.

The question set every tongue in motion; a vast deal of bantering;
criticising of countenances; of mutual accusation and retort took
place. Some had drunk deep, and some were unshaven, so that there were
suspicious faces enough in the assembly. I alone could not enter with
ease and vivacity into the joke. I felt tongue-tied--embarrassed. A
recollection of what I had seen and felt the preceding night still
haunted my mind.

It seemed as if the mysterious picture still held a thrall upon me. I
thought also that our host's eye was turned on me with an air of
curiosity. In short, I was conscious that I was the hero of the night,
and felt as if every one might read it in my looks.

The jokes, however, passed over, and no suspicion seemed to attach to
me. I was just congratulating myself on my escape, when a servant came
in, saying, that the gentleman who had slept on the sofa in the
drawing-room, had left his watch under one of the pillows. My repeater
was in his hand.

"What!" said the inquisitive gentleman, "did any gentleman sleep on the
sofa?"

"Soho! soho! a hare--a hare!" cried the old gentleman with the flexible
nose.

I could not avoid acknowledging the watch, and was rising in great
confusion, when a boisterous old squire who sat beside me, exclaimed,
slapping me on the shoulder, "'Sblood, lad! thou'rt the man as has seen
the ghost!"

The attention of the company was immediately turned to me; if my face
had been pale the moment before, it now glowed almost to burning. I
tried to laugh, but could only make a grimace; and found all the
muscles of my face twitching at sixes and sevens, and totally out of
all control.

It takes but little to raise a laugh among a set of fox-hunters. There
was a world of merriment and joking at my expense; and as I never
relished a joke overmuch when it was at my own expense, I began to feel
a little nettled. I tried to look cool and calm and to restrain my
pique; but the coolness and calmness of a man in a passion are
confounded treacherous.

Gentlemen, said I, with a slight cocking of the chin, and a bad attempt
at a smile, this is all very pleasant--ha! ha!--very pleasant--but I'd
have you know I am as little superstitious as any of you--ha! ha!--and
as to anything like timidity--you may smile, gentlemen--but I trust
there is no one here means to insinuate that.--As to a room's being
haunted, I repeat, gentlemen--(growing a little warm at seeing a cursed
grin breaking