Worcester daily spy., 1860-11-16
lQ(ortestet Daily Spg.
From Chambers Journal.
Three Startling Situations.

eventually in position to dictate to some
popular author, from the sick-ward of a union
workhouSe, the interesting raw materials for
his novellette,-"The falling Star" Neither
did begin life lad in the knitehouse. and
Creeping up from high to higher,
The centre of a Wards desire,
And nit with Aldermen to cope.
The prayer of my godfather for me was like
Agur's, that l should have neither riches nor
poverty he left me that much abused inherit
ance-which, to a reasonable man, is never
theless the best in the world, since it enables
him to pursue all good objects for their own
sake-''a moderate independence )" and have
kept it ever since,
Hence, . reader, it is in vain to eXpoctfrom
this comfortable quill either soaring flights in
TO the Empyrean with large L or down
swoops into he Abysms. know no more of
palaces than do OF prisons and yeti have
had my three Startling situations" too. Most
mortalS who have grown to be men and wo.
men have had some experiences always after
wards observable to their minds-eye in the
level road Of their eXistencrs, even if they be
but the being pitched out off merry go round
at fair, or the having proposals Of marriage
tended to them by black man and why not
l like the rest
First, then, l have had the privilege Of be-
tihct, or, at all events seperate ghosts at the
same time, This happened on my way from
Calais TO Paris i'll the winter If 1882. The
boat, as it always does whCt. 1 am in it-a
proof OF my honest assertion that there is
nothing about me unlike what brlon 5 to Il
majority of my fellow creaturcs-had made
an exceedingly bad passage, and l landed up.
on the shores OF France with vacuum with.
i'll me that had yet no dt sire to repenish.
Had it been otherwise, there was very little
time to do it, Tor the diligence, unlike myself,
quite full inside, was upon the point of start.
ing, and | climbed up in a miserable condition
beside the conductor. How he screamed, ges.
ticulated, and cracked his prodigious whip
like demou-driver, it is not necessary, and
would be painful for me to describe. | tell
asleep as soon as | could forget him and the
horses were going at their own sweet will, and
pace, which latter is in France a very mode.
rate one. | felt cold and hungry enough,
and yet so faint as not to seem equal to the
effort of waking the driver, and urging him TO
push on a little faster to the next roadside inn
50 faint so DIR ,wsy, that no earthly thing, |
think, short of an upset could have reused me
up, or awakened my interest. No earthly
thing, perhaps; but what was that running
along the hcdgr-on top of the hedge-upon
the left hand running along by the side of
y
to turn back and looI, at it. and me? That
woke me soon enough, and most thoroughly
What business had Mary Ross. my little ward
who had lately been left a widow with two
children, and whom had bddcn goodbye to
only few days betore-what business, | say
had she to be running atop of roads lde hedge
between Calais and Paris at midnight, always
keeping her head turned round, and her eyes
fixed upon me p! There was not the least
doubt Of it being Mary, although l had never
seen her with that look Of pain and entrcaty
on her face before. | am thankful to think
that she never had to ask anything, either tor
herself or others, twice tor me. She never
looked before, but glidcd swiftly along the
hedge and when ga or gate intervcned,
seemed to leap it without any spring or un
usual exertion When her eyes were not on
mine, they were fixed on one or other Of the
two fore wheels Of the diligence and, present.
ly, | leaned over to see what was attracting
her in the lefthand one. Georgy was there
GeOrgy Ross her eldest son, revolving with
the wheel, and upon its rim, disappearing and
coming up again as though he were bound to
1t, with his white face upward towards me and
her, but with shut eyes. His brother Charles
was on the other wheel, knew, although, of
course, could not see him; and presently,
upon the great empty front seat, where there
was room ior four beside the driver, there lay
stretched on either side of me those same two
boys, i'll long white dresses, which-since they
wore dead, poor things as it subsequently
turned out-might have been shrouds. had
scarcely time to put my hands out, right and
left, and trough each Of these forms, to feel the
bare cushion OF the seat, when the driver, with
aburst OF sacreS woke, and ashed the horses,
calling them pigs and demons. Then the
children and their dear mother vanished from
my sight for ever Being of phlegmatic, or
as prefer to call it--ot a philosophical dis
position, l simply entered in my notebook,
writing it there, as sat in the clear moonlight,
Curious illusions produced December IA,
1882 by hunger and fatigue"
Nevertheless, as | sat at breakfast in Paris
on the morning Of the 18th, l received word
by post that Mary Ross and her two children
were all dead of typhus fever "Mary," the
letter said, except asking for William, as though
you could have saved the little ones, and even
after they were out Of reach of earthly aid.
She herself did not survive them more than a
few hours They all died on the l4th p
My second startling situation" was not
ghostly one, although the locality was far
better adapted for such phenomenon than
the high-road to Paris--a fine old manor house
III Stafofdshire, that had been a petty strong
hold in the time of the civil wars Rupert
had sailed out of it at the head of his rakehel.
ly Babeaters, and Cromwell had stormed it
with his Ironsidcs, shifting Agag-that is to
say, its then posscssor, Sir Jasper Seton-hip
and thigh. lie was cut to pieces in the great
hall, which is now the music-room, or was, in
the days | knew it and the clash of steel is
still to be heard there in wild winter mid
nights, although cannot say that ever de-
tected it myself for certain There were,
however, the most mysterious nightly sounds
in that old house, whose furniture though
good and costly, was throughout, from garret
to stillroom, exceedingly ancient. l never
was indeed, in any dwelling house where An
tiquity had it so much her own way. 1t was
full OF unnecessary and unexpected flights of
stairs, of tortuous passages, OF long, dark,
slippery galleries, and especially full Of linger-
ing echoes, always dying out, and never dead.
Nlne-tenths of the mysterious noises came, of
course, from these same echoes, but who made
the other tenth, and set the noises going, was
problem not so easily solyed. Who emptied
sacfs OF potatoes every night down the wide
unexpected oak'stair III the aforesaid music.
hall, was quite an open question; for every
body agreed, though there were no potatoes to
be found there, that that was the operation
which the disturbance most resembled. Who
went about, and seemed to listen--with list
slippers on--at the chamber doors !-Who
rang the drawing room bells when nothing
was wanted, and every body had gone TO bed
My answer, on account of the philOsOphic
character OF my nature, was always Rats.
The house was SO swarmed with them, that it
might be called Rats Castle. The arras in
such OF the chambers as were not in constant
use were rat-eaten as well as motl-eaten.
The waistcoats were riddled by rats and they
were only kept away from the provisions of
the household by patent safe, that was the