"I cannot recall the name. Where is it?"
"It is my native village," I asserted, with a slight deviation from the truth. "It lies betwixt Pontefract and Holwick."
At the mention of Holwick he started, yet, retaining command over his feelings, he remarked: "I know it not. But, beshrew me! the name of Holwick reminds me---- Dost know Holwick well?"
"Passably," I replied offhandedly. "There is a market cross, a church, a score or so of stone houses, a castle more or less in ruin, and a----"
"A castle, sayest thou?" he interrupted excitedly. "And who lives there?"
"I cannot say."
"Ah! Now, concerning this castle," he remarked, tapping his clay pipe on his heel with such vehemence that the stem broke in three places, "I have heard that a goodly store of treasure lies hidden there. In fact, an old comrade of mine, who lay stricken to death on the field of Marston Moor, did bestow upon me a paper whereby the treasure should be mine. But either he was befooling himself or me, for I could find nothing."
Here was a piece of good fortune.
"Where did you look?" I enquired disinterestedly.
"Where did I look? Now, out on me for a dolt! I delved every night for more than a fortnight, till the countryside rang with tales of the ghost of Holwick, and none would venture near o' nights, and hardly by day."