My first impulse was to raise my head, and look anxiously around. The moon was shining brightly; the room was flooded with her light, and I could see every article in it with the most perfect distinctness. I appeared to take in everything at a glance, but my gaze was arrested by a single object, and I remained for some moments as if spellbound.
As has been already mentioned, the dressing-table stood against the window, and beneath it, but somewhat drawn forward, I had placed my open portmanteau. Kneeling in front of this, in an attitude as if he had been suddenly disturbed whilst examining its contents, was a black—not a negro, for his features had a different cast—dressed in a white jacket and trousers. He did not move, but kept his eyes fixed steadily upon me.
No very terrible sight this, after all, it will be said. A mere midnight pilferer detected in the act. And so also thought I, when a few moments’ wakefulness had enabled me to cast off a little of that strange sense of dread which had so oppressed me.
“A thieving servant of the house, terror-struck at detection: he must be caught and brought to justice.”
Acting upon this idea, I thrust aside the curtain, and jumped out of bed. As I did so, the kneeling figure arose—slowly, steadily—still keeping his eyes fixed on me, with a calm and mournful, rather than an alarmed expression. Rushing forward, shouting “Un voleur, un voleur!” I advanced so close to the supposed culprit—who now stood erect—that I stretched out my hand to seize him; but, eluding my grasp, he sprang past me, and disappeared behind the bed. Then, indeed, I was sorely puzzled, for, on hastening to the spot, neither door nor traces of an opening were to be discovered, and all my feeling of nervous apprehension came back with renewed violence.
Meantime, the French gentleman and his wife, who occupied the double-bedded room, alarmed by my cries, made anxious inquiry from their side of the separating doors—“Pourquoi criez-vous, monsieur?” in the deepest bass, alternated with “Pourquoi criez-vous, monsieur?” in a trembling and timid treble.
“It was a dream,” said I, in my best French, somewhat re-assured by the sound of a human voice, and half-ashamed of myself. “It was but a dream, and I thought I saw a robber. Mille pardons.” And to the waiter, who came to my still inside-fastened door with a light, I said: “It was only a dream, an attack of indigestion; I ought not to have eaten supper.” But I kept his candle, and as I laid, encouraged by its fear-dispelling light, I asked myself the question, “Could it have been a ghost?” I felt quite certain that it was not the nightmare, for the horrors of that disagreeable visitant are dispelled by the slightest movement. It was not the nightmare: what then could it have been? and divers times I made answer to the self-asked question, “Surely it was a ghost.” And so I fell asleep.
Years have passed away since the event I have just related. My few days’ sojourn at the Mauritius come back to me at times like the recollection of a pleasant dream. The faces of the kind friends and acquaintances of that charming isle are but dimly pictured in my memory; many incidents have been totally forgotten; but one black face, and every circumstance connected with the brief interval of time during which my eyes rested upon it, are as vividly impressed upon my mind as if it had been seen but yesterday; and still I find myself at times repeating the old question, “Was it a ghost?”
BIRDS IN THE BORDER COUNTIES.
The bird family in the Border counties is well represented. We can number forty-five resident natives, thirty-nine migrant natives, and upwards of twenty occasional visitors.
The wide range of the Border hills, running almost from coast to coast, with their solitary, and in many places precipitous glens—some of them so narrow and deep that the sun cannot shine into them—form a secluded retreat for a number of birds of prey; and over these moorlands and hills all common moorfowl abound. And even the cultivation now spreading so rapidly over many moorlands hitherto considered waste, in our opinion will not render these uplands untenable to the birds that inhabit them for some centuries to come.
From these hills rise the rivers Esk, Tyne, Coquet, and Tweed, whose outlets are the Solway Firth and the German Ocean. And in the lower districts, the finely wooded and tangled banks of these rivers, and many of their numerous tributaries, afford pleasant and sheltered abodes for a pretty numerous variety of song-birds.
The resident birds of prey are the peregrine, or hunting falcon, kestrel, sparrow-hawk, common buzzard, hen-harrier, white or barn owl, tawny owl, little owl, and the long-eared owl; and the merlin and short-eared owl are regular visitors, the former in winter, the latter in summer. The raven is also an inhabitant of the upper fells.
Mr. Wallis, in his “Natural History of Northumberland,” says the golden eagle “formerly had its aërie on the highest and steepest part of the Cheviots,” which must have been Henshole Corry. But these eagles are never seen on the Cheviots now.
We recently explored Henshole Corry, in the heart of the great Cheviot, a favourite and permanent residence of the peregrine falcon and the “lordly raven.” College Water, Northumberland, rises a few miles above the head of the corry, down which it dashes in an almost continual succession of waterfalls, varying in height from ten to thirty feet; and near the summit of the great rocks that almost overhang the water, these birds have for a long period of years had their home.
In our ascent of the glen we saw three ravens swooping and sailing above us at a great height, our attention having been drawn to them by