manor house
on the northern Border--a house that, lying in a deep crook of the Tweed
and hidden by trees, had marvellously escaped the hand and torch of the
raider.

He had succeeded to his great-uncle--an antiquary and recluse--a
disappointed bachelor, and latterly, 'twas said, somewhat of a miser,
which was fortunate for my friend, who had very little of his own.

Harry was soon to be married, and I was to be best man. He had come down
to interview the agent and see what alterations and new furniture would
be required, and had insisted on my joining him for a few days' fishing
in the Tweed, while he was being inducted by agent and bailiff into his
estate and introduced to the tenantry. After surveying his ancestors'
portraits we adjourned to the hall, which was furnished with
battle-axes, Jethart spears, basket-hilted swords, maces, salmon
leisters, masks of otters and foumarts, foxes and badgers, and all the
various trophies of Border sport and warfare of old time. This was the
oldest part of the house, and proved by its stone-vaulted roof that it
had belonged to the old peel tower on to which the manor had been
engrafted; a fire of pine logs flamed in an open fireplace, gleaming and
glancing on the copper drums that held relays of firewood on either
hand.

Skins of red deer and the tufted pelts of kyloe cattle lay on the stone
floor: there were massive black oak coffers and a great wardrobe like
some huge safe for coats behind us, but two broad ancient leathern
armchairs stood by the hearth invitingly, suggestive of unperturbed
eighteenth-century ease, wherein we at once settled ourselves.

It was perhaps the absence of feminine taste and adornment that made the
house seem older than it really was; apart from the charming portraits
of the ladies in the dining-room the house resembled rather a Border
strength than a Jacobean manor house.

However, the atmosphere was rendered all the more romantic thereby, and
I lay back in my chair making believe to myself that I was staying with
a Lord Warden of the Marches in the days of the ancient feud between
England and Scotland.

We smoked and talked, however, not of the far, but of the immediate,
past, of Eton and Oxford, and of mutual friends till twelve o'clock
struck on the brazen rim of a Cromwellian clock, and we agreed that it
was bedtime.

I had clean forgotten all about the reputed ghost till my host said
'good-night' at the door of my bedroom and bade me ca