ing secret passages into houses, and using their
means of access for purposes of pillage, or with a view to frighten
superstitious people out of houses which they needed for their own
objects, and a suspicion of similar practices here, caused them extreme
uneasiness. The apparent anxiety also manifested by this retreating
figure to escape observation, and her always appearing to make her
egress at the same point, favoured this romantic hypothesis. The men,
however, made a most careful examination of the back area, and of the
coal-vaults, with a view to discover some mode of egress, but entirely
without success. On the contrary, the result was, so far as it went,
subversive of the theory; solid masonry met them on every hand.

I called the man, Smith, up, to hear from his own lips the particulars
of what he had seen; and certainly his report was very curious. I give
it as literally as my memory enables me:----

His son slept in the same room, and was sound asleep; but he lay awake,
as men sometimes will on a change of bed, and having many things on his
mind. He was lying with his face towards the wall, but observing a light
and some little stir in the room, he turned round in his bed, and saw
the figure of a woman, squalid, and ragged in dress; her figure rather
low and broad; as well as I recollect, she had something--either a cloak
or shawl--on, and wore a bonnet. Her back was turned, and she appeared
to be searching or rummaging for something on the floor, and, without
appearing to observe him, she turned in doing so towards him. The light,
which was more like the intense glow of a coal, as he described it,
being of a deep red colour, proceeded from the hollow of her hand, which
she held beside her head, and he saw her perfectly distinctly. She
appeared middle-aged, was deeply pitted with the smallpox, and blind of
one eye. His phrase in describing her general appearance was, that she
was "a miserable, poor-looking creature."

He was under the impression that she must be the woman who had been left
by the proprietor in charge of the house, and who had that evening,
after having given up the keys, remained for some little time with the
female servants. He coughed, therefore, to apprize her of his presence,
and turned again towards the wall. When he again looked round she and
the light were gone; and odd as was her method of lighting herself in
her search, the circumstances excited neither uneasiness nor curiosity
in