Bessie Heslop, who lived on Penhill, where
her husband was watch, got her bed with the
fright, and a finer boy you never saw! The
old Squire would stand godfather for him,
and gave a fine dinner at the christening. I
was godmother, aud the bairn was christened
Penhill Heslop; ay, and I sat at table with
the gentlefolks, and drank wiue with the old
Colonel and the Squire too."

This is evidently a very proud reminiscence.

"These times are different," Ailie goes on,
solemnly; " there are no such fine assemblies
at the great house now as there were when I
was a lass. I remember one night—I lived
nursemaid at the rectory then, and mistress
had sent us to bed—I got up and put on my
gown, and stole across the paddock into the
pleasure-grounds, and up to the window of
the room where they were dancing. The
blinds were not down, and as it was dark,
I watched ever so long without anybody
seeing me; but at last a gentleman and lady
came suddenly to the window, and I suppose
they must have seen me—I warrant I looked
queer in my nightcap—for she screamed and
fell down in a faint, and I heard the gentleman
cry out, ' The Devil! ' I didn't stand to
be told to run, you may be sure; but got
home as fast as I could, and then I did
laugh. But it got about that a ghost haunted
the gardens; and, if you believe me, the
Squire had wooden shutters put to all the
low windows immediately. I didn't tell, for
I should have lost my place."

"But are there ghosts at Moorbeck, Ailie—
real ones ? " I ask, with interest; for if there
is one thing I relish more than another, it is
a ghost-story. Ailie is a rather enlightened
character, but she admits that the old Grange,
where the Colonel once lived, and which was
burnt down two years ago, had a very bad
name.

"The servants would not stay one while,"
she says; " and even the family did not like
it. You see the old Colonel had done a wrong
thing in leaving it as he did, and so people
talked. There were footsteps tramping about
at night, and sometimes a great sigh would be
heard, though nothing could be seen; it came
and sighed over them as they lay in bed, I
have heard the girls tell, and then something
was sure to happen. And before any of the
family was going to die, there was always the
noise of shutting down a coffin heard,
followed by several people going down the great
staircase, slow and heavy, as if they carried
a burden. That happened before the old
Colonel died, and the nurse told me herself,
when I was streaking him for his coffin. He
was a grim-looking corpse, with his thick
grey moustaches, and his black brows. I've
laid out I can't tell how many of that
family; there was the Colonel's "wife, and
Miss Eleanor, who died of a waste—she was
a beautiful girl, and as good as she was
bonnie; then there was that sad scapegrace,
Master Everard, and the little boy; the old
Colonel outlived 'em all, aud was as bitter
as aloes always. He got his nephew, Richard,
to live with him when all the rest were gone,
but I dare say he harried him almost to
death. Richard married a great lady for his
wife, and so the old man was pleased and
left the estate to him, instead of to his elder
brother's family, who expected it; so the
two sets quarrelled. Then Richard and his
wife went abroad, and the house was let to
Sir John Grafton. It was while he had it,
and just before his youngest daughter was
married, that it was burnt down; all her
wedding-clothes were burnt, and as it
happened at night, the girls escaped in their
nightgowns, and took refuge at the Squire's.
Miss Louisa was married from there a month
after. There are a many people who say
they saw the old Colonel walking about the
house when it was burning, and that at the
last he went off like a pillar of blue flame.
I say myself that spirits no doubt there were,
but they were in the cellar, and as they were
not got out they made a fine lowe, as spirits
always do."

"I am afraid you are right, Ailie, and that
we cannot lay claim to a genuine ghost at
Moorbeck, after all."

"I'll tell you, miss, what I once saw my
own self," Ailie recommences, laying an
emphatic forefinger on my hand. " It was
when my husband was took for death, and
I had to fetch the doctor from Marston.
Nothing would serve him but seeing Doctor
Linley—he thought a vast of Dr. Linley. It
was a misty October night, and I set off
across the fields—it is three miles from
Moorbeck to Marston. The doctor had been
called out, but they promised to send him as
soon as he came back; and as I was in a
great fear for poor Willie, I didn't wait to
see him. Well, I had got just by the stile in
the river-closes, when I saw a light before
me. It danced up and down in the mist
like a live thing; but I said my prayers,
and it kept going on and on, till I got out in
the road, and then I missed it. Now, that's
true, miss."

"Ailie, it was a will-o'-the-wisp, a marsh-
light."

"No, miss, it was a solemn warning;
Willie died that day was a week."

The old woman was firm in her own
superstition, so I made no further attempt to
vanquish it.

"You've been over the ruins of the Percies'
castle, down yonder, miss '?"

"Yes."

"Well, a light haunts them such as I saw—
I've seen it often."

'' The ruins are not far from the marshy
ground by the river, Ailie."

"What does that matter? And ever since
I can remember, the folks have said there is
a buried treasure watched by a raven.
Penhill Heslop's father actually dug for it, but