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He made no sound, but, signing to them to follow him, he began to move away with a queer, shambling gait

Date of account
Published 1917
Source
Haunted Places in England
Reference
Haunted Places in England · selected passage 47
Rights
public_domain
Language
English
Record updated
2026-08-24

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Record summary

He made no sound, but, signing to them to follow him, he began to move away with a queer, shambling gait

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

He made no sound, but, signing to them to follow him, he began to move away with a queer, shambling gait. The girls, thankful enough to have found a guide, however strange, kept close at his heels, and soon found themselves once again on the roadway. Here their conductor came to a halt, and producing from under his coat what looked like a lady's reticule, he was about to thrust it into Miss Smith's hand when their eyes met, and, to her intense astonishment, he uttered a bitter cry of disappointment and vanished. His action and disappearance were so inexplicable that the girls, completely demoralised, took to their heels and ran without stopping till the ruins were far in their rear, and they were well on their way home.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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