"At this stage I was conscious of nodding, and waking up with a start, endeavoured to pursue my train of thought. The fire was comfortable, and my cigar was still alight; only a few moments more, and then bed. The resolution was scarcely formed before my head dropped again and I was fast asleep.
"How long I slept I know not; a sensation of coldness caused me to awake, only to find the fire nearly out, my reading-lamp smouldering, and the moon brightly shining into the room. Imagine, if you can, my surprise, when, turning round, there, full in the light of the moon, was a figure writing at my table. It was an old man dressed in old-fashioned style, just like what was worn two hundred or more years ago. There was the wig, the coat with square flaps, the shoes with silver buckles—everything except the sword. The face could not be clearly defined, but the figure was most distinct.
"My first sensations were, to say the least, peculiar. I was for the moment frightened, and it was several moments before common sense asserted itself. A feeling of intense curiosity soon overpowered all sense of fear. Sitting in my chair I could hear the scratching of his pen upon the paper. He wrote at a very rapid pace and seemed too intent upon his labours to notice my presence. I waited for some time in absolute stillness, but then, becoming weary of the situation, endeavoured to attract his attention with a cough. He took no notice, and so I arose and walked towards him.
"I am telling you the entire truth when I assure you I could find nothing in that chair. I grasped nothing tangible, and the chair appeared quite empty, while still the scratching of the pen continued; and as I walked away from the window the apparition appeared as plain as ever. Every line of the figure was clear as if in life. At last while I watched, the sound of writing ceased, and the figure vanished from my view, leaving the roll of manuscript just as it had been before I fell asleep.
"Rushing up to the mantelpiece I seized a box of matches, hurriedly lighted a candle, and approached the desk, and there found the Service written out in full in a strange handwriting. My own work was obliterated, the pen drawn through it all with the exception of the Kyrie, which was as I left it, save that the word Kyrie was written over it in the strange handwriting. At the conclusion of the Service were written these words: 'E.I. hoc fecit. R.I.P.'"
As the Doctor uttered these words, he went to the bookshelf and drew down a book bound carefully in calf, which he opened and passed to me. It was the original copy as he had found it, his own work crossed out just as he had said, and the Service written in an altogether strange hand.
"I took those letters, R.I.P., to impose a solemn obligation upon me," continued the Doctor. "The Service was at length restored, and I felt sure that if it were used his soul would rest in peace. That is why we have it here every Easter Sunday. It has become, in fact, quite a tradition of the cathedral, which I hope no future organist will ever depart from. The apparition has never since appeared, so I take it that was evidently the wish expressed, and the reason why the old man's ghost for so many years haunted the scene of his former labours."
This story is finished. I leave it just as the Doctor related it. Do I believe it? Undoubtedly I do, but all explanation I leave as impossible. Perhaps some day we shall know better the relation existing between the material world and the unknown. At present the subject is best left alone. Facts we must accept, our imperfect knowledge prevents their explanation.
John Græme.