"Captain Pond! Oh, Captain Pond!" stammered the new-comer, who was indeed no other than Mr. Clogg, senior lieutenant of the Diehards.
"Why have you left your post, sir? Don't stand there clinky-clanking your sword on the pebbles—catch it up under your arm, sir: you're making noise enough to scare the dead! Now, then, what have you to report? Nothing wrong with the main body, I hope?"
"A man might call it ghosts"—Mr. Clogg in the darkness passed a sleeve across his clammy brow—"A man might call it ghosts, Captain Pond, and another might set it down to drink. But you know my habits."
"Be quick, man! You've seen something? What is it?"
"Ah, what indeed? You may well ask it, sir: though not if you was to put the Book into my hands at this moment and ask me to kiss it—"
"Clogg," interrupted the Captain, stepping close and gripping him by the upper arm, "will you swear to me you have not been drinking?"
"Yes and no, Captain. That is, it began with my stepping up the valley to the farm for a dollop of hot water—I'd a thimbleful of schnapps in my flask here—and the night turning chilly, and me remembering that Mrs. Nankivel up to the farm was keeping the kettle on the boil, because she promised as much only last night, knowing my stomach to be susceptible. Well, sir, not meaning to be away more'n a moment—as I was going up the meadow, but keeping along the withy-bed, you understand?—and if I hadn't taken that road, more by instinct than anything else—"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, if you've anything important to say, say it! In another five minutes the boats will be here!"
"I don't know what you'd call 'important,'" answered the Lieutenant, in an aggrieved tone. "As I was telling, I got to where the withy-bed ends at the foot of the orchard below the house. The orchard, as you know, runs down on one side of the stream, and 'tother side there's the grass meadow they call Little Parc. Just at that moment, if you'll believe me, I heard a man sneeze, and 'pon top of that a noise like a horse's bit shaken—a sort of jingly sound, not ten paces off, t'other side of the withies. 'Tis a curious habit of mine—and you may or may not have noticed it—but I never can hear another person sneeze without wanting to sneeze too. Hows'ever, there's a way of stopping it by putting your thumb on your top lip and pressing hard, and that's what I did, and managed to make very little noise; so that it surprised me when somebody said, 'Be quiet, you fool there!' But he must have meant it for the other man. Well, ducking down behind the withies and peeking athurt the darkness, by degrees I made out a picter that raised the very hairs on the back of my neck. Yonder, on the turf under the knap of Little Parc, what do I see but a troop of horsemen drawn up, all ghostly to behold! And yet not ghostly neither; for now and then, plain to these fleshly ears, one o' the horses would paw the ground or another jingle his curb-chain on the bit. I tell you, Captain, I crope away from that sight a good fifty yards 'pon my belly before making a break for the Cove; and when I got back close to the mainguard I ducked my head and skirted round to the track here in search of you: for I wouldn' be one to raise false alarms, not I! But, if you ask my private opinion, 'tis either Old Boney hisself or the Devil, and we'm lost to a man."
"Good Lord!" muttered Captain Pond, half to himself. "Horsemen, you say?"