chains over his very head would he take up a lamp and follow it.  The figure moved slowly forward, seemingly weighed down with its heavy chains, until it reached an open space in the courtyard.  There it vanished.  Athenodorus marked the spot with leaves and grass, and on the next day the ground was dug up in the presence of a magistrate, when the skeleton of a man with some rusty chains was discovered.  The remains were buried with all ceremony, and the apparition was no more seen.

Lucian tells the same story in the Philopseudus, with some ridiculous additions, thoroughly in keeping with the surroundings.

An almost exactly similar story has been preserved by Robert Wodrow, the indefatigable collector, in a notebook which he appears to have intended to be the foundation of a scientific collection of marvellous tales.  Wodrow died early in the eighteenth century.  Gilbert Rule, the founder and first Principal of Edinburgh University, once reached a desolate inn in a lonely spot on the Grampians.  The inn was full, and they were obliged to make him up a bed in a house near-by that had been vacant for thirty years.  “He walked some time in the room,” says Wodrow,[31] “and committed himself to God’s protection, and went to bed.  There were two candles left on the table, and these he put out.  There was a large bright fire remaining.  He had not been long in bed till the room door is opened and an apparition in shape of a country tradesman came in, and opened the curtains without speaking a word.  Mr. Rule was resolved to do nothing till it should speak or attack him, but lay still with full composure, committing himself to the Divine protection and conduct.  The apparition went to the table, lighted the two candles, brought them to the bedside, and made some steps toward the door, looking still to the bed, as if he would have Mr. Rule rising and following.  Mr. Rule still lay still, till he should see his way further cleared.  Then the apparition, who the whole time spoke none, took an effectual way to raise the doctor.  He carried back the candles to the table and went to the fire, and with the tongs took down the kindled coals, and laid them on the deal chamber floor.  The doctor then thought it time to rise and put on his clothes, in the time of which the spectre laid up the coals again in the chimney, and, going to the table, lifted the candles and went to the door, opened it, still looking to the Principal, as he would have him following the candles, which he now, thinking there was something extraordinary in the case, after looking to God for direction, inclined to do.  The apparition went down some steps with the candles, and carried them into a long trance, at the end of which there was a stair which carried down to a low room.  This the spectre went down, and stooped, and set down the lights on the lowest step of the stair, and straight disappears.”