Hannah would have laughed could she have heard that boast; he was—and she knew it—scared of her.
“Are you afraid of ghosts?” Peggy asked.
“Ghosts!” Robert’s tone was scornful. “No, I ban’t afeard o’ they. Somethin’ you can put your ’and through don’t signify much. Wot I might be afeard of,” he added, wishful not to appear bragging, “is somethin’ bigger an’ stronger than meself, wot can take holt to your whistle and squeeze it like the plumbers do the gas-pipes of a ’ouse. That might scare me, now.”
His manner conveyed a doubt whether even that experience could effectively arouse his fears. He left it to her imagination to picture him struggling valiantly, undismayed, against gigantic odds.
“Folks say there’s a ghost up at the ’All,” he added.
“I knew it!” the girl exclaimed. “I’ve a feeling in my bones, when I wake in the dark, that there must be a ghost somewhere.”
Robert nodded confirmation.
“Hannah—that’s my missis—she used to live ’ousemaid up at the ’All in old squire’s time. She seen it. Leastways, she says she ’as,” he added in the tone of a man who considers the reliability of the evidence open to question.
“If she says so, of course she must have seen it,” Peggy insisted.
“Well,” Robert answered, “I dunno. Seems to me if Hannah ’ad a seen it, er’d ’ave left; an’ ’er didn’ leave, not till I married ’er. But ’er was always tellin’ up about thicky ole ghost, though ’er never could describe it. If I’d seen a ghost I’d know wot ’e looked like. Misty, ’er used to say—kind o’ misty like, an’ big. I’ve seed misty kind o’ things meself when I’ve ’ad a drop; but Hannah’s teetotal.”