“Ah, but I’ve seen a ghost,” saith Austin Park.
“Oh, where?” cried a dozen together.
“Why, it was but night afore last,” saith he, “up by the old white-thorn that was strake of the lightning, come two years last Midsummer, just at yon reach o’ the lake that comes up higher than the rest.”
“Ay, ay,” saith Farmer Benson: “and what like were it, Master Austin?”
“A woman all in white, with her head cut off,” quoth he.
“Said she aught to thee?”
“Nay, I gave her no chance; I took to my heels,” quoth he.
“Now, Austin, that should I ne’er have done,” saith Aunt Joyce, who believes in ghosts never a whit. “I would have stood my ground, for I did never yet behold a ghost, and would dearly love to do it: and do but think how curious it should be to find out what she spake withal, that had her head cut off.”
“Mistress Joyce, had you found you, as I did, close to a blasted tree, and been met of a white woman with no head, I’ll lay you aught you will you’d never have run no faster,” saith Austin in an injured tone.
“That should I not,” quoth Aunt Joyce boldly. “I shall win my fortune at that game, Austin, if thou deny not thy debts of honour. Why, man o’ life, what harm should a blasted tree do me? Had the lightning struck it that minute while I stood there, then might there have been some danger: but because the lightning struck it two years gone, how should it hurt me now? And as to a woman with no head, that would I tarry to believe till I had stripped off her white sheet and seen for myself.”