ations; they
complied with it, however, with the greatest expedition; and having
handed him a bumper of brandy-and-water, nearly boiling hot, waited to
hear what he might have to tell them.

'Oh, Johnny,' said Solomon, shaking him by the hand. 'Oh, Parkes. Oh,
Tommy Cobb. Why did I leave this house to-night! On the nineteenth of
March--of all nights in the year, on the nineteenth of March!'

They all drew closer to the fire. Parkes, who was nearest to the door,
started and looked over his shoulder. Mr Willet, with great indignation,
inquired what the devil he meant by that--and then said, 'God forgive
me,' and glanced over his own shoulder, and came a little nearer.

'When I left here to-night,' said Solomon Daisy, 'I little thought what
day of the month it was. I have never gone alone into the church after
dark on this day, for seven-and-twenty years. I have heard it said
that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of
dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died
upon.--How the wind roars!'

Nobody spoke. All eyes were fastened on Solomon.

'I might have known,' he said, 'what night it was, by the foul weather.
There's no such night in the whole year round as this is, always. I
never sleep quietly in my bed on the nineteenth of March.'

'Go on,' said Tom Cobb, in a low voice. 'Nor I neither.'

Solomon Daisy raised his glass to his lips; put it down upon the floor
with such a trembling hand that the spoon tinkled in it like a little
bell; and continued thus:

'Have I ever said that we are always brought back to this subject in
some strange way, when the nineteenth of this month comes round? Do
you suppose it was by accident, I forgot to wind up the church-clock? I
never forgot it at any other time, though it's such a clumsy thing that
it has to be wound up every day. Why should it escape my memory on this
day of all others?

'I made as much haste down there as I could when I went from here, but
I had to go home first for the keys; and the wind and rain being dead
against me all the way, it was pretty well as much as I could do at
times to keep my legs. I got there at last, opened the church-door, and
went in. I had not met a soul all the way, and you may judge whether it
was dull or not. Neither of you would bear me company. If you could have
known what was to come, you'd have been in the right.

'The wind was so strong, that it was as much as I could do to shut the