The steward had a
rusty blunderbuss; the coachman a loaded whip; the footman a pair of
horse pistols; the cook a huge chopping knife, and the butler a bottle
in each hand. My aunt led the van with a red-hot poker; and, in my
opinion, she was the most formidable of the party. The waiting maid
brought up the rear, dreading to stay alone in the servants' hall,
smelling to a broken bottle of volatile salts, and expressing her
terror of the ghosteses.
"Ghosts!" said my aunt resolutely, "I'll singe their whiskers for
them!"
They entered the chamber. All was still and undisturbed as when she
left it. They approached the portrait of my uncle.
"Pull me down that picture!" cried my aunt.
A heavy groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, was heard from
the portrait. The servants shrunk back. The maid uttered a faint
shriek, and clung to the footman.
"Instantly!" added my aunt, with a stamp of the foot.
The picture was pulled down, and from a recess behind it, in which had
formerly stood a clock, they hauled forth a round-shouldered,
black-bearded varlet, with a knife as long as my arm, but trembling all
over like an aspen leaf.
"Well, and who was he? No ghost, I suppose!" said the inquisitive
gentleman.
"A knight of the post," replied the narrator, "who had been smitten
with the worth of the wealthy widow; or rather a marauding Tarquin, who
had stolen into her chamber to violate her purse and rifle her strong
box when all the house should be asleep. In plain terms," continued he,
"the vagabond was a loose idle fellow of the neighborhood, who had once
been a servant in the house, and had been employed to assist in
arranging it for the reception of its mistress. He confessed that he
had contrived his hiding-place for his nefarious purposes, and had
borrowed an eye from the portrait by way of a reconnoitering hole."
"And what did they do with him - did they hang him?" resumed the
questioner.
"Hang him? - how could they?" exclaimed a beetle-browed barrister, with
a hawk's nose - "the offence was not capital - no robbery nor assault had
been committed - no forcible entry or breaking into the premises - "
"My aunt," said the narrator, "was a woman of spirit, and apt to take
the law into her own hands. She had her own notions of cleanliness
also. She ordered the fellow to be drawn through the horsepond to
cleanse away all offences, and then to be well rubbed down with an
oaken towel."
"And what became of him afterwards?" said the inquisitive gentleman.
"I do not exactly know - I believe he was sent on a voyage of
improvement to Botany Bay."
"And your aunt - " said the inquisitive gentleman - "I'll warrant she
took care to make her maid sleep in the room with her after that."
"No, sir, she did better - she gave her hand shortly after to the
roystering squire; for she used to observe it was a dismal thing for a
woman to sleep alone in the country."
"She was right," observed the inquisitive gentleman, nodding his head
sagaciously - "but I am sorry they did not hang that fellow."
It was agreed on all hands that the last narrator had brought his tale
to the most satisfactory conclusion; though a country clergyman present
regretted that the uncle and aunt, who figured in the different
stories, had not been married together.
