It may be supposed that the dinner which was served to Lord Erradeen after this episode was done but little justice to. The trout was delicious, the bird cooked to perfection; but the young man, seated in sight of the apparently vacant chair, where so lately his visitor had been seated, could scarcely swallow a morsel. Was he there still, though no one could see him? or had he departed only to return again when Symington and the meal had been cleared away, and the evening was free? There was a sickening sensation at Walter’s heart as he asked himself these questions, and indeed, throughout this portion of his life, his experience was that the actual presence of this extraordinary person was very much less exciting and confusing than the effect produced during his apparent absence, when the idea that he might still be there unseen, or might appear at any moment, seemed to disturb the mental balance in a far more painful way. In the present case the effect was overpowering. Walter had been talking to him almost with freedom: it was impossible, indeed, thus to converse—even though the conversation was something of a struggle, with a man possessed of all the ordinary faculties, and in appearance, though more dignified and stately than most, yet in no way unlike other men—without a gradual cessation of those mysterious tremors with which the soul is convulsed in presence of anything that appears supernatural. The personage who inhabited, or (for it was impossible to think of him as inhabiting a ruin) periodically visited Kinloch Houran had nothing in him save his stateliness of aspect which need have separated him from ordinary men. He would have attracted attention anywhere, but except as a person of unusual distinction, would have startled no one; and even when the young man so cruelly subject to his influence talked with him, it was impossible to keep up the superstitious terror which nature feels for the inexplainable. But as soon as he withdrew, all this instinctive feeling returned. Walter’s nerves and imagination sprang up into full play again, and got command of his reason. By moments it seemed to him that he caught a glimpse still of an outline in the chair, of eyes looking at him, of the smile and the voice which expressed so full a knowledge of all his own past history and everything that was in him. This consciousness gave to his eyes the same scared yet searching look which he had seen in those of Symington, took his breath from him, made his head whirl, and his heart fail. Symington waiting behind his chair, but eagerly on the watch for any sign, saw that his young lord was ghastly pale, and perceived the half stealthy look which he cast around him, and especially the entire failure of his appetite. This is a thing which no Scotch domestic can bear.

“You are no eating, my lord,” he said in a tone of gentle reproach, as he withdrew the plate with the untasted trout. (“That many a poor gentleman would have been glad of!” he said to himself.)

“No, I am not particularly hungry,” Walter said, with a pretence at carelessness.

“I can recommend the bird,” said Symington, “if it’s no just a cheeper, for the season is advanced, it’s been young and strong on the wing; and good game is rich, fortifying both to the body and spirit. Those that have delicate stomachs, it is just salvation to them—and for those that are, as ye may say, in the condition of invalids in the mind——”

Symington had entirely recovered from his own nervousness. He moved about the room with a free step, and felt himself fully restored to the position of counsellor and adviser, with so much additional freedom as his young master was less in a position to restrain him, and permitted him to speak almost without interruption. Indeed Walter as he ineffectually tried to eat was half insensible to the monologue going on over his head.

“Ye must not neglect the body,” Symington said, “especially in a place like this where even the maist reasonable man may be whiles put to it to keep his right senses. If ye’ll observe, my lord, them that see what ye may call visions are mostly half starvit creatures, fasting or ill-nourished. Superstition, in my opinion, has a great deal to do with want of meat. But your lordship is paying no attention. Just two three mouthfuls, my lord! just as a duty to yourself and all your friends, and to please a faithful auld servant,” Symington said, with more and more insinuating tones. There was something almost pathetic in the insistance with which he pressed “a breast of pairtridge that would tempt a saint” upon his young master. The humour of it struck Walter dully through the confusion of his senses. It was all like a dream to him made up of the laughable and the miserable; until Symington at la............