castle she was generally seen sadly wending her way to the scene of her earthly crimes.  According to another tradition, there is a circular tower, called “Margaret’s Tower,” rising above some broken steps that lead into a dismal vault, and the tale still runs that, on certain evenings in the year, the spirit of the Ladye Margaret, a young daughter of the house of Pomeroy, appears clad in white on these steps, and, beckoning to the passers-by, lures them to destruction into the dungeon ruin beneath them.

And, indeed, it would seem to have been a not infrequent occurrence for family ghosts to warn the living when death was at hand—­a piece of superstition which has always held a prominent place in our household traditions, reminding us of kindred stories on the Continent, where the so-called White Lady has long been an object of dread.

There has, too, long been a strange notion that when storms, heavy rains, or other elemental strife, take place at the death of a great man, the spirit of the storm will not be appeased till the moment of burial.  This belief seems to have gained great strength on the occasion of the Duke of Wellington’s funeral, when, after some weeks of heavy rain, and some of the highest floods ever known, the skies began to clear, and both rain and flood abated.  It was a common observation in the week before the duke’s interment, “Oh, the rain won’t give o’er till the Duke is buried!”

FOOTNOTES: 

[39] “Family Romance”—­Sir Bernard Burke—­1853, ii., 200-210.

[40] In 1641 there was published a tract, with a frontispiece, entitled “A True Relation of an Apparition, in the Likeness of a Bird with a white breast, that appeared hovering over the Death-bed of some of the children of Mr. James Oxenham, &c.”

[41] This tradition has been wrought into a romantic story, entitled “Chartley, or the Fatalist.”

[42] “Popular Romances of West of England.”

CHAPTER XI.

WEIRD POSSESSIONS.

    “But not a word o’ it; ‘tis fairies’ treasure,
    Which, but revealed, brings on the blabber’s ruin.” 
               MASSINGER’S “Fatal Dowry.”

From the earliest days a strange fatality has been supposed to cling to certain things—­a phase of superstition which probably finds as many believers nowadays as when Homer wrote of the fatal necklace of Eriphyle that wrought mischief to all who had been in possession of it.  In numerous cases, it is difficult to account for the prejudice thus displayed, although occasionally it is based on some traditionary story.  But whatever the origin of the luck, or ill-luck, attaching to sundry family possessions, such heirlooms have been preserved with a kind of superstitious care, handed down from generation to generation.