“You all know the tower which stands upon the green knoll high above the town.  It is a relic of very old times, when San Cipriano had fortifications.  It has been a ruin for more than a century,—­a mere shell, open to the sky, encircling a wide space of ground.  A few days before Hans’s death, the Doctor had taken it into his head he would like to hire this tower of the municipality, to which it belongs, to make a garden within its walls.  He had been to examine the place a week previous, and had brought home the key of the gate, being determined to take it.  Now this very day after Hans died, and while my husband was away on his round of country visits, the Syndic sent to ask for the key, and I, thinking no harm, gave it.  And now what do you think the Syndic wanted the key for?  Just to dig a hole for poor Hans.  Yes, the body was carried up there, and buried out of sight as quickly as possible.

“When the Doctor came home he was in a mighty passion with everybody;—­with the Rector, for refusing Hans a place in the burial-ground; with the Syndic, for allowing the tower to be used for such a purpose; and most of all with me, for giving the key without asking why or wherefore.

“However, what was done could not be undone, and so no more was said about the matter.  It might have been a week after, when some girls who had set out before daylight to go to the wood for leaves, came back much terrified, declaring they had seen an apparition on the tower wall.  Not one had dared to go on to the wood, but all ran back to the town and spread the alarm.  A dozen persons, at least, came to our house to tell us about it, and I promise you my husband did not call it a stupid trick, as he did today.  He looked very grave, and exclaimed, ’I don’t wonder at it.  No doubt it is poor Hans, who does not like to lie in unconsecrated ground.  Don’t come to me,—­it’s none of my business,—­I have only to do with the living,—­the dead belong to the clergy,—­this is the Rector’s affair.  If ever a ghost had a right to walk, it is in such a case as this, when a poor, honest fellow is denied Christian burial because an old monk’s legs refuse to carry him fast enough.  Had Padre Michele been a younger man, all would have been right.’

“There was quite a general commotion in the town, and at last, after a day or two, some of the young men determined they would go and watch the next night, to see if the thing appeared, or if it was mere women’s nonsense, and they went accordingly.”

“I was one of the party,” interrupted Beppo, taking the narrative out of his Padrona’s mouth, stirred by the high-wrought excitement of his recollections.  “I went with ten others, and I had a good loaded gun with me.  We hid ourselves behind some bushes, and watched and watched.  Nothing appeared, until the girls, who had agreed to come at their usual hour for going to the wood, passed by; then, just at that moment, I swear I saw it.  I felt all,—­I can’t tell how,—­a