“But don’t you know what a shroud is?” exclaimed Valentine, a good deal surprised.  “What is the dress called hereabout, that a man is buried in?”

“His buryin’ gown.  ’Tis only a sperit, a ghost, that walks in a shroud.  I’n told that oft enough, I should know.”  She spoke in a querulous tone, as one having reasonable cause for complaint.

“Well,” said Valentine, after a pause, “if the shroud was not white, what colour was it?”

“Mid have been black for aught I know, ’twere afore sunrise; but it mid have been a dark blue, and I think ’twas.  There were a grete wash up at the house that marnin’, and I were coming to help.  A sight of cherry-trees grow all about the door, and as I came round the corner there it stood with its hand on the latch, and its eyes very serious.”

“What did it look like?”

“It looked like Mr. Cuthbert Martimer, and it stared at I, and then I saw it were Mr. Melcombe.”

“Were you near it?”

“Ay, sir.”

“Well, what next?”

“I dropped a curtsey.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Valentine, turning cold.  “What, curtsey to a ghost, a spirit?”

“Ay, I did, and passed on, and that very instant I turned, and it were gone.”

Valentine’s voice faltered as he asked the next question.  “You were not frightened?”

“No, sir, because I hadn’t got in my head yet that ’twere a sperit.  When I got in, I said, ‘I’n seen him,’ ‘You fool,’ says Mary Carfoil, that was cook then, ‘your head,’ says she, ’is for ever running on the men folks.  He’s a thousand mile off,’ says she, ’in the Indies, and the family heerd on him a week agoo.’  ‘I did see him,’ says I.  ’Goo along about your business,’ says she, ’and light the copper.  It were Mr. Cuthbert ‘e saw, got up by-times to shoot rooks.  Lucky enough,’ says she, ‘that Mr. Melcombe be away.’”

“Why was it lucky?”

“Because they’d both set their eyes on the same face—­they had.  It’s hard to cry shame on the dead, but they had.  And she’s dead too.  Neither on ’em meant any good to her.  They had words about her.  She’d have nought to say to Mr. Cuthbert then.”

Valentine groaned.

“No, nor she wouldn’t after I’n seen the ghost, nor till every soul said he was dead and drowned, and the letter come from London town.”

“There must have been others beside you,” said Valentine, sharply, “other people passing in and out of the laundry door.  Why did no one see him but you—­see it but you?”

“It were not the laundry door, sir, ’twere the door in the garden wall, close by the grete pear-tree, as it went in at; Madam shut up that door for ever so many years—­’e can’t mistake it.”

“Ah!”

“That’s the place, sir.”

“And who was fool enough first to call it a ghost?” cried Valentine almost fiercely.  “No, no, I mean,” he continued faltering—­“I don’t know what I mean,” and he dropped his face into his hands, and groaned.  “I always thought it was the yard door.”