a blue or a rose ribbon suit my hair best, Bab?’ asked Eve. ‘You see my hair is chestnut, and I doubt me if pink suits the colour so well as forget-me-not.’
‘Every ribbon of every hue agrees with Eve,’ said Barbara.
‘You are a darling.’ The younger girl made an attempt to kiss her sister, in return for the compliment.
‘Be careful,’ said Barbara, ‘you will upset the gig.’
‘But I love you so much when you are kind.’
‘Am not I always kind to you, dear?’
‘O yes, but sometimes much kinder than at others.’
‘That is, when I flatter you.’
‘O if you call it flattery – ’ said Eve, pouting.
‘No – it is plain truth, my dearest.’
‘Bab,’ broke forth the younger suddenly, ‘do you not think Bradstone a charming house? It is not so dull as ours.’
‘And the Cloberrys – you like them?’
‘Yes, dear, very much.’
‘Do you believe that story about Oliver Cloberry, the page?’
‘What story?’
‘That which Grace Cloberry told me.’
‘I was not with you in the lanes when you were talking together. I do not know it.’
‘Then I will tell you. Listen, Bab, and shiver.’
‘I am shivering in the cold wind already.’
‘Shiver more shiveringly still. I am going to curdle your blood.’
‘Go on with the story, but do not squeeze up against me so close, or I shall be pushed out of the gig.’
‘But, Bab, I am frightened to tell the tale.’
‘Then do not tell it.’
‘I want to frighten you.’
‘You are very considerate.’
‘We share all things, Bab, even our terrors. I am a loving sister. Once I gave you the measles. I was too selfish to keep it all to myself. Are you ready? Grace told me that Oliver Cloberry, the eldest son, was page boy to John Copplestone, of Warleigh, in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, you know – wicked Queen Bess, who put so many Catholics to death. Squire Copplestone was his godfather, but he did not like the boy, though he was his godchild and page. The reason was this: he was much attached to Joan Hill, who refused him and married Squire Cloberry, of Bradstone, instead. The lady tried to keep friendly with her old admirer, and asked him to stand godfather to her first boy, and then take him as his page; but Copplestone was a man who long bore a grudge, and the boy grew up the image of his father, and so – Copplestone hated him. One day, when Copplestone was going out hunting, he called for his stirrup cup, and young Cloberry ran and brought it to him. But as the squire raised the wine to his lips he saw a spider in it; and in a rage he dashed the cup and the contents in the face of the boy. He hit Oliver Cloberry on the brow, and when the boy staggered to his feet, he muttered something. Copplestone heard him, and called to him to speak out, if he were not a coward. Then the lad exclaimed, “Mother did well to throw you over for my father.” Some who stood by laughed, and Copplestone flared up; the boy, afraid at what he had said, turned to go, then Copplestone threw his hunting dagger at him, and it struck him in the back, entered his heart, and he fell dead. Do you believe this story, Bab?’
‘There is some truth in it, I know. Prince, in his “Worthies,” says that Copplestone only escaped losing his head for the murder by the surrender of thirteen manors.’
‘That is not all,’ Eve continued; ‘now comes the creepy part of the story. Grace Cloberry told me that every stormy night the Whish Hounds run over the downs, breathing fire, pursuing Copplestone, from Warleigh to Bradstone, and that the murdered boy is mounted behind Copplestone, and stabs him in the back all along the way. Do you believe this?’
‘Most assuredly not.’
‘Why should you not, Bab? Don’t you think that a man like Copplestone would be unable to rest in his grave? Would not that be a terrible purgatory for him to be hunted night after night? Grace told me that old Squire Cloberry rides and blows his horn to egg-on the Whish Hounds, and Copplestone has a black horse, and he strikes spurs into its sides when the boy stabs him in the back, and screams with pain. When the Judgment Day comes, then only will his rides be over. I am sure I believe it all, Bab. It is so horrible.’
‘It is altogether false, a foolish superstition.’
‘Look there, do you see, Bab, we are at the white stone with the cross cut in it that my father put up where he first saw my mother. Is it not strange that no one knows whence my mother came? You remember her just a little. Whither did my mother go?’
‘I do not know, Eve.’
‘There, again, Bab. You who sneer and toss your chin when I speak of anything out of the ordinary, must admit this to be passing wonderful. My mother came, no one knows whence; she went, no one knows whither. After that, is it hard to believe in the Whish Hounds, and Black Copplestone?’
‘The things are not to be compared.’
‘Your mother was buried at Buckland, and I have seen her grave. You know that her body is there, and that her soul is in heaven. But as for mine, I do not even know whether she had a human soul.’
‘Eve! What do you mean?’
‘I have read and heard tell of such things. She may have been a wood-spirit, an elf-maid. Whoever she was, whatever she was, my father loved her. He loves her still. I can see that. He seems to me to have her ever in his thoughts.’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara sadly, ‘he never visits my mother’s grave; I alone care for the flowers there.’
‘I can look into his heart,’ said Eve. ‘He loves me so dearly because he loved my mother dearer still.’
Barbara made no remark to this.
Then Eve, in her changeful mood, went back to the former topic of conversation.
‘Think, think, Bab! of Black Copplestone riding nightly over these wastes on his black mare, with her tail streaming behind, and the little page standing on the crupper, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing; and the Whish Hounds behind, giving tongue, and Squire Cloberry in the rear urging them on with his horn. O Bab! I am sure father believes in this, I should die of fear were Copplestone hunted by dogs to pass this way. Hold! Hark!’ she almost screamed.
The wind was behind them; they heard a call, then the tramp of horses’ feet.
Barbara even was for the moment startled, and drew the gig aside, off the road upon the common. A black cloud had rolled over the sickle of the moon, and obscured its feeble light. Eve could neither move nor speak. She quaked at Barbara’s side like an aspen.
In another moment dark figures of men and horses were visible, advancing at full gallop along the road. The dull cob the sisters were driving plunged, backed, and was filled with panic. Then the moon shone out, and a faint, ghastly
