"How did he look, Mrs. Bamsey?" asked Maynard.
"I couldn't tell you. The faces that I see never show very clear. You'm conscious it is this man, or this woman. You know, somehow, 'tis them, but there's always a fog around them. They don't look the same as what living people look."
"The haunted house that adjoins Mrs. Honeysett's is taken at last," he said. "Mr. Chaffe has been up over a good bit putting it to rights, and they've stripped the ivy and are going to put on a new thatch. It's a very good house really, though in a terrible state, so Mr. Chaffe told master."
"I've heard all about it," she answered. "There's a new gardener come to Buckland Court—a widow man with a young daughter. And he don't care for ghosts—one of the modern sort, that believe naught they can't understand. And as they can't understand much, they don't believe much. So he's took it."
"Harry Ford, he's called," added Lawrence. "A man famous for flower-growing, I believe."
"I'm glad then. I hate for houses to stand empty."
He asked after Jerry.
"I met your young people back-along, and I'm afraid Miss Jane have put me in her black books—why for I don't know very well. I suppose they'll wed come presently?"
Again Mrs. Bamsey was tempted to speak, but felt it wiser not to do so. She ignored Maynard's first remark and replied to the second.
"Yes; they'll be for it now no doubt. After Easter perhaps; but not till my husband is strong enough to be at the church and give Jane away of course. Jerry's come into a bit of money since his father died. They must have their ideas, but they're close as thieves about the future. All I can hear is that they be wishful to go away from here come they're married."