bed, and crows like
no cock I ever heard crow. Or it might be Wandering Willie--he goes to
see her sometimes, and the demented creature might strike up his pipes
at any unearthly hour."

I was not satisfied with either suggestion; but the sound I had heard
had already grown so indistinct in my memory, that for anything I
could tell it might have been either. The terror which it woke in my
mind had rendered me incapable of making any observations or setting
down any facts with regard to it. I could only remember that I had
heard a frightful noise, but as to what it was like I could scarcely
bear the smallest testimony.

I begged Andrew to put the saddle on for me, as I should then have
more command of Missy. He went and got it, appearing, I thought, not
at all over-anxious about old Betty; and I meantime buckled on an old
rusty spur which lay in the stable window, the leathers of it
crumbling off in flakes. Thus armed, and mounted with my feet in the
stirrups, and therefore a good pull on Missy's mouth, I found my
courage once more equal to the task before me. Andrew and I parted at
right angles; he across the field to old Betty's cottage, and I along
the road once more in the direction of John Adam's farm.

CHAPTER XXIV

Failure

It must have been now about eleven o'clock. The clouds had cleared
off, and the night had changed from brown and grey to blue sparkling
with gold. I could see much better, and fancied I could hear better
too. But neither advantage did much for me. I had not ridden far from
the stable, before I again found myself very much alone and
unprotected, with only the wide, silent fields about me, and the wider
and more silent sky over my head. The fear began to return. I fancied
something strange creeping along every ditch--something shapeless, but
with a terrible cry in it. Next I thought I saw a scarcely visible
form--now like a creature on all-fours, now like a man, far off, but
coming rapidly towards me across the nearest field. It always
vanished, however, before it came close. The worst of it was, that the
faster I rode, the more frightened I became; for my speed seemed to
draw the terrors the faster after me. Having discovered this, I
changed my plan, and when I felt more frightened, drew rein and went
slower. This was to throw a sort of defiance to the fear; and
certainly as often as I did so it abated. Fear is a worse thing than
danger.

I had to pass very nigh the pool to which