my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book
of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but mother told me I
was born some time afore I was christened."

"Ah!"

"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was
no moon."

"No moon: that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"

"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.

"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had an
almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she
had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
moon?"

"Yes; 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon. A bad job
for thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all
days in the month."

"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?" said
Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.

"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested
gaze.

"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,"
continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. "'Tis said I
be only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I
suppose that's the cause o't."

"Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; "and yet his
mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for fear he should
outgrow hisself and go for a soldier."

"Well, there's many just as bad as he." said Fairway. "Wethers must
live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul."

"So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o' nights, Master
Fairway?"

"You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to married
couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when 'a do
come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange one."

"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to! 'Twill make
my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will--ah, you
will, I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o't! A very strange
one? What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange
one, Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."

"I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
enough--what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid it."

"What was it like?--no, don't--"

"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had