he church, a Mr Bligh of Botathen,
was much affected by my discourse, and he was heard to repeat to himself
certain parentheses therefrom, especially a phrase from Maro Virgilius,
which I had applied to the deceased youth, 'Et puer ipse fuit cantari
dignus.'

"The cause wherefore this old gentleman was thus moved by my
applications was this: He had a first-born and only son--a child who,
but a very few months before, had been not unworthy of the character I
drew of young Master Eliot, but who, by some strange accident, had of
late quite fallen away from his parent's hopes, and become moody, and
sullen, and distraught. When the funeral obsequies were over, I had no
sooner come out of the church than I was accosted by this aged parent,
and he besought me incontinently, with a singular energy, that I would
resort with him forthwith to his abode at Botathen that very night; nor
could I have delivered myself from his importunity, had not Mr Eliot
urged his claim to enjoy my company at his own house. Hereupon I got
loose, but not until I had pledged a fast assurance that I would pay
him, faithfully, an early visit the next day."

"The Place," as it was called, of Botathen, where old Mr Bligh resided,
was a low-roofed gabled manor-house of the fifteenth century, walled and
mullioned, and with clustered chimneys of dark-grey stone from the
neighbouring quarries of Ventor-gan. The mansion was flanked by a
pleasaunce or enclosure in one space, of garden and lawn, and it was
surrounded by a solemn grove of stag-horned trees. It had the sombre
aspect of age and of solitude, and looked the very scene of strange and
supernatural events. A legend might well belong to every gloomy glade
around, and there must surely be a haunted room somewhere within its
walls. Hither, according to his appointment, on the morrow, Parson
Rudall betook himself. Another clergyman, as it appeared, had been
invited to meet him, who, very soon after his arrival, proposed a walk
together in the pleasaunce, on the pretext of showing him, as a
stranger, the walks and trees, until the dinner-bell should strike.
There, with much prolixity, and with many a solemn pause, his brother
minister proceeded to "unfold the mystery."

"A singular infelicity," he declared, "had befallen young Master Bligh,
once the hopeful heir of his parents and of the lands of Botathen.
Whereas he had been from childhood a blithe and merry boy, 'the
gladness,' like Isaac of old, of his