24 Ianathan started tq. believe in gasle ghost.
Answers
Explanation:
honse which is the subject
Christmas piece. I saw it in the day-
vith the sun upon it. There was no
. no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful
unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to
liten its elTeet. More than that: I had come
direct from a railway station; it was not
I than a mile distant from tho railway sta-
^j and, a^ I stood outside the bouse, looking
upoij^lic way I had come, 1 could see the
' tram niiminj? smoothly along the em-
lent in the valley. I will not say that
, tiling was utterly common-place, because I
iioubt if anything can be that, except to utterly
common-place people—and there my vanity steps
in; but, twill take it on mjself to say tliat aiiy-
hoiiy might see the house as I saw it, any. fine
autumn morning.
The manner of my lighting on it whs this.
I was travelling towards London out of the
Korth, intending to stop by the way, to look at
lie bouse. My health required a teniporai-y
residence in the country; and a friend of mine
who knew that, and who had happened to drive
past the house, had iivritten to me to suggest tt as
a hkely place. I had got into the tram nt mid-
nielit, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up aud
had sat looking out of wmdow at the brilliant
KorLlicrn Lights in tbe sky, and had fallen asleep
again, and had woke up agam to find the nigbt
gone, with the usual discontenled conviction on
mc tliat I hadn't been to sleep at all;—upon
which question, iu the first imbecility of that
Condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would
havo done wager by battle with the man wbo sat
opposite mo. That opposite man had had,
(lirough the night—aa that opposite man always
lias—several legs too many, and all of them too
long. Ll addition to this unreasonable conduct
(which was only to he expected of him), he had
had a pencil and a pocket-book, and had been
perpetually listening and taking notes. It liad ap-
peared to mc that these aggravating notes related
to the joUsand bumps of the carriage, and I should
have resigned myself to his taking them, under
a general supposition that he was in the civU-
eiigiueering way of life, if he had not sat staring
straight over my head whenever he listened. He
was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexctl
aspect, and his demeanour became unbearable.
It was a cold, dead moming (the snn not heing
up jet), and when I had out-watclied the paling
light of the fires of the iron country, and the
curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once
het'ween me and the stars and between me and
the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller and
said :
" I beg your pardon, sir, but do you observe
anything particular iu me P" For, really, he ap-
peared to bc taking down, either my travelling*
cap or my bair, with a minuteuess that was a
liberty.
The goggle-eyed gentleman withdi'cw bis eyes
from behind me, as if the back of the carriage
were a hundred miles oiF, aud said, with a lofty
look of compassion for my iu&igni&cauce:
" In you, sir ?—B."
" B, sir ?'* said I, growing warm.
" I have nothiug to do with vou, sir," re-
turned the gentleman; "pray let me listen
—O."
He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and
noted it down.
At first I was alarmed, for an Express Innatic
and no communication with the guard, is a serious
position. The thought came to my relief that
the gentleman might he what is popularly called
a Kappcr: one of a sect for (some of) vhom
I have the highest respect, but whom t don't
hclieve in. I was going to ask him the qnestion,
when he took the bread out of roy month.