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“Pooh! pooh!” says the ‘strong-minded lady,’ “who ever believes in legends now-a-days?” and she turns over our pages to look for a more interesting article.
“Legends! Fudge!” says the practical man, who may give a supercilious glance at the title, “I leave such nonsense for old women.”
“The Legend of the White Nun!” reads the sentimental young miss, or the Byronic gent with curly hair, and a turned-down shirt-collar—“ah! a story with a very heart-rending finale, no doubt!”
And then come the believers in Spirit-Knockings, and in Winking Madonnas—and they will observe, “Here again is, doubtless, something which will corroborate what the skeptical world is pleased to call superstitions!”
I am not going now to answer these remarks in the negative or affirmative. I will not anticipate the finale, or inform you at once the character of the following tale. That is opposed to all precedent. I merely ask for a perusal before judgment; and then, perhaps, the strong-minded lady, and the practical gentleman, and the sentimental miss, will all find themselves wrong in their conjectures. A story is, now-a-days, no more to be judged by its title, than a hypocrite by his appearance.
With this preface, or apology, or left-handed explanation—or whatever else the reader is pleased to call it—I shall commence.
While a young man I was very fond of field sports, and in the part of England where I then resided, I had frequent opportunities for indulging in them. Not only around my immediate neighborhood did I often saunter with dog and gun, but oftentimes over the preserves of acquaintances in adjoining parishes. In the month of November, 1809, I made a visit, ostensibly for shooting, at the residence of Squire Primrose, of the village of Tremington, in Devonshire. I say the object of my visit was ostensibly to visit the Squire’s fields for pheasant and snipe, but the real object was to see one of the Squire’s daughters. I cared more, dear reader, for a smile from Jane Primrose than for a dozen brace of snipe; and I am sure I would then (for I am old and married to another now!) have given fifty pheasants for a taste of her rosy lips. But matters were not then sufficiently far advanced to avow what is called, in such cases, “my intentions.” I was accompanied by an intimate friend, called Bob Turner, or, as one would now say, (as we style every man from a water-carrier to a millionaire,) Robert Turner, Esquire! Strange to relate, Bob was similarly situated toward Jane’s sister, Elizabeth; and, like me, made the Squire’s love for game a means for making love to his daughter.
On the evening of our arrival, we, and the family, assembled in their old-fashioned but comfortable parlor, before a blazing fire. Here we amused ourselves in various ways, as young people are wont to do. After the detail of all the gossip in the neighborhood—how that Dr. Balden’s wife was said to be a little too intimate with the parson—how that Miss Jenkings had been jilted—and that an old maid, named Smith, had offered herself to her coachman, and was about to marry him, and so forth; the Squire took up the newspaper, which weekly made its appearance, and commenced to read aloud a very extraordinary ghost story.