APPARITIONS. 13 



open and little Hugh was sent to shut it. 'Day/ he 

 proceeds, ' had not wholly disappeared, but it was fast 

 posting on to night, and a grey haze spread a neutral 

 tint of dimness over every more distant object, but left 

 the nearer ones comparatively distinct, when I saw at 

 the open door, within less than a yard of my breast, as 

 plainly as ever I saw anything, a dissevered hand and 

 arm stretched towards me. Hand and arm were appar- 

 ently those of a female : they bore a livid and sodden 

 appearance ; and directly fronting me, where the body 

 ought to have been, there was only blank, transparent 

 space, through which I could see the dim forms of the 

 objects beyond. I was fearfully startled, and ran shriek- 

 ing to my mother, telling what I had seen ; and the 

 house-girl, whom she next sent to shut the door, appar- 

 ently affected by my terror, also returned frightened, and 

 said that she too had seen the woman's hand; which, 

 however, did not seem to be the case. And finally my 

 mother, going to the door, saw nothing, though she 

 appeared much impressed by the extremeness of my 

 terror, and the minuteness of my description. I com- 

 municate the story as it lies fixed in my memory, without 

 attempting to explain it. The supposed apparition may 

 have been merely a momentary affection of the eye, of the 

 nature described by Sir Walter Scott in his Demon- 

 ologij, and Sir David Brewster in his Natural Magic. 

 But if so, the affection was one of which I experienced 

 no after return ; and its coincidence, in the case, with 

 tKe~probable time of my father's death, seems at least 

 curious/ 



Men who believe in a ghost-story seldom favour us 

 with unqualified avowals of the fact. Hugh Miller seems 

 to have been persuaded at fifty that the livid hand he 

 saw at five was preternatural. The incident is thus 



