Judkins started! The knock alone seemed to convulse his whole frame. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "what have I done? what have I done? what have I done?"
"Judkins!" said his mistress, but as she had caught cold, her voice was not sufficiently clear to be recognised, "Judkins!"
"Leave me," he continued, "for heaven's sake leave me! I know I'm a miserable sinner, but leave me! Go somewhere else: you've mistaken the room: indeed you have: you have, I assure you!"
When Mary and cook—who had followed their mistress closely, for then they would not have lost sight of her for the world—heard these awful words uttered, they felt quite convinced that, whatever mistake the ghost might have made, he was then in the room with Judkins. They were sure of it!—perfectly sure: and conceiving that their mistress must have inspired the same conviction, they implored her, in trembling whispers, to retire. But no!—her mind was firm! She was resolved to know, if possible, the cause of this delusion, and, therefore, knocked loudly again at the door.
"Oh, pray go away," said Judkins, bitterly, "pray do!"
"Judkins!" exclaimed Aunt Eleanor, "Judkins!—'tis I!—your mistress!"
"You, ma'am! Oh, thank heaven! is it you?"
"Yes, 'tis I. What is the matter? Dress yourself instantly, and open the door."
Judkins, who felt of course greatly relieved, threw off the bedclothes, and slipped on his smalls, but when, pale and trembling, he opened the door, his countenance bore still an expression of terror.
"What is this, Judkins?" demanded Aunt Eleanor, "what can be the meaning of it all?"
"Oh," replied Judkins, who felt very ill, "the house is haunted: I know it is.—I've seen," he added, in a harsh unearthly whisper, "I've seen a horrid ghost."
"Where?" said Aunt Eleanor, "I have really no patience with you: where did you see it?"
"There!" replied Judkins, still in a whisper, pointing to the passage with startling effect, "There!"
"Are you all mad!" exclaimed Aunt Eleanor, perceiving that they looked towards the passage, as if apprehensive of the "ghost's" re-appearance; "or is it all done to alarm me? There is," she added, with an expression of intensity, "there is something, I fear, beneath the surface of this. If you have any bad design—if you are actuated by any unhallowed notions—if you have conspired together with the view of accomplishing any wicked object—pray, before you retire to rest, that heaven may turn your hearts!"
With all the eloquence of which they were capable, they implored her to believe that they were attached to her sincerely—that they had been, and would continue to be, faithful to the last—and that the proceedings of that awful night, were ascribable, justly, to no wicked motive—no base conspiracy—no bad design.
"I will speak to you all," she observedj "in the morning; but if—I
