CHAPTER XII.
THE GHOST OF HUNSTANTON PLACE.
"'Be brave!' she cried, 'you yet may be our guest;
Our haunted room was ever held the best.
If, then, your valour can the fright sustain
Of rustling curtains and of clinking chain.'"
SCOTT, Old Play.
Early next morning Mr. Rogers was on his way to Inglethorpe. For some distance his ride was uneventful; but as he entered Castle Rising, he was roused from his meditations by very doleful cries for help. No one in distress ever appealed in vain to the kindly minister, and he instantly drew rein, and perceived, sitting by the road, a man, whose tawdry finery was so covered with dirt and filth as to be hardly visible. His head was tied up with a rag, and one of his legs was fast chained to a heavy log. Several urchins stood round him, and the rotten apples and egg-shells that lay about, showed the boys had been taking an active part in vindicating the majesty of the law.
"Oh, good sir, kind sir!" wailed the miserable object; "you ride Hunstanton way. Do have pity, and let Justice Tomkins know of my plight!"
"Justice Tomkins?" asked Mr. Rogers, with some interest. "What have you to say to Justice Tomkins?"
"Oh, kind sir, 'twas I that first put him on track of the plot—the Fifth-Monarchy plot, and the conspirators in hiding at Inglethorpe. And these ignorant folk will believe none of it, and hold me clapped up here as though I were a strayed donkey, 'od rot 'em!"
"Why is this man chained up here?" asked Mr. Rogers, of the biggest of the grinning boys.
"He frightened Molly Kett into fits, yesterday, and he robbed parson's hen-roosts the night afoor," answered the boy, taking a final bite out of an apple before aiming the core of it at the prisoner's eye; "and so his worship have clapped him into jail!"
"Into jail! Is this what you call jail?"
"Why, this be Castle Rising Jail, all the world knows? This here log is Roaring Meg, and that be Pretty Betty. Us be main proud of our jail—us be!"