no one
but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead or alive,
shall frighten the secret out of me.'

"'I wish to heaven you would, parson,' said my father.

"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock upon
it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone long
since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by force,
nobody will ever separate those two."

FOOTNOTE:

[P] Reprinted by special permission from "Great Ghost Stories."
Copyright, 1918, by Dodd, Mead and Company.

[Illustration]

XVIII.--The House and The Brain[Q]

_By Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton_

A FRIEND of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me
one day, as if between jest and earnest: "Fancy! since we last met, I
have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."

"Really haunted?--and by what--ghosts?"

"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks ago
my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet
street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments,
Furnished.' The situation suited us: we entered the house--liked the
rooms--engaged them by the week--and left them the third day. No power
on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don't
wonder at it."

"What did you see?"

"It was not so much what we saw or heard that drove us away, as it was
an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the
door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard
anything. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman who
kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not
quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly: 'I
know why; you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever stayed
a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have been
very kind to you.'

"'They--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them; I
remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
care--I'm old and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them,
and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness that
really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I t