"'None beyond the tradition--apparently authentic--that an ancestor of ours, a man whose character will not bear investigation, met his death, unfairly, in an old house on the site of which this is built. He was a miser, and presumed to be extremely wealthy. He lived secluded from society; his factotum and agent being an Italian valet, who was perfectly aware of the ample means of his master. On a sudden my vicious kinsman disappeared, and shortly afterward the valet. But the story runs--tradition it must still be called--that the former was robbed, brutally beaten, and finally _walled up_ in some recess by his desperate retainer. So immured he died of actual starvation; but according to the legend, much of the miser's wealth continued hidden about the mansion which the Italian's fears prevented his carrying off, and which still remains, snug and safe, in some dusty repository, ready to reward "a fortunate speculator." I only wish,' continued he merrily, 'I could light upon the hoard! Give me a clew, dear Newburgh, and I'll buy you a troop.' "'At any rate,' said I, 'from the mirth with which you treat it, the visitation is not unpleasant.' "'You are in error,' said my entertainer; 'the subject is unquestionably annoying, and one which my mother and the family studiously avoid. As for your bed-room--the porch-room--I am aware that parties occupying it have occasionally heard the strangest noises on the gravel-walk immediately below them. Your hostess was most averse to those quarters being assigned you; but I thought that the room being large and lofty, and the steps to it few, you would occupy it with comfort. I am grieved that my arrangement has proved disagreeable.' And then, finishing off with a hearty laugh, in which, for the life of me I couldn't join, my host added, '_if he be walled up_, I am sure you will say, Newburgh, that he's a persevering old gentleman, and makes the most laudable efforts to get out of his cell.'" "The levity of some persons," was the major's grave aside, "how inconceivable, how indescribable!"