nutes, when the phantom suddenly darted towards the middle of the field, sunk down, and disappeared. "That's the exact spot where the body was found,' observed my companion. Now are you satisfied? We may go in ; she will appear no more till after midnight.' "I was indeed satisfied: more than satisfied-I was convinced. I had had ocular demonstration of a thing which could not be the effect either of imagination or contrivance; and to tell you the plain truth, if shame would have let me, I should have dispensed with the remaining part of my task. However, I kept my fears to myself, put a bold face upon the matter, admitted it was very strange; but, like our friend Simon there in the corner, affected to believe that, whatever it might be, it could be nothing supernatural; and thus trying to screw my courage to the sticking-place,' I took possession of my bedchamber, gaily promising to give a good account of the ghost next morning at breakfast. "That was very venturesome, I think," observed Mrs. Dagleish. "I hope you said your prayers as soon as you were alone." "I said them before I went to bed, as I always do," replied Mr. Carliel, "but I do not remember that I put up any special one for the occasion." "What! did you go to bed? out the candle! you go to bed?" inquired Mary Falconer, " and put "I went to bed; but, to confess the truth, I did not put out the candle." "I would have had half-a-dozen candles had I been you," observed Hugh Buckner. "I always think one doesn't feel so afraid of anything when there's plenty of light. It wasn't a rushlight, I hope? Rushlights are nasty things-they burn so dim, and are so apt to gutter and go out." "Did you go to sleep?" asked Mrs. Dagleish. Oh yes; for I did not want to lie awake: but may the next slumber (if ever I am doomed to have such another,) that is to end in so horrible a way, never-never be broken! A dream was upon me full of blood and death. The shrieking maniac flitted through my brain in a thousand shapes. At one moment she seemed to be standing over me, brandishing a sword of fire. The next, she advanced from a dark corner of the room, bearing in her right hand a skull filled with some loathsome fluid. Lord! how she glared upon me as she presented this draught to my lips, and with her long bony fingers thrust into my mouth, forced me to swallow it. I felt it trickle down to my very heart in slow, cold drops,-and when there, methought it burned like a raging fire. The torment maddened me; I attempted to spring upon the hag by whom it was inflicted; but a long, sallow arm held me down. I struggled with her; and in the struggle I awoke. The first sound that struck my ears was that unearthly scream, which I had heard a few hours before. It was repeated: it came from the window: the casement flapped as if shaken by a strong wind: and though my very sinews seemed shrunk and withered by the sound, I threw myself out of bed, and staggered towards the window. I tore the curtains asunder, and there, pressed close against the glass, I saw a pale, bloodless visage, the glare of whose red eyes seemed to scorch my own. I well remember what followed- the impulse, which I could not resist, to dash my hand through the panes. As I did so, the lips of the phantom quivered, the scream rang again through the apartment, and I fell senseless on the floor. The noise of the broken glass awakened the master of the house, who hastened into my room, and found me in a swoon, with my hand dreadfully cut and bleeding. Here are the scars still remaining," continued Mr. Carliel, showing the back and wrist of his right hand, " and I never look at them without a shuddering recollection of how they came there." "And was it never known," said Mrs. Dagleish, "how that poor creature came by her death? " "Never. The matter was hushed up; no inquiries were made by any of her family, and strangers, whatever they might think, did not care to come forward. I believe, indeed, not even Dr. himself was acquainted with her name or history." "Poor soul!" ejaculated Mary Falconer, yawning as she spoke. This set them all yawning, which produced a general declaration that it was very late, and time to go to bed. But nobody moved. "And you saw the face quite plain through the glass, did you?" asked Hugh Buckner, addressing Mr. Carliel, at the same time directing his looks towards the window of the room in which they were sitting. 'Oh, yes,” replied Mr. Carliel; "there was no mistake about the matter; and I have seen it many a time since." "Good gracious! where?" said Mrs. Dagleish. "I see it now," he continued calmly, turning his eyes upwards to the ceiling. Immediately all their eyes were hurried upwards to the ceiling. "And I can bring the hideous image before me at any time, so strong was the impression it produced. In like manner I often hear the scream ringing in my ears." He had scarcely uttered the words when a terrific screaming was heard, which appeared to come from below stairs. Mrs. Dagleish and Mary Falconer screamed in chorus; Mr. Carliel grew pale; Stephen Falconer caught up the poker; Hugh Buckner held fast by his chair; and Simon Barnardiston made for an old-fashioned cupboard in one corner of the room, into which he vanished in the twinkling of an eye. The screaming continued, footsteps were heard hurrying along the passage, the door flew open, and Jesse, the servant wench, rushed in. "Oh, maʼam!" said she, addressing her mistress, "I have been so frightened!" 66 Frightened!" cried Simon, issuing from his hiding-place the moment he heard her voice, "what the devil was there to frighten you, you foolish girl?” with "Oh, so frightened!" continued Jesse, dropping into a chair, and beginning to cry most lustily, holding her apron to her both hands. eyes "She ought to be ashamed of herself," quoth Hugh Buckner, his teeth chattering as he spoke. Stephen Falconer gently restored the poker to its place, advanced towards his sister, who seemed very much inclined to go into hy terics, called it "a capital joke," and tried to laugh. "I don't know what it all means," said Mrs. Dagleish, recovering from her alarm, "but it is very trying to one's nerves to have such a scream in the house, just as we were all thinking about the poor screaming woman." "The coincidence is certainly curious," remarked Mr. Carliel; "but, though startled at first, hang me if I can help laughing at it now ;" and forthwith they all began laughing at each other, which put a stop to Jesse's crying: she thought they were laughing at her, but wondered why. At last she laughed too, partly from the infectious nature of that "inarticulate expression of sudden merriment," (as Johnson defines it,) and partly from the recollection of what had caused her own fright. "It was certainly very ridiculous!" exclaimed Mary Falconer, the tears running down her cheeks. "Very," added Mrs. Dagleish. "Plenty of screaming, down stairs and up," said Stephen. "I sha'n't forget how you looked when you laid hold of the poker," quoth Simon Barnardiston. "Nor I how you looked, when you bolted into the cupboard in double-quick time," retorted Stephen. Nor I, how we all looked," observed Mr. Carliel; at which the laugh began again, and continued till their very sides ached, and their temples throbbed. Jesse, meanwhile, who knew nothing of how the family had been amusing themselves since supper, could not for the soul of her understand why her screaming should be the cause of such excessive merriment. At last they ceased laughing, and then she was called upon to explain what had happened to her, which she did in few words. Waiting to go to bed, she had fallen asleep by the kitchen fire ; but was awakened by something tickling her left ear. "Putting up my hand," she continued, "to scratch my ear, I laid hold of I did not know what; it was soft and warm, like a mouse; but how a mouse could get behind my ear I could not think. However, it jumped out of my hand, and came with such a bounce upon the floor that I thought it would run up my petticoats perhaps; so I set up a skreek, (I couldn't help it,) and ran out of the kitchen." The mystery thus solved, the Christmas gossipers soon after separated for the night, but not before it was settled that Mrs. Dagleish should tell her story of "THE BLACK RIBAND" next morning at breakfast. TO MYRTHA. BY GEORGE RUDOLPH WECKHERLIN." FAITHLESS am I, and false to thee? E'en as he holds thy beauty dear. Who could another's charms compare, VOL. IX. I promised to exist for thee, Nor did a thought remain untold; Already hath thy faith grown cold. • Born at Stuttgart, in 1584; died in London. 21 PLAIN ADVICE TO MR. GABRIEL BLACKADDER, A YOUNG COUNTRY ATTORNEY, ON WILL-MAKING, AND ON THE EXECUTORSHIP AND TRUSTEESHIP. "I said, there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves."-SWIFT. THE recent irregularities of the Post Office deliveries have caused the following letter of advice to get into a wrong attorney's hands, and he has, as matter of course, opened it, and retained it. Intended, as it appears to be, for the instruction and guidance of an individual only, still the matter is of such general interest that its publication and dissemination would appear to promise good in various quarters. There are more "Mr. Blackadders" than one in the Law List; and those victims of the fang, styled in the pleasing language of France, Cestuique trusts," may like to know how they are bitten! TO GABRIEL BLACKADDER, ESQ. MY DEAR GABRIEL, Little Graspington, 19th August, 1840. OUT of the great regard I bore to your dear father, Mr. Aspley Blackadder, who might have turned his many professional opportu nities to vast account, if he had not unfortunately been counteracted by a softness of heart and disposition quite inimical to the progress and success of a country attorney,-I am anxious to put you in possession of a few hints as to arrangement, conduct, and prudence as a professional man, which I think will not be thrown away upon you. Your probationary time with the respectable firm of Messrs. Pike, Row, Badgery, and Cramp, (Lincoln's Inn attorneys,) is now over; and from finding you at your office at least once out of every twenty times I called upon you, I am satisfied that you have applied yourself to your avocations with more diligence and zeal than is to be found in any one young gentleman from the districts, out of fifty. And I must say that when I have found you at your post, you have not been idling your time as others of your kind are in the habit of doing, for I have invariably detected you reading the morning paper, or mending a pen, or engaged in some way cultivating your knowledge of men and things Your valuable life, Gabriel, is now to commence. As with Mr. Milton's Adam, your "world is all before you where to choose" your The moment Eve was created that is, the moment there were tice on the earth, brawling and bickering commenced, - and a separating mediator (the tru character of the attorney) immediately stepped in, and taught the pair to seTET. I believe the devil is the first solicitor on record. He has, however, left a larg? professional family! PLAIN ADVICE TO MR. GABRIEL BLACKADDER. 475 place for practice and emolument; and it will not be my fault if the son of my departed friend do not turn out an eminent attorney as well as a right prosperous man. The name of Blackadder will, I trust, be for ever associated with that of a country attorney! The inability of your father (who resided near Lancaster), my good young friend, to co-operate cordially and effectively with that ingenious but unfortunate practitioner, Mr. Wrong, who made himself a beacon to all country professors in litigation-not only to guide but to warn — is fresh in my memory. Mr. Wrong practised, I understand, on a great and commanding scale, and but for meeting an obstinate old sea-officer, who had rugged and antiquated notions of rights and property, I have no doubt he would have been an opulent example to sequent trustees, and all rural advisers and followers; and would have distinguished himself extensively as "a next friend" to persons of landed property. Your father-forgive me, Gabriel, for alluding to his frailties and imperfections,-was a far too yielding, good, easy, conscientious man; and there cannot be a doubt but that he affected, with some taint of a timorous, enfeebling consideration, several parts of the great but unhappy will cause in his neighbourhood. It is a pity he interfered. You must endeavour, if you cannot forget, to avoid this undermining weakness; and let me assure you that it will require all your care (as you mean to settle somewhere in Yorkshire, Lancashire, or Westmoreland,) to overcome the prejudice which exists (owing to this improvident dispute) against legal persons as executors, guardians, trustees, and next friends. However, I never yet knew a comely, well-fed blue-bottle object to fly into the web, though he did see sundry little, dried, brown skeletons, of his fellow-creatures gibbeted in film, as it would appear, for the sake of example: and, in angling in the Greta or the Lune (your favourite rivers) you must have observed that you never in the spring saw a par object to rise because he had just seen one of his barred companions estranged by your means from his society. Before you can possibly (unless you have some lucky parochial turmoil, or professional death in the village)-I say, my dear Gabriel, before you can possibly become fairly embedded, as it were, in a solid practice, you will have to watch the querulous on fair-days, provoke little disputes at the farmers' ordinaries, bestir yourself in bastardy cases (of course I need not caution you to be invariably concerned for the father,―a mother never pays!) and prosecute or defend poachers, as the case may be; I have known poachers as worthy men in the way of paying a lawyer, as the squire that persecutes them, or the justice that commits them. Besides, as you are probably better paid by the victim of the game-laws, your zeal in the cause of a poor oppressed man gets you a good name in the neighbourhood; and as there is a free and rapid communication passed between the followers of similar pursuits, you are likely to have professional calls from the surprized hawker without a licence, the maimed sufferer snatched out from under the wheels of that great political Jaggernaut "the Customs," and from the twilight prey of the Excise. These will make your first clients, and much depends upon your own effrontery before a bench of magistrates for a triumphant career in this particular line. Be not abashed. Never attend without three or four volumes of Bacon's Abridgment, or a bunch or so of Reports, or Jacob's Law Dictionary, or any light calf-bound book, if in folio the more imposing. You |