would go as far as I can,” he replied; “be so kind as to direct me, for I see no passage but the dark cavern through which I came hither.”  The servant directed him to go through the house, and led him through a long entrance passage and out at the back door.  After walking a considerable distance, he saw another house, more magnificent than the former, where he saw through the open windows lamps burning in every room.  He was about to knock, but looking in at the window of a low parlour, he saw in the middle of the room a large table of black marble, on which lay extended a monster of at least fourteen feet long, and ten round the body, with a sword beside him.  He therefore deemed it prudent to make his way back to the first house where the servant reconducted him, and informed him that if he had knocked at the second door he never would have returned.  He then took his leave, and once more ascended to the light of the sun.’”

But, leaving rooms of this supernatural kind, we may allude to those which have acquired a strange notoriety from certain peculiarities of a somewhat gruesome character; and, with tales of horror attached to their guilty walls, it is not surprising that many rooms in our old country houses have long been said to be troubled with mysterious noises, and to have an uncanny aspect.  Wye Coller Hall, near Colne, which was long the seat of the Cunliffes of Billington, had a room which the timid long avoided.  Once a year, it is said, a spectre horseman visits this house and makes his way up the broad oaken staircase into a certain room, from whence “dreadful screams, as from a woman, are heard, which soon subside into groans.”  The story goes that one of the Cunliffes murdered his wife in that room, and that the spectre horseman is the ghost of the murderer, who is doomed to pay an annual visit to the house of his victim, who is said to have predicted the extinction of the family, which has literally been fulfilled.  This strange visitor is always attired in the costume of the early Stuart period, and the trappings of his horse are of a most uncouth description; the evening of his arrival being generally wild and tempestuous.

At Creslow Manor House, Buckinghamshire, there is another mysterious room which, although furnished as a bedroom, is very rarely used, for it cannot be entered, even in the daytime, without trepidation and awe.  According to common report, this room, which is situated in the most ancient portion of the building, is haunted by the restless spirit of a lady, long since deceased.  What the antecedent history of this uncomfortable room really is no one seems to know, although it is generally agreed that in the distant past it must have been the silent witness of some tragic occurrence.