t down
beside her and began to comfort her by telling her just what had
happened, and that she ought to be very glad that I had found a place
to turn into, and had not gone on down the hill and dashed myself into
little pieces at the bottom. But it wasn't easy to cheer her up.

"Oh, Davy's gone," said she. "He'll never come back for fear of the
curse. He'll be off with his uncle to sea. I'll never lay eyes on Davy
again."

Just at that moment I heard somebody calling my name, and looking
through the house I saw Jone at the front door and two men behind him.
As I ran through the hall I saw that the two men with Jone was Mr.
Poplington and a young fellow with a pale face and trembling legs.

"Is this Davy?" said I.

"Yes," said he.

"Then go back to your young woman and comfort her," I said, which he
did, and when he had gone, not madly rushing into his loved one's arms,
but shuffling along in a timid way, as if he was afraid the ghost
hadn't gone yet, I asked Jone how he happened to think I was here, and
he told me that he and Mr. Poplington had taken the road to the left
when they reached the fork, because that was the proper one, but they
had not gone far before he thought I might not know which way to turn,
so they came back to the fork to wait for me. But I had been closer
behind them than they thought, and I must have come to the fork before
they turned back, so, after waiting a while and going back along the
road without seeing me, they thought that I must have taken the
right-hand road, and they came that way, going down the hill very
carefully. After a while Jone found my hat in the road, which up to
that moment I had not missed, and then he began to be frightened and
they went on faster.

They passed the little house, and as they was going down the hill they
saw ahead of them a man running as if something had happened, so they
let out their bicycles and soon caught up to him. This was Davy; and
when they stopped him and asked if anything was the matter he told
them that a dreadful thing had come to pass. He had been working in the
garden of a house about half a mile back when suddenly there came an
awful crash, and a white animal sprang out of the house with a bit of a
cotton mill fastened to its tail, and then, with a great peal of
thunder, it vanished, and a white ghost rose up out of the ground with
its arms stretching out longer and longer, reaching to clutch him by
the hair. He was not afraid of any