ndisputable
evidence given us, for Calvert says that in the year 1762 "Jim Shepherd o'
Reskelf seed the maiden galloping."

Then there was the figure of "Sarkless Kitty"; but this spectre, we are
told, "having been public laid will now be seen never again and has the
very mention of her name be now a thing forbid by all it must soon come to
pass that the memory of this lewd hussey will be entire forgot and it of a
truth be better so."

But this only rouses one's curiosity, for the spectre must have been
surpassingly terrible to require the suppression of its very name.

It was in August in the year 1807 or 1809 (the manuscript is too much
soiled to be sure of the last figure) that either the Vicar of Lastingham
or his curate-in-charge publicly laid this spirit, which had for many
years haunted the wath or ford crossing the river Dove where it runs at no
great distance from Grouse Hall.

The ceremony was performed at the request of the whole countryside for
there was a widespread outcry over the last victim. He was a farmer's son
who, having spent the evening with his betrothed, was riding homewards
somewhat late, but he never reached his house. On the next day his cob was
found quietly grazing near the dead body of its master lying near the
ford. There were no signs of a struggle having taken place, there were no
wounds or marks upon the body, and his watch and money had not been
touched, so every one concluded that he had seen Sarkless Kitty.

In the year 1770 the ford "had come to be of such ill repute that men
feared to cross after dark and women refused to be taken that way,"
although as far as is known it was only men who came to harm from seeing
Sarkless Kitty. The apparition was that of an exceedingly lovely girl who
appeared "as a nude figure standing upon the opposite bank to that of the
approaching wayfarer." Her beauty was so remarkable that those who had the
ill-luck to come across the spectre could not refrain from gazing at it,
and all who did so were believed to have died either at the same moment or
soon afterwards.

Calvert, however, tells us that one Roland Burdon, who possessed a "Holy
Seal," came face to face with Sarkless Kitty, but fortified by its virtues
he survived the vision; then he adds: "This same Roland did slay in single
combat the great worm or Dragon which at one time did infest Beck Hole to
the loss of many young maidens the which it did at sundry times devour. He
slew it after a