When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

The old man stands his ground. "I had my orders, my lady," says he. "If I caught sight of e'er a dog unled—to shoot un."

"The man he belonged to—did you not see him?"

"No ma'an coom in my sight. Had I seen a ma'an, I would have wa'arned and cautioned him to keep to the high road, not to bring his dog inside o' the parkland. No—no—there was ne'er a ma'an, my lady." He goes on, very slightly exaggerating the time that passed between his shot at the dog and its reappearance, apparently going back to the Castle. He rather makes a merit of not having fired again from a misgiving that the dog's owner might be there on a visit. Drews Thurrock, he says, is where he lost sight of the dog, and that is where Achilles seems bent on going.

Drews Thurrock is a long half-mile beyond the Keeper's Lodge in Ancester Park, and the Lodge is a long half-mile from the Towers. Still, if it was reasonable to follow the dog at all, where would be the sense of holding back or flagging till he should waver in what seemed assurance of his purpose. No—no! What he was making for might be five miles off, for all that the party that followed him knew. But trust in the creature's instinct grew stronger each time he turned and waited for their approach, then scoured on as soon as it amounted to a pledge that he would not be deserted. There was no faltering on his part.

The river, little more than a brook at Arthur's Bridge, is wide enough here to deserve its name. The grove of oaks which one sees from the Ranger's Lodge hides the water from view. But Gwendolen has it in her mind, and with it a fear that the dog's owner will be found drowned. It was there that her brother Frank died four years since, and was found in the deep pool above the stepping-stones, caught in a tangle of weed and hidden, after two days' search for him far and wide. If that is to be the story we shall know, this time, by the dog's stopping there. Therefore none would hint at an abandonment of the search having come thus far, even were he of the mind to run counter to the wish of the young lady from the Castle. None dares to do this, and the party follows her across the stretch of gorse and bracken called the Warren to the wood beyond. There the dog has stopped, waiting eagerly, showing by half-starts and returns that he knows he would be lost to sight if he were too quick afoot. For the wood is dark in front of him and the boughs hang low.

"Nigh enough to where I set my eye on him at the first of it, last evening," says old Stephen. He makes no reference to the affair of the gunshot. Better forgotten perhaps!

But he is to remember that gunshot, many a wakeful night. For the forecast of a mishap in that fatal pool is soon to be dissipated. As the party draws nearer the dog runs back in his eagerness, then forward again. And then Lady Gwendolen follows him into the wood, and the men follow her in silence. Each has some anticipation in his mind—a thing to be silent about.

There is a dip in the ground ahead, behind which Achilles disappears. Another moment and he is back again, crying wildly with excitement. The girl quickens a pace that has flagged on the rising ground; for they have come quickly. And now she stands on the edge of a buttress-wall that was once the boundary—so says tradition—of an amphitheatre of sacrifice. Twenty yards on yonder is the Druids' altar, or the top of it. For the ground has climbed up stone and wall for fifteen hundred years, and the moss is deep on both; rich with a green no dye can rival, for the soaking of yesterday's rain is on it still. But she can see nothing for the moment, for the dog has leapt the wall and vanished.

"'Tis down below, my lady—beneath the wall." It is the young gardener who speaks. The others have seen what he sees, but are shy of speech. He has more claim than they to the position of a friend, after so many conferences with her ladyship over roots and bulbs this year and last. He repeats his speech lest she should not have understood him.

"Then quick!" says she. And all make for the nearest way down the wall and through the fern and bramble.