“I have a good mind to trick her!” soliloquised he; alluding, it must be owned, to that revered mother.  “She wouldn’t let me go out to Bill Hook’s to-night; though I telled her as it wasn’t for no nonsense I wanted to see him, but about that there gray ferret.  I will, too!  I’ll go back the field way, and cut down there.  She’ll be none the wiser.”

Now, this was really a brave resolve for Dan Duff.  The proposed road would take him past the Willow Pool; and he, in common with other timorous spirits, had been given to eschew that place at night, since the end of Rachel.  It must be supposed that the business touching the gray ferret was one of importance, for Dan to lose sight of his usual fears, and turn towards that pool.

Not once, from that time to this, had Dan Duff taken this road alone at night.  From that cause probably, no sooner had he now turned into the lane, than he began to think of Rachel.  He would have preferred to think of anything else in the world; but he found, as many others are obliged to find, that unpleasant thoughts cannot be driven away at will.  It was not so much that the past night of misfortune was present to him, as that he feared to meet the ghost of Rachel.

He went on, glancing furtively on all sides, his face and his hair growing hotter and hotter.  There, on his right, was the gate through which he had entered the field to give chase to the supposed cat; there, on the left, was the high hedge; before him lay the length of lane traversed that evening by the tall man, who had remained undiscovered from that hour to this.  Dan could see nothing now; no tall man, no cat; even the latter might have proved a welcome intruder.  He glanced up at the calm sky, at the bright moon riding overhead.  The night was perfectly still; a lovely night, could Dan only have kept the ghosts out of his mind.

Suddenly a horse, in the field on the other side the hedge, set up a loud neigh, right in Dan’s ear.  Coming thus unexpectedly, it startled Dan above everything.  He half resolved to go back, and turned round and looked the way he had come.  But he thought of the gray ferret, and plucked up some courage and went on again, intending, the moment he came in sight of the Willow Pool, to make a dash past at his utmost speed.

The intention was not carried out.  Clambering over the gate which led to the enclosure, a more ready way to Dan than opening it, he was brought within view of the pool.  There it was, down in the dreary lower part, near the trees.  The pool itself was distinct enough, lying to the right, and Dan involuntarily looked towards it.  Not to have saved his life, could Dan have helped looking.

Susan Peckaby had said to Jan, that her heart leaped into her mouth at the sight of the white cow in the pound.  Poor Dan Duff might have said that his heart leaped right out of him, at sight now of the Willow Pool.  For there was some shadowy figure moving round it.