"Sir, I'd not go through the Ravine to-night," was Luke's answer. "No, not though I knowed I was to be killed at to-morrow's dawn for disobeying the order." "Man, what are you afraid of?" "Of that," said Luke, nodding at the light. "But I don't like the Ravine in the night at no time." "Why, that's nothing but a will-o'-the-wisp," returned Tod, condescending to reason with him. Luke shook his head. There was the light; and neither his faith in it nor his fear could be shaken. Tod had his arms on the fence now, and was staring at the light as fixedly as Luke had done. "Johnny." "What?" "That light is carried by some one. It's being lifted about." "How could any one carry it _there_?" I returned. "He'd pitch head over heels down the Ravine. No fellow could get to the place, Tod, let alone keep his footing. It's where the bushes are thickest." Tod caught up the lantern. As its light flashed on his face, I could see it working with new eagerness. He was taking up the notion that Hugh might have fallen on that very spot, and that some one was waving a light to attract attention. As to ghosts, Tod would have met an army of them without the smallest fear. He went back down the Ravine, and we heard him go crashing through the underwood. Luke never spoke a word. Suddenly, long before Tod could get to it, the light disappeared. We waited and watched, but it did not come again. "It have been like that always, Master Johnny," whispered Luke, taking his arms off the fence. "Folks may look as long as they will at that there light; but as soon as they go off, a-trying to get to see what it is, it takes itself away. It will be seen no more to-night, sir." He turned off across the meadow for the high-road, to go and do Tod's bidding at Timberdale, walking at a sharp pace. Any amount of exertion would have been welcome to Mackintosh, as an alternative to passing through the Ravine. It may be remembered that for some days we had been vaguely uneasy about Hugh, and the uneasiness had penetrated to Mrs. Todhetley. Tod had made private mockery of it to me, thinking she must be three parts a fool to entertain any such fear. "I should like to give madam a fright," he said to me one day--meaning that he would like to hide little Hugh for a time. But I never supposed he would really do it. And it was only to-night--hours and hours after Hugh disappeared, that Tod avowed to me the part he had taken in the loss. To make it clear to the reader, we must go back to the morning of this same day--Friday. After breakfast I was shut up with my books, paying no attention to anything that might be going on, inside the house or out of it. Old Frost gave us a woeful lot to do in the holidays. The voices of the children, playing at the swing, came wafting in through the open window; but they died away to quietness as the morning went on. About twelve o'clock Mrs. Todhetley looked in. "Are the children here, Johnny?"