Page:St Andrews Ghost Stories (1921).djvu/27

Rh of the middle ages. The old shutters were tightly closed. The ceiling, which had once been handsomely painted, was rapidly falling away, and the tapestry was rotting off the walls. It had evidently once been a splendid apartment, but now it was given up to rats and moths and spiders and damp. It chilled one to the very marrow, and it had that same horrible smell. There was a four-poster bed in one corner with rags and shreds of curtains, probably where the old creature had died. The tables and chairs were covered with the dust of ages. There was no carpet of any kind. An old spinet stood against the wall; and papers were lying all over the place inches deep in dust. A few charred logs of wood lay in the gaping old fireplace with its old-time chimney corners, and there seemed to be bits of valuable old china and bric-a-brac about the place. Many pictures had fallen off the walls, but a few faded pencil drawings were still in their places. Just guess my surprise and astonishment when I found they were Scottish views—one of Edinburgh, one of Crail Church, and three of St Andrews, including the old College and Chapel, the Castle, and St Leonards College, with date 1676. Here was another most curious thing I determined to ask about before I left. However, I touched nothing in the room, as I had promised my host, and besides—you will laugh—I had no wish to be stricken with the "Brown Witch's" promised curse of blindness and ultimate death to any intruder who touched her things. I dreaded her far too much since I had seen her in the gallery and in her tomb, and heard of her bewitched alarm bell, which protended death to some one.

Before I left, I mentioned the Scottish drawings in the witch's room to my host, and asked him if he could throw any light on how they came there.

Briefly, it seems that she (the witch) sent her son far away in those old days to a Scottish University, and St Andrews was her choice. It seems he was very quarrelsome in his cups, and frequently fought duels, and generally proved the victor. One of the last he fought at Sauchope Stone, near Crail, with a nephew of the Laird of Balcomie Castle, and they fought with broadsword and buckler, and again the "witch's" son killed his man. His last duel was fought on St Andrews sands with rapiers, and