The children were beginning to feel quite delightfully creepy, and would have liked a further continuation of the spirit portion of the story; but David's decoction being now ready, his thoughts were with his invalid in the cow-house, and nothing could bring them back to Dame Eleanor's wraith. So, in spite of all entreaties for more, he departed, bearing his steaming can with him, and declaring that one good cow was worth all the ghosts and ghostesses in the kingdom, 'for you might do some good to she, but as to they, they was naught but hearsay, after all.'
After this, Peggy and Bobby were determined to try and obtain a sight of their ancestress, and with much screwing up of their courage stole out one evening, and crept fearfully round the ruins, clutching each other's hands very tightly, and jumping at every sound. There was a fitful moon, and it was just light enough to see the outlines of the old walls and the pieces of broken stair and column, with very dark places between, where the shadows fell. It was an ideal spot for a ghost. It really seemed as if these old relics of bygone days must be haunted, so strong were the cords which bound them to the past. A cloud had come over the moon, and as they groped their way round the corner of what had been the refectory, Peggy caught Bobby's arm.
'Listen!' she said in a thrilling whisper.
The children clung together tighter than ever and held their breath, for there certainly was the most extraordinary noise to be heard—a kind of mixture between groaning and sighing, with a rattling sound as of dragging chains. It seemed coming in their direction, too, and they shrank into a niche in the wall, with their hair almost standing on end. Something gleamed white in the faint moonlight, and a terrific sound suddenly boomed in their ears. Frightened almost out of their wits, the children shrieked and ran, but stopped before they had gone twenty yards, for the noise had developed into a very decided 'Hee-haw!' and the moon, bursting through the clouds, revealed the long nose and twirling ears of the tinker's broken-winded old donkey, who, dragging a clog on his leg, was giving vent to his feelings in his own peculiar fashion, his master having turned him into the ruins for a stolen feed during the night, no doubt with the intention of fetching him in the morning before anyone was up and about. It was such bathos after the overwrought state of their feelings that they sat down and laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks, treasuring the joke to tell to Archie when he should be well enough to receive visitors, and holding it up as a model to relieve Nancy's fears.
But seeing how easy it was to imagine a ghost out of really every-day materials, the children plotted mischief next Saturday, and determined to give Joe a fright. About half a mile from the house lay the oak-wood, which was also the supposed scene of Dame Eleanor's walk. Through this wood ran a road, which was the shortest way to Middlehead, a little market-town in the opposite direction to Warford. Knowing that Joe had gone for a holiday, with some other lads from the village, to a fair which was being held that day at Middlehead, they decided to construct a ghost and fix it up in the wood, to alarm him and his companions as they returned. They kept their secret to themselves, and retired to the barn to fashion a figure of Dame Eleanor according to their own notions of what a phantom should be. Taking a large turnip, they scooped out the inside till there was nothing left but a hollow shell, cutting holes in it for eyes, nose, and mouth, and fixing a candle inside, so that when the light shone through it should resemble a horrible, grinning face. At dusk they stole away with the rest of their materials to the oak-wood, and set to work. The spot chosen was a grassy corner, where a gate across the road formed an angle with the wall which bounded the wood upon one side. It was a specially dark and shady place, for the tall trees shut out the sky, and even in the daytime it looked gloomy and still. They first planted a stout broomstick in the ground, and fixed the turnip head firmly upon the top of it; two branches of trees tied on like cross-bars made a pair of shoulders and arms, and when covered with a sheet stolen from the linen-cupboard, it appeared as if the white figure were stretching out its imploring hands in a vain appeal for mercy. When Peggy lighted the candle inside the effect was so terrific that the conspirators felt quite eerie themselves, and with a last look to see that all was steady, and the candle not likely to fall over, they left Dame Eleanor in her corner, and fled home over the fields with a rather guilty feeling, wondering what would happen.
To do Peggy justice, I do not think she would have tried to play such a trick on poor Joe if she had imagined he were returning alone; but knowing he would have the company of several of his friends to support him, she thought he might rather enjoy the joke than otherwise.
The dusk soon fell, and Peggy sat by the fire in the Rose Parlour reading 'Ivanhoe' in much warmth and content. Lilian was playing snatches of her favourite Chopin, but somehow the music did not go well to-night, for the musician's heart was not in her fingers.
'What's the matter, Lilian?' asked Peggy, tearing herself away from Friar Tuck and the Black Knight to realize that her sister had got up for the fifth time from the piano to peep out through the window into the dark beyond.
'I wish Father would come home, that's all. I always feel so uneasy when he goes to Middlewood'—pacing restlessly round the room, and looking again at the clock.
'Why?'