were most agnised by this state of uncertainty was the, I had almost said, deserted wife of the gay Sir Philip Forrester. A single letter had informed her of his arrival on the continent, no others were received. One notice occurred in newspapers in which volunteers Sir Philip Forrester was mentioned as having been entrusted with a dangerous reconnaissance which he had executed with the greatest courage, dexterity and intelligence, and received the thanks of the commanding officer. The sense of his having acquired distinction brought a momentary glow into the lady's pale cheek, but it was instantly lost in ashen whiteness at the recollection of his danger. After this they had no news whatever, neither from Sir Philip nor even from their brother Falconer. The case of Lady Forrester was not indeed different of that of hundreds in the same situation, but a fever mind is necessarily an irritable one, and the suspense which some bear with constitutional indifference or philosophical resignation and some with a disposition to believe and hope the best was intolerable to Lady Forrester at one solitary and sensitive, low-spirited and devoid of strength of mind, with the natural awe acquired. 2. As she received no further news of Sir Philip, whether directly or indirectly, his unfortunate lady began now to feel a sort of consolation, even in those careless habits which had so often given her pain. He is so thoughtless she repeated a hundred times a day to her sister. He never writes when things are going on smoothly. It is his way. Had anything happened he would have informed us. Lady Bothwell listened to her sister without attempting to console her. Probably she might be of opinion that even the worst intelligence which could be received from Flanders might not be without some touch of consolation, and that the dowager lady, if so she was doomed to be called, might have a source of happiness unknown to the wife of the gayest and finest gentleman in Scotland. This conviction became stronger as they learned from inquiries made at headquarters that Sir Philip was no longer with the army, though whether he had been taken or slain in some of those skirmishes which were perpetually occurring, and in which he loved to distinguish himself or whether he had, for some unknown reason or capricious change of mind, voluntarily left the service, none of his countrymen in the camp of allies could form even a conjecture. Meantime his creditors at home became glamorous, entered into possession of his properties, and threatened his person, should he be rationed up to return to Scotland. These additional disadvantages aggravated Lady Bothwell's displeasure against the fugitive husband, while her sister saw nothing in any of them save what tended to increase her grief for the absence of him whom her imagination now represented, as it had before marriage, gallant, gay, and affectionate. About this period there appeared in Edinburgh a man of singular appearance and pretensions. He was commonly called the Puddle-on-Doctor, from whom he received his education at that famous university. He was supposed to possess some rare receipts in medicine, with which it was affirmed he had wrought remarkable cures, but though on the one hand the positions of Edinburgh termed him an empiric, there were many persons, and among them some of the clergy, who, while they admitted the truth of the cures and the force of his remedies, alleged that Dr. Baptista Damioti made use of charms and unlawful arts in order to obtain success in his practice. The resorting to him was even solemnly preached against, as a seeking of health, from idols, and a trusting to the help with which was to come from Egypt, but the protection which the Puddle-on-Doctor received from some friends of interest and consequence enabled him to set these imputations at defiance, and to assume, even in the city of Edinburgh, as it was for abhorrence of witches and necromancers, the dangerous character of an expounder of futurity. It was a length rumored that for a certain gratification which, of course, was not an inconsiderable one, Dr. Baptista Damioti could tell the fate of the absent friends, and show his visitors the personal form of their absent friends, and the action in which they were engaged at the moment. This rumour came to the ears of Lady Forrester, who had reached that pitch of mental agony in which the sufferer will do anything, or endure anything, that suspense may can be converted into certainty. Gentle and timid in most cases, her state of mind made her equally obstinate and reckless, and it was with no small surprise and alarm that her sister, Lady Bathwell, heard her expressive resolution to visit this man of art, and learn from him the fate of her husband. Lady Bathwell demonstrated on the improbability that such pretentious as those of his this foreigner could be founded in anything but imposture. I care not, said the deserted wife, what degree of ridicule I may incur, if there be any one chance out of a hundred that I may obtain some certainty of my husband's fate, I would not miss that chance for whatever else the world can offer me. Lady Bathwell next urged the unlawfulness of resorting to such sources of forbidden knowledge. Sister replied the sufferer, he who is dying of thirst can offer a frame from drinking even poison water. She who suffers under the suspense must seek information, even where the powers which offer it unhallowed and infernal. I go to learn my fate alone, and this very evening will I know it. The sun that rises tomorrow shall fire me, if not more happy, at least more resigned. Sister, said Lady Bathwell, if you are determined upon this wild step, you shall not go alone. If this man be an impostor, you may too much agitated be by your feelings to detect his villainy, if which I cannot believe there be any truth in what he pretends, you shall not be exposed alone to a communication of so extraordinary a nature. I will go with you, if indeed you are determined to go, but yet reconsider your project, and renounce inquiries which cannot be prosecuted without guilt and perhaps without danger. Lady Forrester threw herself into her sister's arms, and clasping her to a haubism, thanked her a hundred times for the offer of her company, while she declined with a melancholy gesture at the friendly advice with which it was accompanied. When the hour of twilight arrived, which was the period when the Padawan doctor was understood to receive the visits of those who came to consult with him, the two ladies left their apartments in the cannon gate of Edinburgh, having their dress arranged like that of women of an inferior description, and their plaques disposed around their faces as they were worn by the same class. For in those days of aristocracy the quality of the wearer was generally indicated by the manner in which her plaques was disposed, as well as by the fineness of its texture. It was Lady Bothwell who had suggested this species of disguise, partly to avoid observation as they should go to the conjurer's house, and partly in order to make trial of its penetration by appearing before him in a feigned character. Lady Forrester's servant of tried fidelity had been employed by her to propitiate the doctor by a suitable fee, and a story intimating that a soldier's wife desired to know the fate of her husband, a subject upon which, in all probability, the sage was very frequently consulted. So the last moment when the palace clock struck eight, Lady Bothwell earnestly watched her sister in hopes that she might retreat from her rash undertaking, but as mildness and even timidity is capable at times of vehement and affix six purposes she found Lady Forrester resolutely unmoved and determined when the moment of departure arrived. Ill-satisfied with the expedition but determined not to leave her sister in such a crisis, Lady Bothwell accompanied Lady Forrester through more than one obscure street and lane, the servant walking before and acting as their guide. Adlenti suddenly turned into a narrow court and knocked in an arch door, which seemed to belong to a building of some antiquity. It opened, though no one appeared to act as porter, and the servant, stepping aside from the entrance, motioned the ladies to enter. They had no sooner done so that it shut and excluded their guide. The two ladies found themselves in a small vestibule, illuminated by a dim lamp and a having, when the door was closed, no communication with external light of air. The door of an inner apartment, partly open, was at the furthest side of the vestibule. We must not hesitate now, Jemimer, said Lady Bothwell, and walk forwards into the interior room, where, surrounded by books, maps, philosophical utensils, and other implements of peculiar shape and appearance, they found the man of art. There was nothing very peculiar in the Italians' appearance. He had the dark complexion and marked features of his country, seemed about fifty years old, and was handsomely but plainly dressed in a full suit of black clothes, which was then the universal costume of the medical profession. Large wax lights and silver sconces illuminated the apartment, which was reasonably be furnished. He rose as the ladies entered, and, notwithstanding the inferiority of their dress, received them with a marked respect due to their quality, and which foreigners usually punctilious in rendering to those to whom such honors are due. Lady Bothwell, endeavored to endane her repose in Garnido, and as the doctor ushered them to the upper end of the room, made a motion declining his courtesy, as unfitted for their condition. We are poor people, sir, she said. Only my sister's distress has brought us to consult your worship-weather. He smiled as he interrupted her. I am aware, madam, of your sister's distress, and its cause. I am aware also that I am honored with a visit from two ladies of the highest consideration, Lady Bothwell and Lady Forester. If I could not distinguish them from the class of society, which their present dress would indicate, there would be small possibility of my being able to gratify them by giving the information which they come to seek. I can easily understand, said Lady Bothwell. Pardon my boldness to interrupt you, my lady, cried the Italian. Your ladyship was about to say that you could easily understand that I had got possession of your names by means of your domestic. But in thinking so, you do injustice to the fidelity of your servant, and I may add to the skill of one who is also not less your humble servant, Baptista Damiati. I have no intention to do either, sir, said Lady Bothwell, maintaining a tone of composure, though somewhat surprised. But the situation is something new to me. If you knew who we are, you also know, sir, what brought us here. Curiosity to know the fate of a Scottish gentleman of rank, now or lately upon the continent, answered the seer. His name is Calvaliero Filippo Forester, a gentleman who has the honor to be husband to this lady, and with your ladyship's permission for using plain language, the misfortune not to value as it deserves, that inestimable language. Lady Forester sighed deeply, and Lady Bothwell replied, Since you know our object without our telling it, the only question that remains is whether you have the power to relieve my sister's anxiety. I have, madam, answered the Padawan scholar. But there is still a previous inquiry. Have you the courage to behold with your eyes what the Calvaliero Filippo Forester is now doing, or will you take it on my report? That question my sister must answer for herself, said Lady Bothwell. With my own eyes will I endure to see whatever you have the power to show me, said Lady Forester, with the same determined spirit which had stimulated her since her resolution was taken upon this subject. There may be danger in it. If gold can compensate the risk, said Lady Forester, taking out a purse, I do not such things for the purpose of gain, answered the foreigner. I dare not turn my art to such a purpose. If I take the gold of the wealthy, it is but to dispose it on the poor, nor do I ever accept more than the sum I have already received from your servant. Put up your purse, madam, and a debt needs not your gold. Lady Bothwell, considering this rejection of her sister's offer as a mere trick of an empiric, to induce her to press a larger sum upon him, and willing that the scene should be commenced, and ended, offered some gold in turn, observing that it was only to enlarge the sphere of his charity. Lady Bothwell enlarged the sphere of her own charity, said the Padawan, not merely in giving of arms, in which I know she is not deficient, but in judging the character of others, and let her oblige Baptista Damiotti, by believing him honest, so she shall discover him to be a knave. Do not be surprised, madam, if I speak in answer to your thoughts rather than your expressions, and tell me once more whether you have courage to look on what I am prepared to show. I own, sir, said Lady Bothwell, that your words strike me with some sense of fear, but whatever my sister desires to witness, I will not shrink from witnessing along with her. Nave, the danger only consists in the risk of your resolution failing you. The sight can only last for the space of seven minutes, and should you interrupt the vision by speaking a single word, not only would the charm be broken, but some danger might result to the spectators. But if you can remain steadily silent for the seven minutes, your curiosity will be gratified without the slightest risk, and for this I will engage my honor. Internally Lady Bothwell thought the security was but an indifferent one, but she suppressed the suspicion as if she had believed that the adept, whose dark features were or how form smile, could in reality read even her most secret reflections. A solemn pause then ensued, until Lady Forrester gathered courage enough to reply to the physician as he turned to himself that she would abide with firmness and silence the sight which he had promised to exhibit to them. Upon this he made them a low besence, and, say, he went to prepare matters to meet their wish, left the apartment. The two sisters, hand in hand, as if seeking by that close union to divert any danger which might threaten them, sat down on two seats in immediate contact with each other. The time is seeking support in the manly and habitual courage of Lady Bothwell, and she, on the other hand, more agitated than she had expected, endeavoring to fortify herself by the desperate resolution which circumstances have forced her sister to assume. The one perhaps said to herself that her sister never feared anything, and the other might reflect that what so feeble a minded woman as Jemima did not fear could not properly be a subject of apprehension to a person of firmness and resolution like herself. In a few moments the thoughts of both were diverted from their own situation, by a strain of music so singly sweet and solemn, that, while it seemed calculated to avert or dispel any feeling unconnected with his harmony, increased, at the same time, the solemn excitation which the preceding interview was calculated to produce. The music was that of some instrument with which they were unacquainted, but circumstances afterwards led my ancestors to believe that it was that of the harmonica which she heard at a much later period in life. With these heaven-born sounds it sees, a door open in the upper end of the apartment, and they saw a Demiati, standing at the head of two or three steps, signed to them to advance. His dress was so different from that which he had worn a few minutes before that they could hardly recognize him, and the deadly paleness of his countenance, and a certain stern rigidity of muscles, like that of one whose mind is made up to some strange and daring action, had totally changed the somewhat sarcastic expression with which he had previously regarded them both, and particularly Lady Boswell. He was barefooted, accepting a species of sandals in the antique fashion. His legs were naked beneath the knees. Above them he wore hoes, and a double of dark crimson silk close to his body, and over that a flowing loose robe, something resembling a surplus, or a snow-white line. His throat and neck were uncovered, and his long straight hair was carefully combed down a full length. As the latest approach at his bidding, he showed no gesture of that ceremonious courtesy of which he had been formerly lavish. On the contrary, he made the signal advance with an air of command, and when arm in arm, and with insecure steps, the sisters approached the spot where he stood. It was with a warning frown that he pressed his finger to his lips, as if reiterating his condition of absolute silence, while stalking before them he led the way into the next apartment. This was a large room hung with black, as if for a funeral. At the upper end was a table, or rather a species of altar, covered with the same legubrious color, on which lay divers objects resembling the usual implements of sorcery. These objects were not indeed visible as they advanced into the apartment. The light which displayed them, being only that of two expiring lamps, was extremely faint. The master, to use the Italian phrase for persons of his description, approached the upper end of the room with a genuflection like that of a Catholic to the crucifix, and at the same time, crossed himself. The ladies followed in silence, and arm in arm, two or three low, broad steps led to a platform in front of the altar of what resembled such. Here the sage took his stand and placed the ladies beside him, once more earnestly repeating by signs his injunctions of silence. The Italian then, extending his bare arm from under his lead investment, pointed with his forefinger to five large flambeaux, or torches, placed on each side of the altar. They took fire successfully at the approach of his hand, or rather of his finger, and spread a strong light through the room. But besides this the visitors could discern that on the seeming altar were disposed two naked swords laid cross-wise, a large open book which they conceived to be a copy of the Holy Scriptures, put in a language to them unknown, and besides this mysterious volume was placed a human skull. But what struck the sisters most was a very tall and broad mirror, which occupied all the space behind the altar, and illuminated by the lighted torches reflected the mysterious articles which were laid upon it. The master then placed himself between the two ladies, and pointing to the mirror, took each by the hand without speaking a syllable. They gazed intently on the polished and savable space to which he had directed their attention. Suddenly the surface assumed a new and singular appearance. It no longer simply reflected the objects placed before it, but as if it had self-contained scenery of its own. Objects began to appear within it, at first in a disorderly, distinct, and miscellaneous manner, like form arranging itself out of chaos, at length indistinct and defined shape and symmetry. It was us that, after some shifting of light and darkness over the face of the wonderful glass, a long perspective of arches and columns began to arrange itself on its sides, and a vaulted roof on the upper part of it, till, after many oscillations, the whole vision gained a fixed and stationary appearance, representing the interior of a foreign church. The pillars were stately, and hung with scutians. The arches were lofty and magnificent. The floor was leaded with funeral inscriptions, but there were no separate shrines, no images, no display of chalice or crucifix on the altar. It was therefore a Protestant church upon the continent. A clergyman, dressed in the Geneva gown and band, stood by the communion table, and with the Bible open before him, and his clerk awaiting in the background, seemed prepared to perform some service of the church to which he belonged. At length they entered the middle aisle of the building, a numerous party, which appeared to be a brighter one, as a lady and gentleman walked first, hand in hand, followed by a large concourse of persons of both sexes, gaily, nay richly, attired. The bride, whose features they could distinctly see, seemed to be much more than sixteen years old and extremely beautiful. The bridegroom, for some seconds, moved rather with his shoulder towards them, and his face averted, but his elegance of form and step struck the sisters at once with the same apprehension. As he turned his face suddenly it was frightfully realized, and they saw, in the gay bridegroom before them, Sir Philip Forrester. His wife uttered an imperfect exclamation, at the sound of which the whole scene stirred and seemed to separate. I could compare it to nothing, said Lady Bothwell, while recounting the wonderful tale, but that the dispersion to the reflection offered but a deep and calm pool, when a stone was suddenly cast into it, and the shadows became dissipated and broken. The master pressed both the ladies' hands severely, as if to remind them of their promise, and of the danger which they incurred. The exclamation died away on Lady Forrester's tongue, without attaining perfect utterance, and the scene in the glass, after the fluctuation of a minute, again resumed to the eye its former appearance of a real scene, existing within the mirror, as if represented in a picture saved at the figure's removable instead of being stationary. The representation of Sir Philip Forrester, now distinctly visible in foreign feature, was seen to lead on towards the clergyman that beautiful girl, who advanced at once with diffidence, and with a specious of affectionate pride. In the meantime, and just as the clergyman had arranged the bridal company before him, and seemed about to commence the service, another group of fursons, of whom two or three more officers entered the church. They moved at first forward, as though they came to witness the bridal ceremony, but suddenly one of the officers, whose back was towards the spectators, detached himself from his companions, and rushed hastily towards the marriage-party, when the whole of them turned towards him, as if attracted by some exclamation which had accompanied his advance. Suddenly the intruder drew his sword, the brag room unsheathe his own, and made towards him. Swords were also drawn by other individuals, both of the marriage-party and of those who had last entered. They fell into a sort of confusion, the clergyman and some elder-engraver persons, laboring apparently to keep the peace, while the hotter spirits on both sides brandished their weapons. But now the period of brief space during which the soothsayer, as he pretended, was permitted to exhibit his art, was arrived. The fumes again mixed together, and dissolved gradually from observation. The vaults and columns of the church rolled asunder and disappeared, and the front of the mirror reflected nothing save the blazing torches, and the melancholy apparatus placed on the altar or table before it. The doctor led the ladies, who greatly required his support, into the apartment from whence they came, where wine, essences, and other means of restoring suspended animation had been provided during his absence. He motioned them to chairs, which they occupied in silence. They deforestered in particular, wringing in her hands, and casting her eyes up to heaven, but without speaking a word, as if the spell had been still before her eyes. And what we have seen is even now acting, said Lady Bothwell, collecting herself with difficulty. That answered Baptiste Demiati, I cannot justly or with certainty say. But it is either now acting, or has been acted, during a short space before this. It is the last remarkable transaction in which the Cavalier Forester has been engaged. Lady Bothwell then expressed anxiety concerning her sister, whose old accountants, and apparent unconsciousness of what passed around her, excited her apprehensions how it might be possible to convey her home. I have prepared for that, answered the adept. I have directed the servant to bring her equipage as nearer to this place as the narrowness of the street will permit, for not for your sister, but give her, when you return home, this composing draft, and she will be better tomorrow morning. Few, he added, in a melancholy tone, leave this house as well as in health, as they entered it. Such being the consequence of seeking knowledge by mysterious means, I leave you to judge the condition of those who have the power of gratifying such irregular curiosity. Farewell, and forget not the potion. I will give her nothing that comes from you, said Lady Bothwell. I have seen enough of your art already. Perhaps you would poison us both to conceal your own necromancy, but we are persons who want neither the means of making our wrongs known, nor the assistance of friends to write them. You have had no wrongs from me, madam, said the adept. You sought one who was little grateful for such honor. He seeks no one. It only gives responses to those who invite and call upon him. After all, you have but learned a little sooner the evil which you must still be doomed to endure. I hear your servant step at the door, and will detain your ladyship and Lady Forrester no longer. The next packet from the continent will explain what you have already partly witnessed. Let it not, if I may advise, pass too suddenly into your sister's hands." So saying, he bid Lady Bothwell good night. She went, lighted by the adept, to the vestibule, where he hastily threw a black cloak over his single address, and opening the door entrusted his visitors to the care of the servant. It was with difficulty that Lady Bothwell sustained her sister to the carriage, though it was only twenty steps distant. When they arrived at home, Lady Forrester required medical assistance. The physician of the family attended, and shook his head on feeling her pulse. Here has been, he said, a violent and sudden shock on the nerves. I must know how it has happened. Lady Bothwell admitted that they had visited the conjurer, and that Lady Forrester had received some bad news respecting her husband, Sir Philip. That frascally quack would make my fortune where he to stay in Edinburgh, said the graduate. This is the seventh nervous case I have heard of his making for me, and all by effect of terror. He next examined the composing draft Lady Bothwell had unconsciously brought in hand, sasted it, and pronounced it very germane to the matter, and what would save an application to the apothecary. He then paused, and looked at Lady Bothwell very significantly. At length added, I suppose I must not ask you a ladyship anything about this Italian warlock's proceedings. Indeed, doctor, answered Lady Bothwell, I consider what past is confidential, and though the man may be a rogue yet, as we were fools enough to consult him, we should, I think, be honest to keep his counsel. May be a knave, come, said the doctor, I am glad to hear your ladyship allows such a possibility in anything that comes from Italy. What comes from Italy may be as good as what comes from Hanover, doctor, but you and I remain good friends, and that it may be so, we will say nothing of Wig and Tori. Not I, said the doctor, receiving his fee and taking his hat. A corolla serves my purpose as well as a willy almos, but I should like to know why old lady St. Rhingon's and all that said go about wasting their decayed lungs in puffing this foreign fellow. I, you had best said it down at a Jesuit, as Scrub says. On these terms they parted. The poor patient, whose nerves from an extraordinary state of tension had length become relaxed in and as an extraordinary degree, continued to struggle with a sort of imbecility, the growth of superstitious terror, when the shocking tidings were brought from Holland, which fulfilled even her worst expectations. They were sent by the celebrated Earl of Stare, and contained the melancholy event of a duel between Sir Philip Forrester and his wife's half-brother, Captain Falconer, of the Scotch Dutch, as they were then called, in which the latter had been killed. The cause of quarrel rendered the incident still more shocking. It seemed that Sir Philip had left the army suddenly, in consequence of being unable to pay a very considerable sum, which he had lost to another volunteer at play. He had changed his name, and taken up his residence at Rotterdam, where he had insinuated himself into the good graces of an ancient and rich burgamaster. Then by his handsome person and graceful manners, captivated the affections of his only child, a very young person of great beauty and the heiress of much wealth, delighted with the suspicious attractions of his proposed son-in-law, the wealthy merchant, whose idea of the British character was too high to admit of his taking any precaution to acquire evidence of his condition and circumstances, gave his consent to the marriage. It was about to be celebrated in the principal church of the city when it was interrupted by a singular occurrence. Captain Falconer, having been detached of Rotterdam to bring up a part of the brigade of Scottish auxiliaries who were in quarters there, a person of consideration in the town, to whom he had been formally known, proposed to him for amusement to go to the high church to see a countrymen of his own married to the daughter of a wealthy burgamaster. Captain Falconer went accordingly, accompanied by his Dutch acquaintance with a party of his friends, with two or three officers of the Scotch Brigade. His astonishment may be conceived when he saw his own brother-in-law, a married man, on the point of leading to the altar, the innocent and beautiful creature upon whom he was about to practice a base and unmanly deceit. He proclaimed his villainy on the spot, and the marriage was interrupted, of course, but against the opinion of more thinking men who considered Sir Philip Forrester as having thrown himself out of the rank of man of honour, Captain Falconer admitted him to the privilege of such, accepted a challenge from him, and in the encounter received a mortal wound. Such are the ways of heaven, mysterious in our eyes. Lady Forrester never recovered from the shock of this dismal intelligence. And did this tragedy, said I, take place exactly at the time when the scene in the mirror was exhibited? It is hard to be obliged to maim one story, answered my aunt, but to speak the truth it happened some day sooner than the apparition was exhibited. And so there remained a possibility, said I, that by some secret and speedy communication the artist might have received early intelligence of that incident. The incredulous pretended so, replied my aunt. What became of the adept, demanded I. Why? A warrant came down shortly afterwards to arrest him for high treason as an agent of the Chevalier de St. George, and Lady Bothwell recollecting the hints which had escaped the doctor, an ardent friend of the Protestant succession, did then call to remembrance that this man was chiefly poney among the Asian maîtres of her own political persuasion. It certainly seemed probable that intelligence from the continent which could easily have been transmitted by an active and powerful agent might have enabled him to repair such a scene of phantasmagoria as she had itself witnessed. Yet there were so many difficulties in assigning a natural explanation that, to the day of her death, she remained in great doubt on the subject, much disposed to cut the Gordian knot by admitting the existence of supernatural agency. But my dear aunt, said I, what became of the man of skill? Oh, he was too good a fortune teller not to be able to foresee that his own destiny would be tragic if he waded the arrival of the man with a silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made, as we say, a moonlight flitting that was nowhere to be seen or heard of, some noise that was about papers or letters found in the house, but it died away, and Dr. Baptista Damiati was soon as little talked of as Galen or Hippocrates. And Sir Philip Forester, said I, did he too vanish forever from the public scene? No, replied my kind informer. He was heard once more, and it was upon a remarkable occasion. It is said that we Scots, when there was such a nation in existence, have among our full pick of virtues one or two little barley-corns of vice. In particular, it is alleged that we rarely forgive and never forget any injuries received, that we used to make an idol of our resentment, as poor Lady Constance did of her grief, and are addicted, as Byrne says, to nursing our wrath to keep it warm. Lady Bothwell was not without this feeling, and I believe nothing whatever scares the restoration of the steward line could have happened so delicious to her feelings as an opportunity of being revenged on Sir Philip Forester, for the deep and double injury which had deprived her of a sister and of a brother. But nothing of him was heard or known, till my near year had passed away. At length it was on a fastens and shrovetide assembly, at which the whole fashion of Edinburgh attended, full and frequent, and when Lady Bothwell had a seat amongst the Lady Patronesses that one of the attendants in the company whispered into her ear that a gentleman wished to speak with her in private. In private, and in an assembly room, he must be mad. Tell him to call upon me to-morrow morning. I said so, my lady, or answer the man, but he desired me to give you this paper. She undid the billet, which was curiously folded and sealed. It only bore the words, all business of life and death, ridden in a hand which she had never seen before. Suddenly it occurred to her that it might concern the safety of some of her political friends. She therefore followed the messenger to a small apartment where the refreshments were prepared, and from which the general company was excluded. She found an old man who, at her approach, rose up and bowed profoundly. His appearance indicated a broken constitution, and his dress, though sedulously rendered conforming to the etiquette of a ballroom, was worn and tarnished, and hung in folds about its emaciated person. Lady Bothwell was about to feel for her purse, expecting to get rid of the supplicant at the expense of a little money, but some fear of her mistake arrested her purpose. She therefore gave the man leisure to explain himself. I have the honour to speak with the Lady Bothwell. I am Lady Bothwell. Allow me to say that it is no time or place for long explanations. What are your commands with me? Your leadership, said the old man, had once a sister, true, whom I loved as my own soul, and a brother, the bravest, the kindest, the most affectionate, said Lady Bothwell. Both these beloved relatives who we lost by the fault of an unfortunate man continued the stranger. By the crime of it on a natural, bloody-minded murderer, said the lady. I am answered, replied the old man, bowing as if to a draw. Stop, sir, I command you, said Lady Bothwell. Who are you that at such a place and time, come to recall these horrible recollections? I insist upon knowing. I am one who intends, Lady Bothwell, no injury, but on the contrary, to offer her the means of doing a deed of Christian charity, which the world will wonder at, and which heaven would reward. But I find her in no temper for such a sacrifice, as I was prepared to ask. Speak out, sir, what is your meaning, said Lady Bothwell. The wretch that has wronged you so deeply, rejoined the stranger, is now on his deathbed. His days have been days of misery. His nights have been sleepless hours of anguish. Yet he cannot die without your forgiveness. His life has been an unremitting penance. Yet he dares not part from his burden, while your curses load his soul. Tell him, said Lady Bothwell sternly, to ask pardon of that being whom he has so greatly offended. Not of an erring mortal like myself. What could my forgiveness avail him? Much answered the old man. It will be an earnest of that which he may then venture to ask from his creator, lady, and from yours. Remember, Lady Bothwell, you too have a deathbed to look forward to. Your soul may, all human souls must, feel the awe of facing the judgment-seed, with the wounds of an unintended desconscience, raw and rankling. What thought would it be, then, that should whisper, I have given no mercy? How then shall I ask for it? Man, whatever thou's mayest be, replied Lady Bothwell, urge me not so cruelly. It would be but blasphemous hypocrisy, to utter with my lips the words which every throb of my heart protest against. They would open the earth, and give to light the wasted form of my sister. The bloody form of my murdered brother. Forgive him? Never! Never! Great God! I cried the old man, holding up his hands. Is it thus the worms which thou hast called out of duster bay, the commands of their maker? Farewell, proud and unforgiving woman! Exalt the thou hast added to a death in want and pain, the agonies of religious despair, but never again mock heaven by petitioning for the pardon which thou hast refused to grant. He was turning from her. Stop, she exclaimed. I will try, yes. I will try to pardon him. Gracious lady, said the old man, your relieve the overburdened soul, which dare not sever itself from its sinful companion of earth, without being at peace with you. What do I know? Your forgiveness may perhaps preserve, for penitence, the dregs of a wretched life. Ha! said the lady, as the sudden night broke on her. It is the villain himself, and grasping Sir Philip Forrester, for it was he and no other. By the collar she raised a cry of, Murder! Murder! Seize the murderer! An exclamation so singular, in such a place, the company thronged into the apartment, that Sir Philip Forrester was no longer there. He had forcefully extricated himself from Lady Bothel's hold, and had run out of the apartment which opened on the landing-place of the stair. There seemed no escape in that direction, for there were several persons coming up the steps, and others descending. But the unfortunate man was desperate. He threw himself over the ballast-read, and allotted safely in the lobby, through an open leap of fifteen feet at least, then dashed into the street and was lost in darkness. Some of the Bothel family made pursuit, and had they come up with a fugitive they might have perhaps slain him. For in those days men's blood ran warm in their veins. But the police did not interfere, the matter most criminal, having happened long since, and in a foreign land. Indeed, it was always thought that this extraordinary scene originated in a hypocritical experiment, by which Sir Philip desired to ascertain whether he might return to his native country in safety from the resentment of a family which he had injured so deeply. As the result fell out so contrary to his wishes, he is believed to have returned to the Condon, and there died in exile.