The Argosy — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

The Master of Greylandas. If In spite of the appellation, they are of the Reformed Faith strict, sound Protestants : a poor community as to funds, but rich in good- ness. They keep a few beds for the sick among the villagers, or for accidents ; and they have a day school for the village children. If they could get better children to educate, they would be glad; and some of the ladies are accomplished gentlewomen. Mr. Castlemaine, who is, so to say, head and chief of the village, looking down on it from his mansion, Greylands’ Rest, does not countenance these Sisters : he dscountenances them, in fact, and has been heard to ndicule the ladies. The Master of Greylands, the title generally accorded him, 1s no unmeaning appellation. Beyond the part of the building thus inhabited, there ensues 2 portion that is in complete ruin ; it was the chapel in the days of the monks, but its walls are but breast high now; and beyond it comes another portion, still in tolerable preservation, called the Friar’s Keep. The Fnar’s Keep was said to have gained its appellation from the fact that the confessor to the convent lived in it, together with some holy men, his brethren. <A vast pile of buildings it must have been in its prime ; and some of the traditions said that this Friar’s Keep was in fact a monastery, divided from the nunnery by the chapel. A wild, desolate, grand place, looking over the turbulent sea. Tales and stories were still told of those days; of the jolly monks, of the secluded nuns, some tales good, some bad—just as tales in the generations to come will be told of the present day. But, whatever scandal may have been whispered, whatever dark deeds of the dark and rude ages gone by, none could be raised of the building now. The only inhabited part of it, that occupied by the good Sisters, who were blameless and self-denying in their lives, who lived but to do good, was revered by all, Z/a¢ portion of it was open, and fair, and above board ; but some mysterious notions existed in regard to the other portion—the Friar’s Keep. It was said to be haunted. Now this report, attaching to a building of any kind, would be much laughed at in these later times. For one believer in the superstition (however well it might be authenticated) ten, aye, twenty, would ndicule it. The simple villagers around believed it religiously: it was said that the Castlemaines, who were educated gentlemen, and anything but simple, believed it too. The Friars Keep was known to be entirely uninhabited, some of it abandoned to the owls and bats ; this was indisputable ; nevertheless, now and again glimpses of a light would be seen within the rooms by some benighted passer-by, and people were not wanting to assert that a ghostly form, habited in a tnar’s light grey cowl and skirts, would appear at the casement windows, bearing a lamp. Strange noises had also been heard—or(were)said to have been. There was not one single inhabitant of the village, man or woman, who would have dared to cross the chapel ruies und cues 00