In the silence of the evening this lane was their accustomed walk, the scene of her devoted love and of his deceitful vows. Here he swore eternal fidelity, and the unsuspecting girl trusted him with the confiding affection of her innocent heart. It was at such a moment that the wily seducer communicated to her the real nature of his designs, the moon above being only the witness of his perfidy and her distress. She heard the avowal in tremulous silence, but her deadly paleness, and her expressive look of mingled reproach and terror created alarm even in the mind of her would-be seducer, and he hastily endeavoured to recall the fatal declaration; but it was too late, she sprang from his agitated grasp, and, with a sigh of agony, fell dead at his feet. When he beheld the work of his iniquitous designs, he was seized with distraction, and drawing a dagger from his bosom, he plunged it into his own false heart, and lay stretched by the side of her he had so basely wronged. On the morrow, as a peasant passed over the little stream, he saw a dark stone with drops of blood trickling from its heart into the pure limpid water. From that day the stream retained its untainted purity, and the stone continued its sacrifice of blood. Soon afterwards a terrific object was seen hovering at midnight about this fatal spot, taking its position at first upon the "bleeding stone," but it was ousted by the lord of the manor, who removed the blood-tainted stone to his own premises, to satisfy the timid minds of his neighbours. But the stone still continued to bleed, nor did its removal in any way intimidate the spectre. Connected with this alarming midnight visitor, writes a correspondent of _The Gentleman's Magazine_, "I remember a circumstance related to me by those who were actually acquainted with the facts, and with the person to whom they refer. An inhabitant of Buckland, who had attended Reigate Market and become exceedingly intoxicated, was joked by a companion upon the subject of the 'Buckland Shag,' whereupon he laid a wager that if Shag appeared in his path that night he would fight him with his trusty hawthorn. Accordingly he set forth, and arrived at the haunted spot. The spectre stood in his path, and, raising his stick, he struck it with all his strength, but it made no impression, nor did the goblin move. The stick fell as upon a blanket--so the man described it--and he instantly became sober, while a cold tremor ran through every nerve of his athletic frame. He hurried on, and the spectre followed. At length he arrived at his own door; then, and not till then, did the spectre vanish, leaving the affrighted man in a state of complete exhaustion upon the threshold of his cottage. He was carried to his bed, and from that bed he never rose again; he died in a week."