The quavering melody ended with a big sneeze, and Jinny, fearing the brothers would indeed be reunited, rushed to close the window and light the fire. Though she felt confusedly that her grandfather, waiting for Sidrach, and drinking too freely in his melancholy, had probably dreamed it all, she was not sure that he had not really seen Sidrach’s ghost. How else would the flint and steel have got into his pocket? In any case she was reminded that her secret was not safe. In concealing a death one forgot to reckon with the ghost, and Sidrach’s might at any time divulge it suddenly to his brother, even if the present visitation was only a dream. Dap’s ghost, too, was another possibility that must be taken into account. “I’ll tell you where Sidrach’s got to,” she said desperately, as a yellow flame leapt up, “he’s got to heaven.”
“To heaven?” repeated the old man vaguely.
“To heaven!” she said inexorably. “He hasn’t been in Chelmsford for weeks. He was very old, you see, a hundred and five.”
The Gaffer began to tremble. “Ye don’t really mean Sidrach’s gone to heaven?”
She nodded her head sadly. “He fell down,” she explained.
“Fell down to heaven?” he asked dazedly.
“His body fell downstairs—his soul went up to God.”
“Then he come downstairs agen last night, dear Sidrach,” he said solemnly; “he come to have a glass and a gammick with his little brother.”
Jinny was not prepared to deny it, and though the idea jarred, it was after all difficult to see snoring senectitude with the poetry attaching to Angel-Mothers. She removed the dirty glasses silently.
“And where’s his stockin’ o’ gold?” he inquired suddenly. “Why didn’t ye bring back that?”