Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/268

210 scores of times.' A lady also who was once resident here, and whom I met in company, assured me that, happening many years before to pass the old gateway at Fitzford, as the church clock struck twelve, in returning from a party, she had herself seen the hound start."

When a child I heard the story, but somewhat varied, that Lady Howard drove nightly from Okehampton Castle to Launceston Castle in a black coach driven by a headless coachman, and preceded by a fire-breathing black hound; that when the coach stopped at a door, there was sure to be a death in that house the same night. There was a ballad about it, of which I can only recall fragments. Mr. Sheppard picked it up also at South Brent from old Helmore the miller; but being more concerned about the tune than the words, and thinking that I had the latter already, he did not trouble himself to take down the whole ballad.

In the first edition of Songs of the West, I gave the ballad reconstructed by me from the poor fragments that I recollected; and as such I give it here:— My ladye hath a sable coach, And horses two and four; My ladye hath a black blood-hound That runneth on before. My ladye's coach hath nodding plumes, The driver hath no head; My ladye is an ashen white, As one that long is dead.

"Now pray step in!" my ladye saith, "Now pray step in and ride." I thank thee, I had rather walk Than gather to thy side. The wheels go round without a sound, Or tramp or turn of wheels; As cloud at night, in pale moonlight, Along the carriage steals.