The village lay southward of the house.  So to the village we went next.

XII

Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people.  But nothing came of them.  Three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her, these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours.

The course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to the end of the village at which the schools established by Mrs. Fairlie were situated.  As we passed the side of the building appropriated to the use of the boys, I suggested the propriety of making a last inquiry of the schoolmaster, whom we might presume to be, in virtue of his office, the most intelligent man in the place.

“I am afraid the schoolmaster must have been occupied with his scholars,” said Miss Halcombe, “just at the time when the woman passed through the village and returned again.  However, we can but try.”

We entered the playground enclosure, and walked by the schoolroom window to get round to the door, which was situated at the back of the building.  I stopped for a moment at the window and looked in.

The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me, apparently haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered together in front of him, with one exception.  The one exception was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool in a corner—­a forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his own desert island of solitary penal disgrace.

The door, when we got round to it, was ajar, and the school-master’s voice reached us plainly, as we both stopped for a minute under the porch.

“Now, boys,” said the voice, “mind what I tell you.  If I hear another word spoken about ghosts in this school, it will be the worse for all of you.  There are no such things as ghosts, and therefore any boy who believes in ghosts believes in what can’t possibly be; and a boy who belongs to Limmeridge School, and believes in what can’t possibly be, sets up his back against reason and discipline, and must be punished accordingly.  You all see Jacob Postlethwaite standing up on the stool there in disgrace.  He has been punished, not because he said he saw a ghost last night, but because he is too impudent and too obstinate to listen to reason, and because he persists in saying he saw the ghost after I have told him that no such thing can possibly be.  If nothing else will do, I mean to cane the ghost out of Jacob Postlethwaite, and if the thing spreads among any of the rest of you, I mean to go a step farther, and cane the ghost out of the whole school.”