“Thou com’st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee!”

Stranger.—­Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now that our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point.  I told you truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a more distant country than America, and had long been naturalised there.  The country whence I come is not the New World, but the other one:  and I now declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost.

Montesinos.—­A ghost!

Stranger.—­A veritable ghost, and an honest one, who went out of the world with so good a character that he will hardly escape canonisation if ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne.  And now what test do you require?

Montesinos.—­I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle burns as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its flame.  You look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be disposed to give entire belief to that countenance, if it were not for the tongue that belongs to it.  But you are a queer spirit, whether good or evil!

Stranger.—­The headsman thought so, when he made a ghost of me almost three hundred years ago.  I had a character through life of loving a jest, and did not belie it at the last.  But I had also as general a reputation for sincerity, and of that also conclusive proof was given at the same time.  In serious truth, then, I am a disembodied spirit, and the form in which I now manifest myself is subject to none of the accidents of matter.  You are still incredulous!  Feel, then, and be convinced!

My incomprehensible guest extended his hand toward me as he spoke.  I held forth mine to accept it, not, indeed, believing him, and yet not altogether without some apprehensive emotion, as if I were about to receive an electrical shock.  The effect was more startling than electricity would have produced.  His hand had neither weight nor substance; my fingers, when they would have closed upon it, found nothing that they could grasp:  it was intangible, though it had all the reality of form.

“In the name of God,” I exclaimed, “who are you, and wherefore are you come?”

“Be not alarmed,” he replied.  “Your reason, which has shown you the possibility of such an appearance as you now witness, must have convinced you also that it would never be permitted for an evil end.  Examine my features well, and see if you do not recognise them.  Hans Holbein was excellent at a likeness.”

I had now for the first time in my life a distinct sense of that sort of porcupinish motion over the whole scalp which is so frequently described by the Latin poets.  It was considerably allayed by the benignity of his countenance and the manner of his speech, and after looking him steadily in the face I ventured to say, for the likeness had previously struck me, “Is it Sir Thomas More?”

“The same,” he made answer, and lifting up his chin, displayed a circle round the neck brighter in colour than the ruby.  “The marks of martyrdom,” he continued, “are our insignia of honour.  Fisher and I have the purple collar, as Friar Forrest and Cranmer have the robe of fire.”