of midnight, he actually heard some inconceivable
noise in the apartment, as if some person had risen
up from among straw, which rustled beneath them, walked
slowly over the floor, and sank, sighing and groaning,
behind the chimney. When he came down the next
morning, the marchesa asked him how the investigation
had gone on; and he, after gazing about him with wondering
glances, and bolting the door, told her the story
of the chamber’s being haunted was true.
She was terrified out of her senses; but begged him,
before making any public disclosure, once more to
make the experiment coolly in her company. Accompanied
by a trusty servant, they accordingly repeated their
visit next night, and again heard, as the marquess
had done before, the same ghostly and inconceivable
noise; and nothing but the anxious wish to get rid
of the castle, cost what it would, enabled them to
suppress their terrors in presence of the servant,
and to ascribe the sound to some accidental cause.
On the evening of the third day, when both, determined
to probe the matter to the bottom, were ascending with
beating hearts the stair leading to the stranger’s
apartment, it chanced that the house dog, who had
been let loose from the chain, was lying directly before
the door of the room; and, willing perhaps to have
the company of any other living thing in the mysterious
apartment, they took the dog into the room along with
them. The husband and wife seated themselves on
the couch—the marquess with his sword and
pistols beside him; and while they endeavoured, the
best way they could, to amuse themselves with conversation,
the dog, cowering down on the floor at their feet,
fell asleep. Again, with the stroke of midnight,
the noise was renewed;—something, though
what they could not discover, raised itself us if
with crutches in the corner; the straw rustled as before.
At the sound of the first foot-fall, the dog awoke,
roused itself, pricked up its ears, and growling and
barking as if some person were advancing towards him,
retreated in the direction of the chimney. At
this sight, the marchioness rushed out of the room,
her hair standing on end; and while the marquess seized
his sword, exclaimed “Who is there?” and
receiving no answer, thrust like a madman in all directions,
she hastily packed up a few articles of dress, and
made the best of her way towards the town. Scarcely,
however, had she proceeded a few steps, when she discovered
that the castle was on fire. The marquess had,
in his distraction, overturned the tapers, and the
room was instantly in flames. Every effort was
made to save the unhappy nobleman, but in vain:
he perished in the utmost tortures, and his bones,
as the traveller may be aware, still lie where they
were collected by the neighbouring peasants—in
the corner of the apartment from which he had expelled
the beggar woman of Locarno.—Edinburgh
Literary Journal and Gazette.
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