I heard it as clear—as clear; and they think that I am dreaming—or raving perhaps," the boy said, with a sort of disdainful smile.

This look of his perplexed me; it was less like fever than I thought. "Are you quite sure you have not dreamt it, Roland ?" I said.

"Dreamt ?—that 1" He was springing up again when he suddenly bethought himself, and lay down flat with the same sort of smile on his face. "The pony heard it too," he said. "She jumped as if she had been shot. If I had not grasped at the reins—for I was frightened, father "

"No shame to you, my boy," said 1, though I scarcely knew why.

"If I hadn't held to her like a leech, she'd have pitched me over her head, and she never drew breath till we were at the door. Did the pony dream it ?" he said, with a soft disdain, yet indulgence for my foolishness. Then he added slowly : "It was only a cry the first time, and all the time before you went away. I wouldn't tell you, for it was so wretched to be frightened. I thought it might be a hare or a rabbit snared, and I went in the morning and looked, but there was nothing. It was after you went I heard it really first, and this is what he savs." He raised himself on his

THE OPEN DOOR 85

elbow dose to me, and looked me in the face. " 'Oh, mother, let me in ! oh, mother, let me in !'" As he said the words a mist came over his face, the mouth quivered, the soft features all melted and changed, and when he had ended these pitiful words, dissolved in a shower of heavy tears.

Was it an hallucination ? Was it the fever of the brain ? Was it the disordered fancy caused by great bodily weakness ? How could I tell ? I thought it wisest to accept it as if it were all true.

"This is very touching, Roland,'* I said.

"Oh, if you had just heard it, father ! I said to myself, if father heard it he would do something ; but mamma, you know, she's given over to Simson, and that fellow's a doctor, and never thinks of anything but clapping you into bed."

"We must not blame Simson for being a doctor, Roland."

"No, no," said my boy, with delightful toleration and indulgence ; "oh, no ; that's the good of him—that's what he's for; I know that. But you—you are different; you are just, father : and you'll do something—directly, papa, directly—this very night."

"Surely," I said. "No doubt it is some little lost child."

He gave me a sudden, swift look, investigating my face as though to see whether, after all, tliis was everything my eminence as "father" came to—no more than that ? Then he got hold of my shoulder, clutching it with his thin hand : "Look here," he said, with a quiver in his voice; "suppose it wasn't—living at all!"

"My dear boy, how then could you have heard it ?" I said.

He turned away from me with a pettish exclamation— "As if you didn't know better than that!"

"Do you want to tell me it is a ghost ?" I said.

Roland withdrew his hand; his countenance assumed an aspect of great dignity and gravity ; a slight quiver remained about his lips. "Whatever it was—you always said we were not to call names. It was something—in trouble. Oh, father, in terrible trouble !"

"But, my boy," I said—I was at my wits' end—"if it was a child that was lost, or any poor human creature—but, Roland, what do you want me to do ?"

86 MARGARET OLIPHANT

"I should know if I was you," said the child, eagerly. "That is what I always said to myself—Father will know. Oh, papa, papa, to have to face it night after night, in such terrible, terrible trouble ! and never to be able to do it any good. I don't want to cry ; it's like a baby, I know ; but what can I do else ?—out there all by itself in the ruin, and nobody to help it. I can't bear it, I can't bear it!" cried my generous boy. And in his weakness he burst out, after many attempts to restrain it, into a great childish fit of sobbing and tears.

I do not know that I ever was in a greater perplexity in my life ; and afterwards, when I thought of it, there was something comic in it too. It is bad enough to find your child's mind possessed with the conviction that he has seen —or heard—a ghost. But that he should require you to go instantly and help that ghost, was the most bewildering experience that had ever come my way. I am a sober man myself, and not superstitious—at least any more than everybody is superstitious. Of course I do not believe in ghosts ; but I don't deny, any more than other people, that there are stories which I carmot pretend to understand. My blood got a sort of chill in my veins at the idea that Roland should be a ghost-seer ; for that generally means an hysterical temperament and weak health, and all that men most hate and fear for their children. But that I should take up his ghost and right its wrongs, and save it from its trouble, was such a mission as was enough to confuse any man. I did my best to console my boy without giving any promise of this astonishing land ; but he was too sharp for me. He would have none of my caresses. With sobs breaking in at intervals upon his voice, and the rain-drops hanging on his eyelids, he yet returned to the charge.

"It will be there now—it will be there all the night.