candle.  I thought it must have been you, who had come in for my clothes, and upset the boxes by accident.  Whoever it was, he went out and the light with him.  I was about to settle again, when, the curtain being a little open at the foot of the bed, I saw a light on the wall opposite; such as a candle from outside would cast if the door were very cautiously opening.  I started up in the bed, drew the side curtain, and saw that the door was opening, and admitting light from outside.  It is close, you know, to the head of the bed.  A hand was holding on the edge of the door and pushing it open; not a bit like yours; a very singular hand.  Let me look at yours.”

He extended it for my inspection.

“Oh no; there’s nothing wrong with your hand.  This was differently shaped; fatter; and the middle finger was stunted, and shorter than the rest, looking as if it had once been broken, and the nail was crooked like a claw.  I called out ‘Who’s there?’ and the light and the hand were withdrawn, and I saw and heard no more of my visitor.”

“So sure as you’re a living man, that was him!” exclaimed Tom Wyndsour, his very nose growing pale, and his eyes almost starting out of his head.

“Who?” I asked.

“Old Squire Bowes; ‘twas his hand you saw; the Lord a’ mercy on us!” answered Tom.  “The broken finger, and the nail bent like a hoop.  Well for you, sir, he didn’t come back when you called, that time.  You came here about them Miss Dymock’s business, and he never meant they should have a foot o’ ground in Barwyke; and he was making a will to give it away quite different, when death took him short.  He never was uncivil to no one; but he couldn’t abide them ladies.  My mind misgave me when I heard ’twas about their business you were coming; and now you see how it is; he’ll be at his old tricks again!”

With some pressure and a little more punch, I induced Tom Wyndsour to explain his mysterious allusions by recounting the occurrences which followed the old Squire’s death.

“Squire Bowes of Barwyke died without making a will, as you know,” said Tom.  “And all the folk round were sorry; that is to say, sir, as sorry as folk will be for an old man that has seen a long tale of years, and has no right to grumble that death has knocked an hour too soon at his door.  The Squire was well liked; he was never in a passion, or said a hard word; and he would not hurt a fly; and that made what happened after his decease the more surprising.

“The first thing these ladies did, when they got the property, was to buy stock for the park.

“It was not wise, in any case, to graze the land on their own account.  But they little knew all they had to contend with.

“Before long something went wrong with the cattle; first one, and then another, took sick and died, and so on, till the loss began to grow heavy.  Then, queer stories, little by little, began to be told.  It was said, first by one, then by another, that Squire Bowes was seen, about evening time, walking, just as he used to do when he was alive, among the old trees, leaning on his stick; and, sometimes when he came up with the cattle, he would stop and lay his hand kindly like on the back of one of them; and that one was sure to fall sick next day, and die soon after.