Before dinner I had call to go into the woodshed. I heard a scuttling as I opened the door. If I am not mistaken, Miss Dorton was hiding in the corner where we keep the coke. I didn't see any good in making a fuss, so I left her there. When I got back to the kitchen, cook asked me if we'd got any parsley.
"You'll find a bit in the front," I says, "to the left of the gate," and she went out. She came back looking scared.
"Anybody keep goats round here?" she asked me.
"Not that I know of, nearer than Ibstone Common," I says.
"I could have sworn I saw a goat's face looking at me out of the gooseberry bushes while I was picking the parsley," she says. "It had a beard."
"It's the half light," I says. "One can imagine anything."
"I do hope I'm not getting nervy," she says.
I thought I'd have another look round, and made the excuse that I wanted a pail of water. I was stooping over the well, which is just under the mulberry tree, when something fell close to me and lodged upon the bricks. It was a hairpin. I fixed the cover carefully upon the well in case of accident, and when I got in I went round myself and was careful to see that all the curtains were drawn.
Just before we three sat down to dinner again I took cook aside.
"I shouldn't go for any stroll in the garden to-night," I says. "People from the village may be about, and we don't want them gossiping." And she thanked me.