SOME years ago, I went home to stay with my parents for holiday. They
had recently moved into an old mansion which had been converted into
a double dwelling-house, both parties using the same staircase and
hall. During my stay, my mother and father took the opportunity to go
away for a week end, leaving me to get meals for a friend who lived
with them, and whose duties as a postal servant often brought him
home in the early hours of the morning. My mother feared, as I was
young, I might not rise in time to get his breakfast. I gave my
promise I would do it, but did not mention how. Accordingly, I sat up
all night busy with fancy work until it was time for me to get ready
a nice hot breakfast. I felt sure if I went to bed at my usual hour I
should not waken. When all was ready—about 2 a.m.— I went into the
hall to listen for any sound of the friend coming. The door of the
room I was in faced the staircase which was very wide, and, right in
front of me, about half way down the staircase, stood a tall
gentleman clad in brown velvet jacket, cord breeches, leggings and
huntsman's cap. Thinking it might be a friend of the people in the
other half of the house, I went in and closed the door, wondering why
he was roaming about the house at that hour. When the friend arrived
for breakfast, I told him what I had seen. He laughed heartily and
then said: “So you have seen him?” I asked where the joke came in, and
he calmly told me he saw the same gentleman repeatedly—he haunted the
house. Needless to say, I did not spend another night in sitting up.
When mother returned and I told her my experience, she was ever so
sorry she had left me; she did not dream I would stay up. She then
told me that night after night she and father were kept awake with
music and dancing somewhere close to their bedroom, and they could
find out nothing to account for it. Some time after, the place was
pulled down and a large jar of golden coins was found embedded in one
of the walls of the bedroom in which my parents slept. This may sound
to some people like a fairy tale, but it is perfectly true, and,
whenever I think of the place, I can see that gentleman who, they
told me, always vanished as soon as you had seen him.