Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/352

330 watch, noted the time, and wrote down the day and hour. When the next Indian mail arrived it brought intelligence of his son’s death, at the very time when the children had seen his “eidolon” in the garden.

A story of the same character and as remarkable was thus related to me by the late Canon Humble: “I do not recollect whether I told you a very curious circumstance which occurred to a man I knew very well named S——, then a curate of St. A——, Newcastle. He had, when in his previous curacy of L—— B——, been paying his addresses to a young lady who resided at F—— Hall, near B——, but a coolness had taken place between them. One summer evening he was riding in the neighbourhood and saw the lady standing at the end of the drive which led to her house, without her bonnet, and dressed in light blue muslin. He thought at once that she had seen him in the distance and come out to have a word of explanation, so he attempted to direct his steed towards her. The animal would not go, but snorted and turned away. He brought its head round, but it began to kick and plunge so violently as to endanger his seat. He could do nothing with it, and was obliged at last to follow its wishes instead of his own. The next morning, feeling that some explanation was due, he determined to go and tell the young lady how her dress had startled his horse and how impossible he had found it in consequence to approach her. On reaching F—— Hall he found it closed, and was informed that Miss M——, the lady in question, had died the evening before, at the very time he had seen her form on the road.”

Through the kindness of the Rev. S. Baring-Gould I am enabled to conclude my series of apparitions and haunted houses with the account of one which, though from another part of England, is of such exceeding interest that I am much gratified with the permission to record it in these pages as I received it from his pen:—

“Lew Trenchard House is haunted by a White Lady, who goes by the name of Madame Gould, and is supposed to be the spirit of a lady who died there—like Queen Elizabeth, seated in her chair—April 10, 1795. Her maiden name was Belfield; she