With David Garth's ghost to be seen, it could not be supposed that I, or Tod, or Tom Coney, should stay away from the sight. When we reached the place, some twenty people had collected round the house. Jim Batley had told the tale in North Crabb. But curious watchers had seen nothing. Neither did we. For the bright night had changed to darkness. A huge curtain of cloud had come up from the south, covering the moon and the best part of the sky, as a pall covers a coffin. If gazing could have brought a ghost to the window, there would assuredly have been one. The casement was at the end of the house; serving to light the narrow upstairs passage. A huge cherry-tree hid the casement in summer; very slightly its bare branches obscured it now. A sound, as of some panting animal, came up beside me as I leaned on the side palings. I turned; and saw the bailiff. Some terrible power of fascination had brought him back again, against his will. "So it is gone, Hill, you see." "It's not gone, Mr. Johnny," was his answer. "For some of our sights, it'll never go away again. You look well at the right-hand side, sir, and see if you don't see some'at white there." Peering steadily, I thought I did see something white--as of a face above a white garment. But it might have been fancy. "Us as saw _him_ couldn't mistake it for fancy," was Hill's rejoinder. "There was three on us: me, and Dinah up at Coney's, and that there imp of a Jim Batley." "Some one saw it before you did, Hill. At least he says so. Luke Macintosh. He was scared out of his senses." The effect of these words on Hill was such, that I quite believed he was scared out of _his_. He clasped his hands in wild emotion, and turned up his eyes to give thanks. "It's ret'ibution a working its ends, Mr. Ludlow. See it first, did he! And I hope to my heart he'll see it afore his eyes evermore. If that there Macintosh had not played a false and coward's game, no harm 'ud ha' come to Davvy." The crowd increased. The Squire and old Coney came up, and told the whole assemblage that they were born idiots. Of course, with nothing to be seen, it looked as though we all were that. In the midst of it, making quietly for the back-door, as though he had come home through Crabb Ravine from Timberdale, I espied Louis Roe. Saying nothing to any one, I went round and told him. "David Garth's ghost in the place!" he exclaimed. "Why, it will frighten my wife to death. Of course there's nothing of the sort; but women are so foolishly timid." I said his wife was not there. Roe took a key from his pocket, unlocked the back-door, and went in. He was talking to me, and I stepped over the threshold to the kitchen, into which the door opened. He began feeling on the shelf for matches, and could not find any. "There's a box in the bedroom, I know," he said; and went stumbling upstairs.