er the discovery of the teeth, which were found, I
think, about two feet under the ground, a friend, much advanced in
years, and who remembered the town in which we had now taken up our
abode, for a very long time, happened to pay us a visit. He
good-humouredly pooh-poohed the whole thing; but at the same time was
evidently curious about it. "We might construct a sort of story," said I
(I am giving, of course, the substance and purport, not the exact words,
of our dialogue), "and assign to each of the three figures who appeared
their respective parts in some dreadful tragedy enacted in this house.
The male figure represents the murderer; the ill-looking, one-eyed woman
his accomplice, who, we will suppose, buried the body where she is now
so often seen grubbing in the earth, and where the human teeth and
jawbone have so lately been disinterred; and the young woman with
dishevelled tresses, and black cloak, and the bloody scar across her
throat, their victim. A difficulty, however, which I cannot get over,
exists in the cheerfulness, the great publicity, and the evident very
recent date of the house." "Why, as to that," said he, "the house is
_not_ modern; it and those beside it formed an old government store,
altered and fitted up recently as you see. I remember it well in my
young days, fifty years ago, before the town had grown out in this
direction, and a more entirely lonely spot, or one more fitted for the
commission of a secret crime, could not have been imagined."

I have nothing to add, for very soon after this my physician pronounced
a longer stay unnecessary for my health, and we took our departure for
another place of abode. I may add, that although I have resided for
considerable periods in many other houses, I never experienced any
annoyances of a similar kind elsewhere; neither have I made (stupid dog!
you will say), any inquiries respecting either the antecedents or
subsequent history of the house in which we made so disturbed a sojourn.
I was content with what I knew, and have here related as clearly as I
could, and I think it a very pretty puzzle as it stands.

[Thus ends the statement, which we abandon to the ingenuity of our
readers, having ourselves no satisfactory explanation to suggest; and
simply repeating the assurance with which we prefaced it, namely, that
we can vouch for the perfect good faith and the accuracy of the
narrator.--E.D.U.M.]

Ultor De Lacy:
A Legend of Cappercullen