Mrs. Ilam looked about her.
“Nonsense, Jos,” she upbraided him, fixing her eyes on him in a sort of reproof. “It’s your imagination.”
“It isn’t,” said Josephus. “I saw it; and what’s more, it was on a bier. That’s the worst—it was on a bier. Mother, he will haunt me all my life!”
“Don’t talk so loud, child,” put in Mrs. Ilam. “You’d better go to bed.”
“What’s the good of going to bed?” he inquired. “What! I took him and I buried him as safe as houses. I left him there, and I came straight back here, except that I was stopped by a watchman at the stables, who told me the horses seemed to be all frightened. And I had a talk to the fellow; and I find it on a bier here, right in my path. And now it’s gone again.”
“Come in,” said Mrs. Ilam.
“And why were the horses frightened? That shows——”
“Come in,” Mrs. Ilam repeated. “I’ll get you some hot milk, and you must try to sleep.”
“Sleep!” he murmured. “Mother, you mustn’t leave me.”
And the procession re-entered the house, and the door was closed, but a light burned upstairs through the remainder of the night.