aughters all slept there together. The "house"
consisted of the kitchen below and the room above it. There were many
such on the Verner estate.

Jan, carrying the candle to guide him, went softly up the creaky
staircase. The wife was sleeping. Hook was sleeping, too, and snoring
heavily. Jan had something to do to awake him; shaking seemed useless.

"Look here," said he in a whisper, when the man was aroused, "Alice has
had a fright, and I think she may perhaps be ill through it; if so, mind
you come for me without loss of time. Do you understand, Hook?"

Hook signified that he did.

"Very well," replied Jan. "Should----"

"What's that! what's that?"

The alarmed cry came from the mother. She had suddenly awoke.

"It's nothing," said Jan. "I only had a word to say to Hook. You go to
sleep again, and sleep quietly."

Somehow Jan's presence carried reassurance with it to most people. Mrs.
Hook was contented. "Is Ally not come in yet?" asked she.

"Come in, and downstairs," replied Jan. "Good-night. Now," said he to
Alice, when he returned to the kitchen, "you go on to bed and get to
sleep; and don't get dreaming of ghosts and goblins."

They were turning out at the door, the clergyman and Jan, when the girl
flew to them in a fresh attack of terror.

"I daren't be left alone," she gasped. "Oh, stop a minute! Pray stop,
till I be gone upstairs."

"Here," said Jan, making light of it. "I'll marshal you up."

He held the candle, and the girl flew up the stairs as fast as young
Cheese had flown from the ghost. Her breath was panting, her bosom
throbbing. Jan blew out the candle, and he and Mr. Bourne departed,
merely shutting the door. Labourers' cottages have no fear of midnight
robbers.

"What do you think now?" asked Mr. Bourne, as they moved along.

Jan looked at him. "_You_ are not thinking, surely, that it is Fred
Massingbird's ghost!"

"No. But I should advise Mr. Verner to place a watch, and have the thing
cleared up--who it is, and what it is."

"Why, Mr. Verner?"

"Because it is on his land that the disturbance is occurring. This girl
has been seriously frightened."

"You may have cause to know that, before many hours are over," answered
Jan.

"Why! you don't fear that she will be seriously ill?"

"Time will show," was all the answer given by Jan. "As to the ghost,
I'll either believe in him, or disbelieve him, when I come across him.
If he were a respectable ghost, he'd confine himself to