The chill was but transient. My aunt, who was almost as resolute a personage as your uncle, sir, (turning to the old story teller), became instantly calm and collected.She went on adjusting her dress.She even hummed an air, and did not make even a single false note.She casually overturned a dressing box;took a candle and picked up the articles one by one from the floor;pursued a roiling pincushion that was making the best of its way under the bed;then opened the door;looked for an instant into the corridor, as if in doubt whether to go;and then walked quietly out.
She hastened downstairs, ordered the servants to arm themselves with the weapons first at hand, placed herself at their head, and returned almost immediately.
Her hastily levied army presented a formidable force. 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, who dreaded to stay alone in the servants'hall, brought up the rear, smelling to a broken bottle of volatile salts, and expressing her terror of the "ghostesses". "Ghosts!" said my aunt resolutely. "I'll singe their whiskers for them!"
They entered the chamber. All was still and undisturbed as when she had left it.They approached the portrait of my uncle.
"Pull down that picture!" cried my aunt. A heavy groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, issued from the portrait.The servants shrunk back;the maid uttered a faint shriek, and clung to the footman for support.
"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 this hiding place for his nefarious purpose, 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 offense was not capital. No robbery, no 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 in 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 offenses, 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 roistering squire;for she used to observe that it was a dismal thing for a woman to sleep alone in the country."
"She was right," observed the inquisitive gentleman, nodding 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;they certainly would have been well matched.