THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last place where
any one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been into it for
three months, and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening the
door, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing gown, sitting in
my arm-chair, and reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment,
and so did I; and what it was or what it wanted I have never been able
to ascertain.
MR FLOSKY
It was an idea with the force of a sensation. It is seldom that ghosts
appeal to two senses at once; but, when I was in Devonshire, the
following story was well attested to me. A young woman, whose lover
was at sea, returning one evening over some solitary fields, saw
her lover sitting on a stile over which she was to pass. Her first
emotions were surprise and joy, but there was a paleness and
seriousness in his face that made them give place to alarm. She
advanced towards him, and he said to her, in a solemn voice, 'The eye
that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eye is upon me, but I am
not.' And with these words he vanished; and on that very day and hour,
as it afterwards appeared, he had perished by shipwreck.
The whole party now drew round in a circle, and each related some
ghostly anecdote, heedless of the flight of time, till, in a pause of
the conversation, they heard the hollow tongue of midnight sounding
twelve.
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