J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3: The Haunted Baronet (1871) — John Shaqi
J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3: The Haunted Baronet (1871)Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
General
J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3: The Haunted Baronet (1871)
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Ghost stories
"That is it," said old Creswell with a pallid smile, and fixing his wild
eyes on the Baronet. The smile subsided into a frown, and said he: "Last
night I slept near Haworth Moss; and your father came to me in a dream,
and said: 'My son Bale accuses Philip of having stolen a bank-note from
his desk. He forgets that he himself placed it in his cabinet. Come with
me.' I was, in the spirit, in this room; and he led me to this cabinet,
which he opened; and in that drawer he showed me that note. 'Go,' said
he, 'and tell him to ask Philip Feltram's pardon, else he will but go in
weakness to return in power;' and he said that which it is not lawful to
repeat. My message is told. Now a word from myself," he added sternly.
"The dead, through my lips, has spoken, and under God's thunder and
lightning his words have found ye. Why so uppish wi' Philip Feltram? See
how ye threaped, and yet were wrong. He's no tazzle--he's no taggelt.
Ask his pardon. Ye must change, or he will no taggelt. Go, in weakness,
come in power: mark ye the words. 'Twill make a peal that will be heard
in toon and desert, in the swirls o' the mountain, through pikes and
valleys, and mak' a waaly man o' thee."
The old man with these words, uttered in the broad northern dialect of
his common speech, strode from the room and shut the door. In another
minute he was forth into the storm, pursuing what remained of his long
march to Pindar's Bield.
"Upon my soul!" said Sir Bale, recovering from his sort of stun which
the sudden and strange visit had left, "that's a cool old fellow! Come
to rate me and teach me my own business in my own house!" and he rapped
out a fierce oath. "Change his mind or no, here he sha'n't stay
to-night--not an hour."
Sir Bale was in the lobby in a moment, and thundered to his servants:
"I say, put that fool out of the door--put him out by the shoulder, and
never let him put his foot inside it more!"
But the old man's yea was yea, and his nay nay. He had quite meant what
he said; and, as I related, was beyond the reach of the indignity of
extrusion.
Sir Bale on his return shut his door as violently as if it were in the
face of the old prophet.
"Ask Feltram's pardon, by Jove! For what? Why, any jury on earth would
have hanged him on half the evidence; and I, like a fool, was going to
let him off with his liberty and my hundred pound-note! Ask his pardon
indeed!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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