Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/347

Rh He placed their bodies upon the bridge, and lowered the flat stones upon them to prevent discovery. Some years later he met with his own death near the same fatal spot. While riding with his dogs he fell over the brae opposite to the bridge, and was found lying dead by the Tweedside. Tradition identifies him with the laird Harry Gilles, whose adventure in hunting has already been related.

The following narration was communicated to one of my clerical friends by a lady of Perth. One of her friends went to stay at a country house in Fifeshire, where she arrived just in time to dress for dinner, and was shown straight to her room. Her toilet completed, she was on her way downstairs, when something wrong in the lower part of her dress made her stoop down. As she looked up again she saw a lady richly dressed and very handsome emerge from a short staircase which had its exit on the principal landing, and move hastily towards the staircase she was descending. She stood aside and the form passed her without any acknowledgment of the courtesy. There was a cold sneer on her face which particularly attracted the visitor’s attention. She walked on, however, to the drawing-room, spoke to her host and hostess, and having been introduced to the rest of the party turned to look round for the beauty who had passed her on the stairs, but she was not there. Next morning she mentioned the circumstance to the lady of the house, but she turned off the subject with some trivial remark. However, during her stay the visitor was shown over the house, and among other rooms was taken into one at the top of the short staircase mentioned before. It was evidently disused, and a number of old family portraits were hanging on its walls. Among these there was one vacant place, and the picture that should have filled it was on the floor with its face to the wall. When the visitor noticed this her hostess said, “It is the portrait of one who brought disgrace upon the family. This used to be her room.” She turned the picture round, and the visitor started. It was the very form and face she had beheld on the staircase. She was then told it was by no means the first time the apparition