The effect of these words on Hill was such, that I quite believed he was scared out of his. He clasped his hands in wild emotion, and turned up his eyes to give thanks.
“It’s ret’ibution a working its ends, Mr. Ludlow. See it first, did he! And I hope to my heart he’ll see it afore his eyes evermore. If that there Macintosh had not played a false and coward’s game, no harm ’ud ha’ come to Davvy.”
The crowd increased. The Squire and old Coney came up, and told the whole assemblage that they were born idiots. Of course, with nothing to be seen, it looked as though we all were that. In the midst of it, making quietly for the back-door, as though he had come home through Crabb Ravine from Timberdale, I espied Louis Roe. Saying nothing to any one, I went round and told him.
“David Garth’s ghost in the place!” he exclaimed. “Why, it will frighten my wife to death. Of course there’s nothing of the sort; but women are so foolishly timid.”
I said his wife was not there. Roe took a key from his pocket, unlocked the back-door, and went in. He was talking to me, and I stepped over the threshold to the kitchen, into which the door opened. He began feeling on the shelf for matches, and could not find any.
“There’s a box in the bedroom, I know,” he said; and went stumbling upstairs.
Down he came, after a minute or so, with the matches, struck one, and lighted a candle. Opening the front door, he showed himself, explained that he had just come home, and complained of the commotion.
“There’s no such thing in this lower world as ghosts,” said Roe. “Whoever pretends to see them must be either drunk or mad. As to this house—well, some of you had better walk in and re-assure yourselves. You are welcome.”
He was taken at his word. A few came in, and went looking about for the ghost, upstairs and down. Writing about it now, it seems to have been the most ridiculous thing in the world. Nothing was to be found. The narrow passage above, where David had stood, was empty. “As if supernatural visitants waited while you looked for them!” cried the superstitious crowd outside.
It is easier to raise a disturbance of this kind than to allay it, and the ghost-seers stayed on. The heavy cloud in the heavens rolled away by-and-by; and the moon came out, and shone on the casement again. But neither David Garth nor anything else was then to be seen there.