phantasm occurred when I was a boy. I was staying with some friends in a large old country house in the Midlands, and being, even at that early age, fond of adventure, I frequently used to wander off alone in order to explore the adjacent neighbourhood. On one of these peregrinations I arrived at a farm which, for some reason or other, happened just then to be untenanted. Delighted at the prospect of examining the empty buildings, I scaled a gate, and, crossing a paved yard, entered a large barn. The sight of one or two rats scurrying away at my approach made me wish I had my friend's terrier with me, and I was turning to look for a stone or some missile to throw at them, when a noise in the far corner of the building attracted my attention. It was now twilight, and the only windows in the place being small, dirty, and high from the ground, the further extremities of the barn were bathed in gloom, and in a gloom that made me feel nervous. Following the direction of the sound, I looked and saw to my inconceivable horror a tall, luminous something with a white rectangular head, crouching on the floor. As its long, glittering, evil eyes met mine it sprang up (I then perceived that it was fully seven feet high and perfectly nude), and, with its spidery arms poised high in the air, darted forward. Shrieking at the top of my voice, I flew, and my wild cries for help being overheard by some of my friends, who chanced to be returning home that way, they at once came to my assistance. I shall never forget their faces, for I am sure my cries frightened them almost as much as the apparition had frightened me. To assure me it must have been my imagination, they searched the building, and, of course, saw nothing, as the phantasm had, doubtless, dematerialised. I made enquiries, however, on the quiet about the farm, and learned that it had always borne the reputation for being haunted, and that it was on that account that it was then untenanted. Needless to say, I never ventured there again alone!

When I was in Dublin in 1892, I stayed for a while at a boarding-house in Leeson Street. The house, which was large and gloomy, impressed me from the very first with a sense of loneliness, and I intuitively felt that all its denizens were not of flesh and blood. I occupied a bedroom on the first floor, on which at the time of my visit there were only two other people, both of whom slept in rooms opposite to mine, on the other side of the landing. The shape of my room was rendered somewhat peculiar owing to the deep window recess on the one side, and the still deeper alcove, in which my bed stood, on the other. In the twilight, whilst the former of these recesses was filled with the weirdest shadows imaginable, the latter was so bathed in gloom as to be hardly discernible at all. The furniture, which reflected the past glories of the proprietress, who, like so many people in that position in Dublin, belonged to an at one time wealthy family of landed proprietors, consisted of a massive mahogany four-poster, handsomely carved and draped in faded yellow tapestry, a huge, mahogany wardrobe, an ottoman, covered with tapestry, adorned at irregular intervals with the most grotesque arabesque figures; a bog-oak chest, richly carved and always kept locked; two antique, big, oaken chairs, and several rather damaged and painfully modern cane-bottomed ones; a threadbare carpet that might have been a Brussels, and just the necessary amount of ordinary bedroom articles, several of which were very much the worse for wear.

I never liked the room, for, apart from its habitual darkness—a darkness that seemed to me to be quite independent of the daylight—there was in it an atmosphere of intense oppression, an oppression that seemed to arise solely and wholly from an evil influence. Night after night my sleep was disturbed by the most harrowing dreams, from which I invariably awoke with a start to find my heart beating violently, and my body bathed in perspiration. Those sort of dreams were quite unusual to me; indeed, I had seldom had them since I was a child; they certainly could not be in any way accounted for by my state of health, which was quite normal, nor by my food, which was of the simplest and most digestive nature. Though ashamed to admit it, I at last grew to dread going to bed on account of those dreams, and I accordingly requested the proprietress of the establishment to give me another room. This she somewhat reluctantly promised to do the following day. Overjoyed at the prospect of so speedy a deliverance from a room I so cordially feared and detested, I went to bed that night with a comparatively light heart, assuring myself gleefully that it would be the last time I should sleep there. I can remember even now my thoughts as I undressed. What an inadequate light my candle gave as I placed it on the chimney-piece, and watched its feeble, flickering flame vainly trying to dissipate the heavy folds of darkness that seemed to roll in on me from the surrounding nooks and crannies with unprecedented intensity! How unusually bright the surface of the mirror looked, and with what remarkable clearness it reflected the bog-oak chest! The bog-oak chest! I could not remove my eyes from it, and as I stared at its image in the glass, I saw to my horror the long-locked, heavy cover slowly begin to rise. Gradually, very gradually, it opened, until I fancied I could detect something grey and evil peering out at me. My terror was now so great that I dare not turn round to look at the actual chest, but was compelled by an irresistible fascination to keep my attention riveted on the mirror, upon the surface of which there suddenly fell a dark and fantastically shaped shadow that, apparently proceeding from the chest, moved stealthily towards my bed, and disappeared in the innermost recesses of the dimly-lighted alcove. I was so unnerved by this incident that it was only after a series of severe mental efforts that I could persuade myself to make a thorough examination of the room, and so satisfy myself that what I had seen was in all probability the result of my imagination. With timid footsteps I first of all approached the chest—it was still locked. I then advanced more complacently to the bed, and, falling on my hands and knees, peered under it—there was nothing to be seen! Endeavouring to persuade myself now that there were absolutely no grounds for fear, and that mere shadows—for whichever way I turned, the room was full of them—could do me no harm, I undressed, and, blowing out the candle, got into bed. Having spent the day fishing off the Mugglestone Rocks, near Dalkey (in company with two of my fellow students at the Queen's Service Academy), I felt healthily tired, and, after a few preliminary turns and twists to get into a comfortable position, was soon fast asleep. I awoke with a violent start, just as the clock on the landing outside solemnly struck two. The house was wrapped in complete silence, and, beyond a few occasional creakings on the stairs and in—so I fancied—the recess of the window, I could hear nothing. The sky, which had been covered with a thick coating of grey mist all the day, had cleared, and a silvery stream of moonlight, pouring in through the open window, flooded that side of the room on which stood the bog-oak chest. Again my eyes involuntarily wandered to the mirror, which was exactly opposite to where I lay, and again, with even greater horror than before, I watched the lid of the chest slowly begin to rise. Wider and wider it opened, until, with a faint click, it fell back on its hinges and struck the wall. I then saw a tall, grey shape climb out of it, and, with a snake-like movement of its long