Now Oneleigh stands in a wide isolation, in the midst of a dark
gathering of old whispering cedars. They nod their heads together
when the North Wind comes, and nod again and agree, and furtively
grow still again, and say no more awhile. The North Wind is to them
like a nice problem among wise old men; they nod their heads over
it, and mutter about it all together. They know much, those cedars,
they have been there so long. Their grandsires knew Lebanon, and
the grandsires of these were the servants of the King of Tyre and
came to Solomon's court. And amidst these black-haired children of
grey-headed Time stood the old house of Oneleigh. I know not how
many centuries had lashed against it their evanescent foam of years;
but it was still unshattered, and all about it were the things of
long ago, as cling strange growths to some sea-defying rock. Here,
like the shells of long-dead limpets, was armour that men encased
themselves in long ago; here, too, were tapestries of many colours,
beautiful as seaweed; no modern flotsam ever drifted hither, no
early Victorian furniture, no electric light. The great trade
routes that littered the years with empty meat tins and cheap novels
were far from here. Well, well, the centuries will shatter it and
drive its fragments on to distant shores. Meanwhile, while it yet
stood, I went on a visit there to my brother, and we argued about
ghosts. My brother's intelligence on this subject seemed to me to
be in need of correction. He mistook things imagined for things
having an actual existence; he argued that second-hand evidence of
persons having seen ghosts proved ghosts to exist. I said that even
if they had seen ghosts, this was no proof at all; nobody believes
that there are red rats, though there is plenty of first-hand
evidence of men having seen them in delirium. Finally, I said I
would see ghosts myself, and continue to argue against their actual
existence. So I collected a handful of cigars and drank several