This was certain, but the Fordyce tradition was that she had been
kept shut up in the mullion chambers, where she had often been heard
weeping bitterly. One night in the winter, when the gentlemen of
the family had gone out to a Christmas carousal, she had endeavoured
to escape by the steps leading to the garden from the door now
bricked up, but had been met by them and dragged back with violence,
of which she died in the course of a few days; and, what was very
suspicious, she had been entirely attended by her step-daughter and
an old nurse, who never would let her own woman come near her.
The Fordyces had thought of a prosecution, but the Winslows had
powerful interest at Court in those corrupt times, and contrived to
hush up the matter, as well as to win the suit in which the Fordyces
attempted to prove that there was no right to will the property
away. Bitter enmity remained between the families; they were always
opposed in politics, and their animosity was fed by the belief which
arose that at the anniversaries of her death the poor lady haunted
the rooms, lamp in hand, wailing and lamenting. A duel had been
fought on the subject between the heirs of the two families,
resulting in the death of the young Winslow.
'And now,' cried Ellen Fordyce, 'the feud is so beautifully ended;
the doom must be appeased, now that the head of one hostile line has
come to the rescue of the other, and saved all our lives.
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