Annie kept the contents of this epistle to herself, but it did not escape her eye that Donald seemed cowed by Coullie's enmity, which the animal never failed to exhibit as much as he durst. Moreover, as time passed, Donald lost his appetite and the healthy hue of his complexion; in short it was evident he was far from happy in his situation; and she thought that Sandy's significant and awful prayers were eating into his soul and wearing him away.
Farm servants are usually hired for six months; and at last Donald gave warning that he should leave next term—he did not think the place agreed with him; so it seemed indeed; but that was the year 1832; and ere term time arrived, the cholera came, and seized upon Donald as one of its first victims in those parts.
Before he died, he made his confession in presence of the doctor, to the effect, that he was jealous of Rob, because in the morning he and Ihan had overheard a conversation between him and Annie, and she had promised him a lock of her hair. That he met him as he was returning from Gilford, induced him to go out of his road towards the Quarry, by saying one of the sheep had fallen in, and when Rob was off his guard, he pushed him over; but not without a desperate struggle, Rob being very active and strong.
He was dreadfully frightened, and ran from the place not knowing what would happen, and for some time he hourly expected Rob to come home. But at length finding he did not, he ventured to approach the spot; but Coullie was there and he flew at him and bit him so severely that he resolved to leave the country and go to the Infirmary. He had heard of Rob's remains being found and buried, while he was living at Dunse; and thinking there would be no more enquiry about the matter, he accepted the farmer's offer to come back, because he wanted to see Annie.
And so he died, justifying the innocent, according to the old man's prayers; but Ihan did not long survive. Sandy said he feared he had taken to whiskey drinking from disappointment and vexation, and the cholera found him also an easy prey.
MY FRIEND'S STORY.
"I don't know how often you have promised to tell me a remarkable thing in the ghostly line, that happened to yourself," said I, the other day to my friend; "but something has always come in the way; now I shall be very much obliged to you for the particulars, if you have no objection to my printing the story."
"None," she said, "but as regards names of persons and places; the circumstances are so singular that I think they deserve to be recorded. That part of the affair which happened to myself I vouch for; and I can only say that I have most entire confidence in the truth of the rest, and that all the enquiries I made, tended to confirm the story.
"I remember your asking me once, why I so seldom visited our place in S——, and I told you it was because it was so dreadfully triste that I could not inhabit it. You will perhaps suppose that what I am going to relate happened there, but it did not, for the house has not even the recommendation of being haunted—that would at least give it an interest—but I am sorry to say the sole interest it possesses is, that it happens to be ours. Dull as it is, however, we lived there shortly after I was married, for some time. I had no children then, which made it all the duller, particularly when my husband was called away; and on one of these occasions, some acquaintances I had, who were living at a place called the Bellfry, about two miles distant, invited me to visit them for a few days.