The morning times., 1897-02-26


She was a woman OF whom nothing
certain could be said. Before her advent
in the town it was known that the cottage
which she afterward occupied had been
let to a London lady. The cottage was
on the squire's land, and the squire's
bailiff, man full of affairs, was made
drunk in "The Home Tap and indus
triouSly piled with questions. But To no
satisfactory end. He gave her name,
and haZarded that she was married and
lived alone; he did not know if her husband
were dead or not. She was distantIy
related TO the squire, he fancied but even
this he was not sure Of He did lis
honest best TO pay for his liberal refresh
ment with liberal information, but, having
acted as blind agent in the matter, and
being a man OF small Imagination, his
success was meager. At the end of the
cross examination the folk thought him
but poor sort OF fellow, after all
Hannah Wray came and was seen But
her very appearance was mysterious and
baffling. 1t was impossible to tell her age
Her plentiful dark hair was thicNy
streaked with white; but her face. though
her eyes were lustrous, her lips were
proudly curved, the outline of her chin
and throat was round and firm She
came prosaically riding on the London
coach, burdened with many feminine bun
dies and boxes The peasantrg watched
her from afar and spied upon her through
the garden hedge when she was at last
installed in her cottage. 1t was reckOnCd
as an uncommon misfortune that her
cottage was the last in Market Wander
and separated from it by a bluff of hill
On the second day of her stay in the
little town some building operations We're
begun in Hannah Wray's garden The
neat vegetable mounds and budding peas
were swept away, an apple tree was
ruthlessly uprooted, the ragged rose and
fruit bushes We're cast forth to wither in
the road. A rectangular brick wall struck
up from the luscious soil, with one wide
break for door. In month the building
was finished and proved to be a very
handsome stable, beside which the cot
tage had forlorn appearance, as if
weighed down with a sense of its COM
parative dinginess. For many weeks the
stable remained unoccupied and the name
of Hannah Wray's Folly fastened upon
it. But one evening Shepherd Gurney
told a strange thing at meeting OF
conversationalists in The Home Tap
AZ were thinkin' Deep" he said, ''or
mayhap dozin,' when l heerd the sheep
a-sairryin' about an bleatin' wi fright
was razZled like at first, an could not
fetch at what was the tear. An all the
while / could hear a thumpin' an
thumpin' for all the world like harses
hoofs ! was pitched near the top o. the
hill, an the sheep came bundlin' up from
the thther side, in front o. the noise like
! could pick 'em out in black, agin the
clouds as they come up one on one an
huddled about. At last I ups an climbs
to the right top O. the hill an looks down
There was the sheep still a-comin' up all
in a wedge an justle, wi the heavy ewes
behind, an their bleat was pitifu'. AMI
see the cause of it all in a wink. Sure
emo, rs had thought, it We're a harse-a
big stallion, blacker than your funeral hat.
with woman on it. They was racin'
over the barrows like a shadder, the harse's
name an tail an the woman's hair an
frock maxim a sail like to the wind
run down the hill shoutin' to the woman
to head off from the sheep a-frightin' 'em
She never TOOK on tnat Sne heerd me, an
watched her an the harse as they went on,
gettin' smaller an smaller an farther an
farther away, till she got on the road by
the Jail an I lost her But 1 know who
she be. She be the moo Missus Wray up at
the cottage, an 'ee'I ha' to christen the
stable anoo."
The shepherds information was true.
Thenceforrh, Hannah Wray, riding on
the black horse, over the barrows, was a
common spectacle. Every day she rode
the horse. u fair weather and foul
her course was always the same--over
the hill toward the jail. Sometimes she
would stop her horse on some high point
and look down upon the plain where the
convicts worked. They would look up
at the sight OF her so free, and scowl
She could see their faces in the sun