learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion
himself is unseen.

I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the
impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was
staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to
disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after
crochet-work.

"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting
comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the
old yellow-gray house up on the hill?"

"Why, what of it?"

"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?"

"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read
Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?"

"Yes, and great stuff it is."

Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and
gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably
considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of
New York.

"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet
for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a
story."

She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she
placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were
made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly
clear, precise hand:

"_Nov._ 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the
pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out,
and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. _Mem.:_ To
bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl.

"_Jan._ 1, 1785. This day the wind very high.

"_Jan._ 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did
do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and
begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in
an hour back again. However, she is a widow.

"_Jan._ 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country,
has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much
baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and
the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters
better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would
give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard.

"_Jan._ 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the