"There is a tradition - that a strange
occurrence took place that night - a strange, mysterious, inexplicable
occurrence."
Here he checked himself and paused.
"Did it relate to that lady?" inquired my uncle, eagerly.
"It was past the hour of midnight," resumed the Marquis - "when the
whole chateau - "
Here he paused again - my uncle made a movement of anxious curiosity.
"Excuse me," said the Marquis - a slight blush streaking his sullen
visage. "There are some circumstances connected with our family history
which I do not like to relate. That was a rude period. A time of great
crimes among great men: for you know high blood, when it runs wrong,
will not run tamely like blood of the canaille - poor lady! - But I
have a little family pride, that - excuse me - we will change the subject
if you please." -
My uncle's curiosity was piqued. The pompous and magnificent
introduction had led him to expect something wonderful in the story to
which it served as a kind of avenue. He had no idea of being cheated
out of it by a sudden fit of unreasonable squeamishness. Besides, being
a traveller, in quest of information, considered it his duty to inquire
into every thing.
The Marquis, however, evaded every question.
"Well," said my uncle, a little petulantly, "whatever you may think of
it, I saw that lady last night."
The Marquis stepped back and gazed at him with surprise.
"She paid me a visit in my bed-chamber."
The Marquis pulled out his snuff-box with a shrug and a smile; taking
it no doubt for an awkward piece of English pleasantry, which
politeness required him to be charmed with. My uncle went on gravely,
however, and related the whole circumstance. The Marquis heard him
through with profound attention, holding his snuff-box unopened in his
hand. When the story was finished he tapped on the lid of his box
deliberately; took a long sonorous pinch of snuff -
"Bah!" said the Marquis, and walked toward the other end of the
gallery. -
* * * * *
Here the narrator paused. The company waited for some time for him to
resume his narrative; but he continued silent.
"Well," said the inquisitive gentleman, "and what did your uncle say
then?"
"Nothing," replied the other.
"And what did the Marquis say farther?"
"Nothing."
"And is that all?"
"That is all," said the narrator, filling a glass of wine.
"I surmise," said the shrewd old gentleman with the waggish nose - "I
surmise it was the old housekeeper walking her rounds to see that all
was right."
"Bah!" said the narrator, "my uncle was too much accustomed to strange
sights not to know a ghost from a housekeeper!"
There was a murmur round the table half of merriment, half of
disappointment. I was inclined to think the old gentleman had really an
afterpart of his story in reserve; but he sipped his wine and said
nothing more; and there was an odd expression about his dilapidated
countenance that left me in doubt whether he were in drollery or
earnest.
"Egad," said the knowing gentleman with the flexible nose, "this story
of your uncle puts me in mind of one that used to be told of an aunt of
mine, by the mother's side; though I don't know that it will bear a
comparison; as the good lady was not quite so prone to meet with
strange adventures. But at any rate, you shall have it."
THE ADVENTURE OF MY AUNT.
My aunt was a lady of large frame, strong mind, and great resolution;
she was what might be termed a very manly woman. My uncle was a thin,
puny little man, very meek and acquiescent, and no match for my aunt.
It was observed that he dwindled and dwindled gradually away, from the
day of his marriage. His wife's powerful mind was too much for him; it
wore him out. My aunt, however, took all possible care of him, had half
the doctors in town to prescribe for him, made him take all their
prescriptions, willy nilly, and dosed him with physic enough to cure
a whole hospital. All was in vain. My uncle grew worse and worse the
more dosing and nursing he underwent, until in the end he added another
to the long list of matrimonial victims, who have been killed with
kindness.
"And was it his ghost that appeared to her?" asked the inquisitive
gentleman, who had questioned the former storyteller.
"You shall hear," replied the narrator: - My aunt took on mightily for
the death of her poor dear husband! Perhaps she felt some compunction
at having given him so much physic, and nursed him into his grave. At
any rate, she did all that a widow could do to honor his memory. She
spared no expense in either the quantity or quality of her mourning
weeds; she wore a miniature of him about her neck, as large as a little
sun dial; and she had a full-length portrait of him always hanging in
her bed chamber. All the world extolled her conduct to the skies; and
it was determined, that a woman who behaved so well to the memory of
one husband, deserved soon to get another.
It was not long after this that she went to take up her residence in an
old country seat in Derbyshire, which had long been in the care of
merely a steward and housekeeper. She took most of her servants with
her, intending to make it her principal abode. The house stood in a
lonely, wild part of the country among the gray Derbyshire hills; with
a murderer hanging in chains on a bleak height in full view.
The servants from town were half frightened out of their wits, at the
idea of living in such a dismal, pagan-looking place; especially when
they got together in the servants' hall in the evening, and compared
notes on all the hobgoblin stories they had picked up in the course of
the day.
