dark now; and I don’t like being left by myself in this grim house: I cannot help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange.
“They are going to the Grange, then?” I said.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Dean, “as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year’s Day.”
“And who will live here then?”
“Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company. They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.”
“For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it?” I observed.
“No, Mr. Lockwood,” said Nelly, shaking her head. “I believe the dead are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.”
At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning.
“ They are afraid of nothing,” I grumbled, watching their approach through the window. “Together, they would brave Satan and all his legions.”
As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at the moon—or, more correctly, at each other by her light—I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door; and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow-servant’s gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.
My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in