"Did ee hear White Horse last night?"

"I did hear a horse in the night, Johnnie, but I couldn't swear that
he was a white one."

"Didn' git up an' look out?" disappointedly.

"No, I didn't. Why should I get up to look out at a horse? I can see
horses any day without getting out of bed in the middle of the night."

"'Twus the White Horse of the Coupee,"--in a weird whisper.--"I heerd
him start in Little Sark, and come across Coupee, an' up by Colinette,
an' past this house. An' if you'd ha' looked out an' seen him, you'd
ha' died."

"Good old White Horse! I'm glad I stopped in bed. Did you see him
yourself now?"

"I've rid him! Yes!--an' told him where to go," with a ghoulish nod.

"Quite friendly with ghosts and things, eh?"

"I don' mind 'em. I seen the ole lady up at the big house. Yes, an'
talked to her too."

"Clever boy! Put the evil eye on her?"

"Noh, ee cann't."

"Can't? Why, I thought you were a past master in all little matters of
that kind."

"Ee cann't put evil eye on a ghost," with infinite scorn.

"Oh, she's a ghost, is she? And what did you talk about?"

"You coul'n't understan'," grunted Johnnie, to whom his meeting with
the White Lady was a treasured memory if a somewhat tender subject.

VIII

And Marielihou? Ah, Marielihou was a black mystery. Sometimes she was
there, and sometimes she wasn't, and if at such times you asked
Johnnie where she was, he would reply mysteriously, "Aw, she's busy."

And busy Marielihou was, always and at all times. If Graeme found her
in the hedge with Johnnie, she was busy licking her lips with vicious
enjoyment as though she had just finished eating something that had
screamed as it died. Or she was licking them snarlishly and
surreptitiously, and sharpening her claws, as though just about
starting out after something to eat--something which he knew would
certainly scream as it died. For Marielihou was a mighty hunter, and
her long black body could be seen about the cliffs at any time of
night or day, creeping and worming along, then, of a sudden, pointing
and stiffening, and flashing on to her prey like the black death she
was.

Six full-grown rabbits had Marielihou been known to bring home in a
single day, to say nothing of all the others that had gone to the
satisfaction of her own inappeasable lust for rabbit-flesh and
slaughter.

As to the strange tales the neighbours whispered about her, Graeme
could make neither head nor tail of them. Bu