puddles by which in many places it was burdened,
the noise I made must have been considerable;
and most people are anxious to know what sort of
a person is walking behind them, when they are in
a field about nightfall. Such, however, was not the
case with the lady before me. Armed with her
umbrella against the inclemencies of the weather,
she seemed regardless of everything else.

As I have said, I gained upon the lady; but
even when I was at her side, with my head under
her umbrella (I believe I have already described
it as a gingham umbrella), she made no effort
to see me or to avoid me. Apparently looking
straight before her, she went on as at first; and
it is worthy of remark, that whereas I made a
little splash at almost every step, she seemed to
pick her way without difficulty. The few courteous
words I uttered, did not seem to reach her
ear. Perhaps she was deaf? On this supposition,
I gently took the gingham umbrella by the handle,
politely intending to carry it in such a way as
to confer upon her the largest share of its
benefits. She made no resistance, but let it go
at once, and, what was very strange, no sooner
was it safely in my grasp, than I found myself
alone! Yes, no one was beside me; there I
stood, whole and sole master of a gingham
umbrella. Dressed as she was in light raiment,
the lady, however rapidly she might have run
away, ought to have been visible in some direction;
but she was not visible in any direction.

How wrong it is to form hasty judgments.
Five minutes before, I had settled in my own
mind that the umbrella was the engrossing
object of the lady's thoughts. Now, I could
clearly see that she did not value it to the extent
of a single clutch. If she had merely wanted
to be freed from me, she might have gone with
the umbrella in her hand, for I did not hold it
so very tight. Perhaps the umbrella was more
objectionable than myself, and she was glad to
get rid of it? The rain that rattled on the silk
seemed anxious to demonstrate the utter fallacy
of this hypothesis.

I felt comfortable enough in the parlour of
the Jolly Navigators, sipping my glass of hot
brandy-and-water as a preventive against the ill
effects of the wetting, smoking my cigar, and
idly watching my—let me rather say the—
umbrella, as it lay open before the fire. The inn
was close to the station, and I by no means
regretted that at least half an hour would elapse
before the arrival of the train that was to convey
me back to town. Literally doing nothing, I
was ready to take an interest in anything, and
was not displeased when I could hear through
the open door the few remarks made by the
landlord and the customers at the bar.

"Well, this is leap-year," said a gruff voice.

"Yes, and more than that," said another
voice, exceedingly shrill, and evidently belonging
to an old woman, "this is the 29th of February.
I wonder if she was in the field this evening?"

"Gammon," said the landlord.

"Oh yes, it's all very fine for you men,"
urged the shrill voice, "you'll believe nothing
but what you can eat and drink and put into your
pockets; but I tell you she's sure to be in the
field about nightfall, on the 29th of February."

"Go along," said the gruff voice. "Why, I've
been through Swampy Field over and over
again, and I never seed nothing."

"Of course not," assented the landlord.

"Ay, ay," pursued the shrill voice; "but did
you ever go through the field at nightfall, on the
29th of February? Were you there this evening?"

"Well, no; I can't say I was," replied the
gruff voice.

"No; exactly," persisted the shrill old dame.
"And are you quite sure you were there at
nightfall this day four year—or the day four
year before that?"

"Well, I don't want to say what ain't right
and straight," replied the gruff voice, in a
somewhat discomfited tone.

"And that's the wisest thing you've said yet,"
replied the shrill voice, reproachfully. "Better
people than you or I have seen ghosts and been
ghosts before this, to say nothing of poor Miss
Crackenbridge."

Now my moral position, as I listened to the
above conversation, with my eyes fixed on the
umbrella, was far from elevated. I felt at once
that the "she" of whom the old woman spoke
could be no other than the mysterious female
from whom I had received the gingham article
that lay open before me, steaming away its
moisture. I therefore knew that the sneers of
the gruff gentleman and of the landlord were
unjust, and yet I dared not openly enlist myself on
the side of truth. My evidence was all that the
old woman required to save her from derision,
and I was base enough not to give it. The
more I think of my conduct on that occasion,
the more does my self-respect diminish. If I had
been in some primitive hamlet, where the existence
of ghosts is admitted as a matter of course,
there is no doubt I should have come out boldly
with my narrative, and should have done my best
to browbeat any unlucky sceptic. My conduct,
I am convinced, would have been analogous had
I been at a party of fashionable spiritualists.
But here I was in a village, too closely in
connexion with London to admit of a primitive
credulity, save among the oldest inhabitants,
while the social status of the speakers was not
high enough to render them pervious to
aristocratic spiritualism. For fear of incurring the
sneer of a vulgar landlord and his more vulgar
customer, I allowed truth to be assailed without
uttering a word in its defence, though I could
scarcely help fancying that the umbrella was
conscious of my pusillanimity, and was observing
me with silent contempt.

What a great man must a martyr be, who
will undergo popular execration, death, and
torture, rather than keep his lips close, when
they can be opened for the assertion of a truth!
What an immeasurable difference there must
be between my constitution and that of—say
St. Lawrence.

But while my moral courage was at the lowest
ebb, it was high-water with my curiosity. Such