gh on to twelve months latair, wi' a leetle one juist
come ter gladden her sore hearrt."

"Indeed? And what became of the child, then?"

"No one knaws. 'Twas said 'twas stealed at night by the granfer and
speerited awa'. And 'twas said th' de'il himsaif cam' an' claimed eet.
No one knaws that parrt o' th' story, but there's a mony who says they
du. Only the peasant-gairl hersaif haunts the Castle tu this day, sair,
and stalks th' whole place over from top tu bottom, an' inside and out,
a-lukin' fer her sheel."

"Poor girl!" There was genuine sympathy in Cleek's low-toned voice, and
at sound of it Mr. Fairnish spun round and looked at him, his own face
brightening.

"Then ye believe in eet?" he said. "Fer yer voice tells me so. And so
du I--an' aiverybody in these parrts. And wi' a mon so harrd as Sair
Andrew as laird, ye ken what a puir time the gel must have had long
ago--wi' another of 'em th' same. You're a sympathetic gentleman at
hearrt, sair, I knew it on sight uf ye, so ye'll be takin' a worrd of
advice from me, and no be out in the grounds at nicht, when there's no
mune. 'Tis said she twists the neck of every man she sees at nicht-time
in the grounds after dark, as a revenge for what she suffered at the
hands of one. Ugh! but it's a sorry tale and no prettier fer the
telling, I ken.... If ye come this way, sair, I'll introduce ye to my
ain leddy, and she'll tak' unco' care o' ye."

"Thanks."

Cleek swung into step behind him and mounted the wide shallow oak stairs
of the place to the tune of Mr. Fairnish's deep-pitched voice calling
for "Mary! Mary!" In the fullness of time "Mary" appeared, and resolved
herself into a buxom, high-bosomed, rosy-cheeked Highland lass, whom Mr.
Fairnish had taken to wife (the second for him) last January. She
appeared almost as garrulous as her husband, and while she showed Cleek
his room--a long, low-ceiled bedroom overlooking the Castle and with
windows across one end of it--she regaled him with tid-bits of gossip of
neighbouring parts, and incidentally added to his already plentifully
filled store of knowledge of the "Castle-folk" the fact that Miss
Duggan herself was secretly engaged to a Captain Macdonald--one of the
poorest land-owners of those parts--who, because of his poverty, was
forbidden the house by Sir Andrew, and promptly sent about his business.

"A harrd mon," she said, as her husband had done, standing in the frame
of the open doorway with arms akimbo, and