certainly, but it’s when people are at the worst that they find out how neighbourly those around could be, for we found them as took us in; and in spite of being so frightened and scorched, after two or three hours’ sleep we did not feel so bad but we could put on the things that were lent us, and I can’t help thinking that we should have given thanks somewhere else for our escape besides in our bedroom, if it had not been for our burnt-off hair.

And in spite of all loss and care, that was a pleasant Christmas-day we spent, where everybody seemed as if they could not make enough of us; and, at the same time, there was a feeling in my heart that seemed to cheer me and make me look hopefully to the future. For the clothes and furniture that we had lost were none to be so proud of—rather different to what we now have round us, and when I tell the wife so, I get a pleasant smile, for she says there’s light behind every cloud.

Chapter Six.

Haunted by Spirits.

“But what an out-of-the-way place to get to,” I said, after being most cordially received by my old school fellow and his wife, one bitter night after a long ride. “But you really are glad to see me, eh?”

“Now, hold your tongue, do,” cried Ned and his wife in a breath. “You won’t get away again under a month, so don’t think it. But where we are going to put you I don’t know,” said Ned.

“Oh I can sleep anywhere, chairs, table, anything you like; only make me welcome. Fine old house this seems, but however came you to take it?”

“Got it cheap, my boy. Been shut up for twenty years. It’s haunted, and no one will live in it. But I have it full for this Christmas, at all events, and what’s more I have some potent spirits in the place too, but they are all corked down tightly, so there is no fear at present. But I say, Lilly,” cried Ned, addressing his wife, “why we shall have to go into the haunted room and give him our place.”

“That you won’t,” I said. “I came down here on purpose to take you by surprise, and to beg for a snack of dinner on Christmas-day; and now you are going to give me about the greatest treat possible, a bed in a haunted room. What kind of a ghost is it?”

“You mustn’t laugh,” said Ned, trying to appear very serious; “for there is not a soul living within ten miles of this place, that would not give you a long account of the horrors of the Red Chamber: of spots of blood 

 Prev. P 37/181 next