The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

THE GREY MONK.

That the Grey Monk was haunting the Friar's Keep that night, and for a longer period than could be quite agreeable to any chance passer-by, appeared to be indisputable.

Some of the Grey Sisters were up that evening at the coastguard station. The wife of one of the men was very ill, her infant being only three days old: and Sister Rachel had been with her for the day. At eight o'clock Sister Rachel was relieved by Sister Mona, who would remain for the night. Sister Ann walked up from the Nunnery with Sister Mona for company, and would walk back again with Sister Rachel.

It was about half past eight that they left the station to return home, the Sisters Ann and Rachel. The night was starlight, the air somewhat frosty. Talking of the poor woman, just quitted, Sister Rachel saying the fever was getting higher, they approached the Friar's Keep. They were on the opposite side of the road, and had nearly reached Chapel Lane when something strange--some kind of glimmer or faint flash--struck on Sister Rachel's vision, and caused her to turn her eyes on the upper casements of the Keep. With a spring and a cry, she seized hold of Sister Ann and clung to her.

"Have you trod upon a stone?" asked practical Sister Ann. But the very fact of turning to her companion, who was outside, brought the windows of the Keep before her, and she saw the Grey Monk slowly gliding along, with his cowl covering his head, and his lamp in his hand. A shadowy kind of form, suggestive of terrible ideas that don't pertain to earth.

The blood of the two unfortunate Sisters seemed to turn; they nearly sank away in evaporation. They clung to each other, arm in arm, hand to hand, pushing, staggering, pressing onwards, and in a minute, as it seemed, gained the Grey Nunnery. The door was opened by Sister Caroline, and they burst into the reception parlour.

The Superior sat there, Mary Ursula; and most of the sisters with her who were not out on charitable missions. To have stopped the tongues of the two terrified grey women would have been about as feasible as to stem a rushing torrent in its overwhelming coarse. They had seen the apparition of the Grey Monk gliding past the window with their own eyes; had seen his lamp; had nearly fainted at him altogether.

"Tut, tut, tut!" reproved Sister Mildred, who was better this evening and down stairs. "I think you must have been deceived by your fears. I never saw it in my life."

But they only told their tale the more persistently, and Sister Mildred wavered. In vain Mary Ursula represented to them that there were no such things as ghosts: that people in believing in them, were misled by their fears and fancies. To this the two scared women only reiterated that they saw. They were walking quietly along, talking of the poor sick wife of the coastguardsman; nothing could have been further from their thoughts than any fears or fancies, when the figure suddenly appeared, plainly and unmistakably, before their astonished eyes.

"Sister Rachel saw it first," urged Sister Ann, anxious to defend herself against the imputation of having taken alarm unnecessarily, as though she were a foolish, timid child. "When she called out and caught hold of my arm, I thought she had trod upon a stone, or twisted her foot, or something; and, in turning to her there I saw the pale light in the window, and the figure of the Grey Monk. We stood rooted to the spot, holding on to one another, just too frightened to move, our poor eyes staring at the Keep. He glided past that window, and then past the other, his lighted lamp stretched out in his hand; just as Sister Lettice once saw him glide a year or so ago--and she knows it."