sleuth hounds on his trail without an instant's delay. Let _them_ deal
with him!"

* * * * *

Less than a mile away, by some willows that once marked a ford in the
river, men hurrying after the baying hounds came up too late. Echoing
across the heath, an agonised shriek rang on their ears, drowned by the
snarling as of wild beasts. Lying on its back on the river bank, head
and shoulders in the shallow stream, the man-hunters found but a frail,
mutilated body that had once been the wandering old minstrel.

This was what gave rise to the legend of the Grey Man of Bellister. Ever
since that hideous night, at intervals the "Grey Man" has been wont to
appear to belated travellers along that road. Near the clump of willows
he might first be seen, hurrying, hurrying, his long grey cloak flying
in the wind. And woe to him on whom he chanced to turn and look; his
wild eye and torn face, his blood-clotted beard, would freeze with
horror those who gazed, and disaster or death followed hard on the track
of the vision.

It is a hundred years now, and more, since last the "Grey Man" was seen.
Perhaps his penance for sins committed on earth is ended; or perhaps it
is that against railways, and drainage, and modern scoffings, he and his
like cannot stand. He is gone; but even yet, about the scene where once
as a man the old minstrel fled for dear life, there hangs at the dead
time of night a sense of mystery and awe. As the chilly wind comes
wailing across the everlasting hills, blending its voice with the
melancholy dirge of the river, one may almost believe that through the
gloom there passes swiftly a bent, hurrying figure. Perhaps it is but