“Good riddance too,” said one of the girls, settling her hair that had been loosened in the scuffle; and the landlord closed the door and drew the curtain across it.
But the lad outside made no effort to re-enter. He did not seem to have heard what had passed within his earshot.
He stood stock-still as they had left him, slowly rubbing his head with a trembling hand.
“Rot,” said he at last, to himself, with a feeble attempt at a laugh. “Ghosts! There ain’t no sich things as ghosts!”
Then he took a few steps forward, slowly and unsteadily, for he was drunk; not, however, in the direction of the village, and of his rough and lonely lodging, but between the hedges of the narrow lane beyond, where the figure had flitted before him.
Perhaps he had made a mistake; down that lane to the left stood the cottage, deserted now, where he had spent all the years of his life, alone—ever since he could remember—with the mother whom he had neglected and ill-treated, whom they all told him that he had killed.
The words buzzed wearily through his aching brain.
“Mighty little ’e ever cared for _’er_, nor anythin’ as _she_ might ha’ said!”
And his own words, spoken an hour ago, echoed back again: “Precious little I ever cared for the women-folk’s jaw!”
It was as they said: he had killed her, and he had never cared for her, he had never mourned her, he had been drunk the day of her very funeral; he never missed her now.
He stumbled on. The winter twilight had faded long since, and the moon had slipped behind a cloud. The lane was quite dark, and he could no longer make out the swish of the white cotton skirt which he had fancied he had seen against the hedgerow. Nevertheless he stumbled on.
The old home lay close at hand; the well-known turning to it struck off here to the left. It stood in a field a little back from the road; there was an apple-tree in front of it and behind it, in the meadow that stretched down to the river, their cow used to feed in the days before his mother had had to sell her.
He stumbled on. Here, by the fence, she was wont to come down of a morning to see him off to work, of an evening to welcome him home, and—yes—often and often o’ night time to watch for him along the dark and lonely road, when he was coming home—as he was coming to-night—full of drink.