"Peter," said he, "Peter, I've took to you amazin'; just a few inches taller—say a couple—an' you'd be the very spit o' what I were at your age—the very spit."
"Thank you, Ancient!" said I, laying my hand on his.
"Now, Peter, 'twould be a hijious thing—a very hijious thing if, when I come a-gatherin' watercress in the marnin', I should find you a-danglin' on t' stapil, cold and stiff—like t' other, or lyin' a corp wi' your throat cut; 'twould be a hijious—hijious thing, Peter, but oh! 'twould mak' a fine story in the tellin'."
In a little while Simon returned with the candles, a tinder-box, and a parcel of bread and meat, for which he gloomily but persistently refused payment. Last of all he produced a small, brass-bound pistol, which he insisted on my taking.
"Not as it'll be much use again' a ghost," said he, with a gloomy shake of the head, "but a pistol's a comfortable thing to 'ave in a lonely place—'specially if that place be very dark." Which last, if something illogical, may be none the less true.
So, having shaken each by the hand, I bade them good night, and set off along the darkening road.
CHAPTER XXVII
WHICH TELLS HOW AND IN WHAT MANNER I SAW THE GHOST
Now, as I went, my mind was greatly exercised as to a feasible explanation of what I had just heard. That a man so old as the Ancient should "see things" I could readily believe, by reason of his years, for great age is often subject to such hallucinations, but with Simon, a man in the prime of his life, it was a different matter altogether. That he had been absolutely sincere in his story I had read in his dilating eye and the involuntary shiver that had passed over him while he spoke. Here indeed, though I scouted all idea of supernatural agency, there lay a mystery that piqued my curiosity not a little.
Ghosts!—pshaw! What being, endowed with a reasoning mind, could allow himself to think, let alone believe in such folly? Ghosts—fiddle-de-dee, Sir!