Village Ghosts - Page 2

and sister-in-law,
musing on his great strength, often wonder what he would do if he
drank. One night when passing through the Hospital Lane, he saw what he
supposed at first to be a tame rabbit; after a little he found that it
was a white cat. When he came near, the creature slowly began to swell
larger and larger, and as it grew he felt his own strength ebbing away,
as though it were sucked out of him. He turned and ran.

By the Hospital Lane goes the "Faeries Path." Every evening they
travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. At the sea
end of their path stands a cottage. One night Mrs. Arbunathy, who lived
there, left her door open, as she was expecting her son. Her husband
was asleep by the fire; a tall man came in and sat beside him. After he
had been sitting there for a while, the woman said, "In the name of
God, who are you?" He got up and went out, saying, "Never leave the
door open at this hour, or evil may come to you." She woke her husband
and told him. "One of the good people has been with us," said he.

Probably the man braved Mrs. Stewart at Hillside Gate. When she lived
she was the wife of the Protestant clergyman. "Her ghost was never
known to harm any one," say the village people; "it is only doing a
penance upon the earth." Not far from Hillside Gate, where she haunted,
appeared for a short time a much more remarkable spirit. Its haunt was
the bogeen, a green lane leading from the western end of the village. I
quote its history at length: a typical village tragedy. In a cottage at
the village end of the bogeen lived a house-painter, Jim Montgomery,
and his wife. They had several children. He was a little dandy, and
came of a higher class than his neighbours. His wife was a very big
woman. Her husband, who had been expelled from the village choir for
drink, gave her a beating one day. Her sister heard of it, and came and
took down one of the window shutters--Montgomery was neat about
everything, and had shutters on the outside of every window--and beat
him with it, being big and strong like her sister. He threatened to
prosecute her; she answered that she would break every bone in his body
if he did. She never spoke to her sister again, because she had allowed
herself to be beaten by so small a man. Jim Montgomery grew worse and
worse: his wife soon began to have not enough to eat. She told no one,
for she was very proud. Often, too, she would have no fire on a cold
night. If any neighbours came in she would say she had let the fire out
because she was just going to bed. The people about often heard her
husband beating her, but she never told any one. She got very thin. At
last one Saturday there was no food in