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The Veiled Nun of Saint Leonard's by
W. T. Lyndskill. Curiously enough,

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although I have been in many old
haunted castles and churches at the exactly

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correct hour viz. Midnight in Scotland, England Walls and the Rhine Country,

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yet I have never been able to
either see or hear a ghost of any

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sort. The only thing of the
kind I ever saw was an accidental meeting

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with the far famed spring hailed Jack
in a dark lane at Helensborough. It

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was many years ago, and as
I was then very small and he was

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of immense proportions, the meeting was
distinctly unpleasant for me. Now from legends

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we learn that Saint Andrew's is possessed
of a prodigious number of supernatural appearances of

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different kinds, sizes and shapes,
most of them of an awe inspiring and

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blood curdling type. In fact,
so numerous are they eighty in number,

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they seemed to be that there is
really no room for any modern aspirants who

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may want a quiet place to appear
and turn people's hair white. It might

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be well to mention a few of
them before telling the tale of the Veiled

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Nun of Saint Leonard's Church Avenue.
We will put aside ordinary bansheese and things

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that can only be heard well.
There is the celebrated phantom coach that Willie

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Carson told us of. It has
been heard and seen by many. There

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is also a white lady that used
to haunt the abbey road, the ghost

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of Saint Rahl's Tower, the Haunted
Tower Ghost, the Blackfriar's Ghost, the

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Wraith of Haxton of Ruthulet, the
Specter of the Old Castle, the Dancing

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Skeletons, the Smothered Piper lad,
the Phantom Bloodhound, the Prairie Ghost,

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and many many more. The Nun
of Saint Leonard's is as curious and interesting

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as any of them, though about
weird and gruesome. In the time of

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Charming Mary Stuart, our White Queen, there lived in the old South Street,

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a very lovely lady belonging to a
very old old Scottish family, and

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her beauty and wit brought many admirers
to claim her hand, but with little

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or no success, she waved them
all away. At last she became affianced

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to a fine and brave young fellow
who came from the East Lothian country and

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For some months all went merrily as
a married bell, but at last clouds

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overspread the rosy horizon. She resolved
that she would never become an earthly bride,

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but would take the veil and become
a bride of holy Church and none.

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In point of fact, when her
lover heard that she had left home

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and entered a house of Holy sisters, he at once announced his intention of

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hastening to Saint Andrew's, seizing her, and marrying her at once. In

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this project, it would seem the
young lady's parents were in perfect agreement with

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a devoted youth. He did hasten
to Saint Andrew's almost immediately, and there

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received a terrible shock. On meeting
this once lovely and loved maiden, he

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discovered that she had actually done what
she had written and threatened to do sooner

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than be an earthly bride. She
had mutilated her face by slitting her nostrils.

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She had cut off her eyelids and
both her top and bottom lips,

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and had branded her fair cheeks with
cruel hot irons. The poor youth,

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on seeing her famous beauty thus destroyed, fled to Edinburgh, where he committed

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suicide, and she after becoming a
nun, died from grief and remorse.

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That all happened nearly four hundred years
ago, but her spirit, with a

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terribly marred and mutilated face, still
wanders o nights in the peaceful little avenue

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to old Saint Leonard's Iron kirk Gate
down the Penn's Road. She is all

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dressed in black, with a long
black veil over the once lovely face,

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and carries a lantern in her hand. Should any bold visit her to that

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avenue meet her, she slowly weeps
her face veil aside, raises the lantern

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to her scarred face and disclose those
those awful features. To his horrified gaze,

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here is a curtious thing that I
know happened there a few years ago.

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I knew a young fellow here who
was roading upon theology and church canon

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law. I also knew a great
friend of his, an old Cambridge man.

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The former I will call Wilson,
and the latter Talbot, as I

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don't want to give the exact names. Well, Wilson had invited Talbot up

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to Saint Andrews for a month of
golf, and he arrived here on a

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Christmas Day. He came to my
rooms for about ten minutes, and I

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never saw anyone merrier and brighter and
full of old days at Cambridge. Then

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he hurried off to see the Lynx
in the club. Late that evening,

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Wilson rushed in, Come along quick
and say, Talbot, he's awfully ill,

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and I don't know what's up a
bit. I went off and found

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Talbot in his lodgings with a doctor
in attendance, and he certainly looked dangerously

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ill and seemed perfectly dazed. Wilson
told me that he had to go to

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see some people in business that evening
down by the harbor, and that he

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took Talbot with him down the Penn's
Road. It was a fine night,

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and Talbot said he would walk about
the road and enjoy a cigar till his

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friends return. In about half an
hour, Wilson returned up the Penns Road

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but could see Talbot nowhere in sight. After hunting about for a long time,

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he found him leaning against a third
or fourth tree up the little avenue

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to Saint Leonard's kirk Gate. He
went up to him, when Talbot turned

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a horrified face toward him, saying, oh my god, have you come

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to meet me again, and fell
down in a fit or a swoon.

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He got some passers by to help
to take poor Talbot to his rooms.

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Then he came round for me.
We sat up with him in wonder,

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in amazement, and briefly this is
what he told us. After walking up

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and down the Penns Road, he
thought he would take a survey of the

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little avenue, when at the end
he saw a little light approaching him,

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and he turned back to meet it, thinking it was a policeman. He

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wished him good evening, but got
no reply. On approaching nearer, he

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saw it to be a veiled female
with a lantern. Getting quite close,

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she stopped in front of him,
drew aside her long veil, and held

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up the lantern towards him. My
God, said Talbot. I can never

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forget or describe that terrible, fearful
face. I felt choked, and I

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fell like a log at her feet. I remember no more till I found

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myself in these rooms and you two
fellows sitting beside me. I leave this

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place tomorrow, and he did by
the first train. His state of panic

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was terrible to see. Neither Wilson
nor Talbot had ever heard the tale of

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the awful apparition of the Saint Leonard's
Nun. And I had almost forgotten the

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existence of the strange story till so
curiously reminded of it. I never saw

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Talbot again, but a letter from
him a year after, written from Rhinefell's,

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telling me that on Christmas Day he
had had another vision, dream or

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whatever it was, of the same
awful specter. About a year later I

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read in a paper that poor old
Talbot had died on Christmas night at Rosario

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of heart failure. I after wonder
if the dear old chap had had another

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visit from the terrible veiled Nun of
Saint Leonard's Avenue. And of the Veiled

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Nun of Saint Leonard's by W.
T. Lindskill