present writer
heard the following events related, more than twenty years since, by
the celebrated Miss Seward of Litchfield, who, to her numerous
accomplishments, added, in a remarkable degree, the power of narrative
in private conversation. In its present form the tale must necessarily
lose all the interest which was attached to it by the flexible voice and
intelligent features of the gifted narrator. Yet still, read aloud to an
undoubting audience by the doubtful light of the closing evening, or in
silence by a decaying taper, and amidst the solitude of a half-lighted
apartment, it may redeem its character as a good ghost story. Miss
Seward always affirmed that she had derived her information from an
authentic source, although she suppressed the names of the two persons
chiefly concerned. I will not avail myself of any particulars I may have
since received concerning the localities of the detail, but suffer them
to rest under the same general description in which they were first
related to me; and for the same reason I will not add to or diminish the
narrative by any circumstance, whether more or less material, but simply
rehearse, as I heard it, a story of supernatural terror.

About the end of the American war, when the officers of Lord
Cornwallis's army, which surrendered at Yorktown, and others, who had
been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated controversy, were
returning to their own country, to relate their adventures, and repose
themselves after their fatigues, there was amongst them a general
officer, to whom Miss S. gave the name of Browne, but merely, as I
understood, to save the inconvenience of introducing a nameless agent
in the narrative. He was an officer of merit, as well as a gentleman of
high consideration for family and attainments.

Some business had carried General Browne upon a tour through the western
counties, when, in the conclusion of a morning stage, he found himself
in the vicinity of a small country town, which presented a scene of
uncommon beauty, and of a character peculiarly English.

The little town, with its stately old church, whose tower bore testimony
to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pastures and cornfields of
small extent, but bounded and divided with hedgerow timber of great age
and size. There were few marks of modern improvement. The environs of
the place intimated neither the solitude of decay nor the bustle of
novelty; the houses were old, but in