uplifted land—uplifted, yet secret and full of dismay—ever reached my ears. Did I say no sound? But I must not anticipate. [Illustration: LEGEND OF THE PORTENT.] I will now describe that peculiarity to which I have referred. I have some reason to believe that I have inherited it from a far-off ancestor. It seemed to have its root in an unusual delicacy of hearing, which often conveyed to me sounds inaudible to those about me. This I had many opportunities of proving. It likewise, however, brought me sounds which I could never trace back to their origin; but which, notwithstanding, may have arisen from some natural operation which I had not perseverance or mental acuteness sufficient to discover. From this, or, it may be, from some deeper cause with which this was associated, arose a certain kind of fearfulness connected with the sense of hearing, of which I have never heard a corresponding instance, but which I think I can easily make you understand. Full as my mind was of the wild and sometimes fearful tales of a Highland nursery, fear never entered my mind by the eyes; nor, when I brooded over tales of terror, and fancied new and yet more frightful embodiments of horror, did I shudder at any imaginable spectacle, or tremble lest the fancy should become fact, and from behind the whin-bush or the elder-hedge should glide forth the tall swaying form of the Boneless. Indeed, when I was alone in bed, I used to lie awake, and look out into the room, peopling it with the forms of all the persons who had died within the scope of my memory and acquaintance. These fancied forms were vividly present to my imagination. I pictured them pale, with dark circles around their hollow eyes, visible by a light which glimmered within them; not the light of life, but a pale greenish phosphorescence, generated by the decay of the brain inside. Their garments were white and trailing, but torn and soiled, as if by trying often in vain to get up out of the buried coffin. So far from being terrified by these imaginings, I used to delight in them; and even, when on a long winter evening I did not happen to have any book to read that interested me sufficiently, to look forward with expectation to the hour when, laying myself straight upon my back, as if my bed were my coffin, I could call up from underground all who had passed away, and see how they fared, yea even what progress they had made towards final dissolution of form;—but, observe, all the time with my fingers pushed hard into my ears, lest any the faintest sound should invade the silent citadel of my soul. If by chance I removed one of my fingers, the agony of terror I instantly experienced was such as to be, by me at least, indescribable. I can compare it to nothing but the rushing in upon my brain of a whole churchyard of spectres. The very possibility of hearing a sound in such a mood, and at such a time, was enough to torture me. So I could scare myself in broad daylight, on the open hill-side, by