"It's rather dark and dreary, certainly, Martha," Ellen answered with an admirable assumption of indifference; "but, as we haven't any of us got to live there, that doesn't much matter."
"It isn't that, mum. I wouldn't mind the darkness and the dreariness—and I'm sure such a place for spiders I never did see in my life; there was one as I took down with my broom to-day, and scrunched, as big as a small crab—but it's worse than that: the place is haunted."
"Who told you that?"
"Sarah Batts."
"Sarah Batts! Why, how should she know anything about it? She hasn't been here so long as you; and she came straight from the workhouse."
"I think master must have told her, mum."
"Your master would never have said anything so foolish. I know that he doesn't believe in ghosts; and he keeps all his garden-seeds in the locked room at the end of the passage; so he must go there sometimes himself."
"O yes, mum; I know that master goes there. I've seen him go that way at night with a candle."
"Well, you silly girl, he wouldn't use the room if he thought it was haunted, would he? There are plenty more empty rooms in the house."
"I don't know about that, I'm sure, mum; but anyhow I know Sarah Batts told me that passage was haunted. 'Don't you never go there, Martha,' she says, 'unless you want to have your blood froze. I've heard things there that have froze mine.' And I never should go, mum, if it wasn't for moth—Mrs. Tadman's worrying and driving, about the place being cleaned once in a way. And Sarah Batts is right, mum, however she may have got to know it; for I have heard things."