"ALAS! POOR GHOST."

SILENTLY the pale blue flames waved and danced over the surface of the coals, as, sitting late one wintry evening before the fire, I threw aside a volume of the "Demonology," and fell into a revery. On a sudden several taps at the door aroused me, and I remarked, "Come in." That the rapper came in was not to be wondered at (such a thing had happened before); but that he entered directly through the door without opening it certainly authorized some expression of astonishment. I raised my eyebrows and looked more closely at my visitor.

He was short, but strongly built, and dressed as men dressed long ago; his face was pallid and strangely contorted; a heavy rope was knotted around his neck and trailed upon the floor. I was about to offer the figure a chair when it occurred to me that it might be his custom to take rest by hanging himself up; and having no conveniences for performing that operation, I hesitated. At the same moment the apparition grasped the rope with both hands, and, by a mysteriously complicated movement, caused himself to perform a complete somersault.

"Well," said I. The charm was broken.

"It was I, - it was I; I did it, - I did it," wailed the figure, brandishing its hands wildly. "Prayers, prayers; it's prayers that troubles me!"

"Curious coinci - " I began, but the figure interrupted me.

"I cannot stop, I must speak; listen and despise me."

Pausing a moment to repeat the performance above described, he went on more calmly:-

"Nearly two hundred years have passed since I was bell-ringer at this college, and many things have changed; but prayers, the evidence of my guilt, exist. I was almost a part of the college; I had taken my place when a boy and grown old in it. I loved the grounds, the building, most of all I loved my bell, and my greatest pleasure was in ringing it. Twice in the early morning, when the sun was rising, often through the day, and twice at evening, I delighted to send that pleasant sound out over the fields. When I was already an old man there came to me a rumor of an intention to abolish prayers. Day after day passed, and it grew into certainty. One of our college rulers, a man of great learning and influence, was earnestly advocating it; and by the strength of his will seemed likely to succeed in putting an end to them. I was in despair; to lose at once four ringings of the bell a day, - I could not bear the thought, for those were the pleasantest times of all. My grief became anger; my anger grew into hatred of the man who was so cruelly depriving me of an innocent pleasure. At last there came a fatal evening when there was to be a final meeting of our rulers on the question, and it seemed certain that my enemy would be successful. In anger and bitterness of spirit I walked the grass before the Hall. A fierce gale was raging, and above gigantic wind-torn clouds rushed across the sky. Suddenly, in the gloom, a shape, black as the storm, with eyes as fiery as my wrath, stood by my side and whispered:-

"'Only one man urges on this hateful plan, and he soon comes here alone, and the old well is very deep.'

"'But that would be murder,' said I, in fear and hope.

"If he passes,' replied the Shape, 'your happiness is gone; only one little motion and he shall not pass. Listen; I, the master of good and evil, promise you then a long and happy life.'

"But what of the next world?' I rather thought than said.

"'Joy forever,' said the fiend; 'you shall ring night and day!'

"And that instant the man we spoke of came, and was passing between me and the old and nearly forgotten well, and strongly I pressed against him and he fell. A howling gust swept the field, and, folded in the darkness of the Shape, I was hurried through the air." The apparition stopped.

"What else?" said I.

"Retribution!" answered he. "My end was gained. Prayers were not abolished, but I, from that hour, was doomed to wander near the scene of my crime, until I should see done that which I most dreaded when alive. Nearly two centuries I have waited for the abolition of prayers, and still I see no sign of it. Until that takes place anguish unspeakable is mine!"

"And your dark friend," said I, "did he keep his promise about the ringing?"

"He did," replied the ghost with a groan, - "he did; this is the rope and I am the bell."

Saying these words, the vision gave a violent pull upon the rope, and vanished in a somersault through the door.

I picked up my Demonology. "Poor ghost!" I thought, "though perhaps rightly punished, his case is a hard one. Were his story more widely known, I am sure that there is not a man in college who would not, to relieve this spirit's pain, give up some of his own pleasures, even that of going to prayers."