“Come! who’ll volunteer?” asked Mrs. Duff.  “It ’ud be a great satisfaction to see the form it appears in, and have that set at rest.  Dan, he’ll never be able to tell, by the looks of him now.”

“I’ll go for one,” said bold Mrs. Bascroft.  “And them as joins me shall each have a good stiff tumbler of some’at hot afore starting, to prime ‘em again’ the cold.”

Whether it was the brave example set, or whether it was the promise accompanying it, certain it was, that there was no lack of volunteers now.  A good round dozen started, filling up the Plough and Harrow bar, as Mrs. Bascroft dealt out her treat with no niggard hand.

“What’s a-doing now?” asked Bascroft, a stupid-looking man with red hair combed straight down his forehead, and coloured shirt-sleeves, surveying the inroad on his premises with surprise.

“Never you mind,” sharply reproved his better half.  “These ladies is my visitors, and if I choose to stand treat round, what’s that to you?  You takes your share o’ liquor, Bascroft.”

Bascroft was not held in very great estimation by the ladies generally, and they turned their backs upon him.

“We are a-going out to see the ghost, if you must know, Bascroft,” said Susan Peckaby, who made one of the volunteers.

Bascroft stared.  “What a set of idiots you must be!” grunted he.  “Mr. Jan says as Dan Duff see nothing but a white cow; he telled me so hisself.  Be you a-thinking to meet that there other white animal on your road, Mrs. Peckaby?”

“Perhaps I am,” tartly returned Mrs. Peckaby.

“One ’ud think so. You can’t want to go out to meet ghostesses; you be a-going out to your saints at New Jerusalem.  I’d whack that there donkey for being so slow, when he did come, if I was you.”

Hastening away from Bascroft and his aggravating tongue, the expedition, having drained their tumblers, filed out.  Down by the pound—­relieved now of its caged inmate—­went they, on towards the Willow Pond.  The tumblers had made them brave.  The night was light, as the preceding one had been; the ground looked white, as if with frost, and the air was cold.  The pond in view, they halted, and took a furtive glance, beginning to feel somewhat chill.  So far as these half glances allowed them to judge, there appeared to be nothing near to it, nothing upon its brink.

“It’s of no good marching right up to it,” said Mrs. Jones, the baker’s wife.  “The ghost mightn’t come at all, if it saw all us there.  Let’s get inside the trees.”

Mrs. Jones meant inside the grove of trees.  The proposition was most acceptable, and they took up their position, the pond in view, peeping out, and conversing in a whisper.  By and by they heard the church clock strike eight.

“I wish it’ud make haste,” exclaimed Susan Peckaby, with some impatience.  “I don’t never like to be away from home long together, for fear of that there blessed white animal arriving.”