heard a good deal about him when first he served in the house, but
by degrees he had ceased to be mentioned, and he had been very
careful not to allude to him.

"The place was haunted by an old gentleman, was it?" I said.

He answered that at one time everybody believed it, but the fact
that I had never heard of it seemed to imply that the thing had
come to an end and was forgotten.

I questioned him as to what he had seen of the old gentleman.

He had never seen him, he said, although he had been in the house
from the day my father was eight years old. My grandfather would
never hear a word on the matter, declaring that whoever alluded to
it should be dismissed without a moment's warning: it was nothing
but a pretext of the maids, he said, for running into the arms of
the men! but old Sir Ralph believed in nothing he could not see or
lay hold of. Not one of the maids ever said she had seen the
apparition, but a footman had left the place because of it.

An ancient woman in the village had told him a legend concerning a
Mr. Raven, long time librarian to "that Sir Upward whose portrait
hangs there among the books." Sir Upward was a great reader, she
said--not of such books only as were wholesome for men to read, but
of strange, forbidden, and evil books; and in so doing, Mr. Raven,
who was probably the devil himself, encouraged him. Suddenly they
both disappeared, and Sir Upward was never after seen or heard of,
but Mr. Raven continued to show himself at uncertain intervals in
the library. There were some who believed he was not dead; but both