"And I'm telling ye hold your peace!" cried the woman, in great
excitement. "Dark November weather and lang nichts, and us that ken a' we
ken. How daur ye name--a name that shouldna be spoken?" She threw down
her stocking and got up, also in great agitation. "I tellt ye you never
could keep it. It's no a thing that will hide, and the haill toun kens as
weel as you or me. Tell the Cornel straight out--or see, I'll do it. I
dinna hold wi' your secrets, and a secret that the haill toun kens!" She
snapped her fingers with an air of large disdain. As for Jarvis, ruddy
and big as he was, he shrank to nothing before this decided woman. He
repeated to her two or three times her own adjuration, "Hold your peace!"
then, suddenly changing his tone, cried out, "Tell him then, confound
ye! I'll wash my hands o't. If a' the ghosts in Scotland were in the auld
hoose, is that ony concern o' mine?"

After this I elicited without much difficulty the whole story. In the
opinion of the Jarvises, and of everybody about, the certainty that the
place was haunted was beyond all doubt. As Sandy and his wife warmed to
the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything,
it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and
not without poetry and pathos. How long it was since the voice had been
heard first, nobody could tell with certainty. Jarvis's opinion was that
his father, who had been coachman at Brentwood before him, had never
heard anything about it, and that the whole thing had arisen within the
last ten years, since the complete dismantling of the old house; which
was a wonderfully modern date for a tale so well authenticated. According
to these witnesses, and to several whom I questioned afterwards, and who
were all in perfect agreement, it was only in the months of November and
December that "the visitation" occurred. During these months, the darkest
of the year, scarcely a night passed without the recurrence of these
inexplicable cries. Nothing, it was said, had ever been seen,--at least,