i86 THE WITCH IN KENT 



use her own words, "that goes up like a bunch of 

 feathers ! " 



Just below the church lies a moated manor-house 

 fronted with a beautiful Tudor keep. Once the home 

 of two ill-fated Queens of England, it has now, sad to 

 say, long been used only as a farmhouse. In the 

 thirties of the present century the tenant of the time, 

 riding home one night from market, was set upon 

 and shot. The murder was not brought home to 

 any one, though a farmer who was married out of 

 hand by the dead man's widow was commonly 

 believed to have been guilty of the crime. So far 

 the facts. Now for the sequel, as told to me by an 

 old woman, living still. She assured me it was 

 matter of common knowledge when she was a girl, 

 and that she had heard her father, a farmer of some 

 standing, speak of it himself. We will have it — with 

 a change of names — in her own words. 



"Well, do you blef thisyer Nat Bramber could 

 rest? He couldn't. He wur always bad, though 

 some times he wur wurser nor some. He would 

 come back whiles at night, and be that troubled to 

 get in at the castle geate. ' I will come in — I imll 

 come in' the men used to hear him saying. That 

 was thisyer dead un withstood him. At last there 



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