"I hope not. I don't want to die just yet. I want to get married, for one thing."
He spoke lightly, and she laughed.
"Well, that's easy enough."
He shook his head, but said nothing. They walked on till they reached the edge of the hill, when Rachel, out of breath, sat down on a fallen log to rest a little. Below them stretched the hollow upland, with its encircling woods and its white stubble fields. Far below lay the dark square of the farm, with a light in one of its windows.
Rachel pointed to the grass road by which they had come.
"We haven't seen the ghost!"
He asked her for the story, and she told it. By now she had pieced it all together; and it seemed to Ellesborough that it had a morbid fascination for her.
"He dragged himself down this very path," she said. "They tracked him by the blood stains; his wounds dripped all along it. And then he fell, just under my cart-shed. It was a horrible, bitter night. Of course the silly people here say they hear groans and dragging steps: That's all nonsense, but I sometimes wish it hadn't happened at my farm."
He couldn't help laughing gently at her foolishness.
"Why, it's a great distinction to have a ghost!"