Tale of a Haunted House [pp. 617-629]

~i8 TALE OF A HAUNTED HOUSE. [Aug.,
tower in a distant quarter of the great parallelogram, far away to
your right as you enter the principal gateway. It was by no
means an aristocratic quarter in its living occupants or outward
aspect, being vulgarly known by the dishonoring sobriquct sometimes of Botany Bay and sometimes of Connemara. It. was not
free choice, it was stern necessity, that lodged me in this square.
For then, as now, that most incurable of h'~man maladies, consumption in the purse, afflicted me in utter defiance of remedial
appliances, not intermittently as in other men, but as a chronic
corn plaint-entirely and hopelessly incurable.
From Botany Bay, as it was termed, I gladly migrated to a
house in Ely Place, near the medical schools in that district.
This house was erected long before the Union by a noble
lord, who, on the consummation of that disastrous measure, migrated to London, and abandoned his mansion to a caretaker, who
took little care of it. Though mouldering with ruin, slowly
lapsing to decay in calm, solitary, and stately desolation, the mansion of his lordship was a magnificent ruin, worthy of those stirring times when the pavement of College Green was torn with
the wheels of coroneted equipages, when Stephen's Green resounded with the exultation of festive opulence, and Patrick's
Church was filled with the glittering pageantry of knightly
splendor. It contained an infinite number of naked apartments,
all wainscoted or lined with oak. There was an Italian air in its
arrangements which spoke of proud Genoa or gorgeous Venice.
A massive solidity sheathed with beauty characterized the architecture. The staircases were wide and ample, the steps extremely low, and the balustrades mathematically regular. It
was evident that the artisans who built it and the architect who
superintended their labor (Gannon I believe his name was) were
masters in their several departments, who prided in the perfection of their work, labored slowly and conscientiously, and produced a result which, in spite of desertion, decay, and ruin, inspired respect by its dignified desolation, suggesting that in its
day, when resounding with life and echoing with courtly festivity, it was fit not only for a lord-it was fit for a king. On the
whole there was something in the air of this deserted house
which alternately saddened and excited your mind. You could
not contemplate it long without a certain depression of spirits,
which c~ept over the most thoughtless and made tbe boisterous
folly of youth assume the silent gravity of age. I often fancied
that the architect in planning it had not quite, made up his mind
whether he should construct a calm abode for domestic peace,