What happened to the pair no subsequent historian has
recorded, but when Dandy Jim shortly afterwards wed an apple-cheeked
cook and took up his abode in a rose-covered cottage near Hexham, he no
longer trudged the Border roads with a pack on his back, but drove a
useful gig, drawn by a very willing, strong-shouldered, chestnut mare.
THE VAMPIRES OF BERWICK AND MELROSE
At Berwick-on-Tweed a man had died. In life he was a man of much weight,
one of the wealthiest of the freemen. He did his good deeds with pomp.
The devoutness of his religion was visible for every man to see, and his
look of sanctity as he went to pray was surely an example and a reproach
to every rough mariner whose boat was moored in the harbour beneath the
walls.
But when death came to him, an evil thing befell the reputation of that
holy man of means.
Those tongues that had been tied in his lifetime began to wag. The dark
passages of his history, of the doors to which he had held the keys,
were thrown open. And a horrified town discovered that their respected
fellow-citizen had been a man of foul life, guilty of many a fraud and
of many a crime, and that a dog's death had been too good a death for
him. What wonder that every decent person in the town spoke of him with
horror? But the horror they had of him who had so deceived them was but
a little thing when compared with the hideous dread that the impostor
inspired ere he had lain for a week in his grave in Berwick.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252