“Well, we must avail ourselves of this ghost while it is in the humour of haunting us. Kind fortune seems to have sent it for your entertainment. What say you to a ghost-hunt?” “How are ghosts usually hunted?” asked Rashleigh; “with hounds? beagles? terriers?” “No, that would not do,” said Foxwell, thoughtfully. “As we know where it appears—for it has been seen twice in the sunken garden, according to the evidence—we had best set a trap for it. What do you think, ladies? It may help enliven the night for us.” “I should dearly love to see a ghost,” said Lady Strange; “but what manner of trap would you use? Sure such an insubstantial thing can’t be held by any machine of wood and iron.” “A trap composed of three or four stout fellows armed with cudgels,” suggested Foxwell, “would doubtless serve to hold the creature till Rashleigh and I could arrive with our swords.” “But a ghost is like air, is it not?” said Lady Strange. “It can’t be caught, or stopped, or even felt.” “I have always suspected that a ghost that can be seen can be felt, especially if it wears clothes,” replied Foxwell. “However it be, here is an opportunity to settle the question,—if the ghost continues to haunt the same place. We will set our trap this evening; if we catch nothing, we’ll try again to-morrow; and so on, till something occurs, or we grow tired. We had best tell nobody of our purpose: the ghost may have accomplices. Pray let none of the servants know, but the men I employ in the affair.” He bestirred himself at once in preparations, glad of having found fresh means, not only of distracting his own thoughts somewhat from the letter in Squire Thornby’s possession, but also of blinding his guests to the disturbance of mind which that matter still caused him. His plans were simple. Choosing three men rather for stoutness of heart than for stoutness of body, though they were not deficient in the latter respect either, he instructed them to post themselves, while it was still day, in well-concealed places at different sides of the garden. Two, the gardener and the groom, were provided with cudgels, while the keeper took a fowling-piece, which he was not to fire except in extreme circumstances. At the appearance of the ghost in the garden, the keeper was to utter a signal, whereupon Foxwell and his guests—who were to pass the evening as usual at the card-table—would come forth as quietly as possible, the gentlemen with their swords ready to enforce the intruder’s surrender. Should the ghost attempt flight before the gentlemen could arrive, the three servants were to close round him, using their weapons only as a last resource, and after due warning—for the ghost was probably a gentleman, and Foxwell would have it treated as such. The three watchers were to go singly to their places of concealment, entering the garden directly from a postern in the ruinous eastern wing of the house, so that nobody outside of the garden itself could see them.