THE FORGOTTEN NUN 



corner of England by the then papist possessor of " The 

 Court/ 7 The place had its previous story of faith and 

 persecution : its parish church, which had long clung to the 

 old dispensation, and its priest martyr still lying in the 

 little churchyard. All this is forgotten now. We knew 

 nothing of it, nor of the nuns/ but oddly enough, when 

 we came into the house, one of us said to the other : 

 " I am sure there was a chapel here/' 

 Well, when the nuns packed up their goods and 

 returned to France, they took away with them 

 too <so tradition says) the coffins of some 

 sisters who had been buried in the garden. Surely 

 they had forgotten one ! What else could ac- 

 count for the dreadful melancholy which fell 

 upon us at a particular turn of the walk that 

 ran round that sunny, bowery enclosure ? There 

 was nothing whatsoever suggestive about the 

 spot. The high, warm wall with the spreading [ 

 fruit trees rose on one side ,- an Apple tree and a \ 

 clump of Hazels held the other yet so sure as 

 one came to this place the heart was gripped, the 

 spirit seized. We each of us felt it/ visitors felt 

 it. That dear, departed cat, Tom, of venerable 

 memoryhe was a great ghost-seer he felt it 

 nay, he saw it ! His tail would bristle, his fur 

 stare, he would stand and then flee as if pursued 

 for his life. 



The poor little nun, lying in a foreign land, away from 

 the rest of her sisters, forgotten ! -Ghosts have walked 

 for much less. In fact, it is curious to note that the I 

 restlessness of most authenticated ghosts seems due to 



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