"Nonsense!" reproved Sinnett. "Don't you be a coward, Joe, but just speak up and tell your tale sensibly. Come!"
"I went for the newspaper to Captain Copp's, as sent," answered the boy, doing his best to obey. "Mrs. Copp couldn't find it, and thought the captain had took it in his pocket to the Mermaid. Coming back here to say so, I see a figure in the churchyard hiding, like, behind a tombstone. I thought it were old Parkes, a-taking the short cut over the graves to his home, and I stood and looked at him. Then, as he rose himself a bit higher, I see him out and out. It were Mr. Hunter, with his own face and his own coat on--that black and white thing."
"His own coat!"
"It were," groaned the lad. "I never were thinking of anybody but Parkes, but when I once saw the coat and the face, I see it were Mr. Hunter."
Joe's hearers did not know what to make of this. Miss Thornycroft privately thought she must fall in a fit, too, she felt so sick and ill.
"Was the face--" began one of the maids, and stopped. Remembering Miss Thornycroft's presence, she substituted another word for the one she had been about to speak. "Was the face red?"
"No. White. It--"
At this juncture there came a sharp knock at the window, as if the ghost were knocking to come in. The boy howled, the women shrieked; and the ghost knocked again.
"Who's there?" called out Sinnett through the shutters.
"It's me," answered a voice, which they recognised for that of Sarah Ford. "Is the kitchen a-fire?"