“If Dan have put himself into this state, and done all this damage, through nothing but seeing of a white cow, won’t I baste him!” emphatically rejoined Mrs. Duff.

Jan at length succeeded in getting the kitchen clear.  But for some time, in spite of all his skill and attention—­and he spared neither—­he could make no impression upon the unhappy Dan.  His mother’s bed was made ready for him—­Dan himself sharing the accommodation of a dark closet in an ordinary way, in common with his brothers—­and Jan carried him up to it.  There he somewhat revived, sufficiently to answer a question or two rationally.  It must be confessed that Jan felt some curiosity upon the subject; to suppose the boy had been thrown into that state, simply by seeing a white cow in the pound, was ridiculous.

“What frightened you?” asked Jan.

“I see’d a dead man,” answered the boy.  “Oh, lor!”

“Well?” said Jan, with composure, “he didn’t eat you.  What is there in a dead man to be alarmed at?  I have seen scores—­handled ’em too.  What dead man was it?”

The boy pulled the bed-clothes over him, and moaned.  Jan pulled them down again.

“Of course you can’t tell!  There’s no dead man in Deerham.  Was it in the churchyard?”

“No.”

“Was it in the pound?” asked Jan triumphantly, thinking he had got it right this time.

“No.”

The answer was an unexpected one.

“Where was it, then?”

“Oh-o-o-o-oh!” moaned the boy, beginning to shake and twitch again.

“Now, Dan Duff, this won’t do,” said Jan.  “Tell me quietly what you saw, and where you saw it.”

“I see’d a dead man,” reiterated Dan Duff.  And it appeared to be all he was capable of saying.

“You saw a white cow on its hind legs,” returned Jan.  “That’s what you saw.  I am surprised at you, Dan Duff.  I should have thought you more of a man.”

Whether the reproof overcame Master Duff’s nerves again, or the remembrance of the “dead man,” certain it was, that he relapsed into a state which rendered it imprudent, in Jan’s opinion, to continue for the present the questioning.  One more only he put—­for a sudden thought crossed him, which induced it.

“Was it in the copse at Verner’s Pride?”

“’Twas at the Willow Pool; he was a-walking round it.  Oh-o-o-o-o-oh!”

Jan’s momentary fear was dispelled.  A night or two back there had been a slight affray between Lionel’s gamekeeper and some poachers:  and the natural doubts arose whether anything fresh of the same nature had taken place.  If so, Dan Duff might have come upon one of them lying, dead or wounded.  The words—­“walking round the pool”—­did away with this.  For the present, Jan departed.

But, if Dan’s organs of disclosure are for the present in abeyance, there’s no reason why we should not find out what we can for ourselves.  You may be very sure that Deerham would not fail to do it.