hen got up and ran off with a tremendous
shrieking. I stabled the horse, and walked round to the back. It was
pitch black under the apple-trees, and the windows were all darkened. I
stood there a little, everything smelled so delicious after the rain;
suddenly I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. Have
you ever felt like that on a dark night? I called out at last: "Is any
one there?" Not a sound! I walked to the gate-nothing! The trees still
dripped with tiny, soft, hissing sounds, but that was all. I slipped
round to the front, went in, barricaded the door, and groped up to bed.
But I couldn't sleep. I lay awake a long while; dozed at last, and woke
with a jump. A stealthy murmur of smothered voices was going on quite
close somewhere. It stopped. A minute passed; suddenly came the soft
thud as of something falling. I sprang out of bed and rushed to the
window. Nothing--but in the distance something that sounded like
footsteps. An owl hooted; then clear as crystal, but quite low, I heard
Pasiance singing in her room:

"The apples are ripe and ready to fall. Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to fall."

I ran to her door and knocked.

"What is it?" she cried.

"Is anything the matter?"

"Matter?"

"Is anything the matter?"

"Ha-ha-ha-ha! Good-night!" then quite low, I heard her catch her breath,
hard, sharply. No other answer, no other sound.

I went to bed and lay awake for hours....

This evening Dan came; during supper he handed Pasiance a roll of music;
he had got it in Torquay. The shopman, he said, had told him that it was
a "corker."

It was Bach's "Chaconne." You should have seen her eyes shine, her
fingers actually tremble while she turned over the pages. Seems odd to
think of her worshipping at the shrine of Bach as odd as to think of a
wild colt running of its free will into the shafts; but that's just it
with her you can never tell. "Heavenly!" she kept saying.

John Ford put down his knife and fork.

"Heathenish stuff!" he muttered, and suddenly thundered out, "Pasiance!"

She looked up with a start, threw the music from her, and resumed her
place.

During evening prayers, which follow every night immediately on food, her
face was a study of mutiny. She went to bed early. It was rather late
when we broke up--for once old Ford had been talking of his squatter's
life. As we came out, Dan held up his hand. A dog was barking. "It's
Lass," he said. "She'll wa