J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 | Page 5

given with grizzly earnestness, she saw her over
the stile, and stood upon it watching her retreat, until the trees quite hid
her and her path from view.
The sky grew cloudy and thunderous, and the air darkened rapidly, as
the girl, a little frightened by Mall Carke's view of the case, walked
homeward by the lonely path among the trees.
A black cat, which had walked close by her--for these creatures
sometimes take a ramble in search of their prey among the woods and
thickets--crept from under the hollow of an oak, and was again with her.
It seemed to her to grow bigger and bigger as the darkness deepened,
and its green eyes glared as large as halfpennies in her affrighted vision
as the thunder came booming along the heights from the
Willarden-road.
She tried to drive it away; but it growled and hissed awfully, and set up
its back as if it would spring at her, and finally it skipped up into a tree,
where they grew thickest at each side of her path, and accompanied her,
high over head, hopping from bough to bough as if meditating a pounce
upon her shoulders. Her fancy being full of strange thoughts, she was
frightened, and she fancied that it was haunting her steps, and destined
to undergo some hideous transformation, the moment she ceased to
guard her path with prayers.
She was frightened for a while after she got home. The dark looks of
Mother Carke were always before her eyes, and a secret dread
prevented her passing the threshold of her home again that night.
Next day it was different. She had got rid of the awe with which
Mother Carke had inspired her. She could not get the tall dark-featured
lord, in the black velvet dress, out of her head. He had "taken her

fancy"; she was growing to love him. She could think of nothing else.
Bessie Hennock, a neighbour's daughter, came to see her that day, and
proposed a walk toward the ruins of Hawarth Castle, to gather
"blaebirries." So off the two girls went together.
In the thicket, along the slopes near the ivied walls of Hawarth Castle,
the companions began to fill their baskets. Hours passed. The sun was
sinking near the west, and Laura Silver Bell had not come home.
Over the hatch of the farm-house door the maids leant ever and anon
with outstretched necks, watching for a sign of the girl's return, and
wondering, as the shadows lengthened, what had become of her.
At last, just as the rosy sunset gilding began to overspread the
landscape, Bessie Hennock, weeping into her apron, made her
appearance without her companion.
Her account of their adventures was curious.
I will relate the substance of it more connectedly than her agitation
would allow her to give it, and without the disguise of the rude
Northumbrian dialect.
The girl said, that, as they got along together among the brambles that
grow beside the brook that bounds the Pie-Mag field, she on a sudden
saw a very tall big-boned man, with an ill-favoured smirched face, and
dressed in worn and rusty black, standing at the other side of a little
stream. She was frightened; and while looking at this dirty, wicked,
starved figure, Laura Silver Bell touched her, gazing at the same tall
scarecrow, but with a countenance full of confusion and even rapture.
She was peeping through the bush behind which she stood, and with a
sigh she said:
"Is na that a conny lad? Agoy! See his bonny velvet clothes, his sword
and sash; that's a lord, I can tell ye; and weel I know who he follows,
who he luves, and who he'll wed."

Bessie Hennock thought her companion daft.
"See how luvesome he luks!" whispered Laura.
Bessie looked again, and saw him gazing at her companion with a
malignant smile, and at the same time he beckoned her to approach.
"Darrat ta! gaa not near him! he'll wring thy neck!" gasped Bessie in
great fear, as she saw Laura step forward with a look of beautiful
bashfulness and joy.
She took the hand he stretched across the stream, more for love of the
hand than any need of help, and in a moment was across and by his side,
and his long arm about her waist.
"Fares te weel, Bessie, I'm gain my ways," she called, leaning her head
to his shoulder; "and tell gud Fadder Lew I'm gain my ways to be
happy, and may be, at lang last, I'll see him again."
And with a farewell wave of her hand, she went away with her dismal
partner; and Laura Silver Bell was never more seen at home, or among
the "coppies" and "wickwoods," the bonny fields and bosky hollows,
by Dardale