he rest, nor
yet ornamented with carvings, formed such a striking contrast with the
others. Who does not know with what mysterious power the mind is
enthralled in the midst of unusual and singularly strange
circumstances? Even the dullest imagination is aroused when it comes
into a valley girt around by fantastic rocks, or within the gloomy
walls of a church or an abbey, and it begins to have glimpses of things
it has never yet experienced. When I add that I was twenty years of
age, and had drunk several glasses of strong punch, it will easily be
conceived that as I sat thus in the _Rittersaal_ I was in a more
exceptional frame of mind than I had ever been before. Let the reader
picture to himself the stillness of the night within, and without the
rumbling roar of the sea--the peculiar piping of the wind, which rang
upon my ears like the tones of a mighty organ played upon by spectral
hands--the passing scudding clouds which, shining bright and white,
often seemed to peep in through the rattling oriel-windows like giants
sailings past--in very truth, I felt, from the slight shudder which
shook me, that possibly a new sphere of existences might now be
revealed to me visibly and perceptibly. But this feeling was like the
shivery sensations that one has on hearing a graphically narrated ghost
story, such as we all like. At this moment it occurred to me that I
should never be in a more seasonable mood for reading the book which,
in common with every one who had the least leaning towards the
romantic, I at that time carried about in my pocket,--I mean Schiller's
"Ghost-seer." I read and read, and my imagination grew ever more and
more excited. I came to the marvellously enthralling description of the
wedding feast at Count Von V----'s.

Just as I was reading of the entrance of Jeronimo's bloody figure,[4]
the door leading from the gallery into the antechamber flew open with a
tremendous bang. I started to my feet in terror; the book fell from my
hands. In the very same moment, however, all was still again, and I
began to be ashamed of my childish fears. The door must have been burst
open by a strong gust of wind or in some other natural manner. It is
nothing; my over-strained fancy converts every ordinary occurrence into
the supernatural. Having thus calmed my fears, I picked up my book from
the ground, and again threw myself in the arm-chair; but there came a
sound of soft, slow, measured footsteps moving diagonally across