This was so entirely new a view of probabilities, that the room sunk into temporary silence to revolve it. And not altogether an agreeable one. The Grey Friar did enough mischief as it was, in the matter of terrifying timid spirits: if it came to causing dreadful personal injuries with pistols and what not, Greylands was at a pretty pass!
"Now I shouldn't wonder but that was it," cried John Bent, bringing down his hand on the table emphatically. "He saw the Grey Friar, or thought he did: and it put him into more fright than mortal man could stand. You should just have seen him last night, and the terror he was in, when me and the doctor got to him--shaking the very board he lay upon."
"I'm sure he caused us fright enough," meekly interposed Sister Ann, who had been drawn into the inn (nothing loth) with the crowd. "When the Lady Superior, Sister Mary Ursula, came up to awake me and Sister Phoeby, and we saw her trembling white face, and heard that Walter Dance had taken refuge at the Nunnery, all shot about, neither of us knew how we flung our things on, to get down to him."
"Walter Dance don't like going anigh the Friar's Keep any more nor the rest of us likes it; and I can't think what should have took him there last night," spoke up young Mr. Pike from the general shop. "I was talking to him yesterday evening for a good half hour if I was talking a minute; 'twas when I was shutting up: he said nothing then about going out to shoot a bird."
"But he must have went to shoot one," insisted Ben Little. "Why say he did it if he didn't? What else took him to the ruins at all?"
A fresh comer appeared upon the scene at this juncture in the person of Mr. Harry Castlemaine. In passing the inn, he saw signs of the commotion going on, inside and outside, and turned in to see and hear. The various doubts and surmises, agitating the assembly, were poured freely into his ear.
"Oh, it's all right--that's what young Dance went up for," said he, speaking lightly. "A day or two ago I chanced to hear him say he wanted to shoot a sea-bird for stuffing."
"Well, sir that may be it; no doubt it is, else why should he say it--as I've just asked," replied Ben Little. "But what we'd like to know is--why he should ha' stayed to the little hours of morning before he went out. Why not have went just after dark?"
"He may have been busy," said Mr. Harry carelessly. "Or out in the boat."
"He wasn't out in the boat last night, sir, for I was talking to him as late as nine o'clock at our door," said young Pike. "The boat couldn't have went out after that and come back again."