ere--for, now I bethink me, I have seen the place
before--you all looked sad. It was on a Sunday, that dismalest of
holidays; and it would have been positively melancholy only that your
sexton--that saint upon earth--Mr. Crooke, was here." He was looking
round, over his shoulder, and added: "Ha! don't I see him there?"

Frightened a good deal were some of the company. All gaped in the
direction in which, with a nod, he turned his eyes.

"He's _not_ thar--he _can't_ be thar--we _see_ he's not thar," said
Turnbull, as dogmatically as old Joe Willet might have delivered
himself--for he did not care that the George should earn the
reputation of a haunted house. "He's met an accident, sir: he's
dead--he's elsewhere--and therefore can't be here."

Upon this the company entertained the stranger with the
narrative--which they made easy by a division of labour, two or three
generally speaking at a time, and no one being permitted to finish a
second sentence without finding himself corrected and supplanted.

"The man's in Heaven, so sure as you're not," said the traveller so
soon as the story was ended. "What! he was fiddling with the church
bell, was he, and d----d for that--eh? Landlord, get us some drink. A
sexton d----d for pulling down a church bell he has been pulling at
for ten years!"

"You came, sir, by the Dardale-road, I believe?" said the doctor
(village folk are curious). "A dismal moss is Dardale Moss, sir; and a
bleak clim' up the fells on t' other side."

"I say 'Yes' to all--from Dardale Moss, as black as pitch and as
rotten as the grave, up that zigzag wall you call a road, that looks
like chalk in the moonlight, through Dunner Cleugh, as dark as a
coal-pit, and down here to the George and the Dragon, where you have a
roaring fire, wise men, good punch--here it is--and a corpse in your
coach-house. Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered
together. Come, landlord, ladle out the nectar. Drink, gentlemen--drink,
all. Brew another bowl at the bar. How divinely it stinks of alcohol!
I hope you like it, gentlemen: it smells all over of spices, like a
mummy. Drink, friends. Ladle, landlord. Drink, all. Serve it out."

The guest fumbled in his pocket, and produced three guineas, which he
slipped into Turnbull's fat palm.

"Let punch flow till that's out. I'm an old friend of the house. I
call here, back and forward. I know you well, Turnbull, though you
don't recognize me."

"You have the adva