American citizen., 1872-08-03
Miscellany.
THE GHOST OF LAWFOKD HALL.

THE GHOST OF LAWFOKD HALL.
EVERY word of the following story,
taken down by me five years ago, from
the lips of lady in Warwickshire, may
be relied upon as entirely true, without
any addition from my pen--W. T
1t is now about thirty years ago that 1
and my husband, not long after our mar
riage, went on visit to Lawford Hall, an
old house near Rugby, which had long
desired to see. l remember posted alone
from Coventry, near which town we had
been staying, as my husband had gone on
two days before to attend to some coun-
try races, where the Lawfords were run
ming favorIte horse, and to go hunting
the next day with the old baronet At
the last War wfckshire house in which we
day, in the library, an old book of trials,
which contained illusions to Lawford
Hall. For three hours in cozy nook of
that old EliZabethan room-where Van
dykes cavaliers seemed longing to come
out of their frames to talk to you'll sat
absorbed over a strange and terrible
poisoning case which had made all War
wickshire shudder sixty years before
There are days when the brain seems un-
usually sensitive to impressions; and all
the details of this crime, from some rea-
son or another, became printed, or NAV
rather say, photographed on my retina,
with a sharpness and vividness that was
almost painful. l saw the great plumed
bed where the rich man lay; again the
thin, Hogarthian figure of the younger
step-brother, in the old costume, stole
with silent foot through the shadow of
the broad oak staircase, and past the cur
tained bed to the mantel-pi where the
low row of bottles stood. l saw the thin
ing. trembling, white hand, with the lace
ruffie all but covering it, remove half
the contents of one phial and SUBJ
stitute the laurel water that he had
distilled, with cruel and calculating
care, in his own locked-up room. /
heard the dreadful cry of the dying man
as his step-brother bent over him. l
could hear the ringing hoofs of the doc
tors horse as it came down the Rugby
road | could see the grave face of the
man in black as he stood by the bedside.
and, raising the cold, waxen head, let it
fall again, uttering only these few solemn
words, " 1t is too late, he is dead" Then
followed the surgeon down to the VAIN
scotted parlor, where the murderer, with
hypocritical grief, told his planned story
of the cause of his brothers fit, and with
subtle craft evaded any examination of
the body. l tracked the pOisoner to the
quiet summer garden, where he eyed me
with bitter smile, as he passed the laurel
from whence he had plucked the fatal
leaves heard him stop and tell, with
exultation, the old gardener, who was
resting on his spade, THAT it would be
easy days with the old servants now, not
as in Sir Edwards time, and that he had
long worked to be master of Lawford
Hall, and was SO at last" 1 watched
him tremble when the letter came from
his brothers friend, sternly and coldly
desiring that the body should be exam
ined step by step, indeed, 1 followed
that soft spoken, decorous, cat-like, cruel
villain till left him with irons round his
small wrists, while the morning coach
was preparing which was to take him to
the Warwick gibbet, still lying still un-
repentant, still denying, in spite of the
countless proofs of guilt that from earth,
water and air had been drawn to cover
him with shame. 1 saw him also in the
dead of the night previous, when the grim
keepers were asleep, steal from his pill
low, throw himself on his knees, SO sol
emn bent to God, and unite his thin. fet-
tered hands tn passionate prayer to the
Judge of ali, and l hoped that even at
that last moment he had found mercy.
These scenes again arose in my mind
as, after hours of heavy rain, the sun
shone out just as the post-chaise swept
round turn in the road, past Newbold,
into Little Lawford. The light glittered
on the yellowing leaves of the lime trees
and fiickered upon the wet gables of the
old house. 1t was stately, melancholy
building, half Tudor, half classic The
huge Elizabethan porch contrasted un-
pleasantly with the ugly square windows
of the Georgian era. that were rendered
more hideous by the picturesque oriels
that were here and there left. There was
n solid comfort about the stone mullions
that the old house had been so awk wardly
patched. just to the right of the porch
there was an old Tudor window that es-
pecially struck my eye 1t was ovcrhung
with Nirginian creeper, whose leaves
were already turning scarlet. The mo-
ment L glanced at that window, u scene
OF the old trial came again into my
thoughts. 1t was below that room that
the prisoner stood that April morning
and called, in his gay, thoughtless way, to
his sister, to ask her if she was ready for
"A ride before breakfast. She had just
been to her brothers room to give him
the fatal medicine, and had left him as
she thought, asleep This window opened
Oh passage between her room and that
of the murdered man, and she heard her
brother call to her as she passed back
from one room to the other. 81 shall be
ready in a quarter of an hour" she called
from the window, upon which he went to
the stable, mounted his bay mare, which
was always ready saddled, and rode off
to the Wells. Five minutes after the
sister returned to the brothers room, and
found him in the agonies of death.
As the post-chaise swept round the
drive to the front entrance, | observed on
the right the dial court, of which had
read, with the great iron gates leading in
to the garden. 1t was there the prisoner
had stood the night he distilled the laurel
water, talking to two tenants who had
come to see his sick brother Stately as
the house was, guarded by its avenue of
lines, and girt with its broad gardens, /
could not help fancying that a curse still
rested upon it. There was malign, un-
happy look about it that weighed on my
too active imagination, SO that a curious
presentiment of some impending evil
came over me the great bell, dragged
from It's socket, gave forth a clamorous,
jangling clang that seemed to echo
through endless passages with a queru-
lous clamor that / thought would never
cease.
The dinner was dull. Lady Lawford,
whom / had found so delightful, so
charming, so vivacious at Paris, seemed
oppressed with the social difficulties of
her county position, and to be unequal TO
the task of entertaining alone gathering =
of such equal composites. Some secret
trouble, some sorrow seemed To have fall
len upon her She had an absent manner
and often relapsed into embarrassing 81
lenccs. The local doctor, the local solci-
tor, the rector, two or three old maids,
and some shy, country Squres' dauglI-
ters were all that she had to amuse but
etiU she failed IN anvIee them Tho Meet