had been found in the pond.

The old bell-ringer of the near-by church even said he had seen this
ghost once, when he went, late one night, to wind the church clock. But
of course others, who knew there were no such things as ghosts, only
smiled at these stories.

Sir John Chester, who so hated Haredale, was just as smooth and smiling
and elegant as the other was rough. Haredale had been Sir John's drudge
and scapegoat at school and the latter had always despised him. And as
the years went by Sir John came to hate him.

His own son Edward had fallen in love with Emma, Haredale's niece, and
she loved him in return. Sir John had been all his life utterly selfish
and without conscience. He had little money and was much in debt and
wanted his son to marry an heiress, so that he himself could continue
his life of pleasure. Edward, however, gave his father to understand
that he would never give up his love for Emma. Sir John believed that if
Haredale chose, he could make his niece dislike Edward, and because he
did not, Sir John hated Haredale the more bitterly.

Emma had a close friend named Dolly Varden, the daughter of a locksmith.
Dolly was a pretty, dimpled, roguish little flirt, as rosy and sparkling
and fresh as an apple, and she had a great many lovers.

One of these was her father's apprentice, who lived in the same house.
His name was Simon Tappertit--a conceited, bragging, empty-headed young
man with a great opinion of his own good looks. When he looked at his
thin legs, which he admired exceedingly, he could not see how it was
that Dolly could help worshiping him.

Tappertit had ambitions of his own and thought himself a great man who
was kept down by a tyrannical master, though the good-natured locksmith
was the kindest man in London. He had formed a society of apprentices
whose toast was, "Death to all masters, life to all apprentices, and
love to all fair damsels!" He was their leader. He had made them all
keys to fit their masters' doors, and at night, when they were supposed
to be asleep in bed, they would steal out to meet in a dirty cellar
owned by an old blind man, where they kept a skull and cross-bones and
signed high-sounding oaths with a pen dipped in blood, and did other
silly things. The object of the society was to hurt, annoy, wrong and
pick quarrels with such of their masters as happened not to please them.
With such cheap fooleries Tappertit had convinced himself that he was
fit to be a gre