Wandering Ghosts

air with wings, her feet in a bag footstool lined with sheepskin, and many warm blankets wrapped about her, even in

s from under her starched white cap. Every now and then she woke, and her eyelids were drawn up in tiny folds like little pink silk curtains, and her queer blue eyes looked straight before her through doors and walls and worlds to

hing caress. In the small room beyond, with the door ajar, the girl-maid who took care of Nurse Macdonald was fast asleep. All was

f Evelyn Warburton, though there were eighty feet from the sill of the window to the foot of the tower. Yet the cheeks were thinner than

d themselves back, and she looked straight at t

sked in her little

and the bloody lips opened over gleaming teeth, and stretched and widened and stretched again, and the shadowy golden hair rose and st

hat the cry of the banshee is an evil cry to hear alone in the deep night. When it was over and the face was gone, Nurse Macdonald shook a little in her great chair, and still she looked at the black square of the win

urse Macdonald. "I must go

nd a great mantle, and her crutch-stick, and made her ready. But very often the girl looked at the window and was

Miss Evelyn," said the

ared. She held herself by the arm of the great chair with her left hand, and li

wit, child, pray for wit-or else find service in another house

slow triplets, as Nurse Macdonald got toward the door. And down the stairs each step she took was a labour in

ors near Sir Hugh's bedroom, and now some one went in, and now some one came out, but every o

n shadow down her shoulders, and her hands clasped nervously together. And opposite Gabriel, a nurse was trying to make Sir Hugh drink. But he would not, a

ald to the woman who held the cup. "Let

him," said Gabri

ered hand, that was like a brown moth, upon Sir Hugh's yellow fingers, and she sp

s I saw you born, and saw your father born before you, I am c

wn all his life, and he very slowly turned his yellow face t

er see the daylight again.

ot yet dull. They fastene

ach word struck hollow upon the last. "I

ead bob and tremble a little, as if her neck were on a steel sprin

in peace," h

and her brown, moth-like hand left

and died of grief for the sin

ightened on his d

th," he ans

ur son and died heartbro

life, nor to her

of sweat rolled across the parchment of his forehead. Gabriel Ockram bit h

and who waits for you this night,

ate. Let me

s the set yellow teeth, and the toad e

"Tell me the name of Evelyn Warburton's f

s she was, and stared at Nurse

repeated slowly, while the awful

crooked shadow on the wall grew gigantic. Sir Hugh's breath came thick, rattling in his thr

r through the glass, wide and fearful, and her own hair streaming against the pane, and her own lips dashed with blood, she rose slowly from the floor and stood rigid for one moment, till she screamed once and fell straight back i

ight in his deathbed, a

est as he sank down. But still Nurse Macdonald tortur

for you, Hugh Ockram. Who was this gi

owly, very surely now, and the toad eyes glared red, and the parchment f

now it

llow face turned waxen pale, and a great shive

the north vault of the chapel where the Ockrams lie uncoffined in their shrouds-all but one. Though he was dead, he smiled, for he had kept his trea

wn lips-the ancient crone and the youth with the angel's face. Then they shivered a little, and both looked at Evelyn as she lay with her head on his shoulder, and, tho

f weeping and crooning came up the stairs and echoed along the dismal corridors, for the women had begun to mourn the dead master,

gh the iron door and down the long descent to the north vault, with tapers, to lay him by his father. And two men went

ng upright against the stone wall, and that its head lay on the ground near by with the face turned up, and the dried lea

om the door saw him lay it in the coffin again, and it rustled a little, like a bundle of reeds, and sounded hollow as it touched the

er, with the trestle bier on which they had b

iling with the dead smile of the corpse they had left in the vault, so