To go back to our cherries. In the grounds of an old Scottish castle, rich in ghostly stories and blood-curdling legends, there stands an old gean tree (wild cherry). It is the belief of the countryside that this old tree is haunted by the spirit of a former mistress of the castle, a lady who, as tradition has it, suffered much in her life-time and cannot rest in death. One day, some forty years ago, I started off from a neighbouring place to pay a visit at the castle with “Hang-theology” Rogers, the famous rector of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, than whom no brighter companion ever cheered a long, cold drive in a rather rickety dog-cart. We arrived just as the large party in the house were gathering together in the drawing-room after luncheon. We were met by long and rather pale faces. Obviously something had happened—nobody seemed at ease. At last an old lady, who was among the guests, took me on one side and told me what all this meant. That morning, a visitor who was driving up to the house, when he came to the gean tree, saw the figure of a woman come out of it, glide for some distance beside him, and then vanish. Many of the people in the castle, who happened to be looking out of the drawing-room window at the time, saw the wonder, and the old lady added that she herself, having gone up to her bedroom to put on her bonnet, distinctly saw the apparition from her window, which was immediately over the drawing-room. All these people were absolutely convinced that, like the visitor in his dog-cart, they had seen the ghost which haunted the gean tree. I have told the story without addition or ornament, exactly as I heard it an hour or two after its occurrence and while the witnesses were still under the spell. It could not fail to remind me of the tales of Bakémono-zakura, the haunted cherry trees of Japanese legend, and it seemed worthy to be set down beside them.