Some few years since, before ghosts and spectres were commonly introduced among us by means of the pantomimes and novels of the day, a gentleman of a philosophical turn of mind, who was hardy enough to deny the existence of any thing supernatural, happened to pay a visit at an old house in Gloucestershire, whose unfortunate owner had just become a bankrupt, with a view to offer such assistance and consolation as he could bestow: when, in one rainy dull evening in the month of March, the family being seated by the kitchen fire-side, the conversation turned on supernatural appearances. The philosopher was endeavouring to convince his auditors of the folly and absurdity of such opinions, with rather an unbecoming levity, when the wife left the party and went up stairs; but had hardly quitted the kitchen three minutes, before a dreadful noise was heard, mingled with Had the story stopped here, what would not superstition have made of it? But the philosopher, who was still pumping, now found the water grew paler; and, at last, pure water filled the vessel. Overjoyed at this observation, he threw the limpid stream in the face of the mistress, whose recovery was assisted by the appearance of her husband and Betty. The mystery, when explained, turned out to be simply this—The good housewife, when she knew that a docket had been struck against her husband, had taken care to conceal some of her choice cherry brandy, from the rapacious gripe of the messenger to the Commissioners of Bankrupts, on some shelves in a closet up stairs, which also contained, agreeably to the ancient architecture of the building, the trunk of the pump below; and, in trying to move the jars, to get at a drop for the party at the kitchen fire, the shelf gave way with a tremendous crash; the jars were broken into an hundred pieces; the rich juice descended in torrents down the trunk of the pump, and filled, with its ruby current, the sucker beneath; and this was the self-same fluid which the philosopher, in his fright, had so madly thrown away. The Often has this story been told, by one who knew the philosopher, with great effect, till the last act, or denouement; when disappointment was mostly visible in the looks of his auditors, at finding there was actually nothing supernatural in the affair, and no ghost. |