etly, and play no tricks
on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons.'

John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say, 'Who
are you? come here, and let me see you, if you are a man'; but he
received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
followed by a 'Good-bye--I'll watch you at dinner, John!'

'Lord between us and harm! this beats all! I'll watch you at dinner!
maybe you will! 'tis the broad daylight, so 'tis no ghost; but this is
a terrible place, and this is the last day I'll stay in it. How does
he know about the spoons? if he tells it I'm a ruined man! there was
no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett, and he's far
enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could he know it? I
can't tell for the world! But what's that I see there at the corner of
the wall! 'tis not a man! oh, what a fool I am! 'tis only the old
stump of a tree! But this is a shocking place--I'll never stop in it,
for I'll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of it is enough to
frighten any one.'

The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level save a few tufts of
narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
house stood at a short distance from the road, it was upwards of a
century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
harmonised well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
below stairs. The ballroom, as the large drawing-room was called, and
several other apartments, were in a state of decay; the walls were
stained with damp, and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life and
wild and ardent spirits, I descended to the vaults; all without and
within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom--their
extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman,