Page:A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.).djvu/123



If you turn to the right, and keep on half a mile, Down the Bleeding Oak Lane, you will come to a stile, Which, when you've got over (right easy to do), A black and white half-timber*d house meets your view:
 * That is Clapperton Grange,
 * And 'twas there that a strange

And terrible spectre at night used to range.

Yes, here did a ghost walk, and always at night; And always by moonlight, and always in white; Besides, it walked lame, the which proved beyond doubt 'Twas the ghost of some person who died of the gout,
 * On which murmurers said,
 * With a shake of the head,

"Blair's gout pills were fine, but they'd not cure the dead."

The oldest inhabitant, nicknamed "Deaf Daniel," Remembered a man with his legs wrapped in flannel, Who once lived at the Grange; and could further remember That he died very rich, and he died in December.
 * It was he, that was plain,
 * And he'd come back again,

To look after some gold that he hid in a drain.

The Grange now stood empty, and had done for years; Some deterr'd by high rental, and some by their fears; Its last tenant. Job Spinks, long ago, it was said. Saw the ghost, when at once in wild terror he fled;
 * And so anxious was he
 * From the ghost to get free.

That he ne'er paid his rent—but that's nothing to me.