“He was a tinker,” continued David, “and he drowned himself in one of the ponds.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so silly,” said Ambrose impatiently. “You know there aren’t any ghosts. You know father says so—and besides they never stay out after cock-crow—and besides, if there were they couldn’t hurt us.”
“Mother says nothing will hurt us if we’re not doing wrong,” said David; “but we are doing wrong, aren’t we?”
Ambrose gave a nervous laugh, which sounded to himself very thin and funny.
“If there are any ghosts here, I should think they’d be Roman ghosts,” he said.
A Roman ghost was a new idea to David. He dwelt on it a little before he asked:
“How should you think a Roman ghost would look?”
“Oh, how should I know?” exclaimed Ambrose irritably. “I wish you’d talk about something else.”
“Well,” concluded David thoughtfully, “if there are any Roman ghosts about, I shouldn’t think they’d like to see us digging up their things.”
The Camp reached, they stood still a moment gravely surveying it. It was formed by two low banks of turf, one within the other, almost complete circles, but broken here and there; the tall, black fir-trees stood near like sentinels on guard.