And in the demeanor of the three, as the girls fell in on either side of the older woman, there was something freakishly suggestive of the noble Roman and his two companions: of “how well Horatius kept the bridge in the brave days of old.”
On across a strip of rank pasture they went, halting amid black, confusing shadows to see whether the ghosts would falter before the advance, or not.
But the spectres never wavered, alternately poised, shimmering sentries, against the sky, where the pasture ended in a grassy bank, which some crowning had topped off into a tall sod-fence.
Imponderable ghosts, weighing as much as two pin-heads, louder, more blood-curdling, grew the hapless rattle of the chain they dragged!
But somebody was feeling dizzily another freakish element in the situation.
Suddenly “Copper-nob”, whose training had been rather different to that of her two companions—more rural—went mad as a March hare.
She flung herself down in the heavy dew, arms limply outflung—feet kicking wildly.
“Goats!” she gasped. “Goats!” she shrieked. “Goats! Not Ghosts! Two long-haired, milk-white goats, chained together! One—one has got to this side of the fence, is trying to drag the other over. And the other won’t stand for it! Oh-h!”
“Nannie! Billy! Tug-of-war!” The failing knees of the two supporting heroines gave way under them too; they sank down—down—into the moonlit dew—and laughed until the wee ’oor shook.