story... The
chord which vibrates and sounds at a touch remains in
silent tension under continued pressure."[113]

Scott's ghost story, _The Tapestried Chamber, or the Lady in the
Sacque_[114] which he heard from Miss Anna Seward, who had an
unexpected gift for recounting such things at country house
parties, gives the impression of being carefully planned
according to rule. As a human being the Lady in the Sacque had a
black record, but, considered dispassionately as a ghost, her
manners and deportment are irreproachable. The ghost-seer's
independence of character are so firmly insisted upon that it
seems impertinent to doubt the veracity of his story. _My Aunt
Margaret's Mirror_ was told to Scott in childhood by an ancient
spinster, whose pleasing fancy it was to read alone in her
chamber by the light of a taper fixed in a candlestick which she
had formed out of a human skull, and who was learned in
superstitious lore. She describes accurately the mood, when "the
female imagination is in due temperature to enjoy a ghost story":

"All that is indispensable for the enjoyment of the
milder feeling of supernatural awe is that you should
be susceptible of the slight shuddering which creeps
over you when you hear a tale of terror--that
well-vouched tale which the narrator, having first
expressed his general disbelief of all such legendary
lore, selects and produces, as having something in it
which he has been always obliged to give up as
inexplicable. Another symptom is a momentary hesitation
to look round you, when the interest of the narrative
is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid
looking into a mirror, when you are alone, in your
chamber, for the evening."[115]

In her story "Aunt Margaret" describes how, in a magic mirror
belonging to Dr. Baptista Damiotti, Lady Bothwell and her sister
Lady Forester see the wedding ceremony of Sir Philip Forester and
a young girl in a foreign city interrupted by Lady Forester's
brother, who is slain in the duel that ensues. Scott regarded
these two stories as trifles designed to while away a leisure
hour. On _Wandering Willie's Tale_--a masterpiece of supernatural
terror--he bestowed unusual care. The ill fa'urd, fearsome
couple--Sir Robert with his face "gash and ghastly as Satan's,"
and "Major Weir," the jackanape, in his red-laced coat and
wig--Steenie's eerie encounter with the "stranger