“Jarge,” said he, “I’m thinkin’ ye’d better tak’ Job back to strike for ye again if you’m goin’ to mend t’ owd screen.”

“What d’ye mean?” growled Black George.

“Because,” continued the old man, gathering a pinch of snuff with great deliberation, “because, Jarge, the young feller as beat ye at the throwin’—­’im as was to ’ave worked for ye at ’is own price—­be dead.”

“What!” cried Black George, starting.

“Dead!” nodded the old man, “a corp’ ’e be—­eh! such a fine, promisin’ young chap, an’ now—­a corp’.”  Here the Ancient nodded solemnly again, three times, and inhaled his pinch of snuff with great apparent zest and enjoyment.

“Why—­” began the amazed George, “what—­” and broke off to stare, open-mouthed.

“Last night, as ever was,” continued the old man, “’e went down to th’ ‘aunted cottage—­’t weren’t no manner o’ use tryin’ to turn ’im, no, not if I’d gone down to ’im on my marrer-bones—­’e were that set on it; so off he goes, ’bout sundown, to sleep in th’ ’aunted cottage—­I knows, Jarge, ‘cause I follered un, an’ seen for myself; so now I’m a-goin’ down to find ’is corp’—­”

He had reached thus far, when his eye, accustomed to the shadows, chancing to meet mine, he uttered a gasp, and stood staring at me with dropped jaw.

“Peter!” he stammered at last.  “Peter—­be that you, Peter?”

“To be sure it is,” said I.

“Bean’t ye—­dead, then?”

“I never felt more full of life.”

“But ye slep’ in th’ ’aunted cottage last night.”

“Yes.”

“But—­but—­the ghost, Peter?”

“Is a wandering Scotsman.”

“Why then I can’t go down and find ye corp’ arter all?”

“I fear not, Ancient.”

The old man slowly closed his snuff-box, shaking his head as he did so.

“Ah, well!  I won’t blame ye, Peter,” said he magnanunously, “it bean’t your fault, lad, no—­but what’s come to the ghost!”

“The ghost,” I answered, “is nothing more dreadful than a wandering Scotsman!”

“Scotsman!” exclaimed the Ancient sharply.  “Scotsman!”

“Yes, Ancient.”

“You’m mazed, Peter—­ah! mazed ye be!  What, aren’t I heerd un moanin’ an’ groanin’ to ‘isself—­ah! an’ twitterin’ to?”

“As to that,” said I, “those shrieks and howls he made with his bagpipe, very easy for a skilled player such as he.”

Some one was drawing water from a well across the road, for I heard the rattle of the bucket, and the creak of the winch, in the pause which now ensued, during which the Ancient, propped upon his stick, surveyed me with an expression that was not exactly anger, nor contempt, nor sorrow, and yet something of all three.  At length he sighed, and shook his head at me mournfully.

“Peter,” said he, “Peter, I didn’t think as you’d try to tak’ ‘vantage of a old man wi’ a tale the like o’ that such a very, very old man, Peter—­such a old, old man!”