with its green
trees and clear rivulet behind, the road lay through a wild and
desolate region. Great dark mountains rolled away in every direction,
and were piled up above the travellers to the very sky. The scene was
most melancholy in its grandeur, and Beth, gazing at it fascinated,
with big eyes dilated to their full extent, became exceedingly
depressed. At one turn of the way, in a field below, they saw a
gentleman carrying a gun, and attended by a party of armed policemen.

"That's Mr. Burke going over his property," Captain Caldwell observed
to his wife. "He's unpopular just now, and daren't move without an
escort. His life's not worth a moment's purchase a hundred yards from
his own gate, and I expect he'll be shot like a dog some day, with all
his precautions."

"Oh, why does he stay?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.

"Just pluck," her husband answered; "and he likes it. It certainly
does add to the interest of life."

"O Henry! don't speak like that," Mrs. Caldwell remonstrated. "They
can't owe you any grudge."

Captain Caldwell flipped a fly from his horse's ear.

Beth gazed down at the doomed gentleman, and fairly quailed for him.
She half expected to see the policemen turn on him and shoot him
before her eyes, and a strange excitement gradually grew upon her. She
seemed to be seeing and hearing and feeling without eyes, or ears, or
a body.

The carriage rocked like a ship at sea, and once or twice it seemed to
be going right over.

"What a dreadfully bad road!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.

"Yes," her husband rejoined, "the roads about here are the very devil.
This is one of the best. Do you see that one over there?" pointing
with his whip to a white line that zigzagged across a neighbouring
mountain. "It's disused now. That's Gallows Hill, where a man was
hanged."

Beth gazed at the spot with horror. "I see him!" she cried.

"See whom?" said her mother.

"I see the man hanging."

"Oh, nonsense!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed. "Why, the man was hanged ages
ago. He isn't there now."

"You must speak the truth, young lady," papa said severely.

Beth, put to shame by the reproof, shrank into herself. She was keenly
sensitive to blame. But all the same her great grey eyes were riveted
on the top of the hill, for there, against the sky, she did distinctly
see the man dangling from the gibbet.

"Kitty," she whispered, "don't you see him?"

"Whisht, darlint," Kitty said, covering Beth's eyes with her hand. "