"I'd have given a great deal for it not to, sir. They call me foolish, I know; always have done; but it just seems to me like an omen. I had a few articles in my arms, the first trifles we'd begun to move, and down I fell on going out at this door. To me it seems nothing but a warning that we ought not to move into Willow Cottage." David had halted in his work at the tea-cups, his brown eyes fixed on his mother. That it was not the first time he had listened to the superstition, and that he was every whit as bad as she, might plainly be seen. "I have never liked the thought of that new place from the first, Master Johnny. It is as if something held me back from it. Hill keeps saying that it's a convenient dwelling, and dirt-cheap; and so it is; but I don't like the notion of it. No more does David." "Oh, I dare say you will like it when you get in, Mrs. Hill, and David, too." "It is to be hoped so, sir." The day went on; and its after events I can only speak of from hearsay. Hill moved in a good many of his goods, David carrying some of the lighter things, Luke Macintosh was asked to go and sleep in the house that night as a safeguard against thieves, but he flatly refused, unless some one slept there with him. Hill ridiculed his cowardice; and finally agreed that David should bear him company. He made the bargain without his wife. She had other views for David. Her intention was to send the lad over to Worcester by the seven-o'clock evening train; not so much because his bed and bedding had been carried off and there was nothing for him to sleep on, as that his dying grandmother had expressed a wish to see him. To hear then that David was not to go, did not please Mrs. Hill. It was David himself who carried in the news. She had tea waiting on the table when they came in: David first, for his step-father had stopped to speak to some one in the road. "But, David, dear--you _must_ go to Worcester," she said, when he told her. "He will never let me, mother," was David's answer. "He says the things might be stolen if nobody takes care of them: and Macintosh is afraid to be there alone." She paused and looked at him, a thought striking her. The boy was leaning upon her in his fond manner, his hand in hers. "Should you be afraid, David?" "Not--I think--with Luke. We are to be in the same room, mother." But Mrs. Hill noticed that his voice was hesitating; his small weak hand trembled in hers. There was not a more morally brave heart than David Garth's; he had had a religious training; but at being alone in the dark he was a very coward, afraid of ghosts and goblins. "Hill," said she to her husband when he stamped in, the lad having gone to wash his hands, "I cannot let David sleep in the other house to-night. He will be too timid." "Timid!" repeated Hill, staring at the words. "Why, Luke Macintosh will be with him." "David won't like it. Macintosh is nothing but a coward himself."