e to maturity
we are corrupted and depraved by our passions."

"How the sorra can you say that," replied the friar, "when you know that
Adam and Eve were created full-grown?"

"Pray go on with your tradition," said Greatrakes, "and let us hear the
history of the Black Spectre. I am not myself an infidel in the history
of supernatural appearances, and I wish to hear you out."

"Well, then," replied the friar, "you shall. The villain proposed
marriage to this beautiful young orphan, and as he was a handsome
vagabone, as I have stated, he was accepted; but his eyes, above all
things, were irresistible. They were married by a Protestant clergyman,
and immediately afterwards by a Catholic priest, who was far advanced
in years. The lady would submit to no marriage but a legal one. The
marriage, however, was private; for Hamilton knew that Essex was aware
of his having been during this event a married man, and that his
wife, who was a distant relation of the Earl's, was still living. The
marriage, however, came to Essex's ears, and Hamilton was called to
account. He denied the marriage, the old priest having been now dead,
and none but the Protestant clergyman of the parish being alive to bear
testimony to the fact of the marriage. He endeavored to prevail upon the
clergyman also to deny the marriage, which he refused to do, whereupon
he was found murdered. His wife by this marriage having learned from
Essex that Hamilton had most treacherously deceived her, fell into
premature labor and died; but her last words were an awful curse upon
him, and his children after him, to the last generation.

"'May the Eye that lured me to destruction,' she said, 'become a curse
to you and your descendants forever! May it blight and kill all those
whom it looks upon, and render it dreadful and dreaded to all those who
will place confidence in you or your descendants!'"

"God knows I couldn't much blame her; it was her last Christian
benediction to the villain who had destroyed her, and, setting-charity
aside, I don't see how she could have spoken otherwise.

"When the proofs of the marriage, however, were about to be brought
against him, the Protestant clergyman, who, on discovering his iniquity,
was too honest to conceal it, and who felt bitterly the fraud that had
been practised on him, was found murdered, as I have said, because he
was now the only evidence left against Hamilton's crime. The latter
did not, however, get rid of him by