“‘You are a mad old beast, and before twenty-four hours are over your head you shall be committed to the County Lunatic Asylum.’
“And with that he struck spurs into his horse and dashed wildly away.
“Not too often, lass, does punishment follow fast on crime, but it did in this case. He dashed wildly off in a state of mind, I reckon, that made him unable to guide his young horse as he ought.
“Half an hour later he was carried hame to the castle on a shutter. The horse had thrown him and broken his neck.
“The title and estates, they went to a distant cousin, great-grandfather of the present Earl Francis. Earl Godfrey was good to me—he and his children and his children’s children have been good to me—always good to me, although they call me mad.
“When my girl was missed and the trapdoor was found open, they had it that she had trodden on it and it had gin way under her weight, and her death was a accident and nobody to blame. They wouldn’t listen to me—no one word. They said I was a poor, harmless creetur, crazed by the loss of my lass. They got a windlass and great chains and ropes, and then let down men and they took up my birds’ broken shells and gave them Christian burial.
“Everybody was kind to me, only they wouldn’t believe me. They said I was mad. They would have it as it was the poor stableboy as wronged my girl. And now I hear, after more than fifty years, some un have made another story and got it into a book, how the stableboy killed my girl and threw her body down the shaft, and was hanged for it at Carlisle. All lies, bairn! All lies! My story is the only true one.”
“I believe you,” said Wynnette.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE END OF THE NIGHT
“The sky is red in the east. Go now, my bairn. Thou art a good child, and brave to dare the ghosts of the old hall and to hear the tale of an old crone. And it is true, bairn; it is true. Do not you give faith to any who tell you it is not and tell you I am mad.”