"No, Miss, I didn't."
"Humph!" grunted the doctor. "Then there was a squirrel!"
"Yes, sir."
"And you saw something strange!"
"Yes, sir, something awful gashly, in the dark end, sir."
"Bah!" cried the doctor. "There, go and get your stable lanthorn and
we'll see. Helen, my dear, we've got a ghost in the old stable loft:
like to come and see it!"
"Very much, papa," said Helen, smiling in a way that put Peter on his
mettle, for the moment before he had been ready to beg off.
He went pretty quickly to get his stable lanthorn, and came back with it
alight, and looking very pale and sickly, while he bore a stout
broomstick in the other hand.
"For shame, man! Put away that absurd thing," said the doctor, as he
led the way through the gate in the wall, followed by Helen, Peter and
Dan'l coming behind.
"Go first with the lanthorn," said the doctor to the old gardener, but
Peter was stirred to action now.
"Mayn't I go first, sir!" he said.
"Oh yes, if you have enough courage," said the doctor; and Peter,
looking very white, led the way to the foot of the ladder, went up, and
the others followed him to the loft, and stood together on the old
worm-eaten boards.
The lanthorn cast a yellow glow through its horn sides, and this,
mingling with the faint pencils of daylight which came between the
tiles, gave a very peculiar look to the place, festooned as the
blackened beams were with cobwebs, which formed loops and pockets here
and there.
"There's an old door at the extreme end there, or ought to be," said the
doctor. "Go and open it."
Peter went on in advance.
"Mind the holes, my dear," said the doctor. "What's that?"
A curious rustling noise was heard, and, active as a young man, Dan'l
ran back to the top of the ladder and descended quickly.
"Well 'tain't me as is skeart now," said Peter triumphantly.
Just then there was a sharp clap from somewhere in front, as if a small
trap-door had been suddenly closed, and Dan'l's voice came up through
the boards.
"Look out!" he shouted, and his voice sounded distant. "There's some
one up in the far loft there. He tried to get down into one of the
hay-racks, but I frightened him back."
"Stop there!" said the doctor. "We'll soon see who it is. Go on,
Peter, and open that door. That young larder thief for a guinea, my
dear," he continued to Helen, as Peter went on in advance.
"Door's nailed up, sir," said the latter worthy, as he reached the old
door, and held the lanthorn up and down.
"How came it nailed up?" said the doctor, as he examined the place. "It
has no business to be. Go and get an iron chisel or a crowbar. Are you
there, Daniel?"
"Yes, sir," came from below. "I'm on the look-out. It's that there
young poacher chap, Bob Dimsted."
Peter set the lanthorn on the floor and hurried off, leaving the little
party watching and listening till he returned, but not a sound broke the
silence, and there was nothing to see but the old worm-eaten wood and
blackened tiles.
"I've brought both, sir," said Peter breathlessly, and all eagerness
now, for he was ashamed of his fright.
"Wrench it open, then," said the doctor; and after a few sharp cracks
the rotten old door gave way, and swung upon its rusty hinges, when a
strange sight met the eyes of those who pressed forward into the further
loft.