426 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



either of themselves or by means of various super- 

 natural objects which they are supposed to carry about 

 with them. Tims, 



The sheeted dead 



Did squeak and gibber in the Koman streets 

 A little ere the mightiest Julius fell. 



And it is to be noted that as ghosts commonly show no 

 face, so few have been known to speak with full voice. 

 This may be because the noises heard at the hours 

 when ghosts are seen are not such as can be by any 

 possibility mistaken for the human voice in its ordinary 

 tones, while nevertheless an excited imagination can 

 frame words out of the strange sounds which can be 

 heard in almost every house in the stillness of night. 

 This also serves to account for the notion that ghosts 

 can clank chains, or make other dismal- noises. Sounds 

 heard at night are highly deceptive ; a small noise 

 close by is taken for a loud noise at a distance (not 

 necessarily a very great distance) ; and a noise made 

 by objects of one kind will be mistaken for noises 

 made by objects of a different kind altogether. A 

 friend of mind told me he had been disturbed two 

 nights running by a sound as of an army tramping 

 down a road which passed some 200 yards from his 

 house ; he found the third night (I had suggested an 

 experimental test as to the place whence the sound 

 came) that the noise was produced by a clock in the 

 next house, the clock having been newly placed against 

 the party wall. We all know Carlyle's story of the 

 ghostly voice heard each evening by a low-spirited 

 man a voice as of one, in like doleful dumps, pro- 



