There are in the library of Rantremly Castle many documents relating
to the Stuart exile in France. His lordship wished these documents
sorted and catalogued, as well as copies taken of each. Many of the
letters were in the French language, and these I was required to
translate and type. It was a sombre place of residence, but the salary
was good, and I saw before me work enough to keep me busy for years.
Besides this, the task was extremely congenial, and I became absorbed
in it, being young and romantically inclined. Here I seemed to live in
the midst of these wonderful intrigues of long ago. Documents passed
through my hands whose very possession at one period meant capital
danger, bringing up even now visions of block, axe, and masked
headsman. It seemed strange to me that so sinister a man as Lord
Rantremly, who, I had heard, cared for nothing but drink and gambling,
should have desired to promote this historical research, and, indeed,
I soon found he felt nothing but contempt for it. However, he had
undertaken it at the instance of his only son, then a young man of my
own age, at Oxford University.

'Lord Rantremly at that time was sixty-five years old. His countenance
was dark, harsh, and imperious, and his language brutal. He indulged
in frightful outbursts of temper, but he paid so well for service that
there was no lack of it, as there has been since the ghost appeared
some years ago. He was very tall, and of commanding appearance, but
had a deformity in the shape of a club-foot, and walked with the
halting step of those so afflicted. There were at that time servants
in plenty at the castle, for although a tradition existed that the
ghost of the founder of the house trod certain rooms, this ghost, it
was said, never demonstrated its presence when the living
representative of the family was a man with a club-foot. Tradition
further affirmed that if this club-footed ghost allowed its halting
footsteps to be heard while the reigning lord possessed a similar
deformity, the conjunction foreshadowed the passing of title and
estates to a stranger. The ghost haunted the castle only when it was
occupied by a descendant whose two feet were normal. It seems that the
founder of the house was a club-footed man, and this disagreeable
peculiarity often missed one generation, and sometimes two, while at
other times both father and son had club-feet, as was the case with
the late Lord Rantremly and the young man at Oxford. I