"But the ghost?" and the little tailor shook his head mysteriously.
"Does not belong to any of us," rejoined Tom. "My relations are all sound sleepers, good honest people, who are sure to rest in their graves. There is a storm brewing," he continued, walking to the open door; "that thunder-cloud will burst over our heads in a few minutes, and Master Bob will get a good drenching."
"It's awesome to hear him talk, as he do, of his feather's spirit," said honest Josh. "It makes my flesh creep upon my bones."
"Provided there's any truth in his statements," said a carpenter, who had been smoking his pipe by the table, and silently listening to the conversation,—"which I much doubt. For my own part I would be more afraid of meeting Robert Mason alone in that dark lane, than any visitant from another world. I don't believe in ghosts. I never saw one, and never met with any person on whose word you could attach much credit, that could satisfactorily prove to you that he had. When you pushed him hard, it always came out that he was not the person who had seen it; but some one else who had related the tale to him, and he had every reason to believe it true. The farther you searched into the matter, the more indistinct and improbable the story became."
"Ay, Bill Corbett; but you heard Bob declare that he has both seen and spoken to it, and the lad must know his own father."
"I don't take for gospel what I hear Bob say; I don't believe one word of the story. No, not if he were to swear to the truth of it upon the Bible," said the carpenter, waxing warm. Before Tom Weston could reply, a loud peal of thunder burst suddenly over their heads, and the room was so vividly lighted up by the electric flash which preceded it, that Mary, who was intently listening to the conversation, rose from her seat with a loud scream.
"By the living Jingo! What's that?" cried the labourer, starting to his feet, while the pipe he was smoking fell from his nerveless grasp and was shivered to atoms on the hearth.
"Pshaw!" said Tom Weston, recovering from the sudden tremor which had seized him, "'tis only the poor dummy. I thought the gal had been deaf as well as dumb."
"Why, man, the dead in their graves might have heard that!" said the terror-stricken Josh.
He had scarcely ceased speaking, when Sophy Grimshawe sprang into the room—her eyes fixed and staring, and her usually rosy cheeks livid with fear. "The thunder," she gasped, "the dreadful thunder!" and would have fallen to the ground, had not Tom Weston caught her in his arms. The unexpected sight of such a beautiful apparition, seemed to restore the young man's presence of mind. He placed her in a chair, while the little tailor bustled up to get a glass of cold water, with which he copiously bathed her face and hands. In a few minutes her limbs ceased to tremble, and opening her eyes, she glanced timidly round her. The first object that encountered her gaze, was the scornful, fiendlike face of Mrs. Mason, scowling upon her.