The Argosy — page 335: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Tun ARGOSY. Nelly Devitt's Ghost. . 315 March 2, 1868. on the very edge of our lot, close to the low hedge that divided a Wyndhurst field from ours. Willow bushes grew thick around it, and the rum was cushioned with velvet mosses. I had just heard that young Wyndhurst used to meet poor Nelly Devitt there in times gone by, and that his lynx-eyed old grandmother found out their secret by discovering them together at this trysting-spot. I’m sure there was no thought of this in my mind this morning. To tell you the truth, I was‘far too much concerned about my own poor Will to be troubled about the sorrows of the dead and gone; but as surely as I ever saw her in all my life, there stood old Lady Wyndhurst among the willows at the side of the well, leaning on her gold-headed stick, and looking forward, as if waiting for me. I have been told since then that it was my fancy and the excited state of my mind which caused me to imagine that I saw her; and I’m very willing to allow that it was so; but what seems odd to me is this, that she looked so natural. I was so completely taken by surprise that I believe I had half curtseyed in saluting her, when a sudden fear rooted me to the spot. She was a sharp-faced old woman, wrinkled and cunning, and she peered at me with the same hard, suspicious look I’d seen her wear all the years I served in her household. She used to have stiff rustling silks, that shook as she walked, and made a sound by which we always knew she was coming. I seemed to hear the same noise now,.and she came close to where I stood, rooted to the ground, and, looking over my head, pointed, as it seemed to me, to the back end of our house, to the little room over the kitchen. I believe I turned my head in obedience to her motion, and when I looked again, she was gone. My knees smote together, and I had not strength to crawl back to the house; for an hour or two afterwards, Jenny found me sitting in the shade under some bare elder bushes, shivering and light-headed, with a strong fever coming on me. I was ill for three long weeks after that, and poor Jenny must have had her hands full: for most of the time I was out of my wits, and raving all kinds of nonsense. But the odd part came after that, and if there was anything in the whole matter, it ended there, since neither sight nor sound out of the common was ever more known in old Devitt’s house. I lived in it nearly twenty years myself, and I knew them that came after me, for it was Jenny’s self, and she’s there to this day to say the same. I was sitting up in my own room, for the first time, and was very weak, considering the care I had, when I heard Willie and his little sister quarrelling and fretting with each other, and called them to me to settle the dispute. It was all about a piece of paper that Willie had found under a loose brick in the hearth in. the little room. “It came up easy,” he said, as I held the scrap in my hand, “I comicloooks (CO) mn _