"Aweel, in the spring the leddy gave her husband a fine lad bairn, and there were great rejoicings on the estate. The leddy seemed to get over her fears, and went about with her husband and entertained company; but there were those who said she was na quite herself. She had a watchful look always about her, and any sudden noise in the night would make her start and clasp her bairn to her breast. She seemed to worship the child, and would not bear it out of her sight; but yet she would not nurse it, and had a young woman from the village to suckle it. After the babe was christened she seemed easier about it, but yet her face never lost the apprehensive look.
"The summer went by and the cold weather came on, and again the wolves began to come down from the hills. The lady showed the same terror of them, and begged her husband not to hunt them. But one day when he was away, some of his friends persuaded him, laughing at him, and telling, he should be too much of a man to be afraid of his wife, and be tied to her apron-string, handsome as she was. So away he went on the hunt, and had the fortune to slay a great dog wolf, and ye shall not hinder him from bringing the creature home to show to his wife.
"The poor leddy had been shut in her room all day, very low in her spirits, as though she mistrusted where her lord had gone. The rooms had all been new fitted for her with many beautiful ornaments and pictures, but she found no comfort in any thing. She sat by the fire with her babe hugged to her bosom till she heard her lord's horses in the court. Then she gave the babe to its nurse and ran down to meet him. He kissed her as she threw her arms round his neck, and bade his man show the leddy what he had brought her. The man threw down on the floor the carcass of a great gray wolf. The lady gave one scream—they said it echoed through the house—and fled to her bedroom, bolting herself in. She would na open to any one—not to her husband or her child—but they heard her wailing and crying fit to break her heart.
"It was just midnight when those within the hall heard, as though close at hand, the long-drawn, piercing howl of a wolf. It was answered so near that the cry seemed within the very hall itself, and so dreadful was the sound that it made every one's blood run cold. My lord, who had come down stairs, ran up to his lady's room, thinking she would be terrified to death. He found the nurse, who watched by the sleeping babe, in the outer room stretched on the floor in a faint, but there was no sound from within. Reckless in his dread, he ordered the door to be broken in. The room was empty. The leddy's clothes that she had worn all day lay in a heap on the floor. The door to a little turnpike stair that led down to the garden was open, but, alive or dead, the poor leddy was never seen mair.
"The babe seemed to pine for his mither, though she had never nursed him, and in a week, he too died, and was buried. The lord had the rooms which had been his wife's closed and locked just as she left them, and he went to the Holy Wars, as they called them, against the Turks, and never came home. The estate went to a cousin after all; but they say that when some great misfortune is about to happen to the family, the long howl of a wolf is heard at night in Highbeck Woods."
Elsie ended her story and we sat a few moments in silence. Then Amabel remarked quietly—
"I suppose those are the shut up rooms between this chamber and the king's room."
"Aye, they have never been opened since, or sae they say, and a veil hangs always over the poor leddy's picture, though Mrs. Deborah's mother used think it was only a fancy piece, since nobody knew how to paint such pictures in those days. She was a very well-educated young leddy, was my young mistress, and had been at school at a convent in France."
And here Elsie diverged into an account of her young mistress, who had been Amabel's grandmother. I was not sorry, for the tale had "garred me grew," as Elsie said, and I was glad that the poor wolf-lady, if such she was, could claim no kin with me. I have since learned that there are plenty of ghost stories in my own family. Indeed, the Corbet ghosts have made themselves so cheap that they are very little regarded. I cannot say that either Amabel or myself slept any the worse for Elsie's story, though I must confess to starting sometimes when the bloodhounds would give vent to their long melancholy bay, worshipping the moon after the fashion of their race.
Mrs. Deborah and Mrs. Chloe came home the next day but one, Mrs. Chloe seeming much revived by her visit. The ball had been a great success, and Mrs. Chloe had danced one dance with a very fine gentleman indeed—some officer or other—who had given her a fine copy of verses next morning, as the fashion was then. *