Strange Pages from Family Papers

LE BLOO

Neptune's ocea

nd? No; this my

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green one r

that "by the side of the bier, if the slightest change were observable in the eyes, the mouth, feet, or hands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be present, and many an innocent spectator must have suffered death. This practice forms a rich pasture in the imagination of our old writers; and their histories and ballads are laboured into pathos by dwelling on this phenomenon."[25] At Blackwe

od; they say bloo

known to move a

understood

d choughs and ro

t'st man

ody foot had just trodden there, and it is averred that on a certain night of the year, and at a certain hour of the night, if you go and look at the doorstep, you will see the mark wet with fresh blood. Some have pretended to say that this is but dew, but can dew redden a cambric handkerchief? And this is what the bloody footstep will surely do when the appointed night and hour come round." A local tradition says that the stone bearing the imprint of the mysterious footprint was once removed and cast into a neighbouring wood, but in a short time it had to be restored to its original position owing to the alarming noises which troubled the neighbourhood. This strange footprint is traditionally said to have been caused by George Marsh, the martyr, stamping his foot to confirm his testimony,

oduce into use in Scotland. In another of his novels-"The Abbot"-Sir Walter Scott alludes to the Rizzio blood stains, and in his "Tales of a Grandfather" he deliberately states that the floor at the head of the stair still bears visible marks of the blood of the unhappy victim. In support of these blood stains, it has been urged that "the floor is very ancient, manifestly much more so than the lat

lain by his son. But unfortunately this piece of romance, which is utterly at variance with facts bearing on the history of Condover and its owners in years gone by, must be classed among the legendary tales of the locality. One room in Clayton Old Hall, Lancashire, has for years past been knicknamed "The Bloody Chamber," from

limbs and ho

oggart shall n

he more magnificent, when the master, in a fit of chagrin, threw himself from the gallery beneath his boasted chef d'?uvre, and was killed upon the spot. But his blood-stains on the floor are declared to be indelible. At Coth

Chamber," for the marks are only in reality natural

being pointed out on the stairs of the old tower. Another tragic story is told of the Manor House which Bishop Pudsey built at Darlington. It was for very many years a residence of the Bishops of Durham, and a resting place of Margaret, bride of James IV., of Scotland, and daughter of Henry VII., in her splendid progress through the country. This building was restored at great expense in

Holland House," "the gilt room is said to be tenanted by the solitary ghost of its first lord, who, runs the tradition, issues forth at midnight from behind a secret door, and walks slowly through the s

sane jealousy, or pretended to do so, over the then Vavasour of Weston. Money lenders, too, were pressing him hard, and he had become desperate. Rushing madly into the house, he plunged a dagger into one and then into another of his children, and afterwards tried to take the life of their mother, a steel corset which she wore luckily saving her life. Leaving her for dead, he mounted his horse with the intention of killing the only other child he had, and who was then at Norton. But being pursued by some villagers, his horse stumbled and threw him off, and the assassin was caught, being pre

ng, and so great was his obstinate repugnance to learning to write that he would wilfully blot over his copy-books in the most careless and slovenly manner. This conduct so irritated his mother that, to cure him of the propensity, she beat him again and again severely, till at last she beat him to death. To atone for her cruelty, she i

is noteworthy, also, that Lady Russell had no comfort in her sons by her first husband. Her youngest son, a posthumous child, caused her special trouble, insomuch so that she wrote to her brother-in-law, Lord Burleigh, for advice how to treat him. This may have been, it has been sugges

se, I went to my room. It was the one with marks of blood on the floor. I distinctly saw a white figure glide into the room. It went round by the washstand near the bed and disappeared!'" It may be added that part of the road leading from Market Lavington to Easterton which skirts the grounds of Fiddington House, used to be looked upon as haunted by a lady who was locally known as the "Easterton ghost." But in the year 1869 a wall was built round the roadside of the pond, and curiously close to

have been connected with a love tragedy. In the most lonely part of this lane a stream of clear water ran by the side of-which laid for years-a large stone, concerning which the following story i

at such a moment that the wily seducer communicated to her the real nature of his designs, the moon above being only the witness of his perfidy and her distress. She heard the avowal in tremulous silence, but her deadly paleness, and her expressive look

and lay stretched by the side of her he had so basely wronged. On the morrow, as a peasant passed over the little stream, he saw a dark stone with drops of bl

night visitor, writes a correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine, "I remember a circumstance related to me by those who were actually acquainted with the facts, and with the person to whom they refer. An inhabitant of Buckland, who had attended Reigate Market and become exceedingly intoxicated, was joked by a companion upon the subject of the 'Buckland Shag,' whereupon he laid a wager that if Shag appeared in his

did the spectre vanish, leaving the affrighted man in a state of complete exhaustion upon the threshol

d of his brother's wife, made immoral overtures to her, which she threatened to make known to Sir Gervase, to prevent which disclosure Stephen resolved to waylay his brother and slay him. By a strange coincidence, the identical stone on which his murdered body had expired formed a

potted with gore-a phenomenon which had never occurred previously. And, according to another strange Cornish belief told of St. Denis's blood, it is related that at the very time when his decapitation took place in Paris, blood fell on the churchyard of St. Denis. It is further said that these blood stains

otsteps, imprinted on the ground in the vengeful struggle, were reported "to remain, with the indentations produced by their advancing and receding; nor would any grass or vegetation grow afterwards over these forty footsteps." The most commonly received version of the story is, that two brothers were in love with the same lady, who would not declare a preference for either, but coolly sat upon a bank to witness the termination of a duel which proved fatal to both. Southey records this strange story in his "Commonplace Book,"[29] and after quoting a letter from a friend, recommending him to "take a view of those wonderful marks of the Lord's hatred to duelling, called 'The Brothers' Steps,'" he thus describes his own visit to the spot: "We sought for near half an hour in vain. We could find no steps at all within a quarter of a mile, no, nor half a mile, of Montague House. We were a

he most popular one being this: Once upon a time, a man was said to have been wrongfully hanged at Montgomery; and, when the rope was round his neck, he declared in proof of his innocen

ution, and which is still known as "Lord Derwentwater's Light" in the northern counties; the rushing Devil's Water, too, they said, ran down with blood on that terrible night, and the very corn which was ground on that day came tinged from the mill with crimson. Lord Derwentwater's death, too, was all the more deplored on account of his having long been undecided as to whether he should embrace the enterprise against

e of bewilderment. The mysterious apparition is reported to have spoken with the voice of a woman, and as it is known that "in the more critical conjunctures of the history of the Stuarts every device was practised by secret agents to gain the support of a wavering follower," it is n

eal object of their gathering might not be known to any but themselves, the doors were locked. Before very long, however, they flew open without any apparent cause. Again they were locked, but presently they burst open a second time, and even a third. Astonished at what seemed to baffle exp

surmised, for a great stain of blood shaped like a human form was found on the floor of the room, and despite all efforts the mark could never be washed out. Ever since this

nutely told by Dr. Zacharay Grey in a pamphlet on the character of Charles I.: "Vandyke having drawn the king in three different faces-a profile, three-quarters, and a full face-the picture was sent to Rome for Bernini to make a bust from it. Bernini was unaccountably dilatory in the work, and upon this being complained of, he sai

er, and placed upon a table in the garden, whither the king went with a train of nobility to inspect the bust. As they were viewing it, a hawk flew over their heads with a partridge in his claws, which he had wounded to death. So

TNO

s "Curiosities

Wilkinson's "Lancashi

k of Days

called "The Yorkshire Tragedy," and was adop

d Ser.,

ee o'clock p.m. on Saturday to sunrising on Monday morning, pleading the authority of an epistle written by Christ himself, and found on the altar of St. Simon at Golgotha. The people of Yorkshire treated the fanatic with co