as yet they were not known. The first
person to elicit them was Roy the bailiff.

After Jan Verner had departed, saying he should be back by and by, and
giving Mrs. Duff strict orders to keep the boy quiet, to allow nobody
near him but herself, and, above all, no questioning, Mrs. Duff quitted
him, "that he might get a bit o' sleep," she said. In point of fact,
Mrs. Duff was burning to exercise her gossiping powers with those other
gossipers below. To them she descended; and found Susan Peckaby holding
forth upon the subject of the white cow.

"You be wrong, Susan Peckaby," said Mrs. Duff, "It warn't the white cow
at all; Dan warn't a-nigh the pound. He told Mr. Jan so."

"Then what was it?" returned Susan Peckaby.

One of the present auditors was Roy the bailiff. He had only recently
pushed in, and had stood listening in silence, taking note of the
various comments and opinions. As silently, he moved behind the group,
and was stealing up the stairs. Mrs. Duff placed herself before him.

"Where be you a-going, Mr. Roy? Mr. Jan said as not a soul was to go
a-nigh him to disturb him with talk. A nice thing, it 'ud be, for it to
settle on his brain!"

"I ain't a-going to disturb him," returned Roy. "I have seen something
myself to-night that is not over-kind. I'd like to get a inkling if it's
the same that has frightened him."

"Was it in the pound?" eagerly asked Mrs. Peckaby.

"The pound be smoked!" was the polite answer vouchsafed by Roy. "Thee'll
go mad with th' white donkey one of these days."

"There can't be any outlet to it, but one," observed Mrs. Chuff, the
blacksmith's wife, giving her opinion in a loud key. "He must ha' seen
Rachel Frost's ghost."

"Have _you_ been and seen that to-night, Mr. Roy?" cried Susan Peckaby.

"Maybe I have, and maybe I haven't," was Roy's satisfactory reply, "All
I say is, I've seen something that I'd rather not have seen; something
that 'ud have sent all you women into fits. 'Twarn't unlike Rachel, and
'twere clothed in white. I'll just go and take a look at Dan, Mother
Duff. No fear o' my disturbing him."

Mother Duff, absorbed with her visitors, allowed him to go on without
further impediment. The first thing Roy did upon getting upstairs, was
to shut the chamber door; the next, to arouse and question the suffering
Dan. Roy succeeded in getting from him the particulars already related,
and a little more; insomuch that Dan mentioned the name which the dead
man had bor