Year: 1873

~f''S O'o"'


1t is about two hundred years since the
| skeleton of Galloping Dick ratified in its
rusy chains on Maltby Heath. He had
kept the country side in mortal fear for
ten or a dozen years, before the law laid
him by the heels, and Justice hanged him
| by the neck. And ten or dozen years
of successful robbery cruelty and muir
| der were enough to sink his soul forever
to a perdition beyond the ordinary ex-
perence of sinful souls. So at least they
believed about Maltby; and the unlaid
spirit of Galloping Dick became by time
and tradition an evil power haunting the
heath, and boiling sorrow, or worse, to
whomsoever it might encounter


Scarcely winter passed without some
awful report Of Galloping Dicks perturb-
ed spirit having been seen Or heard thun-
dering across the heath-reports which
struck terror to the hearts of the boldest,
and sienced the few skeptics who were
disposed to make light of the danger
Make light of the danger when the most
terrible fate overlook the doomed wretches
who had met this awful spirit? A danger
as sure as death is nothing to make light
of. said the more reverent souls; and the
history of the people bore them out.


Did not George Graham's father see the
ghost, and did not his eldest son take to
bad courses that very next spring, enlist
for a soldier, desert, run home, and be
taken from his mothers fireside in hand
cuffs to barracks, and there shot? =? This
was in the times when George the Third
was king, and men were shot without
more ado if they turned their backs on
r 1,l,
Galloping Dick some thirty years ago
now, and did not his daughter Bella dis
appear from Maltby with the fine London
gentleman who came, as it might be,
from the clouds-and never word heard
of her again till the carrier brought the
news that she had been hanged at New
gate for child murder? And Farmer
Crosse, did not he lose wife and stock one
season when all his neghbors foddered
the best beasts that ever fattened, and
gathered rich harvests till their barns over
flowed like bursting bags? They had not
seen Gallopng Dick, but Farmer Croose
had; and who could doubt the inference !?


These were the most striking instances
that t1oated about the talk of the country
side, and kept the belief in the spectre
alive. But there were numberless other
eases where mischief could be traced to
the hour when Galloping Dick was heard
to rush past the house at dead of night, or
when he had been seen dimly through the
msts of evening, or flying like shadow
in the distant moonlight. When or in
what manner soever he made his troubled
existence manifest, there was sure to be
sorrow and loss; and the name of Galop-
ing Dick was still able to scare all the
parishioners Of Maltby, and to work like
Il crooked charm wherever it was pro
nounced.


Down in the hollow at the end of Three
Asl-lane, lived the Miss Sincairs They
We're two old ladies, spinsters and sisters,
owning 4 pretty large bit of land. of a
less poor and hungry kind than most Of
the land thereawav. They managed it of
course very badly and got but two pounds
where others would have made four. They
were miserly old ladies, and starved both
themselves and their farm. They believed
in tcapots and stockings, and old chinks
in the wall and chimney ambs, and such
like hiding places for their money, instead
of tavoring investments where you never
know what becomes of it, or who has it {;
or instead of putting it into the land for
the rain to spoil, or the frost TO nip and
the tenant to fitch by hook or by crook.
They were generally reported 10 be mil
lionaires at least, and supposed to have
lined their little wooden house with un-
seen gold. The whole neighborhood
knew, as a fact, that they slept on bed
stuffed more thickly with sovereigns than
stranger doubted the tale, and spoke of
o,>t ,nf
the Maltby folk answered significantly
that may be most men would take the dis
comfort tor the sake of the stuffing.


They kept only one servant, and they
never kept her long. For, being like
birds in the way OF appetite, they could
not be made to see the difference between
young, healthy, hardworking wench of
eighteen or SO, and themselves, wizened,
withered old maids of sixty odd, whose
vital juices were so dried up that they
wanted next to no nourishment, and whose
activities in the house consisted only in in
cessant maundering and pottering which
gave them just a little gentle exercise,
and prevented their old joints from be-
coming completely rusty. Still, though
they did little that was of any use, they
were always on their feet always on the
alert; with their sharp eyes locking into
everything, and their sharper speech that
never spared a fault nor CLOSED over
mistake. They were bad to live with, un-
doubtedly; and by degrees they so en-
tirely lost the confidence of the neighbor-
hood, that not mother among them all
would let her daughter take service at the
Sinclairs', and the very parish at last re-
fused them an apprentice when they want
ed one. This, then, was how it came
| about that Madge Bernard, kind of far
| away cousin in humble circumstances,
came on visit to her relatives at Three
Ash-lane. with the understanding that she
was to make herself generally useful in
return for bed and board, "and trifle or
so Of clothes and pocket money!" which
| they offered her widowed mother by let
ter, with a few fair words put in by way
of garnish and embroidery.


The first week that Madge came she
| cried without ceasing; the secoud she
sulked; the third she was pert but on the
| fourth she took a turn, as Miss Priscilla,
the younger of the two old ladies, said
with sigh of satisfaction, and seemed as
| if she meant to settle and take things as
| she found them. She wrote a great MANY
letters this week; and among them three
| to a Mr.. John Collette-three long crossed
letters, as the Miss Sinclairs knew; but
they knew no more. If they were sharp
eyed, Madge was sharp-witted and if
they knew how to pry, she knew still bet
ter how to hide. Still. three letters in one
week to any Mr.. John Collette in the
world, seemed a wicked waste of time, as
we'll as an abominable act of forwardness,
to the spinsters; who made it their boast
| that never a man had dared to offer them
love when they were young, and that they
had not been like the hussies of the pres
ent day-with more hair on the outside of
their heads than they had sense in, and as
keen after husbands as so many wasps af-
ter honey


1t had been autumn when Madge Ber-
nard had brought her florid beauty and
her deal boxes, with very little in them,
to the mean wooden house where the two
ladies' lived; thinking she was going for
a pleasant visit to couple of old dears
who would make her welcome, and give
her lots OF pretty things, and finding in
stead that she was simply an unengaged
servant without perquisites or wages. 1t