'What see you there
That hath so cowarded and chased your blood
Out of appearance?'
The weather, which had been beautifully fine and mild for the time of year during October and the first half of November, kept up for Peggy's birthday on the twenty-first. By good luck that important occasion fell on a Saturday, so there was no tiresome school to interfere with the festivities. As the Vaughan family was more rich in goodwill than in coin of the realm, the presents were mostly of a kind which I am afraid either Maud Middleton or Phyllis and Marjorie Norton would have scorned, but to Peggy they gave the utmost satisfaction. There was the much-longed-for guinea-pig from Father, which had been smuggled up in a hamper, and kept with elaborate care in a remote portion of the barn (a secret which Bobby found the utmost difficulty in preserving); a nightdress case worked by Lilian's neat fingers; a cork frame from Bobby, made under Archie's supervision; a round pink-and-white wool mat, which Nancy had crocheted at odd times during the evenings; and a little mug from Joe, with a Welshwoman in a tall hat on one side, and 'A present from Llandrindod' on the other, bought on a visit to the famous wells which he had paid in company with the church choir. Archie came up during the morning bearing a pretty writing-case, an offering from himself and Miss Forster, while a parcel had arrived from India, containing the loveliest carved sandal-wood box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, to show that Aunt Helen had not forgotten her little niece.
As the birthday was not so very long after the fifth of November, they had decided to keep any Guy Fawkes celebrations until then, and had been busy for some days collecting sticks for a bonfire. The party consisted solely of themselves and Archie, for Father's suggestion of the five Miss Davenports was received with howls of indignation; and Lilian and Nancy's combined efforts had produced a cake with twelve tiny coloured wax candles stuck into icing-sugar on the top, one for every year of Peggy's life, and which had to be blown out in turns by the assembled company for good luck.
The bonfire was held in the stubble field beyond the stackyard, and roared up like a fiery furnace, making quite a red glow in the sky, while its red ashes roasted potatoes and chestnuts to a turn. Archie had even contrived to manufacture a few fireworks, having shut himself up in a room over the stables at the Willows, a combination of peculiar odours and a singed eyebrow alone testifying to his occupation. To be sure, the catherine-wheel stuck, and utterly refused to turn, in spite of all pokings and proddings, and the rockets only fizzled off near the ground, instead of shooting up as they ought to have done; but the squibs and crackers were quite effective, and a train of gunpowder, laid down to represent a fiery serpent, blazed away in fine style. The fire-balloon, however, was the success of the evening, for it shot straight up, and floated across the sky like a beautiful meteor, its pink and green sides giving a charming effect, till at length it dwindled away and became a mere speck in the distance, leaving the children more full of admiration than ever for Archie's talents.
After the birthday the weather broke and a foretaste of winter arrived, with cold winds and gray, murky skies and occasional falls of snow. Archie caught a severe chill hunting for microscopical specimens in the pond, and was in bed for some weeks, nursed by his doting aunt, consoling himself for his enforced idleness by planning such improvements at both the Willows and the Abbey as were calculated to make their owners' hair stand on end.
As the long evenings closed in, Joe, ever timorous with regard to the supernatural, became the prey of superstitious fears. He saw shrouds in the candle and corpse-lights in the churchyard. Rollo's howling filled him with forebodings, and a screech-owl flying over the orchard sent him into a panic. He heard ghostly footfalls among the ruins and mysterious taps on the stable-window when he was suppering the horses, which, in spite of Lilian's reassurances, he persisted in regarding as a warning, though for which of his numerous relatives it was intended kept him in a state of perpetual doubt and uneasiness. The worst of it was that he infected Nancy with his alarms to such an extent that she could scarcely be persuaded to put her nose out at the back-door after dusk (except on her evening out, when her sweetheart came to fetch her), which was distinctly inconvenient if a pail of water were wanted during the evening, or she happened to have left the coal-box standing in the yard. The Abbey boasted the reputation of maintaining what Peggy called 'a real, live, genuine ghost,' though none of the family had ever caught a glimpse of it, it seeming to prefer to manifest itself to Joe and to chance visitors from the village who came up to the house on dark evenings. The washerwoman's little girl had heard footsteps behind her on the drive and a distinct clanking as of chains, while old Betty Carson swore on her Bible oath that she had seen something white moving about among the ruins, which groaned as in the expression of the keenest mental anguish; and when Mr. Vaughan suggested it might prove nothing worse than a young bullock with indigestion, she had dismissed the idea as almost profane.
Beyond the fact that a lady in white was supposed to haunt both the ruins and the oak-wood, weeping and wringing her hands in orthodox ghostly fashion, the children had not been able to learn much of the story, for there were so many and divergent accounts of it, all told with uncertainty as to names and dates, and in that very oracular—not to say muddled—style sometimes indulged in by rustic historians. But one wet afternoon, finding David alone in the harness-room, where the old man had lighted a fire to make some wonderful decoction of foxgloves wherewith to doctor a cow with a strained leg, they seated themselves on a sack of potatoes in front of the cheerful blaze, and with the aid of a little judicious flattery and coaxing managed to cajole him into a true and circumstantial account of the family ghost.
Although he was somewhat crusty to begin with, old David, like all who have the gift of narrative, enjoyed telling a story, and he soon warmed to his work.
'It were my father as told me,' he began, 'and he had it from his father, and his'n afore him, for it be a powerful long time ago, it be. Ay, time do pass by quick, for sure!'
'When did it happen?' asked Peggy, hastily, hoping to nip in the bud one of the old fellow's rambling divergences from the point.