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Five miles of land did that disembodied spirit of the Keeper of Redesdale choose for his own. As might be guessed, he fixed on the banks of the Rede, and he chose that part of it that lies between Todlawhaugh and Pringlehaugh. The fox that barks from the bracken on the hillside at early morning, the grouse that crows from the heather, the owl that hoots from the fir woods at night, to those did the ghost of Percival Reed act as keeper. By day he roosted, like a bat or a night bird, on some tree in a lonely wood. By night he kept his special part of the marches. Still the Keeper of Redesdale was Percival Reed. Todlaw Mill, in ruins long ago, was his favourite haunt, and there, as the decent folk of the valley went on the Sabbath to the meeting-house at Birdhope Cragg, they often saw him, a dreary sight for human eyes, patiently awaiting his freedom. The men would uncover their heads and bow as they passed, and the Keeper of Redesdale, courteous in the spirit as in the body, would punctiliously return their salutations.

Thus did the years wear on until the appointed days were fulfilled, and the Rede Valley knew its Keeper no more. On the last day of the time fixed by him, the skeely man was thatching a cottage at the Woollaw. Suddenly he felt something touch him, as though the wing of a bird had brushed by. He came down the ladder on which he stood, and it seemed as though the bird’s feathers had brushed against his heart, and had come from a place where the cold and ice are not cold and ice as mortals know them, for “he was seized,” says the chronicler, “with a cold trembling.” Some power, too strong for his own skill to combat, had laid hold on him, and shivering, still shivering, he fell into the hands of Death.

Such was the passing of Percival Reed, Keeper of Redesdale, who took with him, when at length he relinquished his charge, a humble henchman, a hind of the Rede Valley.