A KEEPER'S GHOST-STORY 299 



his trusty gun, loaded with buckshot, in his hand. 

 " There I bid," he relates, "till jest on twelve o'clock 

 when all of a sudden the old baize door at the end 

 of the stone passage opens, of its own accord like, 

 and in slips the ghost. I ups wi' m' gun, and I sez, 

 4 Be you the ghost ? ' sez I. ' And if ye moves,' 

 sez I, ' I shoots.' Three times I speaks, gruffer 

 and gruffer each time. And then I makes a rush for 

 the ghost wot turns out arter all to be Mary the 

 'ouse-maid." " What did you do with Mary ? " we 

 asked the story-teller. " Lor' love ye, I took and 

 married 'er out o' the way." 



This same keeper let us into the secret of his 

 shattered faith in ghosts. As a young man he and 

 a fellow under-keeper had been told off to watch 

 the carriage-drive for night poachers. In a jocular 

 moment the head-keeper warned them not to be 

 afraid if they should see the estate ghost the head- 

 less body of an old coachman driving a pair of gallop- 

 ing horses harnessed to a hearse. Naturally, the 

 two young keepers, as the night wore on, fell to 

 talking about the headless apparition. Presently, 

 sure enough, hoofs were heard, and a hearse came 

 lumbering down the drive. The watchers crouched 

 low in the heap of dead bracken in which they were 

 hidden. Asked, an hour later, if they had seen the 

 poachers, " No," they said bravely ; "we only saw 

 the old fellow without a head, driving his hearse." 

 :t Well," said the head-keeper, chuckling, " if you'd 

 looked inside his hearse you would have found it full 



