“’Tis the kind of ghost you could find it in your heart to be haunted by, is it not, Di?” queried Mrs. Winter.
“The keeper must have been in some doubt whether the ghost was the ghost,” put in Rashleigh, “before he decided to give the alarm.”
There had indeed been indecision on the part of the keeper, but upon other ground than Rashleigh mentioned. As he sat with the gardener over their extra beer later that night, the keeper explained to his comrade:
“I were in a powerful state o’ uncertainty, and that’s the truth of it. For, in course, I knowed the young mistress and her maid as soon as ever they come into the garden. And when this here young captain,—for I take it, he can’t be no less, what with the air he have, and the way he handle his sword,—so when the young captain appeared, I soon see how the land lay. Though I couldn’t make out what they was a-sayin’, I could tell it were a matter o’ clandestine love. Now I were to give a owl’s hoot when the ghost appeared. Thinks I, ‘Devil a ghost this is, but yet ’tis the only ghost we’re like to behold. If I wait for a real ghost,’ thinks I, ‘we sha’n’t get to our beds this night; and yet I haven’t the heart to spoil the young lady’s love-affair.’”
“And small blame to you, David,” said Andrew the gardener. “Your thoughts was my thoughts, and I kep’ a-wondering to myself, ‘What will David do? If he doesn’t hoot, we shall have to stay out here all night, and then only get credit for going asleep and seeing nothing. And yet, if he does hoot, there’ll be a pretty kettle o’ fish for the young lady.’”
“Yes, Andrew, it were a great responsibility. I wished it had been left to you to do the hootin’, for, thinks I, ‘Andrew’s a wiser man than me, and he’d know the right thing.’”
“Maybe so, David, but not such a good hooter,” said Andrew, modestly. “I’ll admit I did a’most make up my mind that such kind of love-affairs comes to no good, and the master ought to know, so the best thing for all of us would be for you to consider the stranger a ghost, and hoot.”
“No doubt, no doubt, Andrew, now that I hear you say so. But I couldn’t muster up the heart, because I done my own love-makin’ in a clandestine manner, in my lovin’ days, and I had a sort o’ fellow-feelin’ with these young people, as you might say. So I couldn’t make up my mind. But I happened to move my leg, which were powerful cramped with sittin’ long in one position, an’ I made more noise nor I bargained for. And the first thing I knew, the young gentleman were a-proddin’ at me through the shrub’ry. So before I ever thought, the hoot come out, more as if there was a owl inside o’ me which hooted of its own accord, than if it was of my own free will.”
“It wasn’t of your own free will, man. Take my word for it, the matter was took out o’ your hands altogether. The moving of your leg was ordered from above, to bring about the end that was predestinated.”
“I believe it were, Andrew. At all events, once the hoot was out, the fat was in the fire. It weren’t a bad hoot, though, were it?”