“Why—­ghostisses!” said Halsey, with a frown, removing his pipe for a moment to give emphasis to the word.  “I don’t see as a man can be expected to deal with ghostisses.  Anythin’ else yer like in a small way—­mad dogs, or bulls, or snakes, where they keep ’em, which, thank the Lord, they don’t in these parts—­but not them.”

“What did yer see?” said Betts, after a few ruminating pulls.

“Well, I saw old Watson, the keeper, as was murdered sixty years since, ’at’s what I saw,” said Halsey with slow decisiveness.

“An’ what might be like?” asked Betts, with equal deliberation.  The day was mild and sunny; the half-ploughed field on which they had been working lay alternatively yellow in the stubbles and a rich brown purple in the new turned furrows under the autumn noon.  A sense of well-being had been diffused in the two old men by food and rest.  Halsey’s tongue grew looser.

“Well, I saw a man come creepin’ an’ crouchin’ down yon grass road”—­(it was visible from where they sat, as a green streak on the side of the hill)—­“same as several people afore me ’as seen ’um—­same as they allus say old Watson must ha’ come after Dempsey shot ’im.  He wor shot in the body.  The doctors as come to look at ‘im fust foun’ that out.  An’ if ye’re shot in the body, I understan’, yo naterally double up a bit if yo try to walk.  Well—­that’s jes’ how I saw ‘im—­crouchin’ along.  Yo remember it wor a dull evenin’ yesterday—­an’ it wor gettin’ dark, though it worn’t dark.  It wor not much after fower, by my old watch—­but I couldn’t see ’im at all plain.  I wor in Top-End field—­you know?—­as leads up to that road.  An’ I watched ’im come along making for that outside cart-shed—­that ‘un that’s back to back wi’ the shippen, where they foun’ Watson lyin’.  An’ I wor much puzzled by the look on ’im.  I didn’t think nothink about old Watson, fust of all—­I didn’t know what to think.  I was right under the hedge wi’ the horses; ‘ee couldna’ ha’ seen me—­an’ I watched ’im.  He stopped, onst or twice, as though he wor restin’ hisself—­pullin’ ’isself together—­and onst I ’eered ’im cough—­”

Halsey looked round suddenly on his companion as though daring him to mock.

Betts, however, could not help himself.  He gave an interrupting and sceptical chuckle.

“Ghostisses don’t cough, as ever I ’eered on.”

“And why shouldn’t they?” said Halsey testily.  “If they can do them other things they’d used to do when livin’—­walkin’ an’ seein’ an’ such-like—­why not coughin’?”

Betts shook his head.

“Never ’eered on it,” he said, with conviction.

“Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an’ then I lost ’im.  But I ‘ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an’ take the ‘orses.  An’ then I went after ‘im.  But there was all the field an’ the lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn’t no one and nothink to be seen—­excep’—­”