burn, and said, "It is good to drink
if a man might but tarry by it." He turned to his old friend, Sir Hugh
Ceeston, who was repulsed by the sheriff from the scaffold, saying:
"Never fear but _I_ shall have a place."
When a man extremely bald pressed forward to see Raleigh, and to pray for
him, Sir Walter took from his own head a richly embroidered cap, and
placing it on that of the aged spectator, said:
"Take this, good friend, to remember me, for you have more need of it than
I."
"Farewell, my lords," he exclaimed to a courtly group, who took an
affectionate leave of him; "I have a long journey before me, and must say
good-by."
"Now I am going to God," said he, as he reached the scaffold; and gently
touching the ax, continued, "This is a sharp medicine, but it will cure
all diseases."
The very executioner shrunk from beheading one so brave and illustrious,
until the unintimidated knight encouraged him, saying:
"What dost thou fear? Strike, man!"
In another moment the great soul had fled from its mangled tenement.
Next shall be related the story of the Tower Ghost; "communicated by Sir
David Brewster to Professor Gregory," and authentically recorded in
"Letters on Animal Magnetism?"
At the trial of Queen Caroline, in 1821, the guards of the Tower were
doubled; and Colonel S----, the keeper of the Regalia, was quartered there
with his family. Toward twilight one evening, and before dark, he, his
wife, son, and daughter were sitting, listening to the sentinels, who were
singing and answering one another, on the beats above and below. The
evening was sultry, and the door stood ajar, when something suddenly
rolled in through the open space. Colonel S---- at first thought it was a
cloud of smoke, but it assumed the shape of a pyramid of dark thick gray,
with something working toward its centre. Mrs. S---- saw a form. Miss S----
felt an indescribable sensation of chill and horror. The son sat at the
window, staring at the terrified and agitated party; but saw nothing. Mrs.
S---- threw her head down upon her arms on the table, and screamed. The
Colonel took a chair, and hurled it at the phantom, through which it
passed. The cloud seemed to him to revolve round the room, and then
disappear, as it came, through the door. He had scarcely risen from his
chair to follow, when he heard a loud shriek, and a heavy fall at the
bottom of the stair. He stopped to listen, and in a few minutes the guard
came up and c
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