Denton Examiner, Audenshaw, Hooley Hill and Dukinfield Advertiser. — 1877-05-12 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

CHAPTER 11. TIIE GAMEKEEPER'S GHOST.  STRIKING and frightful is the contrast afforded by the smiling gaiety of Nature, and the stillness, gloom, and silence a death. The murdered man lay upon the grass, abject, forlorn, deserted, and helpless; but apparently bitter had been the struggle in which the spirit had ' passed. The hands were clenched firmly together. The eyes glared wildly from their sockets. The slightly-silvered locks were matted with gore; and over the whole countenance brooded that dark, grey, deep, mysterious hue, with which the King of Terrors invests his victims. But Nature's smile was on the scene. The mist rose lazily from the meadow. The sun burst gaily from behind the swelling hill. The sparrow twitted in the hedge-row; and the lark, springing up from the stubble, towered away into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth as it soared torrents of song. There was the sigh of the pathless wind, and the sound of the distant waterfall, and the mingled melody heard from air and tree,—all was gay and gladsome around the stern and passionless victim. He alone was silent, forlorn, and useless. . _  The keeper's 'death variously affected the Gougely family. Its mistress astonished her familiars, accustomed as they were to her rapid conclusions, by the originality of her view of the frightful catastrophe. She averred that "she was not the least surprised; she had foreseen the wretched man's end for months!" Here Papa Gougely opened his eyes widely, and raised his eyebrows to an elevation distressing to witness. The hopeful Mr. Alfred coughed. "Au! well!" Mrs. Gougely proceeded, "it was what they might all expect in succession, since they had chosen to quit the city, where they were happy and comfortable, and properly protected bythe police, to say nothing of the Lord Mayor. What would she give to see their dear faces again! Yes; there the law was respected. Pray did they ever hear of gamekeepers being murdered in Oheapside No! no! no such thing! People were put down and kept down. But here—here there is no law! I'm living among the wild Indians! My days are numbered! Of that I'm morally certain; and some dreadful morning I shall be found—".  Here decided symptoms of nervous affection became audible. The waiting-woman Bethia Keating, in all haste was summoned; and Dirs. Gougely withdrew from the breakfast room in a state alarmingly hysterical, and was during the day—if Bethia's word was to be taken—" awful to behold." Mr. Alfred sulked; then called for writing-materials, and savagely wrote and put off his party. "He couldn't."—thus he Spoke as he formed his hieroglyphics,—" have men down for a battu while all this sort of work was going on. People detested coroner's inquests, and verdicts, and all that hateful humbug. It was exceedingly hard upon him! If the fellow's ancient pals were determined on shooting their former comrade, he wished sincerely it had happened three weeks later. It was a frightful bore to him; and that these poachingfellows must have known !"  Miss Gougely looked grave, and ruminated. The precise nature of her reflections never transpired ; but it was surmised that her deliberations led her to reconsider her projected moonlight walk with her military admirer, and to defer it under "existing circumstances."  (To be continued.)