This is a tale, my dear, that I have
heard my father tell many a time; and I was a young woman myself when it
happened. The King's Grace was threatened by a friar, I think of
Greenwich, that if he laid hands on the monasteries he should be as Ahab
whose blood was licked by dogs in the very place which he took from a
man. Well, the friar was hanged for his pains, and the King lived. And
then at last he died, and was put in a great coffin, and carried through
London; and they put the coffin in an open space in Sion Abbey, which the
King had taken. And in the night there came one to view the coffin, and
to see that all was well. And he came round the corner, and there stood
the great coffin--(for his Grace was a great stout man, my dear)--on
trestles in the moonlight, and beneath it a great black dog that lapped
something: and the dog turned as the man came, and some say, but not my
father, that the dog's eyes were red as coals, and that his mouth and
nostrils smoked, and that he cast no shadow; but (however that may be)
the dog turned and looked and then ran; and the man followed him into a
yard, but when he reached there, there was no dog. And the man went back
to the coffin afraid; and he found the coffin was burst open, and--and--"
Mrs. Marrett stopped abruptly. Isabel was white and trembling.
"There, there, my dear. I am a foolish old woman; and I'll tell you no
more."
Isabel was really terrified, and entreated Mrs. Marrett to tell her
something pleasant to make her forget these horrors; and so she told her
old tales of her youth, and the sights of the city, and the great doings
in Mary's reign; and so the time passed pleasantly till the gentlemen
came home.
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