bad man he was, though he made me. He was always
an ugly fellow, and the scorching he has got down there (and he pointed
significantly to the ground) has not improved his looks. But mother
would know him in a minute."

"I never want to see your father again, Robert," said Martha, doggedly;
"so you need not address any such impertinent remarks to me. I had
enough of his company here. I don't know why he should leave his grave
to haunt me after his death."

"For the love he bore you while on earth," said the dutiful son,
glancing round the group with a knowing look. "Dad is sure of a kind
reception from you, mother."

"The day he was buried," said Martha, "was the only happy one I had
known for twenty years, and you know it well. One of his last acts was
to make me a cripple for life."

"How did he come by his death, Mother Mason?" asked a young sailor, Tom
Weston by name.

"He was killed in a row with the smugglers," said Bob. "He had helped
them to land some brandy, and they wanted to cheat him out of his pay.
Father had lots of pluck. He had lost an eye once before in such a
frolic. He attacked the whole band single-handed, and got knocked on the
head in the scuffle. The smugglers ran away, and left mother to bury the
dead."

"He only got what he deserved," muttered Martha. "It is a pity he did
not get it twenty years before. But he is gone to his place, and I am
determined to keep mine. A ghost has no legal claim to the property of
the living, and he shall never get possession of this house, living or
dead, again."

"But suppose, Martha, he should take it into his head to haunt it, and
make it too hot to hold you," said Tom Weston, "what would you do then?"

"I think I know a secret or two that would lay the ghost," returned
Martha; and hobbling across the kitchen on her crutch, she lifted down
an old horse-pistol that was suspended to one of the low cross-beams,
and wiping the dust from it with her apron, she carefully examined the
lock. "This should speak my welcome to all such unwelcome intruders. It
has released more than one troublesome spirit from its clay tenement,
and I have no doubt that it would be found equally efficacious in
quieting others--that is, if they have the audacity to try their
strength against me;" and she glanced disdainfully at her son from
beneath her bushy lowering brows. "This brown dog is old, but he can
still _bark_ and _bite_!"

"How vicious mother looks!" said Bob, with a l