Border Ghost Stories Part 5

Then I heard a voice from the bed speaking composedly. 'Ay, I aye kenned he'd murdered puir Jeannie. Whaur wast ye fund my puir la.s.sie?' she asked Sandie.

As Sandie replied to her I looked at the fearful figure of the shrouded corpse that sat upright facing the doorway, whence his son-in-law had fled, and wondered if there could be any spark of life left within. As I looked the composed voice spoke again, 'Dinna be fieyed! Puir Ephraim's been _ill-steekit_. It's twa-three days since the doctor certifiedst him; noo his muscles hae stiffened and raxed him up. Ye mun lay him doon again, Maisters, for I'll no can sleep wi' him glowering that gate.'

The speaker in the night mutch was the only one of us who seemed unaffected by the extraordinary events we had just witnessed. Her eyes gleamed a trifle more brightly than before. That was the only difference.

I looked at Sandie in dismay at the task a.s.signed to us, but he had risen, and now beckoned me to the coffin side. Handling the poor corpse as reverently as we could we found it very difficult to re-confine it to its resting-place, for the muscles had turned so stiff and rigid that we had to exert force, and seek heavy stones from outside to keep the lid shut down securely.

This done, and the door fastened against the return of the fugitive, at the old woman's command, though I felt sure in my own mind that the man would never come back again of his own accord, Sandie and I took the battered sconce and dying wick and went up to the bedroom above.

We sat upon the bed, smoked another pipe and conversed about the soul-stirring incidents we had just been witnesses of.

'Do you remember,' asked Sandie, 'the mediaeval legend of the dead man's wounds bleeding afresh in the presence of his murderer? I believe that the spirit of the dead man down below us must have been moved by the presence of his daughter's murderer.'

'To think of our having come across in such a mysterious and fortuitous way the poor daughter--Jean!' I said, occupied by another aspect of these extraordinary occurrences.

As we smoked and talked thus our dip went out, which was an intimation that we had better try to sleep.

We slept but fitfully, and rose early to help prepare our breakfast.

Scarcely had we finished our repast when a neighbour arrived with a cart and horse wherewith he had promised to 'lift' the corpse and convey it over the rough track down the valley to the spot where the hea.r.s.e from Middleton was to meet it.

We found a rope and bound the coffin-lid lightly down, and having given our promise to our hostess to recover, if we could, the body of her daughter Jean and give it proper burial, we bade her good-bye for the present and set off to the inn where the 'Dean' would be anxiously expecting us.

We related our experiences to the 'Dean,' we got the Inspector to come up, but failed entirely to discover the body in the Linn. For my part I thought the thunderstorm might be accountable for the disappearance, but Sandie had his own opinion on this matter. As to the criminal, some say he escaped the country, but I firmly believe he perished in a peat-hag, and to this day haunts the bleak s.p.a.ces of Cross Fell.

THE c.o.c.k-CROW

A cloud hung over the bishopric--the ancient patrimony of Saint Cuthbert.

Bishop van Mildert had died and, _sede vacante_, great changes were impending, for Parliament was about to shear off a large portion of the privileges of the ancient franchise, to reduce the endowments, and to hand over the mines to the Ecclesiastical Commission.

The Reverend Arthur Egglestone--the youngest of the 'Golden Canons' and Lord of the Manor of Midhope, high up in Weardale--sat in his s.p.a.cious, oak-panelled dining-room above the Wear, discussing the situation with his two companions over a very _recherche_ supper prepared by the French chef of the Dean and Chapter.

The time was Lent, the eve of Good Friday, but the 'Golden Canon' had forgotten the season in his perturbation and his desire to show hospitality to a distant cousin newly arrived from America, who was full of curiosity and admiration of the city and cathedral of Saint Cuthbert.

His other guest was a Minor Canon who had just been appointed to instruct and train the choir-boys of the cathedral.

The 'Golden Canon' was of an imposing figure, a fine type of the English country gentleman of the old school--admirably fitted for the post of Chairman of Quarter Sessions.

It was not that he had mistaken his vocation so much as that his vocation had mistaken the canon, for owing to the death of his two elder brothers--one by an accident out hunting, one by drowning at sea when admiral--he had unexpectedly succeeded to the family seat and rich possessions.

On this very day he had driven himself into his prebend's house in the close in his four-in-hand to welcome his young American cousin.

The 'Golden Canon' was of a st.u.r.dy build, fair of complexion, a lover of field sports, and an excellent judge of a horse and good claret.

An admirable host, he sat in his arm-chair looking after the comfort of his two companions, pa.s.sing the _Chateau-Laffite_, and discoursing learnedly of the ancient glory of the bishopric.

His American cousin was an undergraduate of Harvard, eager as a hawk, keen-faced, avid of every form of life: he drank down his _Laffite_ with evident enjoyment, listening to the music of the water on the weir below, and eagerly following the wisdom of the 'Golden Canon.'

The Minor Canon, on the other hand, was not entirely at his ease, for he was divided between his reverence to his host and his consciousness that it was Lent, for hitherto he had always prided himself upon mortifying the flesh during the Lenten fast.

He was of a delicate and distinguished appearance; not much more than a lad yet,--sensitive and impressionable--one whom the Jesuits of the sixteenth century would have trained to be a 'staff' in their hands to be turned this way and that in the interests of the Church.

Gradually, however, he forgot his scruples in the charm of his surroundings, the good cheer, and his superior's conversation; he helped himself joyfully as the claret went swiftly about, and joined with delight in converse about the great past of the cathedral.

''Tis a thousand pities,' said the 'Golden Canon,' 'to diminish in any way the dignity of the bishop and the dean and chapter, since reverence for the established order of the State is fast dying out.

'Now just as it is thought well to maintain the dignity of the judges on a.s.size by the attendance of the High Sheriff with his javelin men and trumpeters, so it is needful to keep up the estates of the bishops and the deans and chapters.

'In the old days of the great prince bishops,' continued the 'Golden Canon,' 'the successor of St. Cuthbert was in reality a greater power than the successor of St. Augustine. For myself I had rather have reigned and ruled between Tees and Tyne than have lived in Lambeth Palace. I should have had regal powers in regard to jurisdiction, coinage, Chancery, Admiralty dues, and so forth, and when I journeyed to London, on my way to my palace in the Strand, would have lain at my various palaces on my way up.

'Then again as lord of many manors throughout the Palatinate I should have had all the old feudal dues coming in to my treasury--waifs and strays, treasure trove, deodands----'

'And merchet of women?' queried his cousin mischievously.

'Ay,' replied the 'Golden Canon' with a responsive twinkle in his eye, '"merchet of women" also, but as an antiquary I must tell ye that it's not what you two young men would wish it to be----'

He glanced at the blushing face of the Minor Canon, and the eager visage of the undergraduate, and bade them fill their gla.s.ses yet again, while they had the chance, for the Chapter's binn of _Laffite_ was now running very low in its deep cellar.

'No,' he went on regretfully, ''twas not the _Droit de Seigneur_ which we have all read of, and perhaps envied, but a fine upon marriage--a feudal due exercised over women, as over all property on the feudal lord's manor. Not but that I take it occasionally the Prince Bishop may have indulged himself in what Richelieu styled "the honest man's recreation," yet the _jus primae noctis_, of which also you will have heard, was not the privilege of the seigneurial bishops, but the fine or compensation paid to the Church by the impatient bridegroom, who in early days of clerical discipline was enjoined to mortification of the flesh for the first three nights of marriage.

'A lawsuit 'twixt the mayor and corporation of Amiens and the bishop before the Parliament of Paris in the fifteenth century is still on record, and proves this clearly.'

'St. Cuthbert, sir,' interposed the blushing but now emboldened Minor Canon, 'would have severely reprehended Cardinal Richelieu in that event, for 'tis said that the saint had a perfect horror of women; we know of the line drawn beside the cathedral beyond which no woman was allowed to pa.s.s.'

'Ay,' responded his host, 'St. Cuthbert was a great saint doubtless, but an extremely ungallant man. He would allow no cow upon Holy Island, for where there was a cow there was a woman, and where there was a woman there was the Devil.'

'Luther and the Reformation changed all that,' said the young American, with a laugh.

'"Who loves not woman, wine and song, He is a fool his whole life long."

'Which of the two is in the right?'

'Luther!' replied the Minor Canon, somewhat unexpectedly, flushed with _vol-au-vent_ and generous claret, who was now beginning to look upon himself as a gay Lothario. 'Asceticism for its own sake is mere vanity.'

'Here's then to Luther!' cried the 'Golden Canon,' with enthusiasm.

'Fill and drink a b.u.mper to his memory!'

'Not but what I regret the Reformation myself, since had it not been for Anne Boleyn, the bishopric might still be a Palatinate and the estates of the canons inviolate.'

Curiously enough the Minor Canon had not on this especial occasion filled up his gla.s.s; on the contrary he was now staring in dismay towards the window recess opposite, which was suffused with a pale light. On the right hand there hung a crucifix, and the moonbeams gently illuminated the cross with its burden.

The two cousins continued their gay converse, but the Minor Canon was completely absorbed in his contemplation of a vision which was being unfolded before his affrighted eyes in the recess opposite. A figure took shape in the misty light--the form of an old man rugged of aspect, with grizzled locks like a fisherman's, appeared before his eyes; he held forth his hand and pointed menacingly to the crucifix with fiercely gleaming eyes.