Ghosts and Family Legends: A Volume for ChristmasCrowe, Catherine
General
Ghosts and Family Legends: A Volume for Christmas
Crowe, Catherine
Folklore -- Great Britain; Ghosts -- Great Britain; Legends -- Great Britain
"Subsequently, she met the same melancholy apparition pacing the
corridor into which the room that I had slept in opened; and not liking
these rencontres she gave warning and left the place.
"She knew nothing more, for her home was at some distance from the
Bellfry, which she had not since revisited: but when I had recovered my
health and returned to that part of the country, I found, on enquiry,
that this apparition was believed to haunt not only the house, but the
neighbourhood; and I conversed with several people who affirmed they had
seen her, generally alone, but sometimes accompanied by the two dogs.
"One woman said she had no fear, and that she had determined if she met
the ghost, to try and touch her, in order to ascertain if it was
positively an apparition; she did meet her in the dusk of the evening on
the path that runs by the high road between the Bellfry and G---- and put
out her arm to take hold of her dress. She felt no substance, but she
described the sensation as if she had plunged her hand into cold water.
"Another person saw her go through the hedge, and he observed, that he
could see the hedge through the figure as she glided into the field.
"It is whispered that this unfortunate lady was an ancestress of the
original proprietor of the place, who married a man she adored, contrary
to the advice of her friends; and too late she discovered that he had
taken her only for her money, which was needed to repair his ruined
fortunes; he, the while being deeply enamoured of her younger sister,
whose portion was too small for his purpose.
"The sister came to live with the newly married couple; and suspecting
nothing, the bride was some time wholly unable to account for her
husband's mysterious conduct and total alienation. At length she
awakened to the dreadful reality, but unable to overcome her passion,
she continued to live under his roof, suffering all the tortures of
jealousy and disappointed love. She shunned the world; and the world,
who soon learnt the state of affairs, shunned her husband's society; so
she dragged on her dreary existence with no companionship but that of
two remarkable fine greyhounds, which her husband had given her before
marriage. Riding or walking, she was always accompanied by these
animals--they and their affection were all she could call her own on
earth.
"She died young; not without some suspicions that her end was
hastened--at least, passively, by neglect, if not by more active means.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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