Madam Crowls Ghost and the Dead Sexton | Page 2

tea, and
pork-chops, waiting for me, all hot, in my aunt's room at the great
house. It was a fine moonlight night, and I eat the apples, lookin' out o'
the shay winda.
"It's a shame for gentlemen to frighten a poor foolish child like I was. I
sometimes think it might be tricks. There was two on 'em on the tap o'
the coach beside me. And they began to question me after nightfall,
when the moon rose, where I was going to. Well, I told them it was to
wait on Dame Arabella Crowl, of Applewale House, near by Lexhoe.
"'Ho, then,' says one of them, 'you'll not be long there!'
"And I looked at him as much as to say 'Why not?' for I had spoken out
when I told them where I was goin', as if 'twas something clever I hed
to say.
"'Because,' says he, 'and don't you for your life tell no one, only watch
her and see--she's possessed by the devil, and more an half a ghost.
Have you got a Bible?'

"'Yes, sir,' says I. For my mother put my little Bible in my box, and I
knew it was there: and by the same token, though the print's too small
for my ald eyes, I have it in my press to this hour.
"As I looked up at him saying 'Yes, sir,' I thought I saw him winkin' at
his friend; but I could not be sure.
"'Well,' says he, 'be sure you put it under your bolster every night, it
will keep the ald girl's claws aff ye.'
"And I got such a fright when he said that, you wouldn't fancy! And I'd
a liked to ask him a lot about the ald lady, but I was too shy, and he and
his friend began talkin' together about their own consarns, and dowly
enough I got down, as I told ye, at Lexhoe. My heart sank as I drove
into the dark avenue. The trees stand very thick and big, as ald as the
ald house almost, and four people, with their arms out and finger-tips
touchin', barely girds round some of them.
"Well my neck was stretched out o' the winda, looking for the first
view o' the great house; and all at once we pulled up in front of it.
"A great white-and-black house it is, wi' great black beams across and
right up it, and gables lookin' out, as white as a sheet, to the moon, and
the shadows o' the trees, two or three up and down in front, you could
count the leaves on them, and all the little diamond-shaped
winda-panes, glimmering on the great hall winda, and great shutters, in
the old fashion, hinged on the wall outside, boulted across all the rest o'
the windas in front, for there was but three or four servants, and the old
lady in the house, and most o' t' rooms was locked up.
"My heart was in my mouth when I sid the journey was over, and this
the great house afoore me, and I sa near my aunt that I never sid till noo,
and Dame Crowl, that I was come to wait upon, and was afeard on
already.
"My aunt kissed me in the hall, and brought me to her room. She was
tall and thin, wi' a pale face and black eyes, and long thin hands wi'
black mittins on. She was past fifty, and her word was short; but her

word was law. I hev no complaints to make of her; but she was a hard
woman, and I think she would hev bin kinder to me if I had bin her
sister's child in place of her brother's. But all that's o' no consequence
noo.
"The squire--his name was Mr. Chevenix Crowl, he was Dame Crowl's
grandson--came down there, by way of seeing that the old lady was
well treated, about twice or thrice in the year. I sid him but twice all the
time I was at Applewale House.
"I can't say but she was well taken care of, notwithstanding; but that
was because my aunt and Meg Wyvern, that was her maid, had a
conscience, and did their duty by her.
"Mrs. Wyvern--Meg Wyvern my aunt called her to herself, and Mrs.
Wyvern to me--was a fat, jolly lass of fifty, a good height and a good
breadth, always good-humoured and walked slow. She had fine wages,
but she was a bit stingy, and kept all her fine clothes under lock and
key, and wore, mostly, a twilled chocolate cotton, wi' red, and yellow,
and green sprigs and balls on it, and it lasted wonderful.
"She never gave me nout, not the vally o' a brass thimble, all the time I