The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-22 00:00:00

A GHOST STORY FOR THE SEASON.

A correspondent of a contemporory, referring to the
appearance of the shadow of an axe in the Tower, says,
in a letter to the editor of that journal, "You are perhaps
not aware that one of the best authenticated ghost stories
A this century belongs to that fortress. Mr. Edmund
Lenthal Swifte, who is still living, was in 1817 keeper
A the Crown jewels in the Tower of London. He lived
in the jewel house, and on a certain Saturday night in
October, 1817, was in his sitting-room. The door was
closed, the windows shut, and heavy curtains excluded the
air. It was about midnight. Two candles were on the
table. The rest I give in his own published words I
sate at the foot of the table, my son on my right hand, his
mother fronting the chimney-piece, and her sister on the
apposite side. I had offered a glass of wine and water to my
wife, when, putting it to her lips, she paused and exclaimed,
Good God, what is that?' I looked up, and saw a cylin-
lrical figure like a glass tube, seemingly about the thick-
aess of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and
the table. Its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white
and pale azure,like to the gathering of a summer cloud, and
incessantly rolling and mingling within the cylinder. This
lasted about two minutes, when it began slowly to move
before my sister-in-law, then following the oblong shape of
the table before my son and myself ; passing behind my wife, it
paused for a moment over her right shoulder (observe, there
was no mirror opposite to her in which she could then
behold it). Instantly she crouched down, and, with both
hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, " Oh, Christ!
it has seized mo." Even now, while writing, I feel the
fresh horror of that moment. I caught up my chair, struck
it the wainscot behind her, rushed upstairs to the other
children's room and told the terrified nurse what I had seen.
. . Neither my sister-in-law nor my son behold this
appearance. . . . I am bound to add that shortly
before this strange event some young lady residents in
the Tower had been, I know not wherefore, suspected of
making phantasmagorical experiments at their windows,
which, be it observed, had no command whatever
an any windows in my dwelling, An additional
sentry was accordingly posted so as to over-
look any such attempt. Happening, however, as
it might, following bard at heel tho visitation of my
household, ono of the night sentries at the jewel office
was, as he said, a:armed by a figure like a huge bear issu-
ing from underneath the door. Ho thrust at it with his
bayonet, which stuck in the door, even as my chair dinted
the wainscot. He dropped in a fit, and was carried senseless
to the guard-room. His fellow sentry declared that the man
was neither asleep nor drunk, he himself having seen him
the moment before awake and sober. Of all this I avouch
nothing more than that I saw the poor man in the guard-
house prostrated with terror, and that in two or three
days the fatal result, bo it of fact or fancy, was that he
tiled." To this it is only necessary to add that the boy
was 7 years old. He did not see the ghost. The sister-in-
law likewise did not see it, and attributed it to
the joint hallucination of her sister and brother-in-law.
rho soldier died, as stated, whether after trial by court-
martial, as recorded by Dr. Gregory in his "Letters on
Animal Magnetism," or not, I do not know. Dr. Gregory
received his account from Sir David Brewster, and
it is incorrect in many particulars, or rather it differs
from Mr. Swifte's, which was the result of personal ex-
_
pericnce.,