Ye should ha' seen him run along that stoop! He didna wait a second; he never touched me, or tried to. He cried out once, nearly dropped his lamp, and then turned tail and went as if the dell were after him. I'd told some of the miners what I meant to do, so they were waiting for him, and when he came along they saw how frightened he was. They had to support him; he was that near to collapse. As for me, there was so much excitement I had no trouble in getting to the stable unseen, and then back to my ain gate, where I belonged.
Jock would no go back to work that day.
"I'll no work in a haunted seam!" he declared, vehemently. "It was a ghost nine feet high, and strong like a giant! If I'd no been so brave and kept my head I'd be lying there dead the noo. I surprised him, ye ken, by putting up a fight—likes he'd never known mortal man to do so much before! Next time, he'd not be surprised, and brave though a man may be, he canna ficht with one so much bigger and stronger than himself."
He made a great tale of it before the day was done. As we waited at
the foot of the shaft to be run up in the bucket he was still talking.
He was boasting again, as I'd known he would. And that was the chance
I'd been waiting for a' the time.
"Man, Jock," I said, "ye should ha' had that pistol wi' ye—the one with which ye killed all the outlaws on the American veldt. Then ye could ha' shot him."
"That shows how much you know, young Harry Lauder!" he said, scornfully. "Would a pistol bullet hurt a ghost? Talk of what ye ha' some knowledge of——"
"Aye," I said. "That's good advice, Jock. I suppose I'm not knowing so much as you do about ghosts. But tell me, man—would a ghost be making a noise like this?"
And I made the self-same noise I'd made before, when I was playing the ghost for Jock's benefit. He turned purple; he was clever enough to see the joke I'd played on him at once. And the other miners—they were all in the secret began to roar with laughter. They weren't sorry to see puir Jock shown up for the liar and boaster he was. But I was a little sorry, when I saw how hard he took it, and how angry he was.
He aimed a blow at me that would have made me the sorry one if it had landed fair, but I put up my jukes and warded it off, and he was ashamed, after than, wi' the others laughing at him so, to try again to punish me. He was very sensitive, and he never came back to the Eddlewood Colliery; the very next day he found a job in another pit. He was a good miner, was Jock, so that was no matter to him. But I've often wondered if I really taught him a lesson, or if he always kept on telling his twisters in his new place!
I stayed on, though, after Jock had gone, and after a time I drove a pony instead of tending a gate. That was better work, and meant a few shillings a week more in wages, too, which counted heavily just then.