Going up to Leonard, I found him dead; killed by the lightning I supposed, though I saw no sign of its having touched him. As I was still stooping over, half stunned by the shock, his cousin and two or three other young men came round me. They had heard a confused account of our having gone to the graveyard, and while others were looking for us in the barns and out-houses, they had come to see if it could be true. We made a rough litter of pine boughs on which we laid poor Leonard, the young men carrying the bier while I walked before, wondering how it would be possible for me to tell the awful tidings it was my hard fate to bring.
But it was not left to me. Marjory, who had been waiting and watching in an agony of terror at Leonard’s absence, had seen the ominous procession coming down the hill, and before anyone could prevent her she was flying madly to meet it. Desperately I tried to stop her, but she broke away from me, saw her lover’s dead body lying on the bier, and fell at the feet of the bearers in a death-like swoon; her dainty wedding dress and fair hair wreathed with flowers, lying in the muddy pools the thunder-rain had made.
It was long before she could be brought back to life, and then her mind was gone. She remembered nothing of the past, she had no recognition of the present; she knew no more, not even her mother; she never spoke, and did not seem conscious of anything said to her. She lingered a few days in this state, and then died so quietly that the watchers did not know when she passed away.
The poor old people did not long survive the wreck of all their earthly hopes. The Red House farm was sold, and Michael Forrest’s property was divided among relations he had never known.
Leonard Mason’s death was, of course, attributed to lightning. The “chore” boy’s description of the man with whom Leonard had gone to the grave was so fanciful, and so mixed with improbable incidents, that his tale was not credited by anyone. From some dreamy, incoherent utterances of Mrs. Forrest’s, it was afterwards believed that Leonard had gone to the graveyard at Marjory’s desire to lay a wreath of flowers on Celia’s grave; and when the conjecture was added that the unknown man must have been an express messenger from Hamilton, bringing the wreath that had delayed by some mistake, the mystery was supposed to be explained. As for the strange things connected with this tragedy that had come to my knowledge, I kept them hidden in my breast.
I have never seen or heard anything of Archie Jonson since his inexplicable appearance on that fatal day; and I have been informed that it was absolutely impossible the best sailor that ever lived could have escaped in such a storm as that in which the White Bird, with her crew, foundered.
The Third Ghost Story Megapack: 26 Classic Ghost Stories Page 51
