+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

The sad duties of such attendance
being divided among many sisters, as
they then were, the night watches devolved
upon the two ladies I have named: I think,
as being the eldest.

It is not improbable that these long and
melancholy vigils, lowering the spirits and
exciting the nervous system, prepared them
for illusions.  At all events, one night at
dead of night, Miss Baily and her sister,
sitting in the dying lady's room, heard
such sweet and melancholy music as they
had never heard before.  It seemed to
them like distant cathedral music.  The
room of the dying girl had its windows
toward the yard, and the old castle stood
near, and full in sight.  The music was not
in the house, but seemed to come from the
yard, or beyond it.  Miss Anne Baily took
a candle, and went down the back stairs.
She opened the back door, and, standing
there, heard the same faint but solemn
harmony, and could not tell whether it
most resembled the distant music of
instruments, or a choir of voices.  It seemed
to come through the windows of the old
castle, high in the air.  But when she
approached the tower, the music, she thought,
came from above the house, at the other
side of the yard; and thus perplexed, and
at last frightened, she returned.

This aerial music both she and her sister,
Miss Susan Baily, avowed that they
distinctly heard, and for a long time.  Of the
fact she was clear, and she spoke of it with
great awe.

THE GOVERNESS'S DREAM.

This lady, one morning, with a grave
countenance that indicated something
weighty upon her mind, told her pupils
that she had, on the night before, had a
very remarkable dream.

The first room you enter in the old
castle, having reached the foot of the spiral
stone stair, is a large hall, dim and lofty,
having only a small window or two, set
high in deep recesses in the wall. When
I saw the castle many years ago, a portion
of this capacious chamber was used as a
store for the turf laid in to last the year.

Her dream placed her, alone, in this
room, and there entered a grave-looking
man, having something very remarkable in
his countenance: which impressed her, as a
fine portrait sometimes will, with a haunting
sense of character and individuality.

In his hand this man carried a wand,
about the length of an ordinary walking
cane.  He told her to observe and
remember its length, and to mark well the
measurements he was about to make, the
result of which she was to communicate to
Mr. Baily, of Lough Guir.

From a certain point in the wall, with
this wand, he measured along the floor, at
right angles with the wall, a certain
number of its lengths, which he counted aloud;
and then, in the same way, from the
adjoining wall he measured a certain number
of its lengths, which he also counted
distinctly. He then told her that at the point
where these two lines met, at a depth of a
certain number of feet which he also told
her, treasure lay buried.  And so the dream
broke up, and her remarkable visitant
vanished.

She took the girls with her to the old
castle, where, having cut a switch to the
length represented to her in her dream, she
measured the distances, and ascertained,
as she supposed, the point on the floor
beneath which the treasure lay.  The same
day she related her dream to Mr. Baily.
But he treated it laughingly, and took no
step in consequence.

Some time after this, she again saw, in a
dream, the same remarkable-looking man,
who repeated his message, and appeared
displeased.  But the dream was treated by
Mr. Baily as before.

The same dream occurred again, and the
children became so clamorous to have the
castle floor explored, with pick and shovel,
at the point indicated by the thrice-seen
messenger, that at length Mr. Baily
consented, and the floor was opened, and a
trench was sunk at the spot which the
governess had pointed out.

Miss Anne Baily, and nearly all the members
of the family, her father included, were
present at this operation. As the workmen
approached the depth described in the
vision, the interest and suspense of all
increased; and when the iron implements
met the solid resistance of a broad
flagstone, which returned a cavernous sound
to the stroke, the excitement of all present
rose to its acme.

With some difficulty the flag was raised,
and a chamber of stone work, large enough
to receive a moderately-sized crock or pot,
was disclosed.  Alas! it was empty.  But
in the earth at the bottom of it, Miss Baily
said, she herself saw, as every other
bystander plainly did, the circular impression
of a vessel: which had stood there, as the
mark seemed to indicate, for a very long
time.

Both the Miss Bailys were strong in their