“And at the high end of Carlton anenst Helmsley there be seen at times a lovely maiden much afrighted galopping for very life oft casting her een behind her.”

[Illustration:  A SCENE IN NEWTON DALE WHEN THE COACH RAILWAY BETWEEN PICKERING AND WHITBY WAS IN USE IN 1836. (From Belcher’s book on the Pickering and Whitby Railway, 1836.)]

Concerning the existence of this lovely maiden we have indisputable evidence given us, for Calvert says that in the year 1762 “Jim Shepherd o’ Reskelf seed the maiden galloping.”

Then there was the figure of “Sarkless Kitty”; but this spectre, we are told, “having been public laid will now be seen never again and has the very mention of her name be now a thing forbid by all it must soon come to pass that the memory of this lewd hussey will be entire forgot and it of a truth be better so.”

But this only rouses one’s curiosity, for the spectre must have been surpassingly terrible to require the suppression of its very name.

It was in August in the year 1807 or 1809 (the manuscript is too much soiled to be sure of the last figure) that either the Vicar of Lastingham or his curate-in-charge publicly laid this spirit, which had for many years haunted the wath or ford crossing the river Dove where it runs at no great distance from Grouse Hall.

The ceremony was performed at the request of the whole countryside for there was a widespread outcry over the last victim.  He was a farmer’s son who, having spent the evening with his betrothed, was riding homewards somewhat late, but he never reached his house.  On the next day his cob was found quietly grazing near the dead body of its master lying near the ford.  There were no signs of a struggle having taken place, there were no wounds or marks upon the body, and his watch and money had not been touched, so every one concluded that he had seen Sarkless Kitty.

In the year 1770 the ford “had come to be of such ill repute that men feared to cross after dark and women refused to be taken that way,” although as far as is known it was only men who came to harm from seeing Sarkless Kitty.  The apparition was that of an exceedingly lovely girl who appeared “as a nude figure standing upon the opposite bank to that of the approaching wayfarer.”  Her beauty was so remarkable that those who had the ill-luck to come across the spectre could not refrain from gazing at it, and all who did so were believed to have died either at the same moment or soon afterwards.

Calvert, however, tells us that one Roland Burdon, who possessed a “Holy Seal,” came face to face with Sarkless Kitty, but fortified by its virtues he survived the vision; then he adds:  “This same Roland did slay in single combat the great worm or Dragon which at one time did infest Beck Hole to the loss of many young maidens the which it did at sundry times devour.  He slew it after a fierce battle lasting over half a day throw the great power of the Holy Seal being about his person.  This worm did also infest Sneaton Moor.”