A superstitious person with a talent for being eerie would have had nice scope for being frightened out of his senses in a situation like this—­alone in a distant room of an old castle where bells rang mysteriously, and with borrowed moonlight peering down from above like a ghost looking for ghosts.  But Mr. Forrester was not superstitious—­not in the least.  He feared nothing material or immaterial except—­and it was a curious exception—­except Bessie Ormiston; yet it is true he loved her, perfectly as he thought, but there was a flaw somewhere:  it was not the perfect love that casteth out fear.  The turning of a straw, however, might make it that, but who was to turn the straw?  He feared to do it, and she would not.  Notwithstanding these perturbed and cantankerous circumstances, these two people, being young and naturally sleepy, slept.

How long he had been sleeping Edwin did not know, when he awoke suddenly, as if he had been startled by some noise.  However, he might have been dreaming:  he did not know.  The fire was thoroughly out and black, there was no ray of light from the roof, and the window-curtains being closely drawn, if there was any light outside it was effectually shut out:  the room was as dark as midnight.

He rose, and finding his way to the table groped for a box of matches that he had noticed lying there, and lighted his lamp, when, looking at his watch, he found the hour to be half-past three.  Before going to bed again he thought he would see what night it was.  Accordingly, he opened the curtains and shutters and gazed forth.  The moon had disappeared—­which was not remarkable, as it was past her hour for retiring—­and the night was very dark and hazy.  But a remarkable object met his eye.  But from an angle of the house, and toward the corner of the field which had been the site of the ancient monastery, there stood a column five or six feet in height of what through the haze appeared luminous vapor.  It seemed such an altogether unaccountable thing, standing there, that Edwin pushed the window open and rubbed his eyes to get a better sight of it.  He expected it would disappear in some way almost immediately, but it did not:  there it stood, perfectly still and perfectly distinct, at the corner of the field, where there was absolutely nothing to cause it.  He watched it for a considerable time, and as his eye got accustomed to peering into the darkness, he could see there was nothing near it, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night.

“That’s not a trick,” he thought:  “no one would think it worth while to play a trick, certain of being without an audience either to see or hear it.  I question even if it is the abbot himself; or if he likes to air himself there in the middle of a winter night, he must be too hot at home, if not too dull.”

A filmy mantle of pale white vapor is surely a more likely garment for a spirit to snatch up and wrap round him when about to indulge in an earthly tour than the conventional and traditionary white sheet:  in point of fact, for the sheet he must wait till he arrives in our world, and when he does arrive he must of necessity help himself to it; which I, for one, should be sorry to think any well-conditioned ghost would do; but light, pale shadowy light, lying about everywhere for the picking up, what so suitable as raiment for a being who has nothing to wear?