“Nonsense!” said Darcy, and walked across the room. After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, which hung in the room and communicated to the servants in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun: together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the cellar. Darcy then remembered having heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

“It is nonsense still!” said Darcy. “I will not believe it.”

His color changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the flames leaped up and just as quickly fell again.

His Father’s ghost! The same face, the very same. George Darcy in his favorite jacket, usual waistcoat, breeches, and boots. The chains he drew were clasped about his middle. One was very long and was made (for Darcy observed it closely) of gold studded with precious gems while the other was shorter, hardly seeming to clasp about his waist and was wrought in thick iron. His body was transparent, so that Darcy, observing him and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.