J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 | Page 9

the stone-breaker's employment was
open to him, or that he could break stones well enough to retain it on a
fair trial. And he had other ideas of providing for himself, and a
different alternative in his mind.
Good-natured Mrs. Julaper, the old housekeeper at Mardykes Hall, was
kind to Feltram, as to all others who lay in her way and were in
affliction.
She was one of those good women whom Nature provides to receive
the burden of other people's secrets, as the reeds did long ago, only that
no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into
strange ears.
You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.
Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a

ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable across
it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border and
joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family
removed forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement
here, from which he has not since emerged.
At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which
you find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little
balcony before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her
commands to the cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.
There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her Whole Duty of
Man, and her _Pilgrim's Progress_; and, in a file beside them, her
books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by
the Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian
would nowadays give an eye or a hand.
Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the story of his wrongs,
and weep and wish he was dead; and kind Mrs. Julaper, who
remembered him a child, would comfort him with cold pie and
cherry-brandy, or a cup of coffee, or some little dainty.
"O, ma'am, I'm tired of my life. What's the good of living, if a poor
devil is never let alone, and called worse names than a dog? Would not
it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead? Wouldn't it be better, ma'am? I
think so; I think it night and day. I'm always thinking the same thing. I
don't care, I'll just tell him what I think, and have it off my mind. I'll tell
him I can't live and bear it longer."
"There now, don't you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember you're
not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he. They
all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one minded
that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the tongue, be

it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard words break no
bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea--ye like a cup o' tea--and we'll take a
cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see how pleasant and ruddy
the sun shines on the lake this evening."
She was patting him gently on the shoulder, as she stood slim and stiff
in her dark silk by his chair, and her rosy little face smiled down on
him. She was, for an old woman, wonderfully pretty still. What a
delicate skin she must have had! The wrinkles were etched upon it with
so fine a needle, you scarcely could see them a little way off; and as she
smiled her cheeks looked fresh and smooth as two ruddy little apples.
"Look out, I say," and she nodded towards the window, deep set in the
thick wall. "See how bright and soft everything looks in that pleasant
light; _that's_ better, child, than the finest picture man's hand ever
painted yet, and God gives it us for nothing; and how pretty Snakes
Island glows up in that