“The last master of Gryphynshold—old Dyvyd Gryphyn! He whose life was the wickedest of all the wicked ones that had gone before him! He who turned his young wife, or sweetheart—no one knows which she was—out of doors in the middle of a bitter cold January night to perish of cold, as she did on the mountain side! He who that next day was killed in a wicked duel, and whose body lies buried in the unconsecrated earth of the family burial ground—for they were all infidels, and wouldn’t let a minister of the Gospel come on the premises. He it is whose spirit cannot rest in the grave, or tarry even with his fellow-devils in the pit, but walks continually up and down through house and thicket in the darkness of the darkest hours in the night!” “And you have seen him?” questioned Gloria, with incredulous astonishment. “I was the first to see and hear him after his being killed in the duel. It was no dream, ma’am, it was no delusion, though you look as if you thought so! It was late at night—the night after that poor young creature had been torn from her bed and turned out to die of cold on the mountain. It was a still, cold, freezing night—one of those silent, bitter winter nights when the frost seems to steal into the very marrow of your bones. I was sitting by the big fire in the front hall, waiting for the master to come home so that I could let him in. I had sent all the servants to bed, because they were tired with their work, poor things! and, besides, they would have to get up so early in the morning that they could not afford to lose their rest. Well, I was sitting there before the fire, with my knees roasting and my back freezing, and not a sound to be heard all over the house, not even a cricket or a mouse. I don’t know which was the most awful, the stillness or the cold. Suddenly——” “Well, suddenly what?” eagerly demanded Gloria, seeing that the old lady paused longer than necessary. “Suddenly there came on the stillness a violent rush, as of a great gust of wind, that forced the front door open. I jumped up in a panic, but dropped down again; for there stood the master, pale as a corpse, with a ghastly wound on his temple, from which the blood was slowly trickling down his cheek. He did not stop a moment, but glaring at me, strode down the hall, and up the staircase, and disappeared at the top.” “Good Heavens!” “I was a strong woman at that time, but I came near swooning, for I thought it was the master himself in the flesh, and that he had got his death-wound somehow. But soon rallying myself, I got up and shut the front door, and bolted and barred it. The night was now as still and breathless as it had been before Dyvyd Gryphyn rushed in with that furious wind. After I had fastened the door I went up to the room over the kitchen in the back building, and waked up old Tubal, who was then the only man-servant about the house.