But reports of the prowess of the club on the previous night had been carefully spread by Mr. Coffin. He had told everybody he came across how Armstrong had sat and smoked right under the tramp's tree while the clock struck twelve, and how Billet had spent nearly an hour by the gate of the Squire's park, challenging the groom's ghost to show up, and making the avenue echo with his laughter; and so forth: so that the members of the new club had become heroes. Thus, one by one, the villagers were attracted to drop in at the "Threshing Machine" to gaze reverentially at the fearless ghost-defiers, and ask them all about it.
"It must hav' give yer a bit of a creepy feelin' when the clock began to strike?" said the saddler.
"Me? Golong with yer! 'Ope I ain't sech a turnip-liver as ter be frightened at bogies!" replied Armstrong, scornfully.
"Yur! D'ye take us for a set o' babies?" asked Billet, witheringly.
"Yah!" exclaimed Joe Murzle. "Wot next?"
Then the admirers stood drinks to the heroes; and by the time the latter got up—with more or less difficulty—to go home, there wasn't one among them who would not have given a week's earnings to meet the most creepy ghost about.
But the next morning they were silent once more; and Peter looked gloomily over the fence at Billet.
"Mighty queer about this 'ere pig o' mine, that's wot it is!" said he. "Bin ailing, he has, ever since yesterday morning."
"Hum!" said Billet. "We-el—if you ask me—I tell yer plain as I do b'leeve my roomatics come on wuss night afore last, and that's pat."
Then they were silent, shaking their heads for several minutes.