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?"
"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."
I need not say, that we had listened to this extraordinary narrative with rapt attention and in breathless silence. Our friend had told his story with emotion, certainly, but still with serious deliberation, and exhibiting no undue signs of excitement. No one seemed disposed to make any observation upon it, and indeed most of the company were utterly incapable of the effort of speech. In a few moments, he remarked that he would quote to us a brief passage from Dante's great poem which was applicable to the subject, and did so as follows:--
... "Now, O reader! mark, And if my tale thou slowly shalt receive, Thy doubt will cause in me no great surprise, For I, who saw it, scarcely can believe."[12]
"But, Uncle Richard," was now the cry, "you said you had once seen an apparition, or something like one; please tell us all about it."
"I certainly saw something strange," said he, "on more than one occasion, which has never yet been accounted for; and I suppose it is now too late to expect it. If it was really a matter of concert and collusion, the motive for it has never been discovered. You remember the open space in town, in front of the Reverend Mr. ----'s meeting-house. Your house, as you know, Jemmie," addressing me, "looks directly up the street towards this square, and to the somewhat old-fashioned mansion opposite the meeting-house. On one side of the square was a small dwelling, occupied by several distant relatives of ours; Aunt Midkiff (Metcalf), Aunt Foggison (Ferguson, so called), and her sister, Miss Samples (Mrs. Semple), with the daughter of our Aunt Foggison, Mrs. Lane, and her only child. You remember, sister," addressing my mother, "that you have told me, that one night, after you had gone to bed, your lamented husband stood at the window looking up the street towards the old house above, of which he had a complete view. Upon your asking what detained him, he called you up, and it was evident to you both that one chamber of the house was in a light blaze. Persons appeared to be moving rapidly around it, and, as it were, pulling down the curtains of the bed, which looked as if on fire. After a little time the appearance gradually ceased, and your husband remarking that he would inquire in the morning of his neighbor, a highly respectable lawyer, who occupied the house, what was the cause of the extraordinary spectacle of the night before, he also retired. But upon putting the question to his acquaintance on the following morning, he seemed astonished, and utterly denied that anything unusual had taken place in the chamber, which was the one occupied by himself and his wife, or that they had been at all disturbed during the night.