When they had strolled some distance, Lord Baltimore proceeded—"There are strange tales afloat touching certain mysterious doings in a house at St. Jerome's: the old wives will have it that it is inhabited by goblins and mischievous spirits—and, in truth, wiser people than old women are foolish enough to hold it in dread. Father Pierre tells me he can scarcely check this terror."
"Your Lordship means the fisherman's house on the beach at St. Jerome's," said the Captain. "The country is full of stories concerning it, and it has long had an ill fame. I know the house: the gossips call it The Wizard's Chapel. It stands hard by the hut of The Cripple. By my faith,—he who wanders there at nightfall had need of a clear shrift."
"You give credence to these idle tales?"
"No idle tales, an please your Lordship. Some of these marvels have I witnessed with my own eyes. There is a curse of blood upon that roof."
"I pray you speak on," said the Proprietary, earnestly; "there is more in this than I dreamed of."
"Paul Kelpy the fisherman," continued Dauntrees,—"it was before my coming into the province—but the story goes——"
"It was in the Lord Cecil's time—I knowed the fisherman," interrupted Arnold.
"He was a man," said the Captain, "who, as your Lordship may have heard, had a name which caused him to be shunned in his time,—and they are alive now who can tell enough of his wickedness to make one's hair rise on end. He dwelt in this house at St. Jerome's in Clayborne's day, and took part with that freebooter;—went with him, as I have heard, to the Island, and was outlawed."
"Ay, and met the death he deserved—I remember the story," said the Proprietary. "He was foiled in his attempt to get out of the province, and barred himself up in his own house."
"And there he fought like a tiger,—or more like a devil as he was," added the ranger. "They were more than two days, before they could get into his house."