There was no more Pope Joan that night. We carried the story indoors; and I mentioned also what had been said to Miss Timmens. The Squire and old Coney laughed.
With David Garth’s ghost to be seen, it could not be supposed that I, or Tod, or Tom Coney, should stay away from the sight. When we reached the place, some twenty people had collected round the house. Jim Batley had told the tale in North Crabb.
But curious watchers had seen nothing. Neither did we. For the bright night had changed to darkness. A huge curtain of cloud had come up from the south, covering the moon and the best part of the sky, as a pall covers a coffin. If gazing could have brought a ghost to the window, there would assuredly have been one. The casement was at the end of the house; serving to light the narrow upstairs passage. A huge cherry-tree hid the casement in summer; very slightly its bare branches obscured it now.
A sound, as of some panting animal, came up beside me as I leaned on the side palings. I turned; and saw the bailiff. Some terrible power of fascination had brought him back again, against his will.
“So it is gone, Hill, you see.”
“It’s not gone, Mr. Johnny,” was his answer. “For some of our sights, it’ll never go away again. You look well at the right-hand side, sir, and see if you don’t see some’at white there.”
Peering steadily, I thought I did see something white—as of a face above a white garment. But it might have been fancy.
“Us as saw him couldn’t mistake it for fancy,” was Hill’s rejoinder. “There was three on us: me, and Dinah up at Coney’s, and that there imp of a Jim Batley.”
“Some one saw it before you did, Hill. At least he says so. Luke Macintosh. He was scared out of his senses.”