“I did not think old Matthew was capable of going out at night.”
“He did last night, sir; that’s for certain. It was not far; only down away by the brick-kilns. There’s a tale going abroad that Dan Duff was sent into mortal fright by seeing something that he took to be Rachel’s ghost: my opinion is, that he must have met oldfit i Frost in his white smock-frock, and took him for a ghost. The moon did cast an uncommon white shade last night. Though old Frost wasn’t a-nigh the Willow-pool, nor Robin neither, and that’s where they say Dan Duff got his fright. Formerly, Robin was always round that pool, but lately he has changed his beat. Anyhow, sir, perhaps you be so good as drop a warning to Robin of the risk he runs. He may mind you.”
“I will,” said Lionel.
The gamekeeper touched his hat and walked away. Lionel considered that he might as well give Robin the warning then: and he turned towards the village. Before fairly entering it, he had met twenty talkative persons, who had given him twenty different versions of the previous night’s doings, touching Dan Duff.
Mrs. Duff was at her door when Lionel went by. She generally was at her door, unless she was serving customers. He stopped to accost her.
“What’s the truth of this affair, Mrs. Duff?” asked he. “I have heard many versions of it?”
Mrs. Duff gave as succinct an account as it was in her nature to give. Some would have told it in a third of the time: but Lionel had patience; he was in no particular hurry.
“I have been one of them to laugh at the ghost, sir; a-saying that it never was Rachel’s, and that it never walked,” she added. “But I’ll never do so again. Roy, he see it, as well as Dan.”
“Oh! he saw it, too, did he,” responded Lionel, with a good-natured smile of mockery. “Mrs. Duff, you ought to be too old to believe in ghosts,” he more seriously added. “I am sure Roy is, whatever he may say.”
“If it was no ghost, sir, what could have put our Dan into that awful fright? Mr. Jan doesn’t know as he’ll overget it at all. He’s a-lying without a bit of conscientiousness on my bed, his eyes shut, and his breath a-coming hard.”
“Something frightened him, no doubt. The belief in poor Rachel’s ghost has been so popular, that every night fright is attributed to that. Who was it went into a fainting fit in the road, fancying Rachel’s ghost was walking down upon them; and it proved afterwards to have been only the miller’s man with a sack of flour on his back?”
“Oh, that!” slightingly returned Mrs. Duff. “It was that stupid Mother Grind, before they went off with the Mormons. She’d drop at her shadder, sir, she would.”
“So would some of the rest of you,” said Lionel. “I am sorry to hear that Dan is so ill.”
“Mr. Jan’s in a fine way over him, sir. Mrs. Bascroft gave him just a taste of weak brandy and water, and Mr. Jan, when he come to know it, said we might just as well have give him pison; and he’d not answer for his life or his reason. A pretty thing it’ll be for Deerham, if there’s more lives to be put in danger, now the ghost have took to walk again! Mr. Bourne called in just now, sir, to learn the rights of it. He went up and see Dan: but nothing could he make of him. Would you be pleased to go up and take a look at him, sir?”
Lionel declined. He could do the boy no good, and had no especial wish to look at him, although he had been promoted to the notoriety of seeing a ghost. A few steps further he encountered Jan.
“What is it that’s the matter with the boy?” asked Lionel.
“He had a good fright; there’s no doubt about that,” replied Jan. “Saw a white cow on its hind legs, it’s my belief. That wouldn’t have been much: the boy would have been all right by now, but the women drenched him with brandy, and made him stupidly drunk. He’ll be better this evening. I can’t stop, Lionel: I am run off my legs to-day.”
The commotion in the village increased as the evening approached. Jan knew that young Dan would be well—save for any little remembrance of the fright which might remain—when the fumes of the brandy had gone off: but he wisely kept his own counsel, and let the public think he was in danger. Otherwise, a second instalment of the brandy might have been administered behind Jan’s back. To have a boy dying of fright from seeing a ghost was a treat in the marvellous line, which Deerham had never yet enjoyed. There had been no agitation like unto it, since the day of poor Rachel Frost.
Brave spirits, some of them! They volunteered to go out and meet the apparition. As twilight approached you could not have got into Mrs. Duff’s shop, for there was the chief gathering. Arguments were being used to prove that, according to all logic, if a ghost appeared one night, it was safe to appear a second.
“Who’ll speak up to go and watch for it?” asked Mrs. Duff. “I can’t. I can’t leave Dan. Sally Green’s a-sitting up by him now; for Mr. Jan says if he’s left again, he shall hold me responsible. It don’t stand to reason as I can leave Sally Green in charge of the shop, though I can leave her a bit with Dan. Not but what I’d go alone to the pond, and stop there; I haven’t got no fear.”
It singularly happened that those who were kept at home by domestic or other duties, had no fear: they, to hear them talk, would rather have enjoyed an encounter solus with the ghost, than not. Those who could plead no home engagement professed themselves willing to undertake the expedition in company; but freely avowed they would not go alone for the world.
“Come! who’ll volunteer?” asked Mrs. Duff. “It ’ud be a great satisfaction to see the form it appears in, and have that set at rest. Dan, he’ll never be able to tell, by the looks of him now.”
“I’ll go for one,” said bold Mrs. Bascroft. “And them as joins me shall each have a good stiff tumbler of some’at hot afore starting, to prime ’m again the cold.”
Whether it was the brave example set, or whether it was the promise accompanying it,
