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J.S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES

by

J.S. LE FANU

VOLUME 5

CONTENTS

LAURA SILVER BELL

In the five Northumbrian counties you will scarcely find so bleak,ugly, and yet, in a savage way, so picturesque a moor as Dardale Moss.The moor itself spreads north, south, east, and west, a greatundulating sea of black peat and heath.

What we may term its shores are wooded wildly with birch, hazel, anddwarf-oak. No towering mountains surround it, but here and there youhave a rocky knoll rising among the trees, and many a woodedpromontory of the same pretty, because utterly wild, forest, runningout into its dark level.

Habitations are thinly scattered in this barren territory, and a fullmile away from the meanest was the stone cottage of Mother Carke.

Let not my southern reader who associates ideas of comfort with theterm "cottage" mistake. This thing is built of shingle, with lowwalls. Its thatch is hollow; the peat-smoke curls stingily from itsstunted chimney. It is worthy of its savage surroundings.

The primitive neighbours remark that no rowan-tree grows near, norholly, nor bracken, and no horseshoe is nailed on the door.

Not far from the birches and hazels that straggle about the rude wallof the little enclosure, on the contrary, they say, you may discoverthe broom and the rag-wort, in which witches mysteriously delight. Butthis is perhaps a scandal.

Mall Carke was for many a year the sage femme of this wild domain.She has renounced practice, however, for some years; and now, underthe rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art, in which shehas always been secretly skilled, tells fortunes, practises charms,and in popular esteem is little better than a witch.

Mother Carke has been away to the town of Willarden, to sell knitstockings, and is returning to her rude dwelling by Dardale Moss. Toher right, as far away as the eye can reach, the moor stretches. Thenarrow track she has followed here tops a gentle upland, and at herleft a sort of jungle of dwarf-oak and brushwood approaches its edge.The sun is sinking blood-red in the west. His disk has touched thebroad black level of the moor, and his parting beams glare athwart thegaunt figure of the old beldame, as she strides homeward stick inhand, and bring into relief the folds of her mantle, which gleam likethe draperies of a bronze image in the light of a fire. For a fewmoments this light floods the air—tree, gorse, rock, and brackenglare; and then it is out, and gray twilight over everything.

All is still and sombre. At this hour the simple traffic of thethinly-peopled country is over, and nothing can be more solitary.

From this jungle, nevertheless, through which the mists of evening arealready creeping, she sees a gigantic man approaching her.

In that poor and primitive country robbery is a crime unknown. She,therefore, has no fears for her pound of tea, and pint of gin, andsixteen shillings in silver which she is bringing home in her pocket.