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action and invested with a semisubstance. That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subju gated by terror as the dog-had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my will."

"It killed your dog! that is fearful! indeed it is strange that no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and mice are never found in it.”

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their

ful), I see much that philosophy | flects but its devious, motley, evermay question, nothing that it is shifting, half-formed thoughts; in incumbent on philosophy to deny-short, that it has been but the viz., nothing supernatural. They dreams of such a brain put into are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables walk of their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle, or body less hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood-still am I persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic wonders-in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may produce electric wonders. But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this-they are alike ob-existence. Man's reason has a sense jectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the same thing. "I will tell you what I would do. Well, observe, no two persons ever I am convinced from my own interexperience exactly the same dream. nal feelings that the small unfurIf this were an ordinary imposture, nished room at right angles to the the machinery would be arranged for door of the bedroom which I occuresults that would but little vary; pied, forms a starting-point or if it were a supernatural agency receptacle for the influences which permitted by the Almighty, it would haunt the house; and I strongly surely be for some definite end. advise you to have the walls opened, These phenomena belong to neither the floor removed-nay, the whole class; my persuasion is, that they room pulled down. I observe that originate in some brain now far it is detached from the body of the distant; that that brain had no house, built over the small backdistinct volition in anything that yard, and could be removed without occurred; that what does cccur re-injury to the rest of the building."

less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory ? "

"Yes, though imperfectly—and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house the evil is the same. on earth can I do with the house?"

What

"And you think, if I did that-" | deposed to have heard it shriek at "You would cut off the telegraph night. The surgeon who had ex

wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to direct the operations."

"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest, allow me to write to you."

amined it after death, said that it was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape-crept out into the back-yard-tried to scale the wall-fallen back exhausted, and been found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan's death the aunt inherited her brother's for

About ten days afterwards I received a letter from Mr. J——, telling me that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found the two letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from which I had taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago (a year before tune. Before the first wedded year the date of the letters) she had was out, the American quitted married, against the wish of her England abruptly, and never rerelations, an American of very sus- turned to it. He obtained a cruispicious character; in fact, he was ing vessel, which was lost in the generally believed to have been a Atlantic two years afterwards. The pirate. She herself was the daughter widow was left in affluence: but of very respectable tradespeople, reverses of various kinds had beand had served in the capacity of a fallen her: a bank broke-an investnursery governess before her mar- ment failed-she went into a small riage. She had a brother, a widower, business and became insolventwho was considered wealthy, and then she entered into service, sinkwho had one child of about six years ing lower and lower, from houseold. A month after the marriage, keeper down to maid-of-all-workthe body of this brother was found never long retaining a place, though · in the Thames, near London Bridge; nothing decided against her chathere seemed some marks of vio-racter was ever alleged. She was lence about his throat, but they considered sober, honest, and pecuwere not deemed sufficient to war-liarly quiet in her ways; still norant the inquest in any other ver- thing prospered with her. And so dict than that of " found drowned." she had dropped into the workThe American and his wife took house, from which Mr. J— charge of the little boy, the deceased taken her, to be placed in charge of brother having by his will left his the very house which she had sister the guardian of his only child rented as mistress in the first year -and in event of the child's death, of her wedded life. the sister inherited. The child died Mr. J added that he had about six months afterwards-it passed an hour alone in the unfurwas supposed to have been neglected nished room which I had urged and ill-treated. The neighbours lim to destroy, and that his impres

had

sions of dread while there were so | tles of crystal, hermetically stopped. great, though he had neither heard They contained colourless volatile nor seen anything, that he was essences, of the nature of which I eager to have the walls bared and shall only say that they were not the floors removed as I had sug-poisons-phosphor and ammonia gested. He had engaged persons entered into some of them. There for the work, and would commence were also some very curious glass any day I would name. tubes, and a small pointed rod of

In one of the drawers we found a

It was a remarkable face-a most impressive face. If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of frontal-the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the deadly jaw-the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the emerald-and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the conscious

The day was accordingly fixed. iron, with a large lump of rockI repaired to the haunted house-crystal, and another of amber-also we went into the blind dreary room, a loadstone of great power. took up the skirting, and then the floors. Under the rafters, covered miniature portrait set in gold, and with rubbish, was found a trap-retaining the freshness of its colours door, quite large enough to admit a most remarkably, considering the man. It was closely nailed down, length of time it had probably been with clamps and rivets of iron. On there. The portrait was that of a removing these we descended into a man who might be somewhat adroom below, the existence of which vanced in middle life, perhaps fortyhad never been suspected. In this seven or forty-eight. room there had been a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained some mouldering furniture-three chairs, an oak settle, a table-all of the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, halfrotted away, old-fashioned articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank-costly steel buckles and but-ness of an immense power. tons, like those yet worn in court- Mechanically I turned round the dresses-a handsome court sword- miniature to examine the back of in a waistcoat which had once been it, and on the back was engraved a rich with gold-lace, but which was pentacle; in the middle of the pennow blackened and foul with damp, tacle a ladder, and the third step of we found five guineas, a few silver the ladder was formed by the date coins, and an ivory ticket, probably 1765. Examining still more minutely, for some place of entertainment I detected a spring; this, on being long since passed away. But our pressed, opened the back of the main discovery was in a kind of iron | miniature as a lid. Within-side the safe fixed to the wall, the lock of lid were engraved, "Mariana to which it cost us much trouble to thee-Be faithful in life and in get picked. death to Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in

In this safe were three shelves, and two small drawers. Ranged on the shelves were several small bot

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that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilt-the saucer was broken-the compass rolled to the end of the room-and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which we had descended from the trap-door; but seeing that nothing more happened, they were easily induced to return.

my childhood as the name borne by | swiftness, and I felt a shock that a dazzling charlatan who had made ran through my whole frame, so a great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder within his own house-that of his mistress and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J—, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature. We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled with a clear liquid-on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers to denote the planets. A peculiar, but not strong nor displeasing odour, came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this odour, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room-a creeping tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the compass went plaints. round and round with exceeding

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: -"On all that it can reach within these walls-sentient or inanimate, living or dead-as moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and restless be the dwellers therein."

We found no more. Mr. J burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no com

THE END.

COX AND WYMAN, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.

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