What Louis has gathered of the abbey's legend is basically the same as the story brought back by Peter, to the effect that "many years ago, a person (but nobody had ever seen him, so we may judge how far the report ought to be credited) a person was privately brought to this abbey, and confined in some part of it, and that there were strong reasons to believe he came unfairly to his end."* But this is kind of funny: where you might expect the unshrewd Peter to be the one to spread a local ghost story, the element of the supernatural is introduced in the best (i.e. most slighting) Enlightenment spirit by the educated nobleman's son:

"'They farther said,' continued Louis, 'that the spectre of the deceased had ever since watched nightly among the ruins: and to make the story more wonderful, for the marvellous is the delight of the vulgar, they added, that there was a certain part of the ruin, from whence no person that had dared to explore it, had ever returned. Thus people, who have few objects of real interest to engage their thoughts, conjure up for themselves imaginary ones.' " In school they always tell you how closely the scientific spirit of the Enlightenment was tied to contemporary Romantic obsessions with the supernatural or otherwise unknowable -- I think "other side of the coin" is the metaphor most often used in this connection. Well it's true! And if you're thinking Louis is about to receive his comeuppance at the hands of a hellish spectre, let me drop a big old spoiler: There is no supernatural in Radcliffe but the explained supernatural. The skepticism of Louis will in the end be the novel's endorsed position vis-à-vis the spirit world. Even though it's framed in near-abusive terms here ("the marvellous is the delight of the vulgar"), it has a corollary that I do find salubrious, and it's this: The supernatural may be fine for atmosphere, but there is no greater horror than what live human beings force each other to undergo. Mostly for mundane reasons, expressed symbolically. True horror flies the stars and stripes. And lots of other colors too.

* You'll notice that "a person" occurs both before and after the parenthesis here. I think this is no typo, but a little booster inserted as one might in speech, to make sure "a person" remains in our minds as the subject of the sentence. Chloe Chard, who footnotes practically everything, lets this one ride. Bravissima! Now coming soon from David Larsen on The Ingredient: A raving diatribe about world literature.