"Why, do ye see, mistress, that I've been a' harvesting with 'un, an' he tuk me in the taxed cart with 'un to the bank, to get change to pay me my wages. Going into town this morning, the hoss got skeared by some boys playing at ball. The ball struck the beast plump in the eye, an' cut it so shocking bad, that measter left 'un with the hoss doctor, and proposed for us to walk home in the cool o' the evening, as the distance is only eight miles or thereabouts. Before we starts home he takes me to the Crown Inn, and treats me to a pot of ale, an' while there he meets with some old acquaintance, who was telling him how he knew his father, old Noah, in 'Mericky; an' how he had died very rich, an' left his money to a wife he had there, that he never married. An' I thought as how measter didn't much like the news, as his father, it seems, had left him nothing—not even his blessing. Well, 'twas nigh upon twelve o'clock when we started. 'You'd better stay all night, measter,' says I; ''tis nigh upon morning.' 'Sam Smith,' says he, 'I cannot sleep out o' my own bed;' and off we sets. On the bridge we heerd the first big clap o' thunder; the next minute we sor the ghost, and my measter gives a screech which might have roused old Squire Carlos from the dead, and straight fell down in a fit. The ghost vanished in the twinkling of an eye; an' I met this good man, who helped me to bring Noah up here. He's a kind measter, Noah Cotton, but a wonderful timersome man. I've heerd him, when we've been at work in the fields, start at the shivering of an aspen leaf, and cry out, 'Sam! what's that?'"
"Did not Noah say summat about having lost his yellow canvas bag with his money?" asked the other man; "and that the ghost laid hold on him with a hand as cold as ice?"
"What, did a'?" and Sam Smith opened his large, round eyes, and distended his wide, good-natured mouth, with a look of blank astonishment.
"If the ghost robbed Noah Cotton of his canvas bag, that was what no living man could do!" cried Bob Mason, bursting into the room, and cutting sundry mad capers round the floor. "Hurrah for the ghost!"
CHAPTER X.
THE PROPOSAL.
We will now step into the widow Grimshawe's cottage, and see how Sophy disposed of her guest.
The lower room was in profound darkness, and the little sempstress bade her companion stay at the door while she procured a light from the rush-candle, that always burnt in her mother's chamber above.
"Do not leave me in the dark!" he cried, in a voice of childish terror, and clutching at her garments. "I dare not be alone!"