Dempster. In the meantime, let me explain
why you see me here, and what it is I want."
She then put the same question to the schoolmaster which we had
asked already of almost every one else in the village. It was met
by the same discouraging answer Mr. Dempster had not set eyes on
the stranger of whom we were in search.
"We may as well return to the house, Mr. Hartright," said Miss
Halcombe; "the information we want is evidently not to be found."
She had bowed to Mr. Dempster, and was about to leave the
schoolroom, when the forlorn position of Jacob Postlethwaite,
piteously sniffing on the stool of penitence, attracted her
attention as she passed him, and made her stop good-humouredly to
speak a word to the little prisoner before she opened the door.
"You foolish boy," she said, "why don't you beg Mr. Dempster's
pardon, and hold your tongue about the ghost?"
"Eh!--but I saw t' ghaist," persisted Jacob Postlethwaite, with a
stare of terror and a burst of tears.
"Stuff and nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind. Ghost indeed!
What ghost----"
"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe," interposed the school-master a
little uneasily--"but I think you had better not question the boy.
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