If that was so, the "ghost" has existed, not two Junes, but nearer three hundred, and must have been observed and commented upon countless times. It was odd that Marguérite Ogilvey had not mentioned the fact specifically. It was still more odd that a man should have been found hanged in that exact spot. Somehow, Armathwaite thrilled with a sense of discovery when that phase of the problem dawned on him. He was still turning it over in his thoughts when he reached Burt's farm.
Here he was again fortunate. Some chance had kept the farmer at home, and, although the latter had neither man nor horse to spare for a second journey to Bellerby, he dispatched a messenger to a laborer in the village who owned a bicycle, and was always ready to ride the six miles for half a crown.
Armathwaite, of course, had told Burt of the accident, and the farmer shook his head sapiently when he heard its cause.
"Ay!" he said. "If I owned yon place I'd rive that window out by t' roots. It's done a fair share of mischief in its time—it has, an' all!"
"Do you mean that it has been responsible for other mishaps?" was the natural query.
"Yes, sir; three in my time, an' I'm the right side o' sixty yet."
"What were they?"
"I don't remember t' first, because I was nobbut a little 'un, but I've heerd my faither tell on 't. Some folk o' t' neäm o' Faulkner lived there then, an' one o' their gells, who'd married a man called Ogilvey, I think, kem yam (came home) to have her first bairn where her mother could look after her. This Mrs. Ogilvey must h' known t' hoos an' its ways well enough, but yon spook gev her a bad start one evenin', for all that, an' her bairn was born afore time, and she nearly lost her life."
"Are you sure the name was Ogilvey?" broke in Armathwaite.
"Oh, ay! I mind it well, because I've got a dictionary in t' hoose by a man o't same neäm."