were to be I should not have jumped; but I really never realized what I
was doing until after I was drowned. I had been drowned a week when a
sea-nymph came to me and informed me that I was to be one of her followers
forever afterwards, adding that it should be my doom to haunt Harrowby
Hall for one hour every Christmas Eve throughout the rest of eternity. I
was to haunt that room on such Christmas Eves as I found it inhabited; and
if it should turn out not to be inhabited, I was and am to spend the
allotted hour with the head of the house."

"I'll sell the place."

"That you cannot do, for it is also required of me that I shall appear as
the deeds are to be delivered to any purchaser, and divulge to him the
awful secret of the house."

"Do you mean to tell me that on every Christmas Eve that I don't happen to
have somebody in that guest-chamber, you are going to haunt me wherever I
may be, ruining my whiskey, taking all the curl out of my hair,
extinguishing my fire, and soaking me through to the skin?" demanded the
master.

"You have stated the case, Oglethorpe. And what is more," said the water
ghost, "it doesn't make the slightest difference where you are, if I find
that room empty, wherever you may be I shall douse you with my spectral
pres--"

Here the clock struck one, and immediately the apparition faded away. It
was perhaps more of a trickle than a fade, but as a disappearance it was
complete.