Going through the entire house was more than the elder members of the party cared to attempt, so Mrs. Norton, Miss Acton, and the children went upstairs, enjoying the confusing and involved galleries and passages that led to suite after suite of rooms. Those in the centre of the castle were furnished with modern elegance and lightness, but in the wings the rooms were dark, and filled with ancient furniture of gloomy grandeur.
“This is the room in which his blessed Majesty King James the First slept when he was entertained, with nobles and gentlemen, by the noble ancestor of his present lordship,” said the servant who accompanied them, precisely as if he were reciting a lesson.
“Did a king really sleep in that great, high, black bed?” said Rose, who was deeply impressed with the grandeur of the place.
“I suppose he did, as the man says so,” said her mother, smiling.
“I don’t half care so much for the bed the king slept in as for the room where the ghost lives,” said Lillie.
“Ghosts don’t live,” said Miss Acton, laughing.
“Oh, yes, she do, miss!” said the man, thinking she was throwing a doubt over one of the attractions of the place. “She stops in the tower-room just up them stairs at the end of this gallery, and if the ladies are not too tired there’s a beautiful outlook from the window.”
And there was a superb view from the upper window of the tower, that well paid them for the labor of mounting the high stairs.
“This ghost shows good taste in the selection of a room,” said Mrs. Norton, panting and out of breath as she came behind the others to look from the window, “that is, if ghostly persons don’t mind stairs.”
“They say,” began the servant, assuming the recitative tone and manner, “that ’er ’eart was broken along of ’er great attachment to Another, but ’er brother compelled ’er to marry a juke’s son who treated ’er ill on account of ’er love for Another. So she took ’er vengeance on ’im by giving ’im chopped ’orse ’air hin ’is provisions, which consumed ’im in great agony. As soon as ’er husband was killed, she wrote to Another and learned that ’is love was ’ers no longer, for ’is marriage with a rival ’ad just taken place; whereupon the unfortunate lady was seized with deep repentance, and, leaving the rooms she ’ad formerly occupied, she secluded herself in this lofty tower chamber, refusing to eat or drink, till one day the maid, knocking for admittance and receiving no answer, ’ad the door broke down, and found ’er lady a raving lunatic, which she flew past ’er down the stairs, and, running out the door, drowned ’erself in the lake by the park gate, and ’er uneasy spirit is said to ’aunt the precincts ever since.”