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An account of some strange disturbances in Aungier Street..........................................................................1

It is not worth telling, this story of mineat least, not worth writing. Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been

called upon to tell it, to a circle of intelligent and eager faces, lighted up by a good afterdinner fire on a

winter's evening, with a cold wind rising and wailing outside, and all snug and cosy within, it has gone

offthough I say it, who should notindifferent well. But it is a venture to do as you would have me. Pen,

ink, and paper are cold vehicles for the marvellous, and a "reader" decidedly a more critical animal than a

"listener." If, however, you can induce your friends to read it after nightfall, and when the fireside talk has

run for a while on thrilling tales of shapeless terror; in short, if you will secure me the mollia tempora fandi, I

will go to my work, and say my say, with better heart. Well, then, these conditions presupposed, I shall waste

My cousin (Tom Ludlow) and I studied medicine together. I think he would have succeeded, had he stuck to

the profession; but he preferred the Church, poor fellow, and died early, a sacrifice to contagion, contracted in

the noble discharge of his duties. For my present purpose, I say enough of his character when I mention that

he was of a sedate but frank and cheerful nature; very exact in his observance of truth, and not by any means

My Uncle LudlowTom's fatherwhile we were attending lectures, purchased three or four old houses in

Aungier Street, one of which was unoccupied. He resided in the country, and Tom proposed that we should

take up our abode in the untenanted house, so long as it should continue unlet; a move which would

accomplish the double end of settling us nearer alike to our lecturerooms and to our amusements, and of

Our furniture was very scantour whole equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and, in short, our

arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac. Our new plan was, therefore, executed almost as

soon as conceived. The front drawingroom was our sittingroom. I had the bedroom over it, and Tom the

The house, to begin with, was a very old one. It had been, I believe, newly fronted about fifty years before;

but with this exception, it had nothing modern about it. The agent who bought it and looked into the titles for

my uncle, told me that it was sold, along with much other forfeited property, at Chichester House, I think, in

1702; and had belonged to Sir Thomas Hacket, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in James II's time. How old it

was then, I can't say; but, at all events, it had seen years and changes enough to have contracted all that

mysterious and saddened air, at once exciting and depressing, which belongs to most old mansions.

There had been very little done in the way of modernising details; and, perhaps, it was better so; for there was

something queer and bygone in the very walls and ceilingsin the shape of doors and windowsin the

odd diagonal site of the chimneypieces in the beams and ponderous cornicesnot to mention the singular

solidity of all the woodwork, from the banisters to the windowframes, which hopelessly defied disguise, and

would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable amount of modern finery and

An effort had, indeed, been made, to the extent of papering the drawingrooms; but, somehow the paper

looked raw and out of keeping; and the old woman, who kept a little dirtpie of a shop in the lane, and whose

daughtera girl of two and fiftywas our solitary handmaid, coming in at sunrise, and chastely receding

again as soon as she had made all ready for tea in our state apartment;this woman, I say, remembered it,

when old Judge Horrocks (who, having earned the reputation of a particularly "hanging judge," ended by

hanging himself, as the coroner's jury found, under an impulse of "temporary insanity," with a child's

skippingrope, over the massive old banisters) resided there, entertaining good company, with fine venison

and rare old port. In those halcyon days, the drawingrooms were hung with gilded leather, and, I dare say,

The bedrooms were wainscoted, but the front one was not gloomy; and in it the cosiness of antiquity quite

overcame its sombre associations. But the back bedroom, with its two queerlyplaced melancholy windows,

staring vacantly at the foot of the bed, and with the shadowy recess to be found in most old houses in Dublin,

like a large ghostly closet, which, from congeniality of temperament, had amalgamated with the bedchamber,

and dissolved the partition. At nighttime, this "alcove"as our "maid" was wont to call ithad, in my

eyes, a specially sinister and suggestive character. Tom's distant and solitary candle glimmered vainly into its

darkness. There it was always overlooking himalways itself impenetrable. But this was only part of the

effect. The whole room was, I can't tell how, repulsive to me. There was, I suppose, in its proportions and

features, a latent discorda certain mysterious and indescribable relation, which jarred indistinctly upon

some secret sense of the fitting and the safe, and raised indefinable suspicions and apprehensions of the

imagination. On the whole, as I began by saying, nothing could have induced me to pass a night alone in it.

I had never pretended to conceal from poor Tom my superstitious weakness; and he, on the other hand, most

unaffectedly ridiculed my tremors. The sceptic was, however, destined to receive a lesson, as you shall hear.

We had not been very long in occupation of our respective dormitories, when I began to complain of uneasy

nights and disturbed sleep. I was, I suppose, the more impatient under this annoyance, as I was usually a

sound sleeper, and by no means prone to nightmares. It was now, however, my destiny, instead of enjoying

my customary repose, every night to "sup full of horrors." After a preliminary course of disagreeable and

frightful dreams, my troubles took a definite form, and the same vision, without an appreciable variation in a

single detail, visited me at least (on an average) every second night in the week.

Now, this dream, nightmare, or infernal illusionwhich you pleaseof which I was the miserable sport,

I saw, or thought I saw, with the most abominable distinctness, although at the time in profound darkness,

every article of furniture and accidental arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you know, is

incidental to ordinary nightmare. Well, while in this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up

of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of horror, which made my nights

insupportable, my attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed upon the windows opposite the foot of

my bed; and, uniformly with the same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took slow but sure

possession of me. I became somehow conscious of a sort of horrid but undefined preparation going forward

in some unknown quarter, and by some unknown agency, for my torment; and, after an interval, which

always seemed to me of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up to the window, where it remained fixed,

as if by an electrical attraction, and my discipline of horror then commenced, to last perhaps for hours. The

picture thus mysteriously glued to the windowpanes, was the portrait of an old man, in a crimson flowered

silk dressinggown, the folds of which I could now describe, with a countenance embodying a strange

mixture of intellect, sensuality, and power, but withal sinister and full of malignant omen. His nose was

hooked, like the beak of a vulture; his eyes large, grey, and prominent, and lighted up with a more than

mortal cruelty and coldness. These features were surmounted by a crimson velvet cap, the hair that peeped

from under which was white with age, while the eyebrows retained their original blackness. Well I remember

every line, hue, and shadow of that stony countenance, and well I may! The gaze of this hellish visage was

fixed upon me, and mine returned it with the inexplicable fascination of nightmare, for what appeared to me

the fiend who had enslaved me through the awful watches of the night; and, harassed and nervous, I rose to

I hadI can't say exactly why, but it may have been from the exquisite anguish and profound impressions of

unearthly horror, with which this strange phantasmagoria was associatedan insurmountable antipathy to

describing the exact nature of my nightly troubles to my friend and comrade. Generally, however, I told him

that I was haunted by abominable dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our heads

I will do this tonic justice, and frankly admit that the accursed portrait began to intermit its visits under its

influence. What of that? Was this singular apparitionas full of character as of terrortherefore the

creature of my fancy, or the invention of my poor stomach? Was it, in short, subjective (to borrow the

technical slang of the day) and not the palpable aggression and intrusion of an external agent? That, good

friend, as we will both admit, by no means follows. The evil spirit, who enthralled my senses in the shape of

that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as energetic, just as malignant, though I saw him not. What

means the whole moral code of revealed religion regarding the due keeping of our own bodies, soberness,

temperance, etc.? here is an obvious connexion between the material and the invisible; the healthy tone of the

system, and its unimpaired energy, may, for aught we can tell, guard us against influences which would

otherwise render life itself terrific. The mesmerist and the electrobiologist will fail upon an average with

nine patients out of tenso may the evil spirit. Special conditions of the corporeal system are indispensable

to the production of certain spiritual phenomena. The operation succeeds sometimessometimes failsthat

I found afterwards that my wouldbe sceptical companion had his troubles too. But of these I knew nothing

yet. One night, for a wonder, I was sleeping soundly, when I was roused by a step on the lobby outside my

room, followed by the loud clang of what turned out to be a large brass candlestick, flung with all his force by

poor Tom Ludlow over the banisters, and rattling with a rebound down the second flight of stairs; and almost

concurrently with this, Tom burst open my door, and bounced into my room backwards, in a state of

I had jumped out of bed and clutched him by the arm before I had any distinct idea of my own whereabouts.

There we werein our shirtsstanding before the open doorstaring through the great old banister

opposite, at the lobby window, through which the sickly light of a clouded moon was gleaming.

"What's the matter, Tom? What's the matter with you? What the devil's the matter with you, Tom?" I

He took a long breath before he answered me, and then it was not very coherently.

"It's nothing, nothing at alldid I speak?what did I say?where's the candle, Richard? It's dark; II had

"Yes, dark enough," I said; "but what's the matter?what is it?why don't you speak, Tom?have you

"The matter?oh, it is all over. It must have been a dreamnothing at all but a dreamdon't you think so?

"I thought," he said, "there was a man in my room, andand I jumped out of bed; andandwhere's the

"No; stay heredon't go; it's no matterdon't, I tell you; it was all a dream. Bolt the door, Dick; I'll stay

here with youI feel nervous. So, Dick, like a good fellow, light your candle and open the windowI am in

I did as he asked me, and robing himself like Granuaile in one of my blankets, he seated himself close beside

Everybody knows how contagious is fear of all sorts, but more especially that particular kind of fear under

which poor Tom was at that moment labouring. I would not have heard, nor I believe would he have

recapitulated, just at that moment, for half the world, the details of the hideous vision which had so

"Don't mind telling me anything about your nonsensical dream, Tom," said I, affecting contempt, really in a

panic; "let us talk about something else; but it is quite plain that this dirty old house disagrees with us both,

and hang me if I stay here any longer, to be pestered with indigestion andandbad nights, so we may as

"I have been thinking, Richard, that it is a long time since I saw my father, and I have made up my mind to go

down tomorrow and return in a day or two, and you can take rooms for us in the meantime."

I fancied that this resolution, obviously the result of the vision which had so profoundly scared him, would

probably vanish next morning with the damps and shadows of night. But I was mistaken. Off went Tom at

peep of day to the country, having agreed that so soon as I had secured suitable lodgings, I was to recall him

Now, anxious as I was to change my quarters, it so happened, owing to a series of petty procrastinations and

accidents, that nearly a week elapsed before my bargain was made and my letter of recall on the wing to

Tom; and, in the meantime, a trifling adventure or two had occurred to your humble servant, which, absurd as

they now appear, diminished by distance, did certainly at the time serve to whet my appetite for change

A night or two after the departure of my comrade, I was sitting by my bedroom fire, the door locked, and the

ingredients of a tumbler of hot whiskypunch upon the crazy spidertable; for, as the best mode of keeping

with which I was environed, at bay, I had adopted the practice recommended by the wisdom of my ancestors,

and "kept my spirits up by pouring spirits down." I had thrown aside my volume of Anatomy, and was

treating myself by way of a tonic, preparatory to my punch and bed, to halfadozen pages of the Spectator,

when I heard a step on the flight of stairs descending from the attics. It was two o'clock, and the streets were

as silent as a churchyardthe sounds were, therefore, perfectly distinct. There was a slow, heavy tread,

characterised by the emphasis and deliberation of age, descending by the narrow staircase from above; and,

what made the sound more singular, it was plain that the feet which produced it were perfectly bare,

measuring the descent with something between a pound and a flop, very ugly to hear.

I knew quite well that my attendant had gone away many hours before, and that nobody but myself had any

business in the house. It was quite plain also that the person who was coming downstairs had no intention

whatever of concealing his movements; but, on the contrary, appeared disposed to make even more noise, and

proceed more deliberately, than was at all necessary. When the step reached the foot of the stairs outside my

room, it seemed to stop; and I expected every moment to see my door open spontaneously, and give

admission to the original of my detested portrait. I was, however, relieved in a few seconds by hearing the

descent renewed, just in the same manner, upon the staircase leading down to the drawingrooms, and

thence, after another pause, down the next flight, and so on to the hall, whence I heard no more.

Now, by the time the sound had ceased, I was wound up, as they say, to a very unpleasant pitch of

excitement. I listened, but there was not a stir. I screwed up my courage to a decisive experimentopened

my door, and in a stentorian voice bawled over the banisters, "Who's there?" There was no answer, but the

ringing of my own voice through the empty old house,no renewal of the movement; nothing, in short, to

give my unpleasant sensations a definite direction. There is, I think, something most disagreeably

disenchanting in the sound of one's own voice under such circumstances, exerted in solitude and in vain. It

redoubled my sense of isolation, and my misgivings increased on perceiving that the door, which I certainly

thought I had left open, was closed behind me; in a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again

into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very

Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellowlodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and

in the darksomewhere, I suppose, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again

This time I had had my punch, and the morale of the garrison was consequently excellent. I jumped out of

bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had

ceased by this timethe dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I

saw, a black monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the

wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shining dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and

confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at the moment I did

not recollect it. At the same time I must honestly say, that making every allowance for an excited

imagination, I never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this

apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed

on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage,

I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my

room, and doublelocked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs,

If the apparition of the night before was an ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines of our

cupboard, and if its horrid eyes were nothing but a pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the

satisfaction of having launched the poker with admirable effect, and in true "fancy" phrase, "knocked its two

daylights into one," as the commingled fragments of my teaservice testified. I did my best to gather comfort

and courage from these evidences; but it would not do. And then what could I say of those horrid bare feet,

and the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, which measured the distance of the entire staircase through the solitude

of my haunted dwelling, and at an hour when no good influence was stirring? Confound it!the whole affair

It came, ushered ominously in with a thunderstorm and dull torrents of depressing rain. Earlier than usual

the streets grew silent; and by twelve o'clock nothing but the comfortless pattering of the rain was to be

I made myself as snug as I could. I lighted two candles instead of one. I forswore bed, and held myself in

readiness for a sally, candle in hand; for, coute qui coute, I was resolved to see the being, if visible at all, who

troubled the nightly stillness of my mansion. I was fidgety and nervous and, tried in vain to interest myself

with my books. I walked up and down my room, whistling in turn martial and hilarious music, and listening

ever and anon for the dreaded noise. I sate down and stared at the square label on the solemn and

reservedlooking black bottle, until "FLANAGAN & CO.'S BEST OLD MALT WHISKY grew into a sort of

subdued accompaniment to all the fantastic and horrible speculations which chased one another through my

Silence, meanwhile, grew more silent, and darkness darker. I listened in vain for the rumble of a vehicle, or

the dull clamour of a distant row. There was nothing but the sound of a rising wind, which had succeeded the

thunderstorm that had travelled over the Dublin mountains quite out of hearing. In the middle of this great

city I began to feel myself alone with nature, and Heaven knows what beside. My courage was ebbing.

Punch, however, which makes beasts of so many, made a man of me againjust in time to hear with

tolerable nerve and firmness the lumpy, flabby, naked feet deliberately descending the stairs again.

I took a candle, not without a tremor. As I crossed the floor I tried to extemporise a prayer, but stopped short

to listen, and never finished it. The steps continued. I confess I hesitated for some seconds at the door before I

took heart of grace and opened it. When I peeped out the lobby was perfectly emptythere was no monster

standing on the staircase; and as the detested sound ceased, I was reassured enough to venture forward nearly

to the banisters. Horror of horrors! within a stair or two beneath the spot where I stood the unearthly tread

smote the floor. My eye caught something in motion; it was about the size of Goliath's footit was grey,

heavy, and flapped with a dead weight from one step to another. As I am alive, it was the most monstrous

Shakespeare says"Some men there are cannot abide a gaping pig, and some that are mad if they behold a

cat." I went wellnigh out of my wits when I beheld this rat; for, laugh at me as you may, it fixed upon me, I

thought, a perfectly human expression of malice; and, as it shuffled about and looked up into my face almost

from between my feet, I saw, I could swear itI felt it then, and know it now, the infernal gaze and the

accursed countenance of my old friend in the portrait, transfused into the visage of the bloated vermin before

I bounced into my room again with a feeling of loathing and horror I cannot describe, and locked and bolted

my door as if a lion had been at the other side. Dn him or it; curse the portrait and its original! I felt in my

soul that the ratyes, the rat, the RAT I had just seen, was that evil being in masquerade, and rambling

Next morning I was early trudging through the miry streets; and, among other transactions, posted a

peremptory note recalling Tom. On my return, however, I found a note from my absent "chum," announcing

his intended return next day. I was doubly rejoiced at this, because I had succeeded in getting rooms; and

because the change of scene and return of my comrade were rendered specially pleasant by the last night's

I slept extemporaneously in my new quarters in Digges' Street that night, and next morning returned for

breakfast to the haunted mansion, where I was certain Tom would call immediately on his arrival.

I was quite righthe came; and almost his first question referred to the primary object of our change of

"Thank God," he said with genuine fervour, on hearing that all was arranged. "On your account I am

delighted. As to myself, I assure you that no earthly consideration could have induced me ever again to pass a

"Confound the house!" I ejaculated, with a genuine mixture of fear and detestation, "we have not had a

pleasant hour since we came to live here"; and so I went on, and related incidentally my adventure with the

"Well, if that were all," said my cousin, affecting to make light of the matter, "I don't think I should have

"Ay, but its eyeits countenance, my dear Tom," urged I; "if you had seen that, you would have felt it might

"I am inclined to think the best conjurer in such a case would be an ablebodied cat," he said, with a

At this challenge he looked uneasily round him. I had poked up a very unpleasant recollection.

"You shall hear it, Dick; I'll tell it to you," he said. "Begad, sir, I should feel quite queer, though, telling it

Though he spoke this like a joke, I think it was serious calculation. Our Hebe was in a corner of the room,

packing our cracked delf tea and dinnerservices in a basket. She soon suspended operations, and with mouth

and eyes wide open became an absorbed listener. Tom's experiences were told nearly in these words:

"I saw it three times, Dickthree distinct times; and I am perfectly certain it meant me some infernal harm. I

was, I say, in dangerin extreme danger; for, if nothing else had happened, my reason would most certainly

"The first night of this hateful disturbance, I was lying in the attitude of sleep, in that lumbering old bed. I

hate to think of it. I was really wide awake, though I had put out my candle, and was lying as quietly as if I

had been asleep; and although accidentally restless, my thoughts were running in a cheerful and agreeable

"I think it must have been two o'clock at least when I thought I heard a sound in thatthat odious dark recess

at the far end of the bedroom. It was as if someone was drawing a piece of cord slowly along the floor, lifting

it up, and dropping it softly down again in coils. I sate up once or twice in my bed, but could see nothing, so I

concluded it must be mice in the wainscot. I felt no emotion graver than curiosity, and after a few minutes

"While lying in this state, strange to say; without at first a suspicion of anything supernatural, on a sudden I

saw an old man, rather stout and square, in a sort of roanred dressinggown, and with a black cap on his

head, moving stiffly and slowly in a diagonal direction, from the recess, across the floor of the bedroom,

passing my bed at the foot, and entering the lumbercloset at the left. He had something under his arm; his

"That awful countenance, which living or dying I never can forget, disclosed what he was. Without turning to

the right or left, he passed beside me, and entered the closet by the bed's head.

"While this fearful and indescribable type of death and guilt was passing, I felt that I had no more power to

speak or stir than if I had been myself a corpse. For hours after it had disappeared, I was too terrified and

weak to move. As soon as daylight came, I took courage, and examined the room, and especially the course

which the frightful intruder had seemed to take, but there was not a vestige to indicate anybody's having

passed there; no sign of any disturbing agency visible among the lumber that strewed the floor of the closet.

"I now began to recover a little. I was fagged and exhausted, and at last, overpowered by a feverish sleep. I

came down late; and finding you out of spirits, on account of your dreams about the portrait, whose original I

am now certain disclosed himself to me, I did not care to talk about the infernal vision. In fact, I was trying to

persuade myself that the whole thing was an illusion, and I did not like to revive in their intensity the hated

impressions of the past nightor, to risk the constancy of my scepticism, by recounting the tale of my

"It required some nerve, I can tell you, to go to my haunted chamber next night, and lie down quietly in the

same bed," continued Tom. " I did so with a degree of trepidation, which, I am not ashamed to say, a very

little matter would have sufficed to stimulate to downright panic. This night, however, passed off quietly

enough, as also the next; and so too did two or three more. I grew more confident, and began to fancy that I

believed in the theories of spectral illusions, with which I had at first vainly tried to impose upon my

"The apparition had been, indeed, altogether anomalous. It had crossed the room without any recognition of

my presence: I had not disturbed it, and it had no mission to me. What, then, was the imaginable use of its

crossing the room in a visible shape at all? Of course it might have been in the closet instead of going there,

as easily as it introduced itself into the recess without entering the chamber in a shape discernible by the

senses. Besides, how the deuce had I seen it? It was a dark night; I had no candle; there was no fire; and yet I

saw it as distinctly, in colouring and outline, as ever I beheld human form! A cataleptic dream would explain

"One of the most remarkable phenomena connected with the practice of mendacity is the vast number of

deliberate lies we tell ourselves, whom, of all persons, we can least expect to deceive. In all this, I need

hardly tell you, Dick, I was simply lying to myself, and did not believe one word of the wretched humbug.

Yet I went on, as men will do, like persevering charlatans and impostors, who tire people into credulity by the

mere force of reiteration; so I hoped to win myself over at last to a comfortable scepticism about the ghost.

"He had not appeared a second timethat certainly was a comfort; and what, after all, did I care for him, and

his queer old toggery and strange looks? Not a fig! I was nothing the worse for having seen him, and a good

story the better. So I tumbled into bed, put out my candle, and, cheered by a loud drunken quarrel in the back

"From this deep slumber I awoke with a start. I knew I had had a horrible dream; but what it was I could not

remember. My heart was thumping furiously; I felt bewildered and feverish; I sate up in the bed and looked

about the room. A broad flood of moonlight came in through the curtainless window; everything was as I had

last seen it; and though the domestic squabble in the back lane was, unhappily for me, allayed, I yet could

hear a pleasant fellow singing, on his way home, the then popular comic ditty called, 'Murphy Delany.'

Taking advantage of this diversion I lay down again, with my face towards the fireplace, and closing my

eyes, did my best to think of nothing else but the song, which was every moment growing fainter in the

"The singer, whose condition I dare say resembled that of his hero, was soon too far off to regale my ears any

more; and as his music died away, I myself sank into a doze, neither sound nor refreshing. Somehow the song

had got into my head, and I went meandering on through the adventures of my respectable

fellowcountryman, who, on emerging from the 'shebeen shop,' fell into a river, from which he was fished up

to be 'sat upon' by a coroner's jury, who having learned from a 'horsedoctor' that he was 'dead as a

doornail, so there was an end,' returned their verdict accordingly, just as he returned to his senses, when an

angry altercation and a pitched battle between the body and the coroner winds up the lay with due spirit and

"Through this ballad I continued with a weary monotony to plod, down to the very last line, and then da capo,

and so on, in my uncomfortable halfsleep, for how long, I can't conjecture. I found myself at last, however,

muttering, 'dead as a doornail, so there was an end'; and something like another voice within me, seemed to

say, very faintly, but sharply, 'dead! dead! dead! and may the Lord have mercy on your soul!' and

"Nowwill you believe it, Dick?I saw the same accursed figure standing full front, and gazing at me with

Tom stopped here, and wiped the perspiration from his face. I felt very queer. The girl was as pale as Tom;

and, assembled as we were in the very scene of these adventures, we were all, I dare say, equally grateful for

"For about three seconds only I saw it plainly; then it grew indistinct; but, for a long time, there was

something like a column of dark vapour where it had been standing between me and the wall; and I felt sure

that he was still there. After a good while, this appearance went too. I took my clothes downstairs to the hall,

and dressed there, with the door half open; then went out into the street, and walked about the town till

morning, when I came back, in a miserable state of nervousness and exhaustion. I was such a fool, Dick, as to

be ashamed to tell you how I came to be so upset. I thought you would laugh at me; especially as I had

always talked philosophy, and treated your ghosts with contempt. I concluded you would give me no quarter;

"Now, Dick, you will hardly believe me, when I assure you, that for many nights after this last experience, I

did not go to my room at all. I used to sit up for a while in the drawingroom after you had gone up to your

bed; and then steal down softly to the halldoor, let myself out, and sit in the ' Robin Hood ' tavern until the

last guest went off; and then I got through the night like a sentry, pacing the streets till morning.

"For more than a week I never slept in bed. I sometimes had a snooze on a form in the 'Robin Hood,' and

sometimes a nap in a chair during the day; but regular sleep I had absolutely none.

"I was quite resolved that we should get into another house; but I could not bring myself to tell you the

reason, and I somehow put it off from day to day, although my life was, during every hour of this

procrastination, rendered as miserable as that of a felon with the constables on his track. I was growing

"One afternoon I determined to enjoy an hour's sleep upon your bed. I hated mine; so that I had never, except

in a stealthy visit every day to unmake it, lest Martha should discover the secret of my nightly absence,

"As illluck would have it, you had locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my own to

unsettle the bedclothes, as usual, and give the bed the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of

circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first

place, I was literally overpowered with fatigue, and longing for sleep; in the next place, the effect of this

extreme exhaustion upon my nerves resembled that of a narcotic, and rendered me less susceptible than,

perhaps I should in any other condition have been, of the exciting fears which had become habitual to me.

Then again, a little bit of the window was open, a pleasant freshness pervaded the room, and, to crown all, the

cheerful sun of day was making the room quite pleasant. What was to prevent my enjoying an hour's nap

here? The whole air was resonant with the cheerful hum of life, and the broad matteroffact light of day

"I yieldedstifling my qualmsto the almost overpowering temptation; and merely throwing off my coat,

and loosening my cravat, I lay down, limiting myself to halfanhour's doze in the unwonted enjoyment of a

"It was horribly insidious; and the demon, no doubt, marked my infatuated preparations. Dolt that I was, I

fancied, with mind and body worn out for want of sleep, and an arrear of a full week's rest to my credit, that

such measure as halfanhour's sleep, in such a situation, was possible. My sleep was deathlike, long, and

"Without a start or fearful sensation of any kind, I waked gently, but completely. It was, as you have good

reason to remember, long past midnightI believe, about two o'clock. When sleep has been deep and long

enough to satisfy nature thoroughly, one often wakens in this way, suddenly, tranquilly, and completely.

"There was a figure seated in that lumbering, old sofachair, near the fireplace. Its back was rather towards

me, but I could not be mistaken; it turned slowly round, and, merciful heavens! there was the stony face, with

its infernal lineaments of malignity and despair, gloating on me. There was now no doubt as to its

consciousness of my presence, and the hellish malice with which it was animated, for it arose, and drew close

to the bedside. There was a rope about its neck, and the other end, coiled up, it held stiffly in its hand.

"My good angel nerved me for this horrible crisis. I remained for some seconds transfixed by the gaze of this

tremendous phantom. He came close to the bed, and appeared on the point of mounting upon it. The next

instant I was upon the floor at the far side, and in a moment more was, I don't know how, upon the lobby.

"But the spell was not yet broken; the valley of the shadow of death was not yet traversed. The abhorred

phantom was before me there; it was standing near the banisters, stooping a little, and with one end of the

rope round its own neck, was poising a noose at the other, as if to throw over mine; and while engaged in this

baleful pantomime, it wore a smile so sensual, so unspeakably dreadful, that my senses were nearly

overpowered. I saw and remember nothing more, until I found myself in your room.

"I had a wonderful escape, Dickthere is no disputing thatan escape for which, while I live, I shall bless

the mercy of heaven. No one can conceive or imagine what it is for flesh and blood to stand in the presence of

such a thing, but one who has had the terrific experience. Dick, Dick, a shadow has passed over mea chill

has crossed my blood and marrow, and I will never be the same againnever, Dicknever!"

Our handmaid, a mature girl of twoandfifty, as I have said, stayed her hand, as Tom's story proceeded, and

by little and little drew near to us, with open mouth, and her brows contracted over her little, beady black

eyes, till stealing a glance over her shoulder now and then, she established herself close behind us. During the

relation, she had made various earnest comments, in an under tone; but these and her ejaculations, for the

"It's often I heard tell of it," she now said, "but I never believed it rightly till nowthough, indeed, why

should not I? Does not my mother, down there in the lane, know quare stories, God bless us, beyant telling

about it? But you ought not to have slept in the back bedroom. She was loath to let me be going in and out of

that room even in the day time, let alone for any Christian to spend the night in it; for sure she says it was his

"Why, histhe ould Judge'sJudge Horrock's, to be sure, God rest his sowl"; and she looked fearfully

"Die there! No, not quite there," she said. "Shure, was not it over the banisters he hung himself, the ould

sinner, God be merciful to us all? and was not it in the alcove they found the handles of the skippingrope cut

off, and the knife where he was settling the cord, God bless us, to hang himself with? It was his housekeeper's

daughter owned the rope, my mother often told me, and the child never throve after, and used to be starting

up out of her sleep, and screeching in the night time, wid dhrames and frights that cum an her; and they said

how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin' her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out to

hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and then she'd screech 'Oh, the master! the master! he's

stampin' at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don't let me go!' And so the poor crathure died at last,

and the docthers said it was wather on the brain, for it was all they could say."

"Oh, then, how would I know?" she answered. "But it must be a wondherful long time ago, for the

housekeeper was an ould woman, with a pipe in her mouth, and not a tooth left, and better nor eighty years

ould when my mother was first married; and they said she was a rale buxom, finedressed woman when the

ould Judge come to his end; an', indeed, my mother's not far from eighty years ould herself this day; and what

made it worse for the unnatural ould villain, God rest his soul, to frighten the little girl out of the world the

way he did, was what was mostly thought and believed by everyone. My mother says how the poor little

crathure was his own child; for he was by all accounts an ould villain every way, an' the hangin'est judge that

"From what you said about the danger of sleeping in that bedroom," said I, " I suppose there were stories

"Well, there was things saidquare things, surely," she answered, as it seemed, with some reluctance. "And

why would not there? Sure was it not up in that same room he slept for more than twenty years? and was it

not in the alcove he got the rope ready that done his own business at last, the way he done many a betther

man's in his lifetime?and was not the body lying in the same bed after death, and put in the coffin there,

too, and carried out to his grave from it in Pether's churchyard, after the coroner was done? But there was

quare storiesmy mother has them allabout how one Nicholas Spaight got into trouble on the head of it."

And she certainly did relate a very strange story, which so piqued my curiosity, that I took occasion to visit

the ancient lady, her mother, from whom I learned many very curious particulars. Indeed, I am tempted to tell

the tale, but my fingers are weary, and I must defer it. But if you wish to hear it another time, I shall do my

When we had heard the strange tale I have not told you, we put one or two further questions to her about the

alleged spectral visitations, to which the house had, ever since the death of the wicked old Judge, been

"No one ever had luck in it," she told us. "There was always cross accidents, sudden deaths, and short times

in it. The first that tuck it was a familyI forget their namebut at any rate there was two young ladies and

their papa. He was about sixty, and a stout healthy gentleman as you'd wish to see at that age. Well, he slept

in that unlucky back bedroom; and, God between us an' harm! sure enough he was found dead one morning,

half out of the bed, with his head as black as a sloe, and swelled like a puddin', hanging down near the floor.

It was a fit, they said. He was as dead as a mackerel, and so he could not say what it was; but the ould people

was all sure that it was nothing at all but the ould Judge, God bless us! that frightened him out of his senses

"Some time after there was a rich old maiden lady took the house. I don't know which room she slept in, but

she lived alone; and at any rate, one morning, the servants going down early to their work, found her sitting

on the passagestairs, shivering and talkin' to herself, quite mad; and never a word more could any of them or

her friends get from her ever afterwards but, 'Don't ask me to go, for I promised to wait for him.' They never

made out from her who it was she meant by him, but of course those that knew all about the ould house were

"Then afterwards, when the house was let out in lodgings, there was Micky Byrne that took the same room,

with his wife and three little children; and sure I heard Mrs. Byrne myself telling how the children used to be

lifted up in the bed at night, she could not see by what mains; and how they were starting and screeching

every hour, just all as one as the housekeeper's little girl that died, till at last one night poor Micky had a

dhrop in him, the way he used now and again; and what do you think in the middle of the night he thought he

heard a noise on the stairs, and being in liquor, nothing less id do him but out he must go himself to see what

was wrong. Well, after that, all she ever heard of him was himself sayin', 'Oh, God!' and a tumble that shook

the very house; and there, sure enough, he was lying on the lower stairs, under the lobby, with his neck

"I'll go down to the lane, and send up Joe Gavvey to pack up the rest of the taythings, and bring all the things

And so we all sallied out together, each of us breathing more freely, I have no doubt, as we crossed that

Now, I may add thus much, in compliance with the immemorial usage of the realm of fiction, which sees the

hero not only through his adventures, but fairly out of the world. You must have perceived that what the

flesh, blood, and bone hero of romance proper is to the regular compounder of fiction, this old house of brick,

wood, and mortar is to the humble recorder of this true tale. I, therefore, relate, as in duty bound, the

catastrophe which ultimately befell it, which was simply thisthat about two years subsequently to my story

it was taken by a quack doctor, who called himself Baron Duhlstoerf, and filled the parlour windows with

bottles of indescribable horrors preserved in brandy, and the newspapers with the usual grandiloquent and

mendacious advertisements. This gentleman among his virtues did not reckon sobriety, and one night, being

overcome with much wine, he set fire to his bed curtains, partially burned himself, and totally consumed the

house. It was afterwards rebuilt, and for a time an undertaker established himself in the premises.

I have now told you my own and Tom's adventures, together with some valuable collateral particulars; and

having acquitted myself of my engagement, I wish you a very good night, and pleasant dreams.