“And the ghost walks?”

“There are many who have seen it.”

“Why is the house still empty?”

“Because it is in the keeping of the law.  Lord Avon had no children, and Sir Lothian Hume—­the same who was at the card-party—­ is his nephew and heir.  But he can touch nothing until he can prove Lord Avon to be dead.”

Jim lay silent for a bit, plucking at the short grass with his fingers.

“Roddy,” said he at last, “will you come with me to-night and look for the ghost?”

It turned me cold, the very thought of it.

“My mother would not let me.”

“Slip out when she’s abed.  I’ll wait for you at the smithy.”

“Cliffe Royal is locked.”

“I’ll open a window easy enough.”

“I’m afraid, Jim.”

“But you are not afraid if you are with me, Roddy.  I’ll promise you that no ghost shall hurt you.”

So I gave him my word that I would come, and then all the rest of the day I went about the most sad-faced lad in Sussex.  It was all very well for Boy Jim!  It was that pride of his which was taking him there.  He would go because there was no one else on the country side that would dare.  But I had no pride of that sort.  I was quite of the same way of thinking as the others, and would as soon have thought of passing my night at Jacob’s gibbet on Ditchling Common as in the haunted house of Cliffe Royal.  Still, I could not bring myself to desert Jim; and so, as I say, I slunk about the house with so pale and peaky a face that my dear mother would have it that I had been at the green apples, and sent me to bed early with a dish of camomile tea for my supper.

England went to rest betimes in those days, for there were few who could afford the price of candles.  When I looked out of my window just after the clock had gone ten, there was not a light in the village save only at the inn.  It was but a few feet from the ground, so I slipped out, and there was Jim waiting for me at the smithy corner.  We crossed John’s Common together, and so past Ridden’s Farm, meeting only one or two riding officers upon the way.  There was a brisk wind blowing, and the moon kept peeping through the rifts of the scud, so that our road was sometimes silver-clear, and sometimes so black that we found ourselves among the brambles and gorse-bushes which lined it.  We came at last to the wooden gate with the high stone pillars by the roadside, and, looking through between the rails, we saw the long avenue of oaks, and at the end of this ill-boding tunnel, the pale face of the house glimmered in the moonshine.

That would have been enough for me, that one glimpse of it, and the sound of the night wind sighing and groaning among the branches.  But Jim swung the gate open, and up we went, the gravel squeaking beneath our tread.  It towered high, the old house, with many little windows in which the moon glinted, and with a strip of water running round three sides of it.  The arched door stood right in the face of us, and on one side a lattice hung open upon its hinges.