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THE CHINA MAIL,- SÄTURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1957.
CHRISTMAS AT THE INN CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR FESTIVITIES
IN
our part of the world they say the ghost of James
flove it, a lot of roi, we thought, but vlaltors thought the world of 11. The story made my little inn fill up with folks, and they'd chat over the drinks, and talk of highwaymen, and of James Hart who swung from the gibbet there used to be on the top of Gallowa Hill. You don't see it today when you took across to the hill from my porch. That all happened at the time when the Cavaliers were naughty but had daring, and the Roundheads were trying to make England a good and proper place and not having much success,
une
James Hart had been a cavalier. He loved the women, so the story goed, He defended the damsel in distress, even if he atole from her mother. They did ray that
Christmas night he gave a girl back # diamond necklace worth a king's ransom and all for s kiss from her ruby-red lips. Oh well, you never know, do you? They did things in -- those days. Anyway at Christmas the storics get around.
Ours is a strange village, We foster the story of James Hart, and we used to have our tongues in our check about it, but we never said nothing. You'll know why.
Dick Brown fostered the story too.
Dick Brown was never much good. Every village has one of that kind. He joached. Ha #ched. He lived by his wits, and pretty nimble
they
Hart whoever he was and wo had a damned good idea who he was-was making a nice bit out of all this, But, as we said, what was the good of money and jewels to a glost?
Some ghost was doing well. Oh, I have lots of tales to tell but it was the last one that counted. The Christmas Eve when the girl come to the inn. An actress she was, doing it for A sensation, I thought. a girl with golden hair and blue eyes, and a ponri, necklace at her
by Ursula Bloom
were. He liked women and he liked wine. Many's the time I've turned him out of my Inn be- cause he couldn't even stand up, He was a bully and A coward, and local tolk hatext Alm, but somehow or other he did me proud. Then funny always had a way with the stories began. visitors.
There was the night when' the little car was held up. That was no falry story. mark you, it
It began some years ago at a time when Diei's wits were
resting a bit thin, and he went
to the vicar's sunumer rummage sale. There he bought himself a whole lot of rubbish, fancy- dress sent from the fall, just to be got rid of I reckon und no good to man nor beast. said there was a ghwayman's lg in il, but nobody know of course,
Ghost Rider
Some
Anyway from then on the story started going the rounds that James Hart had been seen again. Riding his horse across the dark moors which stretch over these parts, with a black handkerchiei
his tled acruss face, and a pistol in his hand.' It happened at Christmas time.
Well, the story increased and
really happened, and two young men got the fright of their lives. Your-money-or-your-life stuff. They had muney too, going off to spend it on the Christmas of their lives, and the lot พอ taken, and a dagger ripped the buck tyre so that when they re- covered they could not chase the highwayman on the plebald horse.
throat and diamonds in fier cars. Pretty
1 1.9 picture, she was,
1
"I've got a little car outside," she said, "and I'm going right out to meet your James Hart. I'm not scared of ghosts, don't believe in such things, and 1' laugh. You'll see all about it in the papers later on."
We thought
that was fair
enough. After Christmas is the dead season and they'd be look- ing for stuff. She waved as she went out of the bar, and her blue eyes gave me a thrill.
Cold Steel
There was a row about it of course, and old Ben the police Bergeant winked the other eye. He wasn't good at ghost-catch- ing, he said. It got the village into the papers, well, you know what they arel A nice bit they She told us later what hap- had, with a picture of James pened, for she came back. He Hart riding across our very brought her back. mour, and a grand story to go with him. That did us a bit of good!
We
She drove out scruss the moor with the bells ringing for Christ- mas, and the dark trees looking were much like gibbets, and as she drove, she saw the highwayman for him. She bowed, and she laugh-
On the whole pleased about it. People came
I didn't believe It but anyway ghost-searching. Some lost their approaching and stopped
It brought visitors to my in. It belongings, others didn't. James
ed. Ilo rode a piebald horpe, she told me, not a good one, and he had a gun.
HI ONE you stammered.
a debt,"
-sho
"It can be pald with a kiss." he told her.
"I'll pay," she laughed, It was the kiss she would forget. The gentleness with which he drew her into his erms, and the way he laid his
She didn't laughi when he she awung off the horse, and could feel the cold circle of that kum agensi her breast, Steel in very cold, she told me,
and rever that gave her a downright pasty feeling. He whipped off her pearls, and he gripped her wrist with angers that hurt. He took the diamond earrings from her care, not caring it she bled. She was the sort of girl that had never tasted the rough staff be fore, and she gave a little cry.
That was when the unexpect ed happened. A second high- wayman drew level behind the Arst. He held out a gun.
Your money
sold.
your life
A Kiss
mouth against her own. It was only as she drove back to the inn, with a highwayman riding just behind her, that she remem bered that very mouth had been stone cold,
She came into the bar, "I've had an adventure," she told us, "never do things by halves. Two highwaymen," and she told us the story. When she had done, you could have heard a he pin drop in the bar! Men look- ed at her with tellow faces. After a bit I spoke.
"That second one was James Hart himself." I told her. "That was the ghost,"
She told me she had never seen a man oct so strangely as the highwayman who had her jewels, He made a gurgling sound like a death rattle, he Blung the pearls and the earrings baek into her lep, and scrambled back on to his plebaid horse. He was off and across the moor riding like the devil. It he had had all helt behind him he couldn't have gone faster, she sold,
to
The second man turned. her, He laughed, "And now you'd better return to the inn," he sold. His voice was gracious,
She turned sheet white. Some- one got her a brandy, and when
she could epeak again, she said "Its mouth was cold." Just ke that,
You can guess how we felt. Old Ben went to the door and opened it. There was the sound of the Christmas bells, and on the top of Gallows Hii it look- ed for a moment as if a gibbet slood again. I tell you, that was the strangest Christmas we'd ever had.
PENINSULA HOTEL
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CHRISTMAS DAY Popular Tea Dance 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.
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These days Dick doesn't THE HONGKONG & SHANGHAI HOTELS, LTD.
He came to the carside, and highwaymanning. I reckon he's
he looked closely at her.
learnt his lesson,
It's an old friend
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