I was still looking at the hut, with this in my mind, when I was startled by hearing a thin, quavering voice behind me:
"Be you 'm a-lookin' at t' cottage, master?"
Turning sharp round, I beheld a very ancient man in a smock frock, who carried a basket on one arm, and leaned upon a stick.
"Yes," I answered; "I was wondering how it came to be built in such an out-of-the-world spot."
"Why, 't were built by a wanderin' man o' the roads."
"It's very lonely!" said I.
"Ye may well say so, sir—haunted it be, tu."
"Haunted?" said I.
"Haunted as ever was!" answered the old man, with a sprightly nod strangely contrasting with his wrinkled face and tremulous limbs. "No one ventur's nigh the place arter dark, an' few enough in the daytime, for that matter."
"On account of the ghost?"