"Never out of my sight shall you go--God’s my judge! You mustn’t seek to do it, Bartholomew. Your time’s drawn down to within twelve month, and us must spend it hand-in-hand to the end. Oh, that awful voice! And for me to hear the name--me of all people! God A’mighty never did a crueller thing; and if I’d knowed we was going back along by the pool, I’d rather have walked the soles out of my boots and the flesh off my feet than do it. Your name of all names, and it might have been any other man’s. But you are chosen. If they’d only take me--not that I can bide after you, Bartholomew. Mark me, I shall be after you long afore you know your way about in the next world." Mr. Stanbury, albeit a man without superstition, had also suffered not a little under the tragedy of the day. He had always laughed at the pool until now; but this was not a laughing matter. He could trust his ears and it was impossible to deny that a very extraordinary voice, hardly to be called human, had shouted his name up through the mist from Crazywell. It struck him also that the words actually ascended from the face of the water. "Things look a bit black," he admitted, "and I’m powerful sorry I’ve scoffed at thicky water; but I ban’t gwaine to throw up the sponge yet, my old dear, and no more must you. If ’tis the Powers of Darkness live in the pool, then we must call in the Powers of Light to fight against ’em. God in Heaven’s the only Party who knows when I be going to be took off, and ’tis a gert question in my mind whether He’d let it out to this here queer thing that lives in Crazywell--like a toad in a tree-stump. What do you say, Bart?" Their son had returned and was in great trouble at this evil news. "I say that I’d better tell Jane not to come here for her Christmas dinner," he answered. "Mother won’t be up for any high jinks to-morrow. She won’t even be good for getting over to worship. She’s white as a dog’s tooth still. Why, there ban’t hardly a spark of nature left in her. And as for the voice, I’ve no patience with such things. I’d have gone down and pulled the spirit’s damned nose if I’d been there, same as I would any other man’s. I don’t believe a word of it, and faither’s right: God A’mighty wouldn’t let no vagabond ghosts poke about on Christmas Eve of all times--just afore the birthday of the Lord--to frighten God-fearing, respectable people with their nonsense. If ’tis a spirit, ’tis a bad one; and I wouldn’t care no more for a bad tankerabogus than I would for a bad man. "If us can get to church in the morn, I’ll ax parson Merle afterwards," said Mr. Stanbury. "For my part, I won’t pretend I like it; but all the same, I’ve got a right to make a fight for it; and if parson be of your view, Bart, that I oughtn’t to care a button about it, then I won’t care."