CHAPTER XV.
IN WHICH SOME OF THE VILLAGERS ARE MADE SANDWICHES OF.
The village of Walton, near to the abbey, never forgot that memorable night on which Lady Julia, a newly-made bride, was carried off by the chief of the Skeleton Crew, and her young husband cruelly killed.
It was an event which shocked the most hardened.
During the day, the whole village, and its surroundings had been making holiday in honor of Lady Julia’s nuptials, and everything had passed off with the greatest satisfaction to every one.
But few persons were astir, and these consisted of the village clerk, the butcher, the druggist, the post-master, and a few other notabilities, who were warming their legs round the tavern fire, and indulging in all manner of stories, both wild and strange, until long after the church clock had struck the hour of twelve.
The parson’s clerk was just in the middle of a ghost-story; his hearers, with open mouths, and staring eyes, listened in wrapt attention.
The wind sighed down the chimney most dolefully, and the clerk began to look very nervous and shaky.
He had just got to that part of his tale where the ghost appears upon the scene, when the village bells in a discordant peal clanged out upon the silent night.
Every one in the parlor of the “Black Bull” was startled.