: Old New England Traits by Lunt George Editor - New England Social life and customs; Newburyport (Mass.) Social life and customs

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ds were haunted; nor was there a peasant who had not seen a spirit."

"Well, Aunt Judith," said Uncle Richard, "these wonderful things seem to have very much gone by, in our day, or else people, for some reason, take less notice of them than formerly. Witches, nowadays, are characters entirely unknown, except," he gallantly remarked, "for the sometimes really inexplicable fascinations of members of your own sex; and, except in one singular instance, I have known of no appearances which could not be rationally accounted for. I have heard my father, however, tell of one which, according to the tradition, manifested itself, one hundred years ago or more, upon a bridge, over the Ipswich River, in our Essex County town of Topsfield, and was the terror of all the country round. He appeared in the shape of a monstrous hog, taking his station, at night, in the very centre of the bridge; and those who had occasion to cross it, on horseback or on foot, were either fain to turn back, as he encountered them, bristling and snarling, or rushed by, if their occasion demanded it, in a state of extraordinary trepidation. At length, Parson Capen, the worthy minister of the town, riding up to the bridge one evening, saw the spectre in his usual position. Nothing daunted, in virtue of his holy office, the good man thus accosted him: 'You that were once an angel of light, ain't you ashamed to appear in the shape of a dirty swine?' This expostulation was too much for the foul fiend, who at once jumped over the railing of the bridge into the river, and was no more seen."

Amongst others of the few guests of the evening was a young gentleman, a member of one of the learned professions, who was accounted an intellectual person and was of rather grave demeanor. Though known to have been the author of occasional verses which gained applause, he would not have been thought likely to be the subject of any extraordinary hallucination. He was an intimate friend of our family, and on certain occasions of unusual excitement, if not danger, in the midst of the various adventures of young people, had shown a singular firmness of nerve and presence of mind, and was thought to be in fact insensible to fear. He had listened to the story of the bold lad who saw the supposed apparition on the gate-post, and to that of the Topsfield spectre, with much the same interest as that which Marmion exhibited at Sir David Lindesay's narrative of the appearance of the beloved Apostle to King James in Linlithgow. Apparently induced by a similar irresistible impulse to that which drew from the redoubted warrior of Scott's fascinating poem the rehearsal of his nocturnal adventure, our guest volunteered a relation quite as remarkable.

"I will tell you a story," said he, "of something unaccountable which once happened to me, though the circumstances are still so vivid in my memory, that I look back upon it with a sort of superstitious dread, and feel a decided reluctance in appealing to the sympathy of others, in regard to an incident which seemed exclusively addressed to myself and was confined to my own sole experience.

"In my senior year at College, now as you know, not many years since, I was appointed by my class to prepare for delivery, on what is called Class Day, a literary exercise,--in fact a poem, in anticipation of the usual Commencement performances, and was at home, during the preceding long vacation, making ready for this event. The writing of poetry for public recitation before a critical audience is a rather exacting occupation, and my ambition was naturally excited to do the best in my power. Indeed, the work absorbed all my faculties; but I preferred to write during the still hours of the night, rather than amidst the ordinary distractions of the day, spending that period, usually, wandering in the neighboring fields and woods, or in other diversions. The season was summer, and I was sitting one night at an open window, committing to paper such thoughts as occurred to me, by the light of a single candle,--for lamps were then not very common and gas was entirely unknown. Outside, there was not a sound, for the whole town was buried in profound sleep, and our own household was in the same state of repose. It was just on the stroke of twelve. Our house was a very ancient one, though I never heard that there was anything peculiarly remarkable in its history. Sitting thus, and thus engaged in serious, solitary contemplation, the sudden fall of something heavy in the garret overhead gave me a momentary start. I could compare it to nothing but to the effect likely to be produced by something as solid as a smaller description of cannon-ball, though it afterwards appeared to have attracted the attention of no one else in the family. Supposing that some article of furniture had accidentally fallen, the noise of which had been rendered more noticeable by the perfect stillness of the night, I pursued my occupation, until I felt disposed for sleep. On the following night, while engaged in the same way, and at the same midnight hour, came the same heavy, sharp, distinct thud upon the floor directly above my head. I was disposed to philosophize on the subject, and, though the coincidence was certainly peculiar, I still conceived that this unusual sound, at such an unusual hour, might be attributed to some natural cause. Perhaps, a heavy cat might have jumped down from beams above, on both occasions, and the noise was magnified by the otherwise unbroken stillness, though so far as I remember we kept no such cat of our own. I am sure that the idea of anything supernatural scarcely occurred to me, or was dismissed with derision. Nevertheless, the circumstances were peculiar enough to induce me to make a thorough examination of the garret on the following morning, and I was struck by the fact, that it was perfectly bare of any article of furniture above my chamber, or in the neighborhood of that part of the attic, which could have fallen. I was naturally a good deal perplexed at an occurrence for which there seemed no rational means of accounting, but I kept my own counsel. On the third night, at the same hour, when the clear bell from the steeple of a meeting-house not far distant had just tolled twelve, came the same sudden, single, distinct sound of a fall on the floor, directly over my head. I will not say as Marmion did, on the occasion above referred to,--

"'I care not though the truth I show,-- I trembled with affright.'

"On the contrary, though not a little disturbed by incidents so unaccountable, and rendered by the interruption quite unfit to pursue my occupation further, I deliberately undressed, said my prayers, put out my candle, and went to bed. It was a bright starlight night, and the two windows of my chamber made objects within indistinctly visible. No sooner had I laid my head upon the pillow, than through a door at the foot of my bed appeared a slowly moving figure, turning the corner of the bed and approaching the side of it upon which I lay. I could distinctly see its outlines, and it seemed to me apparelled like a monk, with a hood drawn over its features, and long trailing garments. As Eliphaz the Temanite, under similar circumstances, has related,--'the hair of my flesh stood up.' But I did not quite lose my self-possession. As the figure came nearer, I instantly threw off the bedclothes and jumped towards it into the middle of the room,--and it was gone! Though startled enough at so strange an occurrence, I reflected that it must be an illusion produced by some casual disorder of the natural faculties, and returned to bed and slept as usual until morning. But the next day I was much more disturbed in recalling the several circumstances of this extraordinary visitation. The repeated previous heavy blows upon the floor, and their apparent consummation in the vision I supposed myself to have seen, made me, as Othello says, 'perplexed in the extreme.' On that day I told my mother the story; she laughed at the idea of supernatural appearances, perhaps to quiet her son's emotion; but she said she was afraid of no ghosts, proposed an exchange of chambers, and this accommodation at once took place. But though I finished and delivered the poem in question, I continued to muse by myself upon what had occurred, unwilling to speak to any one about it. It was many months before I recovered from the shock to my nervous system. Reflecting upon it at the time, again I summoned whatever philosophy I had at command, as well as I could. I conceived that possibly in the excitement of verse-writing, in the silence of the night, some tenseness had affected the drum of my ear; that hearing, or imagining that I heard some unusual sound, amid the perfect stillness around me, a continuous disordered state of physical functions had produced a similar effect at a correspondent hour; and that this experience not unnaturally culminated in the spectral visitation."

We heard the story in terror, and put little faith in the theory of explanation.

"But," said my uncle Richard, himself a good deal amazed at the narrative, "did anything happen afterwards, to account for what you have told us?"

"Nothing whatever," replied our friend.

"Did you ever sleep in that chamber again?"

"Yes, some years afterwards. It so happened that during several weeks in the summer, our whole family except myself, was away. My mother was in close attendance upon sick members of my sister's family. My brothers were at sea, and even our ordinary servant was dismissed for the occasion. When the time for rest arrived, it was my habit to let myself into the house, to proceed to the same chamber, usually without a light, and go to bed. One night, putting my hand upon the pillow, I felt something soft and started back, but again reaching forward, the object proved to be a dove that had flown into the open window, and securing it without difficulty I gave that symbol of innocence immediate release. Perhaps, it was my former visitant in a less forbidding form. But this, as well as the other, passed into the course of ordinary events."

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