Haunted Houses

The incidents which we are about to relate occurred at the oommencement of ;he present century, and we must admit ;hat the ciroumatantial evidence is very strong on behalf of the truthfulness of he preternatural portion of the narraive. Lord Tyrone was born in Ireland, of noble and wealthy parents, who died when he was still very young. He was eft to the guardianship of an elderly reation - an honorable man, but who had recome strongly tainted with infidelity. Upon this same gentleman's care was another ward - also an orphan, but of he tender sex. Lord Tyrone and Miss Gower (for that was the young lady's name) were therefore brought tip tojether from their very childhood, and ;hey regarded cach other as brother and sister. But we must here add that they were Doth educated by their guardián in thoe Drinciples of infidelity which he himself so boldly professed. This guardián dying when they were each of them about 16 years of age, they 'ell into very different hands. After some years had elapsed, and aoth had attained their majority, they made a solemn compact that whichever should die first would, if permitted, apDear to the other, to declare what reigion was most approved by the Sujreme Being ! Miss Gower was shortly afterward addressed by Sir Martin Beresford, to whom ehe was soon married ; but a change of condition had no power to alter her friendship with Lord Tyrone. The families visited each other, and often spcnt some weeks together. A short time after one of these vieits, 3ir Martin remarked that when his lady came down to breakf ast her countenance was disturbed, and he inquired of her lealth. She assured him that she was quite well. He then asked her if she had hurt her wrist. "Have you sprained it !" he said, observing a black ribbon round it. She answered in the negative, and added : " Let me conjure you, Sir Martin, never to inquire the cause of my wearing this ribbon ; you wül never see me without it." " Very well," said he, smiling ; " since you beg me so earnestly, I will inquire ao more. " The conversation here ended ; but breakfast was scarcely over when Lady Beresford eagerly inquired if the post liad come in. She was told it had not. " Do you expect letters," said Sir Martin, "that you are so anxious f or the arrival of the post ?" "I do," she answered. "I expect to hear that Lord Tyrone is dead. He died last Tuesday at 4 o'clock." "I never in my life," exclaimed Sir Martin, "believedyou to be superstitions ; some idle dream has surely thus alarmed you." At that instant the servant entered and delivered to his master a letter sealed with black. "It is as I expected," exclaimed Lady Beresford; " Lord Tyrone is dead." Sir Martin opened the letter ; it came from Lord Tyione's steward, and contained tb e melancholy intelligence of his master's death, and on the very day and hour Lady Beresford had before specified. Sir Martin begged Lady Beresford to compose herself, and she assured him she feit much easier than she had done for a long time, and added, "I eau communicate intelligenoe to you which I know will prove welcome; í can assure you bey oud the possibilifcy of a doubt that I shall in some months present you with a son." Sir Martin received thisnews with the greatest joy. After some months, Lady Beresford was delivered of a son (she had before been the mother of two datighters). Sir Martin survived the birth of his son little more than four years. After his decease his widow seldomleft home; she visited no family but that of a clergyman who resided in the same village. The clergyman's family consisted of himself, his wife, and one son, who, at the time of Sir Martin's death, was quite a youth. To this son, however, Lady Beresford was after a few years married, notwithstanding the disparity of years and the manifest imprudence of a eonnection so unequal in every point of view. Lady Beresford was treated by her young husband with contempt and cruelty, while at the same time his conduct proved him to be the most abandoned libertine. By this, her second husband, she had two daughters; after which, such was the baseness of his conduct, Bhe insisted on a separation. They parted for a few years, when, so great was the eontritiou he espressed for bis formc-r oonduot that, won over by hit Bupplieatioas, promines, aud m. treaties, she was induced to pardon, and once more reside with him, and was in timo the mother of a son. The day on which she had been confined just one month, being the anniversary of her birthday, she sent for Lady Betty Cobb (of whose friendship she had loüg been possessed) and a few other friends to request them to spend the day with her. About 7, the clergyman by whom she had been ehristened, and with whom she hnd all her life been intímate, carne into the room to inquire after her health. She told him she wds perfectly well, and requested him also to spend the day with them; "for," said she, " thisis my birthday. I am 48 to-day." " No, madam," answered the clergyman, " you are mistaken. Your mother and myself have had many disputes concerning your age; and I have at last discovered that I was right. I happened to go last week into the parish where you were born; I waB resolved to put au end to the dispute; I searched the register, and iind that you are but 47 this day." "You have signed mydeath-warrant," she exclaimed; " I have then but a few hours to live. I must, therefore, entreat you to leave me imniediately, as I have something of importance to settle before Idie." When the clergyman left her, Lady Beresford sent to forbid the company coming, and at the same time to request Lady Betty Cobb and her son (of whom Sir Martin was tho father, and who was then about 22 yeers of age) to come to her apartment immediately. Upon their arrival, having ordered the attendants to quit the room, "I have something," she said, " of the greatest importance to communicate to you both before i die - an event which is not far distant. " You, Lady Betty, are no stranger to the friendshp which subsisted between Lord Tyrone and myself ; we were educated under the same roof, and in the same principies of infidelity. : "When the friends, into whose hands we afterwards feil, epdeavored to persuade us to embrace the Christian religión, their arguments, thongh insufflcient to convince, were powerful enough to stagger our former feelings, and to leave us wavering between two opinions. i "ltwas, then, in this perplexiDg state of doubt and nccertainty, that we made a solemn promise to cach other that ! whichever died fjrst should (if permitted) : appear to the other, and declare what religión was most acceptable to Heaven. i " Accordingly, one night, while Sir '. Martin and myself were in bed, I suddenly awoke and discovenïd Lord Tyrone : sitting by my bedside. " He was dressed as when I had last : seen him, in the evening costume of the day. " ' It is I,' he said ; and the tone of his voice, always soft and low, was now softer and lower than ever, and likewise marked by an indescribably solemn gravity. " Astonished, yet not absolutely frightened, but with a bewildering j saüon in the brain, I screamed and endeavored to awake Sir Martin. ' For Heaven's sake,' I exclaimed, ', rone, by what means or for what reason carne yon I ither at this time of night?' "'Have you, then, forgotten our compact?' said he. "'I died last Tuesday at 4o'clock, andhave been permitted, bythe Supreme Being, to appear to you, to assure you that the Christian religión is true, and the only religión by which we can be saved ! I am further suffered to inform I you that you will soon become the ' mother of a son, who, it is decreed, will marry my daughter. "'Not many years after his birth, Sir Martin will die, and you will marry again, a man by whose iïl-treatment you will be rendered miserable. You will have two daughters and a son. " 'But, just one month after the birth of this son, you will die, in the 47th year of your age !' " 'Just Heavens !' I exclaimed, 'and can I prevent this V " ' Undoubtediy you may,' returned üie apparition ; you are a iree agent, and may prevent it ali by resisting every temptation to a second marriage ; but your passions are strong - you know not their power ; hitherto you have had no trials. More I am not permitted to reveal ; but if after this warning you persist in your infidelity yonr lot in another world will be miserable indeed.' " ' May I not ask,' said I, 'if you are happy ?' " 'Had I beenotherwise,' he replied, 1 1 should not have been permitted to appear to you.' " ' I may then infer that yoti are happy V '' He smiled. " ' But how,' said I, ' when morninc; comes, shall I know that your appearance to me has been real, and not the mere representation of my own imagir.ation ?' " ' Will not the news of my death be sufficient to convince you V " 'No,' I returned; 'ï migiit have had such a dream, and that dream accidentally come to pass. I will have some stronger proof of itsreality.' " 'You shall,' said ho ; and, waving his hand, the bed curtains, which were crimson velvet, were instantly drawn up through a large iron hoop by which the tester of the bed was suspended. 'In that sign, ' continued he, ' you cannot be mistaken ; no mortal arm could have performed this.' " 'True,' said I; 'but sleeping we are of ten possessed of far more strength than when awake ; though waking I could not have done it, asleep I might, and I shall still doubt.' " ' Hero is a pocket-book. In this,' he said, ' I will write my name ; you know mv hand-writing ?' I replied, 'Yes.' " He wrote with a penoil on one side of the leaves. " 'Still,' said I, 'in the morning I may doubt ; though waking I could not imítate your hand, asleep I might.' "'You are hard of belief,' he rejoined. ' I might, by a single touch, leave a mark in your flesh that would forbid the possibility of further doubt; but it would injure yon irreparably; it is not for spirits to touch mortal flesh.' "' I do not,' said I, 'regard a slight blemish. ' "'You are a woman of courage,' replied he; 'hold out you hand.' "I did so; he grasped my wrist; his hand was cold as thiit of death; in a moment the sinews shrunk up, every nerve withered. "' Now,' said he, 'while you live let no mortal eye behold that wrist. To see it were sacrilege ! ' He stopped - I turncd to him again - he was gone. " During the time I had conversed with him my thoughts were perfectly calm and oolleoted, but the moment he was gorie I feit ohilled with horror ; the very bed moved uuder me. " I eiideayored, but ia vaiu, to wake Sir Martin; all ray efforts were ineffectual, and in this state of ngitation and terror I lay for some time, when a shower of tears carne to my relief, and I dropped asleep. In the morning Sir Martin arose and drcssed himself as usual, without perceiving the state the curtains rernained in." After a long pauee, Lady Beresford resnmed her narrativo in the foliowing marmer : _J "AVhen I awoke I found that Sir Martin had gone down. I arose, and, having put on my clothes, went to the gallery adjoining the apartmeut and took from theneo a long broom (such as cornices are swept with); by the help of this I took down, with some difficulty, the curtains, as I imagined their extraordinary position might excito suspicion in the faraily. "I then went to my work-box and bound a piece of black ribbon round my wrist. When I carne down, the agitation of my mind had left an impression on my countenance too visible to pass unobserved by my husband. "He instantly remarked it, arel aeked the cause. I informeel him that Lord Tyrone was no more; that he difcd at the hour of 4 on the preceding Tuesday, and desircd him never to question me more respectiDg the black ribbon, which ho kindly desisted from doing. You, my son, as had been fore told, I atterward brought into the world, and in little more than four years after your birth your lamented i'ather expired in my arms. "Alter this melancholy event I determined, as the only probable chance fco avoid the sequel of the predictiou, forever to abandon all society - to give up every pleasure resul tiug froni it, and to pass the rest of my days in solitude and retirement. " But few can long endure to oxist in a stnte of perfect sequestration; I began an intimacy with a family - with one alone; nor could I then foresee the fatal consequences which afterward resulted From it. "Little did I think that their son, their only son, at the time a mere youth, would be the person destined by fate to prove my destruction. "Inavery few years I ceased to regard him with indifference; I endeavared by every possible way to conquer a passion the fatal effects of which I too well knew. Ihad fondly imagined thatl liad overeóme itsiDfluence, when the evening of one fatal dny terminatcd my fortitude, and plunged me in a moment „lowa that abyss which I had been so long meditating liow to shun. "He had of ten solieited his parents Eor leave to go into the ariny; and, at last ootaining permission, he carne tobid me Earewell before his departure. The instant he entered the room he sauk tipon his kneeo at my feet, told me that he was miserable, and that I alono was the 3ause. " At that moment my fortitude forsook me - I gave myself up for lost - and, regarding my fate as inevitable, without further hesitation I consented to i unión, the immediate renult of which I knew to be misery, and its end death ! The conduct of my husband, after a few vears, amply justified a separation, and I lioped by this means to avoid the fatal seqnel of the prophecy; but, won over by his reiterated entreaties, I was prevailed upon to pardon, and once more to reside with him, though not until I Had, m I thought, passed my 47th year. A.las ! alas ! I have this day heard, from indisputable authority, that I have hithBrto labored under a mistuke with regard to my age, and that I am but 47 to3ay! " Of the nesr approach of my ileath I therefore entertain not the slightest doubt. No- I oanQot doubt ! When I am dead, as the necessity of concealment closes with my lifo, I could wish that you, Lady Betty, would unbind my wrist, take from thence the black ribbon, and let my son, with yourself, behold it." fppi _■] tm Lady Beresford here paused for Bome time; but, resuming the conversation, she entreated that her sön wonld behave himself so as to merit the high honor he would in future recaive from a unión with the duughter of the late Lord Tyrone. P" She then expressed a wiah to lie down on the bed and endeavor to corapose herself to sleep. Lady Betty Cobb and her son itnmediately called her domestics, and quitted the room, having first desired tp watch their mistress attentively, and, il' they observed the smallest chango in her, teoall them instantly. An hour passod, and all wae quiet in the room. They listeued at the (oor, and everything remamcd Btill, but in half an honr more a bell lang violently. Thej flew to her apartment; but, before they reached the door, thoy heard the maid exclaim, "Oh, she is dead !" Lady Betty then bade the servants quit the room, and herself, with Lady Beresford's son, approached the bed of his mother. They knelt down by the side of it ; Lady Betty then lifted her hand and untied the ribbon. The wrist was found exactly as Lady Beresford had deseribed it ; every sinew shrunk, eyery nerve withered. The black ribbon and pocket-book were formerly in the possession of Lady Betty Cobb, Mnrlborough buildings, Bath, who, dnring her long life, was ever ready to attest the truth of this narrativo. The whole of the Tjrono and BereSj ford families also havo ever dono the same ; and their representatives, at the present day, would themselve regard with wonder any person who thould express a doubt concerning such wellauthenticated facts. Need we add that the black ribbon which bound the withered wrist, and the pocket-book whorein the apparition inscribed his name, are treasured as sacred yet awful relies by the senie;r members of one of these families.