"I'd give my life to undo it, and bring him back again, Squire; I'd give my life twice over, Master Johnny; but I declare before Heaven, I never thought to harm the boy. When I see him the next morning, lying dead, I'd not have minded if the Lord had struck me dead too. I've been a'most mad ever since." "Johnny," said the Squire, in low tones, "go you to South Crabb, and bring over Mr. Cole. Do not talk of this." The surgeon was at home, and came back with me. I did not quite understand why the Squire sent for him, seeing he could do no good. And the boots were David's, after all; the only things he had taken off. Hill had brought him to this shed the next night; with some vague idea of burying him in the ground under the leaves. "But I couldn't do it," he avowed amid his sobs; "I couldn't do it." There was an examination, Cole and another making it; and they gave evidence at the inquest. One of them (it was Cole) thought the boy must have died from fright, the other from the cold; and a nice muff this last must have been. "I did not from the first like that midnight call, or the apparently causeless terror the poor mother awoke in," said Mrs. Todhetley, to me. "The child's spirit must have cried out to her in his death-agony. I have known a case like this before." "But----" "Hold your tongue, Johnny, You have not lived long enough to gain experience of these things." And I held it. XX. DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. "Is it true that she's going to marry him, Miss Timmens?" "True! _I_ don't know," retorted Miss Timmens, in wrath. "It won't be for lack of warning, if she does. I told her so last night; and she tossed her head in answer. She's a vain, heartless girl, Hannah Baber, with no more prudence about her than a female ostrich." "There may be nothing in it, after all," said Hannah. "She is generally ready to flirt, you know." "Flirt!" shrieked Miss Timmens in her shrillest tone. "She'd flirt with a two-legged wheelbarrow if it had trousers on." This colloquy was taking place at the private door of the school-house. And you must understand that we have gone back a few months, for at this time David Garth was not dead. Hannah, who had gone down from Crabb Cot on an errand, came upon Miss Timmens standing there to look out. Of course she stayed to gossip.