"Where can the lad be--and what has become of him?" bewailed Mrs. Stone.
"He's never as late as this--unless he is at Dr. Jago's, and has to walk home from Nullington. And I'll tell you what, ma'am," added Hannah, briskly, the idea occurring to her, "I'd not wonder but that's where he is gone to-night: and the Doctor, seeing his throat's bad, won't let him come away again till the morning."
"Maybe it is so," considered Dorothy. "Anyway, I dare not stay any longer. If my husband's sitting up, though he said he shouldn't, he'll be fine and cross."
Tying her bonnet and drawing her shawl round her, Dorothy Stone set off on her lonely walk. She would rather have walked twenty miles in broad daylight than that short course at midnight. All sorts of fears and ghostly fancies were in her mind. It was not a dark night, the stars being well out. Hurrying along with her face down, she had nearly gained the shrubbery, when the great stable clock struck out the hour--twelve.
That increased her superstitious fears: and why or wherefore she knew not, but the night seemed to turn icy cold. She looked back, as by some subtle instinct, wondering whether anything was following her. All around seemed as silent as the grave.
Suddenly, as she looked, she thought she saw something stirring at a distance behind. Something black, which had not been there a moment ago, and seemed as if it must have risen out of the ground. Fascinated, she peered out at it, unable to withdraw her gaze, her face turning white and cold, her heart standing still.
She saw what appeared to be a black hearse, drawn by four headless horses and driven by a headless coachman. It was coming towards her pretty swiftly. But that she drew aside amidst the grass, it would have driven over her. More dead than alive, Dorothy gazed out at it as it passed noiselessly, without sound of any kind, and she watched it till it vanished in the distance. It seemed to drive straight against the wall at the end, where the road took a turn, to go right into the wall and so disappear.
"The Lord be good to me!" she aspirated. "It wanted but this. I've never seen the sight myself, though I have heard tell of it by those who have."
It must be here explained that a belief in the apparition of a black coach, or hearse, with four headless horses and a headless driver, is common to many parts of Norfolk, and is not confined to any one locality. It is supposed to foreshadow the death of some near friend or relative of the individual who is so unlucky as to see it.
The striking of the midnight hour disturbed Miss Winter and Mrs. Toynbee. Neither had any idea it was so late. Starting up, Mrs. Toynbee lighted the bed-candles.