Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/125

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A GHOST STORY
93

quisitiveness had mist us) watched to speak with me, I gave her a convenience, and told her that my opinion was her son's complaint was not to be slighted, nor altogether discredited, yet that my judgment in his case was not setled. I gave her caution moreover that ye thing might not take wind Lest ye whole country should ring wth what we yet had no assurance of. In this juncture of time I had busines wch would admit no delay, wherefore I went for Launceston that evening, but prmised to see him again next week,—yet I was prevented by an occasion which pleaded a sufficient excuse, for my wife was that week brought home from a nighbours house very ill. However my mind was upon ye adventure. I studyed ye case, and abt 3 weeks after went again resolving by ye help of God to see ye utmost.
"The next Monday, being ye 27th day of July 1665, I went to ye haunted field by myself and walked ye baedth of it without any encounter. I returned and took ye other walk, and then ye Spectrum appeared to me, much about ye same place I saw it before when ye young gent was wth me. In my thoughts it moved swifter than ye time before, and abt 30 feet distant from me on my right hand in so much that I had not time to speak, as I determined with myself beforehand.
"The evening of that day ye parents, ye son, and myself being in ye chamber where I Lay, I propounded to them our going altogether to ye place next morning, and after some asseverration that there was no danger in it we all resolved upon it.
"The morning being come Lest we shd alarm ye family of servts, they went under pretence of seeing a field of wheat, and I took my horse and fetched a compas another way, and so met at ye stile we had appointed; thence we al four walked Leisurely into ye Quartils, and had not passed above half ye field before ye Ghost made appear-