Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1880-12-01
THE DUKES HOUSE.

st@ SSsNs
Iwas born ia nm old chartered aud
very picturesque town in a Western
county, in whose vicinity stood an
ancient ducal palace, which had not
been occupied for many a long year,
and like other buildings Lett to decay,
it had tho reputation OF being haunt.
cd. There certainly were strange
sights and sounds to be seen and
heard sometimes by those who were
near the place a, dusk and after dark,
but il was never looked into. The
uneducatcd we're too supers!itious and
frightened the better class were too
busy or too indolent, and VIC had no
rural police in those days to trace out
the causes. 1t was great pity tor
such tine Elizabethan structure to
fall to ruins. l remember it as n
strong and beautiful mansion, with its
lawns and terrace. gardens, and its
many windows rs there are days in
the year. This doubted when a
child, and often got the nurse-glrl to
walk round the house TO count them
with me, but we never attained our
object; Tor if the sun got overloaded
she would be sure to see ghost at
some gloomy window and rush off.
leaving me, terrified to follow. The
old residents had died out, the title
having become extinct and around
it were splung up mills and factories,
which prevented the aristocracy from
living in it. The mill-owners, too,
preferred being further away from
their contingencies and smokey
chimneys. Besides, it must have
been very rich man who could put
it in decorative repair and keep up
such an establishment. In those days
our merchant princes were content
with very modest dwellings, such as
many middle class man now days
would deem it derogatory to live in.
l am writing of a slow and 'ure age /;
we are now living in fast and reck-
less one.
But to my story. i had attained
an age when ghosts and hobgoblins
and such rubbish did not terrify or
trouble me. | was married man,
the father of several children, when a
cousin came to visit us, who was
highly delighted with our pretty town,
and knowing her to be very clever with
her pencil, asked her to paint me one
or two of the scenes in the neighbor-
hood. This she willingly consented to
do, and we sailed forth to fix on what
should be her first picture. She
thought the view from the dukes
house-as it was called-would be
the best. l tolG her she dared not
trust herself in there, for it had been
upinhahited for the last century, and
was haunted, She laughed, and said
she did not believe in ghosts she was
not so much frightened at the dead
III solitary places as at the living; and
her curiosity being excited, she want
ed to explore the building. So, whilst
she went for her easel and materials,
| got the keys from an old man who
lived iu the old courtyard of the
ducal residence.
We walked through the rooms, ad-
mirng their old grandeur, the lofty
marble columns standing on marble
hearths each side Of the freplaces,
supporting the grained ceiling, with
coats of arms and other devices carv.
ed in marble between them. Tho
tapestry round the walls smslled
moudly, but was in wonderful state
of preservation, and no worse than
when boz, twenty years before,
had pitied the ladies who worked SO
hard 10 cover their rough stone walls.
NY cousin selected a room for her first
sketch and. as I was leaving, ! ad-