mfortable over yonder at the
Haunted House. I saw the reek of his four-hours fire coming up blue out
of the chimbly-top as we drove past!"

It was thus that the most notable news of a decade came to Eden Valley.
The Haunted House--we did not need to be told--was Marnhoul, a big,
gaunt mansion, long deserted, sunk in woods, yet near enough to the
Cairn Edward road to be visible in stray round towers and rows of
chimneys, long unblacked by fire of kitchen or parlour. It had a great
forest behind it, on the verges of which a camp of woodcutters and a
rude saw-mill had long been established, eating deeper and deeper in,
without, however, seeming to make any more difference than a solitary
mouse might to a granary.

We boys knew all about the Haunted House. Since our earliest years it
had been the very touchstone of courage to go to the gate on a moonlight
night, hold the bars and cry three times, "I'm no feared!" Some had done
this, I myself among the number. But--though, of course, being a
school-master's son, I did not believe in ghosts--I admit that the
return journey was the more pleasant of the two, especially after I got
within cry of the dwellings of comfortable burgesses, and felt the
windows all alight on either side of me, so near that I could almost
touch them with my hand.

Not that I _saw_ anything! I knew from the first it was all nonsense. My
father had told me so a score of times. But having been reared in the
superstitious Galloway of the ancient days--well, there are certain
chills and creeps for which a man is not responsible, inexplicable
twitchings of the hairy scalp of his head, maybe even to the breaking of
a cold sweat over his body, which do not depend upon belief. I kept
saying to myself, "There is nothing! I do not believe a word of it! 'Tis
naught but old wives' fables!" But, all the same, I took with a great
deal of thankfulness the dressing-down I had got from my father for
being late for home lessons on a trigonometry night. You see, I was born
and reared in Galloway, and I suppose it was just what they have come to
call in these latter days "the influence of environment."

Well, at that moment, who should come up but Jo Kettle, a good fellow
and friend of mine, but of no account in the school, being a rich
farmer's son, who was excused from taking Latin because he was going to
succeed his father in the farm. Jo had a right to the half of my
secrets, because we both liked Gerty Greensleeve