others had seen the ghost of old Sir Giles, in his night-cap,
issue from the postern, enter the adjoining copse, and wring his shadowy
hands in agony, as he seemed to search vainly for something hidden among
the evergreens. The stranger's death-room had, of course, been
occasionally haunted from the time of his decease; but the periods of
visitation had latterly become very rare--even Mrs. Botherby, the
housekeeper, being forced to admit that, during her long sojourn at the
manor, she had never "met with anything worse than herself"; though, as
the old lady afterwards added upon more mature reflection, "I must say I
think I saw the devil _once_."

Such was the legend attached to Tapton Everard, and such the story which
the lively Caroline Ingoldsby detailed to her equally mercurial cousin,
Charles Seaforth, lieutenant in the Hon. East India Company's second
regiment of Bombay Fencibles, as arm-in-arm they promenaded a gallery
decked with some dozen grim-looking ancestral portraits, and, among
others, with that of the redoubted Sir Giles himself. The gallant
commander had that very morning paid his first visit to the house of his
maternal uncle, after an absence of several years passed with his
regiment on the arid plains of Hindostan, whence he was now returned on
a three years' furlough. He had gone out a boy--he returned a man; but
the impression made upon his youthful fancy by his favorite cousin
remained unimpaired, and to Tapton he directed his steps, even before he
sought the home of his widowed mother--comforting himself in this breach
of filial decorum by the reflection that, as the manor was so little out
of his way, it would be unkind to pass, as it were, the door of his
relatives, without just looking in for a few hours.

But he found his uncle as hospitable, and his cousin more charming than
ever; and the looks of one, and the requests of the other, soon
precluded the possibility of refusing to lengthen the "few hours" into
a few days, though the house was at the moment full of visitors.

The Peterses were from Ramsgate; and Mr., Mrs., and the two Miss
Simpkinsons, from Bath, had come to pass a month with the family; and
Tom Ingoldsby had brought down his college friend the Honorable Augustus
Sucklethumbkin, with his groom and pointers, to take a fortnight's
shooting. And then there was Mrs. Ogleton, the rich young widow, with
her large black eyes, who, people did say, was setting her cap at the
young squ