Hitherto, the secret entered into by brother and sister had been a perfect success, for not only was the son completely alienated from his father, but the latter deemed it a sin to make any provision for one who was given to drink and gambling.  A draft will was drawn up by Sir Egremont Thynne, and when approved of was ordered to be copied by a clerk.  But here comes the remarkable part of the tale.  The work of engrossing demands a clear, bright light, and the slightest shadow intervening between the light and the parchment would be sure to interrupt operations.  Such an interruption the clerk was suddenly? subjected to, when, “on looking up he beheld a white hand—­a lady’s delicate white hand—­so placed between the light and the deed as to obscure the spot on which he was engaged.  The unaccountable hand, however, was gone almost as soon as noticed.”  The clerk concluding that this was some optical delusion, proceeded with his work, and had come to the clause wherein the Master of Draycot disinherited his son, when again the same ghostly hand was thrust between the light and the parchment.

Terrified at this unearthly intervention, the clerk awoke Sir Egremont from his midnight slumbers, and told him what had occurred, adding that the spectre hand was no other than that of the first wife of the master of Draycot, who resented the cruel wrong done to her son.  In due time the deed was engrossed by another clerk, and duly signed and sealed.

But the “white hand” had not appeared in vain, for the clerk’s curious adventure afterwards became the topic of general conversation, and the injustice done to the disinherited heir of Draycot excited so much sympathetic indignation that “the trustees of the late Lady Long arrested the old knight’s corpse at the church door, her nearest relations commenced a suit against the intended heir, and the result was a compromise between the parties, John Long taking possession of Wroxhall, while his other half-brother was allowed to retain Draycot,” a settlement that, it is said, explains the division of the two estates, which we find at the present day.  The secret between the brother and sister was well kept, and whatever explanation may be given to the “white hand,” the story is as singular as any in the annals of domestic history.

It was the betrayal of a secret, on the other hand, on the part of a woman that is traditionally said to have caused the sudden and tragic death of Richard, second Earl of Scarborough.  This nobleman, it seems, was in the confidence of the King, and had been entrusted by him with the keeping of a most important secret.  But, like most favourites, the Earl was surrounded by enemies who were ever on the alert to compass his ruin, and, amidst other devices, they laid their plans to prevail on the unsuspecting Earl to betray the confidence which the King had implicitly reposed on him.  Finding it, however, impossible by this means to make him guilty of a breach of trust towards the King, they had recourse to another scheme which proved successful, and thereby irrevocably compromised him in the King’s eyes.