"Who's there?" called out Sinnett through the shutters. "It's me," answered a voice, which they recognised for that of Sarah Ford. "Is the kitchen a-fire?" Sinnett went to the entrance-door and called to her to come in. On occasions, when pressed for time, Sarah would give her messages at the kitchen-window, to save going round. She had brought the newspaper, one lent by the Red Court to Captain Copp: Mrs. Copp had found it after Joe's departure. "He have seen a ghost," lucidly explained one of the maids, pointing to Joe. "Oh," said Sarah, who had a supreme contempt for such things, regarding them as vanities, akin to hysterics and smelling salts. "I see it in the churchyard, close again his own grave," said the boy, looking helplessly at Sarah. "See a old cow," responded she, emphatically. "That's more likely. They strays in sometimes." "It were Mr. Hunter's ghost," persisted Joe. "He wore that there fur coat, and he stared at me like anything. I see his eyes a-glaring." "The boy has been dreaming," cried Sarah, pityingly, as she turned to Sinnett. "I should give him a good dose of Epsom salts." Which prescription Joe by no means approved of. However, Sarah could not stay to see it enforced; and we must go out with her. Her master had come in when she reached home. It was supper time, and she began to lay the cloth. Old Mrs. Copp was there: she had arrived the previous day (after spending the winter in London) on another long visit. Peering through her tortoiseshell spectacles at Sarah, she told her in her decisive way that she had been twice as long taking home the newspaper as she need have been. "I know that," answered Sarah, with composure. "A fine commotion I found the Red Court in: the maids screeching fit to deafen you, and young Joe in convulsions. I thought the kitchen-chimbly must be a-fire, and they were trying whether noise would put it out." The captain looked up at this. He was in an easy-chair at the corner of the hearth-rug, a glass of rum-and-water on a small stand at his elbow: old Mrs. Copp sat in front of the fire, her feet on the fender; Amy was putting things to rights on a side-table near the sofa, and Anna Chester sat back on a low stool in the shade on the other side of the fire-place, a book on her knee, which she was making believe to read. "Was the chimney on fire?" snapped Mrs. Copp. "Just as much as this is," answered Sarah, making a rattle with the knives and forks. "Joe was telling them he had just seen Robert Hunter's ghost. They screeched at that." The captain burst into a laugh: he had no more faith in ghosts than Sarah had. Sea-serpents and mermaids were enough marvel for him. Anna glanced up with a perceptible shudder.