he evergreens
of the shrubbery. The tall chimney clusters were black against the
sky, and beneath them and about the overgrown porch the ivy leaves
clattered bonely like fairy castanets.

We stood still--close together, but very still.

Then strangely, familiarly, out of the darkness there came to our ears
the sound of the sweet singing of a hymn--a hymn, too, that every one
knows. I am not going to set down here which one it was. I never
could rightly bear to hear it again--much less can I join in singing
it. It was spoiled for me, and I would not for the world spoil it for
those who may read this history of true, though strange, happenings.

Then, quick as a flash, I thought of the barn where we had seen and
heard such wonderful things, Elsie and I. But it was no time for
reminiscence. I stepped quietly across the yard and lifted the thick,
felted fold of matting. I pushed open the half of the inner door,
which perhaps the chill of the night, perhaps the needs of the service,
had caused those within to close. Behind me I could hear the people of
the village breathe restrainedly, and I smelled the odour of burned
horses' hoofs which clothed the blacksmith like a garment. Ebie
McClintock was the one man there with a stiff upper lip, and it was a
mightily comforting thing to feel him at my back, even though he
carried no other weapon than an iron hammer snatched up from the smithy
floor as he came away.

The barn was dark, lighted by a couple of tall candles on the altar,
and one caught on to the side of a kind of reading desk. I could at
first see no more than a huddle of figures clad in black with white
kerchiefs bound about their foreheads. The draught from without,
caused by the opening of the door and the lifting of the curtain, made
the candles flicker, and, indeed, blew out the one at the little desk
farthest from us.

It seemed to me, however, that I saw a figure, or, rather, a dim
shadow, flit across the heavy hangings, and disappear in the darkness
behind. I could not have sworn it, though such was my impression; for
at that moment the villagers, bearing on my shoulder, crowding on
tiptoe to look, broke like water over an overfull dam. The other half
of the door fell back with a clang, and they entered confusedly,
tearing down the curtain in their haste. A shot went off
accidentally--the very thing I had been expecting all the time from
men, who, though warned, would persist in carrying thei