Not knowing what to make of this, she watched the apparition for some
time, and then kneeling said her prayers. Presently the figure turned
and left the room.
After the lapse of a short time, he again appeared and walked across
the room. Then the woman said, “Pray, sir, who are you, and what do you
want?” He raised his finger and said, “Follow me.” She at once took the
candle and obeyed. He led her through a long panelled passage to the
door of a chamber, which he opened and entered.
“As the room was small, and I believed him to be a spirit,” she said,
“I halted at the door. He turned and said, ‘Walk in; I will not hurt
you.’ So I walked in. He said, ‘Observe what I do.’ I said, ‘I will.’
He stooped and tore up one of the boards of the floor, and there
appeared under it a box with an iron handle in the lid. ‘Do you see
that box?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ He then stepped to one side of the
room and showed me a crevice in the wall, where, said he, a key was
hid that would open it. He said, ‘This box and key must be taken out,
and sent to the Earl in London. Will you see it done?’ I said, ‘I will
do my best to get it done.’ He said, ‘Do, and I will trouble this
house no more.’ He then walked out of the room and left me. I stepped
to the door and set up a shout. The steward and his wife and the other
servants came in to me immediately, all clung together, with a number
of lights in their hands. They asked me what was the matter. I told
them the foregoing circumstances, and showed them the box. The steward
durst not meddle with it, but his wife had more courage, and with the
help of the other servants lugged it out, and found the key.”
The box was afterwards forwarded to the earl in London, and he sent
down orders to his steward to inform the hemp-spinner that he would
provide for her during the rest of her days. And Mr. Hampson said it
was a well-known fact that she had been so provided for, and was still
so at the time she gave him the account.
The country around Welshpool is marvellously rich and is splendidly
timbered, and the black-and-white old mansions and farms nestling
among the foliage are most picturesque. But one wonders, among the
gentlemen’s seats adjoining one another, where is room for farmers and
cottiers to come in?
Guilsfield, or Cegidfa, the Hemlock field, is situated in a basin, rich
and fertile, and on the way to it the delightful timber-and-plaster
house of Old Garth is passed on the right.
The church dedicated to S. Aelhaiarn is Decorated, with a Perpendicular
east window, and a fine carved ceiling in the chancel. The modern
pitch-pine roofing of the nave and aisles is mean and out of character
with the old work, as is also the modern screen, which is not only
coarse in design, but has been carried half-way up the doorway that
gave access to the ancient loft.
In the churchyard are some fine yews. By one is a tombstone with the
inscription:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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