"See what?" cried Tod, turning sharply. He thought it might be some trace of Hugh.
"That there ghost light, sir. It's showing itself to-night."
Angry, perplexed, nearly out of his mind with remorse and fear, Tod gave Luke a word of a sort, ordering him to be silent for an idiot, and put the lantern down. He then saw the moving light, and let his eyes rest on it in momentary curiosity.
"It's the ghost light, sir," repeated Luke, for the man seemed as if he and all other interests were lost in that.
"The deuce take the ghost's light, and you with it," said Tod passionately. "Is this a time to be staring at ghosts' lights? Get you into Timberdale, Mackintosh, and see whether the police have news of the child."
"Sir, I'd not go through the Ravine to-night," was Luke's answer. "No, not though I knowed I was to be killed at to-morrow's dawn for disobeying the order."
"Of that," said Luke, nodding at the light. "But I don't like the Ravine in the night at no time."
"Why, that's nothing but a will-o'-the-wisp," returned Tod, condescending to reason with him.
Luke shook his head. There was the light; and neither his faith in it nor his fear could be shaken. Tod had his arms on the fence now, and was staring at the light as fixedly as Luke had done.
"That light is carried by some one. It's being lifted about."
"How could any one carry it _there_?" I returned. "He'd pitch head over heels down the Ravine. No fellow could get to the place, Tod, let alone keep his footing. It's where the bushes are thickest."
Tod caught up the lantern. As its light flashed on his face, I could see it working with new eagerness. He was taking up the notion that Hugh might have fallen on that very spot, and that some one was waving a light to attract attention. As to ghosts, Tod would have met an army of them without the smallest fear.
He went back down the Ravine, and we heard him go crashing through the underwood. Luke never spoke a word. Suddenly, long before Tod could get to it, the light disappeared. We waited and watched, but it did not come again.
"It have been like that always, Master Johnny," whispered Luke, taking his arms off the fence. "Folks may look as long as they will at that there light; but as soon as they go off, a-trying to get to see what it is, it takes itself away. It will be seen no more to-night, sir."