stone and stoop hastily--for
you are at a disadvantage with ghosts and with Toms when you stoop--and
pick it up and hurl it promiscuously in the direction of the footsteps,
and quaver, in a voice that belied its message, "Go away, Tom Hamon! I
can see you,"--which was a little white fib born of the black urgency of
the situation;--"and I'm not the least bit afraid,"--which was most
decidedly another.

And so the journey would progress fitfully and in spasms, and leave
nightmare recollections for the disturbance of one's sleep.

But there were variations in the procedure at times.

As when, on one occasion, Nance's undiscriminating projectile elicited
from the darkness a plaintive "Moo!" which came, she knew, from her
favourite calf Jeanetton, who had broken her tether in the field and
sought companionship in the road, and had followed her doubtfully,
stopping whenever she stopped, and so received the punishment intended
for another.

Nance kissed the bruise on Jeanetton's ample forehead next day very many
times, and explained the whole matter to her at considerable length, and
Jeanetton accepted it all very placidly and bore no ill-will.

Another time, when Nance had taken a very specially compounded cake over
to her old friend, Mrs. Baker, as a present from her mother, and had
been kept much longer than she wished--for the old lady's enjoyment of
her pretty ways and entertaining prattle--she set out for home in fear
and trembling.

It was one of the pitch-black nights, and she went along on tiptoes,
hugging the empty plate to her breast, and glancing fearfully over first
one shoulder, then the other, then over both and back and front all at
once.

She was almost home, and very grateful for it, when the dreaded black
figure leaped silently out at her from its crouching place, and she tore
down the lane to the house, Tom's hoarse guffaws chasing her mockingly.

The open door cleft a solid yellow wedge in the darkness. She was almost
into it, when her foot caught, and she flung head foremost into the
light with a scream, and lay there with the blood pouring down her face
from the broken plate.

A finger's-breadth lower and she would have gone through life one-eyed,
which would have been a grievous loss to humanity at large, for sweeter
windows to a large sweet soul never shone than those out of which
little Nance Hamon's looked.

Most houses may be judged by their windows, but these material windows
are not