University of Virginia Library

20. CHAP. XX.

Hogg.

Ellen was still on her visit at Mr. Agnew's, and
had recovered all her usual bloom of health and
serenity of mind. She, indeed, still felt some apprehension,
lest the continuance of Sir Geoffrey's
passion should find out some means of disturbing
her repose; but as her friends were numerous and
vigilant, she confided in their zeal and ability to
protect her, and did not permit this apprehension
to repress the natural cheerfulness of her temper,
or damp the joy she experienced from the discovery
of her father, from her own deliverance from
the persecutions of her tormentor, and her rescue
from the violence of his menials. The brave author
of this rescue, her Green Minstrel, her Shamrock
Knight, was never absent from her thoughts.

“Ah!” said she to Miss Agnew, “if this young
man were to reveal himself, I fear that my Edward
would possess only the first share in my affections.
I do not know how it is; but I almost
feel as if I had two hearts, one to bestow on each
of these objects, for (I am, indeed, ashamed to confess
it,) this noble youth intrudes himself on my
mind almost as often and as intensely as he to
whom my first affections have been pledged, and
to whom they must be forever faithful. O! would
to Heaven, that he were Edward, or Edward he!”

“You have started an odd notion into my mind,”
said her companion, “that they are, indeed, the
same person. If they are not, they must be twins;
for now when I think of them, I protest that you
two stars do not more resemble each other.”

This conversation took place one evening about
the beginning of May, as these two young ladies
walked together to visit a poor, sick man, who lived
in the neighbourhood. The cause of this man's
sickness being somewhat singular, and connected
with the state of the times, and the popular superstitions
of the country, it may be here related.

On the day previous to the visit just mentioned,
Andrew Ramsey, the name of the sick man, had
been on some business at a small village in the
neighbourhood of Carebrow-hall. He had spent
the afternoon in the enjoyment of the bottle, with
some free-hearted convivial acquaintances he had
met with in a Shabeen house, near the village, and
who being, like himself, a United Irishman, were
of course, deeply versed in the politics of the times,
and fond of talking on the subject.

Here it was, that Andrew was first told of the
intended rising in June, and was desired to hold
himself in readiness to take the field with his companions.
As Andrew was not one of the most
courageous of men, this news together with the accompanying
requisition, struck, like a leaden bolt,
upon his spirits, and it was with great difficulty
that he kept them from betraying his fears, by the
inspiring force of the potent liquor that he now
copiously drank.

The shades of evening were fast gathering, and
the time approached when Andrew must part with
his cup and his company. With a doleful countenance
he shook his comrades severally by the
hand.

“Farewell, friends!” said he, “it's likely to be

a serious time in the lan'. I wish God may preserve
us through the strife. We should be a' busy
praying an' preparing against the warst.”

“By G—d! man, I doobt you'll greet aboot it.
Fight first, an' gin you like, pray next,” said an'
irreverend fellow of the name of Steele, who had
lately become a convert to the age of reason system,
and had thrown off all the shackles of religion,
as unworthy of a citizen patriot and a free
born philosopher.

“Ye're prophane, man,” replied Andrew, “nac
guid can come o' ye, unless ye mend; but for that, I
doubt Tam Paine, an' the devil, Gude forgie me for
naming them, hae been owre busy wi' ye.”

Several of the company laughed at Andrew's
seriouness and alarm; and the more to intimidate
him, as he left the house, Steele called after him,
“Ye maun rin fast, Andy, when ye pass the Saut-Hole,
or some ghaist will catch you there. Ye
ken its the devil's haunt.”

Andrew was on foot. He blessed himself and
walked onwards, endeavouring to divert his fears
by occasionally whistling Patrick's Day, or humming
one of the songs of Paddy's Resource. But
still the terrors of the times and the awfulness of
the place he was approaching, could not be driven
from his recollection.

“There will be unco doings, I'll warrant,”
thought he. “Oh! gin yin kend wha would be slain,
an' wha would be spared, in the struggle, it would
be a satisfaction. Gin we had but a guid prophet
noo, like Jeremiah, to tell us the warst!—But
Gude bless us, there's the Saut-Hole! an' the trees
growin' in it, an' roon' it, whare, they say, Sir
Geoffrey ravished the bonnie lass that was found
dead there sax years syne. It might na' be true,
for it was a lie-like story. But preserve us! what's
that amang the trees! Our father!—our father!—

Ah! I canna pray. It is the White Woman hersel',
that haunts here. I'm gane! I'm gane!”

He staggered some paces back, with his eyes
fixed on the apparition; and then stood stock-still,
unable either to speak or to move. The vision
seemed to rise from the haunted hole, and advance
slowly from among the trees towards him. It every
now and then uttered a deep sigh, and a hollow
groan. Its form was that of a handsome woman,
clothed in a winding sheet of the purest white.
Her jaws were tied with a fillet, and her countenance
had the pale inanimate look of a corpse.

Andrew's hair now stiffened, and stood upright
on his head; his teeth chattered, his knees bent under
him, and his arms fell flat and useless by his
sides; while his whole frame shook convulsively
as the awful figure drew near and passed him.
“It will surely leave me,” thought he. But it returned,
and repassed him several times in the same
manner. At length it stood right before him, and
gave a fearful mean. “It wants me to speak,”
thought he. Twice he tried, but tried in vain.
The third time he was more successful.

“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, are you flesh or spirit?” said he.

“Thou hast invoked me by a name which compels
me to answer,” replied the vision. “I am the
ghost of Elizabeth Robbins, whom the wicked master
of these domains unfortunately met and forced
to his loathed embraces, in yonder hollow. There
was the scene of my death. I was resolved not to
survive the loss of my purity, and with this knife
(said she, holding up the appearance of one in her
bloody hand,) as soon as the savage left me, I
pierced myself to the heart. Unfit for Heaven,
and yet not doomed to hell, I am permitted to wander
on the earth, and am directed to show the
evils that are coming on the country, to the first

mortal that should invoke me by the great and
mysterious name you have pronounced.”

She here paused a moment, but soon resumed—

“Well may the swain shudder, and the maiden
mourn, for wickedness has overspread the land,
and its punishment shall fall heavily on the people.
Ah! I see the noblest in the country die on the
field, and the bravest hang on the gibbet! Neighbours
raise the steel of animosity and death against
each other; friends are now each others murderers—brother
rushes against brother, and father
and son bury the weapon of destruction in each
others bosoms! Mourn, ye virgins! your fathers
are captives, your brothers are slain, and your
lovers are scourged, and hanged, and quartered!
And ye too, ye wives, and ye widows, as well as
maidens, lament; for while your purity is ravished
by beastly force, the heads of those who would
have defended or avenged you, are withering on
high in the public places.—Ah! there are now numerous
and fair villages in the land, of which,
yon moon, ere she twice attains her zenith of full
grandeur in the heavens, shall see only the smoking
ruins! She will see our hills, and our plains,
and our streets, and our high-ways red with the
blood of men! She will behold the withering
features of the dead, and the writhing agonies of
the dying!—Hark! I hear the groans of thousands
in their last struggles with the pangs of death!
Weep ye widows, and ye orphans!—ah! ye fill the
land! Weep, for thyself, Andrew Ramsay! for thou
shalt see misery: Go thy way now, and tremble,
and tell the multitude to tremble also, for they
would not repent!”

With an awful shriek, she flew over the tops of
the trees, and disappeared like a cloud expanding
along the distant verge of the horizon. Andrew
continued for some minutes, gazing, breathless and

stupified, after her. The cold sweat fell in large
drops from his brows, which on the return of his
faculties, he mistook for blood; and he supposed
himself undone. By degrees the spasm of his
muscles relaxed, and voluntary motion being thus
restored, he flew on the wings of terror to the nearest
habitation. The family were in bed.

“Ah! Brice Lee! Brice Lee!” cried he, “for
the love of Heaven, let in a miserable frien' that
is frightened to death.”

The door was soon opened, but the unfortunate
Andrew had fainted on the threshold. By the
attention of the family, he was soon restored to
sensation, and, at different intervals, gave them the
foregoing account. In the morning, intelligence
of his situation was sent to his friends, and he was
carried home during the course of the day.

When Ellen and her friend visited him in the
evening, as before stated, he was in the delirium of
a high fever. They were both shocked at the recital
of the story, and endeavoured to give the
family what consolation they could. Ellen expressed
her opinion that they had no cause to anticipate
any particular calamity, on account of the
prediction that had been given. “For,” she observed,
“even supposing the apparition to have
been supernatural, and commissioned by Heaven
to reveal the secrets of futurity, it had not foretold
that Andrew should feel misery; it only said that
he should see it. But even putting the worst construction
on the prophecy, it might be considered
as fulfilled in his present sufferings; and that
whenever he should recover from the effects of his
fright, all would, no doubt, be well again with the
family.”

Her attempts at consolation were, however, in
vain; and she left the house with a sorrowful heart,
at having witnessed such an example of the deplorable
effects of superstition on the human mind.

“Do you not believe this story of the ghost?”
asked Miss Agnew, as they walked-homeward.

“No,” replied Ellen.

“And how do you account for this man's illness?”
was again asked.

“Without having recourse to any thing supernatural
in the case,” she replied, “I can account
for it in two ways, either of which, to me, would be
satisfactory. But, surely, Maria, you do not believe
that this man really saw a spirit.”

“I confess,” replied Maria, “from every thing
I see and hear I cannot get over such a belief. I
cannot, on any other supposition, account for this
man's illness. But let me hear how you account
for it?”

“My first method of doing so,” said Ellen,” is
this, I can easily conceive that the intimidated and
intoxicated imagination of this poor man, after what
had passed in the Shabeen house, was sufficient to
conjure up at the dubious hour of darkness, all the
frightful appearances which he describes as having
beheld; and that such an appearance thus conjured
up, might have occasioned all the disordered
ideas to pass through his mind, relative to a
subject which had just occupied it so intensely,
that he ascribes to the revelation of the vision.
This is my first method. My second is still an
easier, more simple, and, under all the circumstances
of the present case, perhaps a more satisfactory
way of accounting for it. It is only by supposing
it altogether a trick of Steele, or some other of his
party. If you are acquainted with this person,
and are really very anxious to be satisfied on the
subject, I will pledge my reputation for sagacity,
that by managing him properly, you will be able to
obtain as satisfactory an explanation of the matter
as you can desire.”