Pokey, before the door of whose residence, chaff had been laid. It was the custom at that period, and in that part of the country, to strew chaff before the door of every gentleman who physically corrected his wife—chaff being held to be indicative of a threshing—but, in this particular instance, it was strewn in consequence of the lady having corrected her husband, Mrs. Pokey being extremely indignant at the fact of Mr. Pokey having kept out so horribly late. The story of the ghost failed to tranquillise her spirit. She wouldn't believe it!—which was very wrong, because Pokey declared that it was true, upon his honour—she knew better!—she wouldn't have it!—hence she thrashed him, and hence she would not in the morning suffer him to stir from his board, for Mr. Pokey was a tailor of great celebrity in the village, and, withal, a perfect master of his needle.
But the absence of Mr. Pokey, although under the circumstances deeply regretted, was not allowed to operate as a check upon the vivid imagination of his friends. They entered into the matter with infinite spirit, and made the most that could be made of every important point.
But the cause of this mysterious appearance!—not one could divine the cause. That a murder had been committed by some one, was, by the majority, held to be clear; but who was the murderer—who was the most likely man in the village to commit such a crime? Who looked most like a murderer? They really couldn't say. They remembered that about five-and-twenty years before, a gentleman, who resided opposite, mysteriously disappeared with the amount of a whole quarter's poor's-rate. He might have been murdered. Who could tell? It was possible! It was moreover held to be possible by all, save one, and that one was Obadiah Drant, who expressed his conviction that that which they had seen, was the spirit of a miser, who had then been dead about fifteen years, and in whose house only sixty guineas had been found, when every one supposed him to be worth as many thousands. He had not the slightest doubt of its being the spirit of that miser, which couldn't rest, because it didn't like the idea of leaving so much money undiscovered behind it. But this opinion was not subscribed to by the rest. Indeed there was only one point upon which all were agreed, and that point was, that the spirit might, perchance, reappear that night. This every man present believed to be highly probable, and the consequence was, that they unanimously resolved to re-assemble at night with the view of watching its manœuvres.
