fears that make
such noises terrible to the vulgar. As for Blackbeard, I am not here to
say whether guilty spirits sometimes cannot rest and are seen wandering
by men; but for these noises, they are certainly Nature's work as is the
noise of waves upon the beach. The floods have filled the vault with
water, and so the coffins getting afloat, move in some eddies that we
know not of, and jostle one another. Then being hollow, they give forth
those sounds you hear, and these are your evil angels. 'Tis very true the
dead do move beneath our feet, but 'tis because they cannot help
themselves, being carried hither and thither by the water. Fie, Ratsey
man, you should know better than to fright a boy with silly talk of
spirits when the truth is bad enough.'

The parson's words had the ring of truth in them to me, and I never
doubted that he was right. So this mystery was explained, and yet it was
a dreadful thing, and made me shiver, to think of the Mohunes all adrift
in their coffins, and jostling one another in the dark. I pictured them
to myself, the many generations, old men and children, man and maid, all
bones now, each afloat in his little box of rotting wood; and Blackbeard
himself in a great coffin bigger than all the rest, coming crashing into
the weaker ones, as a ship in a heavy sea comes crashing down sometimes
in the trough, on a small boat that is trying to board her. And then
there was the outer darkness of the vault itself to think of, and the
close air, and the black putrid water nearly up to the roof on which such
sorry ships were sailing.

Ratsey looked a little crestfallen at what Mr. Glennie said, but put a
good face on it, and answered--

'Well, master, I am but a plain man, and know nothing about floods and
these eddies and hidden workings of Nature of which you speak; but,
saving your presence, I hold it a fond thing to make light of such
warnings as are given us. 'Tis always said, "When the Moons move, then
Moonfleet mourns"; and I have heard my father tell that the last time
they stirred was in Queen Anne's second year, when the great storm blew
men's homes about their heads. And as for frighting children, 'tis well
that heady boys should learn to stand in awe, and not pry into what does
not concern them--or they may come to harm.' He added the last words with
what I felt sure was a nod of warning to myself, though I did not then
understand what he meant. So he walked off in a huff with Elzevir, w