J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 | Page 7

as if she
had never in her life washed hands or face, the once blithe and pretty
Laura Lew.
The hideous being who was her mate continued in the same odd
fluctuations of fury, grief, and merriment; and whenever she uttered a
groan, he parodied it with another, as Mother Carke thought, in
saturnine derision.
At length he strode into another room, and banged the door after him.
In due time the poor woman's pains were over, and a daughter was
born.
Such an imp! with long pointed ears, flat nose, and enormous restless
eyes and mouth. It instantly began to yell and talk in some unknown
language, at the noise of which the father looked into the room, and
told the sage femme that she should not go unrewarded.
The sick woman seized the moment of his absence to say in the ear of
Mall Carke:
"If ye had not been at ill work tonight, he could not hev fetched ye. Tak
no more now than your rightful fee, or he'll keep ye here."
At this moment he returned with a bag of gold and silver coins, which
he emptied on the table, and told her to help herself.
She took four shillings, which was her primitive fee, neither more nor
less; and all his urgency could not prevail with her to take a farthing
more. He looked so terrible at her refusal, that she rushed out of the
house.
He ran after her.

"You'll take your money with you," he roared, snatching up the bag,
still half full, and flung it after her.
It lighted on her shoulder; and partly from the blow, partly from terror,
she fell to the ground; and when she came to herself, it was morning,
and she was lying across her own door-stone.
It is said that she never more told fortune or practised spell. And though
all that happened sixty years ago and more, Laura Silver Bell, wise folk
think, is still living, and will so continue till the day of doom among the
fairies.

WICKED CAPTAIN WALSHAWE, OF WAULING
CHAPTER I.
_Peg O'Neill Pays the Captain's Debts_
A very odd thing happened to my uncle, Mr. Watson, of Haddlestone;
and to enable you to understand it, I must begin at the beginning.
In the year 1822, Mr. James Walshawe, more commonly known as
Captain Walshawe, died at the age of eighty-one years. The Captain in
his early days, and so long as health and strength permitted, was a
scamp of the active, intriguing sort; and spent his days and nights in
sowing his wild oats, of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible
stock. The harvest of this tillage was plentifully interspersed with
thorns, nettles, and thistles, which stung the husbandman unpleasantly,
and did not enrich him.
Captain Walshawe was very well known in the neighborhood of
Wauling, and very generally avoided there. A "captain" by courtesy, for
he had never reached that rank in the army list. He had quitted the
service in 1766, at the age of twenty-five; immediately previous to
which period his debts had grown so troublesome, that he was induced
to extricate himself by running away with and marrying an heiress.

Though not so wealthy quite as he had imagined, she proved a very
comfortable investment for what remained of his shattered affections;
and he lived and enjoyed himself very much in his old way, upon her
income, getting into no end of scrapes and scandals, and a good deal of
debt and money trouble.
When he married his wife, he was quartered in Ireland, at Clonmel,
where was a nunnery, in which, as pensioner, resided Miss O'Neill, or
as she was called in the country, Peg O'Neill--the heiress of whom I
have spoken.
Her situation was the only ingredient of romance in the affair, for the
young lady was decidedly plain, though good-humoured looking, with
that style of features which is termed _potato_; and in figure she was a
little too plump, and rather short. But she was impressible; and the
handsome young English Lieutenant was too much for her monastic
tendencies, and she eloped.
In England there are traditions of Irish fortune-hunters, and in Ireland
of English. The fact is, it was the vagrant class of each country that
chiefly visited the other in old times; and a handsome vagabond,
whether at home or abroad, I suppose, made the most of his face, which
was also his fortune.
At all events, he carried off the fair one from the sanctuary; and for
some sufficient reason, I suppose, they took up their abode at Wauling,
in Lancashire.
Here the gallant captain amused himself after his fashion, sometimes
running up, of course on business, to London. I believe few wives have
ever cried more in a given