advance and retire: which, though we are not by any means a
superstitious nobleman, is not agreeable. Well! we get nervous--
more and more nervous. We say "This is very foolish, but we can't
stand this; we'll pretend to be ill, and knock up somebody." Well!
we are just going to do it, when the locked door opens, and there
comes in a young woman, deadly pale, and with long fair hair, who
glides to the fire, and sits down in the chair we have left there,
wringing her hands. Then, we notice that her clothes are wet. Our
tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth, and we can't speak; but, we
observe her accurately. Her clothes are wet; her long hair is
dabbled with moist mud; she is dressed in the fashion of two hundred
years ago; and she has at her girdle a bunch of rusty keys. Well!
there she sits, and we can't even faint, we are in such a state
about it. Presently she gets up, and tries all the locks in the
room with the rusty keys, which won't fit one of them; then, she
fixes her eyes on the portrait of the cavalier in green, and says,
in a low, terrible voice, "The stags know it!" After that, she
wrings her hands again, passes the bedside, and goes out at the
door. We hurry on our dressing-gown, seize our pistols (we always
travel with pistols), and are following, when we find the door
locked. We turn the key, look out into the dark gallery; no one
there. We wander away, and try to find our servant. Can't be done.
We pace the gallery till daybreak; then return to our deserted room,
fall asleep, and are awakened by our servant (nothing ever haunts
him) and the shining sun. Well! we make a wretched breakfast, and
all the company say we look queer. After breakfast, we go over the
house with our host, and then we take him to the portrait of the
cavalier in green, and then it all comes out. He was false to a
young housekeeper once attached to that family, and famous for her
beauty, who drowned herself in a pond, and whose body was