Page:St Andrews Ghost Stories (1921).djvu/84

76 about his ghost, and was told I would hear the whole story after lunch.

Before we adjourned to the smoke room Sædeger was telling us he felt a bit knocked up with his long journey. He had a thirty-six hours' journey after he left good old Tony-Pandy. Visions of "Tony Lumpkin," and "Tony Faust," in "My Sweetheart," flitted through my brain, then I suddenly remembered, luckily, that "Tony-pandy" was a town in Wales.

Once comfortably seated in the smoke-room with pipes, cigars, and whisky, Reginald Sædeger became at once the centre of all the interest.

"Lots of years ago," he said, in a quiet legal voice, "I came to visit some friends in St Andrews, and I had a most unaccountable experience. I will tell you all about it. I never saw anything supernatural before, and have never seen anything the least remarkable since; but one night, my first night in that house, I undoubtedly saw the wraith of the 'Blue Girl.'"

"What had you for supper that evening?" I mildly asked.

"Only chicken and salad," was the reply. "I was not thinking of anything ghostly. If you fix your mind intently on one thing, some folk can, you can self-hypnotise yourself. I had no idea but golf in my mind when I went off to roost."

"Well, drive ahead," said I.

"I had a charming, comfortable, big old-world room given me, nice fire, and all that sort of thing," continued Sædeger, "and as I was deuced tired I soon went to bed and to sleep.sleep." [sic]

"I woke suddenly, later, with the firm conviction that a pair of eyes were fixed on me. I suppose everyone knows that if you stare fixedly at any sleeping person, they will soon awake. I got a start when I half-opened my eyes, for leaning on the mantelpiece staring hard at me in the mirror was a most beautiful girl in a light blue gauzy dress, her back, of course, was to the bed, and I saw she had masses of wavy, golden-brown hair hanging down long past her waist.

"I was utterly astonished, and watched the movements of this beautiful creature with my eyes almost closed. I felt sure it was someone in the house having a lark at my expense, so pretended to be asleep. As I watched, the girl turned round