Words have been hyphenated consistently within each story, andpunctuation has been corrected without notation.
Spaces in common contractions (whether in dialect or not) e.g."there's" "Aah'll" and "ye'd" have been closed up.
Dialect contractions, e.g. "o't" and "wi't", or "is 't" and "D'ye" are given as generally printed.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of each story.
The following obvious typographical errors in the original havebeen corrected:
On Page 158, "and swings away at a hand gallop" changed to "andswings away at a hard gallop".
On Page 181 "for Ah'll stan' none" changed to "for Aah'll stan'none" (consistent with spelling in same speech).
On Page 209, "went forward at a good trot an drecked" changed to"went forward at a good trot and recked."
In Footnote 1 to "Muckle-Mouthed Meg" (i.e. Footnote to Page205) "Provost is really an anacronism" changed to "Provost isreally an anachronism."
The questionable spellings of "Château-Laffite" and "Vindolana"are as per the original book.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Tales of Northumbria
Magnus Sinclair
The Lord Wardens of the
Marches, etc.
BY
HOWARD PEASE
AUTHOR OF
'TALES OF NORTHUMBRIA,' 'MAGNUS SINCLAIR'
'THE LORD WARDENS OF THE MARCHES OF
ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND,' ETC.
ERSKINE MACDONALD LTD.
LONDON, W.C. 1
First published 1919
TO
THE MEMORY OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT
THE TUTELARY GENIUS OF THE BORDERLAND
THESE TALES ARE INSCRIBED BY A
LATTER DAY BORDERER
Certain places, said Stevenson, cry out for a story, and Scott,in any new surroundings, straightway invented an appropriate tale,if there were not already a story or tradition in existence. Onemight even believe that the place itself tells its own tale to thesympathetic imagination.
Thus Mr. Bligh Bond in his book, The Gate of Remembrance,implies that the whisperings of the genius loci enabled himto make his astonishing discovery of the lost Edgar Chapel atGlastonbury Abbey.
The scene of the following ghost stories usually becomesmanifest in the text, but it might be mentioned that 'CastleIchabod' stands for Seaton Delaval, that the 'Lord Warden's Tomb'is a reminiscence of Kirkby Stephen, and that 'The Cry of thePeacock' is a suggestion from the Vale [Pg viii]ofMallerstang.
If the ghost is not always visible in the tale, it is at leastborn of it.
Thus if there be no act