“Farewell, my lords,” he exclaimed to a courtly group, who took an affectionate leave of him; “I have a long journey before me, and must say good-by.”
“Now I am going to God,” said he, as he reached the scaffold; and gently touching the ax, continued, “This is a sharp medicine, but it will cure all diseases.”
The very executioner shrunk from beheading one so brave and illustrious, until the unintimidated knight encouraged him, saying:
“What dost thou fear? Strike, man!”
In another moment the great soul had fled from its mangled tenement.
Next shall be related the story of the Tower Ghost; “communicated by Sir David Brewster to Professor Gregory,” and authentically recorded in “Letters on Animal Magnetism?”
At the trial of Queen Caroline, in 1821, the guards of the Tower were doubled; and Colonel S——, the keeper of the Regalia, was quartered there with his family. Toward twilight one evening, and before dark, he, his wife, son, and daughter were sitting, listening to the sentinels, who were singing and answering one another, on the beats above and below. The evening was sultry, and the door stood ajar, when something suddenly rolled in through the open space. Colonel S—— at first thought it was a cloud of smoke, but it assumed the shape of a pyramid of dark thick gray, with something working toward its centre. Mrs. S—— saw a form. Miss S—— felt an indescribable sensation of chill and horror. The son sat at the window, staring at the terrified and agitated party; but saw nothing. Mrs. S—— threw her head down upon her arms on the table, and screamed. The Colonel took a chair, and hurled it at the phantom, through which it passed. The cloud seemed to him to revolve round the room, and then disappear, as it came, through the door. He had scarcely risen from his chair to follow, when he heard a loud shriek, and a heavy fall at the bottom of the stair. He stopped to listen, and in a few minutes the guard came up and challenged the poor sentry, who had been so lately singing, but who now lay at the entrance in a swoon. The sergeant shook him rudely, declared he was asleep at his post, and put him under arrest. Next day the soldier was brought to a court-martial, when Colonel S—— appeared on his behalf, to testify that he could not have been asleep, for that he had been singing, and the Colonel's family had been listening, ten minutes before. The man declared that, while walking toward the stair-entrance, a dreadful figure had issued from the doorway, which he took at first for an escaped bear on its hind legs. It passed him, and scowled upon him with a [pg 350] human face, and the expression of a demon, disappearing over the Barbican. He was so frightened that he became giddy, and knew no more. His story, of course, was not credited by his judges; but he was believed to have had an attack of vertigo, and was acquitted and released on Colonel's S——'s evidence.
That evening Colonel S—— went to congratulate the man, but he was so changed that he did not know him. From a glow of rude health in his handsome face, he had become of the color of bad paste. Colonel S—— said to him:
“Why do you look so dejected, my lad? I think I have done you a great favor in getting you off; and I would advise you in future to continue your habit of singing.”
“Colonel,” replied the sentry, “you have saved my character, and I thank you; but as for any thing else, it little signifies. From the moment I saw that infernal demon, I felt I was a dead man.”