III.

A young man from Llywel parish, who was courting a lass who lodged at the house of Thomas Richard, in the vale of Towy, found himself haunted as he went to and fro by the ghost of Anne Dewy, a woman who had hanged herself. She would not only meet him in the road, and frighten him, but she would come to his bedside, and so scare him that he fell ill. While he was ill his cousin came to see him, and thinking his illness was due to his being crossed in love, rallied him, saying, 'Wfft! thou'rt sick because thy cariad has refused thee.' But being gravely answered, and told of Anne Dewy's ghost, this cousin advised the haunted man to speak to her. 'Speak to her,' said he, 'or thou wilt have no quiet. I will go with thee, and see thou shalt have no harm.' So they went out, and called at Tafarn y Garreg, an inn not far off; but the haunted man could not drink, and often looked towards the door. 'What ails the man?' asked the tap-room loungers. He continued to be uneasy, and finally went out, his cousin following him, and then he saw the ghost again. 'Oh God, here she is!' he cried out, his teeth chattering and his eyes rolling. 'This is a sad thing,' said his cousin: 'I know not what to think of thee; but come, I will go with thee, go where thou wilt.' They returned to the ale-house, and after a while the haunted man started up, saying he was called, but when others offered to go with him he said no, he must go alone. He did go alone, and spoke to the ghost, who said, 'Fear nothing; follow me.' She led him to a spot behind the house where she had lived when in the flesh, and where she had hanged herself, and bade him take from the wall a small bag. He did so. The bag contained 'a great sum of money,' in pieces of gold; he guessed it might be 200_l._ or more. But the ghost, greatly to his regret, bade him go and cast it into the river. He obeyed, against his better judgment. The next day, and for many a day thereafter, people looked for that money where he had thrown it in the river, but it never could be found. The Rev. Thomas Lewis, a dissenting minister in those parts, saw the place in the wall where the money had been hid, in the haunted house, and wondered how the young man could reach it, it being so very high; but thought it likely he was assisted by the ghost.