For generations it has been the home of the McAllisters, and is still little changed since the days of Bruce and Balliol, when armed men issued from the low, arched doorway, to work destruction on their enemies of the South.

The last of the race dwells there now; a man yet in the prime of life, though one who takes but little interest in the doings of the busy world.  He leads a melancholy and purposeless existence, and seems, as the years go on, to grow more morbid.  Some say that he never got over the shock of his wife’s sudden death, and that the terrible accident completely shattered his nerves.  Others, chiefly, old wives, who have lived on the estate for years, and are deeply versed in all matters connected with their chief’s family, shake their heads wisely, and mutter that there is a curse overhanging this branch of the clan.  They say it has been so since the ’45, when The McAllister of that day turned his son Ivan adrift.

Be that as it may, the present chief is a most miserable man.  He has wealth, and everything wealth can command.  He has broad lands, power, unbounded influence, for fortune has marked him for one of her favorites.  But in the long winter evenings, when the great hall of Dunmorton, with its splendid trophies of the chase and grand oak panelling, is lighted up by the fitful glow of the huge pinewood fire, Noel McAllister sees a vision, which freezes the blood within his veins.

From a dim eerie in the great hall there glides with a slow, noiseless movement a tall, slight lady, clad in a gown of pale green silk.  Her snow-white hair is crowned by a cap of finest lace.  Her hands are clasped together convulsively, and she stretches them out and sobs in agonized entreaty: 

“Oh, Ivan, me bairn! me bonnie bairn, it is sair and lonely wi’out ye here.  Will ye no stay wi’ us a while longer?  Oh!  Ivan, me bairn!”

And night after night, so surely as the waves beat against the rocky crag of Dunmorton does the tall pale lady come, always as the clock strikes twelve, no matter who the guests may be.  Doors may be barred, every precaution taken, nothing can prevent her entrance.

It comes to pass that after a time gay visitors from London decline The McAllister’s invitations, even the splendid shooting of the Glen does not compensate them for the shock to their nerves caused by The McAllister spectre, as they call it.  Noel is left much alone, but he has Dunmorton, its broad lands and vast revenues.  For these he bartered his honor, his integrity.  By his own rule he should be happy, for all his early ambitions are fulfilled.  But in truth he has very little happiness or real satisfaction in his prosperity, and there are few even of his poorest neighbors who would care to change places with the “haunted laird.”