Madam Crowl's Ghost and the Dead Sexton — John Shaqi
Madam Crowl's Ghost and the Dead SextonLe Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
General
Madam Crowl's Ghost and the Dead Sexton
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Ghost stories
"Well, she didn't. She pined, and windered, and went off, torflin',
torflin', quiet enough, till a day or two before her flittin', and
then she took to rabblin', and sometimes skirlin' in the bed, ye'd
think a robber had a knife to her throat, and she used to work out o'
the bed, and not being strong enough, then, to walk or stand, she'd
fall on the flure, wi' her ald wizened hands stretched before her
face, and skirlin' still for mercy.
"Ye may guess I didn't go into the room, and I used to be shiverin' in
my bed wi' fear, at her skirlin' and scrafflin' on the flure, and
blarin' out words that id make your skin turn blue.
"My aunt, and Mrs. Wyvern, and Judith Squailes, and a woman from
Lexhoe, was always about her. At last she took fits, and they wore her
out.
"T' sir was there, and prayed for her; but she was past praying with.
I suppose it was right, but none could think there was much good in
it, and sa at lang last she made her flittin', and a' was over, and
old Dame Crowl was shrouded and coffined, and Squire Chevenix was
wrote for. But he was away in France, and the delay was sa lang, that
t' sir and doctor both agreed it would not du to keep her langer out
o' her place, and no one cared but just them two, and my aunt and the
rest o' us, from Applewale, to go to the buryin'. So the old lady of
Applewale was laid in the vault under Lexhoe Church; and we lived up
at the great house till such time as the squire should come to tell
his will about us, and pay off such as he chose to discharge.
"I was put into another room, two doors away from what was Dame
Crowl's chamber, after her death, and this thing happened the night
before Squire Chevenix came to Applewale.
"The room I was in now was a large square chamber, covered wi' yak
pannels, but unfurnished except for my bed, which had no curtains to
it, and a chair and a table, or so, that looked nothing at all in such
a big room. And the big looking-glass, that the old lady used to keek
into and admire herself from head to heel, now that there was na mair
o' that wark, was put out of the way, and stood against the wall in my
room, for there was shiftin' o' many things in her chamber ye may
suppose, when she came to be coffined.
"The news had come that day that the squire was to be down next
morning at Applewale; and not sorry was I, for I thought I was sure to
be sent home again to my mother. And right glad was I, and I was
thinkin' of a' at hame, and my sister Janet, and the kitten and the
pymag, and Trimmer the tike, and all the rest, and I got sa fidgetty,
I couldn't sleep, and the clock struck twelve, and me wide awake, and
the room as dark as pick. My back was turned to the door, and my eyes
toward the wall opposite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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