from _her_ heart; and that
couch you was lying on, is where they laid her when they took her up.
See, it's all dabbled yet; and where your head was resting now, the
dead girl's head lay, more than a hundred years since! Come away,
master--come away! I never thought to have looked on these things,
though I know all about them."

"Oh, tell me--tell me about them!" I exclaimed. "I am not a bit
afraid. Do tell me all about them."

"Not now--not now--nor not here," said the old man, gazing about as if
he expected to see a spirit stalk out of some shady nook of the
surrounding trees. "I would not tell you here to be master of all
Ditton-in-the-Dale! But come up, if you will, to the great house
to-morrow, and ask for old Matthew Dawson, and I'll show you all the
place--the family never lives here now, nor hasn't since that deed was
done--and then I'll tell you all about it, if you must hear. But if
you're wise, you'll shun it; for it will chill your young blood to
listen, and cling to your young heart with a gloom forever."

"Oh, I will come, be sure, Matthew! I would not miss it for the world.
But it is getting late, so I'll fasten up the old place, and be
going;" and suiting the action to the word, I soon secured the
fastenings, while the old gardener stood by, marvelling and muttering
at the boldness of young blood, until I had finished setting things in
order, when I shook hands with the old man, slipping my _one_ half
crown into his horny palm, and saying,

"Well, good night, Matthew Dawson, and don't forget to-morrow
evening."

"That I wont, master," he replied, greatly propitiated by my offering.
"But which way are you going?"

"Oh, I'll soon show you," I replied; and swinging myself up my tree, I
was beyond the precincts of the haunted ground almost in a moment.

"The very way _he_ came the time he did it," cried the old gardener,
with upturned hands, and eyes aghast. But I tarried then to ask no
further questions, being quite sufficiently terrified for one night;
although my pride forbade my displaying my terrors to the old rustic.

The next day I was punctual to my appointment; and then, for the first
time, I heard the melancholy tale which, at length, I purpose to
relate.

It was a proud and noble Norman family which had held the demesnes of
Ditton-in-the-Dale, since the reign of the last Plantagenet--a brave
and loyal race, which had poured its blood like water on many a
foreign, many a native battle-f