 Section 1. To Richard Bentley Esquire. My dear sir, you wish me to collect into a single volume certain rambling extracts from our family memoranda, many of which have already appeared in the pages of your miscellany. At the same time you tell me that doubts are entertained in certain quarters as to the authenticity of their details. Now with respect to their genuineness, the old oak chest in which the originals are deposited is not more familiar to my eyes than it is to your own. And if its contents have any value at all, it consists in the strict veracity of the facts they record. To convince the most incredulous, I can only add that, should business, pleasure is out of the question. Ever call them into the neighborhood of Holkston. Let them take the high road from Canterbury to Dover till they reach the eastern extremity of Barum Downs. Here a beautiful green lane diverging abruptly to the right will carry them through the oxen and plantations and the unpretending village of Denton to the foot of a very respectable hill as hills go in this part of Europe. On reaching its summit let them look straight before them, and if among the hanging woods which crown the opposite side of the valley, they cannot distinguish an antiquated manor house of Elizabethan architecture with its gable ends, stone stanchions, and tortuous chimneys rising above the surrounding trees, why the sooner they procure a pair of Dullin's patent spectacles the better. If on the contrary they can manage to describe it, and proceeding some five or six furlongs through the avenue will ring at the lodge gate, they cannot mistake the stone lion with the Ingalls via scutchin, vermin, assaulter, and grailed jewels in his paws they will be received with a hearty old English welcome. The papers in question having been written by different parties and at various periods I have thought it advisable to reduce the more ancient of them into a comparatively modern phraseology, and to make my collateral ancestor, Father John especially, deliver himself like a man of this world. Mr. Maguire indeed is the only gentleman who, in his account of the late coronation, retains his own rich vernacular. As to arrangement I shall adopt the sentiment expressed by the constable of Bourbon four centuries ago, S. D. Shakespeare, one which seems to become more fashionable every day, let devil take all order, aisle to the throng, believe me to be, my dear sir, yours most indubitably and immeasurably, Thomas Ingallsby, Tappington Everard, January 20, 1840. Next to the second edition, to Richard Bentley Esquire, my dear sir. I should have replied sooner to your letter, but that the last three days in January are, as you are aware, always dedicated at the hall, to an especial battu, and the old houses full of shooting jackets, shot belts, and double joes. Even the women wear percussion caps, and your favorite, Rover, who you may remember, examined the calves of your legs with such suspicious curiosity at Christmas, is as pheasant mad as if he were a biped, instead of being a genuine four-legged scion of the blenum breed. I have managed, however, to avail myself of a lucid interval in the general hallucination, how the rain did come down on Monday, and as you tell me the excellent friend whom you are in the habit of styling a generous and enlightened public, has emptied your shelves of the first edition and asks for more. Why, I agree with you, it would be a want of respect to that very respectable personification when furnishing him with a further supply, not to endeavor at least, to amend my faults, which are few, and your own, which are more numerous. I have, therefore, gone to work con amore, trying occasionally on my own part a deficient note, or elucidatory stanza, and on yours knocking out without remorse your superfluous eyes and now and then eviscerating your colon. My duty to your illustrious friend thus performed, I have a crow to pluck with him. Why will he persist, as you tell me he does persist, in calling me by all sorts of names but those to which I am entitled by birth and baptism, my sponsorial and patronymic appellations, as Dr. Pangloss has it. Mrs. Malaprop complains, and with justice, of an assault upon her parts of speech, but to attack one's very existence, to deny that one is a person in essay, and scarcely to admit that one may be a person in posse, is tenfold cruelty, it is pressing to death, whipping and hanging. Let me entreat all such likewise to remember that a Shakespeare beautifully expresses himself elsewhere. I give his words as quoted by a very worthy baronet in a neighboring county, when protesting against a defamatory placard at a general election. Who steals my purse steals stuff. Twas mine, tisn't his, nor nobody else's. But he who runs away with my good name, robs me of what does not do him any good, and makes me deused poor. Footnote. A reading which seems most unaccountably to have escaped the researches of all modern Shakespeareans, including the rival editors of the new and illustrated versions. And footnote. In order utterly to squabash and demolish every gainsayer I had thought at one time of asking my old and esteemed friend Richard Lane to crush them at once with his magic pencil, and to transmit my features to posterity, where all his works are sure to be delivered according to the direction. But somehow the noble-looking profiles which he has recently executed of the Kemble family put me a little out of conceit of my own, while the undisguised amusement which my Mephistopheles eyebrow, as he termed it, afforded him in the full face, induced me to lay aside the design. Besides, my dear sir, since as has well been observed, there never was a married man yet who had not somebody remarkably like him walking about town. It is a thousand to one, but my lineaments might, after all, out of sheer perverseness be ascribed to anybody rather than to the real owner. I have therefore sent you, instead thereof, a fair sketch of Tappington, taken from the Folkston Road. I tore it last night out of Julia Simpkinson's album. Get jokes to make a woodcut of it. And now, if any miscreant, I use the word only in its primary and Pickwickian sense of unbeliever, ventures to throw any further doubt upon the matter, why, as Jack Cade's friend says in the play, there are the chimneys in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it. Why, very well, then, we hope here be truths. Heaven be with you, my dear sir. I was getting a little excited, but you, who are mild as the milk that dews the soft whisker of the new-weened kitten, will forgive me when wiping away the nascent moisture from my brow. I pull in and subscribe myself, yours quite as much as his own, Thomas Engelbsby, Tappington Everard, February 2nd, 1843. End of Section 1 Section 2 of the Engelbsby Legends First Series This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Engelbsby Legends First Series by Richard Harris Barum, Section 2. The Spectre of Tappington It is very odd, though, what can have become of them? said Charles Seaforth, as he peeped under the balance of an old-fashioned bedstead in an old-fashioned apartment, of a still more old-fashioned manor house. It is confoundedly odd, and I can't make it out at all. Why, Barney, where are they? And where the devil are you? No answer was returned to this appeal. And the lieutenant, who was, in the main, a reasonable person. At least as reasonable a person as any young gentleman of twenty-two in the service, can fairly be expected to be. Cooled when he reflected that his servant could scarcely reply extemporary to a summons which it was impossible he should hear. An application to the bell was the considerate result. And the footsteps of as tight a lad as ever put pipe clay to belt sounded along the gallery. "'Come in,' said his master. An ineffectual attempt upon the door reminded Mr. Seaforth that he had locked himself in. By heaven this is the oddest thing of all,' said he, as he turned the key, and admitted Mr. McGuire into his dormitory. "'Barney, where are my pantaloons? Is it the breeches?' asked the valet, casting an inquiring eye round the apartment. "'Is it the breeches, sir?' "'Yes. What have you done with them? Sure then your honour had them on when you went to bed. And it's here about they'll be. I'll be bail.' And Barney lifted a fashionable tunic from a cane-backed armchair, proceeding in his examination. "'But the search was vain. There was the tunic, aforesaid. There was a smart-looking cursey, mere wiscut. But the most important article of all in a gentleman's wardrobe was still wanting. "'Where can they be?' asked the master, with a strong accent on the auxiliary verb. "'Sorrow a no-eyes knows,' said the man. "'It must have been the devil, then, after all, who has been here and carried them off,' cried Seaforth, staring full into Barney's face. Mr. McGuire was not devoid of the superstition of his countrymen. Still he looked as if he did not quite subscribe to the sequitur. His master read in credulity in his countenance. "'Why, I tell you, Barney, I put them there on that armchair when I got into bed. And by heaven I distinctly saw the ghost of the old fellow they told me of. Come in at midnight, put on my pantaloons, and walk away with them. Maybe so was the cautious reply. I thought, of course, it was a dream. But then, where the devil are the breaches?' The question was more easily asked than answered. Barney renewed his search, while the lieutenant folded his arms and, leaning against the toilet, sunk into a reverie. "'After all, it must be some trick of my laughter-loving cousins,' said Seaforth. "'Ah, then the ladies,' chimed in Mr. McGuire, though the observation was not addressed to him. And will it be Miss Caroline or Miss Fanny that stole your honour's things? I hardly know what to think of it.' Pursued the bereaved lieutenant, still speaking in soliloquy, with his eye resting dubiously on the chamber door, I locked myself in, that certain, and—but there must be some other entrance to the room. "'Poo! I remember—the private staircase. How could I be such a fool?' And he crossed the chamber to where a low-oaken doorcase was dimly visible in a distant corner. He paused before it. Nothing now interfered to screen it from observation. But it bore tokens of having been at some earlier period concealed by tapestry, remains of which yet clothed the walls on either side the portal. "'This way they must have come,' said Seaforth. I wish with all my heart I had caught them. Ah, the kittens!' sighed Mr. Barney McGuire. But the mystery was yet as far from being solved as before. True, there was the other door. But then that, too, on examination, was even more firmly secured than the one which opened on the gallery. Two heavy bolts on the inside effectually prevented any coup de man on the lieutenant's bivouac from that quarter. He was more puzzled than ever. Nor did the minutest inspection of the walls and floor throw any light upon the subject. One thing only was clear. The breeches were gone. It is very singular, said the lieutenant. Tappington, generally called Tapton Everard, is an antiquated but commodious manor house in the eastern division of the county of Kent. A former proprietor had been high-sheriff in the days of Elizabeth, and many a dark and dismal tradition was yet extant of the licentiousness of his life and the enormity of his offenses. The glen which the keeper's daughter was seen to enter, but never known to quit, still frowns darkly as of yore, while an ineradicable bloodstain on the oaken stair yet bids defiance to the united energies of soap and sand. But it is with one particular apartment that a deed of more special atrocity is said to be connected. A stranger guest, so runs the legend, arrived unexpectedly at the mansion of the bad surgyles. They met in apparent friendship, but the ill-concealed scowl on the master's brow told the domestics that the visit was not a welcome one. The banquet, however, was not spared. The wine-cup circulated freely, too freely, perhaps, for sounds of discord at length reached the ears of even the excluded serving men, as they were doing their best to imitate their betters in the lower hall. Alarmed, some of them ventured to approach the parlor. One, an old and favored retainer of the house, went so far as to break in upon his master's privacy. Surgyles, already high in oath, fiercely enjoined his absence, and he retired. Not, however, before he had distinctly heard from the stranger's lips a menace that there was that within his pocket which could disprove the knight's right to issue that or any other command within the walls of Tapton. The intrusion, though momentary, seemed to have produced a beneficial effect. The voices of the disputant's bell, and the conversation was carried on thenceforth in a more subdued tone. Till, as evening closed in, the domestics, when summoned to attend with lights, found not only cordiality restored, but that a still deeper corrals was meditated. Fresh stoops and, from the choices, bins were produced. Nor was it till at a late or rather early hour that the revelers sought their chambers. The one allotted to the stranger occupied the first floor of the eastern angle of the building, and had once been the favorite apartment of Surgyles himself. Scandal ascribed this preference to the facility which a private staircase, communicating with the grounds, had afforded him, in the old knight's time, of following his wicked courses unchecked by parental observation, a consideration which ceased to be of weight when the death of his father left him uncontrolled master of his estate and actions. From that period Surgyles had established himself in what were called the State Apartments, and the Oaken Chamber was rarely tenanted, save on occasions of extraordinary festivity, or when the eulog drew an unusually large accession of guests around the Christmas hearth. On this eventful night it was prepared for the unknown visitor, who sawed his couch heated and inflamed from his midnight orgies, and in the morning was found in his bed a swollen and blackened corpse. No marks of violence appeared upon the body, but the livid hue of the lips, and certain dark-colored spots visible on the skin, aroused suspicions which those who entertained them were too timid to express, apoplexy induced by the excesses of the preceding night. Surgyles' confidential leech pronounced to be the cause of his sudden dissolution. The body was buried in peace, and though some shook their heads as they witnessed the haste with which the funeral rites were hurried on, none ventured to murmur. Other events arose to distract the attention of the retainers. Men's minds became occupied by the stirring politics of the day, while the near approach of that formidable armada, so vainly arrogating to itself a title which the very elements joined with human valor to disprove, soon interfered to weaken, if not obliterate, all remembrance of the nameless stranger who had died within the walls of Tapton Everard. Years rolled on. The bad Surgyles had himself long since gone to his account. The last, as it was believed, of his immediate line. Though a few of the older tenants were sometimes heard to speak of an elder brother, who had disappeared in early life and never inherited the estate, rumors, too, of his having left a son in foreign lands were at one time rife, but they died away, nothing occurring to support them. The property passed unchallenged to a collateral branch of the family, and the secret, if secret there were, was buried in Denton Churchyard in the lonely grave of the mysterious stranger. One circumstance alone occurred after a long intervening period to revive the memory of these transactions. Some workmen employed in grubbing an old plantation, for the purpose of raising on its site a modern shrubbery. Dug up, in the execution of their task, the mildewed remnants of what seemed to have been once a garment. On more minute inspection enough remained of silken slashes and a coarse embroidery to identify the relics as having once formed part of a pair of trunk-hose, while a few papers which fell from them, all together illegible from damp and age, were by the unlearned rustics conveyed to the then-owner of the estate. Whether the squire was more successful in deciphering them was never known. He certainly never alluded to their contents, and little would have been thought of a matter. But for the inconvenient memory of one old woman, who declared she heard her grandfather say, that when the stranger guest was poisoned, though all the rest of his clothes were there, his breeches, the supposed repository of the supposed documents, could never be found, the master of Tapton Everard smiled when he heard Dame Jones' hint of deeds which might impeach the validity of his own title, in favour of some unknown descendant of some unknown heir. And the story was rarely alluded to, saved by one or two miracle-mongers, who had heard that others had seen the ghost of old sergiles in his nightcap, issue from the postern, enter the adjoining copes, and ring his shadowy hands in agony, as he seemed to search vainly for something hidden among the evergreens. The stranger's death-room had, of course, been occasionally haunted from the time of his decease. But the periods of visitation had laterally become very rare. Even Mrs. Botherby, the housekeeper, being forced to admit that, during her long sojourn at the manor, she had never met with anything worse than herself, though, as the old lady afterwards added upon more mature reflection, I must say I think I saw the devil once. Such was the legend attached to Tapton Everard, and such the story which the lively Caroline Ingaldsby detailed to her equally mercurial cousin, Charles Seaforth, lieutenant in the honourable East India Company's second regiment of Bombay Fencebles. As arm in arm they promenaded a gallery decked with some dozen grim-looking ancestral portraits, and, among others, with that of the redoubted sergiles himself, the gallant commander had that very morning paid his first visit to the house of his maternal uncle. After an absence of several years, passed with his regiment on the arid plains of Hindustan, once he was now returned on a three-years furlough, he had gone out a boy, he returned a man. But the impression made upon his youthful fancy, by his favourite cousin, remained unimpaired. And to Tapton he directed his steps, even before he sought the home of his widowed mother, comforting himself in this breach of filial decorum, by the reflection that, as the manor was so little out of his way, it would be unkind to pass as it were the door of his relatives without just looking in for a few hours. But he found his uncle as hospitable, and his cousin more charming than ever, and the looks of one and the requests of the other, soon precluded the possibility of refusing to lengthen the few hours into a few days, though the house was at the moment full of visitors. The Peterses were there from Ramsgate, and Mr., Mrs., and the two Miss. Simpkinsons, from Bath, had come to pass a month with the family, and Tom Ingallsby had brought down his college friend, the honourable Augustus Suckel Thumpkin, with his groom and pointers, to take a fortnight's shooting, and then there was Mrs. Ogleton, the rich young widow, with her large black eyes, who people did say was setting her cap at the young squire, though Mrs. Botherby did not believe it. And above all, there was Mad Wazel Pauline, her fam Deschamps, who mon-dued everything and everybody, and cried K. R. R. at Mrs. Botherby's cap, in short, to use the last named and much respected lady's own expression. The house was choked full to the very attics. All saved the oaken chamber, which, as the lieutenant expressed a most magnanimous disregard of ghosts, was forthwith appropriated to his particular accommodation. Mr. McGuire, meanwhile, was feigned to share the apartment of Oliver Dobbs, the squire's own man, a jocular proposal of joint occupancy having been first indignantly rejected by Mad Wazel, though preferred with the laced taste in life of Mr. Barney's most insinuating brogue. Come, Charles, the urn is absolutely getting cold. Your breakfast will be quite spoiled. What can have made you so idle? Such was the morning salutation of Miss Ingallsby to the military, as he entered the breakfast-room half an hour after the latest of the party. A pretty gentleman truly, to make an appointment with, chimed in Miss Francis. What is become of our ramble to the rocks before breakfast? Oh, the young men never think of keeping a promise now, said Mrs. Peters. A little ferret-faced woman with under-done eyes. When I was a young man, said Mr. Peters, I remember I always made a point of, pray how long ago was that? asked Mr. Simpkinson, from Bath. Why, sir, when I married Mrs. Peters, I was, let me see, I was, do pray hold your tongue, pee, and eat your breakfast, interrupted his better half, who had a mortal horror of chronological references. It's very rude to tease people with your family affairs. The lieutenant had, by this time, taken his seat in silence. A good-humored nod and a glance half smiling, half inquisitive, being the extent of his salutation, smitten as he was, and in the immediate presence of her who had made so large a hole in his heart, his manner was evidently distrae, which the fair Caroline, in her secret soul, attributed to his being solely occupied by her agrément. How would she have bridled had she known that they only shared his meditations with a pair of breeches? Charles drank his coffee and spiked some half-dozen eggs, darting occasionally a penetrating glance at the ladies, in hope of detecting the supposed waggery by the evidence of some furtive smile or conscious look. But in vain, not a dimple moved indicative of roguery, nor did the slightest elevation of eyebrow rise confirmative of his suspicions. Hints and insinuations passed unheeded. More particular inquiries were out of the question. The subject was unapproachable. In the mean time, patent cords were just the thing for a morning's ride. And breakfast ended, away cantered the party over the downs, till every faculty absorbed by the beauties, animate and inanimate, which surrounded him. Lieutenant Seaforth of the Bombay Fencebles bestowed no more thought upon his breeches than if he had been born on the top of Ben Lomond. Another night had passed away. The sun rose brilliantly, forming with his level beams a splendid rainbow in the far off west, wither the heavy cloud which for the last two hours had been pouring its waters on the earth was now flying before him. Ah, then, and its little good it'll be the claning of ye, apostrophised Mr. Barney McGuire, as he deposited in front of his master's toilet a pair of brand new jockey boots, one of Hobie's primest fits, which the lieutenant had purchased in his way through town. On that very morning had they come, for the first time under the ballad's depurating hand, so little soiled, indeed, from the turfy ride of the preceding day, that a less scrupulous domestic might perhaps have considered the application of Warren's matchless or oxalic acid altogether superfluous. Not so Barney. With the nicest care had he removed the slightest impurity from each polished surface, and there they stood rejoicing in their sable radiance. No wonder a pang shot across Mr. McGuire's breast, as he thought on the work now cut out for them. So different from the light labours of the day before. No wonder he murmured with a sigh as the scarce dried windowpains disclosed a road now inch deep in mud. Ah, then, it's little good the claning of ye, for well had he learned in the hall below that eight miles of a stiff clay soil lay between the manor and bowls over Abbey, whose picturesque ruins, like ancient Rome, majestic in decay, the party had determined to explore. The master had already commenced the dressing, and the man was fitting straps upon a light pair of crane-necked spurs, when his hand was arrested by the old question. Barney, where are the breeches? They were nowhere to be found. Mr. Seaforth descended that morning, whip in hand, and equipped in a handsome green riding-frog, but no breeches and boots to match were there. Loose jean trousers, surmounting a pair of diminutive wellingtons, embraced somewhat incongruously his nether man. Visey, the patent cords returned, like yesterday's pantaloons, absent without leave. The top-boots had a holiday. A fine morning after the rain, said Mr. Simpkinson from Bath. Just the thing for the ops, said Mr. Peters. I remember when I was a boy. Do hold your tongue, P. said Mrs. Peters. Advice which that exemplary matron was in the constant habit of administering to her P. as she called him, whenever he prepared to vent his reminiscences. Her precise reason for this it would be difficult to determine, unless indeed the story be true, which a little bird had whispered into Mrs. Botherby's ear. Mr. Peters, though now a wealthy man, had received a liberal education at a charity school, and was apt to recur to the days of his muffin-cap and leathers. As usual he took his wife's hint in good part and paused in his reply. A glorious day for the ruins, said young Engelsby. But Charles, what the deuce are you about? You don't mean to ride through our lanes in such tawdery as that. Lassie me, said Miss Julia Simpkinson, won't you be very wet? You had better take Tom's cab, quote the squire. But this proposition was at once overruled. Mrs. Ogleton had already nailed the cab. A vehicle of all others the best adapted for a snug flirtation. Or drive Miss Julia in the Fetan. No, that was the post of Mr. Peters, who indifferent as an equestrian, had acquired some fame as a whip while traveling through the Midland Counties for the firm of Bagshaw, Snivelby, and Grimes. Thank you, I shall ride with my cousins, said Charles, with as much nonchalance as he could assume. And he did so. Mr. Engelsby, Mrs. Peters, Mr. Simpkinson from Bath, and his eldest daughter with her album, following in the family coach. The gentleman commoner voted the affair damn slow, and declined the party altogether, in favour of the gamekeeper and a cigar. There was no fun in looking at old houses. Mrs. Simpkinson preferred a short sejour in the stillroom with Mrs. Bathurby, who had promised to initiate her in that grand arcanum, the transmutation of gooseberry jam into guava jelly. Did you ever see an old abbey before, Mr. Peters? Yes, Miss, a French one. We have got one at Ramsgate. He teaches the Miss Joneses to the Parleau, and is turned of sixty. Miss Simpkinson closed her album with an air of ineffable disdain. Mr. Simpkinson from Bath was a professed antiquary, and one of the first water. He was master of Guilham's Heraldry, and Mill's history of the Crusades, knew every plate in the monasticon, had written an essay on the origin and dignity of the Office of Overseer, and settled the date of a Queen Anne's Barthing, an influential member of the antiquarian society, to whose beauties of bag Nick Wells, he had been a liberal subscriber, procured him a seat at the board of that learned body, since which happy epoch Sylvanus Urban had not a more indefatigable correspondent. His inaugural essay on the President's cocked hat was considered a miracle of erudition, and his account of the earliest application of gilding to gingerbread, a masterpiece of antiquarian research. His eldest daughter was of a kindred spirit. If her father's mantle had not fallen upon her, it was only because he had not thrown it off himself. She had caught hold of its tail, however, while it yet hung upon his honoured shoulders. To soul so congenial, what a sight was the magnificent ruin of balsyver, its broken arches, its mouldering pinnacles, and the airy tracery of its half-demolished windows. The party were in raptures. Mr. Simpkinson began to meditate an essay, and his daughter and Ode, even Seaforth, as he gazed on these lonely relics of the olden time, was betrayed into a momentary forgetfulness of his love and losses. The widow's eyeglass turned from her cheekiest bao's whiskers to the mantling ivy. Mrs. Peters wiped her spectacles and her pee, supposed the central tower, had once been the county jail. The squire was a philosopher, and had been there often before. So he ordered out the cold tongue and chickens. Balsyver Priory, said Mr. Simpkinson, with the air of a connoisseur. Balsyver Priory was founded in the reign of Henry VI, about the beginning of the 11th century. Hugh de Balsyver had accompanied that monarch to the Holy Land, in the expedition undertaken by way of penance for the murder of his young nephews in the tower. Upon the dissolution of the monasteries, the veteran was in fiefd with the lands and manner to which he gave his own name of Balsyver, or Balsover by corruption, Balsover, a bee in chief, over three owls, all proper, being the armorial ensigns borne by this distinguished crusader at the Siege of Accra. Ah, that was Sir Sidney Smith, said Mr. Peters. I've heard tell of him, and all about Mrs. Partington, and P. B. Quiet and don't expose yourself, sharply interrupted his lady. He was silenced and betook himself to the bottled stout. These lands, continued the antiquary, were held in grand sergeantry by the presentation of three white owls and a pot of honey. Lassie me how nice, said Miss Julia. Mr. Peters licked his lips. Pray give me leave, my dear. Owls and honey. Whenever the king should come a rat-catching in this part of the country. Rat-catching ejaculated the squire, pausing abruptly in the mastication of a drum-stick. To be sure, my dear sir, don't you remember the rats once came under the forest laws? A minor species of venison. Rats and mice and such small deer, eh? Shakespeare, you know. Our ancestors ate rats. The nasty fellows shuddered Miss Julia in a parenthesis. And owls, you know, are capital mousers. I've seen a howl, said Mr. Peters. There's one in the Soho logical gardens. A little hooked-nose chap in a wig. Only its feathers end. Poor P. was destined never to finish a speech. Do be quiet, cried the authoritative voice. And the would-be naturalist shrank into his shell, like a snail in the Soho logical gardens. You should read Blunt's Jocular Tenures, Mr. Inglesby, pursued Simpkinson. A learned man was Blunt. Why, sir, his royal highness, the Duke of York, once paid a silver horseshoe to Lord Ferraris. I've heard of him broke in the incorrigible, Peters. He was hanged at the old Bailey in a silk rope for shooting Dr. Johnson. The antiquary vouch-safed no knowledge of the interruption. But taking a pinch of snuff continued his harangue. A silver horseshoe, sir, which is due from every scion of royalty who rides across one of his manners. And if you look into the penny-county histories, now publishing by an eminent friend of mine, you will find that Langhale in County Norfolk was held by one Baldwin, Persaltum Suflatum et Petum. That is, he was to come every Christmas into Westminster Hall, there to take a leap, cry him, and... Mr. Simpkinson, a glass of sherry, cried Tom Inglesby hastily. Not any, thank you, sir. This Baldwin, sir named Le, Mrs. Ogleton challenges you, sir. She insists upon it, said Tom still more rapidly, at the same time filling a glass, and forcing it on the savant, who thus arrested in the very crisis of his narrative, received and swallowed the quotation as if it had been physical. What on earth has Mrs. Simpkinson discovered there? continued Tom. Something of interest? See how fast she is writing. The diversion was effectual. Everyone looked towards Mrs. Simpkinson, who, far too ethereal for creature comforts, was seated apart on the dilapidated remains of an altar tomb, committing eagerly to paper something that had strongly impressed her. The air, the eye in a fine frenzy rolling, all betokened that the divine aflates was come. Her father rose and stole silently towards her. What an old bore, muttered young Inglesby, alluding perhaps to a slice of brawn which he had just begun to operate upon, but which from the solarity with which it disappeared did not seem so very difficult of mastication. But what had become of Seaforth and his fair Caroline all this while? Why, it so happened that they had been simultaneously stricken with the picturesque appearance of one of those high and pointed arches, which that eminent antiquary, Mr. Horsley Curtis, has described in his ancient records as a gothic window of the Saxon order, and then the ivy clustered so thickly and so beautifully on the other side, that they went round to look at that, and then their proximity deprived it of half its effect, and so they walked across to a little knoll a hundred yards off, and in crossing a small ravine they came to what in Ireland they call a bad step, and Charles had to carry his cousin over it, and then when they had come back she would not give him the trouble again for the world, so they followed a better but more circuitous route, and there were hedges and ditches in the way, and styles to get over, and gates to get through, so that an hour or more had elapsed before they were able to rejoin the party. Lassie Me, said Miss Julia Simpkinson, how long you have been gone? And so they had. The remark was a very just, as well as a very natural one. They were gone a long while, and a nice cozy chat they had. And what do you think it was all about, my dear Miss? Oh Lassie Me, love no doubt, and the moon and eyes and nightingales, and stay, stay, my sweet young lady. Do not let the fervor of your feelings run away with you. I do not pretend to say, indeed, that one or more of these pretty subjects might not have been introduced. But the most important and leading topic of the conference was Lieutenant Seaforth's Breaches. Caroline, said Charles, I have had some very odd dreams since I have been at Tappington. Dreams, have you? smiled the young lady, arching her taper neck like a swan in pluming. Dreams, have you? I, dreams. Or dream, perhaps I should say. For though repeated, it was still the same. And what do you imagine was its subject? It is impossible for me to divine, said the tongue. I have not the least difficulty in guessing, said the eye, as plainly as ever I spoke. I dreamt of your great-grandfather. There was a change in the glance. My great-grandfather? Yes, the old Sir Giles, or Sir John, you told me about the other day. He walked into my bedroom in his short cloak of Murray-coloured velvet, his long rapier, and his roly-looking hat and feather, just as the picture represents him, but with one exception. And what was that? Why, his lower extremities, which were visible, were those of a skeleton. Well, well, after taking a turn or two about the room, and looking round him with a wistful air, he came to the bed's foot, stared at me in a manner impossible to describe. And then he, he laid hold of my pantaloons, whipped his long bony legs into them in a twinkling, and strutting up to the glass, seemed to view himself in it with great complacency. I tried to speak, but in vain. The effort, however, seemed to excite his attention. For wheeling about, he showed me the grimest-looking depth's head you can well imagine, and with an indescribable grin, strutted out of the room. Absurd, Charles. How can you talk such nonsense? But Caroline, the breeches are really gone. To his usual custom. Seaforth was the first person in the breakfast parlor. As no one else was present, he did precisely what nine young men out of ten so situated would have done. He walked up to the mantelpiece, established himself upon the rug, and, subducting his coat-tails, one under each arm, turned towards the fire, that portion of the human frame, which it is considered equally indecorous to present to a friend or an enemy. A serious, not to say anxious, expression was visible upon his good-humored countenance, and his mouth was fast buttoning itself up for an incipient whistle, when little flow, a tiny spaniel of the blenum breed, the pet object of Miss Julia Simpkinson's affections, bounced out from beneath a sofa, and began to bark at his pantaloons. They were cleverly built of a light gray mixture, a broad stripe of the most vivid scarlet traversing each seam in a perpendicular direction, from hip to ankle. In short, the regimental costume of the royal Bombay Fencevilles, the animal educated in the country, had never seen such a pair of breeches in her life, omneignotum pro magnifico. The scarlet streak, inflamed as it was by the reflection of the fire, seemed to act on Flora's nerves, as the same color does on those of bulls and turkeys. She advanced at the pas de charge, and her vociperation, like her amazement, was unbounded. A sound kick from the disgusted officer changed its character, and induced a retreat at the very moment when the mistress of the pugnacious quadruped entered to the rescue. Lassie me! Flow, what is the matter? cried the sympathizing lady, with a scrutinizing glance leveled at the gentleman. It might as well have lighted on a feather bed. His air of imperturbable unconsciousness defied examination, and as he would not, and Flora could not, expound. That injured individual was compelled to pocket up her wrongs. Others of the household soon dropped in, and clustered round the board dedicated to the most sociable of meals. The urn was paraded, hissing hot, and the cups which cheer but not inebriate, steamed redolent of hyacin and pico, muffins and marmalade, newspapers and fin and haddies, left little room for observation on the character of Charles' warlike turnout. At length a look from Caroline, followed by a smile, that nearly ripened to a titter, caused him to turn abruptly and address his neighbor. It was Miss Simpkinson, who deeply engaged in sipping her tea, and turning over her album, like a female chrono-notombolegous immersed in cogitability of cogitation. An interrogatory on the subject of her studies drew from her the confession, that she was at that moment employed in putting the finishing touches to a poem, inspired by the romantic shades of bolsover. The entreaties of the company were, of course, urgent. Mr. Peters, who liked verses, was especially persevering, and saffo at length compliant, after a preparatory hem and a glance at the mirror to ascertain that her look was sufficiently sentimental. The poetess began, There is a calm, a holy feeling, vulgar minds can never know, or the bosom softly stealing, chastened grief, delicious woe, oh how sweet at eve regaining, yawn-lone towers sequestered shade, sadly mute and uncomplaining, yow, yow, yow, yow, yow, yelled a hapless sufferer from beneath the table. It was an unlucky hour for quadrupeds, and if every dog will have his day, he could not have selected a more unpropitious one than this. Mrs. Ogleton, too, had a pet, a favorite pug, whose squab figure, black muzzle, and tortuosity of tail, that curled like a head of celery in a salad bowl, bespoke his dutch extraction. Yow, yow, yow, continued the brute, a chorus in which Flo instantly joined. Soothe to say, pug had more reason to express his dissatisfaction than was given him by the muse of Simpkinson. The other only barked for company. Scarcely had the poetess got through her first stanza, when Tom Engelspie, in the enthusiasm of the moment, became so lost in the material world, that in his abstraction he unwarily laid his hand on the cock of the urn. Quivering with emotion he gave it such an unlucky twist that the full stream of its scalding contents descended on the gingerbread hide of the unlucky Cupid. The confusion was complete. The whole economy of the table disarranged. The company broke up in most admired disorder, and vulgar minds will never know anything more of Miss Simpkinson's ode till they peruse it in some forthcoming annual. Seaforth profited by the confusion to take the delinquent who had caused this stromash by the arm and to lead him to the lawn, where he had a word or two for his private ear. The conference between the young gentleman was neither brief in its duration nor unimportant in its result. The subject was what the lawyers call tripartite, embracing the information that Charles Seaforth was overhead in ears in love with Tom Engelspie's sister, secondly that the lady had referred him to papa for his sanction, thirdly and lastly his nightly visitations and consequent bereavement. At the two first items Tom smiled auspiciously. At the last he burst out into an absolute gaffaw. Steal your breeches. Miss Bailey over again by Jove shouted Engelspie. But a gentleman you say. And Sir Giles, too. I am not sure, Charles, whether I ought not to call you out for a spursing the honour of the family. Laugh as you will, Tom. Be as incredulous as you please. One fact is incontestable. The breeches are gone. Look here, I am reduced to my regimentals. And if these go, to-morrow I must borrow a view. Roshvako says there is something in the misfortunes of our very best friends that does not displease us. Assuredly we can, most of us, laugh at their petty inconveniences, till called upon to supply them. Tom composed his features on the instant, and replied with more gravity, as well as with an expletive, which, if my Lord Mayor had been within hearing, might have cost him five shillings. There is something very queer in this after all. The clothes you say have positively disappeared. Somebody is playing you a trick. And ten to one, your servant has a hand in it. By the way, I heard something yesterday of his kicking up a bobbery in the kitchen, and seeing a ghost or something of that kind himself. Depend upon it. Barney is in the plot. It now struck the lieutenant at once that the usually buoyant spirits of his attendant had of late been materially sobered down. His locacity obviously circumscribed, and that he, the said lieutenant, had actually rung his bell three several times that very morning before he could produce his attendance. Mr. Maguire was forthwith summoned, and underwent a close examination. The bobbery was easily explained. Mr. Oliver Dobbs had hinted his disapprobation of a flirtation, carrying on between the gentleman from Munster and the lady from the Rue Saint-Honoré. Matt Moselle had boxed Mr. Maguire's ears, had Mr. Maguire had pulled Matt Moselle upon his knee, and the lady had not cried Mondeux. And Mr. Oliver Dobbs said it was very wrong, and Mrs. Botherby said it was scandalous, and what ought not to be done in any moral kitchen. And Mr. Maguire had got hold of the honorable Augustus Suckelfumkin's powder flask, and had put large pinches of the best double dartford into Mr. Dobbs' tobacco box, and Mr. Dobbs' pipe had exploded, and set fire to Mrs. Botherby's Sunday cap, and Mr. Maguire had put it out with the slop basin, barring the wig. And then they were all so cantankerous that Barney had gone to take a walk in the garden. And then, then Mr. Barney had seen a ghost. A what, you blockhead, asked Tom Ingallsby? Sure, then, and its myself will tell your honour the rites of it, said the ghost seer. Myself and Miss Pauline, sir. Or Miss Pauline and myself. For the ladies come first anyhow. We got tired of the obstropolis scrimmaging among the old servants. That didn't know a joke when they seen one. And we went out to look at the comet. That's the Rory Bory alehouse they calls him in this country. And we walked upon the lawn, and divile if any alehouse there was there at all. And Miss Pauline said it was be case of the shrubbery maybe. And why wouldn't we see it better, beyond the trees? And so we went to the trees. But sorrow a comet did me self see there, barring a big ghost instead of it. A ghost? And what sort of a ghost, Barney? Ah, then, divile a lie, I'll tell your honour. The tall, old gentleman he was, all in white, with a shovel on the shoulder of him, and a big torch in his fist. Though what he wanted with that, it's me self can't tell. For his eyes were like gig-lamps, let alone the moon and the comet. Which wasn't there at all. And Barney says he to me. Because why he knew me? Barney says he. What is it you're doing with the Colleen there, Barney? Divile a word did I say. Miss Pauline screeched, and cried murder in French, and ran off with herself. And of course, me self was in a mighty hurry after the lady, and had no time to stop palavering with him anyway. So I dispersed at once, and the ghost vanished in a flame of fire. Mr. McGuire's account was received with a vowed incredulity by both gentlemen. But Barney stuck to his text with unflinching pertinacity. A reference to Mademoiselle was suggested, but abandoned, as neither party had a taste for delicate investigations. I'll tell you what, Seaforth, said Ingallsby, after Barney had received his dismissal. That there is a trick here is evident, and Barney's vision may possibly be a part of it. Whether he is most naïve or fool, you best know. At all events I will sit up with you tonight, and see if I can convert my ancestor into a visiting acquaintance. Meanwhile, your finger on your lip. Twas now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead. Gladly would I grace my tail with decent horror, and therefore I do beseech the gentle reader to believe that if all the succedania to this mysterious narrative are not in strict keeping, he will ascribe it only to the disgraceful innovations of modern degeneracy upon the sober and dignified habits of our ancestors. I can introduce him, it is true, into an old and high-roofed chamber, its walls covered on three sides with black oak wainscotting, adorned with carvings of fruit and flowers long anterior to those of Greenling Gibbons. The forth side is clothed with a curious remnant of dingy tapestry, want solucidatory of some scriptural history, but of which not even Mrs. Botherby could determine. Mr. Simpkinson, who had examined it carefully, inclined to believe the principal figure to be either Bathsheba or Daniel in the Lion's Den, while Tom Ingaldsby decided in favour of the King of Bashan. All, however, was conjecture, tradition being silent on the subject. A lofty arched portal led into and a little arched portal led out of this apartment. They were opposite each other, and each possessed the security of massy bolts on its interior. The bedstead, too, was not one of yesterday, but manifestly co-evil, with days ere sedans was, and when a good four post-article was deemed worthy of being a royal bequest, the bed itself with all the appurtenances of Palaeus, mattresses, etc., was a far later date, and looked most incongruously comfortable. The casements, too, with their little diamond-shaped panes and iron binding, had given way to the modern heterodoxy of the sash window. Nor was this all that conspired to ruin the costume and render the room a meat-haunt for such mixed spirits, only as could condescend to Don at the same time, and Elizabethan doublet and Bond Street inexpressibles. With their green Morocco slippers on a modern fender, in front of a disgracefully modern grate, sat two young gentlemen, clad in shawl-pattern dressing-gowns and black silk stocks, much at variance with the high cane-backed chairs which supported them, a bunch of abomination, called a cigar, reeked in the left-hand corner of the mouth of one, and in the right-hand corner of the mouth of the other, an arrangement happily adapted for the escape of the noxious fumes of the chimney, without that unmerciful, funking other which a less scientific disposition of the weed would have induced, a small pembrop table filled up the intervening space between them, sustaining at each extremity an elbow and a glass of toddy, thus in lonely pensive contemplation where the two worthys occupied. When the iron tongue of midnight had told 12, Ghost-times come, said Inglesby, taking from his Wescott pocket a watch like a gold half-crown, and consulting it as though he suspected the turret-clock over the stables of mendacity. Hush, said Charles, did I not hear a footstep? There was a pause. There was a footstep. It sounded distinctly. It reached the door. It hesitated, stopped, and passed on. Tom darted across the room, threw open the door, and became aware of Mrs. Botherby toddling to her chamber at the other end of the gallery, after dosing one of the housemaids with an approved julep from the Countess of Kent's Choice Manual. Good night, sir, said Mrs. Botherby. Go to the devil, said the disappointed Ghost-hunter. An hour, two, rolled on, and still no spectral visitation. Nor did ought intervene to make night hideous. And when the turret-clock sounded at length the hour of three, Inglesby, whose patience and grog were alike exhausted, sprang from his chair, saying, This is all infernal nonsense, my good fellow. Deuce of any ghost shall we see tonight. It's long past the canonical hour. I'm off to bed. And as to your breaches, I'll ensure them for the next twenty-four hours at least. At the price of the buckram. Certainly. Oh, thank ye to be sure, stammered Charles, rousing himself from a reverie which had degenerated into an absolute snooze. Good night, my boy. Bolt the door behind me, and defy the Pope, the devil, and the pretender. Seaforth followed his friend's advice, and the next morning came down to breakfast, dressed in the habiliments of the preceding day. The charm was broken, the demon defeated, the light greys with the red stripe down the seams were yet in rarum natura, and adorned the person of their lawful proprietor. Tom felicitated himself and his partner of the watch on the result of their vigilance. But there is a rustic adage which warns us against self-gradulation, before we are quite out of the wood. Seaforth was yet within its verge. A rapid Tom Ingaldspee's door the following morning startled him as he was shaving. He cut his chin. Come in and be damned to you, said the martyr, pressing his thumb on the scarified epidermis. The door opened and exhibited Mr. Barney McGuire. Well, Barney, what is it, quote the sufferer, adopting the vernacular of his visitant? The master, sir. Well, what does he want? The lonesome of a breeches plays your honor. Why, you don't mean to tell me? By heaven, this is too good, shouted Tom, bursting into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Why, Barney, you don't mean to say the ghost has got them again? Mr. McGuire did not respond to the young squire's risibility. The cast of his countenance was decidedly serious. Faith, then, it's gone they are, sure enough. Hasn't meself been looking over the bed, and under the bed, and in the bed? For the matter of that, and divvula hay-birth of breeches, is there to the fore at all. I'm bothered entirely. Harky, Mr. Barney, said Tom, unconsciously removing his thumb and letting a crimson stream incarnateen the multitudinous lather that plastered his throat. This may be all very well with your master. But you don't humbug me, sir. Tell me instantly what have you done with the clothes. This abrupt transition, from lively to severe, certainly took McGuire by surprise. And he seemed for an instant as much disconcerted as it is possible to disconcert an Irish gentleman's gentleman. Me? Is it meself, then, that's the ghost to your honour's thinking? Said he, after a moment's pause, and with a slight shade of indignation in his tones. Is it I would stale the master's things? And what would I do with them? That you best know. What your purpose is, I can't guess. For I don't think you mean to stale them, as you call it. But that you are concerned in their disappearance, I am satisfied. Confound this blood. Give me a towel, Barney. McGuire acquitted himself of the commission. As I basal your honour, said he solemnly, little it is meself knows of the matter. And after what I seen, what you've seen, why what have you seen? Barney, I don't want to inquire into your flirtations. But don't suppose you can palm off your saucer eyes and giglamps upon me. Then as sure as your honour's standing there, I saw him. And why wouldn't I, when Miss Pauline was to the fore, as well as meself? And get along with your nonsense. Leave the room, sir. But the master said Barney imploringly. And without a breeches. Sure he'll be catching cold. Take that rascal, replied Ingelsby, throwing a pair of pantaloons at rather than to him. But don't suppose, sir, you shall carry on your tricks here with impunity. Recollect there is such a thing as a treadmill. And that my father is a county magistrate. Barney's eye flashed fire. He stood erect and was about to speak. But mastering himself, not without an effort, he took up the garment and left the room as perpendicular as a quaker. Ingelsby said Charles C. Forth after breakfast. This is now past a joke. Today is the last of my stay. For notwithstanding the ties which detain me, common decency obliges me to visit home after so long an absence. I shall come to an immediate explanation with your father, on the subject nearest my heart, and depart while I have a change of dress left. On his answer will my return depend. In the meantime, tell me candidly. I ask it in all seriousness and as a friend. Am I not a dupe to your well-known propensity to hoaxing? Have you not a hand in? No, by heaven, C. Forth. I see what you mean. On my honour, I am as much mystified as yourself. And if you're servant? Not he. If there be a trick, he at least is not privy to it. If there be a trick, why, Charles, do you think? I know not what to think, Tom. As surely as you are a living man, so surely did that spectral anatomy visit my room again last night, grin in my face, and walk away with my trousers. Nor was I able to spring from my bed, or break the chain which seemed to bind me to my pillow. C. Forth, said Ingoldsby, after a short pause. I will, but hush. Here are the girls and my father. I will carry off the females and leave you a clear field with a governor. Carry your point with him, and we will talk about your breaches afterwards. Tom's diversion was successful. He carried off the ladies en masse to look at a remarkable specimen of the Clastodocandria monogynia, which they could not find. While C. Forth marched boldly up to the encounter, and carried the governor's outworks by a coup de man, I do not stop to describe the progress of the attack. Suffice it that it was as successful as could have been wished, and that C. Forth was referred back again to the lady. The happy lover was off at a tangent. The botanical party was soon overtaken, and the arm of Caroline, whom a vain endeavour to spell out the Linnaean name of a Daffydown dilly had detained a little in the rear of the others, was soon firmly locked in his own. What was the world to them? Its noise, its nonsense, and its breaches all. C. Forth was in the seventh heaven. He retired to his room that night as happy as if no such thing as a goblin had ever been heard of, and personal chattels were as well fenced in by law as real property. Not so, Tom Ingallsby. The mystery, for mystery there evidently was, had not only piqued his curiosity, but ruffled his temper. The watch of the previous night had been unsuccessful, probably because it was undisguised. Tonight he would ensconce himself, not indeed behind the Arras, for the little that remained was, as we have seen, nailed to the wall, but in a small closet which opened from one corner of the room, and by leaving the door ajar would give to its occupant a view of all that might pass in the apartment. Here did the young ghost-hunter take up a position, with a good stout sapling under his arm. A full half-hour before Seaforth retired for the night. Not even his friend did he let into his confidence. Fully determined that if his plan did not succeed, the failure should be attributed to himself alone. At the usual hour of separation for the night, Tom saw, from his concealment, the lieutenant enter his room, and after taking a few turns in it, with an expression so joyous as to betogen that his thoughts were mainly occupied by his approaching happiness, proceed slowly to disrobe himself. The coat, the waistcoat, the black silk stock were gradually discarded, the green Morocco slippers were kicked off, and then, I and then, his countenance grew grave. It seemed to occur to him all at once that this was his last stake. Nay, that the very breeches he had on were not his own. That tomorrow morning was his last, and that if he lost them, a glance showed that his mind was made up. He replaced the single button he had just subducted, and threw himself upon the bed in a state of transition, half chrysalis, half grub. Wearily did Tom Ingalls bewatch the sleeper by the flickering light of the night lamp, till the clock, striking one, induced him to increase the narrow opening which he had left with a purpose of observation. The motion, slight as it was, seemed to attract Charles' attention, for he raised himself suddenly to a sitting posture, listened for a moment, and then stood upright upon the floor. Ingalls' bee was on the point of discovering himself when, the light flashing full upon his friend's countenance, he perceived that, though his eyes were open, their sense was shut, that he was yet under the influence of sleep. Seaforth advanced slowly to the toilet, lit his candle at the lamp that stood on it, then going back to the bed's foot, appeared to search eagerly for something which he could not find. For a few moments he seemed restless and uneasy, walking round the apartment and examining the chairs, till coming fully in front of a large swing-glass that flanked the dressing-table, he paused as if contemplating his figure in it. He now returned towards the bed, put on his slippers, and with cautious and stealthy steps proceeded towards the little arched doorway that opened on the private staircase. As he drew the bolt, Tom Ingalls' bee emerged from his hiding-place, but the sleep-walker heard him not. He proceeded softly downstairs, followed at a due distance by his friend, opened the door which led out upon the gardens, and stood at once among the thickest of the shrubs, which there clustered round the base of a corner turret, and screened the postern from common observation. At this moment Ingalls' bee had nearly spoiled all by making a false step. The sound attracted Seaforth's attention. He paused and turned, and as the full moon shed her light directly upon the pale and troubled features, Tom marked, almost with dismay, the fixed and rayless appearance of his eyes. There was no speculation in those orbs that he did glare with all. The perfect stillness preserved by his follower seemed to reassure him. He turned aside, and from the midst of a thick set, Laura Steinus drew forth a gardener's spade, shouldering which he proceeded with greater rapidity into the midst of the shrubbery. Arrived at a certain point where the earth seemed to have been recently disturbed, he set himself heartily to the task of digging, till having thrown up several shovel-folds of mold, he stopped, flung down his tool, and very composedly began to disencomber himself of his pantaloons. Up to this moment Tom had watched him with a wary eye. He now advanced cautiously, and as his friend was busily engaged in disentangling himself from his garment, made himself master of the spade, Seaforth, meanwhile, had accomplished his purpose. He stood for a moment with his streamers waving in the wind, occupied in carefully rolling up the small clothes into as compact a form as possible, and all heedless of the breath of heaven, which might certainly be supposed at such a moment, and in such a plight, to visit his frame too roughly. He was in the act of stooping low to deposit the pantaloons in the grave which he had been digging for them, when Tom Engeldsby came close behind him, and with a flat side of the spade. The shock was effectual. Never again was Lieutenant Seaforth known to act the part of a somnambulist. One by one his breeches, his trousers, his pantaloons, his silk net tights, his patent cords, his showy greys with the broad red stripe of the bombay fanciples, were brought to light, rescued from the grave in which they had been buried, like the strata of a Christmas pie, and after having been well aired by Mrs. Botherby became once again effective. The family, the ladies especially, laughed. The Peterses laughed. The Simpkinsons laughed. Barney Maguire cried, Botheration, and Mamzell Pauline, Mondieu. Charles Seaforth, unable to face the quizzing which awaited him on all sides, started off two hours earlier than he had proposed. He soon returned, however, and having at his father-in-law's request, given up the occupation of Raja-hunting, and shooting Nabob's, led his blushing bride to the altar. Mr. Simpkinson from Bath did not attend the ceremony, being engaged at the grand junction meeting of Savannes, then aggregating from all parts of the known world in the city of Dublin, his essay demonstrating that the globe is a great custard, whipped into coagulation by whirlwinds, and cooked by electricity, a little too much baked in the Isle of Portland, and a thought underdone about the bog of Allen was highly spoken of, and narrowly escaped obtaining a bridge-water prize. Ms. Simpkinson and her sister acted as bridesmaids on the occasion. The former wrote an epithelium, and the latter cried, Lassie me, at the clergyman's wig. Some years have since rolled on. The union has been crowned with two or three tidy little offshoots from the family tree, of whom Master Nettie is Grand Papa's darling, and Marianne, Mama's particular sock. I shall only add that Mr. and Mrs. Seaforth are living together quite as happily as two good-hearted, good-tempered bodies very fond of each other can possibly do, and that since the day of his marriage Charles has shown no disposition to jump out of bed, or ramble out of doors a night's, though from his entire devotion to every wish and whim of his young wife, Tom insinuates that the Fair Caroline does still occasionally take advantage of it so far as to slip on the breeches. Section 4 The Ingold Spelegion's First Series It was not till some years after the events just recorded that Miss Marianne, the pet sock before alluded to, was made acquainted with the following piece of family biography. It was communicated to her in strict confidence by Nurse Botherby, a maiden niece of the old ladies, then recently promoted from the ranks in the still room, to be second in command in the nursery department. The story is connected with a dingy, whisen-faced portrait in an oval frame, generally known by the name of Uncle Stephen, though from the style of his cut velvet. It is evident that some generations must have passed away since any living being could have stood towards him in that degree of consanguinity. The Nurse's story, The Hand of Glory, Malafika Quidam Algoreatrix in Anglia Fuit, Quam demonis horribiliter extractsrunt ed imponente superequam terribilim per ira rapuerunt, clamoresque terribilis but ferrunt per quattur fermae miliaria audiabontur nuremberg chronicle. On the lone bleak moor at the midnight hour beneath the gallows tree, hand in hand the murderers stand, by one, by two, by three, and the moon that night, with a gray cold light, each baleful object tips. One half of her form is seen through the storm, the other half's hidden eclipse, and the cold wind howls, and the thunder growls, and the lightning is broad and bright, and altogether it's very bad weather, and an unpleasant sort of a night. Now mount who list, and close by the wrist, sever me quickly the dead man's fist, now climb who dare where he swings in air, and pluck me five locks of the dead man's hair. There's an old woman dwells upon Tappington moor. She hath years on her back, at the least four score, and some people fancy a great many more. Her nose it is hooked, her back it is crooked, her eyes blear and red, on the top of her head, is a much and on that a shocking bad hat, extinguisher shaped, the brim narrow and flat. Then, my gracious, her beard it would sadly perplex a spectator, at first to distinguish her sex. Nor I'll venture to say, without scrutiny could he. Her nouns are off-handed, a punch or a judy. Did you see her, in short, that mud-hovel within, with her knees to her nose, and her nose to her chin, leering up with that queer indescribable grin? You'd lift up your hands in amazement and cry, well I never did see such a regular guy. And now, before that old woman's door, where not that's good may be, hand in hand the murderers stand, by one, by two, by three, o'ed is a horrible sight to view, in that horrible hovel, that horrible crew, by the pale blue glare of that flickering flame, doing the deed that hath never a name. Tis awful to hear those words of fear, the prayer muttered backwards and said with a sneer. Matthew Hopkins himself has assured us that when, a witch says her prayers, she begins with amen. Tis awful to see on that old woman's knee, the dead shriveled hand as she clasps it with glee, and now with care the five locks of hair, from the skull of the gentleman dangling up there, with the grease and the fat of a black tomcat, she hastens to mix and to twist into wicks, and one on the thumb and each finger to fix, for another receipt the same charm to prepare, consult Mr. Ainsworth and Petty Albert. Now open lock to the dead man's knock, fly bolt and bar and band, nor move nor swerve, joint muscle or nerve, at the spell of the dead man's hand, sleep all who sleep, wake all who wake, but be as the dead for the dead man's sake. All is silent, all is still, save the ceaseless moan of the bubbling rail, as it wells from the bosom of Tappington Hill, and in Tappington Hall, great and small, gentle and simple, squire and groom each one hath sought his separate room, and sleep her dark mantle hath o'er them cast for the midnight hour hath long been passed. All is dark some in earth and sky, save from yon casement narrow and high, a quivering beam on the tiny stream, plays like some tapers fitful gleam, by one that is watching wearily. Within that casement, narrow and high, in his secret lair, where none may spy, sits one whose brow is wrinkled with care, and the thin gray locks of his failing hair, have left his little bald pate all bare, for his full-bottomed wig hangs bushy and big on the top of his old-fashioned high-backed chair, unbraced are his clothes, unguarded his hose, his gown is bedisant with tulip and rose, flowers of remarkable size and hue, flowers such as Eden never knew, and there by many a sparkling heap of the good red gold the tale is told, what powerful spell avails to keep that care-worn man from his needful sleep. Happily he deems no eye can see as he gloats on his treasure greedily, the shining store of glittering oar, the fair rose noble, the bright maudor, and the broad double-joe from Iunt the Sea. But there is one that watches as well as he, for wakeful and sly, in a closet hard by, on his treacle-bed lyeth a little foot-page, a boy whose uncommonly sharp of his age, like young master Horner, who erst in his corner sat eating a Christmas pie, and while that old gentleman's counting his hordes, little hue peeps through a crack in the boards. There's a voice in the air, there's a step on the stair. The old man starts in his cane-backed chair. At the first faint sound he gazes around and holds up his dip of sixteen to the pound. Then half arose, from beside his toes, his little pug-dog with his little pug-nose. But ere he can vent one inquisitive sniff, that little pug-dog stands stark and stiff, for low yet clear, now fall on the ear, where once pronounced for ever they dwell the unholy words of the dead man's spell. Open lock to the dead man's knock, fly bolt and bar and band, nor move nor swerve, joint muscle or nerve, at the spell of the dead man's hand. Sleep all who sleep, wake all who wake, but be as the dead, for the dead man's sake. Now lock nor bolt nor bar avails, nor stout oak panel fixed studded with nails, heavy and harsh the hinges creak, though they had been oiled in the course of the week. The door opens wide as wide may be, and there they stand, that murderous band, lit by the light of the glorious hand, by one, by two, by three. They have passed through the porch, they have passed through the hall, where the porter sat snoring against the wall. The very snore froze in his very snubbed nose. You'd have verily deemed he had snored his last, when the glorious hand by the side of him passed, in the little wee mouse as it ran o'er the mat at the top of its speed to escape from the cat. Though half dead with a fright, paused in its flight, and the cat that was chasing that little wee thing lay crouched as a statue in act to spring, and now they are there, on the head of the stair, and the long crooked whittle is gleaming and bare. I really don't think any money would bribe me the horrible scene that ensued to describe, or the wild wild glare of that old man's eye, his dumb despair, and deep agony. The kid from the pen and the lamb from the fold, unmoved, may the blade of the butcher behold. They dream not, ah, happier they, that the knife, though uplifted, can menace their innocent life. It falls the frail thread of their being is riven. They dread not, suspect not, the blow tilt is given. But, oh, what a thing, just to see and to know that the bare knife is raised in the hand of the foe, without hope to repel or to ward off the blow. Enough let's pass over as fast as we can, the fate of that gray, that unhappy old man. But fancy poor Hugh, aghast at the view, powerless alike to speak or to do, in vain doth he try to open the eye that is shut, or close that which is clapped to the chink, though he'd give all the world to be able to wink. No, for all that this world can give or refuse, I would not be now in that little boy's shoes, or indeed any garment at all that is used. It is lucky for him that the chink in the wall he has peeped through so long is so narrow and small. Whaling voices sounds of woe, such as follow departing friends, that fatal night round Tappington go, its long-drawn roofs and its gable ends, ethereal spirits, gentle and good, I weep and lament, or a deed of blood. Tis early dawn, the morn is gray, and the clouds and the tempest have passed away, and all things betoken a very fine day. But while the lark her carol is singing, shrieks and screams are through Tappington ringing, upstarting all, great and small, each one who's found within Tappington Hall, gentle and simple, squire or groom, all seek at once that old gentleman's room. And there on the floor, drenched in its gore, a ghastly corpse lies exposed to the view, carotted and jugular both cut through. And there by its side, mid the crimson tide, kneels a little foot-page of tenderest years. A down his pale cheek the fast-falling tears are coursing each other round and big, and he's staunching the blood with a full-bottomed wig. Alas, and the lack for his staunching, Tis plain, as anatomists tell us that never again shall life revisit the foully slain, when once they've been cut through the jugular vein. There's a hue and a cry through the county of Kent, and in chase of the cutthroats a constable sent, but no one can tell the man which way they went. There's a little foot-page with that constable goes, and a little pug-dog with a little pug-nose. In Rochester town, at the sign of the crown, three shabby gentile men are just sitting down to a fat stubble goose with potatoes done brown. When a little foot-page rushes in in a rage, upsetting the applesauce onions and sage, that little foot-page takes the first by the throat, and a little pug-dog takes the next by the coat, and a constable seizes the one more remote, and fair rose nobles and broad maw doors. The waiter pulls out of their pockets by scores, and the boots and the chamber-maids run in and stare, and the constable says with a dignified air, your wanted gentleman, one and all, for that ear-precious lark at Tappington Hall. There's a black jibbit frowns upon Tappington moor, where a former black jibbit has frowned before. It is as black as black may be, and murderers there are dangling in air by one, by two, by three. There's a horrid old hag in a steeple-crowned hat, round her neck they have tied to a hempen cravat, a dead man's hand, and a dead tomcat. They have tied up her thumbs, they have tied up her toes, they have tied up her eyes, they have tied up her limbs. Into Tappington Mildam's souse she goes. With a whoop and a halloo she swims, she swims. They have dragged her to land, and everyone's hand is grasping a faggot, a billet, or brand. When a queer-looking horseman, dressed all in black, snatches up that old harridan just like a sack, to the cropper behind him puts spurs to his hack, makes a dash through the crowd, and is off in a crack. No one can tell, though they guessed pretty well, which way that grim rider and old woman go, for all see he's a sort of infernal du crow, and she screams so and cried we may fairly decide, that the old woman did not much relish her ride. Moral. This truest of stories confirms beyond doubt, that truest of avidges, murder, will out. In vain may the blood-spiller double and fly. In vain even witchcraft and sorcery try. Although for a time he may escape by and by, he'll be sure to be caught by a hue and a cry. Section 5 One marvel follows another as naturally as one shoulder of mutton is said to drive another down. A little Welsh girl who sometimes makes her way from the kitchen into the nursery, after listening with intense interest to this tale. Immediately started off at score with the sum and substance of what in due reverence for such authority. I shall call. Patty Morgan, the milkmaid's story, look at the clock. Fit one. Look at the clock, quote Winifred Price, as she opened the door to her husband's knock. Then pause to give him a piece of advice. You nasty warmant, look at the clock. Is this the way you wretch every day you treat her who vowed to love and obey you? Out all night, me in a fright. Staggering home as it's just getting light. You intoxified brute, you insensible bloke. Look at the clock, do look at the clock. Winifred Price was tidy and clean. Her gown was a flowered one, her petticoat green. Her buckles were bright as her milking cans, and her hat was a beaver and made like a man's. Her little red eyes were deep set in their socket holes. Her gown tail was turned up and tucked through the pocket holes. A face like a ferret betokent her spirit, to conclude Mrs. Price was not over young, had very short legs and a very long tongue. Now David Price had one darling vice, remarkably partial to anything nice. Not that was good to him came a miss, whether to eat or to drink or to kiss. Especially ale, if it was not too stale, I really believe he'd have emptied a pail. Not that in wails they talk of their ales, to pronounce the word they make use of might trouble you, being spelt with a C, two Rs, and a W. That particular day, as I've heard people say, Mr. David Price had been soaking his clay and amusing himself with his pipe and sheroots the whole afternoon at the goat-in-boots, with a couple of soakers, thoroughbred smokers, both like himself, prime singers and jokers, and long after day had drawn to a close and the rest of the world was wrapped in repose. They were roaring out shanking and our hidey nose. While David himself, to a sassanic tune, sang, We've drunk down the sun, boys, let's drink down the moon. What have we with day to do? Mrs. Winifred Price was made for you. At length when they couldn't well drink any more, old goat-in-boots showed them the door. And then came that knock, and the sensible shock David felt when his wife cried, Look at the clock! For the hands stood as crooked as crooked might be, the long at the twel, and the short at the three. That self-same clock had long been a bone of contention between this Darby and Joan, and often among their father and Rout, when this otherwise amiable couple fell out, Price would drop a cool hint with an ominous squint at its case of an uncle of his who to spout. That horrid word spout no sooner came out than Winifred Price would turn her about, and with scorn on her lip and a hand on each hip spout herself till her nose grew red at the tip. You thundering villain, I know you'd be killing your wife, I a dozen of wives for a shilling. You may do what you please, you may sell my chemise. Mrs. P. was too well-bred to mention her stock. But I never will part with my grandmother's clock. Mrs. Price's tongue ran long and ran fast, but patience is apt to wear out at last. And David Price in temper was quick, so he stretched out his hand and caught hold of a stick. Perhaps in its use he might mean to be lenient. But walking just then wasn't very convenient. So he threw it instead direct at her head. It knocked off her hat. Down she fell flat. Her case perhaps was not much mended by that. But whatever it was, whether rage and pain, produced apoplexy, or burst of vein. Or her tumble induced a concussion of brain. I can't say for certain, but this I can. When sobered by fright to assist her he ran. Mrs. Winifred Price was as dead as Queen Anne. The fearful catastrophe named in my last strophe, as adding to grim deaths exploits such a vast trophy, made a great noise in the shocking fatality, ran over like wildfire the whole principality. And then came Mr. App Thomas, the coroner, with his jury to sit some dozen or more on her. Mr. Price, to commence his ingenious defense, made a powerful appeal to the jury's good sense. The world he must defy ever to justify any presumption of malice pre-pence. The unlucky lick from the end of his stick he deplored he was apt to be rather too quick. But really her prating was so aggravating. Some trifling correction was just what he meant all the rest he assured them was quite accidental. Then he calls Mr. Jones, who depones to her tones, and her gestures and hints about breaking his bones, while Mr. App Morgan and Mr. App Reese declared the deceased had styled him a beast, and swear they had witnessed with grief and surprised the allusion she made to his limbs and his eyes. The jury, in fine having sat on the body, the whole day discussing the case and Jintadi, returned about half past eleven at night, the following verdict we find, serve her right. Mr. Price, Mrs. Winifred Price being dead, felt lonely and moped, and one evening he said he would marry Ms. Davis at once in her stead, not far from his dwelling, from the veil proudly swelling. Rosa Mountain, its name you'll excuse me from telling, for the vowels made use of in Welsh are so few that the A and the E, the I O and the U, have really but little or nothing to do. And the duty, of course, falls the heavier by far, on the L and the H and the N and the R. Its persillable pen is pronounceable, then, come two L's and two H's, two F's and an N. About half a score R's and some W's follow, beating all my best efforts at euphony hollow. But we shan't have to mention it often, so when we do with your leave we'll curtail it to pen, while the moon shan't bright upon pen that night, when Price being quit of his bus and his right, was scaling its side, with that sort of stride a man puts out when walking in search of a bride. Mounting higher and higher he began to perspire, till finding his legs were beginning to tire, and feeling oppressed by a pain in his chest, he paused and turned round to take breath and to rest. A walk all uphill is apt, we know, to make one however robust puff and blow. So he stopped and looked down on the valley below, or fell and or fen, over mountain and glen, all bright in the moonshine his eye roped and then, all the patriot rose in his soul and he thought upon Wales and her glories and all he'd been taught, of her heroes of old, so brave and so bold, of her bards with long beards and harps mounted in gold, of King Edward I of memory accursed and the scandalous manner in which he behaved, killing poets by dozens, with their uncles and cousins, of whom not one in fifty had ever been shaved, of the court ball at which, by a lucky mishap, Owen Tudor fell into Queen Catherine's lap, and how Mr. Tudor successfully wooed her, till the Dowager put on a new wedding ring, and so made him father-in-law to the king, he thought upon Arthur and Merlin of Yor, on Griffith Apconon and Owen Glendor, on Pen Dragon and Heaven knows how many more, he thought of all this as he gazed in a trice, and on all things in short, but the late Mrs. Price, when a lumbering noise from behind made him start, and sent the blood back in full tide to his heart, which went pit-a-pat, and he cried out, what's that, that very queer sound, does it come from the ground or the air from above or below or around, it is not like talking, it is not like walking, it's not like the clattering of pot or of pan, or the tramp of a horse or the tread of a man, or the hum of a crowd or the shouting of boys, it's really a deucid odd sort of a noise, not unlike a carts, but that can't be for when could all the king's horses and all the king's men, with old nick for a wagoner, drive one up pen, price usually brimful of valor when drunk, now experienced what schoolboys denominate funk, in vain he looked back on the whole of the track, he had traversed a thick cloud uncommonly black at this moment obscured the broad disc of the moon, and did not seem likely to pass away soon, while clearer and clearer it was plain to the hearer, be the noise what it might, it drew nearer and nearer, and sounded as price to this moment declares, very much like a coffin a walking upstairs, Mr. Price had begun to make up for a run, as in such a companion he saw no great fun, when a single bright ray, shone out on the way, he had passed and he saw with no little dismay, coming after him bounding or crag and or rock, the deceased Mrs. Winifred's grandmother's clock, to a so it had certainly moved from its place and come lumbering on thus to hold him in chase, it was the very same head and the very same case, and nothing was altered at all but the face, in that he perceived with no little surprise, the two little winder-holes turned into eyes, blazing with ire like two coals of fire, and the name of the maker was changed to a lip, and the hands to a nose with a very red tip, no he could not mistake it, to a she to the life, the identical face of his poor defunct wife, one glance was enough, completely quant-suff, as the doctors write down when they send you their stuff, like a weather-cock whirled by a vehement puff, David turned himself round, ten feet of ground, he cleared in his start at the very first bound, I've seen people run at West End Fair for cheeses, I've seen ladies run at Beau Fair for chemises, at Greenwich Fair twenty men run for a hat, and one from a bailiff much faster than that, at football I've seen lads run after the bladder, I've seen Irish bricklayers run up a ladder, I've seen little boys run away from a cane, and I've seen that is red of good running in Spain, but I never did read of or witness such speed as David exerted that evening indeed. All I have ever heard of boys, women, or men falls far short of price as he ran over pen. He reaches its brow, he is past it, and now, having once gained the summit and managed to cross it, he rolls down the side with uncommon velocity, but run as he will, or roll down the hill, that bugbear behind him is after him still, and close at his heels not at all to his liking, the terrible clock keeps on ticking and striking, till exhausted and sore he can't run any more, but falls as he reaches Miss Davis door, and screams when they rush out alarmed at his knock, oh look at the clock, do look at the clock! Miss Davis looked up, Miss Davis looked down, she saw nothing there to alarm her, a frown came oar her white forehead, she said it was horrid, a man should come knocking at that time of night, and give her mama and herself such a fright to squall and to ball about nothing at all, she begged he'd not think of repeating his call, his late wife's disaster by no means had passed her, she'd have him to know she was meet for his master, been regardless alike of his love and his woes, she turned on her heel, and she turned up her nose, poor David in vain implored to remain, he dared not he said cross the mountain again, why the fair was up-duret, none knows to be sure it was said she was setting her cap at the curate, be that as it may it is certain the sole whole price bound to creep into that night was the coal-hole, in that shady retreat with nothing to eat, and with very bruised limbs and with very sore feet, all night close he kept, I can't say he slept, but he sighed and he sobbed and he groaned and he wept, lamenting his sins and his two broken shins, bewailing his fate with contortions and grins, and her he once thought a complete rara avus, consigning to Satan, vis cruel Miss Davis. Mr. David has since had a serious call, he never drinks ale, wine or spirits at all, and they say he is going to Exeter Hall to make a grand speech and to preach and to teach, people that they can't brew their malt liquor too small, that an ancient Welsh poet, one Pindar aptudur, was right in proclaiming a wrist on Menudur, which means the pure element is for man's belliment, and that jins but a snare of old nick the deludur, and still on each evening when pleasure fills up, at the old goat-in boots with meth-eglan each cup. Mr. Price, if he's there, will get into the chair, and make all his quantum associates stare by calling aloud to the landlady's daughter. Patty bring a cigar and a glass of spring water, the dial he constantly watches and when, the long hands at the twelve and the short at the ten, he gets on his legs, drains his glass to the dregs, takes his hat and great coat off their several pegs, with his president's hammer bestows his last knock, and says solemnly, gentlemen, look at the clock.