"
The duke signed to the youthful earl, who was glancing rather wistfully
at them, and he immediately joined them, while Richmond passed over
to the Lady Mary Howard. Surrey then proceeded to relate what had
happened to him in the park, and the fair Geraldine listened to his
recital with breathless interest.
"Heaven shield us from evil spirits!" she exclaimed, crossing herself.
"But what is the history of this wicked hunter, my lord? and why did he
incur such a dreadful doom?"
"I know nothing more than that he was a keeper in the forest, who,
having committed some heinous crime, hanged himself from a branch
of the oak beneath which I found the keeper, Morgan Fenwolf, and
which still bears his name," replied the earl. "For this unrighteous act
he cannot obtain rest, but is condemned to wander through the forest
at midnight, where he wreaks his vengeance in blasting the trees."
"The legend I have heard differs from yours," observed the Duke of
Richmond: "it runs that the spirit by which the forest is haunted is a
wood-demon, who assumes the shape of the ghostly hunter, and seeks
to tempt or terrify the keepers to sell their souls to him."
"Your grace's legend is the better of the two," said Lady Mary Howard,
"or rather, I should say, the more probable.
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