J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3: The Haunted Baronet (1871)Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
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J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3: The Haunted Baronet (1871)
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Ghost stories
"_I_ say it, because I _know_ it; and _you_ know it also. See that clump
of trees standing solitary in the hollow? Among them, to the left, grows
an ancient oak. Cut in its bark are two enormous letters H--F; so large
and bold, that the rugged furrows of the oak bark fail to obscure them,
although they are ancient and spread by time. Standing against the trunk
of this great tree, with your back to these letters, you are looking up
the Glen or Clough of Feltram, that opens northward, where stands
Cloostedd Forest spreading far and thick. Now, how do you find our
fortune-teller?"
"That is exactly what I wish to know," answered Sir Bale; "because,
although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has
either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got
extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on
chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous
fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk with him; and
perhaps he could arrange with me. I should be very glad to make an
arrangement with him to give me the benefit of his advice about any
matter of the same kind again."
"I think he's willing to see you; but he's a fellow with a queer fancy
and a pig-head. He'll not come here; you must go to him; and approach
him his own way too, or you may fail to find him. On these terms he
invites you."
Sir Bale laughed.
"He knows his value, and means to make his own terms."
"Well, there's nothing unfair in that; and I don't see that I should
dispute it. How is one to find him?"
"Stand, as I told you, with your back to those letters cut in the oak.
Right before you lies an old Druidic altar-stone. Cast your eye over its
surface, and on some part of it you are sure to see a black stain about
the size of a man's head. Standing, as I suppose you, against the oak,
that stain, which changes its place from day to day, will give you the
line you must follow through the forest in order to light upon him. Take
carefully from it such trees or objects as will guide you; and when the
forest thickens, do the best you can to keep to the same line. You are
sure to find him."
"You'll come, Feltram. I should lose myself in that wilderness, and
probably fail to discover him," said Sir Bale; "and I really wish to see
him."
"When two people wish to meet, it is hard if they don't. I can go with
you a bit of the way; I can walk a little through the forest by your
side, until I see the small flower that grows peeping here and there,
that always springs where those people walk; and when I begin to see
that sign, I must leave you. And, first, I'll take you across the lake."
"By Jove, you'll do no such thing!" said Sir Bale hastily.
"But that is the way he chooses to be approached," said Philip Feltram.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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