“It was a tall, black figger, miss, with a dead-white face and a black hood. She see it plain, and turned to go away, but she hadn't gone a dozen steps when there it was again before her, the same tall, dark thing with the dead-white face looking out from the black hood. It lifted its arm as if to hold her, but she gave a spring and dreadful screech, and ran to Mrs. Benson's room, where she dropped in a fit.”
“How absurd to be frightened by the shadows of the figures in armor that stand along the gallery!” said Rose, boldly enough, though she would have declined entering the gallery without a light.
“Nay, I don't wonder, it's a ghostly place at night. How is the poor thing?” asked Blanche, still hanging on the major's arm in her best attitude.
“If Mamma knows nothing of it, tell Mrs. Benson to keep it from her, please. She is not well, and such things annoy her very much,” said Octavia, adding as the man turned away, “Did anyone look in the gallery after Patty told her tale?”
“No, miss. I'll go and do it myself; I'm not afraid of man, ghost, or devil, saving your presence, ladies,” replied John.
“Where is Sir Jasper?” suddenly asked the major.
“Here I am. What a deuce of a noise someone has been making. It disturbed a capital dream. Why, Tavie, what is it?” And Sir Jasper came out of the library with a sleepy face and tumbled hair.
They told him the story, whereat he laughed heartily, and said the maids were a foolish set to be scared by a shadow. While he still laughed and joked, Mrs. Snowdon entered, looking alarmed, and anxious to know the cause of the confusion.
“How interesting! I never knew you kept a ghost. Tell me all about it, Sir Jasper, and soothe our nerves by satisfying our curiosity,” she said in her half-persuasive, half-commanding way, as she seated herself on Lady Treherne's sacred sofa.
“There's not much to tell, except that this place used to be an abbey, in fact as well as in name. An ancestor founded it, and for years the monks led a jolly life here, as one may see, for the cellar is twice as large as the chapel, and much better preserved. But another ancestor, a gay and gallant baron, took a fancy to the site for his castle, and, in spite of prayers, anathemas, and excommunication, he turned the poor fellows out, pulled down the abbey, and built this fine old place. Abbot Boniface, as he left his abbey, uttered a heavy curse on all who should live here, and vowed to haunt us till the last Treherne vanished from the face of the earth. With this amiable threat the old party left Baron Roland to his doom, and died as soon as he could in order to begin his cheerful mission.”